you could taste heaven perfectly; [OTA]

[king_in_the_north]

WHO: Robb Stark
WHERE: The field
WHEN: October 12, morning
OPEN TO: OTA
WARNINGS: n/a
STATUS: Closed to new threads

---

There had come a point approximately three days ago when Robb had legitimately begun to wonder whether the rain was ever going to cease. Never in all of his life had he ever even heard of such rain, from dawn to dusk and all through the night, an unending torrent that kept the skies murky gray and made the days smudge disconcertingly into one another.

When he'd woken today, something had felt off -- Just a bit to the left of where it ought to be. It had taken several drowsy minutes of laying in his bed, listening to the earnest warbles of the early birds to realize that the strangeness was that the rain had stopped. He'd almost not believed it, had felt certain he'd step outside and find the shower was simply lighter than before, but there was nothing but an early-morning mist rambling across the lawn and the first soft rays of sunlight smearing over the broken clouds.

And gods, it was practically blissful to step down onto the front walk and stay dry. It didn't even bother him that there was now so much to do, so much time to be made up as hastily as possible. The serendipitous feeling wouldn't hold, he understood that well enough, but he might as well throw himself into what needed to be done while it lasted. Winter was coming.

He'd still not grown relaxed enough to work without a shirt on, but he was down to his sleeveless undershirt today, the white long ago turned to gray and now streaked with dirt as he applied himself to working amongst the beans in the humid mud of the field. It was early yet, but he had a feeling that the small group of them out there would quickly grow once the sun was properly up.

Comments

[king_in_the_north]

"Good morning," Robb greeted in turn, squinting up through the early-morning sunlight, and then finding himself delighted all over again at the prospect of there being sunlight to squint through.

He recognized Jo from the few meetings the townsfolk had held -- She was not a woman who was afraid to speak her mind, and some of the things she had said had been rather extraordinary. But then, Robb supposed much of this place fell into that category.

Now that he considered it, he didn't think he'd ever seen her smiling before.

"It's nice to be out without the rain for once," he remarked with a glance toward the sky as he wiped his dirty hands on his trousers.

[tobeclosetohim]

It's kind of hard not to smile, isn't? Infectious in fact, when she can watch him squint up at the sky, that wary second of expecting what they've had, and then sort of shiny, balmly relief that he can look up at the sky, has to shade his eyes from the sun rising higher and higher. That it's just blue skies and the end of the clouds moving off from them. Wherever off was.

She didn't even care to figure that out right now.

She was too busy being grateful it was done being right on top of them.

"You can say that again," Jo agreed. It's brighter than normal, and she doesn't even attempt to keep it in check for today. "I've seen you around here, working and at some of the meetings, but I don't think we've actually had the chance to meet, which seems crazy given how small this place is, but-" She gives a sort of too pleased at the morning to dither about the tiny things right now. "-you know. So, hi. Again. it's nice to get to see another face."

[king_in_the_north]

"You're Jo, yes?" he asked, settling back on his heels. "I'm Robb. You may know my brother, Jon? He's apparently been here for some time." And wasn't that still impossibly strange to think about, that Jon might be from his own future, yet have arrived in this place first? Old Nan had been fond of saying that the ways of the gods were beyond man's understanding, but Robb had never found much comfort in the adage.

"It's likely my fault, that we've not properly met before. I haven't been as sociable as I likely ought to have been."

[tobeclosetohim]

"You won't get any argument from me." It's congenial enough, at the last part. "This kind of thing hardly makes people want to break out in dance and song, and that whole getting to know thy neighbor thing."

Honestly, it should have made the last part more imperative, and in some ways it did, but in a lot of them it didn't, too. Communities formed under desperation had lynch pins and so many lacking steps between who they were and what they had to be that weren't based on choices, as much as a lack of choices that would result in worse consequences without them.

"So, you and Jon?" Jo shifted a little on her feet, in the squelchy mud. "I guess you'll be the first straight on family people here."

