bakerstreet | Soulmates

"Only a Red Priestess has magic as far as I know," Sansa says. "I've seen one raise the dead and light a field afire. There isn't anything else magical in my world but I think there were sorcerors in Old Valyria. Those ways are all lost to us now."

Magic? It would explain talking trees and men who looked like beautiful visions. Sansa has always been wary of beautiful men since Ramsay but she wonders if she touches Rowan again if he'll transform into that glittering creature once more. She finds herself craving it, honestly, and she balls her hands up to keep from touching him.

"What do you mean...yours, exactly? You don't intend on keeping me here, do you? I'm a queen, I cannot go off into the woods with a fox and a man who looks as if sunlight made him. It's all a bit too fanciful and I am long past the dreams of a young girl. Life is not full of songs and maiden dreams."

Sansa wants to touch him again, though, and wants to see if he'll transform again. No. She mustn't.

Priestess. So there was something full of magic in her world. It made him a little curious about what sort of world it was in general. Her attire spoke of something older. Her voice spoke of it as well. Maesters instead of doctors. Queens. Lords. He had an image in his mind of what sort of world she came from.

He saw her curl her hands into fists and glanced down at his arm. "I think I have it under control now. I'm guessing that it was the Fate's way of taking a bat to my head to let me know what they wanted me to know. As for what I mean?"

He sighed. Glancing around, he slid his arm around to let his hand rest at the small of her back. "It seems we need to talk. I have a tent I can set up if it goes overlong, but why not make camp to let you rest from your travel and to let us acquaint ourselves with this new reality, mm?"

Rue nudged him, then went over with a wagging tail to Sansa, shifting onto his side and yipping at her. "See? Rue agrees."

"We might as well make camp. If my journey back home is going to take longer than the journey here, I'll need the rest."

If this man were going to hurt her, he would have already had plenty of opportunities and it was clear that he is something other than a man and likely more than capable of doing it. Perhaps she is a fool for trusting him - all men are poison and lies - but the little fox is far more convincing. He reminds her of Ghost, pure white as snow, and she feels safe with him around.

"My brother's direwolf is white as snow like your Rue here. They fight as one on the battlefield. It is almost as if they know what the other is thinking. I've never seen anything like it, truly, but this little fox reminds me of Ghost in some way."

Perhaps that is what he means by familiar. Sansa never had a relationship with Lady quite like that even if she felt her loss keenly but perhaps she would have been able to have one if Lady had lived. If only! So much of her life is full of ifs and what could bes.

"Am I the first person you've ever found lost in your woods before?"

He was going to lead her away from the treant and towards a less encounterable area. There was a clearing, and Rue let him know it was relatively safe- as safe as any place in fairyland could be. He went over to a rock and pressed power into it, using small magic to turn it into a seat for her before he gestured for her to sit. When and if she did, he'd start making a circle around them, a wide space that he could set a tent and ward to shield them from passersby and anything of a mind to bother them. As he set the magic, he thought about what she said. A bond with a wolf- a direwolf no less. Perhaps not the same, but similar. And she'd lost hers. Pity.

"No," he answered, giving her a small smile as he finished the warding, then unslung his pack to pull out the tent to start setting it up. It was a modern bit of equipment, so it was one of the nylon ones that had long poles to prop it up. Only he'd gotten this at an open Night Market, and it had been magicked to be larger on the inside. To have a bed, settings, and almost be something of a traveling home, if he activated the magic. Wouldn't do to have that pop up out in Yellowstone. "Humans wander into Underhill now and then, but they've mostly seemed to come from one particular realm that we're tied to. This... Westeros, Essos... it seems like an entirely new realm that we've not known about. Until now. Which comes with its own complications. New humans to find themselves at risk stumbling in here." He'd have to bring it up to one of the member of Court at some point. Just... not yet.

Sansa watches with fascination as he turns a rock into a soft seat and pulls out a tent of the likes she's never seen before. Everything about this man is unbelievable, some sort of maiden's fantasy, and she feels as if she blinks he'll disappear. She feels as if she'll wake up in her bed after this long, elegant fantasy and be cold and alone with the fire burned out and frost on the glass panes of her window.

"I have never heard of your Underhill, so we are equals in that regard. The only thing I can say for it is that it is quite a bit warmer than Winterfell and I think I've dressed incorrectly."

Sansa's dress is a thick velvet meant for keeping out a winter's chill but she thinks she could almost wear the lighter dresses she wore in King's Landing in this place. It isn't hot, by any means, but it is no Winterfell either. At some point, she'd lost her cloak, and she rues the loss; it had been one of her finer ones.

"What...are you a man? Or some sort of god? I rather think you must be one of the Old Gods, looking as you did for that brief moment. You are no mere maester, that's for certain."

