universal_charm | Let's Try This Again [ Action + Locked Voice ]

Entry tags:

Let's Try This Again [ Action + Locked Voice ]

[ Locked to Arya, Spock, and Emil - 90% Unhackable ]

Okay, so, seems Luceti doesn't want us hanging out at a camp site, but screw that, we're going this weekend. I still have all the stuff, so we're pretty much set. But, uh, Spock you're going to have to get yourself some other clothes. I still only have the ones we picked for your bitty self...

[ Locked to Spock, 100% Unhackable ]

Hey, I want to talk to you about something. Let me know when you got time, we can go down to Buffy's or something, get a drink, and talk there.

[ All of that done, it was time to go and run some errands and fill up his day - which suddenly seemed a bit harder than it should.

He could at least start by really getting back into his workout. It had kind of gone wonky the last few weeks. Don't even get him started on the last weekend. He could still hear that odd speech pattern in his head and it made him wince. How? How had anyone put up with that? And he had been posing, hadn't he? He was sure he had, because he remembered looking at himself in the mirror... and no. Nope. Not going there. He was going to the battle dome now and he was going to make use of it. He spent the morning working out against simulations and doing resistance training, the release of exercise endorphines sending a nice, happy tingle through him.

Eventually, he had to stop though and get some real errands done - which basically meant the grocery story because somehow that had become his job when it came to feeding two grown adults, a teenage girl, and a wolf the size of a pony. Seriously, you try telling that thing what it can and cannot eat. If it wants to eat, it eats. Which meant grocery shopping and hauling it all back.

But even with doing that, it left an afternoon partially open, and he wanted to do something new. And what might that be? Well... why not go to the barn? He knew they had one and had horses (it made sense since they had ponies, right?), and while he had never really been much of an animal person, it might not be a bad idea to become acquainted with another potential forms of transportation after all. That in mind, he headed that way, with a pocket full of carrots. Horses like carrots, right? ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That is not nearly as comforting as I think you mean it to sound.

_{[ He glared down at his charge, the girl he and Spock had more or less
adopted somehow into their home. ]}

[The glare doesn't intimidate her in the slightest. If Kirk were the type to try to hurt her, Nymeria would have bitten him. Not to mention she would have spotted it herself even before that. She gives him a serious face in answer, though.]

She won't hurt you. Not unless I tell her to.

[Or if he took a swing at her for some stupid reason, but she can't see that happening.]

So, I've been meaning to ask - is she just well trained, or do you have some sort of weird mystical bond with her?

_{[ He motioned at the wolf ahead of them, arching a brow. It was a bit
odd, you had to admit, how a girl weighing no more than fifty pounds
sopping wet could possibly control a full grown wolf. ]}

[Arya glances over at Nymeria, who turns to look back at her as well. The wolf tilts one ear to the side. Arya chews her lip.]

I don't know. My brother Jon said we were meant to have them. [And sometimes she even dreams she's a wolf, sometimes even that she's Nymeria herself, but that is a strange thing that she's not entirely sure she should share with anyone.] She's always listened to me ever since she was a pup.

Huh, all right then. Maybe it's the man's best friend deal, just, you know, with a wolf.

[She nods. It's a lot more simple that way.] A little like that. People were always saying they were too wild, but the direwolf is my family's sigil. All of the pups listened to us.

[Especially Ghost. Although Lady was very well-behaved too, but thinking about Lady just plain hurts.]

Family's sigil, huh? You from some sort of noble family?

_{[ He might be kind of impressed, but it was more of a romantic thing
to him, her world - myth and legend. Any family with weight in their name
in his world were all business giants with more cash than brains, it
seemed. ]}

[Arya fidgets slightly. She can all but hear the "m'lady"s starting already. Still, she nods.]

The Starks used to be Kings in the North. [And saying that almost makes her choke on the words. Robb was King in the North as well, after all. She's not sure being a Stark means much of anything anymore.

Rather than dwell on that, though, she scowls at Kirk.]

