Fanfic: End of ASOIAF

 A Song of Ice and Fire (ASOIAF) by GRRM has a lot of thematic and narrative similarities to the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion written by Hideaki Anno. This fanfiction is imagining what the final scene from End of Evangelion (EoE) might look like if it were happening at the end of ASOIAF.

Trigger warnings for violence/gore, offscreen death, apocalyptic themes, emotional distress/trauma, body/landscape horror, and themes that could be interpreted as nihilistic.

Minor spoiler warning for ASOIAF and a bigger spoiler warning for EoE.

The last Stark

Sansa scrambled up the riverbank. It was dark, slimy, and crumbled when she tried to hold it, but her frantic scrabbling was enough to move slowly up. The sky was a red haze, the great shattered weirwood looming over the horizon.

“Stark!”

She started, almost falling back into the river, but it was only a crow. The bird was perched on a broken stave, looking at her as she slithered up and flopped onto the flatland. 

It crowed at her again. “Stark. Snow. Stark.” The names were so alike. Or was it all just cawing? The bird looked at her again, then fluttered away like an old cloak.

She had been underground for longer than she could say. In the hollow in the riverbank, a square brick room and a tunnel that had filled with mud behind her. The space where she had curled up while the world was torn apart.

That was the worst time. The waves of heat and cold, the earth shuddering as monsters crashed outside. The million thoughts that were not hers, tumbling through her head, crying and screaming and falling silent. The terrible, indescribable sounds that had echoed into her sanctum. And then the silence. The silence had gone on a long time.

And now? The river was slow and red. The banks were crystal slime, wet with something that crumbled like spun sugar. The land was a vast, gray-brown plane on and out forever, dotted with white branches leaking sap. And above everything the giant weirwood - a tree so huge and distant it would have blotted out the sun, if they could have seen the sun through the haze. She knew the tree was dead.

As her eyes adjusted, Sansa noticed more. Great tears in the earth, canyons deeper than the river. Bones, parts of creatures she couldn't recognize. And everywhere the sticks, branches, pools of sap, broken boughs, shredded leaves sinking into mud.

A boy was climbing up the side of the river. Sansa stood up, looking down at him.

“Who goes there?”

He looked up, one arm over the edge of the bank. “Tyrek,” he said, “Tyrek Lannister.”

Lannister! The word was fire. Sansa flew at him, wrenching his arm and toppling down the bank into shallow red slime. Hitting him, pounding him into the mud.

“Stop!” the boy said, catching her wrist. “What- who?”

“Sansa Stark,” she spat the word at him, wrenching free of his grip.

“Stark,” Tyrek hissed back at her.

“Where is my brother?” She punched him. “Where is my mother?” She punched again, the word and blows spilling out. “Where is my father? Where is my wolf?” She hit him with every word.

Tyrek caught her wrist again, gripping it tight. “Your brother?” He punched her hard, winding her. “What about my cousins? Tommen was half a babe when your Snow’s dead men killed him. Do you know what the wolves did to Myrcella? They tore Ermesande limb from limb!”

He pushed her back into the muck, pinning her down. Sansa kicked his leg and he cried out, loosening his grip for half an instant. She pulled free her arms and grabbed his face, gouging fingers into his eyes. Tyrek pulled back, and she launched herself at him, tacking him backward.

Tyrek was stronger, but Sansa had her full weight on him now. She pushed past his flailing hands, stamping both hands down around his neck, clamping down as he scratched and flailed helplessly.

His hand was on her cheek. She wasn’t sure how it had gotten there.

“I wasn't,” he gasped.

Wasn’t what? Her thoughts moved like a vision through the blur of hummingbirds. Wasn’t there where they killed Lady? She looked down at Tyrek, realising he must be younger than Robb. It wasn’t him who killed father. Or mother. Or Robb. Or any of them. 

She felt herself shudder and her grip went slack. Tyrek drew a shaking breath.

Everything around them was dead. The First Men and the Andals had killed the Children of the Forest, so the Children unleashed the cold dead Others. Tyrek is alive and warm. 

Mycah had been hitting Arya, so Joffrey hurt Mycah, so Lady savaged Joffrey, so they killed Lady. Tyrek wasn’t there, he was far away.

Prince Rhaegar took aunt Lyanna, so uncle Brandon went south to kill him, so Aerys burned Brandon, so father and Robert brought down Aerys, so Deanaerys and her monsters brought fire and blood to Westeros. It goes back and back and on and on.

Where does it end?

She looked down again, and realised the two of them were drenched in red sap. What have we done? Sansa shuddered and felt tears welling up, and saw them fall on Tyrek’s face. We did this she thought, despairing. This is all…

“Disgusting.”