[voice/video] I put my trust in you, a stranger (un: whitewolf)

[northerndragon]

1. Voice

[A man's deep voice, colored with some urgency.]

My name is Jon Snow. I need the aid of two or three strong fighters, outside the city -- now. One of the Beastmaster's creatures is on me. He isn't alone.

2. Video

[Later, it's a young man, looking hesitant and unsure of where to begin. A curl of his dark hair is falling into his bearded face, and there are fine vertical scars above and below his eyes, as if someone once tried to claw them out. He has just been shown to his rooms after a long, hard journey, and he looks like it.

When he speaks, it's with the same deep voice from earlier in the day, now earnest and weary. The more he speaks, the more sure of himself he sounds, until in the end, it may become clear that he's used to addressing groups of people.]

I am sorry for my hasty messages earlier. The creatures are dead -- they won't trouble you or any of the people of this city.

I'm Jon Snow. I come from the Merchant -- I've been riding in and out of these canyons for most of a fortnight. Never seen anything like Taravast, but it is good to be in numbers again.

I don't expect that it will mean anything to any of you, but I am from the North. One of the Seven Kingdoms, it was.

I need to meet with Wrath and Wen Qing, as soon as either of you can. I am in the Palace of the Doxe.

For the rest -- tell me what I can do here in the city. Tell me what I can do to help our cause.

Comments

[notsansa]

[ His searching look causes her to duck her head again, and she turns away to pull on his sleeve, hoping to guide him with her away from the crowds. If he feels insulted that she lied to him, if he acts angry, that will make this easier. It will keep her from feeling emotional in all the wrong ways. They were never close, after all, why should she care...

So she tells herself. Tears still sting at her eyes. When was the last time she saw anyone from her family...? From Sansa's family? ]

I couldn't be sure it was truly you. The magic here... I find it impossible to trust. Please, let us seek a place less crowded to talk.

[ Her desire to help those less fortunate wasn't a complete lie, but that can wait for later, and she already planned on getting someone else's help. Jon probably doesn't need anymore physical activity today. She just needs to know what he knows--if he knows anything. She needs to fully see that he's real and he's here.

Keeping her tone dull, almost pragmatic, is simply the best way to stifle her emotions. ]

Were you injured? Earlier?

[northerndragon]

[He lets her tug on his sleeve.

If she doesn’t trust, then why should he? Even if someone wanted to put someone in front of me, why Sansa? For trust, why not Sam, or Edd, or Tormund? He doesn’t mention that any of her suspicions might easily be turned around.

But maybe that’s it: Sansa trusts him as far as she trusts anyone, which is to say that outside of him, her trust barely exists at all.]

No, not injured. But I’ve been riding hard from sunup to sundown for ten days. It’s good not to be on a horse.

How long have you been here?

[notsansa]

[ Irritated by his refusal to follow, Alayne does her best to stifle the indignation that wants to rear up, and releases his sleeve to properly face him, again hiding her hands when they're not in use. The red paint on her palms might still draw his attention before she hides them, though. ]

You must want to rest after such a journey. Away from here.

[ Sansa always hated horseback riding, but she resists the urge to dissolve into friendly banter. She can't talk to him as Sansa would. How should Alayne handle this? How would Lord Baelish? Give him what he wants. Well, he wants answers. What can she share without actually sharing? Finally, she drops her hood. Although auburn is beginning to peek through in certain lights, her hair is still a dark brown that he wouldn't recognize, though not nearly as dark as her shielded gaze. ]

Longer than you. Not long enough to call it home, as I would the Vale.

[ Now she watches him, gauging his reaction before daring to continue. ]

[northerndragon]

[Something had seemed strange about her a moment ago, not just what little he could see of her hair, now revealed to be strange indeed. And what she says to him makes him understand what it is: she is so much younger than the Sansa he left as regent in Winterfell. She had lived in the Vale for a time, with Littlefinger as her protector — not much of one, it had turned out. She she looks fifteen, at most… around the age she was when she was there.]

The Vale’s not your home. Winterfell is your home.

