Quite a fall, Sansa thought as she beheld Winterfell rushing up to her. She slowed her descent through the curtain of cold powder with a mere thought, not altogether surprised that such might work. More demanding of her attention were the wights pooling beneath her, the mob piling atop itself to build a ghastly pyramid quite without direction from Sansa. Hands of every kind reached up for her, bony ones, frostbitten ones, ones of once-defenders. The sight would have been enough to sear itself into any normal girl's nightmares, but wights held no horror for Sansa now. She let them catch her, the pile collapsing in on itself as the wights beneath gave way. None made to tear at her nor those living nearby that soon had the walking dead reduced to bits of bone and quickly dissipating clouds of ash. Sansa had no time for either, passing through the half-collapsed entrance to the godswood to find the place littered with broken branches, fallen trees, bits of brick and the not-so-occasional body. The black dragon lay where he had fallen, breathing hard through his nostrils, great chest hitching. At a glance Sansa knew he was not hurt, not in any lasting way, just more than a bit discomfited with having to go through a building's roof to catch the precious bundle stirring feebly at the base of one of his feet. A blink and Sansa had crossed the full expanse of the godswood, the dragon snorting warily as Sansa eased the queen up out of the snow.

"Your Grace." she whispered, Daenerys mumbling feebly in reply. Her arm came up slowly, stiffly, and Sansa could only be glad of its half-frozen state insofar as it spared the queen the pain of her missing fingers. Her ruined hand went to her belly, fumbling blindly. Sansa tenderly slid a hand beneath the queen's furs as her murmuring grew more anxious. Daenerys whimpered, Sansa cursing herself for realizing only too late that her hand was sure to be cold as ice. It can't be helped, she thought grimly, settling on the swell of the queen's belly. The life within was shaken but not harmed, not at all the worse for wear even with all Daenerys had been through. Though, the cold may have its say yet, Sansa thought, pulling the white coat's hood over the queen's head. "We should get you inside, Your Grace." Then I must find out what's become of Jon.

A wordless reach for Lady had the direwolf trotting up to Sansa out of the nothingness of fading night, licking Sansa's hand affectionately. Though Lady had gone where pain could not find her, her siblings that remained were those of flesh and blood and Sansa could feel no loss of theirs through Lady. They are all alive. Even Jon. Though the queen weighed no more than a bundled babe, Sansa could hardly traipse around the godswood looking for the king carrying Daenerys so. She shut her eyes and opened them to find one of the dead among the istrollen torn near in half before her, the body she wore content to gorge on its cold flesh and ignore the dead wandering aimlessly past. Rickon, she knew. Or rather, what the wilds have made of you. Her nudge was wholly ignored if it was felt at all, the only thing present in Rickon's mind being the cycle of hunt, kill, feed.

Rickon. An irritated snort, a hand ending in hard claws brushing at his head. Sansa lost patience. RICKON. He gave a yelp, knocked onto all fours, rolling over with his head in his hands. Even as Shaggydog bounded over, by turns frothing and whining, Rickon fought to remain fully within the moon's embrace. Rickon, the sun is rising. Day has come. The freezing forest primeval that the wolf bounded in began to recede, dollops of sunlight peeking through the endless trunks of pine. Rickon groaned, rolling over. You are mine own flesh and mine own blood. Remember Mother. Remember Father. The word 'mother' brought not Catelyn Stark to mind, but a tall wiry wildling woman. 'Father' was no more than an image of Jon…until Sansa prodded Rickon a bit harder, Jon melting away until the statue of Lord Eddard Stark was staring out of his alcove in the crypts. Snatches of the True Tongue brought him to his feet blindingly fast, panting hard and ready to resume the pursuit. The cold shadows were receding into the trees, the endless dead they drove serving only to stop the living from getting at their masters. Let them go. The base thought of not giving chase, of not tearing into his cold prey with claw and fang had his head in his hands all over again…the wolf's muzzle receding, the long sharp teeth pulling back into the princely skull. To me, Rickon. Sansa called. You are needed for more important matters.

