maskormenacelogs | Of Ice and Fire [Closed]

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Of Ice and Fire [Closed]

WHO: Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow
WHERE: The Forest Preserve in De Chima
WHEN: 6/26
WHAT: Jon's been less than honest
WARNINGS: None

They hadn't spoken since his revelation in the dreamscape, which had been intentional on his part. There were so many secrets he had tried to keep hidden, but had always known would eventually come to light. Never did he think it would be his omission about his title in the North. It hadn't been maliciously kept, but such things always managed to be unearthed. While he was accused of knowing nothing, he did know that this could lead to hostility on Daenerys' part. She had been gracious and kind since they met, to see that change would be disappointing, especially because of his error.

He sent her a message, choosing a location that could guarantee privacy and also be in the open. Drogon once flew nearby, when he was still feeding in De Chima. He hadn't been seen of late, likely having found a new place to roam. It seemed to be the best place for them to meet, even if it was in De Chima.

He arrived earlier than he said, unable to focus on the paperwork left in Lucy's absence. Instead, he returned home to wait for the time of the meeting to come. Once in the place he specified, he stared up towards the sky, expecting to hear Drogon or see his figure blot out the sun. All of it depending on if she decided to come. Nothing was guaranteed, not with a woman like Dany...

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He said five. By the time the coolness of the day is getting swallowed by the sky and the sun is sinking further into the horizon, that's when he sees it; the shape of a dragon in flight.

She's late. Or on time, depending on your perspective.

The black sails of Drogon's wings are wide and silent, until they are neither, tucking in and submitting to gravity in a controlled dive that is nonetheless fearsome to behold, that much muscle and tooth plummeting for the ground. His wings break his descent, back legs finding forest ground. His gold-red eye glitters to evaluate Jon, nostrils flaring, scenting his familiar mix of wolf and human sweat without aggression or concern. The woman, astride his back, looks less pleased.

Dany slides on leather boots down scaled shoulder to land on grass and dirt, with only a slight stagger. With a final pat to dragon hide, she starts towards Jon Snow, her expression hard and inscrutable.

Given the tone of his message, and the interim silence, this had better be good. And he doesn't appear to be bleeding.

Gods but what should he say to her? He had thought he had it in his mind, all he wished to express and explain, but it slide as easily from his mind as Daenerys from Drogon's back. Perhaps it was better that he left Ghost at home? Whatever comfort his wolf might have brought him, he would have sensed Jon's apprehension and discomfort. Drogon at least seemed to be tolerating Jon.

He bore no sword, dressed in the simple clothes of this world, black as always. This was an informal meeting, one he hoped would be regarded less hostilely than when she met with the King Slayer.

"My lady." He couldn't call her 'your grace' without some measure of irony now and he didn't want to test her patience by using her name. "Thank you for coming." There might have been a moment when he wondered if she would.

"I should have spoken with you sooner after those dreams." He was a craven and he wouldn't excuse it. "I didn't know how well I would be received."

To Jon's credit, there was no correct way to do that. The irony would not have been lost on her, and might have welcomed challenge; but all the same, its absence in lieu of this new formality is marked with a slight tip of her chin, and hefty silence.

Compared to Ser Jaime, His Grace is not on his knees, bound, in a place of her choosing, his life handled between her claws just to feel, although no doubt Drogon would make quick work of him if called upon. Dracarys is not anywhere close to her tongue, though.

No word seems to be.

Two years ago, maybe less, she would be speaking. Yelling, even, all in an effort to get ahead of her own racing mind. But in growing up, she's learned the trick of keeping her tongue still and allowing her mind to race where it may. For now, she only wishes to see what he says while she allows herself the time to choose her own words carefully, and considers him with icy appraisal.

Some claim of authority, exacted in prompting silence. She deigned to arrive, and the floor is his.

There weren't any illusions that she had the power in this meeting. He came to her unarmed and unescorted, a humble petitioner seeking her forgiveness. Her dragon was looming in the background, but forgotten in Jon's mind. His focus was locked on the icy countenance.

She had at least come and seemed willing to listen to him babble out some sort of an apology. He was no Kingslayer and he hadn't physically harmed her, but he had bruised her trust by keeping this from her. He knew his faults.

"Very few knew of the title I was given." He told her, though he doubted that mattered very much. "My men were bending the knee when I was brought here. There was no reason to reveal a title that I didn't seek and has no weight in this world."

It was a poor excuse and he knew it. What could he really say?

"I didn't keep this from you to deceive you, my lady."

Something in his words has her tipping her head, as attentive as a fawn on the hunt for some telling snap of undergrowth in the shadows. He's apologising, and she worries it in her mind, picking it clean, like a sharp bone.

When she speaks, it's almost sudden, on the back of his second my lady, stepping on its hems.

"You believe your deception, unintended or no, to lie in what you did not say," she says. "But you've yet to excuse your deception, unintended or no, in all you have said. You kept your title to yourself but spoke mine, until now. You led me to believe it had weight in this world when we spoke of the future of our own."

The undergrowth snaps beneath her feet as she closes some distance between them. "A man is made a lord with paperwork and wax seal. To become a king -- to become a queen -- is to transform."

