farsickness | Reluctantly At Home

Reluctantly At Home

WHO: Wen Qing and OPEN
WHEN: March catch-all
WHAT: More settling in and daily life in Gazin
WHERE: Various places across Gazin
WARNINGS: None for now

The apothecary

Wen Qing still lives in the humble room above the apothecary and indeed, her life currently revolves around the place.

She spends most of her days working in the apothecary. When she isn't standing behind the counter selling its wares or advising customers on the best treatments, she will be pouring over musty old books and catching up on knowledge about local ingredients and treatments. Or she will be in the back preparing medicines, but ringing the large brass bell will call her back into the store.

One day as you step into the seemingly abandoned store, there comes a crash from the back and then loud cursing. "Cursed boxes!"

At the port

While she works hard, Wen Qing's true goal is still finding a way home. Over the course of February, she has made absolutely no progress and she is becoming far more impatient by now in her search for answers.

As a result, when she isn't working or practicing with Zidian, she can often be found strolling around near Gazin's harbor at the shores of the river passing by the town. She can be found quizzing the crews of various ships about travel to faraway countries and places where more magical knowledge may be found, about centers of magic and strange phenomenons which might have displaced people. All that sniffing around and asking too many questions from a woman who clearly doesn't belong among the tough sailors isn't only making her friends here.

Same in the rough taverns visited by sailors and merchants, where she quickly becomes known for being too interested in other people's business, though she also becomes known for paying for information... and thus, for carrying coin on her while appearing frail and delicate and utterly unarmed.

One of these days on her way home through dark, abandoned streets, she is bound to catch the attention of a cutpurse, if she doesn't do so in the tavern itself.

Forest

That Wen Qing is not unarmed is something you might see if you stumble across her in a clearing near the edge of the forest, which she has taken to visit for practicing. Here she will spend hours practicing with Zidian, the spiritual weapon that takes the form of a purple lightning whip which she has been lent by Jiang Cheng. She will flick it at the trees over and over again, which bear deep scorch marks by now and a few have been utterly hacked away at.

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These days, Wen Qing doesn't often drop by the tavern where she had gotten a room when she first arrived in town, she is far too busy. This evening does have her dropping by, or rather passing through after dropping off a delivery with a guest, when she catches sight of a familiar face sitting in the guest room.

She orders two mugs of ale and walks over to Jon Snow's table.

"I believe I promised you a drink when we first met."

He himself had moved out the tavern weeks ago, and into space above the stables, but he's in the tavern most nights anyway. He never learned to do much more cooking than roasting something over a fire, and he likes having company on the nights when the memories keep him from sleeping (which is most nights).

"You did. And I promised a story. Which one would you like?"

He doesn't mind talking about his life. He just needs an idea of where to start.

She slips into a chair across from him and sips on her mug of ale, grimacing when she finds it just as little to her taste as every other time she had tried it.

"I don't know why I keep hoping I'll grow fond of it," she mutters, putting down the mug.

She considers Jon Snow thoughtfully. "Any story?" she muses aloud. She would love to hear about the battle he had come from, yet that seems like it could be a touchy topic. War usually is. "You look like someone who knows how to use his sword. Where did you learn to fight?" Well, close enough, but maybe a little less loaded. Hopefully.

"It is an acquired taste," he agrees, although it's one he seems to have acquired, since he takes a sip of it just fine.

"Winterfell." Which is a simple explanation, and not a story, and doesn't really mean anything to anyone who's not from Westeros. "Once, centuries ago, there were seven kingdoms, each ruled by one family, to which other families had sworn allegiance. Another family -- not a Westerosi family -- eventually conquered all seven of the kingdoms and brought them under their rule. The families who had been the rulers of each of the seven kingdoms maintained status akin to princes, in that they're still the prominent family in their domain, with authority over it."

He takes another drink of his ale. "My family is one of those families." Technically, his family is both of those families, but that's a different story. "Winterfell is the ancestral seat of the Starks, the wardens of the North. Winterfell is where I learned to use a sword, along with my brothers. The master at arms was charged with our instruction."

Edited 2020-03-19 04:09 (UTC)

It may not be a story as such but to Wen Qing, who doesn't know the first thing about Westeros, hearing about faraway places is still pretty exciting. And this is what she had asked for, after all.

She takes another sip of her ale while he speaks, managing to keep the disgust from her face this time. Maybe she would acquire this acquired taste one day if she kept trying.

