B L O O M

After

Rose watched as Dany and Sansa stood over their loved ones who had perished in the Long Night. 

Clenching her jaw as she held back the tears that threatened to pour from her eyes. She was leaning heavily on Sandor, pressing all of her weight onto his massive figure as her whole body ached with pain and her head began to swim.

"Go."

Rose looked up at Sandor who watched her closely, his gruff words and attempted smile made a few tears streak down her red cheeks.

"You need to say goodbye, and you shouldn't have to hide that."

Rose looked back down at the numerous piles of the dead stacked in front of her, and the row of important people saying goodbye to those they lost. Her eyes resting on Jon, and the sobbing Sansa, as they watched their once friends.

"Go." Rose began walking, heavily limping past Dany and Jon and all of the other people watching. She passed the row of people and approached a closer pile, where he laid.

A sob escaped her mouth as she collapsed onto her knees beside Oberyn, his eyes were shut tightly and a slight smirk on his mouth. Rose felt herself break as she leaned over him, her tears and cries filled the cold, quiet air. Her pain on open display for all to bear witness.

She waited for someone to approach her, to pull her away from his body so that they could all light the corpses, but no one did. Rose lifted her head and peered behind her, her bloodshot eyes and frozen tears matched her shaking body.

Her eyes landed on Robb, who had fresh tears streaming down his face as he watched her and the loyal men who laid around her. The piles upon piles of bodies that surrounded her trapped her in their prison of pain, but no one dared pull her away from them.

With another sob, she lifted his crossed hand that rested upon his cold chest. Pressing a gentle kiss on a silver coiled snake ring with a pair of small red gemstone eyes, weeping at the sight of the matching ring upon her own finger. The gift he had given her upon her departure from Dorne, and the emptiness that consumed her at the sight of the silver viper wrapped around her finger.

Rose pressed another kiss upon his forehead before pulling away, wiping the tears from her eyes before freezing her face into one of stone. Limping back to the line of people who watched her with sympathetic eyes, and defeated expressions.

Rose paused before the row of Dorthraki, the brave men who crossed the Sea for their Khalessi.

Rose cried out loudly in Dorthraki, wishing them peace in the afterlife with the great stallion. "Ishish yer ei dothralat vi jin ajjalani ma yeri vezhof."

Rose was the last person to leave the dead behind, slightly stumbling as she approached the remaining men of Winterfell. Sandor stepped forward and his gloved hand wrapped around Rose's arm, pulling her into his hold as he helped her walk. They stopped beside Ghost, staring out at the dead men and women before her.

Jon stepped out before the rest of the people, his stoic expression catching Rose's eyes as she watched him.

"We're here to say goodbye to our brothers and sisters. To our fathers and mothers. To our friends. Our fellow men and women who set aside their differences to fight together and die together so that others might live. Everyone in this world owes them a debt that can never be repaid. It is our duty and our honor to keep them alive in memory for those who come after us and those that come after them. For as long as men draw breath. They were the shields that guarded the realms of men, and we shall never see their like again."

Rose watched closely as an armored man handed a torch to Jon and a group of men holding torches approached the bodies of the dead. Rose noticed a soldier hold out a torch for her, and her heart broke as she reached a hand out to except the fiery torch. Rose pulled away from Sandor to limp across the field once more, stabbing pain shooting down her leg as she hobbled to catch up with the others.