CLOSED ; You made a deal, and now it seems you have to offer up.

[clothed]

Who: Sansa Stark, various persons of interest.
What: Private conversations, ironing out some truths (and a pretty big lie).
When: September through October; includes test drive continuations.
Where: Milton proper + the outskirts.

Content Warnings: Will be added as they occur! Prompts in the comments.

Comments

closed ; jon snow.

[clothed]

[ jon is here. her brother, jon, is alive and here.

they're in the community hall. sansa had led them to the community hall, now knowing what is expected to happen; she will not chance their getting attacked out in the open spaces outside of town, like she had the misfortune of experiencing when she herself had arrived. and there will be food — plenty enough for the interlopers now present and the new ones just arriving, however it was that they've come to milton.

lady and ghost are outside, partly to keep from spooking those inside the wide cabin and sheltering from the weather, and partly so the two direwolves could get reacquainted with one another. lady is as happy as she'd ever been, sansa could feel her now, the thread connecting them growing stronger by the day. perhaps tonight she will change shape and run with the two wolves all the way to the lake, or perhaps she'll tell jon about it first so that he could bring them all back.

there is time to talk. gods, they have time to talk. sansa could weep from it, this gift of time that she had taken for granted as a foolish girl.

i will not be so foolish again, she tells herself, swears it as she plies her brother with warm food and hot drink. jon had grown into his looks, reminding her so much of both father and uncle benjen. her heart aches. ]

You should eat your fill, [ sansa remarks quietly as they sit together in a far corner within the cabin. she has some kind of savory soup and bread rolls for herself, bowl and breadplate balanced on her lap, but she's been eating slowly. she'd rather watch jon. ] It might be a while before we have this much food again.

I can't believe you're here.

closed ; sandor clegane.

[clothed]

[ lady is restless. every morning the wolf paws at the back door of lady randvi's home, waiting to be let out to run as she likes — now with her brother as company. it has only been a few days, but sansa has spotted ghost waiting patiently for lady to step out of the shared household, still and haunting as its namesake until lady has bound over to him. the two would hare off, return after a time (often with a hunted pheasant or other smaller game), and then part ways to mind their human companions.

lady is less happy every time. a mirror to sansa's own thinking, not having her brother within reach. he needs time, sansa tells herself. it had been six years since they've left winterfell, near-half the time sansa's known him, near-half the length of her life at that point. sansa can wait.

there is another hound she could speak to, however. the hound. sandor clegane. lady had met him once, a long time ago, and as sansa makes to clean the dead birds lady had brought over, she's struck with a thought to seek the man out. talk with him. touch upon things they hadn't gotten to discuss to sansa's liking.

sansa supposes she knows a few things about men now. she sets most of the hunted game aside for the icebox, then does her best to pack one bird for carrying. when that's done, she calls for lady and gives her instruction: find me a friend, lady.

they're setting off to find the hound. perhaps a bird is a good enough bribe to get him to sit and talk. ]

[dogmeats]

( He isn't terribly hard to find — in part because he's a massive fucker of a man who stands out soundly in the fallen snow wherever he happens to be. Also in part because he hasn't gone too far from the community hall yet. That wrapping she gave him's better than nothing, but he's not about to go fucking off into the woods until he's got something a little better fitting for the occasion.

It's also only been a short while; his leg is healing quickly, but it's not fully mended yet.

It is, evidently, mended enough for him to chop wood. Whether or not it's strictly advisable is another matter, but that's where she'll find him regardless: sans armor, dressed as warmly as he could manage given everything, with an axe in hand and a steadily growing pile of split logs beside him.

If he's noticed her arrival as he brings his axe down for a swing, he does not acknowledge it. )

[clothed]

[ patience is its own reward. someone taught her this lesson once, though she can't remember who it was now. was it littlefinger? was it cersei, or was it her first husband tyrion, during the times when he wasn't deep in his cups?

she's certain that he knows she's watching; she's not made a secret of her approach, her feet crunching the snow underfoot loud and clear in the quiet of the day. sansa watches the hound split wood to the aggravation of his injury, the swing of the axe its own torment for the memories it brings up; it's only when he grunts in clear pain that sansa finally interrupts. ]

Clegane. [ she refrains from calling him ser; another needle for another time. ] Might we speak, please? I brought you something for the trouble.

