eachdraidh | (sixth lemon cake) video ✧ open to both courts

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(sixth lemon cake) video ✧ open to both courts

[ 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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[ there are no dresses well-suited to war. sansa remembers queen cersei's half-armoured gowns -- those gaudy hard horrible things. she does not wish to be like her. and yet she cannot bring herself to be decadent either! so she dresses conservatively -- in dark greys and blues. laceless. no embroidery. her hair is kept in a single thick braid of red.

and she answers the door without a smile. she answers it herself -- lets it swing wide until its latch thuds into the wall behind. ever since her return after samhain, she has been a drawn and distant girl. cold. steel. ]

Stiles. [ but she is not callous. and her voice comes out like a careful whisper. ] Please, come in.

[ there is no time to think of scandal when the gates are under threat. ]

[He does, not even thinking about the implications of going into her rooms. He came from different times and people weren't quite that gossipy in Beacon Hills. But he's noticed the difference in her, again, since she's returned. It's like she keeps trying on all these different masks every time he sees her, and he's starting to wonder where the real Sansa is.]

Sansa. I, ah, I guess Jon came and saw you already?

[He knew the answer to that. Jon had come back and told him they were leaving shortly and Stiles knew he wouldn't go without seeing Sansa first.]

[ jon's name wins some softness, if not a whole smile. after this fortnight, there will be no room for halfs. only brothers.

sansa turns away from the door -- from stiles -- and crosses to the pitcher of lemonsweet sitting on a trestle table. she pours two cups, but leaves them both in place. it's only her hands looking for something to do. her body looking for some distraction while others fight on her behalf. no, she corrects her thinking, the city's behalf. ]

Yes. Of course. You and he will take good care of each other, won't you?

Of course. He's my friend.

[Something he was still trying to get across to her. Something he felt he was having a hard time doing because someone was being purposefully obtuse about it.]

Just like you are, Sansa. You know we're not going to let anything happen, right? To you, or the people here.

[Pretty words, but they had good intent behind them, even if he couldn't completely back it up.]

[ and yet today they sank deeper than ever before. how could they not? stiles remains here in cothromach when he could be anywhere else. nothing forced his hand to risk his life behind these walls. or beyond them. her chin trembles a moment. she breathes deep. she recovered. ]

I know the both of you will do all you can. [ and that optimism is, in itself, a grave vote of confidence. ]

Damn rights we will.

[She looked so brittle standing where she was. She was too young to be that jaded, to have that bitter edge he was seeing more and more of. He walked over to her, stopping about a foot or so away, wanting to do to her what he did to all his friends when things got this bad. Give her a hug. But she was so insular with herself, he was worried about what trying for one might do. So he just... stood there feeling like a moron for a moment.]

Look... about that, ah, chat we had before...

Ah. My -- the negotiations were crumbling to pieces.

[ she turns her head. glances at him. frowns. ] I'm sorry. You weren't to know. I thought I could avoid all of this.

[ but in the end she could not pay that price again. ]

Sansa...

[There's so much frustration in that one word and he forgets himself enough to put a hand on her shoulder -- where it sort of sits awkwardly as he remembers the no touching rule.]

Stop apologizing. Stop taking the blame and responsibility for everything that others are doing and the position you're being put in. You didn't ask for this, okay? Not any of it. Not to be here, not for your dad to leave, not for some freaking ridiculous attempt at marrying you off, and not for war. This isn't on you. You can't avoid what everyone keeps shoving in your face.

[He gives her shoulder a light squeeze before taking his hand back, looking down now because wow, way to be a jerk, Stiles.]

I really wish you'd just... I don't know. Talk more? Trust more? You need help, Sansa. Here and out there and... it's not a bad thing to ask for it.

[ the hand does surprise her. but sansa doesn't pull away -- she has been hurt so far beyond the ability to pull away and reclaim her own space. instead, she endures. she stands like ice and she survives. but after the first second, the touch is not so terrible. she finds she does not turn to dust beneath his fingers.

it's a small cold comfort. ]

Every drop of blood shed on those fields -- they will stain my hands. [ her cheeks puff. she lifts her palms. ] It is on me. So my would-be husband said and so it's true. I could have averted this with a word.

