001 -- video;

[northerner]

[ robb looks uncomfortable. speak into the device, that much he had gathered from seeing the others upon this ship use them, scroll through to display moving pictures, strange faces. robb had sat down and examined it thoroughly, decided it was a ridiculous object, but a necessary one. and so here he sits, jaw tight and tully curls still wild, damp from the shower. the sigil of his house is emblazoned on his tunic, grey direwolf upon white, a deliberate choice. ]

I have been told this is a ship, but it is unlike any I have ever seen, nor do I recall boarding it...

[ but that is not important. he pauses, taking a moment to decide what he wishes to say. this was perhaps a thing better done before he turned on the device, but it was too late to turn back now. ]

My name is Robb Stark, King in the North and Lord of Winterfell, and I do not wish to be here. My bannermen march, and I am meant to lead them. If this is a ship, then I would beg passage home. I have already lingered here too long.

[ this is satisfactory. this is kingly, and now all he must do is wait for reply. unfortunately it takes him a moment (of rather unkingly fumbling) to turn off the device. whoops. ]

Comments

Text.

[fly_like_pie]

winterfell!!

that is what you said, right?

[Oh goodness, the discomfort with this technology and that peculiar term reminds him of a pair of children. As if he could ever forget them.]

[northerner]

[ the reply is video, because damn it ned, robb's only just figured out how to work it and you guys are already getting fancy... ]

Yes, that is what I spoke of. Do you know of it?

Text.

[fly_like_pie]

ahh well
kinda




okay not really
but i know someone from there. and they are here...

do you know anyone by the name of bran? or maybe alayne, actually??

[And to be honest, he's secretly amused with the fact you all can be so technologically inefficient.]

voice;

[starked]

[ another stark, okay this is getting into creepy territory. to his knowledge, no place called winterfall ever existed in the "olden" times, but two starks from a time period where there is nothing like the tech he's used to are here, on the ship.

it's odd, thinking that he might be in any way related to these people, but hey, for now, he's just going to avoid dwelling on it and focus on the more important things. well, at least one of them. ]

You're not the only Stark here.

[northerner]

Aye, it seems not.

[ and robb means his brother, his brother who is here and alone somehow, not this unfamiliar, disembodied voice. ]

[starked]

I'd tell you that that boy Bran is here, but that's already been settled and apparently you two are siblings. Not that I'm particularly invested in this beyond just curiosity but how many of there are you?

[ which is to say tony wants to know just how many people have his last name from this place, jesus christ this is weird. ]

voice;

[besiege]

Don't reckon it's that kind of ship.

[ Her voice should be at least faintly familiar now, though it's not nearly as confrontational and sharp this time around. There's a little pause before she speaks, quietly thoughtful. It's his title that catches her attention above all else. ]

[northerner]

[ another voice without face, but this one robb recognizes, remembers the owner with her red hair and bared teeth. ]

It's like none I've seen, but what else does a ship do but carry passengers to whence they please?

[besiege]

Besides not carry them where they please? [ Flat voice, but not quite as unimpressed as it could be. ] If it's not above abducting us or whatever the fuck is going on, then I don't half doubt it's above ignoring our requests.

video; I AM SORRY THIS TAG IS SO LONG.

[wont]

[ Her first thought is no. Life, in the short while that Alayne Stone has known it, has proven itself to be no friend of hers; it is rife with suffering and sadness the likes of which may threaten to break a girl's spirit but even this seems beyond its reach. No, Alayne thinks, It cannot be. The world is neither so cruel nor so kind.

And yet, her eyes and her ears do not deceive her: the King of the North, the Lord of Winterfell. Sansa Stark's eldest and most beloved brother, the beacon of her last and greatest hope. He who had been dashed upon the rocks of the Riverlands, whose young blood had been spilt in the shadow of the Twins, proof of the Freys most heinous villainy. Whose name has grown to mean usurpation and defeat—

Robb.