[dogmeats]

( It's sheer stubbornness that drives him. Every time that pain flairs up, every time the bone aches and the muscles burn in protest, he picks up another log to split. Is he punishing it, or himself, or the wood? What difference does it make, in the end?

Proving her point, her voice doesn't seem to startle him. He doesn't even so much as look 'round at her, as he hefts another thick bit of wood onto the chopping block. )

You're speaking now, aren't you?

( A few years back, that might've come out snappishly. It might've sounded meaner. Today, it just sounds tired. Resigned, and rude only by default, because rarely is he ever anything else. )

I'm listening.

[northerndragon]

[He answers first with a shaky nod, trying to take in the room, everything. What had seemed a dream now seems like the beginning of a long stay, an unplanned stay. Not quite an abduction, but -- well. Near enough on it. He is glad of Ghost's presence, though it is better that the direwolf stays outside the hall for now. And it has been so long since Ghost has seen any of his brothers or sisters. Lady's bones are in the lichyard at Winterfell; Jon knows as much. He has been told. But there she is, dancing outside in the snow.

Not much food for a while, and he had been on road rations before he came. He begins to eat, hungrily.]

Well, I am. You came riding up the road to me at Castle Black not so long ago, you know. I meant to be riding out that day, and there you were, with Brienne of Tarth and her squire guarding you. Theon Greyjoy had brought you part of the way, you said. So I didn't ride out. Any of this sound right to you?

[He still has it in mind that he may, one day, kill Theon, if what he has been told of the aid to Sansa is not true.]

[clothed]

[ theon. what does she make of theon now? he found his conscience in the end, she supposes, but it came at such a steep price sansa cannot say in good faith that he came upon it sincerely. not yet, at least. the ironborn made claim of her brothers still living, but how can she trust his word?

a tortured man will say anything if it meant reprieve from pain. theon had been tormented like no other. ]

Theon had helped me. He'd killed for me, and I will always thank him for that. But I haven't— Brienne of Tarth, I haven't met her yet. I've not made my way to Castle Black yet, I had only been hiding in the creek near the keep, and... I suppose I lost consciousness.

I woke up here. Lady woke me. I thought I might have died, at first.

[ she had felt a great relief then. no one will hurt me now. no one can get to me here.

she was proven wrong and soon, but for a blissful moment, she felt free. ]

What had happened to you? Tell me. It's been six years, how have you been?

[ has the night's watch been kinder to you than i have been? ]

[northerndragon]

[His expression, open until that moment, goes closed and flat. When he speaks again, he sounds sadder, and tired.]

I don't know if you knew it, in the places where you were, in the Vale and at Winterfell, but they made me Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. It was more than a few moons before you joined me there.

Sansa, have I ever seemed much of a liar to you? A madman or a fool? Some of the things I have to tell you now, they will seem hard to credit. I am sorry for that. When I told you back in my quarters at Castle Black, there were men who could vouch for the truth of them. I don't have that here.

[clothed]

You're my brother. If you tell me it is true, then I believe you.

[ she had never been kind to jon, she realises. she'd taken her mother's prejudices and worn them as her own, more the fool she was. she cannot rightly blame it to girlhood alone, even if jon might give her that kindness. no, she was old enough to know better. she knows this now, looking back on her treatment of him.

bastards can be cruel, she knows, but jon had always risen above it. as like their father in ways that perhaps her mother had never liked, because jon looked so like father when all but arya wore tully colours despite being trueborn.

oh, my dear mother, sansa thought in mourning. it's not jon's fault that father left so much of himself in jon's blood.

she reaches for jon's hand, grips it tightly in hers. ]

I only care that you're safe. Here. And alive. It's just us now. Robb is gone, and Bran and Rickon and— and Arya might be, I don't know. Father would not want us at odds.

I had heard of you being Lord Commander. Uncle Benjen would have been happy for you.

