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Chapter Text

SANSA

As the burning smell of blood and salt, mixed with the screams of the cells and the rotting scent of human bodies fills Sansa’s senses, she, oddly enough, begins to think of her father.

Sansa tries never to think of Ned Stark. His warm dark eyes, the way he used to smile at her, like his love for her was just bursting at the seams, ready to explode from inside of him. It hurts her too much-knowing that she’ll never truly see him again.

She rubs her eyes, and runs her dry tongue over the sandpapery roof of her mouth. She desperately needs water, but she doubts that Cersei will give her any more until tomorrow.

Sansa’s hands tighten into fists when she thinks of Cersei’s smug little smirk, the way her green eyes glittered at her. “Sansa Stark captured” she whispered at her earlier today. “What will the North think, hmm, my little dove?”

Sansa wanted to scream at her. Lunge through the iron bars and growl. I’m not a damn bird. I’m a wolf. Come any closer and my teeth will rip your throat out. But she has to stay quiet and still. She’s been Cersei’s captor before. She knows how to play her.

Sansa brushes her brittle hair from her face. She desperately wants to wash it. She smiles as she thinks of Jon. He loves her hair. Sometimes, he’d run his fingers through it, stopping gently if there were any knots. Sansa would comb her hair everyday, so Jon would never have to stop at any knots, but continue to gently run his fingers through.

Will anybody save me? She thinks. Does anybody care? She shakes her head firmly. Of course they do. Arya will be furious. Bran will be scrambling to get her back, and Jon...Jon...

Tears sting Sansa’s eyes but she blinks them away. No. I must be a wolf. I will howl into the night. My pack will hear. My pack will rescue me.

JON

Jon’s fists shake as he stares into Davos’s eyes. Davos looks worried. Maybe worried that Jon will punch somebody’s teeth out if they don’t let him sail to Kings Landing.

“They have her” Jon snarls, the wolf inside of him running around his head, spinning circles and clawing at the roof of his skull. The wolf is frantic. Jon is frantic. “They have Sansa. Going to save her is out of the question, dammit!”

“I know” Davos says, his voice is calm, trying to steady Jon, but it doesn’t work. The calm tone of his voice just agitates Jon even more. “But the Dragon Queen, Jon, she won’t like it. You leaving her to save another woman, when you promised to be loyal to her and save the North”

“Damn her!” Jon howls. He slams his fist on the table. Pain rings throughout his hand. “Damn everyone! Gods know what they’re doing to her, right now, as we talk and fret about like children!”

“Don’t say that” Davos hissed. “Not here, not that loud”

The Dragon Queen is in Winterfell, her supporters all with her, shivering and their teeth clattering in the cold. The Dragon Queen must be asleep, guardsmen at the foot of her bed. She must be dreaming dreams of fire and smoke, dreams of sitting on that damn iron chair, curling her fingers around the ends of the armrests. Jon’s stomach coils just thinking about it.

“Jon” Davos says slowly. “She thinks you love her. She loves you”

Jon snorts. “Love, eh? That’s what she’s calling it now”

Sure, she loves me, Jon thinks. Like a miser loves his money. Like a lord loves his pets. She scarcely thinks of him as his own man, treating him like one of her foot soldiers. Sansa would never, Jon thinks, and his eyes start to sting.

“I must leave now” Jon says. “While she’s asleep. I’ll leave on a ship in the darkness. I’ll take only a few men with me, and I’ll take Theon. He’ll help me”

“What about the North?” Davos presses. Behind them, the fireplace crackles and spurs. Jon watches the fire swallow the wooden logs, the flames licking it with eager, dragon-like tongues. “What will happen when you’re gone?”

Jon clenches his jaw. “You’ll be here. Bran will be here. So will Arya. Two Starks in Winterfell is better than a bastard”

“And Bran...he needs to speak with you about something, Jon...it seemed urgent...”

