munebox | Call me Out

Was his behaviour an example of her courtly ideal? Hardly. But then again, he wasn't entirely unlike certain noblemen at a grand feast. King Robert, certainly, could fill his plate just as lustily. And her brothers had never seen fit to skimp on their meals. Even so, Sansa wielded her knife and fork with grace.

A smarter woman would have had the foresight to warn Gendry not to overextend his appetite, for he'd been too long without regular meals and was likely to make himself sick. A smarter woman would have asked the kitchens to prepare something blander, and more easily digested. But hunger was a hell she'd never known.

After she had allowed him to eat in peace for a solid five or ten minutes, she spoke -- leaning forward to reach for her mulled wine. "Do you suppose it's terribly selfish of me to be glad you were captured?"

Each flavor was an incredible experience for him. Even the foods that he recognized were different, as they were peppered with spices his tongue had never experienced before. He would not be content until he had tasted all of it. And even though the wine was not as good as what the sorceress had served him, it was miles ahead of the mead he had drank in taverns along his long and hard road. It was good she spared him conversation, because he greedily ate the food as if he might never eat again.

The thought did cross his mind that such a thing might be true.

Her question caught him off guard entirely. "... I'm not sure. I don't know why you came to talk to me in the first place. Much less bring me all the way up here."

As he did not phrase his words into a question, she chose not to answer them. Not directly, at least.

"King Joffrey is dead." There was nothing special about it; everyone knew. It was common knowledge. "My Lord Father says the Seven Kingdoms will not gladly suffer a child on the Iron Throne during this...chaotic time."

Petyr had bred such delight into that very word: chaotic.

Gendry set his goblet of wine back on the table. He dared not look at her, so his eyes settled on his empty plate instead. She had entertained such thoughts before, but he still found the idea absurd. Beyond consideration.

"... I'm no king, m'lady. Not even a prince. Even if the people won't suffer King Tommen, there is still my- his uncle, Lord Stannis."

Petyr had even less flattering things to say about Stannis. All Sansa knew was the terror he inspired in King's Landing during the Blackwater.

"For now." The two words almost sounded like a threat against the other Baratheon, but Sansa only spoke them because she knew Gendry was right. The obstacles were insurmountable, and she could only drum up platitudes. "Even without the crown, something could be yours. You may not have birthright, but you have blood. It's been done before; Ramsay Snow holds Winterfell and he..."

She trailed off. What, exactly, was she offering him? Petyr had always said that she was the key to the North. That the Arya sent to Winterfell wasn't Arya at all, and that it was her marriage which would clinch the title of Warden of the North. Currently, that pleasure went to an absentee imp. But with patience and luck, Tyrion Lannister might find himself dead at his sister's hand. And she would be free to...

To what? Hand Winterfell over to Robert's bastard? It would be action, albeit one with little forethought.

"He's a bastard," Gendry said bluntly. "They say the Lord Commander of the Wall is a bastard as well." And our king as well.

"Even if I was the only one of the blood left, that would mean there's no kings left. I thought only a King could raise a bastard. That's how it worked for Ramsay, isn't it?"

Gendry would rarely omit a Lord from the title of his better. But Ramsay was a Bolton and the Brotherhood did not show any love for them. They deserved none. And besides that, as bastards went, Ramsay was even less notable than he was. I have king's blood. He has only a turncloak's blood.

Her gaze fell. She had to confess: "I'm uncertain as to how it works. All I do know is that everything is changing; nothing works the way it was supposed to. Not any longer."

The whole conversation made her reconsider Jon. She never hated her father's bastard, but she had always been cognizant of the fact that Jon brought shame onto her family. He remained separate because of it. But now she was sitting across a table from another bastard, pretending to be a bastard all on her own. Perhaps she should learn how it all worked, since she was supposed to be the very sort of person she professed to know nothing about.

Calmly: "I will have to ask Mya when she next visits."

He felt strangely uncomfortable. His identity had plagued him for over a year now, ever since he first left King's Landing. When the sorceress had taken him to Storm's End, his mind had entertained the idea that perhaps Stannis had some great use for him. That he might be acknowledged and made family.

That had never happened, of course. And his comrades in the Brotherhood had jested about 'King Gendry' enough to sour him to any thoughts of rising beyond his lowly birth.

So he focused on something else. "Mya?"

