Arya pushed Jon and groaned while he laughed. "You'd better take me next time," she demanded.
Sansa frowned, looking like she wanted to worry but it was pointless since he was clearly unharmed. "Were you afraid?"
Jon flashed her a smile. "A little. I'll have to look into a saddle."
"It would help," Daenerys admitted, thinking back to when Drogon was shot by the scorpion bolt. "If they didn't have to worry about turning too fast and dislodging us they could move more naturally."
"I can figure something out," Tyrion assured.
"I'm not very good with leather, but I'll go what I can," Gendry offered.
"Worry about these first," Jon said motioning to the daggers laid across the table before them all.
Screeching drew their eyes to the wight brought to the center of the room where Theon, Gray Worm and a Dothraki named Dirgo pushed it to the ground. Dirgo swiftly cut off the wight's hand with his arakh, leaving it animated on the ground.
Jon picked up as many of the daggers as he could and walked toward Theon, who pressed his boot on the wrist of the wight's severed hand, holding it in place. Taking the darkest dagger with unsteady, large ripples, he knelt and stabbed it into the palm, which remained twitching.
Gendry gave a firm nod, checking it off in his mind as Jon set the dagger aside and picked up another. The second dug into the hand, which flinched and scraped at the floor when it was removed. Jon placed the dagger with the first and took another pale gray one and jabbed it into the hand, watching as it went still.
The others all gasped as he withdrew the dagger and the hand remained unmoving. With a glance to Theon, Jon grabbed the hand and picked it up, daring it to move and attack him.
When it didn't, Tyrion laughed and smacked Gendry on the back of his leg. "Good work!"
Gendry was beaming, Arya clutching his hand and giving him a proud smile.
Jon set the dagger aside, separate from the others while Dirgo severed and held down the other hand. They did this again and again, picking off body parts and testing daggers on them until they'd gone through each one and stilled the wight with a stab to the head.
"You know which ones to start with," Jon said as he set the daggers on the table.
The others blinked in confusion while Gendry nodded. "They'll take more time, but I'll start as soon as I can."
"What do we do with these?" Arya asked looking at the daggers, separated into one that had worked and the failures.
"You can reforge them, right?" asked Jon.
Gendry looked them over. "There's enough for a longsword."
"We'll make a sword for the Lord Commander. Edd needs to be able to defend them. We'll send it along with some dragonglass weapons."
Sansa bit back a laugh at how Arya huffed when she tried to follow Jon and Gendry to the forge only to come back minutes later and throw herself into the chair across from her. "They threw me out. I was the one who as with him when he made all those daggers. Why am I the one getting thrown out just so Jon can help him?"
"Maybe they don't want Gendry wasting valuable time kissing you between hammer strikes."
Arya scoffed, looking away. "He doesn't do that."
"What does he do?" Sansa asked with a teasing smile.
"Not that," Arya said with a sigh.
Sansa blinked in surprise, humor fading from her face. "Are you disappointed he hasn't tried?"
Arya looked at Sansa, seeming to think it over before shaking her head. "He's tried. We've… he's kissed me. I just feel… it feels like it's not me. Like when he looks at me and smiles and says I'm pretty, I feel like I'm wearing a different face. It feels like he's seeing someone else."
Sansa frowned at her sister's sorrow. "I've felt the same."
Arya scoffed. "Sure."
Sansa set down her quill, no longer looking at the parchment before her.
"I've had welts across my back from the flat of a sword, thought my teeth loose as I tasted my own blood from where a kingsguard punched me. I've trekked through swamps three times in four days and then went weeks without bathing, and when I did it was with a rag and cold water from a stream. I've had sores and blisters and bruises and scratches from running day after day, let my hands go numb in freezing water just to try and get a dog's blood off them. I went months without a proper meal or bath or brush or anything to make me feel clean or pretty or neat." Sansa exhaled, meeting Arya's shocked gaze.
