you're not my homeland anymore

[dohaeris]

Who: sansa and her crs
What: catchall for non-event logs. mostly she wants to tell some friends her name. also for some prompts that are simply too long for the event post
When: early april, broadly. late april for sibling-based event prompts
Where: her house (or wherever windows into the world of ice and fire can be found)

Content Warnings: canon-typical violence. character warnings in her app. uhhhh spoilers for asoiaf as if her canonpoint wasn't enough


[starters in the comments I just really wanted to use the taylor swift lyrics for this]

Comments

adaine

[dohaeris]

[sansa is sitting on the couch and working on a tapestry of a direwolf framed by weirwood branches on a large piece of black velvet, it will replace the raven tapestry behind her (currently serving as her youtuber backdrop) when all of this business with paul and the necromancers gets resolved. perhaps she could put it in the kitchen? there's a smaller one in her bedroom already.

next to her is adaine's jacket, a muted dark blue lined with blue-grey cotton and thickly embroidered with paleblood beads on grey and ivory thread to resemble flames, or maybe wind. a few gold wires add interest to certain sweeps of the pattern. it's cut high above her knees in front and sweeps down to mid calf in back. the chest is lightly padded for protection and the shoulders for style, and the sleeves flare just a little at the end. the back, too, is richly embroidered, with room for a wide leather belt with a thin strap to hang a hip bag from, or any knives.

there's a neat stack of thin wool and cotton tunics, some with short sleeves, some a bit longer, in muted shades of blue, green, and grey, all embroidered with the kind of dragonflies and leafy things sansa thinks are nice and fairly neutral (she may subconsciously associate adaine with the children of the forest). they're all cut in a similar high-low fashion, tying at one side to create a modestly plunging neckline to pair with a thin cotton shirt. she's also provided a few of those in a faint dove grey, as she doesn't expect adaine has very much time for sewing shirts.

her sewing might be...a little more furious than usual. adaine is someone whose opinion she actually values quite highly, even if their conversations tend towards drier subjects. she especially doesn't want adaine to know how stupid she's been.]

[adaine]

[She arrives at the house, looking around curiously. It's not as if she's never been here before, but it's always interesting to see how it changes.

When she finds Alayne she brightens into a smile, though it's still a bit tired. She's been hard at work and stressing herself lately, and from the looks of things it seems like Alayne has too.

She looks over at the bloodstone jacket and her eyes widen as she approaches to touch the fabric.] Oh my god... it's beautiful...

[This is so much more than she was expecting??? She's kind of baffled, honestly.]

[dohaeris]

[aaah the link to the front view of the jacket broke somehow, here!!

lady escorts adaine from the front room to the back. sansa glances up from her sewing with a wry smile.]

It made a nice change from padded leather jackets.

[sansa loves her work for the night walker performers and various grandes dames of cellar door, but there's something comforting about making clothes for friends. and quite a lot of her friends have requested sturdy leather jackets (or were in dire need of light armor). it's nice that adaine gives her more freedom to style her, as the night walkers can be quite particular about what they want as well.]

Can I get you any biscuits, or something to drink?

[adaine is probably used to her baked-in hospitality by now, but she doesn't actually get up or stop sewing at any point.]

Oh, you can move anything if it's in the way. I think everything out here is yours.

[she glances around and nods. the pieces she's cut for allen walker's uniform are stashed on one of many ornate wooden shelves, wrapped neatly and tightly against little batcat claws.]

[adaine]

I can imagine how that'd get old, yeah... [She's still just a bit gobsmacked staring at the patterns on the fabric. This is so much more intricate than any clothes she's been given (a series of school uniforms and her current clothes, and a prom dress if they ever have one of those again.)

She puts it down, shaking her head slightly.] No, I'm fine. I already ate. Thank you though. [And because it's better for her nerves if she gets it out of the way...]

What was it you wanted to talk about? [She picks up the jacket and holds it in her hands so she can take a seat.]

