farsickness | we've been down that road before

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]

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Seeing anybody on this road is something. Ned hurries to catch up with the figure, to ask them whatever questions he may, and learn something of this land he finds himself in. But the closer he gets, the more he narrows his eyes, trying to tell himself it could not be who it thought it was. That walk, her height, her hair, her frame, every detail as he remembered it.

Biting his lip, he picks up his pace until he is sprinting, knowing she would be able to hear the pounding of footsteps behind her. And when she glances back...

"Lyanna?" The incredulous voice of her brother, just recently heard the news that she has been kidnapped by Rhaegar Targaryen. And even more recently, knowing the price their father and brother have paid to try to demand her back.

She and Ben are his only family left.

He closes the distance. Reaches to catch her in his arms, to fold them around her and embrace her tightly. "Lya," Ned murmurs. "Thank the gods." Where they were didn't matter, for one beautiful moment. She was safe. She was free.

Lyanna isn’t sure how she ended up here. (There’s a half-memory of missing her family so much and wishing there was some way for them to be together, but she doesn’t think anything of it. ~~She loves Rhaegar, she does, but she misses her brothers so much.~~) She doesn’t recognize Gazin and she knows every house and where they’re located in Westeros, as well as kingdoms and cities and all of the trappings of the education of a ‘proper lady’. (Although she’s never been proper in her life.) And Gazin isn’t on any map she knows.

The pounding of footsteps has her spinning on her heels, reaching for a blade... only to be brought up short by who it is. The sound of her name spoken in her brother’s familiar voice.

“Ned?” She flings herself into his arms and holds tight to him. Oh she’s missed him so much. “You’re here!” The hows and whys don’t matter in this moment. She doesn’t care. Doesn’t wonder where Rhaegar is. All that matters is the fact that she’s hugging her brother again.

The large fire in the common area of the inn is a welcome thing after the rain that has pelted their arrival today. Ned shakes off his sodden cloak and spreads it to dry by one corner of the hearth. He brushes damp strands of hair out of his eyes and steps close to his chosen corner to warm first front and then back, trying to dry at least a bit of the chill from his clothes.

He notices a man of about his age looking at him rather intently. It is strange, seeing this stranger and being reminded suddenly of Brandon and himself both standing before a reflective pool. He can even see Lyanna in him. But it must be a trick of the light, or of his own mind after finding her today.

Ned meets the other's gaze head on with his own steady grey eyes. "Can I help you?" he asks in the rolling tones of the North, somehow both brusque and generous all at once.

Edited 2020-11-07 08:33 (UTC)

Aella ducks into the inn, shaking rainwater from her dark hair. Shit, so much for going anywhere. Looks like she’s in until the storm passes. Her continued search for griffons will have to wait. So she heads over to the tavern for a few drinks. The bartender looks up and gives her a wave when he sees her, and she grins back.

Her attention is pulled by a couple new faces; she’s been here long enough to be able to tell when people are more than just ‘new in town’. They have the look of people new to this WORLD. A man and a woman; siblings, from the features they share. The woman is off chatting with someone, while her brother sits and drinks.

Fuck it. Why not? She grabs a couple of the bartender’s finest ales, and carries them over to his table, setting one down in front of him. “You look like you could use a refill,” she says with a smile. “Welcome to Gazin.”

She’s a slight woman, is Aella Tabris, with dark eyes, and dark hair with pink, purplish ends worn up. (She’s worn her hair up since her almost-wedding. Braids, buns, she never wears it loose around other people. Not anymore.) Tattoos of wings on her shoulders. But her most striking feature is her delicately pointed ears. Not unusual for anyone from Thedas. But certainly not something that everyone is used to seeing.

He doesn't know what his father looked like as a young man, so when he first catches sight of the man in the inn, he thinks nothing of it at first, until he gets a better look. He looks familiar, with features that Jon has seen on the faces of Robb, Arya, even his own. All of his siblings except for Sansa, really.

And then he gets a look at the man's eyes, and there's little doubt. How often had Jon seen those same eyes looking back at him? The voice and accent make him even more sure. But it's not just something he can blurt out before they've even said two words to each other.

"You remind me of someone I know." His accent, too, is of the North.

He holds her close, infinitely grateful. The worry of the past weeks when she's been missing makes his embrace all the more fervent, and there is deep sorrow in his eyes when he at last releases her far enough to look into hers. There is no trace of that sorrow in return, and he knows she doesn't know. Knows, too, that he must bear this secret a little while until his questions are answered and they know more of this place. He cannot burden her so soon with the knowledge.

