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Chapter Text

It takes her a few years to really understand what kind of mess she’s found herself in. But to be fair, no one will let her get her feet on solid ground for months.

(The details of her first life have already started to fade. She can’t quite place the planes of Sugar Queen’s face or the sound of Twinkletoes’ glider as it slides open. She knows that she was never old in her first life- that she’d never lived long enough to feel her bones creak in the morning or the warmth of a lover's lips. She remembers being loved and cherished- not so much by her parents- but at the least by a family that she built piece by broken piece.

Some days even their names slip away.

The only part of herself she never forgets, or doubts is that she knows she was born to be barefoot. The solid tracts of land she’s so close to but can't touch call to her, begging her to come home to them.)

Toph counts her days by feedings (and wasn't that gag-worthy, having to drink at a woman's breast?). When enough days pass by that she knows this isn't some poison-induced fever dream or boulder-related head injury, she decides that this is some spirit nonsense, and it should absolutely not fall to her to have to deal with it.

Because, honestly, what the fuck?

When days slide into weeks into months and her eyes never clear past the hazy light sense of a newborn, she screeches in outrage to the limits of her young vocal cords, throwing a temper tantrum the servants whisper lowly about for years to come. If the spirits saw fit to make her live a second life, couldn't they have at the very least let her see? 

Neither Oma nor Shu sees fit to answer her demands, and so she finally settles and bides her time waiting for those around her to make a mistake.

(And it will be a mistake, she knows, to put her on the ground and let her press her feet into the dirt. She’d lived a life in which she’d bent under her parents’ wishes and simmered waiting and longing to be more than the Beifong’s poor, blind daughter. Never again would she be less than exactly who she is, Toph promises herself upon the memory of her beloved badgermoles.)

Finally, after months of being carted around from place to place like a prized pet, a woman with soft skin and long fingers (her mother, Toph’s mind provides before she shoves that thought away. She’d had enough of mothers for two lifetimes) places her on the ground and greets the man with a rough beard that he likes to rub gently against the top of her head (her father, she knows, but she’s had enough of fathers as well).

“My lord,” Lady Stark begins as Toph begins to edge to the corner of the blanket she’s been placed on. 

“Cat,” Lord Stark replies wearily. 

“I’ve come to discuss Sansa,” she replies tightly. Toph barely bobs her head at the sound of her name. She’s heard san-sa cooed at her enough to know that’s what they call her in this world. She wonders what it means, briefly. Toph she knows means lotus flower. Does Sansa mean something equally sweet that she won’t live up to? 

Lord Stark begins to speak, but Lady Stark cuts him off decisively. “We must discuss her options.” 

Lord Stark sighs heavily, and Toph ignores him as her fingers touch something solid and grainy. Stone, she almost weeps in relief. But, instead, she pushes forward on her soft, infant belly, alternating between pleas and curses at spirits she refuses to put her faith in.

“She is our daughter,” he says. “A daughter of the North. Her sight will not change that.”

Toph-in-Sansa hears the beginning of Lady Stark's curt response, but then she finally manages to fully roll from the cloth blanket to the stone floor and press her heels into the ground. 

For a brief, terrifying second, there is nothing, and then the world rushes in: she can see the steel sword at Lord Stark's hip and the twists of copper around Lady Stark's neck. She can feel two children playing nearby and the way they stumble after one another. She can count the buildings and the fortifications that make up her home and trace the hidden passageways and corridors she’ll soon explore. 

She is no longer Toph Beifong, but she's long ago learned that she is much more than her name. So with the feeling of stone against her toes and to the background music of her second set of parents arguing, she is reborn as Sansa Stark. 

Westeros is never the same. 

Chapter Text

Every possible iteration of the song of ice and fire has been written in the stars. It is as integral to its world as the Sunset Seas or the Red Comet. In this world, the song begins on a middling summer day in the North. A full pack of wolves- for Lord Stark has long learned that his eldest daughter was not one he could order to stay home, and where Sansa goes, so does Arya- leave their keep to watch an execution and return knowing winter is coming.

But first-

Sansa- who was sometimes Toph and sometimes not- ran her fingers down the planes of Arya’s soft, chubby face. She’d gotten used to having older brothers- Toph hadn’t had any blood siblings, but Zuko and Sokka had filled the role well enough that she could recognize the way Jon and Robb liked to hover over her, protecting and teasing her in equal turns.

But she had never been an older sister before.

It made her chest feel oddly squishy.

She wasn’t sure she liked this new world. There was an awful lot of bowing, and too many people called her 'Lady Sansa.’ It felt like being locked up in the Beifong compound sometimes.

But, as she ran her fingers over the soft dusting of hair on Arya’s tiny head and deeply breathed in her sweet baby powder smell, Sansa could admit that the baby gummily gnawing on her index finger was something extraordinary.

