BEING REWRITTEN To Close a Ring of Steel - To Knot A Crown Of Flowers

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/49384234.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Categories: F/M, Gen
Fandoms: Game of Thrones (TV), A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark, Tormund Giantsbane/Brienne of Tarth, Catelyn
Tully Stark/Ned Stark
Characters: Ned Stark, Catelyn Tully Stark, Sansa Stark, Jon Snow, Ghost | Jon
Snow's Direwolf, Arya Stark, Brienne of Tarth, Tormund Giantsbane,
Robb Stark, Bran Stark, Rickon Stark
Additional Tags: Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, Other Additional Tags to Be Added,
Resurrection, Married Jon Snow/Sansa Stark, Sansa Stark is Queen in the
North, Jon Snow is a Targaryen, R Plus L Equals J | Lyanna Stark and
Rhaegar Targaryen are Jon Snow's Parents, Jon Snow is King-Beyond-
the-Wall, Parent Jon Snow, Parent Sansa Stark, Parent Arya Stark, Past
Gendry/Arya Stark, Past Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth, Past Jon
Snow/Daenerys Targaryen, excessive amounts of dogs, Post-Canon,
BAMF Sansa Stark, Dark Sansa Stark, just a bit, as a treat, Protective
Sansa Stark, Protective Jon Snow, The North is Independent (A Song of
Ice and Fire), Catelyn Tully Stark Lives, Ned Stark Lives, Robb Stark
Lives, Rickon Stark Lives, Jon Snow is King in the North, implied past
child death, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, When Applicable,
Sansa's out here feeding people to her dogs again, Mental Health Issues,
Canon-Typical Violence, Non-Linear Narrative, implied/referenced
miscarriage/infant death, Tags Contain Spoilers
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2023-08-15 Updated: 2023-09-20 Words: 18,673 Chapters:
5/?
 BEING REWRITTEN To Close a Ring of Steel - To Knot A Crown
Of Flowers
by TheLilyWard

Summary

TO BE REWRITTEN AND POSTED UNDER NEW STORY WITH SAME NAME

They said that the Starks were bound to the North in blood, a tie that pulsed like a beating
heart between them and something truly old, truly powerful.

And then it brought them back from the dead, brought them back to the last moment they
stood in Winterfell and breathed its air.

It brought the wolves home once more.

...

A series of moments set in the twenty years following the death of the Night King. When the
dead come home, when packs clash, and when the world continues on despite it feeling like
the strangest of dreams.

...
 Winter, 319

ONE

NED

WINTER, 319 AC

He found himself seeking the quiet more often than he ever did before.

Grief was a heavy snow upon the roof of his soul, weighing him down, making it hard to
breathe. To sit still too long made him feel like he might die, so he stood, walked, paced until
he could fall asleep without thinking about Rickon, about Cat, about his sister. When he
awoke, he paced again, walked and walked until it was time to break his fast with the family.

The sky spoke of snow, the wind bone-chilling as it slipped through the gates of Winterfell. It
chased him all the way to the stables, close at his heel like a hunting hound, nipping and
vicious. The stables were a bit warmer, the air heavy with hay and dung and horse. There was
a forgotten overcoat hanging on a hook, barn kittens asleep in the pockets and torn lining.
Their mothers watched him with half-lidded eyes in the rafters, tracked his quiet steps down
the halls. He hadn’t been in here this early in the day, when the horses were still waiting to go
to pasture and the stable boys were still in their beds, so he wasn’t expecting the angry shriek
from inside a stall halfway down the hall. He stumbled back a bit at the furious sound, the
antsy footsteps within the stall heavy and frantic.

“Hush,” He shushed the beast, easily twice the size of the other horses, wide-eyed and tense
as it danced back and forth, “It’s alright now, boy.”

It was a massive beast, twice the size of every other present, and there was a wild look in its
eye that makes Ned wonder if it even had a master. Who could calm a creature so angry? He
tried to soothe it again, shushing and humming, but it would accept none of it. It snapped at
him like a feral dog, steam billowing from its nostrils into the cold air and teeth striking at the
empty air where his hand had been extended.
The wild eyes met some point behind Ned and the dancing stopped, stilled. Ned thought to
reach out again, to use this moment of calm to soothe, but before he could lift his arm, a
voice rang out.

“Careful there, he bites.”

Ned turned on his heel, hand dropping to the hilt of the sword on his side. Kit stood there
behind him, silent-footed and draped in a dark blue cloak with a hood. In the shadows, he’d
barely be able to see her. Her wolf was at her side, black as night, its eyes two glittering stars
in the darkness. They watched him with suspicion.

“Is he yours?” He asked as she drew closer, passing him by to reach out to the horse. It didn’t
go happily into her hand, but it didn’t take her fingers either. She ran a hand over its night-
black neck, her head barely reaching the top of the hulking beast’s leg.

“In a way. I don’t think he’d allow anyone to own him. Stranger’s too stubborn for that.”

Catelyn would hate that name for its blasphemy, he thought, even though thinking of Catelyn
hurt. She was still angry to the point that his letters went unanswered. Angry enough that he
wondered if she’d ever happily come north of the Neck again or if he’d be cursed to go south,
to meet her in some strange retelling of their wedding.

“He just lets me near him because he’s lonely.” The girl said, filled the silence and then let it
fall heavy around them again. The horse, Stranger , Death, did not snap at her fingers, did not
seek bloodshed from a maid of three and ten. It sought her attention, pretended not to preen
beneath her kind petting. Lonely, he could see it then, lonely and angry and afraid like a man
home from battle and no longer recognizing the world as it was before.

When Ned shifted his weight, the horse glared at him, resting its heavy snout on the girl’s
head. She giggled, sounding like bells, and there was no fear to be found.
“See,” she said, a joking lift to her voice as she caught her fingers in the tangle of raven-black
mane, “Harmless as a lamb.”

There was a snort then, behind him. He began to wonder if he was losing his ability to notice
an enemy approach. Or maybe his body just knew the steps of his children in a way that he
couldn’t even explain.

Arya slipped past him, mirrored her daughter in every movement, ran a hand over the horse’s
huffing snout.

“I saw him bite a man’s ear off, once. Did I tell you that?”

“You did.” Kit rubbed her face into the horse’s neck like it was some beloved dog or
complacent cow.

Her wolf, Storm, watched with star-glimmering eyes. Arya’s voice dropped down into
something like remembering.

“He tried to kick or bite me more than once, but then he stopped. He knew about you
somehow, I should have known you’d make him a lamb then and there.”

Ned felt almost invisible, blended in with the walls and the horses as Arya spoke in those
quiet tones to her daughter. He had blinked and woke up to a world where his girl of eleven
was suddenly a mother, a hand to a queen, a sword on her belt and a three-headed wolf pin on
her doublet.

The horse nipped at Arya’s shoulder, far more gently than Ned could have anticipated.

“I didn’t bring you anything, you spoiled oaf.”

Stranger snorted, steam billowing, and then he nipped at her again, more insistent. She rolled
her eyes, stepping out of the stall as she spoke
“Take him out to pasture,” she said to her daughter, “I’ll see you at breakfast.”

She met her father’s eyes when she turned, Kit’s wolf trotting between them to return to its
mistress as she led the angry beast out to the yard.

“Shall we?” He offered his arm, thinking for a moment she might decline and hoping she
wouldn’t.

Her little arm looped in his, warm against the wind, and they walked back to the keep
together.

...

The wolves came home .

The words were written in an almost gruesomely-red paint upon the stone wall. Beneath it,
banners hung, torn and half-burned. Bolton, Frey, Baelish, Stout, Glover, Targaryen. It was a
sobering sight, but the other wall was worse in a way, declaring The North Remembers and
draped in the banners of the houses that they lost. Even southerners have made their way onto
this wall, the hounds of House Clegane hanging prominent amongst Karstark and Umber as if
they’d been neighbors all their lives.

There were blue-coated hounds that match the banner too, trailing after his daughter, the
Queen , bounding like puppies despite the grey-white fur that danced on their ears and
snouts. A wolf too, Ghost’s son, according to Kit. The girl had taken to trailing after Ned,
watching him with those grey Stark eyes. Her pup too, dark as night, the everpresent shadow
of his shadow. Sansa and Jon’s children have wolves too, red and black and white and grey,
with sturdy collars that have a looping handhold.

“They’re sturdy beasts,” Kit had told him, “Should anything happen, they’ll carry the little
ones away on their backs. They know the way.”
The way she said it, so casually, as commonplace as the narrow sword on her hip at the
tender age of three-and-ten, sat heavy in his chest. Lady Joanna, the Master at Arms’
daughter, appeared at the tail end of her words, a brindle-coated hound pup trailing after her
with a hambone drooled upon and hanging from its jaws, tall and willowy and golden. She
looped her arm in Kit’s, their pups tussling over the bone on the floor, a flurry of snapping
jaws and snarling teeth.

There was a sword on her hip too, he noticed, the grip wrapped in a length of Tully-blue
fabric that matched the ribbon around her dog’s neck. There were so many names to
remember that it almost physically pained him, dogs and children and new bannermen who
weren’t even born before he blinked awake in this new world.

Joanna brought them to the yard, her arm still looped through Kit’s, heads bowed together to
whisper and laugh. Her dog, the brindle-coated one with brown eyes, watches him, sniffed at
him as if he could tell that Ned was never supposed to be here. Not in the pup’s lifetime. And
yet, he was, and he wondered if he’d ever feel like he belonged again.

Oh Cat, he thought to himself, watching Jon and Tormund spar in the yard, Why did you have
to do it? You could have stayed. We wouldn’t be alone and apart from each other.

His chest ached, feet caught between the call of the North and the song of his weary heart that
dragged him south, south, south, until there was riverwater at his feet and his wife in his
arms.

Sansa appeared behind him like a ghost in the yard, whisper-quiet, her presence alerted by
Lyanna who abandoned watching the fight to gasp Mother! And fold herself into her arms.

Her pale hair shined in the light against her mother’s dawn-grey dress, Sansa’s hand
rhythmically stroking through it and ridding it of tangles with her fingertips.

It was these moments that pulled him to try and see all the layers to her, to the girl who
pleaded for his life and was now a Queen, a wife, a mother, unmoved and sturdy as an oak.
Cold as ice, he thought the bannermen weren’t wrong to call her the Queen of Winter, the Ice
Queen, the Frozen Lady, and then one of her children would slip past the defense, sinking
into the warmth she afforded no one else but her babes and her husband. Those icy eyes, once
so innocent and bright, warm now to the touch of her snow-haired girl. It was undeniable,
even to Cat, to see the girl borne from Sansa’s body and know her birthright lay with dragons
even as their banner hung with the broken and defeated. She almost hadn’t believed him
about Jon, about Rhaegar, and then she saw the girl, scarf up around her hair slipping away
with a playful tug from Joanna’s father, Tormund, to reveal the paleness of it in the morning
sun. Purple-eyed too, more so than her other siblings whose eyes shone violet in the sun
instead of the cool blue-grey of winter and river.

Sansa caught him watching, eyes darting to meet him, to lower to the girl, to rejoin watching
the fight, and when he looked back Lyanna was speaking softly to her mother, holding one of
her hands, and there was a sternness to the Queen then.

Kit was at her side then, some unspoken order between them, holding Lyanna's hand and
walking quietly up into the keep where he saw Arya standing at the railing. The sight makes
his chest ache for Rickon, cruelly not returned with them, and Bran, so very far south, so very
different according to Jon. Gone was the boy who climbed and fell and nearly died, now
there was a raven who saw too much and lived almost too little despite being King.

A handful of pups ran past him then, trailing after their little masters, already as tall as Ned’s
waist, and he wondered if he’d ever get used to the sheer amount of dogs around. His
children had had their wolves, yes, but now Sansa has her three hounds and a wolf, and Jon
has Ghost still. There’s the five wolves trailing after Sansa and Jon’s children, a sixth soon to
join them for the half-year babe in the nursery. Arya had no wolf, but her daughter had Storm
and the Master of Arms’ four children have hulking hounds with light coats, blonde and
brindle and red. In a castle overflowing with loyal hounds, he couldn’t help but notice the
grief and envy in Robb’s blue eyes that came from Grey Wind’s absence.

There was a harsh bark of laughter on the training ground that dragged him back, that turned
his head from his daughters and granddaughters, made him laugh too to see the hulking
Tormund pushing Jon’s face into the mud. Jon retaliated with a handful of the sludge to
Tormund’s hair, matting it down into a mess of twig and dirt and red.

He thought he might have heard Sansa laugh just a little behind him, but when he looked, her
face was just as impassive as ever.

Oh Cat, he thought again, what happened to us?

