(fourth lemon cake) voice ✧ open to both courts

[steeledskin]

Fellow Shardholders. [ of either court! ]

I would speak to a man of law -- should any find himself amid our numbers. [ such a profession is unknown to her, but stiles has explained some occupations and tenets of his world and this one in particular piques her interest. sansa stark could make use of such a man who might be bound by her confidentiality. of course, she does not quite understand the ins and outs of the arrangement.

but that's why she asks today: to learn; to plan; to piece together little patches of her defence. ] Anyone who would call themselves lawyer. I would speak with you. That is the word for it, yes? [ lawyer. ] My apologies if I've gotten it wrong; I'm only a simple girl and I am unwise in these matters. I want to learn about the things that are mysteries to me.

[ like whether a lawyer's strange binding powers of argumentation would even apply in these lands. once her conversations are finished, she snaps the locket shut and can be found in the library -- where she organizes books she doesn't care to read, because the practise soothes her and distracts her mind from its darker thoughts. or else come the evening she sits in her chambers, and allies of hers are welcome to stop and knock. ]

Comments

[oursavinggrace]

[oh, honey. meet jason grace, the most frustratingly helpful and selfless not-quite-human to ever exist.]

Right. I hope you happen to find one, then.

[he can't imagine what a lawyer would have been brought in for in the middle of a war, but then again, there have been strangers decisions made about otherworldly soldiers here.]

I can probably try to explain it a little if you don't, though. I mean, my dad is the god of justice, so that's gotta count for something.

[a joke. please don't take him seriously, you are the worst offender of that and he is not trying to imply that he is any equivalent of a lawyer.]

[steeledskin]

[ she very nearly does take it seriously. but her train of thought veers elsewhere: ] I was told to ask -- no. Not told. It was suggested. But...

Whatever lawyers are, I don't think we have them in Westeros.

[oursavinggrace]

[thank the gods for that.]

Yeah, it didn't sound like it. Things probably would be a lot more pleasant there if you did.

[steeledskin]

Are...are they good men? Are they kind and just?

[ careful or she'll start hero-worshipping lawyers. ]

[oursavinggrace]

[his optimistic smile falters a little.]

Well...they're supposed to be. I'm sure there are people who become lawyers because they want to help people and carry out justice and all that. But it's got a reputation as a high-paying job, and I guess lawyers want to win their cases whether their clients are guilty or not. There's a reason for the whole "sleazy lawyer" stereotype, so...it depends on the person, I think.

[steeledskin]

What do you think of them?

[oursavinggrace]

I don't know, I've never needed one. I don't think they're inherently worse than people in any other kind of profession, though. There are probably some bad ones, but I'm sure there are good ones, too.

[steeledskin]

[ like knights, perhaps.

ah. no matter. she falls back upon her pleasantries: ] I trust you have been well? Safe?

[oursavinggrace]

[it's a sudden subject change, but he's beginning to get the way she works, how she shifts away from things that seem to unsettle her, so he lets it slide without comment.]

Safe as you can be with actual fighting going on. [nothing to actually worry about, of course -- the phantom had been a challenge, but otherwise he greatest enemy during the whole fight for the silmaril had been time and his own lack of stamina.] What about you? I hope you weren't anywhere near all that.

[steeledskin]

I-- [ she thinks about sigrid's secrets; she wants to keep them. ] As soon as I heard, I hid. I fled. And I was secure.

[oursavinggrace]

Good. It's not the kind of thing non-combatants should have had to deal with.

[steeledskin]

Was it very frightening?

[oursavinggrace]

[whether to be totally honest about this or not? he doesn't want to worry her or give her any reason to be frightened herself, but he doesn't exactly want to promote any of that inhuman image of himself he's not entirely convinced she's dropped.]

...It's always a little scary fighting things that actually want to kill you. But it wasn't the worst fight I've ever been in. I was more scared for my friends.

[between clarisse having straight up murdered a guy, and nico not having shown up until the end only to risk exhausting himself pulling out all the stops, he wasn't exactly wrong to worry either.]

[steeledskin]

Please, Jason. Tell me they fared well? Your friends?

[oursavinggrace]

Everyone's fine. Nico was pretty much out cold for a few days, but so was I, so I can't really lecture him about it.

[except for the part where nico was strolling around the castle while he was supposed to be on bedrest. but he had the good fortune of running into jason's girlfriend, so any lectures there were swiftly forgotten.]

[steeledskin]

[ out cold is not what she would consider safe and well-faring, but her metrics are so separate from those of the warriors. so she takes a moment to collect her reaction and keep it controlled. ]

Why weren't you awake? What happened?

a thousand years later whoops i suck

[oursavinggrace]

[it's really no big deal, out cold is a semi-permanent state of being for jason. remind him to tell you the story of the brick someday, it might even actually make you laugh.]

We both just really wore ourselves out with the fighting. I was going for almost three days straight there, and he summoned up a whole army to back us up.