Learning

For Sansa, she was both aware and unaware of the first years of her new life.

At the start, her consciousness was still cradled in the protective and possessive custody of her gods without remembering or thinking about her own end.

(Oh precious child, there is a time and place for everything.)

Sometimes she would dream about colourful, blurry figures that reminded her of giants. However, these giants were different from the ones she remembered. They weren't as hairy as the ones she remembered and didn't wear furs or leather. They didn't talk in the Old Tongue but in some strange language, she couldn't make any sense of.

(You will learn -)

Oddly enough in her dreams these giants for whatever reason were taking care of her. They fed her when she was hungry, cleaned her when she felt dirty, dressed and undressed her and embraced her in their arms.

(-that sometimes it is okay to let others take care of you.)

It was an odd dream to have and if Sansa hadn't lived through many more humiliating experiences than being cleaned by someone else, she would have been thoroughly shamed by these dreams.

But she had so her predominating emotional response for these dreams wasn't shame.

(You will learn -)

These dreams were quite odd and Sansa was bewildered about where they might come but against logic what Sansa felt in those dreams were things she was sure weren't left in the unceasing darkness and the sharp coldness of the Long Night's curse.

(it is okay to feel safe,)

In those dreams, Sansa felt safe. She felt safe as if she was still a child, like when she was still a sweet, gullible little girl who believed there wasn't any monster her father couldn't slay.

(She had been her father's little princess, unaware of the world and its truths outside of the protection that the great walls of Winterfell and her family's guards and their perceived might.).

It had been a long time since those beliefs withered and the illusion of safety faded away.

(to feel warm again,)

Those dreams warmed Sansa in a way she hadn't felt since being forced to watch her little sister being killed by the Night King.

It was the kind of warmth that fended off the chill in her very bones and fought off the frost stinging her lungs.

The warmth of those dreams cracked the ice rooted deep inside her soul.

Those dreams…

(it is okay to hope,)

…fought off the settled despair in her core and with every dream, it cleansed the sticky and filthy taint which was left behind that same despair little by little.

(to be happy,)

It raised her from the swamp her grief turned that was trying to pull her to its darkness.

She had been endlessly struggling to make sure at least her head was above it for her people, for her kingdom, but it had been a losing endeavour she was trying to prolong. She knew that.

But for the people who had put their hopes on the Winter Crown, she had to extend her fight against her own grief, put away her sadness, and suppress each and every loss she felt until the last day of humanity.

After struggling against her grief for years in fear of leaving an opening her enemies could exploit and then being lifted above it without any warning left Sansa confused and disoriented.

(that you can live and love.)

Those dreams were pleasant and in them, Sansa felt contentment curl around her limbs lazily but in all of those dreams whatever she was feeling be it safety, warmth, peace or happiness there was always a bit of something that soured those good feelings she had.

An undercurrent of reproach was always present in Sansa's consciousness.

Reproach against herself.

She felt warm?

All of her family was dead they were raised by others to fight against the living, against the people they died protecting. Their bodies were frozen by the unholy power of Night King's commanders, cursed to be eternally cold but she could still feel warmth.

She felt safe?

From the moment Bran was pushed from the broken tower did he ever feel safe anywhere? When the Bloodraven was watching his every move. Did he feel even his thoughts were safe? When that old monster could easily get inside his head.

She was getting rid of that desolateness coating her skin and pores?

How much hope Rickon had felt when he saw Jon and how desperate he had tried to run towards their brother to have that light snatched away?

(Don't forget the hard-earned lessons…)

When she left herself submerged in too much self-blame or left those bitter thoughts lingering in the front of her thoughts she would leave those pleasant dreams and fall into nightmares.

She would watch how her father was forced into his knees and had his cut more than ten thousand times and memorised the path his head took while rolling.

She would watch her dress gets torn up to pieces and her skin colour under the harsh beatings of White Cloaks.

Joffrey's glee.

Circei's disgust.

Lysa's suspicion and paranoia.

Baelish's lust and manipulations.

Ramsay…

Sometimes her own imagination tormented her with what could have happened to her family and she would watch Robb get stabbed in his heart by that traitor Roose and dismembered by the Freys.

There were times in her nightmares she watched as both Bran and Rickon got caught and burned by that turn cloak Greyjoy.

That she watched as the same fate as Princess Elia befall her little sister at the hand of the Mountain that rides.

(but don't imprison yourself in the past either.)

When she has nightmares sometimes she is calmed by lullabies made of humming winds and rustling leaves and the sounds of rushing rivers and the softly falling snow.

But sometimes when Sansa is wrought with grief and loss, and shaking with terror and her whole body aches with the phantom pains of remembered and forgotten hurts she …

(She falls into her other dream?

She dreams inside her nightmares?)

… and sometimes inside her nightmares, she finds herself in those warm dreams in the arms of giants with the sound of baby cries.

She would calm at the warm embrace of strong arms, the scent of woods and freshly turned earth and burnt orange peeling and Dornish red on her nose.

Sometimes the arms embracing her would be slender still warm but colder than the muscular ones and the scents tickling her nose would be freshly fallen snow and lemons and apples and jasmines and sweet Arbour gold.

However different the arms holding her or the scents that drift to her nose might be and however much she might like those.

In the end, the thing she most liked was the sound she heard on those arms.

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Ba-dump

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Ba-dump

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Ba-dump

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The sound of a beating heartbeat.