She might not need or want another set of parents, but she’d had a set of siblings once. This little girl-baby and her older brothers were her second chance, and neither the spirits of her past world nor the gods of this one would take them from her.

x

Idly, she twisted her toes into the stone floor of her second father’s solar as he stared back at her sternly. He was trying to wait her admittedly low patience out, but Sansa was plenty entertained as she focused on the Septa’s flittering footsteps across the keep. She counted every five of her steps and then bent a rock into the woman's path, making her trip.

Was that unkind of her? Probably.

But Septa Mordane was ruining all her carefully laid plans, and Sansa was not pleased. She'd learned a lot about being dramatic from Sparky, and Sansa had spent the last few moons thinking up the most shocking ways to reveal her earthbending.

She was very annoyed that the Septa went and complained to Lady Stark that Sansa hadn’t been to any of her lessons. And now, she was going to have to use her plan early and privately to get out of those ridiculous hours spent listening to the older woman drone on and on about what it meant to be a maiden.

"Sansa," Lord Stark interrupted her annoyed musing.

Sansa hummed in acknowledgment as she idly tripped Septa Mordane again. She chuckled to herself lightly as the woman fell to her knees.

Listen, she could acknowledge that making the Septa fall a dozen times was a little much. But, she had plans, okay? She was going to do a massive reveal in the Great Hall with stone statues of herself and twirling spectacles of rocks shaped like snowflakes. She was even working on a song about herself, but she couldn't figure out a word that rhymed well with Sansa. It wasn't cool of Septa Mordane to interfere with her plans like that.

"Sansa," he repeated more sternly. “Your mother says you refuse to go to lessons.”

She cocked her head to the left and considered him, focusing on his heartbeat. She liked that Ned’s heart was usually steady and slow.  “Eh,” she shrugged, “Yeah, I don’t like them.”

"Yes,” he corrected her sternly before frowning. “These lessons are important,” he replied. His heart skipped as he spoke, and Sansa knew Ned barely believed his own words. She felt his weight shift on the stone floor and guessed he was staring at her as he leaned forward on his desk. She stared back at him blankly. She knew it disconcerted him- and everyone else that met her- that she always knew where to direct her gaze.

"Those lessons are dumb."

He sighed, half agreeing that lessons about the Seven have little meaning in the North but continued, “Your Lady Mother insists on you attending them.”

She pretended to carefully consider his words, but Ned knew he'd lost the battle by bringing up Catelyn. Sansa had never called the woman Mother and likely never would- especially given her treatment of Jon.

At the end of her carefully and blatantly fake consideration, she replied, “Nah.”

"You must," Ned repeated.

Sansa grimaced. She’d never liked being told what to do in either life.

“Or what?” she asked, genuinely curious. Ned didn’t seem like the type to hit his children- not that she’d let him- so she wondered how he thought he could enforce his will.

"I am your Lord Father," he said sternly. “You must obey, or I’ll have you sent to your rooms until you do.”

Sansa stared at him blankly for another moment before laughing. She laughed and laughed and laughed until tears began to stream down her face.

Winterfell was almost entirely made of stone and dirt. Even under inches of summer snow, she could feel and hear the earth call to her. Locking her in her room would just give her more time to sneak out to the Wolfswood’s and mess around with her bending. She'd dreamt up some new techniques she wanted to try anyway.

Ned's pulse began to race in annoyance until he’d had enough of her laughter. He slammed his fists on his desk and demanded an explanation, but even as her laughter died down, Sansa simply shook her head mockingly.

Fed up, he stood to call for the guards to escort her to her room, but before he could move past his desk, Sansa tapped her right foot into the ground, and a solid wall of rock blocked his path. Then she slid her foot back, and the rock shifted from a barrier to a low chaise that she settled into.

Ned stumbled and frantically looked between the new furniture and his own feet as if doubting his eyes.

Sansa rolled her eyes and gestured for him to sit down as she pulled an apple from her breeches.

He sat, dazed.

She bit into the red skin of her fruit, ignoring the juice that dripped down her chin. Then, lowering her voice for at least a semblance of the drama she craved, she said, “Lord Eddard Stark of House Stark, I come to you as the voice of the Old Gods and the power of their will.”

Sansa didn’t believe in the Old Gods, nor would she ever bend to anyone’s will but her own.

But, the North is old, and her people's belief in the Old Gods and magics was so deeply ingrained in their blood that Sansa knew she could exploit their faith just enough to protect herself and her bending.

Ned continued to stare at her in shock for a few more minutes. Then after sending a pleading look upwards as if asking the Gods for strength, he sighed heavily and began to question her.

She lied and bullshitted her way through the night.

The Septa was sent away soon after.

x

"Sansa!" Arya shrieked excitedly as she danced into the Great Hall. It was still early enough that there were only a few startled maids to witness her skipping into the room with joy.