His eyes burned a bit as he tried to watch the fight, tried to not look at his daughter again.

But even more, Cat, he could have wept, what happened to them?
 Spring, 307 - Summer, 315 - Summer, 319
Chapter Summary

There would be no civil war, there would be no unrest, she would not allow it.

There were two packs in Winterfell.

Sansa would protect her own.

...

In the past, Minisa is born, an execution takes place at a tourney, and the reason for
Catelyn going south is revealed.

Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

TWO

JON

SPRING, 307 AC

Minisa Stark was born in the afternoon of the first truly warm day in two years, squalling and
red and angry.

They rang the bells all over the North in celebration of her birth as Sansa laid in bed with her
daughter. Brienne was there, Arya too, and Tormund and Jon appeared when they were
allowed in. She looked just as Sansa had predicated, kissed by the fire and sweet as sugar.
She fit in one of Tormund’s meaty hands and he called her Little One, said he couldn’t call
her by her name until she was two summers old, for that was the Free Folk way. He did the
same for Joanna, for Catelyn, bringing in the colors of their hair when it could be confusing
to know which he spoke of. The Little Sunlight, he said, the Little Wolf.

Jon felt a new kind of love holding Minisa for the first time, fresh from the womb and
knowing nothing but warmth and safety. It brought tears to his eyes, that realization, brought
a tightness to his chest that only worsened when he put his lips to Sansa’s forehead as he
returned the babe to her.

He’d gone into the Godswood when they’d told him her labors had started, gone to his knees
in the melting snow and the mud and prayed for a long, long time. Then he’d gone to the
little sept that he had never worshiped in and lit candles before the Mother, before the
Warrior, before the Father.

After Minisa arrived, he went back to both, gave thanks, lit more candles, adding to the
Smith, the Maiden, the Crone. Gave a nod of respect to the veiled figure of the Stranger. Last,
he went down into the crypts, still bearing the scars of the longest night upon its walls, and
knelt before the resting place of his mother. A wilted winter rose laid in her outstretched
hand.

He asked her for guidance, for strength, for clarity, and it was easy to forget that she died
younger than he was now. Younger than Sansa, than Arya. Closer to little Lyanna Mormont,
so much strength and dignity in a little body. A body now ash, ash taken back and buried at
Bear Island. Maybe she wouldn’t be ash, he thought then, if he’d been wiser. If he’d loved
less. If he hadn’t bent the knee, maybe she wouldn’t be ash, or maybe they all would be blue-
eyed in death. A thousand and one decisions, looping back and back in careless spirals to the
moment that Rhaegar stole Lyanna away and sparked the end of all things.

Jon kissed the stone fingertips of his lady mother then, bowed his head to her cracked stone
visage, and left her behind in the warmth and the depths of the earth.

He went upstairs, knocked on the door guarded by the wildling women, found his Queen
there. Abed with Minisa, named after Lady Catelyn’s mother, red hair falling around her
shoulders like sheets of copper and fire. The babe was at her chest, asleep, red fuzz blurring
and blending with the copper.

He wondered if she knew she looked like the Mother reborn, he wondered if he could bear to
say it, or if it would stumble off his tongue.

Arya trailed in behind him, Baby Cat cooing against her chest and unceremoniously
deposited in his arms so she could build up the fire. Born of wolves, they said of the newest
Stark babes, but Jon knew better, Cat was a blacksmith’s babe. A bastard blacksmith turned
Lord of Storm’s End. Arya refused to speak of it.

Someone called the little wolf a filthy bastard, Tormund told him over goats milk on Jon’s
second night back from exile, and now he knows better.

What did you do? Jon had asked, mind already a bit blurry from the drink.

I didn't, Tormund grinned, the little Queen took his little finger off and sent him home to
think.

...

JON

SUMMER, 315 AC

The courtyard of The Lady’s Rest was silent as the grave despite the crowd. The sun was
setting, dipping below the mountains and casting the plains in orange and blue. It could have
been beautiful, it should have been beautiful, they should be crowning the Queen of Love and
Beauty instead of holding an execution.

The barriers for the jousts had been removed but the ground was still torn from the horses’
path. Thankfully, someone had thought enough to shovel most of the dung that had littered
the arena the day before so the smell wasn’t as bad. Jon’s hands trembled upon the balcony,
around the corner where he couldn't be seen by the crowd, fingers white-knuckled around the
railing, and a heavy hand fell upon his shoulder. Tormund was there, he knew without seeing,
the familiar steady presence at his side would always be his loyal friend.

“The children?” Jon felt like he couldn't breathe even as he spoke, the words strangling him
on the way out.
“Headed home. Jo and Kit refused to leave.”

“They shouldn’t see this.”

Tormund looked like he'd aged twenty years, "We can't protect them forever, but we do what
we can. They shouldn't see this, but they will, and that is their choice."

He paused.

“Minisa tried to stay too, but I told her Lyanna needed her.”

Jon wanted to sink to his knees and weep but Tormund’s hand kept him standing as the door
behind them opened. Sansa’s face was pale and drawn, etched in suffering, and Brienne’s arm
around her waist kept her standing. Jo and Kit were hand in hand behind her, faces streaked
with tears. Jon took his wife’s face in his hands, drew her into his chest and arms as if he
could protect her from this. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jo and Kit go into Tormund’s
arms, burying into the dark furs that covered his broad chest. Brienne put a hand on her
daughter’s golden head, her eyes never leaving her Queen.

Sansa pulled back, looped her arm in his as if their hearts weren’t dying together, as if it was
easy to stand, to not buckle beneath the weight of it all.

“Osric, Rodrick, Beron, to me.” Her voice was raw, broken and harsh and exhausted.

The blue hounds trotted faithfully at her heels. Storm followed too, at its mistress’ side.
Ghost was with the other children and for a moment Jon wanted to flee away into him, let his
eyes open to see his children and comfort them, but he could not. He was needed here,
despite how difficult it was, he must stay.

They descended the stairs slowly, Sansa’s hand looking bloodless as it held tight to his arm.
Her dress was black, high-necked and draping sleeves. It made her look even more deathly
pale than she already was.
The crowds parted for them without word, some bowing fully, some bowing their heads.
Some were crying. Their eyes never left their Queen. Two men and a woman sat chained in
the middle of the arena. Who could have thought yesterday as the horses raced back and forth
that three would die for treason beneath their feet the next day?

Arya was speaking, voice filled with fury, but Jon could not hear her. His heartbeat rang in
his ears like a war drum. Sansa sucked in air next to him, pained, and he held her closer as if
that would take the agony from her. It wouldn’t, he knew that, but he would die to spare her
this pain if he could. Oh, how he wished he could.

He glanced at Tormund, at the girls, gave him a look. His old friend nodded solemnly, he
understood. His hands settled on the girls’ shoulders, prepared to turn them away from the
execution.

“In the name of Sansa of House Stark, the first of her name, the Queen in the North, and of
her husband, Jon of House Targaryen, the King Beyond-the-Wall and the Warden of the
North, I, Arya of House Stark, Hand of the Queen, sentence you to die.”

Arya looked over, met his eyes, met Sansa’s. The courtyard was silent, and then Sansa’s
voice rang out.

“Angōtōs,” She said, and the dogs descended upon the traitors.

Tormund turned the girls away, pushed their faces into his chest once more, and held them
there. Jon wished he could look away, but he couldn't, watching and listening as the dying
screams went on and on.

There was not another sound in the courtyard but them. No one called for mercy. No one
called for a block or a noose.

Is it enough? Jon asked himself as the first man finally had his throat ripped out, Could it
ever be enough?
Sansa sucked in another pained breath next to him. He thought the agony might end him.

No, he knew, it cannot.

...

SANSA

SUMMER, 319 AC

Silence fell upon Lord Manderly’s exit.

Sansa stood before the fire in her solar, watching the flickering flames as if they would
provide her guidance and wisdom.

Arms banded around her waist then, gentle and strong and familiar, and Jon’s nose tucked
into the space where her shoulder and neck met. She leaned back into his chest and swayed
with him, letting her eyes fall shut.

“Come back to bed,” He murmured, “We’ll deal with it in the morning.”

For a moment she considered it, thought of laying on his chest, maybe drawing him into her
arms and kissing him until she forgot, but then she shook her head. He sighed against her
neck.

“The babe will need feeding,” She said, instead.

“That’s what the wet nurse is for.”

She shook her head again, more urgently, “No, I need to see him.”

Jon’s arms loosened around her in understanding as he nodded against her skin, “Alright.”

She kissed him before she went, slipped her fingers through the hair at the base of his neck,
felt the scratch of his beard on her cheeks and smiled against it. His hands were soft on her,
cradling, as if he thought his gentle touch would keep her here even as her body called out for
her child. Called to feel his tiny hummingbird heart beating, to watch the rise and fall of his
chest, the way his lips pursed when he’d drank his fill.

“Valarr,” She did not even have to look to know the wolf was rising from his place by the
armchair, “To me.”

Another cloak thrown over her robe, they stepped out of the warmth and comfort of the
Lord’s Solar. Valarr nosed at her hand as they walked, insistent, until she buried her fingers
into the dense fur of his neck and scratched behind his ears. He preened, bumping into her
legs and making her roll his eyes. Osric, Rodrick, and Beron lay before the roaring fireplace
of the sitting room that connected the Lord’s Quarters to the rest of the family’s rooms. Osric
lifted his head to watch them walk as Rodrick and Beron simply let their eyes slip open to
track before they drifted back into sleep.

Before she went up the winding staircase to the children’s floor, she opened the door to the
hall a crack to give the guard instruction for the wet nurse when she appeared for the next
feeding. The children’s floor was quiet and dark when she arrived at the top of the stairs, the
fire in the sitting room glowing softly with barely alive embers. The curtains were open,
barely any moonlight pouring in and casting the corners of the room in long shadows.

The nursery was even quieter, a candle quickly lit and banishing the darkness. Her son
startled lightly at the sound of the door, letting out his hungry little grunts. He was her
lightest sleeper, such a change to adjust to after Ygritte and Lyarra could sleep through
anything. He fussed in her arms, eager and hungry, and she took a seat in her rocking chair
and unlaced her shift to bring him to her breast. The babe ate greedily, noisily to the point
that it almost made her laugh. Eddy had been the same way, though more sullen, more
demanding. Sandor was a sweet babe, more like Minisa in temperament, sweet and quiet and
sleepy.
“I’m sorry you haven’t had the best of me,” she murmured, “I haven’t been myself.”

His sweet grey eyes watched her half-lidded. Valarr slumped against her legs, impeding her
rocking, but she couldn’t find it in her to be bothered by that.

“Someday, I’ll tell you how the dead rose on the day of your birth, how your life struck the
spark that called out to the old gods.”

She ran her free hand over his chubby cheek, rosy and soft, “and someday I’ll be better.”

The door creaked.

“So it's true, then?” Arya’s voice floated in the darkness, the candlelight cut shadows in her
face, making her eyes even more difficult to read than in the daylight.

“Do you ever sleep?” Sansa shifted the babe, leaning farther back into the chair. She didn’t
bother to cover herself, Arya had been there when he was born, she’d seen far more and
worse than the top of her breast.

“No,” Arya replied, sounding almost impatient as she crossed the floor to stand before the
candle, watching the flame flicker and wave, “Not lately. Then again, neither do you.”

How could they? They were haunted by the people who came back and the memories they
didn’t share with them. How many times had Arya crawled into Sansa’s side of the bed like
they were children again in the weeks after they appeared? How many times had they held
each other and cried in the dark after their lives caught up to them in their sleep?

They sewed Grey Wind’s head onto his body, Arya had said, sounding so much younger in the
dark, they paraded his body around and mocked him.
I saw it, Arya had whispered, and then Sandor took me away so I didn’t have to see it
anymore. But I do. I always do.

“ It’s true, then, isn’t it? Lord Manderly says that our mother is plotting treason against us?”

Cursed be the one who aspires to stand between the Starks, someone had said at her wedding
feast, the third one, the best one, And blessed are those who hold their oaths of fealty in the
highest regard.

“Yes,” Sansa paused, a wave of exhaustion washing over her, “She is.”

“What are we going to do about it, then?”

Sansa wanted so very badly to sleep in that moment, to close her eyes and believe all was
normal. That her mother had not betrayed her like this. Maybe she should have stayed with
Jon, let him take her back to bed.

“I’ve taken men’s fingers for less.”

Arya snorted. She still remembered when that Lord had called Kit a filthy bastard,
remembered the way the knife had flashed in the light before it took his finger off, a clean cut
straight through. He’d wailed louder than a babe.

