bakerstreet | Soulmates

"I do not know what it is like to simply...touch. Not any longer. I suspect your touching will not be the same as my siblings embracing me, either, so it will be some strange in-between that is neither a husband claiming his rights nor a familial or friendly embrace. I have never experienced that sort of touch before."

She watches as he bustles around making tea and plating food and wonders, yet again, how she found someone so solicitous in the midst of the woods. Does it have to do with his strange nature, his god-but-not-a-god self? Sansa doesn't know. She does know that she wants to seek more of it out because his presence soothes her.

"You would have to teach me what that sort of touch entails. As to the other - that is what men always want. I do not fault you for enjoying that sort of touch."

He sighs, stopping what he's doing and turning towards her. "Nay, Sansa. That is not what men always want. It's what they're presumed to expect to want. Some men want nothing more than to just have a kind hand as much as any woman does. Aside from that," he said, turning back to his task. "I am not a man, even if it's easier to refer to myself as one to avoid confusion. I'm male, but I'm not human. My wants and needs are... different. I could go centuries with no sex, but I think I'd fade away without touch."

Rue came over and brushed up against his leg, then went over to sit by Sansa, grinning up at her with a foxy smile. "I'm saddened that you don't know the difference. I'm hopeful that you'll be willing to learn. That you want to. And as for touch... well. It's merely that. The physical contact between beings. A pet. A stroke. Sometimes just sitting curled up together can do wonders."

Plate set, he brought it over to the table, and pulling out a chair, he directed her to it. "Water's almost boiled, so tea will be a moment."

"It is easy to go without touch if you harden your heart," Sansa says, delicately taking a bit of food and chewing it thoughtfully before looking back at him. He is himself again, a man, but his eyes are nothing like a man's should ever be. It is a reminder that he is not what he tries to appear to be and that he's that shimmering, golden creature beneath his skin.

"Why is it that you hide your true self from me? I've already seen it," Sansa points out. "So it seems to me that you are taking an unnecessary step to hide it away. Unless you don't like to appear as such?"

Sansa knows plenty about appearances. Every gown she wears is a statement of some sort, a political stance, and perhaps his true form means something of the same. Perhaps it means that he is prepared to be Other and not benign. Sansa thinks if she could look as beautiful as he does when he's shimmering she would stay that way all the time.

Of all the questions she could throw at him, he hadn't been expecting that. Blowing out the flame, he poured hot water in the teapot, then brought it over to the table along with two mugs. He set them down, then sat across from her. He glanced at her again, then sighed, wrinkling his nose in annoyance at himself for not being able to cover his eyes just yet. "Habit. Here, in Underhill, I don't have to. I am what I am, and that is sidhe. It annoys my father that I take after my mother in colouring, as I stand out too much in the Winter Court as something that doesn't belong. In the human world? Necessity. They don't know of us. If they did, I don't know if they'd attempt to slaughter us outright, if they could find a way in, or try to use us and what we can do. Or, piss the older ones off enough that they rip open the doors and let some of the horrors in this land loose on the mortals. Most of us don't want that."

He reached for a piece of bread, mostly just to have something to do with his hands as he waited for the tea to steep. "So, if I want to be a doctor, or anything, out among the humans, I have to look like one. Usually, that isn't a problem. You, my dove, seem to break my walls down. I'm assuming it's some magic that wants to seal the bonds or something similar. But I'm not hiding from you in particular. Just... habitually in general."

"I don't imagine I look much like a winter maid either because I, too, favor my mother. I suppose I would stick out as well in your Winter Court."

Sansa imagines that such a place would be full of people with the Stark look - sober faces, dark hair, dark eyes. She imagines an entire court full of people who look like Jon, actually, and that is not something she can reconcile with Rowan. No, he would not fit in at a court like that.

"It makes sense that it is your practice to hide," Sansa says. "It is my habit to hide myself as well. I've turned from ivory, to porcelain, to steel. I'm not a little girl crying in my room any longer. I have to be stronger than that. Too many people depend on me. When one needs to become something else to survive, you adapt or you die."

Sansa thinks it might be a bit grim but it is the truth. People want to tear down that which is other and different and will look for every weakness to exploit. She knows that intimately.

