dragonwarder | (no subject)

[Daenerys' demeanor is somewhat icy when she answers the door, though not because of Jon. She's wrapped tightly in a long black peacoat, hair braided upward. For a long moment, she just stares at his face, as if she's willing herself to say something -- but it just doesn't come.

When she gives up on it, it is easier to offer him a false smile.]

We have a walk ahead of us. Are you ready?

[The sack she carries is also made of cloth, sitting high on her hip. Inside of it, she's packed two salads and two bottles of water. It is nothing particularly extravagant.]

[His smile is a little more regretful than false, but given the nature of their last conversation, he’s not surprised by her brittle demeanor. That she’s trying to smile at all is a cause for mild optimism: maybe this won’t go as badly as he’s been thinking it could. On the other hand, ha can see that she’s wrapped up like she’s in armor. His own clothes are easier, dark layers, thick and thin and soft, warm enough.]

Never readier for a walk. Which way?

[So many times in the scant weeks he’s been here, he’s had cause to wish for a horse.]

[She gestures outside of her door so that she can step out, shutting the door behind her without allowing Jon much of a look inside. She engages the locks using her implant and moves to lead Jon back into the street.]

This way.

[She adjusts the pack on her hip and heads toward the main road, intent on following it as long as she needs to until they can get to public transit. It would not make sense to walk the whole way.]

[He does as she gestures, and as they leave the building, he falls into step beside her. There is a slight tension that he hadn’t anticipated: his own tendencies towards courtesy against the fact that she wants him to bow to her, when as it is now, they are equals. Still, a man should be courteous to most he meets.

He doesn’t say much to her for a while, as they walk along. Finally, he ventures,]

I found swords and shields down in the caves the other day, after. Crumbling to bits in an old tomb.

[His voice is pitched conversationally, so she can hear him, but there’s not much chance of being overheard by anyone whose breath isn’t hot on their necks.]

Edited 2020-02-19 06:08 (UTC)

Oh?

[She glances sideways at him, thoughtful, as if she hadn't nearly hulked out over his betrayal just a few days ago. At least he was telling her, instead of bringing them into public and showing them off.]

What are you planning on doing with them, praytell?

I left them there. They belonged to the dead, but even if I’d wanted to use them, or wanted to take steel out of the hands of dead men, they were falling to pieces.

[He shakes his head in a way that expresses his amazement at the futility of it.]

I wish I had Longclaw, but what I’d do with it here... probably just get tackled by the City Watch. [They’re called the police, Jon.] It’s all right: there are other ways to fight, if need be.

You would.

[She says it like she's said it to someone else before, and the smile that flickers on her face is brief, but genuine. The bit he delivers about the dead and the steel that belonged to him is interesting, though perhaps not something she understands entirely.

Dothraki were similar, outfitting the dead before their journey beyond -- but after spending as long as she had, struggling with her khalasar in the desert, she could never imagine leaving behind a tool that she could use and that was not in the hands of someone who needed it more than she.

After stepping off the train, the greenery of the outskirts is visible at a distance.]

[He isn’t sure whether she’s referring to him leaving the swords of him getting tackled, and he doesn’t ask her to clarify it, just gives her a gentle, puzzled sidelong glance. But he can see that that smile of hers is a bit more genuine than the one she’d given him in greeting.

Much of the rest of the trip is quiet, but when they step off the train, he pauses, looks around, takes a breath.]

Feels a little more like real air here. The air out by Everest... it was fresh, but thin.

Where will we go?

A bit farther. Rey and Kylo Ren found a suitable place for quiet out here for me, once.

[She does not say why. But being there will no doubt raise a few questions anyway. She doubted that the clearing had healed from the damage she had done, however small it had been. It isnt meant to be an intimidation tactic but...she could see how he may take it as one.

So she leads him in farther, until the shade becomes thicker, until they reach a fair sized clearing — far enough from the city to avoid being stumbled upon, but not far enough for someone to spot them and ask questions.

Every now and then, a pair of yellow eyes twinkle in the dark around them. The clearing itself seems mostly untouched...save for a few aggressive gouge-marks of torn up earth, and one small patch of burnt grass as if someone had forgotten to put out a bonfire. The clawmarks are too large to belong to anything smaller than a horse.

Daenerys pauses to lift the cloth over her arm in order to lay it down and unwrap it. She had very nearly brought nothing (for she was still cross with him, and not eager to offer him kindness) but ... well, the absence of Rey has swiftly reminded her that she has few true friends and people close to her in this city and, while she would not necessarily count Jon as a friend at this moment in time, he was still the most familiar with her.

It was a concern. It would behoove her to make an effort, however small.]

This world is sick. It is why there is so little green.