"The Wardens of the North," she muses aloud, sizing up Jon Snow with curious eyes. "You were born into nobility, even if your family no longer rules as kings." A nobility which trains with the sword and actually fights in real battles too considering the state in which he had arrived. This gives her a lot more familiar context to work with, skewed though it may be. "This North you come from, what does the land look like? I was born near Dafan Mountain. Wooded mountains, an agricultural area of temperature climate. But I spent most of my life in the Nightless City in Qishan, where the landscape is dominated by volcanoes."

"Yes." That's an easy way to describe it, especially with some of the Houses having more status than others. Her statement is doubly relevant, even, but he's not sure if he wants to go into that right now.

"Officially I was born in the mountains, in the south." He knows what it means that Lyanna had died in Dorne, and the reason that Ned had taken him to the North. "There are no mountains in the north. Mostly flat plains. It's winter now, so everything's covered in snow."

She tries to picture it, snow-covered flat plains and towns which she imagines to be something like Gazin, simply because that is what she knows for places which look different from home.

"That sounds nice," she says. "I haven't ever been anywhere that is snowy plains but I think I would like to, it sounds beautiful. Although I prefer milder climates for it being easier to live there; to farm and to survive the winters." They had been lucky that the Burial Mounds they fled to hadn't been in colder climates, then they wouldn't have made it through their first winter.

"The men of the North are hardy folk. We've been dealing with harsh conditions for generations." It hadn't been too bad at Winterfell most of the time, at least until winter officially arrived, but Castle Black had been far enough north to be cold most of the time.

"Plus we don't get winter every year. We've had several years of autumn. Winter is a more recent arrival."

...and there she goes, thoughts grinding to a halt as she tries to make sense of it.

"You don't get winter every year," she repeats. Her brows knit. Maybe the translation magic is starting to fail? Hopefully not, that would be terrible. "How... can you have several years of autumn? Full years and it remains forever autumn? You don't mean years where the weather is like autumn all year long?"

Clearly it must be the translation spell, she should have known it would be too good to be true.

"No. Seasons last for years. The words of House Stark are 'Winter is Coming' because it usually is. Winter was coming for my whole life, and now it's finally arrived." And brought a few things with it, of course. "The maesters would know more about the reasons for it than I do."

"Of course they would," she says, nodding, she wouldn't expect a warrior to be able to explain it, just... She is still frowning. "What a strange way to live that must be! I can't imagine it. What a nightmare that must be for stockpiling. A long winter can be hard on poorer villages even at home, where winters last months at most."

She pauses for a moment. "...and this means that we are not from the same world."

"That is part of what the lord of Winterfell does. Help the North prepare for winter." He's not as familiar with the other regions of Westeros, but he doesn't think that any of the other great Houses have quite the range of titles and duties that the Starks do. "They're the Wardens of the North. The words of House Stark are 'Winter is Coming' as a reminder of the need to prepare, although they mean less now that winter is here."

One day they'll be true again, he hopes.

She nods, looking quite thoughtful and sympathetic as she mulls further on the logistical challenge. "I would imagine your family must be very well-respected to be regularly leading people through such difficult times. It's hard enough to get even a single patient to keep bedrest when they don't feel the need, it must be far harder to get people to live frugally in times of plenty so there will be some to spare for lean times."

Distracted by her thoughts, she takes a sip of ale without even grimacing properly. "Have you lived through many such long winters yet?

"There's not a lord in the North who wouldn't die for the lords of Winterfell." That's what they all swore an oath to do, at least, and the breaking of an oath isn't taken lightly. It's a trickier situation if the lords of Winterfell change, of course, but luckily that doesn't happen often, and Winterfell has been restored to its rightful rulers.

And the North's loyalty to the Starks had been demonstrated not long ago, when he himself had been named King in the North. He won't soon forget Lyanna Mormont's assertion that he was Stark enough for the North.

"This will be the first. I remember summer from when I was young, but it's been autumn for many years."

"Not a lord who wouldn't die for the Starks?" she echos, somewhat doubtful. "I would say then the lord Starks must be either very righteous or very terrible, so that nobody wants to defy them or dares to."

Her expression turns wistful as she thinks of home, of the lord she serves. "Until very recently, nobody dared to defy my sect leader either. The entire cultivation world obeyed him. Now they stand in open rebellion against him and there is war." She takes another sip of the drink she doesn't even like, which really works as a metaphor for a lot of things in her life. "It must be nice to follow a lord who is..." She trails off, she doesn't really have the right words for it.

