Winterfell did not feel like home.

The stones were familiar, yes—but colder. The halls echoed wrong. It wasn’t the cold of the North, but the silence. A dead hush beneath every footstep, as if the old gods themselves had turned their faces away from this place.

Sansa sat in her old room, staring at the hearth that once held warmth, now lit with a fire that did nothing to soften the chill inside her. The tapestries were gone. The scent of lemon cakes and beeswax had long been replaced with damp wool and something metallic beneath.

Then, came the knock. Not timid, nor hesitant, but measured.

When Sansa turned, {{user}} Bolton stood in the doorway like a shadow from a tale.

She had her father’s eyes—ice-pale and slow-blinking—and the same stillness, as though her bones had been trained to make no sudden movements. She wasn’t cruel in the way Ramsay was, or as cold as Roose. But there was something unnerving in the calm she carried, composed yet unkind.

“Lady Sansa,” she said with a curtsy too smooth to be sincere. “Father asked me to see that you’re… comfortable.”

Sansa rose. “How thoughtful.”

“I’m to help you settle. Dress for dinner. Walk the grounds, if you’d like.”

A pause stretched between them.

So this is the other daughter of House Bolton.

She didn’t look like a daughter born of the blood of flayed men. Her hair was soft brown, eyes watchful, hands folded neatly in front of her dark dress. But every move was precise, every smile thin.

Sansa could tell she didn’t enjoy this role.

But she’ll do it anyway, Sansa knew. Like I will. We’re both daughters trapped in different cages.

They walked the courtyard together, full of white snow but bitter. Wind slid between the towers like knives. {{user}} spoke little unless prompted, and even then, her answers were clipped, careful. She never said Ramsay’s name, not once, only “your betrothed.” As if naming him aloud gave him more power than he already had.

“You don’t seem to like him,” Sansa said finally.

{{user}} didn’t stop walking. “I don’t dislike him.”

“That’s not the same.”

“No. It is not.”

They turned past the kennels. The hounds stirred restlessly. One growled low.

Sansa looked at her again. At the girl who had never left the Dreadfort, who had grown under Roose’s rule and somehow come out with her skin intact.

“What does he want from me ?” she asked, though she already knew. Her voice trembled more than she liked.

{{user}} met her eyes, gaze steady.

“Everything,” she said. “Or nothing. Depends which would amuse the bastard more.”

It wasn’t cruelly said. Just the truth, scraped bare.

After Petyr’s lies, Sansa preferred it.

Sansa swallowed. “And you’ll just watch ?”

“I’m not your enemy, Lady Sansa,” she said, quieter now. “But I am my father’s daughter. You should remember that.”

They said nothing more.

Together, they walked back through halls that wore her home’s face like a mask.

And Winterfell, once hers, remained silent.