my tears are always frozen | calibration

[theladyofwinterfell]

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.

Comments

[seeingscarlet]

"And for the better, I think. I don't need to be able to read them to see that those men are loyal to you." She smiles. "I was always proud of what you did after we all left the Fleet but I am glad I got to see it for myself. And I've always wondered what your home looks like."

She glances around the room. Of course that wasn't enough to let her out. Wanda hates this feeling of powerlessness - in the waking world, she'd never go poking around in Sansa's thoughts without permission. "Is there anything you want me to see? Or anything I shouldn't touch?"

[theladyofwinterfell]

"The wedding dress shows you what Ramsay did to me," Sansa says softly. "You can see it, if you want, but it's horrific. He made me nothing. He took my worth from me, any dignity I had."

Sansa takes a breath; it's still painful to speak about.

"So I made him nothing. I killed him."

[seeingscarlet]

She's nowhere near it, but Wanda still takes a step away from the dress and shakes her head. "You don't need to justify it." Her voice is soft - she can guess well enough what those memories might hold. "But you were never nothing, Sansa. You are Queen now, and you are still yourself after everything you've been through. You are much stronger than he ever was."

A beat. "And you are still here and he is dust."

[theladyofwinterfell]

"That is true. I am the Queen who Stood. One of my ancestors, Torrhen Stark, he knelt to Aegon the Conqueror rather than have the North be destroyed. I will kneel to no man or woman ever again. The North will never be subjugated under a Lannister, a Bolton, a Baratheon, or a Targaryen. We will be ruled by Starks from this day until the end of the world."

It's a lot of talk and Sansa knows that words are wind but it feels good to say it, good to take on the mantle of Queen once again and show that to one of her friends here who simply knows her as Sansa.

"I'm not terribly queenly here, am I? I'd hate to know that people think that I have designs on being a ruler here on Temba."

[seeingscarlet]

"Your people should rule themselves. Nothing good comes from outsiders thinking they know better...taking whatever they want because they can." She doesn't need to know the history of Westerosi politics to know that truth. Sokovia was always on the bottom of the wheel while some country or other tried to assert 'influence.' It hadn't gone well for them.

(It's one of the very small ways in which it's good that everyone's afraid of her: No one was going to try that again, not when they'd have to answer to her.)

"You're...you're you, Sansa. You've always been noble and responsible. But being queen hasn't changed who you are. I still see my friend."

[theladyofwinterfell]

Sansa cannot help but smile at that. Power hasn't changed her. She's been so afraid of that, seeing so many terrible kings and queens in power over her admittedly-short life. She bites her lip a bit and thinks of how it felt to be hailed as Queen in the North.

"I'm glad it hasn't made me different. There's so many parts of me. To have power push it away - it would be a tragedy."

Sansa looks at the throne. "Heavy is the head that wears the crown."