Video - Seelie/Unseelie

[teenyoda]

[The image that comes onto the lockets is an almost peaceful one. The blue sky and white fluffy clouds that bob a little from the POV of the locket. A little movement shows that that's because the transmission is clearly coming from a boat. The locket, with a little more jostling, is shown to be resting in fabric on what appears to be the deck of the boat. One might be curious as to why a transmission was coming suddenly from seemingly nowhere on a boat, but the answer shows itself soon enough in the form of one suckered tentacle flipping the locket around. If it was ever possible for an octopus to look both pissed off and surprised out of its mind, this one was doing a very good job. One of its many arms clutched at a small feather, the other limbs flopping around and smacking at the deck as the thing clearly tried to actually go somewhere. It couldn't walk to save its life and wound up rolling out of the pile of clothes, taking the locket with it.

Heavy stomps could be heard as boots came closer across the deck to the cephalopod, a shadow coming between the sun and the locket as a large man loomed over it. "Well then. What's this? How's you get aboard, ye slippery little thing. Back to the sea with you."

A hand bent down to try to pick up the octopus and there was a flurry of lashing arms as it latched onto the man and refused to let go. Curses were spat and the man called out for a fellow sailor, but before the other man could come closer with the knife it held to free his shipmate, a third voice joined. One others might find a bit familiar. A naked seventeen year old was clutching the man's arm and looking up at him with fear and horror. It took Stiles about five second to remember about the locket and he dropped to the deck, scrambling for both his clothes and to turn the locket off.]

~*~

[It was about twenty minutes later when a red-faced Stiles showed himself on the network.]

Um, about that...

Sorry? I... have no idea what happened. One minute I was standing looking over the rails and the next... um... aha. Let's just pretend that didn't happen, okay? Okay. But, if anyone can tell me what just happened, that would be really, really helpful. Especially in making sure it doesn't happen again.

Comments

[teenyoda]

Oh, gee, I don't know, Jon Snow. Why would I think it's a joke, Jon Snow?

[Bland look.]

[baseborne]

[Jon gives him another look. Clearly, they're just trying to out-look one another.]

It's a bastard's name. Every bastard in the North has got it, likely on account of it snows a lot. [It'd be like asking some bastard from the Riverlands if he was joking about all the rivers because of his name.]

[teenyoda]

[Not unless a river decided to follow him around wherever he went like a trained dog.]

Does every bastard have his own little snow storm?

[baseborne]

Most bastards live in the real world, not this queer fairy place.

[What do you mean, giants and ice zombies and direwolves aren't more normal than any of this?]

[teenyoda]

Since this place doesn't seem to give a crap about what side of the blanket you were born on...

And you seem to collect direwolves like redheads get freckles in the sun...

[baseborne]

The pup is Lady Meera's, not mine. I've told you.

[No comment on redheads and freckles and the redhead whose freckles he's counted, or anything.]

[teenyoda]

Uh huh. And who's it with right now? You. And you've got that other one. And if there's this one here and that one, I'll bet you money that your puppy eyes will draw them in like... like puppy eyes.

[baseborne]

I haven't got puppy eyes.

[teenyoda]

Suuuuuuuuuuuure you don't.

[Hear that? That's something we call 'sarcasm'.]

[baseborne]

[Stiles no he is very fierce and intimidating and manly!!]

Good. Then we're agreed.

[Sarcasm vs obtuse on purpose, who wins?]

[teenyoda]

Jon, one day I'm going to introduce you to something called a 'mirror'.

[baseborne]

[Jokes on u Stiles they don't have mirrors they have "Myrish looking glass," and it's all cloudy/mostly sucks.]

I know what I look like. And anyhow, direwolves are too clever by half, no soppy look would do any of them in.

[teenyoda]

Not well enough. And that's crap. Ghost would bite his own foot off if you gave him puppy eyes and asked him to. Just like I do many, many stupid things because of them, both from you and Scott.

[baseborne]

Oh, that bloody wolf does as he wants regardless of what I ask, most days. Like now, for instance.

... Who's Scott?

[teenyoda]

Uh huh.

[Sure. You just tell yourself that, Jon. Stiles knows differently.]

Scott? I've mentioned him before, haven't I?

[Maybe not to Jon. It still kind of stung to think of being here without his best friend.]

He's my buddy. My homeboy. My brother from another mother. Only, you know, not literally.

[baseborne]

[Stiles. Stiles. What are these words?]

So he's... not a bastard? [You literally cannot call someone your brother from another mother and not expect Jon to draw that conclusion, Stiles.]

[teenyoda]

No. We're not like, blood related or anything. He's got different parents than I do, and yeah, they were married, not that it matters. But we're... I don't know. Brothers by choice? He's the closest person I have other than my dad. He's my family. Him and his mom and I love them both.

[Because Stiles was cool with putting his emotions out there.]

[baseborne]

[For a moment, Jon feels a very unfair pang of jealousy. Not just one mother, but two, in a way. He beats that back with a shake of the head.]

I had some I once called my brothers, and meant it. [Sam Tarly and Pyp and Grenn and Dolorous Edd, but he'd sent them all away in the end. He didn't know how he could ask them to die for him if he needed to, or sit in judgment of them fairly without the kinship he felt coloring it.] Though I never knew their families. [Except Sam's through tales, and it certainly wasn't a family he'd have liked to call his own.]

[teenyoda]

[Unfortunately not, Jon. It was just the solo mamasita. Who he borrowed. Rarely. Sort of.]

Yeah, well... different places, man. But Scott and I grew up together and, you know. We just... clicked. We have each other's backs.

Not counting this place.

[baseborne]

What's he like, then? Scott. [What an odd name tbh.]

[teenyoda]

[Said the equivalent of Jon Smith. =|]

Scott? He's a good guy. Always tries to do the right thing. Tries to make sure no one gets hurt. He's a sort of... guardian type. Only with puppy eyes and this weird innocently naive streak that I keep waiting for him to lose.

[baseborne]

Does that bother you so much? [His - Scott's - innocence and naivete. Maester Aemon had once told Jon kill the boy, and let the man be born, and he had followed that advice until he hated himself. He'd even tried to do the same for Sam, so he might survive the coming war, though it had been no easy thing. But he can't picture Stiles wanting such for anyone: he's the only one who treats Jon like there's still a boy inside him, or that if there was it wouldn't be something shameful.]

[teenyoda]

Yes and no. I mean, I really kind of don't want him to lose it since it's what makes him, him. But the world we live in has changed a lot in the last year and I don't want it to be the reason he gets killed. I don't want to have to try to move on past his death. I just don't want it to happen.

[baseborne]

[Welp. Jon knows dem feels. It's just... a little more hardcore than he expected from Stiles "everyone lives to 65" Stilinski.] What happened in the last year that your world became so different?

[teenyoda]

Werewolves.

[No lie, Jon.]

And hunters and kanimas and darachs and evil fox spirits. We haven't all walked away and I just don't want Scott to be one of the casualties.