[ bloodiedwolf ]

       the better answer, lyanna thinks, would have been no ( all men are liars, one
       way or another ) ; but at least it’s not a full yes, either. it’s close enough to
       the truth that she accepts the first half ; the second, though, does give her
       pause. how much of it is a lie he’s woven only now, and how much is the
       face he’s slipped on over his blood and bone? does he imagine himself
       betrothed to a dead man’s intended? perhaps it doesn’t matter, and
       yet – she’s never encountered one who’s claimed to be betrothed before.
       you will be no one’s daughter, no one’s wife, no one’s mother ; it leaves a
       fierce, angry cold sting in her chest, that the men should be somehow exempt,
       as though a fresh layer of OWNERSHIP of the women that the men are not
       subjugated to, unless they’re not exempt and he’s a worse liar than he thinks
       he is. or he just thinks she’s stupid ; she almost wants to assume it’s the former,
       and give him the benefit of the doubt that he wouldn’t come here under such
       pretext – she hasn’t lived as long as she has and risen from the ashes of
       NOTHING to be where she is now by lacking for wits. )

       lyanna feels herself nod, even so ; pulls fur-lined gloves over scarred
       fingers ( the most notable blemish a bone-deep band of thick white
       tissue about her index finger on the right hand, earned when she was
       blind ) and callused palms, more work-ready and weapon-ready
       than those of most lords, just before she nudges open a door to the
       exterior – her eyes fall half-lidded for a split second in breathing in the
       crisp, snow-laden air, and she holds the heavy wood of the door open
       behind her for erstwhile companion to follow suit.

image

                    ‘ i’m sure i will. ’ she’s sure of no such thing, but her voice betrays
                        none of it, nor her face ; she makes herself smile, instead, at the
                        false image he’s created of a wife, a child, perhaps more. ( loyalty
                        is what makes you who you are, she echoes, silently, but loyalty
                        to a false, hungry god turning men and women into THINGS is
                        worth less than salt to me. whether he has come to spy or to kill,
                        it makes no difference ; she will watch him all the more closely
                        either way. ) 

                       ◤ Ꮴalar  Ꮇorghulis. ◢

         Lips once coated with the ichor of past self  (  Who are you? I’m–
    Head begins to spin lips begin to tremble  limbs begin to shake eyes
    begin to water – the  child would wipe the sticky substance from his
    mouth but the child deserves the blow.  Who are you?  I’m–  another.
    The pain is sharp, quick. It’s gone in seconds, as is his foolish doubt.
    He’s on the floor and he does not feel it he doesn’t feel anything he’s
    floating;  these  limbs are not his nor are his eyes nor is his nose  nor
    his lips nor anything else; what is he but a servant? What purpose is
    there but to  obey?  Devotion  is the only sentiment felt.  What is sin?
    To think of oneself as a being.  That was not him.  Who is that  child?
    He  is no one  he is no one  he is no one.  )  spread  into  a  mirroring
    smile. Frame, although mortiferous in nature, compliantly follows suit
    the woman’s  slight, with hands tucked into pockets of overcoat and
    fur of a  dead  beast  surrounding  neck,  keeping  the  warmth  of  a 
    hollow body within bounds of false flesh, mien.

         The underside of his tongue  burns with the need to question once
    he  and  his  provisional compeer are suitably distanced  from  lurking
    spiders and flies on walls, curious as to how a child who once reeked
    of  death  reigns  over a populace seemingly content with its  system.
    (  It reminds him of House Tully’s motto and the mere thought leaves
    a bitter taste akin to copper in his mouth.  )  Visage lined with dark
    stubble turns to face companion’s.

image

        “ What is required of me to earn land and your trust, my Lady?”

        Eager,  just as a common  man  would  be.  Lyanna  knows  where  his
    true  loyalty lies, but does she know that he once forsook it by proffering
    an iron coin?  That was but a fleeting moment in time. His master saw in
    due course the appropriate, deserved retribution.

 

[ bloodiedwolf ]

       a FOOL’S question ; lyanna doesn’t smile ( doesn’t give him anything ),
       eyes filled with naught but a cool, empty sort of patience – she drops
       her arm when it remains untouched, and is, privately, silently, invisibly
       thankful that her walls ( intangible as they may yet be ) remain unbroached.

       still – it strikes her as brief, passing strange, as she continues on
       unmarred and unmolested, that he would abjure himself what her
       lady mother might once have termed the simplest of ladylike cour-
       -tesies when others before him have been all TOO eager to take
       them and more from her.

       ( a man is a man, no matter what ELSE he might be second and third
       and fourth, and even, perhaps especially, if she is what she strongly
       suspects, a woman is still an object to him, as she has been to so
       many others – WE ARE NOT THINGS rings sharp and harsh in
       the back of her mind, reverberating against the dome of her skull from
       the inside, but she voices none of it, her face still and clear as a dead
       lake, near to void of expression save that same, stone-wall patience,
       the ghost and the weapon that they MADE her into whether she likes
       it or not. )

image

                    ‘ you want land. steel, ’ lyanna finally responds, voice
                        yielding nothing but precisely what she means by her
                        own words. ‘ i want loyal men. those sorts of comprom-
                        -ises. are you an honest man, clarke? ’

                       ◤ Ꮴalar  Ꮇorghulis. ◢

        Finally the girl  understands that tourneys concerning ‘who are you?’
    are not  played  by the man outside of the House.  Indeed, her sobered
    words  draw  Merek  to  cast  his  line  of  vision  towards  the   horizon
    clouded with dense trees.  There is a reason he stands atop the snowy
    terrain, a worker’s hands clasped behind back and no one’s true form
    hovering  above  mortiferous  frame,  watching from above.  There is a
    mission to  complete  and there is no room for old deeds said, done …
    erased  into  the  unforgivable  past … to lie betwixt spoken words and
    phlegmatic silence.   (  Go across the Narrow Sea once more,  for there
    are   missions  to   complete.    Do  not  come  back  for   six  fortnights.
    Serve Him. All will be well in your absence.  )  

        Little  did  he know that in the meantime
        a lovely girl would turn to an iron coin.

               “ I’m as honest as any man is during times like these.”

        He bestows a glance upon the Stark and instinctively ignites false life
    behind brown eyes.  How  can a man be an honest man if a  man  does
    not  truly  know  who  a  man  is?        ( Who are you? )       
    His lips form a fine line in the presence of familiar silence.

image

                  “And betrothed,” he continues. “I’m in need of land and steel.
              To support my intended.” A pause. “I’ll do what it takes to make ends meet.
                      You will find, my Lord, that loyalty is what makes me who I am.”

 

R U L E

INDEPENDENT
JAQEN H'GHAR
OF GRRM'S
A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE.

Y O U R

LOW ACTIVITY.
MULTI-EVERYTHING.
#INFERUXS

F A C E.

PLEASE READ
LINKS 02., 04., AND 06.
BEFORE INTERATCION.