dragonwarder | (no subject)

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.

[He doesn’t look any happier. He reaches into the bag again, takes out the other bottle of ale, opens it, and takes a sip from it.]

I was going to ask you to take my hand, but I know you don’t like it. And I don’t know if that would convince you that, at the very least, I’m not lying to you.

I wish I dreamed of much other than the Dead, these days.

[Tell him more, though.]

If that is what you dream of, then it should be simple.

[She packages up the small remains of her salad to instead focus on sipping at the ale. Her ankles cross and fold inward -- a more casual stance, while she considers.]

As I said, I have never attempted to force it. But I did wander into someone else's dreams on accident, once. It was a place familiar to her, with people she knew. She seemed to recognize that I did not belong there.

Does it help to sleep in the same place? [He realizes what’s he’s said, and presses his lips together in consternation.] The safe house, I mean, or —

[Never mind that. He gives his head a little shake.]

These dreams aren’t anything I’d want anyone else to have to see most days. You understand that? You might wish you’d just believed me.

[A pause, and then he adds,]

But I understand why you don’t. [Something strikes him, and he adds,] I’ve brought you something. From New Beijing. [And he reaches towards the bag again.]

[The casual way he simply commits to that surprises her, even when it becomes clear that he hadn't meant anything by it. It would have been suspicious not to react at all. She clears her throat past the ale and gives him a look, half opening her mouth and then closing it when he attempts to clarify.

Never mind that indeed. She takes the invitation away from that path of conversation.]

It would not be the first gruesome thing I have witnessed, I assure you.

[But then, the surprise returns to her face and stops her from lifting the bottle to her lips. He had...gotten her something? But why?]

--pardon?

[He shrugs, a little bit awkward. This entire meeting has been discomfiting, though so far, it could have gone worse than it has.

He takes a small box from the bag.]

I didn’t mean to be haggling over the North with you; I thought I was seeking an alliance. I still am. Even if I convince you of everything here, there’s no telling that you’ll remember it back there, or I will; might be that I have to convince you all over again.

But in this place, near as I can tell, we’re on the same side. So I saw these, and I thought they were something you might like. A gift for that alliance.

[He holds the box out to her. In it, there are chocolates with fruit fillings, shimmering colors brushed across the top. They’re in the shape of dragons.]

That does not mean the conversation isn't worth having. If our memories are retained, it could mean a world of difference for the fate of Westeros.

[She feels the need to point it out, perhaps because Rey and Kylo Ren had gone missing themselves. She hasn't the faintest idea what's happened of course, but it was curious that the pair of them did not return to New Amsterdam, after the gates.

Wherever they'd gone, they'd gone there together. Would they remember together as well?

It was worth thinking about. But she is distracted by the box he offers her, which she takes with grace (though she cannot help the small, uncertain, girlish glance at his expression -- as if she is expecting it to be filled with cockroaches).

She is pleasantly surprised when she opens it, and she smiles in spite of her sour mood. She's struck enough that she can't hide it quickly, and so a small scoff of amusement follows afterward.]

Thank you.

[She looks on them for a fond moment, briefly feeling something in her heart twist. Every day, she misses her children more and more. In an effort to pull herself out of her encroaching grief, she turns the box around.

Later, she would no doubt question the thoughtful gesture. She certainly did not owe it to him, given his refusal of her offer. And yet ... well, it always came back to the same thing.

It was not like she had anyone else.]

Would you like one?

[He hesitates, for half a moment, still a little flustered from what he’d accidentally implied. If others might walk into his dreams, it might be better to warn them that it’s nothing but an endless onslaught of dead men and White Walkers, or falling from the loft of a hall or from the top of the Wall and having the air knocked out of you while those monsters converge, or a cold dark night and knives flashing in the dark, or — in the best of them, a long-deserted castle with a crypt in which something does not love him.

But for things to be much better between them, she has to see it. The numbers of the dead, the implacability of their masters, how they just keep coming and coming and coming, how nothing in their path can survive. In his dreams, he never has to decide whether the worst thing about Hardhome was the way the screams fell silent as all the people died, or the way they rose as one after that, but when he’s awake, sometimes it still haunts him.

It’s easier to take a chocolate; it would be impolite to refuse. He can tell she likes them in spite of herself, so he chooses one of the littler ones. At another time, he would have told her to go first, because they’re hers, but it’s a matter of trust that he eat one in front of her before she does.]

You’re welcome. One of the first people I spoke to here gave me a little piece of this. Just a square, not a dragon.

[In truth, it was only the extra credits he’d gotten from visiting pop ups that had enabled him to afford them. He takes a dainty bite of the chocolate: it’s sweet, with some sort of berry paste in the middle.]

Dragons are alien to many of these people, it seems.

[Though not so alien anymore, she thinks, shifting her jaw over the memories left by New Rio. Maybe she would be fortunate, and that memory would fade before long as well.]

Sweets are easier to come by here.

[When she sees him take a bite, she picks one for herself, dusted gold -- like Viserion. She takes it in her mouth, avoiding biting down right away and instead allowing the chocolate to melt behind her teeth.]

You know I’ve never seen one. But I thought of your house. They’re not your sigil, I know, but I thought they’d have to do.

[He watches her choose a piece, watches her eat it, then nearly smiles and takes a sip of his ale.]

This place... people remember me, but I don’t remember them. They think well of me when I’ve done nothing to deserve it. When people think well of you, you don’t want to disappoint them.

At least I didn’t disappoint them in the past.

[He hears a shift in the foliage, sees another little flash of gold.]

What are these creatures, the ones that are hiding?

I am sure you will see one, before too long. Just as perhaps I will see the weirwood, one day.

[Because she's not about to give up on trying to get him to bend the knee, if he thought they were past that. But fortunately, she does not harp upon it, and instead shifts her weight to reply to his other musings.]

It is easy to be cruel, and evil. Whether or not you've done anything to deserve their good thoughts...sometimes that can be enough, for many of the people here.

[That's the best answer she can give, without getting too personal about her feelings about the previous Jon.]

But, if I may be frank -- you have matured, and I am relieved for it.

[She takes a drink of the ale and follows his eyes to the animals darting between the trees.]

I am still trying to discover that myself. There are research facilities that are studying them, but much of it is done in secret. I do not believe they are native, but...they did not come with any of us, here.