001 winter is coming

[theladyofwinterfell]

Who: Sansa Stark
When: after the power plant
Where: around Draega; various
What: Influence Prompts - Baby Light My Fire, A Somber Affair, Loren's Lament
Warnings: TBD



Sansa has spent the last little while getting comfortable with small spells and basic Craft. She cannot think of it as a proper extension of herself, not yet, but she can conjure witchlight and do convenience spells with a modicum of effort. Her biggest issue is knowing the depth of her strength and how long she can go without resting and rejuvenating herself. When Grejor asks for volunteers to help warm houses when the power plant has gone awry, Sansa is among the first to volunteer. Perhaps she doesn't wear the darkest Jewel, but she does want to help and to know the people she's come to aid. This allows her to do both.

She asks how to do the warming spell and seems to get it after a few tries; she'd already figured out witchlight with Molly some days back. She has a partner in this endeavor, someone willing to go with her to help share the burden, and she extends her gloved hand to them.

"We should get to know the people as we help them," she suggests. "We should show them that we only mean to help, that our intent is always good."





Sansa hasn't heard the stories of witchblood. If she had, a great deal of it would have been growing in the cracks of Winterfell, covering the snowy grounds with blooms of sorrow. When she sees the White jeweled witch scrabbling at the plant, she cannot help but want to aid her, want to ease her suffering somehow. Sansa kneels alongside her and gently asks what she might do to help, only to be told that this plant shows the blood of a witch has been spilled; it doesn't take long for her to realize that this is a relative of Councilwoman Vera.

"I'll help you move it, if you want. We can transport it to your own garden and have a cup of tea, perhaps?" Sansa knows what it feels like to lose family, to feel as if you are alone in the world. She doesn't want this witch to feel that way. When she sees someone nearly step upon the plant, she tosses up a Purple Dusk shield and speaks a bit harshly.

"Careful where you step," she says, eyes ice cold. "We're attempting to save...what is it called?" The witch supplies that it's witchblood, for her mother, and Sansa nods in acknowledgement of that.

"Help us move this witchblood to the family home. It's a token of remembrance and it should be where the Councilwoman was loved and cherished, not here upon these stones."





Sansa has spent most of the day out in Draega trying to find shops to buy sewing supplies and meeting both Blood and landen to get to know them better. She's only just returned to the Queen's Residence to be looped into a conversation with Prince Loren. She has little experience with him, save in exchanging the smallest of pleasantries, and being asked to help with something is both bewildering and something of an honor. He'd trust a stranger like her to handle delicate business?

The delicate business, it turns out, are a stack of sternly-worded complaints that need addressing. Both the explosion and the death of Vera have upended the balance of Draega and both Blood and landen have taken to pen and paper to make their voices heard. Sansa has experience with this, having mediated disputes and handled correspondence on Jon's behalf as Lady of Winterfell, so while there's quite a lot to go through, she has an idea of where to begin.

She hasn't sat down at the worktable very long before someone else is pulled into the room, someone who looks familiar enough as another stranger and not one of the Draega citizens. Sansa tips her head toward a chair across her.

"It seems you, too, have been conscripted. Come, help me sort these complaints by subject so we can get started."

Comments

[theladyofwinterfell]

"Wards would be better," Sansa agrees. "Posting guards is gold and time wasted, I think, and ultimately I think the squabbles between the two restaurants were merely to annoy one another and not to cause real harm. I know these people are afraid because of what happened to the Councilwoman but that seems an exception, not the rule."

Sansa taps her pen against one of the complaints. "So we offer to ward the businesses, both landen and Blood. I don't know if the magic is something we can do ourselves but we could ask around about the spell and see if there's something we can recreate."

[song_of_ice]

"They are and when people are afraid, they sometimes overreact." The last thing they wanted was a mob forming because of some sort rumor or fear. Both of them knew how quickly the people could turn and unease could shift to violence. "Some of the others who have been here longer might know?"

But like she said, they would have to ask around. It was something that he would need to learn anyway. He would want to make sure that both he and Sansa had some sort of ward over their rooms. "If the Blood businesses agree. They might try to negotiate special privileges."

[theladyofwinterfell]

"We might have to concede them, since the crime happened on Blood land. What I would want to do would be have Blood and landen help one another with wards but I doubt that's going to be productive. They're at one another's throats just now," Sansa says, frowning a bit.

"But the best way to end enmity is to force people to find a common ground and work together. It helped me with the men of the Vale and the men in the North. Still, the Blood and landen might as well be knights and wildlings for all their differences."

[song_of_ice]

He considered this, contemplating how quickly he had tried to force the Watch to accept the Freefolk. "If you push them to put aside old grudges too much, it will turn them against us. We need to be trusted by both sides." And not be killed in the process.

