<Snipped quote by Ezekiel>
I did not expect the disgraced former prime minister of Pakistan to make an appearance in this roleplay but I am here for it
Look some crazy guy is playing Bond in this rp so I thought anyone was open.
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Look some crazy guy is playing Bond in this rp so I thought anyone was open.
In
My Brother's Keeper - A Song Of Ice and Fire Blackfyre Rebellion RP
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1 mo ago
Forum: Advanced Roleplay
T H E R E A C H
T H E R E A C H
T H E R E A C H
Old Town — The Starry Sept
"Gentle Mother, we are hollow, something loved has gone away. Crone, your lantern lights the darkness, help us bear another day.
Father, grant us strength to carry what no judgement can repay. Stranger, take what must be taken, Mother, hold what chose to stay."
Rhaena's hands were knit together as she spoke the words. Unlike her sisters she had been shy in her youth, although years spent in service to the Seven-Who-Are-One had provided her with the ability to lead prayer and song without feeling the dreaded touch of shame. Now the quiet voice of the scared girl had returned as she knelt in solitary prayer. The Starry Sept had many locations of great beauty within its walls, and the great stained glass fresco that towered above her, casting all incoming light into the rainbow touch of the Seven, was one of her favourites.
It did not depict any great scene out of Westeros' long history of faith, but instead the blazing comet of the Seven Gods, their mighty fallen star, soaring above the hills of faraway Andalos. A distant realm, she had once thought to see it herself, although she now understood the folly of such things. The Seven had led the faithful away from those hills, to return would be to refute their judgement.
Today the majesty of such failed to lighten her spirits. The surface of her cheeks remained stained with the slow trickle of her tears as she tried to find solace in prayer. It was made all the harder for the thought her sister would likely have found her foolish for doing so. In these more trying moments she even considered that she may have been right. Close to her sat the letter the Raven had brought her, the one she had never really expected to receive. Daena had been a feature of her world as sure as the Sky itself, and often just as aloof to her. She had considered that while life seemed to happen to everyone else, it was Daena who happened to life. Now she was gone, the first of them, taken when she was sure their family needed her most.
Part of her grief came from the missing words of her other sister. The news had come to her in the kind yet unknown words of a stranger, not by the hand of Elaena. In some ways she had found distance from her sisters a relief after years at court, but now most of all the lack of their presence was a painful want, only made worse by the silence lingering between them. She had attempted to break this silence herself, but had found the words slipping away from her. Thus, she had returned to what had always brought her comfort, and felt only worse for the lack of its success. With a heavy sigh she stood from where she had knelt before the window, the warmth of the Sun still touching her through the coloured glass. The cloth of white and gold about her frame fluttered into place, before she turned to walk back into the heart of the great sept. Even at this early hour there were still many to be found among its hallowed halls, more and more now that fear of war plagued the city. War and Plague were the greatest fire to faith, she had found, in her years helping to organise the faithful of the Seven with Old Town, although that specific observation she had made long before that.
"Fair Morn, Septa Rhaena."
She was pulled from the worst of her thoughts by the greeting, a faint smile touching her lips as she dipped her head in turn.
"Ser Redfort, Seven Bless You." The younger brother of the current Lord of House Redfort, the man was a fair few years her junior as well. The Vale had often forged some of the most faithful of the Knights of the Realm, and Arros Redfort was no exception to this. While the Faith had been forbidden from maintaining true men-at-arms, that had not prevented some knights from travelling to Old Town to seek the favour of the faith while still performing their martial duties. Arros had spent a number of years in the Southern Reach and was one of the more dedicated members of the Sept's flock. His presence reminded her of a time when the Knights of the Vale had championed her at court, so it was hardly a great trial to speak with the man. "Did you wish to see the Sept before the crowds of the day?" She spoke again as she lifted her head from its respectful bow to look up to the man.
"A good guess, Septa, but not in this case. My brother has called me home, with the troubles brewing as they are. I wished to see the wonders of the Sept once more before I am taken away to duty."
At the Knight's words, Rhaena knit her hands together once more. "I will pray for your safety, and the realm's, Ser." Rhaena could read sadness, and something more desperate, beneath the stoic face of the Knight. It was no great surprise, all the Realm must be in a state of distress with the dark words the Ravens brought across its length and breadth. "Duty is ever a noble purpose, to the Kingdom and to family." She offered a smile as she attempted to aid in the lifting of the Knight's spirits, even as they began to walk towards the exit of the Sept's main hall.
"You do me a great honour, Septa Rhaena." The man's heavy tread carried much further in the hallowed halls than her own soft tread, muffled by both the cloth of her robe and the silk slippers beneath. He seemed poised to say more, before the great doors opened before them and the morning sun of Old Town bathed the pair in the warmth of its light. He paused, his hand resting upon the pommel of his sword, and looked back at her with something like regret in his eyes.
"The Seven will guide you, Ser Arros," she said softly, "and bring you back to these halls when peace returns."
"I shall hold to that hope, Septa." He bowed his head once more, deeply, and then turned to stride through the great archway and down the steps toward the city below. She watched him go until the press of the morning crowd swallowed his tall frame and the gleam of his mail.
When he had vanished, Rhaena let out a slow breath and turned back into the shadowed cool of the sept. The grief that had settled in her chest since reading Daena's letter had not lifted, but the brief exchange had reminded her of something else, something that pressed upon her with greater urgency than sorrow.
She found one of the novices near the Crone's altar, a girl of perhaps sixteen with pale hair and earnest eyes, sweeping the flagstones with slow, reverent strokes.
"Child," Rhaena said, and the novice looked up at once, setting the broom aside. "I require a message sent to the Hightower. Would you see that Lord Hightower is made aware that I wish to speak with him at his earliest convenience?"
"Of course, Septa. Shall I send word now?"
"Now would be best." Rhaena's voice was quiet but firm, the voice she used when she wished to be obeyed without discussion. "Tell his steward that the matter concerns the Faith and the Crown both. He will understand the weight of it."
The novice nodded and hurried away, her slippers whispering against stone. Rhaena watched her go, then turned her gaze upward to where the great dome of the sept arched overhead, painted with stars that never faded even in the brightest hour of the day. Her hands found one another again, fingers lacing together of their own accord.
Lord Hightower. The name sat heavy in her mind. Oldtown was his city, and the Starry Sept sat in its shadow as surely as it sat beneath the Seven's gaze. If war came, if plague followed, if the realm tore itself apart as it had done so many times before, then it would do to be aware of where the Hightowers stood.
She thought of Daena again, and her throat tightened. Her sister had never prayed. She had never needed to. She would simply act and the world had rearranged itself around her will.
I cannot be her, she thought. But I am not nothing.
The novice returned sooner than expected, slightly out of breath. "Septa, Lord Hightower's steward sends word that his lordship will receive you this afternoon, after the hour of the Smith."
