Arya had to get back.

It was nearly time to leave the East. Her days in Braavos were essentially fulfilled and narrowing themselves down.

She had to get back to Westeros. She yet had several enemy names to mark off her kill list, after all.

Somehow, she'd be sailing home.

"Brienne?" That pending morning, Sansa made a point to keep her word as Queen and personally face Littlefinger once again. She walked into the common hall searching for him, but she found Polaris and her woman-knight breaking fast together at the table instead. "Where is Lord Baelish?"

Brienne dropped her bread and she rose from the bench. "He'd said he'll wait for you by the Sacred Tree, Your Highness."

"Very well."

"What is that look in your eye for?" Polaris knew her well. Too well. He had learned everything about her moods, heartbeats, as well as her silences, each of them meaning a different thing. "Should I just go with you?"

"No. Thank you, but no. He's my burden and I must confront him alone. For now. Jon's already worried about my protection as it is. I need you to stay here and keep your mind straight."

"Still, I wish you wouldn't meet him own your own like that," he told her. "At least go in the company of wolves."

"Alright, I will."

Lord Baelish therefore had been observing his rippling reflection in the cooled surface of the river near the Sacred Tree, and when he detected her reflection coming into view alongside him, with Ghost and Nymeria, he bowed his head and shot straight to the point.

"I wish you didn't feel the need to run from me like you had. Especially now."

Sansa exhaled. Her gaze just drifted up to the long-lost shriveled red leaves swaying overhead. "There once was a young girl who used to come to the Sacred Tree every day, praying that she was someone different and someplace else. Because those around her were afraid for her future, afraid of who she'd become—or rather, who she wouldn't let herself become."

"You were a child," shrewdly, he had caught on. "Every child is afraid of their future sometime."

"But the truth is, she was afraid of herself too. She was a coin with two sides, though for her, only side was forever facing upwards and never turned over. The darker side of her was rarely seen and rarely recognized. For a time, she even liked it that way. She...didn't know what she wanted until it was too late."

"No, it was never too late for you. You, my love, have grown into the future of House Stark."

"Don't call me your love. Please."

"Why not?" he pleaded. "Every day I have closed my eyes and see the same picture. And, I ask myself will my actions now help to make that picture a reality? To make the whole world see it as well? Me, sitting upon the Iron Throne with you by my side, looking over everyone else. They admire us. They fear us, but out of respect. They gaze on your beauty like it's the first time they've ever heard a bird sing."

(Birds again. It's always bird-names with every other man she knew! Polaris called her the Red Wolf and he understood its power and the effect it on her.)

Sansa looked over at him from under her long lashes. "That is a pretty picture," she established, "but that's just an idea of me, Lord Baelish. Not the whole of me. And I don't belong in it. I have my own Queendom here…even though I still really can't believe it's real and it's happening now. And...and I've fallen in love with somebody who isn't you."

"Who, that scoundrel lad in black?" Lord Baelish sneered. "And will he provide you the strength Seven Kingdoms as I could someday?"

"He doesn't have to," she defended. "He knows who I am. More than anyone. That's why I chose him."

He wouldn't back down and roll over in surrender yet. No, of course he wouldn't. Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish usually had his own agenda to follow and that was his whole life. His games would never end unless someone else smarter and quicker would end him.

He boldly closed in on her, ducking in to steal a kiss from her lips, and Sansa's breath hitched; she placed a hand on his shoulder, retreating a solid step away before he could. She could smell his sweat and musk and wine. "Mind your distance, Lord Baelish."

"I may not have you today or even have you tomorrow," he stressed in conclusion, "but I've still declared for House Stark because of you, my dear Queen in the North. That won't change."

"You've also declared for other Houses before this one." Sansa voiced, allowing her deepest opinions of him to be heard clearly. "And you always make sure to serve yourself while doing so."

"That past is far behind me for good now. You and your bastard brother must prepare for what is coming ahead."

"Regardless," decided Sansa, beckoning the Direwoles to her vacant side. "This is it. This is where we leave this conversation."

From the highest tower, Jon watched the Knights of Vale finally march away with Lord Baelish and the Red Witch in toe. He only glanced sideways as footsteps shifted over the stone. Sansa appeared under the archway and she made her way towards him. "You told me many private things after you'd found me," he said straightaway. "But you never told me that you traveled around with Lord Baelish."

"...I know." Sansa was obviously obligated to right that error. "I'm sorry. I really should have. It's just that...when it comes to being associated with Littlefinger, you get looks. Nothing concerning him is ever easy to talk about. He just...complicates things."

"He came just for you on the battlefield, not us, not my men. They came because of you."

"You fought gallantly, Jon," she tried consoling him, if she could, noting how his doubts were already tainting his self-worth. "Like Father would have."

"Do you trust him?"

Sansa snorted, shaking her head. "I wanted to. Once. I just wanted to feel needed, safe. But I couldn't let myself do that and that's when I ran from him. Only a fool would actually trust him."

"Then, we need to keep trusting in each other," Jon answered, drawing closer to her. He placed a gentle kiss along her hairline right beneath her polished crown. "We can't be fighting a side-war amongst ourselves after today. We'll have so many more enemies now."

"Hm," she muttered favorably in response. "Spoken like a true Stark."

"I'm not—I'm not really a Stark."

"You are to me." Her voice was unyielding, encouraging, and it was just a fact. "Our power lies within our Pack."

Jon grinned, delicately, relieved. "The Wolves of Winterfell have returned, after all. As Father had foretold."

She nodded. "The Winter is ours."

Sansa reentered her bedchambers hours later after speaking with Bran and the farmers asking for extra help. She gladly folded her arms around Polaris waiting for her. "I was wondering where you were."

Unexpectedly, Polaris pulled away, loosening his hands on her, and he sniffed at the front of her robes shortly. "Red Wolf. What is that?"

Sansa made an amused face at him. "What now?"

"That," he said, urgently, "What's that scent?" He sniffed her one once more. "The wine…musky smell."

"Oh. That would be Lord Baelish."

His face immediately darkened behind a scowl and Sansa actually felt a stab of dread in the pit of her stomach; it was as though he had just been stung by a scorpion.

"Or the stranger from the forest that hired the hunters who killed Ragna."