sixthiterationlogs | receive the horizon dawn’s golden glow; honor is among us, honor is all we know

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receive the horizon dawn’s golden glow; honor is among us, honor is all we know

WHO: Eddard Stark
WHERE: Fountain/Around the Village
WHEN: March 10, afternoon into early evening
OPEN TO: OTA (Separate thread for Sansa (continuation from TDM))
WARNINGS: Mention of death/execution (will update as needed)
STATUS: Yes

// Arrival - The Fountain //
The last thing Ned could remember was the chilling, screaming sound of approaching death as the executioner used his own weapon against him. After that -

He'd ended up here. Clawed his way out of the fountain, felt the press of hard earth against his back as he stared at a sky bluer than any he'd seen before. He'd thought he'd died, been transported to some sort of afterlife, but it would've been too good to be true. Instead, he'd found himself in a village, of sorts. There were similarities, to his beloved home of Winterfell, but also -

Differences.

His belabored breathing is mottled with violent, hacking coughs - many of which force water up from his lungs to saturate the ground beneath him. He rolls over onto his side, presses a palm to the ground, forces himself up onto his knees. As he brings the back of his hand to his mouth, he feels the strange tug of the fabric around his body -

It isn't the leather he's used to, nor does it even vaguely resemble his usual garments - the ones he'd loved and left behind up North: the furs, the pelts, leather delicately woven and dark as the frozen earth. Even the pieces he'd had to wear in the warmer King's Landing are missing. He then feels the tightness of straps against his shoulders, realizes he's carrying a satchel of some sort on his back. He thinks to remove it, to investigate, but first, he has to figure out how to answer a very pressing question:

Where in the Old Gods' names is he?

// Later - The Village //
He's determined to explore more of the town, now that he's forced himself to scout the area, taking advantage of the cover of a number of trees to finally bend a knee, investigate the contents of the strange satchel he'd arrived with. He'd also taken the opportunity to peel away the saturated clothing for the dry set he'd found - marvelling at how much quicker it was to dress as opposed to before with layer upon layer. Perhaps there's something to the simplicity of it all.

He tries to retrace his steps back towards the fountain or what he believes to be the center of the town, pack lazily slung over one shoulder, long tendrils of hair still dripping and soaking the shoulders of his shirt.

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How often had Ned dreamt of his family while in the darkness of the dungeons? How often had their faces floated into his sight - ghosts, spirits meant to haunt him (or perhaps there to comfort?) - while he murmured nonsense to himself. A mad man. A man stripped of all he'd ever had and known, nothing more than a heap of bones covered in a sheet of skin.

Broken, emptied, hollowed.

He would've sworn he'd heard Robb's voice call out to him in the darkness. Would've sworn he'd heard his quivering cries he'd not made since he was but a babe, swaddled and padded with fur and cloth. Would've ripped through the granite and stone with his bare hands if he thought he'd stand a chance to see them all again: happy, well-fed, safe.

Ned exhales a breath to steel himself, unable to bear the sting of the pain he hears in his son's voice. Grips him tighter, holds him all the closer.

"It was the only thought that kept me alive," he murmurs quietly in return, lids falling to meet their counterparts. "That I might see you and our family again."

Edited 2017-03-19 17:39 (UTC)

It might have been so easy to linger, to wring as much indulgence from the moment as he could manage were it not for a single word. Alive. It rang in Robb's head like a bell, a shuddering clamor that pushed away his childhood heart and drew him back to himself, his present. He allowed himself a moment more to be stricken, face still hidden in the clammy dip of his father's shoulder, before schooling his expression and sitting back.

Finally getting a proper look, Lord Ned Stark looked exactly the same but for his clothing, snow white and impractical. Even the fact that of course his father would be unchanged felt like a wound, sharp and sticky, and Robb had to swallow roughly against it before he could find his voice again.

"Father, do you know where you are?" he asked, absurd perhaps, but easier than asking what he last remembered. Robb watched his father carefully, eyes soft with doubt, waiting for the dawning recognition that the boy crouched back on his heels was a boy no longer, years older now than when they last parted.

"Do I know .. ?" Ned begins to echo, brows gathering with confusion. As though suddenly aware of his surroundings, his gaze forces itself from the beautiful, shining visage of his son to the world around them - the fog, the fountain, the dirt underfoot, the vague silhouettes of buildings lurking in the distance. He'd thought, for the briefest of moments, that it had been an afterlife of some kind - meant to closely resemble a small village somewhere near home, though not exactly - after all, it'd be foolish to expect the realm of the Old Gods to resemble that of man.

