// 004. [video : broadcast mind]
i. (the lord he came a-riding)
Your eyes flutter open on a malleable flicker, verdant like grasses and passing brightlit over the walls of your chamber.
A spangled wash of absinthe up smooth stone (or is it ice, it's so white in the mind's eye), and a smile as you stretch for a long moment, bare feet flexing against heavy coverlets. The soft brush of your own hair against your cheek - the tickle of it caught in your lashes as you blink and wish and in wishing wake warm.
Too warm.
Warm along the thread and edge licking up the tapestry on that pale wall - the light isn't light, oh no, it's fire.
The threat of heat hasn't touched you yet, but the threat of a whisper twines its way up your limbs and stiffens them with fear. Caught in your own bedding as the green fire slips down and the walls, the wet, white half-transparent walls (they're melting now, you're sure of it gods be good no) over the formless floor. It's crackling-laughing-crackling as it slips over you like poisonhoneysickness, whispers without whispering in the voice of a queen.
//and the parts that look like magic often turn out to be the messiest of all//
A belly full of needles (and Arya's voice now, hollow and hard and so faraway - Get up! Get up, stupid, you'll burn if you don't!) and you close your eyes against it, that heat-threat, that threaded-whisper, the flare and flash of cyan chaos from behind a watered window - because if you just remember, if you just find Arya's voice again (find your own voice oh gods you can't even speak) it'll all fall away and you'll remember where you really are.
Home and safe behind the walls of Winterfell, If I wish just hard enough I'll see it change, I will. (Three birds in a cage and Father's by the window. I can see it, I can. It's there.) There's magic, in names and in Doors and I only need to---
Your bedding is on fire. The hearth spits venom and brick - vomits great gouts of wildfire and sweet smiles as it asks:
Do you want to be loved, Sansa?
Still unable to find your own voice, you try to silence hers.
(Liar! You vile, horrible liar! You don't know what it is to love anything! is what you mean to shout, but it's only birdsong that comes out.)
Tearing off the blazing quilt to find it's suddenly half-sodden and leaking red water as it goes, the stench of old blood and smoke mingling as the laughter burbles out of the hearth, wet and gurgling as it fades.
Three black dogs watch silently in the corner as the wildfire kisses your arms, whines and puts itself out. Behind them is a door. Their longshadows writhe and twist to frame it - they snap and snarl, and nip at your cheek as you pass through, but they do not break the skin. Nor do they follow.
And then you turn and run.
ii. (upon a rainy day)
Down the steps (too many to count and all slick with pooling water) as they narrow and shift in the green light that covers everything. Shadows trapped in the glass, hazy leaden panes - palms pressed against and bruised pink as you pass, down and down again like licks of flame your steps, the stairs the tapestry: a direwolf on a field of tarnished silver threads, unraveling in the heat beneath your feet.
A gilt bridge, a trail of fire behind you as you quicken your pace and bite back your tears.
Behind that shimmering glass the fleshforms shift - shadowed sockets in formless faces, reaching without seeing, without hearing. Pointing, pointing, stretching upward - fingers become spires and split the sky with bloodied tips, blooming heads.
Your dodge their gazes (Father, Septa Mordane, and Robb, it's Robb and he's looking down just now, better go and go fast) duck through the nearest door.
It's twined through with roses, all colors bowing and breaking into something indescribable - the dreamlogic of color bleeding on blooms as you blink and shield your eyes against the light.
Two silhouettes now, and you watch as the boy clasps a locket around a girl's neck. Your neck - and you try again to shout. It's not birdsong this time, but your own words echoed back against a rippling distance.
I don't want someone brave and gentle and strong, I want him.
One hand flies to your throat as if it burns, but there is no Lannister collar for your fingers to find - it's on her and she's someone else, she's Sansa Stark and you're---
(So, stupid, I was so stupid.)
---the air between you is thick with time and hindsight, and that idiot girl is smiling, smiling as she turns, as the horrible boy steps forward. Dust motes floating in the light like the summerghosts of snow - a halo of brightness behind them as Joffrey's hand offers a rose.
Your other hand reaches back for the door, but forgets what blooms there and presses into thorns.
His hand on hers as the lips of shadows kiss, but his fingers are strong and close and pressing her own (your own) to crush the petals and open beneath the bite of the stem.