Father, grant us strength to carry what no judgement can repay. Stranger, take what must be taken, Mother, hold what chose to stay."
Rhaena's hands were knit together as she spoke the words. Unlike her sisters she had been shy in her youth, although years spent in service to the Seven-Who-Are-One had provided her with the ability to lead prayer and song without feeling the dreaded touch of shame. Now the quiet voice of the scared girl had returned as she knelt in solitary prayer. The Starry Sept had many locations of great beauty within its walls, and the great stained glass fresco that towered above her, casting all incoming light into the rainbow touch of the Seven, was one of her favourites.
It did not depict any great scene out of Westeros' long history of faith, but instead the blazing comet of the Seven Gods, their mighty fallen star, soaring above the hills of faraway Andalos. A distant realm, she had once thought to see it herself, although she now understood the folly of such things. The Seven had led the faithful away from those hills, to return would be to refute their judgement.
Today the majesty of such failed to lighten her spirits. The surface of her cheeks remained stained with the slow trickle of her tears as she tried to find solace in prayer. It was made all the harder for the thought her sister would likely have found her foolish for doing so. In these more trying moments she even considered that she may have been right. Close to her sat the letter the Raven had brought her, the one she had never really expected to receive. Daena had been a feature of her world as sure as the Sky itself, and often just as aloof to her. She had considered that while life seemed to happen to everyone else, it was Daena who happened to life. Now she was gone, the first of them, taken when she was sure their family needed her most.
Part of her grief came from the missing words of her other sister. The news had come to her in the kind yet unknown words of a stranger, not by the hand of Elaena. In some ways she had found distance from her sisters a relief after years at court, but now most of all the lack of their presence was a painful want, only made worse by the silence lingering between them. She had attempted to break this silence herself, but had found the words slipping away from her. Thus, she had returned to what had always brought her comfort, and felt only worse for the lack of its success. With a heavy sigh she stood from where she had knelt before the window, the warmth of the Sun still touching her through the coloured glass. The cloth of white and gold about her frame fluttered into place, before she turned to walk back into the heart of the great sept. Even at this early hour there were still many to be found among its hallowed halls, more and more now that fear of war plagued the city. War and Plague were the greatest fire to faith, she had found, in her years helping to organise the faithful of the Seven with Old Town, although that specific observation she had made long before that.
"Fair Morn, Septa Rhaena."
She was pulled from the worst of her thoughts by the greeting, a faint smile touching her lips as she dipped her head in turn.
"Ser Redfort, Seven Bless You." The younger brother of the current Lord of House Redfort, the man was a fair few years her junior as well. The Vale had often forged some of the most faithful of the Knights of the Realm, and Arros Redfort was no exception to this. While the Faith had been forbidden from maintaining true men-at-arms, that had not prevented some knights from travelling to Old Town to seek the favour of the faith while still performing their martial duties. Arros had spent a number of years in the Southern Reach and was one of the more dedicated members of the Sept's flock. His presence reminded her of a time when the Knights of the Vale had championed her at court, so it was hardly a great trial to speak with the man. "Did you wish to see the Sept before the crowds of the day?" She spoke again as she lifted her head from its respectful bow to look up to the man.
"A good guess, Septa, but not in this case. My brother has called me home, with the troubles brewing as they are. I wished to see the wonders of the Sept once more before I am taken away to duty."
At the Knight's words, Rhaena knit her hands together once more. "I will pray for your safety, and the realm's, Ser." Rhaena could read sadness, and something more desperate, beneath the stoic face of the Knight. It was no great surprise, all the Realm must be in a state of distress with the dark words the Ravens brought across its length and breadth. "Duty is ever a noble purpose, to the Kingdom and to family." She offered a smile as she attempted to aid in the lifting of the Knight's spirits, even as they began to walk towards the exit of the Sept's main hall.
"You do me a great honour, Septa Rhaena." The man's heavy tread carried much further in the hallowed halls than her own soft tread, muffled by both the cloth of her robe and the silk slippers beneath. He seemed poised to say more, before the great doors opened before them and the morning sun of Old Town bathed the pair in the warmth of its light. He paused, his hand resting upon the pommel of his sword, and looked back at her with something like regret in his eyes.
"The Seven will guide you, Ser Arros," she said softly, "and bring you back to these halls when peace returns."
"I shall hold to that hope, Septa." He bowed his head once more, deeply, and then turned to stride through the great archway and down the steps toward the city below. She watched him go until the press of the morning crowd swallowed his tall frame and the gleam of his mail.
When he had vanished, Rhaena let out a slow breath and turned back into the shadowed cool of the sept. The grief that had settled in her chest since reading Daena's letter had not lifted, but the brief exchange had reminded her of something else, something that pressed upon her with greater urgency than sorrow.
She found one of the novices near the Crone's altar, a girl of perhaps sixteen with pale hair and earnest eyes, sweeping the flagstones with slow, reverent strokes.
"Child," Rhaena said, and the novice looked up at once, setting the broom aside. "I require a message sent to the Hightower. Would you see that Lord Hightower is made aware that I wish to speak with him at his earliest convenience?"
"Of course, Septa. Shall I send word now?"
"Now would be best." Rhaena's voice was quiet but firm, the voice she used when she wished to be obeyed without discussion. "Tell his steward that the matter concerns the Faith and the Crown both. He will understand the weight of it."
The novice nodded and hurried away, her slippers whispering against stone. Rhaena watched her go, then turned her gaze upward to where the great dome of the sept arched overhead, painted with stars that never faded even in the brightest hour of the day. Her hands found one another again, fingers lacing together of their own accord.
Lord Hightower. The name sat heavy in her mind. Oldtown was his city, and the Starry Sept sat in its shadow as surely as it sat beneath the Seven's gaze. If war came, if plague followed, if the realm tore itself apart as it had done so many times before, then it would do to be aware of where the Hightowers stood.
She thought of Daena again, and her throat tightened. Her sister had never prayed. She had never needed to. She would simply act and the world had rearranged itself around her will.
I cannot be her, she thought. But I am not nothing.
The novice returned sooner than expected, slightly out of breath. "Septa, Lord Hightower's steward sends word that his lordship will receive you this afternoon, after the hour of the Smith."
Seems interesting! Not familiar with the previous RP but I'll have a read around and see if inspiration strikes me for a concept.
Beverly Flight Center, Beverly Massachusetts
"Baby Danvers! It's been a while."
Despite her generally not approving of the nickname, Carol couldn't keep the smile entirely off her lips as the wizened figure of Larry Khan approached her. A second generation Pakistani-American, Carol had little doubt 'Larry' was just a name men like her father had thrown onto Mr Khan in lieu of actually learning how to pronounce the real thing, but it was the only name she'd ever known him by, or heard him use.
