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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"It sounds like sorcery to me."

Sansa watched him a moment. She looked at the way his hair stood on end after having been wetted so recently. She bit down on a laugh -- shook her head -- and flipped her braid to the front of her right shoulder. With one deft movement (much more capably than when she'd undone his armour straps) she pulled free the cream-coloured ribbon securing the braid in place. After that, it was a simple process of combing her fingers through the braid until it loosened.

"And so I'm glad you know its secrets. I'll take trout over frogs -- certainly." A brief pause, and then: "It's trout that are in rivers, yes? Or are they sea fish?"

He watched her braid come unfurled and thought that the hair would be rather pretty, were it not for the strange discoloration to it. He could see the red roots at the top of her head and thought it odd, because it made it seem as though she'd be even less Stark-like once it was back to its natural hue. As it was, her blue eyes and black hair made it look as though she could pass for his sister. He had the idea now that if they did come across a town, that she ought to wear her hair like that and that they would do best to use that very lie to make them seem less suspicious.

Her question startled him out of his thoughts. He stared at her, thinking about fish, and reckoned he didn't really know a trout from a tuna. So he nodded and decided that her first instinct was likely the correct one. "River fish." I think. "Obviously."

She combed wet fingers through her hair, using this method to gradually dampen the strands. The hair was long and kept slight waves in it from the braid. Sansa winced as she worked through a tangle, wound a stray fallen strand around her thumb, and set it afloat on the creek.

She was still thinking about her question: "Yes. You're right. Obviously. How could I be so stupid?" Her voice was quiet; her self-criticism genuine. "House Tully sits at Riverrun." -- Sat at Riverrun, but she did not want to think about the Freys. "And their device is a trout."

How could she have forgotten? No. Forgetfulness wasn't to blame. Merely denial and the thorough way in which she'd buried the Stark and the Tully deep under Stone. Interred them, really.

Stupid. He glanced at her and thought of her carefully crafted message on the locket. He also recalled her weak defense for her father in the face of the dragon queen, all without revealing her real name. Even thought she admitted defeat in the end. He shook his head, then looked away at the opposite side of the creek.

"What do you think Queen Daenerys would have said, if she'd known who you were?"

Her fingers froze. There, curled amidst the strands and waves, they turned to ice and they turned to stone. Sansa didn't move, except for when the breeze snagged her skirt's edge and tossed it into the water. As if breaking from a reverie, she rushed to rescue the hem, folding it back onto the dry rock.

"I don't know." She didn't look at him, preferring to stare hard at the water's surface. If the sun were only a little out of the way, she might be able to see her reflection. "She played at protecting Arya," from me of all people. "And then at denouncing our Lord Father. And I'm--"

Married to a Lannister. A long-time hostage of Lannisters. Raised to think of dragons like bad things.

"Maybe she wouldn't have said anything different. She believes herself a queen--" Sansa seemed resistant to give her the title. "Alayne Stone is nothing to a queen. It's safer that way."

"As is Gendry Waters," he said frowning. He lifted his feet from the mud, then kicked them in the water to free the caked mud between his toes. His expression was shielded from her and he hid his own uncertainty.

"I nearly told her who my father was, before we were called away. She likes me well enough, I think. I've told her what I thought of her and everyone else, as brutal honest as I could, and she seemed to respect that, for some reason. But I ain't told her my father stole her father's throne." He laughed hollowly. "A few months ago, I was no one she would have cared about. But now? She might well dislike me as much as Sansa Stark."

She winced. Disliked as much as Sansa Stark. Sansa did not like to think of herself as disliked. With dislike came danger, and wasn't that exactly why she'd made such an effort to sing his praises and repeatedly emphasis her faith in him? There were kernels of truth to all those things she said -- and again to how she's explained to him, in wanting others to think her well-protected -- but ultimately it was because she wanted him to think well of her. And now they were talking about how much some Targaryen might dislike her and --

And it was all a bit much on the back of Arya's anger.