Ned touches her face gently. "You are safe? Well?" He scans her over, looking for marks or bruises, but she looks whole. Happy, even. If as confused as he is about where they are. "Gods, Lyanna. We all thought the worst when he took you. He has treated you well?"

"So do you."

As soon as he hears the man speak, it seems clear to Ned. He considers the man who is so rife with Stark features, he is more clearly part of the family than even Ned. Perhaps a distant branch of it, or born on the wrong side of the blanket, but all the same. Kin.

"You're a Northman," he says thoughtfully. "Perhaps of House Stark? We have never met. But you may have known my father, Lord Rickard of Winterfell?"

The dark grey eyes are piercing in their sorrow at the name of one so recently lost to him. But of any name the man might recognize, that would be the one.

Rickard. That is a name he knows, and mostly confirms his suspicions. But Rickard had three sons, and at this point suspicion is still all Jon has about the identity of this man.

"My grandfather. He died before I was born." This much at least is true no matter what story he's telling about his background. He just tries not to think too much about the fact that one grandfather had been killed by the other, what had brought it about, what had followed, and how much might have been avoided if the truth had been known from the beginning.

Ned has been very slowly nursing that first drink. They seem use to outworlders with no money in their pockets here, and the bartender was kind enough to give them one round, but Ned knows that can't continue. Besides, where would they stay, with no money to buy a room at the inn?

Surprised at the sudden company, he glances up. A sweet smile greets him, a pretty face and kind eyes. He doesn't notice the ears at first.

"Thank you, my lady," he says, eyebrows raised. "Will you join me? My sister has deserted me - " with a jesting glance at Lyanna, deep in conversation (probably with a good-looking man) " - and I could use the company."

Lyanna scarcely notices that her brother has company, engaged in conversation as she is with a good-looking gentleman. Aella follows his glance, amusement sparkling in her dark eyes as she watches his sister flirt for a moment, then she laughs and settles into the seat opposite of him.

She’s pretty sure no one who actually knows her would EVER call her a lady. But she appreciates that he has. It’s sweet. Gentlemanly. It’s kind of weird. (Humans don’t usually treat elves like that. She’s been lucky to meet a few who do, but the bulk have been assholes.) “I’d love to,” she replies. “But it’s just Aella. Aella Tabris.”

She takes a sip of her drink. “And since I’ve never seen you here before, you must be newly arrived.” She’s been here a while now, settled in. Even if she’s fucking heartbroken that Morrigan was gone.

He doesn’t know. She hadn’t had a chance to tell him. Hadn’t THOUGHT to tell him. To let her family know. She’d been... swept up. In love. Impulsive, even. Running away with Rhaegar. Choosing for HERSELF who she was to wed. Ned doesn’t know that she hadn’t been kidnapped at all. And she doesn’t know how to tell him. Perhaps she can keep that to herself for a bit longer. Until they find out where they are. And why. And HOW.

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.”

Edited 2020-11-09 12:04 (UTC)

It contradicts everything they'd thought and assumed. Brandon, so distressed and enraged at the idea of their sister being (Ned shuddered) raped and imprisoned by a lustful Targaryen prince, that he had thrown all caution to the wind to demand her release. And he and their father had payed the price for it.

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."

"Aella," Ned repeats, nodding at her and offering a welcoming smile. It is good to see a friendly face here, even a new one. "You are quite right. We have just found ourselves on the road to Gazin this afternoon. It has been a strange time, trying to figure out where we are, if this is even part of our world or not. I almost sure now that it is not, that there is some magic at work."

He glances at the woman, finishing the last of his first drink. "You can recognize a newcomer here, hmm? Do you know all the people in this land, then? Or only the ones here in town?"

“You’re right, it’s not part of your world. It’s not part of any of our worlds, from what I’ve figured out so far. And it’s definitely some kind of magic, too, but not like any I’ve ever seen.” Aella speaks about magic easily, like it’s something she sees every day. Which it is. Or was, until she ended up here.

She laughs, then, bright and amused as hell, before taking a sip of her drink. “Oh gods NO. Fuck no.” Not that she DOESN’T know a lot of people’s faces here. Just not everybody. “But people who have been here a while, or live here, look at their surroundings differently than people who are newly arrived.” They carry themselves differently. Act differently. It’s not a HUGE thing, but she’s seen a lot of people around. And a lot of people show up. She couldn’t help but notice.

He holds her so tight and suddenly Lyanna feels as though she is a child again, nestling against her brother well into the night by the fire. They’ve always been closest, out of all the Stark children. And she can’t help but nestle closer, clinging to him.

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.

