01. Oh not this again.

[bullhorned]

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)

Comments

[steeledskin]

"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.

[bullhorned]

"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."

[steeledskin]

They do in the stories.

Outlaw knights were always counted in the stories -- perhaps not by those around them, or by the powers at large, but wasn't that the ultimate point of the story? To prove these hedge knights and barely-knights legitimate by perseverance, by bravery, and by goodness. And yet she knew the stories were as untrue as anything else she'd thought as a child. So maybe it was a good thing that Gendry did not think himself a knight. Knights could be monsters.

She steadied herself and (at long last) decided to apply a bit of manners she'd learned since arriving in the fleet, asking: "What would you like to be called?"

[bullhorned]

"Call me what you like."

It wouldn't matter, if he could manage to convince himself of that. Perhaps if he stayed on this planet, then her ship would continue on and leave this port behind. Then at that point, she could call him anything she liked, because it would no longer matter. It wasn't what he wanted, but what he really wanted was gone now. It was no use thinking on it.

[steeledskin]

She didn't like the power he offered her -- to choose a name, regardless of rank or privilege or even regardless of whether they ought to be consorting at all. But within the fleet, she'd come to accept a certain low standard of greeting. Of given names, of abandoned titles, and of a friendliness that no longer came naturally to her. But she would fit in better if she at least tried to emulate it.

"Gendry, then," she exhaled. A bare and naked sounding name without anything around it. But she did not offer him the same familiarity in return. So few called her Lady Sansa in this place that perhaps she ached to hear it again.

[bullhorned]

It made him uneasy to hear her say his name with so little familiarity. Had he the choice, she'd just as well not say it all. He'd forfeited that already. So rather than linger, he nodded curtly.

"If you don't mind, m'lady, I've work what needs doing."

[steeledskin]

"C-certainly," she stammered. And betrayed a trickle of sadness. But why? Perhaps it was her curiousity that was still unsatisfied, or else the bereft feeling when she understood how she could not reach for his hand and sense, again, that wellspring of concern she'd experienced when he had first helped her to her feet. She thrived upon the possibility that someone might feel so protective of her -- and yet was surprised to see it in a stranger. She was intrigued, but smart enough not to pursue it too ardently.

Sansa curtsied. "Let me bid you a good day, then. I remain obliged to you for your aid."

[bullhorned]

He shook his head. "It was nothing. You needn't remember anything."

It would be preferable if she didn't. If it could be managed that he could avoid her from this point on, then it was all the better. With little reason to stay put, he began to plod off in the direction of the forge. It was always easier to think (or not think) when he was at work.