[fic] Ring the bells (TR, gen)
This is for orlanstamos, who was having kind of a rough day. Future!TR (because that is totally a fandom!), set about five years from now, so Bran and Kivrin are about 15 and 26, respectively. Kivrin is caught in a timeloop, and can't get out on her own. It's about Doomsday Book, so 1) there are spoilers, and 2) it's not exactly happy. Uplifting, I hope, but there's only so much you can do with the canon, you know?
It isn't real, but that doesn't stop it feeling cold. The icy wind bites into Bran's skin through coat and gloves and hat; it's not as bad as Winterfell used to be, but then it's been years since he's had cause to remember that kind of cold. The snowdrifts are thick and soft and deep, hard to push even the Teslachair through. It makes travelling a slow and frustrating endeavour. But he can see the spire of a church ahead, the shadows of smaller buildings. He can hear a bell ringing, loud and solemn, echoing in the freezing winter air. He pushes on, and thinks he sees a glimpse of Summer's fur in the trees.
The last lingering sound of the bell's peal fades, and he is still too far away. When he sees Kivrin he almost doesn't recognise her - she was on the island before him, and he was too young anyway; he never saw her with the scars and bruises, the broken ribs, the shorn hair. She is pounding at the ground with a broken spade, but then sinks to her knees; he has definitely never seen her with that kind of despair. But if this is her dream, her memory, then he wouldn't be here if she didn't need him. So on he goes.
She doesn't hear him coming. The chair is silent on the snow, and the memory of churchbells is still ringing in her ears. She's pounding frozen fingers against the icy ground and tears are freezing on her cheeks; it's an exercise in total futility and she doesn't know how to break the cycle, what she's supposed to do.
And then Bran Stark says, 'What do you need me to do?' from behind her, and she doesn't know how he got there even if it's all in her head, but suddenly it feels like there's hope. Like Colin and his aspirin and his locator, the first time. Which is entirely illogical, because Bran is a teenage boy, and cannot dig a grave for her in the ice with a broken spade.
'It's frozen,' she explains, unnecessarily. 'I think I need to bury him, but I don't know how.'
It's gratifying, the understanding that flickers across his face. 'I think this is why we have crypts,' he says thoughtfully. 'To save digging through all that ice. And the wildlings burn their dead. But never mind. We'll make a fire over it, it'll take some time.' Her fingers are stiff and her pockets empty; she has nothing to make fire with and tells him so.
'It's all right,' Bran promises, with a tired, tolerant grin. 'You may be dreaming, but at least you had the sense to summon a Stark.' She gathers the wood from the hall while he strikes a flame and kindly doesn't comment on how long she stands there, staring at the apples scattered on the kitchen floor. The rats have been at them, and she leaves them be.
'So,' Bran asks, as they huddle in the snow, coaxing the fire to life, 'who is it we're burying?'
'A priest,' Kivrin answers. Could she have buried him before? The first time, when all of this was real? No, she didn't have the strength. Or the time. 'I had to leave him, before. I didn't know it was so important. But I've been repeating this moment, over and over, trying to finish it. I didn't know what I was going to do, before you came.' She looks him over, curious. 'Are you real?'
Bran nods. 'I think so. How do you tell? But I was on the island this morning, and I remember everything about it.' He rubs his fingers. 'Then again, I wasn't dressed for the weather, there. But I feel real. This has a different feeling to it, doesn't it? It's not like the other dreams, I mean. You know what's going on.'
Kivrin nods. 'You just...can't stop it.'
Bran pokes at the fire with the end of the spade's handle. 'We will.' Kivrin believes him.
It takes hours for the fire to melt the ground, but at least the whole scene doesn't start over. They retreat into the church for a while, but it's just as cold, and Kivrin can't keep from looking for Father Roche's body in the shadows even when she tries not to see it. Bran is sympathetic, but not terribly disturbed; Roche still looks as if he were sleeping. They leave him where he is, until the grave is actually dug there's no point moving him.
'He died of plague?' Bran asks, and Kivrin nods. Faint grey light filters through the nave's narrow windows, casting thick dark shadows over the altar and the floor. It makes the church look furtive, as if it's hiding something. Or as if there's something it doesn't want to see.
