faderift | seeking knowledge [open]

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seeking knowledge [open]

WHO: Sansa Stark
WHAT: Settling in
WHEN: 11 Harvestmere - the end of the month
WHERE: Around Skyhold
NOTES: Feel free to find her around in another place that her log text doesn't mention, just let me know. Some implied mention of abuse/sexual assault in the Tyrion-Sansa thread but nothing explicit.

Sansa has settled into this place, so much as one can settle into a place where she's dropped from the sky. It's not a terrible one, really, and once she'd been brought to the keep called Skyhold, she'd felt a little better about things. She spends quite a lot of time in the keep. There's great libraries full of books and papers and letters and all of them have information about the place she's landed herself in; Sansa spends most of her days educating herself on the place she's wound up and reads for hours and hours until her eyes are tired and the candles have burned low.

The nights are a bit different. She has stuck close to Lord Tyrion since he's the only person she knows from Westeros, and they have found lodging close to one another. It makes her feel a bit safer, all told, and she just wants to keep close to him for the time being. If he minds it, he hasn't said anything to her, and she's happy to go on as they have.

Currently, she's curled up in a chair in one corner of the keep, one of the journals in her hands. She's trying to learn all about the politics of this place but the names and places keep running together and she doesn't know if she'll ever keep them straight. She wants, desperately, to learn them so she feels like she has a purpose but she knows it won't happen in just a few weeks or even a few moons.

"You have to be patient, Sansa," she mutters, diving back into her work.

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"All right, I'll pretend Septa Mordane is reading it to me," Sansa says, giving him an impish little smile. She arches a brow at all the food only to realize she is, in fact, hungry, and takes a little bread to eat.

"Thank you, Tyrion. I've been sitting here for a while, I didn't realize how hungry I'd gotten."

"See? Now it will go swimmingly." He pitched his voice so he sounded like a little old woman, "And then the Fereldans told the Orlesians to go suck a goose egg."

He smirked faintly, as he broke off a piece of cheese, "Since I had not seen you back at the tent, I figured as much."

"Is the hour so late already? I'm a terrible wife," Sansa says, chewing her bread thoughtfully. In truth, she doesn't think she's so bad a wife. Tyrion never complained of her in King's Landing, after all, and she doesn't think Ramsay counts.

Oh. Ramsay. She has to tell him that, doesn't she? She closes the book she's reading and decides she ought not let it go on any longer.

"Speaking of...being a wife. So many thought you were dead," Sansa starts. "And with my claim to Winterfell, they remarried me."

"You are an excellent wife." He held up the sleeve that she had neatly sewn back up, "Look at how well you take care of a man who has to gamble to care for you."

He looks sharply over at her at that, and the crystal imbedded in his own hand flashes violently for a moment. He chooses his words carefully, "I see. That was ... rather illegal of them. Especially without confirming a corpse. Whom did they marry you to?"

"Bolton's bastard," Sansa says, the words coming off her lips in a hateful curl. She's never hated anyone as much as she hates Ramsay Snow, not even Joffrey Baratheon or Meryn Trant. She doesn't even give him the courtesy of a name any longer.

"Tommen legitimized him and made him Warden of the North. I think Joffrey might have been a kinder husband. I wasn't...I wasn't the first he broke," she says, words soft. "But I was the last."

"Bolton's ... bastard?" Why in the name of the Seven did they choose that particular blot on Westeros's history? He made a face, before he stiffened beside her, "Broke you? He broke you?"

Rage flashed through his gaze, and he clenched his fists together. Then he inhaled, slowly, "... Did you kill him, my lady wife?"

"His house is no more. His words are no more. He is nothing more than a smear of blood on snow," Sansa says icily.

"Cruelty teaches cruelty, I'm afraid, and I was a very adept pupil. I learned my lessons well. I mean, I'd learned them from Joffrey Baratheon, from Meryn Trant, from Boros Blount. Who was Ramsay Bolton to show me more? He only added the last part to it. I was no maid made of glass to be shattered under him when he brought me to bed. I'm made of iron and steel. I'm a Stark."

Tyrion looked up at her at that, and he felt that burst in his chest, that rush of heat and lust that mixed together whenever he saw that look in her eyes, or took in that heartbreaking beauty. He swallowed, hard, before he looked at his own fists again.

"Yes ... yes you are." He breathed in, deeply, "No man will again put you in that position, Sansa. Not when I am here to help you."

"So you will still honor our marriage?" Sansa asks, voice softening a touch. Tyrion has never been anything but kind to her, even when she'd been difficult, and he'd never asserted his rights with her when he could have.

"I know that I have been married again, yes, but technically it wasn't a true marriage and I have been widowed since. If you'll still consider me your wife, I'd like to claim you as my lord husband."

