#sancor

Sansa curled up under her dams wings and listened with fascination and no small amount of horror.

Without wings, claws or scales, they were killing dragons and stealing their eggs and their treasures.

Her sire, being the strongest dragon, banded all of them and they stood under his banner. He trooped them all to the west and negotiated.

Sansa, of course, was left with a handful of the younger hatchlings, as well as the older dragons. They watched over the mountains and Robb watched with ever increasing vigilance over them. This made Arya and Bran chafe something fierce, when Robb had previously been a fun playmate.

Torn between rowdy, rambunctious clutch-siblings and a fiercely overprotective clutch-brother, Sansa took to wandering down the mountain and finding something else to do.

Hunting was a communal activity and everyone contributed. At most, that took a few hours. Sansa had the rest of the day to think about what to do.

And then she encountered a shiny pink bipedal.

It took Sansa a while to understand what she was looking at, because she had never seen a bipedal of her own.

She crawled forward, trying not to make noise, like she was hunting the skittish hairy buffalo’s. She crawled until she was nose to nose with the strange creature and could smell him.

And it was a him, she realized. There was a distinct scent of maleness and steel. Oil, steel and salt. And something sour.

With another whuff of breath, Sansa realized that the bipedal was awake.

It’s eyes were wide and it was saying something with its maw. Nonsensical noises that no dragon could hope to understand, because it was so loud.

“Hello?” she said, hoping he could understand her.

The bipedal went still and the sour scent increased. He gripped something iron firmly and Sansa touched it curiously with her nose. She sneezed when the scent of old blood overwhelmed her.

To her horror, that old blood scent was of dragons.

Sansa back-pedaled in a hurry, staring at the steel. What a horrible thing. Did he wash his iron in dragon blood?

Sansa wanted to fly away, but if she did, this bipedal might hunt her down. She knew some dragons who liked the hunt. If this bipedal wanted to hunt her, she would not oblige him.

With a low growl, Sansa crouched and prepared to pepper the interloper with a blast of ice breath. It might not be as impressive as her sires, but it would hopefully blind the interloper on what direction she would fly to.

The bipedal dropped his iron and Sansa was confused enough to stop. What was he doing?

He knelt and…he showed his neck.

Different species though they were, surrender was something universal, as was submission.

She got closer, because he smelled better without the iron thing muddling his smell. Just to be sure, she blasted it with a bit of ice breath, coating it in ice and snow and burying it under the earth. The air smelled clearer and she approached him with an energetic swish of her tail.

“Better,” she decided loudly. She sniffed him again and added a lick for good measure. There, he smelled like her.

His eyes were wide and he smelled overwhelmingly sour again.

“Are you afraid?” Sansa asked, realizing why he smelled sour. “Do not be. I will not harm you.”

Sansa curled around him, letting him rest on her fire scales so he would be warm and purring, a low rumbling sound that was designed to put hatchlings to sleep.

When she next looked, the bipedal was asleep.

Sansa purred deeper and rested her snout on her paws.

.

.

Sansa blinked and realized that she’d fallen into a light doze. A muffled groan made her realize what woke her up.

Her bipedal was awake! And he was no longer smelling sour.

Sansa hurriedly stood up, stretching her wings wide and investigating the scent of meat on fire.

“Why is your meat on fire?” she asked. “And why are you eating it like that?”

The bipedal went still and then continued moving, offering her a bit of the burned meat.

It was an insult to offer burned meat to an ice drake, but Sansa realized that this bipedal probably didn’t know that.

With a huff, she froze the meat before eating it delicately between her fangs. It was difficult, because the bipedal had drained it of blood too, making it incredibly dry to eat. Her nose wrinkled the entire time and the bipedal made a chittering noise.

Sansa blinked at his maw full of fangs.

He didn’t smell aggressive. Instead, he smelled….happy?

With a hesitant twitch, Sansa imitated him and he chittered louder. He smelled happier. Sansa purred.

.

.

Sansa bundled up her bipedal in a warm cave and hunted him a buffalo for good measure. She dropped the struggling creature in the cave, to the bipedal’s loud shouts. He killed it, which made Sansa huff irritably. Well, maybe he liked his prey to be dead? Sansa preferred to hunt hers.

Sansa nosed a couple more leaves on top of the entrance and a few more piles of snow, before leaving. She could not stay a couple more hours, or Robb would ring the alarm and the search would begin.

Something made her want to stay. This bipedal, this pink, hairless creature…he was so helpless. He shivered constantly unless she was touching him. He was also helpless at catching prey. He was…important.

The bipedal touched her snout and Sansa shivered.

With a sigh, she licked him head to toe again and left.

.

.

Robb looked at her suspiciously the entire time, but Sansa had rolled in the lake before entering the cave, so he couldn’t possibly smell the bipedal on her.

“Where were you? I needed help with our clutch-siblings,” he exclaimed, his tail thrashing back and forth irritably.

Sansa herself was still. “You were being annoying. Dam and sire are not here, but that does not make you in charge,” she said sourly.

“But I am,” a larger, elderly dragon posited, bulk unnoticed with his dark color in the cave. “And where were you, Sansa ice-eater?”

Sansa sniffed. “By the lake. Because you were all smelly.”

They let go of that and Sansa huddled with her clutch. She found herself idly wishing that she was curled around her bipedal.

.

.

Cor struggled with sleep, because he was so tired.

Tired, cold and exhausted, but not hungry. Because there was a freaking water buffalo hanging in a spit in front of him.

He was also, he thought with some hysteria, some sort of friend to a dragon.

He hadn’t actually wanted to kill any of the majestic creatures, and after his first kill, he deserted, leaving the army and hoping to die in the colder climate of the mountains.

He just hadn’t realized that the mountains were the home to the stronger, more deadly dragons and he’d realized he was fucked the moment he woke up from his exhausted nap face to face with a fucking ice and fire drake hybrid.

He saw the fire scales, and the ice fangs and knew he was a dead man.

Except.

Except the hybrid hadn’t eaten him, and other than sniffing his sword and threatening to kill him, hadn’t even looked like it wanted to hurt him.

He’d discarded the sword quickly and the hybrid had buried it in ice and dirt. A dragon who breathed ice. It was insane.

The hybrid then curled around him and Cor was exhausted enough to fall back asleep because the hybrid was a furnace of heat.

He woke up, caught a bird and roasted it, which seemed to wake up the hybrid. He offered it some and he damn near cackled at its face when it ate cooked meat. It had to ice it over. Note to self, no cooked meat for the hybrid.

He didn’t regret throwing away his sword because the dragon was cautiously friendly.

He regretted only having a knife though when the hybrid dropped a living water buffalo near him and he didn’t have his sword to kill it with. A lucky strike and the buffalo was dead. The dragon looked confused but not offended.

It also left, but not before piling the entrance of the cave with more ice and dirt. More a blockade or a door than anything.

Also licking. Let’s not forget the licking.

Cor was confused, but alive. He was also very much done of smelling like dragon drool and had to wiggle out of the pile of ice and dirt just to have a bath. He knows there’s a lake near, because water buffalo’s lived near water.

It took a while to find it, and he was almost in tears at the sight of all the water.

The first splash of water on him was heaven sent and also ice-cold freezing.

He was in and out in five minutes, the fastest he’d ever bathed in his life. There was a lack of soap and his clothes were still dirty, but it was warm and he’d rather have dirty clothes than hypothermia.

A huff of air behind him, and Cor knew it was the hybrid dragon before he could turn around.

“Good morning!” he greeted, more cheerful after the bath.

The dragon huffed at him, looking confused, before opening its mouth.

Cor, somehow, knew it was going to lick him again.

“No!” he exclaimed, dodging the tongue.

The dragon looked even more annoyed.

“No licking!” he cried out.

The dragon rumbled a sour growly note, but stopped trying to lick him. It nosed at Cor’s hair and sneezed.

“I know, I smell,” he confided. He felt a little bit mad at talking to a dragon. “But there’s no soap here, or soapwort.”

Soapwort, which you could crush and simulate the effects of soap. Extremely handy during long campaigns and the army ran out of soap. Except, it seemed to thrive only in hot and temperate climates. Not in the extremely cold mountains.

The dragon made its own rumbling noises. Noises that had so alarmed Cor the night before seemed to be more conversational than anything in the light of day.

