munebox | Call me Out

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?"

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?"

"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.

"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.

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?"

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."

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."

"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."

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."

Edited 2013-12-09 14:54 (UTC)

"... 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.

Edited 2013-12-09 15:00 (UTC)

It nearly made her giddy in a sick sort of way. Arya Stark, cupbearer to that horrid man. The man who had ordered her marriage to the imp. The man who had loosed the Freys on her family. The man who had stopped too short of curbing his grandson's cruel ways. Joffrey is dead; you don't have to fear him any longer. But even reminding herself of this fact brought with it the same old fright, wondering if others could somehow hear her thoughts and punish her for them.

She was forced to move on, because more stunning news followed. The Hound was alive, but for how long? And why did she care? He had frightened her on his last night in King's Landing, but some twisted and warped part of her was glad to hear his story was not yet over.

Sansa hugged the woollen blanket to her body. Gendry had more than earned it, but she still withheld it. She needed to hear the end: "Was that the last time you saw her?"

"Beric Dondarrion had promised to take her to the Twins, so as to be rewarded by her lord brother for her safe return. I was going to stay with the Brotherhood to join their cause. The last I saw her, she was practicing her archery."

His hands tightened around his arms and he noted how they weren't as hard as they used to be. In the time he'd been in this cell, he'd been losing his muscle.

"The red sorceress took me to Stannis Baratheon. That's how I found out who I was. By the time I made my way back to the Brotherhood, she was gone. She'd never made it to the Twins, but apparently the Hound had made off with her. I figured he must have taken her to the Boltons, after what happened to her brother."

"And her mother." The correction sprang quickly between glances. "Lady Catelyn was also at the Twins, when it..."

There it was again: the desire to run away. She'd told Tyrion Lannister that she would have preferred he never told her about what had happened at her uncle's wedding. She had spent months suppressing the reality of what had happened, but now she was confronted with a terrible choice: to believe that Arya avoided the Twins only to be married to Roose Bolton's bastard, or else believe that she had made it to the Twins and was slaughtered with the rest of her kin. Which was worst? Which was better? Petyr had told her the girl sent to Ramsay was a parlour trick and nothing more -- but what if he had lied? Sansa did not like the notion that he might lie to her about something so personal.

"I'm sorry, m'lady." He meant it when he said it. He peered through the bars, hoping for some sign of what she might be feeling. He could tell none of this had really cheered her. There was little that was heartening about the story.

"I should've tried to stay with her. Look out for her some. She wanted me to go with her."

But I said I wanted to be free. Now here I am.

"...Had you done so, you might not be alive today."

It was a paltry thing to say. And it was selfish, because she had tried again and again to defend the fact that she had not been on her sister's side for so long. As far back as that day on the King's Road after they had left Winterfell, when she had lied to King Robert and Queen Cersei. What else was I to do?

"Lord Baelish knows who you are, as well. The whole Vale might know, by now."

After all, she had learned it. What would stop a more ambitious ear from hearing?

He had no illusions that he was still alive for any other reason than the identity of his father. What remained a mystery is what Lord Baelish would even do with him. There was no one would be glad to have him. Except, perhaps, his uncle. And that thought made him shiver. Or perhaps it was just the cold.

"Does he mean to sacrifice me to the Seven?" There was a touch of bitter irony there. Wherever he was, somebody wanted to spill his blood because of his father.

"My Lord Father is an ambitious man. He thinks in ways no one else dares to--" Sansa's heartbeat fluttered. She had never dared such treason before now. She had marvelled at the machinations and schemes of men, but never before did she dare to hypothesize aloud. But something in Gendry made her feel at ease. Or, perhaps, it was yet again the work of sturdy wood and iron dividing him from her.

"I believe his ambition stretches to you. If madmen and monsters are permitted to sit the Iron Throne, why not a base-born son? He dreams big."

Edited 2013-12-09 15:42 (UTC)

The Iron Throne?

Gendry gaped at her. Surely she had to be mad. Tommen was Kind of Westeros. And even if he were to die, the throne would go to his uncle, wouldn't it? And if something happened to him...