Rickon joined her inside five minutes with Shaggydog at his side, no doubt having barreled through more than one mob of wights on the way. By then the wolf had gone, its grip on the prince within most unwillingly prized open. And for who knows how long, Sansa thought. She tore the rags away from one of the fallen wights and tossed them to Rickon.

"You are a man, not a beast, and men wear clothes. Even such as those." Sansa said sternly. It was hopeless, naturally, to think her stubborn baby brother might acquiesce to any other than Jon, and so she gave it up. "I need you to keep her safe." Sansa said, the half-conscious queen in her arms shivering visibly. She chose precisely the wrong word. 'Safe' to Rickon meant the embrace of the moon, the wilds, of being the wolf rather than Robb's ghost. His eyes flickered and his teeth lengthened. Before she could try to put her newest fire out, Rickon clapped a hand to his face and groaned, pulling down as if to press the wolf back into whatever recess it lingered in when the prince held sway. Shaggydog snarled and snapped, resentful of the widening gap between himself and Rickon. "A gap that will close to nothing without a moment's notice. You will keep your own counsel, Shaggydog." Sansa said in reply. Lady's wordless pull had Sansa looking away, toward the edge of the godswood's pool. Though the direwolf had no words, Sansa knew her meaning well enough. Ghost. "Come, Rickon. You will carry Her Grace." She said over her shoulder, Rickon for once not groaning or growling at his task. Perhaps its because even lost as he is, he knows she is Jon's as Jon is hers. He shuffled off with Shaggydog padding after him, making an almost whimpering sound as they left the godswood. Lady was calling from the far shore of the lake, a sweet soundless echo, but Sansa found her gaze rolling toward the weirwood that ruled the grove. Even from afar she recognized Tyrion Lannister, who had gone to his knees form the rigors of the battle. What is he doing? Only when she came nearer did she see the wounds Tyrion had taken, the dagger sunk into the cold earth before him in the midst of a puddle of cold clear water. "My lord?" Sansa asked, though she knew there would be no answer. Sitting down beside him, she took small comfort in the fact that there was no fear on Tyrion's face, no grimace of pain nor teeth grit in anger. A small ask indeed that he found peace before death found him. Gently she picked him up, unable to stop tears from beading in her eyes. The puddle in front of her rippled as a breeze blew over it, a shape wringing itself out of the cold air with exquisite grace. Sansa tensed as Howling Wind wove herself out of nothing, clad in aught but silver whirls and whorls that ran the length of her body until a barely-there dress that matched the steadily bluing sky precisely followed. She looked at the puddle for a long time, face hint enough that she was not there to fight. "I might have guessed it was you tossing the dragons about." Sansa said, mostly for want of anything else to say. "And I thought you couldn't fly." Not that she would understand. She eased herself down. But then, there is a way I can speak the True Tongue…

"Have you had enough, then?" Howling Wind's arm came up to gesture at Tyrion, Sansa holding him fast even as she warged into the Other-princess. If this is warging. "His part is played." Sansa replied bluntly. "Leave him." Either Others saw fit not to fill the air with chatter as men did, or Howling Wind was being intentionally reticent. In a blink they were rising over the tops of the godswood's trees, the last of the Others slinking off into the comparative darkness of the wolfswood. Sansa knew Winterfell's defenders were in no shape to pursue. "A brief respite." she said. "Days are short in winter; night will fall and with it a fresh assault." But then, why stop the blizzard? A little flurry is nothing to fight in.

"When the stars again look down, we will be waiting. You know where." Howling Wind showed no discomfiture with Sansa's speaking in her voice.

"Must I come alone?"

"Come with who you may." There was little indication Howling Wind had much interest in continuing the fight, but then, her side had an inexhaustible horde of walking dead to shovel into the fray.

"Perhaps I'll bring my mother, then. She can speak the way you do, with no need for tricks as mine."

