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WHO: Tony and some glownies, and any witnesses to this experiment
WHERE: Sansa and Tyrion's house, the livestock nursery, anywhere in between
WHAT: Tony sees an obvious solution to a transportation problem.
WHEN: There's a few options in here, this is an extended period of time while Tony works out the problems and gets your input. Theadjacking imperative, talk amongst yourselves.
WARNINGS: Potential animal harassment and/or consumption. That one's on Tommy.
ALSO: I've got an OOC post if you want to hash something out with me/each other, or there's something known about these animals/places that I've messed up.

Suburban Cowboy
The effort of cleaning out the forge and getting the heat on had caused a deep-muscle kind of exhaustion that encouraged Tony to recuperate for a whole, like, ten minutes with his feet kicked up on a worktop he found he liked the feel of, thankful for the soldering iron that had come back from Risa with him so he could mostly work in stillness as he knitted some found fragments together with his tongue between his teeth and cheap sunglasses precariously on the end of his nose. His work wasn't manifesting the mechanism of the data points quickly, though, and he was going to have to reprogram his tablet if he was going to Frankenstein a working computer that in any way satisfied his level of patience before he could start making sense of any software. If the workforce in any way seemed to exist on this planet, Tony would have found a way to pay for this menial labour days ago. It was taking way too much time to actually get to work.

Trying to sleep at this point didn't help his focus; laying in his nest of what he identified as largely blackout curtains repurposed from around the forge and neighbouring factory, close enough to his workbench that he could fall into it at any moment, Tony just stared wide-eyed at the dark, vaulted ceiling listening to the profound lack of humanity around him. There was no familiar rush of traffic, or even constant hum of power. There wasn't even a satellite he could reach out to to listen in on the murmur of connection around the planet. There was just the tiny, little network of a handful of people, mostly silent on a good day. All he could hear was the alien fauna, so clear without the familiar noise pollution, like being isolated up in a mountain cabin: a rustle of leaves as something small darted through the underbrush outside, a repeating call that back home Tony would have identified as a toad but here was probably some kind of scavenger canid. And his muscles still ached, but not nearly enough to knock him out yet, not like the last few times he'd been able to convince himself to sleep.

He hadn't gone West from the area around the forge yet, finding himself straying into the centre of town where most of the activity and food was to be found when he could make the journey, but it wasn't a particularly long run in that direction before he found himself jogging around what felt like a common block of a subdivision. This could have been an admittedly still pretty alien, but cottagey area of Long Island; he felt like he could pass a yoga mom out on her early morning jog before the school rush at any moment. The surrealism was enough without a flicker of faint light that kept on catching his eye as he rounded the block. It wasn't bright enough for Tony to pinpoint immediately, but without any other lights on his whole run, it was hard to miss, and eventually he slowed enough to wander toward it, through a yard to a fenced off area.

Were those llamas glowing?

Glow-Ranching
The agricultural sector of this community, or any community, really, hadn't been of much interest to Tony so far. It seemed to be functional and producing edible products, and the details could be left to the kind of freaks who enjoyed that kind of information, like biologists and plant-mom millenials. What he hadn't considered until now was the potential for an untapped labour force. Every agricultural society in history had very quickly figured out that domesticating animals, whether it was dogs or cattle, to get their stuff from one place to another, was much more civilized than walking around like cavemen. This New Temba Colony was so far behind on their development. Most of them might have been advanced enough in their technological development back home to be well beyond this kind of system, into spaceflight or beyond, but the resources for that kind of thing were many and complex. These resources were right here, fueled by weeds and, by all accounts, pretty placid.

The livestock nursery was a surprisingly quiet place, and Tony's first scan didn't reveal any obvious foot traffic. It was the middle of the long day, though-- when the sun was at its peak for that long, it was difficult not to buy into the siesta lifestyle. Everyone could have been in the huge greenhouse, that did seem to be the centre of plenty of activity whenever Tony was in the area, so Tony took a moment to squint up at it across the street, hand shielding his eyes, hoping he might see someone through the glass to catch their attention.

