Lord Robb Stark (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
king_in_the_north) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
sixthiterationlogs2016-10-11 11:17 pm
king_in_the_north) wrote in sixthiterationlogs2016-10-11 11:17 pm
you could taste heaven perfectly; [OTA]
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.
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.
no subject
Jon chanced a smile, one corner of his mouth turning up as he watched his brother work. It was good to simply see him alive, to see him doing something so mundane as tilling the earth and Jon didn't know if he'd ever grow used to it.
"Do you need any help?"
no subject
Two kings of nothing, put soundly in their place in one of the mostly lowly occupations one could hope for. Still, Robb supposed it was something.
no subject
"I've never been afraid of hard work. Besides, time spent with my brother is never ill spent." Jon liked to think that somewhere, Ned Stark would still be proud of them both even if they weren't fighting or sitting the high seat at Winterfell but were, instead, making the best of their situations in a new place.
no subject
They fell into a companionable silence for a moment before Robb gently cleared his throat. "So, what do you think of Margaery?" he asked with a sidelong glance Jon's way. Convention would tell him that the opinion of his bastard brother should matter very little, but somehow for Robb, it always had rather a lot.
no subject
"She's just very...different from Northern women, isn't she? Are they all like that in the South?"
Jon had never gone south of Winterfell but Jon had and he'd had the chance to meet women who weren't necessarily the austere and practical women that they'd grown up with at Winterfell. Perhaps he had other thoughts.
no subject
He sobered, focusing on his stilled hands. It wasn't blood on them, only dirt. Only dirt.
"Jon," he began, and swallowed roughly. "I think I may have made a mess of things."
no subject
"What is it, Robb? What do you think you've done?" Jon couldn't imagine a mistake made here having consequences back in Westeros but if it weighed heavily on Robb, clearly it was something worth discussing.
no subject
"It isn't that I don't care for her," he continued, and shook his head. "It was just— Gods, she was there in my bed, wearing nothing but the linens, and then she was in my lap telling me about how she'd died, and I just..." Trailing off, he swallowed roughly, and rubbed at the soil smeared across the back of his hand.
"I was an idiot. Again. I try to do the right thing, I think about what Father would have done, everyday I try, Jon, and then my cock points me in a direction and I just go without thinking."
no subject
Perhaps as a highborn son of a lord, he did, but Jon had done it and the old gods hadn't struck him down. He was doing it currently, even, and nothing ill had happened.
"There's ways to prevent a child."
no subject
No, actually, there was no contest. It was absolutely the most ludicrous that it was coming from Jon's mouth, a man who refused to bed a whore because he was so paranoid that his precious seed would sprout in infertile ground, and then went on to a life of dour and voluntary celibacy.
None of this was to mention that he'd been trying to have a serious damned conversation for once.
"Really?" he asked, and tilted his head with a discerning squint. "Really? Oh, well glory to the gods, I'm so grateful that you're here, as I'd been thinking I'd left a string of bastards all across the Riverlands! It must have been the will of the gods that you finally dipped your wick so that you could become the expert, thank you so much."
no subject
"The woman seems to want to be in your bed. You're the one who's getting upset about her being there. I thought I was supposed to be offering advice as to how to have it both ways."
no subject
"I wish Father were here," he quietly admitted. "He made it all look so easy."
no subject
"He had a way of making every choice look right and look honorable," Jon agreed. Even Ned Stark's greatest dishonor - Jon's own birth - hadn't stained him or the rest of the Stark family irreparably. Even Jon had a relatively respected position within the Stark household.
"He's the only man in the Seven Kingdoms who could bring home a bastard and still die for being too damned honorable. That was Father."
no subject
Swallowing roughly, he turned back to the next plant and tamped down on the soil. "You've always been better at that than I have, I think." He let out a slow, resigned sigh, but didn't look up again. "You're more like him."
no subject
It was something he had never voiced aloud, exactly, but it was true: Jon wanted to be what Robb was simply by nature of his birth. He was envious, yes, but he never wanted to take from Robb to have for himself. He still wanted Robb to have everything alongside him.
no subject
Yet it was the name, Robb realized now, perhaps more fully than ever before. The name was the sticking point despite it all. And little to be done about it.
He shook his head with a soft smile. "I reckon it's reassuring to know you're still bloody rubbish at taking a compliment."
no subject
"I suppose we would know that better than most. I never thought you let winning those battles in the south go to your head the way the gossip wanted me to think it did."
no subject
Gods, but he didn't want to think about the South, or the battles, or all the ways he'd failed to measure up that Jon really couldn't fathom. They both of them had their regrets; the difference was that Jon couldn't help his.
no subject
Jon wished he'd have gone south with him, honestly, and had kept him safe. Perhaps he could have seen the Frey plot and kept his family from dying; perhaps he could have prevented it.
no subject
"Do you know what?" Robb said at length, and lifted his head with a faint, resigned smile. "Neither of us are the better son. Obviously that title went to Bran. Although I can legitimize you right here in the mud if you'd like, if it'll stop you going on about how you're not a proper Stark. Technically you could legitimize yourself, Your Grace, but that might be a bit awkward with the reaching around to pat your own shoulder."
no subject
"None of us are kings here, though. You're a farmer and I'm a hunter. I don't know what Lady Margaery fancies herself to be. A shepherd?"