"Your mother is gone." Sansa started with a sharp intake of breath. "Freezing Fog erred, this time grievously enough to cost him his life and my father one of his lords. We know nothing of fire, of sun-wind, and Freezing Fog sought to move it as a child might a dead thing, what else would it do but blow back in his face?"

"What happened?"

"His aim was to spur the thing he wrought to vengeance."

"Shireen? Well, bad luck for your Freezing Fog. Those responsible for her current state are dead but for one and if she survived the battle, that's just proof the gods are utterly unreasonable."

"Whom and what caused her mortal end have no bearing on her state of being now. This-" she held a hand up, their hand for the moment "allows for more than just seeing through each other's eyes." Tales of her lady mother's corpse cast into the Green Fork had given her no end of nightmares, but those days were long gone. More recent was Bran's trying to pull her free of Howling Wind's grasp on his return to Winterfell. Awake. And her lady mother had woken. But had that been Howling Wind…or Sansa speaking in her voice?

"You-"

"We, Blood Moon." Blood Moon, Sansa thought dizzily. I've heard you say that before. "And what we wrought proved too great a challenge for Freezing Fog." The fate of some lordly Other was nothing, Sansa too preoccupied with thoughts of her mother. And I thought she'd be around forever. What do I know? What did I ever know? That at long last Lady Catelyn had gone to join Father (or so Sansa surmised) was small consolation for having her near. And being able to speak the True Tongue.

"I have others I must see to in the meanwhile."

"As do I." First Frost, no doubt. Among others.

Sansa shook herself as she left Howling Wind's company, the tears that had threatened to fall before now well down her cheeks leaving half-frozen trails in their wakes. Forgive me, my lord, Sansa thought, letting Tyrion slip from her grasp to lay on the godswood's snow-covered moss. There is nothing more I can do for you now. She rose, keeping a sob down with effort. You would be the first to tell me I must find Jon and keep him safe. Rhaegal alone among the dragons had not found his way to the godswood, but that meant nothing. It fell to Lady to bound about over snow and water with equal ease, pulling Sansa insistently when it seemed she found her quarry. Jon lay half-buried in a snowbank that piled near high enough to crest the wall that supported it. At once Sansa was on him, flinging snow away until she had his upper body free. Beneath him the snow was scarlet, glittering like a thousand scattered rubies. The shock was enough to have her pulling him free entirely, the pair of them tumbling back down the bank to earth. You may yet have something to thank snow for, Jon, Sansa thought as she tore his heavy fur and the jerkin beneath it away. His wounds had reopened, but the cold seemed to have more than played its part in trying to close them again. A maester minding you ought to see you through.

"Sansa?" Meera was walking over with Ghost at her side, Viserion dragging himself slowly, almost placidly as Sansa supposed bull lizard-lions might. Her eyes (Jon's eyes, and Arya's and Father's besides, Sansa could not help thinking) widened at the sight of him lying lifeless on the ground.

"He's still alive, or so far as I can tell. We need to find Wolkan, if he still lives."

"There will be maesters aplenty in Winterfell thanks to those who've come." Meera replied, but maesters it seemed would have to wait on Ghost's pleasure. He did not seem much out of sorts, Jon's condition notwithstanding. He merely padded over and licked the king's face with some affection before dabbing away what blood had escaped his wounds. While Sansa fretted and Ghost meandered, Meera only looked on her twin with her tongue between her teeth.

"What is it?" Sansa finally asked.

"You were in a similar way when Bran and I first made it here. Alive…but elsewhere."

"Well, he's certainly not warging into Ghost- I daresay Ghost has more sense than he and the wolf isn't making a fool of himself!" Meera swallowed, looking most uncomfortable.

"He is as much dragon as wolf." she said in a small, quiet voice. Sansa's growing anxiety wilted.

"Do you think he's…with Rhaegal, then?"

"I know better than to speak on something I know nothing about. Viserion took me into the pool rather than catch breath-of-lightning to the face, Rhaegal was pulling away as sharply as he could…" Howling Wind made no mention of downing one of the dragons…

"Well, without Rhaegal on hand, we must trust him to keep Jon close and safe." Sansa tried to keep an even tone, Meera's brow furrowing.