EVENT: when the white winds blow [mid-april]

[dohaeris]

[you might have seen it--a frozen tundra, or perhaps the top of a glacier, buried so deeply in snow as to be featureless. until a piece of ice breaks off, and blinks its blue eyes like stars, and you can see that it is shaped like a man, but terrible and made of ice like the heart of a glacier, in armor like another layer of ice that catches the starlight. he carries a blade, too, made of ice and starlight, and he comes forward on that featureless plane until you feel his cold and death around you, and perhaps you run.

but you do see this--a young man made older by a beard, handsome and scarred, hunched over a desk piled with ancient texts, reading by the light of an oil lamp. there is smoke from a brazier and the flicker of a fire somewhere off to the side, it does not make the room seem any less dark or cold. and then, a bark. the young man startles and looks in its direction, a long grey shadow resolving itself into a massive white wolf.]

"Ghost? What--"

[the wolf turns towards you and the boy does too. he stands up all at once.]

"Seven hells!"

[he walks around the desk and he peers out into the city, and then he sees something that makes the life drain out of his face. and he sees you.]

"Behind you!"

[he reaches behind him and raises his voice.]

"Satin, get my sword--"

[he runs towards the city full tilt, and falls flat on his face. the wolf drags a scabbarded sword towards him. he takes it, sits up, looks at you with sad grey eyes, a little winded from the fall.]

"I hope you know where you can find obsidian."

[surprise it's jon snow and there's a white walker on the loose. if you don't have established positive-neutral cr with sansa, please check with me before tagging her siblings!! thanks!!]

EVENT: the pack survives, pt. 1 [late april]

[dohaeris]

[sansa is walking home from her evening lessons when she hears her name. the voice is--well, it's changed, which in and of itself is surprising. it's one thing to look at a window to the past, but quite another to see an unmistakably older bran, tall and gangly even sitting down, on what looked like a sort of chair formed out of the roots of a giant...weirwood tree? in a...cave? he calls her name again. his eyes are white.

"Sansa, I'm so glad to see you. I wanted to see you, but I never could before. You got Lady back! How did you do that?"

sansa blinks back tears.]

Bran, you can't--you're not supposed to be--

[bran fidgets, a little. his own wolf lopes into view, settles at his feet.

"Theon killed the miller's boys. We hid in the crypts like Bran the Daughterless's daughter and the King-Beyond-the-Wall. Rickon went with Osha and I went with the Reeds. And Hodor."

Sansa laughs a little. she can't keep the tears from spilling down her cheeks. if this is an illusion, it's very cruel. and if it isn't...]

The stableboy? Which Reeds? I don't know who any of these people are.

[Bran smiles faintly.

"Meera and Jojen. Hodor is my friend. He helped carry me, before. Do you have wolf dreams now? We all can, you know. I know Arya does, even though I can't see her, because the wolves know, too."

now sansa can't keep her jaw from dropping, or her eyes from going wide with surprise.]

Arya's alive?

[bran nods.

"She left, I don't know where. I think she was in the Riverlands for a while. It's harder to see, in the South. When Jon went beyond the Wall I could even talk to him, a little."

sansa laughs, because jon going beyond the wall is so much more believable than anything else. she's not sure why that's funny.]

How do you know about my dreams? What do you mean, we all have them?

[bran's eyebrows furrow.

"I had the wolf dreams first. I'm training to be a Greenseer, the first in a hundred years. A new one, I mean. Bloodraven's been teaching me. You could be one too, though. If you came here."

his head tilts.

"You seem different."

sansa's eyebrows shoot up.]

From the Blackfyre rebellion?

[bran shrugs.

"He was hand of the king, and lord commander after that. Then he came here. He's the Three-eyed Raven. Something's changed about you. Not just that you're older and taller. And...not like we all changed, when they died."

that wrenches sansa's heart. she never had to think about what any of her siblings felt, when their parents died. she hadn't thought that any of them had survived their mother. except for jon. jon, who didn't have a mother to mourn. but thinking about jon without robb was unimaginable. she hesitates for a moment, not sure where to begin.]

It's the city where I am, now. Coming here changes you. Your blood, mostly. It gives you powers. I thought--

[but a strange voice comes booming from elsewhere in the cave. she can make out small, humanoid shapes in the background, brown and grey like bark and covered in moss and leaves. she gasps, but she doesn't get a chance to talk to them.

