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The Long Night was finally over.
Sansa looked around the crypts, at the terrified faces of those that were left of the women and children, and at the stone faces of her ancestors. Ancestors whose remains had tried to kill them. They had survived, but not without heavy losses, and she forced herself to look at the dead - she would have to do the same on a much larger scale once they exited the crypt and she could only pray that she would not have to look upon the dead faces of any of her loved ones.
As the Lady of Winterfell, the giddy relief that many were feeling did not get to remain in her for very long, as the mask of leader had to fall into place.
She gripped Gilly's hand tightly, the wildling girl holding Little Sam on her hip, both women offering a bit of their own strength to the other. Sansa had not interacted much with the other woman, too preoccupied with planning for the battle with the Army of the Dead, while Gilly had taken the lead in helping settle the refugees into Winterfell. Despite this, she had come to appreciate the young mother's help and presence, sympathizing with the pain she'd had to endure at the hands of someone who was supposed to love her...that is, if the ghastly story Jon had told her about Craster was true.
She saw the small boy she had sent to the crypts hours earlier, before the battle had begun, hovering by the wall, his wooden sword still clutched in his hand, his cheeks wet with tears. A pang of guilt flashed in her heart, knowing that she had sent this innocent child, and all of the innocents who had chosen to not fight in the battle, into this place of horrors...and her mistake had cost some their lives.
Ignoring the strange looks that Tyrion and Lord Varys and even Daenerys' advisor gave her, she crouched down in front of the little boy, making sure the dragonglass dagger was safely out of sight, uncaring if the wight's blood stained her dark dress.
She brushed the boy's damp hair back off his forehead, reminded once again of Rickon, of when she would play with his curls whenever she had to keep her little brother company when he fell asleep in odd places throughout the castle. She would send someone to find help and then wait for Robb or her father to come carry him to bed. But all three were dead now, and there was no one coming to help, but she still remembered how to offer some comfort to those like this boy. He had that same air of innocence about him that Rickon had, as well as the haunted-ness lurking behind his eyes that meant he had seen things much too horrifying when he was much too young.
There weren't many words she could say that would ease the boy's trauma, all of them who had survived would be forced to confront the fact that they had lived while so many others had died. Everyone, every man, woman, and child, who had survived the battle would always remember the nightmare they had witnessed.
"They're gone," she whispered, and as the boy started to cry once again, Sansa pulled the boy into a tight embrace, one hand cupping the back of his head, her fingers scratching his scalp in what she hoped was a soothing motion. "They're gone."
It was almost as if she was trying to convince herself of that very fact. Someone had killed the Night King and they would all see what happened after the end of the world.
Sansa gently released the boy, her heart aching for her lost brothers, but she forced herself to remain focused on the child in front of her. This was how she could help her people: by comforting them and helping them live through the after. After all, she had some experience surviving situations that she was sure would be the death of her. "You were so very brave," she told the boy, tugging off her gloves and tucking them into her belt so she could wipe the tears from his dirty cheeks. "So very brave. Now, go find the other children, make sure you all stay together."
With a reluctant nod of his head, he threw his arms around her neck briefly, before scampering towards the back of the crowd, soon linking hands with a young, dark-haired girl with an old burn scarring one side of her face. That seemed to start a chain reaction, all of the children - even Little Sam as he crawled out of Gilly's arms - started to link arms and clasp hands.
They will always have a place in Winterfell, she promised, because it was more than likely that their mothers and fathers had died during the Long Night, and even though her home was in ruins, she would find a way to protect the children and shelter them from the scars war left on her country. As she had told Theon hours before, they would rebuild. The North remembers.
Taking a deep breath and straightening her spine to hold her head high and proud, she led the way out of the crypt, breezing past Tyrion and Lord Varys who were exchanging looks of bewilderment.
Her hand shook as she turned the key that would free them, opening the door that led out into the castle. It had not been long ago that she had heard the cries of soldiers banging on the doors, begging to be let in, before their screams were cut painfully short. But in that moment, her heart had cracked at hearing the deaths of the soldiers, even though she knew her priority was to protect the women and children in her care - she couldn't risk their safety to save a few soldiers.
Although, she thought derisively, remembering how the dead burst out of their stone prisons, it would have only postponed their deaths. Tonight proved that there is truly no safe place left in the world when the dead started to rise.
She tried to open the door but was met with resistance almost immediately, only the smallest sliver of light entering the darkened crypts. Her brow furrowed and her lips pressed into a thin line as she prepared herself to physically force the door open, but a hand on her forearm stopped her.
