𝖎𝖓𝖇𝖔𝖝; 𝔦𝔫 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔫𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱

[facelessgirl]

"𝔥𝔢𝔩𝔩𝔬, 𝔶𝔬𝔲'𝔳𝔢 𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔢𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔥𝔢𝔯𝔬 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔫𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔣𝔢𝔩𝔩."

Comments

phonecall incoming with @jesse coming up on arya's screen

[rehabbed]

[ With how weird and futuristic these devices are, it takes Jesse a good couple of minutes to figure out where the CALL button is, despite knowing his modern-world, layman's way around technology. So, he's not sure if Medieval-world Arya is going to even answer when holds the device up to his ear while taking a drag of a cigarette. Riiiiing... riiiiiing... riiiiing... ]

Arya Stark, tech wizard

[facelessgirl]

[ Arya almost jumps out of her skin when the device starts to ring, and tentative with confusion and caution, Arya has to spend a minute digging out from where it's fallen and disappeared into her sleeping furs in the tent she and Jon have been sharing. When she pulls back the last blanket to see it blinking, she draws her dagger first and pokes it to make sure it's safe.

After another minute of fumbling with it, trying to figure out why it's emitting the terrible sound, Arya finally accidentally answers the call. ]

Oh, finally. [ Referring out loud to the fact that the device has stopped screetching, she sits back on her heels in her tent. ] That was awful.

[rehabbed]

[ Jesse opens his mouth to greet her when the phone finally answers — and hesitates at hearing her talking... but like it's in the background. He frowns in mild confusion. ]

...Hello...? [ Louder: Yo? Yo. It's Jesse. [ A pause, then louder still: ] ...Hello? Arya?

[facelessgirl]

[ Arya goes still when she hears the voice from the device and she stares at it like she's seen a ghost. She glances around the tent, gets up and walks to the entrance to stick her head out. There's no one around. She comes back inside just as Jesse is starting yell to be heard. ]

Who's there?

[ She shouts it into the empty tent, suspicious, one hand on Needle's hilt. ]

[rehabbed]

[ Jesse squints in confusion, his hand likewise giving a confused gesture. He repeats her name questioningly a couple of times, and listens, and hears nothing but... well, nothing? And then Arya suddenly shouting, but again — in the background. ...Oh my god, Jesse suddenly thinks, a hand coming up to cover his face. Of course. She's never used a phone before, ever, has she? ]

The phone! Pick up the ph—! [ Calling this out into the receiver, but— Screw it, he pulls the phone from his ear, opens up the message box on her profile, and quickly thumbs a message: ]

Pick up ur phone
Talk into it
It's Jesse

[facelessgirl]

[ When it blinks again Arya glances down at it, kneeling to see the words that have popped up and although she has difficulty with some of them, she's managed to do this part before. She sits back on her heels again, picking up the device and studying the thing very close to her face, eyes narrowed and concentrated. ]

Hello? [ He's written talk into it, but that feels so absurd that Arya rolls her eyes at herself while she's doing it. Still... she had thought she'd recognized the voice she'd heard. It had sounded like Jesse, the man she'd met just recently, even if he is nowhere near. ] Jesse? [ Full of dubious confusion. ]

[rehabbed]

—Hey, Arya. Yeah, hey. It's Jesse. [ The poor girl, she sounds so confused. It's bewildering him how bewildered she is about talking into a phone, something he's taken for granted his entire life. Must seem like some kind of supernatural spirit box or something to her — hearing a human voice coming out of an inanimate object. ] Put the phone, um, like, up to your ear. So you can hear me properly. [ A pause in case she needs a moment to do that, and then: ] ...Hello? Hear me okay?

[facelessgirl]

[ Arya raises the device dubiously, as though the idea of holding it to her face is somehow even sillier than talking into it, but when she does and hears his voice come back to her even clearer, she jerks it away from her head again in shock. It's so much like Jesse's own response to Arya using the sound of his own voice on him that if she could think of anything else at the moment it would be humorous. ]

I- I hear you!

[ She shouts it far louder than she has to, as though Jesse being far away from her means she must raise her voice accordingly, like shouting across the bailey. She sounds feverishly excited, disbelieving, like she's discovered something so remarkable she must share it with someone else quickly. She remembers to bring the phone back to her face again after a moment. ]

What.. how does this work? Where are you? [ Still speaking too loudly. ] How have you cast this spell?

[rehabbed]

—Whoa. [ Yanking the phone away from his ear at that shout. Holy shit. Through Arya's continued overly loud, excited babbling, Jesse is gingerly placing the phone back to his ear — although, still has to hold it away a little. He can't help the fondly bemused little smile, though, at her mystified awe. "How have you cast this spell"? This might be the first time since he's arrived in this place that he's been genuinely amused despite himself. So, he can't help lightly teasing: ] With my secret ninja wizard skills. Surprise! [ But then, more seriously: ] You don't gotta shout, by the way. Just talk like you would if I was in the room with you.

