revivalproject | of cloudless climes and starry nights

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of cloudless climes and starry nights

WHO: Sansa Stark
WHERE: Her home in the residential section of Blue 21 on the map (if you've met her, feel free to assume you know where she lives), at the Agriculture Center, anywhere between the two points.
WHAT: This is Sansa's last post because she HAS THIS CHILD SHE HAS BEEN PREGNANT WITH FOR 1000 YEARS. So she is very large, trying to still be in a good mood, and really wants to not be pregnant anymore.
WHEN: 28 April - 4 May
WARNINGS: TBD

Sansa spends most of her time walking now. She walks from home to the city center, from the city center to home, and to each and every place in between. She tries not to go anywhere dangerous or with rough terrain; she is nowhere near as nimble as she once was and she fears falling and hurting herself or the child. Still, there's plenty of places she can go without pushing into anything remotely dangerous and that's what she does.

Her back only eases when she moves. It's contrary to what she's always believed as women typically took to their beds before birthing but perhaps women in Westeros are not correct about birthing. She's willing to believe that considering the number of women who die in childbirth - including her own mother by law. She doesn't worry so much about dying, though, not with Altair, and Wanda has said she will help with the birth. She's still afraid of pain but she's borne pain before and can do it once again.

In the agricultural center, she tries to tend plants as best she can without actually bending down or picking up anything heavy. It's a difficult task, actually, and Sansa is grateful for her height and ends up only tending those that hang in baskets in the air or those potted and settled on tables in front of her. It's good to have work to focus on, at any rate, and she's grown tired of sewing for this very moment.

By the time she trundles home in the evening, she settles in her chair with feet propped and works on sewing. Sometimes it's mending and sometimes it's some of the last baby things she can make before the child comes and she won't have the time to sew or do much of anything but be a mother. She believes whole-heartedly that Tyrion will help her with their son much more than most fathers in Westeros do and her friends seem to be gleeful at the prospect of a child but all the same, she will shoulder much of the burden alone.

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"I am as well. I could raise a child alone," Sansa says. "But I am glad I do not have to. I am glad he's here with me and that we'll be able to have a marriage and a family. We're very lucky. I wish for such happiness for everyone here though I know not everyone finds happiness in bearing children."

Sansa looks down and laughs a little. "I'm not certain I'm happy about it right now. I have reached the miserable state of this pregnancy, I believe, and I want to carry my son in my arms and not in my belly."

That seems understandable. Cal smiles, nodding at her. "Just have to hang in there a little longer. I'm sure it'll all be worth it once you're finally able to hold him for the first time."

It makes him wonder how difficult it was for his parents to be persuaded to part with him, wherever the Jedi had brought him from. There's so little he really knows about any potential family he might have had. It's probably too late to have any thoughts or regrets on that matter, not with what's going on in the galaxy now.

"I do believe it will be," Sansa says. "Until then, more discomfort. Luckily I will have my friends to support me and Altair to help bring this child into the world. He's much more talented than the midwives where I come from. The things he can do are amazing."

She's so much more comfortable with giving birth with someone like Altair around than she'd be in Westeros. In Westeros, giving birth is a toss of the coin as to whether or not you live or you die.

"Do you know him?"

The idea of a Sith lord playing at midwife just conjures an amusing image in his mind. Cal can't help but grin, managing to smother a laugh as he nods at Sansa.

"Altair? Yes, I've met him. I haven't seen what he can do, but I doubt he'd be offering so much of his time at the hospital if he wasn't capable."

"He's been very kind to me so far," Sansa says, smiling a bit. "So I am glad to have met him and I am glad that he's here to help me bring this child into the world. I did meet him when he was a child, though."

Sansa tips her head a bit. "Were you here for that? When some of us ended up quite a bit younger than usual?"

Given the look that crosses his face, it's probably evident that Cal has not. The notion that perhaps Altair had been back and forth one more time than originally revealed is quickly dismissed as Sansa continues. The padawan tilts his head, looking more than a little confused.

"Younger..? How does that work?"

"It was one of the planets we visited," Sansa explains. "Certain people reverted back to being children after eating something. Whatever it was, I didn't eat it along with a few others but there were quite a few children running about. Altair was one of them."

Sansa smiles a little with the memory. "He was a proper little boy, too. Good manners, sweet disposition. He was anything a mother could have ever wanted in a son. I knew a man that was that darling as a child would be a good man and I was right."

"Visited? Like that trip to Risa?" Cal can't help but frown a bit at the thought that just eating something might change a person back into a child. It's probably pointless to think it impossible when apparently it's been a thing that has happened.

"Sounds like it was interesting time," he muses, and with Sansa describing Altair, the padawan tries to picture the Sith Lord in such a state. "Did they remember being children, once they'd turned back?" He's assuming everyone had gone back to normal, having seen no children around the city otherwise.

"Yes, precisely like Risa," Sansa explains. "They did remember being children, though, and that was how I forged my friendship with Altair. I have never regretted it. Not even once."

Sansa thinks for a moment. "I don't know if anyone else remembers their time as a child but Altair certainly does."

Cal nods, laughing quietly as behind him, BD-1 gives a thoughtful hoot. Seems like they've yet to see how strange things can be around here and wherever it is the Agrii allow them to be.

"It's good that you two were able to hold onto that friendship." And make the best out of the unusual situation.

"I am as well. I have found both in this place and when I was in the Fleet, it was best to forge friendships with people, especially those different from myself, than to try and keep my distance. It makes it easier to adjust."

