eachdraidh | (first lemon cake) voice ✧ seelie & unseelie

Entry tags:

(first lemon cake) voice ✧ seelie & unseelie

I offer my gratitude to those fighting the worms. [ here is a voice both measured and composed, albeit young. ] And gratitude is all I can give, barring my prayers. And they are given whole-heartedly for all of us. May the Warrior give you the strength and courage required for your victories. And may the Mother bless us all.

[ sansa stark has long come to doubt the efficacy of the seven new gods. she isn't entirely certain the old gods listen, either -- but their rustling leaves and independent ways give her more peace of late than anything the seven offer: incense and rituals. however! she has resigned herself to being alayne stone to those who are not immediately known to her or trusted by her. and alayne stone worships the new gods, not the old. she is meant to be exactly as petyr baelish described her: a pious bleater, whose ardent faith discourages unwanted questions. so she speaks of blessing of the seven, but holds the old gods in her heart. she only hopes that arya and her allies will forgive her this identity fraud across the lockets.

most of all, sansa doesn't want to disappoint the people to whom she'd promised her help. like in maegor's holdfast during the blackwater, sansa hopes to lift spirits and rouse bravery. perhaps if she voices her thankfulness, others will follow in kind.

before she ends, she has only one question -- the paranoid fugitive in her needs to know: ] These pendants are truly remarkable. Magic, is it? But more efficient by far than any raven. [ ... ] Can they be used to talk only to one person, and privately? If anyone has managed it, I would thank you to tell me how.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ alisha can't really fault her for that. alisha lives in a bubble where everyone has to be like her — non-believers, disinterested in the politics of a brand new world. she just wants to be normal — and fighting worms as a dead girl is anything but that. ]

Do you think they'd listen to a bunch of prayers asking them to save us from worms? [ and her voice ends on a laugh, because how fucking ridiculous is this? from storm elicited powers to worms. it has to be a joke. she doesn't mean to laugh at a girl who believes in prayer, but alisha has to wonder if the gods would even laugh at them asking for a helping hand from worms — they're small and disgusting and there's no way in hell gods didn't have a part in them turning into these big, scary creatures. ]

[ a quiet inhale. in a fashion, this brash criticism is hardly the worst she's suffered. so she takes it in stride -- perhaps all too willing to be a fool in someone's eyes. when it came to those who spoke at all harshly, sansa stark would rather be discounted; thought dull; discarded and ignored. ]

The gods listen to every prayer. [ there's a turn in her stomach as she says it. ] Granted, worms are -- the situation is unique.

It's bullshit. [ not unique — alisha thinks the word implies something positivity, something to stare at and be amazed by. ] If they're really listening, then maybe they'd stop this stupid fucking war we're here to fight. [ but it's like being submerged beneath water — instead of them being beneath the waves, it's the gods who are, and they can't hear a damn word they scream out toward them. ]

[ her voice quietens. ] But we're just nothing, yeah?

[ --ignore it. just ignore it. the language makes her freeze up. seize up. reminds her exactly why she's not allowing herself to be sansa when using these lockets. ]

We can't be nothing. [ she bleats; she acts. but deep in her heart she knows they're all just pieces on a giant game-board. even this realm must play the game of thrones. ] It can't be as bleak as all that. We have knights and soldiers fighting for us -- protecting us. Risking life and limb on our behalf. I would do what I could to thank them.

[ and according to alayne's philosophy, prayer is the only way she can. ]

[ alisha has been nothing. she is merely another kid in the community service system, another empty locker that will soon be used again by some other idiot who thinks they're too invincible for the world at large. she knows nothing of knights, but soldiers she knows a thing or two thanks to the amazing world of media and television. ]

Those knights and soldiers aren't going to save us when they pit the Caer Glaem and Caer Scima — [ the two castles sound slightly butchered in her accent ] — against one another. Isn't that their plans? Make us all friendly on this network, go worm hunting or some shit, but when it really calls for war, we're meant to just kill each other like we're not really people.

[ what she doesn't say: what will those gods they bother praying to do then? ]

That is war. [ her voice gains a minute note of panic -- like something the stranger says breaks through the act and touches a very real fear. war has taken everything from her: even her name. her sense of self. it's hard to pretend to be nonchalant about it. ]

It's what happens in a war. It is not my place to tell the commanders of either camp to fight or not to fight. It's not my place. [ the implication being, perhaps, that prayer is the only avenue left to the otherwise ineffectual bystander. ]

[ alisha calls bullshit again, but, she does not come form a home in turmoil. war is something that cannot touch her — she is so far removed from it that, sometimes, she barely thinks of it. she can't sympathise with a girl who has been torn into nothing by a war that plagues her home. it's a privilege alisha doesn't quite know she has. ] It seems more to me like a mess than a proper war. [ people pulled in to fight one another. alisha's not even sure who is the "commander" for the unseelie. is there even one? ]

Where's your place, then? Seems like those imp things wanted us to fight like we're soldiers or something. [ or the king and queen, but alisha likes to blame the imps, since they'd bothered her so relentlessly at the feast. it's easier to hate the things that stalk the halls of the castle than two powerful figureheads she doesn't know the look of. ]

--Imp?

[ she knows of fairies. indeed, she might have thought the other girl mistook fairies for imps. but more importantly, she knows someone the imp. gods above, but she's married to him. ] Beg pardon, but are you saying you've seen someone called the Imp?

