driftfleet | 003 winter wonderland

Entry tags:

003 winter wonderland

Who: Sansa Stark
Broadcast: Fleet-wide
Action: down on the planet
When: 20 December - end of the month

> > > carol singing

( Sansa enjoys the systems that are cold and this one is no exception. This planet is full of ice and snow and the people are warm and kind the way she remembers the North being when she was a child. They do love music, impossibly so, and so she decides to sing a few of the songs she knows down in a cafe when some others are singing their own. It's nice to learn new things to sing and she has one of the new songs on the tip of her tongue as she goes to get a cup of warm tea, needing to stave off the chill. When she sees someone she recognizes from the Fleet, she steps back a bit and allows them to step to the counter first. )

Oh, did you want anything? Far be it from me to be in your way - how rude of me.

> > > stitching time

( Lord Akeldama's waistcoat was coming along nicely and rather than sew up in the Fleet, Sansa has chosen to do it down in a cozy corner near a fire in a bookstore down on the planet. She has a little basket of sewing things she's bought from her small supply of credits and she's hoping a few others will take her up on the offer to make things for them. She sends a message out to the Fleet indicating the same, that anyone can come and put in a commission. She sews fast and accurate; Sansa doesn't think it will take her long to turn out a few pieces and earn a bit of money. For now, though, it's Lord Akeldama's waistcoat and she's just pricked her finger. She makes a soft sound and brings the wounded finger to her lips to suck it. )

Ouch! You'd think I would be better at this.

> > > wildcard

( Have another idea? Leave me a start below! )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

( Sansa gives her a smile; there's a happy ending to this part of the story, at least, and she's glad to share it. )

We got it back. Perhaps we had to rebuild, but we got our home back and were able to start making it ours again brick by brick. Home is very important to me, even so far away from it as we are here.

[There's a quick flash of sadness, one that quickly fades into relief for Sansa's sake, at the discussion of the fate of Winterfell.]

I'm glad to know that it wasn't gone for good. Rebuilding might hurt but it at least gives a physical place to return to.

It feels wrong to only talk about myself, though. Please, tell me more about where you come from. Is it more like this place? Or is it a place where people don't sail through the stars?

( Sansa likes hearing about other worlds and the magic within them; she never thought such things possible until coming to the Fleet and now it seems just about anything is possible. )

We have space travel, yes. Long enough that I doubt anything exists from a time before it existed.

[Certainly there's nothing far back enough to know just exactly where humans came from, or which planets developed space flight first, beyond any individualized folk tales.]

Out of everything here, traveling to other planets is the least strange thing, for me.

It's still such a wonder to me, being able to travel the stars and close the distance between different worlds. Where I'm from, it takes weeks to sail across the Narrow Sea from Westeros to the Free Cities. I couldn't imagine trying to travel to even the moon, much less a star.

( Sansa's eyes light up a bit in wonder at it. She'll always be amazed by these simple things, no matter how long she's here in the Fleet. It's a kind of magic to her, really, and it's so far beyond anything she's ever experienced in her life before coming here. )

When I was a girl, even traveling from my home at Winterfell to our capital at King's Landing would take a month by horse. In one of the shuttles, I imagine it would take less than a day.

[It's still hard to imagine that for most of the people with the Fleet, outside of this place, space travel just doesn't exist. Having travel take that long--travel that isn't sub-light travel, or going from one end of the galaxy to the other--sounds both inconvenient and incredibly difficult.]

I can't even imagine that. The amount of preparation that would have been needed just to ensure the trip itself went safely must be astounding.

[She pauses, then adds--]

From my home planet, we could travel to the center of the galactic government in only several hours.

Oh, it's nothing like that in Westeros. I live in the far north and during the winters, sometimes the weather is so foul we cannot go south at all. You can cut short a bit of the trip if you cut over to White Harbor and take a ship but even still, it's leagues and leagues overland.

Here, I'll get a napkin and draw you a map so you can see how I mean. It's quite different than what other people tell me - so far as I know in the Fleet, anyway.

( Sansa rises and gets a few napkins and comes back to their cozy spot. She has a pen, a remarkable sort of quill that doesn't require an inkpot, and she starts to draw. )

See, the north is vast - I suspect it's at least five hundred leagues from Winterfell to King's Landing. But it's a bit over a third that just to the Wall, which is still part of my territory in the north. It's a terrible distance to cross on horseback. And, if you have a party of travellers or a host of soldiers, you're slower still because you must have wagons for supplies and they break down. The way you travel is ever so much faster.