But I'm not a lady or anything. That was my mother and sister.

_{[ He held up his hands, at first having wanted to move to comfort her,
recognizing the sounds of distress, even if he wasn't to sure how to deal
with them in her.}

He gave her a reassuring grin. ]

Don't worry. Where I come from, having a title doesn't really mean much anymore. They're more honorary than anything.

[Still scowling a bit, she glances up at him with suspicion clear in her eyes. He's probably right, with how insane his world seems, but it still sounds so strange.]

...It was everything, where I come from. You weren't allowed to be yourself, so long as you were a lady. Or a lord.

[She guesses. Her brothers were always themselves, but she's heard the way the smallfolk talk.]

Yeah, I mean, they still have to be kind of proper, as far as I know, but it's not as big a thing. In the U.S. lords and ladies don't exist. We have the rich and stuff, but no one has titles anymore unless it's in a company.

_{[ He smiled at her reassuringly as he got a tie down and grunted in
satisfaction, patting the taught side of the tent. ]}

[Arya gives a few testing tugs to the ropes to make sure they won't come unraveled, chewing her lip thoughtfully.]

Even if it's your name that has more power than your title?

[She's heard of bastards of high lords rising to ridiculous amounts of power, after all, without ever being considered lords themselves.]

Well, I admit, sometimes having a well know family name gets you awe and respect, but it doesn't mean people have to bow and scrape. Chewing them out for being an ass won't get you sent to prison or your head lopped off. That would be illegal.

["Head lopped off" makes her expression go a little stony and distant. She's silent for a moment before answering.]

I wish it was like that back home.

_{[ he looked at her a moment, reaching out and ruffling her short hair.
]}

Things will get better. It used to be like that in my world, and then the people decided they had enough.

[The hair ruffling only makes that hollowness inside grow more noticeable. Jon used to ruffle her hair. Before she knows what she's doing, it all just comes pouring out:]

People did have enough. The King in the North was going to fix it, once he beat the stupid Lannisters. But they killed him, too. They took his head off, too. And they killed all his men.

[They even killed his wolf. Nymeria gives a soft whine.]

_{[ The took him aback, not expecting such a response. Who would ever
expect that, to hear the admission their family had been massacred?}

He hesitated a moment and then he reached out, stepping up and wrapping his arms around her, hugging gently. ]

Hey... hey it'll be okay...

[Somewhere in the back of her brain, the thought surfaces that she should squirm free, but she's just too hollow to bother.]

No, it won't. People always say that, but it's never true. It always slips right past you.

[If anyone knows, it's her. She was so close to being there with Robb and her mother. She came so close to Riverrun even before that. It's always right out of reach.]

I know it seems that way, and it'll take awhile, but you can't let it get you totally down, okay? Don't let it define you, or, you know, stop you from doing what you need to do with your life, okay?

_{[ He was stupendously bad at this, but hey he was trying. ]}

[If you only knew, Kirk.]

It hasn't stopped me.

[It's only made her "prayer" longer. Even longer if she knew all the individual names. But revenge is her fuel.]

Good. Cause if you stop, they win, got it?

_{[ He looked down at her, hoping those words made some sort of impact,
but for all he knew he sounded like a total ass. ]}

[Her eyes are cold, grey stone. The eyes of a killer, the little dwarf woman had said, and it's never looked more true than now.]

I'll never let them win. [They'll learn the reason why you don't pull the direwolf's tail.] Not so long as I live.

_{[ Hmm, that might have been a tad creepy, that look, but he didn't
comment on it, letting her go and squeezing her shoulder. ]}

That's good then.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Let's Try This Again [ Action + Locked Voice ]

Re: [Action]

[Action]

Re: [Action]

[Action]

Re: [Action]

[Action]

Re: [Action]

[Action]

Re: [Action]

[Action]

Re: [Action]

[Action]

Re: [Action]

[Action]

Re: [Action]

[Action]

Re: [Action]

[Action]

Re: [Action]

[Action]

Re: [Action]

[Action]

Re: [Action]