one fish, two fish, red fish, (blue fish)!!

[honorbends]

Who: The passengers of the Blue Fish and visitors!
Action: The Blue Fish!
When: It's a mingle for the month of January, losers!

[ mingle for the month for the blue fish, to meet up with new crew members, hash out stuff. come get free therapy from zuko, who has 100% put up a sign on his door saying 10 credits because allen owes him money. ]

Comments

[save_the_souls]

[He looks up when Sansa speaks]

...A few months now. I met him through a friend of mine. Um, Ino? I don't know if you've met her yet.

[steeledskin]

[ she shakes her head. despite this, she begins (ever so almost) to relax. of all the others on board this ship -- apart from her brothers -- ser allen is the one that's become the most familiar. she may yet barely know him, but in a sea of sudden newness he is the nearest thing to a known variable. ]

No. But Bran speaks well of her.

[ and that is quite important to sansa. ]

[save_the_souls]

I see.

[he can only imagine Ino will change that soon. She was the more social of the two of them after all. Not to mention, very invested in Bran's well being.]

He's very fond of her. I am too, she's my oldest and closest friend.

[....If you don't count Timcanpy anyway]

[steeledskin]

[ the weight of their generosity continues to press upon her shoulders. it isn't -- precisely -- that she doesn't trust the members of the blue fish. only that she remains acutely aware that their good-will is taken on faith. no vows have been sworn and no oaths have been taken. these are not her family's bannermen, and there is nothing barring this talk of friendship that keeps them from turning on the starks.

all three of them, now, under this roof. her heart begins to thunder at the thought of how dangerous it is to be collected together like this. but she tries to keep a fair head on her shoulders. ]

Did you know each other before the Fleet, ser?

[save_the_souls]

[Allen meanwhile remains unaware of this dilemma of Sansa's. As far as he was concerned, the Starks were part of his crew now. So of course he'd keep them safe. It was much like his Exorcist comrades back home. Even though he had left the Order, he couldn't imagine bringing any harm to them]

Mm, she was also at the place that I mentioned before- the place where I met Arya? [The crazy magic castle place] Both of us got brought there when we were teenagers, so we've known each for about eight years now.

[steeledskin]

Eight years is a terrible long time to be away from your home, Ser Allen.

[ her sympathy is cagey. careful. she almost prays to be away from westeros for so long. ]

[save_the_souls]

It is what it is. [His answer is careful in reply. It wasn't like he had a home to return to] I used to travel all the time in my world, so I'm more used to it than others.

[steeledskin]

What brought you to travel? [ curiousity is a clever weapon. it deflects the conversation away from her, and allows her to be polite as she does so. ] If you don't mind the question.

[save_the_souls]

[It's a question he gets regularly, so he has no trouble answering]

My father was a traveling entertainer, so I would travel with him from place to place. Then after he died, I joined the church and became an Exorcist. And that job required a lot of travel as well.

[steeledskin]

[ entertainer she understands: a mummer, perhaps. or a minstrel. but what of this other occupation? ]

Apologies, ser, but I'm not familiar with this vocation. What is an exorcist?

[save_the_souls]

You don't have to apologise, a lot of people aren't familiar with it.

[It's the way of things in a place like this]

To put it simply, it's a type of soldier. We specialise in combating demons and the undead.

[steeledskin]

[ soldier is no mystery -- and, indeed, she calls him ser as befitting a valued knight. but of demons! and the undead! it puts her in mind of old nan's stories. legends of the others far across the wall. ]

Our soldiers fight the living. [ ... ] What calls your dead to arms?

[save_the_souls]

Most soldiers do.

[Not him, he wants no part of actual war. It's why he went into medicine eventually when it was clear Exorcist did little to aid people in these worlds. But that was besides the point]

A man called the Millennium Earl. He's raised an army of undead with the intention of wiping out humanity. He's our main enemy.

[steeledskin]

He sounds daunting. [ but he also sounds -- well, easy to dislike. easy to hate. easy to inspire unity in the men who oppose him. for who would falter at the call to save all mankind? it's not like petty power squabbles over titles and land. ]

Has the war been a long one?

[save_the_souls]

[oh don't worry, they still manage plenty of petty squabbles all the while. People are people after all.]

Mm, a very long one. It's been nearly a century, I believe.

[steeledskin]

I do not think even Westeros has had a war waged so long, ser.

[save_the_souls]

That may be because most humans don't live long enough to wage that long a war.

[Fucking immortals amirite]

But I'm afraid I'm not the best person to ask about the war's history. [He gives a shrug] I was just a soldier, really. My friend Lavi was more the historian sort.

[steeledskin]

Beg pardon, but you're uncommonly well-spoken for someone who was merely a soldier.

[save_the_souls]

Am I? [He laughs]

Well...my first medical teacher did make me read a dictionary.

[steeledskin]

[ half-maester, half-knight. she does not know what to make of him -- but bran's friendship buys him leniency. ]

I've never read one. [ cautious. ] Is it good?

[ she thinks it's a story. ]

[save_the_souls]

[He shakes his head, a chuckle in his voice]

Ah- no. It's very dull. [To explain:] A dictionary is a book that is a list of almost all the words in a language, and their definitions. They're usually used just as a reference if you find a word you don't know- not something you read cover to cover.

[steeledskin]

Then Maester Luwin was my dictionary. [ ... ] If there was a word I could not read, I asked him. Or my Lord Father.

[save_the_souls]

Master Luwin or your Lord Father, huh? They must be very well educated.

[steeledskin]

Maester Luwin is. [ she smiles -- caught up in the explanation. so caught up, indeed, that she forgets her tenses. ] He studied at the Citadel, as all maesters do.

[ she'll not say anything else about her lord father -- he was well-educated but not, she fears, all that clever. that's what petyr tells her. ]