You shrink against the door, as if to meld with it, to flatten out and sink against its inky surface -the low rumblegrowl thrumming from the other side. It should not be a comfort - that growl - but it is, and suddenly its fur is rough and warm against your cheek.
It's not a door it's a dog and not a dog you stupid girl it's a cat. What was at the cheek is now brushing your leg, a hiss-purr and a flick of a torn ear as it looks up at you with silvery eyes.
It shakes off the shadows and purrs itself pink until it's not a cat at all but a rabbit up on hind legs, sniffing-eyeing-sniffing and bidding you to follow through another archway.
As you do, you'd swear your steps are singing like an echo up an icy cell.
iii. (hey-nonny, hey-nonny)
Passing more pale walls, not glass but ice, and now your hands break through - now the shock of cold against your cheek (it's a snowball Arya threw a snowball remember you were laughing) but it's dung - in your hair and spattered across your temple - the stink of filth and fear and now--
--now the shapes are everywhere, and they do have eyes.
All accusing as they stare at you - fingers pointed, not spires, just flesh, but it's flesh that's roughly pulled you off your horse, and they'd called for roses, not wolves.
Just you in the empty street as they close the distance - reaching, a woman-shape draws back her arm and lets a rock fly. It whizzes past - lightsharp as it strikes metal - and another hand on your shoulder.
"Here, girl."
(I knew you'd come, somehow I--)
It's rough, too but there's a flicker of hope in a burst of white before this memory strays, betrays and it's not the Hound at all.
It's Ser Meryn and Ser Boros, it's Ser Mandon and Ser Arys. A bare fist in the stomach and the flat of a blade against your thighs. You're screaming when you don't mean to - it's all birdsong - keening as you're driven to your knees and curling inwards only to be jerked backward by the sharp pull of stubby fingers in your hair.
The second blow is not so kind (if any could be called such) -the fist is mailed, and drives out all breath. But the blows don't stop. You no longer try to shield yourself, and through the spill of tears you see him:
Aemon the Dragonknight, silvery and solemn and deaf to your cries.
The split of silk as your dress is torn to the waist and the strike of a flat blade against your ribs, against your breast as you fall.
(He's the Knight of Tears, you stupid girl, don't you see?)
Louder chirps turn the Knight's head, draw his gaze, but his fingers do not so much as pass his blade. Immobile and silent, he only watches as the beating continues.
(There are no true knights.)
Are you looking out a window or into one? You can't tell anymore just where you are, but you've raised your arms to cover your breasts only to find that your hands have become wings. Wings that beat furiously upon armor until you realize that the hammering of mail and blade has ceased. The hammering beneath your chest has not, and you're being raised to your knees and looking into a set of mismatched eyes before you're pulled to your feet.
"Is this your notion of chivalry, Ser Aemon? What sort of knight stands by to---" There's an edge in Tyrion's voice sharper than the blades that surround you, but it's lost in the thudding of heart against ribs, and the rush of blood in your ears as you bend forward, using arm and hair to cover yourself.
The weight of the Kingsguard cloak slips over your shoulders and you're wrapped in what seems like miles and miles of bloodied snow. The rasp of the Hound's voice and the ungentle grasp of his hand upon your arm. "Sing me a song, why don't you? Some song about knights and fair maids. You like knights, don't you?"
You look up into his face before he moves to make you. You don't know any songs - don't know any words at all (but your courtesy is your armor and his cloak is, too.) - so you open your mouth to thank him.
To make some feeble apology and you notice that it's not bone gleaming from his jaw where all the flesh has burned away, it's ice.
iv. (hey-nonny-hey)
But the cloak's grown heavy and somehow it's spun a wolf in seedpearl upon itself - the beast pacing at your back as it's prison hangs upon your shoulders, growling in discomfort as Joffrey's hand brushes your breast.
"I'm your father today. I am. And I can marry you to whoever I like. To anyone. You'll marry the pigboy if I say so, and bed down with him in the sty."
This cloak feels less like armor and more as if it burns your skin. It does burn, and you've stepped through a door as you've turned away and made to run, but there are hands at your shoulders and upon your wrists - it's a dance now and you're spinning past one after another after another, the taste of ash upon your tongue.
The Imp is watching as he sips his wine from a chalice that's twice the size of him (how is it even possible?), and then he's gone from his seat and tugging at the hem of the cloak you'd thought you were rid of.
