faderift | the start of something new

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the start of something new

WHO: Sansa Stark
WHAT: Sansa learns about the changing of the years in Thedas; Sansa works on her sewing.
WHEN: 1 - 8 Wintermarch
WHERE: around Skyhold
NOTES: A general catch-all for Sansa to start out the new year.

i. the changing of the year.

Sansa has slowly been learning how life in Thedas works since arriving through the rift two moons prior and one of the things she's learned about this month, actually, is that they celebrate the change of the year in Thedas with a holiday called First Day. It's a simple thing to celebrate, really, and somewhat arbitrary but Sansa likes the idea of visiting others throughout Skyhold and drinking with them, breaking bread with them and generally making their acquaintance.

She's been terrible at making acquaintances since coming here, after all, and so First Day and the days after give her a chance to work in the kitchens and make simple little cakes to pass along to others. It's nothing taxing, certainly not for her since she isn't much of a cook, but it is a kindness that she wants to bestow upon those who have made her feel welcome since coming to Thedas and she wants to demonstrate she has an interest in learning how their world and celebrations do work.

ii. slip a stitch into something new.

In the afternoons, Sansa likes to work on needlework. It's become a way to make a bit of coin while she stays in Thedas and she's always loved her embroidery besides so making clothes and mending cloaks has become a way to earn money and pass the time. It reminds her of long, cold days at Winterfell when she'd sit by the fire with her mother and the septa, learning how to make her stitches small and neat, and oftentimes she dreamed of mending things for her lord husband someday. It's a mundane dream but, funnily enough, one afternoon it occurs to her that she's done that very thing and sometimes she smiles to herself or laughs just a bit.

Yes, the shirts are much smaller than she expected of a lord husband and often they are in shades of Lannister red and gold but she doesn't care about that. Here in Thedas nobody cares about Lions or Direwolves or Stags and when she draws her needle in and out of her mending, it's a soothing and calming activity that she doesn't have to worry about. No one cares about the subject of her embroidery now and she's free to do whatever she likes. The freedom is exhilarating.

iii. the frost falls upon the ground.

When the weather is clear enough, Sansa takes the chance to walk around outdoors. It's cold still, even to someone with Northern blood like hers, and the ice is still evident upon the grounds. Sometimes there's ruts from horses or wagons, crusted over with mud and ice and Sansa is careful to keep her skirts clear of them; she still doesn't like to be dirty even if she's much less squeamish about it than she was as a child in Westeros.

When a bit of ice falls from the edge of a roof, she dodges it carefully and when snow slides into the back of her cloak after shifting off the eaves of Skyhold proper, she squeals in surprise but it doesn't drive her indoors. The winter sunlight is weak and thin but she soaks up as much of it as she can and when snowflakes alight on her cheeks, she often pushes back her hood so that they can catch in the shimmering auburn of her hair.

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Ears pricking forward, the fox sniffs for a moment before he takes it from her, swallowing it in two bites before he shoves his face into her palm. It gives Araceli the opportunity to feed the nuggalope some dried fruit and pellets without him acting as though she's depriving him even if he'd turn his nose up if she offered them down to him.

"Are you new to Skyhold? Or have I missed more than I thought cooped up indoors?" It's a more polite way to step around the past few months aside from an absence or two, and inflicting herself on new people then probably wouldn't have been for the best.

"Only a few months," Sansa says, confirming that she is, in fact, quite new. "I think I came shortly before Saturnalia? Is that the proper way of saying it?"

She's only learning all the months and feasts now and there's a litany to the days, a rhythm that she's only just catching.

"Ah, I was mostly confined to my quarters while my leg healed before then with people coming looking if I disappeared too long." Or to make sure she didn't attempt anything ridiculous, like climbing the walls. "Si, that is the proper way of it. It was just what so many of us needed; parties like that are rare here but they bring out the very best in us all. Especially the party outside the main hall."

A party she didn't need to work at and could relax with friends at but that's what people need here.

"Oh, it's better now, though? Your leg?" Sansa hadn't detected any sort of limp or anything but the other woman might simply be hiding it well. Sansa knows how to hide things, if need be.

"I hope so. Otherwise, I'm certain one of the healers here can look to it. They seem to be quite good."

"To the relief of every healer in Skyhold, yes. Especially the one that threatened to strangle me with my own hair when I wouldn't do as she said and rest but--" The words die for a moment, because it was awful, but she's moving past it so she laughs, shaking her head. "I am rarely made for being still for so long, and certainly not when someone tells me that I must be so. You are very kind to ask, gracias.

"Christine Delacroix," Araceli's accent doesn't do well with Orlesian names, and she winces when it comes out of her mouth, "Anders and Bruce were particularly involved in my healing, I would count them among my friends as well. Bruce is the doctor of them though, he provides non-magical healing. Do you have that where you come from? Magic was only tales where I came from but more and more in the year here I realise how much I am in the minority."

"I know Christine," Sansa says, brightening at the recognition of a name and knowing what face it belongs to.

"She's been most gracious and kind since I came here. She's lovely. Our Maesters never use magic, though, so magic and healing is a new thing for me."

"When I first came here, I remember her taking so much time with me. Even when they had never heard of rifters before. When I was a stranger. She explained so many things to me then. I'm not a native but if there is anything you wish to ask, I've learned a great deal here from a great many people." The Walrus huffs a noise through his snout and she laughs softly, petting him. "Well, not so much on him."

