sixthiterationlogs | I Can See Clearly Now

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I Can See Clearly Now

WHO: Margaery Tyrell
WHERE: The Inn
WHEN: 12/05
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: Nothing

Much to her chagrin, she had missed the feast. Being ill in bed for weeks had left Margaery restless and frustrated, making her feel as if she had missed so much with the village, even though life was very much the same. She could remember the last Harvest feast and what happened that night. It seemed though that nothing happened and everyone returned home safely without trouble. Whatever happened last year had been a rare occurrence. Since then, there were no monsters coming from the woods and the villager count was only lessened by disappearance, not death.

If that wasn't something to celebrate, what was?

When she was finally able to climb out of bed, she made her way often to the inn. Her health was still a bit fragile, but not nearly as serious as before. The visions passed and her memory was back, sharper than ever. But it wasn't wise to push herself. So instead of returning to her usual chores, she instead sat inside the inn for most of the day, sewing a new cloak for Robb for winter.

Turning to the person next to her, she asked, "Is there anything left over from the feast?" She had missed the food and the chocolate when it was fresh, but certainly it wasn't completely gone?

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Moana had just returned to the inn when she spotted Margaery. She was dressed in a thick cloak that had been given to her the year before with a large bag slung over her shoulder. Itiiti was with her and looking like a rather large pig now that he's grown up.

"Margaery." She smiled at the other girl as Itiiti slowly made his way to lay in front of the fire. Thanks to the snow and frost it'd be harder for the pig to sniff out roots and mushrooms so Moana has decided to give him a break.

"It's been awhile." Moana hadn't known she was sick or she would have come to visit. "I can go check. I think that Kate and Mark saved some stuff."

It had been some time, though she hadn't any idea of where Moana had gone or what she had done. She'd only noticed that her presence had been missing. A part of her had wondered if Moana had returned home or something else, but she hadn't searched out the answer, much to her regret.

She offered the chair beside her, putting down the cloak that she was working on. Gilbert was at her side, but asleep after his exercise for the day, herding the animals. The weather, while bad, hadn't kept him idle.

"Where have you been?"

Moana slipped the bag and the cloak from her shoulders before taking the offered seat. The bag made a soft thud noise as she dropped it on the wooden floor though it wasn't clear what was inside of it.

"I went to the other village for a bit. I built a boat there and then sailed out." She had obviously returned from that little adventure. "Itiiti had been down there too but with winter approaching I thought it'd be better if he stayed up here where it was warmer." Even if Moana wasn't at the inn, she knew that Itiiti would be taken care of.

"How have you been?" It was good to see her.

"You went sailing on the lake?" There was a part of her that admired that wanderlust, but her initial reaction was one of horror and concern. There had been talk about what the scouting party had found when they tried to find the edge of the lake. They had been forced to turn back because their food supply had run out. If something had happened, Moana would have been stuck out in the water without anyone to help her.

"I know that your people lived on an island, but this is a different world. You have to be careful if you venture off alone like that. Something could have happened or the Observers could have done something. Did anyone know where you had gone?" She didn't want to take a lecturing tone, but there was fear in her voice.

She shook her head, uncertain how to respond. There was still a part of her that didn't admit to vulnerabilities. "I am better now than I was."

"Yes." It hadn't been a secret that Moana had been building a boat along the shore though she hadn't exactly expended effort telling everyone either. She had gotten a lot of her friends to help her and they had all looked at her in the same manner that Margaery was looking at her now.

"It was fine. I've sailed across the ocean before, it wasn't any different but I had to turn back." Moana hadn't been reckless during her trip and she technically had someone with her; even if her company knew nothing about sailing. "A few people knew. I was gone for two weeks." It didn't feel like a very long time.

"What happened before?" Moana was eager to get the conversation off her little boat trip.

She didn't want to doubt Moana or reprimand her, as though she were her mother. But after all of the dangers they had faced and how little they knew of the lake, she didn't think it was something that should be taken lightly.

