Video - Seelie/Unseelie (Partially Accidental) | Action for those in Troichean Beinn

[teenyoda]

[The image comes on of a room, an unfamiliar room to all but a small handful in Troichean Beinn. The picture rises and falls rapidly, a panting sound coming before there's a sharp cry and the visual changes to the wall as the body wearing the locket rises.

Sorry, folks, but it seems like Stiles turned the locket on while he was having his nightmare or vision or whatever the hell it was, reaching for something to help him get out of it and flicking on the video. Oops? He'd be embarrassed if he wasn't so confused.]

Scott? Malia...?

[He blinks, eying the stone walls in front of him and groaning as it all comes back in a rush. Drabwurld. Fairies. Crap.

It's a moment after that that he realizes the locket's on and he looks tired as he turns it to peer into it, seeing it unlocked to both courts. Great.]

Um... I guess I left? But I'm back now. Though... I'm not at Caer Glaem. Am I still at Troichean Beinn? Gendry? Jon? Sansa? I thought I would have shown up back at court, but hey, look, they don't entirely suck.

[Nope. Someone didn't know they'd been sleeping. He thought he'd left and gone for months and came back. Who wants to break the news? Shut up, Peter.]

Comments

[teenyoda]

I'm sure it is, Sansa. I just... really hope not to need it?

[steeledskin]

And yet perhaps you should have it -- for any eventuality. [ her concern roils and mounts and grows. ]

[teenyoda]

Preventative measures, huh?

[Yeah, Sansa seemed like a planner.]

[steeledskin]

These lands are at war.

[ even if stiles himself is not. ]

[teenyoda]

[He wanted to say that so were his lands, but it wasn't the same thing. The war at home didn't kick in his door and come into his life. Okay, wait, the werewolf stuff did, but not the actual war war that his entire world was involved in.]

That's why I have my magic stick.

[steeledskin]

[ magic! it's fun, certainly. but she still does not like to think of it in a fight.

she doesn't like to think of fights at all. ] If you've gone home and lived more and -- can you still do it, Stiles? Your magic?

[ did it go away like your beard? :c ]

[teenyoda]

Um... I think so?

[Let's find out. Time to go grab his staff, prop it up, aim it at Sansa (indirectly) and say a word.

There. Snow. Hah! Actually, it was way better than the last time he'd gotten it to work and had been a lot easier to start. Big fluffy flakes were sprouting out the top of the staff to float down on Sansa. He grinned.]

I think that means yes.

[steeledskin]

[ maybe the snow ought to have cheered her. and maybe it does! but her spirits remain so dampened that she does not smile. instead, her eyes turn upwards -- widened and blue and unblinking even in the face of fat snowflakes. sansa raises her hand and catches one on her wrist. ]

You've done it-- [ her voice is soft and reverent. stiles has as good as fulfilled a promise. ]

[teenyoda]

Told you I would.

[He's smiling as the snow keeps falling -- and staying. This isn't the same kind of magic snow that her tree had. This stuff would take the usual time to melt, and it would leave its mark behind when it did.]

I don't know why snow was the hardest. You'd think some of the others would be, but no... it was snow that tripped me up.

[steeledskin]

I think I would be disappointed if it was easy. Snow oughtn't be simple.

[ there should be something reverent and important about. complex and mysterious. sansa gathers a shallow handful and brings it up to her face so she could sniff the cold frosty smell.

it reminds her of home. ]

[teenyoda]

Well, now when it gets to be Christmas-time or whatever they have for it around here, I can at least make it authentic.

[Aww, she liked it. He liked that she liked it.]

[steeledskin]

-- Has Jon ever told you the Stark words, Stiles?

[ sansa hadn't been able to. she'd been alayne. that chance had not come to light. but she watches him now over the tips of her fingers -- her chin resting happily in melting snow. ]

[teenyoda]

Um... I don't know? I don't think so. You guys have words? Special Stark words?

[steeledskin]

Winter is coming. The very words of our House.

[ a warning. a boast. a mantra. ]

[teenyoda]

Yeah... it kind of does every year.

[He didn't get it, Sansa.]

[steeledskin]

Not home -- [ she chides and reminds him. ] The long Summer was near ten years before the snows returned. People forget, I imagine. They stop remembering the cold.

[teenyoda]

Right. Wow, that's... Your whole planting thing must be so messed up. Like, how do you harvest for a winter that lasts for like... years?

[steeledskin]

Carefully, I imagine.

[ she was too young in the last winter! ]

[teenyoda]

I hope so. That seems kind of like a disaster waiting to happen. How long do winters usually last?

[steeledskin]

[ she let the snow trickle from her fingertips. ] Maesters say a winter's hardness will always rival how soft a summer came before it. But in Winterfell it snowed even in summer.

[ and so alayne's love of the stuff is writ large. as she'd hidden below that name, she'd taken these small opportunities with stiles to try and be herself again. the magical tree had brightened her whole life. ]

[teenyoda]

[There's another word and the snow stops spitting at her. Maybe if they were outside, he'd let it go for longer, but they were still in his rooms and that wasn't generally the best place for a snowman.]

So... you guys lived in like, the Alaska of your world. Okay. I can dig it.

[steeledskin]

I'm not certain. [ ... ] Mayhaps? If you say so.

[ she is far less concerned with the state of the chamber. sansa sit back down. from nervous habit, she fidgets with her handful of snow. compacts it. rounds it. sculpts it on the arm of her chair. ]

[teenyoda]

Where I come from, there's, ah, polar caps? Like, the southern most point of the planet and the northern most point are covered in ice and snow. All year. Forever. There's summer, but it's a summer of ice and snow. Then there's places near the equator... [Wait, Sansa speak needed.] Uh, in the middle of the world, like, halfway between the southern and northern parts. That whole belt is always hot and like, never snows. Then you have the parts in between that get the actual seasonal weather for the rest of the year.

[steeledskin]

And you live between, don't you?

[ she doesn't look up from her work. she's making a jagged-tipped mountain in snow. ] Or that is how it sounds.

[teenyoda]

Yeah. But I sort of live closer to the middle belt, so we don't really get snow where I live. Maybe once every ten years or so or a freak snow storm, but the weather only dips a bit in winter.

[Nice snow pile, Sansa.]