"Were he that sort he'd be here with his brothers. Maybe carrying the king has him wanting to be last to land. Men, alike all over." Sansa giggled, purely on reflex, a hand going to her mouth a mortified moment later.

"Your pardon, princess, I forgot to ask-"

"I'm just fine, as is the baby. Speaking of babies, I'd like more than anything to see Howland just now."

"Let me take you to him, then." Sansa said at once, ready to dote on Meera until she was wrapped in a snug fur in the warmest part of the grotto below with Bran and Howland. And then it's back and forth between the king and queen. Until sunset, at least.

The sight of Winterfell in the light of day was not what something to take heart in. If anything, it was disheartening, with fallen towers, crumbled walls, rubble everywhere and people of every cast and kind crying out or shouting in as many tongues. In a sentence, chaos reigned. Not the sort that had held sway during the battle, the elemental heedless kind that crushed all alike underfoot, the sort where no one knew where to go or what to do next. Tonight must come first, Sansa thought. The war must end, and then we can begin to clear away the ruin left in its wake. The tunnels were in even worse shape than the castle above, the noise magnified as it bounced off the hard earth that hemmed the people in. Sansa swallowed.

Root.

I am here, Sansa Stark.

Is my broth-

Just fine, to my great shame. Unfit to protect mine own home with sword in hand- As Meera said, Sansa thought, rolling her eyes, alike all over.

Never mind that now, Bran. Just now I need Root to bring us to you, this crowd will never part. Almost imperceptibly, certainly to one unsuited to seeing in the dark, a small crack appeared in the earth nearby. A big, bright eye glinted out at Sansa. She squeezed Meera's hand gently and led her toward the crack, big enough to swallow them for a moment- and then gone the next second. The tunnel before them was small, scarcely big enough to stand in, but no crowd filled it.

"Watch your step, Meera. Nice and easy…" Sansa said as she led Meera along, Root collapsing the tunnel behind them.

"We saw through the trees." Sansa shut her eyes tight. Rats.

"I'm sure you did. No doubt Branch is spitting venom right now."

"Branch can spit whatever he likes as hard as he likes. Your mother and her…ally are gone, but there are others in Winterfell who speak the True Tongue, Sansa Stark." Sansa blinked.

"Well, I had thought to ask Shireen…"

"Shireen is otherwise occupied. Without the dead to burn, she'll be all the more spoken for." She said no more, but Sansa suspected she well knew what Root was talking about. I bloody held the thing, didn't I? Small good my touch did. The orange egg's merry finish had begun to dull almost as soon as it was removed from Sandor Clegane's grasp- or else it cared not for the frigid confines of Sansa's room when it had a burning wood's heat to bask in. Sansa had returned it as fast as she could, Sandor cursing aloud at such a responsibility.

"One I'm not like to see a copper penny for, at that." he'd growled, though he'd taken back the egg. It needed heat. Fire. The poor quickling within might well have frozen to death had I kept it. Playing nursemaid to a dragon egg did not seem to Sansa to take precedence over talking to the Others, but Root seemed willing to fill that role and if it kept the egg comfortable, who was Sansa to complain? The only one among the lot of us able to keep warm, I'll bet, she thought ruefully.

On seeing Meera, Howland near to launched himself out of the sling that held him to Bran's chest. Curiously, he forewent tears or crying out, opting instead for something else, a sort of squeak from his throat.

"Awp!" he squeaked, pudgy hands reaching for her. With a grace all her own she plucked him from the sling, the babe at once burying his face in her shoulder. Bran took his turn, arms around them both, murmuring to Meera. Their moment of joy to find each other unharmed seemed to Sansa to last but a breath. She was startled indeed to see Meera sniffle and then sob aloud, tensing cluelessly while Lady Jyana followed Bran into view.

"Lady Reed."