"What you see is not of this world. Your sister has gone beyond the power of the old gods. It is not for you to concern yourself with other lands, and other seasons."

a pale shadow in the roots of the cave wall seems to come into focus, like an old man's face with a weirwood branch growing through one eye, and perhaps another, redder shadow stretching across his face, against the light. a gleam like an eye seems to fix itself on sansa.

"Mind how you fly, Pale Raven."

and then it's gone. the whole cave is gone. sansa stands with tearstained cheeks, unable to look away.

again, if you don’t have established neutral-to-positive cr with sansa, please check with me before tagging her sibling prompts!!!! thanks!!!]

[hearthebell]

[L is passing on his way when he sees a familiar head of red hair, peering through one of the windows to a different world and seeming to converse with someone inside of it.

He's at once concerned that it could be dangerous, as was his own brush with another reality... but she seems glad to see the one inside the circle, even relieved.

He also can't help but listen to what's being said, to... Bran, apparently.]

Alayne?

[Sansa, he had heard, but he knows better than anyone that a name known is hardly the same as a name used.]

[dohaeris]

[oh her...other name. she turns towards him, tearstained.]

How much did you hear?

[she attempts a small watery smile.]

I won't be angry, if you heard all of it.

[which is to say, there's no reason to lie to her about it.]

[hearthebell]

[He watches her with a careful and measured gaze, as if determining how much of a threat she would be it she was angry.]

If not all of it, then I heard most of it.

[And for better or worse, it takes something serious for L to forget. He has to either dismiss it as unimportant and replace it with other things in his short-term bank (which is still extensive), or get brained in the head pretty hard with a large stone.]

It explains some things... some I already knew or suspected. I've seen a wolf dream... along with what I could only take to be Bloodraven.

[thisislife]

[Lexi didn't hear all of it. but she did hear the part about the Blackfyre Rebellion, whatever that was. though, she didn't want to interrupt. for one thing, interruption was rude. for another, it seemed like Alayne was getting a whole lot of information all at once and if Lexi interrupted, it might stop.

so she stood a respectful distance away, sort of heming and hawing about whether or not she should approach the other young women. they were friends, Lexi thought. or at least friendly?

she'd take friendly. she was used to not having any friends other than the friends of her sister and sometimes Rue when she was being herself. so she'd settle for friendly? it was probably the best she could hope to have.

so after the conversation was over, she wasn't sure what to do. but she did have a packet of tissues in her backpack?]

...um. I have Kleenex. If you want one?

mabel

[dohaeris]

[some time has passed since sansa's journey through the catacombs--she's cried a lot, watched all of beyonce's lemonade twice, sewed a sort of revenge dress for paul's nameday party, and started a direwolf tapestry for her bedroom.

it is, otherwise, an ordinary day at the rookery. her omen winter has taken knight the blood hound and visenya the batcat out in the courtyard behind her building while she sews garnet chip beads out in a swirling pattern from the center of a wine-red bias cut dress for one of her night walker clients in her back room. taylor swift's 'reputation' emanates from her omni crystal at a fairly low volume, and lady naps on an armchair.]

late late late late late

[sparklehorror]

[See, this is why Sansa and Mabel get along so great. The other girl may be from some sort of Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons sort of world with knights and fancy words and stuff, but it has not stopped her from getting into pop culture at all. Clearly they were totally meant to be friends and everybody was just born in the wrong worlds and at the wrong times, and stuff.

Mabel brings a project of her own with her when she ambles into the Rookery. There's no way she's going to be as good as the other girl is anytime soon, but Sansa's talent for embroidery and the like has turned something Mabel once thought of as boring into Life Goals instead, as you really can't call her handwork anything but fabulous. Inspired thus, she has been working on decorative hoops to hang up around the Pines household, and is close to finishing another. The one in her hands is, of course, meant to be be practice at satin stitch, but Mabel is a restless creature, and she's started sneaking some french knots into things too.]

Hey, Alayne! [She pokes her head in through the door before she comes all the way in, cheerful as ever.] Are you up for company while you work today?

it's ok!!!!

[dohaeris]

[well, there were dragons once (unbeknownst to sansa, there are dragons again).

lady hears when mabel enters the house, and so does sansa. she's able to piece together the gait and scent into a portrait of a friend, and decides she's glad to see her before she does with her eyes. sansa looks up from her sewing and beams.]