"Your father killed her brother. Conquered her father's throne. Perhaps your wise to keep your truths away from her. If I were to meet a Frey or a Bolton or a Lannister or a Greyjoy--"

Would she hate them? Would she want them to suffer? It was easy when they were faceless names -- a Frey. A Bolton. The vengeance became harder to sustain when she imagined meeting them; liking them; learning of who they were after the fact. Sansa said nothing, but she did shake her head.

Edited 2014-06-01 14:22 (UTC)

"If you were to meet any of them, m'lady, you'd get to watch me cut them down."

This was less a vow for her own sake, but for her mother's. He'd tried with Jaime Lannister, but that was a man of unnatural skill. But for any other man, Gendry reckoned he had an even chance. But that strayed from the point of what he meant to say and before she could make comment, he continued.

"I still mean to tell her, though. When we've made it back." He gripped the hilt of his sword. "I've a mind I might even offer her my sword, depending on what she might say of my birth."

It was a confession he did not expect to make, but he'd had no one else to really discuss his concerns about it. Sansa, oddly enough, seemed like the first person who would understand the subterfuge and perhaps sympathize with it.

Understand it? Ah -- yes. Sansa was brimming over with understanding. But she'd let loose a little more of herself since coming here, and with him she was so very rarely the bastard Alayne Stone -- pledged to a conspirator and murderer for a father. Sitting here, looking up at him with baleful blue eyes, she was a Stark.

And so she inquired lightly for her family's cause: "You said to me when we met that your lady declared for -- that she supported the North and its King. No matter his fate."

Do you break faith with us now? -- Oh, he'd never been in her particular service. But his claim on that day had sparked a brief flicker of safety. It kindled her confidence now, on the road. And she would despair to lose it, always wondering whether a once-ally was a now a new enemy.

"My lady craves only vengeance. Lord Dondarrion fought for the people, but Lady Stoneheart don't. Better my sword go to someone who means to do good, then stay with someone I'm not like to ever see again."

Gendry had little reason to ever return to Westeros and he had a mind that he might well one day ask the fairies to let him stay in this world indefinitely. Even here, in enemy territory, he felt safer than he did anywhere in Westeros. He'd even thought to just swear his sword to the fairy queen, but that bitch had left him to rot in the middle of nowhere.

He shrugged. "But King Robert was my father. My friend is a Stark. If Queen Daenerys won't stand for either, then I'll just make myself a new sword, and it'll belong to me alone."

And yet she is your lady. But who was Sansa to quibble over loyalties? How many faiths had she broken since the day her father died. Lies to save and lies to hide and lies she told herself to feel better about the former two. Lord Baelish told her that some lies were love. Like, she thought, the way in which she still kept so much from Arya. But now--

"It's your sword. You know better what to do with it than I ever could, having never held one." And with that simple sentence she absolved him of his oathbreaking without exactly failing to condemn it. "Only -- only please don't swear anything to her until we are back behind Caer Glaem's walls. Please, Ser Gendry."

All she could think about was how much danger she'd be in should Daenerys learn her true name, hate it, and want to see her snuffed out. Sansa watched Gendry still and wondered if he was the sort of knight who would follow a command like that or not.

He turned back and saw, perhaps, something that looked like fear. Perhaps simple worry. He did not greatly like Sansa, but he had no true ill will of her. He nodded his agreement solemnly.

"I swore to Arya- Lady Arya Stark I'd look out for you. As long as we're out here, I say bugger all to lords and ladies, kings and queens. What I said to your sister - that's the only oath that matters to me."

She sighed. Breathed out -- nearly chuckled -- and touched creek-cooled hands to her cheeks once more. Sansa liked the way the water felt cold on her skin. How silly (laughable, really!) it was that now her life should hang by the thin thread of Arya's request. To hear it and to know it came despite Arya's youth and out-of-step timeline...well, it made her feel funny. Like being tickled from the inside out. It made her feel loved.

"I'm glad to hear it. In this regard, I would rather be Arya's sister than be anything else. Whatever the frustrations. Gods, when she heard about you and the Kingslayer--"

Sansa rubbed her right temple. As if the thought alone was enough to bring on another headache. But soon enough she realized her composure was relaxing and she stiffened once again, setting to work on a newer tighter braid. "I wish he wasn't here."