"Dowager Lady now, my princess. My husband waits for me in the hereafter." Sansa closed her eyes. A blow, she thought, and felt no more grievously than by Lady Jyana and their daughter.

"Your pardon, my princess," she said heavily, "I did not know." Meera murmured her acknowledgement through Bran's shoulder, Sansa seeing fit to take her leave of them. Their grief is not mine to see. People from all over Westeros and the wider world besides need seeing to above, surely I can busy myself with them until I must go into the wolfswood. There were other faces in the crypts proper and the off-tunnels, running from the familiar to the unknown. The famed Queen of Thorns among them seemed to have lost what little weight her tiny frame had held, though having taken charge of several of her younger Redwyne relations, she seemed in fine spirits. "Lady Olenna." Sansa muttered, so that only the old woman would hear even with the noise.

"Seven save me, child, act the proper northman and shout in my ear next time!" Olenna replied, a bit of color rising in her cheeks. "I'm in no state to go shoving through the crowd to see for myself, but I hear the Others have gone. At least, for the moment."

"They have. The sun has risen."

"Well, a few more breaths of life is nothing to complain about."

"You'll pardon me for asking, my lady, ("Will I?" asked Olenna interestedly) but aren't you at least…discomfited?"

"Discomfited?" Lady Olenna replied, snorting loud enough to be heard in the constant chatter. "I had my eight-and-seventieth name day in these crypts of yours, Sansa. I'm bloody cold, and all my family is dead." She snorted again and spat in memory of Cersei, who'd seen to that. "I'm hardly about to feed myself to one of those nosy things, but why make it easy for them? Better to seize a nice bit of green glass and scar one up nasty-like before he swallows me in a bite." Sansa gave her a small smile.

"I didn't know grape clusters had thorns."

"This one does." Olenna replied bracingly. "Even if I'm more raisin than grape…well, all raisin in truth…as that lovely Gilly girl says."

"Littlefinger told me I have you to thank for playing a part in Joffrey's end." Olenna grimaced.

"You needn't thank me, anyone but the boy's mother would have said his death was a kindness to the realm. I would have thought Littlefinger too clever to blab such to a child."

"Littlefinger thought Littlefinger too clever to have to face the consequences of such an act." Sansa looked at her hands. Despite being in the depths of the ground, when Sansa reached for Howling Wind she felt the Other-princess' consciousness close against her own. More than just seeing through each other's eyes. Though the darkness no doubt made seeing Sansa hard for the wizened woman, Sansa could see her every wrinkle, the skull leering through what skin remained on her face. She blew into her fist, felt it fill with something more than breath. "The day Joffrey died, I was still married to Lord Tyrion."

"I recall." Olenna replied, though she sounded somewhat bemused.

"I was Lady Lannister then, by southern reckoning. And Lannisters pay their debts, do they not?" She slid a hand into Olenna's. For Father, she thought, and let what she clasped against the papery palm go. No one else was looking, no one else could see, so it was Sansa's privilege alone to see the old woman's withered countenance melt away, years and then decades coming off like dirt. She let go only when she could see Margaery Tyrell in Olenna's face, though Margaery had never gone wide-eyed and slack-jawed in Sansa's presence. A maid no older than twenty sweet summers stood where a winter-wizened crone had moments before. Once it was done, Howling Wind withdrew back from whence she came. "Cersei stole a future, not the future." Sansa said, echoing words she was certain Lady Olenna had herself said. "I cannot give you the one you hoped for, perhaps, but you'll have plenty of time to plan another." Lady stepped out of the shadows nearby. My cue to leave.

"Princess…" Olenna started at the sound of her own voice. "What will I say? What will I tell people?"

"Whatever you like, it's your future." Sansa replied, following her wolf.

