Author's Notes: This is my SanSan Secret Sansa 2019 gift to amphipolitan (in Tumblr) – Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, sweetie!

Her prompt was sweet and short: "Sansa is a witch". I tried to make my story such as well… just a small vignette type fic about Sansa discovering her new powers and what she does with them. This work was beautifully betaed by queenoferebor1204 / Cecilia1204 – thank you so much!

Sansa

"Beautiful girl, pray stop!"

The old woman's voice halts Sansa in her tracks and she turns and scans the crowd, a throng of revellers gathered at the markets of Wintertown walking, talking, japing, haggling.

She is happy and excited. She is almost eight years old and alone at the markets for the very first time.

Well, almost alone – Septa Mordane walks a small distance behind her, but Sansa insists she is old enough to study the wares on her own.

The woman is old and gnarled, older than even Old Nan. Her hair is white and wispy and she is bent over so that her head is almost at level with Sansa's.

The woman comes closer, her steps slow and laborious.

Sansa stands her ground. She is the blood of Winterfell, she is not scared.

"You, you have power in you," the old woman murmurs, eyeing Sansa with rheumy eyes, which even so seem to peer deep into Sansa's soul. "You have a gift, a strong gift. I have rarely seen such strength in anyone so young."

Sansa is not afraid, but she doesn't know what to say. She knows her manners, though, and curtsies.

"Thank you," she says formally, wondering what gift the woman is talking about.

"You will be magnificent when you grow into your full power. On your nameday, when you turn six and ten, your journey will begin." The woman smiles at Sansa, revealing almost toothless gums, then cackles delightedly. "Come and see us when that day comes. You need to learn how to use your powers, and my sisters and I will teach you."

"Who are you and what do you want?" Septa Mordane reaches Sansa and pulls her closer in a protective gesture.

"She told me I have a gift," Sansa explains. The woman did no harm to her and Septa Mordane sees it. She is overprotective of her charges, but Sansa knows it's only because she takes her duty seriously.

"You have many gifts, my child." A tug at her arm and Septa turns to go, taking Sansa with her. "Thank the… mistress, and let us leave. Your sister is somewhere ahead and we have to find her."

Sansa looks at the old woman while being dragged away. She doesn't seem to mind the interruption but smiles, the corners of her eyes crinkling like spider webs, deep and veined.

"Come to the Wolfswood when your time comes, young one! We shall wait for you!"

Sansa waves, an unsure little wave, and then she turns and follows Septa Mordane.

She never sees the old woman again.

Sansa nurses a bruise on her hip. It is blue and purple where the flat of Ser Meryn Trant's blade hit her. It hurt, it hurt so badly, but she stifled her cries. She is not going to let Joffrey see her pain, even if the Hound tells her it would go easier on her if she did.

It makes no difference, though, whether she cries or not. Her torment continues and she is powerless to do anything about it.

Sansa cries, silently, softly, tears falling down her face. It doesn't matter, there is nobody to see her here, in a quiet corner of the castle gardens. Only the Hound, who stands guard near her. He looks at her oddly but Sansa doesn't mind. He means no harm to her. She doesn't know why she is sure of it, but she is.

She hardly remembers the old woman and her odd talk about power. When she does, on those rare occasions when she lets her mind wander back to the past, she wonders what the woman would think of her now. She has no power whatsoever.

But she has strength.

And so Sansa wipes her tears, pulls her shoulders back and ignoring the pain on her hip, puts on her armour. When Joffrey comes back, he wants to see Sansa smiling and thanking him for a lovely walk in the garden.

She has strength.

The view high from the Eyrie to the Vale of Arryn is magnificent. Sansa likes to lean on her elbows and look down, imagining that she is a falcon soaring through the sky, free as a bird.

But she is not a little bird anymore, and she is not free. She is the dutiful daughter of the Lord Protector of the Vale, so used to playing her role she hardly remembers what it was to be who she really is: Sansa Stark, daughter of Lord Eddard Stark and Lady Catelyn Stark.

She still has her strength – and here she has a small modicum of power too: the servants heed her words and others come to her when they want to get a good word into the ear of the Lord Protector.

Sometimes Sansa stares into the darkness long after the sun has gone down and wishes… she isn't sure what she wishes. Once she was hoping for a knight to come and save her - but then she remembers the night when a brave warrior entered her room and promised to take her away, and she declined.

Sansa has plenty of time in her hands, so she thinks of that night often. She thinks of the man who came to her. He was not a knight, just a man.

Sometimes she wishes she had gone with him.

The morning of Sansa's six and tenth name day is like any other in the Vale. To be truthful, she doesn't even remember that it is her name day. The only person who knows it doesn't want to draw attention to it, and so the day goes by unnoticed.