There is a part of Alayne that cries out, and when it cries it does so with a voice that is not hers but Sansa's. It sets Alayne to shaking, both in fear and exultation. To see Robb again, to hear his voice, to know he breathes — it is enough to inspire a joy so effulgent that it terrifies Alayne with its ferocity and its strangeness, the feeling foreign to her now. A stranger. How long has it been since she last knew happiness? There is part of Alayne that believes she is no longer deservant of it. Sansa, perhaps, but Alayne—

It is too soon, Alayne tells herself. (Again, another truth that sets a fear churning in her heart.) Petyr had promised, one day, to raise Sansa again, to regift her the name he took from her and return the lands of her birth to her once again. But that time is not now and Alayne is not ready. Somewhere inside herself Sansa slumbers, fitful in her dreams of reunion and revenge — a wolf that hibernates beneath winter snows and waits for the mockingbird's call.

It is too soon, Alayne knows and so she must lie to cover the deficit. Some lies are love, that is what her father taught her, and for all that Sansa Stark loved her brother, Alayne can do this. (She must.) Unlike Bran, who had kept her secret, who had struggled so hard and so well to understand the means by which she had hoped to keep them both safe, Robb would not understand, he could not. His heart was too noble (and it was that nobility that saw him buried).

Self-consciously she brushes her hair back (brown, not red, her Tully fire smothered down to burnt ash). He will ask questions, of course, and Alayne does not know if she holds all the answers but there are some truths he must never know. Some honesties she will be unable to afford him. When the video comes own, Alayne dips her head and lowers her gaze. She is more modest than the Sansa of Robb's memories. More gracious, more beautiful, and older as well. Despite the dye of her hair, there is proof of her mother in her poise and the strength of her eyes.

(Take up the mask. Be Sansa for his sake. Even though, in your heart, Alayne remains queen.) ]

Robb. [ And then Alayne smiles, her gaze still lowered. (Sansa had always remembered her courtesies.) ] Your Grace.

video; WHY ARE YOU APOLOGIZING IT'S MAGNIFICENT

[northerner]

[ they have your sisters. we must get the girls back...

and here she was, his sister, his sweet eldest sister, with her tully red gone brown and aged, he can see that she's aged. it has not been long, but she is a woman now, not a girl, and the change throws him off, shows in the sudden uncertainty filtering through the joy on his face. ]

Sansa. [ a pause and then earnest, just skirting joyful. ] Sansa, where are you? Is Bran with you?

video; TL;DR IS MY SECRET SHAME sob it's like feelsvomit

[wont]

[ He is so earnest. He is so young.

There is part of Alayne that mourns at that realization, at knowing there is even more ground that separates herself and the one they called the Young Wolf. She wonders absently, the thoughtfulness kept from her expression, exactly how young he truly is. It is possible that the season of his heart is still green and lush, that the promise of approaching snow not yet begun to nip at his heels. In time, it will harden Robb to Northern iron (though Alayne knows he had not lived long enough to make the Lannisters taste true winter steel).

The joy in her expression comes easy. Perhaps because it is not truly a lie. Mention of Sansa causes her to flinch imperceptibly, however, though Alayne swallows it down along with her own name. ] He is not far, I promise you. Nor am I.

The ship is large, but it is nothing. All is nothing compared to— [ To death. Alayne bites her tongue. ] —to what has kept us apart until now. We should see it undone, this distance. And have it never come between us again.

video.

[swagneto]

[ Stark. He's heard the name once before, with Alayne and Bran, and it's now that Erik catches the name again, along with the same mention of Winterfell. Perhaps those two are related, he assumes, and it would be given the way they speak, the mention of their location, but Erik was never one for voicing those in public, not without any confirmation of his theories. ]

Unfortunately there is no war for this ship to take you, Lord Stark. [ Lord, because when he last spoke to the young Bran, Alayne had referred to him as such and Erik wasn't going to do away with such mannerisms just because this one appeared younger - too young to be a king, last he knew of their stories he's read. ]

Your bannermen are on your own.

video.

[northerner]

[ there is a pause. the tightening of robb's jaw is entirely discomfort, not displeasure, discomfort at the things he must demand, but it needs to be said. ]

Your Grace. That is how one addresses kings, ser.

