𝐚 𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠'𝐬 ᵇᵃˢᵗᵃʳᵈ.

I’M TOO LOWBORN TO BE KIN TO M’LADY HIGH.    —    writing blog for gendry,  from the infamous franchise of game of thrones / asoiaf.   twenty-plus,  lowkey af,  canon divergent as heck,  and mutuals only please.   reluctant beta editor user.  revived by bella.

    RULES       /      GENDRY     /      VERSES

DISCUSSIONS OF :    loss,   survival,  being hunted,  bastardy,  poverty line,  innocence taken,  the one who abandons,  servitude,  what is a family,   the blood that i did not want.

❛ hmph. ❜ he grunts, not quite a word, not quite a full threatening sort o' sound either. gendry thinks it's foolish, to be thanked for doin' somethin' that's expected out o' him. doesn't she know who he is ? then again, why should she — all that she knows, she knows only from jon snow, he gathers, or arya. if arya's the kind to talk, which the smith doubts she is. she ... she's different. arya. maybe s' for the better, but gendry doesn't think so. or maybe he's different too, from all that's happened, but he's the only one clingin' to the past; to the only point of safety he'd ever felt, which was with her and hot pie and that stupid never-ending forest; which was with the brotherhood, briefly— until they betrayed him.

but arya? arya never did. it was gendry who betrayed her, in fact. still could picture her lil' face crumblin' when he said that he wouldn't follow her north, that they'd never be family, for he was only a lowborn, and she, the opposite. so maybe it makes sense she doesn't talk about him at all. stupid, bullish boy. when will he ever learn, when will he ever grow up ?

❛ ye' need yer armour or blade looked at for the last time ... ? ❜ and then, sorely, he adds, another grunt, ❛ m'lady. ❜

gendry can keep her safe like this. and hot pie, too, if... if it'll look like he's walkin' out o' the kitchen anytime soon, that is.

❛ — you said ye' know where robb stark is ? ❜

still, the sentiment stays. he's too lowborn to be o' any kin to any lord or lady high — now face-to-face with the king of the north, arya's eldest brother, the difference is obvious. it makes him feel ashamed, so much so that as he bows his head, it is done cautiously rather than its usual reluctance. on a tong he's holding, gendry's fingers move to circle around it — squeezing in tandem. surely this king won't 'ave his head for not bein' able to save his sister then, surely this king won't be cruel ( not until after the war o' the wights ) to prosecute him for all the ways he couldn't protect arya, and how he abandoned her.

❛ we're   — old friends. that's all. i swear it. ❜

master aoken is all gendry knows o' a family, even though they share no blood. still, he's all gendry's got; he's all gendry knows. he can't let— ... the thought o' anything happenin' to master aoken makes somethin' in him runs hot, boilin', fear simmering easily into fury, though he keeps that at bay. he's never liked himself angry. s' useless, unless it's for hammerin' anvil. no one should hold this much anger, gendry thinks. he wonders where he got it from, because ma ... what gendry remembers o' her, she was— firm, aye. but she was kind, too. she was nothin' like him.

❛ — unless yer one o' those pleasure boys, then you're on the wrong street, ain't ya' ? ❜ gendry says, moving past the boy to pick up some o' the display t' put inside. ❛ otherwise the goldcloaks would 'ave a run at ye', they would. monsters o' the streets, the lot are. ye' wanna get your cock cut from a wrong accusation ? or yer hands ? no. the streets ain't for kids 'fter dark. i reckon' you get home, li'l ant. ❜

.... well, not that he doesn't. he just — got shy, is all. and it's not right, he thinks. he doesn't want t' pay these girls; ain't that interested if it's only t' sleep and t' wake up the next day pretendin' they're strangers. or it's just coins at all that made it possible he'd known her at all. call him a romantic, call him stupid, ( and he is, gods, he is. always the stupid bull makin' stupid mistakes. ) but gendry's simply ain't interested. and, if he were frank, he'd rather use the money t' buy food and clothes more than a cunt. you ever go starvin' or cold? s' the bloody worst.

❛ — or what ? ye' one o' the girls from the pleasure houses, are ya' ? not interested, ma'am. i'd say joffen from two shops over might be, if ye' lookin' for easy coin. ❜

he should be takin' deep breaths. deep breaths. this is no different than the times he's had the shaking when he'd return t' king's landing, so scared he was to be found; so weighed down he'd been by the faults he can never undo. bloody useless these shakings were, but if gendry don't have it under control, he'll lose his breath. and he'd rather die by a wright sooner than dying 'cause he forgot how t' damn breathe. fuck— his eyes catch on a shadow, and gendry holds over a gasp, leans his forehead 'gainst the wall t' count the way his chest rises, before he could manage a voice.

❛ — sorry, mate. m'pissin'. give me a mo'. ❜

delivering the news of prince aemon’s death to the capitol, gendry is the unknown bastard son of boremund baratheon, conceived at the back of the red keep in 92 AC with a local tavern wench.

he was born with the standard baratheon features: striking blue eyes, thick black hair, and boremund's stubborn frown. his mother (blonde, frail woman) never sought out boremund for any form of compensation; most likely, she didn't know who he was. simply that he was a nobleman.

when gendry was five, his mum passed away from fever. gendry eventually ran away from the tavern, chased by the tavern keeper, and he had to scrap by fleabottom for a year until he met a qohorik master armorer, master aoken.

as a child, gendry has always been larger than his peers. (again, the baratheon genes at work.) this was why master aoken had taken up gendry at all because he saw "the potential in the boy". true enough, gendry showed resilient and easy strength in hammering the anvil.

unlike in canon [where tobho mott was one of the more famed master armorer due to his specific skills¹] master aoken, though a skilled smith himself, is considerably average among the many swordsmith down the street of steels. therefore, there will be weeks sometimes that master aoken and gendry would have to rely on limited pay to survive.

this did not help when master aoken is a drunkard and a serial gambler; something gendry, as he grows older, tries to stave master aoken away from, but also aid him whenever he's passed out somewhere.

when gendry was three-and-ten, the second prince took a hold of fleabottom with his goldcloaks and, overnight, they saw a dramatic change of order "restored". gendry lost friends from this sudden change, just as master aoken did as well. while some streets thrived, like the street of silk, some others lived in constant fear and watch-out. this turn of event is the first legitimate seed sown in gendry of his growing antagonism towards highborns.²

*** the following details may change — master aoken eventually passed away when gendry is five-and-twenty. ever since, he took up the armoury left in master aoken's wake and run it himself.

fun little note: his relationship with aoken is both a parallel to his relationship with tobho mott, yoren and arya in the canon verse. that is, aoken was, for a while, his father / brother figure (aoken was only 20ish when he found gendry), his master, his protector, and his source of shelter — but obviously as aoken's addiction grew worse over the years, gendry was forced to become his protector and source of shelter.

fun little note #2: same as got canon, gendry will always yearn for stability and family - which he still sometimes search in aoken, but he does not always receive them fully due to aoken's addictions.