"Hey Larry, sorry about that, I guess I … Just haven't felt the itch in a while." A complete lie, ever since her brother had snuck her to the airfield without her dad knowing she'd been in love with flying. She just didn't need Mr Khan and his Airfield to get that fix anymore. It wasn't the thought of flying that had brought her back to the airfield today. Grief never really seemed to leave her for good, flooding back in waves after months of being able to handle her life. Most of her better memories of her brothers were here, she'd just wanted to be where she could feel them most.
"It's ok, you don't need to explain that to me." Larry smiled, turning to open the door to the somewhat ramshackle office that made up the closest thing to ATC at the airfield. Once inside she was immediately hit with the sputtering noise of an ancient AC and the smell of slightly burned coffee wafting from the pot. It was enough to hit her with a wave of memories of the three Danvers' kids spending far too much time here and not at home. One half of the primary room of the simple structure was made up of office desks with ancient computers, the other half a series of beaten up couches and a few vending machines. The border between office and lounge was made up entirely of a rather low lying reception desk that was almost never manned separately from whoever just happened to be at one of the office desks.
Despite the presence of several dedicated seats, Carol moved to hop up onto the reception counter, her old spot when her brothers were crashing on the couches with their friends. Usually one of them gave her a hand up. Larry laughed slightly, but didn't protest, moving to begin pouring two cups of coffee from the steaming pot. The sorry state of the AC, which had certainly not improved in the long years of service, resulted in a hot enough room that Carol removed the comforting layer of her brother's flight jacket, resting it over her lap.
"I suppose your one doesn't fit anymore." Larry returned with both mugs, holding over one to Carol. Steam wafted from the liquid in an affirming torrent of its temperature. She took a sip right away, she had always enjoyed her coffee as hot as possible, that it could no longer burn her was an added bonus. As she finished her sip she let out a shallow laugh.
"Not for a few years." When Steve had first earned his wings with the Air Force they'd celebrated along with Khan, his family and the other airfield regulars. It was then that they'd revealed what they'd done for her, a custom jacket in the style of her brother's to wear while he was away. It had been one of her most treasured possessions, until the good luck it was meant to bring her brother had failed. Now she had his old one to wear.
"That was a good day." Larry mused as he sat down at one of the desk, the embattled hum of the ancient computer stirring to life as he woke it up. Some of the tech at the airfield was a little less dilapidated, thanks to the effort of Larry's nephew, but he was still loath to throw away anything that still had some life in it. She knew that both of their memories of the past were tinged with the power of nostalgia, but it was hard not to get swept up in the feeling while sitting where she was.
Carol was about to offer another tidbit of their ancient history, before one of the doors in the back swung open. A taller and much younger version of Larry pushed through the creaking hinges, carrying a great bundle of wires in varying states of disrepair.
"Uncle, I told you, you've got to take better care of-" Imran Khan stopped in his tracks as he saw her, a look of shock and then a more icy distance passed over his features. He didn't mention anything further, simply focusing on pulling what must really have been a vast tangle of wiring free from the storage cupboard. Larry glanced between them, his weathered face crinkling into a confused smile.
"Imran, look who it is! Carol Danvers. You remember her, don't you? The four of you used to be inseparable when you were kids. Always running around the tarmac together."
Imran's jaw tightened. He yanked the last coil of wire free from the cupboard with more force than necessary, the bundle of copper and rubber slapping against his thigh.
"Yeah. I remember." His voice was flat, stripped of any warmth the memory might have carried. He turned toward the front door, the wires trailing behind him like a reluctant tail. "I'm going to work on the radio in the hangar. Don't wait up."
The door swung shut behind him with a definitive click.
Larry blinked, coffee mug paused halfway to his mouth. He looked at Carol with the helpless bewilderment of someone who had missed every beat of a song he thought he knew by heart.
Carol stared at the closed door. The coffee in her hands had gone from scalding to merely warm in the span of that brief, bruising encounter. She set it down on the counter beside her thigh.
"I'll be back," she said, sliding off the counter. The flight jacket slipped from her lap and she caught it one-handed, balling the worn leather against her chest before pushing through the same door Imran had disappeared through.
It was a deceptively far walk to the hanger, airfields being what they were it would take only a few moments in a vehicle, but on foot it was a rather more tiresome trek to catch up.
The hangar was cavernous and dim, lit by the gray afternoon light bleeding through the high windows and the sickly yellow glow of a single fluorescent tube that had been flickering for as long as she could remember. Imran was already at the far end, kneeling beside an open panel in the hangar's ancient radio console, wires spilling across the concrete like entrails.
She crossed the distance between them, her sneakers scuffing against the oil-stained floor. He didn't look up.
"Imran."
His hands stilled on the wiring. Then resumed. "I'm working."
"I noticed." She stopped a few feet away, close enough that she could see the tension in his shoulders, the way his jaw worked beneath the skin. "You want to tell me what that was back there?"
He pulled a wire free with a sharp tug. "What was what?"
"Don't." The word came out harder than she intended. She softened her voice. "Don't do that. We both know you're not going to pretend you don't know me for Larry's benefit out here."
He set the wire down slowly, deliberately, and finally looked up at her. His eyes were dark and furious in a way that made something in her chest clench.
"Fine." He stood, wiping his palms on his jeans. He was taller than she remembered — they'd been the same height the last time she'd seen him up close. "You want to know what that was? That was me not being in the mood to play catch-up with someone who spent four years pretending I didn't exist."
The accusation landed like a slap. She opened her mouth, but he wasn't finished.
"Every day at school. Every hallway, every cafeteria, every class we shared. You walked right past me like I was a stranger. Like we didn't build that stupid model F-16 together in your garage. Like I wasn't at your house every weekend for three years." His voice cracked on the last word and he pressed his lips together, turning his face toward the radio console. "After Steve-"
He stopped. Swallowed. The fluorescent light buzzed and stuttered overhead.
"After the funeral, you didn't call. You didn't come by. You just... vanished. And then I'd see you at school laughing with those girls from the cheer squad and it was like — like Steve never happened. Like none of it ever happened."
Carol's throat had gone tight. She stared at the oil stains on the concrete, at the frayed edge of her brother's jacket clutched in her fist.
"Imran, I—" Her voice was rough. She tried again. "I'm sorry. I am. I know I was... I wasn't good to you. After. I wasn't good to anyone."
"Sorry." He repeated the word like he was testing its weight, finding it insufficient. "You know what sorry gets me? Years of silence, of watching you act like you'd never met me."
"I said I'm sorry." The words came out sharper now, the guilt in her chest curdling into something hotter. "What do you want me to do? Go back in time?"
"I want you to—" He threw his hands up, the bundle of wires swinging. "I don't know, Carol. I want you to acknowledge that it happened. That it hurt. That you weren't the only person who lost something when Steve—"
"Don't." The word came out like a blade. Something in her snapped — a thread she'd been holding taut since she walked through the hangar door. "Don't you dare stand there and tell me what I lost."
