| Log Title |
| Summary: | In the present day, Jarod and Gedeon have their differences, but they were not always at odds with each other… |
| Date: | 13/11/2011 |
| Related Logs: | Blood and Bone; Broken; The Truth of Storms |
| Players: |
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| Outside the Sept — Riverrun |
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| Far enough away from the door where fighting isn't technically going to offend the gods. |
| Sun Nov 13, 288 |
OOC Note: This log takes place in two different time periods. The 'memoir' portion is below.
The time spent at Riverrun has been full of meetings, both with the Tully and without. None of them, however, have included Gedeon Rivers, and perhaps that's what brings him to the Sept this afternoon. The bastard knight hasn't exactly been in prayer, but he's moved between the statues, studying each with quiet thoughtfulness, and spent a good hour of the day doing such. But, whatever he seeks, in that time he either finds it or gives up hope of doing so, because he heads back out of the gardens and towards Riverrun proper.
Jarod came looking for Ser Gedeon this day, and was pointed to the sept. He doesn't enter it, for his part, but waits outside it, arms crossed. How long he's been waiting there is unclear, but at last the other bastard knight emerges. Jarod takes a deep breath and nods shortly to himself. "Ser Gedeon. You have a moment?"
Gedeon's head turns at his name and he pauses for a moment to see who called it. He takes in the crossed arms, the fact that Jarod was waiting, the fact that he, himself, didn't enter the Sept. He sucks in a small breath, squares his shoulders and approaches the other Rivers with a small nod. "I've a moment," he agrees.
"Brilliant," Jarod says. And, without further ado, uncrosses his arms, balls up a fist and aims a fine punch directly at Gedeon's nose.
Well, one can't say that was entirely unexpected, though Gedeon does turn his head a little so the wallop is more properly to his jaw than his nose. It still causes him to stagger back a step, and there's blood from where his teeth unintentionally bite the inside of his mouth. He coughs, gives his head a shake and spits out a bit of blood before peering back over at Jarod. "Right, then. Anything else?"
Jarod grimaces, shaking his fist once he's done with the punching. He hit the other Rivers really hard, and it kind of smarts his knuckles. He looks like he feels it was worth it, however. "Nope. I think that pretty much covers it." And with that, he pivots on his heel and stomps away.
"Mmm," Gedeon murmurs, rubbing his jaw gingerly with his hand. He spits out a bit more blood as Jarod departs, and then he heads in the opposite direction. Towards the keep, the kitchens more precisely, for some ice.
| Happier Times — Terrick's Roost |
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| The Roost in the more innocent past. |
| Summer, 280 |
The long summer in the Roost is warm and light this day in 280, with that breeze of salt in the air that lets one know they're near the sea. The pace of traffic in the courtyard is constant, guards and other house staff moving in and out of it on whatever errands the Lord Jerold and his folk require. Through it, weaving between tall, sword-wielding retainers and by the skirts of ladies' maids, Jarod Rivers is running. Out of the castle proper, down the steps (jumping the last three), and then through the courtyard toward the stables. It's unclear if he's trying to run from something in the house or too something outside. Or if he's just running. He's laughing as he does it, perhaps just trying to move as close to top speed as possible. He's a lanky boy of thirteen, in the midst of one of those growth spurts that's left him all arms and legs which he hasn't yet grown into.
Hectic paces and busy bustling courtyards are not unfamiliar to Gedeon Rivers, and he has learned quite well how to avoid them in his twelve years at Stonebridge. The same lessons apply just as neatly at the Roost, it seems, for once quick introductions were made, Geoffrey went off to speak with Jerold over a drink and Isolde swirled off to go see her intended, Lucienne and Jacsen (possibly expecting Gedeon to simply trail after), the lad slips away and into the stables to make his way up into a hay loft and better observe the comings and goings without being noticed, himself. He's a bit small and thin for his age, all shaggy blond hair and wide blue eyes that watch the world with more wariness than wonder.
Jarod bounds into the stables, taking a sharp turn and tripping over his long legs and falling with a thud on the floor below the loft. Coordination is among the things that hasn't grown into the them yet. "Fuck!" he swears. Loudly. And quite merrily. He's young enough that swearing has probably just become fun, and he sounds like he's trying it out. His own eyes are green and alight in a way that makes it seem like he's trying to look everywhere and at everything at once. And he's presently sporting an impressive black eye, his left one swollen and purple.
