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WHO: Daenerys Targaryen and Arthur Pendragon.
WHERE: Heropa.
WHEN: Right now!!
WHAT: They go jogging. That's it that's the log.
WARNINGS: Everyone's cute, here.

Daenerys arrives readier than one might expect, in good running shoes, coordinated figure-hugging athletic wear of breathable microfibre mesh panels in fashionable slate grey, her hair tamed back into a single silver braid. Barely visible in the dawn light, the imPort tattoo signals her as a registered hero.

None of this makes her any better at sustained jogging than the next royal.

But she has energy, and a competitive streak, and the air is still cool from the evening at this hour, filling her lungs as they make their casual run down empty sidewalks. There will be hours, still, before she must make an appearance at work, and the only rush she is in is seeing that her bouncing steps keep pace with Arthur's, while her braid swings like a restless pony's tail. Her mind might be elsewhere, if she were not so conscious of the burn of her breath in her lungs and the songs of protest plucking at her ligaments.

She glances at her current companion, judging his pace and stamina against her own. They're very nearly at the end of their route, which is something of a small mercy. Nevertheless, by the time they close on the final corner, the innercity green in sight, she launches off into a full run.

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Jogging is its own kind of hell, but in absence of daily rounds all over his corner of the city and practice at George's, it's what he's doing at a minimum. That he has company today is a bit of a surprise, but that's apparently what he gets for underestimating Daenerys's dedication to being in the ideal shape to learn how to punch people--

A breathless laugh escapes him as she bolts ahead.

That's one way to be done when you want to be. Arthur has to navigate around some slower-moving pedestrians who've appears in the span of seconds that separate them, but he pushes ahead at a faster clip to be at her heels, ground beneath their feet transitioning from pavement to grass, crackling and kicking up lingering morning dew. The invisible finish line is a patch of shade off a path and within exhausted-crawling-distance of a drinking fountain, quickly coming into view.

With something like a finish line in sight, finding the will to sprint that last distance is an easier thing. She can feel more than hear or see Arthur gaining on her, and is tempted to cheat by cutting across or managing a push, but suspects that either thing would end in a collision in which she would come out the poorer.

She runs, slows once she hits shade, and halts with her hands on her knees, blood singing in her veins as she gasps out a breath. It's equal parts a laugh, turning her face just enough to see how Arthur fared.

"How is it that this build strength," she says, between laboured breathing, "when all I wish to do now is collapse?"

Arthur slows, his own breathing harsh but mostly from the sudden sprint-- he comes to a stop and then takes a long breath, letting it out in a bit of a laugh.

"The trick is doing it enough so you don't want to collapse after," is half-panted as his heart rate settles back down. "Collapsing's fine, though, just get some water first."

The sweat that's broken out of his skin feels good, like clean accomplishment, even if it's making his shirt stick to him by now. He's not nearly so fashionable as he companion for the morning but he'll get by, having caved to rounding up suitable modern attire for it. There's something to be said for the shoes; much easier than making the same path in stitched-up leather, though there are no complaints when you don't know anything different.

"In through your nose. See, bet you coulda gone for another hour."

"Only if you had a mind to carry me back in a wagon, ser."

Water sounds like an excellent idea, though, out of all of the ideas that Arthur has had since they met. Daenerys straightens up, rolling some of the gathered tension out of her shoulders as she heads first for the drinking fountain, which is one of those modern items she's seen used but hasn't used herself.

There's a little experimental trial and error before she risks leaning in to slake her thirst. For all her gentle complaining, the physical exertion and the simple pleasure of things like cool water in her mouth are good and uncomplicated experiences. Her heart rate and breathing are both quick to normalise, not so unfit as she pretends.

Pushing away to make room, she finds a place to sit, letting out a breath of relief for the weight to be off her feet.

"Running away for a sustained amount of time is one form of self defense," she supposes, stretching her legs out in front of her, easing into halves at the waist.

