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.

Comments

;~~~; OKAY YES and maybe tell stories?

[wolfdreamer]

[She does not believe me, he first thinks, but that is true and not true all at once. She does not understand, and so she does not believe me. A frown creases his face, and he shakes his head.]

No. Not dreams. It is more than dreams, Sansa--I thought it only dreams, but-- [He tries to meet her eye, as if that will help to make her understand.] I see things--wolf things. And I can smell things, and-- I can run.

[She will not believe him still. He knows she will not. And if she does not, then Robb will not--they will think him nothing but a child, a silly child.] I can bring Lady back. I can.

;~~~~; all of the stories baby brother

[wont]

[ She sets aside the knife now, moving it carefully from her lap and placing it on the bed beside Bran as she rises and then comes to kneel before him. Alayne has seen Robb do a similar thing, kneel before his brother in an attempt to bring them closer together, to make them nearer to the same level. A king who does not speak down to his brother is an honorable and rare thing indeed and so Alayne emulates that now, her face bowed slightly upwards to meet his gaze, her hands closing gently around Bran's. ] I have seen a man write my name in the air using nothing but a twig and pure light. I've seen a boy with the horns of a stag make blossoms bloom out of metal grating as if it were the soft earth itself. But these things— [ Alayne shakes her head, softens her voice. ] —they are not of our world, Bran. And their magic— does not belong to us.

[ It is not an acceptance, but it is not a rejection either. I do not think you false, her eyes tell him. But the world's stories are nothing but lies. ] I know you want to help, brother—

;~~~~~; okay good perfect best oldest sister ever

[wolfdreamer]

[She does not know. She was not there. She did not see. Bran tells himself these things, but the words do not stop the little frown from twisting itself larger, until it is nearly a scowl.

And he does not pull his hands away from hers, but he shakes his head all the same. The things that she speaks of are magics, and perhaps skinchanging is a magic, too--but if it is, it is as true a magic as any of those Alayne makes mention of. He does not allow her to finish her thought, but interrupts before she is done:]

I can help. It isn't like lights in the air, or-- or flowers out of walls--it's different, Sansa. And it isn't only dreams, and it isn't only stories--I can be Lady. I can do it even aboard this ship--I tried with Summer. It's more than wolf dreams, it's--

[He squeezes her hands, hard, and he looks her straight in the eye. His sister. She must believe. She will believe.]

I can show you. I can help, Sansa. It is no story. You must believe me.

;~~~~~~~~; oh my god cee THESE SWEET SUMMER CHILDREN

[wont]

[ Bran frowns and Alayne wishes to reach up and brush the little scowl from off his face, brush it free and clear like snowflakes dusting his hair, catching in his lashes (I remember that happened once, in a place far from here), but the look in Bran's eyes is determined and not petulant, not childish the way it ought to be for a boy his age. He's so old, she thinks and allows her hands to be held. (The realization makes Alayne's chest hurt with an overwhelming, indeterminate sorrow.)

Her voice is hushed, like a secret shared, like a sentiment that not even Robb is allowed to hear. ] If I could, I would rid the world of whatever made you grow so old, so quickly. [ War, suffering, injustice, cruelty. But these are the ways of life, Alayne has learned, and with the Stark's noble blood comes a place in the game of thrones. So perhaps she whispers because the sentiment is too soft, the thought too nearly maudlin and sentimental. Tell no one, Alayne's eyes say and then she is looking away, down and to one side, and lowering her head to kiss the ridge of Bran's knuckles and press the bundle of their tightly-knotted fingers to her cheek. ]

I believe you, [ she says softly. ] You would not lie. We are all stories in the end. Who am I to forbid yours from being more fantastic than mine.

[wolfdreamer]

[I wish the same for you, he might say to Sansa, I wish we had none of us grown old. But Bran does not say this--only watches her, quietly, the soft lines of her face that he knows; the harder lines that he does not know, Alayne and Sansa and always his sister. They are kin; their blood is the same.

Why will she not believe me, he thinks, even as he thinks, how can she believe me? There is room in his heart for both--for no matter what she says, she does not truly believe. Her face remains sad and pale and closed. And who would believe? The Sansa he remembers loved stories, and might have believed in her own wide-eyed fashion--but Alayne's eyes are harder and older and sometimes she smiles at him in a way that says you do not know, and there is truth to that. He does not know Alayne so well as he knows Sansa.

He opens his hand a little, so his fingertips brush against the arch of her cheek.]

Then let me show you, Sansa. If you believe me--let me prove it. I will bring Lady home, I swear it--and I swear it is no story. It is real.

[Summer has stopped his pacing, though when, Bran cannot say. The direwolf is watching them, with his ears pricked--still alert to the danger outside, but also alert to them, almost as if he knows what it is that Bran offers. But not Summer. Lady. He must think of Sansa's direwolf now.]

[wont]

[ She wonders what Robb would say in this moment, what Petyr's eyes would tell her to do were he here to advise her. Alayne has no siblings and does not know what it means to be a good sister, does not know if caution is better or indulgence, whether it is better to wound with rejection or to open Bran up to harm by allowing him his insistence. (Move or be moved, that is what Littlefinger had said once, be a piece or be player, but you cannot be both. So was it folly to believe, to relent and allow such stories a place in her heart or to give over a foothold to such foolish hope? Had Sansa made Alayne weak once again? Was she just a piece? Would Petyr be angry?)

Her brow pinches at her own confusion, but Alayne gives her expression an air of determination (the illusion of strength where she only feels weakness; some lies are love</> and all of Alayne's lies are kind). ]

And you will not leave my side? You will not venture a step from my sight, nor be held in ways that will keep you from me?

[ She doesn't understand, she doesn't understand, and the frustration of it colors her cheeks. ]

[wolfdreamer]

[Bran's nose wrinkles a little in thought. She will allow it, which gives him a small hope--she will allow it, she will believe him, if he offers her proof--but she may yet be scared.]

I will be here with you, still. I may look-- asleep. I think I look as if I am sleeping when it happens. You mustn't be afraid. [He cautions her this, and twists his hand to wrap his fingers more firmly around hers once more, to lend her some strength--though she has far more strength than she marks or allows herself; he sees it in her where she does not.] I will be kept from you only as sleep would keep me. But I will bring Lady back to you.

[He glances at Summer once more--it is easy to warg into Summer, like slipping on an old glove. Lady will be unfamiliar and difficult and may not listen. You are no child, Bran tells himself. You are no boy.]

Are you ready? [He asks it of Alayne, and looks back to her, searching her face. Her expression is pinched in worry and confusion both, but she is will allow him his chance.]

[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.]