dorothy's slippers.

[highf]

So here's what you missed on Glee:

Puck and Santana have been stranded on an island that kind of reminds them of Lost, except without the cool polar bears and the smoke monster, and both of them are missing home and feeling way out of their league, even if neither will admit to it. ( "Not your type of party, is it?" "If I say no, you're going to

Comments

[highf]

"Direwolf, right. I think I remember learning about them back in middle school, though they don't- they're extinct in my world, as far as anyone knows," Kurt remarked, eyes darting from the wolf, majestic and beautiful, to the young man laughing by his side. There's something about him that Kurt's pretty sure he's never seen in another person before. And while he knows that, being from Ohio, that shouldn't surprise him, it's still enough to send his stomach turning with a feeling almost like hope.

Subdued, however, thanks to the topic at hand.

"My mom had a thing for Broadway, I guess you could say. She loved to sing, but she never really did so professionally or took it up as her, ah, trade," Kurt pondered, the smile on his lips slightly forced. Even now, remembering his mother wasn't easy. Even now, all of the details were clear, to the point of being painful. "And my dad's a mechanic, so he works with cars. Our most common mode of transportation. I just took up singing because I loved it, but making a living off of your voice isn't really easy, where I'm from."

[tooktheblack]

"In Westeros, a man may make a living off his voice but it's a hard life and you depend upon the kindness of noble houses and innkeepers who won't throw you out in the snow. It's not a soft life, or an easy one, and many of the men who do it end up plying other trades at some point, whether they like it or not."

Satin had been in a mummer's troupe, maybe, but even he'd ended up a whore in Oldtown before coming to the Wall. It wasn't easy, not by far.

"Easier to make a living forging or crofting, if you ask me."

[highf]

"Art often does seem to be the first thing to go," Kurt admitted quietly, with more than a touch of bitterness on his tongue. He knew that there was no way to suddenly change the way that Maslow's hierarchy of needs worked. People would always need to eat, and needed shelter, and beyond the basics that kept them going from day to day, people would always tend towards areas in which they felt they could be successful. Areas which commanded respect.

Art tended to fall to the wayside, and even so far away from McKinley and having transferred to Dalton, Kurt couldn't help feeling frustrated still.

He smiled nonetheless, resolving to be resilient. "But I've never been a fan of easy for easy's sake, and I know that music is the only thing that makes me truly happy, so... here I am. From what I hear, the island will be a little kinder than most places as I try to make my way to my goal."

[tooktheblack]

"The island seems welcoming enough of all walks of life," Jon agreed, thinking the island seemed better than Westeros in many respects. A bastard might rise high on the Night's Watch, as high as Jon but there were very few men in Westeros who could spend a lifetime chasing dreams as this boy wanted to.

Jon only hoped that he'd keep at it and not give up, many a starving bard turned to theft if the winter was hard.

"Is there anyone else from your homeland here, then? I have my brother and sister, Robb and Arya Stark."

[highf]

The quirk of his lips grew strained at the mention of family. It'd only been three days since Kurt was home, only a phone call away from his parents if he needed them, still seeing Finn every evening- for a piecewise family, the four of them were closer than Kurt had ever expected to find in one that hadn't originally been his own. And being away from them, knowing that they might potentially not see one another again for years yet, was overwhelming in a way that he wasn't prepare to face. He took a quavering breath, still smiling, even though the expression is faint.

"Yes," he nods. "I have... two friends from school. The school I was attending before I recently transferred, at any rate. They're both good friends. No family on the island, though. I'm not sure they'd like it, anyway."

[tooktheblack]

"I've been away from my family for about four years now, give or take. I was still a boy when I chose to go to the Wall."

Jon had thought he was wise to the ways of the world when he took the black and in so many ways, he hadn't been. He'd been a boy, summer-green and soft from a lord's life even if Catelyn Stark took pleasure in reminding him he was a bastard at every turn. He hadn't even seen a true winter, not one he could remember anyway.

"You grow used to it, even if the ache never fades."

[highf]

"I'm sure," Kurt murmured, even if his eyes were still too wide to be entirely believing, even if his voice was too quiet to carry much confidence. If it made him weak to already be pining after family in such a way, Kurt didn't care- there were certain areas in which it was pointless to try to keep up impressions for the sake of pride, and he couldn't help thinking that this was one of them. That said, he didn't want to burden the other man overmuch.

What was three days, when compared to four years?

"I've never been away from my dad for over a week," he confessed with a watery smile, thinking of how things would be at home now, without Kurt to watch over his father's diet. Hopefully Carol would manage. (At least she didn't think Slim Jims and Red Bulls acceptable for lunch.) Pressing his lips more heavily against his cheek, he tilted his head. "What's the Wall? Sounds kind of ominous."

