⊰ hamndgirig ⊱

                                  she wasn’t waiting for acceptance. the cigarette was poised between her lips before sansa even spoke. she lights the tip, now, flicks her thumb over the pad at the flint and holds ‘til it glows. the carton’s tucked back into her pocket, ice-cold fingers stretching and flexing from within it, before clenching into a loose fist. this is only a mild irritation—and she knows how to deal with anger now. ( she’s been training herself from a young age—she swaps violence for apathy unless provoked. gives them less reason to institutionalise her. gives them less reason to look into her; in a twisted way, she grapples for agency through total unresponsiveness. )

          and she only shrugs at the thanks. she’s been alone—been strapped to a bed and forced into it. sensory deprivation, as she found out at a later date—she was a thirteen-year-old prisoner. ( she can still smell teleborian’s aftershave—that stupid fucking cologne that still makes her seethe ). but she has thought, and thought, and thought. she only trusts herself now. she’s only ever trusted herself. but she’s devoured herself—consigned herself to silence, to deprivation, to listlessness and lethargy before she’d been dragged out of it. ( she was fifteen when she was freed, and only thanks to holger palmgren. where is he now? dead. the moment she’d been told he was unlikely to wake up from a coma, she bolted. he was dead, and she didn’t want to stick around to watch it happen. )

                          ‘ you are not dead. ’  keep talking like that and you might be, though—when i put my fist through your face. but that’s a wry comment she keeps to herself ( and allows to crook the corners of her lips into an infamous not-smile. )

          Life seemed terribly important to her companion, a sticking point from which she refused to budge. Sansa knew better, had seen how worthless those in power believed all below their standing to be. In youth such smug assuredness inspired astonishment, anger — as one born into the very fold Lannisters and Tyrells prized, yet ostracized for doing as she thought best, such abandonment rattled the young wolfing to her core. Now she felt only chill determination, an unimpeachable resolve to right past wrongs; not through sheer force, as favored by younger sister, but the inexorable might of their own shadowed faults. Action gave life value, not blood or gold or even its mere dispensation; any fool could be born, tossed about in the storms raised by others, yet the truly capable refused to set any course other than their own. 

             Further quiet made her wonder if solitude stood as preference or necessity. Long ago Sansa learned that tattoos and piercings, cigarette smoke curling before jet-lined eyes did not always signal animosity, just as pastels and pearl strands hardly guaranteed a genteel welcome. In her search for information, for weakness, the young woman had charmed lawyers and hired muscle with equal success, bolstered by the knowledge they had already established an ability to be bought. Really, she only haggled over price. Among all the masks she saw, however, this one seemed most ingrained; most natural, perhaps, worn so long it overwhelmed whomever had once hidden beneath. She could understand. Sansa felt the same temptation, day after day. And what turned you so cold, hm?

             “No.” And when she laughed self-deprecation colored every gust of breath, low, private. If only you knew how many wished just the opposite. “That’s why I’m here, honestly. To keep it that way. Takes more work than I would’ve thought.”