Sansa Stark | Alayne Stone (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dohaeris) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
deercountry2023-04-03 07:09 pm
dohaeris) wrote in deercountry2023-04-03 07:09 pm
Entry tags:
I know they said the end is near
Who: sansa, various
What: april catchall
When: throughout april
Where: around....
Content Warnings: in the comment headers, character warnings in app.
[starters in the comments! hit me up on plurk at![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
bitterends if you want one!!]
What: april catchall
When: throughout april
Where: around....
Content Warnings: in the comment headers, character warnings in app.
[starters in the comments! hit me up on plurk at
hot springs meeting at the wellness center!!! 4/10
sansa has hired a former ship's cook for the kitchens, a bold scarred woman named amyriah who despite her sardonic manner is delighted with the opportunity to flex her skills. she's brought along a few former crewmates to help with the cooking and cleaning, and for this meeting they have prepared a variety of onigiri in honor of sasuke, although the fillings contain some decidedly trench ingredients, and some surprisingly delicate cakes and biscuits (lemon features strongly in these).
they have been set out on a table along with pots of matcha in the hot springs room, which has been painted with a mural of a weirwood heart tree. a few night walkers in various elaborate bathing suits can be spotted chatting or lounging around. there's a basket of neatly folded waterproof sleeper robes for anyone who might have forgotten theirs. sansa won't say anything if anyone chooses to bathe nude, but she would prefer it if they didn't! there's also a basket of fluffy towels, and soft bathrobes can be found hanging in a nearby closet.
two black batcats and their six-week-old kittens have made the journey with sansa from the sanctuary in crenshaw. both parents wear collars with pale bloodstone tags; the mother's says 'quromae' (sansa's attempt at rendering mob's name for her, more commonly written kuromai) and the father's says 'dragonglass.' the kittens are up for adoption, though not yet done nursing; anyone interested will be able to take them home in two weeks.]
sansa stark
[sansa wears her own sleeper robes, which have been neatly tailored and decorated with a few bits of embroidered leaves, and lady wears her 'fishing collar' of braided black treated leather and pale bloodstone. lady is already in the hot pools, huffing contentedly. s'mores stands around diligently in case anyone needs rescuing, or assistance getting in or out of the hot pools, but the other dogs are gathered around the sanctuary tree, playing and napping.
sansa is a little nervous, but not overly so. this is the sort of thing that she's been trained to do.
she draws a breath.]
First, I should like to thank everyone for coming here today. Sasuke and Sakura did important work here, and our friendship meant very much to me; I'm sure many of you feel the same way. I know we can't replace them, or Lady Ammako, or anyone who went back to the sea. I'll always miss them and wish them well; perhaps someday they'll return here with their children. In the meantime, it's up to us to keep their legacy and good works alive in Trench. I have learned very much from them, as I'm sure have many of you, and from helping Allen with the Sanctuary in Crenshaw. Of course we won't be hunting Beasts here, and anyone suffering Beasthood should still be brought to the Sanctuary in Crenshaw, but with any luck we'll be able to keep the Wellness Center a valuable resource for treating corruption here in Darcmouth.
[she smiles, practiced.]
Thank you, again. We also hope to offer lessons in qi cultivation and other things similar to ninjutsu at the dojo soon. If you have any ideas or questions about this or anything to do with the Wellness Center, I would very much like to hear them.
ii.
[sansa sits in the hot pool with lady, a small, wistful smile on her face. she wonders if this is the closest she'll get to the godswood of winterfell while she's awake, and how she feels about that. it occurs to her that she's no older than robb was when he became lord of winterfell, but at least he had their lady mother with him, and even their uncle blackfish for guidance. sansa can't help but feel that everyone she relies upon for guidance seems to be going back to the sea. lady whines and noses her cheek.]
iii.
[wildcard??]
i
Baltus is not a real dog. Baltus is an unsupervised omen, and he has zero qualms whatsoever about speaking up to the entire party at the notion of "ideas".]
My person, Xerxes, is not ready to bring this up as of yet. However, during the first winter he spent in this place, there was a person who held a "tea ceremony", and it has crossed his mind that such a pleasant calming ritual might have a place here. He has not mentioned it because he is certain if he does he'll be encouraged to be the host, and he would not be able to help but make it weird. Probably it would be better to locate someone else familiar with the custom in its proper form.
[Having thoroughly snitched on Break, the omen pauses. Then, by way of explanation, he adds:]
Xerxes is not here because he is shy.
[Baltus does what he wants.]
toplevels can go here!!
OTA
So, while his traitorous omen sits in on his behalf, Break skulks around until he finds the kitchen and is delighted to find a bunch of sailors in it.
After having a grand old time earning his place among them by showing off his knife skills, winning a few arm-wrestling matches, and drinking one of them under the table, Break continues to wander until he finds himself back in the entryway where the sakura murals are taking form. There is a lot going on in here, but it still feels like something is missing, he thinks. Even with the murals unfinished. It's not his place to rearrange, and it would be horribly disrespectful to mess with someone else's artwork without permission. Ah, what to do, what to do...
By the time the meeting lets out Break can be found flat on his back on the entryway floor, smiling slyly up at the ceiling and being very easy to trip over. Where once there was nothing but flat white, there is now a pleasantly blue sky with fluffy clouds, something almost never seen in Trench -- and the clouds are moving, drifting around as though blown by a gentle wind, easing themselves into a variety of amusing shapes. Sometimes you are a darkblood and it crosses your mind to see if you can do a thing, and so you give it a go rather than bothering to ask permission.]
portal starters
sandor's cloak
Sandor?