You close your eyes and grasp the hand of the next in line - it's warm, warm as the breath in your ear and the wet lips that follow it as Joffrey hisses words that stays the heat and replace your blood with ice.
"You shouldn't look so sad. My uncle is an ugly little thing, but you'll still have me. My uncle will bring you to my bed whenever I command it."
And you're spinning again as the dancers close in, faceless and grasping and tearing the cloak from you, fingers twining in the laces of your bodice. Laughter. Sniggering. Are they dancers or are they all Kingsguard? It's so fast and you don't know.
Can't see.
You try to run, but they're too fast, and Joffrey's hand is on your sleeve. You know it's his by the way your skin crawls, by the bite of the fingers and the heat round your throat like a phantom locket.
(So stupid, so stupid.)
"It's time to bed them! Let's get the clothes off her and have a look at what the she-wolf's got to offer my uncle!"
"I'll have no bedding." Tyrion says, looking slowly up from a cup that's grown smaller. Darker. Full of glittering amhethyst stones.
"You will if I command it!" At Joffrey's words a cry rises up from the Kingsguard and a sob from your throat as you leap foward toward a door that wasn't there just a moment ago. The silk of your sleeve tears and you fall to the floor, your hands grasping at the ankles of the nearest masquer, trying to claw your way up, climb over and throw yourself through that door that's so close.
"Then you'll service your own bride with a wooden prick. I'll geld you, I swear it." The masquers have parted and fall away like paper decorations, edges rolling up and bright with flame as Tyrion speaks. At that moment he is a hundred feet tall and it's not a dagger he's slammed into a table, but a shining sword fiercer and more glorious than anything borne by any Knight in any tale.
(There are no true knights.)
The door glows like hearthlight as you pass through it, your slippers making faint and muffled noise on the floor. It's so dark and you're suddenly cold. Your own hands are fumbling at the laces of your gown as you face the flames - for a long moment you wonder if they would burn you if you passed through them, but you only turn at the sound of your new husband's voice.
"You hide behind courtesy as if it were a castle wall."
(Courtesy is a---
l i e
---lady's armor)
"I am your lord husband, you can take off your armor now"
The fire throws shadows that make everything seem more monstrous. Especially him.
(He is so ugly. He is even uglier than the Hound.)
It seems ages before you are brave enough to lift your eyes from the floor.
"You're a child."
There's a fearsome hunger in his verdant eye as your clothing slips away like smoke, your head dizzy with fear and wine and gods have mercy there's an archway lighting just against the coverlets of the bed where he's now waiting.
Waiting - heart in your throat as you step closer and climb abed and lie down, the scent of beeswax in the air and the curl of rosepetals beneath your bare buttocks - and for a moment you flinch as if expecting thorns.
(Will he touch me again? Kiss me? Should I open my legs for him now, I don't know what to
do---)
"Open your eyes."
You're frozen as you do, but you do because you're a good girl and you always remember your courtesies, (Look at your husband, look at all of him.) so you don't gasp as you see his stunted, naked form, prick rising up out of a brutish tangle of yellow hair.
It's as ugly as the rest of him - mismatched eyes and stunted legs - misshapen brow and raw, pink stump of what was left of his nose - ragged scar across his---
(Try to see his beauty, Sansa. Try. Septa Mordane said that all men are beautiful. All men, and---)
"In the dark I am the Knight of Flowers".
Everything's dark now. And you shrink back against the sheets as if to fall through them.
The gods are merciful and you do.
v. (The lady sat a-sewing)
A murder of fools in motley - trees festooned with blanchedclear crows looking down at you with ice-eyed interest.
The click and whirr of gears as a sparrow flies by - all gilt and mirror and strange magic as it lights in the nearest tree upon a leaf of red and gold.
Gold are the cloaks that whisper past now - flickerflash between the treeline, just out of sight but following hard on your heels as you run toward the white of Winterfell.
You can see it just at the edge of mercy's sightline - and you're running pale and white and hair a trail of fire toward it. Every brick in place, every arc and arch and tower and buttress mirrored in glass, but it's home.
A flash of black and---
(Jon? Is that you?)
