𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬 || 𝑾𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝑾𝒐𝒍𝒗𝒆𝒔 𝑪𝒓𝒚 𝑶𝒖𝒕

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐗𝐈𝐕: 𝐌𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐲 𝐁𝐞 𝐖𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐞

꧁CHAPTER XIV꧂

_________

"MERCY BE WHICH YOU LEAST DESERVE"
301 AFTER CONQUEST

꧁ SANSA ꧂

She ran her fingers gently through his thick fur coat. Ghost, though having grown to a size and weight that was uncomfortable to have atop of her, rested his head in her lap where she lay in bed. Her back was against the headboard, pillows tucked behind her comfortably, a heavy fur blanket over her legs and an even furrier direwolf sprawled out across the bed as Sansa hummed quietly to herself.

Though it was midafternoon, Sansa lounged in her bed for the majority of the day. It was hard looking at the still smoldering castle—now ruins—that was the Dreadfort. Those who had survived had been settled back in their town only a half a mile to the south across the Weeping Water, though none of the populace seemed happy about their apparent freedoms now. To them, she thought, they perhaps had traded one master for another.

"He's not like that.."

Sansa hummed absentmindedly, shaking her head as she continued to scratch softly behind Ghost's ear, the giant pale Direwolf eagerly accepting her touch.

"Benget is no master, he would not bear a slave."

His actions spoke otherwise.

She of course had taken to viewing the aftermath of battles, seen the killing fields first hand, even though he had tried in vain to prevent it. She had seen the dead, the enemy and their own, stacked in piles and burned away, either by torch or by the Red Witch, corpses in their thousands were burned. She knew it was something to do with them, the very little that Benget had even spoke of the Others, but part of her felt like maybe it was for payback. Vengeance.

Fear.

Despite the Dreadfort barely standing, with the castle being a smoldering ruins, its dungeons and deepest depths still burning, Sansa felt sickened by it. The more things burned..the more she and others began to choke on the wicked black smoke.

Even past the smoke and the killings, there was empathy for those that couldn't defend themselves. But even still, those weak individuals felt like tools to be used. They were to be used. Fear, she knew. Fear. Fear. Fear, that's all this is. Those who were spared were to tell the tale, spread the word of the wolves of Winterfell, the wolves that hounded that bastards and ran them down into their bloody graves.

"My Lady?"

Ghost perked up first, teeth immediately shown and a low growl rumbling from his throat as she looked across her tent to the closed entrance.

"Who goes there?"

She questioned.

"Just a currier, my Lady."

"What have you for me?"

"May I enter?"

She swallowed thickly, but knew that Ghost was with her, and he was enough to take on even the strongest of men and bravest of fools. She nodded but swallowed once more.