(second lemon cake) video ✧ locked to seelie

[steeledskin]

Dear fellows and members of the Seelie court -- [ the voice which addresses the locket is composed and clear and perfectly conscientious. but the girl whose image accompanies the voice looks a little less than all those things. her dark-dyed hair is fastened in an uncommonly simple braid...and if one looks very closely, she can be seen to have a haggard look about her. she's somewhere outside and all her caution is bent at hiding a panic she doesn't want to share with strangers. nor with those few genuinely waiting on her return. ]

I don't want to alarm any of you. Indeed, I speak to the very opposite of that effect. It's -- [ her gaze flickers 'off-screen' for a moment ] -- it's Alayne Stone. Those of you who are acquaintances [ not friends ] ought to know that I've found myself...left behind. I'm sorry. It should not have happened. But I suspect I won't make Caer Glaem again for some time. [ the fault of the matter is a little trickier than that, but she knows better than to play with implications. so after a steadying breath, she presses onwards. ] Or we won’t -- because I'm not alone. [ i have nymeria, she thinks but doesn’t dare to say. just like how sansa wants to speak directly to those who know her for who she really is -- but instead: ] I have a knight with me.

Don't I, Ser Gendry? [ and she twists her locket, letting it capture the surly blacksmith who stands a few paces away from her with an irritated expression. his armour is dented and blooded and the man sags with an obvious exhaustion. ser gendry is a man who looks and feels beaten, but it does not stop him from standing tall. he is a talisman of sorts: a warning, to any sansa fears might prey upon what would otherwise be a journey fraught with vulnerability. ser gendry is here; she is protected, albeit not happily so. he at last looks towards her and her locket and grumbles an unhappy agreement to her statement, which is accompanied by a nod. ]

A lady needn’t despair when she’s so well accompanied. Instead, my thoughts are with the returned; I pray the High Queen’s desired prize was taken without steep costs or losses. [ following this, there is no formal farewell. no official sign-off. her attention lingers, perhaps waiting for one or two responses in particular. ]

( ooc; sansa and gendry are now officially stranded and making their long way back to caer glaem -- and it’ll take them at least two months, though they’ll be reachable by locket at their respective ic inboxes. but for now, responses to this post will receive replies from one or the other or both!)

Comments

[steeledskin]

No. [ ...well. ] Perhaps. I know another Stone. She likes to say her father was a goat and her mother an owl. Or else she would tell me that a Stone is a mountain's daughter. So perhaps we are alike. Children of the same mountain.

[ or not at all not at all. alayne, maybe. but sansa is a snow maid. she misses winterfell so terribly. ]

[oursavinggrace]

That's a nicer way of putting it. Unless she's not just being poetic. I had a sister who's dad was literally a swan, depending on which version of the myth you're going with, so I guess I can't really judge.

[that would be helen of troy. but seriously dad what the fuck.]

[steeledskin]

...A swan.

[ incredulity is discourteous. she knows this. and yet she cannot help the creep of disbelief in her voice. metaphor is one thing -- but literally a swan? and talking about sisters and myths as though the two fit together?

sansa hesitates. ]

[oursavinggrace]

[people here have generally been so accepting of the whole greco-roman myth thing, you almost forget that to a lot of people these are just stories. and often extremely weird ones at that.]

Uh. Technically a god taking the shape of a swan. But yeah.

[steeledskin]

Your sister's father...is a god.

[ uh-oh. she's figuring it out. maybe. just a little. ]

[oursavinggrace]

[good thing he wasn't particularly attempting to hide it. just...not talking about it all the time in case it makes people think he's crazy.]

My father too, actually. That's...kinda why all of us are technically bastard kids. The gods don't usually marry mortals. They just have brief flings with them.

[he's not bitter, no. if you want bitter, go find luke. jason's totally cool with it.]

[steeledskin]

[ her gods are nameless. or else they are different faces of one god. and so she cannot...she doesn't...

in a stricken tone: ] Does that make you a god?

[ perhaps she is not worthy of speaking to him; the thought jolts into her heart. ]

[oursavinggrace]

[see, he was expecting disbelief, not distress. hearing that edge in her tone he immediately grimaces and shakes his head, gesturing a bit emphatically.]