“You’ll have to do something, take a finger, put her in a cell, something . Rumor will spread
like wildfire and even if she can’t find enough support for Robb’s claim it could still cause
issues. She could tear the North in half and then where will we be? Fighting another war?”

Anger licked like fire in her bones. They’d fought so long, lost so much. Brought rebellion to
its knees and cut down anyone who would threaten their children. What was birthright
against leading the North through the Long Night? What was birthright against unifying two
peoples who had been at odds for thousands of years?
 “We send her out of the North. We send her south before she can do any more than she
already has.”

Arya nodded solemnly, looking so much older than she was in the candlelight. Sansa looked
down at her son, traced her hand along Sandor’s rosy cheek again. There would be no civil
war, there would be no unrest, she would not allow it.

There were two packs in Winterfell.

Sansa would protect her own.

Chapter End Notes

(The Lady’s Keep is inspired by a tumblr post I saw once but can’t find anymore where
the Dreadfort, I believe, was named after Sansa’s direwolf following the war.)

The Lady’s Keep is located in the Dreadfort ruins. Following the Two Year Winter, the
ancient keep was torn down as a final payment for House Bolton’s crimes. Darvon
Hayard, a former cupbearer born in Wintertown, is Lord of the Lady’s Keep and was
granted it as a reward for his bravery and loyalty. He had acted at great risk to his life
and safety by smuggling Sansa moon tea during her marriage to Ramsey Bolton. A
marriage was arranged for him to Renei Snow, a trueborn second-cousin of Roose
Bolton who swore allegiance to House Stark and took on the last name of Snow before
her wedding to further distance herself from her former house. The Lady’s Keep hosts
the Northern Tourney, which takes place biennially as most of the Northern knights do
not make the journey to ones beyond the Neck.

The children we’ve met so far:

Joanna Giantsbane - 13 (golden hair and green-eyed)

Catelyn “Kit” Stark - 13 (dark hair and grey-eyed)
Minisa Stark - 11 (red hair and blue-eyed)
Eddard "Eddy" Stark - 10 (dark hair and grey-eyed)
Lyanna Stark - 8 (pale hair and purple-eyed)
Ygritte Stark - 5 (red hair and purple-eyed)
Lyarra Stark - 2 (dark hair and purple-eyed)
Sandor Stark - 0 (red hair and grey-eyed)
 Spring, 319
Chapter Summary

“There were people in the godswood,” Joanna said quietly, from behind Minisa, “They
seemed confused and they startled us. And then, one of them, the woman, she called
Min Sansa-”

"What?"

Chapter Notes

Thank you all for the lovely comments on the last chapter! I really appreciate your
support! A couple words of housekeeping before we get to the new chapter:

This is not a Catelyn bashing story. Some of you seem to think it is. I promise you, it is
not. There have been two scenes discussing Catelyn, one where Ned misses his wife, the
second where Arya and Sansa discuss what to do about something she has done, but we
do not know the exact content of the conversation they learned about, only Sansa and
Arya’s perception of it. Also by extension, Manderly's perspective on it. There is a lot
more going on behind the scenes and I have reasons for my decisions. I am not here to
mindlessly bash on the woman, I promise.

If you don't like the names I chose for the children, thats ok! If you can’t enjoy reading it
because of that, feel free to go! I have reasons for why I chose the names that we’ll get
to in time and have no intention of changing them.

Despite the fact that there’s no other fics on my profile, this is not my first rodeo posting
on ao3. But what if it was? I hope the commenters who were being critical aren’t doing
so anywhere else because stuff like that is a big reason why so many new writers on AO3
quit. I’m a big girl, I can take it, but it could crush someone new to AO3 and we have a
LOT of new people these days. You think I’ve never been mad about how a fic writer
characterized someone? Of course I have, that’s part of being in a fandom that has so
many different opinions and perspectives on characters. If I don’t like something, I
either move along in the fic, or I leave the fic altogether. No one wants critical
comments on AO3, this isn’t goodreads. Fandom communities that last and grow are
built stone by stone from people supporting each other, not tearing others down in the
comments.

Going forward, negativity in the comments will be deleted and ignored. The back button
is there to use, feel free to use it. AO3 is a community for transformative work and
sometimes you’re not going to like the way something has been transformed. This is a fic
that I write for fun and at the end of the day it’s not my job to beg you to like something
 or change myself so you stop arguing in my comments. I don’t get paid to write, I write
for myself and because I enjoy sharing my work. If you choose to stick around and see
what happens despite not liking my choices, thank you! I hope you enjoy the story
ahead!

Thank you again to everyone who've left supportive comments, kudos, subscriptions, and
bookmarks! Y'all are gems and I hope you enjoy the chapter ❤

See the end of the chapter for more notes

THREE

JON

SPRING, 319 AC

Strangely, it was the quickest of her births, as if the babe knew what the day would hold and
did not dare delay it.

Eddy had been her longest birth, a day and half of agony before he blessedly, finally , slipped
from her body, bloody and screaming. Minisa had been slow to birth too, her first babe, born
over a decade ago now, a long painful night before she emerged at noon.

This babe seemed to have no desire to linger.

Jon had barely made it, having grown accustomed to her other deliveries that took hours,
making his usual journey to the crypts and the Sept to light the candles before he went to the
Godswood to pray for her safety. After that, he always gathered up their youngest ones to kiss
her before they went to the nursemaids until the babe was born.

This time, he’d barely made it out of the Godswood before Tormund had him by the arm and
was near-throwing him up the stairwell. The babe came within ten minutes of his arrival,
kissed by the fire and furious.
A boy, the midwife had said, and he’d wiped the tears from Sansa’s cheeks, swept them off
the babe’s fuzz of hair. Arya had met his tear-filled eyes where she sat on Sansa’s other side,
her face a wide grin. Where he fussed and worried, Arya had always been the steady, still
presence that calmed them both. She’d been there when Minisa was born and she’d been
there for every birth after that. The difficult ones, the less difficult ones, and the ones that
terrified them, she’d witnessed every one.

She’d laughed at him when Lyanna was born, pale-haired and purple eyed from the moment
she drew breath. They’d thought her hair red for the briefest moment, but then the midwife
had wiped a damp cloth over her head to clean off the blood and the whole room had gone
still. And Arya had laughed, laughed hard enough she cried, and Sansa laughed too, softer,
the expression of shock in his eyes too much for them. Well, Sansa had said when he laid the
babe into her waiting arms, she’s definitely yours, my love, and Arya had laughed again
before Jon sent her away.

“Sandor,” Sansa said, once the midwife and Arya were gone, when it was just him still
lingering at her side, still in that haze of awe at the gift she had given him once again,
“Sandor Stark.”

He gave no opposition, nor did he desire to. She named every babe she bore, he’d always
thought it was the least he could do for all she endured for them, to not stand in the way of
her freedom in naming them. Though, that didn’t stop him from being slightly happy that
Arya’s Catelyn had been born before Sansa could bear a daughter, the daughter she had
named after her grandmother instead, Minisa, to keep at least one Tully name for herself.

“A good name,” He murmured against her hair, running his palm over the back of Sandor’s
head. It never failed to take the ground out from under his feet, the fact that their babes could
fit in his hands, feeling as small as sparrows atop his palms.

Some days he’d be standing in the training yard, or sitting at their table for breakfast, or
walking to the godswood to pray, and it would strike him once more. He had died, he had
come back, he had continued to live, and now he lived to protect what mattered most to him
in this world. His children, who clung to his arms and legs, who called him Father and Papa
and Da. His wife, who had blessed him again and again with not just their children, but her
unending love. Her trust, even when the world was against them and the path was unsteady.
It struck him now, again, that realization of living, as he watched her smile down at their son
at her breast. He had blue eyes, she told him, and he wondered if they’d stay that shade of
tully blue or if they would darken. Eddy’s had darkened to grey, but Ygritte’s softened to
purple. A northern lord had tried to call them blue, but she would have none of it, declaring
in all her five-year-old stubbornness that they were, in fact, lavender , and he should be aware
of that. Tormund had laughed so loud that he startled a serving girl, causing her to spill wine
on the unfortunate lord.

There was a knock at the door, hurried, thrice, and Jon glanced up at it. His brow creased
with concern, his thumb running over the babe’s head again before he stood from his chair
and crossed the floor.

...

SANSA

SPRING, 319 AC

Something was wrong, the feel of it in the air putting her on edge and cutting through the
haze of ache and babe.

Jon’s shoulders were set in a tense line, his eyes confused and filled with worry when he
returned to her side. His hand passed over their son again, a smile warming his expression
once more before he kissed her forehead and pulled away.

“What’s going on?”

He shook his head, “I don’t know, but I’m sure all is well. Minisa and Joanna are outside.”

Her brow furrowed, but he said no more, only kissing her once again and drawing away.
Longclaw was on his hip, as it always was, but its presence made her feel more wary than
before. Let there be no need for blood on the blade , she begged the gods silently, as Jon
watched her, waiting, not today, not on the day of our son’s birth.

“Let them in,” She murmured, ill at ease, the babe squirming restlessly in her arms as if he
knew too that something wasn’t quite right in the world.

Minisa’s face softened in relief the second their eyes met in the doorway, tears springing to
her eyes as she ran across the room and carefully, so very carefully , laid her head on her
mother’s shift-covered chest next to the babe. Her eldest had always had a soft heart, softened
even more by what the family had endured during her lifetime, and Sansa knew that the soft,
delicate heart held a vein of steel that someday would emerge. She just prayed that it wouldn't
take the suffering she had gone through, the suffering that had unearthed a spine of ice,
strongest when she was in the wilds of the North.

“Sit, my love,” Sansa hummed to her as she combed her fingers through the girl’s long, red
curls, “What has happened?”

She snuggled in deeper, Minisa’s hand coming up to gently brush the babe’s chubby cheek,
the wisps of hair on his head, red like her, his soft brow.

“There were people in the godswood,” Joanna said quietly, from behind Minisa, “They
seemed confused and they startled us. And then, one of them, the woman, she called Min
Sansa- ”

“What?” Sansa sat up then, at that, ignoring the aches of her body that begged her to lie back.
The movement pushed Minisa up and Joanna took the opportunity to hook her fingers in the
back of the girl’s dress and pull her gently into the chair that sat at Sansa’s bedside.

Before either girl could respond, the door flew open and banged against the wall. Joanna had
Blue Knight drawn and raised before Sansa could even draw in a breath, only to drop it
within a second at the sight of Kit.

“Kit,” Sansa let a warning tone coat her words, “You will not enter my rooms that way again.
Do you understand?”
The girl flushed, mumbling her apologies. On another day, Sansa would make her compose
herself and say them aloud. Today, she was too anxious to even bother. Her heart felt as
though she had run a race around the perimeter of the walls. The babe fussed again and she
ducked her head to soothe him with soft words and rocking. Kit sat down on the end of the
bed and Sansa was vaguely aware of Valarr hopping up on the bed next to her, lying down
and nuzzling against his mistress’ foot.

“Now,” Sansa said, once her youngest son had settled again, “Tell me everything.”

“Well,” Joanna said, “We were in the godswood, waiting to hear about the babe. We were
playing hide and seek in the trees and I heard Minisa scream for Da. I found her with him at
the edge of the woods-”

“The woman looked like you, Aunt Sansa.” Joanna glared at Kit for cutting in.

Sansa’s blood ran cold. Minisa’s face flickered with realization then too, “She did . And there
were two men as well, Mother. One of them, he looked a bit like Father-”

Valarr’s ears pricked where her lay, eyes watching over them. Sansa’s mind raced with a
thousand impossible possibilities.

But they weren’t so impossible, weren’t they? Had Jon not risen from the dead? Had his heart
not stopped? Had his heart not beaten again when it shouldn’t have?

But he was freshly gone then, it had been nearly twenty years now since-

Sansa was moving before she could even think, gently laying the babe in his sister’s arms,
“Stay with him, my love. Kit, Joanna, help me.”
She pushed back the blankets, climbing out of bed with a hiss at the pain the movement
provoked. Kit caught her at the elbow, holding her steady as she squeezed her eyes shut.

“A dress,” Sansa gasped, “A dark one, Jo. Quickly. Kit, my hair.”

She sat back down on the edge of the bed, Valarr nosing at her hand in concern as Kit
grabbed a hairbrush and smoothed the sweaty strands of hair back from Sansa’s forehead,
twisting two front pieces to form the crown that wrapped around. Joanna was there then, her
hands fumbling in her rush over the front-lacing of the dress. Sansa found her hands to be
surprisingly steady when she reached out to help, and then she was standing again with a
wince and the girls were slipping the dress onto her arms and around her front. Kit took over
at the front as Sansa sucked in a pained breath during an afterpain, her hand white knuckled
against the footboard of the bed frame.