[king_in_the_north]

"I hadn't really thought about it before, but I suppose you're right," Robb answered with a considering tilt of his head. Not that he'd been keeping up with everyone, but it seemed like something he might have heard about, in Margaery's babbling if nothing else.

"We hadn't ever expected to see each other again, so it's been something of a blessing." Not quite the blessing he would have preferred, with the both of them safe and whole back in Winterfell, but he didn't suppose he had room to be picky about it.

"There are a fair few people around who knew each other before coming here, though, aren't there?"

well, that answers which tag didn't go through on 11/8. Why, gmail.

[tobeclosetohim]

"Yeah. It happens, even families, just not much of that had yet." Jo shrugs, not really belaboring the point any at all. There's even a rather affording smile at the end. "Well, maybe that's not too bad for you guys, right? All of this shoving you guys back together, even if it's far out, on the edge of time and space."

If this was even time and space, and not just some weird box.

It wasn't like she, or anyone else, seemed to reall have any clue about that.

[king_in_the_north]

"It's a bit odd, as Jon's older than I am now and we used to be of an age, but I'd rather have him older than not at all, I suppose." And if this wasn't strictly true, if Robb believed them both dead and that pained him, he needn't get into it, particularly not with a stranger.

"Have you anyone here you knew from your home?"

[tobeclosetohim]

"Time gets weird out here," Jo says, but softer. It's not like she's telling him. It's phrased in the tone of an apology that just doesn't have the express words for it. She gets it. She had that last time. Being still younger than Dean, but suddenly older than Sam. The way, time hopscotched her on their boards, shifting things. Taking them from further forward, and further back.

"Not home specifically." Then, after a second. She's not sure why even. Maybe because she's finally got blue skies and space to breathe, it just feels like things trapped in her maybe need out, too. "I recognize a lot of the faces here, but they're different versions of themselves, except for Thorfinn. He was in another place like this with me."

"Five years ago for him. Even though it was only the blink of an eye and a breath for me from there to here." She shook her head. Like she said. Time was weird here. "But, no, no one from home." And too many behind her.

She'd been covered in a number of the people from her world before coming here, even though home. They weren't specifically from home either, except for Dean, Sam, and Bobby, for the little the old man had been there.

[king_in_the_north]

There were several of them here in the village, to the best of Robb's recollection, who had this sort of story. It tended to come out in community gatherings, a world-weariness that the rest of them could only guess at. But he'd not known about the time differences, nor that those few might have known each other before this place.

He watched Jo for a quiet moment, wondering at the wisdom of pressing her now, during this long-needed break from the onslaught, then realizing ultimately that she'd opened the door for further questions.

"How many times has this happened to you before?" he asked. "Being in places similar to this."

[tobeclosetohim]

"Four." It'd taken her a second. She was used to counting this one, or listing it as six if she counted her and home.

She doesn't even begrudge any part of the question, or that it happens on today. Especially on a first real conversation with someone. Four, or five, months in, she'd gotten a little used to this conversation happening at some point.

Around meetings, where people picked it up who hadn't somehow before, and even between those of them who shared it, which was sometimes a blessing. Not entirely feeling left out in left field with it all hanging and unknown. Even if everyone's worlds and universes they'd come from were different. Save Thorfinn's.

[king_in_the_north]

"Really?" He didn't know what he'd imagined, but it hadn't been that many. The cynical way she carried herself and the resigned way she spoke about the place made much more sense.

"Were they all like this? Did you ever find a means to escape?"

Not that he was looking to escape, necessarily, but he'd also privately thought all this time that they all of them were certainly dead and this was the afterlife.

[tobeclosetohim]

"No." Jo shook her head. "Not in the way, you mean." Jo pauses, but then she goes on.

She's, maybe, trying to get better about not being tight vested about very pointless things here, with these people.

"My first one had this Door and you could go between there and home all the time, but it wasn't the same as it having a true escape, and leaving off Milliways entirely behind, nothing's been as nice about that idea since. The last time I saw my home I was still here."