Sansa wasn't able to comprehend her situation clearly until she was over three name days (years old?).
It had happened while lying and colouring a book with Tyler (her cousin) on her Grandparents' living room floor.
Sansa had truly grasped the reality of her present.
On the page, the drawing showed the sun peaking behind the mountains so Sansa wanted to paint the sky orange to show it was rising and had just picked up her crayon when suddenly the answer she couldn't reach was there and the true understanding of her situation was unveiled.
She took a sitting position and looked at the orange crayon on her hand then the little boy (Tyler, her four years old cousin, she is close to her cousin in this life) that was still colouring another drawing and let out a quiet "Oh,"
It wasn't a great shock or a terrible upset.
After all, even if she wasn't aware of the truth and thought she was only dreaming a bizarre, peaceful dream it had been more than three years since she had been in this world.
Sansa looked one more time at the orange crayon on her hand then let it fall from her hand. The crayon made a soft 'twack' sound when it landed then rolled a little distance away from her attracting Tyler's attention.
"San….sa….?"
She heard Tyler call her uncertainly but she didn't answer back or even raise her head from her hands.
A pair of hands.
A pair of small hands.
The hands in front of her were fair and soft, small and slightly chubby, hands belonging to a toddler, perfectly normal two hands that she didn't put any thought into until now.
This pair of hands were small belonging to a toddler, not a woman over twenty-five. Even if the fingers were chubby they were straight not bent or twisted at different angles from wrongly healed fractures or broken bones.
"Sansa, what are you doing?"
All ten fingers were still attached to these hands, all of them whole and none lost to the frostbite.
The fingertips and the insides of the hands were soft and plump. There wasn't a single callus or any sign that these hands had been ripped and torn from firing arrows or using blades.
"Granma! Sansa is weird!" Tyler called towards the back of the house in a loud voice but Sansa didn't pay attention to it, she was still turning her hands and arms.
The back of the hands and the arms, all of it were scar free, tender and fair. No sign of knife wounds or flayed skin.
There was the sound of harried footsteps and there was a strange static in the air Sansa felt her head finally snap up from her arms and hands to see a graceful older woman looking at her.
Ah, this older woman is the maternal grandmother of this toddler. Her grandmother, Alina Sommers.
Her red hair was gathered in a low ponytail at the back of her head and was hanging over her right shoulder. A clean forehead, light brown eyes watching her with full attention, light freckles doted on angular cheekbones and an upturned nose, however, her bow-shaped lips and an oval jawline were clean from any of it like someone especially painted them on her face in a most appealing way.
She was a beautiful woman, this grandmother of hers.
But Sansa wasn't sure what to make of the way she was being looked at. She felt her eyes water and her lower lip tremble and suddenly she was raising her pudgy arms.
Ah, this body was so honest.
Small sobs left her mouth and without realizing it she was in her grandmother's arms and crying with all her mind.
Sansa was crying for her homeland she couldn't return, even if she had looked more like a trout than a wolf and stupidly longed for Southern Tales and changed to many other names Sansa had always been a Stark of Winterfell and like all the Starks before her she belonged in the North.
She had belonged to the North.
Like all the Direwolves Sansa had belonged with the North.
So she cried. Even though it had been many moons since her tears dried and there wasn't a left single drop to shed any more, this time her tears run down her cheeks like rivers. (Ah this wasn't her old body.)
"SANSA!" Tyler's shout was loud enough to startle the birds on the apple tree in the backyard and from the sound of it, he had fallen down trying to reach her.
(This little cousin of hers had been always sweet to her, always fretting and worrying with his child's heart and pure childish love.)
Sansa raised her head and tried to give him a wobbly smile but she couldn't control her emotions (a child, a toddler shouldn't know what that means much less try to do it.) and the barely there smile she was trying to put on for Tyler died on her lips even before she was able to raise them.
With a wail, she buried her head back into her grandmother's chest.
And cried.
Cried for her land.
Cried for her people.
Cried for her family.
(Cried because they wouldn't remember her.)
Sansa cried and cried in her grandmother's arms and finally when her little body was tired from all the wailing and crying she sniffled and with a last few hiccups opened her eyes.
She finally realised the change in her position. Her Grandma was sitting on the couch and rocking her, more than likely in hopes of calming her.
There was a helpless look on her grandmother's face then she felt the hand stroking her head and the sniffling sounds of another child.
"....sniff…. my cars….sniff…. sniff….chocolates..and… and ….even that lion plush….I will give you….sniff…sniff….sniff…but don't cry."
Sansa scrunched her full face when she heard the word lion (not knowing how adorable she looked and how Alina had to stifle a coo.)
"I do... hiccup…don't want lion!"
Sansa righted herself with the help of her grandmother and looked at her little cousin, and get nearly squashed by the said cousin when he throw himself at her and they had another crying session this time very short.
"Why cry….sniff…stupid…"
"Hiccup….you are stupid…. hiccup…"
Looking at each other's tear and snot-covered red faces they started to giggle.
After they calmed down and had their faces cleared her grandma changed their clothes and took them to the bedroom for their afternoon nap.
After that much crying and laughing their little bodies were already tired and it didn't take much time for them to sleep but before Sansa fully succumbed to its call she saw her grandmother look at her with softness and amusement on her face.
"You are really your mother's daughter."