eachdraidh | Forge Three - (Audio/Action)

Entry tags:

Forge Three - (Audio/Action)

Bloody fairies never manage to get things right, do they?

[Like many, Gendry received his boon two days ago, but he hasn't gotten any closer to making proper use of it. Oh sure, walking back and forth through a set of mirrors is a jolly experience, but it's a pain in the ass if they're both in the same room. Though he won't deny he did have a bit of fun setting them across each other and walking through the portal over and over. But! That's not what he'd wanted!]

Seems if you want something decent, you've got to be specific. Seven hells... [He has no choice! He must do the unthinkable:] Stiles, you still about?

[Yes. He must ask STILES for help. That most dreaded of occurrences! Sure, there might be other people who could teleport him from Cothromach to Troichean Beinn in a blink of the eye. But those are other people and Gendry's faith in other people is roughly equivalent to his faith in this war ending amicably. If he's called a suspicious bastard, then it is a one hundred perfect accurate description of him.

But the locket is still in his hand and he realizes he's addressing both courts at large. Damn.]

... just, be careful about your boons, eh? The fairies like to be stingy, if you let them. [There. He's done the community at large a favor.]

[At the Cothromach]

backdated to 26th
When Gendry wasn't in his room messing about with a set of magic mirrors, he was hard at work at one of the forges. Though he wasn't officially apprenticing at any of the shops, one of the master smiths had agreed to hire Gendry on while he was in the city. So that meant keeping busy as he hammered tirelessly at some new sword. His Shard ached as he drew on its power to give superhuman blows. It was hard work and the sword wouldn't even be his, but he now knew enough about dwarven magic that he could finally give his uncle a good and strong sword. This is what he'd been doing ever since the battle had ended and he'd at last turned his work to other projects. This item was now nearly done and by evening, after he'd honed it to a razor's edge, he would find his uncle's home in the Cothromach to come knocking.

27th
After his message on the lockets, Gendry left to be at his normal routine. He was living in the Keeper's tower now and so he would eat his first and last meals of the day there. Other hours would see him in the market, working at one of the forges earning his wages by small commissions of tools or shoeing horses. Hardly work for an apprentice of Bordan Gret, but he did not seem to mind this simpler work. For those looking to find him or simply anyone in the city looking for goods, he was an easy man to find. His grumbling about boons aside, he was in as good a mood as he could be expected to be in.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Momentarily, she thought he was mocking her. Teasing her. A dwarf for a husband! Once again! And she'd as yet not told anyone what Sigrid had asked for on her behalf: an annulment with the other dwarf. Even so, Sansa wasn't certain how deeply such a promise could be trusted. If Ser Gendry's comment cut her to the quick, then it was through no fault of his own. And upon finding his sly smile she warmed up to what had clearly been a jape. He had doggedly hunted out her sore spots and turned them into something worth a laugh. And though she did not laugh (when did she ever?) Sansa did, at least, smile.

"How kind." She now leaned forward from her side of the desk, crossing her arms almost casually upon the stone top. "Ser Gendry," Sansa used his title not to distance them but to bring her own ring of mock-gravitas to the moment. "I swear to you, under the auspices of what other services you have already provided me, you are granted final say upon whomsoever I might ever marry." A mild sigh. "After my brothers, of course."

After all, he'd already saved her from one ill-advised match. And with a warm swell of goodwill, she felt she could (even jokingly) leave her fate snugly in the knight's hands. Gruff though he was, he exhibited a rare accurate judge of character. She found it generally sound advice to distrust those whom Ser Gendry could not find it in himself to like.

"More work?" He asked as though he'd been tasked to some great and tiresome chore on top of another mountain of duties. "Gods, you really will have me copying those letters next, won't you?"

Yet, for those apparently grudging accusations, he wasn't troubled by it and it showed in his eyes. He had already taken on that duty once and now perhaps it would be better if he kept it while it was thought welcome. Gendry was a man who was dangerous in his possessions of opinions and a mouth willing to speak them. But as he'd not yet lost his tongue for it, he would inevitably continue to voice them anyway. Gendry had come to terms with the fact he was stuck with the Starks and their lot, for better or worse.