“Kit,” She said when she could speak again, “Stay with them. Valarr , stay. Joanna, take my
arm and bring me to Jon.”

Joanna nodded, her face creased with worry, but she took her Queen’s arm, her other hand
falling to Blue Knight’s Tully-ribbon hilt. The two said nothing on the journey until Tormund
found them. His face fell into a scowl at the sight.

“You should be in bed. ” He took her other elbow in his large hand, the other going to her
back in a way that would have scandalized her as a younger woman, fingers curling into the
fabric to give her more stability as she stood.

She shook her head and he frowned even more. Joanna looked even more distressed then,
even if her father’s frustration wasn’t aimed at her. She craved his approval like Eddy craved
Jon’s.

“Where is he?”

Tormund sighed, “Up ahead. At least let me carry you.”

She shook her head, determined, but slumped slightly against his side as the exhaustion
washed over her again. She shouldn't be up, she should be in bed with the babe, should be
next to Jon or Minisa or Arya, their presence keeping her warm and grounded.

Tormund half-carried her the last dozen yards around the corner, and Brienne let out a
shocked exclamation when she caught sight of them. Her daughter stuttered out explanations
but Brienne’s eyes did not leave her Queen.

“Tell me,” Sansa said, sharply, her eyes burning, “Do you know them?”

Brienne’s face betrayed her, and Sansa surged forward, breaking away from Tormund and
Joanna. She ached as she moved past Brienne, taking hold of the door handle and pushing her
way into the room.

Her world went still. Her heart stopped.

Mother, Robb, her knees buckled, Father.

Jon was there before she could speak, a hand at her elbow and at the small of her back before
her knees even gave way. She sagged against him, her eyes greedily taking in her mother’s
red hair, Robb’s tully-blue eyes and auburn curls, her father’s kind, solemn face. The sob
caught in her throat. There was joy in her chest like a collection of butterflies, her heart felt
like it might burst from the feeling of it all. And cutting through it like a vein in marble,
shock , overwhelming shock .

“You should be in bed.” Jon was murmuring, though she couldn't focus on that.

“How?” She said instead.

“I don’t know.”
Robb was watching them strangely, she realized, all three of them were. She wondered if she
was paler than she should be, she felt lightheaded enough. Brienne brought a chair but Sansa
waved it away, looking more irritated than she actually felt and choosing instead to lean into
Jon’s hold even as he watched her in worry.

Father watched them with something akin to realization. The world spun within her chest.

“Father,” And she wanted to sob, “Is it truly you?”

There was no line on his neck, not like Jon’s deep scars, the ones he still felt aches in when
the morning chill found them. Not on her mother’s neck either. Nor was there blood on
Robb’s clothes. Spinning, spinning, spinning.

Her father’s eyes were compassionate and kind, warm as a hearth, and she knew it had to be
him. She knew those eyes.

“May the old gods be praised,” one of the younger spearwives said in the corner, unnoticed
by Sansa until then and uncaring of southerners protocols, “they have brought the wolves
home to the den.”

The words rang in Sansa’s bones like a strike from a hammer.

The wolves, she thought, faintly, as her blood ran cold once more, we’re missing one.

Rickon.

“Rickon?” She asked, voice cracking, and when she glanced up at Jon, his eyes were filled
with tears.

No, she wanted to weep, no, he deserved to grow up-

Little wolves deserved to grow up-

Her mother was weeping then. Everything caught up to Sansa in an instant, an iron fist
around her throat, and she thought she might be ill. She covered her mouth with her hand and
fled Jon’s arms, moving towards the door much slower than she wished, but he did not stop
her. Tormund caught her when she swayed from a pain in her belly in the hallway and when
he lifted her into his arms she did not argue with him.

The numbness crept in like a poison, a chill settling deep in her chest, and her sobs slowed to
near nothing as he tucked her into bed again. She faintly heard him send Kit to her mother as
Minisa curled up next to her beneath the furs. The babe lay on her chest, rooting around in his
hunger, and she nursed him with tears still fogging her vision. Her belly cramped furiously
and she tried not to gasp at the pains, not wanting to scare Minisa more than she was sure she
already had. Lyanna slipped in at some point, crawling into the bed, cuddling in and
surrounding her in warmth. Her pale-haired girl began to sing softly, running her hand up and
down her mother’s arm.

"The Father’s face is stern and strong, h e sits and judges right from wrong. He weighs our
lives, the short and long, and loves the little children."

Sansa let her eyes slip shut, head aching from her tears, and found some relief in the
darkness.

"...her gentle smile ends all strife, and she loves her little children..."

Let the little wolves grow, she half-prayed, half-dreamed into the darkness, Do not take any
more little wolves from this place and from us, I beg.

She could hear Valarr pacing restlessly at the door, back and forth, back and forth, but when
the door opened once more to admit Jon to the room, the wolf finally settled in by the hearth
with his littermates. Jon checked on the girls, brushing the tears from Minisa’s cheeks and
kissing her brow before Lyanna received the same treatment.
“Rest,” He murmured against Sansa’s forehead, shifting the furs to better cover her and the
babe on her chest, “They’re settled. Arya’s with them. The nursemaid has the little ones and
Eddy is with Galladon. They're safe, as are you.”

Her breath came to her in ugly, hitching gasps, and he soothed his hand over her hair until her
exhaustion finally pulled her away.

Rest, he murmured again and again, his hand warm on her forehead, I’ll be here when you
wake.

"The seven gods who made us all, are listening if we should call. So close your eyes, you
shall not fall, they see you, little children. Just close your eyes, you shall not fall, They see
you, little children..."

...

THE WOLF BOY

SPRING, 319 AC

The darkness was safe, he did not venture into the light.

The wolf boy made himself a nest in the trees, like a bird, like an owl, slipping down into the
damp ground once the sun had fallen below the mountains. He knew this place, knew where
the walls opened up to grant him entrance to the secret places, knew the nooks where he
could hide until the soldiers went by and it was safe to walk again. There were curtains,
heavy and velvet and thick, hanging on the windows. He’d crawl up into them when he was
afraid, cram himself into the windowsill, his panicked puffs of breath fogging up the window
panes.

The kitchen was always empty late into the night but still he was quiet and quick, never
taking more than could be explained. A couple of bites from the sliced ham that had been
 wrapped up and put into the ice stores to keep it fresh, one of the rolls, but no butter. The
butter was in the jar, it would be too noisy if he had to put it back in a rush. He hid what he
gathered in his pockets, only dipping into his stores when he’d reached the trees again and
tucked himself into the leaves. An owl again. It was safer to be an owl, it wasn’t safe to be a
wolf, not anymore.

There’d been others in the woods when he’d woken up, they’d frightened him. There was a
woman, she was crying. He thought he might have known her, but knowing didn't make her
safe. Two men too, and they had scared the Wolf Boy more, he’d trembled up in the tree
when he’d heard their voices. There’d been a scream in the woods, it’d made his breath
shudder in his chest. His vision had blurred with tears.

There’d been no more screaming after that, but the Wolf Boy knew.

This place wasn’t safe, even if it had been home once.

When the rains came, the Wolf Boy fled beneath the earth. A wolf and a boy had hidden
there, hadn’t they? He could be safe there, as safe as one could be.

Chapter End Notes

He lives!

Writing this one was like pulling teeth, not gonna lie. There were three separate drafts
for the scene with Robb, Catelyn, and Ned. One of those drafts had Sansa hugging them,
which I loved, but there was just something off with the vibes that I couldn't put my
finger on, so it got cut. Writing Sansa has been trickier than normal as I'm both having to
account for things that I haven’t revealed yet (like the summer of 315) while also
keeping her as recognizable as possible. There’s a lot of underlying mental health and
family dynamic issues to work around, but isn't that the fun in writing? Losing our
minds over all the little details to make a story work the way we envision?

Joanna and Kit are ladies-in-waiting to Sansa. Surprisingly in history ladies-in-waiting

could start as young as twelve, though in more recent history they've been much older.
Some girls would even join court as young as four in order to learn and prepare to
become a lady-in-waiting at the appropriate time. Ladies-in-waiting acted as
companions and secretaries for their queens, with duties such as keeping the monarch
updated with the activities and personal news from the court, care of the rooms and
belongings of the queen, secretarial work, managing servants, making purchases,
reading letters and other papers and replying on behalf of the queen, and discreetly
relaying messages in person when needed.

One of these days I'll finish writing Catelyn's POV for the arrival in the godswood,
hopefully soon, at the moment it's like pulling even worse teeth than this one.

...

*gasp* a new child appears! Time to update the list.

Joanna Giantsbane - 13 (golden hair and green-eyed)

Catelyn “Kit” Stark - 13 (dark hair and grey-eyed) - Wolf is Storm
Minisa Stark - 11 (red hair and blue-eyed)
Eddard "Eddy" Stark - 10 (dark hair and grey-eyed)
Galladon Giantsbane - 10 (red hair and blue-eyed)
Lyanna Stark - 8 (pale hair and purple-eyed)
Ygritte Stark - 5 (red hair and purple-eyed)
Lyarra Stark - 2 (dark hair and purple-eyed)
Sandor Stark - 0 (red hair and grey-eyed)
 Late Summer, 319 - Spring, 319
Chapter Summary

In which Robb reflects on how different things are and generally has a Rough Time
Emotionally + Ned and Jon visit the crypts and Ned learns something about the Starks.

Chapter Notes

Y’all want to know the thing I did not anticipate being so difficult about this fic? Ages.
at the end of this chapter I will be attempting to get all the birth years/seasons written
down as i aspire to never mention the ages in the actual text again if not needed. Still
need to go back to chapter one and fix where Ned says Cat is thirteen when im now
realizing…it's the end of that year. Its winter. She’d be fourteen if she was born the year
after The Battle of Winterfell. Head in hands. Bear with me in this struggle. This was
meant to be a casual fun project where I didn't have to think about these things and yet
here we are again.

Apologies for the delay, its been one of those decades.

As always, listen to the tags and I hope you enjoy the new chapter <3

See the end of the chapter for more notes

ROBB

LATE SUMMER, 319

Sometimes, it felt like a dream.

Unnerving and twisted, some nightmare version of Winterfell in a way that wasn’t frightning,
no, but unsettling. Like a half-awake haze. He’d been on his horse, passing under the ancient
gates, fearing for his father beneath a mask of anger, and then he blinked awake in the
godswood without even a breath between the two moments. His father had been there in the
woods, just as confused, his mother too. Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, his sisters were
grown women with children, his brother was no longer his brother but instead his cousin, and
decades had passed him by without even a goodbye. His baby brothers? One a King, the
other a corpse. Theon, a turncloak and tormented before dying a good man.
Not to mention Greywind…

Greywind’s absence felt like a knife to the heart, aching more and more every day. Ghost had
taken to trailing after him, maybe on Jon’s orders, nuzzling at his hand and laying his giant
snout on Robb’s lap.

Ghost wasn’t with him today, having slipped away to hover at his actual master’s side on the
other side of the courtyard.

Jon was surrounded by his children, a sight that Robb had begun to grow used to, but
sometimes it still struck him into speechlessness. Little Lyanna with her moonbeam hair was
the undeniable proof that everything his father had said was true. His mother had barely
believed it either, the truth burning away the pain of decades of a lie but tearing open new
wounds in the process. Robb did what he could to help her, but he felt overwhelmed too. He
needed someone to support him.

Maybe that’s why he’d agreed to go with Jon to the yearly Free Folk summit, once she’d left.
She didn’t need him on her way South, not that Sansa would let him go South anyways, from
what he’d heard of his last trip there. A trip he hadn’t even begun, but that had shaken the
foundation of the world beneath their feet.

You died, they said, You were murdered.

I didn't, he wanted to say, but couldn't, I wasn’t. I’m still here.

Arya had sensed his restlessness, had disguised him and snuck him out. With hair dyed dark
as Jon’s and his beard grown scruffy, he could be mistaken as any other Northman. The
taverns had been packed that evening, it felt strangely liberating to sneak into the crowds, to
drink ale without anyone looking at him. His sister had given him clothes fit for his disguise
and a sword that was nondescript, a hedgeknight’s cloak, and it served him far better than he
could have ever thought it would.
Too well, even.

There’d been singing in the tavern that night, the room filled with half-druken Northmen, and
the musician had stood on a table to toast the return of the Young Wolf. It had taken him a
moment to realize they were talking about him.

“The Butcher,” one of the drunks had yelled, “ sing us The Butcher!”

A cheer had gone up. The singer had laughed, setting his lyre down to begin a clapping
rhythm, and there’d been a chorus of slurring and drunken cheers as the song began. Arya
had told them that the Frey’s had gotten what they had deserved, she’d never given him a
name. Never a means.

