20 Years Later, in the Mountains of Davneros…

    

   The twilight of life fell softly over the woods, at the edge of the lake, lapping at the edges thirstily, like a tale of tongues, told over and over again through the ages. A pile of stones, lichen-clad and rain-splattered, stood as a cairn to mark out the resting place of ashes, mixed with the depth of the dust. And beside it there stood a woman, both aging and ageless, standing at her post, mulling over the memories that washed over her…

     “Darkness comes to take us away,” the half-man had said as he lay on his deathbed, as she lay beside him, clasping his hand and running her fingers through his graying hair. “Don’t forget that you loved me. Don’t be afraid if I’m gone from you. We’ll find each other on the other side. I will always find you…”

   The woman’s dress matched the purple heather and her eyes the dappled sky, changing from blue to gray to blue again, keeping pace with the dance of the spring wind. This season had come in like a lion, but she knew it would go out like a lamb. They were old eyes, marking out the spirit of a healer, an old soul grown wise through the working of her craft. A crystal glistened over her heart, a sign respected by all the mountain folk who knew her as Sansa the Seer.

   Her hair was long, wrapped round her neck and trailing down her shoulder, like a trail of some ancient glory. The breeze stroked it back, untangling silver-white locks from the last remaining golden-red strands, like it stroked the grass, turning upward in an ocean of movement, blazing green, lighter and darker hues gushing along the ground.

    She knelt beside the cairn. Her hand was delicate, the veins standing out in them and making them seem older than they really were. Her thin fingers brushed the grass. They brushed the thin-veined petals of the earliest of spring flowers. Resolutely, she plucked it out, and brought it to her lips. Then she placed it between the stones, and she thought upon the wildflowers in the wall that his sister had torn out, so many, many years ago.

    “No one will tear out the flowers now, Tyrion,” she whispered. “They will grow, all around, from the ashes of our hearts.”

     Spring in all its youthful splendor ripened in the baking gold of the summer sun. And still she returned, taking up her post. Its face tanned in the tangy, tawny air, like fresh strawberries in the balmy gold-leafed skies. The lake was ripe with fish, and the old song of frogs that kept going all night, deep in the throat, as it had from the very beginning of days. For the fish and frogs were older than men, and they knew wisdoms that men had long forgotten. One is called to return, return, return, always return to the place of coming into being, and there leave oneself, scale by scale, wart by wart, and to let the wisdom of life fill up and spill over.

    And the woman returned to the quiet of the cairn, and watched the snakes slither from the rocks and shed their skins. And she took the skins for her potions, and broke bread over the rocks, and poured in wine. And she thought of the touch of skin, and the broken virginity, and the wine of love, and she thought of lips on lips, and voices touching ears. And she remembered the feel of the bed and the tears and caresses of the first naked encounter, and the memories that had swelled up within her when she had recognized herself in him, and him in her. And the crumbs fell between the stones, and the air was tinged with the scent of herbs, of rosemary and thyme. Did old bones know such scents, taking them in to the makeup and movement of the marrow? She hoped so.

    The autumn unfurled with a mellowing of elements, and the geese landing in the lake, breaking the skin of the water to fish for weeds, fattening up for the beginning of their flight south. The lights faded earlier, and the air was crisp with dying leaves and kindling fires that made crackling music and sent sparks shooting up like living stars.

    And the woman would return to the lakeside, and break the last of her bread to feed the geese. Her hair was graying, it seemed, and her skin was thinning. The pulsing of her veins might be seen in her hands, like a woman much older than her years. She felt herself waning, like the moon. And she felt the months wearing on her like a too-heavy cloak of fur she wished to shed, or the feathers of the crows she watched cawing in the trees. Sometimes she dreamed of being one of them, with dark feathers, flying high above her sorrows, and seeing all with the keenness of their sight. But dreams were merely dreams, and she was still bound to the earth, and the cup of milk she poured into it, moistening the ground around her husband’s grave when her tears had all run dry and her eyes were numb.

    Sometimes her three daughters came with her, the landed ladies who presided as lords in their own right. Some called them the Moon Maidens, in reference to the old myths of the three women who spun moonlight and could never be separated. If they were indeed the thread-weavers, the warpers of the web, then surely their mother was the Widow. Yet she preferred to remain hidden while the northern lights glistened along the strong threads that had come forth from her. She believed in them, having learned to reconcile that the mix of wolf and lion was not so much a contradiction as a fusion of the best of both worlds.

   When the lord of the castle had died, his possessions had passed to their father. When he himself died, his lady wife had received the authority. And yet she had wanted none of it, preferring to retreat to the woods to study the sacred skills of Sauriel. And so Sansa’s daughters, now grown, held their own court. It had been a very long time since women had held such power in the mountains, but they wielded it well, and the villagers knew them well enough to respect and trust them. They were the mothers of the people, and mothers might be many things…warriors, artists, lovers. Mothers make the world turn round.

    The eldest, Sophie, was the leader, the diplomat, and one who united the village factions. Once, when bandits made their way over the mountain passes, she had been the one to don armor and rally the men of the villages to drive them back, making her the subject of many ballads. The second eldest, Caitlin, had gained renown for her artistry, her use of charcoal and paint to transform anything ordinary into the extraordinary. It was said that magic rested with her as much as mettle rested with her sister, though the two had developed a fierce bond.

