Ned Stark (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ulfur) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
farsickness2020-11-07 02:24 am
ulfur) wrote in farsickness2020-11-07 02:24 am
we've been down that road before
Who: Ned Stark and fam; OTA!
When: November 1st
What: reunions, meetings at the inn
Where: the road to Gazin, the inn, etc.
Warning(s): news of character/loved one death, will update as needed
Waking up alone and on a strange road; the former normal for young Eddard Stark, the latter a new experience. He frowns at the sign. Gazin, Lothalian, Caerlias. None of the names mean anything to him. He wonders if he has somehow been drugged and shipped off across the Narrow Sea by . He is not as well-versed in the cities of Essos as he is in every corner of Westeros, as a newly minted knight should be.
Grief hangs heavy upon him as he walks, the news of his father's and brother's deaths still fresh from King's Landing. This makes him Lord of Winterfell. It is a cup he'd never thought would pass to him. As the second son, second heir, he'd known he would be a knight, and lord of his own holdfast, perhaps able to marry the woman he loved...
And in the blink of an eye, it all changed. Rickard and Brandon Stark, tortured and brutally killed, and all of the North now resting on his shoulders. That duty was one he must bear, and yet, that last night with Ashara, he had dared to dream of a different future. One where he need not take this cup and all that it brought. A lifetime bowed beneath that mantle. A marriage to a woman he'd never met and who had been pledged to his brother for nearly half his life. And the knowledge that so much of his family was gone forever. Mother, father, brother. Lyanna, too, perhaps, if they could not get her back.
He'd wished for a place free from those sorrows, where he might love whomever he wished, and live a life free of that weight.
And now...he knew he had to get back. Whatever road led there. If he had to sail a ship to return, or secure a horse, or...whatever way he could find. He would take it. He could not let Benjen bear this all alone.
[OOC: starters below or snag him at the inn/around town the day of arrival]
When: November 1st
What: reunions, meetings at the inn
Where: the road to Gazin, the inn, etc.
Warning(s): news of character/loved one death, will update as needed
Waking up alone and on a strange road; the former normal for young Eddard Stark, the latter a new experience. He frowns at the sign. Gazin, Lothalian, Caerlias. None of the names mean anything to him. He wonders if he has somehow been drugged and shipped off across the Narrow Sea by . He is not as well-versed in the cities of Essos as he is in every corner of Westeros, as a newly minted knight should be.
Grief hangs heavy upon him as he walks, the news of his father's and brother's deaths still fresh from King's Landing. This makes him Lord of Winterfell. It is a cup he'd never thought would pass to him. As the second son, second heir, he'd known he would be a knight, and lord of his own holdfast, perhaps able to marry the woman he loved...
And in the blink of an eye, it all changed. Rickard and Brandon Stark, tortured and brutally killed, and all of the North now resting on his shoulders. That duty was one he must bear, and yet, that last night with Ashara, he had dared to dream of a different future. One where he need not take this cup and all that it brought. A lifetime bowed beneath that mantle. A marriage to a woman he'd never met and who had been pledged to his brother for nearly half his life. And the knowledge that so much of his family was gone forever. Mother, father, brother. Lyanna, too, perhaps, if they could not get her back.
He'd wished for a place free from those sorrows, where he might love whomever he wished, and live a life free of that weight.
And now...he knew he had to get back. Whatever road led there. If he had to sail a ship to return, or secure a horse, or...whatever way he could find. He would take it. He could not let Benjen bear this all alone.
[OOC: starters below or snag him at the inn/around town the day of arrival]
no subject
So many questions.
Lyanna reaches up to touch his face. “I am Ned. I am.” Her stomach lurches at the secret she’s keeping. Soon. She’ll tell him soon. “He has. He’s treated me” wonderfully. “ very well.” She flings her arms around him again, tucking her head against him as she so often had when they were younger. “I’ve missed you.”
no subject
No, Ned thinks to himself, his eyes shadowed upon her. He cannot tell her this. Not now. And he does not know how he will ever bring himself to it, although he knows eventually he must.
He has to smile at how she nestles against him, as she had sometimes on long trips home in the wagon as children, or sitting by the fire far past her bedtime. The closest in age, there had always been a special connection between the two of them. He turns his head to kiss her hair, as his arms fold around her, crushing her against him. "I'm so glad," is all he says. "I've missed you. More than you can know."
More than he can say.
Over the top of her head, Ned contemplates the horizon, without attempting to extract himself from the embrace. Frankly, if Lyanna never lets go, it'll be too soon. "Do you think we are in Essos?" he muses to her. "I would swear, this is nowhere in Westeros."
no subject
She has no intention of letting go of him any time soon. She can’t. Gods she has MISSED him. “I don’t... I don’t know. It doesn’t look like anywhere I’ve seen, or read of in books. I think you might be right. But how?” How did they get here? It doesn’t make any sense.
But. At least they’re together. They can handle this. And she’s going to enjoy having her brother nearby, for however long it lasts.
no subject
He shakes his head. "Either we have both been taken very far within our world while we were drugged, or taken to another world entirely. That is all that I can think of."
Reluctantly, Ned lets go just far enough to clasp Lyanna's face in his hand. "What happened? When Rhaegar took you? You can tell me, I won't be angry." He meets her eyes steadily. She's always been able to tell him things she couldn't tell the others. He was the quiet one, the even-keeled Stark, without the notorious temper and impulsiveness the rest of their family had.