[ he wants her to talk? so she talks. and it comes out in a mangled mess. ] But I wouldn't.

Your would-be husband is a dick and I'd be happy to go punch him in the face for that. Jesus Christ, Sansa. You can't be held responsible for the actions of others. That's not how life works. Morla didn't have to try to take a castle that's not in her land. She didn't have to push you into trying to accept a marriage -- which is really frigging creepy, by the way. Your so-called suitor didn't have to try to guilt you into accepting. They're trying to... manipulate you into feeling like it's your fault so you'll accede or do what they want. That makes them the assholes, Sansa. Not you.

You're not the one pushing for war. That puts the blood on their hands. You're trying to keep this place safe. They're being the aggressors. Their bad, not yours. You could have married him, sure. And then what? Been trapped in a marriage you don't want with no control over your own life and... what about the people here? They're Seelie. You think Morla's going to be just happy shiny about having a bunch of enemy forces and shardholders here?

[His hands were fidgeting again and he crammed them in his pockets. God, if he could just get her to understand... to see that this wasn't her.]

[ his argument is valiant. indeed, it had been the one she had tried to make to saralegui -- tried and failed because (unlike stiles) she could not conjure so much spine all at once. a muscle contracts in her jaw. he wants me to talk.

talk. her mouth opens. words don't come -- not immediately. they take a moment...stilted and unhappy and: ] The cage would have been familiar, at least. [ miserable. self-defeating. self-effacing.

she explains: ] I confess, Stiles, I am no stranger to unwanted husbands. I am married.

[ no. that's not right. sigrid had interceded; solais has torn that union apart. ] Was. Was married.

[ and with her freedom newly found, how could she ever go back to those chains? even as an agreed-upon lie with saralegui? ]

[That had him stilling, one of those weird all-over stillnesses as he tried to process what that meant. Married? Already? But she wasn't even his age... Jesus.]

Are you okay?

[Great. The first words out of his mouth are ridiculous. Of course she wasn't. He could only imagine what she'd been through. He'd read about his own world's past and it made him feel sick to think about that happening to her.

And anger crossed his face. A quick, bright fury at Morla, her attempted husband, and the whole damn Unseelie mess for putting this on her again.]

Was. And we're going to keep it that way.

[ she finds it a challenge to process his anger -- those flickering maddened expressions. too often rage like that had found its way pointed in her direction. but today...anger is a thing of beauty when it is expressed against her enemies. perhaps the thought is cold and mercenary, but she cannot help how it crosses her mind. ]

Was. Solais claims an unwanted union breaks upon the threshold of this world. Hardly a Septon's word, but -- [ she is desperate; she will take what she can get. besides, she can hardly begin to explain that the marriage has not been consummated. ]

Well, if this husband of yours shows up here, you just let me know. Or Jon. Yeah, let both of us know. We'll handle it.

[And by 'handle', he meant find a deep dark hole to throw him in. And bury him alive. That was handling, right?

His eyes still showed his anger when he looked back up at her, but there was sympathy there as well.]

I wish...

I wish I could do more for you, Sansa.

[And there was a little guilt as well. Before Malia had shown up and he'd taken his little nap, there may have been a seedling of affection for her starting to grow. There were certainly protective urges and those flared up where he stood, but there'd been occasional thoughts of other things. Maybe.

He was clearly an asshole.]

There are monsters well worse than my Lord Husband. But -- I'll do it. I'll tell you. Jon knows already...he knew upon arrival. The union was not a secret one in Westeros. Word reached him even at the wall.

[ even ser gendry knew. margaery. loras, while he'd been here. renly had been told. and they had all kept careful confidence for her. these are conspiracies and webs and slews of lies. ]

Some days I fear I am beyond help. And others, I feel born fresh. Full of possibility. It's the middle ground that's absent.

