A/N: NO, I'VE NOT GIVEN UP ON THIS STORY. NOT YET. hahaha. I know it's almost been a year. It was just difficult to continue at the time. I was busy with school and my board exam until I just finally lost sight of my end game for this story. It's sooo easy to be discouraged or distracted. Plus, Season 6 had gone and passed! How could I top that? Well, I decided I won't even try and just try to absorb the story in. You'll find a lot of the plots are immediately understood as carrying off from where Season 6 left off or what happened during the season. But anyway, now that I'm back and writing another story of GOT, I guess I'm hoping you'd still support me despite my absence. As always, let me know what you think and I hope you enjoy this.

Disclaimer: Game of Thrones is not mine.

Summary: Jon Snow rose from the blaze of the pyre, hair and eyes burning, skin blistered but unburnt, brandishing a flaming Valyrian steel sword. The look on Alliser Thorne's face was one of disbelief and dread and Melisandre smiled. "Fire cannot kill a dragon, Alliser Thorne." she told him and walked away.

Sansa was running. Running. Running. Always running.

Her paws dug into the soft snow, padding in a rhythm that made her heart exhilaratingly pump in her chest. Her breath was a thick fog and her muscles ached in only a good run could do. She hid behind a tree just beyond the open field, the Wall standing in its full glory before her. The giant ice cracking was loud to her sensitive ears and the scent of dead men lingered in the air.

They were here, lurking, hiding, and waiting.

Sansa was not overly concerned of the dead men. They could never catch her. She was too quick, her vicious canine teeth too sharp for any of them to be any real threat.

There were other creatures to fear in the deep, dark woods beyond the Wall.

Sansa looked up at the dawning, grey sky. The sun had not shown itself for days since the Wall had started to crack. Even a beast like her was frightened of the darkness. Ravens flocked to the Wall like a dark blanket covering what little light shone through the thick clouds and she feels being pulled toward it, yanking her away and away and away—

Until she was flying in a million different pieces.

There was no ground beneath her. No arms to hold her. Only dark wings carrying dark tidings and tiny icicles gripped tightly in her talons. She soared above the Wall and down to castle black where men cried out as she flew straight for her window—

Sansa woke violently as her window crashed open and dozens of black birds began to pour, dropping sharp icicles on her head. A shrill shriek escaped her lips as the door flew open and suddenly Jon and Ghost were there. Ghost snapped his powerful jaws at the birds and many of them lay dead at his feet. Jon snatched her cloak from where she'd draped it and sheltered her from the onslaught of ice. He led her away and without realizing it, she was in his room sitting on his bed.

"Are you all right?" He asked worriedly, his brows coming together and his brown eyes wide in alarm. His palm was very warm against her cheek and she burrowed her face in his hand in comfort only to hiss in pain and Jon murmured, "Stay still. You're hurt."

He got up to reach for a wash cloth and dipped it in cool water before going back to her and wiped the blood from her face. The warmth even seeped through the wet cloth and she sighed in relief. She finds herself feeling safer when Jon is around.

Those brown doe eyes were troubled, his jaw locked tightly in anxiety. She finds herself studying him, her cousin that resembled so much of her late father. Sansa had never appreciated what she had before, taking for granted that the North will remain the same even as she travelled South to marry a prince and become queen. She was silly girl with silly dreams, then. A little girl who had nothing else in her heart and mind but songs and now that she's broken away from the disillusions of knights and princesses, she found a man from the legends itself.

She would never admit out loud how she marveled at Jon for still being who he was despite everything. She knew that no matter how much her mother made him feel unwelcomed in Winterfell, he grew to love the same family she had. Perhaps, even more so than she did. She remembered how Arya would run to Jon for every hurt and smile, how Robb would sling an arm on his shoulders and throw his head back to laugh, how Bran and Rickon would run in circles with Jon right behind them, pretending to be a ghost. But to the young Sansa of before, he was exactly that; a ghost.

The bastard of Winterfell was the taint of the Starks. He was a ghost who haunted their halls with brooding looks and a grim face. He would hide away when a lord or lady would visit Winterfell and he would lurk in the corners and to the back end of the hall with a pained look in his eyes. Sansa now understood what it feels like to be alone, excluded and removed, to have a heart that turned brittle from pain. They mocked and humiliated her in King's Landing, they belittled and isolated her in the Vale, and tormented and beat her in Winterfell.

She'd barely survived. She was barely whole.

But the man before her was still the same boy she'd left without a goodbye another lifetime ago.

He'd kept the same brooding looks and his grim face. He had the same dark curls that softly framed his face and the same direwolf who trailed him as quiet as its name.

Jon was still her ghost but only a different kind now.

He was the ghost of her past, haunting her of what she once had and what she dearly desired to have again.

"What happened?" He suddenly asked in his baritone voice. It startled her out of her reverie and she realized that as she'd been studying him, he had been doing the same. She frowned and looked away.

"I don't know." She answered as she frowned. "The last I remember I'd been dreaming of standing beyond the wall and then flying over Castle Black and then—"

Her eyes widened as she realized what she'd dreamt but she fears saying it aloud.

Jon would think I've gone mad, Sansa thought. He won't believe me.