"I am no god, not by any stretch of the imagination, and don't let any of those you find in here tell you otherwise about myself or them. We are fae. The Daoine Sidhe, to be specific. Fae incorporate a wide variety, such as the treant you met earlier. We, those like myself, are the high fae of this land. The rest fall somewhere on their own scale of power and ability under that. We are not mortal, but we are not gods. Neither old nor new." He wanted to quash that idea before it took root. Too many old, old fae still held old names that claimed power, and they were bitter at humanity for refusing to call them by it anymore.

With the wards also including a quieting spell, he glanced up at her as he knelt by the opening of the tent. "I'm a healer. But I'd like that to stay between us. There's physical healing, which is what I assume your maesters do, and then there's healing of the kind that requires power, and that is not something I want known or shared." So why was he sharing it with her? Because everything was pointing to her being his mate, and he couldn't keep that kind of thing from her.

"I suppose the second is not something one would use very often." Privately, Sansa still thinks he must be some sort of god because that is the only explanation she can think of for a man to become a glittering, stunning creature as Rowan had become for that brief moment but if he doesn't want to be referred to as such, she'll keep it to herself. He had made a big deal about them not using titles - his nor hers - so she will respect that request.

"I have nothing extraordinary about myself other than being a beauty, which has brought me more pain than glory. If I had my life to do over again, I would wish to be a plain girl who brought no attention to herself and slipped through life subtle as a mouse. It would have made my life so much easier to not be who I am."

Sansa is proud to be a Stark and always will be but if she'd been some farmer's daughter, she likely wouldn't have been twice married and widowed and treated horribly for years. Her name and her claim would have meant nothing and she could go traipsing through the woods as much as she liked without anyone missing her.

"Being beautiful is a curse in Westeros. It was for me."

He sat down on the ground beside the seat he'd made for her, glancing up at her, then down at Rue, who sat between them. "And yet you're still a beauty, for all the hardship you've been through. And no, dove, that's not me mocking you or dismissing your pain. The places I've been, the things I've seen... people can do such horrors to one another. To themselves."

Rowan had the strongest urge to just lean over and rest his head on her knee. To relax. To be close. It was bad enough he had the fae's natural desire to touch and be touched, but humans always took things the worst way. Sensual was sexual, and close was intimate. They rarely touched just to touch, and it was one of the pains he had to deal with when he was among them. Still he wanted to, but her words let him know that there was too much pain there to prod too quickly. "I meant what I said. I might be able to heal your wounds, old though they might be. The body has a natural tell to it. It wants to be whole. I would very much like to do what I can to take some of that pain away from you."

"If you would like to look, I would allow it. I would like to go inside the tent first, however, because my wounds are in places that I would not like other people to see. It is fine enough for a healer to see them - you're used to looking at bodies - but I do not want to be caught with my dress off in front of others."

Sansa normally wouldn't allow anyone to see her scars but she trusts that he's a healer - she feels it from him somehow - and he seems concerned about her injuries. Ramsay had left his mark on her, that's for certain, and she thinks she'll wear those marks forever even if this...god has magic. Magic cannot erase everything, can it?

"I'm certain you can understand my reticence in this matter? I am a proper lady, after all."

"Aye, that you are. Inside, if you please." And inside would look something like a modern day cottage, complete with bedroom, bathroom, and sitting area with a fireplace, small kitchenette, and all the comforts of home. "I can get you a robe to change into, to make you more comfortable."

That she was willing to show him soothed some part of him that was already angry over her wounds. He may be a healer, but he was a sidhe, and no sidhe was shy of fighting for what they wanted or laying claim to it. Nor in spilling blood when needed. It helped him plenty in the human world, as he found he could make decisions more easily without being weighed down by the guilt of death and injury that came with catering to them. He'd ended more than one life in his long one, and they were usually the lives that took joy in harming others. It weighed as light as a feather on his conscience.

Sansa gasps when she goes inside the tent and it is rather more like a cottage than what she's expecting. She looks at Rowan, shocked, and then realizes she should probably stop feeling that way. He has magic, after all, and this is just another manifestation of something she already knows. He offers her a robe and she gives him a peculiar look.

"You won't be able to see anything if I have a robe on," she points out to him. "My wounds are beneath my clothes and a robe would obscure them, as kind as the gesture is. He made sure to keep my face and hands clear of any harm. It would not do well to have the Lady of Winterfell walking about scarred and broken."

Sansa hardly thinks he can do anything about the scars she's acquired from Ramsay but if he thinks that he can, she is more than happy to show them to him and let him determine it for himself. It isn't as if she's ever had a magical maester look at them before, after all.

"Wherever it is easiest to examine me, I will disrobe and show you what my wounds are."

