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Lyanna asked about the nightmares on a bright Saturday afternoon.
She's lying on the couch with her head on her mother's lap and her feet on her father's, the three of them watching a cartoon of her choice on the television as they waited for the lemon cake to cook in the oven.
"Will I get them, too?" She asked curiously, worriedly, turning to her mother for some answer. "The nightmares?"
Sansa couldn't help but stiffen, her hand hovering above her daughter's head, ceasing her ministrations as she tried to untangle the knots from her long and messy dark hair.
Lyanna must have heard her screaming again in the morning before Jon finally managed to subdue her blind panic.
Her husband, always so attuned to her moods, took a point of answering. "Everyone gets them sometimes," he told their daughter gently, reaching out for her hand to squeeze it reassuringly. "But you don't have to worry about it. They're just dreams, they can't hurt you."
Sansa doesn't get them as often anymore, not like before. Now it only came on her worst days; when she was tired or particularly stressed about one thing or the other, like she has been the last couple of days as they approached the fifteenth anniversary of that horrible day at the Twins.
The memories didn't trouble her waking days as much as it once did but she couldn't control the terror still inflicted upon her whenever it visited her in her sleep.
"Why does mommy cry then?" Lyanna asked inquisitively, fixing her gaze on Sansa. "Doesn't that mean it hurts?"
Sansa sucked in a deep breath before finally looking at her daughter and offered her a reassuring smile. Lyanna was seven years old now; still innocent to the dangers of the world but old enough to understand that they were there.
One day they'd have to explain it all to her; Sansa's past wasn't something they could shield her from, not with it so publicized, and it was better for it to come from them directly than some unreliable source, but she still feared for that time to come.
"It doesn't hurt me, love," she promised with a soft voice. "They just scare me sometimes."
Lyanna sat up from her lap and stared at her mother with a look of concern creasing her brows.
The expression brought a smile to Sansa's face despite the anxiety building within her from the surprising inquiry, thinking that her daughter looked very much like Jon when she was troubled by something.
"Don't worry, mommy. Next time it happens, tell me so I can come to your dream and then I'll scare the nightmares away," she told Sansa reassuringly, with fierce determination in her eyes. "And when the baby comes, we'll do it together. We'll protect you, I promise."
She couldn't help but smile even wider; it seems like her little wolf had a knack for making bold promises of protection as well, just like her father.
She told Jon the same thing much later in the day, when Lyanna had found other activities to occupy her mind as Sansa took out the contents in the oven.
"I wonder where she gets it from," she teased lightly, poking Jon on the side as he leaned over the counter, watching her.
She could tell that he's trying to gauge her reaction; trying to see if their kid's inquiry had distressed her, but her teasing tone visibly relaxes his shoulder.
He grinned widely at her, the kind that wrinkled the corners of his eyes, reaching out to touch her belly. "What can I say? I taught her well."