One of the serving girls distracted him as the song began, her hand on his arm and her voice
so sweet as she asked him where he was from.

“-But the Butcher followed after them and chopped up for the pot-”

He had stilled.

“Old Walder Frey was slain that day! His sons were in the pot!”

He’d excused himself swiftly, gone outside to drag cold air into his lungs and try and figure
out what that was supposed to mean.

“Old Walder Frey was slain that day! And all his warriors too! So heed the warning that
you’ve heard

lest the Butcher comes for you!”

She’d been there, behind the tavern, wearing a man’s face. She’d peeled it off like an animal
skin from a carcass and he’d felt like he would vomit. He’d tried to convince himself it was
the ale that made him see such things.

I did it for you, she’d told him, as if that confession wouldn’t settle in his stomach like a
stone.

Let me wake up, he’d begged the gods, let me wake up from this.

They’d killed his little sister and left behind a woman in her corpse who could tell him that
she’d baked a man’s sons into a pie and fed it to him without blinking an eye-

Minisa ran by, the flash of her red hair startling him. She looked like Sansa, he’d thought she
was Sansa at first, in the woods. Even now, months later, his mother gone south and his eyes
slowly growing used to this new shade of Winterfell, he would still almost call out for his
little sister when he saw Minisa in the distance. Kit too, sometimes, but he remembered her
easier. Arya had never been that old.

He tracked Minisa’s run to Jon, found Sansa there too, placing their youngest babe in his
arms. From the distance, Robb saw a little hand flail up, reaching for Jon’s face, and the man
(the boy? The brother? The cousin, the goodbrother, the King Beyond the Wall, the Lord of
Winterfell-) smiled broadly, saying something to the babe that Robb couldn't hear before he
returned to Sansa’s arms.

Jon kissed her then, and Robb looked away.

He’d rarely seen them together in the beginning, Sansa had been in her lying-in period with
her newborn son while Jon had alternated between caring for the family, whether that was the
returned or his other children, and tending to matters of the North. Arya was there too,
swapping out with Jon so nothing was ever left unattended. When Sansa had finally left her
quarters with the new babe a few weeks later, it’d made the world ever stranger to him. Her
hair hung straight with pieces at the front pulled back to keep it out of her face or all in a
thick braid down her back. Gone were the elaborate styles of the south, the pins and braids
and ribbons that she’d cherished so. Her embroidery had refined with time, direwolves and
weirwoods on the cuffs of her wool dresses without a lion or stag to be found.
Her face, once so expressive and vibrant, was closed off to him. Withdrawn. An icy shield
that was slowly melting away now in the warmth of summer. She still wasn’t herself, he
feared he’d never see his little sister again in truth, but he could still love this woman in
between. Even if that meant seeing her and Jon together, which was still far too strange.

Not to mention nauseating.

He could still remember the moment his father had told his mother the truth, the way she
hadn’t believed it, the way Robb hadn’t believed it for a moment. But how could he not after
Sansa had leaned into Jon, fallen into his side with his hand on her waist when she’d seen
them alive? Sansa, who had lived in their mother’s shadow and image, desperate to avoid her
disapproval, would never lean into her bastard brother like that. Lyanna’s son , it still rang in
his ears sometimes, in the quiet when he looked at his once-brother, she made me promise-

Could he recognize anyone?

Arya was, well, Arya. Bran was a King who Jon told him wasn’t quite Bran at the end of the
day. His mother was half-destroyed with grief for Rickon and the world they’d known. His
father had a thousand lies and truths now blatant and clear upon his face, with an angry wife
and a new world where he was no longer the Lord of Winterfell. No longer the Warden of the
North.

“Robb.”

He turned, and Sansa was there. The babe wasn’t with her anymore, arms instead filled with a
mass of fur and cloth.

“Here,” She spoke again, shaking out the mass until it fell in the lines of a cloak. The leather
straps were stamped with the three crests of the Starks: the direwolf, the bleeding Weirwood,
and the three-headed wolf, “It may be summer still in the Gift, but the wind off the mountains
by the time you leave will be cold enough to bite.”
He was stunned, hesitating almost a moment too long before he reached out and took it. The
fur was soft against his hands and when he glanced back up at her he found her blue eyes
watching for his reaction.

“Thank you,” His throat hurt, he wasn’t sure why he felt like he was going to cry, “Sansa.”

“You’re welcome.” She smiled, a tiny, half-hidden thing, and then her face sobered and the
ice consumed all, “The Free Folk are a bit different so just follow Jon’s lead. Tormund might
laugh at questions but ask them anyways.”

Robb nodded, swinging the cloak around his shoulders and feeling the way it settled. The
weight was comforting. She began to turn, to walk away, but she stopped, glancing back at
him,“And Robb?”

He met her eyes again.

“Do your best to not get married by accident.”

“What?”

“Safe travels.”

She walked away without another word, leaving Robb to figure out whatever that was
supposed to mean.

NED

SPRING, 319

They stood in the crypts, shoulder to shoulder, looking upon the face and curly hair carved of
stone.
He couldn’t recognize his youngest in the pale visage, a boy so much taller and leaner than
when he last saw him. Jon lit a candle too, alongside him, prayed silently before the
flickering flame. To the old gods or the new, or maybe the Lord of Light they say brought Jon
back from the dead all those years ago, Ned wasn’t sure, but he knew he prayed.

They’d talked about Lyanna some, standing before her statue earlier. He’d told of her
childhood antics, her favorite games, her hiding places. Harrenhall, the Tower of Joy, the
moments in between that he could bear to speak into the darkness of the crypts.

When Jon finished praying, Ned touched the stone face of his son once more, the ache in his
chest an agony that no maester could touch. Then, they turned their back on the unseeing
stone eyes and walked away, towards the stairs. On their way out, Ned’s steps faltered when
Jon broke away to to go Lyanna once more, to light another of her candles and one closer to
the floor as well. Shadows flickered on the wall as Jon pressed his fingertips to his mouth and
then to the outstretched stone hand of his lady mother. Ned’s gaze dropped though, from
Lyanna’s stone face, cold in death, to the statue next to her that bore the other candle. He
hadn’t noticed it the first time they stood here, speaking of her, but the candle drew his eye to
the stone wolf.

It was a newer sculpture, devoid of cracks or wear in the stone, and so much smaller. In
Lyanna’s solemn shadow lay the stone wolf upon a slab, curled in a gentle circle. A handful
of half-melted candles rested around one of its stone paws, visited often and by many, and he
took a step closer as Jon’s hand dropped down, unthinking and routine, to brush over the
wolf’s pointed ear.

Theon Stark , it said on the slab, Prince of the North.

Jon was still in front of him, turned towards Ned, watching him with a clenched jaw and
wounded eyes.

Oh , Ned realized, We understand each other in this.

They didn’t speak as Ned took another step closer, using his free hand to sweep his cloak
behind him as he knelt and lit the candles. He found himself once again wondering who Jon
 had prayed to, if only to pray to the same for this other child, lost but not forgotten, absent
but so very loved.

“How old would he be now?” He found himself asking, voice sounding unnatural in the
haunting quiet.

Jon was still as his mother’s statue, solemn and tall. Ned found himself afraid to look, to meet
his eyes and bear the weight of the pain they shared.

He did not answer for a long, long time. When he did there was a gentle break to his voice, a
catch in his throat. Hands clenched into fists at his side, the firelight flickered across the
white-knuckled skin.

“Three,” Jon paused, jaw tight, “He’d be four in the summer.”

Chapter End Notes

👀 its all comin’ together now

Honestly not really feeling great about how these two scenes go together but to be fair,
its hard to place the crypt scene. Thought about having it be on its own at one point but
its just too short. Anyways, I hope that despite the awkward scene change you liked it!
Theon’s reveal was actually supposed to occur next chapter, with a plot beat involving
Catelyn and Sansa taking place in this one, but they got switched because I realized that
the upcoming scene really needs the knowledge of Theon’s existence to work how I
want it to.

We’ve got…a lot coming up and i'm looking forward to finally answering some
questions that have been lurking for a bit now. Mainly, what's going on with Catelyn.

not enough answers 👀

Though...I have a feeling the next chapter may leave you with even more questions and
we'll see

Thank you again for all the lovely comments and kudos, yall keep this story going <3

...
Historical note of the day!

Lying-in periods were part of a royal woman's pregnancy/postpartum confinement,

starting with bed rest before the birth and continuing for at least nine days after the birth.
The ideal number was 14-20 days, though some lying-in periods lasted up to two
months even if there weren't medical complications at the birth. It wasn't uncommon for
it to be a social time alongside a healing time for the new mother, with other women
bringing presents and tending to the baby and mother.

...

Now, the birth years. And we FINALLY have all the kids as ive added
Tormund/Brienne’s other kids who we havent seen yet for the sake of figuring out this
list! Bear with me. If you see any errors, please feel free to point them out.

Joanna Giantsbane - born Late Summer 306 (golden hair and green-eyed) 13 in SPRING
319

Catelyn “Kit” Stark - born Late Summer 306 (dark hair and grey-eyed) 13 in SPRING
319

Minisa Stark - born Spring 307 (red hair and blue-eyed) 11 in Chapter One’s SPRING
319

Eddard "Eddy" Stark - born Winter 308 (dark hair and grey-eyed) 10 in SPRING 319

Galladon Giantsbane - born Fall 308 (red hair and blue-eyed) 10 in SPRING 319

Lyanna Stark - born Summer 310 (pale hair and purple-eyed) 8 in SPRING 319

Ygritte Stark - born Fall 313(red hair and purple-eyed) 5 in SPRING 319

Lenra Giantsbane - born Fall 313 (red hair and blue eyed) 5 in SPRING 319

Theon Stark - born 315

Lyarra Stark - born Summer 317 (dark hair and purple-eyed) 1 in SPRING 319

Dryn Giantsbane - born Summer 317 (yellow-blond hair, blue eyes) 1 in SPRING 319

Sandor Stark - born Spring 319 (red hair and grey-eyed)

Speaking of Sandor, when I tell you I was s c r e a m i n g when someone in the

comments of chapter one or two said that Theon would have been a much better name
for him.

Anyways im just hoping no one takes the wheel on this plot and has another kid
somehow. I can't handle more math.
 Summer, 319 (Sansa)
Chapter Notes

Sorry about the delay! This chapter had a mind of its own. Thank you for 200 kudos and
nearly 5k hits!!! y'all are incredible

We're deep diving into Sansa’s mental state today, so as always, mind the tags. This
chapter takes place the morning after Arya and Sansa’s discussion in Sandor Stark’s
nursery in chapter 2. PLEASE NOTE this chapter will have mentions of violence
against children, child death, grief, loss in childbirth, and mental health issues/paranoia.
It will NOT be graphic, only mentions without detail.

1/13/24 UPDATE: Godswood scene will receive an edit when I have time as I was half
asleep writing it and forgot Sansa was in front of the heart tree when she lied. Oops. I
considered finding a way to make it work but it wouldn’t.Pretend she said yes instead of
no until I get to it, thanks ❤

See the end of the chapter for more notes

FIVE

SANSA

SUMMER 319

The Sept at Winterfell had a way of transporting her to a different time.

One minute she’d be four-and-thirty, having barely slept from a racing mind and a hungry
babe she couldn’t bear to give over to the wet nurse and the next she’d be nine again,
kneeling before the maiden and praying, praying, praying for a brave knight, for a prince.

Some days she’d be thirty, a body of wrath and injustice and grief as she cursed the Stranger,
demanding to know by what right he took more from her. The Seven Pointed Star said that
the Stranger was neither male nor female, but he always loomed masculine in her mind.
Blond as Joffrey beneath the veil, eyes like Ramsey, hands as strong and violent as the
Mountain.

Teeth missing, bloodied smile, just like the man who gave her son to the Stranger-

In the light of day, the conflicts of honor and justice and loyalties and family were so much
more complicated than by candlelight. In this sept, her mother’s most holy sanctuary, the
place where she too had bared her heart to the Mother and Crone and Stranger alike, one
must stare the truth in the face.

Today, in this place, she was four-and-thirty, and her mother, who knelt before the statue of
the Mother, looking far too much like a mirror of Sansa’s own soul, was six-and-thirty. Jon
was older than her mother, as old as her father now, the two looking almost like brothers at
seven-and-thirty. How was anyone meant to prepare for this? To be here with your parent
while they hadn’t grown old? To have lived as many years as them while the Stranger rocked
their cradle in death before sending them back to learn to walk all over again?