That left him in a dilemma. The bedroom was the obvious answer, but he didn't want her to think he had ulterior motives- even if he realized he might. Oh, he'd treat her entirely like his patient while she showed him her marks. He'd do his best to show nothing on his face if she disrobed. But he, and Rue, were well aware that he'd be a messy tangle of things inside. Rage, fury, pity, heartbreak, and want would be all wrapped up.

"Here, if you'd like. The door's closed," and locked, though that didn't matter so much with the warding circle up. "We'll not be interrupted. If you need help disrobing, I'm capable of that much." And he hoped that he'd be capable of healing her. He hadn't met anything he couldn't fix yet, well, other than death. But he also didn't often offer to do anything so long past the healing stage. He didn't want to promise and be foresworn, so he was leaving it open.

Sansa goes through the door and finds a bedroom with one bed as expected of a man who isn't intending to have a lost queen end up in his woods. It's a suitable enough place to be examined, though, and she's glad that she's long given up on wearing dresses that require maids to help her in and out of - it is highly inconvenient for someone who values their privacy.

Sansa unties the front of her dress and slips it off. The worst of Ramsay's work is on her back so her chemise is going to have to come off along with her corset and it doesn't take her long to deal with either of them, practiced fingers working the laces loose and pulling away the fabric. She hadn't expected to walk into someone else's woods and wind up in nothing but her silken smallclothes but one never knows what might happen when she wakes up in the morning, she thinks.

"You may see," she says. "The most of it is on my back and my thighs but he liked to use his knife a bit of everywhere so long as it was covered. The scars didn't all heal clean. If you intend to attack me while I'm vulnerable, I have no weapon but I do know how to bite."

He's quiet when she undresses, and that rage simmers ever higher the more skin that's bared and the more is revealed. The casual nature in her tone as she speaks of a knife being used on her, as if it was just a thing to be born, like a bad odor or pests in the home, it all made his stomach turn. There was a flickering while her back was turned, his glamour slipping for a moment as his rage consumed him. Rue pressed close to his leg, and he waited until he knew he wasn't going to lose control before he spoke. "This... 'he'. Where is he?"

That seemed like a very important thing for him to know just then, and he stepped closer, fingers hovering above her skin but not touching yet. Again, that casual commentary of her potential attack, and he closed his eyes. "Know this now, Sansa Stark. I will never lay a hand on you in anger, nor will I harm you for jest or joy. Even if you did bite me, I'd just likely find it endearing, and right now I'm doing my best to find something to focus on other than the blinding rage that wants to kill the one who did this."

His hand finally touched her, and he felt the pain, her pain, the echo of it lash up through his hand. He had to work to swallow, speaking quietly. "If you're ready, I'll start. It might feel strange, but I promise you, I mean you no harm."

"He is dead," Sansa says finally. "His name is no more, his house is no more, his life is no more. All of my husband is ended."

Sansa had ensured that. When he says that the healing might feel strange, she nods her assent. Strange is the least of things that has happened to her over the course of her life and strange is preferable to the pain which led her to acquire such marks.

"He wished to possess me in every way possible," Sansa says. "To use me as his canvas. He would have done worse, I think, if he did not need to get me with child to hold my castle. I suspect that is why I was spared as much as I was. Ordering his death may have been the greatest indulgence of my life."

He needs not know she executed the sentence herself.

He wouldn't think less of her for it. Sidhe women were just as fierce as the males. His mother might lower her eyes for his father, but she's made her mark on many of both courts that thought less of her.

Rowan stood behind her, looking at the tapestry of pain she was painted in, and he felt a wet trail along his cheek. He so very much wanted to lower his head and kiss one of the marks there, but she wasn't ready for that yet. Or, he wasn't ready to press. He lay both hands against her shoulders, careful, gentle, and he moved his head so his mouth was close to her ear. "It should feel warm, but you've a lot of wounds, love. It might take a bit to heal them all. You can lean back against me if the need arises."

And with that, he unlocked that cage inside him that held his power. His glamour dropped, but only because he wanted no barrier to the magic that he held that he wanted to flood her with. Every mark. Every scar. Every point of her painful history, he wanted to eradicate. And from her husband. In name only, surely. No mate would do this to their other half. No true mate would be this cruel.

Sansa shivers when he whispers against her ear and again when she feels the power flooding through her. She's never felt such a thing in her life before and it feels as if she's been touched by something that doesn't exist in her world. She doesn't even have words for it, not really, only to say that it is both the most comforting and most sensual experience she's ever had.

For someone who has never had any sensual experiences at all, it's very overwhelming, and she tries to keep from making any noises as he touches her. It wouldn't be proper to do such a thing. She leans back against him as he offers and just lets him touch her.

"Your hands are made of magic, I think," she whispers softly.

He feels the shiver, feels when she leans against him, and he's careful in where his hands go. She may not be unbedded, but she's clearly been unloved, and he doesn't want her to associate anything to do with the bedroom and that prick of a husband with him.