Lady led her back out into the cold morning, Sansa unsettled to see her first impression of Winterfell was accurate. The castle had been put to the torch when Theon lost it to Ramsay's host, but a few Bolton thugs tossing torches were nothing compared to cold giants on their great mammoths, let alone the bone dragon's breath-of-lightning. Raising the walls again will take time and be backbreaking. We may not have the time to spare before we start losing people to exposure, we are still stuck in the depths of winter after all. A wight shuffled past, ignoring everyone around it but a knight swinging what was clearly a Valyrian steel sword. While he was distracted it knocked him over and clumsily grabbed for the sword, staggering away until a passing Dothraki cleaved it near in half at the shoulder with a whoop, the sword clattering to the ground. Just getting in the way, Sansa saw. Just slowing us down, ensuring the Others proper can retreat in good order. The dead were still rising here and there, but there was no real direction, no drive toward anything but those who pulled the strings judged to need a good gumming-up.

Root.

I am here.

Can you and yours do away with the wights?

We are in dire straits as is, Sansa Stark. We might sever the strands, but the corpses would remain, able to walk again. Dead men and living were scrambling for the sword, the golden lion's head on its pommel glinting in the sun. Sansa frowned. Where Rickon was a bundle of impulse and Howling Wind a half-there whisper no hand could grasp, the wights were utterly empty. With considerably less effort than she'd put into moving Myranda, she had the wights shoving the living away in what looked almost like concert. Once one among them managed to fumble for the steel, the lot began to stagger toward her. Oathkeeper, Sansa thought, looking at the Lannister gold with distaste. A Lannister might need reminding that oaths are more than words, but a Stark does not. No more than a Stark needs their arms to glitter, or sport absurd ruby eyes. With her bare hand she pried the gold away, the metal parting like butter in her grasp. She scraped away the common steel beneath it until only the Valyrian remained, though the red shadows that continued to soil it were a trickier task. "Find the other." she told Lady, who trotted off into mist. There were eyes on her and the nearby wights both, but Sansa could not find it in herself to care. Within a few moments, Lady returned, Widow's Wail in her teeth as if it were a stick. Sansa took it and served it as she'd served Oathkeeper, movements more intense, driven. Her first thought was of Ice, but what good would Ice do House Stark now? Bran has no want of a sword, his choice of arms is more immaterial. Rickon has no need of a sword, any more than a dragon needs a spitfire. When she'd fallen, her walnut branch had fallen too. A bit of branch, a bit of bone, a knot of hair. She held a piece of Ice in each of her hands. The same power that had washed decades from Olenna Redwyne's body as if they were beads of sweat off her brow filled Sansa's hands again, filled her entirely. The steel grew fogged, misty with cold, the red bleeding out, bleeding away until it was lost in the smoky grey. A low whine filled the air, the metal vibrating at her touch, losing definition from the cold coursing through it. I will bear you and bear you whole, Sansa thought. Then she pressed them together, let them run into each other, course over each other, spiral around each other. The others were running now, fleeing the cold, fleeing her, but she could see only the empty space where Ramsay Snow's skull had once capped her walnut branch. Lady needed no telling to fetch it, a touch from Sansa enough to have the skull splitting like old wood. She watched it splinter, watched it crumble into fine dust in her hand. She closed her fingers, squeezed hard enough to split her palm and spill red into what was pressed against it. Opening her hand, Sansa beheld a rounded diamond colored a deep rich red, the red of a weirwood's eyes. Or a blood moon. She dared not breathe as she brought the end of the steel near, watched it unravel and wave as her Lady Mother's hair had in the Green Fork before Sansa bid her wake. Reaching for the diamond, reaching for the blood moon. Pressing it down on the end of the steel, the steel fibers wove flush around the bottom, anchoring it in place. Sansa swept it up, six feet of whirling grey and black capped with lustrous red. She reached for the nearest corpse, the next, the next. What light the day had brought was fading, night would soon upon them. It would not be a full moon looking lovingly down upon them tonight. The full moon was silver, and silver was for the queen. The cold winds are receding, rushing back from whence they came. The blood moon moves you now. At once she had a thousand pairs of eyes, here and there a blind gaze where one corpse or other had lost its sight. North, she bid. Haunt the edges of the wolfswood, fall with fury upon anything that tries to fight through you. They began to walk, they began to run, as fast as their failing forms would allow, working her will to the letter. They would not stop the Others if they came in cold earnest, but who could protest being free of the tireless tide of dead that had churned against the walls of Winterfell for a year and more?