Jon had been her salvation in all of it, her shelter. He’d set aside all his struggles to protect
her in her lying-in, bore her tears and her numbness alike as he walked their children through
it too. Arranged for the Maester to sit down with Robb and Father when they asked what had
happened and sat in with them to try and answer the questions he could. He’d protected her
then, too, shrouding her own story. Let the Maester tell the tale in the simplest way he could,
that Sansa had gone south with their Father and Arya, that after his death she had become a
political prisoner as the North declared independence, that following Joffrey’s death she had
been spirited out of the Capital by a third party and in time, made her way to Jon at Castle
Black who then helped her retake Winterfell from the Boltons.

She’d have to face it all eventually, but for now, it would have to be enough.

She’d locked herself away in her quarters for her lying-in, not anything out of the ordinary,
the weeks after she gave birth had always been trying for her. The pains of her mind and the
strength of her emotions were tenfold in those weeks, the severity of it during her lying-in
after Lyarra had brought her to tell Arya that she almost preferred the birth to it. At least the
birth would end at some point, the aftermath made her feel like she’d never be herself again.
But she would be, in time, she just had to wait. The Maester and midwives alike had scolded
her for getting out of bed to witness the resurrected in person, warning of the risk of a bleed
and not leaving her alone for days in their worry. The freefolk midwives had gone so far as to
even sleep on the furs before the fire at night, not caring that Jon slept in the bed next to her.
They returned to their own quarters after the third night, confident that the most concerning
time was past and that she need only to continue resting. So she did, not just to obey their
orders but also in an effort to avoid what waited outside. Ruling, she could bear, but to face
all the emotions she thought she’d buried with the lost Starks was far more terrifying.

Not to mention facing their grief for Rickon. She was already too raw, every birth bringing
her back to their little Summer Prince, bringing back her longing in its entirety and leaving
her gutted in its wake.

Now, a handful of weeks out of her confinement, watching her mother kneel before her gods
with tears always on her cheeks, she felt the ache of it again. Sansa wiped her sweaty palms
on her dress, a plainer one, navy wool slashed with silk of a paler blue, and forced herself to
walk forward. Catelyn Stark did not move, did not react to the sound of Sansa kneeling
beside her, elbows nearly touching, dark blue against black, red against red. For a single,
reckless moment, her hand itched to reach out, to hold her mother’s hand as if she was a girl
of thirteen again. Should she? She wondered, Would it be welcome?

Her mind flickered with the feeling of when Minisa took her own hand, warm palms pressed
together. It’d been so long since she’d been the smaller hand, caught in warm hands that
weren’t Jon’s. His weren’t the same, sword calloused and on the fingertips. Could she truly
even remember what it felt like to hold her mother’s hand? It wouldn't be the same now
either, her hand too big, too matching. Would it feel like her own hands clasped in prayer or
something different, something new?

She could only find out.

Gathering up her bravery, she reached out across the abyss, the space of just a few inches that
felt like a wide field to her fingertips, and she slid her hand against her mother’s wrist,
dropping until their fingers entwined. Just like her and Minisa’s would, like Lyanna’s. Like
Gritty’s , as Eddy had accidentally called her once. It’d stuck, it fit her like a glove. Fierce
little Gritty, as stubborn and fiery as her namesake even at five. Gritty only held her mother’s
hand when she wanted to, invitations were not heeded, so the willing grab of fingers and
palm was a lovely surprise.
Sansa’s mother froze in the middle of her silent prayer, a sharp breath shocking into her
lungs, and Sansa kept her grip loose. If Catelyn wished to push her away, she could. She
wouldn’t fault her for it. How could she? She’d pushed the world away here too after losing
her son. Coming out of the worst of it on the other side and finding Jon and the others still
there, waiting for her, it’d been more than a surprise. It’d been her greatest relief.

Her mother’s fingers closed around her own, tight, grasping, and Sansa’s eyes fell shut.

Catelyn’s breath hitched, shuddered, and Sansa squeezed her hand.

They’d spent moments together before this, in the last month since their return, but always
buffered. Jon’s presence, Arya’s, Tormund’s hulking form and unrestrained way of speaking,
Sansa’s newest babe placed in Catelyn’s arms and drawing her eye. Sandor had a way of
consuming your entire world, keeping you from looking away, a balm over your hurts.
Tormund had commented once that his eyes seemed ancient, that he’d been here before, and
sometimes it did seem like that. Catelyn had held him a couple of days before Sansa’s
confinement had ended, sitting together in the family solar as Minisa and Joanna tried not to
hover. Kit had been with her own mother, assisting the Queen’s Hand where she could, and
Sansa had almost wished she’d been there instead, breaking the strange air with some
comment that sounded far too much like what Arya would say.

There’d been other moments too, family dinners where Catelyn said very little, where
Sansa’s words were carefully chosen and crafted. Speaking of the North, of Bran, the
children. Topics carefully avoided and handpicked, one night she’d had the horrible thought
that it was a dance that wouldn’t be so out of place south of the Neck. They’d never been
alone. Truly alone, like they were now. Alone, in the sept where she’d been blessed under the
eyes of the Seven as a babe, hands clasped together. The strangest of dreams made reality.

The night before, she’d been so angry, every protective instinct rising from her bones and
digging through her skin, desperate to see the light and make itself known. She hadn’t wanted
to believe it, she still didn’t.

Hands clasped, palm to scarred palm, she wanted to ask her, would you betray me too? Will
you be the next in the line of those who would strike like a serpent in the grass?
Could one lie in a sept? Lying would not abide before a heart tree, was it the same here
before the seven faces? Before the all-seeing eyes of the Stranger, concealed behind his
shroud?

She wanted to ask, but she did not.

Could this grief-stricken woman truly be speaking with lords and ladies, plotting behind
Sansa’s back? Behind Jon’s? Could this silent figure draw up support from a well of memory
and wars she did not fight in, did not live in, did not remember? Lord Manderly had been so
sure, so convicted, so worried. Lord Cerwyn had been at the meeting too, according to
Manderly, someone she trusted, someone who had broke faith years ago and had been
shamed back into the fold by the little Lady Mormont. He’d been steadfast ever since, or had
he simply been biding his time? Had they all been biding their time, waiting her out? Waiting
for Eddy to be old enough to rip it all out from beneath her and Jon for their perceived sins?

The North was divided, even now, that was undeniable fact, even if it was more healed than
ever before. The North had seen too much death, fear and the need to preserve oneself would
always prevail no matter what she did. They’d thought they’d united their kingdom when
she’d laid the Stark cloak around Jon’s shoulders beneath the weirwood, when she bore him a
son before their first year of marriage had even ended. But conflict and war still followed
them like a persistent dog, like a gnat. Crushed only for another to appear.

Someday, it would finally catch up with her.

Someday, it would be her end.

Sansa’s skin crawled and she struggled against the urge to scratch at her exposed skin in an
attempt at relief. It wouldn’t work, she knew that, but still she struggled.

Sometimes when I try to understand a person’s motives, I play a little game, Petyr mocked in
her mind, I assume the worst. What’s the worst reason they could possibly have for saying
what they say and doing what they do? Then I ask myself, “How well does that reason
explain what they say and do?”
What was the worst reason Catelyn Stark could possibly have for meeting with Northern
bannermen in the night? What was the worst reason Lord Manderly could have for bringing
the information to her like he did, for throwing Lord Cerwyn under the blade of accusation?
What was the worst reason Lord Cerwyn could have for being there?

What was the worst reason the gods could have for bringing them all back from the dead?

Her own chest shuddered then, a gasping breath caught up between her ribs and where all her
hurts curled up to fester and rot. Oathbreaker , her traitorous heart whispered, you broke your
oath to Jon to keep his secret.

I did it to save him, she wanted to reply, to protect him.

Did you? The voice sounded suspiciously like Ser Jaime’s, and even if you did, does it
matter? It was still broken and every god despises an oathbreaker-

She wanted to vomit. Her hand felt hot and uncomfortable in her mother’s hold. A cry built
up in her chest, demanding to be released, but she clutched at it with all she had as she forced
herself to remain present. To squeeze her mother’s hand softly and not harshly before she
retracted from it, fingertips brushing clammy before she grabbed up fistfuls of her skirts. The
wool was familiar, the dress made to make her feel strong. She’d been sewing the silk panels
in the night she’d kissed Jon for the first time, laughing together before the fire even as the
tension that had been growing between them for so long reached its breaking point. The dress
was made to usher her into her new world, a world where she finally had someone who met
what her father had wanted for her. Gentle and brave and strong.

She rose, still clutching her skirt, and forced herself to walk normally, slowly, to not flee like
a child. She did not feel her age, then, did not feel four-and-thirty. She felt as old as the Crone
and as young as Gritty, burdened by knowledge and emotionally volatile as a mad dog.

With every step, she fought the desire to look back, to see if her mother would watch her
leave. To see if she had noticed her absence at all.

That’s not fair to her, she thought, but she couldn’t stop herself from feeling, she tried to
bring us home. She did. She committed treason for us. She never stopped fighting for us-
Sansa stepped out of the sept, the darkness of the hallway almost comforting. The sept with
its dozens of stained glass windows had felt overly bright to her after they had restored
Winterfell, causing her to only go at night, when the moon caught in the pictures and made
the room feel like it was another world instead of a Southern sanctuary in a Northern
wilderness. The velvet drapes were over the windows in this hallway, the light cut down to
what could shine through the archway into the sept. From the other end of the hall, where she
made her way to now, it would look like one was walking into the sunlight at last. It’d
seemed like a song to her as a girl, something almost romantic and beautiful.

Now it seemed to simply shed light on all of her mistakes, forcing her to look at them once
more in new clarity.

She left the sept behind, skin still crawling, and Brienne fell into step behind her without a
word. The courtyard was busy as usual, repairs being made, the horses being taken out to be
checked and put to pasture, soldiers training. Winterfell felt alive again and she found herself
grateful for that every day, remembering those horrible weeks when it had been a prison to all
inside its walls. Cley Cerwyn was surprisingly easy to find, carefully, so very carefully,
sparring with her Eddy. He didn’t get a chance to train with many others outside of the
family, but Lord Cerwyn was a good fighter and she could see Tormund lurking at the fence,
watching the wooden practice swords with his trained eye. His eyes left Eddy for only a
moment when they darted to her, up to Brienne, and then back to Eddy. A smile tugged at his
lips and if Sansa wasn’t so tense, she would have made some joke to Brienne about it.

She glanced around the yard again, caught sight of Arya walking along the battlements with
Lord Manderly, heads ducked together. Her sister’s dark eyes darted her way as well, locking
and lingering, but her face betrayed nothing as she looked away. Once upon a time, that
would have frightened her, now she knew that, with Arya, no news was good news.

“Lord Cerwyn,” She called out, and the fighting stopped.

Eddy’s wooden sword had been moving to strike the lord’s own, but suddenly the intended
target was on the ground, Cerwyn turning to her and then bowing deeply. Eddy’s sword
stopped just before Cerwyn’s ribs and arm and once the startled expression had faded, he
turned to Tormund with a broad grin. Sansa couldn’t help but smile too. Jon had always told
the boy that you could strike with a sword until you fell down dead, could block hits until
your shield broke, but the true test was stopping the blade in your own hand before it did
something regrettable.
She supposed that could apply to far more battles than just ones with swords.

“Your Grace,” Cerwyn said as he bowed.

“Walk with me, we didn’t get a chance to finish our last tax conversation.”

There was a half-second of confusion in the lines of his face, they hadn’t spoken about taxes
at all, and then he nodded, offering his left arm to her and following her direction to the
godswood. Brienne fell in behind them once more, but farther back, enough to give them
privacy in speaking when they finally stopped at the base of the weirwood tree.

Her ghosts lingered here, before the smiling face of the trunk, in the reflection of the pond,
the coolness of the wind. The ring of the whetstone against Ice , Brandon climbing in the
trees, Jeyne singing with her on the blanket.

Who comes before the old gods this night? Two memories whispered, but one was stronger
than the other. It made her smile. Jon was there, always, in her mind beneath the weirwood,
waiting for her.

A flash of white in the woods now, in the corner of her eye, Ghost .

Of course. Warmth fluttered in her chest as if she was some newly married woman and not a
wife of over ten years. Of course he’d be here with her.

She could almost see him now, sitting at the desk in his solar, a mountain of work before him
cast aside out of worry for her. He’d felt her toss and turn all night, had stoked the fire as she
brushed her hair to shining and whispered of her conversation with Arya the night before.

Arya had been in the hallway, a serving girl carrying a flagon before melting into shadow and
stone. She’d caught the last of her meeting in the solar before she slipped back into the
moonlight and followed Lord Manderly to make sure he went to his rooms before she joined
Sansa in the nursery.
The more she had tossed and turned, the stranger things had seemed. She’d ended up leaving
the bed again, retrieving her son from the nursery and bringing him back to their bedchamber
after the wet nurse had fed him, rocking him and watching him for most of the night in her
restlessness.