"You're never going to open it on your own," Gilly's quiet voice said, an air of certainty in her tone. She spoke like someone who had experience forcing doors open...although Sansa was well-versed in that subject as well. She couldn't count how many times she had thrown herself at a locked door in an attempt to free herself from Ramsay. "You're going to injure yourself...m'lady."
Sansa nodded gratefully, for how embarrassing would it be if she emerged from the crypts with a dislodged soldier - and many would have fussed over her simply because she was their Lady, instead of those that might need medical help more urgently. She tried to put the image out of her mind of Arya or Brienne or Pod or Theon laid in unnatural positions on the ground, lifeless eyes staring up at her.
With a nod, Gilly joined her at the door, soon followed by the curly-haired young woman who advised the Dragon Queen. Sansa gave the other girl a confused look, unused to those she disagreed with politically, helping her in such a human way, but was met with determination and a gentle strength she associated with her mother...or maybe it a slightly more tempered version of the strong-willed Tully woman.
It took only a few moments for the three young women to force the door open wide enough for everyone to slip through one-by-one.
She made her way through the halls of the castle into the courtyard as if in a daze, stepping over bodies - some that were long-dead, others that were all too fresh - but took care to make sure she wasn't stepping over someone she knew. She recognized too many faces as those that she had seen in the yard before the battle and her heart broke a little more with each face she remembered.
When the survivors of the crypts made it into the main courtyard, there were still soldiers making their way down from what was left of the battlements, and she had to stifle a sob at the gaping hole in the walls of Winterfell.
Hours ago she had been standing on that very rampart with Pod, watching the sun set on what very well could have been their last night, and now, she had to choke down bile as she saw piles of bodies higher than she had seen on the field after the Battle of the Bastards.
People rushed all around her, survivors trying to find one another in the chaos of the battle's aftermath, cries of joy and despair echoing around her as loved ones were found. Gilly quickly ran past, Little Sam once more on her hip, as she called out the boy's namesake. And Daenerys' advisor marched up to the nearest Unsullied still standing, speaking frantically in Valyrian. Sansa's own blue eyes scanned the courtyard, her mask dropping once more, and she was a sister looking for her siblings, a friend looking for those she was close with...a girl looking for a boy.
Even in the dim sunlight, Brienne's bright hair managed to stand out as the older woman staggered down from the ramparts. She didn't have time to comprehend anything other than that she was alive, before Sansa was picking up her skirts and running across the courtyard.
Thoughts of I'm not alone filled her mind as she paused at the bottom of the stairs, before wrapping her arms around the tall woman. Brienne had been a steady presence in her life ever since before she had been freed from Ramsay, always trustworthy and loyal and astonishingly brave.
"I'm so glad you're alive," she said, her voice breaking slightly, uncaring about how she must sound like that scared little girl trapped in King's Landing.
"As am I," the warrior replied softly, her hands coming up to awkwardly pat her shoulder in a move that was so Brienne, she would have laughed aloud if she thought herself capable of laughter at that moment.
A dry chuckle came from slightly behind Brienne, a familiar voice saying, "You don't give yourself enough credit, Ser. If there was any fighter who was going to survive, it would be you."
Stepping back, Sansa could finally get a good look at the older woman, her face flushing with a splotchy, spectacularly dark red blush at Jaime Lannister's words. But there was one word in particular that she was interested in addressing.
"Ser?" She asked pointedly, an eyebrow arching and a smile playing at her lips.
"A recent development, my lady," Brienne explained lowly, but the pride in her bright blue eyes showed how pleased she was about receiving her knighthood.
"Well, there's no one more worthy to hold such a title," Sansa replied warmly, her own heart filled with pride at her friend's behalf. "I would have done the deed myself, but sadly, I don't think ladies are permitted to make knights."
That seemed to inflame the female knight's blush even further as her eyes darted to Ser Jaime - who she just noticed was standing awfully close to Brienne's side. "Don't trouble yourself, my lady...it came from the right person."
The two knights stared at each other for a long moment, the intense emotions in their eyes causing Sansa to shift on her feet. Jaime had clearly been the one to knight Brienne, she thought with a smile, knowing how much that must have meant to Brienne to receive that honor from the man she loved.