“It will have to wait” Jon grabs Longclaw off the table and slinks it inside of its holder tied at his hip.

Davos hesitates, but he senses that nothing will change Jon’s mind. All he says is, “as stubborn as your father” in a voice barely above a whisper.

Jon leaves the room before Davos can say anything else to convince him otherwise. He starts down the hallway, quiet. He doesn’t want any of the Dragon Queen’s guardsmen to see him with his sword and armour. Suspicion rides on those people’s eyes like tiny dancing horses.

Instead, he opens Theon’s door, slowly as not to make it creak. Jon peers inside, hoping that Theon doesn’t sleep naked. He blinks in soft surprise when spots Theon sitting upright on his bed, wide open and staring up at the ceiling. Candles are cluttered all over the room, making it full of dancing light that reflects in Theon’s dark eyes.

“Theon” he whispers, and Theon turns to look at him. “I need your help”

Theon gives a small smile. “That’s a first”

“Why aren’t you sleeping?”

Theon looks down at his feet, pursing his lips. “Don’t get much sleep anymore”

Jon opens his mouth to explain to Theon, but Theon lazily lifts a hand at Jon. “Don’t bother. I know what you’re here for. You’re going to save Sansa” Theon stands up, rubs at his eyes momentarily with the heels of his hands, and then grabs the sword he keeps under his bed, wrapping his fingers around the hilt. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go rescue her”

Chapter Text

SANSA

The screams are getting louder, but Sansa isn’t sure if they’re just in her mind, echos of what she was hearing earlier. She places her hands on the bars to hoist herself up to a standing position instead of the sitting one she’s currently in. She grunts as pain shoots up her right leg. She peels back the torn cloth of her dress. The wound is still as deep, but the blood has dried now. Sansa gets a horrible taste in her mouth, knowing that if she doesn’t see a maester soon, it will get infected.

Standing, she peers about the cells. It’s dark and her eyes cannot see much, but she sees a figure moving in the darkness, the metallic noise of rattling chains.

A person, thin and tall, with a halo of frizzy dark hair on their head and a sharp nose, stares back at her, the whites of their eyes reflected in the small torch light at the end of the cell. Sansa squints at her. I’ve seen her before, she thinks, but where?

“I reckon you’re not dead yet” the person sighs. The voice is female, but has a harsh grit to it. “But nowadays, I can’t be too sure”

“Who are you?” Sansa croaks. Sansa hates how weak her voice sounds. She wants her howls to echo off the prison walls, to shatter and shake the stone, to reach Cersei in her beds and wake her with terror. But she sounds like a measly frog.

“I’m Yara Greyjoy” the woman says, and suddenly Sansa steps forward in her cell, until her nose brushes the cold steel bars.

“I know your brother” Sansa says quickly, her words eagerly jumping from her lips. “Theon. He-he saved my life. I’m Sansa Stark. He helped me escape from the Boltons”

Yara chuckles. “Well, my Lady, if you’re a Stark, he also betrayed your brother, Robb. You seem easy to forgive”

“I’m not” Sansa growls. “But if it weren’t for his aid, I’d still be tortured by Ramsay right now”

“That doesn’t sound like him” the tone of Yara’s voice changes. It grows softer, sadder, even. “The brother I knew was a coward”

Suddenly, the large doors to the cells creak open. Sansa can hear the soft clack of a Lady’s heels against the cold stone floor, and the heaving drag of the boots of men. It’s Cersei.

Quickly, Yara retreats into the shadows of her cell, biting her lip. Along with Cersei comes light, Sansa thinks. Her men will have torches. Maybe then I can get a better grip on my surroundings.

Cersei Lannister walks with the devil on her shoulders, nestled in her bones, admiring the view. She’s changed quite a bit since Sansa last saw her. She has more wrinkles, drawn into her face as if by a heavy pen. Her hair is much shorter, no longer cascading down her back like a golden waterfall. But her eyes...they’ve changed too. They glow and sparkle like wildfire.

