Chapter Text
The sun was a fuzzy white spot and the sky a screen of mist above their heads. They urged their horses through the plains and across the fords and woods, galloping until the poor beasts stumbled.
Sansa was so sore she could no longer feel her legs. Then again, she didn’t think Podrick and Edric fared much better at this point. And their horses. Their poor, poor horses, lathered, chafed raw and still going, even after all the weeks of ceaseless strain and the madness of the last few days.
The little group was being followed – for three days now. She knew because Nymeria had shown her one night.
Sansa thought she wouldn’t ever visit her dreams again to haunt her after the assistance she got from her and her companions – the savage group of man-eating wolves, that is – in the Vale. Without their help, she surely wouldn’t have gotten through. She would have fallen into the hands of the men of the mountain clans, or – even worse – found by Littlefinger’s mercenaries and brought back to him. Or maybe a bear would have torn her asunder. That was exactly what she thought would happen to her – being eaten alive, that is – when Nymeria showed up.
Sansa thought that was what the wolves would actually have done, be it not for her sister’s – her dear sister’s – lost direwolf. She recognized her – they recognized each other, and although Sansa was still afraid, she followed Nymeria with her pack and they led her out of the woods, dismembering and disemboweling anyone who crossed their path.
She didn’t see any of it, being right in the center of the deadly wave of the fearsome beasts. But she could hear, and even taste it, sometimes, in the night, and it made her sick, every time. But however she tried, she could not excise the direwolf’s presence from her dreams. So she was glad when she finally emerged from the woods south of the Vale and the wolves abandoned her. The dreams became fainter with every passing day, and at last she found herself free from them.
That was when she stumbled upon Edric. Edric Dayne, the rightful Lord of Starfall. Oh, he told her much and more when she finally relented and let him bring her to that little hiding place in the caves, and she could not find herself to believe half of it.
There were others there with him, a whole score of them, actually. A ragged group of fearsome, scarred outlaws and young, but no less scarred girls with cudgels in their hands, and some children and old women too. And even Podrick Payne, Tyrion’s timid squire, although he wasn’t so timid any longer. They were all hungry and sad, so she fit just right in.
It was Podrick, of course, who recognized her and told Edric. And when they asked her what she would do, she didn’t hesitate one moment to give them their answer.
That was over a year ago. A year of hiding, of rough rides through the woods, miles and miles, and even more on foot, with barely anything to eat, with nothing of her own but the clothes on her back and her determination, not even her name.
She went by Dora when there was a need to go by any name at all. Podrick still called her his lady, and so did Edric, when they were alone, but the others called her Dora too – they didn’t know, and that was for the best, she supposed. To retaliate, she sometimes called Edric Lord – and Podrick Ser, just because she knew it would bring that smile to his face. “I am no ser,” he would say, and oh, she heard that before and it made the whole thing even sweeter, “Only Podrick, my lady.”
She learned to tend to her own horse (even grew close to a few), start a fire, go by on near nothing and, for to be able to bear it more easily, to joke about it, sharing her misery with her no less miserable companions.
She shared her sleeping places with uncouth, hairy, stinky men and in time she found herself lulled to sleep by their loud snores. She helped those same men how she could, mostly by mending their clothes and cleaning their wounds, for the protection they provided and for the food they brought in.
Some of them would grow bold and try to drag her into a corner or pushed their hands under her skirts, but after those were dealt with, usually by Podrick who was always close at hand, most of the rest contented themselves with giving her a hard time with their bawdy comments and laughing at her attempts to talk back and chastise them in the process.
For some reason, they always found her speech hilarious and could not keep a straight face when she tried talking to them, at least at first. But she learned to regulate her speech patterns, too, to use phrases appropriate for the role she was supposed to play at that particular moment. She even learned a repertory of jokes so crude she would surely faint in horror if she heard them just a few years ago, and quite a few imaginative curses, but those she would never use, not even as Dora.
She shivered through the nights and starved through the days, but she was free. And oh, how sweet that was.
