eachdraidh | (second lemon cake) video ✧ locked to seelie

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(second lemon cake) video ✧ locked to seelie

Dear fellows and members of the Seelie court -- [ the voice which addresses the locket is composed and clear and perfectly conscientious. but the girl whose image accompanies the voice looks a little less than all those things. her dark-dyed hair is fastened in an uncommonly simple braid...and if one looks very closely, she can be seen to have a haggard look about her. she's somewhere outside and all her caution is bent at hiding a panic she doesn't want to share with strangers. nor with those few genuinely waiting on her return. ]

I don't want to alarm any of you. Indeed, I speak to the very opposite of that effect. It's -- [ her gaze flickers 'off-screen' for a moment ] -- it's Alayne Stone. Those of you who are acquaintances [ not friends ] ought to know that I've found myself...left behind. I'm sorry. It should not have happened. But I suspect I won't make Caer Glaem again for some time. [ the fault of the matter is a little trickier than that, but she knows better than to play with implications. so after a steadying breath, she presses onwards. ] Or we won’t -- because I'm not alone. [ i have nymeria, she thinks but doesn’t dare to say. just like how sansa wants to speak directly to those who know her for who she really is -- but instead: ] I have a knight with me.

Don't I, Ser Gendry? [ and she twists her locket, letting it capture the surly blacksmith who stands a few paces away from her with an irritated expression. his armour is dented and blooded and the man sags with an obvious exhaustion. ser gendry is a man who looks and feels beaten, but it does not stop him from standing tall. he is a talisman of sorts: a warning, to any sansa fears might prey upon what would otherwise be a journey fraught with vulnerability. ser gendry is here; she is protected, albeit not happily so. he at last looks towards her and her locket and grumbles an unhappy agreement to her statement, which is accompanied by a nod. ]

A lady needn’t despair when she’s so well accompanied. Instead, my thoughts are with the returned; I pray the High Queen’s desired prize was taken without steep costs or losses. [ following this, there is no formal farewell. no official sign-off. her attention lingers, perhaps waiting for one or two responses in particular. ]

( ooc; sansa and gendry are now officially stranded and making their long way back to caer glaem -- and it’ll take them at least two months, though they’ll be reachable by locket at their respective ic inboxes. but for now, responses to this post will receive replies from one or the other or both!)

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"As you say, ser."

They had been stranded together for hours, yet she had not yet lost an ounce of her manners. He was ever a ser and she seemed ever (at least in her words if not her looks) eager to agree with his verdicts. Agreement was an easier way to spend her energies; to fight him, she thought, would be exhausting.

Sansa fought back the temptation to lift a foot and rub at her heels through leather soles. At least she had dressed plainly for the quest; at least she'd had the common prescience to change her fine dress for something more comfortable before the High Queen had even spirited her away from Caer Glaem. It was still a dress, of course. But it had a cream-coloured apron still stained with smudges of blood. Not hers, but that of someone else. Someone she'd clumsily treated at the support base before everything had fallen apart. Before she'd ran -- and therefore hauled Gendry into this misery alongside her. Sansa did feel bad about it, but she thought that to acknowledge her error might invite his wrath.

And he, she suspected, must be capable of so much wrath.

"We'll continue. Southwards, if it please you."

If it pleases. There was little Gendry through that would please him now. He'd said Hold Your Foes a hundred times since he'd fetched the damned girl and realized he was too late in saying it. He cursed the Fairy Queen that she should suddenly decide to stop taking people back because time had ran out. It occurred to him as extraordinarily unfair and he reckoned he would not be so stupid as to ever put his trust in the High King or High Queen ever again.

He kicked at the grass. "It ain't me that needs pleasing," he grumbled. "But we'll move on, once Arya's wolf gets back. M'lady."

And yet she did not believe him. It was Gendry who needed to be kept in better spirits -- if he was to continue extending to her his protection and his goodwill (such as it was), then she had better keep him inclined to do so. She had better mind her behaviour and her words and try and find a way in which she might move him to compassion. A man's fist might be hard, she thought, but experience told her the ego was fragile. Should she hope to avoid the former she'd better tend to the latter.