Rowan's hands glide down her shoulders, wiping marks away as if they never existed. The skin ripples and melts together, smoothing over like clay, returning to its original porcelain perfection. "All of me is, to some degree," he answers quietly, letting her rest on him and nuzzling a little into the head of red hair that's fascinating him. "Does it hurt?" He doesn't think it does, but he's pouring a lot of power into her and he doesn't want to overwhelm her.

"No, it feels good," Sansa says. She knows she's a little breathless when she says it and she quickly shuts her mouth as to not embarrass herself. Truly she shouldn't be so easily affected by the touch of a healer but it's been ages since anyone has touched her at all and she's never been touched with a gentle hand.

"Too good, possibly, but I imagine it is simply because something broken is finally mending."

Yes. That is what it is precisely. It's the mending of her body that feels so good, not anything else, and she just simply hasn't had the feeling before now. It feels intimate in a way that doesn't feel violating.

"Whatever you can take away without tiring yourself, please do. I do not wish to bear his marks on me any longer. Even if you can only remove them on my back, it will be enough."

"Take my hand," he says, still keeping his voice low. He doesn't quite want her to turn around yet, since he can't get his glamour back up, but he wants her to be in control of what he's about to ask. "Lead it to where the wounds are." He knew there were some in places that were more intimate, but he didn't want to terrify her by touching there himself. She'd had enough of being taken advantage of. In this, he could give her as much control as he was able. "I have more than enough to heal you all, but it will go faster if you lead me to where the wounds are. Otherwise, I'll have to overflow from head down."

A push of power was never a good thing in a human. Not too much, and he didn't want to overwhelm her entirely. It was best if she led the way, because his hands wanted to wander too much.

Sansa squeezes his hand and nervously leads it to touch against the outside of her left thigh. The scars are all over her thighs but she hopes this is enough of a location without her actually having to lead him to it because she doesn't know that she's ready to do that on her own.

"You can infer what he did. Nothing...there but on my thighs, yes. I had to stitch some of them myself and they didn't heal clean because it is different when you are mending skin versus mending a piece of fabric. It embarrasses me to tell you about it so if you can heal it, make it quick?"

When he touches her, it feels good, so she isn't so worried about being hurt. She's more worried about being unbecoming of a lady when she's simply being healed by someone.

"We don't have to talk about it."

"Have to? No, but perhaps you should. I find that with the healing of physical wounds, the ones in the heart and soul want to be healed just as much." His hands slide down to where she's directed, feeling the ridge and bump of badly healed wounds, fingers trembling as that rage burns again. He glows with it, but that's also just the magic filling the space, and he presses that into her, doing his best to erase the marks some monster left on her.

"I'm sorry you were harmed. I'm sorry it was by someone supposed to have cherished you. I'm not sorry he's dead. Probably for the best. I wouldn't have been gentle about it."

"His death was not gentle," Sansa assures him. "So perhaps your wish was granted after all. As to talking about it, what is there to say? A wife is her husband's property to do with what he wishes even if said wife is of royal blood. I had no power in the situation."

She has power now, hard fought and hard won, but it doesn't change the things that happened to her in the past.

"It was a year of pain and now the last of it is being wiped away."

"Then that is something about your land that follows suit with the older versions of the ones I know. Seems that's an ugly trait that happens universally. You, Sansa, are my mate. You might not understand it, and I'm certainly not well versed in the facts of it myself, but you are mine in as much as I am yours. That said, you are not my property. Neither here nor where you hail from. Royal or not. You could be a swineherd's daughter, and I'd speak the same claim."

Probably not the best time to be having a conversation about bonds and mating, when she was all but naked in his arms and letting him use his gift to wipe away the remnants of her suffering. When he was riled up with indignation and rage and yet the pleasant wonder of what she represented. The mate chosen for him. The one perfect for him. And he, hopefully in her eyes, for her. She wasn't ready for the sealing of such a union yet, and he wouldn't demand or even ask it of her. But he'd erase the touch of another as best he could. The scent of beeswax and honeycomb started to rise, the touch of Summer court from his mother surrounding him.

Sansa cannot see his face but she can see his hands, glimmering with that glow once again, and now she honeycomb and beeswax. It reminds her of summertime, of being young, and she wonders if he's making that scent because of the healing or if it's simply part of her imagination. She doesn't mind it either way. When he says mate, she frowns a little.

"Mate? Do you mean bride, then? Because I am rather tired of being a bride. I'm thrice betrothed and twice married and I think I would be very happy never marrying again. If mate means bride, I would rather not become one once again."

She enjoys his touch for a moment. "Or do you mean mate as wolves do?"

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(would you like him to be able to heal them? I don't want to overstep)

oh he absolutely can! she'd love them gone

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