It was more of a comfort to Cor than the dragon probably knew. He had been alone for so long that even random noises that seemed to answer and talk back at him was more conversation than he had in weeks. At some point, Cor gestured and dragged his hand across it’s scales.

The dragon then went still.

Cor also went still, because shit, he’d forgotten he was talking to a dragon.

Then.

Then wonders of fucking wonders, the dragon pushed up at Cor’s hand.

Cor had acquainted himself with enough animals to know what that meant.

Cor petted the dragon. The dragon fucking fell asleep on him!

.

.

Sansa had fallen asleep on top of her bipedal and he had looked uncomfortable and smelled hungry.

She hurried him along to his cave, where she knew his food was.

Some of the hairy buffalo was still there, he must not have been so hungry then if he left some. Sansa watched him eat and wanted to purr again. There was something incredibly soothing watching her bipedal take care of himself.

She could just watch him move around and do whatever it was that bipedals do and be content.

An alarm rang in her hindbrain and Sansa raised her head up.

Her bipedal..??? Had she…had she….made this creature her treasure???

With a squawk of alarm, Sansa licked her bipedal goodbye – ignored his shout of disgust - and flew back to her elders.

“How did you realize you’d found your treasure,” she asked the Eldest of twelve clutch. Her name was a long one and Sansa only bothered to call her Eldest like all the other hatchlings.

The Eldest peered down at her through old, milky eyes and smelled amused.

“I looked at my treasure of shiny rocks and wanted to no one else to touch them,” she crooned in her old, soothing voice.

Which. Was exactly what she felt, staring at her bipedal.

“Ah, thank you, Eldest,” she said.

Sansa wandered over to her clutch-siblings and curled around Rickon tightly. He was still a few months old and struggled to coordinate wings, tail and limbs without tangling himself up.

Robb stared at her suspiciously, because he was just like that, and Sansa rolled her eyes.

She was just in time for storytelling and listened with interest about the dragon who went mad talking to birds. The lesson being to eat your prey quickly and not to play with it, or it’s blood.

Sansa had heard the same stories told over and over since she was hatched. Some of them were boring, but something about the story made her hackles rise up and listen.

What about old Aicorn who played with his bird before eating it. The bird had gotten a bite at Aicorn’s tongue, drawing blood. Aicorn, who drank at the bird’s blood too…and both of them apparently went mad.

Blood. Sharing blood?

Sansa felt her tail move in excitement. To be able to understand her treasure. What a gift.

Sansa curled tighter around Rickon, who grumbled irritably, and went to sleep.

.

.

Cor was alarmed to find the dragon sniffing him over with intent the next day.

The dragon hadn’t done that since that disastrous first meeting and Cor wanted to cry. Why? Why was the dragon suspicious? Had he done something wrong?

He did notice that the dragon had left really fast yesterday, seemingly alarmed over something.

Then the dragon opened its mouth and revealed those incredibly sharp fangs. Cor went still, especially when the dragon aimed those fangs at his…at his fingers? Did the dragon want his finger?

Cor obliged, cutting a finger at one fang and the dragon licked at the blood, wrinkling its nose.

It hurt, but not so much, because the dragons fangs were ice cold too.

Then, to his horror, the dragon bit at its own forepaw and offered the welled up blood to Cor. Difference in species or not, the gesture for that was the same.

“Are you insane?” he asked loudly.

The dragon huffed, a tail pushed him forward and he tripped. The dragon, in a crazy show of coordination, pushed that bleeding forepaw at him and Cor involuntarily licked and swallowed.

He wanted to wretch immediately.

“Eurgh!” he gagged. “Oh my god, it tastes like day old buffalo blood.”

To his alarm, there was a hum in his mind, a feminine voice going, “How do you know what day old buffalo blood tastes like?”

Cor wasn’t educated, but he was smart. He immediately understood what that blood sharing was for.

“Did you…just exchange blood with me so we could talk?” Cor asked. He wasn’t sure what to be surprised about anymore.

“Did you not want to communicate?” the dragon asked, sounding distressed. “I thought you did, you chittered about so loudly.”

Cor was loud. The dragon, who made a thud every time she landed. The dragon who purred like an extra large cat. And sure, Cor was the loud one.

“Communication is fine,” Cor said dryly. “What’s your name, anyway? If you have one. My name is Cor.”

“I am Sansa of the Stark line, First Clutch of the Fire Drake Catelyn and Ice Drake Eddard, Lord of the Northern Mountains and Protector of the Seven Dragon Clans of the North,” the dragon announced proudly.

Cor was pretty sure his mouth was hanging open. What the fuck.

He was hanging out with a fucking Drake Lord’s daughter.

Practically a princess.

And she kept licking him.

Cor blinked out of his thoughts and looked at the dragon in front of him.

“Nice to meet you, Sansa,” he said. “Why do you keep licking me?”

Sansa laughed, which sounded rumbled terrifyingly out-loud, but sounded nicely in his mind. “Because you smell wrong. Like oil and salt and steel.”

“What are you called, Cor?” she asked. “I keep calling you fleshy bipedal.”

Cor choked on a laugh. “You’re not wrong. I’m a human.”

“A human! What a nice word. Yes, I will say it often. Human,” Sansa sang. “Much better than bipedal.”

“Have you been calling us that?” Cor asked with a smile. Yes, he could see the humor. King Mors thought that the dragons were savage, beastly creatures. But instead, they had clans. They had hierarchy. They had Lords. They were nobler than the humans that Cor knew.

“Yes, it was what we saw, so we called you that. Cor, why are your people here?” Sansa asked. She sounded curious.

“Because King Mors is a crazy, bloodthirsty monster that wants your peoples gold,” Cor answered bitterly before he could think about it.

“Gold?” Sansa asked, looking curious.

If what he remembered about theories about telepathy was true….

He thought long and hard about gold and tried to project the thought to her.

“Oh! You mean the shiny, yellow stuff!” she exclaimed. “It’s useless. It’s too soft to be used as a structure and too easily mixed with other metals for anything else. It’s mostly just good for decoration.”

Cor really did laugh then. Dragons found gold useless. What else?

“You don’t use gold as treasure?” he had to ask. “Then what do you treasure?”

Sansa sat on her haunches and tucked her tail around her limbs neatly. “Different things. It depends on the dragon? My dam treasures beautiful things. My sire treasures sharp things.”

That was fascinating. Different dragons and different treasures. He knew that lore book on dragons was trash.

“And you?” he had to ask. “What do you treasure?”

Sansa peered at him, blue eyes slitted and intelligent. “I treasure you, my fleshy bipedal human Cor.”

.

.

After that declaration, which Sansa found immensely embarrassing and simultaneously pleasing to say so bluntly, her human, her Cor, turned red. It was a fascinating look on him and she wondered why she turned that color.

He spluttered and made flailing motions with his limbs and Sansa just watched him. She could really just watch him move around and be pleased. He was such a helpless thing and she treasured him so.

After he calmed down from his upset, Sansa and Cor talked long and hard into the afternoon about serious things. Mostly about the war and what they could do to avoid it and possibly stop it.

“My dam and sire are trying to open negotiations,” Sansa offered. “Though no one knows how that is going. They have been gone for three moons and the hatchlings are lonely.”

Cor snorted, that strange affectation that conveyed so much with so little. “If King Mors is who they’re negotiating with, then no, things won’t go well. But. If they talk to Prince Regis, then things…might be resolved.”

Sansa pondered this. “How do we make your Prince Regis be the Lord of the humans then?”

Cor answered hesitantly, “When King Mors dies.”

Sansa smiled, a mouth full of ice fangs. “Then he will die. And then we will talk to your Regis.”

.

.

Their conversation, which had veered into the treasonous territory (for Cor that is), was derailed when a large hybrid ice drake dropped down and landed on Sansa’s back, screeching.

Since Cor had no connection to that ice drake, he didn’t attack immediately. It might be friendly. Or not. Cor could understand Sansa and she sounded annoyed, not angry.

“Clutch-brother, what are you doing?” she demanded.

The ice drake hybrid, her freaking brother, growled. Low, deep and threatening.

Staring at the two dragons and cataloguing differences, Cor immediately realized that the other dragon was male. It was smaller, and it’s wings wider. It was also covered in more spines than Sansa and it’s claws were ice instead of hot-bone. But it was also older, the feet more proportional to the rest of him and none of the awkward coltishness in Sansa’s limbs.