"You're...quite right. I'm sure of it." And yet she stood on her sore feet and looked about them and then looked at the sky and remembered what the Elvenking had told her. "Do you -- do you think it might rain?"

Perhaps she should prepare her sleeve for soaking. How did one do that, anyway? Simply hold it out and wait? The point was moot, she supposed, so long as the sky was dry.

Gendry stared listlessly at the sky. Something about this land seemed darker and more foreboding than the skies above Caer Claem, though it might well be his own fears. But he could not truly say the clouds looked any darker than they did a day ago or even a week ago. He shook his head.

"No. Not anytime soon, at least. We're lucky for that, at least. Last thing we need is to get caught in some bloody storm."

She hid her disappointment. Not that she wanted rain -- but rather than react to her situation she made a plan (to follow Thranduil's advice) and hoped for the situation to bend itself to that plan. A very narrow-minded view of action, to be certain. But Sansa thought it was at least one step in the proper direction.

"Maybe if I whistle, she'll come--" her attention slewed back to Nymeria, and how Gendry rightly wanted to wait for the wolf to return before moving on. It was wholly possible that she was their best shield. "May I? Whistle?

It was such an absurd thing to make a request for. Gendry did nothing to hide his annoyance at her request. Certainly if this was Arya, she'd just whistle anyway. Indeed, Arya would probably get them into even more trouble. But at least Arya had a sense for this sort of thing. He could only imagine how much of a burden Sansa was going to be, what with her being so proper a lady and all.

"If it pleases," he said, repeating her earlier statement. "You know more of wolves than I do."

Barely, she wanted to say. But she didn't. Instead she wandered to the path's edge and peered into the trees. Sansa nearly did not want to whistle, now. His demeanour speaking to others and now speaking with her -- it made her want to do very little else than sit still or walk when told to walk. Speak when told to speak. But they would be stuck here in their melancholy without Nymeria...and as much as she was Nymeria's charge, she had a duty to care for the wolf as well. A horror seized her when she thought what Arya might say if Sansa lost her wolf.

She turned away from him so she might stick the tips of two fingers in her mouth and give a staccato blast. Like birdsong, really. Sansa hadn't learned much from her brothers nor from Theon, but one day they did endeavour to teach her how to whistle. It seemed to be so close to music that she'd allowed herself to be taught -- and here she was, whistling powerfully and shrill.

Silence followed. Sansa turned back. "It mightn't work," she confessed. "I've never had to call back a wolf. Lady never wandered so far as Nymeria seems to do."

Edited 2014-05-21 14:36 (UTC)

He shrugged indifferently. And as if to pass the time waiting for Nymeria to return, he began to voice his own thoughts about the wolves in the Riverlands.

"There's lots of wolves in the Riverlands. More than ever, these days. They say it's a huge wolf pack, led by some monster she-wolf. They've gone savage of late, not just attacking game in the forest, but attacking men. It don't matter to them if it's Frey or Bloody Mummers they kill, or just poor shepherd folk." He shook his head. "We'll be lucky if these woods are only half so dangerous as our own."

She cut him a concerned glance. Sansa took his every word to heart -- and it showed, so briefly, in the way her eyes widened. All she could think about now were the wild creatures stalking the unbeaten paths -- waiting to sneak up and seize them and slice their skin into bloody ribbons. It was all she could do to stay stiffly upright as Gendry delivered his cold verdict on the land wherein they travelled.

"Th-then I am fortunate to have you with me," she said -- hoping once again that the sheer force of her support and gratitude might somehow soften his steel.

In he moment, he realized it was a stupid thing to say. Perhaps he had wanted to frighten her. She seemed so put together that he'd wondered if she even understood how bad things were. Maybe she did now, in which case, it was for the better. But he disliked feeling guilty for it. He kicked at the ground and stared at the horizon, hoping to spot the wolf come running. But wolves were not like dogs that came running with their tongues dragging in hope for attention. It was a beast they shared their company with. It would do what it wanted.

"We've got our own wolf, though. And you Starks seem half-wolf. So it's not wolves we'll need worry about." He said it all as a kind of reassurance to her, but leaving the possibility open of other dangers. "I just wish I'd talked to that big, bloody dragon like I told Stiles I would."