"I've outrun my fair share of people who've wanted to do me harm," is agreement after taking a drink. Arthur yanks his t-shirt off over his head, knocking his hair into further disarray only to splash water on his face and push his hand through blonde locks to slick it back into place. The fountain water is nicely cool still, and he holds his shirt under the spray for a moment to squeeze out before he pulls it back on.

Plumbing is truly fascinating.

Anyway.

Arthur flops down near her, stretching to be had. "I hated the maintenance grind," he admits, "until I got comfortable and started slacking. Ended up on my arse over it, then never again. Once was enough."

"Speaking as someone who has endured it for only a day, I don't think I mind it."

She is probably not talking about Arthur's nicely sculpted back or anything, because he is once again beshirted and sitting with her, dripping. Plumbing is truly fascinated.

Anyway.

She can touch her ankles with her hands and curls there comfortably. She isn't sure she can put to words the distraction of physicality from the other directions her mind moves to, at all times, without it sounding foolish or trite. Instead, she rolls back onto her back, a knee bent in against her torso.

"I take it you've not always had a magic sword. Or do you only choose to use it in defense of others, even when you're--" How did he put it. "On your arse."

Arthur's smile is lopsided, and about her inquiry, not flexibility. He doesn't answer right away, though there's no sense that he's truly hesitating - just rolling around options for how to explain. Daenerys can't know how just how inexperienced he is when it comes to discussing the finer points of the bizarre turn his life's taken.

"I do choose to use it sparingly," he admits, fingers curled around the flat of his foot, leg extended, chest against his knee. (Oof.) "What am I going to do with it day to day? Finely slice cheese? It's overkill for nearly everything, and I don't like relying on anything besides myself. Things like that will never be foolproof."

A pause for straightening the spine, exhaling.

"But no, I've not always had it."

This feels like one of those conversations. It's the kind of conversation that Daenerys has had several times since she arrived in this land, the sort of half-way, half-formed conversation that steps widely around secrets as well as stories that, once one thread is pulled, just unravels wildly and no one has any wine on hand to get through it, or enough stamina to continue texting about it.

Her smile, therefore, is small and knowing, lacing her fingers against her knee.

"Then you must tell me it came into your possession," she says, simply, in the tone of someone who expects this not to be the last time they'll ever see each other. She switches out legs, folding the other. "I will not think too badly of you if you stole it."

"I seem the type, don't I." Said in good humor. Whether or not she's joking-- he knows he does seem so, and is neither embarrassed about it nor offended when someone notices.

Arthur thinks about how people in her broadcast were calling her your grace. He's not an idiot, he understands. But it's at odds with his first impression of her, and he has a hard time imagining her growing up in a palace and coming out of it with instincts like he saw when they met. Then again, what the fuck does he actually know about proper royalty? And what does he know about any other country, culture, world?

"Does everyone that gets taken here have their own utterly mad story," he wonders aloud, instead of telling her anything about the sword. At first. "I hope your fireproof one is completely mundane."

A Joke, Probably. No one finds out they're immune to fire through means that aren't also fire.

Deciding not to hesitate overmuch: "It belonged to King Uther Pendragon." There's a verbal shrug in there. He already told her it's a family heirloom and he doesn't expect she's an idiot, either.

Daenerys doesn't confirm either way, on her own mundanity score -- but the small, crooked smile she gives probably does it on her behalf. She is sitting upright again by the time he makes his way to it, knees out, heels pressing together.

She tips her head, and does the easy math.

It takes a certain sort of background and bias to then ask; "Did you know him?" The silent pronunciation to that is as much well as it is at all. He didn't, after all, say my father (or brother, or ancestor) -- which only suggests something of the circumstance rather than the legitimacy.

It's an astute question. He feels slightly uncomfortable talking about himself this way, some nameless feeling that rests as a mix of the perception of selfishness and a want for privacy-- but he imagines lying to her about it, knowing that by omission counts, and that strikes him as worse. Not because of any early-manifesting personal resonances, but just because he knows it'll turn into a headache down the line if he keeps it up. It is not actually that big of a deal, he reminds himself; everything here is bloody crazy, and half the users of the network have one title or another.