Field Test
Tony was very close to the camera, but he wasn't quite looking at it, clearly attempting to balance it carefully so he could back away slowly, hands up and waiting for it the tablet to fall. Perfect, stable, it wasn't about to pitch off of the fence. In one hand seemed to be loops of rope, while he used the other to point at the camera now expectantly. "Okay, rolling. This is field test one, starting mark..." He spun around, searching, and found that his subject was about ten feet from where he had left her and called, "Hey. We're trying to do something here. Places, people." None of the glownies had learned Tony's language yet, including this one. He turned back to the camera, and tried a new tactic, "This is Llamrei, she's a champ, has lots of ideas to contribute to the project. Today we are going to see if we can ride her."

In the time it took Tony to jog over to the animal, there was a distinct shiver to the camera as someone disturbed the fence, and it wobbled just as Tony started to murmur sweet encouragement to his project and try to slide his makeshift reins into place. The tablet hit the dirt at the same time as Tony went, "Woah, sorry!"

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"First off, I actually rather like you. Secondly, as someone who has been...well, I'd rather not use the graphic terms for it but you can infer what happened to me in my prior marriage if you wish it, I can tell when a man is going to hurt me. You have no intention of it. You flirt with me, yes, but when it comes down to it I don't think you'd force yourself on me."

Sansa laughs softly. "I was taught how to fight by the Winter Soldier and he's the very best, from what I've heard. He worked me to the bone but he taught me how to fight him off; it's my suspicion it would take less to fight you. He helped me find myself again. Thirdly, there isn't really anyone my age here. The younger men from your world are...they're closer to my age, yes, but it's hard for me to relate to them. It's easier with you or Wanda or Steve."

Even her saying it like that made Tony's skin crawl-- maybe it was how she phrased it, 'force yourself', because that wouldn't have been the real threat from him, or to any of the young women that he knew had a story about how mature they were for their age. Brute force was not at all what he had been talking about, and it was deeply unsettling both that force was how Sansa immediately related to it, and that Tony didn't have such an optimistic opinion of himself. There was an unavoidable kernel of truth to what Kathy had claimed about his manipulative nature.

He gave an apologetic pat and squeeze to her shoulder for bringing them back around to that abusive relationship again, sure she had heard more platitudes about it than he could think of by now. Instead of being irredeemably glib about it, instead he went with, "Wow, you line me up with telling me you like me just to lay me out letting me know you're pretty sure you could kick my ass. Masterfully vicious, honestly, I've never felt so emasculated." If she had any more of those in the barrel, she was never going to get rid of him. "Have you tried? I mean, Wanda I get, she's..." The word Tony had at the tip of his tongue was 'ephemeral', but that wasn't quite right. "Wanda. But Steve is literally a hundred, he watches medical dramas in his spare time, there's no way you're more his speed than Teddy's."

"I'm not the girl I used to be, Tony," Sansa reminds him softly. "Anything that was soft or tender in me has been forged into steel. I cannot relate to those who haven't...who haven't seen war or pain. I don't relate to those who haven't suffered loss. I suppose that's maudlin but it's who I am now. Steve, idealistic as he is, at least has been through war."

"As to whether or not I could beat you in a fight, we could give it a go when I'm not with child and see what happens. He did teach me how to use a knife and my own body against his. He even taught me how to escape if someone as strong as he grabbed me from behind. It might serve me well someday. I do believe I'd win, though, so if you'd like to forfeit now I'll accept it."

It was hard for Tony to believe what Sansa said about who she wasn't anymore, so far all he had seen of her was tenderness, even the way she yielded under the careful pressure he put along her neck was soft. Not that he doubted that was how she saw herself, or how she wanted to be-- the language was so similar to the voice of Tony's father in his head every time he was at his most wretched, Tony knew better than to try to challenge her on it.

He didn't know if she meant to imply that her comfort with Tony was coming from the same place, relating to some loss she saw in him, but even trying to make a joke of it seemed like it would draw too much attention to it. Tony did not want that under the spotlight, it was enough of a challenge trying to keep her cheerful without dragging his baggage into the conversation, too. "Gladly, I'll take that forfeit, I'm not above that. My pride can take it, not enough of that to matter, but my face? That would be a tragedy," he said. "Listen, for me, I'd rather you never have to put those skills to the test. If there's someone here that you think might force you to, I think we should figure out a way to deal with them before it comes to that."