[northerndragon]

[He covers her hand with his and answers her with a solemn nod, one that, in its way, almost seems rote; it is somehow remote. Mayhaps she will understand why when she has spoken.]

I hope that he might have been proud, that I might have deserved any pride he had for me, and that he might have understood why I did what I did. There was a mutiny at Castle Black. Not long before you turned up -- a few days. I'd won the choosing narrowly, and the man who cast that vote, the old maester -- he was a Targaryen, and a good man -- he had died.

After I won, I had to make a choice. I knew it would divide the Watch, and I knew it would make some of the men hate me. And I knew it had to be done.

The things I've seen. Sansa, you remember Old Nan's tales. The White Walkers, the Long Night, armies of dead men and ice spiders big as hounds. I never saw the ice spiders, but the rest of it is true. That's what the Wall is holding back.

[clothed]

[ sansa's frown deepens the more jon talks. it had started wonderfully, and she had a rebuke ready — uncle benjen would be proud, he would be more than proud, just as father would have been if he had been around to hear it.

but what she hears her brother say is fantastical, bordering on unbelievable. old nan's tales are tales for a reason. cautionary stories for wilful girls and stubborn boys to go to bed as they are bid, to eat their carrots and onions, to do as they are told by their elders.

sansa knows jon would not lie to her. not about this. and isn't she keeping something from him, too? would jon believe her if she said that she could become a wolf in true? ]

Do you mean to fight them? You can't— You don't have the men. The Night's Watch is undermanned, I've heard it said, and you say they are divided against and for you.

Is the Wall compromised?

[northerndragon]

[He thinks to tell her to hold, but the words don't reach his lips. They will come to it, and he will not have to. And when she thinks on it, she will understand anyway. He doesn't wear Night's Watch blacks. He had been riding for Dragonstone. He had led an army against the Lord of Winterfell. Nothing the Lord Commander ought to be doing, though who would be taking his head for it? Only the Lord Commander or the Warden of the North, or the King on the Iron Throne. There's nothing funny about it.

Still, while his expression remains very inward, he gives a shaky nod, pats her hand.]

The Wall holds -- for now. But the Army of the Dead, the Night King -- they will find a way past it. I went to Hardhome, it's a village up north of Eastwatch, to treat with the Free Folk, the Wildlings. I had little choice. Any man of theirs who dies is another dead man we must fight, and they are harder than a living man to kill. Only fire kills them, or dragonglass -- obsidian -- or Valyrian steel. And they move faster than a living man, much faster in a fight. The Army of the Dead had been hunting the Free Folk in their villages, and they had gathered at Hardhome because they had lost a battle to cross the Wall.

Well, it came down on them there, slaughtered most of them and raised them up again as wights. I saw him do it; he did it as a taunt. Now the Night King's army numbers -- one hundred thousand strong, I would say.

So what Free Folk we were able to save, we made an alliance with them, and they were given passage through the Wall. It was a choice between that and fighting them as dead men. They are only people like you and me; they have not betrayed us. Those, at least, add to the Watch's strength.

[But he says it darkly.]

You can well imagine that some of the men did not like it. It is why they mutinied. Lured me out into the yard with some false story that someone had seen Uncle Benjen, then named me traitor. They had not gone to Hardhome. They had not seen one hundred thousand dead men, walking and killing.

[What he does not think to concern himself with, so much, is whether or not she has the strength to hear this story. He knows she does. He knows what she has endured, and he knows that she has heard it before. And he knows that it is a relief to her to know that Bolton is dead -- that she has that to carry her through it, at least, that it had been her to give him to the hungry dogs. Much of the rest of this tale is better than what he is telling her now, though if things had been just a little different, she might have arrived at Castle Black only to be returned to Bolton by Alliser Thorne. He doesn't know what would have become of Brienne of Tarth and her squire. The thought is cold in his belly; he imagines it will be cold in Sansa's, too.]

[clothed]

[ patience. the hound will not harm her. she can be patient.

instead of answering right away, sansa walks over to a nearby bench — a wood one, thank goodness. she has seen metal chairs and benches and stools about the town, and has often wondered the purpose of them when the weather is so cold. (would it not injure? the metal isn't coated, would it not stick to skin, or at the very least be uncomfortable?)

she sends lady to run around the small clearing to keep the wolf busy, and lady happily complies, kicking up snow as she lops in circles around her human companion. ]

Will you not sit with me, at least? I'd brought you something.