Arthur shakes his head, and shrugs one shoulder. "I wasn't yet three years old when he and his queen were killed. Whatever memories are just--" he gestures absently, dismissively. "Shit I thought was daydreams and nightmares, a kid in a gutter playing pretend. They're as good as, for as clearly as I remember any of it."

(He has spoken to Uther's ghost, met his eyes and gained his approval, and he has watched Igraine die over, and over, and over. But these are technicalities, and truly no one's business but his own.)

There is a moment when Daenerys' expression shifts from gentle, inquiring curiousity, the beginnings of sympathy tugging at her brow -- and then, like a ghost passing through a grave, recognition of something. All at once, the damp, neatly cultivated grass beneath her, the lycra on her skin, the rumble of early morning traffic, all become fundamentally strange as her sense of the familiar alters. There are moments when the concept of being here, of all of them being here, is just peculiar, something to laugh over; other times, she wonders how they keep their wits, day to day.

The moment of vertigo passes, and she says, "Forgive me, if I've pried. You have my condolences." She hesitates, before she offers, as if in explanation, trade off, or a desire to empathise; "I never properly knew my parents either."

At the heart of political revolutions, of betrayal, of royal lineages being executed like the head off a snake, her most profound, oldest sense of it is that one simple loss.

Arthur makes an easy permissive gesture with one hand. No forgiveness needs asked for; if he didn't want to answer, he wouldn't. Even with the discomfort, he'd rather get used to it - the way he is at home, his confidence, is combative and challenging. Daring barons and lords to do something about the born-king and his unflattering upbringing. Just this, talking with a peer, should be so much easier.

And yet.

I never properly knew my parents either, she says, and for a long moment Arthur just looks at her. Perhaps experiencing some of that same vertigo beneath the steadiness he wears so naturally.

"You traveled," he says, hearkening back to the first conversation they shared. "That why?"

She nods.

But doesn't leave it there. Picking up the story in her mind, viewing it from alternative angles. There are many ways it can be told, and there are many ways it has been told to her. In truth, her story comes later. Her stretches, meanwhile, have ceased save for the occasional ankle roll.

"My father was slain when I was still within my mother's womb," she explains. "She was forced into exile, and so was I. And my brother. She died, having me, and so it was he and I for a long time. Returning to Westeros with anything short of an army would have meant our deaths, or worse."

Mad stories, like he says. Hers is not often shared, due to its specific kind of madness, but she doesn't hold onto it, either, when it seems right to tell it.

"As you can imagine, we were ever travelling," she says, a touch wry, the smallest upturn of her mouth. "Essos had its gutters as well."

An unexpected number of things to unpack, this morning jog has resulted in. Arthur feels ancient. Days seemed so much longer as a child, but surely the past six months of his life are unnaturally condensed. Less than a year ago he was a street boss who would die that way. The strange mix of curiosity, relief, and understanding he feels listening to Daenerys makes him realize - for the first time - just how isolated the experience and position has made him. He's felt it, he just hadn't realized that's what it was, because feelings have never factored too significantly into anything he's done. His life has never afforded him such a luxury - before or after.

He also thinks: Ah. You make sense, now.

Arthur looks at her with his eyebrows raised, expression incredulous. Not at her story but the fact that it exists-- and his, too. He doesn't think he needs to vocalize anything about the improbability of their meeting, as surely she's thinking the same thing.

"Sounds like a rough go," he says. "I got the courtesy of blissful ignorance on all sides."

He didn't know who he was, and neither did anyone else.

Incredulous look is met with one that agrees without mirroring it, eyes crinkled at the corners and smile mild. They speak of wounding things, but things that have been given time to heal or to scar, variously. That, and Daenerys knows that as far as her own stories go, this is merely the phantom that heralds the rest.

She suspects the same of Arthur. The past catching up to someone is always a story in itself.

Perhaps the rest can wait for a pilates session.

"I suppose so," Daenerys agrees, on that note. "But I can't imagine that revelations as to your lineage likewise came as a courtesy. I've had a long time to get used to the idea."