"Something could have happened." But she would leave it at that. Moana wasn't someone that could be controlled or curbed. She would do whatever she felt was right. If that meant sailing across the lake for however far it went, Moana would do it.

"I lost my memory." She wasn't sure how to go about explaining it or even where to begin. "I don't know how it happened. My head started to hurt and I had visions, but then my memory disappeared."

Moana sat up a little straighter and blinked at her friend. "You too?"

She wasn't aware of the timeline or that Margaery had been the first to be effected by the strange wave of memory loss but she knew others in the village who had faced a similar plight. "Steve." She closed her eyes to try and think of another way to differentiate the man she was talking about. "He's tall and hasn't been here very long." She'd mention pale skin and skinny but to Moana that was most of the village residence.

"He had lost his memories too. I tried to help him but I didn't know enough about him." She hadn't been very helpful. "Did you... lose everything?"

She turned back with a measure of horror on her face. What happened had been building for some time, but she hadn't known or heard that the village was affected as well. Was it because of her? It had the fingerprints of the Observers about it, enough to make her feel sick.

"No, only everything that happened in the village." She wasn't familiar with Steve or had seen him, as far as she knew. There were so many new faces, it was likely she had passed him without thinking anything of it. "I had been losing my memory for awhile, since after the Specimen Room. I didn't expect it to return." Or for the visions to at least become more tolerable.

"All of this began after the earthquake, but I don't know why."

Moana looked thoughtful as she considered the new information as well as the timeline that it presented. It was connected, somehow, but she wasn't able to pin-point how.

"Maybe it was something in the Specimen Room. Someone had said it was a room for tests. It's possible that it's a disease or something that slowly spread through the village. Like the fireflies." She paused and tried to think back. "Why would the overseers want us to forget..."

That was the question that stumped her.

"You're okay now though, right?" Moana watched her carefully, unsure if she was keeping something more important to herself.

She shook her head, "I don't think so. I found the specimen room because of a vision. I don't know what the cause of it is, only when it began." Part of her wondered if it wasn't because of her fear of earthquakes, but sense and reason indicated otherwise. There had been earthquakes before and this never happened. It was something else, likely caused by the Observers.

"I don't know. It possibly spread when I lost my memory, as you said." For once, it seemed more like chaos than any sort of conspiracy. The more she considered and thought about everything, the more it seemed nonsensical and chaotic. Who was to say there was a reason to it at all?

She smiled, "I'm all right. I haven't had a vision since I was ill, but my head no longer hurts."

Moana was worried but she trusted Margaery. "Okay. If you need anything. Please let me know." She didn't know how she would help but Moana had the tenacity to make a difference when it came to the people she cared about. Margaery and those in the village, have become part of the people she cared about and Moana wanted to protect them all.

She'd do anything to keep them safe.

"What do you think it was? That gave you these visions and made people forget?"

It was hard to say. "I don't know. The Observers, maybe? They sometimes affect the entire village with disease or magic. Maybe when the vision caused my memory to sever, it spread to everyone else?" It was the only branch of logic that she could find in all of this chaos. "I don't know how or why I have these visions, only that they come true."

She pressed her hand to her temple, while she didn't have a headache, she could remember the feeling of them. It was enough to make her tense.

"The lake, how was it when you were last on it?"

Moana blinked. "It was fine. The winds were light but that's not surprising if there is a reef or somewhere further out that connects to a large body of water." The ocean was something that Moana knew; by learning from Maui and from her experiences on it. There was an oddness when she had tried to sail but it wasn't the water itself.

"Why? Did you have a vision about the water?" She paused. "Back home, the Ocean was a friend of mine. She didn't talk but we communicated. That isn't the case here but I don't know if it's just because this isn't my ocean."

She hoped that she was making sense.

"The waters were deep?" If it dried, it could be related to the volcano. Though it was hard to say what was real and what wasn't in the swirling images. In her sickness, some of what she saw could be fever dreams. There was only one that she felt was true with a great deal of certainty.

"I thought I did. I don't know." She let her hand fall to her lap as she glanced out the window of the inn at the falling snow. "I thought I saw the lake dried up, but I can't trust everything I saw when I was ill. There were so many visions."