Glancing away to look for anyone else she recognized, she craned her neck to try and see above the piles of dead bodies, narrowly avoiding the temptation to rise onto her tiptoes or jump to get an even higher vantage point. Her heart started to rise in her chest when she couldn't find any of her siblings, and she couldn't help but worry about Jon and Arya - great fighters though they might be - and she was certainly terrified for Bran and Theon, as they would have been two of the most vulnerable individuals on the field during the night. She felt her heartbeat speed up even more when she couldn't find Pod either, he was usually not far behind Brienne and he was not with the two other knights.
However, no sooner had her worry for the squire reached a peak than she saw him descending the stairs with Arya's smith, the two leaning on one another for support.
Sansa let out an audible gasp of relief as she stepped around Brienne and caught Podrick's eye, his face lighting up in what was surely a mirror of her own joyful smile. It only took two quick strides forward until she was being pulled into a tight embrace, his arms wrapping around her waist and back so tightly, the breath was pushed from her lungs. But it was the good kind of breathlessness that came with the exuberance and comfort of seeing the boy she was beginning to love alive, and thoroughly banged up, but whole. Plus, it made her feel better about how tightly she had her own arms wrapped around his shoulders and neck.
She buried her face in the crook of his neck, breathing in the smell of blood and sweat and iron - a horrendous mixture, but she did not care in the least at that moment, since it meant she didn't smell death clinging to him. Sansa felt a smile break over her lips and a tear leak out of her eye, the two swaying in place, their bodies crushed together in a way that should have been uncomfortable, but wasn't. She felt the studs of his armor digging into her arms and stomach, and she was certain that the handle of the dragonglass dagger was pressing against his own chest, but all of that discomfort faded into the background as she ran her fingers through the messy strands of his dark hair, and as she pulled back and cupped his cheek, her own cheeks pinkened slightly as she finally felt the roughness of his stubble against her bare skin.
"You came back to me," Sansa breathed softly, their noses brushing as she leaned her forehead against his, her voice nearly shaking with relief.
"You were waiting," he replied simply, moving one hand to cover one of hers and leaning into her touch, the other remaining at her waist.
She felt her smile grow even wider, even though her cheeks heated even further. It was all so easy for him - the romance, the promises, the intimacy, the casual touches - while Sansa had to occasionally suppress the instinct to pull back, and to not think of what they might look like to those around them, to let herself have something just for her.
When Tyrion had suggested that they should have stayed married, her admission that he was the best of them was entirely truthful. Of nearly all the men she had known, he was the one who treated her with kindness without having any cause to do so. And of her husbands, he was the one who didn't abuse her and violate her on her wedding night.
But they would not have worked out well. He was too loyal to the Dragon Queen, and maybe a bit in love with her - a woman too brash and hot-headed to really understand the way of how the game was played. She admired Daenerys for the way she had clearly won the hearts of those following her, but she wanted to bring the North back into the fold, and as the Lady of Winterfell, Sansa needed to know that her countrymen and women would be independent.
We know no king but the King in the North, she remembered the Northern lords and little Lady Lyanna declaring. Robb had fought to give the North its freedom from Southron rulers, and she was not going to just give away her brother's legacy to a Dragon Queen because Jon was in love with her.
Tyrion would follow Daenerys to the South for the final confrontation with Cersei, but she would stay in the North where she belonged.
But, even if one disregarded their differing loyalties, their marriage would have never worked. It would always be marred by that awful day they were married - she would always be haunted by Joffrey's ghost, but that day held a special place among the many monstrous things he had done to her.
Yet still, at the very heart of it all was the simple fact that she did not love him. She respected him, she admired his courage and wit, but she vowed that she would never again marry someone she did not love in that way, and that was not Tyrion.
She doesn't think she has ever loved anyone in that way, but what she felt for Pod was becoming the closest she had ever gotten.
The longer they stood there, simply being in one another's presence, the relief of upheld unspoken promises hanging in the small bit of air between them. Her thoughts were drawn once again to the fact that she was quickly falling in love with the young man before her. Having never truly been in love before, she wasn't quite sure what the signs were, but she hoped that the fluttering lightness in her chest was one. That the way she worried about his safety, and how she desperately wanted to keep him safe from the front lines but refused to keep him from his duty was another. And then maybe that meant that the feeling she got when she saw him walking down those ramparts and wanting nothing more than to hold him and be held by him was an indication that she was capable of loving him.
Sansa slowly pulled her forehead away from his so she could get a good look at the state of his injuries, but before she could look farther than the dried blood on the side of his face, she heard a voice calling out.