Imran's mouth opened, then closed.
"You lost your friend." Her voice was shaking now, and she hated it, hated the tremor, hated that she couldn't keep it together in front of him. "I know. I know you did. And I'm sorry about that — genuinely, Imran, I am. But you want to know what I lost? I lost my brothers. The only people in that house who gave a single damn about whether I ate dinner or came home or was still breathing." Through the pain of her own thoughts she could feel the desire to fight, to fly, blazing within her. She had enough of her senses remaining to fight it down, to keep it from burning into reality in the glow of her eyes. Even still, she missed that as she took a step forwards the ancient pavement beneath her forward foot began to blister and crack.
She was moving toward him without meaning to, closing the distance between them.
"And after he was gone, you know who was left? My dad. My drunk, checked-out, couldn't-find-his-way-to-the-kitchen-if-you-drew-him-a-map dad. So yeah, Imran. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that your friend's little sister was a little mean to you at school. I'm sorry I didn't call. I'm sorry I sat with the cheer squad and pretended everything was fine while my father drank himself through every bottle in the house, because I was fourteen years old and alone." Her voice broke on the last word. The fluorescent light buzzed and buzzed, filling the silence she'd left.
Imran stood very still. The anger had drained from his face, replaced by something else, something raw and open that made her want to look away.
"I didn't know," he said quietly.
"Of course you didn't." She wiped at her face with the heel of her hand, furious at the tears, furious at herself for crying in front of him, furious at the whole miserable architecture of her life. "Nobody knew. That was the point."
It was fortunate he was entirely focused on her, because as the emotion boiled within her, that same fluorescent bulb hanging on high began to glow with more intensity than it had in years, the old fitting practically screaming to contain the energy flaring from her.
"I would have come," he said. "If you'd called. If you'd let me in. I would have been there."
She laughed, a broken sound that wasn't really a laugh at all. "Yeah. Sure you would have."
"I mean it." He took a step toward her, and the wires finally slipped from his fingers, pooling at his feet like something surrendering. "Carol, I mean it. I would have come. I would have sat on your porch every night if you'd let me. I would have—"
"Would have, would have, would have." She shook her head, pressing Steve's jacket harder against her chest. "That's the thing about would haves, Imran. They're easy. They don't cost you anything. You get to say them years later and feel like you did something."
"That's not fair."
"No." She met his eyes. "It's not. None of it is."
He opened his mouth, closed it again. Ran a hand through his hair, that same nervous gesture he'd had since they were kids, pulling at the curls at the back of his neck when he didn't know what to say. She remembered it so clearly it made something ache behind her sternum.
"Look," he said, softer now, and the anger was gone entirely, replaced by something that looked dangerously like the boy she'd known. "I'm sorry I didn't see it. I'm sorry I was so wrapped up in my own grief that I didn't look hard enough at yours. And I'm sorry I was an asshole about it just now. That wasn't … I shouldn't have laid into you like that."
The sincerity in his voice was like a crack in ice she'd spent years building. She could feel it — the warmth of it, the pull of it — the part of her that wanted to step forward and let the whole frozen structure come down.
She almost did.
For one breath, one terrible, vulnerable moment, she almost let herself soften. Almost let the words come — I missed you, I missed this place, I missed having someone who remembered Steve the way I did — almost let the wall crack and crumble and let him see the wreckage behind it.
But then she thought of the chair she'd put up to block her own door. The empty bottles lined up on the kitchen counter like headstones. The way she'd learned, bone-deep and permanent, that the only person who would ever reliably be there was the one standing in her own skin.
She straightened. Pulled the jacket on, Steve's jacket, her armor — and zipped it to her chin.
"Thanks for the apology," she said. Her voice was steady now. Steadier than she felt. "I mean that. But I didn't come back here looking for anything. I came back because I wanted to sit on a counter and drink bad coffee and remember my brother. That's all."
Imran's face fell. She watched it happen, watched the hope drain out of him like water through cupped fingers. She made herself not care.
"Carol—"
"I'm fine, Imran." She turned toward the hangar door, Steve's jacket settling across her shoulders like it belonged there. Like it had always belonged there. "I've been fine for a long time. I don't need anyone."
She turned to leave with more haste than could really be written off as someone who didn't care. Imran at first made to follow her but stopped in his tracks. The moment Carol had slipped out of the hanger, that ancient light fitting had finally given up, plunging him, and the ruin of their old lives, into darkness.
@half pint may not get this reference but some fellow ancient rpg heads might also remember the last pre guildfall Ultimate Comics game that also had James Bond in it.
Time is a circle damn.
Time is a circle damn.
S D N C L A R E M O N T
Friday · 16:58 · Break Room
"I did my job." Nadia's tone was a little less animated as James approached her on her second arrival to the SDN building, not bothering to look up from her phone as she tapped away, resting against the wall close to the balcony entrance she had already decided she preferred to any more pedestrian access. "Team management? Kinda sounds like your job, M." A hint of her wit returned as she finished thumbing through a message, a hint of a coy tone as she pulled from a repository of Bond references suitable for the ribbing of any person from that side of the Atlantic. She was on the move already though, her wings tucked in as they often were, they still had the habit of brushing those she passed with the hint of a feather.
S D N C L A R E M O N T
Friday · 17:05 · Changing Rooms
It was her first time actually in the changing rooms for the heroes at Claremont and she had all the impression of being decidedly 'whelmed' hardly worse than she might have feared but certainly not better than she may have hoped. She wasn't prudish and had little issue with sharing on that front, she just liked her space, and more importantly, space to put things. Speaking of things, one of many messages she had sent across the day had ensured her dress would be delivered to the centre while she had been working, and once finding the locker assigned to her, it was a simple matter to swing it open to find it in place. She allowed herself a hum of satisfaction while she examined it, just before her phone rang again.
"Oh look, Jerry, changed your mind yet?" Nadia allowed the bitterness to touch her tone as she began the process of removing the dress, and accompanying heels, from her locker.
"On dumping my ungrateful screw up of a client? Na, this a courtesy you don't deserve." Jerry had a gritty Bronx accent and half of the charm, but he was a cutthroat agent. That had been a benefit to her for years, but less so when all of a sudden it was her that needed to be cut to save face.
"Nice to hear from you too, what the fuck do you want?" Despite the escalation in language, her tone actually evened out. This was more par for the course with their conversations.
"I got the Met's preservation society on the fuckin' line asking about a dress they loaned my agency in good faith, and now I can find the damn thing. So, do I need to instruct you on the finer points of property ownership, your highness?" Even with the accusation she couldn't hear true upset from the man on the other end, just the harshness of a man who already knew he was speaking to the culprit.
