002 ♕ video

[wont]

[ The camera comes on and here is Alayne Stone (yes, the same Alayne Stone that supposedly bled all over her bedroom floor when demons still ran amok on the Tranquility). To her credit, she's looking much better (much more healthy than she probably has any right to be). But that's the beside the point.

The camera comes on and here is Alayne Stone and she dips, giving the same perfunctory bow that she is known to give upon greeting. Though an effort has made to make herself look tidy, her brow is pinched with worry. Her words are quick and, often, she looks off camera at something out of sight. ]

My good Tranquility, [ she says in greeting, her clip not terse per say, but approaching it. ] I am looking for a man. I— I do not know his name, but should he see my face he will remember our acquaintance.

Twice now he has come to my aid. [ He avenged my death. He gave me a terrible knife. ] And— and I find myself in need of his aid once again. [ A pause and then, squaring her shoulders, she looks into the camera and says simply (as if it were directly to the man in question). ] It is a matter of wolves. Please— [ She is about to entreat him, but thinks better of it. (He does not seem the type to be swayed by begging.) ] —do not remain silent. I know you watch and listen.

I will eagerly await your word. [ A pause and then Alayne dips again, more awkwardly this time (she wishes she could say more). ] —thank you.

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[wont]

[ Are you ready, Bran asks and speaks to her of some kind of sleep. Her confusion deepens as does her panic (Petyr is gone and Robb after him, with Grey Wind at his side, all of them lost; do not join them) but she works to keep the brunt of it from her expression, sparing her features from the creases of worry that would inevitably follow. This is something from a story, not a song or a poem, but a tale from beyond the Wall, something that Old Nan would whisper in the night to make Sansa's little brothers' eyes go wide. She should not give it credence, she should ask him to be quiet and no longer talk such nonsense, but the look on Bran's face is so determined and brave. (He is a child, she tells herself. And yet he strives to be so courageous when he knows I watch and I see.)

At the mention of sleep, Alayne rises again, but only far enough to move about the pillows on the bed and hoist Bran back so that he is settled against them in what seems to be a comfortable manner. Then again, Alayne knees, her hands smoothing the hair from his forehead and face.

Are you ready, Bran asks and the answer is no, but Alayne smiles at him and kisses him once on the crown of his head and then tells him: ] Yes, brother. I am ready.

[wolfdreamer]

[The press of her lips is brief, but Bran takes comfort from the kiss--a sister's kiss might give any brother courage, not only a child--and still more comfort from her smile. It is not one that should inspire strength--there is worry in it--but it is a smile, a Sansa smile. Sansa will allow him his chance.

So--bolstered by pillows and bolstered by both smile and kiss, Bran nods solemnly and shuts his eyes.

It is difficult to slip into even Summer's skin like this. It is easier when it comes as a dream, when Bran simply opens his eyes in sleep and finds the direwolf instead of the boy--he must remember how to do it this way, the way that is choice and not chance--

Lady. He thinks of Lady, pale and prim and pretty and still a direwolf for all that, with a direwolf's large paws made neat by courtesy that she took from Sansa. Only she was wilder here, more prone to disobedience, and she was growing, catching up with her brothers in the lengthening of her legs, and when she ran she would soon be able to keep pace with them, a pack running swift in the metal corridors--

And suddenly Bran finds her--like a cloak cut for someone else, stitched for them; he could fit in but he kept pushing out, and he clung to the wolf, tried to smell what she smelled, metal and blood and the air tastes of it, too--and her paws slippery on the floor and everything is dangerous and painful and lions--

And somewhere on the ship, a boy's chest rises once in a deep breath--and then even breathing shallows, and he falls still, stiller than one even asleep.]