Though it had once appalled her, she now treasured his sharp tongue. Ser Gendry often said what Sansa couldn't: he functioned like an alarm bell she didn't dare ring herself. Perhaps some of the more fine-edged complaints flitted through her head, but they rarely reached her lips. Not until she was behind some closed door and felt safe in the voicing of those opinions. Ser Gendry, because of his strength or his position, seemed able to be as rude as he liked. And none, she thought so naively, had punished him for it yet.

"It would make for excellent practise, wouldn't it?" Sansa smiled. Bright and earnest, for once. It did not slip her attention that under a very different set of circumstances, it was Ser Gendry himself who ought to have been her made match: King Robert's son, gentle and gallant. The sort of man, she thought with a pang, that her Lord Father had promised her. But that was as near as she dared tread to the possibility. Gendry was good and kind but they stood too far apart on a dozen other metrics. And the more she thought about it, the less comfortable she felt. Better not to think of marriage at all.

"Some words in those letters are dreadfully tricky. You would learn a lot."

Perhaps too much! Much of personal private politics was locked up in those sentences: not all of it had yet been revealed to him.

"I learn too much already." Sometimes he thought if his head hurt, it was because he was cramming too much knowledge into it. This business of reading and magic and clockwork was dizzying in its complexity. Sometimes all he wanted was the simplicity of beating a sword into life. That he was at least good at.

He turned his attention back out the window. "Did they have statue gardens like this in the Red Keep? Or any other castles?"

Sansa shook her head.

"They have proper gardens in the Red Keep. With bushes and trees and flowers. And fat buzzing bees flitting from petal to petal. And there was the godswood, of course." She dared to push her chair aside and circumnavigated the desk until she stood just a foot away from the cushioned bench. She, too, looked out onto the strange courtyard filled with figures and sculptures. All that grew underground, she supposed, was stone. "In Winterfell, we had glass houses able to keep the air warm enough for beautiful plants."

He turned back around to look up at her, suddenly interested by this description of something he'd not yet seen before. "An entire house of glass?"

Oh the Station had buildings with so much glass that one felt hardly like they were inside a building at all. But this place was a queer thing already. It interested him more to know that such a place existed in their own land.

She nodded -- emphatic; enthusiastic. And why wouldn't she be? Sansa loved to speak of Winterfell. She sopped up that nostalgia like a thirsty sponge, puffing out her chest with the pride knowledge of having been raised in a vaunted castle. A place, she thought, of prestige. She was happy with her home, though not happy that she'd lost it.

"Otherwise we could grow very little in long winters -- the glass gardens stay so warm. Almost like summer, I'm told."

"Do you think we might have one here? A warm place for plants to grow. It would make for a fine sight, I think." It was clear he did not think much of the statue gardens.

"Is heat alone enough?"

Her question was not rhetorical. It was honest. Earnest. Sansa supposed she knew about as much of gardening as he did, and wasn't certain to whom she'd better direct her questions. Flora, perhaps. But even so it was hard to imagine plants of any kind growing in these underground corners. And for a moment, it made her unbearably sad.

He shrugged, having little idea on the matter. "Wet dirt and heat seems all they should need to live."

"Mayhaps."

Sansa felt her knees knock against the stone bench. She leaned forward -- bracing herself on the window's curved frame. She remained yet a foot from him, but the casual nature of the pose was almost too familiar to bear. And yet she maintained it, watching out her window down to the sightless statues depicting aelfenguard and dwarven heroes alike.

"Have you seen the fresh grounds laid outside the gates? The Lady Flora used her...magics to make the grasses grow again where they were once scorched. It's beautiful."

He shook his head. "Truth be told, I ain't gone outside the city of much. All that time in Troichean Beinn, I think I've got used to being beneath the ground. Might be I've gone dwarven." He scratched his neck as he watched, perhaps inappropriately, how she stretched forward to look outside. "Was she that fairy girl from the feast?"

"She was. She is. A Shield of the Cothromach, if she'll have the title--"

A title she'd not yet formally offered to him, either. But one which she'd danced around and considered and hinted at. He was not a simple man to reward.

"Go see her work when you have the time. Please do. She managed marvellously."

"I suppose I'll have to see the sun eventually," he allowed as if grudgingly. Yet she'd piqued his interest now. "But what's a Shield of the Cothromach?"

"An idea," she murmured. "Only an idea."

And one kept until him from now if only because the commission had been given to some other smith: a set of sleek silver cloak pins boasting the Cothromach's device. Small inexpensive trinkets that carried heavy honours. Along with the lingering expectation of duty. Sansa, knowing she could not stand to share this news, sank into the bench's opposite corner. It kept room between them.