[facelessgirl]

[ She's thankful that his tone tells her that he's joking even though she can't see him, but for a moment her heartbeat jumps at the word wizard coming through the device because that's exactly what all this feels like: some sinister new magic with endless mysterious possibilities. ]

And these are... these are common where you come from?

[ The disbelief is evident in her voice, as though she cannot imagine a world in which all communication was this easy. She can't even begin to imagine how different her own world would be. No more ravens lost to the weather and the wild, no more living in mystery of the movements of armies... ]

Do the wizards make them? [ At least she's talking normally now, although she's cradling the phone to her face with both hands. ]

[rehabbed]

[ Aww shit, man. Jesse can't help the little laugh at her utterly innocent puzzlement. He can see why should would think that. How many times has he had stoner conversations back in the days when he had friends, about what it would be like if you went back in time and showed people shit like phones and televisions? Except he's actually having that kind of conversation. God, this place is a mindfuck. ]

Tech wizards, yeah. Which aren't actually wizards. They're, like, super smart people who are super smart at building technology. [ Which... does she know what 'technology' means? ] ...Uh, like. Creating a machine outta, like... science. And stuff. Like these phones, for instance. Which, yeah, are common where I came from. Everybody's got 'em. Even homeless people.

[facelessgirl]

So people like maesters build them.

[ She says it like she's confirming the concept to herself out loud, trying to imagine how one would build such a thing. It's not the first time she's found herself making this comparison of her world's maesters with new things she's being told, but where maesters were the font of all higher knowledge in her world, it seems like in other worlds or times, knowledge had found new ways of spreading and had taken hold in other forms. It makes her head spin just thinking about it.

What she finally thinks to say is: ] Everything must move so fast where you come from. [ She can't fathom what it would have been like to pick up one of these devices and call her brother the day he left for the Wall. To have been able to pick one up and call her mother from King's Landing. How much easier it would have made her brothers' wars. ] In Westeros we use ravens.

[rehabbed]

[ Maesters... Jesse has no idea what that is, but... medieval scientists, he surmises, whatever a medieval scientist looks like. But he's still smiling a little, listening to the mystified awe in her voice. He's trying to picture what he world must have been like. Lord Of The Rings? Harry Potter? Braveheart? It spins him the fuck out that this girl is from that kind of world. The kind of world he's played video games based off of. World Of Warcraft and Baldur's Gate and... Jesus. Yeah, what a mindfuck.

His eyebrows shoot up in curious surprise at 'ravens'. ]

Like... to send letters? [ An awed scoff of bemused amazement under his breath to himself. ] That's so cool, though, yo. [ And with his own curiosity about her world piqued even more, he asks, a little more animation colouring his tone making him sound a bit like the old Jesse: ] Did you have like your own raven?

⟪ voice ⟫

[voktys]

⟪ Just one thing to clear up, just one, before she can face this one again. There is no greeting, she has little doubt that Arya will mistake her voice for anyone else. Not anymore was the last thing the girl had said, and she's chewed on it for the better part of the last few days. There is no more putting it off now. ⟫

Is he dead?

[facelessgirl]

[ Jesse has already called Arya once so the shock of hearing the phone isn't as bad as if it was the first time she'd heard it, but Arya still approaches her device warily, especially upon hearing Melisandre's voice coming from it. The red woman is right that Arya would confuse her voice for no other, and her purses her lips before answering. ]

Yes.

[ Definitive, emotionless, hard. She doesn't add anything else at first but then sits down in her furs with her device, somehow more comfortable speaking to the witch like this than to she is in person. ]

Ser Brienne said she found him after the battle and executed him.

[voktys]

⟪ Arya is well trained – as quiet as Melisandre keeps, she can hear the breath being drawn, and then the long silence. She sits on her futon, one hand clasped in front of her mouth, as if to keep a sound in, though she isn't sure what the sound would even be if she allowed herself to make it.

It's all lost, then. It's only just that she lives in eternal night now. ⟫

Which battle? ⟪ Her voice is a whisper, but even like this, it's raw. ⟫

[facelessgirl]

Jon told me he took his men and left Castle Black with Davos, but that he sent Davos back before the battle. He died after he charged his army against Ramsay Bolton, who held Winterfell then.

[ This device is new to her, and she doesn't like that she can't see how this news hits the red woman. There is some enjoyment lost in the experience without being able to see her. ]

Jon and Davos said you abandoned him, before the end. [ That it had only been because Melisandre left him that she arrived in time to save her brother. ] They said worse.

[voktys]

No.

