Spontaenous voice testing / Potential game-seeking?

[promisedher]

...do you jest, bringing me out here in the open? Is this some sort of sick game where I am be taunted for my failures even beyond the grave? My closest friends lay dead, my family slain and disgraced, my lands in ruin...and that is not enough? I am to be some sort of attraction for your own amusement?

It wouldn't matter if I can see them again. It won't change what has happened and you understand that as well as I.

Of course I wouldn't have a choice in the matter. I didn't expect to. Given the choice to act with honor, I damned my closest friend and his whole kingdom...and in turn, I failed my entire House, my wife, my sons...

Do as you will, 'mundane'. There's nothing left that you can take from me.

Comments

[wolfchild]

[ Quietly. Tentatively. ]

Father?

Pardon any sloppiness, haven't mused from this before. @_@

[promisedher]

[It takes him a moment to recognize her, and he'd scarcely believe it if not for what she said.]

...Arya?

IT IS OKAYYYY <333 please forgive any slowness because feeeeels

[wolfchild]

[ That's all it takes. She does not care that she's in dirty breeches and her hair is too short. She does not care for the hows or whys. Face crumpling, Arya charges him. She throw her arms around his waist in a vice-like grip. ]

Yes, Father! [ She sobs against him. ] It's me!

[wolfskin]

You did what you thought was right, you cannot be faulted for what happened. [ Where Robb will fault himself, how hypocritical.

I'm sorry, he wants to say, I'm sorry I failed you, I failed everyone. ]

[promisedher]

And you and your bannermen paid the price for my foolishness. [Like father, like son. Even as far ahead into the war it was, Ned felt if he could have returned to the North and led the conflict himself, all the death and suffering could have been prevented...or at least taken the black with Jon and his brother.

Even now, staring at his son, he isn't sure what to say or do. He wants to scold him for his actions as much as he wants to give some comfort to him. He wants to show pride for how valiantly he had fought the Lannisters. He wanted to bring the Boltons and Freys to justice as any true Northerner would.

But here, in this place where death held no meaning, there is little spirit behind his actions or words.]

You fought well. You did well, and to the best of your abilities. That's all I could have ever asked of you. ['Even at the end, I was proud of you' is the sentence behind those words.]

[wolfskin]

No Father ─ [ He shakes his head, words becoming caught in his throat. ] It was my choice, it was my fault they paid the price. I didn't ─ [ Didn't see what was right in front of his face, he didn't save those he wanted to save, he was betrayed at every turn. Lost his father, lost his sisters, his brothers, lost the North itself.

His actions, his failures caused his own death and the death of those he cared about. Not his father's, never his father's.

Suddenly he feels like a child and his chest tightens. That is all he wanted; to be a King just and honorable, a man his father could be proud of. But achieving that much, after the everything, does little to heal the wounds. ]

I should have known, I should have listened to Mother.

apologies in advance for the slow, but I can't help myself

[ladywinter]

[She just stares for a moment, hardly daring to believe her eyes and ears.]

No one faults you, Ned. [Her voice is quiet, cracked around the edges- tired. So very tired. But there's a hopefully note there, at the sight of him, that hasn't been there for a while now.]

It's okay I'm even slower most of the time

[promisedher]

[It's finally seeing his wife and hearing her voice again that the facade cracks. Eddard goes right to her and wraps his arms around her to hold her close to him, quietly affirming to the both of them that this was real.]

Cat...you, our sons, our daughters...[His normally icy voice has some warmth and a crack behind it, one of the few times even she has seen him like this.]

It could have been stopped. I could have...I could have...[He trails off as he tries to regain his composure. Death was full of 'I could have' or 'I should have', wasn't it?]

<3

[ladywinter]

[She clings to him, buries her face in his chest, as if she's afraid the moment she lets go, she will lose him again. Cat has tried so hard to be strong- for their children, for his memory, for everyone who needed to her. Just for this moment, she could be weak and foolish.]

You were a wolf in a den of lions. You did all you could. [As with everyone else in this family, she blames herself. If she had been more capable, more convincing...] I have tried, Ned. I have. [And if he finds his shirt a little damp from her tears? She's sorry.]

[wolfdreamer]

[We have failed you, but the words stick in his throat. Some more than others. Some things were worse, and he thinks of Winterfell, of sneaking away, of the heavy thick air of the crypts and the open road North--

But he says none of it. Instead, quiet:]

You did not fail us, Father.

