eachdraidh | 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.

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"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."

He glanced at her, uncertain where this night's discussions had gone and why misery seemed to always be around some corner of conversation. As ever, he wasn't eager to pursue that. So he rose stiffly if not awkwardly.

"As you say. Well past my bed time, I think." Or guessed, rather. Time was a tricky thing down here. "Sleep well, m'lady."

Whether he called her Sansa or not, those last three words always punctuated their partings after these lessons, whether their nights were of the lighter sort or the heavy.

Forge Three - (Audio/Action)

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