⟪ This she can argue with, at least, because it does not add up, not even a little. ⟫

Davos Seaworth sailed for White Harbour before Jon Snow ever suggested for the King to take Deepwood Motte. I was not with either of them, I stayed at Castle Black, to wait for Stannis' return.

[facelessgirl]

[ She frowns because this is another one of those times when the stories from herself and those from her world don't seem to match up. It has been much the same way with Jon. They know one another, but not in quite the same way. ]

Jon doesn't lie. The Melisandre and Davos that he knew... that I knew, stayed together until just before the battle in the snow. [ She wonders again how this can be possible, but she's sure now that neither Jon nor Melisandre is lying. ] Perhaps if he had stayed to stop you it would have gone differently and my brother would never have had to battle Ramsay himself.

[ Another silent beat. Arya wants to push. ]

They say his troops abandoned him too, in the end. Because of what you did.

[voktys]

Plenty of his troops call me his true queen. ⟪ This is not something she says out loud, nor is it something she has ever acknowledged. Plenty of them are believers, by now, and Selyse does not have the draw Melisandre has, guilty as thought might take her. ⟫ They would not abandon his cause ––

⟪ She rubs her temples, trying to make sense of something that, by default, won't let itself be put into order. ⟫

And there is nothing I did. I was at the Wall. I died before I even had news of the battle over Deepwood Motte. The Wall was already a concession, Queen Selyse and the Princess Shireen are still at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, so the princess may be sent to Braavos should –– should anything happen to the King.

[facelessgirl]

They did. Almost half, they said.

[ Although it's annoying and confusing having to explain this woman's life to herself, Arya's voice is calm as still water. She's simply reciting what she was told by the very person she trusts the most. ]

That's not what Davos said you did with her.

[ She lets it hang in the air a long time. She thinks back to losing her only friend to this woman, who intended to burn him alive to serve her king. ]

King's blood, Gendry told me you said to him. That you would have taken it all. I guess we'll never know if you got anything worthy out of her.

[voktys]

⟪ There is almost something like relief in thinking that this girl must live in some worst case scenario. Something must happen to all the times different paths were chosen, no?

King's blood, she says. King's blood, she implies, with Shireen, and of course, she knows the power this sacrifice would hold. One given under such pain, and oh, it would pain her, and one of Stannis's own... But she has taken care to find others. Davos had cost her Edric Storm, but Mance Rayder and his son were well within reach. ⟫

I would not touch the princess. It would be folly – Stannis will never have another trueborn heir, and without her, his claim is void. He'd rather kill me where I stand.

⟪ Of this, she sounds convinced. And then, a sigh: she feels tired, drained. ⟫ Who is this Gendry, then?

[facelessgirl]

[ The scowl has settled deep into Arya's face now and she sits with her legs and arms crossed on her furs, staring into the dark. ]

It seems you and Stannis changed your mind when you met the northern winter. I suppose winning through in the present was more important than a future... if it never came.

[ Something in that earnest exhaustion in Melisandre's voice hits Arya's ears as exasperation, makes her think of all the times the people with power over her and her friends had waved off pain and injustice with indifference - of the time the Hound had pretended not to remember who Micah was - that the rage flares up in her, white hot. ]

Gendry. [ The danger in her voice is deadly still. ] He was Robert Baratheon's bastard, but he didn't know it. You bought him from the men he trusted like brothers and would have killed him, would have burned him... if not for Davos. [ She thinks of a way to twist the knife then. ] My brother's Hand.

[voktys]

⟪ As well as she had done in hiding her feelings this far – and considering that she is heartbroken and robbed of a purpose and desperate, she has done quite well –– but this one breaks her. ⟫

I am many things, but I am not a slaver. ⟪ Her voice is steady even in rage. ⟫ Enjoy your revenge fantasies, little girl, for all it matters to me. Tell me over and over again that he is dead, abandoned by those he trusted. By R'hllor, when I was your age, all I could dream were nightmares and murder, if nothing else of you, this much I can understand.

[facelessgirl]

[ Arya shrugs in the dark of her tent, glad she's managed to retain some of Syrio's teachings even if she is not quite calm as still water. ]

The brotherhood said the same. They still took the gold.

[ And would have accepted it for her as well, if they were lucky, had the Hound not done what he did. Yet she makes a soft sound to be called little girl and smiles, cold and humourless, and it helps to remember the fear in the eyes of the woman who'd once taken her by the chin in the woods when she was young and made her a prophecy. ]

My revenge is not limited to fantasy. Not anymore.

[ And yet she remembers holding Beric against the stone wall of the great hall as he died, remembers the encroaching hopelessness after their mad dash down the hallways, after the chaos of the yard. She remembers how lucky it was that the red witch had been lingering there with her prophecy once again. ]

You asked me, you know.