“Hello, little dove” Cersei smirks at her again. Sansa, holding back grunts at the pain in her leg, straightens up, leaning against the bars of the cell, so close she could smell Cersei. She looks her square in the eyes, winter blue meeting wildfire green.

One of Cersei’s men slides a tray underneath Sansa’s cell, a metal thing with a bowl of mushy, brown looking soup and a bowl of dirty water. Sansa notices a bug swimming around in the water, big and black. She looks away quickly.

“You’re feeding me. How odd” Sansa says. The wolf inside of her threatens to snap, to lunge forward, teeth bared and eyes big. But she cannot, which angers the wolf all the more.

“I need you alive. Not dead” Cersei says. “I could use you against that king in the north of yours”

Sansa looks around Cersei. There’s something different in the air around her. It’s prideful, yes, but full of sorrow. Sansa thinks about how she hasn’t seen Jaime Lannister, or any of Cersei’s remaining children. Sansa connects the dots like stars in her mind, and she grins, big and wide.

“You’re all alone, aren’t you?” Sansa says, and to her surprise, her voice rings clear. “There’s nobody with you anymore. Not Myrcella or Tommen or Jaime. You have no more family. I wonder what that feels like”

Cersei’s bottom lip curls. The lioness in her snaps her teeth, but Sansa doesn’t fear. She knows that wolves have no mercy for lions.

“You better learn to hold your tongue” Cersei says, her voice eerily soft. She leaves quickly after, to Sansa’s relief, her soldiers trailing behind her.

Sansa collapses, her leg no longer able to hold her weight. Her head hits the stone wall, and a ringing pain erupts at her temples. She whimpers, staring down at her dirty, bloody hands.

Yara doesn’t say anything. She just stares at Sansa, almost curiously. But Sansa pays her no mind.

I mustn’t lose hope, Sansa says. I mustn’t. Jon will come. I know he will.

Sansa wants him to hold her in his arms again. She wants him to bury his face in her hair, to stare into her eyes as if he were drowning in them. She wants...she wants...

Sansa shakes her head firmly. I can’t think like that, Jon would never feel the same way. Besides, he has his Dragon Queen, all fiery and full of flames instead of blood. But yet, the memory of Jon kissing her on the castle’s tops as the snow blew around them softly, makes something stir inside of her. Something strange. A tiny storm, waiting to blow.

Chapter Text

JON

Aboard the ship, Jon watches the dark waves lap and lick the ship’s wooden surface, black and heavy. Theon’s speaking to the men Jon dragged along with him, all looking tired and groggy. But he doesn’t care.

He closes his eyes, and lets the air wash over his face. The wind is cold, yet soft, and has a deep moisture to it. He allows it to caress his hair and his sweaty face.

He sees Sansa. His eyes are closed and he’s far away from her, but he sees her clearly. Her crimson coloured hair would be pulled back from her face, but spill down her shoulders. Her blue eyes would be wide open, her pink lips curled into a smile. Hello, Jon, she’d say. She’d grab his arm, squeezing it gently with her fingers. Hello. Something stirs inside of him, the wolf grows restless and lonely, longing deeply for someone, howling sadly into the darkness.

Jon snaps his eyes open and grabs the railing. Now isn’t the time for fantasies, he tells himself. He must focus.

The sails above him blow in the wind, pale things high above him. Theon leaves the men, and strides over to Jon.

“You look upset. Is everything alright?” Theon asks.