My mother fought for us, for Arya and I. The thought had run circles in her head all night
until she’d finally fallen into a restless sleep in the chair next to the cradle. Her neck was still
in knots from it, aching and miserable.

“House Cerwyn still keeps the Old Gods, do they not?”

Lord Cerwyn nodded, “We do.”

“When I was a girl, my father told me that a man cannot lie before a heart tree, that the gods
will know it and will bring it down upon him.”

“My father said the same before his passing.”

His murder, she thought, passing would imply it wasn’t torturous. Ramsey Bolton had left his
mark on them all.

The silence fell on them then, solemn, and she forced them forward before she could lose her
footing, her nerve.

“A servant came to me last night with concerns. Concerns about a meeting between my
bannermen and my mother that took place.”

“Concerns, Your Grace?”

“The servant was concerned that there may have been talk of treason. That my mother
intended to press my Father or Robb’s claim to the North.”
When she glanced at Lord Cerwyn’s face, she saw no fear, only concern. It made him look
older than his years. She wondered if she looked the same all of the time. It felt like she
should. Sometimes she felt a thousand years old.

“When you say servant, do you mean our young Lord Manderly?”

It took every year of practice, every centimeter of the mask she’d created for politics, to keep
her face clear of any emotions that sentence could bring to the surface.

“Why would you think I meant him?”

“Weslar is young, a third and only remaining son. I’ve known him for years and he does not
have the,” He paused, “Steadiest constitution. Put him on the battlefield with an axe and
you’ll never see him freeze. Put the weight of his House and his Lordship on his shoulders?
He shakes a bit beneath it.”

The godswood rustled in the breeze. Cley continued.

“His father always regretted not keeping faith with the Starks and taught Weslar to not make
the same mistakes. He was there at the execution at the Lady’s Rest, his father wouldn’t let
him look away, told him that breaking faith with you would make him worthy of the same
punishment.”

Good, that vengeful part of her cried out, let them see the blood in the dirt so my children’s
blood will never be spilled again.

She thought of Rickon then. Of his statue in the crypt. Of Theon’s tomb just a little ways
away from her littlest brother’s.
“As he was present for the discussion,” Cerwyn did not hesitate, he spoke clearly, unafraid,
“and I know his nature, it would not surprise me if he told you immediately on his own
assumptions about what was being said, without examining the scene first.”

“It was not him,” She lied, but she would not be sorry for it. Better to not sew discord among
the bannermen, they did enough of that themselves, “But I truly cherish your counsel on his
state. Please, tell me more of what was said so that I may understand the servant’s concerns.”

Cerwyn watched her for a long moment.

“I find the walking clears my head, takes my thoughts away from the troubles of sleeping. I
found your mother in the hall by the fire, in her cups. She was upset and I felt compelled to
speak with her or to call a servant to help her to her quarters. I remember from my youth that
the Lady Stark was a proud woman who wouldn’t wish to be seen like that. We ended up
speaking of the North, the new lords and ladies, the new keeps, and Lord Manderly joined us
then. Your mother continued to drink throughout, your Grace, and grew more upset. She
expressed to me that she wasn’t sure of her place in the world anymore. Her children were
grown or lost to her.”

He paused, “There was a moment of bitterness, I will admit, but for a woman so in her cups
she was quite restrained. I’m sure its been jarring for the family with their return. She…”

He cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable for the first time in the conversation, “She was
very concerned that His Grace forced you into a marriage with him. That you did not wed
him and bear his children of your own free will. She grew very upset at the thought.”

Anger licked at her ribs like fire, but it did not rage into an inferno. Her mother’s feelings,
said and unsaid, about Jon were well known, for them to reappear in her cups was not that
surprising.

“Once I’d reassured her of my, albeit limited, knowledge of your presumably happy
marriage, she seemed to calm, only to become upset again. Lady Stark wasn’t sure of the
order of things anymore. Winterfell had been hers and her husband’s and now it is not, she
spoke of being used to running a keep and now finding herself with very little to occupy her
mind besides her grief and the habits that have formed in it. She was also very concerned
about Lord Robb, how Winterfell was no longer his and how she didn’t know what was going
to happen. It was described as being his birthright and that King Jon had taken it from him
and his father, which is likely what the servant heard, but it was a drunken upset, not worth a
second glance in my opinion, your Grace.”

She felt strangely empty. Her chest ached.

“Do you think my mother would go against me, Lord Cerwyn?”

Lord Cerwyn looked at her with something akin to pity. It made her bristle.

“My Queen, I think your mother would burn the world down to protect you, but that doesn't
mean she wouldn't accidentally burn you both in the process.”

She clenched her hands into fists, nails carving half-moons into her palms-

“And you, Lord Cerwyn? I have your loyalty, even in these strange times?”

“You do,” He nodded fervently, “I remember the day I did not keep faith with the Starks, with
you. A craven day, a day I regret. Little Lady Mormont spoke truly, always, but especially
when she spoke of craven men and foolish boys. I do not intend to ever make such an error
again. ”

We know no King, that little but powerful voice almost seems to live in the wind through the
trees, but the King in the North whose name is Stark.

“Thank you, my Lord.” Her voice sounded strangely detached.

He seemed to notice, it made the anxiety wind up in her belly all over again. Dread loomed.
She wanted to ask him to leave but couldn’t find a way that wouldn't give away her feelings,
that wouldn’t lay her thoughts bare and obvious on the forest floor.
“By your leave,” He said, “I would leave to train more in the yard with the Prince.”

Gratitude flooded her chest, mixed with shame.

“You may.”

She listened to him leave, heard the shift and creak of Brienne’s armor when he’d finally
rounded the corner and the knight allowed herself to relax.

The sun slipped out from behind the clouds, bathing Sansa in its rays, but it’d never felt
colder on her skin.

...

Dinner was subdued, or at least it was for Sansa. Valarr’s head lay in her lap, his snout cold
through the belly of the linen summer-dress she’d chosen. It was just the Starks tonight,
Brienne and Tormund with their children, the guards outside of the chambers. Arya had
slipped into the chair at her left before it had begun, passing along her own findings that
settled heavy on Sansa’s chest.

Findings that aligned with Cley Cerwyns depiction of a bereaved mother in her cups, an old
friend’s attempt at being a listening ear, and a young Lord desperate to keep faith finding
shadows where there were none.

“Don’t fight in the North or the South,” Petyr had told her once, head tilted, that look in his
eye, “Fight every battle, everywhere, always, in your mind. Everyone is your enemy.
Everyone is your friend. Every possible series of events is happening at once. Live that way,
and nothing will surprise you. Everything that happens will be something you've seen
before.”

She’d told him she’d never forget his lessons. She hadn’t. But she’d neglected to curb them,
neglected to have faith, to trust, to love. She’d thought she’d grown better at that, that letting
Tormund and others into her tightly fenced circle had softened her edges enough to keep her
from jumping to conclusion. A slippery slope, caution and assumption. Grace and mercy.

Jon held her hand during dinner, hands rested on the table between them. Her other hand fell
to Valarr’s furry ears, her plate ignored, appetite having left her, all her focus on the softness
between her fingertips. Jon would squeeze her hand, sometimes, draw her eyes to him, meet
her there in the empty space and watch her as if her thoughts could write themselves in
glowing ink between them. It felt almost like a lifetime ago now when he would have leaned
over and kissed her, onlookers ignored, on her cheek or forehead. Hand or lips. Now, he
refrained, Robb’s brotherly discomfort and Catelyn’s forever angry eyes watching the tangle
of their fingers as if it was an abomination.

Lyarra had claimed her grandmother’s lap tonight, as she seemed to do more and more often.
She’d play with her mother-of-pearl pendants, the dark red curls that fell around Catelyn’s
shoulders, the trim of Catelyn’s fine dresses. Ned had told Sansa that it helped her, he
thought, helped to have a little one to pour love and attention into to keep her mind off
Rickon. Sansa knew that theory all too well, Lyarra had been born after her Theon, after all,
after they’d lost him. When Catelyn had Lyarra, she seemed to glare less at Jon, so Sansa
welcomed the distraction for her, if only to push off the issue. Jon had given his goodmother
a wide, wide berth in her grief, not wishing to remind her of the other things she would
someday remember to be upset about.

Minisa and Eddy were holding Robb’s attention, where normally Kit would be too, but the
girl was instead talking with her grandfather, a sight that made Sansa’s heart ache so fiercely
she could have wept. The memory of the day Kit was born was as fresh in her mind as the
day it happened, every moment in vibrant clarity. In the aftermath, Arya had commented on
how shocked and pleased their father might have been to know she’d had a babe of her own.
Even if she was a bastard, granted the Stark name by royal decree. A wolf is my father, Kit
had said, far too young, teeth sharp and eyes sharper, when some Lord’s son tried to discount
her, your father is a drunk and a liar, I’d say I have the better one.

Sansa had let Arya and Jon take care of the damage control on that one, using the headaches
she’d had in her pregnancy with Ygritte as an excuse to hide in her solar for an hour or so.

Their father had been shocked to learn about Arya’s girl, her mirror image in looks and tone,
and the girl had wormed her way into a near-permanent space at his side. When she wasn’t
with Sansa, her mother, or her own studies, she could be found trailing after him, Storm at
her heels. He’d never asked about the father, though she was sure he wondered, and even
now he watched her with eyes of wonder as they discussed whatever part of history the
Maester had discussed with her and the other children that day.
“Up.” A little voice demanded, stern as ever. If Sansa hadn’t felt so numb, she might have
laughed.

A smile twitched at Jon’s lips as he looked down at their fire-haired girl. She’d inherited the
full force of Jon’s childhood brooding face with a hearty helping of wolf-blooded wildness.

“Please.” She tried again and Jon chuckled, giving in to her request and leaning to the other
side so he could pull her up into his lap over the armrest.

Ygritte snuggled into his coat without hesitation, snuffling like a wolf pup. Jen, he called her
often, for their uncle, when it felt too strange to use her birth name, Jen-Jen. She’d thought
about naming Theon after him, but when she’d felt him kick in the womb she’d known in that
moment that he would always be Theon . Just like how their firstborn son had been Eddard
from the moment she realized her blood hadn’t made its appearance.

Ygritte had had a dozen names before she found her way into the world bloody and
screaming.

She buried her little hand in Jon’s dark curls like she had as a babe, head laid over his
shoulder and brushing fingers through again and again. Sansa’s chest clenched and ached,
Theon should be on his other leg, his other shoulder , she thought. She was suddenly
exhausted again, feeling as though she was on the precipice of the battle of her life with
nothing left to give. It will pass, she tried to reassure herself, it will pass again.

She forced herself to drink from her wine, ignored the way it threatened to come back up.

Her eyes met her mother’s when she set it back down, blue on blue, red and red, a dark haired
babe of two in her lap against Sansa’s arms that only had another’s wolf for company.

Valarr snuffled again, body heavy on her feet and thighs. He was the only reason she didn’t
stand, didn’t excuse herself to leave and cry and see if that would make the numbness flee
her. There was the forbidden thought then, the way that locking eyes with Valarr made her
want to meld their minds, to see herself through the wolf’s eyes. Like Lady and the dreams,
all those years ago. But he wasn’t hers to warg into, wasn’t hers to keep. He was Theon’s, he
would always be Theon’s.

He licked at her hand as it fell back into her lap and it almost made her smile. His brown eyes
watched her intently, inviting, and she forced herself to look away, to look around at the
family, to hold Jon’s hand as he talked with Robb and their children, to hold on for dear life
until everyone excused themselves from the table.

Their children said goodnight to them, pressing kisses to cheeks and embracing before the
younger ones left with their nursemaids and the older ones stole Robb away to play a card
game by the fire. Sansa slipped away after the nursemaids, not bothering to retrieve her cloak
from her solar before she went into the cool summer night.

“Sansa.”

Jon’s voice across the empty courtyard stilled her. She heard his footsteps behind her, waited
to feel his fingers catch hers, winding through, but instead he just ran the backs of them down
the back of her arm.

It was the only warm point in the world to her, at that moment. She’d never felt colder, yet
she did not shiver.

“I’ll be up in a moment,” Her voice was surprisingly steady, “I just need to see him.”

Another brush of his fingers against her arm, so wonderfully warm through the linen.
Fingertips against the inside of her wrist, against her pulse, pressing to feel it. He smelled like
woodsmoke in the cold, sharp and warm, smelled like woodsmoke and herbs and home.
When they were newly married and he’d leave their bed to train, she’d smell him on his
pillow, bury her face in it until she’d committed him to memory.