“I have found my treasure and I am talking to him,” Sansa suddenly said and Cor wanted to die all over again. Declarations of affection so boldly said were awful. Cor had absolutely no defence against it.

The embarrassment almost made him miss the other dragon’s squawk of offense.

“Treasure is treasure, especially if you’ve found it. Stop being dramatic. My treasure hasn’t hurt me at all and he is a helpless thing, always easily cold and I have to hunt for him. He’s not a monster,” Sansa said reasonably.

Embarrassment faded to outrage. He was not helpless, thank you very much. Just very unused to the weather. Eos was much more temperate and he knew what he was hunting there. Also, he couldn’t use his sword. Sansa had very much buried it under dirt and ice.

The other dragon stopped sounding so angry.

“Of course I can talk to him,” Sansa said, making Cor huff. “And yes, he can talk back and we understand each other. We shared blood. Like Aicorn the mad and his birds.”

Like Aicorn the who??? Mad? Does drinking dragon blood make one crazy?

Cor had concerns.

Both dragons suddenly turned to him and Cor wanted to be nervous but he was just. Tired. It was almost five hours since he last ate.

“My clutch-brother wants to talk to you as well,” Sansa said. “Shall I use my fangs? His teeth are uncomfortable. It is always hot.”

No, thank you. Cor had a knife.

The other dragon licked at his wound and offered Cor his own bleeding paw. Cor braced himself for the taste for the second time and gagged again.

By the Astrals, the taste was not improved with knowledge. Day old buffalo blood, somehow, more spicy this time.

“I swear, it really tastes awful,” Cor groaned. “I need to wash my mouth out.”

A distinctly male voice sounded in his head, very offended, “You don’t taste like venison either, fleshy bipedal. You taste like over-fermented lion.”

“Call me Cor,” he told the dragon. Fleshy bipedal sounded distinctly condescending said in that voice and Cor hated it.

The dragon sniffed like a crotchety old grandma. “Robb of the Stark line, eldest child of the First Clutch of the Fire Drake Catelyn and Ice Drake Eddard, Lord of the Northern Mountains and Protector of the Seven Dragon Clans of the North,”

By Bahamut’s wings, did these dragons have to announce themselves like that all the time? It must be tiring.

For the second time, though with another, older and wiser dragon, plans continued. Still treasonous. Though Cor was getting very fond of the dragons and angrier with the humans for killing dragons.

Plans solidified, and Robb, while a very stuck up and paranoid dragon, was obviously a genius strategist.

“While it pains me to suggest this, clutch-sister,” Robb eventually said slowly. “Your treasure might have to part ways with you to seek out this Regis. He has to be informed of what his sire is doing before things go beyond terrible. I will have to go with him, because how else will he convince the humans of our bloodsharing?”

“And why can’t I go?” Sansa demanded. “Do not forget that we are born only a few days apart, clutch-brother.”

“I can leave without garnering suspicion,” Robb explained. “Since sire and dam need reports and might need help. I can convince the Eldest to send me. You, however, are the only one that can control our clutch-siblings. Which you have been leaving to me while you cavort with your treasure.”

The last was said with such a dirty look that it made Cor laugh despite his exhaustion. So. Sansa was supposed to be babysitting but was instead with Cor.

“Do not laugh,” Robb said sternly, which made Cor laugh harder. “Our clutch-siblings are hatchlings. And they all three breathe fire. It is a miracle that there hasn’t been an avalanche yet.”

Okay, point.

“Don’t be sad, Sansa,” Cor said, because he did agree with Robb. “I’ll finish this as fast as we can.”

Sansa, there was no other way to say it, pouted.

“I will miss you, my treasure,” she whispered to him.

Cor blushed again.

.

.

The human encampment was exactly where Cor left it. The only difference was the multitude of dragons surrounding it.

Robb eyed it and exchanged glances with Cor.

“We might need to change our plans,” Robb said.

They couldn’t sneak in, there were too many sensitive senses watching.

“What’s happening? Can you tell?” Cor asked.

Robb sniffed long and hard, eyes on the encampment and on the very large ice drake by the very middle.

“There is no war,” Robb said. “But negotiations are not going well. Neither side understands each other. I have no idea what magic your people are using to talk, but it is not translating well.”

Cor immediately smacked his head. Of course, the king and his blood had magic. He had forgotten.

“I don’t think magic does well with dragons,” Cor said, remembering the king’s face when he tried a fire spell at one dragon. “I think you’re all immune to it.”

Robb tossed his head. “And what do we do now?”

Cor, because he was regaining his old confidence, laughed. “We drop in the middle and I’ll talk. You make sure no one kills me.”

Robb eyed him. “If you die, my sister will kill me. I am not jesting. She will rip me limb from limb.” The dragon sounded nervous.

Cor smiled toothily. “I don’t die that easily.”

.

The good news was that King Mors was dead.

The bad news was that the very large ice dragon in the middle of the encampment had killed him with one ice spear and it was making negotiations…icy.

Fortunately, Cor had a reputation before he left as a prissy asshole prodigiously good with a sword. That meant the newly crowned Regis remembered him well.

Clarus pointed a sword at him, but Cor just ducked aside impatiently.

“Hey, King Regis,” Cor shouted. “Let me talk to you. You’re going about this wrong.”

A lot of the imperial soldiers tried to skewer him right then and Cor sort of forgot that he only had a knife. And no sword. Fuck.

But he had a dragon behind him.

Robb roared and when that made everyone else scrabble for weapons, the even larger ice dragon roared louder.

“No, really,” he shouted in the sudden, suspenseful silence. “I have to talk to you. I know how to talk to the dragons.”

King Regis looked more tired than anything. “Sure. We need all the help we can get. The translation spells aren’t going well since they keep slipping off.”

Cor shook his head. “Of course it won’t, the dragons are nulls. You have to bloodshare to be able to talk to one another. Though it really tastes terrible.”

Regis stared. “What?”

“Yeah, what he said,” Clarus said, sounding stunned.

Sighing, Cor explained.

.

.

Sansa sat at the ledge and stared at the horizon irritably.

It had been five days and Sansa missed her treasure. Terribly. Incredibly. It made her very being ache.

“Sansa, you’re so boring nowadays,” Arya complained.

Sansa slid down and curled around Arya, who protested. “My treasure is away. I miss him.”

Arya nudged her and nudged her until, annoyed, Sansa lunged and chased after her. Bran and Rickon, who were watching, the little rascals, joined in and climbed up her wings.

The rest of the elders watched them indulgently.

They rolled around, biting, scratching and play hunting until the hatchlings fell asleep, exhausted. Sansa returned to her ledge, sighing.

Except.

There, on the horizon, were several dragons.

And on one dragon was her treasure. Her very being just knew. That one was hers.

With a cry of happiness, Sansa launched herself off the ledge and flew towards him.

Her lovely, her precious treasure.

He launched himself at her in mid air to Robb’s alarm. But Sansa caught him. She would always catch him.

.

There was a beautiful woman who worked in the Public Library and Cor had been trying to ask her out on a date for weeks.

She was nice, graceful and everything Cor never knew he liked in a woman.

She was also Ned Starks eldest daughter and was the most sought after woman in town. Cor had never seen a day where she wasn’t confessed to, or asked out and she always turned them down.

Cor had a secret weapon though.

He knew she liked children. And he knew she liked working in the library. Hence, asking her out after her shift.

Cor drove through Mr. Kenny’s, getting the salted fries for Prompto and burger for him. Prompto, who had discovered the joys of fried food, grabbed at the fries eagerly, if messily.

What with the traffic and the drive through, Cor arrived just as Sansa was locking up the door. Her red hair was up in a bun, a sparkling hair stick keeping it there. Just as it always was. He had never seen her with her hair down.

Just as he was gathering up his nephew and his courage to talk to her, Sansa looked across the street and blanched.

Cor’s brain blanked out in a hurry and he exited the car and ran to her. That was fear and he didn’t want to know what would make her afraid.

“Ms. Stark, are you alright?” he asked.

She jumped. Which was telling.

“Mr. Leonis!” she exclaimed. Her voice was shaking. “Oh, how lovely to see you.” Then, she realized she’d never answered his question and added, “I just saw my ex. He’s been following me around for weeks.”