She didn't, but she had a basic concept of what Moana meant. "I wouldn't worry too greatly over it. It might have been just a dream."

"Deep?" Moana hadn't bothered to check. She had thought that the lake was the ocean, if not directly than it opened up into the ocean. It never occurred to her to see if she could swim down to it's bottom. "I can check." It wouldn't be hard to go out on the boat and see how far she can swim down.

"I'd need a light to see though. It's dark in the ocean."

the lake dried up.

Moana's back straightened at the thought of the water drying up. Could that really happen? Was it not the ocean? There was no way of knowing because Moana hadn't been able to sail that far. "I'll try it." She wouldn't be able to disregard the vision.

"I know that it's salt water."

"I wouldn't now." As curious as she was, she knew that it wasn't wise for Moana to risk herself in that way or be damp out in the cold. "It's nearly winter, we should wait until it is warmer. Maybe then, we could also look for oysters or anything else." Who knew what was on the lake floor? Maybe something edible to break up the monotony of rabbit, pheasant and stag.

"I wouldn't know where to find a light you can use in the water."

Electricity was still some magical art to her, neither understood or mastered. She wasn't sure if she wanted to learn more about it. It seemed uncontrollable and risky. She would be more comfortable with a candle and lantern, but that couldn't be used in the water.

"A lake that is salt water? I have never heard of that before, have you?"

There was wisdom in Margaery's words. It would be foolish to do anything in the water while it was so cold. Moana could catch a fever or run into something in the water with no one there to help her. As much as she didn't want to, she'd wait. She's swam down to the ocean floor once before and she remembered how cold the water had been then.

"Yeah. It gets colder the further down you swim. The sun isn't able to reach the deeper parts of the ocean." She paused and thought about it. "If it's mid day, I don't need a light. My eyes are good at adjusting to the water."

It absolutely sounded like she knew what she was talking about.

"No. I haven't heard of that before but I haven't really seen a lot of lakes. Streams are fresh water because they flow up through the earth and then spill out the top. The ocean is from another source." That wasn't completely true but it was what Moana believed.

It was a difficult thing to ask someone who lived as freely as Moana did. But it was becoming colder and colder. While it was dangerous to explore the lake, even during the Spring, it would be worse when Winter came. If the vision came again or some other element from her vision happened, then she might consider actually risking it.

"I worry though that however much we know about certain things, it is challenged here. You have lived next to the water your entire life, but it seems as if this lake goes against everything we knew. It continues on, with no obvious end and it has salt water."

She shook her head. This wasn't an ordinary place and they had learned that the hard way long ago. "It might have been a fever dream. I saw a volcano as well, but there are no signs of them here."

Moana shook her head back and forth. "No. It isn't completely unlike my ocean. There are small differences but that's to be expected. It's like meeting someone new. Not everyone is a like and not every ocean is alike." There was an air of confidence in her expression as she spoke. "Even if it's a lake, whatever you want to call it. The fact that it has ocean water in it means that somewhere, there is a break into the ocean itself."

It wasn't just a fact for Moana, it was something she believed. Her people respected the planet but then went one step further. They believed that the Earth and the Sea were alive. In the same way that humans were, they got upset and they were happy. The world around them were friends and they lived together in harmony.

It might not be the ocean Moana knew but it was just another chance for her to meet a new ocean, a few friend.

"Volcano's can rise from the water." Her voice was soft as she spoke a fact that was well known on her island.

She didn't know what to think of that. A volcano rising from the water seemed impossible, even if Moana knew differently. Or perhaps that was Margaery's defiance, her stubborn belief that something so tragic and devastating to could happen again. Until the rest came true, she would have to question the ability. Something might be true, but all of it?

She gave a small sigh, bundling up the remnants of her cloak and setting back in her basket. "I should go back." She glanced over at Moana, concerned for a moment that her friend was remembering something painful.

"Will you be all right?"