There's a rustling sound from up above as the smaller Rivers jerks backwards at the sudden and unexpected arrival of the larger one. He presses into the shadows for a long moment before leaning forward and peering down at the boy with a black eye. His own, unblemished eyes, blink slowly.
It takes the larger Rivers a moment to notice anyone peering down at him. But, as he's getting up, he catches a glimpse of the smaller boy. And peers back. And promptly starts climbing the ladder to investigate this stranger in the Terrick stables. "Hey. Hullo. What're you doing up there? Did you come with the Tordanes?" He piles the greetings and questions on top of each other without really pausing, talking fast and bright and friendly.
Woah, holy crap, it climbs. Gedeon inches back a little as Jarod storms the ladder, ostensibly to offer the larger boy a bit of room up in the loft. "Just watching," for what, and then "Yes," with a small nod for who. The words squeezed in between any pauses in his questions that Jarod offers.
"Who are you?" Jarod demands, though in that same jolly tone. "I haven't seen you before. I thought I knew all the servants Lord Geoffrey usually brings. I was hoping his son Young Lord Geonis would come. He's real good with a sword and I wanted to ask him some stuff. But I don't think he did. It was just Lord Geoffrey and Iz and those that help them. They're back in the castle now, if you're looking for them. Lord Geoffrey's with Lord Jerold. Lady Evangeline wanted to see Iz and talk to her and Jaremy for a bit, and I guess Jace and Luci went with them but…I figured I should go somewhere else for a bit. What're you watching?"
"How do you breathe?" Gedeon murmurs, eye gone a little wide at Jarod's sheer lung capacity and verbal torrents. "I'm not… I'm Gedeon. Rivers. I know where they are, thanks. I was watching people." He gestures with his chin towards the open doors of the stables and the view out there. "Who're you?"
Jarod blinks. Confused by Gedeon's question. Which he answers very literally. "Though my mouth and nose. The maester told us how it works inside us in lessons once, but I wasn't really paying attention. Oh! Are you Lord Geoffrey's Rivers?" He beams, all excited, and thrusts out his right hand to be shaken. "I'm Jarod Rivers. Lord Jerold's Rivers. Iz mentioned you were coming. I didn't even know she had another brother for the longest time. Isn't that weird?"
Gedeon leans back a little from that hand until a name is attached to it. "Oh," he murmurs, and then looking back over at Jarod and his great, black eye, "Oh." The hand is clasped and given a firm shake as the smaller boy offers a faintly shy smile. "Isolde's spoken of you, before. Yes, I'm… Lord Geoffrey's my father. Hello."
"Hullo." Jarod pumps Gedeon's hand enthusiastically. Though, by the look of him, he does most things enthusiastically. Once the hand-shaking is done, he shifts and plops down to sit next to Gedeon, so he's generally aimed toward the same opening the smaller Rivers was watching. Though he's interested in the other boy rather than the people of the Roost. His grin widens, which may not've seemed possible, when Gedeon notices his black eye. "I hit a squire!" he brags brightly. "He's seventeen, and lots bigger than me, and my lord Uncle Revyn says he's good and going to be knighted soon, and he didn't think just a page could use the waster swords proper, but I told him I could, and I hit him." After a pause he's compelled to add, "I mean, he knocked me down real hard and knocked it out of my hand, but that was after I hit him, which is better than my brother Jaremy did."
The smaller lad rests his weight back on his hands as Jarod makes himself comfortable, used enough to company that prefers to talk over listening. "You hit a…" Gedeon blinks, peering over at Jarod again. Something that had quietly unwound in the blond boy winds right back up again and he nods. "I see. Well. Well done, then."
"It hurt, but I'd hit him, so I figure it's only fair he hit me back," Jarod says, oblivious to Gedeon's rewinding. He seem to come pre-unwound, for his part. Then, quite randomly, he reaches into his boot and pulls out a flask. "Do you want some wine? I nipped some from the kitchens. I figured me and Jaremy and Jace could drink it together later, but you can drink it with us, too, and we can start before they get here. They'll be with Lady Terrick awhile. She's real proper, makes things take a long time."