His knowledge of politics didn't extend that far. But he came back to the idea of it again and then he could only laugh.

"You shouldn't mock a caged man. I'm as likely to become King as I am to sprout wings and fly out of this cell."

Gendry was likely right. A bastard had so little claim -- doubly so in the wake of his father's death. But she had already watched Petyr take impossible things and make them possible. She thought escape from King's Landing would never happen, yet here she was. And wasn't there an underdog at the heart of every fantastic tale she'd loved again and again in her childhood?

Petyr Baelish understood that to achieve the impossible, you first had to assemble the improbable. And assembling and dissembling where two of his great strengths. Pitch a twice-burned maiden in the direction of a man with a ghost of a claim, and something might come of it. Petyr knew that Gendry didn't even have to be kind-hearted, he merely had to be less awful than all the other men Sansa had known since leaving Winterfell.

She grabbed at one bar with a delicate hand and pushed the thick blanket through a narrow gap. "Then we start small. I'll see you uncaged, at least."

There was another surprise, but one far tangible for him to be grateful for. At that moment, if he had to chose between a throne and a blanket, he would have chosen the blanket immediately. Gendry immediately wrapped it around himself and dipped his chin into its war embrace. He thought that, for a moment, it even smelled like her.

"If it pleases you, m'lady." He hesitated a moment. "... thank you. For the company. And the blanket."

Sansa stayed close to the door -- gratified to see her gift put to sudden use. She may have spent most of her life in Summer, but it was hard to do away with a prejudice so ingrained in her blood. What a southerner, she thought, in spite of the fact that she would have felt the chill just as keenly were their positions reversed.

She would have work to do. She would have to convince Petyr to let him have the western wing, perhaps. Keep it under guard, if he so desired. But Gendry had to be out of this cell. But before she left, she had one last question: "Did you protect her? Lady Arya?"

Did she even need protecting?

He thought of his first meeting with Arya, when a few of the younger boys had ganged up on her. He'd stepped in then. A few other times as well. But on the whole...

"Sometimes, I did. She did her own bit of protecting me as well."

She was never as good with a sword as she liked to think she was. But on the whole, she was more a survivor than he ever was. Even before he'd heard about her marriage, he'd never ever once thought that she might be dead. She was too wily for that.

What honesty! If he'd merely hoped to curry favour, he might have played up his role as protector. But his actual words brought a tense smile to her mouth. They sounded spot on -- blow for blow Arya Stark.

"It's late." She peered back over her shoulder. "And I fear Mord is growing less and less complacent with my visits -- I know he knows about them. He snores louder when I come up the stairs. But I will be back. Hopefully with your key."

She may not have been the one whose room opened up to the sky, but Sansa was suffering from vertigo i this very moment. These words were some of the most bold and decisive she'd ever spoken. She was a conspirator, now. She was no longer a pawn.

Or so she believed.

"I hope so."

But he didn't really believe it. He smiled one last time, then turned around to sit against the wall. He stared at the empty night sky, but that night he never thought about walking off the edge. He was warm and wanted. He hadn't quite felt like that in some time.

That night he dreamed he was a king. He had a queen with fiery red hair, which made no sense to him at all. The only woman he knew like that was the sorceress.

Petyr did not seem over-eager to grant this particular prisoner any slice of freedom. Or was it Petyr she spoke to, when she pleaded Gendry's case? In the quietude of the library, she could no longer be certain. He switched between Petyr and Littlefinger so often, these days. Petyr wanted to give her the world; Littlefinger wanted to crack the world open with her as his leverage. Even had she been a cleverer girl, it would have been nigh impossible to tell that the Lord Protector of the Vale was proud of his false daughter. Mostly, she felt chagrined. And she felt defeated.

For she was ignorant of the fact that -- forty-eight hours later -- Lord Baelish himself unlocked the bastard's cell and stood free of its doorway in order to invite Gendry out from the cold.

"You have a champion," he announced in voice as soft as a hiss. "Pray you show her gratitude, for I have not seen someone fight so hard in a long long time."

It was a chilly greeting, and the once Master of Coin made no attempt to make it any warmer.

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