At the time, Margaery had been so ill that offering her anything but the mildest, most bland food had seemed a poor idea, but Robb had been mindful enough to ferret away a few treats that would keep. He was glad to actually have to go looking for her today; it meant she was feeling well enough to be up and about, and he was pleased to find her spending time in the Inn, where it could be occasionally loud and filled with people. She was truly mending.

"I may just have a bit of something," he said with a smile as he settled into the chair beside her. He was wearing his wool coat — It was easier for managing daily tasks than the cloak Sansa had gifted him last winter — and he extracted a little, paper-wrapped bundle from the pocket.

"I've been carrying these in my pocket for a week," he added as he unwrapped the paper and held out his palm — There were five chocolates nestled there. "I was afraid of leaving them somewhere Sansa might find them," he added with a soft chuckle. His sister's sweet tooth was legendary.

She liked the look of him in this more modern dress, even if the coat was about as bulky as a cloak, it at least didn't shield the lines of his body or mask his form. It almost made her pause and hesitate in making him a cloak, but she had said before she would have another one when winter came and she meant it. He deserved something better than her previous one.

Her eyes lit up. Out of everything he could have secreted away for her, chocolate was the perfect choice. Still, she could resist teasing him, showing him how much better she was feeling. "Melted chocolate with a lint topping, how can I resist." She snatched them up and promptly ate one with a sigh of delight.

"I would battle your sister for these if I had to. I can't wield a sword, but I'd swing it around if I had to." She was glad to see him. There were still memories that were foggy to her, but all of the important events she could remember clearly. He being the most vital one. "How are you?" He deserved to be asked that question, after everything that happened.

"The lint adds to the charm," Robb easily replied as he settled back in his chair, and then nodded toward the sweets. "And I would hide them, if I were you. That is, if you're not inclined to eat them all in one sitting."

The fire was a pleasant change from the outside chill, and he began pulling off his gloves. "I was rather worried about you, but you seem to have come through well enough. I won't behave as if it weren't upsetting, but I'm simply glad you're feeling better."

"If I ate them all in one sitting, how shocked would you be?" She had a great deal of control, but chocolate was one of the exceptions. She never had it before this place and couldn't imagine being without it now. "I suppose moderation would be wise?"

She reached for his hand. "I am, but I am more concerned about how you are. If you have rested and looked after yourself? You stayed at my side for so long. I don't want you to be sick next." She pocketed the chocolate, forcing herself to save the rest. "Nothing has happened? It seems strange it's so quiet in the village."

"Not shocked at all, really," Robb replied of the chocolates, watching as Margaery tucked the remainer away. It was a sensible decision, but he'd not have blamed her otherwise. "When was the last time you had something sweet?" Months, surely.

"And you really needn't fret about me. I'm perfectly well. I wanted to be with you. I don't think it was catching— In any case, I haven't felt any different. No headaches." At least, not beyond the usual sort from being out in the cold too long. "But I do want you to promise me if you begin to feel ill again, you won't push it."

Sometimes she hated being sensible, but eating all of the chocolates would have left her with nothing. As strange as it was, she found herself anticipating these feasts, if only to enjoy the foods they didn't normally have for the rest of the year. "Spring, I think? Unless you want to count yourself?"

An obvious compliment, but she looked proud of herself regardless. "I fret because I know how I would feel to see you sick in bed as well, especially because of me." She reached for his hand. "I won't. I haven't returned to my chores yet, so that I don't push myself."

It wasn't the work of the exertion that threatened to strain her, it was thinking back to the visions she had and trying to consider what they might mean. It left her head feeling a bit heavy, though this was likely self inflicted. "Something is going to happen, I think."

Robb watched the warm curl of Margaery's fingers about his own, and then lifted a wary glance back to her face. "Something," he echoed, arching his eyebrows. "I don't suppose you planned on sharing further details of that something."

There was a joke lingering there, waiting to be made — Yes, "something" happened constantly, actually — but she'd made accurate predictions before. He wasn't fool enough to go making jest when it might turn out to be properly serious.

