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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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."

He looks up at her, before he shakes his head, "If we are to be honest, if I could be a Stark ... I would prefer it. So how about we consider ourselves the beginning of a new House then, hm? Let us ... let the snow cover the blood, and start fresh."

"I think, if we are to be a new house, we should pick our own sigil," Sansa says, giving him a little grin. She likes sharing confidences with him, the little secrets of friendship, and she likes that all of her secrets are now out in the open.

"Don't you agree?"

"Well, I couldn't agree more, my lady wife. What shall we have? A crossbow and a needle? Perhaps a lovely flower and a quill, crossed over like swords?" He grinned back at her in kind.

"What about a little bird and quill, quartered silver and gold? Then we're both Stark and Lannister and neither at the same time," Sansa says, satisfied with her answer.

"Does that please you, lord husband?"

"I think, lady wife, that that sounds perfect." He took up her hand, and kissed it gently, before handing it back to her with a smile.

Sansa colors a bit at the touch of his lips against her hand. It's been a while since she's been shown any sort of courtly courtesies and from Tyrion, at least, she knows they might be more or less sincere. She bites her lip a bit and watches him, eager to see his reaction to her own.

"You treat me differently, Tyrion, than you treat other women. Why is that?"

He notes that she colored, bright and pink against that copper hair, and one corner of his mouth lifted in silent appreciation. He had always found Sansa beautiful. Her biting her lip, the glow to her eyes ... sigh, he was as much an idiot as always.

He blinked for a moment, before he cleared his throat. "Perhaps because, well. I have a reason to respect you -- and all things considered - to make sure you are ... that you have a friend. You were forced into this life by my family and I ... want to protect you."

"I could use it," Sansa says, her smile a bit deeper this time. It's been a while since she's smiled this way, genuine, and it's almost a bit painful in a way. It's a frightening thing to open herself up to feel again and she's glad it's with someone she trusts as much as she can trust Tyrion.

"It's...so good to have a friend and protector."

"... I am pleased that you are pleased." Ah, that smile. She had not smiled that way at him, not once in his memory. He put in his memory, so he could keep it for all the cold days.

Sansa blushes again and she wonders if she will ever stop. She's no maiden to blush at innocent things like this and yet she feels them rising up unbidden.

"What else pleases you, Tyrion?"

He doesn't think he's seen her blush this much since she was infatuated with Joffrey, and even that had a touch of the maiden naivity. The question stalls him for a moment, before he answers with frank humor, "Books. Wine. A full belly and a full mind. And ... other things I shall not say in front of a young lady."

"I am your wife, Tyrion, and I'm no maiden. It's not like you can really embarrass me at this juncture in my life."

She is somewhat curious, honestly, since Tyrion's never discussed that sort of thing with her. Before, she understood it, but she's a different woman now.

Tyrion cleared his throat again, before he stated with a bit of wry humor, "How do you know I am not embarrassed for myself?"

He sighed, before he rubbed one hand through his golden curls. Now he was sure he was blushing, but she had asked. "Buried deep inside a woman ... is no small pleasure."

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