(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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[steeledskin]

"Safe?"

She teetered upon the very cusp of indignation. Safe. King's Landing was an adders' pit. A lions' den. A dark abyss gilded with glittering metals but all of it hollow and hurting. And yet that did not exactly counter his assertion -- that in a siege, the city ought to be somewhat secure. But then again it had not been Stannis's forces, exactly, that she had feared the most. Instead, locked with Cersei with the other women and the children, she'd come to fear a very different kind of onslaught. The humiliation promised and the death assured. Just remembering it made her whole expression weaken like wax melting before the forge's heat. Old wounds stung.

"Yes. Of course. You're right to say so." Now was the wrong time to indulge in those wounds, old or new. He did not want to hear about how the king's headsman had waited with them -- promising death before dishonour. "The Red Keep is a strong and magnificent building. It would have resisted. Certainly. As we will resist."

After Samhain, it was regrettably too easy to lie to him once again. To squash down her own true feelings and fears and instead serve him only the chilliest and superficial comments. So so far away from the most honest tones her voice could take.

[bullhorned]

It might have been easier for her to lie to him, but it had become that much harder for him to believe her. He saw through her expression and the familiar and shallow appraisal of both the current situation and the one long past. His displeasure at the deception was obvious by his growing frown and the way he raised his arms up to cross them. He did not care what she chose not to tell him, but he cared a great deal for what she tried to make him believe. He wasn't a bloody fool.

"Thank you for the bread, m'lady." For a baseborn bastard, it was as tactful as he could manage. But with it came that stubbornness that now canvased any sincerity or openness that had existed only moments ago. Though he was the smith and she the Lady Keeper, he was using his need to work and labor as a means to simply excuse her from his company.

[steeledskin]

She was a sensitive girl. Hardened, surely. But still sensitive enough to know when she was being dismissed. As though he had the power! The right! And yet she nevertheless found herself shrinking from his presence -- stepping back from his attention. Because she still hated how one selfish self-protective choice had soured a fledgling bond. Sansa did not know how to fix it, except to pretend that nothing had gone wrong.

She swallowed hard and felt a painful lump in her throat. "You're quite welcome. Quite -- Ser, if the forges require anything then perhaps you..." Her eyes darted. Already, she was withdrawing. Escaping. "All you need to do is ask."

He was in a unique position. A smith, yes, but also a Shardbearer with direct locket access to Lady Sansa's attention.

[bullhorned]

The locket was sitting in the forge, half forgotten and scarcely put to proper use. But he understood the meaning well enough. But as it was, he did not think that he would be calling upon her during this siege. Already he was eager to simply return to his work and so relieve his own guilt one crash of steel at a time.

"As you say," he said in his typical grudging agreement. "Be safe, m'lady."

That last part was at least sincerely meant. He might not have been pleased with her, but her safety was still of great concern to him. No matter how she'd deceived him, he had no desire to see her suffer. Indeed, he'd feel wretched enough if he had any notion that he was being the cause of any turmoil.

[steeledskin]

Her head bowed. Almost a curtsey, but not quite. She did not want to give the guards nor the other smiths something with which they my might gossip: the Lady Keeper paying some kind of deference to this stranger in her city. A stranger he must be because he would not make Cothromach his home. She understood why, even as she found herself already missing him. And before even leaving! It was odd and surreal how his disappointment cut her to the quick and yet did not frighten her the way that others could.

"I will be--" Safe. So long as souls like his laboured to protect these walls. Sansa's lips stayed parted and she wanted to thank him for being here. For coming, though he'd not had to. But instead she turned away and left as easily as she'd arrived -- small retinue in toe and the weight of a whole city pressing down upon her shoulders.

She would find herself so tired by the end of it all.