SEMI-CLOSED. i'm a slow learner.

[unprays]

Who: sansa stark (unprays) & various
What: sansa does rounds after the whole kidnapping thing, and also deals with her father going back to stasis.
When: late march, possibly also early april
Where: both olympia and wyver
Warning(s): your standard game of thrones warnings apply, along with all the warnings you could think for the previous event.

( starters in the comments! if you want one, hit me up on plurk @ celen or send me a PM and we can plot something! or just wildcard me, that works too ♥ )

Comments

CLAIRE.

[unprays]

[ today the knock on Claire's door comes a little bit later than usual — Sansa has made it into a routine for them, spending some hours of the day with Claire without fail, each day after she had returned to the house to recuperate. ]

Claire? May I come in? [ she doesn't really expect anything but an affirmative, and so Sansa enters the room even before Claire can confirm it: normally, she would wait, out of the politeness that has been instilled in her since childhood, but today, after the visit to Thesa, she doesn't really feel like being alone in the house, what with Jon in Wyver and all. ]

Father's gone. [ it's said matter-of-factly, and yet the sadness still bleeds through her tone, is betrayed by her red-rimmed eyes. ]

[nineteenfortyfive]

[Sansa's a polite girl, so while she's right in knowing the answer wouldn't be no, Claire is surprised when she invites herself in. On Jamie's orders, she's taking it easy--he suffered no less than her, but he's been insistent and she's not about to stress him by arguing over something she'd tell anyone else to do. So, Claire's reclining against the pillows of her bed when Sansa steps in, mouth open to ask what's wrong when the words hit her ears: Father's gone.

Her heart sinks.]

What? [She sits up. The worst of the physical damage has been healed away, though it didn't quite restore any missing nails. She'll be wearing gloves for her own vanity for some time.] Are you certain? Have you visited the station?

[Already, she wants to say it could be temporary. Three days and he might return. But every time someone has come back in that short of a time, they've been from some further point. How does that work for a dead man?]

[unprays]

[ there's a chair next to her bed, a chair that Sansa sits on with a heavy sigh and a nod. ]

Yes. I went there to see... he's back there, sleeping. Just like Robb.

[ and just like Robb, she doubts he will wake up again. the Natha seemed only to be able to give them back for a short while — just long enough for the pain of losing them to be just as bad as it was, back home. just long enough for her to start hoping they might stay. but again, it is just her and Jon left. just like it was, in Winterfell. ]

[nineteenfortyfive]

[Claire's still and silent for a moment. Ned had been something else. It had been wonderful to meet someone else that was a parent and, at least least for a little while, have a sort of partner in this house. That's not to say Jamie isn't--he's her husband, of course, and she loves him desperately no matter the years taken or added--but he hasn't raised children like herself or Ned.

It's not fair.

Another long moment passes and Claire moves over, making space for Sansa, and patting the spot beside her.]

Come here, darling. Sit with me.

[unprays]

[ she looks up in hesitation, but something in Claire's voice makes her swallow any protest she might have and she nods, moving to sit on the bed instead. and really, it isn't like she much wanted to protest — she'd felt so desperately alone, there on the station. ]

... why do they keep taking them away from us? Robb, Arya, Father. It was Jon and I in Winterfell, and it's just us here, again. They show us everything we could have, and then take it away! It's not fair.

[ even as she says it, another voice in her head tells her that she was foolish to ever trust it — that it'd last. life is never fair. ]

[nineteenfortyfive]

[Claire doesn't hesitate before putting an arm around her, pulling her to her side. It was only a few years ago that she held Bree similarly as she wept over Frank and how unfair it was that her father was no longer among the living. She would never want Brianna to go through that again, and so it breaks her heart knowing Sansa's felt so much loss already.]

I wish I knew. You're right. It's not fair. [She never got a chance to know Robb well, but she quickly grew fond of Ned.]

There's always a chance he could come back, eventually. But you should have never lost him in the first place.

cw: joffrey

[unprays]

[ none of it is fair, but then, life so rarely is. hasn't she learned that already? hasn't she told herself that countless of times?

you should have never lost him, Claire says, and something in Sansa's expression tightens, turns colder in hatred. ]

That was Joffrey. It was his fault, all of it. Father should have been sent to the Wall, but Joffrey ordered him to be executed. I begged him, pleaded him to stop, but he did it anyway. And he put Father's head on a spike and took me to see him.

[ s... urprise?? ]

[nineteenfortyfive]

[Maybe not as much of a surprise as it should be. Claire takes a breath, thinking back on some of her conversations with Ned.]

I know what happened to your father. He told me, and told me that you were there at the end.

[The poor girl. Then, for some little shit to parade his "win"--it makes her feel sick.]

I know it's... difficult, sometimes, for fathers to say such things, but he's very proud of you. He was only sorry you had to grow up so fast.

i'm so sorry for the delay ;;

[unprays]

... I was. I was meant to marry Joffrey.

[ and to think, she escaped that horrid marriage, only to end up married to an even worse monster. at least the girl she was then was more than the silly girl with silly dreams she'd been, the silly girl who'd trusted the queen and seen that trust rewarded with her father's head.

and then Claire speaks of pride, of her father, and Sansa fights back the urge to laugh, to cry and shout and scream, because she knows who she is: she is a girl turned woman, raised by the lions, raised around liars to be an even better one, raised to remain as cold as the North, cold and unforgiving.

it's a wonder her father had even recognized her. ]

I know Father loves me. He loves all his children. [ it's not a denial of Claire's words, but it might as well be. ]

YEAH YOU BETTER BE no its ok <3 pssht

[nineteenfortyfive]

[This girl and her terrible marriages.]

Never again.

[A repeat of a promise made before. No more arranged marriages. No more monsters. She wishes she could promise no more losing parents, but she can't control who wakes and returns to stasis. Ned may return, as well as the lady Stark--but it might be possible to lose them again, too. She doesn't know if it'd be worse to never see them again or to suffer feeling like this.]

He does. And he loves you because of you, and I don't doubt he realized how much you've had to change since he last saw you. It troubled him, yes, but he was still proud of this beautiful young woman that knows who she is and doesn't walk with her head bowed.