"Arya?" The Flea Bottom accent was prominent and frantic, but the fact that she could even hear the smith meant that the speaker was close.
Her mind turned towards her sister in a heartbeat - she might be dangerous, but she was tiny and that did not always help one when fighting an army of thousands upon thousands of undead. As she turned, she saw Bran in his chair and Arya right behind him, and she immediately felt the tears well up in her eyes again.
They were safe, the pack had survived.
Without much thought, she immediately started running towards her brother and sister, the smith only a few paces ahead.
She only stopped, however, when she saw some of the dead being carried in. There were clearly many, but by moving some into the courtyard, it would be easier to identify who had not made it through the night. When Sansa saw little Lyanna Mormont on the ground, her eyes open and milky white, her armor dented and blood running down her face, she felt like her heart had stopped. She crouched down, closing the girl's eyes, because that was the only thing she could do for the girl with the heart of a bear.
Reluctantly standing again, she looked up to see Arya and her smith in a tight embrace, their lips locked together, and her older sister instincts resurfaced once again. She was proud of Arya for taking that chance to open her heart, but that didn't mean she wasn't going to tease her about it later.
"That the gods you're both alive," Sansa nearly cried, her arms going around her brother first, despite the way he simply sat there, unmoving as always. "I don't know what I would have done if..." She couldn't bring herself to finish the thought, the idea of outliving another family member might have been too much to take.
"Arya killed the Night King," Bran declared in that all-knowing way of his. "She drove a Valyrian steel dagger into his heart."
She turned to her sister, completely overrun with emotions at the statement. Arya, her brave little sister, had killed the greatest evil the world had ever known. "And I was proud of myself because I managed to kill one wight," she said dryly, turning to her sister and pulling her into a tight embrace. It had hardly been an act of bravery, as she and Tyrion were sneaking towards one of the alcoves in the crypt, she stabbed one of the wights in the back, it was too focused on attacking one of the women to notice her until the act was done.
"Thank you," she whispered into Arya's stringy hair, and felt a swell of pride and love and a healthy bit of wariness bubble up in her chest when she felt thin arms wrap around her waist and hug her back.
"I was so scared," the brunette admitted just as quietly, her voice steadying itself as she spoke. "But he was going to kill Bran, I couldn't let that happen."
Sansa shook her head, pulling back slightly but making sure to keep her arms around Arya, squeezing her sister's shoulder gently. The blood and dirt that covered her face gave her a vicious edge, but the slowly abating fear in her gray eyes showed her true youth. She was going to have trouble wrapping her mind around the fact that her sister had slain the Night King, but she was proud of her little sister...they had both come so far since that day at the inn on the Kingsroad.
"The pack survives," Sansa assured her with a small grin. She cocked her head to the side though, as Arya's face fell, an apology in her eyes. "What's wrong?"
"Theon Greyjoy is dead," Bran interjected, and Sansa's heart plummeted to somewhere in her knees.
She had steeled herself for the possibility, but to hear the fact that a man she considered her brother had died...and as she turned to get some air, she saw two soldiers carrying his body out of the godswood.
"Stop!" She choked out, her throat thick with tears that were now steadily falling down her cheeks. The two men laid her chosen-brother on the ground and she sank to her knees, forcing herself to look at the bloody form in front of her. Other than the bruises and small cuts to his face, there were not many injuries...except the hole in the side of his armor, the blow that had killed the last son of the Iron Islands.
But the one thing she noticed more than anything else was how peaceful his expression was.
In recent years, she had never seen him without that tortured, sometimes fearful, look on his face. She couldn't remember the last time he smiled - maybe when they were remembering Jeyne? - but it had once been his favorite thing to do, what he would show to all the girls to make them fall for him. It pained her to think that in death, was the last time that he was finally able to smile again. She knew that he must have tried to keep his promise, to live and to find Jeyne Poole, but protecting the entire world of the living had to come first.
Jon had told her, before the battle, that if they managed to survive the night, and even if the Night King fell, they should burn the bodies of the dead. She just hoped there was a way to the Drowned God through the flames as they couldn't take any risks with the dead rising once more, not for anyone.
"What is dead may never die," she said, a poor echo of the ironborn creed, but she hoped it would be enough to give his soul a bit of comfort. Sansa placed a kiss on his forehead, squeezing her eyes tightly shut, imagining for a brief moment that he would suck in a breath like maidens in some songs would, when a kiss roused them for their death-like slumber.
