video | un: c.fraser

[nineteenfortyfive]

[Here is one disgruntled English lady. You might have seen various shades of this annoyance after the pods plummeted to the earth, checking for injuries (maybe on you, personally), or more recently at the Sanctuary collecting blood. Apparently, the latter is why she's deemed it necessary to post.]

Thought I'd drop a quick word, given some of my experiences since we've all come together.

Now, I understand we all come from various worlds and times, with vastly differentiating forms of medicine, but I'm sure it's safe to say that bloodletting is not the preffered sort of medicine people want here. I don't care if someone here handed you a knife, of if that's what you're used to doing. That is not how you collect blood. You use a needle, and hopefully it's held by someone that knows how to find a vein. If you'd like to learn, I'd be happy to teach you.

Secondly? Your blood, assuming you're... human, or what the biologically average human is, is going to be used by anyone who needs it, rich or poor. The blood of a king is not going to make a beggar on the street suddenly somehow contend for a throne that doesn't even bloody exist in this world.

[There's a pause in which she almost calls a certain someone named Richard out, but she's a better woman than that. Just barely.

There's a flicker of a forced smile.]

Thank you.

Comments

[reek]

[ And the permanent smirk returns. That's clearly not Robb, but he thinks he knows who it might be. He had a run-in with a man who fits that very description. ]

Bearded? Something of a whinger?

[nineteenfortyfive]

You sound like you've had the immense pleasure. Did you become nobility simply by sharing the same air as him? Please, tell me how that went.

[She thinks Richard relatively harmless in the grand scheme of things. So, it's safe to be catty, right?]

[reek]

He lacks the ability to climb a tree, if you’ve the interest in knowing.

[ And that just cracks him up, if his laughter is anything to judge by. ]

He must be feedble-minded. You can convince him of anything. I talked him into believing I ran the armory—when someone already placed him in charge of the armory. But don’t try to tell him that you come from noble blood as well. His is the only noble blood of any true concern.

[nineteenfortyfive]

A man of his age shouldn't be climbing trees unless he's looking to break something.

[Though, here's a bit of a curious look.]

Are you nobility, Theon?

[At this rate she might as well just call herself nobility, too.]

[reek]

I’d be prone to agree with you, had I not seen men older than him do far more. They were all more intelligent than him, though.

[ Despite the whole “let’s use a knife to take blood” thing, Westeros really isn’t the worst in terms of health. Not everyone dies at twenty. ]

Aye. I was heir to the Iron Islands, when the Iron Islands still existed.

[ He comes across as so cocky with that smirk, you wouldn’t even know how truly uncertain he is about that fact. His father seemed pretty set on giving that title over to his sister, but his father is dead, so just—let him cling to this. Balon wasn’t really even a proper king, and Theon himself was only a self-proclaimed prince for a time. It’s fine, it's fine, it's fine. Still noble blood, and he's not as ridiculous about it as Richard. ]

My family is descended from the Grey King. He was said to have ruled the islands for over one thousand years.

[nineteenfortyfive]

A once-prince, then. Congratulations on not mentioning it upon our first meeting.

[It's sad, really. No more kings or heirs or lands or anything. She frowns, momentarily, then shakes her head.]

Tell me about the Iron Islands.

[reek]

[ If he weren’t such a proud man, he would likely find nothing good to say about the Iron Islands at all. They aren’t beautiful islands. They’re cold and damp, and if he would allow himself to admit it, he would realize that North has always felt far more like a proper home. Unfortunately, he doesn’t allow that.

Of course, he smirks, and he begins. ]

There are seven major Iron Islands. Saltcliffe, Blacktyde, Old Wyk, Orkmont, Great Wyk, Harlaw, and Pyke. I come from Pyke, the seat of House Greyjoy. All of the islands are cold, and unless you wish to see your ship dashed among the rocks and salt, none of them make for particularly safe anchorage. We still built one of the largest fleets in Westeros. It's a wonder no one ever noticed. What we lacked in good soil, we make up for in a strong, capable people. The Iron Islands breed good sailors, and good fighters. What we needed to survive, we found elsewhere.

[ Raiding. They were basically pirates. And though he continues to smirk, it's hollow. He learned in the North that honor is earned, not taken, and he can't force himself to feel any honor in the things he did. The ironborn lifestyle was always poorly tailored to him. ]

[nineteenfortyfive]

[Pirates is the picture Claire's getting. She imagined more peg legs and parrots, but she supposes in any sort of realistic sense they'd be like Theon's people... even if Theon himself doesn't exactly scream a fit for the type of place he's describing. Still, it's interesting to hear about other lands in other worlds, and she's surprised that anything in that sounds familiar.]

Westeros? Do you know Sansa, then?

[The sweet young girl with the lovely red hair.]

[reek]

[ He’s known Sansa since she was a girl, still clinging to her mother’s skirts. Gods, he was in Winterfell for a long time. He both resents it and looks back on it fondly. If he could accurately speak a single word for what he feels, he would probably shout it from the rooftops.]

I have known Sansa for many years.

[nineteenfortyfive]

[While she was hoping for a little more enthusiasm, or something to give her a clue as to the nature of their relationship, Claire still summons up a small smile.]

I'm glad there are people here she knows. You're very lucky, the two of you.

[reek]

[ That’s the trouble with their relationship as it currently stands. Theon and Sansa were not close in Winterfell. If anything, their only interactions were passing glances and short, curt exchanges. Now she tells him that he saved her--from what? He can recall nothing of it, and it's driving him half mad any time someone mentions it.

It's very awkward, really, but at least he can offer up one more clue to Claire. ]

I was born on the Iron Islands, but I was raised in Winterfell alongside Sansa's brothers. The eldest of them are here with her as well.

[ His smile falters, almost as though he's ashamed of this fact. It would be easier, if it hadn't all sent him into a lifelong identity crisis. ]

In what manner does luck factor into it?

[nineteenfortyfive]

[That's a relief as well, then. Sansa was nice, if not timid, and Claire didn't particularly like the thought of yet another young girl on her own here. No need to worry if she's got her brothers here. Which Theon is not, it seems.]

I see.

[She watches him, then gives a light shrug.]

There must be hundreds of us here, and I think most of us only have familiar faces asleep in those pods. The world's a different place when you have people you know in it. That's luck, then, that there are so many people from your world that you know here, and not asleep. You're not alone.

[reek]

[ He isn’t alone, but he feels alone. There are plenty of people here from home, familiar faces who he may have been pleased to see at any other point in his life. Now, he can’t approach them with anything but doubt, and they can’t approach him with anything but hatred or judgement or, in his sister’s case, the same coldness as ever.

That’s just how it’s meant to be, he supposes. He shrugs, putting his smirk back on. ]

I suppose luck depends on who you know, supposing you've not been left here with enemies.

[nineteenfortyfive]

I don't know whether it's worse to be here without a familiar face or with an enemy. At least it'd be someone you shared a world with.

[At least Clare sort of found some comrades in Peggy and Steve, though it's still not quite... there.]

[reek]

[ There are times when he wishes he were on his own here. He might feel differently if that were actually the case, but waking each morning to the faces of people whose lives you helped to destroy is not the best experience. ]

Too many knives for your liking at the end of the day?

[nineteenfortyfive]

[A valid point, she would say, but at least in that there's hope for something to be fixed. When there's no one, nothing, that's about all you have.]

My husband would have gone for the knife, too.

[reek]

Would you have allowed it in his case?

[ Trying to see if you're a hypocrite. ]

[nineteenfortyfive]

He'd get it worst of all.

[Oh, she's hypocrite, but not in this.]