Cor narrowed his eyes. He had seen a flash of blonde in the library for a while now, but he’d just assumed that it was someone else. After all, he knew which ex she meant. The news had broken all over town.

“Do you mean that ex?” he had to ask. “Because if so, I am perfectly willing to escort you home.” He had no business being near women. Especially not Sansa. She had a restraining order against him.

“I wouldn’t want to bother you, but it would be wonderful,” she said. Her hand was in his and it was shaking.

Cor was so angry but he had to restrain himself from marching over there and ripping off his head with his bare hands. First and foremost, Sansa needed the comfort of protection, then he can think about ripping off heads.

“Here,” he escorted her to his car, belatedly remembering Prompto, who was enjoying himself with the fries. His face was a mess of oil and salt.

Sansa visibly relaxed faced with a toddler and Cor was never more grateful that he was babysitting today.

“You can hold Prompto,” he told her. “He likes being held.”

Prompto was also the perfectly warm and just the right weight to be comforting. Sansa relaxed further in the backseat, practically cuddling Prompto, who had the disposition to be cuddled. If it was Gladio, it would have been like holding a struggling cat.

“So what’s the funniest story you can tell me about working in the Library?” he asked her.

Sansa’s startled eyes look at him, before she smiled. Cor’s blinks away the haze caused by that smile, listening to her talk attentively. She looked more alive, and there’s a flush in her cheeks. Better.

He drove slowly and smoothly, but he was still disappointed when they arrived at her house. He knew better than to show it and helped to get her out. He knew sometimes that adrenaline does funny things to one’s legs and balance.

Her husky, Lady, rushed out and greeted the both of them and Cor could practically see Sansa look happier by the number of pets and scritches she gave out to her dog.

“Take care of yourself,” he told her sternly.

“I will,” she said, lovely blue eyes looking at him in the eye.

“Your ex…don’t worry about him, he won’t bother you,” he said.

Sansa looked surprised. “Mr. Leonis – “

“Call me Cor,” he interrupted.

“Cor,” she continued, “What are you going to do?”

Cor smiled toothily. “Don’t worry, Ms. Stark. We’re just gonna have a pointed conversation.”

Sansa sighed. “Alright, I won’t worry about him. But I’ll worry about you instead, Cor.”

Lady punctuated the statement by barking.

.

.

Joffrey hasn’t shown up in three days since that conversation, which worried Sansa.

Not that she’s worried about Joffrey, damn his black heart, but she’s worried about what exactly Cor Leonis did to him and if she’d have to ask her father to bail him out of jail.

“Take care of yourself,” he said. Lovely eyes concerned about her and rough hands gentle on hers. Serious eyes looking at her and listening to her attentively.

It was enough to make a woman’s heart skip a beat. He was so nice, good looking and Sansa was weak to his quicksilver smiles that only showed up when he was babysitting Prompto Argentum. Lady also liked him.

Sansa was truthful enough to admit that she liked him and if he won’t ask her out, she’d do it instead.

“Marry a good man,” dad had told her after her nasty breakup. “Honey, we don’t care about money. But marry a good man.”

Joffrey had money. Tons of it, but he hadn’t been a good man. After escorting her safely home, Sansa could safely say that Cor Leonis was.

“Sansa!” Jeyne Poole hissed.

Sansa looked up and felt her heart beat faster.

At the library door, was Cor Leonis holding a bouquet of flowers and a determined expression. A glance at the clock and Sansa felt herself smile.

He was so conscientious; he waited until her shift was over.

Cor walked over, that determined stride doing things to her.

“Ms. Stark, Sansa, these are for you,” he said, holding out the flowers. Tiger lilies and pink snapdragons. A lovely riot of colors and Sansa’s insides melted. He’d obviously listened to her when he’d asked her favorite flowers.

“Cor, thank you,” she said as evenly as she could manage. She was pretty sure her cheeks were red.

“Dinner. Uhm. Reservations,” he stammered, ears crimson.

Her nerves melted in the face of his and Sansa had to stifle a giggle. “Of course. You can pick me up at seven.”

He nodded, picked up her hand and kissed the air above it and marched out. Sansa’s blood rushed to her face at the gesture, and she almost missed him pumping his fist above his head as he skipped the steps.

Jeyne waited until he was in his car before jumping at Sansa and shaking her shoulder.

“Sansa!” she whispered.

“I know!” Sansa whined.

Sansa looked out of the battlements where she had sneaked out with her siblings, Robbs head beside hers and Arya’s fingers tight in her hand. Rickon wiggled and went still while Bran just gasped in awe. Sansa took deep breaths. Her siblings would make fun of her forever if she fainted.

“You are all here, good,” the dragon said, voice deep and roiling like a thunderstorm. “I will speak, and you will listen.”

“Not like you gave us a choice, you’ve almost starved us to death here,” GreatJon Umber bellowed back at the dragon.

The dragon reared back its great head and roared. “I will speak, and you will listen!” making everyone’s ears ring.

There was a moment of terrified silence, and then Sansa’s father moved forward.

“Speak then, and we will listen,” Sansa’s father yelled up at the dragon.

The dragon rumbled and there was a moment of panic, before they all realized that yes, the dragon was pleased. Purring, like a cat.

“My name is Gilgamesh, and I am here to give you all a warning,” it rumbled. “A great Winter is coming, a storm of snow, ice and hail that will envelope your country for long, long years. If you are not careful, you will all die of the hunger and the starvation.”

There was a great deluge of whispers, but under the dragons gimlet stare, went quiet again.

“I notice that there is a heart tree here, a proper one. Good. If a Stark Monarch bleeds on the tree during Winter, you can lessen Winters hold on the land,” the dragon pronounced. “A week for every cup of blood.”

“There are no Stark Monarchs,” Robb hissed in her ear. “Or Kings or Queens at all. Ever since the Targaryen conquest, there have been no Stark Kings.”

Sansa looked at her pale brother. He seemed to understand what the dragon was saying. Sansa too felt that dawning horror of the inevitable.

“Lastly,” the dragon rumbled. “I am dying. My child is coming and will be of great aid to you, for he breathes fire. You will all take good care of my child, for he was born the Eternal Flame of Summer. You will need his Flame during your Long Winter.”

With that, the dragon sat on his haunches and stared at them all, seeming to catch the Stark siblings hiding by the battlements. “Now, you shall speak, and I will listen,” the dragon announced.

The noise that erupted was insane. Sansa let go of Arya’s hand and covered her ears. She did not let her eyes away from the dragon. It seemed displeased at the noise.

“The Long Night,” someone said. “You speak of the Long Night. It is a myth!”

“Food stores that will last for ages!” someone else said. “How on earth do you expect us to save that much food? That’s insane! It would rot!”

“You can’t expect us to host another dragon willingly! You’re eating habits are going to starve us to death, we don’t have to wait for Winter!” Sansa’s mother yelled.

The dragon rumbled again, waiting for all the questions to stop.

“I will answer, and you will listen,” he said. “If the Long Night is a myth, it is the same in that dragons are a myth. Look at me, and tell me I am not real.”

He glared at all of them with great yellow eyes. No one moved, or breathed, their courage all deserting them as they all suddenly remembered that yes, dragon.

“I will teach you how to preserve food that will last for years,” he added, looking at Master Wolken, who looked incredibly pale under the dragons attention. “And lastly, it is an exchange. If I was to give you knowledge that was incredibly valuable, then I must also get something of equal value.”

Sansa felt that knowledge settle deep in her bones. Equal Value.

“My child will not eat as much, but he will still eat, since he is the Eternal Flame. But he will also hunt, so it will be a fair trade,” the dragon finished. “I will go now, but I will come back. You must all decide wisely, for my time here is not long.”

The dragon left, as though he had not rearranged their entire lives.

“The Long Night,” Bran said. “And people called Old Nan crazy!”

“Do you think it will be very cold?” Arya asked.

Sansa shivered. “I hope everything will be alright,” Sansa said. “But father will do his best.”

Robb’s hands were warm against her back but he looked terrified.

.

That night, Sansa dreamed. The dragon had looked at her, she knew. Looked at her and found her worthy. Sansa hadn’t realized how lonely she felt among her family, that with just a look, a dragon could make her feel less alone.

