ataraxion | [ first oath ♞ accidental video ]

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[ first oath ♞ accidental video ]

Hello?

[ The device is on now, not directed at anything in particular - the user's obvious inexperience is shown by the fact that you only have the glimpse of blonde hair and the rest is angled at a wall, but the voice takes no notice and keeps on speaking to it. She has had the object for a week now, simply sitting in her pocket - near forgotten with the still present shock of simply being here. Until earlier, when she had found it again by chance and remembered it's existence.

Where did this come from? ]

I thought that I heard voices speaking from this some time ago.

[ there's a whirl of color and she has adjusted to, by luck angle the camera to focus on her, if only for a moment before she has her fingers obscuring the view. In case it is not entirely obvious, the user has little or no knowledge whatsoever of the purpose and function and when she removes them from the lens, it is now pointed downwards towards the floor.

Yes, it's another one of them. ]

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[ Is it weakness to admit the oath he swore? Jaime's turned the thought over in his mind more than once in the months since he arrived here. It would never have been an issue back home, the likelihood that a Stark would ever get close enough to demand an explanation so slim. But here...

Like as not, there is weakness there, yes. But in the balance there is strength as well. The truth, when unexpected, always grants an advantage.

And with Brienne here, there was only so long it was likely to remain unknown. The woman was dutiful, stubborn, but also honest to a fault. ]

Because I swore an oath to her mother that I would see her returned to her family, safe and unharmed.

[ The truth, when unexpected, always grants an advantage.

Whether or not Alayne's father would agree to such sentiment is uncertain. (An advantage — perhaps —but to what end, to the forfeit of what longer gains? The truth could be as much hindrance as advantage, though in this case, the Kingslayer's wager does win him the play.)

For a moment, long and uncomfortable, Alayne has nothing to say. ]

And— and Lady Catelyn— [ The name is lead upon the tongue. How long had it been since it last passed Alayne's lips? She had not yet been made strangers with her past then and Lady Catelyn had still been lady mother. (The thought occurs to Alayne: Oh, how your daughter failed you. Where is her family, her duty, her honor now?) ] —she took your word?

Edited 2012-08-21 22:24 (UTC)

[ Catelyn Stark hadn't wanted to. Jaime knows a thing or two about what the intent to harm looks like in a person's eyes, having stared it down often enough. If he had given her any excuse, he has no doubt that he'd be short a head these days as well as a hand.

But then, he'd never intended to swear it either. And never intended to keep what he had sworn. Funny, the way life rarely works as you expect it to. ]

She did. It even won me my freedom from the dungeons of Riverrun.

[ Every exchange with the Kingslayer up until this point has won him very little save her petulance and bluster and childish indignance. A sharp word here, a disapproving glance there, but nothing forged out of true anger or sorrow — that crown wore by King Joffrey, by his sister, the treacherous queen. Though the Kingslayer is a Lannister, he is a Lannister that has not wronged her immediately nor ever raised his hand against her. (No, his worst offense is an off-color snipe.) Rather than match swords with her, he has traded only words even though he holds her secrets. In her way (begrudging and unacknowledged by her own heart), she grateful for whatever mercies he has indulged by calling her, to this day, Lady Stone.

For the first time she frowns at him with something nearer to true anger than ever before. ]

And see what it won her in exchange. [ You failed, Alayne wishes to say, but perhaps that had been the point. ]

[ Her anger sparks a bit of his own. He may be incoculated by their blame and hatred, prepared to play the villain in the little drama they've constructed here only because he hasn't the interest in trying to prove them wrong. (Why bother, when proving them right is easier? When it compromises him no more or less?) But even a Lannister can only bear so much.

(Though father would disagree, no doubt, but father isn't here.) ]

Save your anger for who it is meant for, girl. I did not swear to keep Catelyn Stark safe from harm. It was Robb Stark who chose to cross the Freys, and it was Walder Frey who chose to break the guest right. I had no hand in that.

My anger is for all Lannisters, [ Alayne says, though she knows she should not. (A Lannister is nothing to a Stone and the words are untrue, besides.) But she feels the hand of madness upon her, making her cheeks flush and her eyes sting not with tears but with bit-back bitterness in knowing, somewhere in Ser Jaime's song there is a note of terrible truth. It is not the mockingbird who sings but the wolf who bares her teeth against the cold and Alayne knows it is folly, but the words are spoken too quickly. (And all of it is folly, folly. ]

It was your sister who kept me captive in her gilded cage and your— [ I should not say son. ] —your king who beat me with the men of your own guard. [ Your brother who wed me when I was meant to be a Tyrell, and have children and float upon the river with a husband maimed but unugly, a husband who would have loved me. Your father who waged this terrible war, who brought Robb to the Twins in the first place, when we should have never seen the Riverlands.

I thought to love your lying golden heads once, but I was a fool. (And whose fault is that?) ]

You speak as though that isn't life, Lady Stone.

[ Her mask is slipping, and Jaime can't predict whether that is good or ill for him. Perhaps he should simply be pleased for having dragged the honesty out of her, but his position on the ship is still too precarious for that. ]

We're born. We die. Everything in between is bloodshed. The only difference between you and others is that you learned it younger than most.

[ Though not younger than some. ]

All any of us can gain out of life is to take our enemies with us when we go.

