life has almost been
snatched from her too many times for it to be anything other than important. ( when all tries to prise cold and
calloused fingers from whatever’s left in her life, she survives. draws her
feet up, cracks lactic from her knuckles, she
survives. and she will survive. will spit bloody, dislodged teeth from a
chapped and split lip before she surrenders and leaves herself to die. )
why are you
telling me this?( there’s
a wry comment stuck on her tongue that she swallows again—a twisted threat, and
one that ushers the clenching of fingers at her side. there are plenty of men
who’d want to see someone like that dead. plenty of people who’d oblige. only
one of her who’d fight it. ) a part
of her’s still unnerved. she doesn’t invite friendship. she doesn’t anything
sweet. ( she invites only a foul
grope and an unprovoked smack—still, she’s not sure how. it’s her size, maybe.
it’s being a woman. i am
not a victim. )
‘
what do you mean by that? ’ —- that strikes something within her. the first
thing that has gripped her. the first thing tha’ts made her seek
similarities—there’s beauty in what stands before her. ( she’s tall, with a face that people would stop for—with a body
that mimmi would die to be beside, and one that would even entice kalle bastard
blomkvist and bring him to his knees. nothing like hers. ) but there’s a moment of brief considering.
Sharing even the reason for her arrival in such a frigid corner of the world invited more risk than perhaps Sansa should have allowed. Eyes and ears could be purchased all about the world, distance or cost no impediment to those whom she sought. Still, this woman who spoke more in glances than with words seemed not at all the sort to seek such employ; alone for so long herself, Sansa could recognize isolation in others, the preference for solitude over wealth or power.
She did not feel safe — there was a tension, a pulsing, warning chill that emanated from her laconic acquaintance — though she could sense it was not only strangers who were met with such tight-lipped apathy. Perhaps telling a soul who would never care served as reassurance, a sign that her troubles remained but a minuscule ripple across humanity’s great expanse. The world contracted with her drive, vision narrowing until only the task at hand remained in sight; at times, Sansa welcomed those brief brushes with others well beyond such all-consuming hurt.
“I mean— ” For a moment eyes meet, the solitude enforced through carefully cultivated space between them brought to an end, before she offered a confession to that neutral ground. “There are people who hurt my family, who want to hurt me. As a girl I only wanted to hide, thinking they would leave me alone, but it isn’t quite their way. I have to make them stop, in whatever way I can.”
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.”
fingers dig
into jean pockets, coiling frigid tips around a crushed carton. fishing a
cigarette from it, she purses it between her lips and rolls her thumb over the
butt. she has had her moments.
blomkvist swims to mind immediately—his kind eyes, for starters, and blonde
hair that’s seen better days. ( he’s
old enough to be her father, as he reminds her, but not nearly as surly. nor vile.
mikael bloody bastard blomkvist had changed something in her that had doused
whatever crooked, shrivelled black mess of her heart that was left, with
gasoline and struck a match. he let her burn with an arm around erika berger
instead. she regrets giving him that power. regrets the anger that flicked the
underside of teeth against the tip of a match and coughed out a flame. )
she doesn’t offer an answer. steps have been retraced into idiocy—and it’s only blomkvist who’s made her act like that.
every decision she’s made has been conscious, stemming back to all the evil.
the decision to bite her tongue around doctors, swallow only silence and spit
it back out in their direction—blankly ignore them, yet offer a strained sense
of conversation with nurses. calculated. to avoid authorities like the plague.
calculated. to live as a difficult woman and pegged as one—not difficult, no. a
socially retarded one.
but even with the smallest, plucked semblance of similarity, there is nothing
alike between them. so lips twitch around her cigarette and she flicks the
lighter. wordlessly offers the carton to her company with a shrug.
Foul habit, smoking. Yet where once she might have coughed, or slipped a sly glare which spoke to how fervently she despised the acrid, winding smoke of tobacco, now Sansa merely glanced away. There were far greater things to feign offense over than a bit of nicotine and tar, and she sensed a fragile truce extending between them in tenuous strands, better kept whole. Was even speaking together idiotic? Reaching back, she tried to remember when last an actual conversation had graced her day; not the inane pleasantries exchanged between server and served, nor the endless to and fro within her own mind as possibilities unfolded, then collapsed back upon themselves. Alayne, I am Alayne. No one cares about a daughter without her father’s name. Moments of doubt, moments of longing, all of them scattered so densely across the years that at last her life resembled a shatter mosaic, hastily patched together with a childish touch.
Time passed and no tell-tale rasp of mechanized flint cut through the silence. Only rustling paper caught averted eye, a few stray cigarettes jostled in silent offer. “Never took it up,” she demurred, one corner of her mouth twitching in what might have been a smile. “But please…” Inclined chin bid the dark-haired woman still indulge, though she hardly seemed the sort to await permission. Indeed, when presented with the old adage, Sansa doubted she would beg forgiveness either. Yet aggression was not that which seemed to radiate out from the slim, hunched figure — only aversion. To whom or what Sansa could not even guess, though a proffered smoke apparently absolved her of any guilt — for the moment.