"I wish I'd killed him," Gendry said, even now bitter at his humiliation in that battle. But he knew well he could train for a year and not be able to match Jaime Lannister in a fight.

"But you're lucky, having her for a sister." He'd once coveted Arya for family, but she'd spurned him for it and he'd learned his lesson. He kicked at the water as he remembered something Sansa had told him. "You said... I had a sister, didn't you? In the Vale?"

Lucky. In what felt like a hundred years ago, she would never have described herself as lucky in her sister. But today she'd been proven otherwise, no matter how they still fought. How tragic, she realizes, that Gendry's never known his.

"Her name is Mya. She doesn't talk of it much but it seems everyone in the Eyrie and below know who her father was. She's...very peculiar." Oh. Perhaps that was unkindly said. Sansa tied and untied and retied her braid's ribbon as she stumbled over a correction. "Not a bad sort of peculiar. Only she's very unexpected. She does rather dangerous work and she does it rather courageously."

A courageous sister, who worked hard. There was someone he reckoned he could be proud of. Better than a whore, he supposed, even if Bella had seemed a nice enough girl. And there had been that other boy Renly had mentioned. Gendry regretted not asking about him.

"Mayhaps I'll meet her some day. She sounds a decent sort, peculiar or otherwise."

"She serves House Royce. At the Gates of the Moon. Do you know it? I promise you she's more than decent. I would--" Sansa frowned. She tucked her braid back over her shoulder and ran her fingers carefully from scalp to hair-tip to be certain the style was straight and tight and proper. "Alayne Stone would call her a friend, I think."

Gendry did not know House Royce or the Gates of the Moon, but he was given hardly time to say so. So he shrugged, feigned only slight interest, then looked at her with hard but inquisitive blue eyes. "Alayne Stone would. What about Sansa Stark?"

His eyes. They were so like hers -- Mya's -- and Sansa recalled she'd thought the mule girl rather pretty with those bright eyes. Prettier still if she'd only wear a dress. Allow her hair to grow. But perhaps she was ever doomed to see prettiness in Mya, given her blood. After all, Renly--

Sansa interrupted her own thoughts: "Mya Stone never had the chance to know Sansa Stark. That girl was gone long before I...she..." The pronouns were beginning to trouble her, and so she tried to wave them all away. And she tried to simplify the matter with three words: "I like her."

Gendry nodded, satisfied with that answer. And at long last, he stood and stretched his back, rotated his neck, then looked down at her. "Best we keep moving. Ready?"

He picked his steps across the water, then stood in front of her to offer a hand up. It was, perhaps, an unnecessary gesture. But he was beginning to grow used to it. Accustomed to it. He was escorting a lady and piece by piece, he was starting to play the role of knight better and better.

Sansa took one last long lingering drink -- greedily, as if she didn't already know they would be keeping the stream at their side as they walked further. She tried to do it with some daintiness, stopping as much creek-water as she could from drippling down in splashes onto her bodice. In truth, the attempt was a valiant one and when she stopped she only had a few damp circles near her shoulder. Except now she thought she could not offer a slick wet hand to take his, so she grimaced when she wiped her palm dry on the apron. It's what aprons are for, she reminded herself. As if that somehow lessened her internal dismay at wrecking it further.

"I'm ready, Ser Gendry." She grabbed onto his hand like she'd done when they'd first descended into the stream bed. This time, it felt a little more conventional but a little less charming. She knew, now, that he was feeling mercenary in his bent. And mercenaries did not do very much without recompense. Oh, she didn't expect she would pay him. Not really. But she would have to be obedient and unwavering and strong. She would have to make the journey easier for him by minimizing the burden she posed. These things, she thought, would keep her in his favour just long enough to get back to Caer Glaem. And then she needn't look at him again, no matter how (dis)honestly he came by his blue eyes.

And so they marched on.

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(second lemon cake) video ✧ locked to seelie

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