[He nods. He met Rey at Everest; she had known him already. As he follows Daenerys, it’s nice to feel the grass under his feet. Once in a while he gets the sense that eyes are following him, but he can’t place where it comes from, except once, when he turns and sees a flash of gold in the trees. He frowns at it, looks closer, and realizes that he can’t stop to look at it more.

When they arrive at the clearing, he notices its state, the burned patch, the claw marks. It isn’t too bad, but it doesn’t make much sense out here. Unless it was done by whatever he’d seen. Was it big enough to leave those claw marks? How would it light the —

Ah. But that doesn’t make any sense.]

All the people living behind walls. I brought the Free Folk south of the Wall, so they could be with other living men, but — not the same here. I don’t know what’s better.

[He doesn’t like these cities. They’re big, impressive, imposing, busy, but there should be other ways to live.]

He makes himself available to help her spread the blanket she’s brought, if she wants him to. It’s appreciated, since his cloak didn’t come here any more than Longclaw did, and unlike some parts of the city he’s seen, there are no benches anywhere about.]

I brought ale. It’s — I’ve had much worse.

Beyond the walls, it is difficult to survive. The land is...poisoned. These animals — [She points out a pair of golden eyes.] — they haven’t always been here, and the meat...you do not want to consume it.

[Especially not if you were already prone to rage.

Ale is not her sort of drink, but truthfully, she had gotten less picky as a result of its scarcity. She nods an acknowledgement of thanks and sets one of the salads aside for him. It is broght, with plenty of interesting produce to chose from. She was not sure how he felt about the bugs, and so she had not bothered to include protein.

She was certainly not a fan. And her cravings for meat had grown somewhat fearsome, since returning from New Rio. But if she ignored it, then it wouldn’t be a problem.]

Were you Northerns not searching to keep the Wildlings out of your lands?

[She brought salads, with fruits and vegetables. That’s a fine dish, in its way, in their world; it can be simple to prepare, but it graces many a lordly table.

He looks at it with vague appreciation, although there is nothing lately that will satisfy his craving for any kind of meat: chicken or beef or venison or fish, fresh or salted, mutton in a stew, anything. Crickets seem like a cruel jest. He’s relieved that there are none amongst the leaves and the bits of carrot and apple.

All this way, he’s been trying not to anticipate the conversation they’ll be having, so that he won’t have it with himself in his head. What’s the use? They’ve both been given false expectations; they’ll both be in a political situation that is awkward at best, hostile at worst, as a result.]

They did, for centuries. But it’s hard to live north of the Wall — impossible, now. No one ever sat and broke bread with the Free Folk and asked them what they wanted.

Did I ever tell you that I was made to live among them as a spy, when I’d only been in the Night’s Watch for a year or so? Learned a great many things, learned why they would attack the Wall. They wanted to be south of it, for protection.

When my brothers made me Lord Commander, I led an expedition to Hardhome — old Wildling town up on the coast north of Eastwatch. What I saw there....

[He stops, looks into the distance.]

I can’t look at a person and say they deserve to die because of where they were born. Worse, that they deserve to become a slave to the Night King.

[Protection from the walking dead. Yes, she has heard this ghost story before, and she still isn’t certain she believes it— but it is hard to deny the look in Jon’s eyes when he speaks of them. That is not the look of a man weaving tall tales.

She frowns lightly, unwrapping silverware and setting it aside the salad container for him before sitting and tucking into her own.]

Protection that you can’t provide. And that is why you were sailing to meet with me.

[An open invitation for clarification. After all, she did not come here for mere pleasantries. This is transactional, and she is still displeased with his choice.]

[He looks back at her, and his distant gaze focuses.]

The Wall will hold the Dead for a time. But what I saw at Hardhome, when they fell on us from nowhere... tens of thousands of men, and women, and children, all slaughtered, all made to march for him. He made a point of letting me see them all rise. He’ll do the same again, whenever he can, wherever he can.

[And, he implies, he won’t stop at the Neck as a courtesy to southron rulers who think of the Dead as a Northern problem, or, more likely, a story to frighten unruly children.]

I don’t know how long we have. What I came for... what I was going for... was your aid. We will make our stand at Winterfell, but we don’t have enough dragonglass, enough Valyrian steel. There’s no help for the Valyrian steel, but there’s a cave on Dragonstone. A book in the Citadel says it’s full of dragonglass. Some call it obsidian.

So aye, it is why I was sailing to meet with you. That, and Lord Tyrion’s invitation, his thought that our interests align.

Why did he think to invite me? He didn’t tell you that he’d lie to me.

Edited 2020-02-19 09:38 (UTC)

I already told you why. And it was not Tyrion whom introduced your name to my ear. It was a Red Priestess. Lord Tyrion merely affirmed you might make a promising ally.

