15 . JOHNUARY

[necrolord]

Who: John Gaius and company.
What: All around him, John's friends and loved ones begin to shed their skins. Also: Riteoir.
When: January
Where: Gaze and the new city.

Content Warnings: Tagged in headers as needed. Note all the usual warnings of this character.

Comments

[dohaeris]

[sansa has learned to hide her reactions well. all the same lady's ears go flat. of course this was always a possibility, and sansa curses herself for not thinking of it. at least her bio has very little relevant information in it. her nametag has an illegible palimpsest, where 'sansa stark' has been written on top of 'alayne stone' which is, in turn, written on top of 'sansa stark.' thus far sansa has taken very little notice of it, but now it occurs to her that an illegible scrawl where a name is supposed to be might look interesting and memorable, which she is currently trying very hard not to be.

well. perhaps she can get some useful information out of this, at least. she glances down at the cards in her hands, wondering how much information she can withold before it looks like she's hiding something.]

What family tradition do you value the most?

[putting down evil necromancers, for one. fortunately there are traditions among the starks that sansa values higher. somewhere her omen is laughing.]

Well, we've always looked after each other and the North. We put the survival of our people before the politics of the realm. The winters in my world are very long, and my family has always done its best to see our people through them.

[she forces herself to meet john gaius's unsettling eyes and offers a faint, sympathetic smile.]

I should hate to force anybody to answer questions [she would!! it would make them distrust her!! it's much easier to befriend someone and simply get them to tell you what they're up to. she might have attempted this with john if she hadn't run into his sworn nemesis first.], but I think perhaps whoever brought us here doesn't feel the same way.

[necrolord]

[ The name bit is interesting. She otherwise strikes him as unremarkable: a brave but nervous girl drawing herself up before a noted murderer with spooky black eyes. He's sympathetic to that. It's an awkward spot to be in. ]

They do love to watch us talk. [ This is said without particular rancor, but there's some underlying gravity to it, a glimpse of the greater anger and resignation. ] But I won't be much help on this one... my family has never been particularly traditional.

[ sometimes a family is a pack of feuding immortals and a couple dead kids, who knew ]

[dohaeris]

[it occurs to sansa that the chair's magic might simply not bother him, which would be immensely frustrating. well, she shouldn't expect things to be easy. instead she reviews what she knows about john gaius: he feels himself a prisoner here, and he wants more than anything to leave.]

Sometimes we make our own traditions.

[she smiles apologetically.]

I don't think they'll let us leave without giving them the answers they want.

[likely the doorway won't let them leave until they've established some kind of connection, which would help sansa herself find answers to questions like 'how does one get rid of john gaius,' but she does not want to risk her person in this. it had gone poorly enough for the gull.

sansa flips to the next card.]

How do you see yourself progressing in the coming years?

[she pauses carefully.]

I should like to learn more of magic and knit fabrics. Perhaps I could forge a moon drop relic, too.

[before the chair can zap her, she quickly adds:]

I would like Trench to be safer, and of course I'll do what I can to help with corruption and all the curses.

[if the doorway wants to know sansa's plans for the various organizations she helps out with they are going to have to ask after them specifically.]

[necrolord]

[ She moves them along, and John feels the first jolt from the chair, mild enough that it rouses nothing more than a tightening of his fingers and a dark twist of his expression. It passes like a cloud over the sun, and he returns again to a distantly patient baseline.

So that's the game. At least it's straightforward. ]

Learning more of magic... if I'm to be here for years more [ which he says very mildly, as though he doesn't regard it as active imprisonment and damned inconvenient, ] that'll be the thing. There's plenty to learn about the local system - we have very few working theories on the fundamentals.

[ Corruption and all the curses aren't, after all, eccentricities that come and go like weather. It's all transplanted by an eldritch invading force, which really seems the thing to keep in mind. ]