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The healer's tent smelled like blood and dirt, among other things Sansa didn't wish to name.
"Careful," she cautioned, placing a hand on the man's chest as he was roused by her treatment. She did not know his name. He had a rough look about him--one of the wildlings, perhaps. Whether that was true, it was a certainty that she could not hold him down if he decided to thrash, so she accompanied her gesture with a sweet smile. It worked, or well enough; he subsided.
She was tying the bandage around the wound in his arm--it was not nothing, but he would live to fight another day, gods be good--when she heard the dragon's deep roar. Deep enough that it could only be the great black beast the Queen rode.
The sound was close. Too close.
With no small amount of trepidation, Sansa opened the tent flap and peered outside.
Fingers of cold blue light reached from the horizon; it was almost dawn. Drogon was nearly upon the camp. With his wings spread, he made an enormous black shadow, darkening the sky to something closer to midnight. For a heart-stopping second, she wondered if Daenerys had lost control of the beast at last.
But Daenerys was still upon his back, she saw, and the creature banked hard as it drew close.
Too hard, for its rider's head disappeared off the side--plummeting to the earth.
Everything else emptied out of Sansa's mind. There was only Dany, her purple eyes and bell-like laugh. She picked up her skirts with bloody fingers and flew.
Ice and snow crunched under her feet. It was a run long and cold, but Sansa felt none of it. If anyone called for her, she did not hear it; and if any danger lay in her path, she did not see it.
Drogon's sulfurous warning grunt stopped her short, and the flick of his tail sent up a spray of snow that hit her in the arm. She was closer to the dragon than she'd realized in the near-dark. Sansa bit her lip and scanned the ground nearby. There was no sign of Dany.
Her mind began concocting scenarios, each worse than the last. Perhaps she was here, but so still Sansa didn't notice her--still because she was already dead, the life drained out of her lovely eyes and replaced with an inhuman blue. Perhaps she had fallen and her dragon had crushed her in its landing under its claws and great bulk. Perhaps she was dead and already risen, an ugly facsimile of the Queen already walking toward her--
There was a figure walking toward her. A slow, shambling figure with rotting flesh and cold blue eyes.
Sansa screamed and, in her haste to fall back, tripped and landed with her rump in the snow. When she tried to push herself up, the snow collapsed under her hands.
She shouldn't have come out of the tent. She wasn't supposed to, she was supposed to stay put. She was such a stupid girl. She'd seen Dany fall and she hadn't been able to help herself, and now her last vision would be the worst thing imaginable: hands reaching for her throat, Dany's hands, hands she'd touched, and she wouldn't even be able to tell her--
The dragon's tail whipped the corpse from its feet and flung it far away. Dimly she heard something like speech, and from Drogon's mouth came a burst of flame--but small and short, half smoke, as if the dragon were tired and could only offer a short belch. It was enough to burn the wight, though. Relief was followed by realization. Sansa covered a sob with her hand.
Another figure approached, but it did not have that slow, relentless gait of the undead. It hurried. The sudden burst of dragonfire had seared Sansa's vision, and through her tears she couldn't tell who it was.
"Lady Sansa?" It was a woman's voice. She knelt beside Sansa. "You shouldn't have come out here."
Sansa tensed at this scolding, until she realized the words were more worried than reproving, and that the voice was familiar.
And sweet.
"Dany?" Sansa breathed, rubbing her eyes, which were still smarting. "I mean, Your Grace."
"I like 'Dany' better," teased the Queen. "From your lips, anyway."
"I thought you were . . ." Sansa said numbly. "I saw you fall."
"I did fall. Right into a snowdrift. Why you Northerners love this stuff so much, I'll never know." Dany frowned, looking her over, and her gaze landed on Sansa's shivering fingers. "You're cold."
"I was stitching up a man. I didn't fetch my gloves before . . ." It was an effort to speak, and her teeth were beginning to chatter.
Dany wrapped her hands in her own; she seemed to radiate heat like one of her beasts. "There's not many that would run toward a dragon for someone," she mused as she helped Sansa to her feet.