"You dreamt you were the bird?" He asked quietly. She meets his gaze, surprised.

"How did you—"

Jon smiles reassuringly. "I have the same dreams. I dream I'm in Ghost or in a bird beyond the Wall. The Freefolk call our kind a warg."

"A warg?" Sansa whispers.

"A skin-changer who can enter the minds of beasts." Jon explained. "The Winter Kings of Old were wargs, weren't they? Those old stories Old Nan used to tell us, do you remember them?"

Sansa nodded and swallowed. "I've never done this before."

"Melisandre said that the dragons woke the magic in the world and it's been slowly coming back." Jon shrugged. "Maybe this is why Longclaw looked the way it does or why I came back to life. I don't know. I'm not smart like Sam."

Sansa was surprised that she barked an unladylike snort but Jon's mirroring grin made her feel so warm inside where she only felt cold that she barely cared.

"He wanted to be a wizard." Jon supplied and this time, Sansa laughed in truth. It was a beautiful sound and a foreign one. She'd forgotten what it sounded like after all this time. But Jon's was even better. He chuckled heartily and his eyes were soft, making Sansa feel as if hearing this deep sounding mirth was her light in the impending darkness.

"How do you feel?" He asked when they've settled down, genuinely concerned.

"I'm all right, Jon. Shocked but there are more important things."

Jon frowned as if he disagreed but chose to say nothing and nodded. He slowly stood, throwing the wash cloth back in the basin.

"You can stay here for now. Ghost will look after you. I'll go and have the men clean up the mess in your room." Jon said as he made for the door. He turned back to her and looked at her intensely. "Never hesitate to ask for anything, Sansa. I'll do my best to give you whatever you need."

Sansa smiled sadly. "Thank you, Jon."

With one last smile, he left and Sansa was alone with Ghost. The direwolf took one look at her before padding closer and placed his giant head on her lap to pet. She eagerly tickled him behind the ear as she'd seen Jon do sometimes. She'd even done it herself with Lady before she was killed. Remembering her beautiful direwolf brought another numbed ache in her chest, a feeling she was very familiar with. A feeling she buried deep down, kept too close to her chest as if it was a priceless treasure. But she was left with little choice. She knew the price of wearing your heart on your sleeve. She knew how easily you could lose with only a slip on your mask. A game of thrones is a dangerous gamble of power that she never wanted to play. But play she must if she wanted to survive, if she wanted to live. In a game of thrones, you either way or you die and she would do everything in her power to win not only for herself but also to avenge her family.

To win, she must have power. She must reclaim her seat, she must reclaim the North.

She must be the Queen in the North.

And what she didn't tell Jon was that the dream—running as a beast, flying in a million pieces— was the most powerful she'd ever felt in a long time.

"Are you sure about this, Jon?" Edd asked apprehensively. He wore a scowl that showed how disapproving he was of Jon's plans but he knew his friend could not be dissuaded. Not even Sansa Stark could do that. So, here they were, the sun barely breaking through the thickness in the sky and the cold morning air biting into their skin, at the gate of Castle Black with the unknown stretching before them, crawling with an undead army led by a king made of ice. Or so the Red Woman said. Edd had no choice but to believe her. She is yet to be wrong about anything.

"I'll be fine, Edd." Jon reassured him. By the look Edd gave him in return, Jon knew it didn't work. "When I get back, the Night's Watch will vote for a new Lord Commander. But until then, I'll leave you in charge."

Edd nodded. "Will do my best."

Jon grinned. "Don't knock it down while I'm gone."

Edd snorted. "Did you just jest? Are you sure that's you in there?"

"Aye," Jon said. "Hold on from burning my body again, would you?"

Edd nodded, falling serious again. "Good luck."

Jon nodded and clapped his friend on his arm. He turned away and glanced at the prisoners huddled fearfully on the side, kept in place by a sneering Ghost. Only Olly and Alliser gave no hint of emotion, expressions frozen in despair on Olly's part and vacant shock on Alliser's. He approached and placed a calming hand on Ghost's head. The sneering minimized but did not relent.

The direwolf's emotions rolled off in waves and Jon felt them all as if it was his own, the fury of a beast and the grief of a lone wolf. There was power that hummed beneath his paws as he padded the snows. It was his territory, his to protect and his to rule. Jon briefly puzzled over it but dismissed it as a problem for later.

"March." He commanded the men quietly. With six of them in total, they strode despondently by with small packs of rations on their heavily cloaked backs. Ghost trailed after them as if he was their warden, keeping them all in line. Jon came last.

With one last glance up to the parapets where Sansa is watching them with a strained look on her injured face. She had coldly disapproved when he'd told her his plan. Their farewell was a sad one, with Sansa's fear palpable in her trembling hands as she embraced him goodbye and her striking blue eyes brimming with tears that Jon knew would not fall in his presence.

The cold indifference she donned now made her look strikingly like her mother that day when they'd been teaching Bran how to draw and aim with a bow a long time ago, when he'd only been a bastard and they were whole and happy. But that was in the past now and something within him kept pushing him to do what needed to be done. So, he turned away from her and he followed the traitors beyond the dark forest with the cracking sound of ice echoing eerily behind them.