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

[measuringdicks]

[The story of the Starks is a tragedy, the kind that would play really well on a stage set to Shakespearean meter (iambic pentameter, Richie thinks it's called, but it's been a while, he ought to look that up). Murders, betrayals, deaths of kings and their advisors—that's the kind of shit that pulls people back time and again, puts asses into seats, seems larger than life. Back in Derry, Richie never thought he'd meet anyone like that.

But he's older now, and underneath all that grand tragedy, he sees the simple, awful heartbreak of losing all the people she's ever loved. God, even the dogs.]

Joffrey and his mom sound like total bitches. I'm glad you're away from them. [Wait, hang on.] Illegitimate? What, did she fuck some rando from the kitchens or something? Is that why he's so fucked up, 'cause he has daddy issues?

[Aw, Richie, you sweet summer child.]

Rickon sounds like a fucking riot, naming a big-ass wolf Shaggydog. That's a very descriptive, no-nonsense kinda name. [This, from the guy whose direwolf is named S'mores. Although, granted, Richie's not the one who named her.] I'm shocked Bran took so long to name his and he came up with Summer, but I can give him a pass on account of the fuckin' coma. Poor kid.

[As flippant as Richie is, he sounds sympathetic to Bran there. He gets it—Eddie had a prosthetic arm, and Richie's only got the one ear, his unruly hair hiding the hole where the other one used to be.]

Your brother Jon's the leader of your world's border patrol? Damn. [Pause.] What, he has to stay there at the Wall? Don't you guys get holiday breaks to hang out, normally? We've got something kinda like the Night's Watch back at home, but it's mostly just a bunch of assholes and they're not sworn to stay there all the time. [Another pause.] But damn, this Ghost sounds fucking cool.

[He nods.]

Don't go near the Lannisters, or Petyr Baelish. Okay. [He drums his fingers against the table, out of an absent-minded habit.] Look, that's...that's good, but in my experience, whatever brings people in when it comes to worlds like these—it doesn't like getting messed with. The first world I went to, the thing that brought people in was called a Porter, and it could really fuck you up with if you tried to fuck with it, even just for answers.

I'm just saying, if the Pthumerians or the sea or whatever decides to bring any of them here, I don't know if that spell will work the way you wanted it to or if it'll hurt your friend Adaine. If it works, great. If it fails—d'you have a plan? 'Cause people don't stay dead, here.

[dohaeris]

[sansa's mouth curves to one side. she has thought about this a good deal, and has been making friends and alliances. the only way she can stay safe is if this is a safe place, relatively speaking. she must be able to count on the support of her fellow sleepers.]

The spell is only to kill him without spilling any blood. It's a sort of trap. If he were to come back, I can't imagine he would last very long here with the corruption. None of them would. And--he's very good at being useful, but he doesn't know how to make friends. If I told everyone he kidnapped me, which he did, though I had nowhere else to go but with him, I think people would believe me. I think people would want to believe me. I have friends here, and sworn swords, and Lady. And if anyone could ever manage to cross the Pthumerians, it would be him. They hold the power here, and he would try and play them against each other so he could seize it while they weren't looking. I don't think he would be able to help himself.

[she sips her lemonsweet.]

This is very good.

[measuringdicks]

[Oh, she's smart. A corner of Richie's mouth quirks upward, and he nods, as if to say, That's fair.]

And even if he does come back, he'd just get killed all over again. If not by the spell, then by the rest of us. [People like Sansa. Richie himself likes Sansa, thinks she's positively cool, and this has raised his respect for her a notch.] Or by a pissy Pthumerian. They hate being played too. I'd hate to get on your bad side, Sansa, it sounds like a fucking scary place to be.

[He would be very entertained to watch other people on Sansa's bad side get wrecked, though.]

You said you're from Winterfell. It sounds a lot nicer than Derry—that's where I'm from, and it's. [A pause.] Well, if you're not a very specific kind of person, you're just fucked. Tell me more about Winterfell?

[Then he grins, and nods.]

Right? The ol' Tozier family trick to sweetening lemonade: a spoonful of syrup.

[dohaeris]

[sansa grins at his response, and actually laughs when he mentions her bad side. would that people had felt that way back in westeros.]

Your Derry sounds like much of the Seven Kingdoms. Winterfell has always been special. Not very many people live there, but my father always said that in winter all the nearby farmers would move into the Wintertown and it would be almost like a little city. I was only a baby in the last winter, though, and now...

[she doesn't know if any of them are even still alive.]

It was summer when I left, and very beautiful. It never gets very warm, except in the glass gardens, and it had little snow showers even in the summer, called summer snows. There's always water from the hot springs pumping through the walls, though, to warm it. There were three little hot pools we could swim in, in the godswood, and a big cold one in front of the heart tree. The weirwood I have in my house is a heart tree like we had, with a face carved by the children of the forest thousands of years ago. Most castles in the Seven Kingdoms have a godswood, but not all of them are old enough to have a heart tree. They're said to be sacred to the old gods. The one in Winterfell was ancient and huge, and our godswood was a proper little forest you could run around in. The ground doesn't really freeze, in the godswood. The hot spring runs too close to the surface. You could always see the grass, even when it snowed.

My family lived in the Great Keep at the center of the Castle, but there were halls for guests, and the guards, and everyone that worked there. We had our own forge and library, and a huge courtyard. My father built my mother a sept when they married, so she could keep the faith of the Seven as her family had done. And underneath everything are the crypts, where the ancient Kings of Winter are buried, with all the other Starks of Winterfell.

[she pauses, grinning, expecting him to ask some questions that would allow her to launch into some of the grim northern stories she suspects he'd enjoy. but first she learns forward.]

If you don't want to talk about your life before, I understand. But if you ever do, even a little, I would be very glad to hear about it.