Call me Out

[dammitmasa]

Faded characters are currently inactive. Please do not call them out!

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Full Journal List

code by cawaii
- Refer to the list above for an active muse. -
- To call them out, put their name in the subject line. -
- Prose or commentspam are fine! -
- 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 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."

[steeledskin]

A servant held open a door that would lead them to a brief walk outside, straight over to the main tower. The High Hall practically took up an entire ground floor.

"A play-sword, perhaps. Lord Robin will never go to war." Sansa doubted he'd live until his next name day. "But he would play at it."

[bullhorned]

It was still strange to have servants who opened doors and tried to blend into the background so as to be unnoticed. It unsettled Gendry, as he'd always tried to do the same around his betters.

But now he was walking with a lady to meet another lord. And she called me Gendry Waters before.

"Even a dull sword can do harm and I don't do woodwork."

[steeledskin]

Who could Robin harm?

But she thought better of the question before she gave it voice. The boy had wrecked so much. She still mourned for her snow castle.

"Armour, then. Or anything. It doesn't matter much."

[bullhorned]

"I could make a helmet. A proper one. Shaped like a falcon."

He thought of his own helmet, now long abandoned. After he made the little lord's helmet, he might try and remake his own.

[steeledskin]

"...Really?"

Mikken had never made armour shaped like anything else. The North was filled with steel, but it was all so stale and serviceable. "Won't that be difficult?"

[bullhorned]

Gendry, for a rare moment, smirked to be able to brag about his own skill. He was no master smith, but he knew well that he was better than most.

"It will take some doing. But my master learned me well. Tohbo Mott was the best smith in the Crownlands."

[steeledskin]

She paused outside the High Hall's doors. They would not be opened until they were both prepared, she decided. And she was still not prepared to share him with the lordling. Robin would grow attached, she suspected, and custom would allow Gendry to spend more time with him than with her. She would lose him.

"How old were you when you were first apprenticed?" Her voice has dropped to a secretive whisper, for fear of alerting the boy beyond the door.

[bullhorned]

Gendry did not understand the pause, nor the reason for whispering. He looked at the door, wondering who might be on the other side waiting. Was it just the boy?

"... I had six years," he answered in his own whisper. "Near the end of the last winter."

[steeledskin]

"I was five when winter ended." She sounded surprised that they were so close in age.

[bullhorned]

"There's snow on the grounds. I saw it when I came to the Keep. Last night, as well." There had been some snow before that, but it wasn't until he arrived in the Eyrie that there had been enough to truly accumulate on the ground. Only soft blankets had covered the ground before, accumulating in the evenings and dying by the next day's sun.

"Winter is coming. Those are the Stark words, right? My father's words are Ours is the Fury. Seems more fearsome, don't it? At least up until the snow shows up."

What good is fury in the face of winter?

[steeledskin]

"Every house has words of strength. Words to make their owners feel bigger. The Starks..." She pressed a hand against the door; she would open this one herself. "Theirs are the only words of warning, I think. It makes it all seem so inevitable."

She lifted her chin. She composed herself. And she pressed into the High Hall with honour on her mind: "As High as Honour. Arryn's words. Lord Robin, I would introduce to you Gendry Waters. The Eyrie has a smith again."

The boy was on his throne; it swamped him. It made him look even frailer than he already was. And he sat huddled on his seat, with barely a care for the two who had just entered. It was almost as though he hadn't heard them at all.

[bullhorned]

Gendry Waters. She was going to introduce him to the Lord of the Eyrie with a bastard name. It did not make him noble, but it made him so much more than he had been before. It made him nervous as he strode into the great hall. And then there was the boy...

He was a poor, meek little thing. Even Weasel looked to be more alive than this boy did. This is the Lord Protector of the Realm? Gendry wondered how it was that grown men could learn to suffer having little children as their rulers. Presently the king of all seven kingdoms was a boy hardly older than this one.

"M'lord," Gendry said. He did not look the boy in the eye. "I'm honored."

He then realized he should take a knee, so he did so.

[steeledskin]

Signs of fealty were like sweeties to Robin Arryn. He gobbled them up, and finally found the sense of self to grin at the bastard boy kneeling at his throne. Alayne Stone did not kneel nor did she curtsey, but Robin suffered it because she was sweet and she sang to him and she let him crawl into her bed when he was cold and frightened. Even now, he teetered off his seat and rushed to her skirts. Claiming her, in his own childish way.

"Now, Sweet Robin," she chided him with a honeyed voice. A mother, cajoling a son. "This isn't very lordly!"

It was an act. She wasn't the quiet and thoughtful girl she'd shown to Gendry, but a vibrant creature prone to smiling. This was the biggest lie of all, and it was an exhausting one to maintain. "Tell Gendry about what you found in the godswood, yesterday."

Robin was persuaded to stand on his own two feet, separate from Sansa. And he shared his news with such earnestness: "A hare! We found a hare, but its fur had gone all white -- all white! Alayne says they turn like that when winter is come."

[bullhorned]

The difference was striking. She was so solemn before. Conspirative in a way. More than that, she had struck him as so utterly alone. She had a detached way about her that seemed as though she was all alone in the world.

But this Alayne was different. Like an entirely different person. Which is the real one?

Gendry did manage to smile. "She's a smart lady, m'lord." He ventured to stand on his own feet as well.