[It is just like seeing him in a dream, only worse and better all at once.]

God this is the most depressing family reunion ever

[promisedher]

[Seeing his son again with his motionless legs only makes Eddard's heart hurt more.]

...I couldn't bring justice to the ones who hurt you, Bran.

[There are other dark clouds over this conversation, but that's the one Ned remembers the quickest.]

[beyondthewall]

You'll learn soon enough, Lord Stark, that only when you believe you've none left to give, they take even more.

[promisedher]

[That wasn't a face Ned recognized, but being addressed by his old title makes his grim composure return, along with the realization this was someone from Westeros.]

And who are you to pass such a warning?

[songsandstories]

[She stands all the straighter at the sight of him, all wide blue eyes. The word 'father' threatens to fall from her lips. She tries to lie to herself, how many have built up by now? But as hard as she tries, she cannot. She cannot deny him. She cannot call herself Baelish's daughter in front of him. And the thought makes everything else crumble.

It has been long since the day Joffrey took her father from her. She is older now, so very much like Catelyn. Her head dips as she approaches.]

You failed none, Father. [The word feels so strange on her lips. Would he even recognize her, brown hair and all?]

[promisedher]

[If Arya took a moment to recognize, Eddard almost misses her words and is confused at the sight of this girl.] Who---

[But the wheels in his head turn and he quickly connects the dots.]

Sansa? Sansa, is that truly you?

EVERYTHING SUX :C

[wont]

[ I knew a man once with your face, she thinks to say. Alayne wonders, would he say the same to her? A daughter I once had, as beautiful as song perhaps. Or maybe: child, you have my Sansa's eyes. Ned Stark's second born was not half as tall, nor did she seem half as old as the young woman who stands before him now. Plain of dress and brown of hair, not a wolf or Northern born but a bastard — that is how the story goes, though Alayne hesitates to speak it.

She stares at him for a long moment and then drops her gaze, ashamed by her own silence. Father, Alayne knows that is what she should call him, but Littlefinger's lie holds her heart tightly like a fist, forcing her to swallow the word down instead. ]

Not all slain, my lord. [ Your eldest daughter would have followed you, should have followed you, into the dark. But forgive her, she could not see. She was blind until the moment Ice fell. ] It is a meager hope— [ She dips a bow, her gaze still lowered. ] —but all hope is meager these days.

HouseStark.jpg

[promisedher]

[Indeed, Ned doesn't recognize her immediately. She looks more like a young Catelyn than anything, and the melancholy young lady makes him feel a moment of bittersweet nostalgia. But still, his head turns a little at her words, and he's immediately suspicious.]

...truly? Then you know my children may still be alive?

[regretzio]

[strum]

♪ Ned, Ned, hand of the crown
Stealer of the scene
If you didn't want something bad to go down
You shouldn't've been Sean Bean ♪

[promisedher]

...what? [He's fairly sure he's being mocked by bards after his death, but what in the Seven Kingdoms did beans have to do with it all?]

[motherofwinter]

Ned. [ She shakes her head.] Your honor was your downfall but I do not love you any less for it. Nor do I fault you for what has happened.

I could not resist, I'm sorry :c

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

[She hates being no one most of all when confronted by things that were Arya; it's hardest to be no one when she's reminded that in her heart, her truest self is still Arya of Winterfell.]

A girl thinks they can always take more.

[roared]

You Starks have a knack for finding your heads. It's a pity you haven't a knack for keeping them on your shoulders.

Because I cannot help myself

[cordelisse]

Sometimes the worst happens no matter what you do. [Her voice is weary and her eyes so much older than her years.] You couldn't have known what was going to happen. [And oh, what an ironic choice of words for a seer to use]

[burnsobright]

You were warned.

[willas_tyrell]

No one faults you, Lord Stark. You're a better man than most could ever hope to be, and I think all of us, even the Lannisters can admire your conviction. It is a shame that King's Landing is often a poor arena for truely noble people to thrive. I wish it was, and I hope by the light of the Old Gods and the New that it might be some day.

Should it give you any peace, I would like to say that when I am head of my house, I will take any opportunity I can to tear these people down for what they've done to you, your family, and the kingdom as a whole.