#𓃥 … 𝒎𝐨𝐫𝐡𝐠𝐡𝐮𝐥𝐢𝐬 ྀུ༉ 𝓪rya 𝓼tark.

[wolvesballad]

i thought you died . ― @morhghulis.

words pierce a birdsong heart like no blade ever has, and yet fills it with warmth scarcely felt in years nonetheless. sharp breath of winter's breeze sucked past her teeth, the chill aches all the way down to her ribs and sansa finds she is trembling, but not with the cold. shaking fingers curl in the hem of grey - and - white sleeve lined with a frozen blue ( stark colors, tully colors ), as her gaze takes in every inch of her sister. her sister.

❝ i had thought the same of you, ❞ admittance slips from her lips with something akin to shame, as if she is the one to be faulted for arya's disappearance. and there in itself is a realization ―― that it is arya standing here, not some phantom pulled forth from her waking dreams to haunt her in these stone walls, filled to the brim with memories of dead men. she doesn't know how, or why, and she doesn't entirely care at the moment . . . only that they are both here, breathing the same air of winterfell, alive. ( she looks different, too. taller, albeit not much stronger, something haunted in her stark grey eyes. aside from that, she's still achingly familiar ―― still a wretchedly fierce thing that sansa has missed terribly. ) ❝ i -- ❞ she hesitates, her hand shifting as if to reach out but faltering. so much lies between them. traitorously her lips curl, a huffed breath of laughter, though there is no amusement to be found. ❝ you found your way home. ❞

[wolvesballad]

they die all the time, ―― but they have not. sansa's gaze goes distant, and then sharpens at the mention of wolf's blood. it would not be the first time she has wondered at it, or what makes them any more fortunate than their ancestors. if it is truly an act of the gods the free folk claim still speak, or if they have merely endured where others faltered. she swallows the rise of a hundred, a thousand unsaid words in her throat, the nights spent wondering if arya had ever truly escaped alive, where she had gone. ❝ it had, ❞ and a form of reassurance tinges her words, ( how strange that these things can go unspoken between them after so long, how wonderful ) blanketed by the grim pride that follows. ❝ they held it for too long . . . but we took it back. ❞ the grisly details can wait, they need not discuss it here.

her sister's clumsy attempt at propriety sparks an age - old indignation in the depths of her chest, and it is with the expel of a scoff that sansa recognizes how ridiculous this all is. how she holds her grief, her relief at arm's length, despite how many years she had wished to claw for remnants of her family. ❝ oh, shut up, ❞ lady stark huffs with no courtesy whatsoever, reaching for the girl she used to know like the lines on her palms. she hopes, from the way it aches, that their hearts are still tethered. ❝ come here. ❞ it is already muffled into choppy tendrils as she all but yanks her sister into her arms, fingers grasping tight to bird - boned shoulders. the first sob accompanies a gasp, as if realization has only now sunk in and the fog of shock faded. arya is home. ❝ i missed you. ❞

𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐃𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐃 𝐈𝐒 𝐑𝐄𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐃, &. 𝐀𝐒 𝐈𝐓 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐀𝐁𝐋𝐘 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐌𝐎𝐒𝐓, it is a bittersweet thing laced into the crevices and the corners of her mind. all the strife which at the time seemed the most dire things in the world now paled in comparison to what THE PUPS OF HOUSE STARK now knew plagued the world. ( 𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚢 𝚎𝚢𝚎𝚜 𝚖𝚎𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚛𝚝𝚢𝚊𝚛𝚍, ) and she thinks back on days running about with muddy skirts, chasing after the butcher's boy. arya underfoot, they used to call her. arya horse-face. she remembers tears of hot rage and bared teeth. that wild little girl would hardly recognize arya as she was now, arya who had been salty and mercy and the cat of the canals [ ... ] it was a sort of death, wasn't it? when she looks back at sansa, she's suddenly quite sure that it was. she can see it in her face, as vividly as her own. ❛ ────this world isn't very kind to little girls. they die all the time, wolf blood or no. ❜ but not us, she thinks. ( 𝚠𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚠𝚊𝚔𝚎𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚘𝚕𝚏. ) she chews on her lip, and rests a hand subconsciously on Needle's pommel with hopes it might console her racing heart.

❛ i had wanted to come sooner, but all i ever heard was that winterfell had fallen to the boltons. ❜ its uttered almost guiltily, like a confession before the godswood. the meereen sun had tinted her braavosi-weathered skin, but the north has already threatened to pale her again. she exists in a peculiar sort of in-between: leathery-knuckled, and rosy-cheeked. in a bit of panic, her following words just come tumbling clumsily out: ❛ i'm glad you didn't die, sans—... lady stark. ❜ pleasantries, as she remembers them. sansa always preferred things to be proper. to that end, arya even bows her head of dark, cropped hair. VALAR MORGHULIS —