Sansa sits with Sweetrobin and tries to persuade him to eat his porridge, the boy stubbornly refusing to do it. She loves the boy dearly, but sometimes he gets on her nerves like no other. If for once he would do as he is told… Sansa loses her patience and buries her head into her hands, wishing fervently that Sweetrobin would JUST SETTLE DOWN AND EAT - when the world shifts.

For a while, it is unusually quiet, and when Sansa raises her head, she sees Sweetrobin on his seat, spooning porridge into his mouth. One spoonful after another, and he doesn't finish until his bowl is empty. He doesn't say a word: gone is his usual whining and endless questions about where his mommy is and when will he become the Lord of the Vale.

Astonished, Sansa collects the utensils away and afraid to test her luck, kisses the boy on the forehead and leaves the room.

The next day Sansa is accosted on her way to the kitchens by a squire in Lord Corbray's service. She knows the boy and has brushed off his approaches many times already, but he is young and cocky and can't believe that a mere bastard girl wouldn't want his company.

"Alayne, what's the hurry? Stop and let me look at you. You are too pretty to be on your own. Let me kiss you and I'll guarantee you won't regret it." The boy grabs her shoulder and pushes her against the wall, smiling and making fun of the situation.

Normally Sansa would quip something witty and twist her arm free, but today she is busy. She has no time for playing games and she pushes him away impatiently.

He doesn't like it, and his grip tightens. "You are an uppity little bitch, did you know that?"

"Let me go," Sansa says in a cold voice, wishing she could just slam him against the wall and be done with it.

Faster than either of them have time to react, an invisible force pushes the boy against the stone wall – and he stays there, his struggling futile. His bulging eyes look comical, as does the red spreading on his face until he is the colour of beetroot.

"What – who – " he splutters, arms flailing helplessly at his side.

Sansa laughs – and then she turns deadly serious.

Did I do that?

She couldn't. She wouldn't. How could she?

She runs away and just before stepping into the kitchen, she looks back at the boy. He is no danger to me now, she thinks, and the boy falls on the floor in a graceless heap.

Sansa doesn't know what to think.

Sansa remembers the old woman – she is the only thing Sansa thinks about over the next few days.

"You will be magnificent when you grow into your full power. On your nameday, when you turn six and ten, your journey will begin."

She is ten and six now.

Has her journey started?

Sansa tries her new powers on a few unsuspecting victims. She doesn't want to harm anyone, so she is gentle.

A bad-mouthed washerwoman whose lips glue shut when Sansa is near. Sweetrobin sleeping a full night without waking up and demanding Alayne to share his bed with him. Petyr's hands kept to himself, even though Sansa can see that he would like to caress her back and arms as he was used to.

Dumbfounded expressions on people's faces when they are under her spell amuse Sansa, but when it gets too much, she feels bad for them and lets them go.

How she does it, she doesn't know. She thinks of a thing and it happens. And yet there are times when she thinks and thinks, and nothing happens.

She needs somebody to teach her - but Wolfswood is too far away, and who knows if the old woman and her sisters even live there anymore. So much has happened in the North. Horrible things.

She wishes she could do something about it.

Sansa discovers that she can see into people's minds almost by accident.

Petyr asks her to lie to the lords of the Vale about a minor thing regarding one of his many trade transactions, and although outwardly agreeing, she wonders why.

…then I hold a monopoly of grain…when winter comes, it will be more valuable than gold… how others can be so stupid as not to notice it themselves… Alayne is such a great help, nobody can believe she would dare to make up a lie…

Sansa gasps and Petyr's thoughts in her head are replaced by her own.

She practices her newfound ability with the others, and sometimes she is successful, sometimes not. She soon discovers that most people's thoughts are simple and mundane, predictable along the paths of their daily lives. Sometimes she becomes sad when she encounters people with sad thoughts: mourning over dead loved ones, regretting things from their past.

She almost gives up on practising her skill - except when she is with Petyr. Then she focusses on his thoughts, and through them, understands many things she didn't know before.

The most distressing are the thoughts he has about her. Not surprising, but disquieting.

She doesn't want his touches, doesn't want his minty breath anywhere near her. To her relief, she learns that Petyr can be very patient when it suits him, and when he thinks he already has what he wants and it is only a matter of picking the right time to do with it what he pleases.

Sansa also learns that the easiest thoughts for her to detect are those that are about her, be it Sweetrobin waiting for her, Myranda wondering about the Lord Protector's daughter's secrets, or Petyr's disturbing thoughts late at night when he lies in his bed.

And then, quite suddenly, she can fly.

