driftfleet | 01. Oh not this again.

Entry tags:

01. Oh not this again.

Who: Gendry
Broadcast: Nope
Action: SS Golden, Planetside
When: Today and June/July

The Golden

He hadn't been on the Marsiva all that long, but he had been on the vast ship long enough to come to the conclusion he didn't care for it at all. The food was strange and it all reminded him a little too much of the Station, which he'd never really liked all that much in the first place. More than that, he'd noticed how different things were around here. It reminded him of blood granite, though he didn't really mind that part all that much. All that business with Shards had always been an enormous headache equal only to the amount of times he banged his forehead in the tunnels of Troichean Beinn. Still, he hadn't been prepared for being in space. He hadn't figured out how to deal with that, so he'd made the decision not to.

When he arrived on the Golden to fanfare and annoying bits of confetti, the first thing he did was scowl. The second thing he did was find a direction to glare at and then scowl a little bit more. It was not that Gendry was extremely upset, it was just that brooding was something of an art form for him and he was at his best when boiling in sullen silence. All thanks to a bit of a chip in his head, he now knew exactly what he ought to be doing. So after mumbling his greetings to anyone who just so happened to be about to welcome him, he found himself in the engineering room. There were a few tense moments where he tried to grasp exactly what it is he was looking at, why he seemed to know so much about it, and if that was the sort of thing it was worth getting worried about. In the end, he decided that as long as he had valid reasons for hitting, then he might as well get on with it. There was a valve that he could instinctively see needed a great deal of banging, so he did.

Don't Hug Me I'm Scared

By the time the first native had got around to giving him a reassuring hug, Gendry had concluded that he now knew of three worlds he held a deep contempt for, which coincidentally happened to be all of the ones he'd experienced so far. But it was better than the ship, so he simply took extra care to watch that no one got close enough for any unexpected proximity. After spending a few hours wandering about the market area of one of the primary settlements, Gendry had found exactly where he ought to be. He'd found a smithy and after talking up his own experience (he'd apprenticed with dwarves after all!), he'd found himself gainfully employed and under the incredibly misguided idea that he had simply found a new planet to live on, this was how the rest of his life was going to be, and that he'd better just decide to be happy with it because that's simply how it was.

Rather than engineering as he was supposed to be, Gendry spent quite a lot of time making whatever was required of him, though it generally tended to be of the more mundane tool-like variety. When he wasn't working, he was finding places to buy his meals, trekking back to his private treehouse in an attempt to avoid risky hugs, and not actually paying all that much attention to the forests because he'd only just been in a world chock full of magical forests and this one didn't really seem all that exceptional to him.

(ooc: Gendry will just be here and there, trying to start his life entirely over because this is just the sort of thing that tends to happen to him. Find him at a smith, or out shopping, or trying to shoo little native children from trying to hug his leg because why)

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Having seen battles on the Drabwurld, he knew just how true she spoke. The defense of Cothromach had demonstrated that very plainly. He'd never been one of those individuals, but he'd become stronger there. Thinking about it left him to touch the bracer on his left arm. That was all he had now. No enchanted shield, no Valyrian steel axe, no dragon-hide armor, no air conditioned helmet, and no inner Shard to provide him strength, speed, and magic. All he had left was his skill at the forge and the small bit of magic that had followed him here. He should have hesitated to proclaim where his loyalties might lie, but he'd nearly forgotten why he should have any at all.

"Do they bother fighting at all? Don't seem much point in it up there in those metal ships, unless it's to try and make more room."

"There was fighting not too long ago. A man went mad -- he hurt a lot of people." Sansa could not bear the bad posture found in hugging herself, so instead she clasped her hands tighter. She didn't know much about Winter, barring a few awkward meetings. But she knew people got injured. And she knew many said it wasn't even the man's fault. But she couldn't quite fathom why they weren't angrier with him.

"Did he hurt you?"

This was a pointed question. Gendry wasn't so concerned with the rest of them, but he knew her enough to see it had meant something to her. It was not easy trying to maintain any kind of distance, but he'd been her shield. He never swore an oath, that much was true, but he'd been prepared to consider it. His fingers looped around the iron bracer, if only to keep him from plunging a hand into a pocket where a small pinned silver shield was present.

-- Why should he care? Indeed, at first she thought it might have been some connection to her family, but he'd chased that idea off when he'd spoken so cryptically about Arya's safety. Sansa blinked, taken aback and caught between confused and concerned.

"N-no. It happened on the Iskaulit; I don't go there." Indeed, Gendry's pointed question made her so uncomfortable that she shared more. "But I had met him once or twice before and he'd never seemed mad."

Spared any absurd desire to go and inflict some retribution, he was able to relax. His hands fell away again, only they had nothing to do, so they were instead crossed across his chest. Her wariness was grating on him. He'd stomached it before, because even that long road south from Dorchadas had only just been enough for her to tolerate his presence. It was worse now, because he knew why.