"You would have been accompanied on the trek up the mountain by a tall woman. Pretty, if only she would dress like a girl. Mya Stone...she..."

Was there any delicate way to put this? Sansa frowned. She groped for some coded way to tell him the truth. "In some ways, she looks just like you..."

He recalled this woman well enough, though he'd not spoken to her, being bound in chains at the time. In truth, he'd given her little attention at all Though she had been pretty. He did see that in her.

But he frowned, not quite grasping her meaning. "Should I be offended? Or should she?"

Edited 2013-12-10 05:25 (UTC)

"I hope neither of you would be." Sansa sliced through the crisp skin of her honeyed chicken. "Mya is your sister, Gendry."

"She's my sister?" He stared, unbelieving. He had only started to come to grips with the idea he had royal siblings. Ones that would want him dead, at that. But now a bastard sister as well...

"Did she know?"

"Maybe she's always known. No one treats it as news, here."

"But she led me here, anyway. I would have rotted in that cell if not for you. And she..."

Whenever I do get family, they turn on me in the end. The Brotherhood, Stannis, and now my sister. Would Arya have done the same?

"And she asked me to go to you."

Sansa supplied the end of his sentence with a sweetened ease. In a perverse way, she could feel her confidence growing. Was this how Queen Cersei felt at her own table, lording over all the news and conversation of the evening? She had demonstrated such control; Sansa had always been intimidated by it. Perhaps control came from the walls around you, and the Eyrie granted her some modicum of it.

That humbled him nearly instantly. His bitterness had grown think in the last few months, ever since his escape from Storm's End. Encouraged by the anger of the Brotherhood's own broken and hurt soldiers, he had fostered a resentment for the outside world. He'd grown to hate Lords and Ladies, despise kin that turned against their own. His own uncle had been named a kinslayer by some, by those who believe he murdered his own brother. The previous king and his hand were killed by the same man, now a kinslayer on the run. And for half a moment, he thought Mya might have been the same, even if only by choosing to turn an eye away from his plight.

He recalled that stupid boy he'd been back on the Street of Steel. He'd made himself a horned helmet, fancying that he'd one day wear it and earn some sort of acclaim beyond a smith's life. But now he was nothing more than a bitter fugitive, whom half the country wanted dead simply because his drunken father was a faithless womanizer who stuck himself into his whore of a mother.

Gendry saw predators everywhere and even now with Alayne, he found himself constantly watching her for her true intentions. Nobody was this nice. Nobody was this generous. And we bastards are the most treacherous of all.

"My apologies, m'lady. I didn't realize."

"I am not the one who deserves your apology."

Her words grew thick. Obscure. She had herself dismissed Mya a little too harshly upon first arriving in the Vale. Old habits died hard, and she was having trouble associating with anyone's bastard child, despite purporting to be one. Without Mya, she doubted she would have ever had the courage of conviction to seek out Gendry.

"Not that she would want it. An apology. She lives...rather rough. Apologies seem to be the least of her worries." But this was not the point she wanted to make by introducing Mya into the conversation. "My Lord Father tells me King Robert once hoped to bring her to King's Landing."

He knew about her; he loved her, in his own way. He could have loved you.

She seemed more like his family already. More so than his siblings in gold or his cold, distant uncle. This thought pleased him far more than Alayne's talk of winning a throne. Perhaps he'd be permitted to stay here. He could work their forge, making weapons as good as his master did. His sister would lead guests up the windy way and they'd be able to talk and share their stories together. One day they might have children who would be cousins together.

That could be a good life. One he imagined having with a sister he had only spied from the back of a mule.

But he could find no love in his heart for his father. "But she's still here. It's clear he never did."

It was easy to say your intentions and another to go through with them.

Sansa was never told the truth of why Mya Stone was still in the Vale. Petyr had told her much, but never this much. But there were a few things she could intuit directly, having lived under one woman's tyranny for so long: "The Queen would never stand for it."

Gendry had started to put his clues together. He had been visited by two Hands of the King. Both had inquired about his mother. They'd both taken considerable care in taking in his appearance. And both showed him some measure of kindness which, knowing what he did now, was because he was the son of their close friend.

And they both died shortly after.

"... Lord Stark. He denied King Joffrey. That was why he was executed. He renounced it before he died. But for some reason, he didn't think Joffrey should be king. That's how I've heard it. Is that true?"