'Tell me about the church,' Bran says, because she will keep looking at the priest's body and he wants to take her mind off it. There's nothing for them to do but wait, and tend the fire. She looks at him gratefully, and talks about Norman arches and east-west orientation, and how the bell-tower is newer than the church and still hasn't quite been affixed to it. She shows him the altar, the remains of the dripping wax candles brought by a lady whose name doesn't stick in his head. They go outside to build up the fire, and she tells him who lies in each of the new graves, laid out in a row. The last two are children. Bran, who long ago had seen his share of children's graves, had never managed to inure himself to it. Whatever gods they follow, he thinks silently, I hope they're taking care of them.
The sun has dipped below the trees by the time the ground is soft enough to dig in, and the air is colder still. They rebuild the fire a little way away, rather than letting it go out, but the dry wood is gone and it mostly just spits and smokes in great dark puffs into the frigid air. They find a few more tools in the steward's house - most are useless, but Bran takes a pole with an iron point to dig into the ground, and Kivrin struggles with the broken spade, and they start to dig. Their hands are numb and stiff by the time Summer pads out of the trees to help, but they manage it. A grave, just barely large enough for a man.
Moving Roche's body is an awkward business. Kivrin wraps him in the bloodstained purple robe that had pillowed his head, but it doesn't make it easier. She is too small to carry him, and Bran needs his hands free to push the wheels down a path more slippery and perilous the more it freezes. They manage it, with Summer between them, a slow solemn funeral procession from the church to the empty grave. They tumble him into it more than lay him, and the angle his body lands in looks unsettling and eerie. Kivrin kneels on the edge of the grave and moves him as best she can.
'Requiem aeternam,' she murmurs, crossing Roche's hands over his chest. 'Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine. Et lux perpetua, luceat eis. Dies irae, dies illa.' The first fall of dirt slips from her frozen fingers onto the body. Dust to dust. 'Goodbye.'
The words are said, and finally the grave is filled, but the scene around them doesn't disappear. It's just Bran and Kivrin and Summer, the smoking, smouldering fire, and the few farm animals that haven't wandered away. The sky is almost black, only a little lighter than the shadowy forms of the tall trees looming over them.
'Right,' Bran says, blowing on his fingers. Kivrin is seized with a fierce hard rush of gratitude; he's been pulled into her nightmare and hasn't so much as complained once. 'There must be something else we need to do before this is finished.'
And suddenly, she knows. It's obvious, really. The last step in mourning. 'The bell,' she says. Her body is frozen and stiff and aching. 'We need to ring the funeral peal. I couldn't finish it, last time.' Dunworthy had finished it for her, but maybe that doesn't matter now. She'll do it again. Bran nods, and they make their way across the churchyard to the belltower.
It's dark, even darker than the church, and smells of rats. The frayed rope hangs over their heads by nearly a foot, a thin black line with a hard, stiff knob of a knot. It takes a good moment of flailing before they can grab hold of it, and the bell is so heavy that it takes all their combined strength to pull it toward the ground. It cuts into Kivrin's hands, and Bran offers her the gloves, but by this point it just seems like they shouldn't let go.
From just below it in the tower, the bell is startlingly loud, the sound echoing through the stone walls and shaking their freezing bones through their skin. One. Two. Kivrin's hands slip on the rope, and she knows she couldn't do this without help. Three. Four. Bran finds the rhythm of it at last, and finds it awkward but not really that heavy. Five. Six. There's a kind of fierce joy in the sound, even in the sorrow of the occasion - don't forget me, the bell cries, just because I'm gone. Remember me! He will, after this, and it's haunted Kivrin for so many years her mind pulled her back here.
Seven. The ringing, clanging peal has sunk into Kivrin's body and made itself part of her - more than a memory, like another layer of skin. This time, they'll finish it. She needed to make it right, to not leave Roche dead and abandoned on the church floor, and now she will.
Eight. Bran can barely make out the shape of Kivrin's face in the darkness. He looks at her and grins, even if she can't see him; this is utter madness but there's something so cathartic about the up-and-down rhythm of the rope and the spectacular, defiant clanging of the bells above their heads. He doesn't even mind being trapped here for hours; she'd needed him to help her and so he did. He adjusts his hands on the rope, and feels her ice-cold fingers against his. Nine.
The village, the church and the belltower disintegrate around them, dissolving like sea spray in misty air. It is still early afternoon on the island, and the fierce sudden sunlight assaults eyes by now adjusted to near-blackness. Bran and Kivrin stand blinking against the light, and even after the island has reformed around them, the fading echo of a churchbell lingers in their ears.
[the end.]