[ sansa holds out the bird, wrapped in milk cloth and held in a small basket. the basket has seen better days; sansa had done her best to weave rope through the gaps and it keep it alive for a little longer. ]

I don't know how to cook the bird, but I figured you might. I've already cleaned it.

[clothed]

[ familiar names, and a fair handful unfamiliar too. sansa's hold on jon's hand tightens with every mention — how long has it been since she's heard about places from home? names she wished someone else might speak to her and out loud, instead of her telling them to herself like a prayer.

jon paints an awful for her. mutiny. she knows what that leads to. she knows what actions are demanded of men who cause it. she's not so unlearned now as to miss what jon is leading her towards.

mutiny. his men thinking him a traitor. ]

They killed you. They must have, they — they killed you.

[ so it really is just her, in the end. no family left living, no friends or lieges to count on, only the lord baelish and the enemies who might let her live in exchange for the north.

i will not cry. i will not weep. i have shed enough tears. ]

And Uncle Benjen is himself dead, too, isn't he?

[ why ask? if the men south of the wall are migrating south, then what chance does their uncle have? dead men walking and wildlings south of the wall. the night king. why does it not scare her?

because nothing else is more terrifying to her than this: ]

We're the last of the Starks.

[northerndragon]

Aye, they killed me. They put a knife in my heart. I was dead on a table in my quarters for a night and a day and another night, they said.

You know of those priests of the Lord of Light -- there have been a few down south. Some of them can bring a man back from death, I don't know how. Don't think they know how, either. A priestess had come to the Wall with Stannis. She raised me.

[His expression remains flat and tired. Some men seem to wish to make a legend of this story; Jon doesn't. It's the worst thing that ever happened to him. The dying, but what came after, too, waking up shivering and terrified. A man isn't meant to remember dying -- the betrayal, and all the warmth leaving him.

He is relieved that Sansa has not reproached him about the Free Folk, at least.]

So I woke on that table in my quarters to find that my allies held Castle Black. When I had the strength to do it, I hanged the men who killed me. Just four. I was ready to make another move when you rode in.

Benjen, though, he's been gone since not long after I came to Castle Black.

cw: mentions of SA

[clothed]

They were wrong to have done it. You're Lord Commander, they chose you, they—

[ where is the honour, if even decisions made by votes cast are betrayed? cravens exist in many places, but this is beyond it. sansa burns for her brother. she is born of ice and snow, born at the end of winter and heralding the start of spring — but as she listens to the injustice her brother had suffered, she is alight within, incandescent in her rage. ]

Stannis Baratheon was who Father had wanted sat on the Iron Throne. [ the rightful heir, she had heard said. ] You gave them a kinder death than they deserve.

[ would it shock him? to hear her say something so base, so cruel, would it turn him away from her? she doesn't much care to take the words back. she had been kind and loyal and she had done what she was taught to do. how had she been treated in return?

betrayed in the last moment by the capriciousness of a bastard king. beaten for robb's victories against the enemies of her house. bartered and traded and made to lie to advance the interests of a man who was never her friend. violated in her own home as men who swore oaths to her father spat in his memory.

she doesn't know anything about fighting, but she will be steel within all the same.

with a ragged sob, sansa sets her bowl aside, and jon's, and pulls her brother into her arms. her hands are shaking; she curls them into fists, hides them against jon's back as she embraces him. ]

You cannot die again. I don't want you to. I won't forgive you if you do.

this is really a terrible GoT info dump with cw ultraviolence

[northerndragon]

[He allows himself to be embraced, and he hugs her in return, although he is much more used to her presence now than she is to his. There had been the events of this tale, then moons spent traveling the western coast of the North, gathering support and armies, visiting places like the Shadow Tower and Bear Island and Deepwood Motte. Then there had been Winterfell itself: not just the relief of winning a last stand, but the smaller relief of a home and good stone walls after all that travel, all that time in tents.

