milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Sansa comes downstairs, in a long dress of black lambswool. A cloak is slung over one arm - someone's planning to go for a walk after breakfast.

She sits at Bar, orders some porridge and milk, and begins eating. As she eats, she watches the crowd. It's such habit that she doesn't notice anything new until her porridge is almost gone.

Sansa sees the Door.

A startled motion tips her glass of milk, which thunks against the bartop and spills its contents onto the floor.

"Oh." If she can speak, this means this isn't a dream. You can't speak the words you want to in dreams. "Oh."

The Door.

For a time, Sansa sits on her stool, motionless. Then she begins wiping away small, stray tears.

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That's fair. Gwen can't, for the life of her, remember this girls name either. She meets so many people in this place. She does remember embarrassing her, however.

"Well, want to tell me what's wrong?" she asks, offering a sweet smile. "Maybe, between the two of us, we can figure it out." The girl's polite and quiet. She likes that, but she doesn't like to see people sad. Especially women.

Sansa takes a deep breath, managing a short-lived smile for Gwen at her offer.

The smile fades, you see, when Sansa directs her gaze to where it's rarely left.

"The Door. I can see it. Finally see it. I have been kept here all this time and finally, here it is. It-- I--" Sansa returns from her thoughts to the situation, and shoots Gwen a quick glance. Trustworthy? Not? It's hard to tell with a glance. Sansa takes a moment to measure how much she can say.

Gwen blinks, clearly confused.

"Is this not good? Most people are happy to find their door, from what I hear." As trustworthy as any random person who might ask. She may have spent six-hundred years in hell, but she doesn't have any insidious plans. Not yet, anyway.

And Sansa, being female, is safe even then.

"I am happy," Sansa protests, but faintly. Her tears make her words false.

"My land...the life I left...neither are at their best right now," Sansa murmurs. "I'm worried - no, not just that." There's a pause from the girl. She has to say this right. "Frightened. But by the small things. They could grow to be so big, and grow beyond me."

Gwen smiles sadly herself. She knows that feeling. Both from the first time she lived, and again now.

She misses the world, as it is these days, but it's not safe for her, she knows that.

"Then you'll need to grow too. Learn to cope and handle them." She sighs, adding, "no, it's not easy. My world was unsafe, during my first lifetime, but things have changed. They're better now. All you can do is try. And survive."

"Try or die," Sansa adds. For some reason, she gives a little giggle. Her voice thinks it's funny, at least, though her face gives no indication of humour.

"I've been writing too much poetry," she explains after a moment. "Things come out in rhyme, now." She tries for a smile. Trying to be brave. Failing if you look into those blank blue eyes.

Gwen's still trying to smile too. She scoots one stool closer and and dabs at the milk with the napkins that came with her breakfast.

"As long as it's 'try or-' not 'and'." She says, glancing up from the spill. "Just don't let anyone force you to do anything you're not comfortable with."

"I think I am past that," Sansa says, tone more hesitant than she'd like it to be. She opens her mouth to explain more, then shuts it.

It doesn't do to explain too much.

"Thank you." She looks at the spill. "I did not even notice it."

Luckily Gwen knows nothing about that old saying. So we'll say nothing about it. She doesn't seem to be crying so much anymore, anyway.

"That's good." Gwen realizes there's something the girl isn't saying, but she's not going to press the matter. She doesn't talk about her own past readily. She couldn't expect it of anyone else.

"Can I get you another glass?" Why not? She's not exactly keeping up with her tab anyway.

"Oh, no, thank you, I can get my own," the girl says quickly. "Bar, if you do not mind--" A glass appears and Sansa smiles.

She then looks Gwen over. "You...are the student, are you not? From Earth. And you'd like a man that will obey you." Sansa is not big on self-editing today. "I remember all that about you, yet not your name," she confesses, apologetically.

Gwen blinks a couple times, then laughs, but the sound is a little empty. "Something like that. My name is Gwendolyn. I am from Earth, and if I find such a man, I will be sorry that we cannot be together."

She's being a little more honest than usual.

Sansa is a bit surprised. She begins to think of why not.

"Have your parents promised you to someone else?" After a moment, "I had the impression that was not done on your Earth."

It's done all the time on Sansa's world, so forgive her if that's the first thing she thinks of.

Gwen smiles, considering her response.

"No, they had not. I was too lower-class, and none had taken an interest in me. It would not have been worth their while," she explains. "It's not done on Earth now. Not most places. But it was then."

"Oh, I see." Sansa actually knows nothing about how marriage works for small-folk. "Marriages are arranged often in my land among the highborn. My land is...something like Earth's past, so people from Earth keep saying."

She shakes her head suddenly. "Ack! Forgive me! I'm Sansa Stark, Gwendolyn." She looks wistful as she realizes, "This will be the last time I utter my name."

"Yes, your world, from what little you've told me, sounds very much like what I remember- so long ago."

"But," Gwen tilts her head at the last comment, concerned. "Why is that, dear?"

"Oh, do you come from the--" she remembers reading up on Earth's past, but can't for the life of her remember the word 'medieval', "-- Earth's past?"

She seems to remember Gwen didn't, but, hey, she also forgot the woman's name.

Sansa decides on the quick explanation. It saves her having to lie too soon in the conversation. "It's not safe to be Sansa Stark in Westeros. I have to remember I am Alayne Stone. I haven't been Alayne for...oh, many turns." She makes a vague gesture.

"I have lived in Earth's past and present," Gwen explains. Probably doesn't clear much up, but that's her story and she's sticking to it.

She nods at the latter. "I am sorry to hear that. I admit, I don't follow completely, but I wish you luck."

The girl blinks. "How...fortunate," she manages, though there's a slight interrogative raise of her voice. Is it really fortunate?

Sansa takes a deep breath. "Thank you. I'm sorry for all this. I assure you, this isn't normally how I like to meet people." A bit of a smile, there.

Gwen almost smiles at the implied question. "More fortunate, I think, to have never lived then." Then she adds, with a dismissive shrug, "I did not live long, after all."

"But do not fret, my dear. We can't all be strong always."

Wait, what? She frowns at Gwen, but then gets it and gives a faint, uneasy smile. "Ah, yes, I've heard the dead walk as the living do here." She just hasn't met many.

"I try not to fret. It-- I suppose strength either comes or it does not. I hope when mine is called on, it will rise to meet the challenge."

She looks back at the Door, contemplating it. Maybe that's why she's been here for so long?

Gwen chuckles. "I walk with the living back on Earth as well, which is unheard of," Gwen answers. "And so this place is not the cause."

Gwen pushes her plate away and asks for a soda, then nods. "You'll do well. You're clever."

...Wait, what?

Sansa tries to keep her surprise to a minimum. "Oh." It's easy enough to do over one syllable.

She can't help but smile at the praise. "You're too kind, la-- Gwen," she murmurs. "I was told to pretend to be stupid for so long that at times I feared I was."

"It's a long story, one I'd rather not get into." Honest and blunt.

"But sometimes clever is knowing when not to be, or what not to say?" Gwen suggests.

"I can understand that," Sansa replies readily and doesn't pry.

"That's right, of course. But I'm not half as clever as I need to be, if I am to play the game of thrones."

She reflects a moment. "Ah, I'm sounding like Petyr. A good start. He's Alayne's father, you see, so I should learn - re-learn - to sound like him."

Nodding, Gwen says, "Well, work on that then, and if you ever need anything, just ask. I don't know much about thrones or politics, but I have a few other abilities that might serve well, should it come to it."

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