I know they said the end is near

[dohaeris]

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 bitterends if you want one!!]

Comments

dragonstone

[dohaeris]

[sansa never dreamed of riding a dragon like many children in westeros––she never liked riding horses very much and suspected riding a dragon might not be any better. still, when she sees some swooping in the skies of a portal, she stops to look. there's a familiar-enough castle wrapped around one of the mountains, here. she remembers dragonstone from grey ghost's portal, and finds herself watching to see what unfolds on the other side of history.]

[fromshadows]

[ Blake can't help her curiosity about the portals that have been popping up -- the little glimpses of other worlds are so fascinating that she's spent a good portion of the day just watching them. On her way to the salt lake, yet another portal catches her attention: a huge stone castle set on sharp cliffs, an ocean spanning far into the distance. Unlike the dragon-like Grimm from her world, the dragons circling the castle don't seem to be attacking it.

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. ]

[dohaeris]

[lady turns to look at the newcomer, but sansa starts a little; she had been trying to guess at the dragons on view.]

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.

[fromshadows]

[ Ironically, she's not the first person Blake's met lately that has a giant wolf by their side, so Blake's not even startled by it now. ]

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?

[dohaeris]

[sansa's hoping to meet a few, very specific people from home, and hoping some people never arrive. she smiles at blake––she's heard of remnant before. she thinks perhaps someone told her its citizens weren't interested in going back there, either.]

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.

[fromshadows]

[ Blake listens carefully, fascinated, absorbing every scrap of knowledge that she can. Being so new, she's still unfamiliar with how a lot of this world works, and she only has the most basic of knowledge on the Pthumerians. And that's precisely why she feels so unqualified to have an opinion on Hali's proposal: whatever the outcome, it would enormously affect the people of Trench, and that should be a decision for the people to make. Blake's a huge believer in proper representation of populations. To that end, she thinks the people that have been here for years will have far more valuable insight than she has right now, and they should be the ones making that decision. ]

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?