strangetrip | And then there were none

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And then there were none - OTA

She was gone. Sansa was gone.

It wasn't unusual for Snow White not to see Sansa for a day or two. Sansa kept to herself much of the time, shy of many of the inn’s inhabitants. But she would find Snow, would talk to Snow, and it would always bring light and warmth to Snow’s day to see her. She didn’t understand why. She didn’t need to know, so long as she could have this.

Yesterday had been just about the most magical day in her life. She'd found Sansa building a castle in the snow, and they'd worked quietly together on this tiny model of a castle called Winterfell. Snow had finally worked up her nerve and kissed her after those last touches were made. It had been terrifying. It had been achingly sweet. But it had not been bad. Neither of them knew what it meant, and yet...

And then today she just knew something was different. Something was wrong. She had gone to Sansa’s room. Then to the desk.

She didn’t cry. Or scream, or rage. Instead she calmly and quietly collected four glass bottles from the bar and took them out to a fence along the road.

She had four bullets left in Rose Red. Two had been used in Songrun, and she had been saving the rest until Percy could make her more. She lined up the bottles on the fence, and stepped back as far as she thought she could manage.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

Zero.

She dropped the gun and went down on her knees in the grass, staring at nothing.

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Snow didn't move, or speak, or even breathe any faster. She gave no sign that she'd heard him at all.

She had, of course. She just couldn't muster enough give-a-fuck to respond.

She hadn't told him to go away. Hadn't reacted at all, in fact. She was out of ammunition. He'd counted the shots.

He kept walking until he was at her side, then knelt. From his coat pocket, he took out the packet he'd slipped in there earlier and offered it to her without a word. The faint clink of metal against metal sounded as he held it in his always slightly shaking hand.

He didn't speak, didn't ask her to.

That should have been the sweetest sound Snow White had heard in nearly a year, and yet when she tried to take the packet from him, she couldn't get her hands to move or find words to speak. Instead she let out a sound rather like a croak, her eyes filling with tears.

Percy froze. He understood the sound of heartbreak but he still didn't know what to do about it. Awkwardly, he reached out and touched her shoulder. "What's happened, Snow?"

Snow flinched away from that hand like it had burned her, though she did not otherwise lash out or try to pull away. Her eyes were hard, the wariness of an animal gauging a threat.

He wouldn't do anything to her, that wasn't the issue. But could she physically make herself explain herself to someone who was still mostly a stranger? Should she? Would Vex hate her if she just punched him?

Percy dropped his hand and waited. He rather wanted to reach for the earring he wore and call for backup but this felt like a salvageable situation still. At the very least, she was out of bullets unless she took the ones in his hand.

Snow's hand tightened into a fist, but it seemed to be more to check that she was even capable of doing such a thing, because without attempting to lift it she let her hand loosen again.

Her mouth seemed stuck, her tongue too thick and refusing to leave the roof of her mouth. Percy had done her a kindness, and Vex loved him, she didn't owe him violence or screaming even if she wanted to do those things. But she didn't know what else to do.

She blinked and the tears welling in her eyes spilled out. "Fuck everything."

"A sentiment I very often agree with," Percy replied. He shifted off his knee and sat on the ground beside her. He considered what he knew of Snow. That she was skittish and shy, but fierce. That she'd been raised around quality but perhaps had not been given those privileges herself. She didn't trust him, or perhaps didn't trust men over all, but she had warmed to Kash, of all astonishing things.

She was fond of animals, and of various of the very strong women around the inn, including Vex. From which he could conclude that she had excellent taste.

Animals. Women. And the distress she was undergoing. "Are all the horses all right?" It seemed a safer question than asking about other guests.

The question did not entirely make sense. She nodded, because it was the only correct answer, but when it came to trying to correct his course she found herself biting the inside of her cheek. She clicked her tongue in her irritation, just trying to get the damn thing to actually move.

Who the fuck had she been kidding anyway? It wasn't like Sansa could ever... love... someone so stupid.

Not the horses. And Trinket was, he had reason to know, perfectly healthy. That left people. Any injury could have been resolved by Kashaw or Pike, and likely any death besides.

