dragonwarder | (no subject)

Yes.

[She looks at the bottle of ale that she's finished and reaches for another from the collection he had brought. She is going to need it, if she is going to tell this story.

And even still, she is not certain she can tell the whole thing. Not yet.]

It was the eve of my husband's funeral. He'd fallen prey to infection, from a wound he took defending my honor. I'd sought help from a healer, but ... she had betrayed my trust.

[She chances a glance at Jon, and forces herself to hold his gazen. He will surely think her a monster -- and maybe she was. But it was the truth of what she had done, and she did not regret it. No one would understand.

And that was fine. But she would own her decisions, especially given what they had lead to.]

In exchange for his life, I took her's upon his funeral pyre and Drogon, Viserion, and Rhaegal were born.

[He can tell that she’s trying to hold his gaze, but when she tells him the truth of it, his expression turns troubled, and abruptly, he looks... anywhere else. Off into the trees around them, frowning.

Daenerys must have been very young when this happened; she’s still rather young now.]

She killed him? Did she think to go free, after something like that?

[Or had she been daring the rest of the khal’s followers, or his young widow, to kill her?]

No. I am sure she expected to die. Her village...the Dothraki had raided it. I had stopped them from taking many of the women, including her.

[Her jaw shifts, and her eyes drop away from Jon down to the bottle of ale. She has not drank a drop, even though she knows it would help with this story. Perhaps that was why she was avoiding it.]

It was why Drogo had taken his wound. One of his warriors had become angry with my how I exercised what little authority and sway I had, and Drogo defended my right to do so.

[Out of her nose comes a tired exhale.]

My act of kindness was not enough to forgive what had been done to her kin, I suppose. She wanted to die, and she wanted to leave with her spit in my eye.

[He’s quiet for a long moment.

Vengeance, not quite misplaced, leading to a young wife’s fury, he supposes. He’d learned about the Dothraki as a boy... that they fight mounted and without fear... but not the inner workings, any more than he’d understood much about wildlings before he met any. He does not know what the other riders would have done to the woman if Daenerys had not. The Dothraki are the scourge of the Free Cities and beyond, and, well... this woman who had betrayed Daenerys, he understands her a little because he had known Olly.

And because, in the end, he’d hanged Olly.

He reaches for another bottle of ale.]

That sort of justice, it’s never easy. It shouldn’t sit light on you.

But you wouldn’t be the first ruler to have executed a murderer.

On the contrary, it sits quite lightly on me. Drogo's death and my unborn son's murder...those are what sit heavily upon me.

[She had only spoken to two other people of Rhaego -- it seemed odd to think of him anymore, now that she had reared three dragons. But, much as she liked to think, rearing them and rearing the blood of her blood ... it was not the same.

Still, she does not have a problem admitting her sin, even if she does not look Jon in the eye when she says it. The witch's death was not a death she regretted, by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, sometimes, she wishes she could play it over again. And again. And again.

Whenever she was angry, as if it would somehow heal it, she wants to do it again. And that is the urge she must constantly fight.]

Those people Cersei squeezes dry every moment she sits upon the Throne, the sacrifices my people will make to take it from her so that others may know their freedom, every moment I spend here and not there...there are things more concerning than one unavoidable death.

Edited 2020-02-27 06:21 (UTC)

[Her unborn son.... That turns his look penetrating, not sure what she means, but still not horrified.

Can he say that Janos Slynt’s death weighed heavy on him? No, and the man had done nothing but refuse an order... but in a way that could have brought the whole Night’s Watch, and then all seven kingdoms, to ruin. He had been a necessary example.

It hadn’t forestalled a mutiny, but it had been necessary.]

And the Army of the Dead. That, too.

[But he says this gently. It’s another thing she’ll have to face.]

This healer might have chosen differently if she’d known she would give you dragons.

[But something about all of this teases at him, prodding at the edges of his mind. The eggs had been old, dead, they must have been, and they had been brought to life in a fire.

He had been dead once too, and the Lord of Light had brought him back, or so it seems. A god he doesn’t believe in - a god of fire.

He drinks some ale down in one big gulp.]

[The Army of the Dead. Yes, that too, if it even existed. She decides not to press it.]

I doubt that very much. They are miracles themselves, after all.

[Suddenly, again, she misses them -- her dragons. The palm not wrapped around the neck of the bottle opens and closes thoughtfully, and she can see the imprint of where scales had wanted to grow earlier when her anger had started to rise.

A cruel jest of this world, to curse her with their skin instead of their presence.]

A pity they are all male.

All of them? But they’ll live a long time. Didn’t Balerion come out from Valyria before the Doom?

[That’s what he remembers.]

My father, he had the maester at Winterfell give me all the same lessons as his trueborn children. So when I was a boy, I wanted to be Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, or young king Daeron who conquered Dorne. All the stories of your family.

[And now, it occurs to him that he’s met every last living Targaryen.]

I knew your great uncle. The last Aegon’s brother. He was the maester at Castle Black. A good man.

And after that, they will be gone. Unless they are hiding more eggs in Asshai.

