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

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

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.

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[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?

[ 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.

[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.]

[ 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. ]

Edited 2021-11-21 20:04 (UTC)

[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.

[ 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. ]

[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.

[ 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?

[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.]

[ 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?

Edited 2021-11-21 23:14 (UTC)

[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.

[ 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? ]

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.]

[ 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. ]

Edited 2021-11-22 00:07 (UTC)

[To say that she has not been the sister he knows, these last few minutes, would be a lie, but this embrace is a little closer to the sister he knows now. When the weight of what he tells her falls upon her, when she throws her arms around him, he hugs her close. And when he speaks, his words are rushed and low.]

I am no different. I wake and eat and ride and fight and sleep, like I did before. Like anyone else. The only difference is knowing it happened.

But I’m not the lord of Winterfell. It was offered to me, but it is yours; you are its lady, by every right. I wouldn’t take it from you.

[ It all still hurts her head so very much, and she feels embarrassed when she finally draws back from the embrace to wipe at her eyes with her fingertips. He is the one who suffered in this case, and she is acting the victim, but he still seeks to comfort her and remind her who he is. He is still Ned Stark's son; still Sansa's brother.

Where does that leave Alayne? And the supposed King in the North? If what he speaks of is the future of Winterfell, then...what about Petyr's plans? Her new engagement? Does it even really matter, if the dead end up razing Winterfell to the ground?

She keeps her hand on his arm, as if he might just fall dead once more the moment she lets go, or simply disappear. She doesn't know what to expect, now that magic has touched him. What else is he capable of? ]

But you...did say you were King in the North to that Essos girl. Where is your seat, if not Winterfell? That is how it is intended. You would not just give it up when the fighting is done.

[He gives her the moment to her collect herself. It’s easier not to have to talk too much of how he had been brought back. As much as she wipes her eyes, he tries to take some distance from something that he tries not to think on much, and that is never very far from his thoughts.

But when she speaks again, he answers her.]

It is my seat, as much as I have one… by your leave. I am not the lord of it except in that I am its king. I don’t have a train. My men are Stark men. You act as my regent. I am king to fight the Dead, that’s all. Anything else can wait.

[He doesn’t really expect to survive the battle.

Maybe no one will.]

[ She isn't sure what to think of that. To be King in the North is no small thing, and it is not a farce. If it was given to him, and the people accepted it, then...even if he was not the lord of Winterfell now, perhaps they just don't have the time for ceremony during such chaos, would it not need to be made so?

He still looks so weary, and not just because he already suffered a long ride and battle today. It's a tiredness of the soul, something that she can relate to, despite walking a very different path. It was given to him. Did he even want it? The Jon she knew likely wouldn't. Wouldn't know what to do with it. In her future, if she is to help as regent, perhaps that eases the burden.

And who was helping her? What of Petyr? What of Robert? She can't imagine that frail boy surviving such a journey, let alone a battle. ]

In this...future of mine, what of Fath— What of Lord Baelish? You say that we assisted, the Vale assisted, in retaking Winterfell. Is he...safe? With me at Winterfell, then, or did he return to The Eyrie to gather more men?

[ He couldn't be dead. She wouldn't know what to do with that information, and the anticipation tightens her grip further on his sleeve. ]

[For a moment, his expression shifts, becomes colder and more inward, and he looks down. Where is he? He had my fingers in his throat only a fortnight or two past.]

Baelish is at Winterfell. He came with Lord Royce, when you called on the Vale for aid.

But Sansa, you’ve told me not to trust him. And in all honesty, I see little in him to trust. He gave you to the Boltons — to a husband who was cruel to you. You came riding up the day I meant to leave Castle Black, with a lady knight and her squire and nothing but a gown and a thin cloak. You had escaped Winterfell, while Stannis was failing to take it. While Lord Bolton’s eyes were on the field.

Don’t — [(he finds her hand and covers it with his)] — don’t accept any marriage Baelish makes for you, if you can refuse it.

[Maybe all of this is already written. Maybe there’s no changing it, and maybe, if it changes, then everything else does, too. But if Sansa doesn’t marry Bolton, Jon will still be alive. He will still be working against the Dead. And maybe if it changes, it will change for the better. Maybe it isn’t necessary for her to suffer as she has.]

What—

[ As if things hadn't been bizarre enough. She shouldn't have asked. It was impulsive, and she knew when she did that she should wait, because any more information and she might just begin to start to see everything in hues of grey. It was foolish, and now she's having to accept more foolishness because of it. Because Jon wouldn't suddenly lie about this if everything else was true.

