❧ video; 01

[firith]

[ Tiny, delicate little hands are the first sight to be seen when the locket begins to broadcast, closely followed by a pair of bright grey eyes. A fairy flutters from Thranduil's arm to sit on his shoulder and, pointy-eared as he is with a river of pale blonde hair (not to mention a crown of red berries and leaves), they make a fine pair, though neither of them appears particularly human. It isn't locked to one court or another, singularly because he isn't aware it can be, displaying the brilliant golden walls of a private solar in Caer Glaem. A king's chambers.

The feed shuts off abruptly.

Minutes later, it clicks back on to the sound of the tinkling laughter of the same fairy; someone is clearly learning how to use the locket's functions via trial and error. Judging by the first glimpse of him, he needs the practice. The third time he speaks, the message runs along the screen like a river of inked words taking form: A charming tool. And they will be able to respond in kind, you say? I think I will, yes. How do I —? Ah. Thank you, little one.

Fourth time is a charm; the locket is held at arm's length, affording the best view yet of a fascinated elf. ]

I am Thranduil, Elvenking of Eryn Lasgalen, that which is the Wood of Greenleaves in the land from whence I hail. I would welcome those with greater knowledge of the Drabwurld and the creatures within it. Well do I understand the nature of being summoned thus — that is not a point of contention for me, as it is with many of you.

[ The fairy shimmers insistently, drawing a glance. ]

Lothdithen will visit any who wish to further discuss with me the matter of the war and lead them to where I will be in the castle until nightfall. The library will suffice with its maps of where we might strengthen this fortress with our differing experience and arts.

[ There is no thanks, no goodbye. The feed simply ends with the tone of one who is not accustomed to bandying idle words. ]

Comments

[firith]

[ His hand raises subtly at his side, dissolving the furthering of lonely and without prospects. Well does he understand poverty, though his people have not lived with it for an Age. ]

It is a fine name, Lady Stark, and befits you better than that of the cold and unyielding.

[ No anger is apparent, nor does he push for an explanation as to why she lied; she admitted the truth of her own free will, that is all that matters. ]

From this moment on you will also be Siladhiel to me, she who shines, the reclaimer of her strength — for I see pride return to you when you speak of Sansa Stark as Alayne Stone was never loved in your countenance.

[steeledskin]

[ another name. for the span of a heart's beat, she wars with herself on whether she should accept it or not. two names might be enough for one young maiden. but when he describes it -- translates it -- the sentiment catches her attention and holds it there. she nods. ]

You do me an honour -- [ sansa says it simply and without ornamentation, which seems to underscore her sincerity. ] Sila...Siladhiel. [ and she attempts to say it, sliding her voice hesitantly through the vowels. ]

[firith]

[ His smile is grateful as he moves to face the table, inviting her to see the maps and books. ]

'See-lath-ee-ehl.' A tricky title, perhaps, but respectfully bestowed.

[steeledskin]

Siladhiel. [ she echoes it once more -- this time with enough comfort that does not sound completely clumsy. but she is a far ways off from mastering even so few foreign syllables. but it draws the ghost of a smile to her lips and she at long last takes her offered place at the table.

the name is never far from her mind. she hasn't earned it, for the reasons she abandoned one name and took her false one were dark indeed. she doesn't feel as though she shines -- but she will take the name like a knight might take a title, and she will hope to live up to its meaning. ]


How fare your plans? [ sansa doesn't ask for details. merely broad strokes. ]

[firith]

Very good. [ The praise is not without merit.

He tilts his head at the main map, leaning over the table enough to tap Caer Scima. ]

Through the efforts of my friend Professor Charles Xavier we have determined the enemy has also been recruiting, as has the Seelie Court. They are mustering their forces, as are we.

[steeledskin]

[ sansa decides she likes being at the king's elbow; being shown maps. it's an indulgence two which she's unaccustomed. petyr, perhaps, had trickle-fed her pieces and shades of strategy but never too much, and so she doesn't expect much today either.

instead, she traces what her careful mind suspects might be the simplest route from this stronghold to caer scima. but simplest isn't always best. all to often, simplicity invited danger. ]

...But why are they our enemy, your grace? Or -- [ her palm flattens briefly over caer scima. ] Why are they enemies of the Seelie Court?

[ it would be natural to expect so young a girl to ask so broad a question because she dreams naively of peace and cooperation. not sansa. although she'd never lifted a sword or marched in any army, westeros's civil unrest has left her incapable of expecting so neat a solution. clearly, the two courts have reason to take up arms against each other. she only wants to know why. the childish part, perhaps, is in how readily she depends on thranduil for this answer instead of asking a fairy for herself. ]

[firith]

They fraternize with orcs and dark things from the deep. The former are foul creatures that will eat a man alive and wear his skull as a crown, the latter we have only just began to scratch the surface of.