The lack of familiarity with the area coupled with Robb's curious question gives Ned pause, and when he brings his eyes to gaze upon the familiar sight of his son, he notices what he hadn't noticed before -

The slimness of his jaw, the hollows of his cheeks. The protrusion of cheekbone where there'd previously been the plump flesh of youth. Eyes still like his mother's, but weathered and weary - ones that have seen too much death, too much loss. He's older than Ned remembers in the yard at Winterfell. He'd been but a boy then, and though apparitions of that boy - joyful, exuberant, sharp - still linger behind those saddened eyes, the man opposite him is not that boy at heart.

Not anymore.

"Where are we, Robb?"

"Not in Westeros." That much had becoming increasingly clear the more time wore on. The seasons were so short, you could blink and they were gone, and yet there were others for whom that was apparently normal.

"I wish I had a better answer," he confessed, his words still a bit halting and unsure, some lingering part of him still fearful this might all be a dream, that he might answer poorly and have his father snatched away again. "It is a very strange place with a great many secrets."

He tried a smile, frail but genuine, his brow creasing as he fought the urge to begin weeping again. "But Jon and Sansa and Arya are all here," he abruptly continued, forcing himself onward. "We have a home. Or, the girls and I have a home, but Jon isn't far. We should— We should go. Get you in front of a fire. I can try to better explain what little I can."

"Not in Westeros," Ned quietly echoes, though the words themselves feel like invaders on his tongue. If not there, then - where? Mention of secrets does not sit well at the bit of his stomach, like his body has suddenly realized he's devoured tainted meat or spoiled sweets. Another place of secrets? Another place of whispers and little birds and spies? He wonders if all places are like this, if left to their own devices. If man must always conceal himself under the guise of whispers.

Ned reaches out to place a hand on his son's shoulder, both for his child as well as for himself. He'd only heard fleeting moments of Robb speaking so authoritatively, so surely, so strongly. The command of his voice, the surety of his tone - it didn't take much more for Ned to begin to understand that Robb had assumed his duties as eldest son once the sword had swung.

He lifts himself to his feet, hand extends down towards Robb.

"It matters not where you take me," he murmurs quietly, "So long as we are together again."

This was such a staunchly Ned Stark thing to say that Robb nearly laughed, restraining himself only at the last moment as he accepted his father's hand and allowed himself to be pulled back to his feet. The grief and turmoil continued to twist at his gut, but there was room now for a bright thread of joy to slip in, as well.

"I am glad that you're here," he said once he was on his feet, voice steadier but still a bit tight around the words. "The others..." he trailed off, his gaze sliding away. "I don't think any of us could have expected this."

And which of them, he wondered, would be the one to confess to their father everything that had transpired since that fateful day in King's Landing? Robb did not think he could manage it. Arya, perhaps, or Jon. There was more steel to him than he ever realized.

"Come," Robb said, motioning his father forward. "It won't do to have you catch a fever when we've only just gotten you back again." His mouth opened again -- Mother would never forgive me -- and then clamped back shut with a strained smile.

"Certainly, this was the last of my expectations when I felt the blade upon my neck," Ned agrees, his words airy with disbelief and lingering shock. "But I will not question the Old Gods, if they saw fit to reunite us. I know better than to strike at a giving hand." There's a flicker of something in Robb's eyes - Gods, did he have his mother's eyes - that Ned only sees for a moment. Something dark, something hidden - and his brows twitch together in concern.

He lets his eyes linger on his son's face for a few paces as he walks alongside him, before finally dragging his gaze to their surroundings.

"I have fought off worse than a fever, Robb," Ned lightly teases, stealing a glance out of the corner of his eye. The tension in every muscle of Robb's body radiates heat, radiates their restraint - and after they've walked a bit, Ned finally comments, "Whatever it is you are so determined to contain, I hope you see fit to tell me eventually, When you are ready."

The mention of the execution was a blade to Robb's gut, sharp and stunning as it slid in beside the one which had sent him here himself -- Twin punches that, spectral or not, threatened to undo his fragile stability. He stilled in mid step but did not hunch, did not bend as he wanted, instead simply curling a fist tightly under his cloak and swallowing roughly down his guilt and failure.

Perhaps it ought to be phrased so casually. He ought never to forget it, gods knew.

"It has been quite some time," he managed at last, unsticking his feet and forcing them forward. "There is much that has happened. One of the others might be better at the telling."

Robb's stagnation draws Ned's attention to him, hand instinctively reaching out to grasp at his son's shoulder. It is only after the words have left him, after they have swirled around his head like the fog blanketing the town, that he realizes the gravity of what he had said. There is a twist in the center of his stomach, then, for having breached a topic such as that with casualness and nonchalance.