"I seem to recall they loaned it to you on the exact instruction I was wearing it? Sorry Jerry, I'm from a time when oaths meant something beyond property laws." She allowed something of an accent to creep into her tone, far from the vaguely exotic speech she sometimes adopted to impress, but the one she had picked up first from sixteen years of cheering for the Cubs.
"Yeah and where's that? Englewood?"
"Screw you Jerry, you know I'm from Garfield."
"Yeah well don't let your deep dish ass stretch that thing out, or I'm throwing you to the wolves on this one."
"Not going to be a problem Jerry, I already had it altered."
She hung up as the raging stream of expletives began, all the time admiring the shimmering scope of the dress she held before her. It probably cost more than her current combined net worth, but it was also the sort of thing people had become used to seeing her in at events, and so, downgrading was out of the question.
Getting out of her suit, as it often did, ended up being a more challenging struggle than the actual events of her dispatch, and she didn't even have time to relax into the relief of not being quite so cinched before she began getting changed into the sparkling gown. The body, cascading in glimmering gemstones, was embellished with ruffles of white ostrich feathers at the shoulders and hem of the tail. What had been rather fetching cutouts at the hips were now rather useful for her as gaps for her wings as she began the process of pulling it on.
Of course, she was rather used to attendants, and the final issue eventually presented itself. The perils of a back facing binding, the corset-style bindings up the back of the dress that would be hidden seamlessly as soon as they were closed outside of easy reach. With an sigh, Nadia called out as she heard the presence of someone else in the locker room, switching seamlessly back out of the Chicago accent to her speech.
"Hey, a hand here? I promise to offer it back."
Lightning Girl's boots clattered against floor, as she caught the look of Ikret looking over her shoulder, Sophie's own dress in hands, popping it down on the bench by her locker.
"Sure. You won't want to keep them unless you like getting tazed. Anyway, with a dress like that, you must have contacts in the Egyptian Pantheon!" She joked, a little bit of that English sarcasm dripping in, even though that was definitely not her norm. No, she was more fun-loving, a little more positive and nice, but hey, she had to build a rapport.
Ikret's wings were beautiful in the cutouts, but from one girl to another, she could just make out the alterations. And the gown being a lot like her own. Fuck. They were both so similar. But she had the confidence to ditch that visor and show her face. That much Lightning Girl had known, she'd been in DTLA, of course. She wondered, was she just one at the same, the visor just another piece of costume? Comfortable in being the same? Sophie had been more open lately. Maybe America was changing her. Either way, Ikret had the same look. And while deep down she was a teeny bit upset, she couldn't deny that Ikret probably pulled rank on that. Even if she was a Phoenix. Damn. That was fucking weird, learning that.
Pulling on the straps, Lighting Girl's rubber gloved hands were strong, cinching Ikret in, hiding the bindings inside the dress. It was similar, she kept on thinking. Well…..hardly a shock, in the literal sense when she had finished pulling her in.
"I'm kidding, don't answer that. Your dress is stunning. Really, really pretty. Those almost look like real diamonds." She quickly wanted to cut off the fact Americans didn't do sarcasm. Especially a heroine like Ikret. She had to be probably a bit more serious, right? Well, either way. This was one hell of a dress. Holy shit, that must have been worth so much money, the detail finally popping.
"They are." She caught her reflection in the mirror across the room and adjusted one shoulder fractionally. "The dress is on loan from the Met. To my former agent. Who is currently having a very bad afternoon." She took a few test extensions of her wings, not quite to full flex given their confines, but just enough to test that the flex of the muscles beneath the skin of her lower back wouldn't fit irregularly with the cutouts. Her fingers traced up the shimmering stones on her form as she did, letting her nails tip tap across them.
She turned from the mirror, the feathers at her shoulders settling with the movement, and looked at Lightning Girl properly for the first time.
"First one of these?"
Lightning Girl caught that glimpse, and smiled, nodding, innocent, but still having that lust for life that she usually went into situations with. An optimism that really felt like it didn't fit the accent. "Yeah. First one in LA. I'm proper excited." She took a glimpse of the dress, watching how Ikret flexed her wings, a grin forming.
"I suppose it would be gathering dust if you didn't. What's the phrase…..easier to ask for forgiveness than it is for permission? Oh well, I won't say anything if you don't!"
On that note with a giddy grin, she walked across the room, breathing out, mask pushed up for a second so she could soak her face, and try and wipe any remaining residues away, before pushing it back down, looking back and knowing Ikret was still sorting herself out in her corner of the locker rooms. Pulling her arms over her small of her back, she fought to pull the zipper from the inside out with the little cord coming loose, and peeled away the material, using it to then peel her arms and gloves off, bit by bit, little by little revealing her body.
Nadia would see Sophie's back, and would have seen the scars across her body, from side to legs, as she folded the smelly, sweaty cordura-based costume up and peeled out the silvery number from her SDN-branded backpack, still in her bra and underwear, Sophie's body sculpted by the power she had, and the sessions she put in to work it up.
She wasn't uncomfortable pulling off her costume around another hero, not when at least it wasn't some guy gawking, she assumed Nadia wasn't quite like that. With a relatively graceful pull of the dress's various fibres, she was clad in silver, walking barefoot across the tiles and awkwardly peeling her arms over and through the holes in the sides, revealing where some burn marks from swimming through shit remained from earlier, aware she had to probably cake herself up a little bit more with something to get rid of the last bits of odour, or at least, mask it. Her heels were aside from her, as she fitted up, looking across to Ikret, who had been watching away at her.
"Tough day?" Some who knew Nadia and her reputation better would likely struggle to label her as particularly empathetic, but she did have an easy personable charisma to her that occasionally broke through the visage of the uncaring internet personality. She was thumbing through a phone again, but looked up enough from her screen to catch both Lightning Girl's struggles and her form, her eyes tracing muscles and scars as a pattern of the wider whole, rather than separate aspects. "I've had a few of those lately, still, these sort of things are a nice distraction."
Sophie tsk'd, as if to feel like she was the same, rather than disapproval. "Yeah. This is nice. Almost forgot it was a shit day……literally.." She was tucking herself in, pulling the gloves over hands, up to elbows, quickly heading to the sink and giving herself a quick splash with more perfume, trying to mask. She was seeing another side of Ikret, quite literally without the visor., when it came to the other aspect. All of this. Her being here, DTLA far from home. Shit, Sophie didn't want to say it, but Ikret was sort of someone she looked up to. And reality was different. It usually was, the literal phrase, don't meet your
"I know the feeling. It gets better. Usually it has to. Been a few my end too so something's gotta give." She gave an optimistic hint, but it didn't seem totally sold. The empathy was there, Sophie was warm, trying, hopeful, even out of costume, there was clearly someone trying to cling to it. But cling was all she had.
Nadia was busy for the first few moments attempting to get an angle of herself, and the dress, with her phone camera that she was happy with and so didn't immediately look over. When she did, a beat later, it was at the silver dress rather than Sophie still getting into it.
