Sansa's Chambers, Winterfell.
"What did you say?" whispered a very stunned Catelyn who leaned forward while sitting on Sansa's bed. She wasn't sure, but she thought she heard Sansa saying that it was one of the Kingsguard who beat her, specifically the one standing outside in the hallway with the King, Queen, and Ned. Catelyn leaned her body even more towards Sansa while reaching out and placing her hand on Sansa's fur blanket covered thigh. Catelyn was very aware that her voice could be heard by those on the other side of the door, and so she continued whispering into Sansa's ear, "there are surely spies in the King's retinue, so please do not speak so loudly, Sansa. Just nod your head. Are you certain that one of the Kingsguard is the one who hurt you?"
Catelyn leaned back slightly and watched as Sansa nodded her head. Lips pressed together, Catelyn then leaned in once again. She felt disgusted that a man supposed to be a Knight anointed by the King and the Faith would dare harm a child. But then again, this was the first time the Starks, at least Catelyn, had seen that particular knight. More specifically, the first time that Sansa encountered that particular knight.
'So how did Sansa have a dream about him?' Catelyn thought to herself as she glanced at the cut on her daughter's lip. The two of them remained silent, Sansa looking away in what seemed to be shame, breaking Catelyn's' heart. They could hear Ned trying to calm the king by telling him that Sansa simply had a nightmare. It would be five minutes of silence later that Ned opened the door to Sansa's chambers, with the redhead glancing out behind her father at the King and Queen walking past the door. Her eyes locked with the Queen's, and a feeling of disgust caused her to slightly tremble before her eyes shifted towards the Kingsguard who hit her in her dream.
"Ser Meryn, spare her face. I like them pretty."
Sansa shuddered as the door closed, the last sight being the Knight – Meryn – glancing at her with eyes full of hunger as he looked her up and down.
Sansa then looked down at the bed sheets while thinking to herself, 'What am I thinking? It is all a dream.'
This time though, no matter how much Sansa thought it, the explanation that it was all a dream simply didn't have the same effect. She had been dreaming about people – very detailed dreams - she had never met. And the ones who she did recognize were an older version of herself, Jon, Arya, Tyrion, and her father who was being executed as Joffrey grinned and laughed.
By time the wooden door closed shut, Ned has already walked around Sansa's bed before making it to Catelyn's side. Sansa made sure the furs were wrapped tightly around her while wondering what she could have done to have the Prince allow such a thing to happen to her.
'He looked… looked happy to see me in pain,' Sansa thought.
Sansa looked up to see Ned place a hand on Catelyn's shoulder, while Luwin stood to one side next to the window, before saying, "I've managed to convince Robert that Sansa simply had a vivid nightmare." Ned gave Sansa a small smile after she glanced up at him before looking towards the concerned face of her mother.
"Sansa," Ned asked, Sansa's eyes shifting back towards Ned, "I know you spoke to your mother and Maester Luwin about how you received your injuries. But I would like to hear about these dreams of yours and…" Ned noticed a look of fear on Sansa's face as he continued to ask, "…if there anything else you have not spoken off?"
Sansa stared with a bewildered expression at Ned, and then at Catelyn before her eyes shifted towards Luwin, and then back to Ned. Her heart was racing as she thought to herself that her dreams were just that, dreams. They didn't mean anything, but then again, she couldn't deny the people she saw in her dreams were people she hadn't met before; there were even dreams of places she hadn't been to before. It was strange, especially her injuries taking place in the same areas where she was hit. She had no explanations other than she was having bad dreams and that she somehow injured herself, but that still didn't explain the mark from the flat end of a sword appearing on her thigh.
"Sansa," Catelyn whispered as she placed a hand on Sansa's cheek, "is there anything you have not told us?"
Sansa stared at her father, fear rising in her heart as she wondered if he, Catelyn, and Luwin would think she was an insane girl for saying what she wanted to say; that she was having dreams where she saw death and destruction, where she saw people she didn't recognize – their features extremely detailed. Sansa was afraid that revealing what she dreamed off would mean she would not be with her Joffrey, and that was something she was scared of even more. However, she also knew she needed to tell someone of what she had seen, if only to keep her from having a breakdown of her mental faculties.