"Ladies of the keep can be like that," Gedeon agrees quietly. He studies the flask of wine, and as with everything else, there is a beat of hesitation before he reaches out to accept it. He uncaps it and takes a thoughtful sniff. "What's it taste like? I had ale before, once. Not wine, though."
"It takes like…wine," Jarod says, like he's unable to describe it further. "Kind of sweet and sour at the same time. This sort's red. It's not bad if you drink it slow. My lord father lets me have a cup at dinner sometime." There's a good deal more than a cup-worth in there, of course. His comment about ladies of the keep makes Jarod laugh, and snort. "I'm glad Lady Valda didn't come. I don't like her. I mean, no offense meant."
"None taken," Gedeon replies with another thoughtful sniff. But he speaks no further on that. Instead, he takes a small sip of the wine, nose scrunching a little as he swallows. "Well," he decides at length, "Better than beer." The flask is offered back to Jarod for his turn.
"Yeah, I like it all right," Jarod says, taking a sip. He's more used to the taste, so he drinks more than Gedeon before passing it back. "Do you live in Stonebridge? From the way Iz talked about you coming I wasn't sure, and you've never come here before."
"In Tordane Tower," Gedeon agrees, accepting the wine and daring another swallow, larger this time. He coughs a little and offers the flask back. "But not the same wing as the Tordanes."
"I've been to the Tower, but I've never seen you before," Jarod says. "Though they don't let me go every place when I'm there. I just try to stick close to Jaremy or Iz when we visit, like Lady Terrick tells me to. I think she's afraid I'll bother people." Jarod rolls his eyes, because the idea of him bothering people is just so unbelievable. "What wing are you in there? The next time I go, I'll come and see you, and you can show me the rest of the Tower."
"Um," Gedeon murmurs, holding his hand out for the flask, "if I'm not there to greet you, it's better not to go looking. I don't usually… it's the proper Tordanes who entertain the guests."
Jarod drinks quick and passes the flask back to Gedeon, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. "But we wouldn't be guests. We'd be family. Or near to it. They say Iz is going to marry my brother Jaremy someday, though he wants to go off and join the Kingsguard, so I don't know how that's going to work. Still, she's like family here. And so are you, since you're her brother."
"You can't marry if you're in the Kingsguard," Gedeon points out wit faintly furrowed brows. "He can't go to the Kingsguard, he's to wed Isolde." The wine gets a more confident swallow, and the boy turns the little flask in his hands. "Lord Geoffrey and Geonis and Isolde aways spoke highly of the Terricks. It's good, they'll truly be family when it's done."
"Yeah, Jaremy sometimes doesn't quite understand how things work," Jarod says with a shrug. "But, aye, it'll work out, and we'll all be proper family. That makes us sort of like brothers, I guess." He beams at having put this together. "Kind of in two ways, since we're both Rivers."
"Well, he'd better figure it out quick. He must be past fourteen, already." So likely to be expected to marry any day now, of course. Gedeon steals another sip of wine before holding the last out for Jarod. "Guess we would be," he agrees, though he studies the open doorway and the courtyard as he says it.
"See, it's good!" Jarod says enthusiastically about the wine, taking it back and sipping on it more. "Aye. He's fourteen. He's squiring for my lord Uncle Revyn now, though he still couldn't hit the older squire. I did." He sounds quite fiercely proud of that. "I'm the better with a sword, but Uncle Revyn made Jaremy his squire anyhow. Which…I guess that's proper, since he's the heir, and proper Terrick besides." Still, it's a thing that dims his bouncy enthusiasm a little. He turns to watch the open doorway with Gedeon. "What's so interesting out there?"
"Gets beter, the more you drink of it," Gedeon agrees. "If he's older, but you're better, he's definitely not for the Kingsguard." He snickers a little at that, shaking his head. "Just people. Just doing things, I don't know. You don't ever just watch?"
"Aye, sometimes, though this is just the Roost. Just home. I guess I see it so often I don't watch it too close anymore," Jarod says with a shrug. "And I'm only a little younger." Though he snickers in return, enjoying the little shared joke on his older and trueborn brother. "What's it look like? I mean, not having seen any of it before?"