[Leia watches with interest as Sansa draws a rough map of Westeros, imagining what it must be like to live there. It's a singular land, yes, and thus small by what she's used to. But without flight and space travel and any of that? It would be a large, difficult place to live.]

Even ships on water, those are rare where I'm from. Usually they're only used on natural preserve planets, or for fun rather than for vital transportation.

How often did you travel around your territory?

Not very often. I first went south when I was twelve...possibly thirteen? I can't remember if I'd had my nameday yet. I didn't come back to the north for another four years. Even if there hadn't been a war at the time, I wouldn't have come north again for a long while; it takes too long to travel.

( If things hadn't gone so badly, Sansa thinks she might have married in the south and never gone home again. )

[It does take a long time, she can fully understand that reasoning. But it's still a bit sad, she thinks, that travel takes so long one can be away from home for that long.]

That's a long time to be away from home.

It is. I feel like I lost a lot of myself in being so far from home. Home is something inside you, yes, but sometimes you need reminders of it to carry on. I miss what it was like as a girl with my parents. I've lost them both now. I never got to see my mother again - I would give anything to have her here.

( Sansa tips her head a bit, curious. )

Do you have anyone from your home here, Leia?

One, yes.

[One that she knows of, anyway, and everything surrounding who they are and what time they're both from makes it all that much more complicated. Not that anything was ever really easy for the both of them.]

Have you met Han Solo? He's a... friend of mine, from back home.

No, I haven't had the pleasure. Is he from Alderaan, then? Just as you are? Or somewhere further away?

( Since they can travel so easily in her world, he could be from as far away as King's Landing from Winterfell. )

[She shakes her head. She doesn't even know if Han had ever been to Alderaan before the disaster, this reminds her, but part of her hopes he had.]

No, he's from another planet called Corellia. It's very different from Alderaan.

Oh, I see. Is it far from Alderaan, then, or did you meet somewhere else entirely? I'm sorry if it's too many questions; your world seems so different from mine.

( Sansa likes learning about new places as much as she can, which is why she likes when the Fleet is in a system and not drifting. )

No, you're fine, don't worry.

[She shakes her head, before continuing.]

Corellia isn't far from Alderaan; they're both core planets, so it's only several hours at lightspeed between them. We met elsewhere, however.

[She pauses for a second, weighing her options before continuing--]

He tried to lead a rescue mission to help me, but his plan wasn't the greatest. So I took charge instead.

Sometimes men don't have the best sense of how things will work out in the long term. They like to just...smash at things and hope for the best.

( Sansa has more than a little experience with the men of her family being stubborn and hard-headed with honor. She wonders what this Han Solo did that made his plan go awry. )

In his case, he doesn't seem to have problems planning how to break in somewhere, it's breaking out he forgets about.

[At least that time, anyway. Since then, they seem to have found a way to work well together to overcome both of their planning shortcomings.]

Well, I suppose one does have to have both to effect a proper rescue. I see why you took matters into your own hands, then. Has he any ideas about how to spring us from the Fleet? Or has that alluded him?

( Sansa isn't particularly bothered by being in the Fleet, knowing that stress and war await her at home, but part of the reason she doesn't feel guilty about it is because she can't leave. )

[A small wry smile makes its way onto Leia's face at that.]

Not for lack of trying, I'm sure. He's not particularly happy about being here either. Or at least, not without his own ship.

I can imagine if you're used to a certain amount of agency, losing it so suddenly can be bewildering. I've never owned my own ship and certainly not one like this - but if I did, I wouldn't want to lose it.

( Sansa thinks this world is as troubling as her own, in some ways. There are advantages to it, yes, but clear disadvantages as well. )

Is he able to pilot a ship here in the Fleet, at least?

I believe he is considered a pilot here.

[She's not sure what good the classifications here do, as far as her own communications role or his pilot role or any of that. As far as she sees it, they're still stuck with the fleet no matter what.]

I don't know that it has any bearing on the ship he's part of, though.

No, I don't know if I offer anything to my ship as a communications officer. Before, I didn't have an augment at all and now I have this one. It's strange but I suppose they thought since I had some experience, I could do something else.

( Sansa shrugs a bit, amused by it all. )

I come from a world where we cannot fly and they see fit to give me a role as a communications liaison. I will never understand the Atroma.

Would you have preferred pilot?

[Sansa's full background, she naturally doesn't know, but with how similar things seem to what Leia knew growing up, she's sure communications fits. But she can understand wanting something else, something more exciting, too.]

Oh no, I don’t think I would be any good at piloting. I settled disputes and negotiated as Lady of Winterfell, so I think that communications is a better fit for me.

( Sansa looks at Leia, curious. )

And what of you? Is communications a strength of yours?

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