If you were so expendable they would not gift you with such magics. You can help them, if you choose. I, on the other hand...
[ she is no magician. she is no warrior. she is good for marrying and for telling little lies. and the only good she might do here is to help protect her family a little longer. ]
Sure they would. It's like handing the infantry a gun. Doesn't cost them anything to give me something dangerous and send me on my way. And don't even start. You're not helpless. Or useless. You just haven't found your thing, yet.
Perhaps not useless -- [ she ventures. carefully. sansa understands her uses: she is a marriage pact to be made. or, rather, she once was. now she stands awkwardly between maiden and wife, hazy on the rules of ending her marriage in these lands. ] And I am certainly not without help.
[ for example! ] You have shown yourself to be a good friend to my family, Stiles. I wish that there was some boon of our own we might offer you.
[The offer of a 'boon' from her had him snorting out a laugh and he shifted on his seat.]
Sansa, you don't boon people stuff for being friends with you. You're just friends. That's how it works. I have people here I can count on and that I like. That's good enough for me.
[ but it's how it's meant to work. favours and gifts and loyalties bought and traded. hadn't she watched baelish accomplish it a hundred times beneath his roof? ]
But my Lord Father...[ which one? there is baelish, who rewards to ensnare. but then there is ned stark. and he is a good man but he is a great lord and he cannot help but see friends as vassals and allies as subjects. and he cares for them. ] He would want to see your friendship met with like-minded kindness. I could speak to him...
[ and what? get stiles some sort of...title? no. she should not think like a little girl again: of lords and knights and masters of magic. ]
Sansa. Seriously. It's okay. That's how it works. You are kind. Jon's kind. Arya's... Arya. I don't need to have you speak to him about anything. I don't need anything that I'm not getting from you guys. Honest. I'm happy.
[Hey, Stiles already had a title. Grand Poobah Wizard of Awesomeness, aka. The Red Wizard.]
You could not possibly have been worse than Arya. She--
[ sansa doesn't even want to begin to enumerate those particular pranks a younger sister might play upon an older one. nor even delve too near to the reasons why the two sisters barely managed to speak without tension feeling thick in the room. but then again, arya had stayed at her side. so maybe... ]
I was a child once, as well, Stiles. And I never...
[ but then she thought about summer snows and snowball fights and tricking arya so that she might mash snow down the other girl's collar. sansa smiles. ] Or I rarely ever misbehaved.
Pff. You were a girl child in a place that stomps all over girls. If you'd grown up where I had? You'd be sticking things to walls and doodling on mortgage payments.
Freedom's great, Sansa.
[He's getting more used to calling her that and not slipping back to Alayne. Maybe somehow, subconsciously, he already knew it.]
[ she stiffens. she doesn't like contradicting him. however: ] A girl child whose father was...[ but he's here now; he lives ] whose father is the Warden of the North. Lord Stark of Winterfell.
Stiles. [ a soft sound -- a sigh? a stilted confession? ] In the North, I never felt...stomped.
Maybe in the North it's different, but you... I don't know. You've always seemed a bit... like you're waiting to be told what to do. Or that someone has to approve of what you're doing before you can enjoy it. It's not wrong, but it's different from how I was brought up. If our positions were reversed, I think you'd feel the same way as I do. It's hard to see it as oppressive when it's all you've known, you know?
It is different in the North. Oh -- would that you could see it! We lived happy lives. [ i lived a happy life, though she would have scarcely admitted so at the time. ] We sang and we danced and we played in the snow. It is the South that is so oppressive. Oppressive in its heat and in its...
[ the explanation is simple. she knows it is. but it's shameful to confess. but perhaps she can fill in the edges of the tale with a simple fact: ] My time in the South was spent in the King's court. And he...my brother and he were at war, you understand.
[ the term political prisoner would be apt here. ]
[ hmm. no. she must begin at the start. she must treat it like a story. ] There was a time when Westeros was ruled by another king. King Robert. He and my Lord Father were firm friends from their boyhood days. And so King Robert asked him to his court, and he took me and Arya with him.
But King Robert died. And Joffrey was King after him. Although--
[ sansa pauses, asking herself whether she ought to share with him the rumours of joffrey's parentage. ]
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[He snorted, shaking his head, not that she could see it.]
We're cannon fodder. We're what they throw at each other to keep themselves safe. We're not necessary. We're expendable.
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[ she is no magician. she is no warrior. she is good for marrying and for telling little lies. and the only good she might do here is to help protect her family a little longer. ]
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[ for example! ] You have shown yourself to be a good friend to my family, Stiles. I wish that there was some boon of our own we might offer you.
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[The offer of a 'boon' from her had him snorting out a laugh and he shifted on his seat.]
Sansa, you don't boon people stuff for being friends with you. You're just friends. That's how it works. I have people here I can count on and that I like. That's good enough for me.
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But my Lord Father...[ which one? there is baelish, who rewards to ensnare. but then there is ned stark. and he is a good man but he is a great lord and he cannot help but see friends as vassals and allies as subjects. and he cares for them. ] He would want to see your friendship met with like-minded kindness. I could speak to him...
[ and what? get stiles some sort of...title? no. she should not think like a little girl again: of lords and knights and masters of magic. ]
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[Hey, Stiles already had a title. Grand Poobah Wizard of Awesomeness, aka. The Red Wizard.]
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[ arya. arya stark about whom alayne stone was once terribly curious. ]
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[ sansa doesn't even want to begin to enumerate those particular pranks a younger sister might play upon an older one. nor even delve too near to the reasons why the two sisters barely managed to speak without tension feeling thick in the room. but then again, arya had stayed at her side. so maybe... ]
She has no manners. None at all.
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[He had. Often. Scott was the closest he'd gotten to having one.]
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[ but then she thought about summer snows and snowball fights and tricking arya so that she might mash snow down the other girl's collar. sansa smiles. ] Or I rarely ever misbehaved.
[ not like arya does, at least. ]
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Freedom's great, Sansa.
[He's getting more used to calling her that and not slipping back to Alayne. Maybe somehow, subconsciously, he already knew it.]
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Stiles. [ a soft sound -- a sigh? a stilted confession? ] In the North, I never felt...stomped.
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[ the explanation is simple. she knows it is. but it's shameful to confess. but perhaps she can fill in the edges of the tale with a simple fact: ] My time in the South was spent in the King's court. And he...my brother and he were at war, you understand.
[ the term political prisoner would be apt here. ]
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[Sorry, Sansa. Stiles didn't get the subtle games played between smiling gentry and their advisers.]
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[ hmm. no. she must begin at the start. she must treat it like a story. ] There was a time when Westeros was ruled by another king. King Robert. He and my Lord Father were firm friends from their boyhood days. And so King Robert asked him to his court, and he took me and Arya with him.
But King Robert died. And Joffrey was King after him. Although--
[ sansa pauses, asking herself whether she ought to share with him the rumours of joffrey's parentage. ]
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Although what? Joffrey's the one you don't like, right? He was here for a bit. Over in the Unseelie court.
[Which put him in line with Peter. Which was a bad thing. Joffrey = bad.]
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[ here she speaks treason. it puts a quiver into her voice. ]
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[Inform him of the ways of Westerosi royalty, Sansa.]
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[ really pretty gross, actually. ] His father the King may not have been his father. Not at all. Not in truth. That was what his enemies claim.
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[Which he still thought was dumb, but he could see it being an actual thing with royalty.]
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