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[gidge]

PICK YOUR POISON
PIC PROMPTS / TFLN / RANDOM SCENARIO
HAN SOLO velocities	BETTY MCRAE bombsheller	RIVER TAM subsulcus	RIVER TAM (AU) comprehender
SIMON TAM vest	BRIA THAREN exulted	NADINE CROSS bridaled	GU JUN-PYO toddler
available on special request: veronica sawyer, benjamin linus, imani, maria deluca, mushu, poseidon, niccolò machiavelli, malik al-sayf, chloe

Comments

somebody said road trip?

[subsulcus]

River is quickly coming to the conclusion that horse riding is the worst.

Almost the worst.

The worst is, of course, walking through the snow.

So, second worst.

Nothing is still, every step is a new jostle, and being set up here in the saddle behind a man in full plate armor means those jostles come with a dull clang more often than not. She would prefer not. The horse, in fact, would prefer they were both off of it entirely.

"The horse is tired," she tells his back, doing her best to keep upright and separate instead of following gravity's last jostle and her own exhaustion urging her to lean forward.

i have no idea what i'm doing jsyk

[lancaster]

"The horse has a job to do," the knight replies, words clipped with the irritation (and uncertainty) that's gurgling up inside him — like liquid sloshing around in a bottle whose top is on too tight. "And so do you."

Jaime sent a raven ahead of him once he was far enough from King's Landing to do so without worrying about someone coming at him with a sword the moment he dismounted from his steed. He informed the King in the North and his Dragon Queen that he was riding for Winterfell. He expected an armed guard to come for him, perhaps Tyrion or even Brienne, maybe even a dragon circling up above to make sure he didn't do anything that warranted roasting.

(Burn them all, burn them all, burn them all—)

What he didn't expect was for the king to send a girl. A mystic. Some sort of seer-advisor. Of all the people set to escort him to Winterfell's gates, it was a girl who sat atop a horse like she'd never ridden one before, holding awkwardly onto his armor for purchase like she would tip over the side if she let go.

What utter ridiculousness. When did his life take the turn that brought him down this path?

If he's being honest with himself, he should have taken this turn years ago. This is the choice he ought to have made; the right one, the one that was there for him to take all along. The only choice that mattered. An oath worth keeping.

such is life

[subsulcus]

The idea had come from some aside from Davos: send the girl, she'll figure him out. And he was right, and it was agreed on, and it was done. She'd rode out to what passed as a halfway point with one of the guard, and then left there. Which she supposes might pass as a move of aesthetic intimidation to have Jaime meet a lone girl standing in the middle of his path to tell him she's his escort into the gates of Winterfell, but mostly the tactic tastes of onion and spite.

Her feet are very cold.

"We don't have horses," she tells his back, clutching a little tighter on a jostle that absolutely feels like it threatens to pitch her over the backside of the animal beneath them. "Where I'm from, there aren't any."

It's a lie. There are horses out on the Rim, sometimes in the parks hitched to carriages for the novelty of it, but they were never a main mode of transportation on Osiris. It's also an explanation for his unspoken irritation.

#yolo

[lancaster]

"Nonsense." His dismissal of her claim is easy, a belief he more than holds steadfast and true, but most assuredly knows to be fact. "There are horses everywhere, even in the frigid lands beyond the wall."

There's so much Jaime doesn't know, from the truth about the Bastard King's parentage, to where this woman hails from, to all the truths he wouldn't let himself see because he was too busy making himself believe the lies. He only saw what he wanted to see for so long, looking obediently through Lannister-tinted glasses, glancing only in the directions his sister's hand pointed in.

He knows better know. It's shameful that it's taken him this long to see past the bridge of his own nose, but what's another dollop of shame upon the mountain already bearing down upon his shoulders? Shame looks good on him, colors he knows how to wear better than that of the teenager whose honored died the night he plunged his sword into the Mad King's back.

[subsulcus]

River is deeply tempted to flick him on the back of his head for that, but she'd have to let go first and that's simply not a sacrifice she's willing to make at the moment.

"Do you really think I'm from beyond the wall?" Incredulous in tone, because really? Look at her, layers of fur and still shivering, about to fall off a horse, and an accent from nowhere. The funny part is that she is from beyond the wall. Very, very beyond.

And he was right, before. She does have a job. To assess, to gauge. So far, he isn't a threat, at least. Clear as mud, of course, and he's got poor skills at cleaning it away, but he's not a spy or a killer. Not at the moment.

[lancaster]

It's best not to. Only three people can get away with doing something like that, and Tyrion, Bronn, or Brienne, she is not.

"No, I think you're from across the narrow sea. Perhaps clear from the other side of Essos."

She's odd, and while Jaime has met people from Braavos and beyond before, he's never encountered anyone quite like this woman Jon Snow's decided to keep in attendance. Just how did she wind up in Ned Stark's bastard's service, anyway? He found it hard to believe someone like Ser Davos would stand for it.

[subsulcus]

Well, that's close enough. It's the assumption most have of her, one she's never seen the point of disabusing anyone of. An easy enough lie to be from a land no one has ever even heard of, too far away for them to send a raven and ask for her credentials. For all she's told Jon, she hasn't told him that.

She lapses into silence behind Jamie, allowing herself to limply sway into the next pitches of the horse under her and suddenly homesick, and she thinks even that might not be so bad if everyone would just stop sending her to look after other sister's brothers. It's insulting.

"I was taken from there and sent to Winterfell," she says after a few moments. He didn't ask anything out loud, but questions seem to rise up off him like steam. "And you're right, Ser Davos even never looks at me straight on. It's very rude."

[lancaster]

It's as if she can read his thoughts. That's not alarming at all.

"Never met the Onion Knight personally, but he seems like a man of principal from what I heard of his time serving Stannis. I wouldn't take it personally. As soon as we ride through those gates, the Northerners and Jon Snow's followers will be more interested in hating me than troubling themselves with thoughts of you at their bastard king's side."

[subsulcus]

River makes a considering hm sound at that. Doesn't comment about Jon's bastard status, or make to defend him overmuch.

Instead, she says, "Living target is easier to comprehend than the frozen dead. Familiar. They'll forget when the fighting starts."