"That being said, I do think you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen when you're...yourself. It's very tempting."

That made him smile, that last bit at the end, and he looked down and picked at his bread. "All the more reason for me to keep hidden. I won't have you thinking I'm using an advantage to get into your good graces. It seems... unfair. Though, you're not without wiles of your own, dove. I'm already quite taken with your hair. I've been thinking about taking that braid out and just running my fingers through it for the last half hour."

He sat so his legs were stretched out ahead of him, his chair turned so that they didn't stray too far into her space. He watched her pick at her meal, then moved to pour her a cup of tea. "You look beautiful. I've found that those that survive horrors and maintain a shred of decency are the ones that are the most lovely. It's easy to be cruel in return for the same treatment. It's harder to remember kindness."

"If you wanted to touch my hair, I wouldn't be opposed to it. I always liked having my maid brush it out."

Sansa rarely has a maid do that for her any longer, preferring to be practical and do her own hair for the day, but perhaps there is a certain charm in letting someone you don't consider to be a servant take down your hair for the day. After all, it is simply her hair, and it isn't as so that is so intimate a touch that it might hurt. That isn't something she's particularly afraid of.

Sansa sips at her tea and eats a little more. She's always been a light eater and especially during winter because they were all tightening their belts to avoid famine. It feels as if she's being wasteful to have all of this food to herself.

"Our winter is brutal just now," she says, taking a bit of bread and honey. "We don't have honey and our bread is far from the best. This is a feast and I feel as if I am being spoiled. I would eat this much for two meals, I think, and try to stretch it for three. I might be the queen but I'll starve before my people starve."

"Offer that again while sitting in my lap and I'll take you up on that," he said, voice a little rough. Oh, yes, the temptation was there. He wanted to curl up with her in front of a fire and just be at peace. He could feel that draw, that tug to be closer, and it reminded him a little of the bond to Rue, only different in the wants it brought with it.

He watched her eat, heard her speak of starving, and all it did was make him want to cover the table with more food for her to choose from. He remembered famines. He'd brought food to the Irish that suffered, and the Scots, and those that lived around him when it had first hit. He gained nothing from their suffering, and Underhill had more than enough for multiple realms. "There are bees here. Fairy bees tended by pixies. They feed off the winter foliage and nectar the pixies and sprites tend to that thrive in terrain any other blooms would shrivel in. That's their honey. My mother likes to have the roses and blooms around her garden. She hates the Winter court, but she likes to have something alive in the heart of it. So she tends her blooms, as do her pixies, and the bees bring her honey. It's my favorite I've had so far. Humans have plenty of different kinds of honey from different flowers, but this... I like this."

Sansa blushes a little when he mentions being in his lap and looks down at her tea, finding it very interesting for the moment. When he starts to speak of beekeeping and flowers, she thinks her face might not be the same color as her hair any longer and chances looking back up.

"Well, it is very fine honey. Finer than any honey I've ever had in Westeros, to be certain. Your mother's...pixies do a good job of it." Sansa has no idea what a pixie is but apparently they are skilled beekeepers. While she might not normally take another piece of bread and fruit, she does now, because it feels right to indulge herself here.

"Do you mean that? About my hair?"

"I'll be sure to tell her my mate approves. She'll be thrilled," he said with a smile. His mother might seem cold in comparison to human mothers, but he couldn't really blame her. Her contract with his father would have been up already if he hadn't been born. Now, she had to stomach anniversary couplings in an attempt to have another child. But, she was almost free now, and he had a feeling that she might have ensured through multiple means that there'd be no second child. She wanted to go back to the Summer court, and her time with his father was almost up. He bore her no ill will over that. His father was... not an easy fae to be around.

The soft question at the end had him smiling over at her, eyes glimmering as he did. "I did indeed. I can't lie, Sansa. None of the fae can. So when I say something, I mean it. Entirely."

"You can't lie? All men can lie," Sansa says, frowning curiously at his words. Still, he has described himself as male and not man and perhaps that whatever he is, this fae, truly cannot lie. She settles back in her chair and gives him a steady look, wanting to test it.