"Some way to show gratitude to those who came to the city's aid."

Gratitude to shardbearers he guessed unhappily. Yet it was not lost on him that she seemed scarcely happy about the idea. It did not take him long to guess he was likely the reason why. "Hard that, when the monarchs give so much."

Yes. Shardbearers. But that distinction became a key element of the gesture itself -- a way to knit those same people to her cause in a more...permanent capacity. Sansa curled her fingers over the caps of her knees, twisting her hands in pale silk. He hated the games; she knew it. So how could she explain it to him?

And yet! Doing it without his knowledge would only push him away. Being honest with him -- telling him things -- had become a vital strategy to maintaining his proximity to her causes.

"It's a trinket, really. An easy title to give once it's been decided. But the bearer of it would be welcomed with all of the Cothromach's hospitality whenever he stepped behind our walls." She paused, and then sheepishly added: "Or she."

He was quiet as he worked out in his mind. It seemed a decent enough trinket and yet it occurred to him that there was more to it. A pass into the city would not need a title nor would it be named for a shield. He looked at her, not so far beside him, and tried not to grimace or voice his distaste. Instead, he decided the kindest thing he could do was to simply let her have this. Whatever he thought of it all, the Cothromach wasn't his to rule.

"You don't need to give me one." He didn't truly want one. "I already owe it to the city. But if you fancy on giving me one..." Now he frowned and turned to look out at the stone garden again. He huffed a sigh and looked back. "I'll not say no."

"That is...kind. So kind of you. A public refusal would have been -- it would have been difficult."

Humiliating. She meant it would be humiliating. Even so, she turned her body just so in order to look him full in his face, provided he would lift his gaze to meet hers. "If you'd rather not be named a shield, I promise I won't do it. Not for you. It's hardly needed, besides--"

She knew she could depend upon him in her hour of need. He needed no slick gimmick to pin his aim to her cause.

He did not return his gaze, instead continuing to stare distractedly out the window at the city beyond. Gendry had a duty here, just as he felt he owed something to the Starks. They were the closest thing to family he would ever have - more so than his own uncle by blood.

"You can pin two on me, if it pleases you. It makes no matter to me."

Her fingers twitched. There! Just there! She had to swallow the desire to reach out and straighten his collar. All this talk of pins: it was all she could do to keep from imagining him with a fine trimmed cloak and a blazing piece of metal to hold it in place. A handsome sight, certainly. But one she realized he would not welcome, but only endure.

"You would deserve two," she confessed, "if they were given in such good faith and honesty."

He shook his head. "I'd deserve none at all, if there was such things as that."

The danger came for the words he spoke, when he was told to be silent. Sansa knew that, but so did Tzilan. Where Sansa was glad for it and forgave him the moment he spoke them, Gendry suspected the Minister never would.

Her gaze did not flinch. But her fingers did; again; still. Sansa tipped her chin and asked the barest question she could muster: "Yet where would I be without you?"

Dead, a hundred times upon the road. Disavowed of knights. Ignorant of smiths. A puppet within her own city, and swayed by the very Minister he but alluded to. She had family aplenty, but for honest and natural reasons none had been there to intercede -- and although she was certain they would have done so, it was Ser Gendry who had.

Then again! Without him, she would not have been forced into other pains and sores. Without him, she would never have learned of the Mother Merciless. The memory still tore.

"I couldn't say," he answered. Truth be told, it was likely she would have never made it back from Caer Scima. Perhaps she would have been a prisonr, taken by Jaime Lannister, and worse yet returned to Joffrey. The thought was an unpleasant one, but he found himself unable to derive any pride for having done so many favors for her. Just like her, he knew he'd caused enough pain to make it even.

"I could."

Could. But wouldn't. Some words did not bear being brought to live. Especially when those words also came with darker deeper undercurrents. Sansa couldn't truly chart what was worse and what was better in her life -- suffering, it seemed, lurked in many places. For a moment, some further confession seemed to catch in her throat.

But propriety brought her up short. "Gendry," she began -- slow yet certain. "My apologies. I've brought us far, far, far from our lesson." It was easy to assume the blame, when it was more accurately shared between them. "And I've kept you longer than necessary. You mustn't allow it."

(no subject)

bullhorned - 2014-12-08 11:40 (UTC) - Expand

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only