"I meant what I said." He's quick to reply, his words insistent. "If we survive this battle, you are the one who should sit on the Iron Throne." She had the qualities of a ruler, something that he had seen from their first meeting. It was something in her that inspired others, that brought out love and loyalty. He had seen it in how Tyrion spoke of her and he felt it as well.

He holds her eyes as she nears him, neither flinching or drawing away. He had yet to see her angry, he knew. Yet it wasn't wise to discount that fire that seemed to burn beneath the surface.

"I know." He had felt transformed in that moment, standing to acknowledge the pledges of loyalty of his men. He had felt the same when he was named Lord Commander. "I didn't think it was my right to claim it." Not until now...

"You were born to be queen, I wasn't."

"I was born during one of the fiercest storms in Westerosi memory."

She folds her arms, having been unmoved by his reassurances -- if anything, a little irritated, although less at him and more at herself for having prompted such promises. Their reinforcement of what should be rather than what is feels, now, glaring.

But she continues to speak.

"I was born an orphan. I have memories of food scraps, and sleeping in hiding places, and warming myself only in the stories of queens and kings. I was born as chattel for my brother to sell in his campaign to retake the throne, and I was born to believe he had any chance of doing so, when he never did. It was he that made the mistake of thinking mere birthright owed him something.

"Neither of us were born to the honours we've earned, Jon Snow. I can believe you denied this to yourself before you kept it from me. But you kept it from me, when I have shared with you."

"Trust isn't something I have been able to give for the past year."

She was right. She had shared with him and he had been less than honest with her, even with his family as well. It was too much to carry and to shuffle in his head, remembering who knew what. He wasn't a man of deception by nature. Why did he insist then on keeping this and so much more to himself?

He cast his eyes up towards the tree tops, searching for signs of storm clouds. The heaviness in the air seemed to indicate there was a gale coming, or was it the tension between them? It was difficult to distinguish between them now.

"I was named Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, the youngest there has been." It had been an honor...once. "I accepted the title, I thought that it was my duty to protect and lead my men. With the coming threat, I offered land to the Free Folk in exchange for their help in the coming war." He met her eyes, hesitant and uncertain. He wasn't comfortable talking about himself, but she had shared so much with him, he should show her that same trust.

"The conflict between the Night's Watch and the Wildlings had lasted for centuries and I let those men, women and children through the Wall. I was a traitor to my brothers, so they lured me to the courtyard and stabbed me in the night." The thought of the daggers made his scars feel like they were on fire. He pressed his hand to his chest, feeling for his heartbeat.

"I did what I thought was right and I was murdered for it. After...a Red Priestess brought me back." There. It was out now between them, the full truth and his complete trust, however hard it was for him to give it. He would take that risk, even if she turned away from him now.

Her head tips once he begins to speak of his recent history, as if undecided whether she would hear it -- but ultimately, she wants to know, has more or less demanded to be told. Daenerys is still, arms still closing off her body language, her own gaze steady and kept inscrutable besides the tension strung between them.

A flicker, then, at news of the betrayal he endured.

And a renewed tension at his tale of resurrection. Her arms fall to her sides. Around them, the trees breathe. Her dragon is settled, save for the occasional restless twist of his long, leather tail. She absorbs this information in silence.

"For a purpose," she says, finally. A question.

A question he asked the Red Woman before, but received no answer on. "I don't know." He wishes he did. Maybe then he could understand why and how this happened. It had taken a long while to accept, but even longer to actually voice aloud to someone that wasn't there.

The air felt less heavy than before. The shift in her body language is noticed, but goes without comment. He could at least breathe easier. He had little fear of being devoured or burned by her dragon. It was her anger that unsettled him.

"It wasn't the first betrayal my House had known. My brother was named king as well and was murdered, one of his own bannermen allied with the Lannisters. Being King in the North is no great honor, but it is the only way I can unite the North, the Freefolk and the Vale to face against the dead."

He looked at her, almost imploring her to understand. "I don't want the Iron Throne. I want to trust you and to earn your trust as well, though I've made a sorry show of it."

A reluctant king, saddled with a worthy cause, with men who would believe in it. Less threat than it is complication, she remembers Tyrion's warning -- that to grant independence to one small nation might mean the larger ones clamouring to be free of the Iron Throne's rule also. Where Jon speaks of unity, Daenerys sees division. And she knows it is no fault of his, when the Lannisters have so poisoned the rule of her kingdoms, causing ruin and fragmentation.

But he did keep it from her, even while he makes plain the nature of his secrecy.

"I know it is no easy thing to trust," she says, finally. "As many times as I could speak of the victories I have won, I could speak of the men who have lied to me. For their own good, or worse still, for mine." Some of them have died. Some of them have found relief in the shade of her forgiveness.

There is much to think about, and she does not wish to come to some conclusion here, in this meeting place where she was so coarsely summoned. She turns, headed back towards Drogon.

Slows, stops. Turns back to Jon.

"It would do you well, my lord, not to underestimate the honour of being named King in the North," she says, voice raising to account for distance. Grim-humoured, she adds; "I won't."

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Of Ice and Fire [Closed]

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