Video | Forward-dated to June 2

[kingsdaughter]

[Sigrid has the locket propped up like a mirror on her dresser. Flung over the arm of her chair is a mass of scarlet wool she is sewing into a new gown. Everything else in her room looks, to her, rather sparse and unlived-in. She's never had her own room all to herself. Nervously, she brushes stray hairs away from her face even though they were never in the way.]

I've kept my own house these last six years.

...What I'm saying is I need work, and I'm willing to work. I'm good with children, if you need any looked after. Otherwise I can do chores as you need them. I read and write well, and I sew, cook, spin, and knit. And clean, of course, and do laundry and all. Da taught me ciphering so I could manage our money. Anything else, I can learn.

Thank you.

Comments

[bullhorned]

[He resents the fact that everyone feels the need to ask him to do that, as if somehow he would not do it already. He answers testily.[ ]]

I'm with her, aren't I? If I didn't mean to keep her safe, it would be easier going for me to have left her behind already.

[kingsdaughter]

Don't take it like that. It's just something people say when they're worried.

[bullhorned]

[Though he resents the implication all the same, he grumbles an agreement.]

You've no need to worry. You and her will be knitting together before long.

[kingsdaughter]

...I'll make you shirts for when you return, and good stockings. You'll need them by then. What's your name, again?

[bullhorned]

[He's half tempted to tell her that he could have the fairies do that for him. But by the sake token, there's castle workers who man the forge, so she has no need to ask him for her tools either. In the castle, their skills have only so much value as the other allows them to. She's given his value, he reckons he owes her the same.]

Gendry. Ser Gendry. What's yours?

[kingsdaughter]

Sigrid. [She figures "ser" is some sort of title, like captain or sergeant.] Daughter of Bard.

[bullhorned]

Never heard of him. [Not that he reckon he should. But if she'd mentioned him, perhaps it implied some importance.] He some kind of lord?

[kingsdaughter]

No. He's my father.

[Weird weird weird weird.]

Not all of us have two names, you know.

[bullhorned]

I don't have two names. At least, I didn't. My father was a king, but my mother wasn't anyone, so I'm meant to be Gendry Waters now. A year ago, I might have said I was "Gendry, Son of Some Drunk." You wouldn't likely have heard of him either.

[kingsdaughter]

You'd have to narrow it down a bit, yes. So you've got another name just because your da was a king?

[bullhorned]

It's a name that marks me as a noble's bastard. It ain't so flattering a thing to have.

[kingsdaughter]

That's a silly thing to be marked for. Anyone can have noble blood. I have noble blood.

[bullhorned]

Aye, but you ain't a bastard, are you? [Or. He assumes.] It's different if you're bastard born. You're marked for it. Snow, Stone, Waters, Rivers, and whatever the hell they call us in Dorne and other places. We're born on the wrong side of the sheets, born of lust and weakness, and born to betrayal. Our nature, they say, is wanton and treacherous. That's our lot.

[kingsdaughter]

Only because they'd rather punish you than the noble who did wrong. It's stupid and cowardly.

[So that explains Alayne's second name.]

[bullhorned]

Aye, mayhaps it is, but it makes no matter. It's the way of highborns. I should count myself lucky I'm only half highborn.

[kingsdaughter]

Of course it matters. [She knows what it is to be persecuted for something you can't help, at least.] And if it's only been a year for you, it's only going to matter more and more.

[bullhorned]

Aye. Maybe. [He regrets bringing it up now. Or even prompting this conversation. He grumbles to himself.] You're better off working for Lady Stone. She'll do decent by you.

[kingsdaughter]

I think so too. [And that's not a slight against him.]