[She skips over the other bit, about Tyrion’s supposed lie. She cannot be derailed from this over her frustration with Tyrion’s games. It was not as if she could speak to his reasons. To ignore her instructions was a bold and dangerous move for him to make.

It does not take much to get her incensed, as it turns out. She was already emotional over matters unrelated this. This just gives her somewhere to direct it all.]

I intend to rule a united Westeros. One where Kingdoms will pay mind to their smallfolk, rather than use them to further their own machinations. Where people like Cersei Lannister and the Boltons will burn for their crimes, instead of sitting pretty while their people starve at their feet and die for their amusement.

[She has to pause to clench her teeth, lest she get truly frustrated again. She simply did not understand his resistance.]

You may mine all the Dragonglass you wish, once your knee has bent.

Edited 2020-02-19 09:49 (UTC)

[He wishes to say a great deal about the speech she’s just given — chiefly, how no one who doesn’t understand the North can hope to rule it — but his attention catches on one thing, early on.]

A Red Priestess who knew me?

[Somehow, he looks even less pleased than he had a moment earlier.]

She told you you should have the King in the North come to bend the knee?

[What had she done, gone straight to Dragonstone from Winterfell when he banished her?]

She told me to allow you to tell me what you have seen. And that you would have a role to play in the war to come. As would I.

[But apparently, there were two wars — the war on the Throne, and the war on the dead. Now that she thinks on it, she cannot help but wonder if Melisandre knew that this disagreement would arise...or if she had misinterpreted, and as a result, created another barrier to taking Cersei’s head.

Daenerys searches Jon’s eyes for an answer to an unasked question. Why did whom the information came from matter? Jon knew in his heart that he needed Daenerys for her Dragonglass and her dragons. What would defeat an army of ice faster than dragonfire?

And yet, he resisted. So she decides to try another path, obsessively fixating on his refusal, rather than his displeasure with the Red Priestess.]

What cause could the North have to refuse my claim? We are surely aligned in our morals, are we not?

Edited 2020-02-19 10:46 (UTC)

[He looks a little less annoyed than he had a moment earlier. Still, he has yet to touch his salad.]

She’s here, you know. Melisandre. She doesn’t remember that much, doesn’t remember Stannis losing to the Boltons. But she is here.

[Finally, contemplative, he picks up the fork, picks up the salad, begins looking for something in it to spear.]

To rule the North, you have to understand the North. Be a Northerner. Even when they bent the knee to the Iron Throne, there was still a Stark as Lord Paramount, and we kept our ancient rights. [The right to perform the king’s justice themselves, for example: they would never have wanted someone like Ramsay Bolton to burn at a southron hand.] As it is now... I don’t have a crown to wear or a throne to sit on. I never will. I only have my people’s faith that I will lead them... against the Dead, and against Cersei.

[He selects a little piece of carrot, some greens, and loads his fork.]

When I spoke of coming south, there were loud voices about your father, about how he broke faith with the North. He summoned my grandfather to King’s Landing and killed him and my uncle. No one in the North knew that you were coming when they made me their king, but —

[Under the circumstances, would it have mattered?]

Edited 2020-02-19 19:29 (UTC)

[There is a look on her face to suggest the information about Melisandre is new to her -- but then, she'd been wrapped up in other issues that had distracted her from her arrival.

She would have to pursue her. Later.]

As Queen, I could make you Lord Paramount. Or your sister. Or is the North like everywhere else, when it comes to that?

[A confused expression sits on her face, like she still does not understand their resistance. Did they think she wanted power, over them? It was a reasonable fear, though unfounded.

She eats while Jon speaks to her, to avoid the urge to cut him off prematurely when he speaks on ruling the North, of demonizing crowns and thrones as if they mattered to no one, as if they were not needed to command respect from others who thought themselves powerful. Who should to use that power to harm the powerless.

And then, he dared to speak of her father. Daenerys paused mid-forkful to let her eyes settle on Jon again.

Silence would stretch between them.]

I am not my father.

[She says it with a deadly calm, as if daring him to disagree. But there is a small tremor in her voice, like the suggestion is something she'd considered before -- perhaps even recently.]

Edited 2020-02-19 22:43 (UTC)

I never said you were. I don’t know what you’re like, yet.

[He chews at the leaves, and the bits of vegetable, all sweet and crunchy.]

But you made us cups of tea. You made us salads. [Which means, his tone implies, points in her favor: she did him a kindness.]

You didn’t bring me here to make me bow to you. You brought me because you wanted me to ask what you wanted. So tell me: what is it that you want?

[You didn't bring me here to make me bow to you.