A pause.
"We're going to walk in looking like a set." She looked back at her own reflection, something between a grimace and amusement crossing her face. "You didn't think to mention that while you were getting hands on?" Her tone was teasing in a mischievous way, but there was a hard edge to her words which suggested something a little less than playful.
Sophie smirked, with only the kind of grin that kind of comment had. 'Okay, Ikret', she thought to herself. 'I wasn't going to say anything'. She sized up her dress up, and then folded her arms over, blowing a strand of hair aside.
"Didn't realise you had a similar taste till I was pulling you in. But I suppose…...suppose…..fuck, we match." She seemed almost a bit absent minded there with a sly grin, as she turned, the dress having a little bit of a tail to it, as she swirled on the heel she'd left ready, foot slotted in, still fitting like it had quite from some time ago.
"But, I suppose you showed me up, I mean, diamonds, a Met dress…..damn. We'll just have to make sure to stay out of each other's photos. You have more shimmer than me. And I can't be stealing Miss Downtown's thunder." Sophie chuckled, letting go of it fairly quick, not wanting to make this seem rude, seeing the phone in her hand.
"Do you want a picture for socials? Or are you gonna preen like a peacock?" She backhand complimented back, hand at the ready, knowing she had some lip to apply but apart from that, was ready to go. She would get a photo of herself later, something for the socials, but knew they were up against it time wise.
"That would be sensible." Nadia mused with a deliberately overacted thinking face, before instead moving into action. Standing directly beside Sophie, she arched herself before holding her phone up and above them, aimed down at the pair. Her other hand, two fingers held together, she held aloft, angled between her face and the camera, before speaking with a half-laugh. "Pose." After taking the snap, she examined the photo for a moment. As well practiced as she was, the position of her two fingers across her own face mimicked the silhouette of her mask, covering her eyes in mimicry of Superhero anonymity, without obscuring the full purse of her lips. "Wouldn't want anyone to think I was hiding from you." She teased further, before sweeping away with a flutter of feathers and a glitter of diamonds.
"Come along, let's go have fun."
Lightning Girl smiled, grinning with a teethy smile, white hair brushed aside to one side past her shoulder, not having a pose to give other than smiley white-haired heroine, hand by hip, and that classic look. She had done this quite some time, but didn't have that out and out power that Ikret clearly had to be splendid in selfies. And that Ikret did have something of a heart after all!
Sophie could could beam, get the looks, but, it relied on something other than creativity. She admitted internally that aspect of it Ikret had was something she couldn't nail as easy as these shiny heroes that were coming through these days. But something about Ikret was maybe felt… eternal. Like this bit was new but the rest was vintage. She couldn't say, but with wings like that, and a presence, Lightning Girl didn't feel so old at all relatively, even if her usual suit and look felt as vintage to heroes of old as they came.
"Hah, guess you can't hide when we look this!" She excitedly replied, although hurriedly, the electricity binding a little.
She looked across to the maskless Egyptian-American, with a grin still plastered on her face, heels clacking on tile floor, fixing her mask a little, exhaling out, her arm still by hip, dress hugging her form in a tight embrace. Ikret may have had diamonds, and those wings that felt like they jutted a long, long way out, but Sophie had a feeling this downtown heroine was someone she'd just have to up her game for. Someone she'd maybe not instantly find a groove with, but here and now, it felt all alive. All coming up Lightning Girl and Ikret.
"Hell yeah. Let's go paint the town, Ikret. I don't think they're missing us, at all.." With that, she turned on her heel, an eye over her shoulder, and headed towards the door, blasting the door with a well practiced bolt to smack the latch, not needing to even push to get the door moving but without blasting it off hinges. But enough to make an entrance, where she could walk out and wait out on James, Blackstar, Asteroid and Hat Trick.
"Oh look, Jerry, changed your mind yet?" Nadia allowed the bitterness to touch her tone as she began the process of removing the dress, and accompanying heels, from her locker.
"On dumping my ungrateful screw up of a client? Na, this a courtesy you don't deserve." Jerry had a gritty Bronx accent and half of the charm, but he was a cutthroat agent. That had been a benefit to her for years, but less so when all of a sudden it was her that needed to be cut to save face.
"Nice to hear from you too, what the fuck do you want?" Despite the escalation in language, her tone actually evened out. This was more par for the course with their conversations.
"I got the Met's preservation society on the fuckin' line asking about a dress they loaned my agency in good faith, and now I can find the damn thing. So, do I need to instruct you on the finer points of property ownership, your highness?" Even with the accusation she couldn't hear true upset from the man on the other end, just the harshness of a man who already knew he was speaking to the culprit.
"I seem to recall they loaned it to you on the exact instruction I was wearing it? Sorry Jerry, I'm from a time when oaths meant something beyond property laws." She allowed something of an accent to creep into her tone, far from the vaguely exotic speech she sometimes adopted to impress, but the one she had picked up first from sixteen years of cheering for the Cubs.
"Yeah and where's that? Englewood?"
"Screw you Jerry, you know I'm from Garfield."
"Yeah well don't let your deep dish ass stretch that thing out, or I'm throwing you to the wolves on this one."
"Not going to be a problem Jerry, I already had it altered."
She hung up as the raging stream of expletives began, all the time admiring the shimmering scope of the dress she held before her. It probably cost more than her current combined net worth, but it was also the sort of thing people had become used to seeing her in at events, and so, downgrading was out of the question.
Getting out of her suit, as it often did, ended up being a more challenging struggle than the actual events of her dispatch, and she didn't even have time to relax into the relief of not being quite so cinched before she began getting changed into the sparkling gown. The body, cascading in glimmering gemstones, was embellished with ruffles of white ostrich feathers at the shoulders and hem of the tail. What had been rather fetching cutouts at the hips were now rather useful for her as gaps for her wings as she began the process of pulling it on.
Of course, she was rather used to attendants, and the final issue eventually presented itself. The perils of a back facing binding, the corset-style bindings up the back of the dress that would be hidden seamlessly as soon as they were closed outside of easy reach. With an sigh, Nadia called out as she heard the presence of someone else in the locker room, switching seamlessly back out of the Chicago accent to her speech.
"Hey, a hand here? I promise to offer it back."
Lightning Girl's boots clattered against floor, as she caught the look of Ikret looking over her shoulder, Sophie's own dress in hands, popping it down on the bench by her locker.
"Sure. You won't want to keep them unless you like getting tazed. Anyway, with a dress like that, you must have contacts in the Egyptian Pantheon!" She joked, a little bit of that English sarcasm dripping in, even though that was definitely not her norm. No, she was more fun-loving, a little more positive and nice, but hey, she had to build a rapport.