Ned listens with keen interest to her explanations. Not part of any of their worlds. "Then they have taken us from many worlds," he muses. "It is like no magic or powers of gods that I have seen, either." He speaks less easily of magic, but he does believe in higher powers, certainly, and things not of this world.

Her laughter, and her breezy obscenity, provoke an answering chuckle from the grey-eyed man before her. "I am that obvious, hm?" He lifts his new mug and quaffs before meeting her eyes. It is not a flirtatious look in itself - he's had to give Ashara up, but he is not looking to replace her here either - but it challenges her, at the very least. "Did you look like me, when you first came here?" Wide-eyed. Taking it all in. Questioning. Needing answers.

“A great many of them, it looks like. There was, for a little while, someone I knew from my world, yet she didn’t recognize me.” It had been heartbreaking, and complicated, but they’d been able to work around it. Or begin to. Then Morrigan was gone. And she was alone again.

Sorry, Ned. Aella swears like a sailor. And is unashamed of doing so. She is who she is and is unashamed in it all. “Not just you.” She smiles, meeting the challenge in his gaze. “Not so much, sadly.” She hasn’t been wide-eyed in a long time. Elves in the alienage don’t necessarily have that luxury. At least, she hadn’t. “I was more... frustrated. Still wanting answers, though.” And needing to return home. “Given what I had been doing before arriving here, strange and unusual... aren’t.”

He glances at Lyanna, who has made yet another gentleman friend, miraculously, before turning back to Aella. "I am fortunate that my sister and I knew each other, it seems," he says thoughtfully. "We are Lyanna and Ned Stark." With a nod at his sister as he says her name, and a small lift of his mug at his own.

Ned can already tell that his new friend will be full of valuable insights. She is the persistent type, he thinks, and her bluntness doesn't trouble him in the slightest. He nods and sips his ale. "I hope you have found some of those answers." Because gods knew there were plenty of questions.

He flashes her the inkling of a grin. "All right, you can't just drop a hint like that and not explain these 'strange and unusual' activities back home. Please tell me you're going to elaborate."

“Having a familiar face here is... very fortunate indeed.” Aella still misses Morrigan more than anything, even if she hadn’t been HER Morrigan. Morrigan is Morrigan, no matter what version of Thedas she’s from. “It’s nice to meet you Ned. I’m Aella. Tabris.” She gives a smsall lift of her own mug before taking a drink.

“Very few, much to my frustration.” And it annoys the hell out of her. She won’t stop searching, though. There’s the incident from a month ago, too. “From what I can tell, though, in speaking to some of the others who have come here, we brought ourselves here. A wish, a want to be somewhere, ANYWHERE else than where we were. Even just a moment of it. What it was that decided to answer that want and drag us here, I’ve no fucking clue yet.”

Where does she start? She’s pretty sure ‘so I joined an organization whose initiation involves drinking some blood out of a special goblet in a ritual that binds us to the very things we’re supposed to fight’ might be a bit much for a first meeting. Then again, a lot of what she’s been up to would probably count as a bit much. “There’s a LOT to choose from,” she retorts with a laugh. “I chose who was to be crowned king of Orzammar. After exposing a real-estate scam, dealing with a gang, and travelling to find a dwarven Paragon to back the Prince as King.”

They are now in the same boat. This man must be one of his siblings' sons.

...Or his own.

"Truly?" Ned looks with wonder at the full-grown man, trying to understand how these times can have worked. What magic has brought a nephew and uncle together at the same age. "Then we are family. I am Eddard Stark. Perhaps you are one of my brother Brandon's. We believe he may have fathered a few bastards in his time."

His smile is touched with melancholy, for Brandon will never sire a true-born heir now. That task will be up to him.

"Do you know who your father was?"

"Likewise." Ned is grateful to have Lyanna here, but glad too to make acquaintances who knew the world already and could help them orient themselves within the unfamiliar landscape.

Thoughtfully, he frowns. Fascinated and also a little unnerved by that answer. "Truly? I've never heard of such a thing." He wants to ask Aella what wish brought her here, but it is probably a personal question to ask someone you've just met, in a crowded tavern no less. He tucks the question away to ask later, if they have a later.

But Aella is already giving him a lot to consider. Ned raises a brow. "You lead a busy life back home. And an important one. How did you come to have the power to choose a King to crown?"

“It’s the one common thread with everyone I’ve spoken to about how they ended up here. It has to be it. Or it has to play a part, somehow.” There’s a lot she doesn’t know, yet, but it feels like it would be too fucking coincidental for that little tidbit to NOT be involved.