Sansa closed her countless extra eyes, pulling away from the mass of dead as they followed their once-masters to the wolfswood. She did not expect to see (it seemed) just as many eyes trained on her, eyes of every color, each pair as wide as the next. Civilized, savage, lowborn and high. There was no reverence, no awe, only fear. And with Lady at my side, half specter and half shadow. She closed her eyes, tried to keep the tears from falling. In for a penny, in for a stag. When she opened them again, the gazes that surrounded her were uniformly blue and unblinking. The fear is worse, Sansa resolved, the wights nearby shuffling out of her way. Above her, the stars were beginning to twinkle back into view. The sun was near to wedding the horizon, a striking view for certain but all Sansa could think on was the way Winterfell's defenders had looked at her. I would never be seen as a princess again, a lady, demure and welcoming. My presence alone would instill panic, there could be no building a new world with me scaring the wits out of most everyone. Absently she reached for Lady, scratching the direwolf behind her ears. The flesh may have gone but the spirit returned. In this twilit world she shared with the dead at least, spirit was enough. She sat under the boughs of a tall fir and watched the sun sink out of sight, musing fruitlessly on what might become of her. It doesn't matter, she told herself, standing as the night set in. House Stark is safe, and Jon as well. The Others have been blunted…somewhat, and once my business here is concluded, they will cease to menace Westeros and the wider world entirely. The wolfswood began to fill with howling. Out of sight as they were, it was impossible for Sansa to pick out the mundane wolves from their cold brethren. Lady gave answer as they got nearer, her own voice richer, deeper and full of mourning. What webs Sansa spotted in the trees were old, frayed things, long abandoned for the hidden sunless depths of the wolfswood's heart. Another blink had her at the fallen fastness, wondering if an ancestor of hers had ordered its construction. Others manned the ramparts as they had when first Sansa had come this way, but these were no lords, no officers. One's hair had burned away completely, an eye milky-white and unseeing while another muttered to his companion. To uncomprehending ears, it sounded like a piece of ice skipped across a frozen brook. Gods, I've forgotten Root! Then again, the Others on the ruin's ramparts were making no move to stop her approach. Howling Wind didn't want to talk to Root, Sansa thought. She wanted to talk to me.

The Other-princess sat in the center of the ruin's yard, perched upon a jut of stone that might have been a low wall a thousand years and more ago. She was binding wounds, driving out pieces of dragonglass from common soldiers' ravaged flesh, whatever she could to ease their pain. She did not look at Sansa, though her owl hooted down in greeting from the branches of the weirwood that grew in the yard.

"I have come." Sansa said, first in the Common Tongue and then again through Lady. The latter the Others seemed to comprehend, Howling Wind content to continue drowning bits of dragonglass in water too cold to freeze, washing the black dust out of sight.

"So you have." The voice was not Howling Wind's. Out from the depths of the ruin glided the Other-queen, her three white-garbed Queensguard trailing close behind. "I doubted if you would, but my children were certain." Speaking of, where is First Frost? "Why did you come?" the Other-queen asked.

"Why did you?" Sansa asked in reply. The queen's hands balled into fists.

"My husband and his lords were of a mind that winter's coming gave them the stars' blessing to reach where they would."

"Was land all you were after?" Sansa was dumbfounded.

"The land is not our province. The clouds, the sky, the stars…we look up while the daysingers look down."

"Why, then? Why wreak such devastation? Rain-of-Ice mentioned making the world unfit for my race to live in-"

"Not all your race, Blood Moon." Howling Wind spoke for the first time, going to her mother's side.