"Especially since I don't have James here to do it for me," Sansa agrees. "There's only one person you need worry about and he isn't here. Still, we must plan for his coming because anyone and everyone can come here. Steve knows the name, as does Wanda. It's my former husband. If Ramsay Bolton shows, you must kill him. There's no other option."

Sansa rubs the bridge of her nose a bit. "Especially since I have a child. He tried to get one on me for a year and it didn't happen. I won't go into the particulars for you - you needn't hear of those horrors - but he'll have what he wants and his favorite plaything. Tyrion, much as I love him, cannot defend me. That is the only person you need worry about my safety with and he is not here. I have no other enemy. I killed him once but I would rather not have to do it again. It's the one thing I fear about a place like this - it can bring the dead back to life."

At first, Tony thought Sansa must have been referring to someone who had been here and left, like her James or the Vision Tommy had mentioned, so it took him by surprise to realize this was just the one person Sansa was afraid of. The explanation, the horrors, was unnecessary, but Tony didn't know how a person could come to be so confident that they could pinpoint that one person in their lives that could ruin them. Tony felt that threat from everywhere.

He dropped his hands to her shoulders to follow them down to her arms, and skimmed his palms along them as he sank down against her back to wrap their hands together over the swell of her belly, protective and pacifying. 'Kill him' was an unavoidably extreme solution, but this did not seem like the best context in which to argue the morality of it, especially if Sansa had already done it once before-- but she didn't have people like Steve or Wanda to present an alternative solution at that point. Tony wasn't going to make it an argument, or he would try not to, but he could help but ask, "Did they say they would do that? Kill him?"

"James swore he would," Sansa says, voice steady. "I did it myself, back home. It's no small thing, to kill a man, and you never forget it even if I swore I would erase all memory of him and his house from the world. I think if I asked, Steve or Wanda would. There's no other option. He won't stop until he has me. He'll hurt others, certainly, but it isn't what he wants. It isn't enough. He wants me. He tried to break my mind by breaking my body and he failed. If he's here, I'm not safe."

The intimacy she has with Wanda and Steve leads her to trust Tony perhaps more than she should; he does seem good, though, and she thinks herself a far better judge of character than she once was.

"He won't stop until Sansa Stark is gone. I'm the only one he never broke. If he comes, he has to die. There's no other option."

It was an abstract kind of relief to hear that neither of the people Tony thought he knew had overtly agreed to that kind of punishment; Tony didn't really know either of them, he knew, and found he had been holding his breath until he sighed against Sansa's shoulder, reassured for now that they weren't completely alien to him. What did that even mean, functionally? He hadn't even seen Wanda yet, this anxiety was over relationships he didn't even have, and this place was making him long for those connections.

It didn't sound like Sansa could even sympathize with the feeling. Where she came from had not been kind to her. "Even if, if whatever was calling the shots here decided he was a necessary cog in this machine, you're in a very different place now. You got your husband, you got this baby, look, this little house and these weird...animals," he said, fingers twitching and flicking restlessly to gesture but not quite leaving where they rested. "So none of that can play out the same way again, we're on a totally different system here."

"Having spent a year of my life raped, flayed by knives, and tortured with other people watching, I do not think my current life is insulation enough from what he wants with me," Sansa says coolly. "I don't speak of it in such detail normally but I felt it necessary in this instance for you to understand. My husband cannot protect me physically. My child is what Ramsay wants. Hurting me is his favorite game."

Even speaking of Ramsay makes her shoulders tense and Sansa lets out a slow breath, trying not to undo what good Tony had done to her neck and back.

"I would spend every waking moment terrified. There's no other option."

This was not a battle of the wills that Tony was going to win, nor did he even have an argument for a victim that deserved her reparations. Making her dig her heels in was just making her defend her experiences, and Tony was not enjoying being the one to make her feel that way, so he rolled his shoulders back and released her, happy to forfeit again with an apologetic kiss to her hair. As long as they were speaking hypothetically, about a dead man maybe showing up to continue a reign of terror, then hypothetically Tony could see another way out of the problem. That didn't mean his opinion wasn't malleable should he be faced with the situation in reality. He had killed for lesser crimes than what Sansa was forced to carry with her. It wasn't worth arguing about now.

