Chapter Text
Melisandre, her father’s priestess, had once tried to teach her that she should be afraid of the darkness. That it was something that ought to be fought and kept away at all costs. It was the Great Other, she’d whisper, but never quite explained what this Great Other then was. Therefore, all those hushed conversations and veiled threats did very little to impress Shireen.
The Red Priestess, however, had not failed to instill fear into her.
Not of the dark, or of this nameless, voiceless God, but of a simple wooden pole placed on a small stage.
She’d seen what it did to the Wildling King, or rather, she hadn’t wanted to see, had chosen to close her eyes and face the darkness instead.
Oh, how she wishes she could go back to that day, to tell herself of what’s to come. To make herself understand that destiny means fate and that fate means death and that death is more gruesome than she’d ever thought possible.
The Wildling King Mance Rayder had been shot.
There is no such mercy for the Princess Shireen of House Baratheon.
It is in that moment that she finally knows true fear.
It’s in the shape of the flames.
It’s in the smoke crawling through her throat.
It’s in realizing that her parents have abandoned her, truly and completely.
It’s in the searing, screeching pain in her legs, at her chest and at her arms. It’s everywhere. Climbing up her body and laying to waste everything in its path. She screams like she’s never screamed before, but there’s no-one willing to help her. They’re just looking at the fire, the bright orange and yellow reflecting in their eyes.
The Red Priestess stares at her without respite and after a while, when the smoke has clawed at her lungs and the world is starting to spin on her pain alone, Shireen realizes she’s not the one who’s burning. It’s Melisandre who’s got fire in her eyes, fire on her mind and fire in her heart. The flames are consuming her, not Shireen.
She’d had once tried to teach her that there was evil in darkness, but when it finally comes, Shireen isn’t afraid of it, she welcomes it gladly.
Funny enough, she’d always figured that death would be a bit like falling asleep, or being asleep.
Death, like fear, is something Shireen clearly didn’t know much about.
Because it’s not like falling asleep at all. It’s not like anything, really. The only thing she can think to compare it to is one certain day a few years ago when she’d fell from the rocks on Dragonstone and straight into the tempestuous water below.
She’d spluttered and kicked against the current, had tried to find her way back up, but had been pulled into the deep all the same. There’d been darkness then too, only for a moment, just before her father and Ser Davos had dragged her up and out of the water.
She’d nearly drowned, or so they told her.
It’d been a sight better than burning, though. That’s for sure.
The darkness pulls at her now, though. Pulling her under again. However, Shireen doesn’t have it in her to kick and fight now. She doesn’t want to, because her father won’t come to save her and neither will Ser Davos.
A part of her is glad that the Onion Knight wasn’t there to see her burn, because in her heart she hopes that he at least would do something to save her, and that, she knows, would surely mean his death as well.
But, she realizes with a shock, someone is here. Now. Dragging her upwards.
A small and slender hand, with greenish skin. Not at all like the strong arms of her father and Ser Davos. It lifts her easily, though. Not quite out of the darkness, not yet, but heading somewhere certainly.
The hand becomes an arm and then turns into a figure. A girl, not unlike herself, as far as Shireen can tell.
She has unusual eyes, though. Large, expressive, oddly coloured and above anything else, ancient. They stare into Shireen, or whatever’s left of her, anyway. Smiling. Curious. The hand that had just pulled her from her path downward is now gently skating over her cheek.
Her left cheek. Where the greyscale used to live.
Not many people have ever willingly touched it.
But the girl seems unfettered by her affliction. She simply smiles at Shireen, turns around and motions her to follow her down the blackness that suddenly feels like solid ground beneath her feet.
It’s easy then, to run after her, to find her new friend and to forget all about the fires that she’s no doubt left behind her.
Sure enough, with every step, the heat seems to be subsiding. It doesn’t take long before Shireen can feel herself shivering, her breath floating out of the dark like little puffs of mist. It’s not very comfortable anymore either, and for a brief moment, she remembers the Red Priestess and her talk of the Great Other. The dark, the cold; all enemies of the living.
Perhaps there’s something to it, after all, but then, if it were, why is the murkiness of her surroundings receding? Why is there light now? Pale, cold light without pain. Nothing like the flames.
“Hello?” She tries out the word on her tongue, to call the strange girl back to her
But it’s to no avail.
She’s no longer there.
There’s a cold wind blowing past Shireen and a clear blue sky is staring down at her. The darkness is gone, seemingly alongside her friend.
