Dangerous Animals

Chapter Eight

so apparently i don't update anymore, sorry about that (i've been super sick so that's why i didn't really write the past two weeks, i'm so sorry. i'm better now but reading the stuff i wrote when sick was hilarious, note to self: don't write with a fever). i'm actually really really happy with this chapter so i hope you guys enjoy!

also i noticed that last chapter i said LIONS and wolves instead of dragons and wolves and i literally hate myself and would like to be kicked out of this fandom. it's fixed now but that was pathetic. anyways, here you go :)

***

Arya was alive. Arya was alive. In that moment Sansa could not recall anything to her mind other than the simple fact. Arya Stark, the beloved child of Ned Stark, was alive, safe, and in Winterfell. A child's laughter played in her head, mixed with outraged screams and cruel snickers. The weight that had haunted her for so long lifted from her chest. She knew Arya's fate, and even more, she knew where she was.

And Bran. She had known Bran was alive, or at least chosen to believe so. But he was home too. Her brother was safe. And they were both alive

Winterfell. She needed to go back there. That's where they were. That's where her family was, every surviving member of it. Jon and Arya and Bran and Arya and Jon and Bran. Their names seemed to pound in her head, an incessant noise that she never wanted to leave. All she had ever wanted was her family. And they were alive. Well, what remained of them anyway. She could see the snow-covered Winterfell, with Arya racing Bran atop the walls, Jon smiling up at them from below, his dark hair decorated with snowflakes. Well, Bran wouldn't be running. His legs were broken. That she knew. She wanted to be with them so badly. She needed to be with them. To wrap Bran in her arms, to fall into Jon's warm embrace, to throw a snowball at Arya and chase her around the courtyard. To be Sansa Stark talking in a warm room with her two brothers Jon and Bran and her sister Arya.

***

Daenerys cleared her throat. Aggressively.

Sansa was pushed from her thoughts, and brought back to the cold and unforgiving Dragonstone. She looked around the dark room. Daenerys stood, irritated, her piercing green eyes glaring at Varys. His face held a small smirk, so unlike any expression she had ever seen on the Master of Whisperers. He looked happy, though Sansa was not sure why. Theon looked just as relieved as she, his face wet with tears. And Tyrion. There was a shadow of relief on his face, though he seemed just as consumed with her siblings' well being as Daenerys. No, he was clearly not in the state of relief that both she and Theon shared, but he was not absent either.

His mouth was slightly ajar, as though he was looking at some strange animal or unknown being. His green eyes were soft, as always, but stared intently, seeming to take in every detail of the phenomenon set before him. But he was looking at her. Tyrion Lannister was looking at Sansa Stark as though she was the most mystifying being in the world. It didn't make sense. Tyrion knew her, perhaps more than anyone, besides Jon- she wasn't a mystery to him. He'd seen her beaten, he'd seen her cry, he'd seen her give up on the world. He'd been her husband. So why was he looking at he the way he was?

And why did it make her nervous?

Not the paranoid sort of nervous that was pitted so deeply in Sansa's stomach that it seemed to have a permanent home. Nor was it the anxiousness she felt when she had seen Jon after so many years of needing home and safety but not knowing whether she was welcome.

No, this sort of nervousness caused her stomach to flutter, as though it was full of bees, or perhaps butterflies. The feeling was not wholly unfamiliar though. She recalled the same fluttering sensation from years ago, it had appeared a handful of times in King's Landing. Once when Joffrey had kissed her. His lips had been wormy and hot, and his breath was sour. He had given her a locket with a lion on it, and she had worn the locket religiously until her father's execution. She'd tossed it in a fire after that, praying that the metal would melt before it was discovered by one of the maids.