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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"But it don't actually make you any safer. You could have told them what you really thought and had a dozen armored fools coming to rescue you."

But instead, no one was coming. This was what surprised him the most. They had an elf king, only half interested in their fate, who might meet them halfway. Ser Loras might ride out to meet them. But there was no rescue. Not even for Lady Sansa Stark. He reckoned that was jut the way of it. This was where the Starks stood now.

"Of course it did," she insisted. "This way, if word gets 'round to someone who would do me harm -- well, perhaps they'll think twice about daring a knight who has had such bright words ascribed to him."

Sansa was not comfortable with revealing the machinations behind her decisions. It felt an awful lot like stripping away protective layers: cloaks and gloves and boots and revealing the skin beneath. But she resigned herself to sharing some things with him simply because they had to survive this road together. Just like Lord Baelish had revealed some things to her on their journey from the capital.

Edited 2014-05-26 15:38 (UTC)

He grinned, almost in a mocking sort of way. "Make them fear me, eh? Ser Gendry the Bull. So vicious he fought his way from the gutter to the Riverlands. Faced the Mountain and the Kingslayer and lived to tell the tale. Just don't ask him to repeat the tales, because they won't be so impressive as they first seem."

Chuckling, he walked further along in his clanging armor. "Only, Ser Jaime knows he could kill me easily in a fight. So it's only our own allies what will be fooled."

"And I don't mind it if our allies are fooled, Ser Gendry. Most of them are strangers to me."

After all, she held even the kinder strangers at arm's length as Alayne Stone. Even allowing Gendry to know her honest name had happened in a fit of startled exuberance -- a brief flash-in-the-pan moment of delight and trust that she now suspected she ought to regret. Except...

Except would he have been bothering to protect her at all were she not a Stark? Sansa did not know.

He nodded. "Aye. So it is. It's why letting them think we'll go to Station is for the best. They've got less than no reason to be loyal to the High King and Queen, so that means they've got no reason to be loyal to us either."

There at last was something they could agree on. The two of them, lost in these lands, could trust no one. So long as they were both smart enough to keep that in mind, they might well still survive.

To be without loyal allies was a state familiar to her -- though she knew if they could only get near enough to Caer Glaem she might count upon Ser Loras or Lord Renly. But it was foolish to ask them to come a-hunting now, when she could barely tell them where exactly she was. And it would take them near as long as -- oh, if only they had horses.

Sansa walked in silence for the next hour with still no sight of water. Soon, she hoped. Soon. Perhaps it was desperation for distraction or simple thirst that drove her to be honest, but she found herself finally breaking the wordless wall between them with a simple miserable statement: "I made Arya angry."

Gendry's throat was dry now. His march had become something of a miserable stagger as his armor began to feel heavier and heavier with each step. When she spoke, he took it as an invitation to halt. He stopped along the road and moved towards a tree to lean against. Gods, but he was tired.

"It don't take much to make her mad," he muttered. He thought to simply call Arya stupid, but that was best not said about a high born lady to her sister. Even if he had no reason to feel repercussion. "She'll be over it, soon enough."

"Arya! Over it!"

A brittle parched laugh. Sansa wiped sweat from her brow and glanced nervously at the way he walked. He seemed unstable. If they were attacked now, she doubted he'd be able to stand. And so she very nearly suggested they rest. Only...only they needed water more than rest and the latter could come once the former was found.

"She holds grudges. She always did," Sansa said -- sounding a lot as though she possessed a few of her own.

"Aye, if your last name is Lannister. But she's been angry at me a dozen times over before. Don't stop her from coming to bother me again later."

He fidgeted at the straps of his gauntlet, halfheartedly trying to loosen them. But his focus seemed off and doing it one handed was just becoming too much a nuisance. He stopped, sucked in a breath, then looked to her.

"It's time I dump some of this armor."

Everything Gendry said was true. True enough. Although it certainly failed to account for how cruel sisters could be to one another. And -- Sansa would have told him this if she felt comfortable enough to remind him -- by the laws of gods and men, her last name was Lannister. Ought to be Lannister. A lion by legal marriage.

"...Dump the armour?" She asked, stopping short. "Is that wise?"

"No. Likely not. But there's no way I'll make it back wearing all this. I'll need to part with most of it."

Not the helmet, though. He would not lose that again. And he reckoned he would keep the gauntlet on his sword arm, for extra protection. The chainmail was not so cumbersome, so he might keep that as well. The rest, however, was unnecessary. So he began to work on the strap for his plate armor, but that was proving to be even more cumbersome.

It made her uncomfortable that he should announce his difficulties so: that he would confess to being burdened by the armour, and to force the realization that its loss would be on her shoulders. Sansa wondered if that burden would be (in the long run) much heavier than the one he now sought to leave behind. She walked a little farther, but with no intentions of continuing on without him. Nor of hurrying him along. Instead, she was chary. She peered into the tree-trunks and frowned at the path ahead.

And she tried to ignore the trouble he was having with his straps. If she paid it too close attention, she feared she might feel obligated to offer her assistance. It wasn't that she didn't want to help, but rather offering it was a leap their rough acquaintanceship might not be prepared to take.

"What -- just toss it to the side of the road?" She may be a lady and she may be as high born as they came, but even she had a sense for what was wasteful.

He left the strap alone as he saw a wisdom in what she was saying, even if perhaps not the way she intended. He pushed himself off the tree and began to move into the woods.