"Tell me that my hair is blonde," Sansa says. "This is the easiest possible thing to lie about in the world so surely you'll be able to do it. I find it terribly hard to believe that you are simply incapable of falsehood."

If he isn't, it makes them a strange pair. Sansa has learned to lie to protect herself from others and can do it effortlessly, should she have to do it.

"Men, yes. Fae, no. It's a... I suppose it's something in our making. In the magic that breathed us into life back at the start of it. We can twist the truth, dance around it, omit facts, but outright lie? Not without dire consequences, if they've the power to manage it. The Fates can be cruel, and for an immortal to be struck down by magic because they were capable of a lie is not something I wish to attempt."

He heard the demand, mouth twisting as he fought a laugh. "Your hair is b... beautiful. It is not blonde. It is the red of old blood and sunsets. It's lovely." He'd thought about trying, but the word had just stuck in his throat. Most fae didn't even bother attempting to lie, knowing they couldn't. The few that had managed? Did not last long, or if they did, it was as punishment in the twisted form they'd been turned into.

"So I find myself in possession of a man who cannot lie to me. I believe this is the strangest set of circumstances I've ever come across. All men do in Westeros is lie. You lie to get power, to keep power, to keep others from gaining power."

Sansa finishes with her food and sips at her tea. It's fantastic tea, actually, and she imagines the brew must be something special to this place the same as the honey had been. It is a shame that she has never had anything so good before, she thinks.

"I was taught to assume that everyone was my enemy at all times and in all ways. Someone once told me to fight every battle against every person, all at once, all the time. Everyone could be my enemy and no one could be my friend. I have lied to save my own life more times than I can count. I have never had the luxury of having tea with a man who merely wanted to stroke my hair while I sat on his lap."

"Perhaps you have, but they've never told you. Females of any species, particularly the very beautiful ones, can be terrifying to a male. They may want all manner of things, from the innocent to the not so much, but to voice it? The fear can bind them in place. So perhaps you have, but they weren't able to admit it. I, for one, have no such terror holding my tongue in place, and am perfectly fine both telling you that I'd like that, and being told you're not comfortable with it. Yet. I'm patient, Sansa. I'm an old creature and I am capable of waiting longer for something worth the wait."

He poured himself a cup and sipped slowly. Some part of him wanted to keep her here. Either here in Underhill, or in the human Earth, where he could show her marvels of what the world could be. To not let her starve and shiver and be around men that would take a knife to their wedded partner. But he could hear the duty in her voice. The tone that spoke of her protectiveness of her people. He got like that with his staff in the hospitals he worked. When it got too intense, he picked up and left before he did something foolish like lay a claim to the land and take ownership of the people that were his. He could- any sidhe could, but the humans weren't ready for that kind of introduction to a species they'd forgotten about.

So he hid. And hiding had landed him here. With a woman who he had a feeling if given the choice, would insist on returning to her land. So where did that leave him?

"I would like the record to show that I did not deny your request to touch my hair," Sansa says. "As to what men want and don't want, I don't think I've ever encountered any of those who are too afraid to voice an innocent desire. The men I've run across tend to take what they want by force."

Sansa pauses for a moment and thinks over her words, thinks about all of the men she's met in her life up until this point.

"I suppose my first husband might have wanted something so simple as touching my hair. He was a kind man even though I was not attracted to him in the slightest. He never touched me. He told me he didn't want me unless I came to him willingly. Looking back, I probably should have so they couldn't have married me off to the second, but girls are vain and shallow. I like to think I'm different now."

"Duly noted," he said, hiding his smile behind another drink.

He listened to her musing over her meetings with men, the hidden motives or lack thereof, and her first husband. There was much, nay, all of her past he didn't know, but to have had a husband that didn't claim her and to be remarried, and to think the first one kind, it led to questions.

Ones he'd ask later, perhaps, or just wait until she felt like telling him. As he said, he was patient. "Living does that. Changes us. Molds us into people that are different from the ones we left behind. I'd like to think that the changes are for the better, but that would be too close to lying to myself. Sometimes they're for the worse, or they simply are. I don't know the girl you were, or the woman you are. But I'd like to learn."