He is relatively certain that he'll probably die again, but he sets that aside for a time. He is relatively certain that they all will. No one needs to hear that, in truth, not even when they press him to it in an argument.]

The men who led the mutiny were the men who lost the choosing for Lord Commander. I know why they did what they did -- it was what they thought was right. But the North must act as one, now, if we're to have any chance. We can't fight amongst ourselves. We can't spare the men to fight the Free Folk, or die against them, and we need the Free Folk on our side. I would as soon have had the mutineers alive and fighting the dead, but they made their choice.

[He sounds inestimably tired, still.]

Watch vows are for life, and I gave my life. I am not Lord Commander anymore, but the man who is, he's a good man. You came in, wanted me to help you take back Winterfell -- well, I didn't want to. I was tired of fighting. But Bolton sent a letter full of threats, to you, to Rickon -- he had Rickon, then -- and to me, and to the Free Folk. So we traveled the North for a time seeking what support we could. There wasn't much: many feared Bolton would skin them alive, and he had the Karstarks and the Umbers. I feared that what happened to Stannis would happen to us, that the weather would turn against us. The numbers were bad, even with the Free Folk fighting for House Stark, and Bolton killed Rickon at the start of the battle, right at my feet. [His face twists as he says it.] Things were going badly when the Knights of the Vale turned up and routed Bolton's men, some arrangement between you and Baelish. Not much to say about the battle after that. I pursued Bolton back to Winterfell and we killed him there.

[dogmeats]

( Tap into as much of that patience as you can muster, Sansa. You're going to need it. On the scale of people Sandor tolerates, she may well be nearest to the top as one can get, but that does not make him suddenly pleasant company, or particularly inclined to be nice. Tolerance does not equate to familiarity, or to trust, or to the willingness to let his guard down.

She sits; she asks; at last he relents at least enough to lower the axe, to press the head into the dirt and lean on it heavily, casting his eyes to her. His look is appraising, perhaps a little mistrustful, as if he's searching for some sort of deceit in this request. Some sort of ulterior motive.

They are, both of them, accustomed to a certain measure of abuse. Of being taken advantage of. Just, in very different ways. His suspicion isn't personal, it's just automatic. )

The bird brought me a bird.

( He comments flatly, making no move to take it — nor to sit, just yet. After a beat, he nods at a nearby side table by the bench. His meager pack of belongings is just below it. She can set her basket there. His hands are too filthy now to be touching it. )

You don't have to bribe me for conversations, girl. My ears work well enough without them.

[clothed]

I wanted to give you something nice, too.

[ she doesn't contest the bribery; it is a bribe. men are inclined to give certain things freely under certain circumstances, she's learned, and when they do not — the illusion of a kindness or a payment in kind goes a long way towards easing the path along. she's compensating him for his time with a bird, and—— ]

Hunting will be hard while your leg heals. You'll need your strength, in case matters get out of hand again. Here, that is.

[ the sudden darkness. the darkwalker, and enola, and the lights. voices and nightmares and men in gas stations who know things that they shouldn't. ]

Milton has a habit of unsettling people. You'll find out soon enough, if you mean to stay. [ her concern is always genuine. harsh a man as the hound is, she's begun to care about him by the end. ] How did you get your injuries, would you tell me? Did arrive with them?

[clothed]

[ it's a lot to take in. her future — would it still come to pass? would knowing it now change how it will be?

we killed him there.

does she bloody her hands, then? does she become a wolf-bat, does she kill him with a spell like all those stories claim she did with joffrey? it would be deserved of ramsay to die horribly. he should die several times over, not just for the horrors he'd visited upon her but for all the people he's tormented. for the girls he'd hunt. for the old woman he'd made an example of, whose only crime was remembering the girl that sansa was.

tell me how he dies. tell me it was cruel. tell me i had nightmares about it.

sansa doesn't say any of it, chooses to hold her brother close instead. ]

Rickon was dead the moment he had him. He would never let a trueborn son named Stark live, not if he wanted to keep his claim of Winterfell through me. [ her poor rickon, her baby brother. had theon told her the truth, then? is bran still out there, still alive? she'd called upon lord baelish — what had it cost her? ] What about Bran? We have to find Bran. Theon said he——

He must be out there. Alone. When we get back, we have to find him.