[But he sounds baffled. Why can’t anyone he meets who knows of Westeros at all remember anything about the last two, three years?

And why are her hands painted so?

If she tugs him again, he will follow.]

[OOC: unclear phrasing, my bad! I meant for him to be following, just skeptical about it. Let’s go with this though: it works either way. ]

[notsansa]

[ Lips pursed, she says nothing in response to Winterfell before leading the way to somewhere more private. It might seem odd, but the open air is as private as it gets around here, although the rubble isn't much to look at. There's a courtyard that's mostly untouched, and a bench not to near prying ears.

Here she can finally answer. ]

Winterfell was Sansa's home, and silly girl somewhere in hiding, wanted for crimes she certainly likely did not commit. I'm Alayne Stone. You understand?

[ A bastard, like you, goes rather unsaid. ]

I never expected to see anyone from Westeros here, but I feared it could be possible. Who is to say a Lannister isn't next to show their face?

[ ooc: My bad! I definitely misunderstood, just going off him not trusting her either. We can redo if you like! Easy peasy. ]

[northerndragon]

[OOC: Naaaaaah it was a reasonable reading of my confusing phrasing, and they’re on the move now, so I think it works!]

[“Alayne Stone” — the name itself — gets a curious look. A bastard girl of the Vale.

She has never told him much of Baelish, except her distrust, but Jon knows she knows she had lived in some sort of hiding between King’s Landing and Winterfell and that Baelish had been her protector. A shoddy sort of protector.

But to say she is a bastard when she is a trueborn Stark, heiress to Winterfell… well, that’s one way of hiding a child from the Lannisters, if they’re leagues upon leagues away.]

All right. Alayne Stone.

If a — if that were to happen, I’m here. You don’t need to fear them.

[notsansa]

[ The slight shudder she can't hold back betrays how much that offer means to her, although she continues to hold any tears at bay. Who knew she could feel such relief and dread at the same time? Regarding Jon Snow, of all people. ]

If that were to happen, I would be gone before they could see my face. But at least there will be no trace of Sansa Stark for them to look for, because people here only know of a lowborn girl named Alayne. You only need to look after yourself, do not concern yourself for me.

[ She wants them dead. She wants them dead. Even if Jon were to somehow kill them here... Would it hold? What if they were revived and returned home, with memory in full? There are undead here, and now she knows there are undead back home for true. Something else she wants to ask of Jon, but at another date.

She doesn't ask if he would come with her. He would have no reason to. She'll disappear alone, as much as that terrifies her.

Awkwardly, at least for one so normally graceful, she sits and picks at her skirt, looking down. It's difficult to look at him for long, given that he's such a reminder of a life so long ago. ]

Even here I am a bastard, did you know? My 'father' perished before my arrival, but he was to be wedded to a woman named Wen Qing, and so she was near to be my stepmother. Why were you seeking her? And Wrath, what of him?

[northerndragon]

It doesn’t matter what you say. You are my sister; I will protect you if you need it. Father would never forgive me if I didn’t.

[He sits near her, but not too close: enough for a comfortable and quiet conversation that doesn’t look unduly clandestine.]

But it seems that part of protecting you here is calling you Alayne. It doesn’t trouble me to do it.

I came carrying a message from the Merchant — a message for the two of them. Something that might help.

[notsansa]

[ That's enough to do it. He says it our loud. Sister. ...Father. Not Petyr Baelish, but Eddard Stark. Alayne's facade falters, and Sansa is the one who suddenly sheds tears with a light gasp of surprise. She could hug him, cling and never let go until they both awaken where they truly belong. Instead she looks away so that she can dust them away in the hopes that he doesn't notice, latching onto what he has to say about current events so that she can once more ground herself.

Alayne had no siblings, and her dearest father Lord Baelish would have no feelings at all towards what Jon Snow does. Repeat it, repeat it, repeat it, her mind screams inwardly. It echoes inside until there's nothing but silence, and she keeps her gaze clear away from him, gazing at nothing. It's awkward, how long she takes to reply, and how she continues to refuse to engage with his claims on their familial connection. ]

Why them? How could it help? If The Merchant could actually be useful, we wouldn't even be in this situation. It's horrible here, even more-so than back in our own realm.