[tooktheblack]

"Oh, incredibly," Jon said, describing it with more relish than he would normally both because he did miss home and the other boy seemed worried about his father which, years ago, Jon had felt the same way. He could understand it, just as he'd understood Sam Tarly's cowardice when he first joined the Watch, and he wanted to try and take his mind off it.

"Thousands of feet high, built of brick and mortar and solid ice, it's been in Westeros for centuries. Helps to keep the North and the rest of the Seven Kingdoms safe from Wildlings and giants and everything else that roams the wild."

The Others, he thought, but didn't say.

"I'm lord commander, actually. Irony, considering they used to call me Lord Snow."

[highf]

Even though the two young men had only just met, Kurt had the feeling that he was being taken under another person's wing, the tone too bright compared to most other people he'd met on the island. Too hopeful. As though trying not only to bolster himself, but others in the process too. He was grateful for the effort, to be sure, the very gesture helping him to breathe more easily as he focused instead on the young man's words, briefly closing his eyes to imagine the description of ice stretching tall and to the sky, sun catching it at sunup and sundown alike. How cold it must have been.

But how warm the light would be, in comparison.

"Pretty appropriate name," he agreed with a small grin, betting that there was a story behind it, no matter how simple. "Was that seat one you were looking to inherit, by chance?"

[tooktheblack]

Jon let out a sharp, low laugh and shook his head. How many times had he dreamed, even if it wasn't right to do so, that he might be a trueborn son of Ned Stark and set to rule Winterfell along with Robb someday? Too many and 'Lord Snow' still stung, even if it was accurate now.

"No. It's Jon Snow, not Jon Stark. Snow's a bastard name in the North," he explained. "I'll never inherit anything, which is why I joined the Watch. I was elected as Lord Commander."

[highf]

"...oh," Kurt replied, a small noise of surprise that he immediately regretted, a light tinge of pink rising to his cheeks. He couldn't imagine that having a child out of wedlock was a very uncommon occurrence, especially in an age that sounded old enough that protection probably wasn't wholly an option, but to hear them called bastard was something which jarred at his sensibilities. Yes, it was scandalous that Quinn Fabray and Noah Puckerman had conceived a child together, but the child itself wasn't to blame and shouldn't have been forced to carry that weight around.

Hard as it was to believe, he supposed, and with as many injustices as the world still contained, it was once so much worse.

"Well, at least you were able to break into democracy," Kurt offered, hoping that it was some measure of comfort, wanting to smooth over that low laugh that had hit him square in the chest. "Honestly, it means a whole lot more for people to trust you given a choice, rather than simply because your father handed down a title."

[tooktheblack]

It was a perspective Jon hadn't really considered before and he turned it over in his mind before nodding. Maybe it was a good thing, to have been trusted with command of the Wall because of his skill and not because of his surname. He managed a smile, at least, and shook his head to clear the last of those thoughts.

"Perhaps it is...I'm sorry, your name? I'm terrible and didn't even think to ask."

[highf]

"Oh no," Kurt breathed, looking down bashfully, his expression apologetic. He'd forgotten himself, clearly, and lost himself in the very idea of another world, one so unlike his own. There were so many details that he disliked about his own world (or at least, that roped in by Ohio's borders) that even conceiving of another was a pleasure in of itself. It'd been how he tended to view New York for a long while now, as some distant world all its own that would save him from such persecution, that would allow him to perform to his heart's content and be recognized for it.

"No, my fault for not introducing myself earlier, when you did," he replied primly, before holding out a hand- and hoping, as soon as he'd extended it, that the other man knew what a handshake was. (Did they bow back then?) "Kurt Hummel."

[tooktheblack]

Handshakes were something known in Jon's world but not the way they were offered on the island where only the hand was offered. In Westeros, a man took another man's hand and tugged him close, clapping the other on the shoulder. Jon didn't think that would go well here, though and merely shook Kurt's offered hand.

"Well met, Kurt Hummel. I'm Jon, as I said, and this is Ghost," Jon added, nodding toward the ever-present direwolf.

[highf]

As far as first meetings went, Kurt felt fairly secure that he hadn't left too poor of an impression. For this, he was glad- with such barriers in time and culture, the last thing that he'd expected was to hit it off with some illegitimate son of a high lord, one clearly hardened by some physical labor, and who kept a very large wolf as a pet. Kind though he'd found the other man to be, just by physical descriptions alone, Kurt didn't doubt that he himeslf was the exact opposite of Jon Snow.

"Well met indeed," he echoed, raising a shoulder in amusement, echoing the other man's language. His gaze brushed over Ghost once more. "How does, ah, Ghost feel about strangers?"

[tooktheblack]

"Wary and suspicious," Jon said, glancing at the direwolf. He seemed calm at the moment, though, and if Jon had anything to fear from Kurt, he felt like the wolf would have warned him. Ghost seemed content just to lay nearby, a silent shadow.

"He's even more of a surly bastard than I am, most days, but he seems to like you well enough. Time will tell."