She would not disappoint him further -- nor invite his jeers -- by telling him she felt very little wolfish about herself these past long two years. No one called her a wolf, not like they did her sister. Not like they did Robb: the Young Wolf. No, she was ever just a little bird. She willed herself to be a bird now so she might take wing and fly away. Away from danger and away from unhappy knights.

Sansa wrapped her cloak around her body. She was glad for it. "I'm not convinced that dragons can be trusted to take to obedience any more than wolves can, Ser Gendry."

Edited 2014-05-21 15:05 (UTC)

"Maybe not," he said with a shrug. "But my father took the throne because he had Targaryen blood. So that means I've got a few drops of it myself. I thought it might make the dragon warm up to me. Gods knows he'd be of use now."

With how big the dragon was, they might be halfway back to Caer Glaem if they were allowed to ride him.

Your father took the throne because he won it by conquest. Because King Robert had spilled so much Targaryen blood -- allowed it to be spilled -- in order to seize his throne and avenge his Lady Lyanna. Sansa knew the stories and everything her father had ever told her about Robert Baratheon made her suspect he would not see his own Targaryen blood as a boon. But who was she to tell any of it to Gendry? No one. She was no one; her title barely mattered in the wilds. Indeed, she childishly presumed his very lack of manners came from their context. Perhaps the bastard knight did not see himself as beholden to his courtesies now that they were gone from the castle. This thought only served to heighten her apprehension.

"Dragons. Horses. A cart. Any of it would be useful. I wish we had a wheelhouse." Her tone was not chiding. She did not scold him. But she did play the patsy -- fake-naively wishing for what they did not have so she might obliquely impress upon Gendry that pining for dragons would not help them now. Let him scold her for pining, then. And thereby correct his own pining in the process.

"A wheelhouse!" He laughed. "And everyone in this kingdom would know where we were."

He dismissed the thought. And the thought of dragons as well. It was only because of Daenerys he even cared about his Targaryen blood. He had not revealed to her he was Baratheon, but he'd had a queer hope that when he did, he might persuade her in some way to look past his father and see a kinship instead. He thought of how close he'd come to swearing his service to her in her stupid, hopeless cause.

Well, now his sword only belonged to him. He did not foresee offering his service anywhere for some time.

"As you say. What a foolish thought."

Adequately self-effaced and humbled, she offered little more than a bare curtsey before the sound of paws on the mossy twig-strewn ground called Sansa to twist where she stood. Here padded Nymeria, her muzzle still wet -- there must have been a stream where she'd roamed, and she must have drank deep. Sansa envied her for she was just now understanding that the parching sting described by Thranduil was cutting across her tongue.

She knelt and pressed her cheek against Nymeria's neck. The wolf allowed it, and for that she was more than grateful. "Thank you," she whispered to the direwolf. Understanding implicitly that her whistle had not commanded the creature, but had instead been like a question. Nymeria had deigned to answer it.

He was wary around the wolf, because of his own fears of the She-Wolf and her pack. Nymeria was smaller than a demon wolf, but still dangerous. He kept his distance, kept his hand on the pommel of his sword, and looked southwards.

"We should move on. We'll need to find food and water before it gets dark."

"We could find a stream."

Not the same one that Nymeria found, of course. For Sansa was not keen to leave the narrow road. But perhaps if they followed it a little longer they might cross some tributary or creek. She winced as the direwolf shook herself and splattered water drops from her muzzle all over. The maiden wiped at her face. In another moment or another time, she might have laughed. Today, it merely felt as though she was miming wiping tears from her cheeks.

"And if we do, we ought to drink from...high up -- in the stream." She spoke as if she barely understood what those words meant, but as if she hoped Gendry did. She looked to him for direction as she stood straight.

He did not fully understand the point of higher up in the stream. He gave her a curious look, then nodded. Any decent advice would do them both well on this perilous march. And so with her standing and the wolf returned, Gendry took an uncertain lead. He was certainly no trailmaster, but he was the more experienced of the two, and their death or survival would inevitably be entirely of his own making. He could only pray he would make the right decisions.

"A stream," he agreed as he voiced a certainty he didn't feel. At least in the lead she didn't have to see his angry certainty morph into worried fear. "That should be easy to find."