Ikret's wings were beautiful in the cutouts, but from one girl to another, she could just make out the alterations. And the gown being a lot like her own. Fuck. They were both so similar. But she had the confidence to ditch that visor and show her face. That much Lightning Girl had known, she'd been in DTLA, of course. She wondered, was she just one at the same, the visor just another piece of costume? Comfortable in being the same? Sophie had been more open lately. Maybe America was changing her. Either way, Ikret had the same look. And while deep down she was a teeny bit upset, she couldn't deny that Ikret probably pulled rank on that. Even if she was a Phoenix. Damn. That was fucking weird, learning that.
Pulling on the straps, Lighting Girl's rubber gloved hands were strong, cinching Ikret in, hiding the bindings inside the dress. It was similar, she kept on thinking. Well…..hardly a shock, in the literal sense when she had finished pulling her in.
"I'm kidding, don't answer that. Your dress is stunning. Really, really pretty. Those almost look like real diamonds." She quickly wanted to cut off the fact Americans didn't do sarcasm. Especially a heroine like Ikret. She had to be probably a bit more serious, right? Well, either way. This was one hell of a dress. Holy shit, that must have been worth so much money, the detail finally popping.
"They are." She caught her reflection in the mirror across the room and adjusted one shoulder fractionally. "The dress is on loan from the Met. To my former agent. Who is currently having a very bad afternoon." She took a few test extensions of her wings, not quite to full flex given their confines, but just enough to test that the flex of the muscles beneath the skin of her lower back wouldn't fit irregularly with the cutouts. Her fingers traced up the shimmering stones on her form as she did, letting her nails tip tap across them.
She turned from the mirror, the feathers at her shoulders settling with the movement, and looked at Lightning Girl properly for the first time.
"First one of these?"
Lightning Girl caught that glimpse, and smiled, nodding, innocent, but still having that lust for life that she usually went into situations with. An optimism that really felt like it didn't fit the accent. "Yeah. First one in LA. I'm proper excited." She took a glimpse of the dress, watching how Ikret flexed her wings, a grin forming.
"I suppose it would be gathering dust if you didn't. What's the phrase…..easier to ask for forgiveness than it is for permission? Oh well, I won't say anything if you don't!"
On that note with a giddy grin, she walked across the room, breathing out, mask pushed up for a second so she could soak her face, and try and wipe any remaining residues away, before pushing it back down, looking back and knowing Ikret was still sorting herself out in her corner of the locker rooms. Pulling her arms over her small of her back, she fought to pull the zipper from the inside out with the little cord coming loose, and peeled away the material, using it to then peel her arms and gloves off, bit by bit, little by little revealing her body.
Nadia would see Sophie's back, and would have seen the scars across her body, from side to legs, as she folded the smelly, sweaty cordura-based costume up and peeled out the silvery number from her SDN-branded backpack, still in her bra and underwear, Sophie's body sculpted by the power she had, and the sessions she put in to work it up.
She wasn't uncomfortable pulling off her costume around another hero, not when at least it wasn't some guy gawking, she assumed Nadia wasn't quite like that. With a relatively graceful pull of the dress's various fibres, she was clad in silver, walking barefoot across the tiles and awkwardly peeling her arms over and through the holes in the sides, revealing where some burn marks from swimming through shit remained from earlier, aware she had to probably cake herself up a little bit more with something to get rid of the last bits of odour, or at least, mask it. Her heels were aside from her, as she fitted up, looking across to Ikret, who had been watching away at her.
"Tough day?" Some who knew Nadia and her reputation better would likely struggle to label her as particularly empathetic, but she did have an easy personable charisma to her that occasionally broke through the visage of the uncaring internet personality. She was thumbing through a phone again, but looked up enough from her screen to catch both Lightning Girl's struggles and her form, her eyes tracing muscles and scars as a pattern of the wider whole, rather than separate aspects. "I've had a few of those lately, still, these sort of things are a nice distraction."
Sophie tsk'd, as if to feel like she was the same, rather than disapproval. "Yeah. This is nice. Almost forgot it was a shit day……literally.." She was tucking herself in, pulling the gloves over hands, up to elbows, quickly heading to the sink and giving herself a quick splash with more perfume, trying to mask. She was seeing another side of Ikret, quite literally without the visor., when it came to the other aspect. All of this. Her being here, DTLA far from home. Shit, Sophie didn't want to say it, but Ikret was sort of someone she looked up to. And reality was different. It usually was, the literal phrase, don't meet your
"I know the feeling. It gets better. Usually it has to. Been a few my end too so something's gotta give." She gave an optimistic hint, but it didn't seem totally sold. The empathy was there, Sophie was warm, trying, hopeful, even out of costume, there was clearly someone trying to cling to it. But cling was all she had.
Nadia was busy for the first few moments attempting to get an angle of herself, and the dress, with her phone camera that she was happy with and so didn't immediately look over. When she did, a beat later, it was at the silver dress rather than Sophie still getting into it.
A pause.
"We're going to walk in looking like a set." She looked back at her own reflection, something between a grimace and amusement crossing her face. "You didn't think to mention that while you were getting hands on?" Her tone was teasing in a mischievous way, but there was a hard edge to her words which suggested something a little less than playful.
Sophie smirked, with only the kind of grin that kind of comment had. 'Okay, Ikret', she thought to herself. 'I wasn't going to say anything'. She sized up her dress up, and then folded her arms over, blowing a strand of hair aside.
"Didn't realise you had a similar taste till I was pulling you in. But I suppose…...suppose…..fuck, we match." She seemed almost a bit absent minded there with a sly grin, as she turned, the dress having a little bit of a tail to it, as she swirled on the heel she'd left ready, foot slotted in, still fitting like it had quite from some time ago.
"But, I suppose you showed me up, I mean, diamonds, a Met dress…..damn. We'll just have to make sure to stay out of each other's photos. You have more shimmer than me. And I can't be stealing Miss Downtown's thunder." Sophie chuckled, letting go of it fairly quick, not wanting to make this seem rude, seeing the phone in her hand.
"Do you want a picture for socials? Or are you gonna preen like a peacock?" She backhand complimented back, hand at the ready, knowing she had some lip to apply but apart from that, was ready to go. She would get a photo of herself later, something for the socials, but knew they were up against it time wise.
"That would be sensible." Nadia mused with a deliberately overacted thinking face, before instead moving into action. Standing directly beside Sophie, she arched herself before holding her phone up and above them, aimed down at the pair. Her other hand, two fingers held together, she held aloft, angled between her face and the camera, before speaking with a half-laugh. "Pose." After taking the snap, she examined the photo for a moment. As well practiced as she was, the position of her two fingers across her own face mimicked the silhouette of her mask, covering her eyes in mimicry of Superhero anonymity, without obscuring the full purse of her lips. "Wouldn't want anyone to think I was hiding from you." She teased further, before sweeping away with a flutter of feathers and a glitter of diamonds.
"Come along, let's go have fun."
