@sansa.stark

[isherarmor]

I'm in need of at least three people who are very sure what powers they have been given since arriving in New Amsterdam. It might be best if those powers are not of a destructive nature, but of course I'll take what I can get.

If we are strangers, all the better, but it's not necessary.

I could be of better use in New Tokyo if I can figure out what my power truly is, and I don't think that's going to happen alone.

Comments

[isherarmor]

As real as anything in these places are, so yes. No one could see them, but that's the name several people called them by. They stitched our eyes and lips shut with wire if and when we slept.

It didn't get my eyes.

[It's just as horrible as it sounds, really. One star out of ten. (The bird was worse) But she adds that last part to make Jon (and herself) feel better.]

[998]

[that's horrible. is that what imps do? he'd never really known what they were. he feels as if he's received a physical blow.]

I should have cut it to pieces.

[isherarmor]

[She's not totally sure that all imps do such things, because hellworlds are ...special. And horrible, yes.]

I'm sure you would have, had you been able to catch it. You see why I am glad none of you were there with me. That was by far not the worst thing that happened to anyone, and I would not have withstood seeing such things happen to my family.

[Bad enough to see what she'd already truly seen, or to know of it through others. But the constant torment? It's a blessing she was there on her own. She doesn't mean to upset him, but she'd rather be honest about things that are on her mind than swallow them down.]

The dreams made me think of it again, and our talking, just now. I feel better that I told you. Please don't feel badly. I'm glad you weren't there. It was years ago. I know now that it wasn't my fault. After that place I found Clock. And you know the rest of that tale. It's a much better one.

[998]

[he has been able to gather that one of the worlds had been particularly bad, and sansa had been hurt there, but he hadn't known the details. it pains him that she was there at all, much less alone.]

I would rather I'd been there to shield you from the worst of it, and comfort you when I could not. You should never have been made to bear such things, much less alone. None of it was ever your fault.

[isherarmor]

There was no shielding for any of us there, not really. We were at the mercy of a mad, cruel, grieving goddess who had no mercy to spare. Near the end, I came to pity her.

It's where the bird came from. In the dreams.

['I exploded once' is a thing she's mentioned in passing over the years, but likely not to Jon, and not often. Though, if anything, it's what spurred her to learn the devices so well. That's a story best over strong drinks.]

[998]

I would take any blow meant for you, if I could. Any of you. If I had to stand in front of you all the time I would.

[wait. a bird? there was a small bird on lady's back...and a pigeon. something stirs in the recesses of his mind.]

What bird?

[isherarmor]

I know you would, and I mean it for true when I say I'd do the same. But it never worked that way there, not really.

There was one dream where I chased a crow, or more like it was leading me to you, but I found other things in your place. The dead. Your dead. Our dead.

When I was in that place, that hell, some of us changed. Not like warging, but I felt my body twist and break until I was not a woman or a human at all, but a bird. A hungry, hateful, rotting corpse of a bird with my own mind at war. I lost the war and attacked a friend. I bit him. Tried to eat him out of ravenous hate.

It happened again in that dream, but I burst into flame.

[It's easier to send this way than to say it. It's sickening to recall, and a whole host of other things. The sickness of the sounds, of the baby crawldragging itself, of Robb, Arya, gods be good Lady. That's another sickening pang, that loss. She'd been real in the dreamscape, somehow - and then she'd been dead and snarling and ...charred meat.]

[998]

I remember a dream of a bird like that, and the wights, they burned--but it wasn't like a wolf dream. I don't know when I dreamed it.

[none of this is as concerning as the information about her time in the hell world. he doesn't know what to say to that. he just reaches out and squeezes her arm.]