"It's very new to me," Gedeon points out needlessly. For what it's like, he considers. "Large," he allows, "and more flags. We get many people at Stonebridge, but most are traders and the like. Not so many banners and ladies and knights, though there's some, of course. But it's… the colors, of the land and the stones, they're different. And the smell of the air. And the sea so close."
"Have you been to the shore yet?" Jarod asks. "You should see it. It's grand, the sea. It just…it seems like it goes on forever. I mean, I know it doesn't. The Westerlands are off somewhere if you go far enough, and the Iron Islands, where the raiders come from sometimes. I sometimes think if I was strong enough I could swim all the way to them. But I can't, of course. It's too far. I do like to go there sometimes and just…look." He smiles a somewhat quieter smile, like this is something that actually forced his brain to stop its breathless pace and think. "It's quiet. Except it's not, there's always the sound of the waves and the birds, but it's not the sort of noise that bothers you. I go there sometimes when I want to be by myself and just…think about things." He sounds half-shy to admit such times exist.
He's quiet and intent, listening as Jarod describes the shore to him. "I'd like to see that," Gedeon replies, "it sounds a wonderful place. I know of the Iron Islands and the other places in Westeros. I saw them on a map in class. "There's a tree in the courtyard at Tordane Tower," he adds after a moment. "That's where I go to think."
"Let's go, I'll show you," Jarod offers, propping himself up like he's getting ready to stand. Though he doesn't quite yet. "Aye. Everything looks so small on those maps, but it's not. You can run or ride all day and only get as far as Stonebridge, which I can't even get my fingernail between on the real big maps the maester has. I wonder what it's all like. The North where it's cold, even though it's summer, or the Stormlands, or King's Landing or Dorne where they say the women are all fierce and strange and like men…" He sounds puzzled by the notion, but intrigued. "…or across the Narrow Sea. I can't even pronounce the names of those places. Sometimes I think maybe I'll go to all of them someday. Maybe once Jaremy marries Iz, and he can do things for my lord father. I'm not sure what I'll do here when I'm older." He admits it with a shrug.
"There's Braavos," Gedeon muses for the places beyond Westeros, "And… well, there's Braavos. It would be a fine thing, to see so many places, travel all over like that. I should like to, one day, once Geonis is older and Isolde's married and I'm properly a knight." He huffs a small laugh. "Maybe we'll go together."
"And Vos Dothe…something. The place where all the horse-warriors live," Jarod says. "Aye. I'm going to be a knight, too!" He says it firmly, and rather fiercely, like he's daring anyone to argue with it. "But Jaremy and Jace'll be knights as well, so I don't figure my lord father'll have much need of three of us. Three knights is a lot." He doesn't laugh at the idea at all, but takes it up enthusiastically and nods. "Aye! Maybe we will. It's no fun to go anywhere alone."
Jarod adds, "And we'll be brothers properly once Iz marries Jaremy, so that'd be just perfect."
"I don't mind being alone. It's peaceful. But to go so far, by myself…" Gedeon frowns faintly. "Company would be better, if it's the right sort." For three knights being a lot, he considers and then shrugs, keeping his opinion to himself. "Will you show me the shore?"
"Aye, let's go," Jarod says, springing back up. So quick he nearly hits his head on the hay loft ceiling, though he manages to duck his neck in time to avoid that. He's probably kind of learned how to bounce around without doing himself terribly serious injury. He looks down, blinking some. "I think that wine made me dizzy." Not that this deters him from climbing down the ladder. He just drops about three-quarters of the way down, falling on his backside on the stable floor, but he gets up again without any fuss.
Gedeon waits for his new friend, the force of nature, to make his way down to the ground. Then he follows, more carefully and a bit more gingerly. Even accounting for his smaller stature, where Jarod is spry, Gedeon moves with the careful precision of one cautious about their body or, perhaps, protecting a bit already hurting.
"Come on! Let's go!" Jarod urges Gedeon, kind of bobbing excitedly in place on his heels once he's back on his feet. Impatient to race off to the seashore. Like if they don't hurry, they'll miss it. He's probably going to want to run there, too.
Oh. Possibly, this was a mistake. Still, Gedeon's brows draw down a little as he firms up his resolve and he bites down on his bottom lip as he nods. Straightening up away from the ladder, he follows after Jarod, running as well, if the other Rivers wishes to set such a pace.