[ What had been anger has dwindled now to something closer to resignation, a closed-lipped sullenness. The problem with ire is that it burns too hot and too quick and gives itself too easily to desperation and sadness. Arya — No-name Jeyne — she was able to sustain such bright burning bitterness, but Sansa — Alayne, my name is Alayne Stone — often fell quickly into disquiet (having taught herself long enough how to cage the wolf in her veins for the sake of courtesy). ]

And who is your enemy now, Kingslayer? [ She would win no argument here; Alayne knows he has her at a disadvantage. Instead she takes his words to heart, though her intentions are inherited from her father, and therefore are far less fatalistic. ] A man once told me a knight was nothing more but an instrument for killing. Is that all you intend to be?

You swore an oath to a Stark. Are you completely faithless?

Edited 2012-08-22 00:39 (UTC)

[ Now that her anger has lost its heat, he sees no reason to stoke his any further either.

You never attack from anger, his swordsmaster taught him. It may make you bold, it make give you strength, but it becomes far to easy to act rashly. To lose sight of not just yourself, but the moment as it passes, the give and take of a battle.

It is a principle Jaime has not always done well in practicing off the battlefield, but he does now. ]

That's quite a few questions. Am I intended to answer them all at once? I've kept my oath to Catelyn Stark as well as I've been able. I've certainly yet to break it. And you can ask Lady Brienne if you do not trust my word. [ A breath, next answer: ] All those who mean to bring ruin and dishonour to my family are my enemies. And I am only an instrument for killing, Lady Stone. I've never pretended to be anything else.

The same man also told me that there are no true knights. Men in white cloaks, men with swords — yes. But a knight, as told in stories— [ Alayne shakes her head. ] —is as good as a lie. A beautiful lie, but a lie nevertheless.

[ When she looks at Ser Jaime, she sees that lie made flesh — the name of Kingslayer, the title of Oathbringer, both hung around his neck. He is a Lannister; of course he is faithless, she reminds herself. ] And what if ruin and dishonor finds House Lannister from within?

[ She thinks of Queen Cersei, of the Imp, of Joffrey Baratheon once first in his name. ] Where will your sword point, then?

Edited 2012-08-24 12:19 (UTC)

[ Jaime too thinks of Cersei, of Tyrion. Lastly, he thinks of Joffrey. For all that the boy was Jaime's issue, he was Cersei and Robert's son through and through. Anyone willing to stop long enough and look past the golden hair and light eyes could see that. Joffrey Baratheon, first of his name. ]

Outward. To the enemies beyond our walls. There's much that you must accept from family that you will never accept from others.

[ Again, truth from the mouth of a golden-headed liar. It makes Alayne both angry and sad in chorus. Where divides of understanding separated her from people she cared for most dearly, she and the Kingslayer held some terrible appreciation of one another. (Does that make me a traitor? she thinks. Moreso than I already am?)

Still, she attempts at bluster and pride, pushing that understanding to one side. ]

And does that make you valiant, Kingslayer? Or a fool?

[ Us, Alayne thinks. Does that make us fools? ]

[ She asks the question in the voice people so often use when they already fear they know the answer to what they are asking. What is always less obvious, as it is now, is whether they ask to be told that they are right or in the hopes of being proven wrong.

Either way, Jaime has never been particularly interested in obliging. ]

We're all fools for one thing or another, Alayne Stone.

[ Alayne looks away then, unwillng to be reminded of Jaime Lannister's face — the planes of it and curving lines and how they look so much like the queen's. She looks away because she knows he is right, but Alayne is loathe to admit it to such a face. I hate you, she thinks, her jaw sharpening, but the words slide off of her like rain off the back of a well-oiled duck.

At length, a terrible admittance. (She thinks of Robb, of his love for honor. She thinks of Jon Snow and his duty. She thinks of Petyr.) ] I know.

[ Jaime, at the same time, thinks of Cersei and all the many things he did for her, to stay near her, to protect their secret. For love. The greatest joke -- which perhaps makes him the biggest fool.

He pastes on a thin smile, gives her a slight bow of his head in recognition of their agreement on this particular topic. ]

Well. If that is all your questions answered for the moment, my lady...

[ She does not let her gaze glance back to him, even when he has nodded to acknowledge that fleeting moment of understanding. It is not a think that Alayne is proud of — no, if anything it is another stain which she must hide within the folds of her skirt, behind the tidy clasp of her hands. ]

This Brienne of Tarth. Did she make acquaintance with the lady Stark?

[ The Starks were good at throwing things into disarray. With Robb and Catelyn Stark dead and Sansa lost to them all, Jaime could trust Brienne. He still trusted her. Unexpectedly so. But she had sworn an oath to Catelyn Stark, as she was so fond of reminding him in those early days, and he did not know how she would react now. Whether she would see keeping any faith with him as forswearing herself. Whether she would still care. ]

She did. After Renly Baratheon's death.

[ I wish I had been there, comes the first thought. I wish I had never begged to go to King's Landing,, comes the second. A pinch to Alayne's brow betrays her unhappiness but then it is gone again, concealed by mere courtesy. ]

And what measure did Lady Stark make of her?

[ It's an unhappy subject, speaking of mothers long dead, and in all honesty, Jaime wouldn't engage in it -- except that the girl keeps asking. ]

Good enough to trust her with my well-being. But perhaps you should take your own measure, rather than worrying too much about what Lady Stark thought.

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[ first oath ♞ accidental video ]

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