"You find your true friends on the battlefield." But she was right. Common enemies tended to bring others together...as much as possible. There was always resistance. He only needed to think back to Royce's objections to the Freefolk being south of the Wall. They needed to see what the large threat was. "The men in the Vale and the men in the North don't have thousands of years of fighting between them."

[theladyofwinterfell]

"No, they don't. There's some differences, yes, but both of them despise the fact that they have to fight with Wildlings until those Wildlings are the only thing keeping them from being overrun by White Walkers," Sansa says sagely.

She taps her pen against the letter again, frustrated. "I would give my right arm for Ramsay Bolton right about now. He's so unlikable that both Blood and landen would be calling for his head. Sadly, I think it's beyond Queen Fayura's power to raise him from the dead for even that noble purpose."

[song_of_ice]

"The Freefolk lost a number of their fighters at Hardhome and in reclaiming Winterfell." Which sadly meant that they weren't going to make as much as a difference as he might want. Every able bodied counted, but if it was simply with the numbers they had, they would fall in one night. "Dead men look much the same."

He didn't know how to feel about that statement. While she was right that he would give the city a common enemy, the thought of the Bolton bastard only reminded Jon of his failure to save Rickon. "Ramsay with the Craft isn't something I want to consider."

[theladyofwinterfell]

"Absolutely not. Unlikeable though he was, I would not want to inflict that plague upon anyone, much less with Craft. It's best he remains stomped out like so much dust beneath one's heel."

She and Jon had taken care of that, separately but in equal contribution. House Bolton would be nothing but a rumor and a ghost in a few generations.

"So how did you get the Freefolk to rally for Winterfell? I know I was there but I am also a woman - I wasn't privy to every war council. If you could find a way to find Freefolk willing to fight for a kneeler, we can breach the gap between landen and Blood, I think."

[song_of_ice]

Ramsay had been dealt with by Sansa, much to his relief. That night was a blur to him, as the loss of his adrenaline had left him drained and exhausted. He heard the dogs and the screams, but preferred not to ask or consider what was happening to Ramsay. It was for Sansa to do with him what she will, he wouldn't let his honor interfere.

Thinking back to his talks with the Freefolk, it left him uneasy and weighed down again by guilt. It hadn't been their fight, but he had used them as though they were his army. Because of that, so many lost their lives.

"I asked and they agreed to help." Such a simple answer. "Tormund made a better case than I did. I shouldn't have asked them. They didn't escape Hardhome to fight in my war."

[theladyofwinterfell]

"And we don't have a Tormund who can tell everyone how you fought for him," Sansa says. "So we're back to the beginning and we don't know how to bring the two together."

She thinks for a moment and then lifts her hand, an idea forming. "What if we had wards that were half landen and half Blood? Spelled, possibly, but also some sort of new lock? If both of them worked on them, they'd feel invested."

[song_of_ice]

He thinks he follows what she suggests, though the idea of it sounds complicated, more than he knows about the Craft. It would need a bit more formulating with those that might know more, but it was certainly a good suggestion. So long as both Blood and Landen contributed, it would at least be a stepping stone.

"You would need to work out how the spell is crafted?" Not that he doubted she could. He would likely watch from the side to get a sense of how it was done. Sansa's idea would likely help contribute to him learning as well.

[theladyofwinterfell]

"I think if we asked one of the Court, they might be interested in helping us. Loren or Verim, perhaps, though I know Loren better. I don't know anyone connected to the landen guilds, though, so I would have to make those contacts as well."

Sansa thinks it's a good plan, even if it's one that needs more fine-tuning before she implements it.

[song_of_ice]

He nods his head in agreement. "If you know Loren better, I think you should be the one to speak to him." Though she seemed already intent on doing that. Everything seemed resolved on that count and he didn't doubt that Sansa could manage it with her usual finesse.

"What are some of the other requests?"

[theladyofwinterfell]

"Requests for aid in heating houses," Sansa says, looking through some of them. "The loss of the power plant has affected a lot of the landen. We'll need to help them. They'll need fuel for their fireplaces at the very least but spells would probably go further and generate more goodwill."

Sansa thinks as much goodwill as can be bought between Blood and landen is a good thing at the moment, the way they're at one another.

[song_of_ice]

"I know there are some jeweled who already volunteered to help in that. We could ask some of the others living in the palace to visit houses and give them what they need. It won't take much time and does a lot to improve relations." As she said, she was already a few steps ahead of him.

He didn't like the idea of helping for altruistic reasons, but that seemed to be imperative here.

[theladyofwinterfell]

"I've already agreed to do it but I think if some of the Blood did it and not just Strangers, it will go a long way to setting things right," Sansa says.

She puts down her pen and looks at Jon, serious as ever. "I want to fix these problems but I cannot help but apply Westerosi logic to them. It's hard to take myself from that."