[dogmeats]

( Her concern, quite frankly, makes him even more suspicious. Why in the name of the Gods would she be worried about him? It's clear enough she doubts his ability to see her out of here, to take her North like he'd offered, and so what value does he have to the littlest bird? What is she expecting of him, what does she mean to take from him? Is it as simple as wanting a strong sword at her side for the oncoming troubles everyone keeps running their fucking mouths about?

If that's the case, then it's a motivation he can tolerate easily enough. He's used to being needed for his capacity to do harm. But the thing is, he'd already offered that for free, and so this bribery is unnecessary.

Something to ponder over. Something to try and discern. He won't get hung up on it now.

At the request, his eyes flicker over her again, a frown on his lips. He debates sitting, debates taking up the bench beside her, but refrains again, for the moment. Mayhaps he will, in a bit, if he doesn't run her off first. )

I got them looking after your sister. They were worse, last I remember. I should be dead. Instead, I woke up in this shithole. If this is meant to be the afterlife, I know a good handful of septons who'll be shitting themselves soon enough.

( But he doubts that to actually be the case — after all, she's here. He chooses to operate under the assumption that she is not dead. )

[clothed]

I had thought it myself, that this is what lies beyond the embrace of the Stranger. [ it's true, sansa knows it true, not just because she woke up here in the same cold she had jumped into — she had wanted to be gone, free of ramsay's grasp in the truest way possible. ] I woke up in the snow and I saw Lady first thing.

You remember what happened to her, don't you? What Cersei had demanded done to her for something she hadn't done.

[ foreshadowing. a portent of what was to come, all those years ago. sansa watches her direwolf running at a distance, free to stretch her legs and always so grateful for it; she can feel lady in the back of her mind, a warm presence that nonetheless worries for her. she can't put into words how she knows, only that she does. lady worries, and sansa worries; they look out for each other.

this time, her her openness shutters just a little. ]

Arya. She was— is she— did you find her?

[dogmeats]

( He remembers what happened to her wolf. Remembers the curling of distaste he felt in his stomach, remembers turning his eyes away from the whole affair. Remembers running down the butcher's boy at their behest, and feeling absolutely nothing at all. Not his place to have an opinion on it, and better not to think on it, because thinking would bring him nothing good. He'd gone and gotten good and drunk after that whole fucking thing.

She makes a good point. The wolf was dead, and so how is the wolf here? A compelling case for the afterlife, though he doesn't remember whether or not wolves were meant to be included in that. Doesn't explain why his leg is a mess, why he still feels pain, but more importantly: in what fucking reality does he wind up in the same afterlife as Sansa fucking Stark?

He ought to be burning hot in one of the seven hells, and they all know it. It doesn't make enough sense for him to subscribe to the theory. )

Aye. Traveled with her for a year, thereabouts. Took her to the Twins right on time to see the whole damn wedding party slaughtered. Took her to the Vale, right on time to find out your aunt was dead. Started running out of places to take her after that, because your family can't go a single fucking season without getting themselves killed.

[clothed]

[ he took arya to the twins and witnessed— oh. oh, robb. her poor brother. she mourns him as much as she mourns his stupidity; did he truly think the freys would have allowed him to break his oath without making him pay? she loathes the betrayal deeply, she curses the walder frey in her mind to this day, but robb could have been smarter. he could have been more careful. he didn't need to die, just as mother hadn't needed to die, and arya–

had she seen it? had she seen how they took robb's head and tore grey wind's own? she would weep, but she's cried enough. she had given all the tears she has left to jon, who had died and confessed it to her.

she can handle this. sansa breathes in the sharp winter air and lets it pierce her lungs; the pain is a reminder. ]

I had fled the Eyrie by then. I was there but not for too long, and after Aunt Lysa had died it was too dangerous for me to stay, even if the Lords of the Vale knew who I was. Lord Baelish had his designs.

[ had they meant to head north? good that they didn't, then. ]

Thank you. Truly, I thank you for watching over her like you'd looked out for me.