Someone to whom obedience leaves you feeling better about yourself and the choices you have made, maybe.

"There were, at some point. They all either died or realized they had sworn their allegiance to the wrong lord. The North has always been loyal, and they still are. It must help that Ned Stark was the most honorable man I ever met. They weren't just loyal to him. He was loyal to them, and could expect to be treated fairly by him." He only hopes that legacy can continue, no matter who's creating it.

"There's war at home too. Among competing loyalties." The downside to such things, he supposes.

"Oh." She looks down, lips thinning. More war. "Yes, I should have thought of that... you did arrive right from the battlefield." She rubs at a stain on the table, though it is far too old to be easily scratched away. "I'm sorry. It must be hard to be have been forcibly ripped away from the side of your clan's patriarch in the middle of a war."

He had said the Starks are his family but he doesn't carry their name. Unless they do family names differently in his lands, which is of course possible, what would that make him? A cousin who is a Stark on his mother's side, a half-brother to the Stark clan head? Either way, she figures it must pain him.

"That was a different war. A different enemy." An enemy that's easier to fight, emotionally, because they're not human anymore. They're not ones who have chosen a different allegiance, or simply been born to a different allegiance. "If we win that battle, there's still another war to fight." Westeros is not great.

He stares into his ale mug for a moment. "There is no patriach anymore, not really. The only Stark male left will never have children of his own. I suppose I'm the closest thing -- the bannermen rallied around me for the fight."

That doesn't really explain why his name isn't Stark though.

No, it really doesn't explain his name, nor his actual position within his clan's family tree. It does clear up the hierarchy well enough, though, and that is good enough for now.

"I'm sorry for the losses your family suffered," she says, a little stiffly. She's never been good with sympathy, never even had the best bedside manner as a doctor. "It's not good when a clan is without a proper patriarch. And now you are here, separated from them..." Her lips pinch together. That is very unfortunate for a clan, indeed. It looks like the Starks don't have much look.

She looks down at her hands, tightens them around her mug. "Someone dear to me had to take charge of his clan at such a young age, too. He seems to have handled it well enough. I'm sure you will, too."

Robb had been even younger when he'd become the lord of Winterfell, because King's Landing had turned out to be a dangerous place for Ned Stark. And Sansa hadn't been any older when he had ceded power to her.

Which just reminds him of all the clashing between them on the choices he had made.

"I bent the knee to someone else. My sister is in charge now."

That...

Surprised as she is, she actually forgets that she hates her drink and takes a sip from it, just to buy herself time to sort out her thoughts. This is a response she hadn't expected, and it only leaves her more curious about who or what Jon Snow exactly is to the Stark family.

It's probably terribly rude to be so curious but he did bring it up...

"Then the ways of your people are more different than I had assumed," she begins cautiously, "at home, a lord is still lord, even if he makes choices people disagree with. But then, maybe we are more different than I expected anyway. It is strange to me that a Snow could be head of the Starks." Maybe overly blunt but also not wrong.

"Even unpopular lords stay lords, until they suffer some sort of 'accident,' or another lord successfully rides against them. I bent the knee because I chose to, and my sister was my successor." For a couple of reasons, only one of them being that no one knew if their last remaining brother was even alive, much less where he was.

"Normally a Snow wouldn't be. It's the name given to bastards in the North. I have no legal claim to Winterfell or any of the rest of it." Not that he ever really wanted one; acceptance and a place to belong was all he'd longed for from the start. "The men of the North named me their king, at which point the legality or otherwise of my claim didn't matter."

Well. That admission had been easier than she had expected, maybe she should have been blunt all along.

"I had wondered if you are illegitimate," she admits. "I didn't know how to ask without causing offense. I understand it's a sensitive topic for most people." At least in her own world.

She rolls the mug around between her hands, looking down at it for a moment before she meets Jon's eyes again. "And yet, despite your lesser birth, you proved yourself worthy to these men. That is high praise." But to have gained so much and lost it again...

Even as a bastard, he'd had a better life than many legitimate children, simply by being a bastard of the Starks. He'd stood to inherit no more than any of those whose families had nothing for them to inherit, but he'd had the benefit of being literate and educated, and in having weapons training.

The real irony is that he had been higher born than any of them, and the one person who had known that hadn't even told him before he died.

Should he be telling her this? There's no danger in it this far from Westeros. The names mean nothing to her, and it doesn't matter to her who sits on the Iron Throne.