He looked back up at her, then solemnly held out his hand to her. "I will be married to you, lady wife, as long as you wish me to be. Our agreement is intact - drunk, sober, and otherwise." He gave her a quiet, crooked smile, "You are quite safe with me."

Sansa takes his hand and squeezes it lightly.

"Then I shall be married to you, lord husband, and that's the last we'll speak of blood on the snow, all right? Because I don't want to give him the credit of a name or a thought any longer. I don't want to hold on to him any more."

He solemnly placed a kiss on the back of her hand, sealing the pact. Then his mis-matched eyes glinted with faint dark humor, "We never need speak of it again, but can I look at you with faint admiration, now and again, for all that steel in your spine, Lady Wife?"

"The steel was there before him, I think," Sansa says, giving him a bit of a thoughtful look. "I've been tempered by the fire for a long time. I'm not a little girl any longer, Tyrion, and I haven't been for a long, long time."

She lifts his hand, brushes her lips against the back of it. "But if you want to admire my steel, that would be all right."

He swallowed for a moment, before he cleared his throat and looked away. "Well, it's only natural that a man admires his lady wife's many fine attributes. Although it is true - you are no young maid anymore."

"I've been through a lot," Sansa agrees. "But so have you. How is it that you escaped King's Landing? Everyone thought you must have died, somehow, especially when the Queen had such a high price on your head."

Sansa isn't certain how he escaped except that he's Tyrion Lannister and quite possibly the most clever man in all the Seven Kingdoms.

Tyrion paused for a moment, before he sighed. Heavily. "My ... brother helped free me with the assistance of Varys. My brother did not want watch me die for a crime he was not certain I had committed -- and Varys wanted me to help Daenrys Targaryan take back her throne."

He thought back to those dark days, drunk as all get out, on that ship. Thinking of Shae, thinking of his father and family, thinking of Sansa -- and thinking of Tysha. "I slipped out through secret tunnels, and got onto a ship bound for the Free Cities -- where frankly, I tried to drink myself to death."

"It seems you were quite unsuccessful, my lord," Sansa says, giving him a careful once over. "You may outlive us yet, Lord Tyrion. When all the world burns, there will be a Lannister left to collect all the debts, is that how it goes?"

Sansa can tease with him in a way she's never teased anyone else and it feels...strangely liberating. Tyrion never seems to mind if she is clever. "Tell me. What debts do I owe you?"

"As long as that Lannister is me, I am perfectly happy with making sure that particular phrase becomes a truism." He stated with perfect mock solemnity.
Her question, as teasing as it is, brings a smirk of his own.

"Well, you can finish eating, for one."

Sansa tears off another piece of bread and pops it into her mouth, chewing daintily for his benefit. Two can play, after all, and she'd learned from the very best.

"Well, I can certainly do that," she promises him. "Whatever comes of our time here, I want us to stay together. We're stronger together than apart."

Tyrion nodded his head with approval as she put another piece of bread into her mouth. He smirked faintly, tipping his head back against the wall.

"I ... cannot argue with that. We are in fact, quite stronger together, than we are apart."

"Good. So far as the old gods, the new gods and the world of Thedas is concerned, we are married. No one may tear us apart," Sansa says.

She's glad to have finally told him, to have that weight off her chest, and she eats quietly for a few moments before speaking again. "I was afraid you wouldn't want me if you knew."

"...Well that sounds very permanent, lady wife. Vows to last a lifetime." He stated simply, even though the corners of his mouth lift up faintly. A smile that fades at her statement.

"That ... is absolutely ridiculous. Why would I not want you? Because someone took advantage of you?" He shook his head a little, "We are both broken, Sansa. We both have had parts of us taken away, and we ...exacted our revenge."

One corner of his mouth twisted faintly, "I think my only concern is that I cannot give you back that piece of yourself."

"Men seem to think it's important," Sansa says, picking lightly at a loose thread on her gown. She bites her lower lip a little before looking at him through lowered lashes, gauging his response.

"Every man in my life has thought it was important, important enough to keep shuffling me around and selling me off. I didn't want you to think I was ruined somehow. It's stupid, I know, but it's not something that usually happens to highborn women. I remember what everyone said about Lollys. I didn't want to be her."

He opened his mouth, and then shut it again, before he stated quietly, "So they do -- but the only way that it is important to me is that you ... did not get what I promised you. Safety, your maidenhood respected and ... the romance you once wanted."

A shake of his head, "You are not ruined. Not to me. Never to me." He looked up at her, "I honor the sanctity of your person, my lady wife."

"Luckily there were no babes to come of it," Sansa says, shaking her head a bit to keep tears from falling. She doesn't want to think about the stupid Bolton bastard any longer and it seems she must, if only to tell Tyrion everything that has happened since she saw him last.

"The line is ended. So...so far as I know, House Stark is ended too. I am a Lannister."

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