"Last morning," Sansa whispered, very conscious of the need to keep quiet. Ned, Catelyn, and Luwin moved closer to the girl so that they could hear her closely. She then spoke of how she was in her bath tub the previous morning, "I closed my eyes and… and that's I had the first dream." Sansa then took a deep breath and spoke, "there was this horde of… I.. I can only describe them as men and women who were… dead." Sansa looked up at the furrowed eyebrows of her father before she looked over at the confused expressions on Luwin and Catelyn, "they had these bright blue glowing eyes and.. and their teeth were biting me all over. It was then that I woke up after falling asleep in the bath tub. It was then these nightmares and… and day visions began."
After she stopped speaking, Sansa looked away from the stares coming her way. This was something she thought she wouldn't have to reveal, but the more she thought about those glowing eyes, the more a chill ran up and down her spine.
"I felt the bites on my skin," Sansa whispered, "before… just before the bites… I saw Jon."
"The bastard?" Catelyn hissed in anger, her eyes glancing at Ned before asking what he had to do with anything.
"Let us hear what Sansa has to say, Cat," Ned asked, his eyes on a confused Sansa, "Sansa, please continue."
"His eyes were blue and… and he looked as if he was dead." Sansa looked up at her father and saw the look of shock in his eyes. She then looked away as she recalled the next dream she had, "my dreams jumped from one to another. Then I dreamt I was in Winterfell's Great Hall but… but the splendour was gone. It was as if the Hall hadn't seen merriment in such a long time."
Ned and Catelyn looked at each other while Luwin walked to the other side of the bed, his curious ears catching on every word that Sansa was saying. These were things she hadn't told him or Catelyn, so his mind whirled as to how it was that she could be having such dreams.
"Jon Snow avenged the Red Wedding," Sansa whispered before Ned, Catelyn, and Luwin's ears perked up before they looked at each other wondering, at the same time, what Sansa met by the 'Red Wedding' and why Jon had to avenge it. Sansa noticed the confused looks on their faces before she continued, "there was a voice said by a man in shadow. He continued to say that Jon was the White Wolf. The King in the North."
"What?" Catelyn hissed before she turned her head to look at a wide eyed and pale Ned. The anger in her heart quickly dissipated when she saw a look of utter fear painted on Ned's face. She narrowed her eyes and placed a hand over the hand he placed on the bed. Then, just as it appeared, the fear was gone as the Lord of Winterfell turned his head towards Catelyn, and smiled. Catelyn wanted to ask what had him so fearful just as Sansa spoke again.
"And then I was in the Vale." And a surprised Catelyn snapped her head towards Sansa.
"The Vale?" Luwin asked, and Sansa nodded her head, "Lady Sansa you have never been to the vale."
"In my dream, there was a man…" Sansa shuddered as she described Lysa Aryn, followed by her description of the other man, particularly the way he would look at her as if he was someone he desired. Catelyn shuddered as she listened to how Sansa felt about the man in her dream, and then, when she mentioned the Mockingbird pin the man wore, Catelyn froze.
'Sansa never met Lysa, she never met… that description fits Petyr… it fits Petyr Baelish,' Catelyn thought to herself.
"That man… that man… he told me that I was to be his bastard named Alayne," Sansa said, and Catelyn's eyes widen as she trembled in anger.
"Cat?" Ned asked as she got off the bed and strode over to the window, her hands clasped together. She stayed out at the cloudless sky before turning around and walking back towards Ned, her eyes staying on her daughter.
"Why did you not tell me of this earlier, Sansa?" Catelyn asked.
"It was a dream, a very strange dream but… I mean I have heard of the Vale from father and of Aunt Lysa from you, mother," Sansa said, "I thought…"
"That man…" Catelyn said, "the one with the Mockingbird, the one who.." The Stark matriarch looked away and rolled her hands into fists before looking back at Sansa, "who named you a bastard. His name ins Petyr Baelish."
"Baelish?" Ned asked. The man vaguely remembered a boy by that name who used to have an interest in Catelyn. He heard that the fool had demanded a duel against Brandon, Ned's brother, when it was announced that the older Stark and Cat were betrothed. Ned turned towards Cat who sat in her old position close to Sansa, this time his hand placed on hers, as she recalled that Brandon defeated Baelish by badly wounding him. The next year, Brandon and Catelyn were due to be wed to each other, and Baelish had resented that match ever since that defeat.
Ned then verbalised his thoughts about Baelish, and Catelyn confirmed that he was the man Ned was thinking about.
"But I have never described him to you, Ned," Catelyn said before turning towards Sansa, "and I know for a fact I have never described him to you, Sansa. Especially nothing was said about the Mockingbird he once said would be the emblem of his House."
