There’s one man here who’s not like the others, one sherpa, but I don’t know where he’s gone to.
[Well, that’s ominous. For the guide.]
I’m sorry you’ve missed the mountains. Other than the troubles where you are, what’s it like there?
[One benefit of a long journey is time on your own to figure things out. Having learned to capture a little of what he sees, he sends an image of the Everest view.]
[That is more pressing than the scenery. But, for courtesy's sake, she mimics his gesture -- an image of the lush green of the dense rainforest is sent to him, a layer of fog thick on the ground.]
[But it’s too bad these written messages can’t convey the dry jesting tone he would have used to say that.]
This is another place not many people can live. It’s lonely here, when no one ever comes except to climb the mountain, and climbing the mountain is mostly for fools. I heard that there are bodies up there that have been there for hundreds of years. Everyone knows they’re there, but no one can bring them down, or will bring them down. Even in the Frostfangs, there woild be a shadowcat to eat them, but there’s nothing.
It’s strange how like it is here to where we come from, and how different.
[The worlds, he means.]
New Beijing was like enough to New Amsterdam, though. Not the same, but closer to that than either of them is to this.
Surely it can't be so lonely, with your traveling company.
[The jesting helps. That was one thing she had missed about Jon's presence, before. It was the one thing they seemed to fall into easily, whenever there wasn't something serious to attend to. Which seemed to be always.
It is a nice distraction, for the time being.]
I would consider it a favor if you endeavored to avoid becoming one of those hundred year old bodies. And if you might keep the others from it as well.
But you are correct. There are not very many wild places where humans keep hearth.
No. Weirwoods are sacred to the Old Gods. Some are just trees — the wood is hard and white and good for bows and shields and such.
But in the North, there’s a weirwood at the middle of every godswood, with a face carved in it long ago, eyes and a mouth. The sap and leaves are red. Wish I could send you that picture.
They tell me that southron heart trees may be something else, like an old oak. But most people down there keep to the Seven.
Not to worry. I will see them, one day. Once Cersei is dealt with, I intend to keep proper watch upon all seven of the kingdoms, of which the North is one. I would make a poor Queen if I did not break bread with the great houses and their vassals in their own seats on occasion.
But when their rabid dog is sitting in Winterfell, skinning the people of the North for imagined crimes, raping your sister, killing your brother, threatening to spoon out your eyes and feed you to his hounds, then you do what you can to be rid of all of them.
And the noble houses of the North, they won’t bow to just anyone.
You are not suggesting being rid of just the Lannisters, Jon. You are talking about the Throne. You are talking about abandoning the North's oath to its rightful ruler.
Tell me I misunderstand that you do not intend to support my claim.
And how did you imagine to fashion said alliance, exactly? You enlist me, my three full grown dragons, my navy and my khalasar in exchange to spit in my palm when I turn to the south and the Throne?
Tyrion was told to offer you the price. And you were to bend the knee. But you won't, I suppose? A very short lived alliance, I would say.
[Abruptly in New Rio, she can feel scales threatening to breach the surface of her skin. She is getting too angry.]
No. I intended to support your claim to the kingdoms currently subject to the Iron Throne. I intended to give you whatever support you wanted or needed.
When I agreed to come to meet you and told my Great Council of my plans, they all thought you would be wanting me to bend the knee. They weren’t happy about it. No old Targaryen claim can bring back the fathers and brothers and sons they lost in these wars. Sansa — she was the loudest voice.
But our concerns are the same, yours and mine. We all want Cersei gone. We will all die if the Army of the Dead isn’t stopped before it gets too big to stop.
Anyway, would it mean anything if I bent the knee to you here and now, given that I have no memory of
If you think my only concern is Cersei's death, then you do not have the slightest inkling of what I want.
[His question cuts her for reasons she cannot quite pinpoint. The depression dulls her anger enough that the scales do not continue to grow.]
I do not know, Jon. Are you the sort of man who would seek to do or say something just because you thought it was what I wanted to hear, instead of what was true?
No, I’m not. I am true to my word, as much as I can be.
I don’t know you well enough to know what you want. Mere obedience? You could have that easy enough, if even a little of what I’ve heard of dragons is true. But you landed on Dragonstone and held court there. You didn’t try to take King’s Landing already. You don’t just want Cersei dead.
[He doesn’t say it, because he isn’t sure: southron politics can grow very complicated. But he thinks it might be that she wants to be loved... or, at least, preferred. Welcomed.]
As it is, I know you need me less than I need you. I’m on my way into a trap that I thought he was too good to spring. But if we do not band together, none of the rest of it will matter. We will all die.
And telling you that now, that seems like something that could be forgotten back there, too. I could spend days convincing you, and it might not matter then, because neither of us might remember it. Or my ship might sink, I die, and then we never meet.
I don’t know what the future brings. I only know that the Dead are coming, and they come to the North first.
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Are you protected, if need be? And the others who aren’t acting strangely, are they?
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It is our "guides" that concern me.
There are not enough of them to resist a group of us.
I cannot help but feel they were left here to die.
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[Well, that’s ominous. For the guide.]
I’m sorry you’ve missed the mountains. Other than the troubles where you are, what’s it like there?
[One benefit of a long journey is time on your own to figure things out. Having learned to capture a little of what he sees, he sends an image of the Everest view.]
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[That is more pressing than the scenery. But, for courtesy's sake, she mimics his gesture -- an image of the lush green of the dense rainforest is sent to him, a layer of fog thick on the ground.]