"It would make you one of the first," Sansa admits. "Most of my life, I have only ever been wanted because of my claim to the North. I haven't been wanted for me, for simply Sansa. I was just a tool to be used to get control over a swath of land."

As she thinks about it, it is quite sad, and she wonders if anyone has ever wanted her around other than her family just because she existed and not because she could do something for them. It feels strange to be with someone who actually seems interested in her.

"It makes for a lonely life."

"You know, if that's truly your life, then it's not making much of a case for me to want to take you back there. Underappreciated is not something I want to walk around witnessing for my mate." He sips his tea again, glancing around at the room and wondering exactly what all of this was going to mean for him. He didn't truly want to give up what he did, or the world he lived in. But he wasn't some master of anything to demand that she follow him merely because he claimed her. He was quite sure she'd had enough of that.

Yet she sounded so... sad, when she spoke of her home. Could he be blamed for wanting to take her away from that?

"I am the Stark in Winterfell. It is my duty," Sansa says. "Though I suppose my brother could sit the throne again. He is exiled but he could be recalled and take up the throne once again. He'd hate it but he'd do a fine job of it. He was our king once, after all."

Is it selfish to want something for herself after so long being selfless and fulfilling the desires of others? Sansa isn't quite sure. It seems indulgent and childish of her to run away to another world where winter's bite isn't present and she has no responsibilities set before her.

"He says that I am better at it, bearing the crown, but he is a good king. Our people would prefer a man sit the throne anyway."

He was quiet for a moment, then looked up at her. "And what do you want? What would you prefer? I'd rather not stay here, in Underhill, but I'm not sure how happy you'd be in the Earth where I've been living and working for... well. Longer than you've been alive. But I'd like to show you. Give you options."

He could stay here in Underhill. He had a home here, a place. The fae would respect that she was his mate and mostly leave her be, but as for if she'd be happy... humans rarely fared as well in Underhill without an active patron, and his life here was annoyingly indolent. In Earth? Well. He wondered what she'd make of the technology. Of the noise, and heavy population. If she'd like where he chose to live and if he could find a place for her to fit in. What she'd like to do.

"I think I would like to be happy. I have not been happy, truly happy, since I was a child. I have never gotten anything that I truly want for myself, only what others want for me. My life has been about being shuffled from one jailor to another and my freedom is shackled to being queen and making every decision about my people from dawn until dusk."

It is a surprising thing for her to say, genuinely, and it is only now that she has put it into words that she realizes it is what she truly wants. Why should she grind and toil away at duty when Arya is sailing the seas and Jon is in the far North with Wildlings? Why should she always bear the burdens?

"I'll have to recall my brother, naturally, but I think...I think I should be done being a queen for now. I think I should have a life of my own for once."

"Do you think they'd recall him on their own if you just... never showed back up?" That was the selfish part of him asking. The perfect response was in his grasp, but the Fates could be tricky. What if she went home and they convinced her to stay? Preyed on her sense of duty? He'd be forced to stay, and he knew he wouldn't want that. Not if it was a place that seemed to be constantly wrapped in Winter.

"Honestly? They would probably seek to find him, yes. If they could not, they would squabble amongst themselves as to who should be king but the men of the North are loyal. They would look for him before doing anything like that."

If nothing else, they cared about Starks in the North and Sansa has faith they would at least try to find Jon or Arya - especially considering Bran is seated on the Iron Throne in the south.

"My younger brother sits the throne in the south," she explains. "He would not allow a succession crisis in the North to become bloody."

"Do you want to go back to say goodbye?" Family was a tricky thing. If her siblings were seated on other thrones, it seemed like a tangled mess of royalty- and of course, his mate would be a Queen.

Rue chirped at him from the floor, knowing what he was thinking and agreeing.

"I suppose I ought to make a decree," Sansa says. "Naming Jon as my heir and Arya my heir after that. If there is record of it, my Queen's Hand will see that it is executed properly. It would solve any problems of succession, at any rate. Of course, that means finding my way back from here and I do not even know where I went through a door."

She gives Rue a pointed look.

"You, little fox, are going to have to show me the way back. You brought me here, after all, so it stands to reason that you know the way back. Are you a trustworthy fox or a trickster?"

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