Call me Out

[dammitmasa]

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code by cawaii
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- 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 turned to leave, turning quickly so he could disguise the quiet rage brewing inside him. He found himself reminded of Arya's strange routine. Her silent prayer each night.

King Tommen. Queen Cersei. Roose Bolton. Walder Frey. The Red Woman. King Stannis. And Beric Dondarrion.

Perhaps that's where her comfort came from. He stopped at the door, because whispering names would never bring him any good. He had no Braavosi killer who he only had to whisper names to.

"Does your castle have a forge?"

[steeledskin]

Sansa had already stood from the table. She'd moved to the fireside, considering the merits of picking up this or that piece of embroidery. The busywork would see her through the night, as she doubted she would sleep. Perhaps she thought he'd already left by the time his question was asked.

When she looked at him, her eyes were wet. They hadn't yet dared to drop a tear. That would be for later, when the seriousness of her misstep haunted her most. When she was alone, again.

"Y-yes. Of course. Off the courtyard, but...it hasn't been used, I don't think, since Jon Arryn was in residence."

[bullhorned]

"Thank you, m'lady."

That night, he made the steel sing. The keep echoed with the blows of his hammer. Perhaps the Lord Baelish accept the noise with a small of resigned annoyance. But young Robin Arynn could not bear it. And so after two hours of work, one of the guards put a stop to it. When Gendry refused to stop, his nose was bloodied and he was escorted to his chambers to contemplate his mistake. Because of the incident, he was not permitted to leave his chambers. He had gone from one prison to another, though this new one was far more comfortable.

He did not get food as fine as his previous dinner, but he was allowed to break his fast on bits of sausage and rolls. He was prepared to eat it alone, even as he stared out his window into the open sky. Just as it had in the cell, it began to tempt him once again.

Come. Fly away and forget the games played by the highborns.

[steeledskin]

She knew. She knew it all -- and she wondered how Petyr managed to know so much more of what went on in an entire kingdom, when knowing just what went on in a small castle overwhelmed her. But she knew that Gendry was taking refuge in the forge he'd asked about because Robin did what he always did when he could not sleep: he ran to Sansa's chambers in the Maiden's Tower and he crawled into her bed. She resented his company. He was so vulnerable. His need frightened her, because she wasn't sure she could play the matriarch against all his fears and desires.

But she petted his hair and sang to him. Hymns and tales, snatches of things she'd created in her own mind during her loneliest hours. Robin asked about the peasant who made noises in the night. Was he their new blacksmith? Would he make him a sword, so long as he didn't make it at night? Sansa always dismissed Robin's questions; she didn't know how to answer them. He wanted to meet Gendry, but Sansa wanted nothing more than to keep Robert's bastard to herself.

At long last, the boy's demands became too much to handle. "I'll ask him, Sweet Robin," she whispered one morning when the young lord woke up, having stolen all her blankets in the night. "But I make no promises. Wait in the High Hall."

With trepidation, Alayne Stone dressed herself -- she hadn't had a handmaid to do that for her since King's Landing -- and took the winding stairs down to the next spire's entrance. It was a long walk from her chambers to his. And rightfully so.

This time, she had a servant to knock for her.

[bullhorned]

Nobody has ever knocked at my door.

But he rose to answer it. The servant dutifully announced the lady's arrival and then took his place at the side, once again staying in earshot so all could be reported to his master. Gendry, however, returned sullenly to his table and sat. It was not proper for him to do so. But he'd decided he no longer cared for what was proper and right.

Besides, he thought. I've as much right to sit on the throne as the bastard who does now.

His lip was still caked with the blood from last night and he had taken no efforts to wash it away or disguise it. Nor did he look up to look at her when she entered.

"I've found myself a new cell to stay in," he informed her.

[steeledskin]

The blood did not surprise her. She knew how hard steel was when smashed across the face. And she had heard Robin Arryn petulantly tell his guards to whack the offender if they had to. At those words, she knew Gendry's fate had been sealed. Men in armour ever seemed to be monsters, aching for someone to hit.

Worse yet, she saw his bruises as an indication of her broken guest right. She had promised him something she could never, ever deliver on her own. She was the Lady of this castle, but only by default. Tradition and loyalty truly ruled the Eyrie, and Robin Arryn had them on his side.

"All that's changed is the view, and even then..." Not by much. A part of her was glad he knew what she knew. That a guestroom could be just as caged-in as a cell, in its own way.

[bullhorned]

"In King's Landing, our shop was far from the castle. Our neighbors might grumble if we worked our forge at night." They often did so, when their orders exceeded the time in the day they had to finish it. "They were too afraid of us to do much of it."

But that had been a time when he did matter. Smiths may not be lords, but among the common people, they were somebodies. They had a trade and whether in war or peace, their work was highly prized. But in the world of nobles, they were like horses. If it went bad, you simply got rid of it.