“The last time one of my family members were held captive by a Lannister, he was beheaded and called a traitor” Jon says bitterly, staring up at the dark sky. “And now...who knows what Cersei will do to Sansa. She still thinks she killed her son”

“We’ll get her back” Theon reassures him. “And Yara, too, hopefully. But I have no clue where Euron might have put her”

Theon’s face drops, and quietly, he walks past Jon, and crosses his arms against the railing. Sleepily, he says, “Jon, go get yourself some rest. You’ll need it”

Jon knows that he won’t be able to fall asleep. He hasn’t gotten a wink of sleep in two days, since he’s gotten word of Sansa’s capture. For hours on end, he’d toss in turn in his bed, wishing Sansa were next to him. He’d run his fingers through her hair and watch her sleepy eyes flutter close. He’d wrap his arms around her tightly if she were to get a nightmare, and tuck the blankets up her shoulders if she were to get cold. Maybe he’d kiss her again, softly, on her cheek. She’d probably smile in her sleep, and scoot closer to him.

Jon shakes his head firmly and tightens his fist. What is he thinking? Sansa would never feel the same way. She probably wants nothing to do with men after what has happened to her. Theon is right, Jon thinks, I do need to get some sleep.

SANSA

Sansa takes a sip of the cold soup, and gags at it’s taste. Cersei must’ve dipped the wooden bowl into sewage and passed it off as soup. Pulling the bug out of the water and tossing it out of her cell, Sansa takes a slow gulp of her water. Not able to control herself anymore, she drinks all of the filthy water, not realizing how thirsty she was.

Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, Sansa closes her eyes and tries to distract herself from the piercing screams of the cells. People go mad down here, she thinks. How long until I do, too?

She wanted to be back in Winterfell so badly, her bones ached. She wanted to walk in the snow with Arya, and playfully make snowballs and throw them at her. She wanted to sit with Bran and have him tell her stories like she was a girl again. And she wanted the cold snow on her skin, softly melting on her, and landing in her eyelashes.

Sansa looks down the cells. The doors are heavily guarded, there’s no way she’d be able to get out without being killed. And it’s not like I would make it that far, Sansa thinks, not with this leg.

I hope they’re safe now, Sansa thinks, closing her heavy eyelids and thinking of her family, of Arya and Bran and Jon. I hope they’re happy...and I hope Jon is happy with his Dragon Queen. She tries to wish them good faith together, but for some reason, she couldn’t, at least not without getting a horrible feeling deep in her stomach. She couldn’t picture Jon with another woman. It didn’t feel...right.

“How long have you been here for?” Sansa asks Yara, who’s been picking at her cell bars with a sharpened rock.

“I don’t know. A few weeks, maybe? Time doesn’t exist down here. We could very well be on our third year captured here”

“Jon will come” Sansa says weakly. “I know he will”

“Well, at least you’ve got someone who cares” Yara scoffs.

“You do” Sansa says, and cranes her neck to face Yara. “You have Theon, and he won’t give up on you”

Yara shakes her head, slowly and sadly. “You don’t know him like I do, Lady Stark. He left me for dead when Euron attacked our fleets”

“People change” Sansa says, thinking of herself, the young girl with a head swimming with dreams and fantasies. “And anyways, we need to find a way out of here. I doubt that Cersei will keep either of us alive for long”

“There’s no way” Yara says, coughing. Her voice sounds dry, and Sansa wishes that she could’ve given Yara some of her water. “Nobody has ever escaped from these dungeons. Attempting to escape is suicide”

Sansa looks down at her hands, wishing that they would transform into claws. Maybe then she would be able to escape.

“I know Cersei” Sansa says. “If only I could bargain with her...she could let us leave the dungeons”

“You can try, lady wolf”

Chapter Text

JON

The raven crawled into his chambers as the ship softly rocks from side to side. It’s a black one, with wet feathers from the sea. It’s beetle black eyes blink at Jon as he takes the letter off its foot.

It’s from Arya, Jon realizes, and his chest collapses with relief.

The raven flies away, out an open window and into the pitch black darkness of the night. Jon holds the parchment under candlelight, and squints at the words.

Hello, Jon. I know you’ve left and I know where you’re going. I couldn’t sleep, and I saw you going onto the ship with Theon. I’ll keep an eye on the Dragon Queen, and I’ll find some way to distract her until you’re gone. When you find Sansa, tell her I love her and I’m sorry. She’ll know what I mean. With love, Arya.

