❅ Seven (Video)

[stonebird]

(It has been some time - see: years - since she celebrated her birthday, but since she has a chance, she wonders if she should take it. She lights a candle beside her, sitting at a simple vanity.)

Are naming days important to you? If so, how do you make them special?

(She picks up a brush and slowly releases her hair from its braids.)

I think I will be nineteen in May. (It had taken some time for her to determine an appropriate month - the days are counted/reckoned differently in Westeros - and May had seemed the most fitting.) I never thought I would reach such an age and remain an independent woman. I would not mind falling in love and I cannot lie that I would cherish children, but I am proud of what I have overcome and accomplished.

(Setting the brush down, she lifts a small bottle of perfume and spritzes her wrists and her neck.)

I am a child of Summer, yet Winter is part of me. I will do what I must to survive and no man will ever use me again.

Comments

[utulien_aure]

Well, you like one of their descendants well enough- Elrond's great-grandmother was a survivor of their trek south after their home was destroyed in the Sudden Flame.

[Always good habits to have.]

I would think so. Sometimes much can happen in a year.

What do you wish to reflect over?

[stonebird]

That sounds terrifying. What caused the Sudden Flame?

(Anything sudden and deadly definitely qualifies as horrifying.)

I feel I have stepped backwards and then forwards and then backwards again! But each time I've fallen, I've woken to see you or your kin nearby.

I think I want to be grateful for all that has happened to me.

[utulien_aure]

Volcanoes, child. Volcanoes, and then the Dragon and its master's hordes.

[Horrifying is certainly the operative word for Dagor Bragollach.]

It seems a strange thing to be so grateful to be relentlessly tossed from one world to another. But we are glad you are with us, Sansa. We always shall be.

[stonebird]

I can understand the name. (There might not be a fitting word for volcanoes and dragons.)

If you knew my world, you would understand. (She winces.) I have been happier - more content - than I can ever recall being in this world and the last.

[utulien_aure]

It... was not a happy time for many people.

[Most people generally assume one is enough.]

Then we shall just have to make sure you stay here.

[stonebird]

Your people must be strong to survive it.

(It definitely sounds like an "end of the world" scenario.)

How? I have often thought of tying myself to Hadriel in some way. I would need to learn magic, of course, but I remember how Ruby City ended. Nothing we did could save it.

[utulien_aure]

More than my people did. The Beorians, the Hadorians... none of them were mine, except by allegiance.

[Strength is not something which belongs to the Eldar alone.]

I don't know- though I would not have you tie yourself to here alone. One day, when this is all over, I would prefer you to see a brighter place than Hadriel.

[stonebird]

If a House swears allegiance to the Stark name, they are under our protection. You would have ridden to their aid and I have no doubt you did.

(No, but his strength is admirable.)

Arda?

[utulien_aure]

I did when I could.

[But in the Sudden Flame, everyone was cut off- and it was Men dying in the defense of Elven lands, in the case of poor Hador and his younger son.]

If we can find a way to bring you there, yes.