get your mingle on

[curiositykilledthecats]

Who: SS Huntress and visitors
Broadcast: N
Action: Ship mingle!
When: Time is an illusion

[So, we've been returned to our ships, and they're all different now! Having lower ceilings must suck for those of you who are actually not tiny.]

Comments

[sinuosity]

[ Nyssa smiles, it's soft. ]

She kept you safe, my Sara. Didn't she?

[ All of them who walked into that room the Atroma built, built of memory; the stone halls and the winding trails of the jungle. Only the canary led them to safety. ]

[ Past tense. ]

[steeledskin]

Her song was a signal fire.

[ her chin drops. this subject -- she can feel how personal it's become. and it makes her uncomfortable to pick at someone else's pain. sansa thinks she would resent the interference should the roles be reversed. so, lapsing into silence, she partakes in more of the delicious dessert. ]

[sinuosity]

[ Nyssa wants to be seen, and she doesn't care to pretend to be more or less than herself. She tilts her head, searching Sansa's carefully schooled expression. ]

Are you lost, Sansa Stark, that you need a beacon?

[steeledskin]

I am far from home. Of course, I'm lost.

[ if she sounds bitter, then it's not a bitterness directed towards nyssa. nominally, it might be towards the fleet itself -- however, sansa had been lost long before she came here. ]

[sinuosity]

[ All those who come to her father's house are lost. There's the echo of it, the bitterness, but no anger that Nyssa can see. ]

Tell me of Winterfell.

[steeledskin]

Winterfell is a castle. [ was a castle. her smile is slow, and sad, and pinned to nostalgia instead of to happiness. ] It houses the Warden of the North, and his family. It is a bastion of Westerosi might against the long winters. And it's my home.

[ she hasn't been so honest with anyone else in the fleet -- but perhaps it comes from having walked the paths of this woman's mind. she feels honour-bound to expose herself the way nyssa's heart was exposed to her. ] But I've not seen it in years.

[sinuosity]

A pity.

[ Both for the loss of the home and the loss of the lessons the season brings. The harshest environments make for hard people; loyal and persevering. One can learn softness, but never be ruled by it. ]

You are from Westeros? Like Tyrion Lannister?

[steeledskin]

[ her jaw sets like steel. had tyrion already gotten to this woman? secured her loyalty, somehow? all sansa knows is that nyssa is a hard and powerful creature -- perhaps lannister gold has already secured her services.

she grows withdrawn -- even more so than before. ] I am. Yes.

[sinuosity]

Well, that explains the my lady.

[ If she notices, she offers no comment. Sansa's thoughts are all laid out with care: her face and hands never out of place. A target like that needs patience. ]

I'm told women don't use the blade or bow. I confess I don't understand why. I doubt that a man could tell me.

[steeledskin]

[ women have other weapons -- other armour. but she doesn't give this answer.

instead: ] Some do. Some have. [ ... ] I do not.

[sinuosity]

[ She shakes her head. ]

Only some. What a waste.

[steeledskin]

-- My sister would like you, I think.

[ a sideways slanted sort of appeal. ]

[sinuosity]

[ Startled, she laughs. ]

But not you. You, Sara would like. Have you heard any songbirds?

[steeledskin]

All sorts. [ ... ] Robins and mockingbirds. Nightingales, too. Doves.

[ mostly from palace balconies. sansa tilts her head. ] Are you good with arrows? [ her eyes fall upon the quiver. sansa doesn't shoot, but she can recognize the accessories when she sees them. ]

[sinuosity]

I'm rather fond of robins.

[ Offhandedly, as she narrows in on the second question. ]

I am unmatched.

[steeledskin]

-- Truly?

[ she possess enough grace to project admiration, even as she doubts the claim. ]

[sinuosity]

Truly. A general must prove they can do more their men are capable of, else they're not fit to lead.

[steeledskin]

[ what does sansa know of leading men? nothing, and no more. and yet the phrase tickles something in the back of her thoughts. like staid old lectures at her lord father's knee, wherein he was truly imparting wisdom to her brothers but sansa had listened anyway. back then, it had all been about the romance of the fictional knight.

and right now, it's all about measuring how potent the lady nyssa truly was. ] And do you lead many men?

[ questions. soft and wide-eyed, but sharp like metal beneath all her romanticism. ]

[sinuosity]

[ Her amusement shakes a shoulder, briefly, but Sansa can lead. Nyssa has nothing to lose by being honest with her. ]

All who follow my father follow me.

[steeledskin]

[ and what is sansa stark to make of this creature?

she is bold, like the dornish. and ferocious like the targaryens of old. or she is like nymeria, the warrior queen -- and at long last sansa glimpses some fraction of what her sister saw in that legend. a tall and powerful woman, not smudged in dirt or hulking like a man -- but beautiful and poised. more like steel than anything she'd seen before.

she lays her fork across the plate. ] He must trust you a great deal, if you lead those who follow him.

[sinuosity]

[ A soft exhale. She was trusted, once. She was asked to be perfect and she was; Father still handed what was hers to some usurper. Nyssa exhales, softly. ]

The trust of one man means little. It must come from those below to have true power.

[steeledskin]

[ trust is a farce, and it has no place in power. but those words belong to someone else's voice -- haunting her, and souring the time-old traditions honoured in the north.

but even so, she affects a little shake of her head. ] The trust of one man might mean little, but the trust of a father means the world. Doesn't it?

[ sorrow. she misses her dear lord father. ]

[sinuosity]

[ She is silent, and knows it betrays her hesitance, her mixed feelings, and everything else besides. ]

Yes.

[steeledskin]

[ she believes her father must have been so disappointed in her: she'd fallen prey to the lion's claws, and she'd betrayed them all. hadn't she? except all sansa remembers with any clarity is falling on her knees and begging for her father's life.

and she remembers his blood on the hem of her dress. his head, rolling-- ]

What sort of lord is he? [ for a man commanding other men must hold some manner of title, mustn't he? ] Your father?

[sinuosity]

My father?

[ It's almost absent. She eyes the remaining baklava on her plate. ]

One of the most powerful men in the world. Perhaps the most, for we conquer our enemies without exception.