[ you give us a kindness when others have turned us away — and you say you're not a knight. ]

Will you sit, please? For me?

[dogmeats]

( There's a visible discomfort in him at her gratitude, expressed in the way he seems to roll his eyes, to scoff in quiet disdain — he is not a man who knows how to receive praise well. He's hardly ever gotten it in his life, and the few times he has haven't been under good circumstances.

At her request, he raises the axe he'd been leaning on. One solid thunk has it sinking into the chopping block, firmly wedged and off the ground. And then he concedes, moving toward the bench with more gentleness and grace than a man his size ought to be capable of.

He settles in with his back sloping forward, with his elbows on his knees and hands gently clasped between them. With hair, as always, falling to cover the uglier side of his face, even though it's turned away from her.

Everything about him seems to read: There, now. He's done what you've asked, will you shut the fuck up about it already? )

The girl's not dead, if that's what you're worried about. She's a killer. She's quick. She'll be fine. If you've not heard news of her, it means she's being smart.

[clothed]

[ is it? is it truly smart? sansa supposes it is; if no one knows who or where arya is, then no one can rightly cage or use her for their own purposes. but names have power too, especially in the seven kingdoms, and arya could do with some of the protection her stark name would afford her.

would it be good for her? sansa had relied on her name for safety until it had turned jagged and piercing, causing her more damage than if she maintained the illusion of being a whoremaster's bastard child. it was her name that put her in joffrey's way. it was her name that had placed her in ramsay bolton's hands.

sansa nods with more sincerity than she truly feels. ]

Arya's always been clever. She would know what to do, as long as she had the opportunity.

[ clever little arya, all strange and boyish and stubborn. if she's still alive, then she would have a better time amongst smallfolk than sansa ever will.

she turns her gaze sidelong, looking at the hound's profile with open wonder. not because of the scars; she's long forgotten to fear scars, now that she's littered with her own collection. no, she's finally getting a proper look of him under true sunlight, without the reflective glare of hammered armour covering his shape. ]

You've gotten wan, just a little. [ sansa wants to reach out to him, to hold his hand, but she worries the gesture would not be so welcome this soon. she sets the basket between them, letting it serve a barrier however flimsy. sansa thinks it's for their benefit, this illusion of space. ] Where are you staying currently? You really should not let your leg be unattended.

[dogmeats]

( Wan she says; he turns to level her with an incredulous look. Once upon a time she hardly had the courage to talk to him, now she's sitting here calling him fucking wan without batting an eyelash? He snorts loudly, shaking his head — but after a moment, if she looks closely, she might see just a hint of amusement hidden under the snarky attitude. )

Well, you really know how to flatter a man, don't you?

( Wan. For fuck's sake. Never mind it, anyway. His ego can withstand the observation. He's doing better than he was a few weeks ago, and that's good enough. Even the festering wound at his sword-arm that got him ultimately bested by a woman has mostly healed up by now. )

I'm at the hall, at least until this damn thing's better. ( He kneads absently at his thigh. ) After that, I'll find somewhere quieter. Some place with fewer twats roaming around all the time.

( A beat, and then he tacks on: )

Not that it's any of your business.

( Lest she get the impression that he appreciates her concern. Obviously. )

[northerndragon]

That's what you said about Rickon then. But I tried to save him. I did what I could.

[He shakes his head, remembering his young brother dying at his feet. He had tried so hard, made the horse run at its fullest gallop. He would never have been fast enough. There would always have been an arrow for Rickon, always at Jon's feet.

But when he hears what Sansa is saying, his eyes grow a little more wild, and he shakes his head harder.]

No. Bran is lost to us. Bran went north of the Wall. My friend Sam, Samwell Tarly, he met him at the Nightfort, where he crossed. He was traveling with a boy and a girl, and Hodor, and Summer. Sam said he gave them dragonglass for protection, but that was years ago, back before Robb died, and a little bit of dragonglass would never have been enough for their little group. Nothing can live there, not with the White Walkers. Wherever Bran is... he is dead, or he isn't Bran anymore.

I'm sorry.