Mabel! Of course. I'm glad you brought your sewing. Can I get you anything to eat or drink?

[she still stubbornly holds on to traditions of guest right. this is one of the reasons her house is always stocked with biscuits, pastries, and cake (and juice, when she can get it).]

sasuke

[dohaeris]

[sansa spends many of her evenings in willful machine, now, training in one way or another. it's a familiar path past the potion hut to sasuke's home, where the banner she made hangs in the window. she smiles faintly when she sees it, and knocks on the door, lady as always by her side. she wears her leather armor and padding dress with its little pale bloodstone beads restored from the catacombs, with her comfortable padded leggings and her fine leather gauntlets.]

[retsuden]

[ Sasuke more or less never actually expects visitors, so he's hesitant when he goes to approach the door. But he can feel Sansa's now familiar chakra on the other side, allowing him to relax his shoulders as he goes to slide the traditional Japanese screened door open. ]

Lady Alayne.

[ There's an awkward beat before he steps to the side to give her room to come in. ]

[dohaeris]

[sansa's mouth twists fondly. she wonders if sasuke is like this with all his students.]

Lord Sasuke.

[she walks through the door and into the house, lady padding at her heels. she pauses.]

I wanted to talk to you about that. [she draws a breath, watching his face carefully.] Alayne Stone is a false name I've been hiding under for some time. The people who murdered my family put a bounty on my head. My true name is Sansa Stark.

[she exhales.]

I never meant to lie to you.

richie

[dohaeris]

[sansa and lady navigate almost as much by smell as painted turtle. she also brings knight with her, in case there are any patients to treat. for once, her white raven omen wheels overhead; there is no need for anyone to stay behind and mind the house, and winter is actually quite fond of richie, out of sansa's friends.

it's a pleasant walk for all three of them. sansa barely remembers the last spring, and finds she enjoys the mild, misty air.]

[measuringdicks]

—leaking blood to you? [The one-sided conversation comes clearer as she gets closer: Richie doing some house maintenance, with his Mimikyu's costume somewhat filthier than usual. Apparently Venkman's been drafted into checking for instabilities and blood, the lack of which he confirms with a shake of his head.] Hmm. Well, guess we can cross "blood tide coming out of the walls" off the list. Thank fucking god, right?

[Venkman's costume head bobs up and down, vigorously, and Richie kneels down to let the little guy hop up onto his shoulder. Then he stands up, just in time to see Winter wheeling overhead. He straightens up, then whips around and waves an enthusiastic hello.]

Alayne, hey! You brought Knight! Come on in, I'll get you some snacks.

[dohaeris]

[sansa's answering smile is tempered somewhat by the name he uses, and the reminder of why she came. her omen winter settles onto her own shoulder. he tilts his head, eying the creature on richie's shoulder, and says 'Hallo, Richie. Your imp seems in need of a bath." sansa raises her eyebrows.]

I don't know if you've met my omen, Winter. He believes in honesty. He usually minds Knight while I'm out.

[lady sniffs happily for s'mores, and their small party follows after richie.]

what if wednesday

[dohaeris]

[the road less traveled leads right into sansa's old bedroom, knocking the wind out of her. and there is her mother, braiding the hair of her thirteen-year-old self, except instead of dreamy, she looks terrified.

"I can't marry Joffrey, please, he's a monster. I saw him throwing stones at the horses, big ones, and when the Queen told him to stop, he only laughed. I don't want him to throw stones at Lady. We can't go to King's Landing with him, mother, please."

catelyn and sixteen-year-old sansa makes the same curious frown, only sansa's eyes widen as she begins to see where this is going.

"Let me have a word with your father," says catelyn stark.

the little sansa in the chair nods, and some of the tension drains out of her shoulders.

the bigger sansa opens the door to her old room, and king robert is bellowing at her father in the yard.

"--knock some sense into the boy," says robert.

her father looks exhausted.

"Robert, please," he says.

"Do you mean to be my Hand, then? Is that why you think you can tell me what to do?" says robert.

