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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?

[Sansa is struggling with it and that means this is the worst-case scenario. It's going to change how they can treat each other if Sansa thinks Sigrid is a lady. And in truth, she isn't. But she's going to be. Status for her downtrodden family and hope for their people, and her father wouldn't rise to his claim. Why?]

Because Ma died when I was six. Amma died when I was nine. If he tries and he doesn't win, they'll hang him and leave us three alone and orphaned with no-one to go to and no-one to protect us.

Seven blessings upon him -- [ she breathes the prayer. no-one to go to and no-one to protect us. had that not been the very thing that happened to her own blood? even if her father had not tried to take a claim for himself but instead revoke it from a vile creature of a boy.

and then robb... ] We are both fortunate in out fathers. Such good men. I am sorry you are here without him.

So am I.

[It's wholly honest, and it feels good. She's not used to having things to hide from people and almost resents the Elvenking for telling her what will come. But no, she'd go mad if no one had told her her family would survive the dragon.]

I've been afraid, without him. Even if we'd not had lords for ancestors, Lake-town's dangerous and poor, and he always protected us. So...your da can have those seven blessings, too, because he makes me feel like I'll be safe, and my da would thank him a hundred times for it.

[ daughters without their fathers. sansa wonders if there is ever a fear more palatable than that? for surely every fear she's felt afterwards has been compounded upon that first loss. grief. bereft of her best shield and chief sword, how was she ever to be safe again? not until she'd found herself a new father. a second father. a false father.

she shivers. ]

I pray he comes. Him. The rest of your blood. And mine. And we might all sup together. [ a pretty dream -- though she half expects she'd been too fortunate already in all the love she's found. ] Until that time, we will do right by you. I swear it. By the old gods and the new gods and whatever fairy gods they worship in these strange lands.

And as you call me Sansa, I will call you Sigrid. [ not my lady. ]

[Sigrid is silent for a breathless, overwhelmed moment. This is the dizzying point in dreams where she knows she's been too bold in her fantasies and has to wake ashamed of her silly wishful thinking. But after the moment passes, she's still in the dream. A tear gleams in one eye; the light is too dappled to catch its twin in her other eye. She remembers to breathe and inhales in a gasp and a sob. A blink knocks the tears down her cheeks, and a shaking hand scrubs them away.

She's been so lonely. The death of her mother changed her identity, but more than that, she became complicit in the parenting of her father. He has tried so, so hard to be mother and father to them, but there are many ways in which he could not, and it isn't his fault at all. If he comes home haggard or worried, it's not his fault. She should not increase his pain by telling him of the bad things that happened, or the fears she carries, or the chores that didn't get done. She is caught in the little crevice where she is mother to the other children, so she cannot confide in her siblings, and the dutiful daughter who cannot increase his burden. And then even without the Master's bullying, she was never going to have many friends her age. She'd had them before her mother perished, but not after. She'd become too different and couldn't relate to them anymore, or make herself be interested in their chatter.

Now she's here and she can claim both the Lady of the Golden Wood and the Elvenking as patrons, and a kind and noble man as her feudal lord. And Sansa is friend and companion and the exact person she has needed to meet since her mother died.

She draws in a deep breath to calm herself. When she speaks, her voice is still thick and not quite steady.]

It's as though you've come from a story or a song. You're...one of those beautiful, kind, brave and gentle ladies in the stories you know can't be true because they're too beautiful.

Edited 2014-06-19 00:57 (UTC)

Life is not a song, sweetling -- [ she says the words (echoes them; chips them; repeats them like the bird she is) without thinking. they are not truly a comment on sigrid's life, nor her perspective. they are knee-jerk, sad, and built up from all the disappointments she's had. for all the beautiful kind brave and gentle people she's mistaken in the past. life is safer with the ugly hateful pragmatic monsters. the hound! lothor! petyr with his minty breath... ] But I suppose you know so already.

[ sansa sighs. there are true knights. except, perhaps, for ser loras. and maybe -- if she squints and if she tries not to think hard upon how he'd sooner lick his wounds than pour water on them -- ser gendry. ] They won't write songs for me. But it's kind of you to say so all the same.

I'm not being kind. I'm thanking you. [Okay. Two good deep breaths and she has control over herself again.] And I swear by our gods and yours and the ones here to be a loyal friend and servant to you.

[ but you are, you are! you are being kind. sansa shudders to think of how sigrid will feel about her should she learn of certain things. certain deeper lies and omissions and her complicit participation within horrors. less kind, certainly. less kind all around. ]

Provided it is not unseemly that the daughter of a could-be lord serves me. I suppose my own title is tenuous in Westeros. It could be me who is meant to serve you.

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