...it feels good to be writing stuff that isn't my thesis again, you have no idea. Or maybe you do.
*For those not aware, this is a pan-fandom RPG I play in. You can also look at this as a Doomsday Book/ASOIAF crossover where both characters have been growing up on a magic tropical island.
It isn't real, but that doesn't stop it feeling cold. The icy wind bites into Bran's skin through coat and gloves and hat; it's not as bad as Winterfell used to be, but then it's been years since he's had cause to remember that kind of cold. The snowdrifts are thick and soft and deep, hard to push even the Teslachair through. It makes travelling a slow and frustrating endeavour. But he can see the spire of a church ahead, the shadows of smaller buildings. He can hear a bell ringing, loud and solemn, echoing in the freezing winter air. He pushes on, and thinks he sees a glimpse of Summer's fur in the trees.
The last lingering sound of the bell's peal fades, and he is still too far away. When he sees Kivrin he almost doesn't recognise her - she was on the island before him, and he was too young anyway; he never saw her with the scars and bruises, the broken ribs, the shorn hair. She is pounding at the ground with a broken spade, but then sinks to her knees; he has definitely never seen her with that kind of despair. But if this is her dream, her memory, then he wouldn't be here if she didn't need him. So on he goes.
She doesn't hear him coming. The chair is silent on the snow, and the memory of churchbells is still ringing in her ears. She's pounding frozen fingers against the icy ground and tears are freezing on her cheeks; it's an exercise in total futility and she doesn't know how to break the cycle, what she's supposed to do.
And then Bran Stark says, 'What do you need me to do?' from behind her, and she doesn't know how he got there even if it's all in her head, but suddenly it feels like there's hope. Like Colin and his aspirin and his locator, the first time. Which is entirely illogical, because Bran is a teenage boy, and cannot dig a grave for her in the ice with a broken spade.
'It's frozen,' she explains, unnecessarily. 'I think I need to bury him, but I don't know how.'
It's gratifying, the understanding that flickers across his face. 'I think this is why we have crypts,' he says thoughtfully. 'To save digging through all that ice. And the wildlings burn their dead. But never mind. We'll make a fire over it, it'll take some time.' Her fingers are stiff and her pockets empty; she has nothing to make fire with and tells him so.
'It's all right,' Bran promises, with a tired, tolerant grin. 'You may be dreaming, but at least you had the sense to summon a Stark.' She gathers the wood from the hall while he strikes a flame and kindly doesn't comment on how long she stands there, staring at the apples scattered on the kitchen floor. The rats have been at them, and she leaves them be.
'So,' Bran asks, as they huddle in the snow, coaxing the fire to life, 'who is it we're burying?'
'A priest,' Kivrin answers. Could she have buried him before? The first time, when all of this was real? No, she didn't have the strength. Or the time. 'I had to leave him, before. I didn't know it was so important. But I've been repeating this moment, over and over, trying to finish it. I didn't know what I was going to do, before you came.' She looks him over, curious. 'Are you real?'
Bran nods. 'I think so. How do you tell? But I was on the island this morning, and I remember everything about it.' He rubs his fingers. 'Then again, I wasn't dressed for the weather, there. But I feel real. This has a different feeling to it, doesn't it? It's not like the other dreams, I mean. You know what's going on.'
Kivrin nods. 'You just...can't stop it.'
Bran pokes at the fire with the end of the spade's handle. 'We will.' Kivrin believes him.
It takes hours for the fire to melt the ground, but at least the whole scene doesn't start over. They retreat into the church for a while, but it's just as cold, and Kivrin can't keep from looking for Father Roche's body in the shadows even when she tries not to see it. Bran is sympathetic, but not terribly disturbed; Roche still looks as if he were sleeping. They leave him where he is, until the grave is actually dug there's no point moving him.
'He died of plague?' Bran asks, and Kivrin nods. Faint grey light filters through the nave's narrow windows, casting thick dark shadows over the altar and the floor. It makes the church look furtive, as if it's hiding something. Or as if there's something it doesn't want to see.
'Tell me about the church,' Bran says, because she will keep looking at the priest's body and he wants to take her mind off it. There's nothing for them to do but wait, and tend the fire. She looks at him gratefully, and talks about Norman arches and east-west orientation, and how the bell-tower is newer than the church and still hasn't quite been affixed to it. She shows him the altar, the remains of the dripping wax candles brought by a lady whose name doesn't stick in his head. They go outside to build up the fire, and she tells him who lies in each of the new graves, laid out in a row. The last two are children. Bran, who long ago had seen his share of children's graves, had never managed to inure himself to it. Whatever gods they follow, he thinks silently, I hope they're taking care of them.