    The youngest, Joanna, was the beauty of the family, inheriting her mother’s looks and charm. She also spent much time in the old library reading poems of romance and chivalry as her mother had done in her youth. She was courted by many young men, and was bound to fall in love, to know the taste of it. Sansa hoped it would not be too painful for her, that she would never know betrayal, or if she did, she would not be hardened by it, for hardening does nothing to spite the betrayer and everything to spite the lover. And scorning of all love is always a poor balm for open wounds.

    But when the last of the seasons came, no balm could soothe Sansa’s inner wound. It was too large, yawning like the gap between cliffs. And she would only make her graveside visits alone. The daughters worried, but the mother knew what she was about. She was being drawn out to the place of the veil’s stretch, where every soul is stripped naked and clean, and no one may accompany them.

    The winds of winter returned and whirled wistfully to the place of death, the place of the whitewashed cairn, clad in the shift of the snow. The lake was frosted with ice, like a great glistening gem reflecting the frozen stars. And it was quiet at the grave there, the quiet of things too deep to lessen with words. The maiden moon assumed her throne in the dead of night, and the wolves cried out to her lustily, as if beckoning her to come down to them and make love. For all their pleading, she remained reigning above them until she melted away, slowly, like a grieving heart that will give itself to no other lover but the dawn.

    And the woman was there again, in a flowing gown the color of ice, and a velvet cloak the color of blood. And the moon stroked her hair, and it was gilded now, like spider webbing dabbed with dew as the snow drifted down and clung to the silvering strands. Sansa had often walked among the wolves at night, in these woods. She knew they would never harm her; she was too much their kin. Once, the old stories said, the whole world had been wrapped in ice, with only some strong enough to survive until the sun drew nigh and warmed the earth again.

    Among them were the ancestors of the wolves. And among them were the ancestors of the Starks. And as such, they were soul-bound till the last sun burnt out in the sky, and the faces of the old gods and the new faded, and all was sunk into the vast primordial chasm of being and non-being, awaiting rebirth. And even then, she thought, there would always be a place for the wolves. Perhaps their song would sing the new world into existence…

   But now the only song she could think of was that sung by a lion, her lion, once by this lakeside, once when all the world seemed to have stopped in awe of their love after so much senseless hatred:

She tells him send her a cut of bread…
And tells him send her a cup of wine…
And to remember the brave young lady…
Who did release him when he was confined…

    She knelt down next to the cairn, and brushed away the snow from the crevices of the rocks. Then she pressed her lips against a stone. It was cold, very cold, but her kiss was made with mouth part open, and her breathing warmed it. It had been long, so very long, since she had allowed herself this much…allowed her heart to rebel against the cold, the separation, the wall that stood between them…she wanted to feel love more than to feel life…yes, yes, she wanted to rebel, with all the strength of her blood, she wanted to break the wall into so many pieces, even if it broke her heart…

    And as her heart bounded against her breast, Sansa lay down in the snow, her scarlet cape flowing around her like a river of wine, and out from under its folds, a scarlet-fringed rose was clasped tight in her hand. A thorn tore into her finger, and drops of blood stained the chilly white ground. It was the wedding band finger, she knew, the blood was from the heart, warm enough to melt any snow…

   She was a daughter of the North, and of the cold she was not afraid, nor of the wolf’s howl, nor the raven’s flight. And the voices of the portal, of the trees that contained wisdom in their roots, and whose branches reached out to take her by the hand. They had called to her often enough…and in her mind, all the sounds through the years punctured her inner ears, and the sights pierced her inner eye, and she saw it all in a rush, the horror and the beauty, the war and the peace, her simple childhood and complex adulthood, and those moments that ran down deeper than both…

   Yes, she saw people and faces and the way her father and mother looked at each other when they had danced at a ball once, and her sister had teased her brothers with her keen arrow aim, and the brush of the direwolf Lady against her skirts, and her strange first kiss against evil lips, and the sight of moldering death…and all threaded together with the ribbon of life’s ending…

    And then…him…yes, all him, and the uneven steps he took, and his mismatched eyes, and that very particular voice, that very particular laugh, and just how much she had known him, in every way, in every thought, in her arms, and felt every dimension of himself become a part of her, and just so, just so, the way she would lay her head on his shoulder, and the warmth of his kiss upon her neck…and she desired him…more, much more…than life…

    And then…yes, she felt words…not heard them, felt them…and each one made her tremble with ecstasy, for they were coming from within her, and they were his…yes, they were his, and they were true, and he was calling her, now…and the moon seemed to take on many colors, like stained glass, as she closed her eyes to the song that was beckoning her soul from its shell…

My featherbed is deep and soft and there I’ll you down…
I’ll dress you all in yellow silk, and on your head a crown…
And you shall be my lady love and I shall be your lord…
I’ll always keep you warm and safe, and guard you with my sword…

    They found her there in the morning, frozen under the grey eye of the winter dawn, with the gray wolves around her, protecting her from the ravens. And there was a smile on her face.

    The three sisters wept for her, and the eldest kissed her forehead. And the villagers held vigil for her, at the great fire which brought her to ashes. And the king grown old across the sea, in the harsh wintery North of her birth, wept for her. And he kept forever prized the pressed petals of a scarlet-fringed rose.

   

THE END