"Oh, VERY busy. Been on the move for longer than I can remember." And she has farther to go. "Important enough that people try to kill me." She's amused by it now; she adores Zevran with all her heart, and couldn't have made it through her journey without him. She huffs a wry laugh, and takes a very large drink from her mug. “That is a very complicated story.” And there’s a lot she doesn’t want to talk about with a strange human. Not yet. She doesn’t know him. Doesn’t trust him. “But the short version is that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or the right place at the right time, now, I guess.”

It sure as hell hadn’t seemed that way at the time, but given that she’s the last of four people – three now, she amends, the familiar ache when she thinks about Alistair walking away from everything, from her, making it hard to breathe for a moment – that can fight the Archdemon and keep the world from going to shit... well, she owes Duncan a lot. And so does Thedas.

It's news to Ned, who takes in this tidbit of information with careful consideration. He would have to be more careful wishing for things in the future, it seemed.

Since Aella laughs wryly at the idea of people trying to kill her, Ned gives a dry chuckle too and tips his head back to look at her. She is a cagey one, this girl with the mischievous eyes and colorful mouth and a past she is quite vague about.

"I hope you chose well," he says lightly, inclining his head just a touch. "As for here...you have spoken with many people, it seems. Have you been here long? Traveled much of this world? How far does it go?" Ned looks quite interested in this subject, and so far it has been one that Aella is very open to speak of.

Look, Aella’s sort of used to it by now. She’s gotten into a LOT of fights for her life since joining the Wardens. She can’t help but laugh at it, now. In part because the assassin hired to kill her is now one of her closest, most trusted friends.

“I did, I think.” She’d taken it seriously; she could have just chosen one of the two dwarves at random and gotten them on the throne and fucked off after with the support she needed. But she couldn’t. She had to make sure, as best she could, that she was choosing who was right for Orzammar. “Prince Bhelen will be a good King.” She’s tried so hard to do what was best for the people involved. Even making peace between fucking humans and elves in Brecilian Forest.

She thinks a moment. “I’ve been here... fuck, I forget how long. Maybe eight or nine months?” Honestly she’s lost track. “There’s still a great deal I haven’t explored yet. I’ve spent a lot of time in Vasari forest and the area surrounding Gazin. But I have ventured further out a little. There’s a city called Caerlias a few days ride southeast from here. And beyond Vasari in either direction there’s Lothalian and Fairwinds. North, there’s Roselake.”

One of these days she will have to pack up and venture as far south as she can. See what’s there. “I haven’t gone farther. Not yet, anyway.”

He had thought he might not ever see her again. And losing his father and brother, right after his sister, and their mother just a few years before...it was too much. Ned squeezes her again. His usual affection given urgency by the events of recent months and weeks, even days.

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.

She takes her role seriously, which speaks well to her character, Ned thinks. He lifts his mug. "Long live King Bhelen." He doesn't know the man, but he will trust Aella's judgment on him.

"Then you have eight or nine months on me here," Ned says, amused. "I know none of the places you have been. I saw a few of the names on the road signs. I would like to see them for myself, on a map, and in person too."

He glances at Aella, brows raised. "But first things first. My sister and I will need a place to stay. I don't believe the powers that brought us here, brought us with any money of worth in this world. Where did you stay, when you first came here?"

Aella grins, and lifts her mug. “Long live King Bhelen. May his rule be long and may Orzammar stand against the Blight.” She hopes the Blight will be over soon, she hopes that she can bring an end to it, but the dwarves are on the front lines more than anyone else, with the Deep Roads. Even when there isn't a Blight.

“I think I can arrange that,” she tells him, impulsively. “If you need a guide. I’m your girl.” It’d be nice to be useful again. To do something more than explore Vasari and get into trouble. Not that that might not happen while showing him around, but it wouldn’t be her only reason for roaming the forest. This time.

“I stayed here, actually.” She laughs. “Still am. Haven’t seen a reason to move elsewhere yet.” She might get a place of her own one of these days, but she likes the inn, likes the tavern. And their owner.

Edited 2020-12-22 06:41 (UTC)

Family. Eddard Stark. They are indeed family. It somehow doesn't surprise him to learn that Brandon may have fathered some bastards, even if was something that hadn't been talked about when he was growing up. He wonders if he might ever have come across some of his cousins without knowing it, and he's more sure than ever that he'd made the right choice in making sure he would never father any bastards himself.

But how does he answer this question?

"Jon Snow." He can at least confirm part of Ned's conjecture, and answer part of the question truthfully. "Brandon is not my father."

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we've been down that road before

Lyanna

Almost posted this with the wrong journal. OOPS

Jon

inn/tavern time?

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