[Daenerys smiles ruefully as Jon recounts the stories of her ancestors. Each of them, their light snuffed out like a dying candle. How many Targaryens had lived to an old age, to see their children grow healthy before some tragedy befell them?

Enough, and not enough. She would certainly leave no legacy. After her, the Targaryen line would die for good. A true pity.

She has to think for a moment, of which ancestor Jon speaks of last. It had been so long since she'd recited the family tree. Viserys had abandoned the practice long before she became of age herself, and so her memory was spottier than she would have liked.

But she traces the name from "the last Aegon" after a few long moments.]

Aemon.

[She notices how he uses past tense. But then, she had long operated under the assumption that she was the last living Targaryen, so the news does not wound her. She had not even known that he was alive, so what was there to mourn?]

I never knew him. I knew very little of my family. I was but a babe when we were forced to flee Dragonstone into exile.

[It occurs to her suddenly that it is unlikely much of Westeros knew how she had survived, or what exactly had happened in the wake of the Rebellion. Or that they even cared.

Now is the time to drink the ale, to hide the bitter smile that comes to her lips.]

Aemon, [he agrees, his face brightening a little.] I owe him my life.

[But he sees the way she sips at the ale.]

He went up to Castle Black long ago, when his brother became king. He was also the oldest man I’ve ever met. Blind by the time I knew him, and for a long time before. But wise, and kindly.

Dragonstone... how do you find it now?

Complicated.

[It was, after all, where she had been born...and where her mother had died. And though she had no clear memories of the entire affair, something about it had subconsciously stuck with her. Enough to make her emotional, when she witnessed those dark halls.

She had not been there very long, but the throne — it had felt right. More correct than she imagined the Iron Throne might feel. If she had the choice, she would move the capital back there.

The dragons would certainly like it better. Perhaps she would consider it.]

But...correct. The dragons love the sea, and the open skies.

[He hesitates over whether or not to say this next thing.]

I was looking forward to seeing it, and seeing them. My journey — I was born somewhere down south, don’t know where. But since then, I’ve never left the North.

It’s the other reason why I went to Everest. To see some of this world. No dragons there, but —

[He shrugs, half-humorously. Maybe that would be expecting too much.

As to the false pretenses of his journey, there’s nothing either of them can do for that just now.]

When we took back Winterfell — that was complicated.

I am sure you will see a dragon before too long.

[Though...perhaps not anytime soon. It was never a happy time for her, when the dragon came calling. But he does not need to share those burdens with her.

Besides, he says something more interesting not long after.]

How do you mean?

The Boltons betrayed my brother to take the North for themselves. Before that, Theon Greyjoy betrayed him to take Winterfell for the Ironborn. When we took it back... no one I’d known there as a child still lived, other than Sansa. Not even the cook or the smith.

[He’s already spoken on this a little, back when he tried to explain why the Northerners were done with southron rulers. But this is more personal, now.]

We rode through the North looking for support and found it lacking... some because they regretted supporting Robb, some because the bulk of the force was made up of wildlings. They didn’t hate Bolton as much — at least he was a Northman, even if he’d sold the Starks out to the Lannisters for his own gain.

Even so, we nearly lost. We would have lost, if it hadn’t been for the support of my sister’s cousin in the Vale. Bolton was executed, I gave him to Sansa to kill, but then there is always the matter of how many lords there are to please at a time when I can’t await on their pleasure; even a normal winter would be troublesome, would have required preparation that’s been set aside while people fought amongst themselves, but this won’t be a normal winter. And then there is the fact of so many changes. The Boltons did considerable rebuilding. It’s the home I remember, but it’s changed. And I was only in it for a few moons before I left it.

[It is something she sympathizes with. Granted, her khalasar had ridden with her for many moons, as had Jorah and the Unsullied and Barristan (Gods rest his soul). She’d built a family from nothing.

She remembered what it was like, to yearn for the familiar. Even when the familiar was poison.]

Yes. I imagine that was very hard for you, and for Lady Sansa.

[She understands a bit better why the North might balk at Jon’s decision to bend the knee without consultation, though it does not endear her to his denial any better. There was too much at stake for them to be so stubborn in the matters of sovereignty.]

Forgive me. I should not have pried.

[Ultimately, it amounted to nothing, and only made Jon relive that which could not be altered.]

[He shakes his head and half-smiles, but it’s a smile that has no happiness in it.]

You weren’t prying. I spoke willingly. Returning to a home you lost may always be complicated: that was my meaning.

But I’m grateful to have had a home, a family, to have been taught things. I might as easily have been made a servant, to clean Robb’s boots and bow to Bran, when they still lived. I wasn’t raised to be a king, but I wasn’t raised to be a kennel boy or a horse groom, either.

[He doubts that she was raised to be a queen. Likely, they’ve both had to find their way as well as they could with what they did have. He couldn’t lay claim to a name like she could, but the fact of who his father was had gone far enough for it not to matter, in the absence of living trueborn Stark sons.]

It was never much of a home. The first home I remember--

[Her voice tapers. Why is she telling Jon any of this? When did she start to feel so at ease? She glances momentarily at the bottle in her hand, as if remembering its presence, and reconsiders her train of thought.]