Jon holds the letter tightly to his chest, but gently, as not to wrinkle it’s words. He wishes time could be different. He wishes he weren’t in the middle of the war, so he could be a proper big brother to Arya. But he hasn’t even spent a good amount of time with her since she came back to Winterfell.

The Dragon Queen doesn’t like his sisters very much. Jon reckons she hates that he loves someone more than her, that he can’t give her his undivided attention when Arya is around, and especially Sansa. The Dragon Queen gives them weak smiles, as if she strains to show them kindness. She even has more dislike for his people, the lords of the North, who despise her and what she stands for with a fury, but have calmed that fury down once Jon explained that without her dragons, the two horrific beasts that now fly over snow, tainting it with their breath, without them, the war is more then over.

Jon sighs. Even horrific as they are, he wishes he had a dragon with him now. The huge, winged beast would be able to reach Sansa faster than a damn ship.

He shuts his eyes, and drags a weary hand down the side of his face. What would his father do? Jon wishes he could be like Eddard Stark, but finds himself weak at times. Weak and hopeless, stranded in a war with nothing but a queen who’s tongue dances with fire and another one with the devil perched on her shoulder. Sansa is his only solitude. The only escape. Her eyes are like beautiful oceans, not deep and threatening like the one he’s on now, but calm and still and inviting.

Suddenly, his eyes snap open as the ship rocks heavily to the left, with so much thrust that Jon is nearly knocked off the side of his bed. His heart hammering inside of him, he scrambles to the window, and peers outside, horrified, yet somehow relieved at what he sees.

It’s one of the Dragon Queen’s beasts. This one is the red one, the largest, the one that took a liking to Jon back on Dragonstone. The look it had in his eyes...it looked like it was reuniting with an old friend. Jon remembers it gave him the strangest feeling.

The dragon flaps its mighty wings, and roars into the sky. It’s looking for someone.

And somehow, even with the dragon high in the air, it looks down, and looks eyes with Jon, it’s yellow eyes staring into Jon’s dark brown ones.

It’s me, Jon thinks. It’s looking for me.

SANSA

Sansa thinks she’s going mad.

Earlier that day, or night, or whatever it was (Yara was right-time doesn’t exist down here) she slept for the first time in two days. She dreamt of Jon.

She dreamt that she and Jon were in the same bed together. He had her face cupped gently in his hands, and had brushed his lips over hers, softly, and then they locked eyes, and she was lost in the deep forest of brown.

She never wanted to wake up.

But then, in the bed, she felt something, or someone, grip her legs tightly, and pull her off the bed. Sansa screamed and screamed as she was dragged through the halls of Winterfell, and a little thought said that maybe Ramsay was back from the dead, back to beat her and torture her and force himself onto her, which made her all the more horrified.

Jon was chasing after her, but instead of running, he was riding a dragon. A gigantic scaly lizard with wings the size of a lake, chasing after her to get her to safety. Surprisingly, Sansa wasn’t scared of the dragon. It looked like it wanted to help her, and that it trusted Jon. It makes Sansa chuckle, thinking about it now. Jon, her Jon, a dragon rider?

Hopefully he’ll come and save me, dragon or no, she thinks. I don’t want to die down here. But if I do, I want them to bring my bones back to Winterfell. Then, I could rest beside Father and Mother, and my fallen brothers.

“I heard you saying his name in your sleep” Yara says, across Sansa’s cell. Wearily, Sansa lifts her eyes, which feel greasy and heavy, to stare at Yara.

“Who’s name?” Sansa’s voice splutters and trembles like a broken instrument. She clears her throat, but that only sends a sharp, stinging pain up and down her neck.

“Jon” Yara sighs. “I wonder what it’s like to love someone the way you love him”

“I don’t love him” Sansa says, but then quickly corrects herself. “I mean, of course I do. He’s-he’s my brother. Well, sort of. Anyways, I just meant...” Sansa trails off, feeling like an idiot.