“Is anyone here?” Her voice sounds hoarse, like…well, like she’s been screaming. Has she been here before? Is this where they…where Melisandre tried to…
Shireen turns around, trying to get her bearing and nearly runs headlong into a large tree.
It’s not an ordinary tree either.
It’s white, with a red cover of leaves and a face carved into it.
A face that’s staring at her. Smiling almost. Like the girl was.
“Hello.” Shireen tells it, slowly running her hand over its left cheek.
“Hello.” It echoes back at her, creeping into her mind, taking her eyes away from her. To the far south, where a burning sea is hidden underneath a million wandering feet, and then a little to the north, where there are dragons. Two of them, dancing around each other. Next, it flies her further still, over the wall, far away, where there is nothing but the freezing cold and a presence that has no name and no voice but an army of bodies instead. Not people. Not dragons. Not giants. Just…what’s left of them. Just bodies.
She doesn’t want to look there.
Certainly doesn’t want it to stare back at her.
So, the eyes take her elsewhere, towards a den of wolves. One that looks warm and inviting. She thinks she might know where it is. Knows the road from here to there.
It’s not very far.
There’s not even any snow.
She could easily walk there.
Her fingers glide free from the rough bark, bringing her back to the here and now.
“To the wolves, then.” Shireen huffs, not sure whether to fear the path ahead or embrace it for what it evidently is. Though whatever it may be, it cannot be worse than a wooden pole and the flames licking up at her.
Sansa finds herself on the battlements once more. For the third time today. Staring at the sprawling landscape ahead of her. Trying to find something out there. The Others? Jon? Someone else altogether. She doesn’t know. It just…
It feels like an odd sort of moment in-between. There’s a storm coming. More than one, actually. From the north. From the south. And the seven Gods alone might know who or what Jon is bringing back with him.
“Up here again?” Arya’s voice breaks through her thoughts.
“I suppose so.” Sansa smiles. There’s a familiarity to it again. Thankfully. After the deception, the threats, the confusion, it finally feels like she has a piece of her sister back with her. Not the whole of the Arya she knew, but pieces are all they both are now, so it fits quite perfectly if you think about it.
“It’s the rain. -” She tells her. “- That’s why you’re up here. It’s far too cold for rain right now. And yet…”
And yet there are fat drops of water falling from the sky. There’s no snow. No blizzard.
Just the rain.
“What do you think it means?” Arya seems to know more about these sorts of strange happenings than Sansa does. Although, maybe they’re both better off asking Bran about this. That is, if he doesn’t give them riddles in return.
“Perhaps spring is coming?” her sister has that very particular smirk on her face. The one she used to have when teasing Sansa as a child.
“Tsk. Taking our words in jest now?” There’s no bite in her tone. Not anymore. Not since they took care of Littlefinger. Sansa takes one last look at the world beyond the battlements and turns away, towards the innards of Winterfell.
Arya turns with her as one, and shrugs, smile only growing wider at her own joke.
Once they’ve climbed down the steps to the courtyard, Sansa can hear the soft clicking of claws on the cold ground behind her.
Jon might have named him Ghost, but to Sansa, he’s the palest shadow she’s ever had. She’s not quite sure if the beast does this of his own volition or if Jon has asked him to do it, but at this point it’s harder to get away from Ghost then it is to find him.
The only time he truly disappears is for about half an hour in de depth of night, when everyone else is sleeping.
Sansa has started calling it his midnight patrol in her mind, because as far as she can tell (and yes, she has followed him around on occasion as well), Ghost simply makes a quick round past the bedrooms and then heads to the crypts. He starts in hers, because that’s where he ends up every day without fail. Then, he moves to Arya’s room, sticking his nose through the door and peaking in. which, Sansa’s sure her sister knows he’s there, but has firmly decided to ignore this weird behaviour. There has been a lot of weird behaviour in Winterfell as of late, least of which her own.
After that, he moves on to Bran’s room. Sticking his nose in again, but Bran probably wouldn’t notice if the entire king’s court and his jesters did a dance around his room, so the silent Ghost doesn’t make much of an impression either way.
Once that done, he wanders onward, skipping Jon’s room altogether; he knows his master isn’t there. No, instead he turns to the rooms that are filled with their friends and allies. Brienne, Podrick, Sam and Gilly, the bannermen of the north and the vale. Whoever is staying. He doesn’t try to open those doors, and instead sniffs briefly at the gap between the floor and door.
