Chapter Text
She never thought that death could be as easy as falling asleep. And though she did spend most of her life contemplating it, even wishing for it at some point or another, she never would have thought that this is how it would truly end.
The sweet taste lingered on her lips, mingling with the scorching taste of burned wood and stone, as the heat of the fire was rapidly and steadfastly approaching. Red and back, how very Targaryen of her…
It did not matter now. Not now when all she ever loved and cared for was long dead and gone.
Let it burn, she idly thought to herself, as she felt her body relax, lulled to sleep by the soothing sound of the cracking fire. Let Winterfell burn, and she along with it, and perhaps she would be allowed to finally, finally find the peace she longed for, thirsted for, ever since her father's head landed at her feet in front of the Great Sept of Baelor.
She was tired, oh so very tired, and dying was easy... As easy as falling into a deep sweet sleep.
Seconds turned to minutes, and she was still breathing, but only so. The sturdy trunk of the ancient weirwood tree behind her was roughly biting into her ribs, keeping her slightly alert and preventing her from truly surrendering to the fate she stubbornly chose for herself.
Winterfell was burning all around her, walls crumbling to the blazing inferno lapping at its feet and she felt a smile blooming on her red painted lips.
All too sudden, darkness crept in and surrounded her, carrying her down, in its dark and heavy depths. And yet. And yet...
The people in front of the Great Sept yelled in anger as Joffrey held out his hand to speak. She was angry, sad, and hopeful as her red and puffy eyes took in the sight of her father kneeling in the yard.
"My mother wishes me to let Lord Eddard join the Night's Watch... stripped of all titles and powers, he would serve the realm in permanent exile. And my Lady Sansa has begged mercy for her father. But they have the soft hearts of women... so long as I'm your King treason shall never go unpunished! Ser Ilyn, bring me his head!"
She heard her other-self screaming herself raw, begging for mercy. But as before, mercy did not come. Not for her father, and not for her. And his head rolled down, down, down as the crowd yelled and Joffrey laughed and laughed and laughed.
The darkness swirled and grew heavier. More ash gathered in her mouth as her throat constricted and then relaxed.
She was in the throne room now, hearing the news of her mother and brother's deaths. Her hopes and her dreams of rescue crashed and burned on the marble floor. She was alone, with no friends, married to a Lannister of all things. She could not even mourn her dead family.
Stupid little bird.
And then darkness flared and pulled at her once more.
Joffrey, Dontos, Littlefinger, and Ramsey followed fast. Flashes of old wounds that never did truly heal, no matter the flowing of time.
Stupid little bird. Stupid, stupid girl, with stupid dreams and so wholly unprepared for the harsh truths of the real world. She blamed her mother for sheltering her, she blamed her father for his unreasonable moral compass and foolish dreams of honor, she blamed her septa and her maester for her lack of real education, but most of all she blamed herself, for not being good enough, for not learning fast enough, for not being strong enough.
“I am a slow learner. It’s true. But I learn”
She snorted as she remembered those words, spoken a lifetime ago. She never did learn, not truly. Not when it really mattered.
And then dragons, and fire and blood, and madness. The dead were rising and falling but not for long.
A brother, not a brother anymore but a raven.
Another brother turned into cousin, exiled in the unforgiving Nord.
A sister lost to the seas of the West.
A hollow crown for her…. Queen of the fucking North.
“Do you see now?” the darkness asked in a weary, timeless voice.
But it wasn’t a voice, not really, but so much more.
So hard to comprehend and yet so easy. It reminded her of the rustling of leaves on a windy day, of the rays of the sun caressing her face in the summer, of the smell of freshly baked bread, and the refreshing taste of fresh cold water enriched with a hint of lemon.
“Do you understand?”
She tried to speak only to find herself unable. What was she supposed to understand? She was already dead or dying, she unflinchingly noted to herself. Burning in the godswood of her home, burning all that she ever loved, unwilling to let it fall into the hands of the true frost.
“Who, no, what are you?” she croaked, the metallic taste of blood in her mouth making her wince.
“Oh child, we are what we are, what we have always been, what we always will be”.
It came from within and from above, a rustling of leaves, a quiet murmur of a water spring, the soft fast paces of a deer fleeing in the nigh. Not quite spoken, not quite unspoken, but heard and strangely felt, all the same.
“Do you understand?” it insisted. Searching for something deep within her. Something she feared would never be found.
She was not sure of anything anymore. She had seen too much, she had tried for too long to keep the pieces of her broken self together. But the glue that held them there was long gone.
The feel of calloused hands holding her tight to a broad chest. The soft pressure of a kiss, as light as the cooling breeze on a hot summer’s day. The beating of another heart below hers, so dear and so very much beloved. The sound of the hooves of his horse carrying him away.
“Do you see?” The voices soldiered on, unrelenting, like waves crashing upon some distant shores.