Yara just laughs. “You love him, and deep down inside, you know you do. That’s why you can’t admit it. It’s because it scares you. It scares you because everyone you’ve ever loved has left you. And he...you couldn’t bear to lose him, couldn’t you?”

The wolf inside Sansa whimpers out, stirring softly inside of her. The wolf is lonely, and wants its mate back.

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about” Sansa whispers.

“Listen” Yara says, and she places her forehead against the bars, and snaps her fingers, making Sansa stare back at her again. “You’ve got one life. That’s it. One life, and then your skin peels off and your bones crumble and turn to dust and then all you are is a story of who you once were. Do you want the story of Sansa Stark to be a happy one? Songs that little girls will sing to themselves, songs that give people hope? Or do you want it to be a sorrowful one, about a young lady who couldn’t be with the one she loved...because she was too scared?”

Sansa couldn’t say anything. She couldn’t think of the right words. Her breath wheezes in and out of her, and she closes her eyes, leaning her head against the hard stone wall.

“You’re right” she murmurs. “When I see Jon again...if I do...I’ll tell him how I feel. And that will be that”

Chapter Text

JON

In the corner of his eye, Jon sees the door to his bedroom burst open, and an out of breath Theon yell out his name.

“Jon! The-the dragon! You need to come up there, now! You’re the only one that can control it!”

Still dazed and sleepy, Jon was confused. I can’t control the beast. I can hardly control myself. But then he remembers how the dragon let him place his hand on its nose, how it nuzzled his embrace.

“Alright, Theon” Jon turns away from the window. “Stay done here, and bring the other men with you. It’s too dangerous”

“You can’t be up there by yourself” Theon says, his eyes frantically running up and down Jon’s face. “You’ll be killed”

“I wouldn’t bet on it” Jon says. “I have an odd way of escaping death. I think Death itself hates me”

He runs past Theon, the furs on his shoulders tickling his neck as he runs up the stairs and pushes the door open. The men on the deck look horrified and frantic, the sea spraying them as they try to get away from the dragon.

“Go below!” Jon bellows. “Go to safety! I can handle this!”

“But...your Grace...it’s too dangerous!” one of the men, a younger man with bright eyes and a sharp chin shouts at him, but Jon dismisses him.

“I can control the beast” Jon yells. “But I can’t concentrate if I have to worry about you lot!”

The wind is heavy and strong, whipping Jon’s hair about his face. It sprays salty sea water at him, and Jon chokes out.

The dragon roars in the sky, and the men, terrified, obey Jon and retreat to the lower decks with Theon.

Jon takes a sharp breath inwards. He wants nothing to do with the beast. In his opinion, it’s a mass weapon of destruction. That thing, flying above him right now, could be the end of millions of innocent lives.

But he’s not letting anything, even a gigantic, fire-breathing dragon keep him away from Sansa.

“Hey!” Jon shouts into the thrashing air. “Drogon, that’s your name, isn’t it?!”

The dragon turns around when it hears Jon’s voice, and starts to race towards him, slicing through the air, it’s yellow eyes ablaze and contrasting deeply into the dark air.

Jon suddenly feels his stomach plummet with fear, but stands tall. The dragon stops in front of the ship, it’s large belly dipping into the water. It shrieks at Jon, opening its jaws wide, saliva dripping down its teeth, which are almost the length of a sword.

“There you are” Jon says softly, and the dragon closes its jaw. “It’s just me. It’s just Jon”

Slowly and carefully, he starts towards the dragon, a shaking arm outstretched. The dragon leans in towards him, bowing his head slightly, letting Jon caress its scales.

Jon lets out a heavy breath of relief. “Alright. Would you mind if you took me somewhere? Kings Landing is where I need to be. I need to save someone who’s very special to me”

The dragon gives a slow nod of his head, as if in understanding. Jon, bewildered, watches as the dragon turns to its side, so Jon could easily climb onto its back.