Sansa smiles a bit wider. "People like you are much more familiar with travelling through the stars than I am. We cannot even reach the stars in the sky where I am from."

"The fleet?" Cal asks. "It's easier making friends with people here, at least for me. Things back in my galaxy are...difficult right now, have been for a while."

Being here is kind of a welcome break. With having learned that those who've since been returned or have come back again aren't gone long enough to be missed from their places of origin, it makes it a little easier to not worry too much about the things he's left behind.

"You have no starships, where you're from?"

Sansa shakes her head. "Ah, no, we have no star ships. We have ships that sail the ocean but we cannot do anything else," she explains. "It was only when I came to this group of people that I learned about travelling from one planet to another and through the skies and stars. We don't even have electricity. We use candles and lanterns where I'm from."

Westeros is so backward in comparison and it was part of the reason Sansa felt so separate from everyone else once she returned. She'd still become a queen, yes, but her life and her outlook had been much different than before.

Cal nods slowly as Sansa talks about the world she lives in. It's not a completely unheard of thing to him, at least.

"There are worlds like that, back in our galaxy. Being able to travel between other worlds is amazing, and I guess it's easy to take it for granted if one has the ability to do so. ...but I don't think it's a bad thing that a world might just be contained in itself. Especially not with how the galaxy is now."

People can learn to thrive with what they have. Maybe some things might be beneficial, by way of modern technology and imported goods, but it also invited a whole new aspect of potential trouble that previously would have been unheard of.

"My world is far less civilized than this one or others I've been to," Sansa says. "I can easily say that Westeros is the most barbaric place I've ever been. Women are treated poorly, medicine is more like to kill you than to save you, prejudice abounds - being among the people here has taught me there's another way."

Sansa thinks it makes her a better queen, all told.

Would access to something more make the situation in Sansa's world better or worse? It's not something Cal can answer, although he winces as the woman describes this place of Westeros.

"I'm sorry to hear that," he says, frowning. "There's always another way. It just takes someone to realize it, and be willing to do something about it."

"The world needs to change. I just don't quite know how to spark such change," Sansa says. "And that's something I hope to learn by being here. Surely so many people from so many places will have an idea, yes?"

It's heavy conversation but Sansa seeks advice from people about this problem because it's important to her. If she returns to Westeros, she needs to know how to make it better than it is now.

"It's not easy," Cal admits, nodding. "That's true though. One of the benefits of being in a strange place like this."

He doesn't know that he's in such a position to offer any good advice. The galaxy won't change overnight, and he's not even sure what he's decided to undertake will do anything, much less now, given how his trip to Dathomir had left him shaken.

"I've learned a great deal from a good many people," Sansa says. "And now I'm learning how to grow things. I've never been a farmer - that's a thing that queens don't concern themselves with - and now I understand the plight of my smallfolk. Understanding them makes it easier to relate to them."

She tips her head a bit. "What specialty do you have?"

Cal tilts his head as he glances back at her. "Specialty? I took up engineering. Made sense, since I've mostly worked with machines, I guess. I used to be part of crews that would dismantle old starships, take them apart piece by piece to be scrapped or reused for other projects. I've picked up on how some things work and how to fix things from doing that. So I can fix BeeDee here whenever he gets in over his head."

The droid beeps almost sulkily at that, but cheers with the slight bounce the padawan gives him on his shoulder. "Not to say we haven't both gotten into our fair share of trouble," Cal laughs.

"I wouldn't know where to begin with a machine. Tyrion, though, he's been fiddling with them since we were in the Fleet. He knows his way around them even if Westeros is so very different than these planets have been."

It's interesting to Sansa, how they've changed and adapted, and she thinks it's for the better.

"How does one go about learning such a thing? You take them apart and figure out how to put them back together?"

That's the second time she's mentioned this fleet, that surely there must be some significance than it merely being a fleet so much as a name for something. "What's this fleet you've spoken about? I get the feeling that being here on Agra Ten isn't your first exposure to another world outside of your own."

Cal nods at her questions. "Part of it is that, yeah. You need to know where parts of the ship are if you want to dismantle it properly. How to disconnect power connections, what sections can be broken down easiest, where things go and what part goes with what. We use machinery to do a lot of things too, and when there's no one else on hand to fix them, we have to learn how to at least try, just so we won't end up behind schedule. It was a hassle."

“Some of us came from a Fleet of starships,” Sansa explains. “The creatures who held us, the Atroma, they wanted us to perform for them. The Agrii seem a little different but it isn’t the first time I’ve been in a situation such as this and I am glad for it. I didn’t know how to use power or anything when I first came.”

She smiles a bit. “I never would have survived this place had I not lived in the Fleet first. It prepared me for this place.”

He's not sure whether to find it disturbing that Sansa had had to go through something like this before, but it's certainly something that she can appreciate the experience in preparation for their current situation.

"You're a strong person," Cal says, grinning back at her. "Not many people would look at such things in such a positive light."

"If nothing ever happened to us, we would have no ability to grow and change," Sansa says. "I've had horrible things happen to me, things that should happen to no one, but I survived them. I rose up and I defeated my enemies and became the woman I was meant to be. Not many can say that."

Without Littlefinger, Ramsay, and all the rest, I would still be a little bird.

The words still echo for her, words she'd told the Hound at a victory feast. It was true even if it was a hard truth.

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out_of_order - 2020-05-16 22:35 (UTC) - Expand

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