revivalproject | my tears are always frozen

Entry tags:

my tears are always frozen | calibration

WHO: Sansa Stark
WHERE: tunnels
WHAT: Calibrations
WHEN: 3 June - 10 June
WARNINGS: Sansa's memories include sexual assault and torture. If you do not wish to play that, do not choose the wedding gown prompt. The others are free from this.

Sansa knows of calibrations. She'd hoped to never experience the horror of her mind being on display for others but here she is again, stripped bare to be seen once more. She's terrified of it. There are those who know her darkest secrets, the ones she tries to keep buried, but more and more each day she meets people who don't know. People who might pity her if they knew. People who would see her as less because they know what she is and that she's a ghost of a woman sometimes.

There's a wedding gown split in two and marred by bright, crimson blood. There's a hunting knife that seems too modern for this sitting room of stone and glass. There's a pair of silken slippers, chewed a bit on the heels. There's a drawing of a girl and a wolf half-finished, as if the artist were pulled away by something else and hadn't had the time to return.

As she walks through her mind once again, she takes in these differences. There's a carved wooden throne with the direwolves of House Stark, a silver crown laying in the seat. There's a scroll undone, the words just enough to make out. The final thing in this room of note is golden ring with a lion's head, a ring she's not had in years. She wishes she had it now.

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"Good and bad," Sansa admits. She won't paint it with bright paint and say that all was good but some of it, a lot of it, was worth having. It had been a place of safety when she'd come from one that had made it dangerous to be Sansa Stark.

"My name is Sansa. I'm a queen in a world that's very different than this one, a much older world. When I was in the Fleet, it was the first time I'd seen space or even travelled in the air. I was frightened at first but it became a home eventually."

"As all memories tend to be." Cloud quietly admits while slowly pointing over to the wedding gown. He's not going to pry it's a gesture of example.

"Cloud Strife. I come from a world recovering in ruin. I've been to space one time. It was very brief." He's not much for small talk but he does want to get to know the people the Agrii were bringing in and who he could potentially meet. "I ran a delivery service. I could make money that way too."

"Couriers can always make money. No matter what happens in the world, messages and goods have to go back and forth. Sometimes at a premium, depending on what they are."

Sansa remembers how happy she was when she did this drawing, how glad she'd been to have Lady by her side and not just a memory.

"I received Lady back when I was on the ship. She died when I was young, before, so I hadn't had my wolf in years and years. It felt like a part of me came home again."

"Travel became extremely tough for people after an incident happening with the Planet. I helped them out by mailing whatever they needed to places they couldn't get to because of the dangers."

Cloud listens to Sansa's tale of Lady back on the ship. A part of home coming back home to her.

"Did Lady come here with you?" He slowly drifts over to the silken slippers looking a bit closer at them.

"Lady did. She likes it better we're not on the ships because she can hunt and be in the wilds," Sansa says. "I missed her so terribly. I felt...my siblings and all had wolves. It's the sigil of our house, the symbol of what makes us strong."

The chewed on slippers make her smile. "She chews my slippers when she thinks I'm not paying enough attention to her. Perhaps I shouldn't let her do it but I don't have the heart to tell her no. I'll always give her the attention she never got to have."

"Your house, are there other houses?" He reaches up to touch the silver piece on his shoulder. "Fenrir has become a symbol for me."

Cloud gives a nod these memories are similar. "I never really had a pet, but I could see them getting upset as we do."

The next thing that catches his eye is the wooden throne. He nods over to it. "What about the throne?"

"There are Great Houses in Westeros, descended from the kings who were defeated by the Targaryens centuries before I was born. I have reclaimed our throne in the North," she says, pointing to the Throne of Winter and her crown. It feels strange to put the silver circlet atop her head once again but when she sits on the throne, she feels at home once again.

"I am Queen in the North. My people bled for others for far too long. We are independent and kneel to no man. I will never kneel. Never again. I have pride as a queen and I want to do right by my people. If those who lead us aren't willing to sacrifice, do they truly lead?"

The world she lived in almost seemed like a fairy tale. Cloud didn't know very many of them but he knew of one about a knight, princess and a dragon. He watches as she takes the throne. The words she speaks ring true when he looks around the room not one person is kneeling. He almost felt like one of her independent people.

Cloud's eyes focus back on Sansa as she finishes. He ponders over the question. "It's a difficult question to answer. I would want to say no, but I would want to believe that we're protected as a whole."

"It's the hope of everyone good, I think. I've seen too much evil in the world to believe that all people are inherently good but I think I've gotten better at discerning the good from the bad. I hope that I am one of the good ones, too, but I would hope that someone would tell me if I were failing."

It feels strange to be on her throne again so Sansa rises, standing again so she isn't looking up at Cloud. Her eyes fall upon her wedding gown.

"Thank you for not touching that one. Those memories are painful and I don't want to remember them. I wish I could have them burned from my mind."

"You do pick up on the evil once you've seen it enough." Cloud had seen plenty of evil things. People playing dirty with other lives. Being fully in control of them by creating mass panic. He knew that someone powerful enough could endanger others or kill their familiar by playing their cards right. He looks at Sansa thoughtfully. "I think some of us need that reminder of what path we're on."

The mention of the wedding dress brings him back into the room. They were here touching memories.

"You're welcome. I have some memories of my own that I wish to not remember." Cloud presses his lips together. He knows that his memories mean something to him. It's who he is and he'll continue to have them so he'll never have that particular fear again.