She’s been told that Ghost can tell the difference between the living and the wights, so perhaps he’s merely making sure there’s nothing there that shouldn’t be.
Either way, once he’s done with the living, Ghost trots down into the cold to visit the crypts. He looks for father, for Rickon, for the empty graves of Robb and mother and then, once he’s done, he returns to her bedroom, comforted by the knowledge that everything is safe and sound.
As of late, he’s even gotten enough cheek to hop on the foot-end of the bed and sleep there, rather than by the fire.
She’s tried interrupting the patrol, just to see what might happen, but whenever she calls out his name at these odd hours, he simply stares at her like he’s got no idea what she’s on about. Like Sansa’s got the wrong name and he’d rather be called something else instead.
As for what that might be? She’s left clueless.
Still, it feels good to have him with her. The sheer bulk of him ever present behind her. She wonders if Lady would’ve grown to the size of him. Arya tells her that he’s bigger than Nymeria was the last time she saw her. When Sansa lets her mind wander back to the unseemly image of Shaggydog’s head when it was ‘gifted’ to them by…by that Bolton Bastard, she can sort of measure that Ghost is bigger than that as well.
She’s got no idea how big Summer and Grey Wind had gotten before they died, but the Free Folk tell her that Ghost is unusually large for his kind. So, it stands to reason that he’d outgrown them as well.
Sansa finds herself pausing in her step, waiting for the direwolf to catch up to her, so she can run her hand through his fur.
To think, he used to be the runt of the litter. Second smallest pup aside from Lady.
“Come along, then, my Lord.” She mutters, amusing herself with an attempt of symmetry.
He’s not hers. Certainly not. But a part of her belongs to him, regardless. She’s a Stark, and all Starks belong to the direwolves, one way or another.
Aside from that, it’s important to note that between Arya, Ghost and Brienne, Sansa has never felt safer in her life. Now, if only Jon could find his way back home. Then perhaps the Great Hall would feel like its properly filled again.
She sighs and takes her seat at the table. Bran is already there, but Arya, having safely delivered her sister here, doesn’t linger. She merely pats Bran’s shoulder and heads out again.
Towards the sparring field, no doubt. Because while Brienne might feel the obligation to stay with her lady, Arya takes the pragmatic approach and trains men, women and children to wield a weapon in the face of winter.
So, Sansa is left to deal with the legislative reality of their situation. That’s her job, as per Jon’s instructions.
And to be frank, having a recalcitrant Arya mouthing off at the bannermen is, while humorous, about as conducive as handing Sansa a sword and telling her to fight off the Others by herself.
Still, when they’re three hours into a petty argument between the Cerwyns and the Glovers, Sansa quietly wishes that perhaps she’d honed a different sort of talent. Or at least learned her father’s kind bluntness to shut these men up.
Rescue from the hopeless stalemate comes in the form of Sam. He may have been Jon’s friend in the Night’s Watch, but Sansa can already see the shape of a new Maester in him. Since the occupation has been left empty, it would be fortuitous to have him fill this seat in Winterfell again.
“My Lady, there’s…-” With the bannermen staring at him, Sam seems unsure of his place here. Still, he bravely presses on “- There’s a girl at the gates. She’s…well, she’s a princess actually, so I think you might want to deal with this. Or. Grace her with your presence, I suppose.”
“A princess, you say? Why, that sounds truly important. Wouldn’t you agree?” She raises an eyebrow at the lords in her presence.
And there! There it is! Both Glover and Cerwyn are taken aback by her manner. They know they’ve gone too far. At last. They’ve kept her from her duties for far too long and they realize it now. With a nod and a few mutters, Sansa’s free to move about once more and lets Sam lead her out of the Great Hall, towards the South Gate.
“So then, Sam, tell me who it actually is that’s visiting us?” Because ever since the death of Myrcella, the Seven Kingdoms have been rather short on princesses.
“I’m not entirely sure. -” He hums. “-Because I’d heard, or you know, Jon told me, that Stannis had burned his daughter alive. But -”
They arrive at the South Gate, where a pair of guards are carefully maintaining their distance to a young girl.
“Stay back, M’lady. This one’s ill and you don’t want to have what she’s got.”
“I’m cured. -” The girl replies. “- It just looks rather odd, is all.”
“- But here she is.” Sansa finishes Sam’s notion, because there are very few people in the North who have been afflicted with greyscale and even less who can claim that they have been cured of it.
It seems that Winterfell is truly becoming a gathering place for the odd and out of sorts.