“Thanks for that, by the way.” Sansa had never thanked a stranger for their insult before. “The mind is a dangerous place to get lost in.”
and
it’s only then that lisbeth allows herself to take in her company. for once,
she’d been absorbed in herself—teleborian, her father, bjurman, and all the
bloody bastards in between. it’s time to push them to the back of her mind once
more, and lisbeth allows her eyes to zero in on the other. she’s tall. beautiful—irritatingly so. she doesn’t have the
body of a pubescent fourteen-year-old boy. and she has hips. and breasts. she’s
the stark opposite of everything that lisbeth had ever been. but she only takes
a moment to wallow in inadequacy—she’s skinny and runty, but this need not have
bearing on this unnervingly personal conversation. ( it makes her uncomfortable beyond her belief, but hasn’t the
heart to twist and run. )
she knows nothing of the starks—thinks she’ll research now,
makes a mental note to traipse through whatever articles she can find online
and trail her way back to some semblance of truth—but she had spent two years
in st stefan’s children’s psychiatric unit. though she’d spent most of that
time strapped to a bed and dosed up on the strongest psychiatric drugs that
teleborian could find, she’s seen sad
kids before. and in her time skittering around in the gutters of stockholm,
she’s seen her fair share of sad people
skulking in the shadows and drinking cheap bourbon from the bottle.
this one looks
sad.
every instinct in her is telling her to run—to turn and
disappear down into the underground. fingers curl into pockets. lips purse.
what she utters is inexplicably calloused—an impulsive decision to drag herself
away from being drowned by another’s sorrow and resting that on her back, too.
‘ but you’re not. you’re being an idiot. ’
However much this sullen stranger knew of her unlikely company, Sansa could discern only what blue eyes once so prejudiced might take in. Not long ago the sight of a girl with jaw set and clothes cobbled together from varying shades of well-worn black would have sent her scurrying across the street, head ducked lest any acknowledgement be taken as aggression. She had learned as much from Joffrey: a silent tongue and downcast gaze protected one more readily than any assertive show. Now palpable tension only reminded her of Arya, a sister lost, vanished, dead. Anger filled those final months between them, blame thrown to and fro until they sneered at one another more from habit than animosity; Sansa carried such rage alone now, smoking embers which pulsed and flared against her ribs.
It never showed, though. Whenever she reached down within her chest to contemplate enduring fury, such introspection inspired only melancholy. Why? Why me, why them, why us? Sansa begged of a god who never answered, never cared, never changed. She might have spoken to stone for all the good prayer served yet time and again eyes turned to the idols of her parents with something too dark to be called hope.
Beneath what strain she labeled so quickly as hostility Sansa wondered if there was not the thread of discomfort pulling taut ebon-shrouded limbs. Did she too not tense and curl away whenever strangers approached? Had she not long, long ago determined attachment presented a greater threat than any gun or knife? Always know what someone wants, Petyr taught, but never let them in. He fancied himself a sort of genius — perhaps he really was, underneath all those expensive suits — yet Sansa required no expert opinion to learn what danger lurked in every stranger’s greeting.
“Maybe. I guess we all have our moments — present company excluded, of course.”
and she has learned to kill everything. kill your whimpering—it doesn’t help. kill your innocence—no, that was taken. kill your father—almost had it. so what a pair they make—the reaper and the reaped—and she can see it in how they stand. she crowns herself in black, studs herself with piercings that scatter themselves haphazardly across her body, singe deadened skin with ink and stares only with the palest of complexions.
but she had been reading—it had never been a topic that lisbeth had been interested in, but she had never seen the logistics behind it. what is learned can be unlearned. psychology was something she’d tended to stay away from, due to the hazy, faded border that tiptoes between psychology and psychiatry, and under the squirming feeling in her stomach that tells her she may stumble upon egomaniacal psychopathy and see herself pinned down against the pages and the drawl of dr peter teleborian’s voice instead of the bed he’d strapped her to when she was thirteen. but she believed some of the principles could still be drawn upon.
so unlearn it. ( she could never—her memory wouldn’t permit it. she still remembers how burning flesh had smelt, or how teleborian’s chaste touch against her forehead had felt, and how his cologne had assaulted her, and how he smiled, and how bloody excited he’d get when she writhed and squirmed and lashed out against him and strapped her feet down to the bed as well. but she remembered how blomkvist smelt—coffee and cigarettes. fabric softener. faintly of the cat who’d set itself home in his cabin. she remembered gamla stan, and sandhamn, and every tunnelbana ticket she’d purchased, every computer hard disk she’d pinched, but also every beating. every foster home. every school bully. every psychiatric stay. every vicious slur that labelled her crazy, retarded, sick, insane, a bitch, a whore, a cunt, a dyke— )
no. she has not learned to kill everything. she’s learned to watch herself die.
‘ you’re not dead yet.
Life seemed more punishment than blessing, for what crueler fate could one earn than to be a pack animal stranded alone across frigid wilderness? Sansa had never been a wolf, not like Robb, not like Arya, and not like Jon, that adopted son her mother looked on with such scorn. Even he had fit into a mold of brawn and coltish enthusiasm for all things rugged. A father’s family had been no place for one inclined towards lacy dresses, cosmetics dotted with glitter, dreams of acting or singing, rather than the militaristic bent taken on by so many male predecessors.
Yet alongside family so too perished aspiration — of the girlish sort. Petyr taught her that one need not carry a gun to seek vengeance, a few well-thought words, well-placed in the proper ears could topple governments, much less a measly family dynasty. Just as their crimes spidered out across the globe, oily tendrils which contaminated all that touched them, the Lannister downfall would come slowly, a thousand seeds planted amongst friends and foes alike, carefully spread wherever she could reach.
Such satisfaction rang hollow with none about to share it. Once Sansa might have believed lost kin to scorn vindictive acts, no matter what embers glowed scarlet, gold, opal in her chest. She would return every last burning pleasure for but a moment with her father, to hear his voice, to feel his broad palm rough with calluses pat atop auburn crown once again. Had her mother felt so tired, there at the end, praying for respite with no regard for its permanence? It was a dangerous path to tread, narrow steps between regret and self-righteousness, yet forward she moved, towards what Sansa knew not, only that she would arrive eventually.
should an exclusive partner go inactive for 1+ month, then i will become tentatively open to interactions with duplicates. when/if they return then exclusivity may resume.
