eachdraidh | video | Open to both courts

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video | Open to both courts

[Sigrid is looking fairly haggard and pale. Behind her is the rugged green wilderness surrounding the Station, though the Station itself is not in sight.]

I'm in the middle of nowhere at all and I've got a bad leg. I couldn't find my locket and I had to ask a thrush to find it for me. A thrush. I'm talking to thrushes and they answer me. Anyway I need help. The thrush said he'd go and find someone, but I don't know who he meant. Does anyone know if thrushes are wise birds or silly birds? If he brings back a bear or something, I've got to hide now.

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So be it. I would see you working if only for the peace it brings you and the peace of mind it brings me -- because once you are working again you will be behind Caer Glaem's walls again.

[ the matter seems settled. alayne certainly speaks with more certitude and control than sansa ever does. alayne has managed a household and tended to sweetrobin and played cupbearer for her lord father.

sansa fears she only quivers inside. ]

I'm sure there'll be something to do here, on or off my feet. Hopefully off, for a little while.

Do you know how long King Thranduil will be before he reaches you?

I don't, but the thrush wasn't gone long before he called me. No more than a quarter of an hour, I guess.

Oh! [ oh, goodness. ] That is not half so long as I feared. I didn't like the thought of you left alone overnight.

I didn't, either, but it seems I'm lucky this time. So far. You're so very kind to think of me, though.

I know what the nights can be like. Out here. They're safe enough with a knight in tow -- [ or a wolf. ] But otherwise?

[ a shake of her head. sansa takes the time to lock their conversation now that she's decided to keep sigrid company while she waits. ] Thrushes are pretty birds. When we're both together I will introduce you to Artos, a sweet orange canary Arya caught for me. Lady Margaery tends to him in my absence.

Edited 2014-06-18 15:49 (UTC)

You'll have me friends with all numbers of respectable ladies, then.

[She still hasn't really talked about how being a lady is somewhere in her future. She's still sort of in denial over it, a bit.]

I would not count Arya in that number. She may be a lady, but she's hardly respectable.

[ sansa doesn't want to speak ill of her blood. not after everything that's happened. but sigrid is a friend. and in her father's employ. it's not the same, and it isn't as though she hasn't come to love her sister in other fashions. but hardship and absence could not erase every annoyance. ]

[Sigrid does not want to speak ill of Sansa's blood, either, but she clearly suppresses a smile. Barely.]

I did not think you'd have me friends with your sister, my lady. I probably put an end to that already. But I meant the other lady you spoke of, if I'm to help you reclaim him from her.

Margaery is -- she is a sweet and gentle soul, I believe. And has been a good friend to me at a time when I had so few. [ even if she still on occasion doubts the motives. knowing littlefinger has called so much into question. ]

She is a southron. But we mustn't hold it against her.

Oh--! Southrons come to the Lake for trade sometimes. Their skin is dark and they bring the strangest things. Lots of ivory, if you know what that is, and also very bright fabrics and strange pelts. Anyway, some live on the Lake themselves, especially as consignees.

[She drifts off when her brain catches up with what she's saying.]

I don't...know if that's what Southrons are like where you're from.

My kin are all of the North. No -- that's not fair. My mother was of the south. Her family was of the south. But southrons are just that: people from the south. And there is a great deal of land south of Winterfell.

Oh. Well. Just about everything is south of Long Lake, except dragon territory and where the orcs live in the Grey Mountains. Calling everyone south of us a southron wouldn't be very useful.

I suppose it becomes a great deal simpler when we have an entire kingdom called only the North.

That does seem dreadfully simple. It sounds like Gondor, I suppose, which might as well be called the South. Leastways that's how it looks on maps. Lake-town's just what it sounds like. We've got an elected Master, but he doesn't answer to anyone. Well. His pocket-book, I suppose.

He sounds dreadful. A good leader of men should care for those in his purview -- for he is only ever as good as they are.

[ does she believe it? hard to say. certainly, it's a philosophy that comes from her father. and indeed baelish had taught her something not so dissimilar, though the care he gave those below him generally came in the form of a golden coin. money bought strength. ]

[Sigrid opens her mouth, then closes it. What Sansa is saying...no, the Master doesn't really live better than his people, riches or no. He's a hopeless miser who won't light a candle for the cost of wax. A good leader of men should care? Her father smuggles in wild game and vegetables near every day, and though many of the people of the Lake outwardly reject his completely accidental charisma, they still eat the food he gives them, and they remember it.

She swallows.]

You're right. In both ways, you're right.

...Some would say my brother was a good leader to his men. Decent, at least. [ and her skin had once held the bruises that proved it: each one laid against her for robb stark's successes. ] But I never had the opportunity to see him lead.

Why do your people not riot? [ she doesn't ask it like a suggestion. in truth, such chaos and rabble-rousing instils instant fear in her heart. but joffrey's subjects had rioted against him -- so she wonders... ] Unless they have and were summarily punished for it.

[ ...she knows how persuasive punishment can be. ]

They will. Or they'll take another for their lord, at least. I've been told as much. There's...someone on the Lake who'd be the Lord of Dale now if Dale had more than brigands and homeless living in it. He'd be the lord of most of the people in Esgaroth, then, if he ever took power, but he never has and neither have his ancestors since the last Lord of Dale. The Master still fears him, and undermines him every turn. He's got a lot of people convinced this...man, this heir, that he's unsavory and he and his ancestors were all incompetent. His whole family's sort of...dodged around, I suppose. A lot of gossip and a lot of people who don't know their own business. For now, everyone accepts that if they want in good with the Master, they have to hate the heir and his family. It's hardly any of it real hate, but real or false makes little difference.

[ all of it sounds chillingly familiar. a proper lord, undermined and hated. his blood persecuted. and all that hatred breeds into a kind of regular habit, wherein even back in westeros to be a stark amid some company was like painting a target on your breast.

she clucks her tongue in sympathy. ] His poor family. How are they? Their plight sounds awful, but you don't speak as though you hate them like the rest do. Good. I'm glad to hear my friend is a wholesome soul.

[Sigrid's cheeks burn, as it is clear Sansa has guessed whose family she spoke of. She takes a deep breath to cool her embarrassment and releases it in a huff.]

We're fine, promise. And it's going to get better, they say. It's just sort of rotten right now.

[ she hadn't actually. she'd merely been imagining some other family, and had felt her heart swell for them. and then her affection grow for sigrid when she imagined how her friend did not persecute the others. but to now realize they were one and the same...

we. sigrid had said we. ]

Oh. [ ... ] You are -- your father? A lord? And I've been...

[ her words fall away from her as she imagines all the impropriety of their conversations. now her cheeks burn. ]

[No. No! No no no no Sansa isn't supposed to treat her differently no.]

No! [She opens her mouth and has a few false, panicked starts before she can spit anything out.] No, he's not a lord at all, no, not even a little.

[He's going to be a king, but Sansa does not need to know that.]

We're descended from the Lords of Dale, is all, and Dale is just a lot of ruins and ash and I promise my father isn't a lord of it, wouldn't be if they tried to make him.

[And if they succeeded at making him instead of just trying, well, that would be different.]

[ her heart jack-rabbits. thuds violently against her ribs, it feels like. but this is sigrid. she knows she needn't panic to the point of fear. only sansa is so accustomed to playing a game of titles and courtesies that to think she's been letting something slip her by...

she takes a moment. breathes. shuts her eyes and counts to five. winterfell is only ruins and ash and yet she clings to what those ruins make her: heir and lady. princess and stark. why doesn't sigrid? ]

Why? Why wouldn't he?

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