[ He slides over one of the books, Dorchadas Wights, and flips to a page concerning redcaps and goblins, trolls and ogres. ]

Every great enemy of the Free Peoples that I have known has associated with beasts like these. If there is a peaceful way to amend the feuding between the two Courts, I have not yet seen evidence of it. [ But, so as not to worry her too greatly, ] It is not an impossibility; the library is vast and long will I tarry, ere I fan the flames of war unnecessarily. I will continue to search for a solution that will end in the least bloodshed.

[steeledskin]

[ her eyes dart across the words. all of them fantastical, but all of them believable when pressed against her experience of this land already. sansa wants to put faith in the elvenking's aspirations: the least bloodshed. her gut tells her she knows the vague outlines of what their solution might be -- to find what motivates a man, any man, and use that motivation to move him. it is the the basest mechanic of the game.

and perhaps, if she proves herself, she might become more than a mere pawn in this land. ] This court has a High King. [ her fingertips are still tripping gently across the map, though she isn't far from shifting her tactile attention wholly onto the book. ] Does the other court have one as well? We ought to know what he is like.

[firith]

It stands to reason. [ He believes there is, more likely than there isn't. ] If I find anything in the lore of this land, you may rest assured I will not keep it to myself.

[ His attention on her tilts up inquiringly. ]

You have a mind for strategy, Lady Stark.

[steeledskin]

No.

[ a flicker of her gaze dismisses the suggestion that she might have a mind for anything. the only truth is that she knows a man who strategizes amidst the best of them, and she knows as well that he would be cross with her for treating with some king he did not know. telling the king her name; allowing him to name her in turn. petyr would be very cross indeed. ]

I've merely learned a crude point or two.

[firith]

Then you learned them well.

[ He sinks into the opposite chairs at a slouch, legs folding. A king's privilege, especially when as tall as Thranduil. ]

I should like to know more about this stronghold. It will take weeks to know it inside-out, given the size. How have you fared, so far?

[steeledskin]

[ she had seen another king slouch so. a shorter king, but only because he was yet a boy. but she is not so stupid as to mistake a similar mannerism for some grander association. only a fool would look between thranduil and joffrey and see any sort of concrete similarity. the elvenking, she's certain, is much more like the grace and power of old valyria. ]

Well as can be expected, your grace. It's simple not to get lost. Granted...[ she trails away. what, she wonders, is he asking? sansa doesn't quite comprehend how others might not possess her same instinct for space. back in the vale, she'd produced a miniature likeness to her beloved winterfell and its details (though two years absent from her feet and fingertips) were exquisite. ]

Granted -- [ she begins again. ] I haven't ventured where I shouldn't. [ she is not her sister; she does not roam and poke and explore. ] At least, I don't believe I have.

[firith]

I fear I cannot say the same for Legolas, he will do his best to know every tile on the roofs and each crack in the walls before the night is done.

[ Sansa, however, is a lot more like Thranduil, with a curiosity tempered by keeping a respectful distance. ]

I did not ask, before, if you had any family here from your home.

[ Although doubtless she wouldn't have named them, as Alayne Stone. His inquiring look asks it now. ]

[steeledskin]

My sister, your grace. Arya Stark. If you meet her, I -- [ she bites her bottom lip. ] I beg your patience on her behalf. She is more like how you describe your Legolas: keen to explore. But...

[ she hasn't dared to voice this concern to anyone else. certainly, she and lady margaery had discussed renly's lagging concept of the present. but arya... ] Before that feast, your grace, I had not seen her for two years. Brief enough for your kind, I'm sure. But a long time for mine. [ and doubly so considering her young age. ] But according to her, our time apart has been much shorter.

[firith]

You are ever more so an older sister now, then, with so much time set between you. Does it concern you, that you know of things which she does not?

[ He will remember Arya's name, unable to forget it, and help if Sansa has need. Families are beloved, but often enough taxing in their own right. ]

[steeledskin]

[ she nods. ] It does. And gravely. So much has happened -- and very little of it has been a comfort, you understand.

[ sansa speaks in understatement, because she doesn't know how else to say it. gods, she does not even know whether an arya in-step with her own moment in time would know half of what she herself knows. ]

She -- and others, too -- seem to have stepped into this place from a time before Alayne Stone ever existed. [ she exhales. ] And so that is why I can't be her any longer. She has outlived her usefulness.