"I can't leave the children, Robert," says ned. "You've said Renly has been after you with ideas--"

"So I should let him waste even more of my time, is that it?" thunders Robert. "I ask you to do one thing, one thing, since Pyke."

"Robert, I'm sorry," says Ned.

He stands there forlornly as the king storms off. then robb and jon come after him with questions, and arya and bran race by with their wolves. jory walks by with jaime lannister, who peels away in the direction of the king, and winterfell moves on.

sansa watches it all, black-clad and speechless.]

[adaine]

[Adaine watches, silently, and glances up at Sansa. She knows that previously Sansa has been shy about this sort of thing, about revealing parts of herself. It seems cruel the way that Trench just throws secrets to the forefront without a care in the world.]

That's your family, right? [She says, both to announce her presence and to state the obvious.] Also, hi, I'm here.

[Real smooth, Abernant.]

cw mention of teen menstruation ig

[dohaeris]

[there had been another figure on the roads, but sansa had forgotten all about that when she found winterfell. adaine's voice startles her a little.]

Oh! Yes, that's--not the king, obviously, or the man with the golden hair.

[she smiles, a little sadly.]

It didn't happen like this.

[in front of her, the household of winterfell has assembled once again. the wolves are grown, now, and the little sansa has gained a few inches. sansa's amused and pleased to see that rickon has also grown a little. this time the party on the kingsroad carries a lizard-lion banner. they soon reveal themselves to be a small group of crannogmen on foot, led by a boy and a girl. ned stark breaks out in a grin.

"Meera! Jojen! It's good to see you," he says.

sixteen year old sansa is delighted to see the reeds, but not-yet-fourteen year old sansa's face falls. sansa gets a sinking feeling in her stomach and turns towards adaine.]

You have to promise me that no matter what that little girl says, you won't think I'm too stupid to learn magic.

[she says it lightly, but she's not entirely joking. ned and the children embrace. robb and jon practically fall over themselves in their efforts to reach the girl, while arya and bran accost the boy with barking wolves. theon wanders off, and only sansa is left with lady. catelyn looks at her with fond amusement.

soon the whole group of them have filed into the castle, and sansa follows. she finds herself in her mother's solar, watching her mother and her younger self cut fabric.

"What kind of lady is she? She doesn't even wear dresses," says the younger sansa. the older sansa cannot help but groan.

"Perhaps she doesn't have any dresses," says catelyn gently. "You could make one for her, as a welcome present."

"But what if she hates me, like Arya?" says the younger sansa. her voice swells with tears. "I don't see why everyone should hate me, because I like dresses, and music, and not getting dirty riding horses and shooting arrows like Arya."

"Nobody hates you, sweet one," says Catelyn. "Arya is only trying to find her way, and I'm sure Lady Meera would be glad of any gift you had to give her."

the younger sansa nods and resumes cutting. the older sansa leaves the room, only to find her younger self, now in a high-backed collar pinned closed with seedpods, holding a similar dress in darker greens outside one of the doors from the guest wing of the castle. sansa distantly remembers that she'd started bleeding that year.

"Lady Meera? It's Sansa. I thought you might like to have this."

the door opens, and meera reed welcomes her with a big smile.

"Did you make that for me?" she asks, wide-eyed. "It's beautiful."

"I thought you might like to have a dress like we wear in Winterfell," says the younger sansa, very like her older counterpart. "I can show you how we make them, if you don't know."

"I would like that very much," says meera, accepting the dress and wondering at it. "Cloth comes very dear to us, in the Neck, and fine gowns would be ruined very quickly, but we do work all manner of hides and seal them against water. I could show you, if you'd like."

the younger sansa beams, again not unlike her older self.

"I would like that very much."

the older sansa walks down the hall and out another door, where meera, now in a northern gown hitched out of the way in one hand, walks arm-in-arm with robb in the godswood, grey wind trotting at their heels. sansa laughs aloud in delight. she can't make out what they're saying, and moves to get closer, before she catches herself--bran and rickon may yet be alive, but robb is not. better not to wound herself any more than she has to. she strides back to the castle, and pushes past another door into the great room, where her family and her parents' advisors all seem to be massed around bran and jojen. bran now stands over a head taller than him. there is a strange, fierce woman with rickon and catelyn, dressed in a mix of the men and women's clothes worn by the castlefolk of winterfell. jon snow is not among them, sansa realizes.