[but nothing looks familiar in them. lady whines and comes to rest at sansa's side. sansa unthinkingly hugs the cloak towards herself. stunned, perhaps, is a way to describe how she looks and feels in the moment.]
dragonstone
no subject
Her gaze goes to the girl watching. It's not an uncommon sight with the portals; Blake's not the only one that's been watching them. But there's a certain look on someone's face when they're looking through to their world. Sometimes it's longing, or wistfulness, or sorrow. ]
Is that your home?
[ Blake can't help but ask, gently curious. ]
no subject
Oh! It's my realm, but I've never been there, and it was some time before I was born. It's Dragonstone, in the Seven Kingdoms.
[she smiles, a little ruefully.]
I'm Sansa Stark of Winterfell; my home was to the north of here. Dragonstone is an island in the Crownlands––do you know of Westeros, at all?
[she...doesn't look like she would, but the ears (??) could be a trench fashion, and sansa has learned there's a good deal more to her world than the little corner she knows, in her attempts to research her own magic and also in contrast with her friends, who seem to know everything about their own worlds.]
I don't know that we've had occasion to meet, in Trench.
no subject
Sorry, I don't know of Westeros. [ Blake's little smile is apologetic; Sansa must be hoping to meet people from home. Blake's lucky enough to have six, not that she necessarily gets on with all of them. ] I'm from a place called Remnant. There are dragons there, same as your world, but ours look very different, and they'd just be doing their best to burn that castle down.
I'm Blake Belladonna. I've only been here a month, so, I haven't met most people here.
[ Her voice is a thoughtful murmur, seemingly half-distracted. While her golden-yellow gaze is on the portal, her thoughts are far from it. ]
I know this might be an unusual question, but... I have to ask just to make sure I'm not seeing nonsense. I saw some visions earlier, about a god named Hali, and an outpost beyond Trench. Did you... see those too?
no subject
Oh, Pthumerians aren't gods––they're people from another world with a lot of magic, and a different way of seeing things. The Disciples choose to worship them, but I think they can be a little confused, sometimes.
[this is a bit of an understatement...if blake were one of her friends, sansa might complain about people thinking anyone with a bit of power over them is a god, and the sort of trouble that can lead to. kings can be difficult enough without anybody worshipping them. some of the disciples do seem to have a more nuanced take on things, but sansa still prefers to talk to the patrons directly (although they don't always answer), or seek answers at the school of mutter. she gazes back out at dragonstone, where some of the dragons seem to be swooping closer.]
The Pthumerians remind me a little of the people that lived here, before my time––they came from Valyria and were different to us, they could ride on dragons, and they used them to conquer the Seven Kingdoms after the Storm King killed their envoy and did their family great offense. They united the realm, and some of them were great kings and queens, but some of them were horrible. And when they were gone, the new kings were no better.
[she glances briefly back at blake before returning her gaze to the dragons.]
I did see Hali's visions, and I also spoke with them. The Patrons, the Pthumerians who run this city, seek to embody ideals, and Hali is the child of Bausphomette––one of the more understanding Patrons.
[sansa's mouth quirks fondly to one side; she likes bausphomette, even if they're a little more free with curses as a tool for personal growth than she would prefer.]
They seek to embody freedom, and they've offered to protect the city we found, that Riteoir had the rule over; he used it to launch an attack on Trench and badly hurt the Patrons, and his followers managed to kidnap the people here to the world our Patrons had banished them to, a long time ago. We sealed him away again, but it concerns me that he's managed to break through once before, and I think we had better hold the city where he did it from. And I think we would be wise to seek Hali's help with it––Never Mind indicated to me that some other Pthumerian would likely take it over otherwise, and I very much doubt they'd be any better for us than Hali. Hali does seem to want to make it a nice place to live.
[she looks back at blake, a rueful twist to her smile.]
It's good to meet you, Blake Belladonna. You can ask the lantern imps to take you to the Outpost, if you like––there isn't much to do there besides fight off the creatures always attacking it, but people seem to like it well enough.
[she designed its banners and delivers occasional supplies. some of her best friends seem to spend quite a lot of time there hitting things, but sansa doesn't see the appeal. she glances back at the portal.]
The dragons did burn castles, when they were made to. They were all killed in a stupid war when some prince and his mother decided he should be king before his older sister. So many people died that some of them decided dragons were too dangerous to have around, and slaughtered them all in the pits where they slept.
[there's a bit of an edge to her voice there.]
Some people hate the Pthumerians ruling over us, but I don't see how humans would be any better.
no subject
You're... not wrong. People can be just as cruel, or capricious, or whimsical, or power hungry. The Pthumerians aren't unique in that way.
[ But the average human doesn't have the ability to make an entire city have to spout their most painful memory to a stranger, or curse them with asphyxiation unless they're touching. Then again, are those things really any worse than what humans are capable of in numbers? Wars, genocides, oppression. Blake's only been here a month; the memory of a once-trusted General threatening to kill an entire city to save another is still fresh in her mind. ]
In the first vision, Hali seemed to promise that the Outpost would be more protected against corruption and danger. More protected than Trench, at least. Do you think they're capable of that? That that's actually possible?
[ With Ruby and Ange's recent bout of corruption, well, protection against that is... a concern that's at the top of Blake's priority list right now. ]
I guess I don't understand why this new child of a Pthumerian is offering that, when none of the others did. [ Pensive, Blake's gaze goes to the portal again. These Valyrians that Sansa spoke of do sound like an approximation of the Patrons; people that had access to some sort of power that others didn't, using it to rule with an iron fist. Though Blake wasn't alive to see it in her own world, she knows that's happened on Remnant too, with the only two people that could use magic acting as gods for a time. People or Pthumerians, they both act the same. ] Is Hali just... nicer? More concerned with our wellbeing?