dragonwarder | (no subject)

[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.

[He thinks on that — how easy it is for some men to be cruel and evil — then nods and takes a long pull of the ale.]

I don’t know when he was — [How do you put this?] — I don’t know the last thing to happen to him before he came here. Someone told me that Sansa said to call him — me — Lord Snow, that he’d like it, so it must have been sometime after I became Lord Commander. Did he ever speak of a mutiny?

[Maybe it’s the case: it hasn’t escaped his attention that she hasn’t asked how and why he left the Night’s Watch. Maybe she just assumes that it would have been up to whoever was ruling the North to punish him for that desertion.

After he watches her watching the animals, he adds,]

So there’s somewhere else that no one but them ever comes from, might be. Or — out in New Rio, out by the gates, did you see animals with golden eyes? I saw something called a yak at Everest. And I saw wolves.

[Ah, how does she explain her relationship with another Jon Snow? She cannot, really. The experiences have been similar, but also very different.]

No. But I did not endeavor to speak much of home, with him. [She should probably just say it.] Our relationship was somewhat turbulent, I'm afraid. He was younger, and sought to treat me more like one of his sisters than the Protector of the Realm.

[She cannot suppress her expression of distaste. They had worked through it, but it had not been easy. And, at any rate, it was obvious that whatever Jon had experienced, it had turned him into a fine man. And that was all that could really be asked of anyone.

His second question though -- she has to pause before her sip of ale.]

Not animals, but...you remember how I told you of our number acting strangely? I believe our rations were tampered with. A little while after some of us would eat, we would change. Golden eyes. Long canines.

[She shakes her head. The memory is obviously unpleasant.]

[That makes him chuckle once, one of the few times he’s shown any amusement since he knocked on her door, and take a pull of his beer, and give his head a small shake. He says only,]

You’re not my sister.

[In some ways, more infuriating than the one he has. In others... well, he knows people think there aren’t many ladies fairer than his sister, but knowing other people think a woman is fair and thinking it himself are two different things, and the way Daenerys struck him at their first meeting — he’s glad she’s not his sister.

Still, it’s not strange for a queen to be fair, and it doesn’t matter whether or not he thinks she is. At the very least, though she may be stubborn, she isn’t false. Not so far. That means more just now than a pretty face.]

Long — fangs?

Did you eat any of it? How long did it take for them to go back to the way they were? [His gaze snaps back to the brush around them, and he peers into it.] — Do these creatures have long fangs?

Edited 2020-02-20 07:56 (UTC)

[Her reaction to his sudden concern startles her. The laugh that comes is amused enough that she has to lift the back of her hand politely in an effort to stiffle it. A man who is haunted in his dreams by dead men, and the thought of some wolf fangs alarms him.

How quaint.]

The cure was roughly five minutes of contact with another Displaced. The contact was unpleasant. But it was easily correctable.

[She expertly dodges his first question.]

They may. They are all different.

[He sets his half-empty ale to the side, then picks up his abandoned salad again and makes to take a bite.

The idea that the creatures around them might have fangs of that sort doesn’t unsettle him that much: it’s only that he had been thinking of... more deer than shadowcats, even if they don’t have the same forms, for the way they move through the greenery and watch and shy away. But maybe he should be thinking of something else completely.]

Has it happened before, that it needed to be cured?

[What he means is: it seems like a settled question.]

I suppose similar symptoms were seen previously, though it was not somethting I was present for.

[She glances out past one of the larger gouges in the earth to look upon one of the animals watching them. She had not checked in on Aramis lately, she realized. With the gates at the forefront of her mind, there had not been time.

Perhaps they could help unravel the mystery. She would need to press about work anyway, now that Rey was gone. She could not afford that apartment by herself.]

You would have better luck asking one of the Displaced whom has been here longer.

[Around a bite of salad, he asks,]

I don’t know who that would be. Have someone in mind?

When I have questions, I most often go to Rey as we live together. Or -- I would have.

[She takes another long pull of ale, now that she's vocalized the other source of her frustration. It had only been a day or two, but her absence made her anxious. There was no hiding it.]

Perhaps Clarke will know.

I’ve met them both.

[Still, he catches that something isn’t right in the way she’s talking about Rey.]

Why can’t you talk to Rey now?

She's gone.

[The bitterness doesn't quite leave her voice, and she avoids his eyes when she says it in an attempt to hide what she can about how it's effecting her.]

She never came back, after the gates.

[He’s silent and frowning for a long moment.]

That might mean those gates can send us to places other than we’ve been told. But I don’t remember whether or not I saw her go into them. I only know that she wasn’t lost or seriously hurt on the way.

If I came back, might be that she could, too.

[But he had come back older, and with no memories of anything but his life in Westeros.]

[That is a silver lining, and for a moment, it seems like it is what she needs to hear. Daenerys glances into Jon's eyes, as if she's searching for the truth of his statement before reality seems to catch up with her.]

And she may not remember. Just as you do not remember.

[Would she be alright with that? In Jon's case, it had been something of a blessing. But what if Octavia had come back with no memories?

It would hurt. She cannot imagine Rey and Kylo Ren's return to be any different.]

[His first response to that is a sober nod. His facial expression is not unsympathetic; if they hadn’t failed to come to terms about the North earlier, it might have been more fully consoling. As it is... well, it’s rare that he’s ever seen anyone who left him again. Most farewells have turned out to be permanent, or near to it, whether or not he’d had the chance to say good-bye.]

But is it possible that she might remember after all?

[He has a sad face, he knows it, but his eyes are sadder than usual.]

I do not know. I have not seen such feats before. Only -- what happened to you.

[Daenerys goes quiet for a few moments and polishes off the last of her ale, rolling the neck of the bottle between her fingers while avoiding Jon's eyes once she spots the sad reflection in them. She's too empathetic to see that right now.

She might slip. Even as she feels her heart tightening in her chest.]

It does not matter. There is nothing to be done for it.

No. And I know what it is, to hold on to hope too long and have it fail you in the end.

[He’s still watching her, even though she’s avoiding his gaze.]

But that doesn’t mean it will. Impossible things still sometimes happen.

[She should know that better than most.]

[She does not know what he is trying to say, with that statement. If he is trying to commiserate with her, or if he is speaking on a personal experience.

And impossible things have happened to her before. She hatched three dragons at her breast, and raised them to adulthood. But when she'd once prayed for a miracle, hope had done nothing for her except to destroy her.

The ale nudges her thoughts to dark places, and she has to bite her lip to shove memories of Drogo's dead eyes back into the deep recesses of her mind.]

Once in a lifetime. Yes.

[She tries to keep her voice even. If I look back, I am lost.]

I am glad you came back. I do not have many familiar things left in this city.

[That makes his expression shift from sympathy to curious disbelief.]

Really?

[He scoffs — Who, me? Are you sure? — and takes a drink of the ale, which is near the end of the bottle now.]

I’ll try not to disappoint you.

But there’s no saying there’s a limit on luck, good or bad. Three impossible things have happened to me in the last year. My sister coming to me at Castle Black was the least unlikely.

[It is easier to leave that one alone. Focusing too much on genuine emotion will just leave her vulnerable -- and that is not a place where she wants to be, just now.

However, she manages the slightest of scoffs when he mentions his impossible miracles and how many of them he has had. Uncanny.]

I hatched three dragons. Perhaps we have reached our limit. I suppose we will know for certain when one of us crosses the fourth threshold.