"I have never heard of a House Baelish, my Lady," Luwin added.
"There is none," Catelyn said shaking her head, "he was a friend, nothing more. A friend who wished to rise above all other Lords and Kings." She then whispered, "he was a fool too, to challenge Brandon on that duel." She then sighed before looking up to Sansa, who was looking away and down at the bed sheets, "Sansa, what else?"
"There was another dream where I was at the Great Hall once again and this Lord Baelish was on his knees begging," Sansa then had tears welling in her eyes, "I was telling him that he conspired with Cersei Lannister and Joffrey Baratheon to murder.."
"Sansa," Ned hissed as he leaned forward and placed his hand on her covered right foot, "be silent, do not speak of such ills without any supporting proof. Not while there could be anyone from the King's retinue who could hear you."
'Who did the two of them conspire to murder?' That was the thought going through the minds of the adults. However, they understood the need for information such as that to remain secret, at least until the King and his retinue had left Winterfell. However, what Sansa whispered next, in a very low voice, would stun them all.
"Father," Sansa whispered, her voice so low that everyone had to lean in closely to hear, as tears fell down her cheeks, "in my dream… by the gods it was so vivid… in my dream I saw you executed by the word of the Prince. I… it was a dream… it has to be a dream.." Sansa's body was trembling. One part of her very being was telling her that there was no way what she had seen was a dream. That part of her didn't know what it was, but it wasn't a dream. However, another part of her was just going along with 'it's a dream. That's all it is… a set of very vivid dreams.'
"Sansa," Ned gently said, "I am here. I am not dying, I.."
"I saw Lady die, Arya hated me for it…" Sansa whispered as her dreams flooded her mind, "then when I was set to break my fast, I saw Lord Tyrion. He was older, I suppose. More scars on his face, but he was in Winterfell with Daenerys Targaryen."
Luwin gasped, while Ned and Catelyn glanced at each other upon hearing something that was virtually impossible. Not only were the two Targaryens exiled somewhere in Essos without a powerbase, Ned had never even mentioned the existence of Daenerys and her brother to Sansa.
'She shouldn't even know that name,' Ned wondered, 'so how…"
"Sansa," Cat whispered low, "how do you know that name?"
"It was in my dreams," Sansa whispered, "I know I have never heard of that name until now but… her appearance was so vivid that I could even describe to you what she was wearing…"
"All from dreams?" Luwin asked, the man rubbing his chin.
And Sansa nodded her head. However, she was going to leave out the part where Tyrion called her his wife, 'that is too much of an impossibility. I would rather marry Jon, a bastard, than Tyrion if I had to choose between them.'
"And… during breakfast, I dreamt that I was running towards Bran's room," Sansa said, "he was lying on his bed, and I was told that he fell from the broken tower." Sansa then added, to everyone's surprise, "and that was before we were told he fell from the very same tower."
"All from a dream?" Luwin asked again as Sansa nodded her head.
"There is a legend that is associated with the Old Gods," Ned said as he rubbed the back of his head while getting off the bed. He walked towards the window and place his hands on the stone sill as he stared out towards the distant blood red leaves of the Heart Tree in the Winterfell godswood, "a legend that my father passed down to Brandon, myself, Lyanna, and Benjen." Ned sat at the same sport once again, "that if someone was honourable enough, if someone gave their hearts, mind, and soul into the hands of the Old Gods, then they would grant a boon to that person. Whatever their heart desired, the Old Gods would grant."
"What are you saying Ned?"
"Those are just myth's, Lord Stark," Luwin said as everyone turned towards him, "I too have read about this Rebirth, if you will, but the Citadel has classified it as a myth that is not even on the same pedestal as the unknown sciences."
"Magic," Ned said with a smirk on his face before saying, "there are things out there that nothing – neither the Old Gods, the Seven, The Faith, or the Citadel, could explain." Ned then gave a small smile to a still disbelieving Luwin before turning to an equally disbelieving Catelyn. He then turned to Sansa who was looking as scared as she did when she woke up earlier that day, "perhaps your dreams are not dreams of the kind Maester Luwin, or your mother, or I have when we sleep. Perhaps you are dreaming of events that have yet to take place."
Sansa shook her head before saying she would be considered a mad woman, "the Queen would not want me to be the Prince's wife, and…"
"Then how do you explain the detailed description you gave of Baelish?" Ned said in a gentle voice before looking back at Catelyn, "you said it yourself, Cat, you never did tell Sansa of that man." Catelyn looked away from Ned, still in disbelief about what her husband believed of the supposed powers of the Old Gods. Her eyes were now fixed on Sansa, but the older redhead couldn't discount Ned's explanation that she never told Sansa of Baelish.