Edited 2013-12-10 15:21 (UTC)

Sansa did not want to look Gendry in the eye. She wanted to take refuge in her plate, still half-full. But she had to be strong. I am not a little bird; I am a wolf. And wolves were brave, they faced reality with calm faces. So she nodded, not looking away from the bastard across the table.

"Every word of it. He cast doubt on King Joffrey's legitimacy, but it seems that legitimacy comes not from the blood inside you but from how much of your enemies' blood you can spill. The king had Lord Stark's head mounted on the walls."

He promised mercy...

"Because of me. He came to my master's shop. He came to look at me. He asked about my mother and looked hard at me. I didn't know why at the time. Lord Arynn, the Hand before him, had done the same thing. Lord Stannis had been with him at the time. They knew, didn't they? I was their proof. I looked like the King. All three of them saw it. Even the Lady of Tarth could see it. If they wanted to, all they had to do was show everyone me. Or Mya. Or whatever other siblings I have out there. That's why the Goldcloaks came after me. It's why Yoren and all the other men and the boys heading to the Watch had to die." It's why Arya never made it to Winterfell.

It all fit together at last. All of the strange occurrences were like pieces of a sword that all fit together after the fire had died and the steel had cooled. But the steel inside him was still raging hot. To know he had been some witless pawn in all of this angered him. He didn't know whether to be angry with the Hands of the King for bringing this all down on him, or whether he should be angry at his father for being so blind. Or perhaps he should blame it all on himself. Surely if Ned Stark had never met him, he would have simple let Joffrey rule in peace. Arya would have never lost her father, her brother would have never gone to war, and Yoren would have got to the Night's Watch with a batch of fresh recruits.

The sorceress had it wrong. I had no special purpose. Not even as a sacrifice. I was only born so I could bring hell upon the country.

How strange it was, to see an almost-stranger take the responsibility for her father's execution. In one first white hot moment, she wanted to be swept along with his blame. She wanted to blame him, too. Because blaming him would be easier than trying to find ways to blame herself. She had even written to Robb, begging that he bend the knee. But all along, even she had known: I will be his queen, and give him beautiful blonde-haired children; he will be a great king and a golden lion.

Joffrey was lion through and through, with not a drop of stag in him. Not like this creature across the table. Sansa tried to imagine what her father felt when he recognized his friend in Gendry's features. Was it anywhere near the double-edged hope that she felt?

She unknowingly played into the thoughts Gendry was already thinking: "They treat it like a game; Lord Stark became a piece, and you are not to blame for that."

Petyr had explained as much -- so tentatively that she managed to question how involved he'd been in the whole ordeal. But he was her one and only friend, so she could not afford to distrust him now.

Gendry had no words for the comfort she tried to provide. If he was not in the presence of a Lady, he'd find some way to channel his anger. Perhaps toss the table over. If he had a hammer and steel, he would let his fury go there. He longed to hear the steel sing and to feel his muscles ache with heavy blow. That was the only time he ever felt in control. But here, at this table, with fine foods and an even finer lady, he felt even more lost than he did on that boat that the old smuggler had set him upon.

Finally, he found some words that did need saying. They were low and mumbled.

"... if it pleases, m'lady. Might I be excused?"

"Go."

She lifted a dark-coloured cloth to her mouth and tried to bury her disappointment. Sansa had said too much too soon, and she had lost him. Perhaps this was why she was meant to remain a piece in the game of thrones, and never be a player.

"Mennow will see you to your rooms." She summoned the servant who had been outside the entire time. Listening, no doubt, so he could report to Petyr. She did not care. Better to be brazen under his nose than try to be stealthy.

Ronon Dex Stargate: Atlantis chewie	Wolverine X-Men (films) lumberjackman	Jack Horner Fables originaljackass	Ganondorf Legend of Zelda dragmire	Xander Harris BtVS xandman
Gendry Game of Thrones bullhorned	Carver Hawke Dragon Age anotherstory	Iskander Fate/Zero conquershearts	Isabela Dragon Age sixthings	Tyrion Lannister Game of Thrones impathy
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Lilly Pendragon Suikoden fortinto	Nathan Drake Uncharted selfnnamed	Will Turner PotC pirateblood	Zelos Wilder Tales of Symphonia wilderchoice	Arthur Pendragon Merlin (BBC) arturius

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