Why...why does it trust me? Jon’s thoughts race. I’m not a Targaryen.

“Are you getting on? Or you just gonna stare at it?”

Jon whips around, and sees a grinning Theon, water droplets scattered around his face. But Theon doesn’t fear the sea. He looks comfortable, as if someone threw him to the waves, they’d guide him gently back to the ship.

“Theon, I told you to-“

“I’m not staying here” Theon says, raising his voice to be heard over the crashing waves. “I need to get Yara back. I’m not letting her rot in some cell”

Jon gives Theon a small smile. He truly is changing, for the better.

“Alright, then. Climb on, and I’d recommend you hold on tightly”

Jon, careful as not to fall into the deep dark waters, climbs onto the dragon, his fingers clinging tightly to its cold scales. He can hear Theon grunting behind him as he clambered up behind him.

Jon grabs onto one of the dragons arched spikes at its back, and hoists himself up, he extends a hand to Theon, and helps him up.

Once the two are safely atop of the dragon, it stirs, moving around in water, causing thousands of deep ripples to cascade through the dark waters, and with a heavy flap of its wings, it lurches forwards with a heavy flap of its wings.

Jon’s stomach shakes as he’s sailed into the sky. Theon shouts out with fear, and Jon yells at him to not look down. Jon clutches at the dragon, and stares up at the sky.

A part of Jon feels freedom and peace as he soars through the dark sky. He feels like he’s with the stars, his own constellation shining high above.

Despite all the fear stirring in him and eating at the wolf inside, he wonders if Sansa is looking at the same sky. I’ll be there soon, love. Just wait.

Chapter Text

SANSA

Sansa moans out in pain as she stares up at the little, misshapen window at the the side of her cell. The sky above is a deep dark blue, like it was an ocean instead of a sky. Clouds are splattered on the blue like birthmarks, and it makes Sansa yearn for the fresh air outside, not the musty dirt that the cells offer. She claws her hair from her eyes and stands up straight, her leg screaming out at her in pain, begging her to sit back down.

Sansa tries to push the pain away and peers out through the window.

It’s dark outside. Stars are scattered in the sky in messy handfuls, and glitter down at her. Sansa’s heart aches as she remembers the stars in the Winterfell skies, dazzling blue pinpricks that have always given her hope. She would imagine that her mother and father and brothers were up with the stars, waiting for spring with her.

Black figures move against the dirty ground in the window, and Sansa cranes her neck, squinting, trying to see what they were. They weren’t tall enough to be humans...but wide enough to be bears.

There were never bears down here, Sansa thinks. She’s never seen a bear for real before, and has only heard of them from the stories Old Nan used to tell, about how thick their coats were, and how their paws were the size of a man’s head. How with one swipe of those claws, it would be the end of a mortal’s life.

Suddenly nervous, she starts to bend down and back to her sitting position in the cell when she notices the dark figures move, and something inside of her blossoms, a large blue flower of hope. They aren’t bears. They’re wolves.

Three of them, to be exact. One has a milky white fur that reminded her of Ghost, and the other two had dark brown fur speckled with yellow. She smiled to herself. Looks like I’m not the only wolf in Kings Landing.

Suddenly, the doors to the cells creak open and Sansa hears the click-clack of Cersei’s heels on the stone floors of the dungeon, and her heart starts to hammer inside of her so quickly Sansa fears it might just burst out of her ribcage.

Before bending down from the window, she stares at the wolves one last time. And slowly, the one with the white fur turns its head towards her, and gives a shake of its head that almost resembled a nod.

Weakly, Sansa gets back down to the floor, and pressed a hand to her injured leg. The wound is greenish now, and stings so badly that whenever Sansa even looks at it, she’s reminded of when the knife first sunk into the soft flesh of her thigh.