'Even if her dreams were true,' Catelyn thought, 'why would he ever deem Sansa a Bastard and give her an alias. Why were we not…' She then thought about what Sansa was about to say before the young girl was told not to speak, 'she mentioned that something would happen to Ned, that he would be murdered…'
Catelyn then took a deep breath as she recalled what Sansa said about being in heaven, that they needed to speak with Jon, then there was the whole thing Sansa said about losing the North. Then there was seeing the look in her eyes of someone who had seen horrors and death. In addition, there was that mention of the Long Night and that Jon would explain everything.
"Could I be wrong and there really is some grain of truth? This is very improbable.' She then turned to Luwin and asked, "Maester, how do you explain her injuries?"
The man frowned for a few moments before saying, "there have been instances documented by the citadel of men and women having such vivid dreams that any injury attained in those dreams appear in real life. But those injuries are caused by the man or woman in their sleep. The injuries on Lady Sansa? To be honest, are something I cannot explain."
"Sansa," Ned said, "you told your mother you received those injuries when you dreamt of…"
"I was hit on the corner of my lips," Sansa brought her arms up from under the covers and pointed to the cut on her lip, "by the same Knight who hit me with the flat-end of his sword on my thigh."
Ned then leaned forward before saying, "Sansa, your mother mentioned you spoke of the Long Night. Do you remember?"
"No," Sansa shook her head before the marriage of Jon and Danaerys came to the forefront of her mind. So, in a low tone of voice, Sansa whispered, "I had a dream that Jon and Danaerys would be wed…" Sansa expected the look on Catelyn's face, one of disgust. But the look on Ned's face was different, it was one of fear. Especially when Sansa said, "he mentioned he was born of two houses, and…"
"Stop, Sansa," Ned pressed his lips together and hardened his gaze on her. His voice was low and deep – the very tone he used to command his bannermen and guards – a tone that he would rarely use with his family. Even Catelyn and Luwin were surprised as Ned looked away and got up off of bed, as he said, "anything that you dreamt in regards to Jon, you do not speak of again until I tell you to."
"Ned," Catelyn asked in surprise. Sansa and Luwin turned towards the Lord of Winterfell with surprise etched on their faces, "what is…"
"Do. Not. Mention. Anything. About. Jon." Ned hissed each word as he stared at Sansa, who gulped as a sense of fear started to develop, "do you understand me, Sansa? Not a word about Jon."
"Father, I…"
He then turned to Luwin and asked, "Maester, I have to ask that all you have heard remains in this room. I will inform Rob of what has transpired in private. But all you have heard, and will hear, does not make it to the eyes and ears of the Citadel."
"I swear, Lord Stark," Luwin nodded his head in respect. Luwin was aware that the MAesters first rule was to be loyal to the Citadel instead of a House. However, he was very. Much aware of Maesters who were loyal to their Houses above all others – and he was one of them.
"We must speak, all of us," Sansa watched with wide eyes as everyone in her chambers melted away before finding herself in another large room with a roaring fire at a hearth to the left while in front of the hearth sat Bran in the chair with the two wheels. Sansa glanced at Arya - the older Arya - who looked back at her with confusion on her face.
"Bran, I still have to go train the girls. There is no time for…"
"There is time for this," Bran said, his eyes glancing at Sansa. It was now that Sansa realized there was something wrong with the way Bran spoke – without any emotion, and the way he stared at Sansa was as if he was looking deep into her soul. Shifting his eyes away, Sansa then followed his gaze to Jon standing next to her before she looked back at Bran.
"When I was in the Citadel, I transcribed a High Septon's diary," the fat man sitting at the table in the corner said. Sansa looked up at him, and knew that his name was Sam.
'How do I know that name?'Sansa thought to herself before she felt her lips moving, but the words that came out were not her own, "what was in that diary?"
Sam looked at Bran who then nodded his head, signalling the former to continue.
"It details the annulment of marriage between Prince Rhaegar of House Targaryen and Elia of House Martell."
"What?" Sansa was stunned upon hearing that as she stared at Sam. She could tell that Jon and Arya were stunned at that revelation as well.