The sun has dipped below the trees by the time the ground is soft enough to dig in, and the air is colder still. They rebuild the fire a little way away, rather than letting it go out, but the dry wood is gone and it mostly just spits and smokes in great dark puffs into the frigid air. They find a few more tools in the steward's house - most are useless, but Bran takes a pole with an iron point to dig into the ground, and Kivrin struggles with the broken spade, and they start to dig. Their hands are numb and stiff by the time Summer pads out of the trees to help, but they manage it. A grave, just barely large enough for a man.
Moving Roche's body is an awkward business. Kivrin wraps him in the bloodstained purple robe that had pillowed his head, but it doesn't make it easier. She is too small to carry him, and Bran needs his hands free to push the wheels down a path more slippery and perilous the more it freezes. They manage it, with Summer between them, a slow solemn funeral procession from the church to the empty grave. They tumble him into it more than lay him, and the angle his body lands in looks unsettling and eerie. Kivrin kneels on the edge of the grave and moves him as best she can.
'Requiem aeternam,' she murmurs, crossing Roche's hands over his chest. 'Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine. Et lux perpetua, luceat eis. Dies irae, dies illa.' The first fall of dirt slips from her frozen fingers onto the body. Dust to dust. 'Goodbye.'
The words are said, and finally the grave is filled, but the scene around them doesn't disappear. It's just Bran and Kivrin and Summer, the smoking, smouldering fire, and the few farm animals that haven't wandered away. The sky is almost black, only a little lighter than the shadowy forms of the tall trees looming over them.
'Right,' Bran says, blowing on his fingers. Kivrin is seized with a fierce hard rush of gratitude; he's been pulled into her nightmare and hasn't so much as complained once. 'There must be something else we need to do before this is finished.'
And suddenly, she knows. It's obvious, really. The last step in mourning. 'The bell,' she says. Her body is frozen and stiff and aching. 'We need to ring the funeral peal. I couldn't finish it, last time.' Dunworthy had finished it for her, but maybe that doesn't matter now. She'll do it again. Bran nods, and they make their way across the churchyard to the belltower.
It's dark, even darker than the church, and smells of rats. The frayed rope hangs over their heads by nearly a foot, a thin black line with a hard, stiff knob of a knot. It takes a good moment of flailing before they can grab hold of it, and the bell is so heavy that it takes all their combined strength to pull it toward the ground. It cuts into Kivrin's hands, and Bran offers her the gloves, but by this point it just seems like they shouldn't let go.
From just below it in the tower, the bell is startlingly loud, the sound echoing through the stone walls and shaking their freezing bones through their skin. One. Two. Kivrin's hands slip on the rope, and she knows she couldn't do this without help. Three. Four. Bran finds the rhythm of it at last, and finds it awkward but not really that heavy. Five. Six. There's a kind of fierce joy in the sound, even in the sorrow of the occasion - don't forget me, the bell cries, just because I'm gone. Remember me! He will, after this, and it's haunted Kivrin for so many years her mind pulled her back here.
Seven. The ringing, clanging peal has sunk into Kivrin's body and made itself part of her - more than a memory, like another layer of skin. This time, they'll finish it. She needed to make it right, to not leave Roche dead and abandoned on the church floor, and now she will.
Eight. Bran can barely make out the shape of Kivrin's face in the darkness. He looks at her and grins, even if she can't see him; this is utter madness but there's something so cathartic about the up-and-down rhythm of the rope and the spectacular, defiant clanging of the bells above their heads. He doesn't even mind being trapped here for hours; she'd needed him to help her and so he did. He adjusts his hands on the rope, and feels her ice-cold fingers against his. Nine.
The village, the church and the belltower disintegrate around them, dissolving like sea spray in misty air. It is still early afternoon on the island, and the fierce sudden sunlight assaults eyes by now adjusted to near-blackness. Bran and Kivrin stand blinking against the light, and even after the island has reformed around them, the fading echo of a churchbell lingers in their ears.
[the end.]
...it feels good to be writing stuff that isn't my thesis again, you have no idea. Or maybe you do.
*For those not aware, this is a pan-fandom RPG I play in. You can also look at this as a Doomsday Book/ASOIAF crossover where both characters have been growing up on a magic tropical island.