[firith]

I understand. Never shall that name again pass my lips unless you wish it. [ He can keep that much in his confidence, having had practice with many other secrets concerning his realm. ] This is forward, I know, yet if you want of any help you may come to me and I shall do my best to accommodate both you and your sister. If you cannot find me, Legolas will do so on your behalf.

[steeledskin]

[ an understanding -- and grateful -- nod. he offers her so much; she offers so little. and so sansa leans an inch forward, drops her voice as if she fears the very vellum of the books could overhear her, and speaks as honestly as she could: ] Those who are here now are, for the most part, friends or allies. Or else they don't know me. But if more come, your grace -- there are some I would not care to see again.

[ a soft huff. as if that took a great deal of courage to say. sansa softens it with an offer. ] I'm grateful. I only a girl, not a knight or a soldier or a politician. But I would help you in return, if there is ever anything I could do.

[firith]

You need see no one who would cause you discomfort. If they seek to do so, rest assured they will not stand long in my presence.

[ The same protectiveness over Legolas bleeds through, fatherly and tempered with just enough of a promise to carry through in his words. When that is said and Sansa eases, Thranduil smiles. ]

A true friend is always a welcome addition to the ranks of a king, for we have few. Fortunately, Lady Stark, ultimately your direction now lies with you and no other. The castle has made equals of us all, after a kind, and no one may cast you from your rooms or instruct you to leave a library — [ with a gesture to it ] — if you do not wish it.

None with a Shard built these walls, so they cannot truly command within them. Including myself.

[steeledskin]

[ the notion of equals might frighten her more than anything else. she's come to understand how to function when beholden to someone else: a false-father who would cajole her kisses; a cruel king whose ego needed to be preened; even an honest hound who'd taken a song on the night of the blackwater. and so it's understandable that she watches thranduil -- listens to his argument -- with considerable wariness. she may yet learn to trust the king, but she's not one to trust in liberty of any kind. ]

You are strange -- [ she breathes the word, fearing what insuly it may give (however unintended) ] -- as kings go.

[firith]

So have all the daughters and sons of Men thought of Elvenkind. Our ways were never yours, yet if you were a maiden or a warrior, I would treat you the same as any she-elf.

[ She is clever and navigates courtly routine well, so he indulges himself in elaborating. ]

I am one of the Sindar, as is my son. The Elves which first took my father for their kind are Silvan, a different faction considered by the noble-blooded Noldorin Elves to be rustic and rude. My father sought to integrate our two cultures and they have since been as one, without distinction.

[ His head tilts. ]

The blood that runs through someones veins and whence it came matters not to me, for I love those loyal to me and would not see them come to harm.

[steeledskin]

[ but blood -- she thinks childishly -- is everything. the blood of the first men surges in her veins, set to boil when she thinks about all that has befallen the starks. even now, sansa longs for a simplified view of her world: black and white; good and evil. she wants the monsters to die and maybe (just maybe!) petyr baelish can give her that satisfaction.

but it would be better if she didn't feel guilt and distress and grief go hand in hand with every scrap of vengeance. when she cried for joffrey, she doesn't truly cry for him -- but for her childhood, for all she lost at his hands, and for the memory of metal crunching into her jaw. the taste of blood. stark blood. ]

We are not so magnanimous in Westeros. [ she admits. ] But your father must have been a hard-working man -- [ no, no, that's not right ] -- elf to have accomplished such peace.

[firith]

He was hot-blooded and he disliked our Noldor kin. So much so that he crossed a continent to escape them and did not heed their call during a great battle, charging to his death outside the Black Gates of Mordor.

[ It's spoken quietly, with the same even cadence that allows for him to remain composed. ]

That is how I inherited his throne, as Elven princes seldom do. Legolas understands he will never be king, as once I did.

[steeledskin]

[ hot-blooded. that is not sansa -- but she remembers her father telling the children, once, that some of them were as wild and tempered as his sister (their aunt) had been before them. and she wonders if the elven understanding of hot-blooded is somehow separate from her own. or maybe not -- and she bows her head in a respectful sign of compassion for a lost father.

daughters, she thinks, seldom inherit anything either. especially daughters with three brothers, all who should have been in line before her. but now winterfell is hers: ruined; distant; but hers, so long as she bears no children for her lannister husband. ]

Never a king, perhaps. But always a son. It seems a fair price to pay to keep such a connection intact and alive.

[ she would give up so much to be a sister again to brave brothers. a daughter to a brave father and a brave mother. ]

[firith]

A price unweighed by my kind, the natural order of things. I did not have a son to be succeeded but because we wanted him.

[ Which brings to mind his dead queen, and leaves him silent for a beat longer than anticipated.