That's why we're here. Well, that's why I'm here. I don't know how much you feel like opening up to Jon about wedding woes or... I don't know. Hash things out with me. Vent a bit. There's nothing wrong with getting it out there, getting it out of your head.

[Stiles knew all about things eating you alive when you kept them inside. Guilt and shame and fear and lothing, it all could become a disabling miasma if you didn't have people there to look out for you. He had his dad, and Scott. Back home, anyway. Here, he had his dad again, and now, maybe, some others.]

You're never beyond help, Sansa. You just need to be able to ask for it.

[ once! once she'd asked a beautiful queen for help -- and her father had lost his head. help is a tricky manoeuvre. she believes it always comes with a price. but she hasn't yet figured out what stiles's price will be.

perhaps she can afford it; perhaps she can't. ]

Hash. Vent. [ odd words. then, softly: ] You could not possible want to hear it--

[ and she could not possibly tell it all. but pieces, perhaps. ]

Of course I do. When is it going to get through all that stubborn red hair of yours? I'm your friend. I care, okay? If you need to talk, I'm okay with listening. If you want to go get a baseball bat and beat the crap out of something, I'll bring along the safety gear and cheer you on. If you want to just sit and have tea, I'll... pretend to drink it. Because really, tea is gross.

[Yep, gross comes with a wrinkled nose, too.]

I do want to hear it. I just want you to be-- hell, I don't know. I want you to be safe and happy. And if you can't be that, I want you sane. Keeping it all bottled up isn't good.

Tea isn't -- [ her voice dies away. because stiles is not done -- he professes many and more sweet thoughts. friendly thoughts. and had she not already turned herself to stone, she might have sniffled. she might have cried.

instead she bites down on her bottom lip and sinks into a chair. her shoulders fall. ] They did not tell me I was getting married until the very morning.

[His eyes close for a moment, trying to put himself in her shoes. Not that he could. First, he wasn't a girl, and second, he'd never been force-married.

He crouched down in front of her, still careful not to touch her, especially now, but not wanting to loom over her. He had a feeling she'd had enough of that.]

I'm sorry, Sansa. I wish... I wish I could do something to fix it. Or erase it. I wish I could make it better.

[And it was said honestly. The idea of what she went through made him feel sick, his stomach twisting at the thought. She was just a kid, same as him. And she shouldn't have to be pushed into everything she had been, both here and apparently back home.]

I'm...

[ his pity is a balm. but it burns too, and she feels she needs to stress that things could have been worse. as though she is incapable of reciting only a litany of terrors to him: ] It can't be as bad as you imagine it is. He and I -- Lord Tyrion has been a stranger to be for moons and moons before I came here. Alayne Stone was not married.

[ not yet. ]

That doesn't really make it better. And, ah, for the record? It's not like Sansa and Alayne are really two separate people. You... you were just living enough crap for two people instead of one.

[And that kind of made it worse, to him.]

But, you know, I think that proves a point. You're strong, Sansa. Stronger than I think you give yourself credit for. You survived that and I don't know what else you haven't told me -- and I'm not pushing for you to spill the beans now. Just... have a little faith in yourself.

[ is it more or less dreadful, she wonders, if she explains that lord tyrion was not an awful man? or half-a-man, as the case may be. ]

Faith. [ a breath. faith in herself? how can she when... ] I never told my Lord Father. Before he left. I saw how dismayed he was to hear me called Alayne Stone. I could not hurt him further by being called Sansa Lannister.

And that's a bad thing?

[He grinned then, moving to place a hand on the arm of the chair; not touching her, but close.]

Remember how I told you not to tell my dad certain things? For his own good? This sort of falls into that category. Sometimes, we... hold things back. To protect the people we care about. That doesn't make us bad people, Sansa. Just, ah, cautious. Would it have made him feel better to find out something he couldn't have changed?

[ she does not shrink from him. they are alone -- in her rooms -- and he is near enough that were he someone unattached to her immediate house, she would be frightened by the proximity. but it is endured. almost welcomed.

but she sits still as a statue. ] You tell me I ought to tell him as little as I want and tell you as much as I dare. This spilling of the beans is a strange ritual.

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