“Child,” he spoke, voice calmer and less of a rumbling mass of force. “Why do you weep?”

“There are no more Stark Monarchs,” she whispered. “And our people are divided. We may yet die. I will fight for my people, but I do not know how.”

He hummed. “If I teach you, you will know. You will learn.”

“But will it hurt? Equal Value,” Sansa whispered.

The dragons eyes gleamed. “You listen well. I admire that. But the price for what I will teach you is without measure. You will know what your payment is when my child arrives.”

.

Every night Sansa slept, she dreamed of the dragon.

He taught her about leadership, about duty and about Stark Magic.

“Monarchy for the Starks is less about the title and more about the Magic, and the duty to the people,” Gilgamesh lectured. “Luckily for you, you are almost of age. Once you have turned eighteen, do not kneel for anyone. You may bow, but you must never kneel.”

“Does that mean, that we lost the title of Kings of Winter when we knelt, not when the crown was melted?” Sansa asked.

“Yes, for kings and queens will only kneel when they are conquered,” he said. “Now, have you found the Heart of Winterfell yet, Sansa?”

Sansa had found the hot springs, and the lesson proceeded.

.

.

Sansa understood what Gilgamesh meant when, a few days later, they receive news that the dragon was dead and Lord Bolton started talking about taking off the head as a trophy.

She entered the meeting chamber, with all the lords present and her siblings behind her watching her in awe.

“No,” she said to all those powerful men. “Gilgamesh the dragon, the truth speaker, will not have his head made into a trophy. He deserves better than that. He deserves to buried, or to be left alone. Let his bones rest peacefully, for he did us a great service.”

Father looked proud and everyone else looked at her strangely. Sansa stood tall and remembered not to be afraid. She would miss Gilgamesh desperately, but she knew it was his time.

And all of Winterfell waited for the arrival of the Eternal Flame, the great dragon and child of Gilgamesh the oracle; they were unprepared for the arrival of a teenaged boy carrying a sword.

.

.

“My name is Cor Leonis,” the boy said, eyes slitted like a cats – no - a dragons. Other than the scales in his arms and the horns pushing through his hair, he looked like a normal boy. “My father, Gilgamesh, bade me to come here.”

“You are the Eternal Flame, the great dragon?” Eddard Stark asked. He looked the boy up and down appraisingly. “You are smaller than I expected.”

Cor huffed, and a curl of smoke escaped his mouth. “I thought coming as a dragon would be alarming and eye catching. Also, I eat less in this shape.”

Everyone relaxed at that last sentence and Sansa had to hold back her giggles.

Perhaps it wasn’t as quiet as she thought, since his yellow eyes flicked to her immediately. He stared and Sansa stared back. The little bit of scale she could see peeking out of his clothes were fascinating. Weeks and weeks of having Gilgamesh as her teacher and she no longer feared dragons.

Eddard Stark cleared his throat pointedly, making Cor’s eyes snap to him again. “Kindly do not stare at my daughter,” he said pointedly.

“She smells of my father’s scent. He has crowned her a queen,” Cor announced, to absolute pandemonium.

.

.

There was, inevitably, a meeting.

Father, mother, Robb and all the lords who were given instructions to keep quiet. Lady Mormont looked intrigued. And of course, Cor Leonis.

“Sansa, tell us everything,” Mother said. “Where were you meeting the dragon and when?”

Sansa shook her head. She placed her hands on her lap and stared at them all quietly. “I met him in my dreams. Gilgamesh asked me for why I was crying even in my sleep, and I told him I worried that everyone in the North was going to starve despite our best efforts, because there were no more Stark Monarchs ever since the Targaryen Conquest. He said that it did not matter, because he would teach me.”

“Why you!?” Robb burst out, looking frustrated and worried in equal measure. “Surely I could hold it better.”

Cor sighed. “Gil chose her, because when she heard about blood and the Heart Tree, she was willing to bleed to death at its roots, if only to provide her people with a bit of summer.”

“Sansa,” Mother whispered, face pale. “Dear one…”

Father rounded on Cor. “She does not have to die to provide us all summer. We can manage the food stores.”

“No, a good monarch chooses duty over all else, even family,” Cor pointed out. “That, and having a heart of compassion. Can you look at her and tell me that Gil chose wrong?”

There was silence and then laughter from Lady Mormont.

“Look at all you men, alarmed that a woman was chosen,” she laughed. “If it was your boy, Bran, chosen, this would not be so troubling. But because she is a woman, you are all questioning her. Leave her be. Teach her, she is already chosen by the dragon.”

“Gil has already taught me,” Sansa said. “And we need to dig under the Glittering Crag. It has silicone sand, Gil said. A bit of steel and glass, and all of the North will have glass gardens. It’ll be a bit of a stretch, but we can then have Glass Farms!”

Sheer, utter pandemonium.

Sansa watched Cor give a small smile and wanted to see it again.

.

.

Winterfell and Wintertown became a hive of activity.

Cor’s use became evident as he started sketching out diagrams, teaching people to read and then just overhauling their entire education system just so that he could have skilled workers.

He drew out plans, scouted out the terrain, hunted some deer and slept as a boy by the large hearth of the castle.

Sansa never saw his dragon shape and she yearned to. She wondered if he would be as big as his sire, and felt her cheeks heat when she remembered his strength in singlehandedly holding up the roof of the workshop so that the people could hammer in the nails.

But Sansa had no time to think about that, except in the dead of the night.

Now that she was announced heir, all the duties that Robb had fell on to her, and some of Fathers and Mothers as well.

In retaliation, she conscripted Jeyne to be her right hand and Beth to supervise what Cor and the workers were up to in making the glass farms.

Sansa was busy, so she neglected her siblings. This was a mistake, because the next thing she knew, Arya had launched a mud pie at her dress as she was crossing the courtyard.

She felt numb. She had embroidered the dress personally, and sewn on the bodice. The dress was her once a year allowance to buy cloth. And Arya had just ruined it. She went away inside so that she wouldn’t cry and continued to walk, ignoring the mud and everyone smiling meanly at her.

She would have started crying in her office, except that Cor immediately swooped in and scolded Arya, her other siblings watching and all the spectators who did nothing to stop it.

Sansa stopped and stared, feeling warmer and touched that someone, at least, understood.

And Arya had to ruin it by opening her large mouth.

“You’re just defending her because she’s pretty!” Arya said meanly. “You’re such a boy, even if you’re a dragon.”

Cor just. Stopped. His eyes contracted and his hands clenched. Behind him, there was a massive rip as his trousers tore and his massive tail manifested, an evidence of his loss of temper.

“What does that have to do with respect?” Cor demanded. “I would defend her even if she was a boy, and not just because she’s pretty. She’s working herself to the bone for all of you, and you, you spoiled child, are not even helping her. She is exhausted every day, and you throw mud at her. She has managed to singlehandedly allocate supplies for three years, more if I’m counting right. A couple more months and she can manage to store food for five. That’s just from what I’ve seen. Meanwhile, I have never seen you work a day in your life.”

Sansa continued walking and felt like she was flying.

.

.

Sansa never really talked to Cor alone, because their duties ran parallel and didn’t really intersect. Aside from that first meeting, she and Cor were rarely alone.

That changed, because as soon as Sansa changed her clothes and had a bath, she sought him out where he was checking barrels for storing barley and flour.

“Ser Cor,” she said. “Thank you.”

He stood up. He seemed to have changed trousers as well and his eyes shone in the dark of the cellar. “Not a Ser. And there is no need for thanks. I am sorry I lost my temper. My manifestation must have been a surprise.”

Sansa shook her head. “No, never!  I mean, you have been holding your shape for months on end. You must manifest sometimes.”

“You’re…not afraid,” he said, less a question and more a statement.

“No,” she said quietly. Up close, his eyes weren’t really yellow but a lovely shade of burnished gold that refracted the light. His hair was many shades of dark brown. “No. At the start, I may have been afraid of Gilgamesh, but as I knew him, I was no longer afraid. But you…I was never afraid of you.”

And then…he smiled.

.

In the dark of the night, when she was all alone and no one was around, Sansa remembered that smile and pressed cool hands to hot cheeks.

.

Later, many months later, when the Long Night came and Cor manifested fully as a grown dragon and breathed fire to keep everyone in Winterfell warm, Sansa would remember being the only one who did not cower at his size.

