in a different skin [OPEN]

[ladysarmour]

Characters: Sansa Stark, OPEN
Where: In and around Schwanheim and the castle
When: Rebirth 17, evening → night
What: From the touch of a spindle Sansa sleeps, and dreams wolf dreams.
Warnings: Mild violence, blood. It is a wolf after all.

In Schwanheim there is a wolf. Young still; but large even for a pup, with fur the grey of a rainy sky and glowing yellow eyes. She slinks through the castle and town, avoiding any guards; lesser wolves fear men, but she knows yet to be cautious of steel. The world is dulled of color, but the smells - smells of man and stone, rain and mud, damp wood, fire. Each smell should be familiar but is somehow different from what she knows: nothing smells of ice the way she knows. Down an alley and another she stalks and kills a rat, the bones crunching to splinters between her jaws and warm blood flooding her mouth. Her brothers and sister might have been able to catch better prey, larger or quicker, but she is small and has always been the milder.

A new scent catches her nose, and she turns to follow it.

Comments

[demonsintheoven]

Snow, for once, was sober. Which just meant that instead of being near passed out on the road, she was standing much like a statue, not particularly looking at anything. She doesn't turn as the wolf approaches.

"There are two of you..." Her voice was distant, distracted, and soft.

[ladysarmour]

Hesitantly, the wolf approaches. The woman carries the sour smell of ale about her.

She tilts her head, whines softly when the woman speaks.

[demonsintheoven]

"But you're not like my little wolf... are you?" she smiled, slowly turning, eyes still unfocused as if she were looking at something far away.

[ladysarmour]

She pants, not understanding, and paws at the dirt.

[demonsintheoven]

Slowly, the woman kneels, reaching out a hand.

[ladysarmour]

Teeth bared, she shies back a step.

Even sober, she makes no sense.

[demonsintheoven]

Snow pulls back a bit, looking suddenly unsure. "Dark Chyld...?"

[ladysarmour]

The words men speak hold little meaning to her; it is their smells that tell her what they are about.

[sorcerous]

Loki, too, wanders the night.

He is tempted to do mischief. Slam shutters closed with a cold wind, summon ice, curse the drunken passers-by. Tempt their children out of warm beds and into dark danger.

He wonders if that mischief would summon Thor.

Where is Thor? It is unlike him to be so quiet, to be so invisible. He had expected to meet a raiding party led by his brother, on his return. He had expected a fight, and the quiet lack of fanfare feels troubling to him, in the aftermath.

So he relearns the town, how human feet may tread, how a human nose may smell.

He catches the tint of blood, and he pauses, turns.

[ladysarmour]

She scents a man who smells of cold, and fur, and wing; it draws her from pursuit of another rat to crouch in the shadows beneath a stair, tail sweeping over the damp ground. It is the smell of home: ice and snow, chill waters, the wood and the wild.

[sorcerous]

A wolf. Something of the terrible wild, here, in the city. Now that is unusual enough to draw his notice.

He steps closer, crouches by the shadows. There is no fear in him; no threat.

"Do I smell magic on you?" he calls, lowly.

[ladysarmour]

Nervously, she approaches, drawn from her shadowed crevice by the smell of home. Paws at the ground; men talk in a language she does not know, but her ears turn to the sound of his voice.

[sorcerous]

Then he will communicate in tone and gesture. He is only half-fluent in wolf-tongue, but he knows enough to run with them when he takes their form.

"I will harm you none." His voice is calm, and low, and soothing. "I will not harm your pack, nor any children you may protect. See: my teeth are dull, and I have no claws."

He holds the wolf's gaze.

[ladysarmour]

Her nervousness abates to wariness; he seems familiar in some way she does not know (because we spoke once before, earlier this day). Hesitantly, she edges towards him, ears forward and tail slightly raised. She wants to know: why does he smell of home (the north, Winterfell, the north), and why does he smell of kin?

[sorcerous]

There, yes, there; he sees the spark of magic in her eyes. There is more to this than a simple wolf. In fact, he believes there may be someone else in there, twisted and stretched around a wolf-mind, a wolf-heart, a wolf's lust for blood.