What she heard next shocked her to her very core, "from what he had written, the annulment was made in secret, so that his father would not discover what the Prince planned to do. The High Septon was bribed by the Prince to annul it in secret, it had to be done because the High Septon still did not see polygamy as legal. And the Prince needed the High Septon on his side."
"What you say assumes that the Prince was marrying someone else." Arya added.
"He married a woman he loved… truly loved…" Bran said in that emotionless voice as he turned towards the fire, "I have already seen the wedding take place in the past when Sam first brought to me news that Elia and Rhaegar's marriage was annulled."
"Stop leaving us in suspense then," the future Sansa had said.
"Aunt Lyanna was never kidnapped or raped," Bran said to a stunned room, except for Sam who was turning the page on the diary.
"Rhaegar loved her," Sam said, "and she loved him. Enough to marry him in secret."
"BY the Old Gods and the New," Arya whispered, her gloved hand covering her mouth while Sansa could only gape.
"Rhaegar's plan was to reinstate Elia and the children after he ascended the throne after imprisoning his father. Rhaegar was secretive about the plan.. too secretive…" Bran said, "someone must have spread a lie that Lyanna was kidnapped and then raped by Rhaegar. And then… well… the rest is history."
"So Aunt Lyanna…" Jon whispered shaking his head, "did father know about…"
"When the rebellion started, Rhaegar brought Aunt Lyanna to the Tower of Joy in Dorne," Bran said as he stared at the fire, "what Rhaegar did not know after spending one night with her was that she was pregnant."
"She was," Sam confirmed as everyone looked at him before tuning back towards Bran.
"The child born to Lyanna was a son," Bran jumped in as he continued to stare into the fire, "after the death of Rhaenys and Aegon, and then of Elia and Rhaegar; the babe was the heir to the Iron Throne." Bran then looked up at Arya, and then at Sansa, "father had seen the look on Robert's face when the Lannisters brought in the bodies of Elia and the children to the throne room at the Red Keep. That sight of an insane Robert, excited at the sight of dead children, remained in father's mind as he left to search for Aunt Lyanna."
"He heard that Lyanna was in Dorne," Sam added as Sansa, both Sansa's listened intently, "so after lifting the Siege from StormsEnd, Lord Stark and several of his Bannermen rode hard South towards Dorne."
"And that's when he killed Ser Artur and the knights, we know this story," Arya said.
"What you don't know…" Sam said glancing at Jon, "what no-one knows, is that Lyanna was already having her baby. Lord Stark was there when she had her baby, and was there when she died."
"Lord Howland Reed can confirm all of this, Jon," Bran said, his head turned towards Jon who tilted his head and stared back with a look of confusion on his face, "father held the baby in his arms, I saw it. Aunt Lyanna named him Aegon Targeryen…"
"Bran? Sam?" Jon said while Sansa, both of them, looked at the young man through the same eyes, "what are you…"
"Lyanna heard what happened to the Royal children, so she made father promise he would protect the baby," Bran said as Arya looked over at Jon, realization drawing on her face, "she kept on saying, 'promise me, Ned. Promise me. Promise me.' And father is the most honourable man to have lived… he promised Aunt Lyanna…"
"No," Sansa shook her head as Jon stared at Bran and then at Sam, and then at Bran again.
"Aunt Lyanna died with the promise that father would protect the baby, the heir, her son," Bran said, his eyes locked with Jon's, "and father chose to dishonour himself… even went so far as to anger his wife… by taking the child not as his nephew, but as his bastard son to protect the last vestige of his sister, to save his nephew."
"Gods… I.. I think I…"
Sansa blinked and found herself staring at three concerned faces. She was back in the real world, not he one of her strange dreams. Sansa glanced at her mother who said that she had looked as if she was staring out into space for a moment. Sansa then glanced at Ned who had a small smile on his face before asking if she had seen something else from the future.
'But what if Father is right.. what if this is something else… a vision of what could be…"
Sansa shifted her eyes towards her father and said, "Promise me. Promise me. Promise me." And the smile faded from Ned's face as his eyes widened. And Sansa knew now that it was true… the head rolling down the steps of the Sept of Baylor, the blue-eyed dead, the death of Baelish, being in the Vale, talking to Lysa, the marriage of Jon and Daenerys, the Queen's abuse, and Joffrey's torture.
Sansa looked away and thought, 'the future. I… if that is the future then… oh by the Old Gods, I can see into the future.' She then turned her head towards the window in her chambers, 'Jon. Jon is the Heir to the Iron Throne. By the Gods, he is a Prince.'
TBC.