tushanshu | [Console] (Video) ❅ The First

(She waits until she is sitting primly in a chair, her back straight and her hair braided neatly over one shoulder. Appearance is everything - or so she has learned time and time again. No matter how uneasy she feels, she cannot show it. Alayne Stone won't break.)

I am new to the kingdom of Keeliai, but I have been well-informed. (A small smile - one which doesn't reach her eyes - follows before she continues:) My name is Alayne Stone and I am from a world called Westeros. Should my world sound familiar to anyone, I am eager to speak with you.

(Though perhaps not meet. The fact that is standing on her own hasn't escaped her. She no longer has Littlefinger's protection.

The next part is strange to word, so she decides to just say it.)

Is it true that we are on the back of a giant turtle? I find that hard to believe. Even the largest of turtles are not spacious enough to hold a world, surely?

(What happens when the turtle turns the wrong way?)

Are there other creatures of such a considerable size? I should like to avoid the predators.

(The turtle should avoid them too.)

There are items which I will eventually need. Where might I procure them? Is there a market and some sort of currency?

(Yes, she knows she needs to focus on the things she can control. Otherwise... Otherwise...

She will lose the hope she has been able to retain.)

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If they were as young as you say, how could we expect them to understand? They should have been shielded from the horrors of war.

(But children have very little defense in a bloody world.)

We. Tried.

[ He actually sounds angry about this. ]

They were the last turtles anyone had known about. We were told the enemy would target them. They'd 'adopted' some of us as parents, but sometimes Foreigners leave the same way they'd arrived.

A few months before the end of the war, the enemy trapped the entire city in a nightmare and killed five of the turtles, the ones who only had one 'parent' left. One of those was the one I'd been looking after since before he hatched.

[ Depending on if Alyane is making eye contact or not, it might be easy to see that Zel's anger is basically a cover for grief and guilt. ]

No one understands it when children are targeted, least of all the children themselves.

(The anger makes her stiffen and she pales, dropping her gaze. It's a defensive measure - something out of her control since the abuse she suffered in King's Landing.)

...I understand. (More than he knows.) Children are often sacrificed in war.

(She clenches her fingers in her lap.)

It wasn't your doing. The children will remember that when they return.

(When...not if. When.)

[ Zel also looks away. ]

I've seen people die before, even people I know, but not children I knew.

[ When whole towns might meet bad fates, it was easier to think of the abstract, rather than remember how many people they held who had been helpless. And everyone else that Zel had lost had been a fighter of some sort: even if hopelessly outclassed. ]

It isn't something anyone likes to think about. (Anyone normal, that is.) Children should be cherished, protected and loved, yet they are often the first casualties of war for one reason or another.

(There had been Micah, the butcher's boy, and, in a way, Lady too. It's not like the Direwolf had been full-grown.)

Probably because adults have an easier time running or defending themselves. And some beings know that we regard crimes against children as the most upsetting.

They are their parents' weakness. (She had been used against her father and mother.) By the time they realize, it's too late.

Families. If their families are worth having, that is.

[Console] (Video) ❅ The First

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