#rp partner | bloodiedwolf

[devoutpriest]

bloodiedwolf:

‘ i don’t know any more. ’ it’s a lie, but it isn’t. arya knows the names. ( she sees the flashes, every time she closes her eyes. rise and run and eat with us. she jabs her fingers into the hole in her chest to draw them away bloody and maybe she knows more about it than anyone except the dead. ) still, her voice is oddly calm around the vicious anxiety knocking in her ribcage, the urge to bolt, to seal herself off completely. you won’t understand. you can’t. leave me alone. what do you want from me? she’s watchful to ensure none of it enters her mouth. watchful to ensure she doesn’t say anything that could be used against her later. ‘ they’re dead. there’s nothing more to understand. ’

i am the king in the north, robb remembered, as he slew people on the battlefield, wearing blood-spattered grey and silver armour. his hands are like a dolphin's flippers, he feeling the air around him as he grips his sword, he swiftly bringing justice to his enemies. he had remembered his vows to the freys, they doing battle with him, as he spoke to walder about marrying his daughter roslin and forming an marriage alliance. he had seen jeyne as a nurse in the field though, she having to amputate a soldier's leg, he seeing her work so tirelessly and thinking she brave, as they talk in the tent. there was a lot weighing on the young man's back, he feeling weighted by responsibility. he had seen fellow soldiers once bring in dead lannister boys, he feeling conflicted, as they were children -- yet they had said an enemy is an enemy. he touches arya's foot with his furred paw, she seeing this vision forming in her head.

[melodicwitchlight]

[devoutpriest]

her boot is nearly knee high, having marks on it, as she walked a long way with the hound. they had travelled to the twins from the green fork, where sandor had chopped off her hair ; a terrible hairdresser, she thought dryly. she hopes he wouldn't know her as the daughter of ned stark, yet how could he? she was cat, the daughter lagertha adopted. she wished she had known gyda, who she heard tales about from she and ragnar, and the priest before her talked about her with sad reminiscence as well. as she sometimes saw him pet a rabbit and speak to her, he saying she was gyda.

[devoutpriest]

his light blue eyes, glow white in his irised pupil as he says he wants to understand. as cat clasps her hands to her chest, wondering why this priest would speak so mildly yet was asking too much of her, asking anything of her. he was a stranger who didn't know her life. as her eyes wander, she thinking about what to do, her chest clamoring in hitched breath, she sees a brown turret of a house with fireworks in the night sky of kattegat, colours of aquamarine green and yellow and red. it was quite beautiful. she wears a beret to guise further she was a boy as she travelled with the hound, she recalled, as they saw the riverlands, not seeing the red wedding itself, yet she saw grey wind's head ( robb's direwolf, she remembered ) on a stick, and the freys laughing as fire flickered in celebration.

[devoutpriest]

bloodiedwolf:

there’s something dangerous about this priest’s kindness, arya decides, she gasping slightly in her mind of moth eaten brown ragged shift – the sort of person to whom one could end up telling ANYTHING, if they weren’t careful. she’s well-versed in lies and secrets, so she doesn’t, her eyes pale white, and he has an earnest face, pretty blue eyes like the ocean; the light shining on his concerned features – she doesn’t think he’s doing it on purpose, or out of any malice – but nonetheless, he’s asking too many questions. sooner or later, he might identify her, and she doesn’t know if she can trust him enough to risk that. she wishes her wolf nymeria was here with her, but she had escaped into the forest. after biting joffrey when her owner had defended her friend mycah from him. she had hit nymeria with rocks on the ground in haste, she seeing the wolf stare at her, as she said to nym, ‘go, they’ll kill you when they have the chance.’ the wolf had then scampered away, and she always wondered what happened to her, nym haunting her nightmares. the toe of her boot scuffs quietly under the table, eyes sharp on his face but yielding very little else ; she decides to disregard his query, instead responding with one of her own. ‘ WHY’RE YOU so interested in all this? ’

she had a point with her words, and they sound only marginally less harsher than ragnar’s confronting rebuttal of his question about the gods.

he thought about her response, for a long moment. he supposed it was his curiosity that wanted to understand about this event, interest that also interspersed into his knowledge gathered from his travels and books.

yet, there was also a need to know why people would do such brutal things, and it paralleled a little to lindisfarne. he knew now that the raid in lindisfarne was purely just that, to pillage and conquer. this situation of regicide dressed in the guise of a wedding, seemed FAR more complicated the longer he thought about it. it made some sense about POWER, but why at a wedding? his eyes look back to her sharp ones.