“Is it true?” she asked breathlessly when she reached the high table. Arya reached into her jerkin and pulled out the note Sansa had made Jon write for Arya the night before. “I can train with the boys?”

Sansa swallowed her spoon of oatmeal mixed with honey and arched an eyebrow. “Have I ever lied to you before?” she asked her little sister.

Arya wrinkled her nose and considered the question before resolutely nodding her head, “Aye, you have.”

Sansa threw her head back in laughter. “You’re right,” she said as Arya jumped over the table to settle in next to her. “But I’m not lying about this.”

Arya squealed and threw her arms around her older sister. Sansa hugged the younger girl back, only letting go when Arya stiffened and pulled away.

“What’s wrong, little wolf?” Sansa asked, chucking Arya’s chin.

Arya tucked her chin in and shrugged before whispering, “What about Mother?”

Sansa wrinkled her nose and asked, "What about her?"

“She won’t like me fighting.”

Sansa nodded in agreement. “She won’t.” Arya’s shoulders slumped, but before she could reply, Sansa continued, “A lot of people won’t like you fighting.” Sansa reached out to grab Arya’s hand and squeezed her sister’s fingers. “They might not think it’s honorable for a lady to fight, and Lady Stark might say you must learn to sew and dance as it is duty, but Arya, listen to me." Sansa tugged her sister's hand sharply, trying to impart a lesson she'd only learned after running away. "Words like honor and duty are just that- they're words." Arya went to protest. Their father spoke of honor often. "No, listen to me," Sansa said, shaking her arm to revert the younger girl's attention. "There is no use for honor or duty in this world. Don't let Lady Stark or father or anyone else use those words, those ideals, to push you into being something that you aren't."

Sansa paused as the quick footsteps of her elder brothers pounded through her senses.

“Do you understand?” Sansa pressed.

Wide-eyed, Arya nodded, “Aye.”

"Good," Sansa murmured, leaning in to kiss the crown of Arya's head. Then as her brothers climbed to the high tables, Sansa turned to greet them.

Arya ate the rest of her oatmeal silently.

x

The smallfolk whispered about her bending- called her a gift from the Old Gods, a sign of great things to come from this generation of the Starks, reparation for the woes of Lady Lyanna, Lord Brandon, and the previous Lord Stark. They did it carefully and behind her back, too scared to confront her directly.

Sansa was careful about her bending. She spent most of her days in lessons with her siblings and Maester Luwin or in the Wolfswood practicing new bending forms. Only her family saw what she could truly do with her bending beyond her pulling up rocks to trip Theon in the practice yards.

But when she was with her siblings, she earthbent often. She used it against her brothers when they played in the Godswood and for her sister when she made Arya little soldier toys to play with. She’d stack boulders upon one another and let her siblings climb them as she sat atop her own and carefully sensed to catch them if they stumbled.

It's no surprise then that the first time she used her bending to hurt someone, it was in front of her siblings.

(No one is surprised at who pushed her admittedly low tolerance to the limit, though.)

It was her eleventh nameday, and she'd asked for a quiet family dinner rather than a feast because while Sanaa does love a good spectacle, Lady Stark always tried to introduce “eligible young men” to her eldest daughter. These young men would spend the night trying to ask Sansa vague questions about her blindness and lack of shoes until Arya or Robb came to run them off.

They gathered in the family dining room and waited for everyone to arrive. Lady Stark tried to start a conversation with either of her daughters, but Sansa had no love to spare this second mother, and Arya's description of her sword fighting classes made their mother’s lips twitch into a frown. She was still bitter that Septa Mordane was dismissed, and her daughters were put in the same classes as their brothers and the bastard boy. She wasn’t prepared to pretend otherwise.

Lady Stark cut her awkward attempts at bonding short when Robb and Jon stumble in together, laughing and sweaty. She stood quickly at the sight of him so close to her precious heir when she had told him that this family meal was not for him. She dragged him away from Robb by the wrist, squeezing fiercely. Jon yelped in surprise, and Arya jumped up quickly in protest. Robb's jaw dropped, and unsure, he gaped like a fish.

Before anyone could move, Sansa formed a thick rock glove around Lady Stark's arm, stopping her from pressing down on her brother's wrist any tighter.

Lady Stark whimpered in pain, released Jon's wrist as the pressure became too much on her own hand, and begged, “Sansa!”

Sansa rose from her own seat and walked to Lady Stark in an unerringly straight line. When she was within a meter of her second mother, she leaned forward on her toes and willed the bones in Lady Stark’s wrist to snap. Lady Stark cried out in pain, and her eldest brother, the one who's always loved their mother despite her sins, was the only one to protest.