Lightning Girl smiled, grinning with a teethy smile, white hair brushed aside to one side past her shoulder, not having a pose to give other than smiley white-haired heroine, hand by hip, and that classic look. She had done this quite some time, but didn't have that out and out power that Ikret clearly had to be splendid in selfies. And that Ikret did have something of a heart after all!
Sophie could could beam, get the looks, but, it relied on something other than creativity. She admitted internally that aspect of it Ikret had was something she couldn't nail as easy as these shiny heroes that were coming through these days. But something about Ikret was maybe felt… eternal. Like this bit was new but the rest was vintage. She couldn't say, but with wings like that, and a presence, Lightning Girl didn't feel so old at all relatively, even if her usual suit and look felt as vintage to heroes of old as they came.
"Hah, guess you can't hide when we look this!" She excitedly replied, although hurriedly, the electricity binding a little.
She looked across to the maskless Egyptian-American, with a grin still plastered on her face, heels clacking on tile floor, fixing her mask a little, exhaling out, her arm still by hip, dress hugging her form in a tight embrace. Ikret may have had diamonds, and those wings that felt like they jutted a long, long way out, but Sophie had a feeling this downtown heroine was someone she'd just have to up her game for. Someone she'd maybe not instantly find a groove with, but here and now, it felt all alive. All coming up Lightning Girl and Ikret.
"Hell yeah. Let's go paint the town, Ikret. I don't think they're missing us, at all.." With that, she turned on her heel, an eye over her shoulder, and headed towards the door, blasting the door with a well practiced bolt to smack the latch, not needing to even push to get the door moving but without blasting it off hinges. But enough to make an entrance, where she could walk out and wait out on James, Blackstar, Asteroid and Hat Trick.
In
My Brother's Keeper - A Song Of Ice and Fire Blackfyre Rebellion RP
→
2 mos ago
Forum: Advanced Roleplay
T H E R I V E R L A N D S
T H E R I V E R L A N D S
T H E R I V E R L A N D S
The Twins
Three days out of the Reach the roads turned bad. Not from neglect — the drainage ditches had been kept clear, the verges cut back. The ruts were fresh and ran deep, the kind left by wheels with weight behind them.
They passed a mill outside Stonebridge where the wheel was turning but the yard was empty, grain sacks stacked against the wall and no one moving between them. A woman watched them from an upper window and did not step back when Maekar looked up.
He kept the pace even. Twelve men, no colours. On the fourth night they stopped at a holdfast whose lord was away at war and whose steward offered them a meal and a barn and the careful courtesy of a man who had been doing the same for every armed party that had passed through regardless of whose name they rode under. Maekar ate what was put in front of him. In the morning he rode north before the household was properly awake.
The Twins announced themselves before the horizon gave the river up.
Two squat grey towers rising out of the flatlands, closer to monuments of function than any expression of pride. Maekar had seen finer fortifications by Andallords with more ambition than sense, and yet there was something in the Freys' twin keeps that resisted that contempt. Their plainness was purposeful. They sat astride the Green Fork and simply were, as the river was, and the ford, and the slow cloudy sky pressing down over all of it.
The bridge guards had been told to look neutral. Maekar could see the effort it cost them.
He kept his pace even as the column crossed onto the Frey planking, timber loud under hooves, the Green Fork running dark and fast below. Wind off the water cut through the gap in his riding cloak and he did not adjust it. On the far bank the courtyard had the kind of welcome that had been rehearsed, grooms appearing at the right moment, a steward visible in the gatehouse arch, a junior lordling hovering at the kind of careful distance that announced he had been positioned there.
He looked for the Northern banners, straight as a man standing to attention rather than a man at ease. He wondered who might have come themselves and who might have sent sons. There was some humor to that, he, of course, was a distant son himself. His father had a better excuse than most, given he had a war to fight while his son dealt with Northern opportunism.
At the gate the steward bowed with the depth appropriate to a prince and no deeper.
"Your Grace. Lord Waltyr bids you welcome to the Crossing. Chambers have been prepared, and the lords are assembled in the great hall when you are ready to receive them."
When you are ready. The phrasing had been chosen carefully. An offer of delay, should he want it. Should he want to enter that hall later, tired from the road, having given them more time to settle into whatever arrangements they had made among themselves before he arrived. He swung down from the saddle and handed the reins off without looking.
"I am ready now."
They passed a mill outside Stonebridge where the wheel was turning but the yard was empty, grain sacks stacked against the wall and no one moving between them. A woman watched them from an upper window and did not step back when Maekar looked up.
He kept the pace even. Twelve men, no colours. On the fourth night they stopped at a holdfast whose lord was away at war and whose steward offered them a meal and a barn and the careful courtesy of a man who had been doing the same for every armed party that had passed through regardless of whose name they rode under. Maekar ate what was put in front of him. In the morning he rode north before the household was properly awake.
The Twins announced themselves before the horizon gave the river up.
Two squat grey towers rising out of the flatlands, closer to monuments of function than any expression of pride. Maekar had seen finer fortifications by Andallords with more ambition than sense, and yet there was something in the Freys' twin keeps that resisted that contempt. Their plainness was purposeful. They sat astride the Green Fork and simply were, as the river was, and the ford, and the slow cloudy sky pressing down over all of it.
The bridge guards had been told to look neutral. Maekar could see the effort it cost them.
He kept his pace even as the column crossed onto the Frey planking, timber loud under hooves, the Green Fork running dark and fast below. Wind off the water cut through the gap in his riding cloak and he did not adjust it. On the far bank the courtyard had the kind of welcome that had been rehearsed, grooms appearing at the right moment, a steward visible in the gatehouse arch, a junior lordling hovering at the kind of careful distance that announced he had been positioned there.
He looked for the Northern banners, straight as a man standing to attention rather than a man at ease. He wondered who might have come themselves and who might have sent sons. There was some humor to that, he, of course, was a distant son himself. His father had a better excuse than most, given he had a war to fight while his son dealt with Northern opportunism.
At the gate the steward bowed with the depth appropriate to a prince and no deeper.
"Your Grace. Lord Waltyr bids you welcome to the Crossing. Chambers have been prepared, and the lords are assembled in the great hall when you are ready to receive them."
When you are ready. The phrasing had been chosen carefully. An offer of delay, should he want it. Should he want to enter that hall later, tired from the road, having given them more time to settle into whatever arrangements they had made among themselves before he arrived. He swung down from the saddle and handed the reins off without looking.
"I am ready now."
It's basically a holdover from some ideas I had with MaoMao when they were writing Genosha that I've managed to adapt to still work with what Ruby is doing with the mutants.
Military industrial complex gotta military industrial!
Military industrial complex gotta military industrial!
On The Shelf : Past Game or Retired / Declined Concepts
Not exhaustive, concepts I have some interest in reprising or reusing with necessary edits.
In Use Original Non-Comic Concepts
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