Should be and if. They were both of them speaking with such a dearth of optimism. It was all so different from the front she'd put on over the lockets -- speaking with lords and kings and would-be friends. Sansa caught the layers of her skirts and her apron in her fists and lifted the hem just high enough so it did not always have to trail in the dust. And Nymeria took up the rear (for now) and walked a few wolf-lengths behind.

"Roads must cross streams all the time. I would think."

"Course they do. Not like there's any point in trying to avoid them while building roads." But the map they had was not so detailed as to include streams. It gave them the location of forests and mountains, of lakes and rivers. But roads and streams? They simply had to trust that keeping the setting sun to their right would keep them heading south.

His armor rattled as they continued and if they hoped to have stealth, they would have none with the clanging noise he made in each and every step.

At first, she'd winced with every clang. It wasn't a pleasant noise. And as she teetered on the edge of such a thirst, she found it roused an awful ache in her head. Her temples thudded with pain because of just how much she now craved cool water from a crystal stream. In her mind, an idyllic outdoor setting must have a dozen babbling brooks within a few square miles.

After a short spat of walking, she piped up: "We are aiming for the Station, are we not?" Sansa sounded hopeful.

He was just as thirsty, but built for more hardship. He might have been baking in his armor, but he baked in a forge as well. But more than once, he was tempted to begin tearing off armor and discarding it on the road side. He had the notion he would have to give it up eventually. But he figured these first few days would be the most dangerous. Once they had more distance, he could discard it. He hoped, at least.

"Maybe," he answered vaguely. "I don't know. Everyone in our court will know it's where we're heading. Who's to say the Unseelie won't find out as well?"

"We ought to aim for somewhere," she insisted. And then immediately regretted owning any sort of opinion. Hadn't she told every individual on the lockets that she would trust her fate to the knight? It was disingenuous for her now to question his heading. So she looked sheepish, tucked her arms behind her back, and would not catch Gendry's eye.

"Not that I disagree," Sansa tried to mend the damage she imagined must have been dealt. "That is, you're right in that the obvious move is not necessarily the safest." -- even the humblest pieces can have wills of their own. And that was what they now were: humble pieces on their own, torn between what everyone else was telling them to do and what felt right. But her heart ached to see her sister again, and if meeting Thranduil at the Station brought her nearer to that...

"The Kingslayer will only expect us to go to the Station," she sounded heartbroken as conceded the point. They were two lost souls and their best strength, she thought, might come from refusing to make the moves others expected from them.

For a moment, he was unsure of whether to capitulate to her desire to go to Station. Her defeated tone tugged at his stubbornness and softened the edges of his patience. He was aware he'd been nothing but cruel to her since they were stuck together. But he was still angry at her. He was still upset that he was trapped here instead of back in Caer Glaem in safety. He'd never had any intention of leaving the safety of those walls, save for when he was called to. Now he was uncertain they'd ever make it back.

"If we cross the river to the south, we'll be in Seelie lands. If we can find a crossing, I think we should try it. If we can't, then Station might be all that's left for us."

He wasn't sure of this as a plan. But his sense of navigation was ill refined and he reckoned heading straight south would be the most sensible path. After all, it was just like when traveling with Arya. If they had kept going north then, they would have found the Trident. Well now, it was the same, only south. This time he would need the good sense to avoid trouble.

And Sansa -- conditioned to be perspicacious in the presence of someone else's anger -- could sense that he was upset. She hardly needed to be sensitive to do so. He wore it in every line and seemed to spit it into every word. Or he had, until this moment, where either she'd grown accustomed to his harshness or else he'd allowed it to be diluted.

Her head turned. She looked at Nymeria. At least the wolf brought no judgement. By cause-and-effect she'd once gotten that protector lost as well, the same night she'd lost her own wolf. But Nymeria was not cruel. Wild, perhaps. But not cruel.

"South is good. His Grace, King Thranduil, suggested we ought to go south. Even if we never make the Station, it seems as good a plan as any. And if you think it is as well..." She trailed off. Even she was beginning to hear how grating her constant agreement was becoming. "Is it hot in all that metal?"

Perhaps concern would serve her better.

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