Sansa's cheeks heated. She hesitated--when had her heart ever led her toward someone good, someone worthy?--but perhaps the cold had addled her mind, because she heard herself say, "It's only that . . . I couldn't bear it if something happened to you."
Dany bit her lip, and there was an intense vulnerability in her expression that Sansa had never seen. Sansa watched her waver, and then come to a decision. "You look exhausted."
"I've been busy in the healer's tent." There were many men to attend, too many, and Maester Sam grew queasy at the sight of blood, though he did the best he could.
"Come to mine, for the night. The day, I mean. Surely the healer's tent can spare you for a few hours."
Sansa swallowed. "What do you have need of me for?"
"I need you to sleep. You'll be better able to serve the fighting men if you're well rested. And I've always slept better with company," she added, more shyly. "You won't be bothered if you're with me. You can stay as long as you like."
The excitement had drained out of her, leaving her feeling heavy on her feet, like she might totter over at any step. She nodded silently, and Dany intertwined their fingers as they walked. If Sansa leaned too heavily on her, she did not voice a word of complaint.
Soldiers were returning who could almost be mistaken for wights themselves. It was not just that they were slow, but that they were hopeless. It was something you could see pulling down their limbs, in the drag of their toes pushing up snow. Everywhere Sansa heard murmurs as quiet as death and no louder. The arrival of the dragons had breathed life and hope into the camp some two months before, but when it became apparent that the war was not at an immediate end, it sputtered out.
Only years of mastering her composure kept her from collapsing on top of Dany's camp bed when they ducked inside, managing instead what she hoped was a graceful descent to sit. There was talking in low voices; she didn't hear what was said, only registering that afterward, they were alone together.
"I've told them not to send for you today, and sent for some hot wine, Lady Sansa."
"You're too kind, Your Grace, but I fear . . ." A yawn cut off Sansa's murmur, making her meaning clear. She was too tired to even be embarrassed.
When the hot wine came, Dany poured Sansa a cup and one for herself as well. The cup warmed her fingers, and the wine was scented with cloves and cinnamon. A waft of steam made Sansa's eyes droop even before she took a sip. Dany watched her over the rim of her cup.
When she had drained the last drop obediently, Dany pushed lightly on her shoulder until she was lying in the camp bed. She did not have to push very hard. Silvery hair fell over her bare pink shoulder as she leaned over, and without thinking Sansa reached up to brush it with her fingers. Cool like water, slippery like silk.
"When I heard you scream," Dany whispered, bringing furs up to her neck, "I felt a fear such as I had not felt in . . . a very long time."
Sansa squeezed Dany's hand where it rested in her lap. "I'm safe, and so are you," she whispered. She tugged on that same hand. "Come, lie down with me," she urged. "You're so warm, and it's so cold in this tent." This was true in more than the physical sense; Dany was warm where Cersei had been like ice, like the Wall itself before it had crumbled.
Dany patted her shoulder with her free hand, but did not disentangle herself. "Is that the only reason you want to sleep beside me?" she teased.
"No, it's not." Sansa did not have the energy to say more, but Dany seemed to see something in Sansa's face. She set her cup of wine down.
"For a little while, perhaps," Dany said, looking reluctant. Tucking herself under the furs, by Sansa's side, Dany laid her head on Sansa's breast, and they both exhaled.
"You need rest, too," said Sansa, in a voice so quiet she wasn't sure Dany would hear.
Dany chuckled wearily. "You're the only one who seems to think so."
Sleep dragged at her bones, but her body buzzed with a strange, vibrant wakefulness everywhere Dany's body touched hers: all along her side, at the shoulder and hip, and where Dany's tucked knees touched her thigh. Their hands were still clasped in a casual intimacy. Sansa brought her hand, even finer and more delicate than her own, to her mouth and touched the tips of Dany's first two fingers to her lips for the briefest of kisses. One finger lingered to trace her lower lip.
"Well, for now you're all mine, and I say you're indisposed," whispered Sansa, and the quicksilver flash of Dany's smile was the last thing she saw before sleep took her.