[northerndragon]

[The way she turns from him when the tears spring up, the way she doesn’t seek any kind of comfort — he watches it patiently. Is this how things were for her in the Vale? Is this why she came willingly to wed Bolton, thinking that she would do it if she were true steel? But the way she looks puts him in mind of her childhood, when she was a little lady who liked courtesies and pretty things, and watching her try to master her weeping makes him feel helpless.]

Tell me how it really is here, then, as much as you can. Tell me why your hands are painted.

Alayne, I don’t know how it will help, or if it will help. I did as I was asked to do, in the hope that it will set us on the road back to our home.

[notsansa]

[ Hearing the name Alayne in his voice is so surreal, it takes her another long moment to respond. It must be even stranger to him, and the fact that he's so willing to do it makes her feel guilty. What would it have been like, if they had been closer as children? She'd never given him much of a chance, and now...now she couldn't even call him 'brother'.

Fingers curling as they slowly droop back down to her lap, her eyes lower to the red painted on her palms. She'd forgotten to hide them, all because of her stupid emotions. Like a child.

Alayne's jaw stiffens and her hands fold tightly in her lap before she glances back towards him, control once more guiding her through. ]

It doesn't matter. [ He can't know what the reality of her false identity here entails... No doubt it would upset him. He doesn't deserve that... He doesn't deserve any of this. For her stupid mistakes, she probably does deserve it. ] The Witches of Bessis insist on it, but it's merely for ceremony that will never happen. I'm merely doing as asked, like you.

[ She ought to be more giving, in order to soften him and pull out the information she wants. It's harder to play Jon like Littlefinger taught her to play others. She doesn't...want to.

What she wants is to learn what useful information he was told to tell Wrath and Wen Qing, but she can dig for that later. There's far too much to unpack, still, from their own histories. How much time has passed for him since seeing her? If he's from the future, and she'd believe it after surviving here, then what does he know? She's afraid to ask. The fact that he's already spread such strange lies about being a king to strangers leaves her unsure of how to approach the matter, but she can relate to hiding behind a different identity. ]

This place is just like the Red Keep, if...magic truly existed. If the dead could truly walk again, and monsters were more than just kings and queens fighting over a throne. Here, all the frightening tales from our childhood have come true.

[northerndragon]

[That makes him sigh and look away for a moment.]

Not just here.

— Are you more in danger because of these witches, or because you fear the Lannisters?

[notsansa]

[ Her brow furrows at his inclusion, her gaze immediately sharpening at the implications. ]

For now the Lannisters are nothing to fear, and neither are the witches.

[ For now, indeed. They're all in danger for other reasons, where magic and politics continue to collide. ]

What do you mean, not just here? ...What happened at the Wall? I had heard you were made Lord Commander, but...you were saying things to that woman from Essos.

[northerndragon]

[He hesitates, then opens his hands in a relatively expansive shrug, palms open over his lap: what he is about to tell her makes him feel so helpless. He is doing all that he can — or was, until ten days past — but it doesn’t feel like enough. It can never feel like enough.]

I mean that all those stories Old Nan used to tell us, the White Walkers, how they make the Dead walk and fight for them — they’re real. They’re real and true. They have — perhaps one hundred thousand, last I saw them, up at Hardhome north of Eastwatch. I saw the dead rise.

We have perhaps five thousand. That includes the Free Folk. More, if women and children fight, but —

[A shake of his head, to accompany his grim, overwhelmed expression.]

[notsansa]

[ Once she would have struggled to believe him. How can she doubt what he says now, after all she's seen? Still... Magic didn't exist in their realm. ...Did it?

As if the war for the Iron Throne wasn't dangerous enough. The gravity of what Jon is saying suggests that all of them down south are sitting ducks. Wouldn't a threat like that be enough to unite the houses, though? Especially if the news was spread by all of the Night's Watch?