"No, not the road. Best leave it where it won't be found." It was perhaps obvious already that they would be on the road. Better to leave no sign of their passing in such a case. He tilted his head so she might follow him, because he wanted to walk a decent distance into the forest to leave the armor.

Sansa turned and nodded -- gratified and pleased with the drive for secrecy. She was slowly tripping across the same conclusion Gendry had come to hours before: whatever their feelings on the matter, and whoever their allies back at the castle, they only had each other on the road. Each other and their guile. She has been thinking of the wastage and the shame of losing his armour, and he had been right to think instead on the danger of leaving good metal in their wake.

So she grabbed at her skirts and stepped quickly in order to follow him into the woods. Nymeria -- some distance behind but not out of sight -- seemed to cut into the treeline as if understanding that she would reach them on an angle.

"If we had a spade, we might bury it--" She said, misery leaking into her voice because she knew it wasn't a helpful suggestion. The only metal they had was the metal he was wearing.

He shook his head. "Not worth the time digging it. We'll throw some leaves over it. That should serve."

It was at least cooler beneath the trees. More promising was when he stepped into the ground and felt it squish beneath his feet. He reckoned if the ground was wet here, there must be some source of water around. Even if only a marsh, then it might be fed by a fresh spring somewhere. He looked back at her and grinned slightly. "Mind the mud, m'lady."

"As you say," she answered -- her voice soft like the new budding leaves. She tried to gently sidestep the marshy ground but even when she trod in the wetter parts she was glad that she had her boots on her feet. It was better than if she'd been wearing silk slippers.

"Ser Gendry--" Sansa chanced as she picked her way across the ground "--were you...that is, is it difficult to remove armour?"

He glanced back at her, made a thoughtful grimace, then nodded. His boots squished in the mud, but they were already filthy things and he made no special effort to avoid it.

"Aye. It's easy enough to put it on someone else. But putting it on and taking it off isn't easy. I was having someone help me do that, back at the camp. At least for the harder parts."

"You ought to have asked--"

She felt her way carefully through her scolding. As if she should be able to keep her dignity and honour intact by floating above the very act and insisting that it was only a trifling matter. That he ought to have asked instead of making her offer.

And, indeed, she hadn't yet offered anything.

He looked back to her and for a moment and was tempted to make some mockery of her title and position as he asked for her help. It was tempting, but not warranted. Besides that, the promise of water had lightened his spirits. So he nodded.

"Mayhaps I will, once we've stopped."

Because I can untie things; I can do that much. But the defence died on her lips because what good would it do her now? He'd already considered the non-offer with a non-committal sort of reply. To say anything else -- to promote herself, or even only to argue -- would be heavy handed. Crass. It was enough to simply make him aware that she would entertain the task and that he could request the help if he wanted to request it.

A lighter touch was best. She knew that already.

"It can't be far; I think I hear a trickle."

He paused, because his own armor was louder to him than it was to her. Now he could hear it and he followed the source. Mud gave way to faint puddles, and then blessedly to a creek, and further up he could see water trickling down from it. The trouble was that the creek was in a small ravine that dipped into the ground a distance of about his own height. A twisted path of roots, trees, and stones presented a crude path down. One he could easily make, once he shed his armor.

So he reasoned it was time to do that first. Again, he tilted his head for her to follow and he found a log to sit on. "I'll fetch us some water, m'lady, if you'll help me with this armor." He paused a moment, remembered her admonishment before, and added as an afterthought: "Please."

"--Where do I start?"

She walked to his side. And in doing so she gathered all her courage into one ball. Into one place. For all they'd talked on the road and for all she'd already depended upon him, she'd been conspicuously distant. Warmer, always, with the wolf than she was with him. And so she should be.

Sansa spared a glance for the creek -- felt the dryness of her mouth -- but decided that if he would wait until his armour was off, then so would she.

"Here." He lifted a pauldron so far as the armor would allow, so that she might see the way it was strapped to the chestplate. "Then the chestplate next. It's strapped together here, here, and here." He indicated the places. "The gauntlets and greaves I'll manage on my own."

But first, he loosened the strap for his helmet, which had dangled behind his head like a strange metal hood. He set the finely crafted bull's head on the log and waited for her to do as asked.

Gingerly -- tentatively -- her fingers hook on the metal. And Sansa wrinkled her nose because close quarters brought on the realization that they were the both of them beginning to smell like the road: dust and mud and hard journeying. She tossed her head so that her braid fell down her back and would not interfere as she plucked at the strap. Tugged. Worked it until it loosened. It was slow going; she feared that to pry too hard might lose her a nail. Or might ruin the strap itself. In either concern, her pace was born of inexperience and mild paranoia.

"No wonder knights have squires," she muttered -- as if to herself.

He heard her and answered anyway. "I don't have one. Wouldn't much know what to do with one if I did, on account of never having been one either."

But he had seen squires. Once, from his place in the forge, he'd envied those proud looking boys who stood behind their armored knights, learning and observing all they could. But now, he was a knight and had accomplished what all those squires could hope to be. Except for knowing what he should be doing. For now, he turned his left arm over and played with the strap there, loosening it until the armor slid free. He flexed his freed hand, wished that he would be doing the same with his right, and then waited. He could feel her delicate fingers at work. Not perhaps by contact, but more by imagination. He thought it a pity it was Sansa Stark behind him now and not Lucrezia instead.

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