eachdraidh | video | Open to both courts

[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.

I've chosen what I've chosen, Sansa. But speaking of ladies, what other friends have you in Caer Glaem?

Hmm. [ she hums to buy herself a moment. friends -- it's a troublesome word. aside from sigrid, there are very few she could could as true friends aside from those already named. but perhaps it's enough to describe a few of the acquaintances. ]

There is, of course, the Lady Lucrezia. She's from a strange land she calls Rome. She's very sweet and gracious [ ...but! because, of course, there is a but that hangs there in the air. ] She seems very happy and joyful.

[ and perhaps sansa has no place clouding that creature's day. ]

[Happy and joyful would be good for Sansa, Sigrid thinks.]

Perhaps you would like me to arrange a luncheon with Lady Lucrezia and Lady Margaery once you've been home and rested a while?

[Maybe something resembling a normal life will be good post-road-trip therapy.]

A ladies' luncheon. [ she considers it. ] It is a pretty thought. But we must wait for you to be rested, as well.

We'll wait a hundred years, in that case. I haven't been rested since Tilda was born. I'm quite used to unrest.

Although I so hope it's sooner, I would say we may have a hundred years. For the Elven King told me that time is slower here.

I believe him. Fili told me he'd been here two months when I arrived, and I remembered seeing him hours before in my house.

Although the Elvenking probably said that so he could take longer in getting here.

Edited 2014-06-24 00:27 (UTC)

[ her laughter is careful, but still light. ] I am not certain that was what he meant, Sigrid. But perhaps. [ she indulges the rumour. or is it simply a jape? she cannot quite tell. ] Are his people known for such deceit?

[A hundred different things go through Sigrid's mind as possible responses, and her mouth splits in a helpless grin.]

Not deceit, really. But they're Elves, Sansa. They hide away and they spin you in so many directions you'll never pick the one that leads to them. It's said you can expect the Lake to turn all to diamonds sooner than you'll get a straight answer from an Elf. A lot of little tales are told about folk who ask the Elves for advice and get at least three different answers, but it makes them think so carefully that they wind up choosing the right way anyway. Truth is you can never find one when you look for one, but that doesn't mean you'll never see one. And of course you've seen they are beautiful, but in person, Sansa! In person, they are like nothing you could imagine. Their eyes are bright, and I don't mean their color. And they're also deep, though you can't see the bottom. It's like the reflection of the Sun on deep water. Nothing is fairer than Elves. I always wanted to see them, and I gave up hope not very long after my grandmother passed. She said we are doomed to always seek the Elves, to dream of them and listen for them until the day we see them. But she never saw one, not in all her life, so I thought I never would. And it's as she said, as soon as you give up on ever seeing one, there one is. The night I arrived here, my dear Sansa, two of them saved my family from orcs.

[She blinks, realizing how long she has rattled on, but Elves are hard not to ramble about.]

Sorry. I think I went to my own little world.

[ she nearly never wants the talking to end. she sits back and listens as sigrid speaks a lot. and it's a little like sitting back and listening to the leaves rustle or the babbling brooks. it's comforting, because sigrid doesn't demand anything from her that she doesn't willingly give: attentiveness and respect are easy when they're honest. and when they're not sourced in fear. although she cannot help but compare the description with what she's seen of thranduil and...

and although her opinion might not match sigrid's stories, she loves them all the same. after all, she herself might speak without straight answers. maybe she was used to it long before she met her first elf. ]

Please, go into your own little world as often as you like. You speak like singers sing: with pictures and prettiness. Tell me more about the two who saved your family.

[A smile touches her lips and a blush comes to her cheeks. Many hours were spent hearing such words from her grandmother as they worked together, and it's an honor to be able to convey such things as she always could.]

I didn't catch a good glimpse of one, but he was golden-haired. The other was--well, I suppose she's a soldier and not a lady, if you ever heard of such a thing. Her hair was red like yours and almost to her knees, and her eyes were colored like ale or honey. She stayed and healed someone who was sick and staying in my house. And she could fight, Sansa. She was like a squall to see, quick and deadly. She's here in the Drabwurld, too, and I wasn't imagining how lovely she is. The more of a look you get, the fairer they are, though none so fair as the Lady of the Golden Wood.

[ it unnerves her, still, to hear about fighting women. warrior women. not because she believes it a feat impossible: westerosi history had its fair share of fearsome queens. and lord tyrion had such a ragtag band of hill tribes with him in king's landing -- some of which were women. and it had been those who'd guarded her doors for some time.

no. it unnerved her because it somehow reinforced her own vulnerability. no longer could she claim i am only a stupid girl as a defence for not defending herself. others had; her sister keeps a sword; lady meera sounds so capable. but what is sansa? what can sansa do?

sansa can swing and sew and smile on cue. she can repeat their words back to them and she can try to make people love her, but it never quite works the way she wants it to. but it's working with sigrid! sigrid likes her enough to tell her stories -- so sansa encourages it: ] Then I take it there are a great many elves now here. I have spoken with four of them: the Elvenking, his son, some subject of theirs. And one who would not let me call her Queen.

Probably Lady Galadriel. She isn't a queen and she is, somehow.

It makes no sense. That someone could be a queen and not be a queen in the same breath.

She could be a queen, if she wanted. I think she'd only need say the word and they'd give her a crown, but she doesn't. They never call her the Queen of Lothlorien because she's not, but some have called her the Golden Queen. One's a title and the other's a sort of byname, I suppose, but it gets the point across. She's not a queen, but she ought to be treated as one, or she'll be as dangerous as one.

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