Another evening leaning on the windowsill high up in the tower, Sansa looks into the sky and sees a falcon. She closes her eyes and imagines being that bird – and suddenly she is.

Or rather, she is not the bird, but herself, flying side by side with the falcon. She glances down and sees her own form in the window, her eyes still looking up, but her face expressionless.

Sansa is scared, she doesn't know how to fly, not really, and then she falls down, down, down.

And she is back in her body.

Flying, too, is a skill she practices and becomes better at it. Not very good, but better.

She floats high up in the air, weightless, translucent, her spirit soaring. Whispers arising from the multitude of mouths drift up from the dark earth like a smoke drifts from a chimney, filling her ears with a quiet hum. There is sadness, there is joy, and she hears each and every one of them if she chooses to.

Sometimes Sansa dives down to see something, closer to the ground. At first she is afraid that someone sees her, but soon she learns that her form is invisible to the human eye. She can swoop right in front of a crowd of villagers, next to a noble on horseback, or twirl through the sails of a ship while its captain looks on, and they never see her.

But animals – they see.

Horses throw their heads when she gets too close, dogs bark at her and birds in the sky sweep aside when they see her approach.

One night she flies again, tracing the shapes and shifts of the land beneath her. She has been all around the Vale and knows its landmarks by now, but tonight she is flying further, over the Bay of Crabs, past Saltpans.

Just as she glides over a small island near the coast, she hears it.

Or maybe hearing is not the word she should be using – she feels it.

Little Bird.

Sansa stops and hovers in the air. If she had a hand, she would clamp it over her mouth and gasp in shock – because she recognises that voice, that tone, those words.

She returns the next night, and the next, and learns that the one who thinks of the little bird is a gravedigger with the brothers of the Seven.

She gets closer and she doesn't need the testimony of her eyes to confirm who it really is. That he is alive, warms her heart, and to see him at peace - mostly - even more so.

Once Sansa gets over her astonishment, she returns just to watch him.

He digs graves and does it without complaint. A spadeful after spadeful of dark earth moves under his hands, a body after a body goes into that cold earth – and then he moves the earth back to protect the dead.

She remembers him – and the Gravedigger remembers her. It is clear from his thoughts, which are full of regrets of things he didn't do. Sansa finds it different from regrets where people rue things they did and wish they hadn't.

…I should have stopped them… I just stood there in my white cloak and let them beat her… and now she's gone… probably dead… I should have saved her when I had a chance…

Sansa listens to him and is filled with empathy and understanding - she would like to comfort him and to shield him from his own suffering.

And more.

Harrold Hardyng, Petyr said.

Marriage, Petyr said.

A cold sinking feeling at the bottom of Sansa's stomach doesn't leave her for days. She doesn't want to marry, doesn't want Harrold Hardyng – or what Petyr plans for after. His intentions are no secret to her and they make her ill.

Sansa flies to the Quiet Isle and finds herself in the Gravedigger's room. It is sparse and plain, furnished only with necessities.

He is in one of his dark moods again, looking into the past and tormenting himself. Sansa has seen those moods before and knows what he thinks – and she would like to reach out and tell him that there is no need. He did what he could, and that was enough for her.

This is the closest she has been to him so far, in his room rather than by the graveyard or at the stables or in the fields, where he toils when there are no graves to dig. She is so close that she can see the coarse hair of his arms and the prominent veins at the back of his hands when he buries his face in them.

Sansa hovers near him, her ethereal body without substance – and then he startles and straightens up. His eyes scan the room, searching, probing.

And then he stares right at Sansa.

Sansa doesn't know what to do. Can he really see her? How is it possible?

When she is in this form, she doesn't feel the sensations of her earthly body - but still, the thrum of a heart banging against a ribcage that isn't there surprises her.

Soon Sansa realises he doesn't truly see her – but he feels her presence.

He is tense and his thoughts focus on danger and on survival in the face of a threat - but then he must feel that her presence is benevolent as he relaxes.

There are new lines on his face that were not there before; deep craggy lines telling of sleepless nights and melancholy thoughts, and yet the rage he carried around him back in King's Landing has gone away. He looks younger and Sansa could stare at him forever.

So she does.

She comes back the next day and the next, and new sensations inside her grow and grow. She wonders how she didn't notice the pleasing lines of his broad back and shoulders before, or the way the muscles in his arms flex when he digs into the hard ground.

The Gravedigger knows when she is around, and to Sansa's delight, he takes solace in it. He thinks of her even more than before; he carries whole discussions in his head of what he might say if she was there with him. I am sorry. I should have done better. I wish I could help you.

Where are you, little bird?

