❅ Nine (Video)

[stonebird]

(Sansa's Tully blood has surfaced enthusiastically thanks to their new environment, taking her somewhat by surprise. She is dressed in a white shift and she is barefoot, standing on a rock near the sea. Her auburn hair is plaited neatly down her back and she is smiling at the rolling waves below.)

I don't believe I have ever learned how to properly swim. I need lessons; can anyone provide?

(Or there's just the "jump in the water and figure it out" method. She would rather not go about it so crudely.)

The water looks refreshing. Is it cold? The sun must warm the uppermost layer, but the depths have to be freezing.

Comments

[northerndragon]

I'm not -- as a rule. But it will remind us of home. And it may be that Daenerys has never heard those songs, living in Essos like she did.

[His wave is less tentative, and then he lowers his arm and makes his way towards her more resolutely.]

Others might want to hear them, too.

[... Sure, Jon.]

[stonebird]

She deserves to know the best of Westeros before she meets the worst.

(Songs and Starks before betrayal and Lannisters. She reaches out for him when he is close enough, squeezing his arms gently.)

How kind of you to spread the joy.

(Oh Jon.)

[northerndragon]

[Can you see everything behind him, Sansa? Because your brother is transparent. He nods at her in greeting when she squeezes his arms.]

Some of the stories Old Nan used to tell might count as the worst. Now I wonder if all of them are true.

[They can't possibly all be true, but the fact that even a few of them have turned out to be gives him pause.]

Are you sure it's safe to swim in these waters?

[stonebird]

I miss her stories. Even the scary ones. (Her smile dims for a moment, remembering all the - ah - interesting information she had passed onto them that way.)

I have no idea. (She laughs softly.) I assume not safe at all. Fighting against the currents might prove impossible. I thought about tying a rope to my waist.

[northerndragon]

[That gets a little helpless, mirthless chuckle out of him.]

I miss everything. I never expected to live at Winterfell again, and when I missed it, I thought of it as it was then, not as it is now.

[He's not sure that Sansa knows how much he missed it, from time to time -- what a place it occupied in his stifled longings and imaginations. He hadn't felt that he'd belonged there as a boy, and once he left it, it was more that he had to keep reminding himself that he didn't, that his place was guarding the Wall and that he would live and die there. Did Uncle Benjen ever feel that way? Benjen Stark had been able to return to it, from time to time; Jon hadn't had the luxury of that assumption for very long after he joined the Watch.]

Tying a rope around your waist might not be amiss, as long as we can keep it clear of the rocks. Don't want anything to drag you under and hold you there.

[stonebird]

I know what you mean. Every time I imagined it, it hadn't changed. I thought if I could make it back there, everything would be right again somehow.

(She berates herself for being so stupid as to want to leave it. The snowy walls of Winterfell had protected all of them better than she could have ever known as a child. Sansa had a feeling their father and mother had known, but even they could not have predicted how horrible life would become for all of them.)

If the rope is tied onto something on shore, that won't be as much of a worry, will it?

[northerndragon]

It would still be a worry if something caught the length of the rope between you and whatever it was tied to, and pulled it down. But in that case, the rope could still be cut.

[He reminds himself that, as much concern as he may have for his remaining family, he'd still left Sansa to rule the North. But he'd left her with a bodyguard devoted enough to her that she'd helped Sansa escape from the clutches of an important lord, consequences be damned... on the other hand, there are people looking out for her here, too.

She probably won't drown.]

Are your arms strong? The training you've been given with the sword should strengthen them.

[stonebird]

I can carry a knife with me when I go in. (She appreciates his concern and he can be certain that whatever he feels for her, she feels for him too. Some might think her jealous of him being King of the North, but she isn't. She knows that position puts him in constant danger and she would rather he be...safe. Happy. But safe.)

You can test me. (She brightens at the idea, bending down to pick up her sword. She usually carries it with her - a constant companion forged by Maedhros.)

[northerndragon]

[There's a part of him, a small exhausted part, that wants to sit at home by the fire and drink mead with whatever is left of his family and his people: a man who would do what he could to rebuild Winterfell and prepare the North for an ordinary winter and all the ordinary winters to come, and never go south of the Neck.

But an ordinary winter is not what's upon them at home, and the greater part of him will fight until he can't fight anymore. In the meantime, there's this place -- he can't decide whether it's a distraction or a respite or a bit of both. It would have been neither when the Null were attacking: he knows that much.]

Carry a little dagger strapped somewhere. But aye, I'll test you.

[It would be better not to test her with an edged weapon, particularly one that can slice through flesh as if it were air, but he can use Longclaw well enough now that he thinks he's unlikely to hurt her. He draws it as she picks her sword up from the ground.]

[stonebird]

(She has more or less accepted that, if it comes down to it, she will perish in the defense of their home. She will not run and hide again nor will she use her family as pawns to ensure herself a better position in the world. They are the last of the Starks and Winterfell is too important - too packed full of memories - to let it go into the hands of any enemy.

But sitting in front of a roaring fire with a nice cup of mead sounds like a far more pleasant option.)

I was training daily before I came here. Now I do not bother the Elves as much for lessons.

(She grips her sword and shows him that the aforementioned Elves have not taught her offensive moves so much as evasion and defensive moves. Sansa is naturally graceful and that works in her favor as she forgoes her usual perfect - if somewhat stiff - posture and evades his sword on nimble feet.)

[northerndragon]

[He observes that she has some skill --]

All right, but we're in an open field. What if you're in closer quarters?

[-- so his blade moves faster, more aggressively.]

[stonebird]

(This is where she falters. It is much harder defending herself at a quick pace and there is less and less time to slip away. The ringing of their swords making contact is reverberating through her arm, too, and she holds onto the weapon with both hands to stifle it.

Finally, her footing becomes too unstable and she falls, landing on her backside with a small, breathless gasp.)

- I wouldn't last.

[northerndragon]

[The look he gives her is strange: half apologetic, half haunted, certainly dismayed. He doesn't feel good, exactly, about knocking her off her feet, although it is a lesson he has taught more than once.]

You wouldn't last against me or someone who's been training since they could walk. Against someone not using a sword, or someone newer to it... you might.

[He sheathes Longclaw and offers a hand to help her up.]

You can block: that's better than nothing. But you've got to learn to attack. If you can disarm an opponent, even better.

[stonebird]

It - (She fights to find the right words for something that genuinely turns her stomach.) I've seen men die - run through by swords. There are so few that I have ever wanted to kill.

I don't know how to - convince myself - that I should attack; that I should seek to harm.

(His hand is taken and she will rise to her feet, looking none the worse for wear. A bruised backside is hardly something to complain about considering the current topic of conversation.)

[northerndragon]

You should seek to stop them from harming you -- and those you would protect.

You remember Tormund Giantsbane? You've met him, the big wildling with the red beard? He's my friend -- and I shot him in the leg with a crossbow bolt once to stop him from fighting, because I didn't want to kill him. At the time, he wanted to die fighting.

[Still, he pauses, and his small capitulation is marked with a soft, resigned sigh. He looks at the ground -- the green grass, the grey rocks close by -- then back at her.]

I don't -- you know I'm tired of killing. I don't think much of most men who like it. But sometimes it must be done, when you aren't given another choice.

[He doesn't know exactly how many men he's killed; he doesn't like to think about the number. But he does know that it must be upwards of fifty, and that most of them had given him no choice.]