"I didn't know it at the time, I didn't know it until shortly before I came here, and the only other ones who know are my sisters and my brother and friend who discovered the information. It turns out, I'm not a bastard. The man I thought was my father was my uncle. The woman I thought was my aunt was my mother. A man who had only been a name to me in the story of the war was my father."

It's a long story, and he'll probably have to tell all of it now that he's started.

"When I was born, my mother asked her brother to keep me safe. He did so by giving me a new name and claiming me as his son."

That's a lot of information, a lot of complicated family relations to untangle, and Wen Qing listens attentively without interrupting, carefully slotting away all these people into the family tree that is building in her head.

She nods, warmth in her eyes to show that she appreciates the confidence shared with her even though the smile doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Your uncle must have loved you and your mother very much," she says, "not many men would claim another's son as their own, not even as their bastard son."

She hesitantly reaches out for him, a quick squeeze of his arm before she withdraws again, discomfited by her own clumsy attempt at comfort. She has never been good at showing physical affection with anyone but her little brother. "Your father, your birth father, you said you know him only from stories about war. Was he an enemy?"

If things had sounded complicated before, they're about to get moreso. "He was..." What had Rhaegar been? Not blameless, certainly, but not guilty of what the story had said, either. Robert's Rebellion had been based on a lie, and by the time that had been discovered, it had been too late to do anything about it. Not that it would have helped; Robert would still have hated Rhaegar. But maybe he wouldn't have gotten so many people on his side as easily.

Although from Rhaegar's point of view, Ned would have been the enemy. He wishes he could talk to Ned, to ask him how he felt about Rhaegar when he found out the truth. If things might have been different somehow.

"I suppose he was, although really it depends on what side you were on." Both sides of his family had fought each other, because of a love of which he was the result, and he has to find a way to live with that.

"My father, my birth father, was the son of the king. There was a story in my family that my aunt, who was actually my mother although none of us knew that, had been kidnapped by him and held prisoner. Which is why the war started. The man she was betrothed to, Robert, got her family involved in an attempt to get her back. Robert killed my birth father, and determined to wipe out the rest of his family. The king was assassinated, Robert became the king, my uncle found my mother and she told him what had really happened."

It has to be confusing to someone else, especially someone not from Westeros, but it might help him start to make some sense of it. Which is what he needs. "It wasn't kidnapping. They loved each other and had run off together. But he already had a wife, so when he annulled that marriage in secret and married my mother, it looked like kidnapping. Then my uncle had to keep it a secret, so he claimed me as his son."

Hopefully that's not too confusing.

Someone else who's wandering around the forest is Graham, and he's not unarmed either. He's got a bow and arrow slung over his shoulder, and the clothes he's wearing provide a hint about what he's been hunting with those arrows. It's all deerskin and trimmed with fur.

He just stops and watches for a moment. He hasn't seen a weapon like that before.

Wen Qing is probably taking her training with Zidian more seriously than she has ever taken weapons training before, simply since she doesn't want to bring shame to the man who was gracious enough to trust her with his trademark heirloom weapon.

Only, grit and determination don't make up for lack of experience, she excels in throwing needles and has solid sword knowledge. She's never even wielded a whip until Zidian, let alone one as strange as Zidian that doesn't even have a handle, but rather has the crackling band of energy come directly out of the ring on her finger. Purple electricity dances wildly over her hand while she trains with it, strands of it connecting the ring to the snake bracelet part of Zidian on her wrist.

She whirls around, the length of the whip curling around the tree trunk she has been massacring but it doesn't hold on tight and cut through the trunk like she wanted it to, instead slipping to the ground.

She huffs, glaring at her hand in frustration before cutting the spiritual energy she had been feeding it.

She looks around. "You can come out now. I can feel someone is watching me."

Edited 2020-03-31 20:12 (UTC)

He steps out so she can see him. "My apologies. I've just never seen anything like that before. I was merely curious."

"Ah." Feeling a little chagrined now by her harsh reaction, or more like it a little silly for being so defensive, she looks down at her own hand. "It is an unusual weapon even at home," she agrees. "That's why I need to practice with it."

Alone, in the woods, where nobody can see her fail.

"What sort of weapon is it?" Not that he's likely understand anything she's saying, but he'll try.

"It's a spiritual weapon, it is powered by my qi." To prove this, she cuts down the energy she had been feeding it and the purple length of the whip fades away, leaving only a silver snake bracelet connected by a chain to the ring from which the whip had extended. "I don't know it very well, it was loaned to me."

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Reluctantly At Home

for Jon Snow

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forest

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