But...Alayne can't accept what he's saying. She just can't. ]

You must be mistaken. We have plans, and they have nothing to do with the Boltons. The one I am to marry is not the cruel sort, I can already tell. Father would not endanger me so. He cares for me. You...must have misunderstood. I do not know how, but— That makes no sense at all.

[And now his expression really does turn cold, and angry, but neither the coldness nor the anger is for her.]

Oh, aye, he cares for you. He told me he’s in love with you.

I’ve seen no such attachment on your side, but I’ve seen him try to turn matters to his advantage.

I’ve heeded your warning about him. It would be wrong of me not to give it back to you, after all you’ve suffered.

[ Her hand jerks out from under his, back into her own lap where fists clench. Not in anger but in embarrassment. Her cheeks redden and her gaze drops low at his mention of being in love, not looking the least bit surprised. Of course she already knew. She still remembers his kiss. She knows it's because she is her mother's daughter, but still... ]

...He is the only one who has never betrayed me. He has protected me. If something...happened with the Boltons, then it was not his fault. It would certainly be against his will!

[ As if being forced to accept Jon's death and resurrection wasn't enough, now she's being told that her one last protector, her one last true...something, betrays her? To be betrayed again somehow makes this far more impossible to swallow than anything else he's said, and her breaths come short and tight. It hurts, deep in her breast. ]

If you claim I told you such things, then it must be at his behest. There must be a plan, a complex one that you are simply not part of. It is...his way; it is not malicious. If he were in love with me, then why would he ever put me in harm's way? He would not. He is not the man you think. He is dangerous, true, but not to those he cares for. He aims to give me Winterfell, and more.

[ She won't ask 'what she has suffered'. She can't handle it, and this time she's smart enough to keep from asking. ]

[He looks stung again, but it passes. He does not pursue her withdrawn hand.

If she trusts Littlefinger now, this would be well hard to hear. But she does need to hear it. She does need to have some armor for herself.]

Whatever he does for you, he does for himself.

Father — our real father — he would thank Baelish for his aid, but he would not have trusted him more than I do now. I only look to protect you, Sansa. I gain nothing from distrusting him, but I’d be a fool not to.

[ Of course he and Eddard Stark would handle Petyr in the same way. He operates very differently from them. That's why he's still alive, she nearly says, but holds it in, knowing it would do nothing but wound him and make her seem petty. There's been enough of that today.

What he's described to her makes less sense than magic, somehow. But she knows that Jon isn't being vicious. He isn't the sort. But... It has to be a misunderstanding. She shakes her head, brow furrowed while she tries to piece this puzzle together even further, but there's no finding the corners. Those pieces are still missing.

Even if Petyr didn't betray her, even if it was somehow against his will... The idea that she might suffer at the hands of another maniac leaves her trembling in fear. Suddenly she is not so eager to return home. What does she care about Winterfell and it's seat, if she has to suffer even more for it? Jon can keep it. ]

I wish to speak no more of it. You've done what you think of as your duty, and I have heard you. Now let it be over.

[ But she hasn't really heard him, because she cannot bear to. She must Alayne again. She has to be, because...because there is nothing else. She has invested too much into this identity. She has tried so very hard, and what has she to look forward to?

Her breaths slow. Her back straightens. Her fingers unclench and fan out. Alayne looks to Jon Snow with the posture of a lady who scarcely knows him instead of a scared little sister. When she speaks again, she's found the voice she uses on the servants in The Eyrie when displeased with them. ]

You know... Seeking the Targaryen and her army, if she is even real, is a fool's errand. At best, they will ignore your plea and kill you before you can reach her, and who is to know if you can be revived a second time. At worst, she will use that same army to conquer the Seven Kingdoms and usurp the Iron Throne, and even more may die than if we had fought the undead ourselves.

[Has she heard him? Has she, in truth? From the way she has argued with him, then dismissed the subject entirely, and chilled, more like her mother again, he doesn’t think so. That she seems to be striking out at his decision is nothing new; she questions him all the time, though for other reasons than he thinks she may be doing so now.]

I’ve reached Daenerys Targaryen already. That woman from Essos, that’s her. She’s like you — she doesn’t remember as much from home as I do. And she’s like you, pretending to be someone she isn’t so we can all get back there.

[He is not unkind, but his tone is now cooler than it has been.]

Before I left Winterfell, Cersei summoned me to King’s Landing to bend the knee. I don’t mean to go. Part of the alliance I’ve been seeking is against her.

[Does Sansa disagree with that decision, too?]

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

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