But, as she learned over and over again, real life was not much like her songs.
She climbed shakily to her feet, wiping the tears from her cheeks as she looked at her siblings with relief and sympathy, although she had been the one closest to Theon since he had re-entered their lives, they had all cared about him in their own way. Their pack had lost one of their own.
"Excuse me," she muttered, nodding to Arya and Bran and even the smith - whose name she still had to learn - before turning and walking aimlessly towards the walls.
Her heart wept for the people she had lost, and even more so for the ones that had to live on without those they loved in their life. The tears she shed were for Theon and Lyanna and the countless more who had died to defend those that would never know of their sacrifice, but the ones in her heart were for herself. They were for Podrick and Jon and Arya and Jeyne wherever she was and everyone else that had lost a part of themselves tonight.
She found herself in front of the hole in Winterfell's wall, and the bodies that were piled high soon gave way to pure white snow. Blood stained the stone and ice alike, ash turning everything it touched into a gray, hollow-looking mess.
The North remembers.
As she looked out at the blood-stained plains of her homeland giving way to the white snow, she was reminded of what she had told Theon: The North remembers the horrors...but also how to rebuild. We need to remember how to rebuild, she added silently.
"What are you thinking about?" Pod's quiet voice came from beside her, and it only took a fractional turn of her head to see his brown eyes looking at her with a whole mix of emotions she couldn't sort through at the moment.
"The North," she replied truthfully. "What happens to us after the end of the world?"
"I wouldn't dare say," came the reply, his smile clear in his words even if she didn't turn to see it directed at her. "That seems like something Lord Tyrion and Lord Varys would love to argue about."
"Yes," she chuckled faintly, "they did like to philosophize all the time. But sometime soon I will have to burn a man that saved me, that was like one of my brothers, and all I can think about is that I survived. How I had told myself that if I lived, I would stand where we stood yesterday and watch the sun rise on the North." It seemed like such a silly thing to wish to do now. The fighting might be over, but there were still so many duties left for her to fulfill, grieving to be done, taking stock of supplies, literally rebuilding her castle, and the like. Sansa grinned dryly as she gestured to the rubble surrounding her. "But I don't think that wall is there anymore."
Pod didn't say anything, just grabbed her hand and brought it to his lips, kissing the inside of her wrist just as he had done when they had last stood together watching the North. The gesture set her stomach alight with that fluttering feeling she felt whenever she saw him, the gentle brush of his lips so unlike anything she had ever experienced.
He wasn't trying to chase away her grief with his touch, but empathizing with her - he had more than likely lost friends in the battle as well - and giving her that little extra push to drop the façade of Lady, so she could be a young woman who was heartbroken and distraught and so so tired.
She studied his face, the blood that marked one side, the ash that had settled in his hair, and the way his clear brown eyes held the same mix of sadness, relief, and joy that she felt when she remembered that they were still alive.
The rising sun sent streaks of light through his dark hair, glinting off the white snow, and turned her own hair into a sheet of fire. In that moment, she leaned forward, her fingers slipping under his gauntlet to find the cord she had tied there, the proof of the bond they now shared, his pulse beating right underneath it.
Almost tentatively, she pressed her lips to his, her eyes closing as she let herself be grounded by the hand at his wrist, the other grasping at his shoulder. His lips moved delicately, a series of brief kisses that filled her with a hope that she could make it through the next few days. That although the grief might linger, and there would always be a part of her, of everyone that lived, that had died in the night, she was allowed to feel a small bit of relief that they had lived.
And as he kissed her gently, his pulse beating steadily beneath her fingertips and his skin warm against her hand, she remembered the strength within herself and of the North.
This horror had not been the end of their song, and Winterfell still stood.
The North still remained.
He was the one to pull back, his broad smile appearing on his lips before he pressed a light kiss to her forehead, a reassurance that he was not going to leave, that he would return to her. And she would be there waiting for him.
Sansa turned back to look at the North, letting herself let go for one more moment, and leaned her head against his shoulder with a sigh.
She had survived, like she had with so many other insurmountable challenges she had been faced with, but this time, she was not alone in the aftermath. Her family, her pack, was strong and the North, though not whole, would remember. Soon, she would have to be the Lady of Winterfell once more, making sure everything was prepared for burning the bodies and starting the reconstruction of the castle.
But for now, all she needed to be was a girl falling in love, watching the sun rise for one more blissfully perfect moment...and that was all she wanted to be.