Whirlpool Queen, Maelstrom Kingcheshire_carrollChapter 2: TwoChapter Text
TWO
Sansa Stark had never been more confused in her life. She did not understand what was happening, she did not understand where she was or what she was doing there, not when the last she remembered was dying, and Death.
There is only one god, Arya had said, over and over, her Stark-grey eyes steely and fierce; he may have many faces, but there is only one god and his name is Death. Sansa had never agreed or protested this; she had no love for gods, no care to defend them. Even if they existed, defending them would do nothing. She used to pray for mercy, but Cersei had been right when she'd declared the gods had no mercy. That it was why they were gods. Sansa believed that. It was a truth she carried with her in her heart, where others, even Arya, carried their faith.
And yet, in the end, the gods did show mercy. Death did show mercy, as They had appeared before her to end her suffering. And Sansa had taken Their hand, looked into the endless abyss of Their eyes, and for the first time since the sweet summer years of her youth, she had felt peace as darkness swallowed her. Peace and warmth and safety and a humming energy that became as familiar to her as the steady beating of her own heart as she could finally rest.
But then everything shattered, and Sansa realised she'd been right the first time—the gods had no mercy, not even Death, because she'd found herself torn from her peace, from her warmth, from her safety. Even the humming energy had almost faded to nothing until a burst of stronger humming energy, one that was different but still somehow familiar, crashed through her.
And with that energy came light and life and chaos.
Everything about this situation confused Sansa– and even what little understanding she did somehow manage, such as the words spoken to her by the giant red-haired woman who cradled her tiny, frail, slow-moving, unresponsive form, just made everything more confusing. Sansa had learned to read lips while living in the Red Keep, one of the many skills she'd learned in that monstrous place out of sheer necessity and her fierce drive to survive. The shapes the woman's mouth was moving into were wrong, yet Sansa understood the words she was saying.
Death, it seemed, truly did transcend everything.
Because she had died. She knew she had died. She had laid her eyes on the face of Death Themself, had accepted Their offered hand, had willingly stepped into Their open embrace, and moved beyond the Realm of the Living. But now... now as fanciful as it seemed, like something out of one of Old Nan's tales, she lived again, reborn as an infant, in a cave, surrounded by the dead and the dying, her new mother's heartbeat a slow, sluggish thing as the woman cradled her to her chest.
There was so much blood. The woman, her new mother, was soaked in it. Sansa knew the woman couldn't survive, she had witnessed the mess of the woman's soft belly, the tender flesh butchered like an animal's carcass. Even in her confused, distressed state, Sansa felt a great deal of respect for the woman who'd loved her unborn child enough to gut herself to save her babe. Something must have gone wrong with the birth, the babe... Sansa... must have been turned sideways, mayhaps, or positioned upside-down in the womb. And clearly, by the dead bodies strewn about the cave, there was no maester or midwife, or at least no living one, present to help.
And then the woman started to speak, still cradling Sansa against her chest, against the sluggish beating of her slowing heart, and even though Sansa didn't really understand what was going on, and she didn't understand how she understood what was being said, she listened to what her new mother was saying.
It was, in some ways, a bitterly familiar tale; she and her brother, wherever and whoever he may be, were the last of their bloodline, their family and lands had been destroyed and they were the last heirs of the Uzumaki, who going by her new mother's repeated usage of 'princess' were the ruling family of this 'Uzushio' kingdom. Her new mother was a stranger to her, yet as she held Sansa close to her heart and spoke with such love and loss of Uzushio and the Uzumaki and of her other child, Sansa's brother, Sansa could hear the echoes of Catelyn Tully in her voice– echoes of Family, Duty, Honour. And then her new mother named her Fuyuko, called her my winter child, and despite herself, despite everything, Sansa realised that she could have loved this woman, given time.
But she was going to lose her.
Sansa couldn't help her tears as her new mother fell silent, as her breath slowed further and further, and her already sluggish heartbeats slowed to match, and she waited, resigned and distraught, for her new mother to die.
Then—more chaos.