Something. There had been so many visions mixed in her head, submerged in the pain and illness. It was hard to disentangle them and to find the one that disturbed her the most. Volcanoes and dried lakes, that could prove devastating, but it was nothing against the prospect of villagers turning on each other.

His touch was soothing, holding her back from fully reliving that scene. He was her connection to reality and the present. He might sometimes feel helpless against what her visions put her through, but he guarded her and kept her tethered to now.

"I saw someone being sacrificed." Their faces had been obscured by shadows, it didn't matter. Terror was the most overpowering sensation, not even the image of someone's death could match it. "Someone from the village was sacrificing another villager."

"What?" Robb blurted despite himself, his eyes rounding with disbelief. It was clear that Margaery was in earnest, but the mere idea of something like that, it was so far beyond comprehension with the generally mild-mannered people who lived with them here.

"Who?"

"I don't know." No matter how many times she had searched her memory, she couldn't make out the lines and form of the person being killed. Both figures were lost to the shadows with only the fear to speak of what was happening.

"I can't see them, but they were afraid. Afterwards, I saw an empty grave."

"Empty?" Robb echoed, his brow creasing. "Empty because someone was yet to be put in it or...?" Had it been robbed? Had it been dug only to have no one to put in it?

Of course, Margaery couldn't know more than what she'd seen, and there was little telling if it would actually come to pass. "I'm sorry," he was quick to add, giving her hand a squeeze. "I don't want you to do yourself a harm trying to remember."

"It might be related?" But it's only speculation. All she could do was try to connect the pieces of these visions, as though she were following a thread to a fraying rug. It untangled before she could see the whole picture.

She brushed her thumb over his knuckles, relaxing at the simple reassurance and concern. "It doesn't seem to hurt anymore when I try to think about the visions. Ever since the fever broke, the headache has gone and I don't feel sick anymore." But she didn't want to think of that anymore. "Walk me home?"

"Of course," Robb replied. He began toward the door to collect her cloak, when he finally fully noticed the one draped across her lap. He nodded to it. "Is that your cloak? If you need a new one, I can bring you the one Sansa gave me." He had his overcoat, after all, and he'd rather freeze than see Margaery go about in a damaged cloak that didn't keep her properly warm.

It was better made than the one she assembled before, practice had made her seams smaller and straighter, closer to Sansa's work and skill. It had taken time and several horrible attempts, but she finally felt comfortable with a needle again. "No, this is the cloak I said I would make for you in time for winter. It's nearly finished, I need some pelts to line it."

Her white cloak was tucked away by the door. Once she had gathered everything, she pulled it from the pile of other coats and wrapped it around herself. "It doesn't seem like you will need it though, but I made a promise."

"Hmm?" Mulcahy looked up at the new voice from where he'd been concentrating on shelling peas into a bowl, lost in his own mind as the task was fairly monotonous. When Margaery's words processed, he set the pods he was holding down, a look of curiosity on his face. "I don't know... that was a few weeks ago, you understand, and there's not really a reliable way to keep food fresh for that long. But I can go and check, if you'd like me to."

"No, that's all right." She smiled despite the disappointment in her voice. "There will be another feast soon." There always was. "I heard that nothing happened at this one. It was quiet and the food was good." The things that she had missed while she was sick in bed. If she was lucky, someone managed to save some chocolate.

"I can go look, it's no trouble, I promise. There were some non-perishables, so there's a possibility some was saved..." Mulcahy was standing even as he talked, searching through his mind to try and remember where any of the leftover feast food would be stored. "It might have been used by now, but I don't mind giving it a glance, especially if you weren't able to get to it." He wasn't sure why she would have missed it, but clearly she did, which was a shame. "I'll be right back," he finished with a smile, turning to walk back to the kitchen.

There was no stopping him it seemed. His kindness trumped her objections and he disappeared before she could say anything further. She smiled to herself as he went searching, touched by the gesture, as well as praying that something was left behind. "I look forward to these feasts," she explained, as strange as that might seem. "Some of the food they have, I never tried before now."

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I Can See Clearly Now

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