Baffled, she turns fully to face him, doing her best to gauge him by his posture and expression. He seems tired, but this is all fresh news to her, and all she can do is put the pieces of the puzzle together while speaking, so she is bound to get some pieces wrong. ]

Free Folk? ...You mean wildlings. You jest, they-- You seek out help from wildlings and Targaryen ghosts before you inform the Seven Kingdoms? Why, because they would not believe your lies about being King in the North? How is that the way? Is the Lord Commander's word not enough to mobilize? News as this could end the constant battle. Unite us.

[ And if some Lannisters get killed by friendly-fire, so be it. ]

[northerndragon]

[At first, her words make him look resentful. Reproach and frustration are in his expression, too, as they often are when people question him on these matters.]

Do you think I didn’t? Do you think I didn’t try?

[In some danger of raising his voice, he catches himself and lowers it to a whisper. She doesn’t know, he reminds himself. She thinks the Vale is her home.]

Do you think the Boltons had any care for the Night’s Watch? The Lannisters? Stannis came when we called, but he was the only one. I am no liar, Sansa. I’ve made the alliances I could. Those wildlings bled for the North — for us — same as any Northman would.

[notsansa]

[ There's no holding back her scoff of indignation as he talks of the wildlings like they're on some sort of equal footing as her kinsmen. No, Sansa's kinsmen, not Alayne's. She hangs her head for a moment, whitened knuckles pressing to her pinched lips while she gathers this bizarre new attitude of his.

Maybe it wasn't new at all. Even though they had been friendly, some part of him must have felt like an outsider... Like Theon, perhaps, but to compare them would be unfair to him. Still, to think he'd go so far as to relate to the wildlings? How could they be useful in a war, as disorganized as they must be?

Her hand drops to clutch at her skirt, and she does her best to temper her feelings before looking to him again. She doesn't wish to glare. They have only just been reunited, and she doesn't want it to be ruined, but... ]

But they are not Northmen, and you are not King in the North. We both know you cannot leave the Night's Watch, and so you do lie, no matter what other prettier word you think to call it. To become Alayne makes perfect sense, as I may hide in the shadows. Are you attempting to hide in the sun, hoping the brilliance will blind your enemies? Just because you want something does not make it so.

[ She's standing now, but she doesn't remember doing so. For once in a long time, Alayne's emotions are getting the best of her. Sansa's are. ]

You are not Robb.

[ And not a Stark, though she bites that back. It remains unsaid. ]

[northerndragon]

[Jon is a strong man, used to insult, but he flinches at that as if he’s been struck. His expression is stung.

Aye, I am not Robb. But there are days on which you are your mother’s daughter.

He tries to master his frustration before he answers her. His words come out calm, as calm as they might have come from Eddard Stark when he was in a rare temper.]

— It’s been most of a year since I left the Watch. I stayed as long as I could. With what men you and I can call on, Northmen and Free Folk and Vale knights, we took Winterfell back from the Boltons.

There is no one left, just you and me.

[notsansa]

[ The way in which he receives the jab and does not wound back both enflames her anger and cows her with shame. He did not deserve that, but she is so incredibly confused that she has no idea in how else to respond. She hugs herself with shoulders hunched, a decidedly childish stance that nobody in this realm has had to witness. It feels impossible to remain as Alayne when her past is right here, talking of a future that is more unnatural than any magic she's witnessed. ]

Left the Watch? They just let you go, did they? Or did you fake your death, assuming nobody would bat an eye at another Northern bastard named Jon? Even if that were true, they would never choose one to be King.

[ She's too indignant to apologize, focusing off to the side of him instead of looking at that wounded face, clinging foolishly to the only defense she has when feeling ignorant and confused: words for weapons. The reminder that they are the only ones alive doesn't help, though she knows she should be holding onto it for support instead of flinging it into the cold mud. ]

Between you and I, I think you know who has more of a claim to Winterfell. What game do you play at?

[northerndragon]

[His sigh this time is harder, more frustrated. He rubs the palm of his hand over his eye, his forehead, up into his hair.]

— I didn’t fake it.