A dagger glinted in the darkness, Valyrian steel meeting the King of the Night. Shards of ice spreading into the winds and falling into the snow. Small flecks of snow drifting away into the night, melting into water, seeping into the earth and flowing backward, to the North.
How strange… Oh…
“It wasn’t over” she murmured, sudden understanding lightning her ice-blue eyes.
“No, it wasn’t.” she received in return. “It was never her destiny to end the night. The Prophecy was not hers”.
“Then who’s?” she inquired, although she had the feeling she had known all along. From the very beginning to the very bitter end.
A bed of blood and roses . The wailing of a newborn and the whisper of a promise, hauntingly familiar. “If Robert finds out, he'll kill him. You know he will. You have to protect him. Promise me, Ned. Promise me.”
But of course.
How did she not see it? Where did it go wrong?
An innocent baby ignored, shunned, and kept away when he should have been loved. A promise betrayed as the boy grew and was sent to the Wall.
"Promise me, Ned. Promise me."
A stag marrying a lion. The lion having cubs with no stag in them.
A falcon discovering the truth, a fish conspiring with a mockingbird. A mockingbird planning the death of the wolf.
A woman in a red dress arriving at the old seat of the dragons. Sweet false words whispered, dark blood magic, shadows, and a brother dead before his time. And then the burnings and a king, not yet a king, lost in madness and deceit. A daughter killed in cold blood, a sort of siege lost, and then understanding in front of an imminent not so imminent death. All for a duty that should never have been duty in the first place. Forgiveness, denial, healing, and acceptance, and then love, oh so much love...
“Do you see, little wolf? Do you understand?”
And somehow she did. She did understand it all, the where and the how. The wrongness of it all.
“Would you change it all, little wolf? Would you change it all, if you could?” the voices continued, ever so low, ever so faint, like silk cloth fluttering in the wind.
Yes, she thought. Yes, she thought, with a sudden conviction of clarity.
The weirwood tree above, with its blood-red eyes.
The calmness she always felt when praying in the woods, as opposed to her mother’s sept.
The conviction of something, something grander, and bigger, and more encompassing existing out there, somewhere, that offered her comfort in her darkest hours. Always there, just out of the reach of her hands, but never quite enough.
Yes, she suddenly understood with such clarity.
The voices she was hearing were those of the Gods of Old. The Gods of her forefathers, the gods of the trees with leaves and eyes of blood, faces unseen and yet so very clear.
“I would if I could, but I am not enough, not strong enough, not wise enough, not good enough. I do not even know where to begin…” she said, softly, sorrow and hope burning deep in her soul.
And through it all, one thought was more present, more poignant, more real than any thought before. She would see him again, her husband. Love him again for longer than before, fiercer than before…
Her steadfast husband, facing the rage of Night, promising to return, to come back to her.
And the pain was unbearable once more, even here and now, at the end of it all. As her whole world crumbled to ash her heart continued to yearn, to bleed for him.
His horse galloping away as she stood and watched him leaving her, from the ramparts of her home.
“We will provide the knowledge, little wolf. But things will never be the same again” the leaves, the red leaves of the weirwood, whispered.
Could she risk it? Would he love her again, were she to change their history of horror and loss?
The thought of never being loved by him again was raw and stifling. Ten times worse than seeing her father’s head rolling at her feet. A hundred times worse than being beaten bloody by Joffrey and his Kingsguard. A thousand times worse than being raped and tortured by Ramsey. It was beyond words and feelings, unbearable in its intensity. Her breath hitched and her vision tunneled as blood mingled with salt in the snow below.
“We will not send you alone, dear child” the voices spoke again, preventing her from being lost to despair. “He has never left you, not really, the stubborn man” they continued, amused exasperation in their tone.
“Oh...” she exhaled, softly, brokenly. And yet. And yet she still dared to hope...
“But changes must be made. Or, better said undone. Are you ready to accept the consequences, little wolf, even if that means that there will no longer be a Sansa Stark anymore? At least not the one that you are, the one you know?”
No Sansa Stark…
That does not sound so awful. Not really.
No Sansa Stark means no dead Lady.
No Sansa Stark means no one to stop her father from leaving King’s Landing. No one to betray him to the Queen.
No Sansa Stark means no engagement to Joffrey, no wedding to Ramsey, no Queen in the North…
No Sansa Start, it was such an easy decision to make, as easy as breathing.
“I am ready” she confirmed. Steel in her voice, her heart bleeding a little more. Is there anything left to give, she briefly wondered, before undoing herself from the tapestry of life forevermore. “I am ready to never have been born.”
“But that’s not how it goes, little wolf. That’s not how it goes at all.” The leaves rustled and trembled as the darkness crept in once more.
“And as a last warning, little wolf, beware of the Fire God, Sansa of House Stark, firstborn daughter of Rickard and Lyarra Stark, kissed by fire and blessed by the Gods of Old. May your journey bring you happiness and an end to the long night.”
And silence finally, finally fell, as the world went up in flames.