A Time for Wolves

Sansa

Seated on a small bench on Princess Daena's deck, Sansa was happy, feeling her hair dance with the wind. As she looked out, where the water shimmered in the sunshine and waved without pause, and the earth was barely visible in the horizon, she could not help but be proud of herself. This was the first time she made an important decision and it worked. Or at least, it had worked so far. Was that what playing the Game of Thrones felt like? She was not very certain if that was what she was doing, but even if she was not, she had to be careful.

She had managed to take the responsibility of tending to the ravens of the Gates of the Moon when Lord Baelish went off to visit Lord Royce, leaving Nestor Royce and the maester busy with the preparations for the tourney in her honor and her wedding. Maester Colemon could have done it without much trouble, but she had asked to be in charge of the castle's correspondence, saying that she wanted to have some duties before getting married and he had gladly agreed, because he could now dedicate more time to Robert, whose health worsened as winter drew near. That is how in the end it was her who had opened Jon's letter. She had read it many times since then, and almost knew it by hard:

To Lord Robert Arryn, of the Eyrie.

From Castle Black I write to the Vale to request urgent help. I know that during the War of the Five Kings the Vale remained neutral. And the Night's Watch would have done the same, if it had not been in such a desperate need of support. The only King who heard our pleas was Stannis, so we have allied with him.

We are not, however, asking the Vale to do the same. The help we are asking is for something more important, and basic. While the kings play their game of thrones, at the Wall there is a great danger that threatens to destroy the realms of men. Our desperate state has led us to make common cause with those who have been our enemies for centuries: the Free Folk, also known as 'the wildlings'.

Surely by now you will be wondering what could be more important than the war between the kingdoms, and what could force the Watch to ally with the Free Folk. The answer is simple but difficult to believe, despite being a fact: the Others, who had not made any appearance in eight thousand years, have attacked. We have lost many men trying to defeat them, and they are still beyond the Wall. But we need help to keep them at bay and save Westeros from them. And the warring kings refuse to acknowledge the truth: that when the dead men walk the earth, nobody will care about who sits the Iron Throne.

As for the kind of help we are asking for, it is not men to man our castles, as we used to request. We have enough now with the free folk. We ask for food to survive this winter instead, because with our new numbers we will run out of reserves in about two years. And if you would like to send lords and knights trained for battle, and arms forged with valyrian steel (the only metal that has proved useful against the Others) I will be immensely grateful. We do not want them to join our organization, but merely to help us with our mission during this winter.

Finally, though we are not asking you to support Stannis's cause, I would like to inform you of the general political situation at the Wall. Stannis is fighting to get Winterfell back, at the moment, and he will give it to my brother Rickon (who has not been murdered, as we thought) when he gets it. I will be his regent until he is sixteen name days. My sister Arya is alive too, and she is currently living at Castle Black. The Boltons claim to have her imprisoned, but it is a fraud.

That said, I hope to find in the Vale someone who hears of our need and helps us survive the winter that is coming.

The letter was signed 'Lord Commander of the Night's Watch Jon Stark.'

It had been two weeks since that letter arrived. She had showed it to master Colemon, who had barely believed his eyes. Sansa had decided to go to the Wall, to take food to Castle Black and to try to find out what was going on. Maester Colemon had wanted to send some men with provisions to donate, but Sansa had insisted in going herself, claiming that she wanted to see the Wall, which was the most fascinating thing that men had ever built in Westeros. She told the Royces of her decision too, and asked them to help her.

The maester had warned her that at those problematic times she should travel with protection, because it was dangerous for a maiden to travel alone and unescorted. Sansa said she would accept some help, but also stated that she did not wish to draw attention. In the end, it was decided that she should be escorted by Ser Albar Royce and Ser Donnel Waynwood, who had volunteered to help her. When that was agreed, Sansa packed everything she needed, picked forty golden dragons (some of it Petyr had given her to get new gowns, but most of it was given by the Royces, as a donation for the Wall), she parted from Colemon, Robert and Randa and she got ready to start the journey.

They got to Gulltown after five days of intense riding and they started looking for a ship that would take them to Eastwatch by the Sea. But as winter was near and the war seemed endless, there were very few captains willing to go to the North. The first day they found none, so they had to look for an inn to stay for the night. But the next day, Ser Albar convinced the captain of a small ship to take them, paying him the money he needed to repair the ship's damaged sails and ruined deck after a stormy voyage. They had had to wait other two days before Princess Daena was ready to depart.

Finally they had set off, and the ship proved to be surprisingly swift. Sansa spent most of her trip in her cabin, lying on her bed, because she got dizzy when she walked on the deck. She ate little, because the ship's movements killed her appetite, and the only thing that distracted her was watching the sea, in its constant movement.

As she looked at the horizon, to the line where the sea joined the sky, she wondered for the hundredth time what had happened. How had Rickon survived? Had he escaped Winterfell when Theon took the castle? Had Bran survived too? She should ask Rickon when she saw him. And why was Arya at the Wall? And why had Jon allowed her to stay there, if the situation there was so terrible? Did the Others truly exist? Sansa would not have believed it if the letter had not been so formal and desperate, and if it had not been sent in such a problematic time in which there was no place for jokes.