"If you ever touch Jon in anger again," Sansa said quietly after she waved off her brother's protests, "I will break every bone in your wrist each morning and then set it the next day, only to break it again.” Sansa pressed gently onto Lady Stark’s already broken bones and asked, “Do you understand?”

Lasy Stark managed to nod through her tears, and Sansa smiled, razor-thin and nasty before she dissolved the rock globe and set the floor to right again. She turned and walked back to her seat, ignoring Lady Stark’s tears as Robb helped her up.

"Jon," Sansa ordered, “Come sit by me.” He obeyed her and quickly settled into the seat across from Arya, avoiding looking in Lady Stark’s direction as Robb called a guard to take her to the Maester.

"You shouldn't have done that," he whispered under his breath.

Sansa smiled at him, and Jon was momentarily caught in his sister’s cloudy blue eyes.

"The lone wolf dies, Jon," she said as Robb came back to the table, frowning.

"Sansa," Robb scolded her.

She raised her hand to quiet him and began to reply, but Arya cut her off, “Shut up, Robb.”

"She's our mother!" he protested.

Arya frowned. “Barely,” she said honestly. Sansa had done much of the mothering Lady Stark had neglected to do for Arya. “Sansa protected our pack,” Arya hisses. “She may be our mother,” Arya continues, stressing the word ‘our’ to remind him that Lady Stark was not Jon’s mother. “But she is not a wolf.”

"Aye," Bran added from his seat in Arya's lap. Sansa doubted her youngest brother knew what Arya was saying in truth but was fiercely loyal and willing to say “aye” to anything his sisters said first. She smiled at him and reached across the table to bop his little head.

“What is mother, Bran?” Sansa asked, her voice sweet as fresh honey.

“A fishy!” the little boy replied eagerly.

Robb sighed heavily and nodded glumly, “The lone wolf dies.” There was no more talk of Lady Stark as the children served themselves dinner. She didn’t return to the room again. Their father didn’t mention his wife when he joined them either.

(Later, the plates are cleared away and stomachs full, and the siblings are tucked into their beds. They’re all asleep save one.

Sansa slipped out of her own bed when the moon was high and crept into Robb's room. She grabbed him by his shirt and shook him out of his sleep, forcing him to look into her cloudy gaze. Half-asleep, he yelped in confusion before he recognized her.

She wanted to shake him as she remembered the elder brothers she’d once had. What would Sokka have done if Chief Hakoda had grabbed Katara like that? Would Sparky not have let the Mad Firelord burn the other half of his face to keep Crazy Azula safe? She wondered if Robb would always fall short of being what she remembered a man should be.

"You will never do that again," she ordered. "Do you understand?"

“Sansa, what?” he croaked, dazed.

“You will never be a bystander to one of our sibling’s pain again. The pack comes first. Do you understand?” Sansa asked clearly. She shook him lightly. “This is your only warning.”

Slowly, he nodded his head and whispered, “Aye.”

She shook him again, more challenging this time, and asked loudly, "Do you understand?'

“Aye,” he repeated. “I understand.” She felt his heart skip a beat and knew he didn’t.

She nodded and then released his shirt to let him fall onto his mattress.

She didn’t turn back as she left his room.

x

"She lied," Sansa said in greeting as she stomped past her father’s guards and slammed the door shut behind her with a stomp of her foot.

Ned looked up from the ledger he’d been poring over, sighed at the sight of his eldest daughter, and asked, “Who?”

"Your wife," she sneered. “Lady Stark lied about who she’d been writing to in the Vale.”

Ned frowned. He’d asked Cat about her increased letters to the Vale as he knew Lysa was in King’s Landing and had been pleased to hear she’d begun to renew her childhood correspondence with the Lady of Runestone. Surely, she wouldn’t lie about that.

"How would you know this?" he asked. He doesn’t often bring attention to his daughter’s blindness especially given her terrifying ability to live unimpeded without it. Still, it wasn't as if his daughter could sneak into the Rookery and read Cat's letters.

"I always know when someone's lying," Sansa said as she idly scratched at her head.

Ned leaned back in his chair, relaxing as he realized that Sansa was simply acting out against her mother.

(Cat had always been too Southern for Sansa's strictly Northern sensibilities and Old God leanings. The distance between Sansa and her mother had only grown as Cat's disdain for Jon increased over the years. It saddened him to see that Arya and Bran had almost entirely been raised by Sansa's guidance rather than their mother's, but Ned didn't know how to bridge that gap.)

"Sansa, sweetling," Ned started. “You can’t say your mother is lying simply because you’re upset with her.”

Sansa scoffed. “I know she’s lying,” she stressed, stomping a foot and creating a comfortable seat for herself. Ned had asked her not to ruin his solar by bending her own chairs before, but his increasingly desperate pleas continued to be ignored. She arched an eyebrow at him. “The same way I know you’re lying every time you introduce Jon to someone as your son.”

He choked.

x

And now-