While arrivals happened on a fairly regular schedule, departures were more random.

"Who's gone?"

That question was simple, and the answer was filling her throat and flooding her brain. "Sansa Stark," Snow said, low and rough as sandpaper.

Percy couldn't place the name immediately, but a bit of thought conjured an image of a pretty redheaded young woman, about Cassandra's age. Noble, from her bearing, and extremely well mannered. A gentlewoman in all senses of the word. He vaguely recalled also seeing the two together yesterday before dinner, playing in Pike's snow.

He didn't know what Snow's connection to her was but he did know that heartache did not discriminate. "I'm sorry," he said at last. It was inadequate. He was not Vex to soothe with the right words, or Keyleth to see to the heart of a person.

"Would you like me to reload your gun?"

"Thank you," she said, because if Snow recognized nothing else in this world, it was when someone else was at the top of their game with words and it still fell far short of what was needed.

In answer to the question, she picked up Rose Red and offered her wordlessly.

Edited 2017-12-26 18:14 (UTC)

Percy took the finely made weapon and silently reloaded it from the packet he'd brought with him. Six new bullets into six empty chambers. Six left over in the packet.

He turned it around, offered it back handle first.

Snow took back her gun, but rather than find anything to shoot she only ran her thumb over the red pearls and black opal set in the grip. They hadn't meant anything to her as a child, probably less to her now, and in between they'd caused her nothing but grief. Even so, they were part of Rose Red now. They were where the name had come from in the first place. It was a miracle that she still had this thing.

And yet right now, even being able to make her gun sing again was somehow a muted, gray thing.

Nothing took away the grief of losing someone. Not vengeance, not drink, not rage, not forgiveness. He'd tried them all, and the place where his family had been was still empty.

It had been nearly seven years since they'd died.

Whoever Sansa had been to Snow, her pain would not be dismissed in an afternoon, and Percy was loathe to suggest that it should.

"I didn't know Sansa. What is she like?"

"A survivor," Snow said at once, whisper quiet. The rest... she went silent as she thought.

"She's gentle and kind. Shy. She didn't want to get close to many people. She..." Anyone who watched carefully her could tell that she'd been hurt, but Snow didn't feel right sharing it all the same, not in so many words. "We understood each other."

Percy nodded. At first glance, it was incongruous. The nearly feral girl with the gun and the gentle noblewoman, but then, so too was his friendship with Keyleth. It made no sense that his dearest friend would be the awkward, outgoing, earnest druid, nor that hers would be the cynical, broken gunslinger.

The pieces that bound them were not so obvious.

"You were with her yesterday."

Snow nodded, her face softening. "She said... that the snow reminded her of home. That she lived so far north, sometimes even in the summer it would snow at night."

"I'm glad we were able to remind her of home for a time." It was an inane comment, but Percy was aware that what he said barely mattered. Snow simply needed space and time.

Not that it ever grew to hurt less.

"It's not safe for her there," Snow mumbled. "Only if she didn't go back... then she's all alone somewhere." And she had no idea which was worse.

Percy didn't know what to say. He didn't have any comforting words. He had only...

"I have a sister." Present tense. She was not here but she was alive. "When we were...younger, she was left alone, surrounded by enemies. She was just a girl, younger than you. Younger than Sansa. They were...impossibly cruel to her.

"And when the time came, years later, she took her chance and her freedom. They broke her, but not forever."

He looked away, out toward the mountains. "Noblewomen are, in my experience, stronger than they appear."

Snow slugged him.

She didn't entirely know why she'd punched him, only she couldn't listen to any more of this. And she took up her gun and the pouch that had been offered earlier before pushing to her feet. "Thank you for the bullets."

He hadn't seen it coming. Quite literally, as he'd stopped watching her to be caught up in his own memories and guilt for leaving Cassandra behind.

The punch knocked him over, off his heels and onto his ass. He rubbed at his jaw, which was going to bruise he was sure, and nodded. "No problem."

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And then there were none - OTA

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