On purpose?
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I’ve never seen anything so green as where you are now. Not the Wolfswood in the North nor the Haunted Forest north of the Wall.
[It’s around this time that Nate and Tim post to the network. So much for the fake sherpa.]
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It might be beautiful, were it not for the climate.
And the insects.
And the snakes.
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[But it’s too bad these written messages can’t convey the dry jesting tone he would have used to say that.]
This is another place not many people can live. It’s lonely here, when no one ever comes except to climb the mountain, and climbing the mountain is mostly for fools. I heard that there are bodies up there that have been there for hundreds of years. Everyone knows they’re there, but no one can bring them down, or will bring them down. Even in the Frostfangs, there woild be a shadowcat to eat them, but there’s nothing.
It’s strange how like it is here to where we come from, and how different.
[The worlds, he means.]
New Beijing was like enough to New Amsterdam, though. Not the same, but closer to that than either of them is to this.
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[The jesting helps. That was one thing she had missed about Jon's presence, before. It was the one thing they seemed to fall into easily, whenever there wasn't something serious to attend to. Which seemed to be always.
It is a nice distraction, for the time being.]
I would consider it a favor if you endeavored to avoid becoming one of those hundred year old bodies.
And if you might keep the others from it as well.
But you are correct.
There are not very many wild places where humans keep hearth.
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I’ll do what I can not to die out here. It’s too far from home.
What about that jungle you’re in — any basilisks in it, with the snakes?
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Not quite.
Actually, they are quite beautiful.
But their venom causes paralysis.
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I was talking about the snakes.
They are different than normal. Bright colors.
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Snakes of New Rio de Janeiro. I see. They’re pretty.
There are carved and painted rocks up here. The sherpas say they’re called mani stones.
[He sends an image of one of those along, too, carved out and colorful.]
It makes me miss the weirwoods in the North. But you don’t feel like something is watching you up here, not so far.
[Which implies that you do feel like weirwoods are watching you, at least sometimes.]
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Would you say that is a particular Northern trait?
Pining for wandering eyes in the dark?
Or just you?
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But in the North, there’s a weirwood at the middle of every godswood, with a face carved in it long ago, eyes and a mouth. The sap and leaves are red. Wish I could send you that picture.
They tell me that southron heart trees may be something else, like an old oak. But most people down there keep to the Seven.
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I will see them, one day.
Once Cersei is dealt with, I intend to keep proper watch upon all seven of the kingdoms, of which the North is one.
I would make a poor Queen if I did not break bread with the great houses and their vassals in their own seats on occasion.
You can show me yourself.
and they were getting on so well
Did no one tell you that I’m King in the North? We won our independence from the Lannisters by taking back Winterfell from the Boltons.
please say sike
No one must win independence from the Lannisters because they are illegitimate.
[There is ice in her blood, but it is quickly melting in the fires of her anger. He cannot be serious. Did Tyrion--]
You know that, don't you?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (ALSO, cw Game of Thrones: intense violence, rape, etc.)
But when their rabid dog is sitting in Winterfell, skinning the people of the North for imagined crimes, raping your sister, killing your brother, threatening to spoon out your eyes and feed you to his hounds, then you do what you can to be rid of all of them.
And the noble houses of the North, they won’t bow to just anyone.
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You are not suggesting being rid of just the Lannisters, Jon.
You are talking about the Throne.
You are talking about abandoning the North's oath to its rightful ruler.
Tell me I misunderstand that you do not intend to support my claim.
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And how did you imagine to fashion said alliance, exactly?
You enlist me, my three full grown dragons, my navy and my khalasar in exchange to spit in my palm when I turn to the south and the Throne?
Tyrion was told to offer you the price.
And you were to bend the knee.
But you won't, I suppose?
A very short lived alliance, I would say.
[Abruptly in New Rio, she can feel scales threatening to breach the surface of her skin. She is getting too angry.]
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When I agreed to come to meet you and told my Great Council of my plans, they all thought you would be wanting me to bend the knee. They weren’t happy about it. No old Targaryen claim can bring back the fathers and brothers and sons they lost in these wars. Sansa — she was the loudest voice.
But our concerns are the same, yours and mine. We all want Cersei gone. We will all die if the Army of the Dead isn’t stopped before it gets too big to stop.
Anyway, would it mean anything if I bent the knee to you here and now, given that I have no memory of
before?
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[His question cuts her for reasons she cannot quite pinpoint. The depression dulls her anger enough that the scales do not continue to grow.]
I do not know, Jon.
Are you the sort of man who would seek to do or say something just because you thought it was what I wanted to hear, instead of what was true?
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I don’t know you well enough to know what you want. Mere obedience? You could have that easy enough, if even a little of what I’ve heard of dragons is true. But you landed on Dragonstone and held court there. You didn’t try to take King’s Landing already. You don’t just want Cersei dead.
[He doesn’t say it, because he isn’t sure: southron politics can grow very complicated. But he thinks it might be that she wants to be loved... or, at least, preferred. Welcomed.]
As it is, I know you need me less than I need you. I’m on my way into a trap that I thought he was too good to spring. But if we do not band together, none of the rest of it will matter. We will all die.
And telling you that now, that seems like something that could be forgotten back there, too. I could spend days convincing you, and it might not matter then, because neither of us might remember it. Or my ship might sink, I die, and then we never meet.
I don’t know what the future brings. I only know that the Dead are coming, and they come to the North first.
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