"Jojen's visions come from the Old Gods," says bran firmly. "He's never wrong."

"You can't know that," says maester luwin. "You can't know that they're anything but dreams."

there is a glance between the stark children that sansa immediately recognizes. they've begun to have wolf dreams, too.

"He dreamed we should come here," says meera.

"Lord Howland did write me of this," says ned.

"You can't be thinking of letting the two of them go off on their own," says catelyn.

"I can go with them!" says arya. "I have my sword, and I'm better with a bow."

"I have a sword too, and I'm still better than you," says bran.

"You are not!" says arya, indignant.

"It's too dangerous," says jojen.

"If it's dangerous, I should go," says robb. meera looks at him in a panic.

"I'm going too," she says.

"No one is going anywhere," says ned. "Not yet."

"Father, please," says bran. "Winter is coming."

"And you'll go in the spring," says ned firmly.

sansa turns around and there is a feast. it seems the entire north has come to celebrate the harvest. she watches her parents dance, and robb and meera; the fierce woman now pulls jon snow out of a sulk and into a dance--theon sneers at them and slinks off with one of the kitchen girls, arya swings rickon around while bran and jojen sit at the head table, deep in conversation. her younger self dances with a karstark boy, then a tallheart, magnificently outfitted in a sky blue dress thick with embroidered leaves and acorns. she cannot find roose bolton and determinedly stops herself from seeking him out. instead she winds her way closer to her parents, and catches her mother muttering something about writing highgarden. then the musicians start up with 'the night that ended,' and all hope of conversation is lost.]

raleigh

[dohaeris]

[sansa gave raleigh a time where she knew she'd only be sewing, so she's working on some stumpwork moths for a gown. only lady sits at her feet, as visenya the batkitten must be kept away from sewing supplies, so sansa's omen winter has taken her and knight to the courtyard. despite the veil of night outside it remains bright in sansa's back room, with lunar orbs hanging in elaborate sconces and chandeliers. the effect is quite gothic and neo-victorian, except for the weirwood, and the large tapestry of ravens and weirwood branches on the wall behind her. she has a tin of biscuits on the coffee table in front of her, next to a tray of beads.]

[righthemisphere]

[It's a lovely scene, really. And as he comes in, all boots and barn jackets, he feels immediately out of place.

This place is for dignified, respectable people. And maybe there was a day where he would have felt like he had the right to strut in, shopping for PR appearances, photo shoots, and late night talk shows. He'd never really loved the fame but it did come with some perks.

He isn't that person anymore. Hasn't been for a long time.

And that's okay. People change. Their lives take different directions. But it is ironic that he's sort of becoming a name around here. Not for being a fighter. Not for being a champion, or pilot or a fallen has-been (all of which he was back home) but a farmer. An Architect under the care and guidance of The Tower and Doorway combined. He never realized that it would be such an important or impactful job. And yet here he is worrying about the mud in his tread and wondering if he should have come in through a service door.]

Alayne?

[Still, for all his gruff exterior, he also carries a tired, soft smile, kind blue eyes, and an aura devoid of corruption. On the left side of his face, extending over his ear and into his floppy blond hair, is the faintest trace of a hand print.

There's an old military duffle bag on his shoulder and a large crate in his arms, bursting with meat and produce.]

Sorry I'm late.

[He is exactly on time.]

[dohaeris]

Oh!

[sansa glances at an old(?) grandfather clock as she sets her moths in the tray. she's still not used to having one in the house, and it's her instinct to think she's read it wrong, or not checked it enough, or not wound it properly--it doesn't matter. she stands up and walks to the doorway between the front and back room, beaming. lady pads after her, interested in the meat.]

It's good to see you, Raleigh. These can go in the kitchen.

[since he's already in the front room, she leads him through there into her comfortable if somewhat messy kitchen. she tries her best, but her approach is piecemeal.]

I trust you've been well?

[it's only been a day, after all. but there's always something strange happening, here (not that there wasn't, before). if he'd had to reschedule on account of a sudden butterfly emergency, or even just a beast in the chicken coop, she wouldn't have been surprised.]