[How long since she saw Arya? Before the execution. Before the letters. Before all of it.]
[Sansa stares right back, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, at the sister she has thought for a year must be dead. Arya looks different, almost as different as Jon - but, at the same time, so very much the same. Still dirty and unladylike, still Arya Underfoot, still clearly running and scrabbling and scrambling her way around the world in that way which once embarrassed Sansa so thoroughly, but now just grips her chest with painful, wonderful relief and love. Alive. Arya is still alive.]
[She ought to hesitate. She ought to remember that Arya was there when things went wrong, that Arya has never been the most forgiving, that Sansa has done things that she can't even forgive herself for. She ought to hang back, afraid of that coldness she'd seen for a moment on the face of the woman who is, unmistakeably, her sister.]
[She doesn't. She's already moving to grab Arya into a not entirely ladylike embrace (Gods, she thinks, she's taller than me now), the tears starting to her eyes and spilling over almost at once, coming more easily and more uncontrollably than they have since King's Landing.]
I thought you were dead! Arya, I thought they killed you!
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[Sansa stares right back, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, at the sister she has thought for a year must be dead. Arya looks different, almost as different as Jon - but, at the same time, so very much the same. Still dirty and unladylike, still Arya Underfoot, still clearly running and scrabbling and scrambling her way around the world in that way which once embarrassed Sansa so thoroughly, but now just grips her chest with painful, wonderful relief and love. Alive. Arya is still alive.]
[She ought to hesitate. She ought to remember that Arya was there when things went wrong, that Arya has never been the most forgiving, that Sansa has done things that she can't even forgive herself for. She ought to hang back, afraid of that coldness she'd seen for a moment on the face of the woman who is, unmistakeably, her sister.]
[She doesn't. She's already moving to grab Arya into a not entirely ladylike embrace (Gods, she thinks, she's taller than me now), the tears starting to her eyes and spilling over almost at once, coming more easily and more uncontrollably than they have since King's Landing.]
I thought you were dead! Arya, I thought they killed you!