She held her head high and did not bow to him and Cor hummed in pleasure.

And when the food stores would get low, Sansa would bleed. The howling winds would lessen and her people would be able to hunt, watched and protected by Cor’s dragon eyes.

The first three years were fine and Cor continued to push people to salvage. Sansa knew that it would last longer than five years and agreed with him. Getting food from the other kingdoms would do for later, when the stores were almost empty.

The Glass Farms proved their weight in gold when it kept everyone in the North fed for years. Sansa was thoroughly sick of radishes and scallions, and so was everyone else, she suspected. She missed real meat that was not preserved or salted or broiled.

The last two years, as Sansa would remember, were the hardest. The glass farms had a leak from all the ice and stopped production for three months. Sansa finally had to asked her father to ship food from Essos.

“And if all else fails, we can ask the Reach,” Sansa said.

“They charge through the nose,” Father muttered. His cheeks were thin, but he was flush with health. The heat Cor produced just by being near was significant.

“Needs must,” Sansa sighed. “And we can sell all the wool we’ve been making.”

Given that some days, the snow fall was crazy, everyone had been spinning wool. Or carving.  Or sewing. Or some variation of all three.

.

Cor finally finished the copper tubes he had asked for and installed them in every house in the North. There was a great deal of grumbling as no carpenter or tradesman wanted to be out in the snow. But the promise of warm houses forever more was too good to pass up.

He breathed a long and sustained flame in every house hearth and the flame settled on the logs and didn’t consume wood. It sat on the wood, but did not burn. It was warmer than ordinary fire.

“Is that…the Eternal Flame?” Sansa had to ask. Both of them sat in her solar, as was their custom after a long day of work.

Cor shook his head. “It is just dragon fire. Gilgamesh was being poetic.”

Sansa giggled and Cor smiled at her fondly.

“Cor,” she said when the fire was winding down and her eyes drooped. “When the winter is over, will you stay?” With me? She wanted to add, but was too afraid to do so.

Cor’s eyes dilated, as they did when he was experiencing great emotion. “Sansa, my queen. I would stay until you tell me to leave.”

With her heart in her throat, Sansa held out a hand, and Cor held it carefully, aware of the scales in his fingers. She felt warm and it had nothing to do with Cor’s heat.

“As queen in all the North,” she told him, like she’s sharing a secret. “I can marry who I wish.”

“As a dragon of magic and fire,” he answered. “No one dictates who I marry.”

The first kiss tasted like heat and magic and Sansa finally, finally understood Gilgamesh’s price.

.

.

Staring down at her first born, Sansa looked at the golden eyes and dark scales.

“His name shall be Gillian,” she announced.

.

.

Sansa hadn’t meant to fall, is the thing.

She hadn’t been Sansa then, but with a different, more angelic name. Working under the lovely angel Raphael and being compassionate. What an angel of compassion was supposed to do, Sansa always wondered.

Raphael had encouraged her to make more friends and Sansa had agreed. Free will wasn’t quite a thing, merely a concept that Father had brought up in the weekly meetings and whatever Raphael ordered, she would always do.

So she roamed around, looking for friends. Groups of angels congregating, was still the description, because that’s what friends did? Sansa hadn’t been sure then.

She’d joined the first group of angels congregating and talked to them.

They were nice, Samael and nir friends. They welcomed her readily with bright smiles and heady laughter. Too bright she would realize later. Too sharp edges carefully hidden away from the newbie.

She hung around them because they always made her feel welcome and Sansa adored them for listening to her questions and her confusion about compassion.

“What is compassion?” she would ask the archangels.

“It is concern for misfortune,” Father told her when all her siblings couldn’t answer.

“What is misfortune?” she asked Samael, because even then, Sansa had tact not to ask God that.

“It is the absence of God,” Samael’s friend would answer.

How can there be an absence of God, when God was everywhere? She wondered then.

After being cast out simply for being with her friends at the wrong time and place, Sansa understood. There can be an absence of God, for God had abandoned her.

.

.

Sansa’s best work, so far in Eos, was traffic jams.

No matter how hard city planning worked to keep the cars moving fast, Sansa always managed an inconvenience that made people curse and work up a temper, damning their souls.

Once, she’d short circuited connections in all the banks in the entire world, causing a drop in the market. The amount of chaotic fury she’d felt that day made her laugh, even as guilt shimmered in her stomach.

Cor had looked at her and sighed that day and Sansa had wanted to cry. If demons could cry.

Sansa still caused tempers to go high, hatred to go up, simply because she existed in their general vicinity. She tried to tamp it down just to enjoy a bit of light reading, but inevitably, there would be an argument by someone or the other and she would have to leave to work off the excess energy.

Cor helped, simply because, as angel, he radiated such immense goodness that they balanced each other out.

That was what Cor had told her when he’d hunted her down in Accordo during the executions and her mere arrival in the city had incited the mobs to tear apart their king limb from limb with their bare hands.

She’d wept with relief when he left her, but still stayed in her general area. She had watched that King die and felt his fear, his hatred and wanted to vomit. She never wanted it to happen again.

Cor helped. Maybe that’s why her stomach started those strange convulsions and fluttering’s.

.

.

The Fall started, not with anger, as the bible like to say, but with a question.

Samael asked, “Why should we care for these lesser creatures? Look at all their imperfections!”

God talked and Samael argued. Angels and archangels gathered around and Sansa hovered near her friends, confused, frightened. Because Samael’s white wings were changing. The symbol of his soul, his very existence, was changing.

After that very blasphemous debate, God cast out Samael and ripped nir’s name away.

Sansa’s Fall was not quite so dramatic, just quieter.

Raphael, always doting on Sansa, had tried to tug her away. But she’d stayed. Confused but loyal, she’d stayed.

“My friends,” she said, tugging at the hand Raphael had on her.

Raphael had eyed her wings and gasped in horror.

“Then you have betrayed us all as well,” her dearest mentor whispered in grief.

The gates of Heaven opened and the command entered the Psyche of all the angels. To toss out the betrayers.

Without concept of free will, siblings turned on siblings and obeyed. Raphael as well, despite nir’s reluctance.

Sansa was one of the last, and all heard her scream out in despair, “Father! I don’t understand!”

Her scream followed her as she fell through the ether and into the depths of despair. God had indeed abandoned them.

.

.

Cor liked to visit the orphanages in the city since his mentor, the Archangel Michael had taught him to guard the children.

Sansa, of course, had followed him around for good deeds to thwart at first. Then, it turned out, it was exceedingly difficult to thwart that good deed. How was Sansa supposed to subvert children? Children had malleable souls, true, but that also meant that they had their own guardians and Cor himself being there…

Sansa should have deemed it a lost cause. Except.

Except…

Sometimes, when Sansa had no sins planned that day, she would watch Cor playing with the children and ached.

.

.

All of the Fallen woke at differing intervals, wings trembling and limbs malformed.

Sansa herself had found she had deformed jaws to make way for her newly large teeth. Like a wolf. Her own beautiful white wings had burned on the way down, the color turning into burning ember, flames of her anger licking the feathers, a fire that never died.

It hurt.

All of it hurt, all of their souls did. A change that happened like that, no matter how sturdy their very beings were, still ached. They were beings of perfection, formed without blemish. They were not made for changes. Their very psyche rebelled against it.

There was also the absence of their Father to contend with. For the first time in millennia, they were without him.

There was a great cry that rose up then, a great weeping.

Sansa stood up and howled her agony, her pain and her rage.

Everyone followed with their own screams, and perhaps it was because of that howl that none of the Fallen succumb to their despair.

Lucifer stood in the ashes of Samael and Sansa looked to him as did everyone, because while his wings were black, his eyes still shone with the light of creation. He, among all of them, had Light. Perhaps he led them to their downfall, but he also shone with the familiarity of home.

.

.

Sansa had a guilty secret from the forces of hell.

She loved to sew, to embroider.

Runes of protection, runes of love. Not Enochian, because no human made cloth could hold that majestic language, but the old Language of Solheim. It was enough to warm the cloth for winter and Sansa would drop it in strategic places where the homeless slept.

Sansa didn’t really care about the homeless, she just needed somewhere to dump old projects. She hated clutter and her apartment had very little space.

Cor was not to know.

Sansa sewed and did it without heaven or hell knowing.

