eachdraidh | video; both courts

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video; both courts

This wolf is enormous.

[ Katsa can be heard before she's seen, her locket instead in the face of a fully-grown direwolf that's shoving his nose in front of it in her hands. She pushes him out of the way, backs up so that she can be seen in scale with the direwolf: her blue and green eyes are overbright, red-rimmed as though she's been crying, but her voice when she speaks is loud and demanding. ]

What potions or tonics would turn dark hair blue?

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Maybe he wants a change. [ she sounds almost petulant. ]

-- You shouldn't change a direwolf.

[ quiet. almost questioning -- as though she hasn't the backbone to make it into an argument. ]

Why? [ a little too explosive, a little too frustrated. completely missing sansa's own quietness. ] What can I change? I've no choice in what happens to the ones I love, or what I'm told to be or do. What, then, is anything I can choose?

[ and then after a short pause, more quietly herself— ]

I don't want him to change who he is.

[ it takes her a long time to speak again.

and when she does, it is with a sort of rattled sound within her tone: ] I'm sorry -- I never meant to...

My apologies. Choose as you will.

[ katsa for a moment is startled by sansa's response, caught up as she is in her own thoughts. then she realizes why she's so startled: though sansa might be reacting to something else, her tone sounds not unlike one a person might have used right before katsa hurt them.

she looks at her hands and scowls. she wants to shut out of this conversation and ignore the feeling, but somehow that's more difficult to do when they're not in person. ]

You're welcome to ask what you will, as well.

[ ask? what has she to ask?

except: ] Where did you get him?

He's the guardian of a friend who left him behind with me. Though he wasn't always so large. I think the lady queen made him so.

He's a direwolf, isn't he? [ ... ] Growing big is what they do.

I suppose. Only I didn't expect it to happen overnight. People and animals tend to grow more slowly and not quite so large, as I'm used to it.

Overnight? You -- truly? You do not exaggerate?

That's why it must have been spell of some sort, unless that's how direwolves do it. [ ... ] It's not, is it?

N-no. [ she sounds legitimately concerned. ] I never -- mine never did, no.

I didn't think so. Liam isn't a normal wolf as it is, but it's easier if I think of him that way most of the time. This makes it even more difficult. [ she pauses, then peers at sansa ] You've one as a companion, too? A guardian from the lady queen, or elsewhere?

I had a direwolf. Once. In my own native Westeros. I have her no longer.

What happened? Did she get left behind? Could she not be brought as well?

[ she's already seen grey wind with robb, and... well, katsa's tactlessly curious. ]

I'm sorry. [ she is the one who apologizes -- regretting, perhaps, that she's proven herself so clumsy in this conversation. ] She died some years ago.

...Oh. [ awkward. ]

[ she fidgets, then glances at the wolf over her shoulder: ]

You could spend time with Liam. Weird as he is.

Edited 2015-02-12 20:04 (UTC)

Your offer is -- [ she exhales; takes a moment ] -- kind. Exceptionally so. But all my brothers and my sister also have wolves of their own, well in attendance within these lands. They are at least a comfort.

[ ... ] Liam is a lovely name.

I didn't choose it for him, though I'm sure he appreciates it. Mine is Katsa. [ katsa looks back at sansa, curious. ] I was just speaking with another and his direwolf. Your native land... is that these other Seven Kingdoms?

Sansa. Of House Stark. I come from the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, yes. But these days I call the Cothromach my home.

I'm from the Seven Kingdoms of... elsewhere. [ she waves a hand. ] I'm of the Middluns. I've not been to the Cothromach, but I'm pleased to meet you and glad to know others from your home. Giant wolves and dragons aside, you seem far less... worryingly absurd than most.

[ she takes solace in being anything other than absurd. there are moments still when she finds herself yearning to be dull.

gently: ] What did you mean when you called them the other Seven Kingdoms?

I don't know what else to call them. There are seven known kingdoms in my home: Wester, Nander, Sunder, Estill, Monsea, the Middluns, and Lienid. There's a man from your seven, Gendry—I don't know if you know him—who was among the first I met here. We thought we were from the same until only recently, when he started babbling about kings and dragons. I didn't attend every history lesson with my cousin Raffin, but I know there were no stories of that kind.

I've talked to a few others from Seven since, but mine is always the different one.

I know Ser Gendry. [ familiarity suffuses her voice. perhaps it ought not to -- but it cannot be helped; she approves of the knight. ] Although he and I both come from Westeros, we never met until here -- well: he is a good and gallant knight.

Gallant... [ an interesting word to apply to gendry. she thinks about it. ] I've seen little knighting out of him. But while I know just as little of friends, he's been a good one, I think. Well. He is good at least, a better person than most.

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