[ for his crown was an undeniable thing, even here. ]

I must rejoin them, as soon as possible.

video.

[swagneto]

[ Erik gives him a nod of apology, as it wasn't unexpected, what with the Starks clearly from another period of time. ]

Though you'll forgive me of course, Your Grace, [ He says, a tone that spoke of sarcasm over the honesty he should have used. ] but I don't bow to kings that aren't from the same world as I am. [ More like he doesn't bow to kings at all, but that's a matter he doesn't need to add onto Robb's current troubles in the slightest. ]

If you have any faith in them, I imagine they'll manage on their own as you're trapped here.

video;

[grndnpnd]

[ The talk of bannermen and being on the march caught Tommy's eye at first, but it's not until after seeing Alayne -- Sansa? -- speak up and the mention of "family," that Tommy feels the need to clarify, expression mostly closed off but slightly dubious: ]

King?

video;

[northerner]

Aye, king in the North, ser.

[ newly crowned, yes, but is cannot be so strange. once winterfell had been the seat of kings. once the north had been independant, too large and too wild to be taken, but for the dragons, and the dragons were long since dead. ]

text

[syllogism]

King of the North and Lord of Winterfell,
I've had some correspondence with your brother, the Stark in Winterfell,
To whom I've offered a means to restore the ability to walk or run once again.
He is in the care of a lady by the name of Alayne
With whom he'd discuss my offer among a number of others.

[northerner]

[ restoration of bran's legs. his brother would be as he was, but through what sort of sorcery did this speaker have the ability to offer? ]

How could that come to pass? The Maesters said he was beyond their help.

[bottlearum]

This ain't like a normal ship, mate. Instead of sailin' in water, we're sailin' in space.

[northerner]

How can that be? Ships sail upon the sea, everyone knows that.

[ it is known, jack sparrow. it is known. ]

[video] and oh god I can jump into Alayne's thread or smthn but I had to reply t o o e x c i t e d

[wolfdreamer]

Robb!

[And that is the second time that Bran has said his brother's name in the past few moments, though even this second time is no less breathless or excited. Robb.

Seeing Robb is not as impossible as seeing Sansa had been. (No, Alayne; he corrects himself swiftly--and even as he makes that correction, a little furrow of worry comes into his head. Robb will not like Alayne.) Even as he had fled Winterfell, Bran had held to the thought that there might be some chance that he would see Robb once more--though that hope had faded a little with each step further they took from Winterfell. It was a boy's hope, and more of a dream than a hope. There were dreams--real dreams, the same as other men might have--where they were all at Winterfell once more, but Bran had tried to put those from his mind. There was room enough only for his new dreams, and his wolf dreams.

But this is real--Robb is real, just as real as Alayne (and Sansa) and Summer and all of it, and so Bran fumbles to answer his brother's missive. He hardly listens to a word of it. Seeing his face is reason enough to reply.]

Robb, you're here!

[video] omgggg bran!!! yes you must slam into that thread i desire stark brothers :____;

[northerner]

[ his brother is upon the screen, and the mask of kingship shatters upon robb's face. all the time spent riding south with armies and banners, all of that had been time away from his home, away from his family, away from his sweet brothers who had been lord of winterfell in his stead.

we'll all be together again soon. i promise, robb had said once, and this is not what he had meant, but it was an unexpected blessing. a respite, perhaps, a dream which he would wake from, but for now it was enough to smile at his brother, relief and happiness obvious in his voice. ]

Bran.

[ no, he cannot stand and run to him. he must wait, wait for sansa, because she knew the way, and getting lost would only delay the reunion. patience, he must be patient. ]

Bran, are you alright?

( voice )

[purrfectlycute]

You're from Winterfell? Oh, I bet you know Bran then!

Unfurrtunately, Mr. King Robb, I can't tell you how to get home. I might be able to help with some technology questions though! I'm used to space and the internet and stuff.

( voice )

[northerner]

Bran is my younger brother. Are you acquainted with him?

[ there's fondness in his tone, which ebbs towards confusion because.... ]

I am not certain what you mean by internet.