.

Sansa and Cor had ‘dates’.

Well, Cor called it Equilibrium Meetings, to balance out Sansa’s aura. Sansa called it dates in her mind, because she loved to torture herself.

Cor sat across her and read a book and Sansa muttered irritably about Cor’s book. If he was reading, he wasn’t looking at her and she couldn’t see his lovely eyes. An irritated Cor would have eyes that flashed with his anger and divine light. It made his already lovely features breathtaking.

Then…

“What are you reading?” Sansa said, her usual question during the start of the meetings.

“Wolves, and how to take care of them,” Cor said in his lovely voice.

Sansa felt her metaphorical ruff stand up. Her more wolf-like features were hidden under carefully sewn glamours, but she and the wolf were one, he never went away.

“Are you thinking of getting a pet?” Sansa asked despite herself.

Cor looked at her, just a second of his attention, but Sansa felt it. “I don’t think you’d like it if I did,” Cor said.

Was he implying…? Sansa did not know what he was implying, but it was probably nothing good.

“’Wolves are cunning and extremely intelligent’,” Cor suddenly said, reading from the book. “’Some wolf hybrids are docile but most and all wolves are stronger, smarter and more independent than dogs.’” He snorted. “Smart indeed.”

Sansa, who had relaxed listening to his lovely voice, bristled again. “Are you implying that wolves are dumb?” she demanded.

He smiled, that quicksilver flash of humor that vanished quickly. “So dumb.”

Sansa raised her nose into the air in offense, turning away from him. Her stomach fluttered like mad when she heard him laugh.

Sansa felt her insides melt.

.

.

Lucifer was their rock in the strange new world they’d found themselves in, but soon, his very presence turned Sansa’s stomach.

She hated the sight of his eyes, for they reminded her of Father and the complete and utter absence of him.

“There is a new world that Father has created,” Sansa told Lucifer eventually, when she could no longer bear the sight of him. “I wish to corrupt it.”

Lucifer smiled. “Of course, my dear. I thought you would volunteer for it, your hatred still burns in you.”

He referred, of course, to the flames that danced in Sansa’s deep red wings.

Sansa climbed out of hell and met Cor.

That he didn’t immediately draw his sword was perhaps due to his mercy.

But Sansa was all out of mercy and attacked him immediately in rage.

.

.

Jeyne was, perhaps, Sansa’s only true friend.

That she was a wolf-child, borne of Sansa’s blood when she bled for the first time, was irrelevant. The child immediately decided to be Sansa’s friend.

A millennia of companionship and Jeyne had ideas about Cor.

“How was your date?” Jeyne asked.

Sansa harrumphed. “It was not a date, as I keep telling you. It is to mitigate my aura.”

Jeyne rolled her eyes. “Excuses. Did you enjoy yourself at least?”

Sansa couldn’t help the blush. Jeyne cackled and Sansa strategically retreated to her room. Sansa would own to being a coward and she had no shame in retreating.

.

In one of Sansa’s once a week schedule for chaos, she caused a shortage of coffee and switched what was available to decaf.

This time, the outcry made her laugh until tears dripped from her eyes.

“Inspired,” she giggled. “Their outrage.”

Cor landed outside of Sansa’s balcony and she would swear she didn’t squeak.

“Angel!” she exclaimed. “Hi.”

He leveled an unimpressed look at her. “I was drinking coffee. Sansa. I was enjoying my coffee.”

She giggled. “Perhaps it is time for you to switch to tea? I have some lovely chocolate tea you can try. May I tempt you with some?”

He softened, winching back his wings. “Alright. It better be good. I liked that coffee.”

She served him tea with a smile and he smiled back. The fluttering’s increased.

Oh no.

.

.

Cor talked her down from her anger.

It took ages and ages before she would show him her back and even then it made the hairs at the back of her neck prickle.

It was worth it though, because for the first time, someone preened Sansa’s wings.

She would never trust anyone in hell with her wings and her wolf-child didn’t know the first thing about wings. Cor, angel and tentatively trusted, knew to work the down into her feathers and to pluck the ones that needed loosing.

She settled into a puddle of contented demon on his lap and felt Cor turn stiff.

Immediately, Sansa launched herself away from him.

She had made him uncomfortable.

She thought.

She thought he didn’t mind her mouthful of fangs. Of the extra ribs that made her lungs bigger and more suitable for howling.

He minded. By the look in his face, he minded very much.

After that, Sansa never allowed Cor to touch more than her wings. If her body made him uncomfortable, then she would just hide her body from him.

.

.

During one of their not-dates, as Jeyne had taken to calling it, Cor held her hand.

Sansa was so stiff, he could have shattered her if he pushed her over.

“Cor, what are you doing?” she asked quietly.

Equally quietly, he said, “I’m holding your hand.”

Sansa took in a breath. Held it. Let it out through shuddering lungs.

“Alright,” she whispered.

“Shall I let go?” he asked.

Her grip tightened. “No, it’s alright.”

“It’s alright,” he agreed.

.

.

For a decade, Sansa ran away from Cor.

After that disastrous preening, Sansa ran and didn’t look back.

She caused several disasters without looking and hid away from Cor for a decade.

It took a few more years before she would trust him again and he touched her gently, almost achingly gently.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“I’m sorry,” she replied.

She didn’t know what he was apologizing for, but Sansa was sorry.

Sorry for falling, and sorry for making him uncomfortable.

Cor’s eyes burned with the light of creation and Sansa just hurt.

.

.

When Cor locked the window, Sansa was suspicious.

When Cor sat her down and asked, “May I kiss you,” Sansa wanted to run. So that’s why he locked the window. But there was still the door.

“Sansa,” he said, tugging at her hand, held loosely in his large one, where she can escape if she really wanted. “Centuries ago, during that first preening,” he said, finally talking about that moment, where he turned away from her in disgust.

Sansa turned stiff and tensed, ready to launch herself out of the window and damn the glass.

“No wait, listen,” he pleaded. “I haven’t. I wanted to touch you for ages, long before you fell and when I saw you again, I thought I was dreaming.”

“You’re serious?” she said through numb lips.

“I’ve loved you since you were following around Raphael in heaven!” he exclaimed. “Of course I don’t mind your extra additions, your teeth are lovely now too!”

Sansa wasn’t sure what size her eyes were, but she was sure they were wide. “I thought. We, heaven that is, were sure that you and the rest of the Fallen were dead. Then I saw you climb out of that hole and I was so happy, I could have cried,” he said. “You were still you, but you were different. I loved you still, and I wanted to know you again.”

“You were stiff,” she said. Sansa doesn’t know how she keeps talking.

“Because you were adorable and I wanted to hug you!” he said seriously. “I had to hold back. And then you ran away. For ten years!”

Sansa just. Blinked at him in surprise.

“So, may I kiss you?” he asked.

May I kiss you? Sansa thought incredulously. Is he serious????

Sansa climbed into his lap and carefully kissed him.

.

When he next woke, he was in a cabin and there were professionally tied bandages around his leg and most of his other injuries. His arm was actually sewed together.

The dog, Lady, was resting on his legs, a heavy and reassuring weight that grounded him.

“What,” he rasped, throat dry and parched.

A clatter and an old woman bundled forward. Her eyes were filmed over and distant. Her hair was fully white kept in a long tail that she wound together in a bun. Her back was straight and poised.

“I’m Marge, this is my cabin. There’s a cup next to you, dear,” she said.

Cor took the cup, a rough hewn thing, filled with water. The taste of water was the best thing he’d ever had in years.

“This your dog?” he asked, voice clearer.

 Marge shook her head. “No. The sweet thing just showed up one day. I think her owner is long dead.”

Cor looked at Lady, and the dog lazily waved her tail at him, eyes clear and intelligent.

“My head was hazy at the end there but I think this dog just saved my life,” he said out loud. 

Marge laughed, a quiet sound. “That she did. She dragged one of my grandsons over with your sword in her mouth. That sure made all the men scramble around.” 

A glance and there was Kotetsu beside him. True enough, there were teeth marks on the handle. Surprisingly, that was the only damage. A good enough exchange for saving his life.

He petted Lady. “Good dog.”

Her tail went crazy. “Whuff,” she rumbled, very clearly pleased.

Cor smiled for the first time in months.

.

.

