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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She'd have taken a personal interest in making sure they could all be properly dressed, I'm sure.

She must be a wealthy maid, this Helga of yours.

Helda. [ the correction is offhand as katsa shrugs ] I suppose. She looks after Queen Bitterblue in Monsea now, because Bitterblue needs her far more than I do. But I don't think she does it for wealth.

Queen... Bitterblue?

[Hold on a second. There can be lords and lands he's not heard of before - but a queen? That doesn't seem quite right.]

Perhaps she wasn't yet queen when you left. You wouldn't be the first for that. [ could Leck's Grace extend so far across worlds? maybe she'd have to continue this carefully ] King Leck is her father. Was.

King... Leck? The last king was my own father, King Robert.

[Maybe, just maybe, she's not from home like he thought.]

[ frown ]

Over which country was he king? That's none of the kings currently on the thrones of any of the seven...

Which one? All of them. All seven kingdoms.

[Long ago, the kingdoms had their own kings. But Gendry was only vaguely aware of this notion, as he himself was not highly educated on that point. But what mattered was now and her now seemed very unlike his own.]

......What? Surely not. Surely that's not possible. It's true at least that the mainland kingdoms all descend from one royal family, but the Lienid at least are strange and isolated enough never to—all seven? Since when?

Gods, I don't know. A hundred years? Three maybe? Ever since Aegon the Conqueror came and took it all over with his dragons.

Dragons.

[ ... ]

Gendry. I don't think our seven kingdoms are the same.

You mean to say there's some other seven kingdoms?

I don't know. Unless there's some explanation I'm missing or we're so far apart for time, but I've not heard of dragons existing anywhere on land or sea.

They're all dead in my time. For some hundred years. [For a further history lesson, he had none.]

Dragons, sea monsters... all sorts of creatures. [ she sounds almost impressed beneath all the confusion. ] But not any, I think, that have ever been in the kingdoms I know.

[He frowns. Then decides there's one conclusive way to put a rest to this confusion. This was knowledge even the baseborn knew.]

Seven kingdoms. There's the North, ruled by the Starks - or Boltons, these days. Then there's the Riverlands, but gods only know who rules there now. The Arryns rule the Vale. The Westerlands are held by the bloody Lannisters. The Reach is controlled by the Tyrells - there's two of them about here. The Stormlands were held by my uncle Renly Baratheon, but he's dead now, so I ain't too sure who lords over them these days. Then there's Dorne, down in the south, ruled by the Martells.

...It's not the same.

[ the frustration in her voice is evident. she's disappointed, and it's difficult even to place why. she doesn't mind being in the drabwurld any longer, and she's never been overly attached to her homeland in and of itself, so why does she care that she and gendry don't have the same home after all? ]

Nander in the north is ruled by King Drowden. Central are Wester, the Middluns, and Estill. My uncle Randa holds the Middluns. Sunder and Monsea are in the south, and the islands of Lienid offshore to the west.

You never spoke once of Gracelings. But I still believed they were the same.

Truth be told, I figured gracelings was some sort of highborn word for princes and princesses. Like some young lordling, only royal-like. [It had made sense at the time. Now it seemed foolish.]

Not that there aren't any. The word just isn't often something one wishes to be. I might find that explanation funnier if I didn't feel so thrown by everything I'd been thinking previously.

So what is a graceling then?

They've a skill, of sorts. Each one unique to the Graceling. Some are Graced with disguise, or singing, or sword-fighting, or something simple as swimming. Better than anyone else who might train their whole lives. Then there are the odd Graces like mind-reading. [ there's an odd pause here ] Graceling eyes settle into their colors when they're a few weeks or months old, and the king has ownership over them for him to use their Grace as he sees fit. Most people are unnerved by them.

[So. People who were just really good at something. It's a wonder Gendry doesn't have the same. His old master always said he was really good with a hammer. He'd be a graceling for that, most like.]

So that's why you've got weird eyes, eh? [Blunt, as ever.]

[ a bluntness katsa appreciates. she presses her lips together, feeling the urge to smile. ]

I've seen far stranger.

Aye. In this place, there's more that's strange than ain't.

To a point where strange is somehow normal. [ she sounds almost exasperated. ] Yet I'll continue to be surprised by it nonetheless, and then wonder why even bother being surprised later.

Edited 2015-01-08 05:28 (UTC)

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