"They don't always show it," he commented mildly. In truth he wasn't really paying that much attention to what she was saying now. Most of the mad men he knew had belonged to the Mountain and none of them had ever made their cruelties much of a secret.

They don't always show it. And Sansa knew it to be truth -- only she didn't like speaking that truth aloud. It was the kind of honesty she shied away from, unwilling to let others see her as broken. Damaged. They saw it regardless of how hard she tried to hide it -- but now she seemed doubly dismayed with some stranger chancing upon that information. So she nodded.

"As you say, I suppose," she tried to sound bored. And maybe just a little bit stupid. "Although, in this instance, it was the Atroma who made him do it. They hold power over us."

He'd heard about this from Kitty already. This idea that things could be done to people by their augments was uncomfortable. In truth they seemed little different from the king and queen from the Drabwurld, though they had the decency to hold audiences.

"I'd heard that. Augments." He said the word as explanation and as a kind of mysterious bogeyman meant to be feared, even if not properly understood.

She resisted the urge to touch hers -- that strange, foreign growth on the back of her neck. Like someone got under her skin and left something there, protruding out of her. It was horrible. Some nights, if she didn't lay her head down just so, it was impossible to sleep.

"I hope they gave you something you're pleased with, at least," she muddled through a courteous statement.

He remembered questions like these, because they were always hollow. Back then, he hadn't realized that yet, but it was now strikingly obvious. This was not a conversation. It was biding time. He doubted she cared much at all about his augment. He certainly didn't.

"You don't need to stay and talk," he said brusquely. "It don't bother me none if you want to go."

If anything, that would be easier. She could forget about this meeting and he might just well do the same.

-- She looked stricken. Surprised, again, by how easily he read her expression. The young man hadn't seemed altogether too bright. But maybe she'd underestimated him. He spoke out of turn, and he spoke brashly. He spoke familiarly. And even still, she could not shake the way he reminded her of Arya. Once upon a time, that would have frustrated her to no end (and even still, it frustrates her a little) -- but in this place, surrounded by so many of these strangers, she can take a little solace in the familiar.

Sansa very nearly dismissed him outright. She paused only to ask: "Wait. But...are you friendly to my House?" Truly? Should she be so fortunate to find someone who cared for the Starks?

She cannot help but think of allies. And think, too, on how much tender concern Gendry had shown in the moment she had fallen. There was a political seed there to be sown.

Edited 2016-07-04 12:09 (UTC)

He stood there lingering on that question, his brow scrunched up while he pondered the question. Anytime he had to really think about anything, he always did so in a very obvious manner as though it was a very taxing effort. But when he'd chosen his words, he only shook his head.

"I don't make friends with houses, m'lady."

That was no lie. If he had ever had any loyalty, which he wasn't sure he ever had, then it was certainly not based on a name.

"Then my sister. One of my brothers."

She did not for even the barest sliver of a moment consider that she could be the object of his friendship. Sansa simply did not possess many friends, and those she did possess were either dubious in nature -- or they were other young women, here in the fleet. Certainly, she'd never befriend someone like him.

"Only, I..." hope you are. Those who shared her blood needed friends, and that moment in which they'd held hands had imprinted something deeply positive on her. As though he were the sort of friend a person might like to have. She wished that on her family, even if she couldn't spare enough hope for herself. "Only, I'm certain Arya at least must like you."

It wasn't flattery. Only it wasn't not flattery, either. And maybe a compliment might hook him. Keep him near.

The second time he had met Arya, she had forgotten him. He wondered if this might yet be a third, especially if she had not thought to make mention of him already. So he stood pensive and thoughtful, willing himself to say more but finding himself unwilling to do so.

"I hope so," he concluded at last. "If she knows me."

He wasn't entirely sure that anyone would. It was a strange feeling to confront.

Her mind sometimes worked quicker than her heart did. Sansa paused, and spoke aloud an assumption that was easy to make -- and easier to say, these days, now that the Fleet had made the impossible so possible.

"You think she won't -- because the Fleet hasn't brought us all here on equal footing." She knew it because Robb had been out of step. Because Arya was, indeed, not of a moon with her siblings. Sansa had simply grown accustomed to being the furthest along in the timeline. But what if...

"What year is it? Who sits the Iron Throne?"

Gods, what year was it? His mind first went to the Drabwurld and the month and day it had been. Those meant nothing here, though. So he had to think back further than that, back to Westeros and the war that didn't seem to end.

"Three hundred. Snow had just started to come to the Riverlands. As for the Iron Throne, some boy king called Tommen." He didn't know who the boy was in truth, just that there were rumors of him being some bastard of incest. "And you?"