"Perhaps someday it's a story I can share. I've had it unwillingly shared through one of these calibrations before," Sansa explains. "And while the man who saw it was one of my dearest friends, it was still painful to relive it. There are things that may purify us as silver is purified in the crucible but they often aren't pleasant."

There is nothing pleasant about that wedding night or the year that followed. Still, she'd risen up as herself and become who she needed to be.

"I wish I knew more about you, though. You've the advantage of me now."

"If you want to share." Cloud wouldn't let her do if it made her that uncomfortable. He has plenty of memories he could keep buried.

He looks around at the items in the room. "I don't have to keep touching." But talking? He'll have to adjust a little.

"I don't mind sharing some of these memories. They have good things in them and sometimes remembering is nice. This time, it's easier. The first time I went through a calibration it was difficult to have people go through my mind and learn things I didn't want to tell them. I feel a little better about it now," she explains.

"Where do you come from, Cloud? You know a bit about the North and of Westeros but I don't know anything about where you come from and what it's like there. I'd like to learn."

He can't help but smile a little at that. Cloud understands that feeling quite well. "You'll soon realize that I'm not one for talking." His mind space though could be once he realizes he can trust them.

"I come from a backwater town called Nibelheim. Not so much out there but there's plenty of mountain trails. After I was old enjoy to join the Shinra army I did. I didn't want to work in the city like everyone else." He walks over towards the throne. "I come from a world that had a lot but lost a lot. It still has to be rebuilt."

"I can understand this. My kingdom has lost so much and bears the scars of it but we're working hard to rebuild it. Perhaps yours can rebuild too and one day you'll have people who think of your hardships as history and not reality."

When he talks of joining the army, Sansa's interest is piqued. "My brother Jon joined the Watch when he was younger. He wanted to be away from home and do something of worth. He was a soldier - is a soldier. He'll always have that part of him.

"Nibelheim is gone to me, a hometown that has a lot of memories. Midgar took a giant hit and those that survived after that built a city past sectors 3 and 4. The new city name is Edge. But we're currently facing something else from the aftermath of what happened to Midgar. I'm Cloud gives a shrug though since he wants her to understand that a city was in fact rebuilt. It's still being rebuilt in other ways. Shinra needs a lot of support and it'll be hard for them to get that. The people wouldn't trust them as much as they would trust the people that saved the Planet.

"I joined so I could become a SOLDIER in the Shinra army. They're basically seen as heroes. It's what you read in papers. I never made it that far."

"We call them knights where I'm from. They get titles and some of them get lands," Sansa explains. "They compete in tourneys and fight in wars and some of them guard queens like me. They can become infamous, if they're talented enough and end up in the right place at the right time."

Sansa smiles just a bit. "Maybe we need someone like you here, then. I'm certainly not a fighter."

Cloud wonders if that would be the role fitting for him in her world. It sounds like knights would be the heroes. He glances downward to the floor. "It's different where I'm from. SOLDIERs don't exist anymore to protect the city. My friends and I do have that kind of strength to lend." He does, but what is he without a weapon?

"I heard the Agrii don't really like weapons and I'm a swordsman without a sword." Cloud's fit to escape and do hand to hand combat but he would prefer to use a sword or a wooden baseball bat.

"They don't like weapons, no. A friend of mine had knives once but we bought them planetside," Sansa explains. "And we didn't use them to hurt one another, only to train, so it wasn't illegal. It wasn't with the Agrii, though, it was with the Atroma and the ships. I don't know what the Agrii think about it."

If Sansa can get a knife just to practice, she could keep her skills up and not lose what she'd learned from James.

"I wouldn't use it against someone. Only against a potential threat. But from the sounds of it. That doesn't seem to be the actual threat here." Cloud hadn't got to ask this question. He wanted to explore the area of city get a way of the land.

"What do the storms actually do?"

"They're made of electricity," Sansa says. "And I confess I don't know much about that. I know it works our lights and things but other than that, I don't know. They tell us the storms are dangerous to be in so we head to the ships when they happen. Or, apparently, in here."

Cloud shuts his eyes since he's not about to bring up the topic that the planet energy is what makes everything work. It doesn't make a lot of sense to him yet. He can guess that any of the powered items is coming from the planet itself.

"How are they dangerous? What makes them so special from any other storm?"

"I'm not certain. I'm really never the person to ask about these things because my world calls everything it can't explain magic and declares it unknowable or false," she explains.

"So I've never been taught to be inquisitive about these kinds of things. I'm a queen and a politician but I don't know anything about how these storms come to be and how they are dangerous - only that they are. I'm sorry I can't be more help."

"I come from a world where they make something from the planet energy to be able to cast magic. We call it Materia." Cloud looks at Sansa. She could tell him anything about magic and he wouldn't deny it as false. There could be something to the storms.

"It's alright. You have provided me with other information that I didn't know about. I will come your way about politics." He knows how to blow stuff up and his group got labeled as terrorists. He's not going to say that though. Cloud wouldn't know anything about that playing field or how to even approach it. He's a fighter.

"Well, if there's politics to be had, I'm the Queen to ask them about. I don't think we've any other queens here in Temba."

Sansa mostly just thinks of herself as another person, someone who works hard to contribute to the society they've built here as much as anyone else, but deep down she cannot stop being Queen in the North. Nothing can take that from her even if it's not relevant here.

"The idea of being able to cast magic is...fascinating, though. We have Red Priestesses who do it through the power of their god. I don't know if it's a trick or not but it looks impressive."

my tears are always frozen | calibration

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