Another spot of fire against the expanse of winterwhite - and it's Robb, it's Robb - and you are running faster now, flying like a wolf with wings and outstripping your pursuers by miles and time and there's another door---
(Another Door)
---but you stumble as you reach it, and the hand that steadies you spins you fast and hard and back against the very first wall you'd fled from - greenlit by wildfire.
The air itself is full of ember, a burn in your nostrils - and then the smell of blood. It's on his fingers as he presses them over your mouth - as you bite back a scream of relief and fear and (I knew you'd come) the burned half of his face presses close - dark and sticky and bloodied as his hands - his teeth against your lips as he rasps a whisper.
"You promised me a song, little bird. Have you forgotten?"
The stink of wine and fear and sweat and his knife is at your throat now. "I'll have that song, Florian and Jonquil you said. Sing, little bird, sing for your life."
Your lips open against his and the song spills out in a kiss.
Soured wine and growling give way to the taste of mint and the lilt of laughter. Petyr Baelish's laughter as he pulls you close.
Something shadowed and ominous (like the beating of a great wing) passes by the icewindow in the frozen replica of Winterfell - a thousand feet high now and and you shove away from the embrace - stumbling back into snow and looking up to a snowgate - an icegate - an icegaze of reddened coldkissed corpses stripped of skin and dressed the clothes of babes.
(Bran. Rickon. No!)
The icy spires offer you another bouquet - a triptych of your lady mother and lord father's heads flanking your brother's body - stretched and bloated and strung up and his head (oh gods, his head, oh mother have mercy---
//Mercy.
Mercy, Sansa?
This is mercy.//
---in place of your brother's head is that of his wolf. Grey Wind. Lips curled back in a snarl and growling at you. Struggling against the bonds that pin him in his place.
A scream tears itself from your throat as you match that growl. Become it as the fire burns in your belly and the blood runs down your thighs to stain the snow.
You're on your knees and it's on your hands by the fistful. Hand to mouth and choke it down as if to burn the heat and heart and blood from you - freeze you by degrees on the inside so they can never touch you again - or maybe just numb it all away.
The shadow comes again but does not pass.
vi. (upon a rainy day)
Your footsteps make no sound in this hall, and it may be because you aren't really here. The snow (hasmadeyoustronghasmadeyounumb) has frozen the fear. There's a dull flicker in your tummy as the hall becomes a bridge and you tread carefully because it's narrow, so narrow (one foot in front of the other don't look down, don't.)
Joffrey's waiting, there. His arm outstretched as if to beckon you forward. His arm curling inward as you approach - as if to touch his throat.
To clutch his throat.
His lips curl and sneer and open - and a puff of wet feathers is vomited into empty air - suspended there to float and catch the light like dust motes.
A silhouette of dusk rose doublet, his golden hair luminous against his steadily blackening face - bruisekissed and darkening like burning parchment as he coughs - feathers spewing from his mouth with sprays of wine - fingers clawing - raking long and deep into his flesh.
Your sobchirp becomes a laugh becomes a cry becomes a howl as you step forward to reach for his sleeve, for his shoulder - fingers flexing to shove him over the narrow ledge - and there's ice in your eyes as you press forward.
Press forward and slippers slipping on the ice you didn't see - a slipper loose and loosed and lost as it falls down and down and down into---
(gods be good it's the Moon Door)
---the Hound's hand grasping - rasping past the silk of your sleeve to steady you only it's not Sandor at all it's Aunt Lysa.
"Look down!"
There's snow in your hair.
"Do you want my leave to go! Do you?!"
And she's flinging you backward and over the edge, but you don't fall.
You're barefoot on a tiny spire - punching into the sky like a splinter of translucent bone, barely enough room on which to stand.
vii. (hey-nonny, hey-nonny, hey-nonny-hey)
A flutter in your stomach like the fall of snow.
Oh, winter has come and you've filled your heart with ice - it's rushing in every vein as you lean forward to dive off that spire, Sandor's white cloak billowing out behind you like wings as you kiss the sky.
You might just be falling for days.
Your bones break as you strike the ground, sharp and hard and brittle, but you feel nothing at first.
It might just be a lie like everything else.
The ghost of a whine and a wet nuzzle at your cheek.
And again, the voice: Get up! Get up stupid, you'll burn!
Not Arya's but yours at last, not birdsong or wolfsong but both and none and your words are your own.
You rise on what's left of your feet, swaying on splintered ankles and trailing crimson footprints in the snow as you move forward.