“May I walk you there?”

She suddenly couldn’t bear to be alone, even if she would be alone with their little prince’s
bones, free to speak with their son in whispers of every thought she couldn’t bear to give to
Jon out of guilt and grief. She’d be too cold. She needed him to keep from freezing. She
wound her fingers in his then, grasping, pulling him forward towards the crypts.

“You may,” She breathed, and behind her there was a sigh of relief.

...

They hadn’t spoken in the crypt, kneeling side by side in silence as Sansa mouthed prayers
and regrets and ran her fingertips over the stone wolf’s ear like she had Valarr’s at dinner.

There’d been tears on her cheeks when she’d stood again, only a little less numb, a little more
raw. A bleeding wound beneath skin and bone and muscle, weeping and stitches broken. He
took her hand again, still so warm, and they went upstairs to their rooms. They’d given her
parents the Lady’s chambers when they’d arrived, not that she ever really used them. He’d
been in her bed every night he was in Winterfell since their wedding night when Eddy was
conceived, the Lady’s chambers laying cold and quiet ever since. Arya had been offered it but
she was happier with her tower rooms, the ones connected to the tunnels that ran throughout
the keep.

The fire was burning high and warm when they arrived, the feeling leaving pinpricks on her
skin as she took a seat on the chair before it. Jon stood behind it, looking into the flames.
She’d found him doing that more and more often ever since their family had return to them.
She wondered if he thought about his own death, his own return, anytime he witnessed the
flame? She thought she would, if it was her.

There was a thousand words in her chest then, desperate for escape, but she could not make
them leave peacefully, could not urge them to be heard quietly. Instead they fought, fought
and bled within her chest until her guilt clawed its way out of her like a gash in her belly.
Like the waves of a birth.

“Lord Manderly was wrong.”

“I know.” His hands picked at the pins in her hair, fingers gently untangling the braids and
letting her hair fall down in waves, “I heard.”

“Do you think me horrible,” She asked, “That I’d believe it so quickly? That I’d banish my
own mother for something she hadn’t done? For being in her cups and speaking her worries?”

“No,” He whispered, fingertips against scalp, “Not after everything. I think you’re hurting, I
know you’re hurting.”

It was too kind for her, she thought, too generous, but she craved it. He saw her, he always
had, even when they fought. Even when dragons and secrets and lies tried to drive them
apart, they hadn’t let go.

“It was a bad time for it all to happen,” He continued, “So close to Theon’s nameday.”

He wasn’t wrong. She was always sharper then, as if her own sharpness could cut out her
festering grief, her unending pain and love for the boy they’d lost. More cautious, more wary.
She’d refused to go to tourneys ever since. Winterfell was the only place that could truly
protect her children, she could keep them safe within its walls, within her arms.

“All it takes is one.”

Her eyes filled with tears before she could stop them, and she rose from the chair to pace
before the fire, before Jon.

“One mistake, one traitor, one foolish decision, and everything falls. I should have seen it,
should have known. Should have placed more guards or kept the dogs, not let the
kennelmaster take them hunting-”

“Sansa-” He began, but she did not let him stop her.
“Should have gone and watched the tilts anyways, even with a headache. Should have known
better. I swore all my life I wouldnt make the same mistakes that the ones we lost did, that
my children would never pay the price for my own foolishness -”

“Stop,” and he sounded angry then, truly angry, so she did. They’d argued about this a
hundred times, even though they knew it only hurt them more to do so. She couldn’t stop
herself.

His breath came in gasps, ragged, and there was a sheen to his eyes.

“Would you blame me too? I should have stayed with you, should have put Brienne outside
your door instead of letting her have the day, should have kept Lyanna with me at least.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Then why does it have to be yours? Why does it always have to be yours?”

Her hand went to her middle as if a son still slept within her, but Sandor was nearly three
months old now, chubby-cheeked and sweet as his eldest sister.

“I can’t fail them, Jon. They still believe in us.”

His knuckles turned white on the back of the armchair.

Ygritte had been born in the middle of an attack on Winterfell, during one of the longest
nights of her life. The battle had raged outside the walls and her battle had raged within,
agony lancing through her like a knife and amplified by her own fears. She’d tried to stay
quiet, not wanting to frighten the children in the next room, but the pains had been too much
to bear in silence. Brienne had been there too, still heavily pregnant with little Lenra, holding
her hand while her stepdaughter, Myrgin, took care of the children in the next room.
The fear had been all-consuming, fear of losing the babe in the birthing bed, fear of losing her
own life, fearing for Jon as he fought outside the walls, for what would happen to her
children if the castle was breached. Brienne had tried to soothe her, the midwife too, but the
tears were determined to come whether she chose them or not.

“Promise me,” She’d asked Brienne in a murmur, “Promise me if the castle falls-”

“It will not fall.” Brienne had held her hand tight enough to hurt, “ They will not fall.”

The tears had come even quicker, after that. Her father had not intended to fall in Kings
Landing, nor had Robb. Her mother. Little Rickon.

She had wept between the pains. A cold palm had fallen atop where her other hand clutched
at the sheets, a little body clambering up onto the bed next to her. Minisa, too young to attend
at a birth, but fearless, taking the wet cloth from the bowl even as Brienne begged her to go
back to the others and wiping the sweat from her mother’s brow.

“Don’t worry, Mother,” Minisa had said, blue eyes so trusting, “Father and the men will not
let them reach us. All will be well. You will see.”

She’d been so young then, but in that moment Sansa had seen the queen her daughter would
become someday. Better than her, better than Margarey, holding the love of the people and
the respect of her foes. Always kind to the kitchen boys and the smallfolk, they adored her
even more than they did their current queen. She loved the songs too, the stories, the dances,
the knights, even when Sansa told her of cruelties and craven men.

In that moment, with her firstborn sitting on the bed next to her and sweetly singing the
Mother’s Hymn under her breath, Sansa had realized that all the parts of her heart that she
thought had died at the hands of her abusers had been given to Minisa in the womb. The
truest summer child of all her babes, sweeter than spring.

When Jon had come to them, the battle freshly won, blood and filth still on him, there in time
for Ygritte’s first cry, Minisa had looked at him like he held the world in hands and would
give it to her if she only asked.
Her daughters had no fear that they would be failed by their father. Nothing would come
between them, not honor, not laws, not men, not even a life. He would be there, this they
knew. He was the first true knight they’d ever meet, the first Prince, the first King, gentle and
brave and strong.

“When I was in King’s Landing, I dreamt every night that Robb would break down the doors
and sweep in and save me. That he’d carry me home, that we’d lay Father to rest in the crypt
together, that he’d give me Joffrey’s head.”

There’d been other dreams after Robb and their Mother had died. Dreams of Highgarden, of
puppies and roses and maybe, just maybe, someone who wouldn’t hurt her. Someone who
wouldn’t keep her as a prisoner, just as a wife. If I give him sons, she remembered a younger
Sansa thinking late at night, he may come to love me. Gods how she had wanted to be loved
in a world where she was so very alone. She hadn’t dreamed those dreams anymore after
they’d made her marry Tyrion, the hoping for them had only made the disappointments
crueler.

The terror was decades old, she was a woman grown, wedded and bedded, having delivered
six living babes and one gone to the Stranger in the birthing bed, but still it clawed its way up
her throat like an rabid animal. She could still smell the city sometimes, smell the soaps they
used on the bedding in her rooms, smell Cersei’s perfume and the wine rot on her breath.
There were still scars from those days marking her body, lines down her back from the flat
and edge of blade. They ran alongside the gifts her second husband had given her, raised and
red and hidden.

Jon had left no scars on her body and soul except for the pale marks from when she’d grown
their children.

“I thought I buried my anger that he never came for me years ago. I loved him again, it didn’t
hurt to think of him like it used to. But now it hurts again and I don’t know how to make it
stop.”

How many times had they wept together over the last decade for those they lost? For the pain
they caused them? Far too many, they’d never expected it to return so fresh and cruel.
“Joanna and Kit are the same age I was,” She wanted to cry just thinking about it,
“Sometimes I think about what I went through and it’s almost worse now, seeing it through a
grown woman’s eyes. I think about them there in that castle, tormented and stripped and
beaten before lords and ladies who tittered and gasped but did nothing.

I think about it and it makes me ill. I think about if it was us , if you had gone south and I had
stayed North, if Eddy called the banners for you. I try to think it through and at the same time
I try not to think about it at all because its a new form of hell to fall back into all over again.
Thinking about our babies beaten and bruised, sold off and abused by grown men and
women.

And I know it in my heart that you would rescue them, that I would, that Eddy would do
whatever it took for his sisters.”

She could barely breathe, her tears threatened to choke her. The thought of her children there,
alone, betrayed and abandoned. Lyanna with her proud uplifted chin and her songbird voice
and Ygritte with her smirk and Lyarra with her gentle sweetness-

“And I wonder why I wasn’t enough to have the same.”

Jon’s hands were bloodless. He made a move towards her but she heard him stop when she
turned to face the fire instead.

“Was I such a terrible sister, terrible daughter, terrible child that I deserved to be abandoned?
Because I know we’d never leave them like I was left.”

He did move then, his arms curled around her middle, pulled her back into his chest as her
knees buckled and he held her up.

“They make me so angry .”

The words are out of her before she can even taste them, before she can roll them on her
tongue and weigh them.

“I love them, I still can’t believe they're here, they're home, with us, but I can’t help wishing
that they remembered, that I could be angry at them without feeling guilty about it.”

It’d taken so long to come to terms with her anger, to weep for it and bury it, to leave its
unmarked grave behind, but she found herself back there in her confinement unearthing it
with bloodied nails and sleepless eyes. Anger at her mother for not preparing her, for sending
her south knowing nothing of court and politics. How could she not have known? She was
raised there, she should have known-

“I know,” Jon murmured into her hair, warm against her back, “I know. I feel it too.”

She’d been avoiding them. Robb and her mother and her father, because it was easier that
way. She could hide that way, wrap herself up in distance and cope with it on her own. But it
wasn’t fair to any of them for her to do that. To leave Jon on her own, to leave the family who
had held her as a baby reeling as she pretended that everything was normal.

I don’t know how, she wanted to say, again and again and again, I don’t know how to do this.

Jon shuddered against her back, his breath harsh and hurting in her ear.

“He asked me if you were upset with him.”

Fresh tears filled her eyes.

“You need to talk to him,” Jon begged, “I know it wont be easy. I know it isn’t fair. But he
doesn’t remember and he doesn’t understand how much he hurt you.”

“What am I supposed to say?”

She turned in his arms, burying her face in his tunic and breathing him in. Maybe if she
drowned herself in his smell she could pretend that they were happy.

“I don’t know, but you need to try. You need to be brave. You’ll hate yourself forever if you
don’t and something happens. We don’t know if this chance to spend time with them will
last.”

She was so tired, all she wanted to do was sleep, to wake up in a world that was calmer, to
walk into the great hall and not be startled again and again by the dead.

“I don’t know how to be brave, anymore.”

“Yes you do.” His hands came up to cradle her head, to pull her face from his tunic before he
dipped down to kiss her, “You’re the bravest person I know.”

He brushed kisses up her cheekbone till his lips rested against her hair again, “And its not
your fault what happened to Theon. You did so well. You did all you could.”

I should have done more , her tongue begged to say, to deny his words, but she held them
back for his sake. The look in his eye when he had blamed himself had cut her to the heart.
Did she look the same when she spoke like that?

“We can’t change what happened,” He continued, “But we can embrace the time we do have
and use it how he would have wanted us to. With family, with the ones we love.”

They swayed before the fire, his arms around her.

She prayed she could be strong enough, brave enough, that her wounded and closed off heart
could open just enough to let them in.
 She prayed for her children, that she would not fail them, that they would live, that she would
be enough.

She prayed for the Mother to gentle her, again and again, until she was gentle enough to
accept the things she couldn’t change.

Chapter End Notes

To my Catelyn Stans: hope this chapter answered your questions

To my Pro Treason!Catelyn commenters: Stick with me y'all. She is still leaving

Winterfell for a reason, theres more family conflict ahead. Should be in the next couple
chapters.

speaking of the next couple chapters 👀 we'll soon be arriving at the Free Folk Summit,

👀
where we will reunite with a familiar face from this chapter, Mygrin! Hopefully Robb
follows Sansa's advice but we'll see

I'd love to know what you thought of the chapter but also please be kind or I actually
might cry <3 thanks. if you see any typos feel free to let me know

It's so late right now and I stayed up to finish editing and posting this so im not doing
the kids' list today, it will return next chapter tho. Thanks y'all <3
Please drop by the Archive and comment to let the creator know if you enjoyed their work!