"So a Maester, is that a healer with poultices and such or do they perform surgeries too? Forgive me, I haven't even asked where you come from yet."

"I come from the Seven Kingdoms, in Westeros," Sansa explains.

"And a Maester uses poultices and brews, yes. They also study and are great men of learning from the Citadel. I've never experienced the kind of healing that happens here with spirit healers. It's different and new to me."

"Are you the only one to come from there? Now and then it seems a few show up from the same place, not so very often though I confess I no longer keep track of such things as I once did. I have studies to keep me busy."

Or that's the polite way to say it, not a lie but not the whole truth to the few people she told it to at the time or who came asking about it. Still, sit in the tavern to gamble and drink, and it's more than just coin that falls into your lap most nights.

"Great men - only men?" A gentle question but like the way the Chantry in Thedas has women in the important roles, some divisions in certain things always catch her attention. "I still prefer the things I'm used to. Stitches and bandages, being just drunk enough to get through it. The fun magic is the flashy stuff they use in battles, all the fire and ice and lightning, or some of the disciplines they study when they chose to advance same as rogues and warriors might."

"Only a man may become a maester," Sansa confirms. "They only allow men into their order. Now, some septas learn the arts of healing within their convents - my own septa knew how to bandage minor hurts and knew a great deal about running a household and being a proper lady."

Sometimes Sansa misses Septa Mordane dearly. This is one of those times. "But a septa follows the Faith of the Seven. I follow the faith of the Old Gods. I couldn't ever be a septa. I would have to swear allegiance to the Seven and I couldn't."

"Seven gods?" It's the what rather than the number that gives her pause since Thedas is slightly vague on what the Maker actually is, on what the Creators were (or are, since she's not an elf so she can't comment on that) before she even touches what other rifters believe in. Giving her nuggalope some slack so he can amble ahead or nibble at what little stubs of grass remain, she sighs quietly. "Not even a single god where I come from, only the sea moving through us, alive in each and every one of us. Different aspects in men and women, and the moon important to us too but the moon was formed by something in the sea too so...that too came from the sea. Each land has their stories but my people are the oldest, so we remember the truth of it."

It makes miss her father, though not as sharply as she did recently. "I couldn't do that either. We all live with the sea but others do it differently, dedicated to it as my parents are. The sea never put me on that course."

"I can't swear allegiance to anything but myself any longer," Sansa agrees. "I can only trust myself. I don't trust gods or castles or kings. I only trust me. I'm not going to betray herself."

No matter what she endures or who she faces, she'll always be true to Sansa Stark. That's the only promise she can make.

"No?" Araceli considers it, considers what she trusts here under the bard's mask but when only three people know the truth of her life? "You may wish to be careful who you say such things to in Thedas when you carry a thing that marks you as so very different."

She doesn't say it unkindly, says it gently as she indicates her head to lead them both out and away from so many eyes and ears within the walls of Skyhold because a year here where gossip is very much her business and Araceli is aware of when the tides might turn again.

Once she considers it safe enough at least with her fox darting ahead to go looking for interesting scents, she sighs quietly. "There are some natives to this world who carry the same marks as we do but most? Most of us come through rifts. I am not saying you should have complete trust in the Inquisition and all the people in it, not when there are so many factions looking out for themselves inside but there are others who care nothing for us, and others who would use us for their own ends. Some of us were unfortunate enough to learn that personally."

"That is why I want to be careful. I can trust Skyhold for now," Sansa admits. "But I am loathe to put full and blind faith in anything or anyone any longer. I have seen too much in my life to be so naive."

She thinks it's only wise to be wary, considering her background and the trials she'd been through since first going to King's Landing all those years ago.

"If they still have them, there are or have been gatherings for rifters to learn and to meet. No pledge required but a chance to exchange information that might be worthwhile. A man named Church took charge of them after I stepped away, if you do not wish to ask him, I can since he is still a dear friend." Though maybe a little too loud or brash for some, but Araceli wouldn't have him any other way. "The way you speak, you make it sound as if you have come from a world where the ice might crack beneath your feet at any moment."

It's gentle enough that it can be passed off as teasing if Sansa doesn't want to confirm or deny it, Araceli won't mind either way but she looks young enough that it makes a part of her hurt to think that yet again, there are more places where hardships might be so common as they are in Thedas.

"There's quite a bit of ice and snow at the moment in my world," Sansa agrees. "Still, I don't mind it so much. I think I will go to one of these meetings, though. I want to learn as much about Thedas as I can."

She wants to belong here and assimilate with these people as best as she can manage.

"Only the far north is that way, and I have never been. Antiva and Rivain are more like my home though much smaller, not nearly so many islands. I've had the fortune to visit both in my time with the Inquisition. And if you have other questions you wish to ask, my studies keep me in the library a great deal, I am not averse to an interruption."

Not least when it's certain very dense parts of politics or history everyone else takes for granted that she's still wading her way through.

"I have spent many hours in the library," Sansa admits. "I have been reading as much as I can about Thedas and about the politics that makes it tick. It's something I was adept in at home."

Being adept at navigating the social strata of Westeros seems a lot different than what she needs to know here in Thedas, though.

"I appreciate the help."

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the start of something new

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