Two men appeared, moving too distressingly, impossibly quickly for her eyes to track as they fought viciously, like a pair of gods from Old Nan's stories. One of the men was blond and cradling a squalling newborn babe. The other had black hair and was wearing an orange mask, only one strange red, swirling eye visible. Sansa could barely breathe for the horror of the helplessness she felt, for the fear for herself and for her dying mother.
And then everything somehow, impossibly, got worse. The masked man fled, only for a terrifying, monstrous creature to appear, an enormous fox-like beast nearly the size of Winterfell who exuded rage and menace so intense that Sansa couldn't stop screaming and screaming, even as her small lungs protested in her chest and her throat ached with a raw burn.
It was unlike anything Sansa had ever seen. Nothing from Old Nan's tales, nor the Army of the Dead, or even Daenerys Targaryen's dragons could compare. Terrifying, yet magnificent, the Fox-Beast's coat looked alive with power, each strand of red-orange fur shining with a magnificent, fiery glow. Two red, slit eyes, each larger then an entire man, burned full of wicked cunning and eerie intelligence and nine tails writhed sinuously around each other, blood-red and fiery. Its tongue lolled as it bared its fanged jaws in a terrible snarl and Sansa sobbed and screamed, trying to cling to her new mother with her new flailing, useless limbs.
Her new mother finally stirred when the blond man was almost crushed by the Fox-Beast, and Sansa watched in utter amazement as she conjured shining golden chains to pin the Fox-Beast down. It was like something out of a song; a tale too fanciful to be true, yet it was happening before her awed eyes.
Her new mother and the blond man then had a short, furious argument Sansa could barely follow, as they talked about sealing and Konoha and shinobi, none of which meant anything to her, but it was during the argument that Sansa realised the blond man was actually her new father, that his name was Minato and her new mother's name was Kushina—and, perhaps most importantly of all, that the blond newborn cradled so protectively in her new father, Minato's, arms was Naruto, the brother that Kushina had kept mentioning.
Minato won the argument and to Sansa's bewilderment, she and Naruto were laid side-by-side on the floor of the cave as Kushina continued to keep the furious Fox-Beast pinned, and Minato began to do... something to her and Naruto's bare bellies with a brush and ink and the strange humming energy that made her squirm in uneasy protest, despite how Minato kept hushing her. Sansa trusted her instincts, however, and her instincts screamed that this was dangerous. That this was harmful to her.
Her instincts told her that she should be afraid, and she was.
Kushina cried out suddenly, short, sharp and pained, and several events happened in quick succession; the Fox-Beast broke partially free from the golden chains Kushina had created, the Fox-Beast used two of its tails to nearly stab Sansa and Naruto, Kushina somehow threw herself in front of them and got stabbed by the Fox-Beast instead, showering them in her hot blood, and then Minato had pressed his palms flat on her and Naruto's bellies and the strange energy that flowed from his hands made Sansa's belly crackle, like it had been struck by lightning, a terrible, searing agony. Her chest heaved frantically, and her heart fluttered madly like the little bird Sandor had always claimed her to be; next to her, Naruto was screaming, but Sansa was silent, in shock, shutting down at the pain as she had so many times before.
That was when Death had appeared.
Sansa recognised Them immediately, and They recognised her too, she thought, though They said nothing as They spoke with Minato—something about 'sealing' a Demon of Nine Tails, which she thought must be the Fox-Beast. She didn't realise that Death and her new father were talking about sealing the Fox-Beast into her and her newborn brother until Death crouched beside her; for a moment, she stared into those familiar, abyss eyes; for a brief moment, she could see in them Everything and the Nothing; it was beautiful and it was ugly. It was chaotic and it was orderly. It was life in its essence, death in its entirety.
And then Death suddenly placed its hand on her bare belly, onto the ink painted there by Minato, and it felt as if she'd been set on fire. It was like liquid flames had replaced the blood in her veins, burning her to death from inside out. She screamed and screamed and screamed, the pain and the panic too overwhelming for her to cope. The last thing she saw before the darkness rose up and overtook her was Death reaching for her new father, for Minato, and she just knew that she was never going to see him again.
At least before, she'd had her parents for nearly a decade and a half before Death had claimed them... this time, she hadn't even gotten an hour. There was something so bitterly unfair about that.