She hadn't denied being Sansa Stark, so he wondered if she had ever even become Alayne.

"Tommen, yes," she confirmed. Which meant that the young man named Gendry was at least as far along as she was, as Jon was, and as the Imp was. Perhaps even as far as Bran, though she found it difficult to accurately pinpoint her younger brother's place in all of this. Sansa went silent while she tried to run the math behind her eyes. She could be clever, but she was bad at showing it.

"He's been on the throne for some moons, now."

"Seems right," he agreed. "Heard his brother was murdered."

More than that, he knew of who was accused. Among the smallfolk, lots of rumors tended to circulate. The imp, the imp's wife, an ironborn plot, the king's own mother or wife, or just as many other wild implications. He knew she was innocent of that, but that did nothing to stop him from giving her a very pointed glance.

She did well to hide the fear in her eyes. The way he looked at her! She could swear he was trying to exact some form of confession -- but how was he to know? Sansa had told no one. None knew but herself, Petyr, and the Queen of Thorns. All else were dead.

"Poisoned," she answered -- choosing carefully how much truth she must use to mask the things she didn't want to say. "At his own wedding. I heard the bells."

With that, he looked away. There had been no point in even asking about it, save that he was only interested in what she would say about it. After how long it had taken for her to trust him with anything, it became an unwieldy burden to share confessions she didn't remember giving. He felt spiteful enough to keep using them, but even he knew that wasn't fair to her. She hadn't forgotten by choice.

"Just as well," he murmured. "No one's like to miss him."

Certainly, she harboured no vestigial love for the king who'd ordered her beaten. Who'd ordered worse, still. And the day he died had held a perverse feeling of triumph, despite the confusion and the chaos. But she furrowed her brow when he muttered his quasi-treason.

"You ought to be more careful," she chastised him. Made bold, perhaps, by every strange moment in this conversation. His concern, his vague notion of knowing her, and the way he knew her family. "There are none in the Fleet who would begrudge you such talk, but -- that may not always be true."

All it would take would be someone else arriving. And unlike her, he'd been foolish enough to claim no loyalty to any house. Who would protect him? Even strong young men could be cut down by power. Armies or no armies.

At long last, Gendry seemed to grin. It was a tired and defeated sort of smile, seen in how it did not truly reach his eyes. His brief chuckle was sardonic.

"I'm an outlaw and a king's bastard, m'lady." He at last looked her in the eyes again and his smile faded. "I'm treason through and through. Why stay mum about it? They'll have me dead for one reason or another, seems only decent I give them some variety."

-- His bravery (indifferent as it was from stupidity) nearly made her tremble. He should keep his voice down; he shouldn't smile; he should at least look contrite, she thought, when he speaks. But then the dots begin to connect in the back of her head: a king's bastard. And when she saw him first, she thought he'd looked eerily like another man.

Of course, that other man wasn't a king. Lord Renly might have proclaimed himself as one, but it was all vanity. But King Robert, on the other hand! Sansa knew of how the bastards had been purged in the city. And she knew another natural born daughter, besides. And so she looked long and hard -- straight into Gendry's eyes. For a moment, she thought she saw Mya Stone staring surly back at her.

"Your father -- he was...?"

Sansa was craven. She couldn't bring herself to say it. She relied on him to say it for her.

"King Robert, aye." He nearly spat the name out for how much disgust he felt. "Not that he ever knew I was born."

He'd had a long time to harbor a resentment towards the man who never raised him, but now he had a name and face to give that figure. The fact it was a fat drunken king who'd once nearly ran him down made that resentment all the stronger, especially as it had gotten him nearly killed more than a few times after.

"I see it, now," she replied in a voice only a hair's breadth above a whisper. Sansa sounded nearly apologetic in her realization -- as though, mayhaps, she ought to have seen it from the outset. Truth be told, seeing him in this new light was the first instance of genuine nostalgia she'd felt since early on in her arrival among the fleet's passengers. Sansa has made a few good-hearted friends, here. She'd nearly forgotten Mya Stone.

But now, in a sudden instant, she missed the strange rough-mannered woman who'd claimed an owl for her father. And she missed Myranda, too, who'd always insisted that Mya should join them in their little social endeavours.

"I'm sorry, s--" Ser. But her mouth snapped shut. It might be she shouldn't call him by that title, or by any. She appeared stricken and uncertain as to how to proceed.

"For what? I don't wear no antlers. You won't see any stags on my clothes." He did not make a point of it, which itself was the point he was trying to make. He may have earned the right to name himself a Baratheon, but few would catch him making an effort of it. It was likely no one would ever know, if not for the fact that was how the fleet registry listed his name.

"You need not call me ser, though. I was knighted, but he was an outlaw too. Seems likely outlaw knights don't count."

01. Oh not this again.

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