Didn't she? It's a small voice in the back of her head that she perhaps gives too much of her attention to before she goes back to eating herself. Truthfully, much of her appetite has gone. The more she talks to him, the clearer it seems that he isn't going to budge.

As a result, there is an uncomfortable amount of stabbing that occurs in the salad container she holds while she thinks of how to impart her vision to Jon -- a man whom she can't quite seem to figure out. Was he self interested in his people, or did the suffering of the rest of the Kingdoms concern him?

If it was only the former, she would never get through to him, and her honesty could be rewarded with treachery.]

I am well traveled, Jon. You have seen your fair share of horrors, and I have seen mine. But there is a constant we share amidst all that.

[She bites into something crisp, the crunch accenting the passion she feels for her goals.]

We have seen those with power lord it over those who have none. Over and over. And because they are in power, they go unpunished for their transgressions. Cersei is the worst of them -- but it is never just one person responsible. I will to put an end to that cycle. I will have a kingdom that does not fear their leaders, and leaders who make choices with the most vulnerable people's interests in their minds first.

[A smile comes to her expression when she imagines it -- genuine and hopeful.]

It is not just about removing corrupt leaders, but changing the culture of leading. Breaking the wheel.

[He isn’t oblivious to the stabbing; he hasn’t failed to notice her mood. His own is calmer, but only just. He will be more frustrated on the day, he thinks, the day he learns that he’s sailed all the way to Dragonstone only to be clapped in irons or burned alive.

Frustration would be an understatement if he really thought she would burn him alive. But she seems more interested, today, in genuinely bringing him around.

He’s silent for a long moment, chewing his salad with contemplative enthusiasm.]

Noble goals. And you’re not wrong about some of them. I’m not sure anyone who wasn’t a Lannister wept at Lord Tywin’s death. But —

[He pauses, and the corners of his mouth turn down. How to phrase this? It isn’t that he wants to be careful: what he’s about to say seems unlikely to anger her. It’s that he’s not sure how much of it is wise to voice. Why tell her how she can win?

There isn’t any other way, and keeping the kingship he’s had for such a short time for its own sake isn’t his main goal.

Still, he speaks very gently.]

In telling you the reasons why I can’t give you what you want, I have the feeling I’m telling you what you have to do to get it. Fail to help the North, or terrorize them with your dragons, and you’ll never have their hearts or their loyalty. If we —[He pauses and takes rather a larger breath than it would seem that he needs, trying to master the tension that sometimes rises when he thinks of this] — If we lose against the Dead, there will be no smallfolk left. No nobles, no castles, nothing to rule, no negotiations with their king, nothing.

[His words fall off, morose.]

I know how it sounds.

Edited 2020-02-20 00:16 (UTC)

Do you?

[Her eyes narrow slightly with suspicion, her expression falling ever so slightly. It isn't asked in an accusatory manner, but one with some obvious curiosity. If it was so obvious what he was asking her, then why would he ask it without assurance of his loyalty in return?]

You speak to me of the walking dead and they threat they pose, knowing they will come for the North first. You seek my help to save yourselves, with no plans of returning the gesture.

[They're going in circles. She cuts herself off with a long sigh out of her nose, shaking her head.

No, she didn't need the North to take King's Landing. But it would make the longterm goals she sought that much easier. She would lose less of the Dothraki if she had more footsoldiers.]

You are the first to speak to me of these creatures, and this Night King. How am I to know they even exist?

I’m surprised Melisandre didn’t speak of them to you. She sees defeating them as her purpose, her god’s purpose. She’s told me often enough.

[He sets his salad down, reaches into the bag he brought, and pulls out the two bottles, wrapped in a cloth.]

There’s so much glass here. They seem so rich, compared to where we come from.

[He opens one bottle and offers it to her.

Anyway:]

I don’t only seek to save the North. I seek to save everyone. The North is only the front line. Do you understand what happens, when people fall to this army? They join its ranks.

[The further it goes, the larger it gets. If it overwhelms Northern resistance, it will be that much bigger.]

But beyond that, you know I have no way to prove it to you here.

Edited 2020-02-20 01:41 (UTC)

I would not have believed her, just as I am not sure I believe you.

[She takes the bottle anyway, giving the ale a sniff of thought. She'd had a bottle of this before, but she does not remember the taste.]

I understand. Just as you surely understand the likelihood of any army besting three full grown dragons.

[The dead, they do not concern her. But leaving the Northmen to fall victim to their ranks? Still up in the air. All of it feels ridiculous to talk about anyway, when she hasn't even seen them.]

...there may be one way. Though I am not certain it can be done consciously.

[Now it is her turn to sound ridiculous. She pushes around some of her food uselessly with her fork.]

Much like the bond between the other Displaced, it is possible to...share dreams. I am afraid I do not know how it works, but -- it is something I have experienced before.