[ her brows furrow. imps, the imp, isn't it all the same? but she can't recall a specific imp creature coming and badgering her. they'd all done it, the entire school of them. ]

Er — You know, those ugly little creatures that dragged us in here? Pretty sure they'd all call themselves The Imp if they could figure out how to not be so annoying.

I was brought here by fairies. Not -- not imps.

[ but now she can only imagine this other girl being dragged around by a bunch of lord tyrions. ugh. ]

[ beats joffrey. but, regardless of how sansa pictures her being brought in, alisha finds herself frowning. she's about to ask if fairies and imps are the same thing, but tinkerbell is not as ugly as the creatures that followed her around the feast. ]

[ her voice lacks the abrasive loud roar it has been for the duration of her interrogating sansa over something she should refocus onto herself or the king and queen. ] Guess that means you're in Caer Glaem, yeah?

I am.

[ as alisha's mind fits the pieces together, so too does sansa's. she has before now suspected that she's spoken with those in the unseelie court -- but this is the first one confirmed. ] And you in Caer Scima. We are made to me enemies, you and I.

[ and in that simple downtrodden turn of phrase, sansa might as well have herself uttered alisha's own word: bullshit. ]

[ alisha thinks to do as sansa's original reason for broadcasting had been — to lock the post for the sake of them both. but she is a stupid girl, and she figures that the damage has already been done. why bother hiding now? self-preservation has never been one of her skills. if sansa wishes to be enemies, then so be it — alisha's not going to hate on a girl for simply being on the other side. ]

No one's making me do anything. You might be in the castle that shits gold, and I might be in the one that could use a bit of it, but I seriously could not give a shit about this stupid, pathetic war.

[ and what does alisha say to those who tell her what to do? suck my dick. ]

[ she wants clarification: ] They forced you here? You weren't asked?

[ alisha hesitates. she could simply lie, but even after all the sins she's committed during her time at the community centre, she has learned that lies get her nowhere. she's heard it spoken aloud by herself and rudy's mouths that she might as well keep admitting it to herself. maybe it'll finally sink in. ] It's kind of hard to be asked when you're dead.

[ the imps weren't exactly nice about it, either. ]

You? [ dead?

she would refuse to believe it, except she's seen lord renly with her own eyes. ] Then it's no wonder you find yourself disinterested in prayer.

[ sansa has seen others die and has lost her faith; but for someone to die themselves, and try to believe in anything? impossible, certainly. ]

Honestly never really bothered with it to begin with. [ it's not like the god in her world would bother to answer, anyway. it's all self-deprecating, isn't it? things would be different if the gods actually gave a shit, but maybe alisha never really deserved to have her voice heard by them to begin with. ] But, yeah. Dead. Seems a little weird, considering. Imps didn't really ask me if I wanted a second chance in a shithole plagued by a war where I'd have to kill people like me.

[ like the girl she is conversing with, who sounds just as human and scared as alisha's own angry voice does. ]

Are you --

[ hmm. she lapses into a brief silence. this isn't easy for her. ] Are you saying you would rather still be dead?

[ the answer is pretty simple for alisha. ] No. [ her voice seems to break: ] I never fucking asked for this.

[ for simon to travel back in time to save her, for their powers, for any of the fuckers she got stuck with at community service making her realise that she was better than how she had been previously. she never asked for a life where she had found her purpose beyond partying and drinking and causing trouble wherever she went. ]

All I want is to go home. Being stuck in a place like this where I have to fight people? [ maybe it's better to be dead. ]

I'm sorry. I never -- [ the forcefulness with which the other girl speaks drives a stammer hard into sansa's words. she freezes up. somewhere, somehow -- she's screwed up. it makes her stomach go sour. ]

I should not have asked. It was rude of me.

It's not your fault. [ for her death or even asking. alisha's a rude person herself. she's used to it. she thinks she'd find it odd if the girl she was talking to didn't happen to question those she spoke to and all the bullshit that came out of their mouths. ]

Besides, gives you a better idea of this place, yeah? Kind of figured it was some place for the dead before my stupid friend showed up. [ don't ever tell rudy she called him a friend, either. perhaps she should've locked this … but that's alisha, doing a good deed by diving into the pool of self-pity. usually it gets no one anywhere, her swimming in this lake, but it seems as though it's brighten sansa's eyes to perhaps the types of people lurking about in the enemy's court. ]

I saw someone. Someone who should be -- [ dead. ] Someone with a situation like yours. It was a shock.

But, I suppose, not half the shock it must have been for you.

Guess someone not exactly being their dead selves is shocking. [ but alisha's voice quietens. she, partly, understands what it's like — curtis had once travelled to a future where all of them were dead. it wasn't the same as seeing a deceased love, but she felt as though she understood. and if rudy was anything to go by, she thinks she knows the devastation and the happiness this girl must feel. ] Sorry about the person you know. But I guess you get that second chance or whatever with them here. It's more than what you get at home.

More, indeed.

[ especially because she rather likes lord renly. and his claim. perhaps it's foolish, but she thinks he would make a better king than any she'd lived under. graceful and clever and kind, with a brace of knights to protect them all. ]

I should be honest. I don't know him so personally, back home. [ alayne doesn't, at least. ] But he's a lord. A well-known lord, at that.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

(first lemon cake) voice ✧ seelie & unseelie

voice »

voice »

voice »

voice »

voice »

voice »

voice »

voice »

voice »

voice »

voice »

voice »

voice »

voice »

voice »

voice »

voice »

voice »

voice »

voice »

voice »

voice »

voice »

voice »