He glances away, a long moment. The danger of this is keen and near. Every time he drifts from this form, he has a more and more difficult time returning.

But, then --

What is there that is so wonderful about being Loki? I would be anything else, he had told Sif, earlier, and the words of the wild creature Anya were that he was a shapeshifter. That he could choose what his own truth was. And he loathes this skin, still: traitor-skin, kin-killer, the one who had a single chance to prove himself equal to Thor and instead had brought himself to ruin.

Would it not be better to have his truth be the remorseless blood-and-death-ridden life of the wild?

Before he changes his mind, he changes his form.

It is a flicker; a swirl of wind, a shift in a direction Loki still cannot explain. He wraps the new skin around his bones, and opens his eyes as a dark-colored wolf. The scents of the night come alive in his nose, and a spillover of magic leaves ice crackling under his paws.

[ladysarmour]

This, here, this is kin: not brother but lesser cousin, and (Shaggydog was just that color). The change is sudden, startling; her lips draw back to bare her teeth. Hackles up, she crouches, and growls.

[sorcerous]

He knows this dance; they are neither of them ordinary wolves, both of them powerful. If he smelled more magic on her, if he smelled more courage, greater age, then he may have submitted out of curiosity, to ease the way between them. But, as it stood, Loki wanted no challenge to his authority.

He returns the growl, barks, braces himself on front paws and looms above her.

[brosif]

More and more children were being pulled into Eswareinmal's madness. Where she may have once taken her protests directly to the king, Sif was aware enough of her current situation to avoid the same open court in which she'd attacked the man not three days prior.

At the moment, all she could do was see that the new arrival, under the same roof, was settling in. She knocked on the door to her quarters, but there was no answer. This wouldn't have been troubling -- given the day Lady Stone had endured, sleep was surely warranted -- but she'd attempted the same action almost twelve hours ago.

She opened the door a crack, shielding her eyes.

"Alayne Stone? Are you well?"

[ladysarmour]

In sleep Sansa looks younger and softer, the grief that haunts her waking hours absent from her porcelain brow. She curls in on herself, breathing softly, auburn hair tumbling across her pillow. She seems not there - absent in spirit, more than just the result of deep sleep or a cursed spinning needle.

[brosif]

“Lady Stone? Anyone would be welcome to their sleep at this point, but you are raising some concern.”

Sif walks over to the bed, her footsteps loud and obvious – should they wake Alayne before she reaches her, the better. But the young one remains silent. Reaching over, Sif shakes her shoulder.

Something is wrong, here.

“Wake up, girl.”

[ladysarmour]

A quiet whine passes from her lips as she twitches, not in response to Sif but to something else entirely; beneath her eyelids her eyes roll, following something that is not there and setting her lashes to fluttering against her cheeks.

[brosif]

Decorum now fully set aside, Sif shakes the girl roughly. Nothing. She has been alive long enough to recognize magic, but has no talent at it. And there are few in the kingdom that do whom she trusts.

She steps back and, trying not to lend too much thought to it, tugs at her necklace.

“Loki.”

[sorcerous]

He had thought it would be a relief to return to form, to part ways with the wolf and rest without fur or claws. But, instead, his mind buzzes with the night; he wants to return, he wants to hunt, he wants to leave this shell of civilization behind.

The orb glows.

"What?" It is something of a snarl that leaves his lips. His eyes catch too much of the moonlight, close to glowing.

[brosif]

A single thought is clear in Sif’s countenance, to one who knows her as well as Loki does. What have you been doing?

But the child takes precedence, and she pushes it aside.

“The new girl – Alayne Stone. Something has taken her and I have no answer for it.” She takes a seat beside Alayne, holding the orb to her face, that Loki might get a better look. “I believe her to be here in body only.”

[sorcerous]

Surely there must be a dozen other sorcerers, he wants to say. Surely you see I am busy.

Instead:

"Where is she?" he asks. "Where are you both?"