"And do you know what Jon told me his first thought was when he saw me? How beautiful I was. Not pretty, but beautiful. As if pretty was a girlish thing and I was beyond that. When he told me I thought him an absolute fool because even though I'd had my first warm bath in months, I still felt gaunt and rancid and ugly, but he told me it was like warmth had returned to the world when he saw me. But I understand because even when we were back in Winterfell and he was caked in mud and blood I thought him the most handsome, beautiful man I'd ever seen."
Sansa took a breath, sniffing lightly as she looked down as Sansa concluded, "I've felt the same, and I'd bet Gendry does as well. Just let yourself enjoy it and you will. Soon you won't think of how unworthy you are, just how lucky you are."
The room was quiet for a moment, broken when Arya said, "You're not unworthy."
Sansa glanced up, her teasing smile returning. "Even of your favorite brother?"
"Jon's not-" Arya stopped herself, rolling her eyes with a relenting nod. "Yes, even him."
Sansa smiled, genuinely touched. "Thank you, Arya." When she nodded, Sansa tilted her head. "What about Daenerys?"
Arya thought. "I don't know. We haven't talked much, but she seems okay. She definitely likes him, and he seems to like her." Looking to her sister, she asked, "You're not jealous or angry?"
Sansa sat up, shaking her head. "I thought I would be, but… I'm not. Maybe because we talked about it before hand and were open about it? It's not like he's going around with her behind my back, lying to me. He hasn't stopped caring for me."
"It doesn't bug you thinking that they might be… doing stuff?"
Sansa snickered. "No. And even if they were… I made it to the great hall before you and Gendry, so you didn't see how guilty he looked when he saw me. He pulled me aside right away and told me he kissed Daenerys."
"He did?" Arya frowned. "That shit."
"It's fine," Sansa assured.
Narrowing her eyes, Arya asked, "What did you say?"
"I kissed his cheek and told him good then went back to wait for you. They had a moment but it's not as if I don't have my own. It doesn't mean he's not the same man who told me I was beautiful when I felt hideous. He's still the man who looks at me at times as if I'm some grand thing I know I'm not, but I could never convince him I wasn't. Just because he has time with Daenerys doesn't make him not Jon. Jon is Jon, and always will be. And I know Jon loves me the way I love him, just as much as you know Jon loves you as his sister the way you love him as a brother.
"Death couldn't take him from me," Sansa said with a smirk that sank with regret. "The only thing that got even close was me pushing him away, and I'll never do that again."
When the horn blew and people gathered in the yard, Sansa had never expected to hear a gruff voice call out, "You look well, Little Bird."
Arya and Brienne shared her shock at seeing the burned face of Sandor Clegane as he was led through the gates of Winterfell by Tormund and a group of wildlings. When Arya noticed the other prisoners with him her eyes narrowed.
"You're with the Brotherhood now?" She asked with a sneer.
"Looks like you made it back too. Plan to finish the job this time?" Sandor's gaze rose to Brienne, "Or you looking for a rematch."
"You won't fight anyone," Sansa said firmly, stopping both women from speaking, drawing their eyes to her. Looking to Tormund she asked, "Why are they prisoners?"
"Tried to force their way through the Wall. Guess they were in a rush to die, so we locked 'em up to save 'em. But it's getting cold, we couldn't spare the food, so I figured bring 'em back here and let Jon lop of their heads or do whatever he wants with 'em."
"It would be a waste," said Beric Dondarrian. "We seek only to fight the true enemy. Killing us would only aid them."
"You were going north to fight the Night King yourselves?" Sansa asked looking between the four raggedly dressed and poorly armored prisoners.
Thoros shrugged. "Clegane saw the Wall in the flames, so we went."
"You're a red priest now?" Brienne asked with a laugh.
"No," Sandor snorted, "but that don't change what I saw. I saw the Wall, I saw the Bay of Seals by Eastwatch. I saw a ram too but who the fuck knows why."
Sansa looked them over before turning to Tormund. "Take them to the cells for now. I'll find someplace for them and meet with the king."
Everyone seemed confused as she walked away, leaving Thoros to ask, "Are we guests or prisoners?"
"Both, it seems," Beric said with a shrug.
Sandor watched the Stark girls walking with Brienne and her squire at their backs, barely noticing the fond, proud smile that took his lips as he followed the others to their cells.