“i just want to understand, cat…“

[devoutpriest]

bloodiedwolf:

‘ THAT’S because he is. ’ perhaps, arya thought, that might have been too coarse, too blunt, too, but she gave no apology for what ought to have been a simple truth ; ambition and hunger ( for power, for knowledge, for MORE ) all but shone through the man’s eyes and dripped from his tongue every time she looked at him, every time he opened his mouth to say anything, it seemed to her, and it didn’t have to be a bad thing all on its own but – there was a reason she’d warmed to lagertha more quickly than to her husband. even so, when silence fell thick and heavy upon her ears, arya glanced down in turn, chewing at her lip ; wondering briefly if she shouldn’t retract the statement, before deciding against it. she was only saying what she saw – if others couldn’t see it, that was no concern of hers. she sees the bowl of soup pushed towards her by the priest, he sliding it across the table to her, yet makes no movement to drink. ‘ but haraldson’s dead, and ragnar’s not. ’ another truth, albeit perhaps less simple ; she’d come here to wash her hands and face and mouth of blood, only to find more. ( IT DOESN’T MATTER, a small voice in her head answered. THERE’S BLOOD AND BLEEDING ANYWHERE YOU GO, IT DOESN’T MATTER. ) her breath shook faintly on the next exhale, but her eyes were dry as a bone – the tremor more of restrained, caged anger than of trying not to cry. ( most days, it seemed as though she didn’t remember how to do that. ) ‘ they were the king’s bannermen. supposed to be loyal. only they weren’t. ’

it was true, that ragnar hungered for knowledge, and perhaps ambition, YES, did play into that. cat’s tone of voice made his mind wonder whether she held some grudge towards ragnar, for some unforeseen reason.

“ragnar DID win the battle of combat against haraldson, i saw. when all hope seemed lost, he seemed to suddenly strike back with a renewed strength.”

he had been stabbed by haraldson, he holding his wound, red blooming on his white shirt, and then...the strength of odinn coursed through his body, he living to fight another day, fighting through his agonised pain. he was near to valhalla...he sensing the valkyries, the sky looming closer to him with crows circling the sky, yet he remembered his family.

cat’s next response made him think that was even WORSE, than if they were merely acquainted with each other. to pledge a fealty, ·to swear to serve until their dying breath and live within amity with each other, only to back-stab their lord in the worst way imaginable…

“to stray so far from being subject to the law, that is surely unforgivable. and did they have a name, these bannermen?”

[devoutpriest]

bloodiedwolf:

‘ WHY DOES anyone do anything? ’ the hole that it had dug out in her chest seemed to grow in revisiting it, cold and numb, and might be it turned arya’s tongue sharper than she would have liked, sharper than athelstan deserved or wanted – but she made no real venture to soften, either. LET HIM BE SCARED OF ME, she thought, IF ALL HE’S GOING TO DO IS ASK STUPID QUESTIONS. ( the truth of the matter was, though, that SHE didn’t have a good answer to the question either, not really – she could understand death all she liked, and hate, and anger, and grief, but base cruelty continued to escape her ken. all she knew for true was that the wolf, the beast, the ugly thunder in her still wanted to kill them all. ) ‘ power, most like. kill the king and his throne’s open for anyone. seems to me the wedding was an excuse. easier to break guest right than it was to kill him in battle proper. PROPERLY. ' a shrug – it felt wrong, being so callous as this, but CAT wasn’t ANYBODY, and had no brothers, no mother ( save, she thought, for lagertha, and björn, but that was different ). ‘ people like that don’t know what honour means, or they don’t care. ’

“ … ”

it was a more hostile reaction than athelstan had expected, and he is momentarily speechless, mouth slightly open and bluish eyes flick- ering down a little. after a moment, he nodded in an attempt to understand.

as he heard the destructive yet surely tempting POWER suggested to be the instigation for the slaughter, he sighed a little, having experienced witnessing suspicion of such motives during his time in kattegat, and of the monastery raid. the thinly veiled animosity and then unmasked hatred that grew between earl haraldson and ragnar, had been a new experience. it had been a notable contrast to the relatively consistent peace in lindisfarne.

“ i remember the earl once here accused ragnar of being ambitious. and, it is truly horrible to hear of this regicide and before their time too. there is a time to die for every being, but THIS…their lives were claimed so CRUELLY. it reminds me a bit of…”

his voice then trails off, not certain whether cat will want to hear of more murder. it would be best not to frighten her, make her feel less safe here. he ladles thick soup onto a spare bowl lain on the wooden table, gently pushing it toward her. maybe she would be hungry during their little talk.

“ it does…seem that way, yes. did they know the murderers well beforehand? ”

[devoutpriest]

bloodiedwolf:

AND WHO ARE YOU, THE PROUD LORD SAID – it almost shuts her down and off, the question, hollowed heart thumping hard against her ribs ; arya swallows through the tight closing of her throat, blinks, nods. THAT I MUST BOW SO LOW? the chill never quite fades from her skin, but it grows and lessens by each day ; here, it comes back sharp, and for a moment her voice vanishes, eyes dulling and the smell of ash and burning and blood in her nose, a boy with a wolf’s head, a sharp thud at the back of her head, a body in the river bleeding from the throat, rise and run and eat with us – MINE ARE LONG AND SHARP, MY LORD, AS LONG AND SHARP AS YOURS – it’s over, but not for her ; she has to blink several times more, breath strained in her chest, callused and warped fingers curling into her skinny, scarred thighs under the table before she rem- -embers where and when she is in full, before she can chase away the ghosts. IT’S NOT REAL. IT’S NOT HERE. I’M NOT – BUT NOW THE RAINS WEEP O’ER HIS HALL, WITH NO ONE LEFT TO HEAR. ‘ AT the twins. ’ THEY KILLED MY BROTHER AND MOTHER. ‘ they killed the king in the north, and his lady mother, and all their men. ’

athelstan waits patiently for a response to accompany her nod of confirmation, his eyes looking attentively to her. then, he sees her blinking slightly rapidly, and concern forms in his mind. perhaps, that wasn’t the best question to ask her, it seemed to trigger a memory she may have preferred to forget.

upon hearing cat answer his question, he reels away slightly, not having expected such brutality at a wedding. “W-WHY would they do that? what purpose does it serve them, from killing their guests?”

his voice trembles, in utter shock that they would dare to do that, in an event of celebration and unity. it reminded him a little of when the vikings had mercilessly butchered his brothers, and father cuthbert.

[devoutpriest]

bloodiedwolf:

‘ I DIDN’T stay. ’ the return is blunt – and, not quite truthful – but not unkind, entire ; the seam of arya’s shoulders folds in a narrow shrug, and she shifts her weight to distribute better, more evenly, across angular, still halfway to emaciated bones. she wears brown fur as a shirt ( lagertha feeds her, but the growth that should stem from it is a long way off, yet ; and some things, starvation may ALWAYS leave stunted. ) ‘ king’s landing’s full of liars and thieves, and not just in flea bottom neither. and there was a war in the riverlands, when i left. ’

her answer is short and not giving away much information, the opposite of what athelstan expected. he would have thought that she would have tales of adventure, of all the things she witnessed in both lands. a two syllabic question—WHY NOT?—just barely starts to form on his lips, when he hears cat soon follow her initial answer with a response that answered it. at her words; A WAR IN THE RIVERLANDS, he recalls the chatter circulating about a wedding, amongst the people in king’s landing. he wasn’t quite sure if cat meant that, so… “…do you know if the war involved a wedding?”

[devoutpriest]

bloodiedwolf:

THE NORTH, arya thinks, tongue bitten to the priest's query of her travels ; the people of this place seem to take no holding in the matters of westeros, but it nonetheless remains so that winterfell is ARYA’S answer, not cat’s, and she can trust a man who proclaims himself a traveller least of all. ( those who have never once left kattegat, or else have raided only to other lands that have naught to do with her former homestead, those are harmless – but if this one is more familiar with the places from whence she came, if he travelled the roads of westeros or even through the free cities, he may be familiar with the stark name, too, the traitor rebel family to the lannister reign, and with that, like a curse laid under her skin, comes risk. ) ‘ WESTEROS, ’ she provides, instead, branching out more vaguely ; scarred, callused fingers skimming IDLY at the edge of the rough hewn table that hems in, at present, her legs, her mind a swordfight with her instructor, syrio forel. quiet as a shadow, swift as a deer, fears cuts deeper than swords. ‘ the riverlands, and king’s landing. ’ THE RIVERLANDS, WHERE THEY MURDERED MY MOTHER AND BROTHER, AND KING’S LANDING, WHERE THEY MURDERED MY FATHER. ' they had killed catelyn and robb at her uncle's wedding, and executed ned in the town square, janos slynt chopping his head off. she had seen the blood on the sword, the birds flying to the sky in alarm of swift death, yet a man had said gruffly to her to not look -- she would have looked anyway -- yet he had dragged her away, kicking and screaming.

WESTEROS. Ah, YES. The name is immediately made familiar to him, when Cat spoke it, as was King's Landing. He had travelled to this famed city once, had a brief stay there to spread the Word of God. “I have visited King’s Landing before, yes. It is quite beautiful and large…although, I cannot say I have visited the Riverlands yet. What did you think of it and King’s Landing, Cat?”

[devoutpriest]

bloodiedwolf.

“ I too have travelled, Cat. If you’d like to tell me, which lands have you been to? ” Athelstan tentatively smiles at Lagertha’s adopted daughter, hoping that she would take as kindly to him as Gyda once had, he in sorrow about his darling dragonfly dying. He had a photo of Gyda in his bedside table now, as well as a blond haired rabbit named after her.

He had been reading his now rather dusty Holy Gospel of St. John, edges of page crumbling a little, before the thought had occurred to him to ask this question. He is in Nehemiah, who was the son of Hacaliah, who felt the holiness of God's presence through his prayers.

There is a polite curiosity hinted in his tone, of wanting to hear if the places she may divulge would have been ones that he had been to or heard about. It was also a good conversation icebreaker, in his opinion, to get to know her better as well.

[melodicwitchlight]

[melodicwitchlight]

[melodicwitchlight]

[melodicwitchlight]

[melodicwitchlight]