Call me Out

[dammitmasa]

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code by cawaii
- Refer to the list above for an active muse. -
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- Start with a scenario or give a prompt for one you'd like to see.

Preferences:
- I don't play for shipping, fluff, or smut. If it arrives naturally, I'll play it. But not as a starting point.
- In universe, AUs, crossovers, post-game, or other situations are cool.
- I will play prose or brackets, but definitely prefer prose.

Comments

[bullhorned]

He almost felt bad that he'd have to disappoint her.

"It wouldn't do me much good. What use are letters to a smith's apprentice?"

[steeledskin]

Oh. Disappointment was a small drop in the ocean compared to the flood of pity that once again found its way into her heart. How could he ascend to the pinnacle of her fantasy -- to the very Iron Throne -- if he did not know his letters?

"They can be terribly useful." Perhaps if she pleaded her case sincerely enough, Petyr would let her bring Gendry inside for lessons if for nothing else. "You never know what you might one day have to read. Or write."

[bullhorned]

He looked over his shoulder again, dubious. He still had yet to understand why she took so much interest in him. But sometimes, he really did wonder. Was it because they were both bastards?

"What would I need to read or write?"

[steeledskin]

"Is there no one to whom you would want to write a letter?" Ah, a new angle. She seized upon it with all the grace of an infant deer, tottering about on spindly legs. "A mother or a friend or a sweetheart?"

[bullhorned]

Gendry immediately answered. "There's no one." But then he remembered that he did have friends. True friends, not just the Brotherhood. Hot Pie would never be able to read anything he sent. But Arya...

"There was a girl. Not a sweetheart, though. More like a sister, maybe. It wouldn't do no good sending her a letter, though."

He heard she was in Winterfell now. Married off to some bastard. It was a funny thing, knowing that. A fellow bastard was to be Lord of Winterfell. The one outside his cell could order him to his death if she felt like it.

And he was the bastard of the King of all Westeros. And all he'd ever been good for was a little leeching.

[steeledskin]

"Why wouldn't it? Does she not have her letters, either?"

[bullhorned]

"She reads." He hesitated a moment. Arya's secret was one he had been dutiful in keeping. But did it matter now? She was safe in Winterfell now, where no harm could befall her. He swallowed. "But she's married. Her lord husband would likely not want her reading letters from some bastard she met on the road."

[steeledskin]

Her lord husband. That in itself was telling -- did Gendry have a high born acquaintance? And if so, could Sansa possibly find a better avenue of communicating with her? She wanted to do something for the prisoner.

"Then I will send a raven in your stead. He cannot begrudge her a letter from the Lady of the Eyrie." Bastard though she pretended to be, it might yet work.

[bullhorned]

A letter... He supposed Arya might be glad to hear from him. After all, they had been close.

"... if it pleases you. I'd like to tell her I'm sorry. I should have stayed with her." She could have been my family. Like a real sister. Even if not as equals.

He considered a congratulations, but that tasted bitter to him. Even he knew that the Boltons were turncoats to the Stark cause, just as the Freys had been.

"You can say the Bull said that. She'll know it's me."

[steeledskin]

"The Bull..." She repeated the words with some measure of uncontrolled delight. It sounded fantastical, in a way. Unreal. Story-like. But her better nature brought the childish reverie to heel and she pressed him for the final detail: "Who is she...? Where do I send the raven?"

[bullhorned]

"Lady Arya Stark. In Winterfell."

[steeledskin]

"...Winterfell."

The name was a whisper. Hoarse and unpractised. It had been a long time since she'd dared to say it aloud, though Petyr had promised it to her in gentle whispers. He'd promised, too, that the Arya marrying in the north was not really her Arya. Come now, little dove. Is our Arya ever the sort to marry? Could she ever be made to marry? They had been gentle platitudes, then. On this matter, Sansa had never known which to believe -- the rumours or Petyr's whispers. So she had pushed it from her mind.

"I have to go; my Lord Father will be waiting on me." Her words came in a stammering rush. Sansa backed away from the bars, unwilling to risk him seeing the sudden tears in her eyes.

[bullhorned]

That was abrupt. There had been days when she had spent nearly an hour just talking to him. But this meeting was the shortest of them all. He could not help but feel he did something wrong. He stood up and placed his hands on the bars at the door, hoping to catch sight of her before she was gone.

"M'lady? Did I say something wrong?"

[steeledskin]

It took four days for Sansa to muster her courage up into one lump sum. Four whole days to sit churlish and surly under Petyr's care, not a moment of which he did not notice. Four whole days to decide upon how, exactly, she would test the bastard's claim. Four whole days to by-times mourn and celebrate her sister. Feel dread for her; miss her; hate her deeply for having left King's Landing in the first place. Not that Sansa could blame Arya for it. Not any longer.

Four days after she'd left him speaking to torch-smoke and empty stone, Sansa returned in the deadest portion of the night. She came prepared, daring to pack away a whole woollen blanket for him should he satisfy her curiousity.

At long last, she rapped her usual rhythmic announcement on his cell door.

[bullhorned]

In those four days, Gendry had cursed himself for being impertinent. She had tested him in some way and he had failed miserably. What a fool he was. A prisoner? Sending a letter? He couldn't have been more stupid.

And in these nights when all he could do was shiver and try to sleep, the only company he had was the bitter curses he mumbled to himself. And then there was the gruel. Oh how he missed the meals Alayne brought him.

He was half asleep when he was awakened. At first he feared it was Mord to come mock him. But when he stood to look through the bars, he was astonished to see who it was.