"Forgive me," he murmurs, "I should not allow my tongue to flap about so freely without thought of the gusts it might create." He offers his son a gentle squeeze with his hand before dropping it to his side, once again falling in step. "One can only assume the worst, if there are words and deeds whose burdens you would pass onto your siblings."

Words rose to Robb's tongue and then ebbed again, incomplete thoughts, flashes of emotion -- There was too much and too complex to explain alone, even had he thought he could manage it. His father certainly couldn't have been expected to know any of it, to understand everything that become wrapped up in the swing of the blade that morning in King's Landing.

"We were split," Robb allows. "The girls in King's Landing, Jon at the wall." In truth, despite his title and his end, his thread had likely been the most tedious of the lot. "I was simply a boy playing at war before I came here."

"And it is no one's burden but my own, to have placed you in such a position," Ned replies, offering Robb a stern, fatherly look. "I should not have left Winterfell behind to fall upon your shoulders." For as much as he tried to spare his eldest son from the same duties that had befallen him after the murders of his father and brother, for as much as he tried to provide them all with the best lives, the best upbringings he could have managed, there is a gnawing guilt at the core of him that carries the weight of the fact that he failed.

"A boy left to play at war is no one's fault but his father's."

A father's guilt was cold comfort regardless of its measure of truth; Robb was a Stark, he understood well enough his father's plain and honest brand of honor, but he knew of no way to explain that plainness and honor had had very little to do with any of it, in the end. That the lives of everyone left behind after he'd died had become more tangled and twisted up than any of them ever might have imagined back when they'd been tucked safely away in their cold and stolid stronghold so far from the rest of the world.

"You couldn't have known," was all he said now, the best he could reasonably do. "None of us could have known what was to come."

"No. Perhaps the gods themselves hadn't known," Ned replies reflectively, speaking half to the dirt underfoot and half to his son. "Suppose it does little to have carried the weight here, wherever we might be." He gives a thoughtful glance upwards, noting that there was little in the sky and air around them that was noticeably different, and yet -

Something was off.

"How long've you been here, Robb?"

"Many moons," Robb answered, quick to catch hold of a less complicated topic. "Longer than I rightly recall, to be entirely honest. Perhaps half a year. Jon's been here longer, and Sansa and Arya arrived a moon or two after me. Although the timing makes little sense— Ah. Here."

The house was looming out of the mist at last, little more than a shack compared to Winterfell, and yet one of the largest homes to be had. They were apparently going to need that space even more than they'd realized.

"It isn't much, but it keeps the rain off our heads," he said, leading his father up the stairs.

"Half a year?" The length seems like an eternity, for the way Ned feels now. He thinks to ask about how many nights it would take for the spinning of his head to wear off, but thinks better of it and bites his tongue instead. No need to burden his son with maladies Ned can more than handle on his own.

At the sight of house, Ned glances up and considers the exterior for a few moments. It is a harsh contrast to the home they'd shared in Winterfell, but - there is little of which to complain. The halls and rooms would once again be filled with his children's voices, the sounds of their laughter, the warmth of their bodies (he thinks of Bran, and Rickon, and Cat) - and, thusly, it would more than suffice.

"These colors, did you choose them?" he asks, noting their resemblance to the Stark banner colors.

"It's a bit of a coincidence, isn't it?" Robb replied as he stepped inside the tidy front room, holding open the door for his father. "Most of the homes here are much smaller than this, perhaps you noticed. I started in a smaller one with Jon, but when the girls arrived, we needed more room. But the color may have contributed to choosing this house in particular.

"There's a privy just through there," he added with a motion through the tiny dining area. "If you'd like to take off your wet clothes. There ought to be something dry to wear in your sack. We haven't a fireplace, but there's an oven in the cellar that heats the house. I'll go stoke it a bit."

This was easier for now, if not an entirely honest reaction to the reality of Eddard Stark standing in the middle of the modest home he'd made with Sansa and Arya. For now, finding ways to simply put one foot in front of the other seemed the wisest course.

"If we were still in Westeros, I'd think it too much of a coincidence," Ned replies quietly as he slips past Robb into the belly of the dwelling. He listens to Robb dole out instructions and guidance like the man Ned supposes he is now, still struggling to connect the boy he'd left behind and the man standing before him. After he finishes speaking, the faint echo of his voice still ringing in his ears, Ned can only admire him quietly for a moment - gaze soft and gentle and adoring.

He reaches out and places a hand on Robb's shoulder, saying nothing, only offering a gentle but firm squeeze before excusing himself to change into dry clothes.

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receive the horizon dawn’s golden glow; honor is among us, honor is all we know

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