Cersei’s glimmering green eyes reach her first. They protruded out from the darkness like flickers of wildfire, waiting to swallow her whole. Sansa thinks of the Dragon Queen, and how her flames ate Sam’s family. There’s too much fire these days, she thinks to herself.

Cersei doesn’t say anything for a moment, just keeps steady eye contact with Sansa.

Sansa, trying to calm her nerves, fiddles with her fingers behind her back, intertwining them.

“You’re still alive” Cersei finally says. “I’m surprised, little bird. You’ve changed”

“I’ve told you before” Sansa said, gritting her teeth. “I’m not a bird. I’m a wolf”

They’ve started calling her the Red Wolf in Winterfell. She always felt pride whenever someone mentioned that nickname of hers, especially when they say it along with Jon’s. The Red and White Wolf.

Cersei opens her mouth to retort back to her, but suddenly something shakes the dungeons. Crying out, Sansa looses her footing and crashes to the ground. Her leg sears with pain, and her vision goes blurry as her head knocks against the stone floor.

Blinking, Sansa notices that Cersei, too, fell with the impact, but unlike Sansa, Cersei doesn’t have an injured leg and brushes herself up.

“What in seven hells...” Cersei asks her guards. She tries to portray a calm face, but her green eyes are flickering with fear and panic.

But Sansa knows. Smiling to herself, she pictures Jon’s face.

He’s here.

Chapter Text

JON
Stars are above him, and Kings Landing is below him, tall buildings nothing but small dots beneath his feet. It made Jon uncomfortable, being above everything like this. He needs to find the Red Keep, and save Sansa before it’s too late.

“We have to land!” Theon yells from behind Jon, his curly hair whipping from side to side in the wind.

Jon nods, but his neck feels stiff and heavy. He guides the dragon with his hands, but a part of him feels like the beast could read his mind, like it knew what it wanted him to do.

For some reason, as the dragon starts flying downwards, it’s wings making the air around them stir and vibrate, Jon thinks of his childhood, of a story Old Nan used to tell him.

Robb wasn’t too fond of stories. When he got older, he practiced more with swords and play fighting with Theon. But Jon loved to hear them, they were like escapes from his reality, which at times, could be somber. His favourite story by Old Nan was her tale of two lovers. He forgets their names, but remembers how the man tried to save the girl from a dragon. In the end, the girl dies, and so does the man trying to save her. Robb and Theon found it too “girly” at the time, but he liked it. The tale of tradgedy and failed glory. And the poem she said at the end of the story, oddly enough, he remembers it clearly.

“Howling birds call into the night
Their song an echo of a lovers loss
Deep and beautiful
It rings to the stars”

I won’t let us be a tradgedy, Jon thinks, picturing Sansa’s heart shaped face and piercing blue eyes in his head.

Theon screams as the dragon suddenly dips to the ground, and Jon’s heart skips a beat as his hands loose their grip for a moment. The dragon sails to the ground, and lands beside a tall, circular building.

Shakily, the two step off the dragon. Theon’s face is white as snow, and Jon’s legs shake.

“That...that was crazy” Theon says quietly. “You...rode that dragon like it was nothing”

Jon rolls his eyes. “It probably only likes me because Danaerys does. It’s just a coincidence”

Theon chuckles. “Sure, Jon. A coincidence”

The two walk silently through the dark. The dragon blinks it’s great big yellow eyes at Jon, and then shuts them, as if he were going to take a nap. He’s a terrifying creature, Jon thinks, but yet I long to be flying through the air again.

A lone wolf howls through the darkness, it’s call piercing the air. When it spots Jon, it’s dark grey eyes that matched his, blinked with understanding. Without tossing its head back to make sure the two were following, it bounded into the night, a black wisp.

“We have to follow it” Jon says quickly, and starts to chase after it, ignoring Theon’s calls of “You’re crazy, Jon!”

He had a feeling, a gut feeling, that the wolf knew where Sansa was. After all, wolves stick to their own.