Sansa knows he will come to her if he knows where she is – he will come and take her away. He will rescue her – and maybe let her rescue him too, as he is still not whole. There are broken pieces inside him and Sansa wants to heal them. Not for gratitude, not because she owes him, but because she wants to.

Yet he doesn't know how close she is.

Surely her powers can help her in this? Sansa knows she is not fully trained and she doesn't really know her limits and what she can and can't do, but she must try.

Sansa starts practising; feeding thoughts and notions into the heads of others to see if they will take hold. First with Sweetrobin, then with Myranda, and finally with Petyr.

I want to go for a walk with Alayne. I want to invite Alayne to my room to sup and share stories. I want to show Alayne my collection of jewellery and coin.

Sansa soon learns that she can only influence things that people are amenable to anyway, not those that they are opposed to. It worries her, as if the Gravedigger does not want to come to her, she can't make him. Then again, if he feels so, better that he doesn't come only because of a spell.

She doesn't want that, she doesn't want empty obedience for her own needs only – for that she could bribe a guard with the fortune whose hiding place she now knows.

She wants him to come of his own free will.

With her newfound skills she goes to the Gravedigger and feeds him thoughts: Sansa Stark is alive. Sansa Stark is in the Eyrie, disguised as Littlefinger's daughter. She doesn't want to be there, she wants to go home. She needs help.

She sees those thoughts taking root in his head and raising questions, and he starts making enquiries. From travellers, from brothers who visit nearby villages, from his mentor, the kindly man they call the Elder Brother.

What is going on in the Vale? What kind of household does the new lord protector run? Does he have a daughter, a young maiden, perhaps?

He gets the answers to his questions and they confirm what Sansa has already put into his mind - and he stirs.

He is coming. He is coming for me.

Sansa knows that for sure.

She sees his preparations; sees him digging out his sword and armour from storage, gathering supplies and getting his horse, the black foul-tempered stallion, ready for the journey. She sees him arguing with the Elder Brother, the latter warning about the dangers of the journey and the disappointment he may face if he is wrong.

But the Gravedigger doesn't give up, and Sansa's heart sings.

She asks Petyr to take her to the Gates of the Moon – for a change, she tells him, and under her spell, he agrees.

She gathers her own supplies and she needs no spells for that, as kitchens are a familiar place for her, as are the storerooms, and soon enough she has everything ready for her escape – including a small treasure in coin and stones taken from Petyr.

She selects a horse she wants to ride from the stables and makes friends with it, to make her eventual departure easier. She learns about the guards and their rotation and knows when is the best time to leave, her spells being the guarantee that she will not be accosted when she does so.

Then she waits.

The Gravedigger's journey is slow and Sansa knows he thinks he might be on a fool's errand – but he continues nonetheless. She travels by his side when she can and tries to learn about his routines to better adapt to them - she doesn't want to be a burden any more than is necessary.

She observes him at night when he sleeps under the stars, looking so peaceful. She would like to touch him, to wipe away the slight frown on his forehead and run her fingers along his jaw and nose, but she can't.

Maybe later.

Then the day comes when he is outside the Gates of the Moon, camping a small distance away to observe the situation before he makes his move.

He doesn't know yet what it is, and ponders it over and over again, assessing and then rejecting different options ranging from disguising himself as a brother of the Seven and knocking on the door to ask for hospitality for the traveller, to dressing in his full armour and demanding to see the keeper of the castle and telling him who is really sleeping under his roof, Littlefinger and his Lord protectorate be damned.

Sansa smiles – he needs none of those ruses, as she will come to him.

Sansa catches him in the middle of his morning preparations. She emerges slowly from the forest, keeping close reins on her horse.

"It is you?" The Gravedigger squints his eyes and appraises her up and down. "I haven't been imagining it?"

Sansa nods. "It is me. I knew you were coming."

He looks behind her, then scans the clearing, as if waiting for others to show up. He is uneasy, that is clear, but he stands his ground.

"How could you?"

Sansa guides her horse next to him and slides down, rather gracelessly. To be in his presence in her real form is different, and every nerve in her body tingles because of his proximity. She forces herself to calm down and reaches for his hand, taking a hold of it, only lightly, but that is enough to make sparkles travel between them.

"I will tell you later. Now we must go. If you'll take me."

Sansa knows she has to tell him everything, as there can be no lies between them. But not now. Later.

He stills and stares at his hand, where she touches it. Then he swallows and drops his gaze.

"If I take you? I take you wherever you want to go. Just tell me."

Sansa smiles. "Take me to the North."

She will go to the Wolfswood to seek out her sisters, to learn from them how to wield the power she knows she has. Then she will use that power and get back what is hers; the legacy of her father and her mother, Winterfell, her siblings.

She will do all that, and she hopes he will stay by her side when she does.