❈ | 001 | Video

[dont_tell_sansa]

[Arya has gotten the basic mechanics of this thing worked out - mostly with Alayne's help, but okay also with general poking at and figuring wtf a space bar is for. So there's some garbled text at first - she hit the phone with her elbow - and then the video clicks on. Arya's turned away, and what's visible of her profile is distressed. It's hard

Comments

( action )

[bastarding]

[ Alayne is in the recesses of the apartment, busying herself with the task of cleaning broken glass from a bedroom floor. The space in which she had slept previous to Arya's arrival was far too small for the both of them and so, with some reluctance and an equal portion of fighting, Alayne had agreed to let her little sister - no, brother - acquire new quarters.

This process had proven to be neither easy nor elegant and so, Alayne finds herself stooped over what remains of a bedroom window when her sister calls out to her from elsewhere in their quarters.

When she appears a moment later in the doorway, she looks cross, though this surprises no one. ]

Leave it to you to find the means to break a knife.

( action )

[dont_tell_sansa]

I didn't break it, I just used it! [There's even a little mark on the table where she tried to stab it. (And a little cut on her finger when it bent, but whatever.)]

It broke on its own!

( action )

[bastarding]

[ Alayne rolls her eyes and moves towards the table, her skirts swishing as she bends to inspect the marred tabletop. ]

Blades are not meant for tables. You misused it, plainly.

( action )

[dont_tell_sansa]

I did not! [She scowls, reaching out to rub over the faint dent. It's not even BAD, Sansa, seven hells.] I was practicing. It's a new kind of knife!

( action )

[bastarding]

[ Alayne would snatch the thing from her hands if she could bring herself to touch it. She straightens, her chin tipped high and defiant. ]

We spent all day finding you this one. A blade's a blade. Be satisfied you have one at all.

( action )

[dont_tell_sansa]

A broken blade's no good. I can't use it if I can't fix it. [But okay maybe if she plays with it. Wiggles it back and forth, etc. SHOULD HAVE STOLEN THE MANUAL, TOO. :C]

It made getting in here easier, didn't it?

( action )

[bastarding]

[ Alayne frowns and much like Sansa Stark before her, there is a prettiness to it. Not nearly as prim as it once was, perhaps, but still never unpleasant, never ugly. ]

The glass would have broken, blade or not. There's no need for an edge if you intend to be brutish, brother.

[ It is strange to call Arya that, even though the lie is one of Alayne's own devising. Despite the boyish clothes and the natty hair, it is still Arya she sees and not Artos. ] Learn how to fix it, then.

Then you may break blades to your heart's desire.

( action )

[dont_tell_sansa]

I didn't break it! [Strange that it's easier to argue than wonder over Alayne calling her brother. Maybe the blade was just more important to her. She wanted it perfect and useable, not useless.]

I'll fix it, and then I won't show you how to use it. [So there. :|]

( action )

[bastarding]

[ Alayne has held a blade before, though it was no sword nor even a dagger. It had been a knife left upon a platter by the fire, the knife with which Sansa Stark had cut her meat at supper. She had brought it with her to meet her drunken Florian in the Godswood and had never wielded it. Alayne wonders what Arya would say to that, to know that she'd once tried to wield metal in the hopes of keeping her honor. ]

And what makes you think I'd care for such a lesson? [ So there. ]

Re: ( action )

[dont_tell_sansa]

Because you're just a stupid girl and someone could just come up and kill you!

[She thought lady when she said girl, really, but it works; brothers can be annoying like that. Arya thinks she remembers that.]

( action )

[bastarding]

I live, same as you.

[ There's a streak of Sansa in her tone. Alayne dislikes hearing it so she stands in a huff, her skirts murmuring again. Her lie grew messy and unruly with Arya around; she grew messy and unruly. Alayne knows that father would disapprove and that thought alone is enough to rankle her irritation. ] You may keep your claws. Metal is not my means.

( action )

[dont_tell_sansa]

Then what is? [Because skirts aren't a means, at least, not like Sansa used them. Alayne seemed to care about looking nice, too, because her hair was combed, she was clean - very much unlike Arya. And Artos. Was there a difference?]

( action )

[bastarding]

[ Absently, Alayne's hand reaches to touch the bare expanse of skin beneath her collarbones. Were she in the Vale and in her father's care, and not in this wretched place, there would be a cameo beneath her fingertips - an affectation of stone and silver, the carved silhouette of a mockingbird.

I am Petyr Baelish's natural daughter. I am Alayne Stone. ]

I sing.

[ I lie.

And, in lying, live. ]

( action )

[dont_tell_sansa]

Singing never killed anyone, [Arya muttered darkly. She managed to fold the blade in, unfold it, fold it back again; then she hits the latch, watching the blade spring out. She turns the hilt in her hand, and slams it down on the table. She doesn't hit the catch accidentally, and this time it sticks. (lol she is ruining shit already, sorry Alayne. :c)

( action )

[bastarding]

[ Alayne watches the blade in Arya's hand, as if transfixed by the light that catches across its edge. She watches but does not flinch as her false brother drives the tip of it down hard into the wood grain of the table.

Singing never killed anyone, no, but- ]

'Always keep your hands clean.'

[ Yes, father, she had said. And she does. ]

( action )

[dont_tell_sansa]

[Arya looked down at her hands, saw the dirt ingrained in her nails, and frowned. Dirt never bothered her. She didn't care about dirt. But she remembered how much blood there had been when she'd killed the Tickler. She'd been read to the elbows, her clothes had turn red, there had even been stains on her boots from when she stepped in it.

He frown deepened, and she clenched her hands. Is there gold in the village...]

That doesn't matter. [Lord Stark's hands had been clean, she was certain of that. And he was still dead.]