I suppose it doesn't matter.

[But she does find the way that he imparts his treatment by the Starks to be interesting. He was, after all, no trueborn son. It was somewhat remarkable that he was afforded the same privileges as all the rest of Ned Stark's children.

She could not help but wonder how his mother had taken that.]

I know of few lords who would show such respect to their bastard children. But I suppose I do not know many northmen.

[She thinks of Jorah briefly, her brows pinching. With all of his guilt and all that had lead him to her, would he have treated a bastard son so kindly?]

[He finds himself curious about this first home, curious about Essos, curious about a world he hasn’t seen. But equally, it isn’t right to pry. His look of interest shifts into one that almost seems chastened: Right, you don’t want to tell me that. Why would she?

They move on to the subject of his upbringing.]

You wouldn’t have to know many northmen. It isn’t the usual way. Maybe if there are no other sons, and the lord has no wife. But often not even then.

The world isn’t kind to bastard-born children. I can’t imagine that Essos is any kinder.

Edited (Typos!) 2020-02-29 20:22 (UTC)

On the contrary.

[To say Essos was kind to its bastard children wouldn’t be strictly correct — but they were certainly less offended by their existance.]

Kingdoms in Essos oft have greater concerns than bastard born children.

[Still, the way Jon broaches the topic gives her enough of an answer. The love had come from his father’s insistance. and his mother —

Well. She does not need to pry.]

And yet a bastard has been crowned King in the North. I would call that ironic.

[Ah. She shouldn’t be pushing this. Logically, even without her advisors, she knows this. She could feel Tyrion a world away pressing his face into his palm tiredly. But she had worked too hard to already have Kingdoms resisting her coming.

Before he can rebuke her for her cold heart, she moves to stand.]

We should be getting back before our absence is noted.

[He isn’t sure how to react to what she’s just said. Over the years, as he grew from boyhood to manhood and once he was away from his father’s care and protection, more than one person had tried to use his birth to insult him. Too many for it to matter after a while: why should he care if they called him what he is? Them calling his father a traitor eventually had more power to anger him.

But he isn’t even sure that’s what she means. She is self-possessed; her manner so far is mostly mild and firm, sometimes flatter or sharper or a little more fierce, not giving much away. She doesn’t seem given to insinuations. He already knows that she thinks the North should be hers — but it’s no fault of his that her family had failed to hold it.]

We should. [But he hasn’t finished the salad, or his second bottle of ale, and doesn’t yet move to stand.]

I could call myself Jon Stark if I wanted. There’s no one to stop me. But I don’t, and I won’t. It’s a lie, but beyond that, I want every Snow in the North to know that their king was bastard-born. I want them to know it’s no dishonor... the same for the Stones and the Hills and the Rivers and Flowers if they hear of it. [He stares at her, emphatic, wondering if she can possibly understand — asking her to.] I know you and I aren’t the same, and I mean no disrespect, but — you’re more than they wanted you to be when you were a child, too.

Edited 2020-03-01 10:39 (UTC)

[Truthfully, she never cared for the politics of power in regards to bastard children. Of course, she knew the dangers, just as any Targaryen would. Still, she listens without further comment, staring at him for a touch longer than perhaps is proper. You're more than they wanted you to be when you were a child, too.

If only he'd known how close his words had cut her, and in how many different ways. He certainly isn't wrong.]

More than they bargained for.

[It is a gentle correction. She was never anything but what she was -- and she has a hard time imagining anyone wanted anything for her. All she was to most was a trophy to trade about -- until she became too large for any of them to carry.]

[If she stares at him for longer than is proper, he does the same to her.

Back when he was a boy, he felt that his birth made it easier -- and important -- for him to understand people just by watching and listening. He's had cause to doubt his skill at it, seven daggers' worth of cause, but still, he knows he is more perceptive than many he meets.

He wouldn't say that he understands her now, but he does understand her better than he had when he knocked on her door a few hours ago. The fact that he feels like he knows her better than he did comes into his look now, but so does a hint of curiosity.

She isn't much like anyone he's ever met. He knows that much. Not a marriage prize, like most highborn girls, but a queen in her own right. Without breaking his gaze, he nods, small and slow, in agreement.]

Aye. More than they bargained for.

[More than he had, too. What exactly had he been expecting, when he was summoned to meet someone, a woman even younger than him, who had been given the name The Mother of Dragons? Not this.

He finds another place to look -- down at the ale in his hand.]

Who's going to notice our absence?

[He is of little importance in New Amsterdam.]

[She allows him to hold her gaze while he muddles through his thoughts.]

It is the magic of this place. The sort that lets us send pictures to one another with a mere thought.

[Though Jon looks away, she does not. Her eyelids lower slightly as she recants the memory — of conversations she’d had with others, about the possibility that they were being watched or tracked. Nobody had a convincing answer for her.

It was easy for a queen to be paranoid about such things.]

The Displaced are not often thought of kindly, anymore. It would serve you well to remember that there are many here who seek to make our lives difficult in any way they can.

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and in this tag, we feature irony

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