abraxaslogs | [open] I was tame, I was gentle, til the circus life made me mean

Wilhelm nods thoughtfully. He likes that — taking something that's meant to destroy you and twisting it into something that protects you. He had done much the same with his fire.

"My family's is our history, our future." As chosen by his mother, in the long tradition of the Swedish monarchy, stretching back centuries. This is as close as he'll come to admitting his own noble status. It's not that he's hiding it, it's just that it doesn't seem important here. It belongs to his old life.

"But my school's was you are responsible for the school's legacy. Definitely a threat."

He can chuckle about it now, as if he'd never had a panic attack reading those words engraved in bronze and wondering what it meant that he wanted to hold hands with a boy. Reaching up to pick a flower from one of the trailing vines, he tilts a look at Sansa.

"You have a brother?"

"Our history, our future. Those are fine words for a house, I think. It reminds you of your past and where you've come from but where you should be going. Your school sounds incredibly threatening. Imagine being responsible for an entire school of students. I don't even think the novices at the Citadel are given that much responsibility."

When he asks about her brother, Sansa nods.

"His name is Jon Snow. We do not favor. He has dark hair and dark eyes because he favors the Starks and I favor the Tullys. He has been here far longer than I have."

Those fine words had always felt like a cage to Wilhelm. His family's history dictated his future; his life had to follow a script set by someone else. He says nothing about that, though, as he twirls the plucked flower between his fingers. Instead, he thinks about when he dreamed he was a god of evolution, and understood deep in his bones that everything new grows from what was before.

"Oh, yeah. I know Jon. He was one of the first people I met here. I didn't know you were his sister."

Though he could tell that they were close. And now that she mentions it, he seems to recall her name popping up in Jon's recollections of childhood. With so much happening, he'd half forgotten.

"Yes, I am. We were raised together at our home, Winterfell, but he joined the Night's Watch when I was a girl and I went south to the royal court. We spent quite a long time apart before we found one another again. I missed him."

Sansa smiles, even though it is a small smile.

"I am glad he is here. I would miss him terribly. I always miss him when he isn't around and that is more often than I would like."

It's a strange swirl of emotions that blows through him. Missing a brother is something he understands viscerally. Since the accident that took Erik's life, not a single day goes by that he hasn't wished he could talk to him. There's always something to tell him, something to ask. But despite the softness that comes with seeing yourself in someone else, envy lances him too. Sansa's brother is here; Wilhelm will never see his again. His eyes fall to the flower pinched between his fingers.

"You're lucky," he says, beating back that dark thing in his heart. He's happy for her; really, he is. "I wish my brother could be here."

Before she can comment, he clears his throat and changes the subject.

"Well, want to keep practicing your magic?"

"I do. I want to see if I can learn something new by practicing with you. It is the only way to get better, I think."

Wille seems better at his than she will ever be but he also has been here longer and has had longer to practice. Of course he's better than her. She makes another little ball of ice in her hand.

"Shall we try to fire them at one another? Without the intent to land a hit, naturally."

Wilhelm nods encouragingly at her statement that practice is the only way to get better. He may have an affinity for fire, but he definitely didn't have an affinity for controlling it when it first sparked in him. It was only after a whole mountain of backbreaking work that he got any good at it. As for her suggestion—

"Hold on, I've got a better idea." Because as much as he trusts his control, he's not keen on hurling fire directly at her face. "Come on."

Motioning for Sansa to follow, he leads her down the path. As they exit the flowered canopy of the trellis, a pond comes into view. A willow tree bends low over the water, and large smooth stepping stones form a path to the other side.

"Why don't you try freezing the water, and I'll try to melt it again?"

"Perhaps that would be a safer approach at testing it," Sansa agrees. She reaches her hand out and the pond freezes over, fractals of ice forming over the surface. Controlling the thing that can be so dangerous to her people gives her a sense of calm and power and it isn't often that Sansa has felt as if she has power in her life.

"There, I've frozen it over. You should try to melt it now. I do not think it is frozen completely solid; I do not think I'm capable of that."

Wilhelm watches as, under Sansa's concentration, ice creeps across the surface of the pond. At the center, the ice spreads thin enough that the water is still clear below, but at the edges a thicker crust gathers.

"Not bad," he says warmly. "You're at a disadvantage, since it's hot out. But...you made winter come."

He cracks a laugh at the bad joke. Then he sucks in his lips in thought.

"When I try to melt it, try to keep it frozen. Like a battle."

It would be easy enough for him to drop a barrage of fireballs through the ice she has painstakingly formed, but neither of them would get much out of it. If he instead tries to melt it with the precise power of one flame, she has a chance to fend him off. So that's what he does — he summons fire to his palm and sends it out over the pond so that its heat licks away at the layer of ice.

It's difficult to hold it off, to keep his flame from melting all of her ice. It is a battle of wills, this, and she knows that she is going to lose because he has more power than she does. Still, it is an important exercise to try and hone her strength and that is why she engages him.

"It feels as if it takes all my strength to keep the ice there," she says, voice strained a little. "I am weaker than you are so my focus must be stronger."

He holds himself back from the full thrust of his fire's power. He could amplify the flame, intensify the heat burning at its core, but he doesn't want to make the challenge impossible for her. Like he said, she's already at a disadvantage, what with it being the middle of the summer. Still, his fire slowly but steadily eats through a chunk of her ice.

"You're not weaker," Wilhelm shakes his head. "You just haven't practiced as much. It takes time."

He's not used to thinking of himself as powerful — it hasn't crossed his mind at all, until this moment when Sansa calls herself weaker. Powerful feels like a far off point on the horizon that he's always striving for. After all, it was the raw desire to never feel so weak again, after what he endured at the hands of Josselyn's acolytes, that pushed him to sincerely dedicate himself to practicing magic last year.

"I don't like being at a disadvantage," Sansa says. "I've been that way most of my life. Now that I have something to protect myself, I want to be good at it. Perfect, even."

She doesn't know if Wilhelm understands exactly why that is but at least he understands that she wants to be good at magic and is willing to entertain her attempts at getting better at it.

[open] I was tame, I was gentle, til the circus life made me mean

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