(sixth lemon cake) video ✧ open to both courts

[steeledskin]

[ before the lockets sits a well-composed and well-turned-out lady: her face is set with discipline -- though below it she wants to crack and cry. but sansa stark has a duty -- some imperative -- to speak calmly of grave matters. nothing about this is comfortable; nothing about this is within her conventional grasp. she could compare it to her makeshift trials before the lords declarant or her audiences with the king, but this stage is far wider. out of frame, her fingers tremble. ]

Dear Shardbearers of either court --

[ if her voice shakes then it is by design. some honest fear is permitted into her tone, for what better to move the hearts of strangers than to express genuine dismay at this great knotted problem? she would not have thought to even sell it as injustice until living here and meeting many a person who appeared outraged over these alliances. these marriages. these common cages. ] One turn of the moon ago, High Queen Morla delivered onto me an ultimatum: to marry some Unseelie lord of her choosing, or else invite war upon the Cothromach. Whatever your loyalties, I beg you all to recognize the attempt for what it was --[ and do please fill that blank with your own outraged conclusions. ] I call for aid and support.

[ some words are permitted more of a quiver than others: morla; marry; aid; war. ] But I fear war has come already -- has long already been present -- and today I will refuse the proposal offered, because I fear it was only ever a blade's poisoned edge. I would prevail upon some soul from that queen's court to speak my refusal to her. [ powerful men have met her vulnerabilities with laughter, only to turn and shake their heads when she took small careful steps towards decision. what else is she to do? if she will not play the game by their rules, she must try to write her own. but even now, she hinges her action upon the passion of someone else's protest. someone else's judgement -- for better or worse. ]

The Lady Keeper of the Cothromach will not swear away her city to another court by marriage vows or by vows of any kind. [ except for other partial vows made in quiet rooms with would-be neutral parties. but those meetings are a secret and her announcement today comes instead to engage the hearts and sympathies of prospective champions who might grow incensed over a bully's tactics. lady sansa is not above playing upon their pity if said pity will protect her, her family, and her new city. anyone's pity will do: seelie or unseelie alike. ]

High Queen Morla's dogs are at the gate; let us be wolves when we meet them.

( ooc; i know some efforts have already been made re: the unseelie camps by lancer and others -- there's also a fresh log for the battle itself. )

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[kingsdaughter]

Sigrid makes sure the door is tightly shut before she reaches to maternally take Sansa's face into her hands, forcing her to look at her.

"It's impossible for anyone to ruin a whole city in a day by themselves, unless they're a dragon. You did just what you should, and I think you should write it down. I have connections in Treun and I think they should know about this."

[steeledskin]

"Contacts of what kind? What sort?"

A flutter of -- not quite hope -- touched her expression. Skated over her eyes. She would write anything, she thought, to spare what Saralegui had warned her of. Anything but agreement to what had been asked of her.

[kingsdaughter]

"The Fortunas--the royal family, practically. The governor is a Fortuna. Lady Fortuna might not be able to give you an army, but she knows people who could, and she's my friend. I've already talked with her about Unseelie unreliability, and mayhap we can word this somehow to make it clear it's safest to align with the Seelie."

[steeledskin]

"I'm not certain our case is made a good one with dogs barking at our doors but -- of course, I'll write. If there is even a thin chance..."

She gently peeled her friend's hands from her flesh and (with one set of fingers still laced with Sigrid's), she flew to the writing desk. "Your birds. They can take notes, can't they?"

Like ravens, she hoped.

[kingsdaughter]

"And recite them, though we do not all know their tongue. But yes, they will deliver your letter by the quickest ways possible, directly into Lady Fortuna's hands if you wish."

[steeledskin]

She reached for a quill. A bottle of ink. Sand with which to set it all.

"Is she the sort of lady who will feel her heart moved by this tale? Of marriages near-made under threat of death and massacre?"

[kingsdaughter]

"No. She's a businesswoman who's lived through times like this and worse. It has to be clear to her that the Unseelie, though they may pay well and reliably, are bad for business and bad for Treun. I mean she'll feel pity for you, but she won't condone a course of action that will put her people in peril unless they're already in peril just as great, or greater, and once they hear of enough incidents of treachery they will probably throw their lot in with us. And, you may add, the promised safe road cannot be provided if the Unseelie make it in too far. The Unseelie have made no promise to them or anyone of safety, and if the fighting continues going south, which it will if the Seelie have to withdraw, nothing will be safe for Treun. We have to push the fighting back together."

[steeledskin]

She held the quill beneath her chin. Feather not quite tickling, but merely proving its presence. Her knuckles were white around the ink bottle. And if she watched Sigrid with some mounting dread, it was not because the suggestion was a poor one -- if a bit untimely. But more as though she found her heart sinking at the prospect of more negotiating. More cajoling. It would never end; she knew it. And yet--

"You sound well aware of the problems. Of its...details." Sansa offered her friend the pen. Delegation was not her strongest suit. She did not know how to trust others. But Sigrid, she thought-- "Could you draft it? It ought not to be sent until afterwards, I think. Not if she isn't likely to send aid immediately. We will play our hands more carefully towards that city."