[steeledskin]

"I never minded the sound..."

The Eyrie's towers lifted high above its forge. Robin's rooms might have been invaded by the noise, but hers had barely been. However, back in Winterfell had been a different story. The whole castle seemed to clump around Mikken's workshop, betraying the North's value for strength and steel above many other things. In Winterfell, she'd heard the ringing of his work since she was a baby. She may never have wanted to wield a sword, but she was comforted by the sounds of one being made.

"But there who mind it rather a lot. In the moment, at least. In the light of morning, Robin Arryn wants nothing but to meet you."

[bullhorned]

The name Arynn reminded him that even though Lord Baelish controlled the Vale, it was not him who truly ruled it. And he realized that Robin Arynn would be the son of the first Hand of the King. Gendry was wary of meeting another Lord, but he realized if he was to work the forge again, he would need more than the permission of a bastard daughter.

"He does? Why?"

[steeledskin]

"He's young. He's lonely. He doesn't know how to make friends."

Sansa felt for a moment that she was speaking about herself. So she shook her head and ventured deeper into Gendry's room. "I imagine his mother never allowed him to meet a smith."

[bullhorned]

A lonely lord. The idea seemed almost like a joke to him. How could a lord be lonely when people were spilling over one another to ingratiate themselves to him?

"I'll talk to him." As though I have a choice in the matter. "What should I say to him?"

[steeledskin]

"What do boys ever say to other boys?" She asked, indicating she barely knew how to converse with Robin on a good day. "Whatever you say, be gentle about it. For your own sake."

[bullhorned]

"Gentle," he repeated warily. It was strange to think that with Ned Stark's daughter, they wrestled like brothers. But with Jon Arynn's boy, he would need to be gentle. "Aye. I can do that."

Says the smith. There's nothing gentle about me.

[steeledskin]

"I am sorry," she said -- almost as an afterthought as she moved to lead him from the room. "I should have warned you. Or him. I can't help but feel that I'm at fault for..."

She pulled a kerchief from her sleeve. Sansa had learned to keep one on her person back in King's Landing, when blood was frequently on her face. She offered it to him, knowing it would help little when it was so dry and his wounds no longer fresh.

[bullhorned]

He was hesitant to follow, yet follow he did. When she offered him the kerchief, he hardly know what he was expected to do with it. She'd given him a blanket before. He knew exactly what that was for. But this dainty piece of cloth seemed next to useless in his rough, dirty and calloused hands.

"It's not the first time I've had my nose bloodied. I'm from Fleabottom, remember? A bloodied nose is how we say hello to one another. And a few knocked out teeth is how the knights tell us goodbye. I'd call myself lucky to have the former."

[steeledskin]

"...Is that really how it is?"

She once believed a knight to be beyond reproach, but now she knew better. Then again, she'd also wondered whether she was alone in how she suffered under the Kingsguard's blows.

"We should expect more from our knights."

[bullhorned]

What she spoke of was wishful thinking and though she might reprimand him for saying otherwise, he did so anyway. "Expecting more is how you lose your teeth."

[steeledskin]

She touched her jaw. Perhaps she should be grateful that Meryn Trant had never taken any of her teeth.

"I would rather not have the men of this house striking any guests. They will be spoken to."

[bullhorned]

He had nothing to say. Was he supposed to thank her for that? Maybe. But he wondered how much influence she truly had. She had got him free, but only, it seemed, to the great reluctance of her father.

"What's he like? This Lord Robin?"

[steeledskin]

"Sickly," she confessed. "Often petulant. He is only six."

He takes fits. But that felt like a personal piece of information. She would not want someone speaking of her in such a way to a visitor.

[bullhorned]

"A young one, isn't he? I've never been around children that small before." No children ever came by the forge, unless they wanted a hot coal tossed at them for their trouble. And certainly none as young as that. There had been that girl they called Weasel that tagged along with them, but she'd never spoke a word. It was easy to forget she was even around.

[steeledskin]

Sansa hesitated upon the truth. Could she confess that she has two younger brothers? Or would that spoil everything? Perhaps the truth need only be tweaked by a word or two: "I have half-siblings. Younger ones. But even the youngest was--is never so demanding as our Sweet Robin."

[bullhorned]

But you call him Sweet Robin all the same.

He wondered what she meant by siblings, though. He had seen no other children in the keep so far. Why were they not here with her?

"I don't have anything to give him."

[steeledskin]

"Promise him a toy." Much to her chagrin, her voice came out smug and certain. A little like how Petyr sounded when he seemed to be deliberating a point to her, whenever she was struggling to understand his motives. "He cannot complain about your work in the forge if you're working at his behest."

[bullhorned]

"A toy?" He'd never made toys. For a smith like Tohbo Mott, that was beneath his skill to bother with trinkets. Gendry wasn't anxious to try, but he knew that it was better to ingratiate himself to the little lord. "I can do that. It only means no sharp edges."