❈ | 029 | Video

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

[When the video comes on, the view is skewed: if you look long enough, it may seem like you're looking at a small section of a blanket, possibly on a bed, and a fold of cloth to one sight. Up comes the camera after a moment and an in drawn breath, and the fold of cloth is one skinny leg, the blanket tucked on a bad. Only then does she turn the device around so she's visible.]

I'm-- [Arya Stark, she almost says, but she's afraid to. Last time there was Tyrion; last time there was Tywin. Better they should think she's dead. But there are people who she wants to know she's alive. She chews her lip a moment, and decides to forgo names all together.]

I'm looking for anyone from Westeros.

Comments

[northernking]

[He hadn't known the voice, had been too absorbed to hear it and recognize it as one he listened to giggle and yell in play in the courtyard of Winterfell. But when she says his name it, the sound of it reaches out and plucks something deep within his heart.

His head lifted up, startled and his body suddenly rigid. Robb turned to the flame and seeing her there, perfectly visible and entirely his own little Arya. He drops the maps and knocks over his chair in his haste to go to the hearth.]

Arya? How-- how are you...
[Turning back to the table he looks at the wine cup there, trying to quell a feeling of panic rising in his stomach. Poison? Dream wine? No-- impossible. He'd hardly touched it.]

This is a dream?

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

[How is exactly her question, and she shakes her head, chewing on her lip because she doesn't know what else to do. She doesn't know what to say to a brother she knows to be dead when he's staring at her alive and well. It makes her throat tighten, and the place here her heart used to be contract.]

I don't know, [she says, and swallows hard, because it sounds more like a whine than it has a right to. Her eyes sting, and she blinks hard and fast before tears have the chance to collect.

Maybe it is a dream. Maybe it's all a dream, maybe he's still alive--

She can't convince herself, and she shakes her head.] I don't think it is.

[But it's not right. It's not fair. And if the Admiral was here, tangible and real, she'd kill him for this.

Or maybe she'd thank him.

[northernking]

[Robb hesitates at first, but then his hand quickly moves out over the top of the fire. He hisses and draws his hand back, the flame still hot. The fire very real though the image remained undisturbed.]

... where are you? If this is properly real, if it is not a trick then tell me where you are.
[His voice has hardened so much since last they saw one another, but she too was so much changed. It made his heart sink and burn all at once with the ferocious need to bring her beneath his protection and kill the ones responsible for hiding her away.

But could this be what some enemy intended? Tricky and some form of witchcraft to draw him into a trap? There was one way to be sure.]

Tell me something only Arya would know. Tell me the names of each of the direwolves owned by our house.

[fearcutsdeeperthanswords]

[She reacts when he hisses; watching him in pain stirs a visceral reaction in her, an imagination that she doesn't want to give into. Is that what he looked like when they filled him with bolts? She bites her lip hard enough to bleed, and doesn't notice. It keeps the tears back, and she sucks in a breath through her nose to hold in the sob. It works, if barely.]

Ghost, [she starts, though her voice is shaky.] Lady, Nymeria, and Shaggy, and Bran - Bran never named his, and - and Grey Wind. [Her voice cracks there, and she sets the device down for a moment so she can scrub at her face and chase back the sadness. She's in control again when she picks the comm back up to look at him.]

I'm so far from home, Robb.