But as they got near the Wall her thoughts changed, and she started wondering what was going to happen next. What was she going to find? What was the Wall like? Should she introduce herself as Alayne, or as Sansa? She supposed that Alayne would be better, at least until she spoke with her brother. The knights that were traveling with her knew her by that name. Things had changed a lot, and now that boy she had never accepted as anything closer to her than a 'bastard half-brother' was the bravest one in her family, and the hero, if her tragic reality could somehow be compared to a song.

Sansa tried to picture that grey-eyed, dark-haired boy in a man's body, that of a youth of sixteen name days. Strong and muscular, dressed in black from head to toes. She also tried to visualize her adventurous, willful and wild little sister with a sword in her hand and her hair tied back. She would be taller now, she guessed, because there had passed more than two years since they had last seen each other. Is she still a child? Or has she already bled? Sansa wondered.

And last, Sansa also tried to guess how the baby of the family would have changed. And she realized he would not be a baby anymore: now he would be five or six years old. He would be bigger; maybe even as tall as Bran had been before he fell. She would surely find him laughing and playing with some wooden sword, oblivious to the tragedy that had occurred in that long time.

They had been a fortnight in the ship, and then they finally arrived in Eastwach. As soon as they reached the port, two guards ran to them, evidently surprised by their unexpected arrival.

"Who are you?" a man with a long beard that was part brown and part grey asked her.

"My name is Alayne Stone, and I am the natural daughter of Lord Regent and Protector of the Vale Petyr Baelish. These knights that came with me are Ser Albar Royce and Ser Donnel Waynwood. We came to give the Night's Watch our support in these perilous times, but we need to reach Castle Black and see the Lord Commander."

The men seemed to relax with her explanation. The one who had not spoken said: "Be welcome to the Wall. We will send a patrol tomorrow to escort you to Castle Black. In the meanwhile you will have to stay here. Wait a minute, and I'll bring a steward who will find some rooms for you."

That was how after a long, cold night in which she could not sleep, the last part of her journey started: the one that went from Eastwatch to Castle Black. The cold in the Wall during autumn was far worse than anything she could have imagined, and though she was wearing the warmest clothes she had brought from the Vale, they were not nearly enough for the North's climate. Before long she had chills and her hands went numb.

When the sun started going down, though, she stopped feeling so cold. She smiled, thinking that she had finally gotten used to it, but when they finished the day's ride she noticed it was not so: her fingers failed her when she wanted to let go of the reins and dismount, and she had goosebumps all over her arms. She was panting and her heart was racing, beating hard against her chest. They spent the night at a castle named Long Barrow, which was mostly manned by wildling women. She was given a hot soup to help her get warm and she could soon feel her hands and feet again, but the cold did not leave her that night even after she buried herself, head and all, completely under the sheets.

The following day was worse: the chills turned into shivers, and all her body, not just her hands, seemed to go numb. Fortunately she did not need to command her horse, as it went straight after the others, but that did not make it an easy ride: her limbs were almost frozen, and she had to make a significant effort just to stop herself from falling off her horse. Ser Albar noted that she was pale and her lips and ears had an ill bluish color to them, so he asked the commander of Sable Hall, the next castle they visited to light a big fire just beside her bed, and to give her as many blankets as they could spare, but even that was not enough to warm her.

She found it very hard to get out from bed the third day, and walking was almost impossible. She could hardly feel her legs. Ser Donnel helped her climb into his horse and carried her with him. She closed her eyes, exhausted, and did not open them again until the knight that rode with her whispered something in her ear and helped her down. She looked around, confused and lost, trying to understand where she was.

This time nobody asked their names. If they had, Sansa might have been unable to utter a reply; even her tongue seemed frozen. A small group of men dressed in black came to greet them and welcomed them to Castle Black. With the mention of that place, memory started to come slowly back to Sansa. One of the men quickly fetched a girl, and she escorted her to a spacious room with a lighted hearth and many thick rugs in the bed. The girl told her, when she noticed her weak health, that she would bring some hot water to prepare her a bath. Sansa weakly thanked her for the attention and asked her to inform Lord Commander Snow of her arrival.

"Jon has been legitimized. Now they call him 'Lord Stark'. And he already knows you are here. You don't need to hurry. You need to rest. I will come soon with the water for your bath." She said as she withdrew.

Sansa lay down on the comfortable bed and waited for the promised bath. She was about to get asleep again when the door opened and two men and the girl came in, each of them carrying two big pails of hot water. They emptied the pails in a bath tub in a corner of the room and the men left, leaving only the girl to help her.

"Take my hand, Sansa," she said. "I'll help you."

She obeyed, relying on the girl's arm to get in the tub, but before she could sit there it struck her: she had called her Sansa, while she had introduced herself as Alayne. She looked intently into the girl's eyes, and she felt tears escaping her own eyes and running down her cheeks. That disheveled girl dressed in black who was bathing her as if she were her handmaiden was her sister, Arya. She hugged the girl, who hesitated only for a second before hugging her back.

"Don't worry, Sansa. Now the pack is together again. Everything will be fine," Arya said, trying to settle her down.

But that was wrong: Sansa was the oldest one, and it should be her who comforted Arya, and not the other way around. Besides, either Arya was lying, or she did not know the truth, because, who could say that everything would be fine after finding out that there was an entire army of undead beings preparing to attack the Wall?

But Sansa willed herself to stop crying and keep her composure. It was only when Arya had left the room after helping her lay down on her bed that she allowed herself to cry again. And she cried herself to sleep.