dragonwarder | (no subject)

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 before?

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.

Edited 2020-02-18 08:29 (UTC)

You are right.
I could burn the entirety of King's Landing, if I wanted.
The city would be mine in a day, whether they surrendered or not.

Perhaps you might ask me what I want, when we next meet.
Properly.

[It isn't that she doesn't hear him. It isn't that his point of view isn't clear. But she cannot think past the knowledge that Jon (and the North, by proxy) do not intend to unite with the rest of the Kingdoms. It makes her sick. It makes her sad.

But worse, it infuriates her. And her anger is deadly. She's already killed on this trip once. She does not need to do it twice.]

I will. When we return? Daenerys, I had no wish to anger you. Or to disappoint you.

[Or to be king, but this doesn’t seem to be the right time to say that. He has no wish to disappoint the North, either. But he doesn’t care much if he angers them a little, so long as gives them all the best chance he can at living out their natural lives, rather than marching as the Night King’s thralls until there’s nothing left.]

When we return.

[All she can do is confirm for him. She cannot give more thought to this without endangering the rest of her party -- or her own clarity. Tyrion and Varys weren't there to talk her down.

Rey was in Everest, and so was Kylo Ren. She hadn't seen Octavia in months. And Ren was -- well, he seemed just as upset as she was. He was in no condition to comfort her.

As usual, she was alone, and she would need to figure it out for herself.]

Edited 2020-02-18 09:00 (UTC)