Cor was feeling better, and that’s what he would tell Marge as an excuse. Currently, since he was feeling better, he was going stir crazy.

Lady had more freedom than he did. Lady had more fucking mobility than he did. Lady was also stronger than him at the moment, since his everything felt so fucking weak.

But his hands were strong and could hold his sword. His steps were sure and he didn’t fall over after five steps. Progress.

So he followed the dog out of the house, at midnight, when she always left.

Cor was careful to keep quiet and keep to the shadows. Lady kept glancing back, and her ears were pricked attentively. It was enough to ring alarm bells in his head.

He had never seen a dog do that before.

He crouched under the bushes and held his breath when the dog jumped into the lake. Her head went under and Cor scrambled up, removing his shoes and just about to jump in after her when the most beautiful woman he had ever seen emerged from where Lady submerged.

Her hair was the same deep red as Lady’s fur, and her eyes the same blue. She was also stark naked.

With a muffled gasp, he scrambled behind a tree as the lady started to wash herself.

Not as quietly as he’d hoped, fuck. She turned around, hands around her breasts and immediately submerging herself under the water.

“Who’s there?” she demanded, voice lower than he expected. And uncertain.

“It’s just me,” he called out. “Cor.”

She stopped moving, the water stopped making splashing sounds. Cor kept his eyes forward and away from her.

“You followed me?” she sounded…not angry? “Why?”

Cor shrugged even if she couldn’t see it. “I was bored.”

She…Lady laughed. “I should have known, you were getting restless.” Which just answered the question. She was Lady.

“Right,” he said. “You were…a dog?”

“Yes,” she said, voice sad. “And only a woman for two hours.”

She sounded so resigned. It just made him see red.

“Why are you like this?” he asked. “And why?”

She sighed. “A long time ago. A man didn’t take well to being rejected. The Adagium with his strange powers cursed me to be this way.”

“Lady – “

“My name is Sansa,” she interrupted. “Sansa Stark.” She announced her name proudly. It must have been ages since she did so and Cor promised himself that he’d remember her name.

“Right. Sansa. Do you know how to undo your curse?” he asked. By Shiva, he hoped she did. He didn’t like the idea of her suffering under it.

“No,” she whispered. “I’ve been this way for a while.”

How long was a while? He wondered. But he couldn’t ask her that. Cor may have the social graces of rampaging behemoth, but even he could knew not to ask that question.

“Do you change back every night?” he asked, changing the topic.

“Yes,” she said, puzzled. “Every night when the clock strikes midnight. Two hours after that, I am a dog again.”

“Okay,” he said with determination. “Do you like cookies?”

He may have not been looking at her, but he could feel Sansa’s stare.

.

. 

Cor asked Marge for spare blankets, cookies and a flask of milk.

The old woman may have been blind, but she gave him such a knowing look that Cor had a feeling that she knew what he was doing.

Which.

Hmm.

Reassuring.

Actually, since the dog just appeared...

“Marge, do you know anything about the Starks?” he asked her. He made sure to ask her when Lady wasn’t in the room.

The old lady dropped her wooden cup, the tea spilling everywhere on the rug.

“Where did you hear that name?” she asked, voice hoarse and unseeing eyes wide.

Cor scrambled up to help her sit down. She trembled in his hold.

“I heard it from the dog herself,” he whispered to her. “And she needs our help.”

Marge gave a weak laugh, a disbelieving one. “She’s not a dog, Cor. She’s a wolf small enough to pass as a dog,” she whispered back just as secretly. “And of course she’s a wolf. The Starks sacred animals were the wolves.”

“Can you tell me more?” he asked voice gentle. “I need to help her.”

Marge nodded, taking a gulp of the tea he handed over to her gratefully. “The Starks were the old ruling family, the descended from Solheim, the family surviving the ravaging. Their magic survived too. The magic to heal. The princess, the most powerful of them all, was approached by the Adagium. He wanted her help. But the Adagium was a repulsive creature that leaked daemons wherever he went. The princess refused. And the Adagium cursed her.”

Here, Marge wept. “Oh, poor princess. No one ever said what her curse was. Only that it was powerful and no one could break it.”

“How long ago was this story?” Cor asked, mind whirring.

“A century ago,” she whispered. “A century. The poor dear has suffered so long.”

Cor wanted to shout. Or to punch something, he wasn’t picky.

“She was young when this happened?” he prodded. 

“She was twelve when it happened. The records are adamant about it,” Marge swore.

Marge was so sure of her information that Cor was getting suspicious about that too. “Marge, who are you?”

Marge smiled a watery smile. “I am Marge Poole, the sworn retainers of the Stark Kings. We have remembered when everyone else forgot.”

What the actual fuck.

.

.

The woman he talked to last night wasn’t twelve, Cor was sure. She was a woman grown.

However, if she had grown while under the curse, it must have been slowly. Enough to prolong her agony.

The sadistic fucker.

Cor breathed in and out to control his temper.

“Did they say anything on how to break her curse?” he asked.

“No,” old Marge breathed out in deep sadness.

Cor stormed out, needing to hit something. His hand found Kotetsu and he started to chop wood aggressively. It would dull the metal if he swung wrong and that was enough to make him pay attention to every swing.

“Fuck,” he muttered. “Shit. Sadistic fuckers.”

He was so angry that he was seeing red. A man who was so sick that he asked for help, except that he asked for help from a child. He must have been desperate, and in that desperation, frightened her.

She was a princess, sheltered from any and all things that would make her scared. And the Adagium…!

Cor breathed in again and let it out with one precise swing, chopping the wood cleanly in two.

He would break it, her curse. He promised himself he would. Because she had lived with it for a century. She needed it. She saved his life. He would save hers.

“That’s a promise,” he whispered, and moved his body into a vertical slash, cutting all the wood in a second.

.

.

He spent all his nights with her, now that he knew.

She must have been so alone, and unable to tell anyone. But he was there and he knew. So he spent it with her. Two hours without sleep was an acceptable sacrifice.

The first time she tasted cookies, she started crying.

Cor hugged her, his chest hurting and his eyes prickling with unshed tears.

“I don’t think I can stay here,” he told her when they’d spent every night together. “I have to do something since the King won’t.”

“May I come with you?” she pleaded, those big eyes looking into his.

Cor couldn’t refuse and he would like to see anyone do the same when she was looking like that.

“Might be more dangerous,” he told her. “I sometimes don’t stop at night.”

She smiled at him, looking like a goddess under the moonlight. “As long as I am with you, then I am content, Cor.”

Fuck, Cor was a weak man and he agreed.

.

.

Marge looked upset but not surprised when he said he’d leave.

That was nothing to the upset she got when she realized that Lady was going with him.

“Protect her with your life,” Marge ordered, eyes bloodshot from crying. “Don’t you dare let her get hurt.”

“I will,” he said, the words a promise and a certainty. Nothing would hurt Lady as long as he was there.

They left, heading west to get his bearings. He had no earthly idea where he was and he needed some civilization before their supplies ran out.

Lady helped, hunting down rabbits and alerting him on anything on the road. Her senses were sharper than his and it showed.

At night, he found havens and prepared blankets and food. And Sansa, in the proper light of the havens, seemed more beautiful than ever.

It was a test of his control, but he wasn’t an animal. He never allowed his eyes to stray and his hands to wander. He also paid attention to what she ate and what she avoided.

She picked at bitter food, perked up at sweet food and absolutely gobbled tart dishes.

When she wrinkled her nose at the vegetables, Cor huffed out a laugh. Fuck, he was so in love with her.

And then Sansa started shining.

She cried out in alarm, and Cor immediately ran to her, hand on his sword and eyes scanning the area.

“Sansa, does it hurt?” he asked.

“No?” she said, sounding incredibly confused. “I…Cor, it doesn’t hurt. Cor…I think my curse just broke.”

She sounded so relieved that Cor prayed to Shiva, Ifrit and to fucking Bahamut that it was true.

“You look fine,” he sighed. “Sansa, you…”

Her eyes, which glowed at night like her wolf self, was no longer glowing.

“Sansa, you’re cured,” he said softly.

She jumped into his arms and started crying.

.

.

It took Cor a while to understand what broke her curse.

“I fell in love with you,” he sighed.

She giggled, the most precious sound in the world.

“I fell in love with you the moment you held me,” she said. “You smelled like safety.”