Gods, no. I mean, on my dad's side, yeah, but demigods aren't gods.

[steeledskin]

What is a demigod if not a god?

[ seriously. jason. it's right there in the name. demigod. ]

[oursavinggrace]

[yeah, and the "demi" part of that is pretty important too.]

Just...people who can fight a bit better than ordinary mortals, with special powers. Trust me, if we were on the same level as the gods then we wouldn't end up being their errand boys all the time.

[steeledskin]

[ hey it's not her fault that westeros doesn't speak greek! she doesn't know what demi means. ]

...So you squire to gods. [ which isn't any less impressive, really. ]

[oursavinggrace]

Not even. Then just call on us to solve their problems when one of them stole the other's helmet or something.

[or when the earth itself is rising up to destroy everything, but he's trying to sound less impressive.]

Other than that, we mostly keep to ourselves. I'd never seen any of the major gods until I was fifteen, and I've still never even met my dad.

[steeledskin]

What -- never? Does he -- [ oh. this is awkward. she tries to talk around an unseemly subject: ] Does he not know about you?

[oursavinggrace]

He knows. He's just...a god, I guess. They're not typically that involved in the lives of mortals, even their kids.

[he does an admirable job of sounding okay with that. he used to be, after all -- the romans didn't really deal with the gods as closely as the greeks do, and it's easy to pay no mind to the fact that he'd never met his parent when very few others had ever met theirs.

if there's any hint of bitterness in his voice now, though, it's probably because he's played the hero a thousand times, bridged the gap between the greeks and romans, saved the queen of the gods, and set out on a probably suicidal quest to defeat gaea, and he's still never gotten so much as an iris message while all the rest of the seven have had some level of interaction with their parents. hell, poseidon went to percy's birthday party.]

[steeledskin]

[ quite a lot like ser gendry, she supposed. and that notion makes her frown twist deeper -- she isn't used to feeling such empathy for bastards, but now... ]

I'm sorry -- [ whether jason hides his bitterness well or not, sansa is like a dowsing rod for pain. and all it takes is for her to imagine herself in that situation, and to imagine the pain she would feel, and she floods with compassion. ]

[oursavinggrace]

Hey, it's fine.

[sansa, you're sweet. but jason is nothing if not selfless, and letting people worry about his problems over their own is the most foreign thing in the world to him. he's quick to toss on a grin and shrug. no big deal.]

It's natural for us. And besides, my father is the king of the gods. I've never had to struggle for respect or anything. [nothing he's earned, nothing that has to do with him as a person and not who his father is, but who is he to complain when there are people like nico who're treated like they're diseased because of their godly parent?] It'd be pretty greedy to be upset over something as normal as this when I've got everything else going for me, right?

[steeledskin]

[ a demigod and a prince. seven hells-- ]

A king? [ she's caught unaware once again. but at least she's not so foolish as to call him your grace. after all, she doesn't extend that courtesy to gendry. ]

[oursavinggrace]

Don't. It doesn't work like that for us. All that makes me is a particularly tough demigod and everyone's first choice for every quest that comes up.

[and "your grace" would just sound like yet another terrible pun on his last name. let's not.]

[steeledskin]

--Of course. No. I won't. You'll stay Jason, of course. Or perhaps Ser Jason -- if you'd like?

[ here is the tricky catch: sansa concedes to what he wants immediately, but mostly because she has half-an-inkling to fear him. no. not him. but his power. his placement. he sounds at times like a warrior, and so she wonders if he might settle to be referred to as a knight. ]

[oursavinggrace]

Just Jason. Please.

[steeledskin]

Jason. [ ... ] I'm sorry. I fear our lands are far more different than I first thought.

[oursavinggrace]

It's okay. I'm just...I'd rather not be treated like something I'm not, that's all. I'm nothing special.

[godly powers aside, anyway.]

[steeledskin]

And yet you're sent upon quests? So someone must think something of you.

[oursavinggrace]

We all are, though. It's just what we do. I bet any of the others would have some good quest stories, if you asked.

[gods know clarisse would probably love an audience to brag to.]

[steeledskin]

[ but she doesn't know the others! much easier to pester the strangers who are a little less strange: ] Have you a favourite questing memory, perhaps?

[ like how knights have favourite battles. jousters have favourite lists. ]