"Come on, don't do that," he chided softly, pushing her shoulders back down where they wouldn't cause further problems that she didn't need. "One of these nights, we're going to run into each other and you're going to have a happy story to tell me. What about these guys, which one of them is your favourite?" he asked with a gesture to the glownies, not bothered that the redirection was obvious.

"The little one who walks funny," Sansa says, pointing out a little glownie with plenty of energy but very little coordination. "I think he's the sweetest of the bunch and he's very affectionate. You could say I have a special tenderness for cripples, bastards, and broken things."

Sansa turns around so she can look at Tony. "I didn't relieve you of your duties to rub my shoulders, you know. I'm a queen and I demand it." She doesn't, really, but since Tony is so often teasing her, she thought she might tease him back for once.

"I'll settle my debt with you after you're done."

Thankful that she wasn't frustrated with his push back and willing to play along with him, Tony let a wry smile slip first before seriously schooling his expression as though he didn't adore the punishment. "First you tell me you'll kick my ass, then you call me a bastard, and you come at me with this? Do you think sitting on this fence is comfortable? My right cheek is fully asleep," he complained with the vaguest flick to make Sansa turn around again and settle in for this ordeal she was putting him through, his restless hands obediently back to work. "Just know, I collect interest. The payment is going to be staggering."

"Oh, you usurer, I figured as much. I'll just have to see if I have what it takes to settle my debt or if I shall have to pay you in installments. I'm certain you'll want it to be the latter so you have an excuse to come flirt with me that is legitimate."

Sansa settles back into his touch though and lets out a soft sound. She's certain these muscles haven't been loose for months and it feels good to have the tension release.

"All said, even if I weren't happily married and here pregnant and alone instead, I doubt you'd be nearly as interested since I would be available to you. I fascinate you solely because you cannot have me, don't I?"

Tony theatrically scoffed his indignation at her accusation of looking for excuses to flirt, only to tell on himself, "I don't need an excuse." Her next observation wasn't so easy to respond to, though. He was sure she meant it lightly, but it felt like a deep cut, and Tony wasn't sure if he should defend himself or Sansa's value outside of unattainable intrigue. It couldn't be that she saw through him that clearly, even Tony found the assessment murky (would he lose her number the moment she showed too much interest? How much of that was the playboy mask he crafted, how much of that mask came from an honest place, and did he want to be looking this closely at his own psychology? Not at all), and Sansa had done that thing where she asked for his approval on Risa. "Hey, I didn't even come here for you," he pointed out, "I'm here for the glownies. You're, honestly, you're a distraction. I see what you're doing. Sure. I'm the one flirting."

"I am not flirting with you," Sansa says airily. "I'm a woman wed with a child on the way. I'm just saying I wouldn't be nearly so interesting to you if you could actually have me in your bed. You'd be stuck with another man's child, a woman as big round as she is tall and, frankly, a queen with high expectations. Nothing to take on lightly."

Sansa laughs softly. "Though you are correct in saying you came for the Glownies. You didn't even know they were mine or that I would be out walking at this hour. I suppose I should apologize for being so distracting."

Married women adored Tony, they were easily the safest hookups, that was hardly a good defense to him. Or did that prove Sansa's point? He definitely couldn't say that out loud, she had him there. "How do you know that's not what I'm into? My people's culture could be all about ladies who waddle. That's the peak of beauty, struggling to walk like a zombie after not getting enough sleep," he argued. "Is that not erotic to you?"

He patted her shoulder, that was all he could do for her neck now, and gestured to the animals again. "Come on, I'm calling up that debt now. You're going to show me how you...harvest these. What did you call it? Make thread."

"You shear them, same as sheep," Sansa explains. "They're pretty docile about it, so long as you don't shear them so closely that you injure their skin. As far as spinning - have you ever seen a spinning wheel? You card the wool with a comb and spin it into thread."

It's easy for Sansa, a process she's known her whole life, but she doesn't know how much he might know about it. Modern worlds were very different.

"If you want to make something with it, you either knit it or weave it on a loom."

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