She was almost seventeen now and she had become so hardened she did not think she could find any softness in herself ever again. But the time had come for her to reclaim her name, and to become a lady again. It was what her mother wanted her to do. The last – the only – thing her mother told her before she let the Stoneheart take over the shell of her body again and left to exact that revenge of hers. You are a Stark, Sansa, the last one, and you need to reclaim what belongs to you and bring justice to the memory of your Father, your Brother, and me, too. And it was also what Sansa herself desired, she supposed. She just… she didn’t know if she remembered how to be a lady, anymore. And she couldn’t help but doubt she could ever be truly worthy to be called the daughter of her brave parents, the sister of her dear siblings, the heir of her ancient name.
Their pursuers were gaining on them with every hour, and they could not stop and rest, not now. They were close, so close Sansa could see the walls of the castle faintly in the distance, but she knew they were still leagues away.
She thought they were Littlefinger’s old men, but she couldn’t be sure. Maybe they caught a glimpse of her hair when she, Edric and Podrick lingered in some small town or another, and remembered she still had a prize on her head, hoping that someone would pay. They wouldn’t bring her back to Littlefinger, she supposed, as she hoped there was no Littlefinger to bring her back to anymore, not after the Lady Stoneheart got to him. If she did. But maybe they didn’t know or maybe they had a mind to sell her to someone else, or maybe they would just kill Edric and Podrick and have their way with her and leave her with her throat slit by the road. She didn’t care to find out what their intentions were. What she knew was that she needed to find her way to Harrenhal, to this man who happened to be the last man alive calling himself the rightful king of the Seven Kingdoms. She hoped she would find him willing to listen.
There was another thing she hoped for, but she couldn’t bring herself to acknowledge it as a real possibility in her heart. It would be too heavy a blow for her to take in, even after everything that happened these past years, to allow herself to hold onto this hope, just to have it crushed to pieces after it would become clear it was just a rumor and nothing else. Rickon. Rickon, my dear baby brother.
She prayed, silent prayers when she couldn’t sleep at night, but she never dared to truly hope. But she did hope her mother would hear. Let her hear it. Even if it isn’t true. Maybe she would be able to finally move on. But then Sansa remembered that her mother was no more, that the Lady Stoneheart didn’t care for the living anymore, not even her own children. That was why it was so easy, too easy, to leave her again once she had found her.
Edric rode by her left and Podrick by her right and ever so often one or the other would remind her: “We are almost there, my lady. Just a bit further. We must go on, Sansa.”
Being so close to their destination, they rode without a night’s sleep. They didn’t have any food left to share, anyway, and hoped to reach Harrenhal by dawn. But their going was slow and their poor horses were so lathered and breathing so heavily, wheezing, it was clear they wouldn’t be able to carry them much farther, and they finally settled for a few hours of rest an hour or two after sunrise.
Despite her exhaustion Sansa didn’t fall asleep, and neither did Podrick, although he tried. Edric spent the early morning walking around their camp, starting at every rustle in the bushes. At least their horses dozed off for a while.
When they saddled up to ride out again, the morning was bitingly cold and damp. As pleasant as an embrace from a corpse, rotting in a river, Sansa thought and startled, horrified.
“My lady, we need to go,” Podrick grasped her shoulder and helped her up, “We’ll reach Harrenhal by midday, surely. Just a few more hours.” Sansa mounted her mare. “Let’s go, then.” She urged her onward, leading the way. Somehow, she was full of grim determination again, after days of hesitant uncertainty.
An hour later, the storm started. It was more of a drizzle at first, but soon they found themselves trudging through mud, the rain falling so heavily it almost seem to push them to the ground. It felt as if nature itself was posing them obstacles, hoping to throw them off their path, pushing them away. But it only made Sansa spur her mare harder.
She reached the walls first, with her two young companions lagging behind her, and while she waited on them to catch up, she dismounted and embraced the neck of her mare.
“We are here, my lady,” Podrick said, and Edric only managed to nod and smile and let out a heavy sigh.
They could not tell from the overcast sky, but it was not yet noon.