"So brief, so fleeting," the queen exhaled a long, tired breath "yet so unyielding. I suppose you thought the dawn you sought would be warm, full of light and green grass. The dawn, true Dawn, is cold, Blood Moon. Your ancestors found no warm green land when their wanderings brought them here. Cold, winter, keeps the rot away, scrapes away infirmity, shapes whatever it exerts itself upon. By such means were your kind refined, honed and sharpened. Seeing through the eyes of beasts, speaking to the trees, abandoning their forms to join the Pack for a time…" she held a fist up. "That was my husband's aim. What was would be. Another Dawn, one that would never end. Winter would hone your race as it had before, into one that did not cry out at the sight of a coming snow…nor balk at the touch of We Who Walk Beneath the Stars." Their name for themselves. It wasn't us they wanted gone, it was the workings that led us to exist in a manner untenable to them. Without fields to plant and harvest there would be only what food could be hunted or else foraged for, going only to those canny enough to find it. A primal world, with every man a Jon Snow and every woman a Daenerys Targaryen and not a Ramsay Snow or Joffrey Baratheon or Cersei Lannister to be found. Tears had begun to trickle down her cheeks. Not because she could find no course, no aim in the king's plan but because after all she'd suffered, in the depths of her torn heart a part agreed. A small part, but to deny it was to deny that ice was cold.

"I understand." That, neither queen nor princess was expecting.

"Do you?"

"I do. Once, I imagined a world full of heroes and monsters they could slay. My dreams were full of heroes. Then I met monsters in the flesh. Monsters I was certain the world was better off without. Heroes by their nature will protect those beneath them and oppose you. But when heroes alone inhabit the world, who do they protect? What doesn't kill them makes them stronger, by your own admission, and that's what seems to have happened here. Listen to me. Still the little bird, she cursed herself, still the stupid girl with stupid dreams who never learns. More was at stake now than her lord father and his guardsmen, incalculably more. Best not misstep.

"Whether you do or not no longer matters." The queen said, taking another deep breath. She's tired, Sansa realized. She grieves for her husband, for what might have been but for a few heroes getting in the way. Keeping three dragons off the king's back no doubt played its part as well. "We could not break your circle, no more than break your will. Now my husband is dead, and all I wish is to mourn for him." She reached up, pushed the ring of winter roses off her brow, held it in her hands as if it all the world's weight were in it. "Until such time as I meet my end, I will yearn for him as he yearned for me in our first days together. Time will make no end to it as it would to one among your kind." Sansa blinked Forever is a long time to mourn. She brushed away the hood of Howling Wind's mantle, raised her crown to rest it on her daughter's head. Then she returned to the darkness of the ruin's interior, her guard moving to follow until by one consent they seemed to realize that their sovereign stood before them.

"I must take my mother home. Her grief will hold her close and fast, and I must find a way to prize her from it." Howling Wind said. Was Mother so wretched when she learned of Father's death?

"Then take her home, and cheer her as you can." Sansa replied. She thought about mentioning children of Howling Wind's own, but she saw none at all in all her time among the Others. Then again, perhaps they're just smart enough to keep their children far from danger. If only we held with such.

"What of you, Blood Moon?"

"I reached for one long dead when first I came to you. Since that day I have wandered further and further away from who I might have been had never I so reached. I have no place among my own kind, and given what has just barely missed overtaking them, I find I can scarcely object to the fear they show toward me." Sansa sat on the wall, tracing a circle in the snow at her feet. All I care for lies within, and here I am trapped quite without.

"It would be nothing to walk among them unseen, unheard but by those you wished could see and hear you."

"And be a living ghost in what was once my home? Better to be quit of it entirely, so that no shadow lingers over my family."

"Where then, will you walk?" "Wherever I am wanted, I suppose." Howling Wind hooked a finger under her chin.

"I know of one such place, Blood Moon." She beckoned, and First Frost stepped dutifully out of a recess in the stone of the ruin, nodding to his new queen- and stopping short at the sight of Sansa. The fear in his eyes was tempered by daring, the steel in his poise tempered by affection, the weariness in his flesh tempered by endurance. Wordlessly he moved toward Sansa, a hand coming up. Brave and gentle and strong, indeed. His hand was cold. His touch was not.