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]

[Just a moment ago, his heart was ice, trying to approach everything that happened with cold acceptance and some dignity. His favorite daughter being seen once again risked making that melt away, his arms wrapping around her.

He's quiet for a little bit.]

Gods, Arya...what happened? Did you escape? Are you alright?

[He's almost afraid to hear the answers.]

[wolfchild]

Yes, Father. [ She sniffles and wipes away one cheek. Parts of the story she has not even dared tell her mother yet stumble out.

She has never been able to lie to her father. ]

Yoren got me out. He cut my hair and told me I was an orphan boy named Arry on his way to the Wall. He was going to stop at Winterfell so I could go home.

[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.]

[promisedher]

['Was' is the word he dwells on the most.]

What happened then?

[Were they ambushed? Killed? Did Arya escape even then and get away, or...? Eddard's thoughts are racing and hopes she will give him something like good news.]

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?]

[wolfchild]

[ Depends what you consider "good". Arya looks down at her feet rather than see any disappointment in her father's face. ]

Ser Amory and his men attacked us. A few of us escaped, but everyone else was killed. Yoren was one of them. We were captured by the God's Eye. Weasel ran away and the soldiers killed Lommy because he couldn't walk, but they made me and Gendry and Hot Pie march to Harrenhal.

[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.

[promisedher]

[Yoren too. Even a member of the Night's Watch didn't escape Cersei and her son's tyranny. A bit of half-forgotten anger wells up within him, but he keeps his focus on Arya and her story.]

They didn't recognize you, did they?

[wolfchild]

[ She shakes her head. ]

No. I was careful, Father. I never told anyone. [ Not anyone who posed a danger, at least. Only Gendry knew, but Gendry was being hunted too. ]

[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.]

[promisedher]

[Even now, a reminder of how clever Arya was at her age brought a brief ghost of a smile on his face.]

Did you escape? To Winterfell? To where Robb marched?

[beyondthewall]

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

[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]

We both should have.

[Those words are small comfort, and Ned knows it. Even now, realizing son and father were trading blame for one failing or killing the other, Eddard knew there was nothing that could be said or done now. Perhaps, he thinks, this is some way to put their spirits at rest.]

You did as you were taught. You did what was right in your heart and your honor. Just as I did. I cannot fault you for a mistake I made as well.

[It's blunt, but it's true. Both of them tried to be just men in a world full of vipers and monsters.]

You will be remembered as a good King. Even now, the North remembers House Stark. I...

[He trails off.]

I wish I could have been by your side.

[wolfchild]

[ Winterfell is no more. ]

I was making for Riverrun. I heard Mother was there.

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.]

[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?

<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.]

[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?

[promisedher]

[It doesn't take long before he starts guessing where the rest of this story goes. He just keeps his youngest daughter in a firm embrace.]

Then you know what happened?