"M'lady?" He questioned more than her simple presence, but whether he might be imagining it at all. Hadn't he dreamed this very thing the night before?

[steeledskin]

For a long, long, long moment, she merely stood before his cage. All her pomp and practising escaped her as she squinted into the moonlit cell. Was it possible for a man to show his malnutrition after just four days of neglect, or was this her guilty conscience bending the night shadows against his cheeks? Sansa swayed there, briefly, and felt her tongue stick to the roof of her mouth.

Ask him if he's a liar. She pressed her lips together. Tell him it's impossible. Her head swam, still. Ask him if she's alright.

"Gendry." She'd never said his name before. Weeks of visiting, and she'd always avoided it. But she said it tonight, and she hated the way she couldn't edit out its more plaintive notes. How did Petyr ever manage to persuade anyone when something so little as this felt impossible? Her gathered courage failed her at the last hurdle, and she proved craven in her questioning: "A-are you well?"

[bullhorned]

This was different. She was always so composed. In control. Now, she seemed ill at ease. There was something bothering her and though there was little light, he felt he could see it in her eyes. And in those eyes, he thought he saw something familiar.

"I've not fallen yet." Though, he thought bitterly, he'd considered it more and more each day. "Are you?"

[steeledskin]

"I confess I..." am far from well. "I haven't been sleeping. I sit up, thinking about your friend. The girl."

Sansa had spent so long deadening that part of her, she could not bring herself to speak her own sister's name. She was scared it would sound false.

[bullhorned]

"Arya?" He said the name carelessly and only then did he begin to suspect anything. Alayne may have been natural born like him, but her father was still a lord. Perhaps Arya was an old friend. Or worse, he realized. Perhaps an enemy.

"You knew her." There was no question this time. He may not have been the cleverest of people, but he could draw conclusions when they were obvious enough.

[steeledskin]

Sansa stammered out a lie she'd been rehearsing for four full days: "I...was a friend of her sister's. But I haven't seen either girl in a long time." A pregnant pause. "More importantly, how do you know her?"

[bullhorned]

Gendry peered through the bars at his lady, trying to work out the kindest way to put things. He could color the tale a bit. Leave things out. But he decided that with the waver in her voice, she deserved no less than the truth.

"It was after the King's Hand was executed. I was sold to the Night's Watch nearly the same day. I was loaded up with a bunch of other men and boys. But there was one boy who wasn't like the others. He spoke a little differently and was a bit too smart for his own good. And his sword was castle forged."

Gendry had even thought 'Arry' was a boy for a few days as well. But then, he hadn't been paying too much attention then.

"But it was no boy. He was Arya Stark. She'd cut her hair and dressed up as a boy. Yoren - he was the Watchman, he was taking her to Winterfell. None of the others figured out she was really a girl. But I managed to work it out."

[steeledskin]

She was stuck somewhere between wanting to cry and wanting to shout. It wasn't until this very second that she had realized how wholly she'd begun to doubt Arya's survival. Piece by piece, she'd been grieving for her without any formal announcement of death. She'd come to assume...

"She always did look boyish," Sansa murmured. Again, she avoided the name. And again, she tried to maintain the veil of a distant acquaintance. "And behaved boyishly, too."

[bullhorned]

"It was a good fit," Gendry admitted. "She wasn't a proper lady like yourself. She was always trying to prove she was as good as the rest of us."

When it came to wiles and sheer will to survive, she was better than all of them.

"We might have made it to Winterfell with her, but there were Goldcloaks looking for us. They were looking for me. I didn't know why at the time, but they were looking for the late king's bastards. Yoren died to give us a chance to escape. I made off with Arya and some others for awhile. But eventually we were caught by the Mountain and taken to Harenhal."

[steeledskin]

She wasn't a proper lady like yourself -- no, that much had always been evident. Even now, she could remember Arya bemoaning their needlework and their little lessons. She had always wanted to be out in the yard with their brothers. But in Sansa's heart and memory, her sister was still just a little girl. And so she was gripped by fear when told the bits and pieces of Arya and Gendry's journey.

"I saw Ser Gregor fight at tourney," Sansa said -- not bothering to hide the tremble in her voice when she imagined Arya taken captive by the Mountain. Though unburned, she considered him to be a worse grotesque than the Hound. At least the Hound had a protective streak. But even her fear paled in comparison to her realization that Gendry had marked himself as Robert's son.

"...You know who you are."

[bullhorned]

"... I do. I'll get to that part. It doesn't include Arya. But I suppose it's important." He rubbed awkwardly at his arms, willing the cold away. "The Mountain... the man was a monster," Gendry admitted. He'd heard the Mountain was dead now. That, at least, was a comfort for everyone who had ever seen him. "But Harenhal was filled with that sort."

"We stayed as prisoners for some time. We might have died, but Tywin Lannister thought we'd be more use working than rotting in the ground. I was put to work as a smith. She was made to be his cupbearer. We stayed that way for awhile. I don't remember how long. Weeks, maybe?

But she had a Braavosi friend who helped us escape. Just the three of us. Me, her, and a boy we called Hot Pie. A baker's boy. That was how we met the Brotherhood without Banners." He chuckled darkly. "We had the worst luck, us. Someone always managed to capture us, no matter how careful we tried to be. This time it wasn't my fault. They'd captured the Hound, too. He recognized Arya for who she was."

Before that, Gendry had always been dubious of her real identity. He never questioned it, but he never truly believed. That moment had cemented it.