[kingsdaughter]

"But..." Sigrid falters, confidence wavering. "You know a lot more about this sort of thing than I do, Sansa. Last time I tried negotiating, I offended the Elvenking."

Even if she thinks the elves deserve a little offending once in a while.

"I don't... If I was in their place, I'd stay where I was. I've got to have something to offer them that's worth it. Diplomatic powers, I guess. I know how to talk to merchants, but I can't give them anything that's not mine."

[steeledskin]

"But you can commit your feelings upon the potential friendship to ink, and I can read over that ink and we can sign it together. Can't we? You've been there: you know the Lady. You can appeal to that familiarity. All I have is a yet-tenuous claim not yet proven in these fires."

[kingsdaughter]

Sansa has a point, and agreeing to read over the letter eases Sigrid's worries. She relaxes.

"I can do that. Of course. For you, anything. I've missed you so much," she adds suddenly, without meaning to.

[steeledskin]

For you, anything.

Dangerous potent heady words. Sansa breathed them in, then reached for Sigrid's hand. Her fingers closed lightly around the wrist -- firm and friendly, because girls together could be friends. Could be confidants. She had promised not to keep secrets from her friend, but now she found her words sputtering at the prospect of even the thinnest truth.

"And I you." Soft. A whispered precursor. "Tell me you will stay in Cothromach with us. Please."

[kingsdaughter]

"Of course I will." She flips her hand to hold Sansa's wrist in return, stable, assuring. "More than because of you being my liege-lady, I was miserable without my friends, especially my best friend."

[steeledskin]

Best friend. It was a weighty title. Weightier still, she feared, than that of Lady Keeper. She had not been anyone's dearest friend since...since Jeyne Poole. And only the Gods could say where that girl was now. Packed off by the Queen! And, she once thought, back home. But who could believe Cersei's lies?

Only Jeyne was not here. Sigrid was here. And so she pressed the quill gently into her friend's hand. "Then let you always be among friends here, Sigrid."

[kingsdaughter]

Sigrid reaches into her apron-strings and draws out a paper-wrapped parcel she slips into Sansa's palm.

"A gift I bought you in Treun."

Inside is a golden web of threads, long and gleaming with tassels on one end.

"They called it a paranda. It goes in your hair. She showed me how. I thought with your hair color..."

She trails off, nervous to see if Sansa will approve.

[steeledskin]

"It's beautiful," she wound her fingers through the golden webbing. If she seemed to start, it was only because the very notion of a hair-net of any construction made her stomach flip-flop. This one, she knew, possessed no poison. But the memory still lurked.

With a thoughtful murmur: "I pray it did not trouble you much to acquire it--"

[kingsdaughter]

"Not at all! I was everywhere in the market, and Treun's is marvelous." Sigrid grins and reaches for the paranda. "Let me plait it into your hair. It's very clever and simple."

[steeledskin]

She allowed the webbing to be plucked back from her fingers. And she watched it glitter in the lantern-light. It was beautiful! Exquisite, despite its association. And she wondered whether it was truly a fitting piece to wear in the oncoming heat of an attack. Would they judge her, for wearing anything but a simple braid? Or would they judge her in turn for looking too plain?

In the end, she erred on the side of what might sooth her mind right now and so responded with an eager nod. "You may. Yes. Certainly. But only if you show me how as you do--"

She did not want to sit prim and stone-like. Not with a friend.

[kingsdaughter]

"It's so very simple." Sigrid goes on to show her how the golden strands are merely caught up with the strands of the braid. In function, it is actually a fastening device for the end of the braid, braided an inch or two past the ends of the red hair and then kept in place by spinning the tassels around each other.

"See?"

[steeledskin]

"It's..."

Tremendous. Almost too beautiful. Certainly, she thought, nor worthy of being worn while at war. But she already knew she would not be able to bring herself to remove its glittering strands from her hair. Sansa reached to draw her fingertips across the weave of hair and hairpiece.

"Your taste, sweet Sigrid, is impeccable."

A princess's taste!

[kingsdaughter]

"Don't be silly. Gold is too obvious a choice for you, with your hair. And your skin, I think."

Sigrid idly tucks a few strands of her own hair behind one ear.

"But I've always been better at dressing other people than I am at dressing myself."

[steeledskin]

"We will see that changed."

Sansa sat back and settled her fingers calmly upon her knees. "That is, of course, if you will permit it to change."

[kingsdaughter]

A grin blooms on Sigrid's face--hopeful, excited, but accompanied by a shake of her head.

"But...I have more dresses now than I have days to wear them!" In her estimation, at least. Most are very plain, in the opinion of people who have been rich and some who haven't.

[steeledskin]

"Then you will have to find occasion to wear more than one a day, sweet girl."

She was telling some jape -- however mild and gentle a one. But she said it with a smile.

[kingsdaughter]

"I'm not--sweet," Sigrid responds without thinking. "I'm horrible and cross and you're the only one anywhere in this world who likes me. And I'm luckier than any horrible, cross girl ever was."