[His voice is soft, but to him, it feels like a shout. She doesn’t believe any of this. There is a way to get her to believe what he’s just said, it’s true, but he doesn’t want to do it.

Why should anyone believe him? Why should a miracle happen to him, why should it have saved him? He is no prince, let alone a promised one.]

[notsansa]

[ Her attention is completely on him now. Everything around them is forgotten—distant voices echoing from the halls, the smell of bread and damp dirt—they don't exist. It truly is only the two of them in her narrowed field of vision. ]

What does that mean?

[ Her head feels light and dizzy, and the weight of her churning stomach might be too much for her to keep her head on straight. She abruptly sits back down to avoid falling and begins to reach for his arm, but thinking of him dying and then rising again...like the undead. Like Others, white walkers, wights... Her fingers curl in and jerk back before she dares to touch him.

It has to be another lie. Why would he make such a lie to her? Why would he hurt her like that?

She whispers now, though it escapes like a hiss born of terror. ]

What does that mean, Jon?

[northerndragon]

[For a moment, he says nothing, just looks at her. I’m the one who died, he thinks, so why do I feel so sorry? Why do I feel like I’ve done something to her in the rising from it?]

— There was a mutiny, at Castle Black.

When they made me Lord Commander, it was a close thing. And I knew, by then, that any man left north of the Wall was a wight we would have to fight — stronger, harder to kill than a living man. We didn’t have the numbers, and no one but Stannis ever heeded our calls for aid. So I went and brought what Wildlings I could back from Hardhome and let them through the Wall — mostly women and children, by then.

My brothers named me a traitor.

[notsansa]

[ There are no words. Truly. She's only staring, but it's like she's looking through him to the Jon from her past, desperately trying to connect this horrible news with how he talks about there being an after... He says that there are only two of them now, as if they survived. But he died. But he doesn't look like a wight. But he—

She's waiting for more, mouth left slightly ajar, the shock and confusion too overpowering for any sign of grief or empathy to wriggle free just yet. Just what is he saying? If he's not a wight, then why isn't he dead? Should she be crying, grieving the death of her last and final sibling? Should she be yelling, that he brought it on himself if any of what he says is true? Should she even believe him? ]

[northerndragon]

I took a knife in the heart from my own steward. A boy younger than Bran would be now.

There was a red witch from Essos, come up with Stannis. She thought that her god had some stake in the war against the Dead. I laid on a table in my quarters for two days before her prayers brought me back.

— I know it sounds mad. I know what people think of bastards. But when we were children, did you ever think me a liar? There is proof, but —

[This is frustrating, too, that he may need to produce the tangible proof.]

[notsansa]

[ The more she hears of this, of more gods and foreign magics, Alayne's face falls into her hands. It's too much for her to handle without Petyr here to guide her. It's too much to collect and then turn into something useful. All of this knowledge, what is it to her but broken glass that she has slipped and fallen into. Every time she struggles, there's another cut, small but numerous, and she can scarcely think of the last time she was left to feel so raw and bloodied in the heart. There it is: the grief.

She believes him, even if she doesn't want to. Even if everything that he says is counter to the logics she has learned in their world, one thing stands above all of that, and that is that Jon isn't a liar. He never was. She just couldn't understand—still barely can.

When her hands drop away it's Sansa looking up at him, her tears silent and her eyes red. The last times she felt so small, she remembers it now. Seeing her real father die. Hearing of her mother's death. Of Robb's. Of everyone's.

For a moment she reaches beyond her petty self-serving needs, and dares to imagine what such a thing could have been like for one such as him. To be betrayed by his own fellow outcasts. What was the pain like, beyond the physicality? Was resurrection just as lonely?

She shakes her head, mouthing out a breathless 'no' before grasping for his arm in full, then moving it to his shoulder, then sliding both arms around his neck and hiding her face against his chest, eyes squeezed shut as she imagines the scar that her cheek presses against. She doesn't think she could bear to actually see it. ]

I'm sorry. I am so sorry...

[ For what happened. For what she said. For all that has befallen their house, their home, and that includes Jon Snow. ]