Author's Note: The more I write Sansa as a character, the more I enjoy her. Her character arc in the show has been impressive and there's so much to explore! And, let's be honest, the girl deserves a little happiness. Not that she'll get any in this chapter. But, you know, later…after #somuchmoreangst
Thanks for the faves/comments! :)
Sansa
Sansa Stark watched the end of the war unfold from the battlements of her home. She had been standing on the wall of the castle for hours, her eyes drawn north, towards the battles raging above Winterfell. The roaring flames from the burning Wolfswood had licked the rafters of the ashen sky and she had seen black silhouettes of dragons diving and wrestling together against the red-and-violet of the bruised and battered horizon beyond.
She had heard the shouts and screams of battle inching closer all day. They would be at the gates of Winterfell before morning and that would be the end. The Last Stand of Men, though how pitiful it would be. The Night King's army would make quick work of the castle and then they would march on, with nothing between them and the rest of Westeros.
"My lady?" yet another messenger from the battlefield appeared by her side. This one was young, younger than her, too young to grow a full beard, which might have protected his face from the inclement weather. His cheeks were rubbed raw with patches of snow and blood that would come off with skin when they finally thawed.
His breath escaped in white gasps up here on the castle walls, without the heat of battle, and the messenger wondered briefly how Lady Stark could stand the cold.
"Shouldn't you be inside, my lady?" he wondered aloud. He was common born and too young to know that the question was impertinent. He should relate his news directly and be gone, leaving her to keep vigil as she chose. But she knew he meant no offense and there was little point keeping up the old rules. They would all be dead before morning.
"What news do you have?" she ignored his question and asked one of her own. He hesitated and dipped his head, wishing the words threatening to fall off his lips would stay there, silent and untrue, if only unspoken.
"Jaime Lannister is dead," he managed bluntly. "The western line is broken and men are fleeing south."
"And the rest?" Sansa prodded, knowing there was more by the crestfallen look on the young soldier's frost-painted face.
"The knights of the Vale are nearly spent," he answered glumly. "Same with the Targaryen Queen's Dothraki riders and the last of her Unsullied. Our numbers decrease every minute and the Night King's army only grows. And she's missing, my lady."
"Who's missing?"
"Daenerys Stormborn. They're saying that her dragon was hit with a spear and went down behind the lines of the undead. She hasn't been seen in the skies since."
"And my br—my cousin, I mean," she stumbled on the unfamiliar term, still too new to her ears, still charged with so much strangeness. The lies of twenty years were hard to shake. She couldn't bring herself to use his new name, instead asking, "Where is Jon Snow?"
"Still fighting off the Night King and his dragon, Lady Stark," the soldier confirmed with the smallest of smiles, happy at least to give her some good news at last.
Sansa nodded and dismissed him, silently. He bowed in respect and retreated, down the way he came, to rejoin the battle, to add his death to the rest.
As long as Jon is alive, there's hope, came a small, defiant voice in her head. But it was a false voice, a voice that believed in happy endings and good conquering evil. Sansa knew better.
Still, she watched. Still, she hoped.
Evening fell. Sansa remained on the battlements, furs dusted in snow, red hair spilling out from the hood of her silver-and-black cloak, all fluttering in freezing weather and small snow squalls that breathed to life as the wind swept down the battlements. She was a vision of cold, frigid beauty and if Petyr Baelish had still been alive, he wouldn't have been able to hold back his hand to brush his fingers against her cold cheek.
The cold had her wrapped in gossamer sheets of ice. But she felt nothing. Silently, she watched as two dark spots in the northern sky grew ever larger.
This is the end. She thought to herself.
Reaching the castle first, the Night King and his dragon dropped from the sky, breathing fire across a wide swath of the eastern wall and its many-times burned courtyard. Sansa remained immoveable. She was resigned. Her home had withstood Theon's stupid treachery and Ramsay's bloody horrors. But this, at long last, was the Last Stand of Winterfell.
She faced it steadily. She was old Stark blood, blood of the First Men, and the Lady of Winter. Like her father before her, she knew how to die well.
But Jon, up in the frost thermals, would have told her that it wasn't over yet. Not nearly. Not while there was life left in his veins. He forced Rhaegal on and caught up with the Night King and Viserion on their ascent from that brazen assault on Winterfell's walls.
The dragons screeched at each other high above the snow-covered fields. They tangled again, locked in each other's talons once, twice, before releasing and trying again. Sansa had heard people speak of the dance of dragons. She'd read the phrase in a book when she was still a little girl but hadn't considered what the real thing looked like.
It was a dance. A terrible, beautiful dance as two mythical creatures attempted to tear each other to pieces.
They fought on, neither retreating. Jon and the Night King had lost control of their mounts, as Rhaegal and Viserion twisted and spun in the air, gouging, biting and breathing fire. This was a battle between brothers and once begun, no one, not even the damn Night King could stop it. Up, up, up they flew, before turning sharply to lock talons for a third, deadly time.
Sansa watched as the two dragons met, this time with such vehemence and force that Jon and the Night King were thrown from their mounts, left in freefall far above the fields of Winterfell, falling through the cold air to the hard ground below.
Her lips parted but she could manage no sound.
Jon's sword was in his hand. When Jeor Mormont gave his young steward that sword, he couldn't have known its fate. Even the Old Bear couldn't have imagined this scene, as Jon Snow and the Night King fell, wrestling mid-air, tumbling towards ice and snow.
Sansa saw the flicker of evening's last, resilient rays reflect off the sword's Valyrian steel blade. Those few strands of faint sunlight peeking past the storm clouds would be gone in moments but that's all it took.
Jon Snow did not fail.
With a strong death blow, she watched Jon plunge Longclaw into the monster's heart and twist it in deep. She heard the Night King's scream as it echoed across the fields of Winterfell and beyond, leveling great stretches of his inexhaustible armies in a blast of cold, bitter air brought on by a death howl that could be heard the world over.
And then Jon Snow and the Night King were gone, out of sight, sending up a spray of snow and ice as they hit the ground beyond the dip of the black moor. There was ice on Sansa's cold, pale cheeks, drawn in the path of tiny, persistent streams from her blue-gray eyes. The sting of that ice was the only thing she'd felt in days and she didn't brush it away.
As night fell and the skies above began to churn, Sansa Stark finally left the battlements and went down into the castle below.