driftfleet | [001 🐚 Video]

Who: Jeyne
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: Marsiva
When: 20th

[She should feel used to being told nothing. Her mother had prepared her for a life without answers and a lack of control in her future. It shouldn't surprise her to be taken away from her entourage and brought to a world not of her choosing, but there is nothing that could prepare her for this place. How did any of this happen? How did she go from being surrounded by an armed escort to being utterly alone in a foreign environment.

Stranger still, there was sense of understanding about where she found herself. This was space and she was on a ship among the stars. It would be simpler if this was a kidnapping, but it was something more than that, she knew that deep in her gut.

Disconcertingly, there was no one about, no one that she could question. Why would anyone want to watch her and what exactly were ratings? Why did she need to participate in whatever entertainment they had planned? More importantly, how did she know things that she never knew before?

Searching did little good. There was no one in authority and the place seemed to be silent, save for the music and screens playing in the background. There was at least one other option, if it could manage to bear fruit.

Fumbling with the device, Jeyne managed to turn it on, twisting it around until she was certain that she appeared front and center, clear for everyone to see.]

I can't seem to find anyone to tell me why I'm here. I keep hearing from the strange screens that I'm in some sort of game or performance, but that doesn't make sense. Why were we chosen and how did they bring us here?

My name is Jeyne. Can someone please help me?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Oh joyous day! She gets to gush about her brother and her husband!]

In fact, I did. He is the most wonderful man I know. Loyal and caring and sweet. I could not ask for more.

[She resists the urge to ramble on. Jeyne barely knows her, and she doesn't want to inundate her with her gushing already.

"I'm not used to that." If that doesn't raise a flag... Riona says nothing about it, but makes a mental note of that. She hopes that has nothing to do with Robb, or Lord Pouty-McPouterson was going to get a stern talking to.]

As well as he could be. [Considering everything.] I hope to see him again soon, when I return home. It's strange, living apart from him.

[Something they had in common. If the subject weren't painful, Jeyne would gush about Robb and Raynald as well.]

Marriage for love isn't really considered wise, but I'm so pleased to know that you found love as well.

[Robb and her siblings were perhaps her only source of warmth and happiness. Spending her life surrounded by those that she learned only later that she shouldn't have trusted did nothing but sour her memories.]

Is he older than you? Your brother?

[She snorts indelicately.]

Whoever said such a thing clearly was never in love.

[The concept is hardly new to her; she spent her whole childhood convinced she'd wind up hating her husband. But she'd been proven wrong, and she found Alistair, though being able to ever meet him came at a horrible price.]

Yes, about eight years. My mother had... difficulty conceiving. Needless to say, I was a bit of a surprise.

[She wishes she could agree.]

Do you think that it is wise, even if it costs so many lives?

[They seemed to have that in good company. Love often came at a cost. She was the reason Robb lost the North and later his life. It was rather hard to see much wisdom in her actions, only feeling.]

I imagine so. Do you and your husband have many children?

[Well that went in a different direction than she was expecting. Riona's brow lifts at the question.]

That's a bit more dire than I imagined. [She remembers Robb telling her about how he angered some lord when he married Jeyne. The pieces start falling into place.] Is that what happened? Someone opposed your marriage, to the point of violence?

[Children. A moment of pain flashes across her face before she schools it, shaking her head.]

We have not been married terribly long.

[Though that isn't the reason they haven't had children. As things stand, they never will.]

[She hadn't meant to turn the conversation towards such a dark place, but it was difficult to disentangle the idea of love matches with the fate of her own marriage.]

Robb was promised to another when we met. He broke that promise when he took me as his wife. The lords were insulted and turned against him.

[Had it simply been directed at her, she could have born it, but Robb...what they did to him was barbaric and monstrous.]

I don't regret being his wife, but a part of me... [she trailed off] forgive me, this is hardly the conversation after meeting for the first time.

[She understood Riona's pain all too well.]

I'm sorry if I raised a painful subject.

Yes, I heard, but... Maker, I can't believe that's what got him killed.

[She suspects there's a bit more to it than simply that, but she won't pry into such a painful subject.]

It's all right. [What she's referring to - talking about love matches or being unable to bear children - she doesn't say. She simply smiles.] We all have burdens and pains.

[There is more to it than this simplistic summary. Far more, but she doesn't wish to go further into the matter. Not until she knows Riona better and she has managed to see Robb again.

The stories of greed, cruelty and tragedy would wait until then.]

You and Robb are friends? Has he been here long?

Of a sort, yes. And he has been here about a year, I think. Give or take a few months.

[He was here when she had arrived, though she had never actually asked Robb when he first came.]

A year?

[A year in this world, a year without her. It hurt her to consider.]

If he wakes before the shuffle, will you tell me?

Of course. And I'll promptly let him know you're here as well.

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