"It was a weird day," he confirms, exhaling in a laugh because-- understatement of the century, which is obvious. Arthur's not trying to downplay anything, it's just all fucking crazy. What can he say? Not cough up the whole tale. A dozen reasons, but biggest of all, it just doesn't feel necessary.

In time, maybe. (Almost certainly.)

Arthur pushes a hand through his hair, rubs the back of his neck. It's brighter out now, morning coming through in full force. More people are milling about, cutting through the park on their way to work or enjoying their own early strolls.

"We gotta figure out what else we have in common," he tells her, a softer smile tugging at his mouth. "'Murdered royal parents' is a bit much for chat at the pub. We'll need to sort-- food allergies and rude limericks."

She smiles, a sudden kind of brightness when Daenerys is often all subtlety — but she also, more often than not, finds it impossible to govern her expressions, so a smile it is. "Misfortunes with automobiles," she suggests. "Those we knew, of home, and miss."

There's relief to be had in coming to an understanding so early. She'd waited long with Sam Merlotte, had veered from disaster with Gwen Wynne-York over shopping and wine to ensure she didn't trip over the tangled web that is Westeros, had wielded it like a tool in gaining something like alliance with Dr Chilton, and with so many others, spoke only lightly of the shadows of the world she came from.

Everyone has their own mad story, of course. Hers only seems to touch so much of the life she had, before America.

"Have you anyone here, from your world?"

Daenerys has a staggeringly top quality smile, some half-subconscious part of Arthur's brain notes and files away; for someone who holds herself with such presence and grace it seems a little like stacking the deck unfairly. Maybe she just doesn't crack ear-to-ear ones that often. Which is an unfortunate potential.

Arthur laughs lowly about misfortunes with automobiles. Yep, that sure is a thing. "Horses stop when you tell 'em to most of the time," he faux-complains. "Cars don't ever stop when you tell 'em to." Major design flaw, in his opinion.

The ease with which they push away from heavy discussion - lacking in any stumbling awkwardness or forced-polite apologies - is bolstering. He could easily confirm his identity to any of the people making jokes about Merlin or what-have-you at him, but there's been something about the thought of it that's made him ornery about it. The feeling of being a zoo animal, perhaps. In contrast, his footing is sure, here. They're on an even keel and he's as real as she is.

"If there is anyone, I'm not aware of it." Arthur shrugs. "I don't know everybody from my world. But there's no-one I've found that I recognize, no. You, though - I reckon you've got company."

The similarities between horses and cars and the driving thereof cannot be over-emphasised, but. She's yet to experience a horse-on-horse collision, so there's obviously something to it.

"I do," she confirms, the sound and motion of a leashed dog getting a glance from her as it goes by. As the morning lurches into peak hour, she is aware she should be headed towards her place of employment. But then again, if she's late, what are they going to do: fire her? "Most of them are strangers to me, save through reputation."

Advisers of Usurpers, daughters of enemies. It isn't light conversation, either, but given what she's told him of her own situation, it can likely be divined without her having to draw a diagram.

"Ambassador Baelish of Maurtia Falls, was the first of our world to come here. I was the third. There seems to be a new one each moon, only to vanish just as often."

She isn't sure what it is about her world that seems to intrigue the Porters so, but it only reinforces her view as to the strange temporariness of this place. It doesn't make her sad, but it does ring an odd note within her. She has friends here, now, for better or worse.

Edited 2017-09-04 06:22 (UTC)

Arthur makes a thoughtful noise, indeed guessing that maybe persons worthy of reputations are persons she might not be thrilled to see. He's not sure it would be the same for him - he knows the names of plenty of royals and lords in Europe, but hasn't met many. The chances of more than the ones nearby in England having heard what befell Vortigern and who replaced him are slim. It'd make them ships passing in the night, here, and he thinks he'd be all right with that.

"Maybe whatever magic - excuse me, 'science' - runs those things is trying to compensate for the overwhelming number of people from something like Earth instead of your Westeros, but is really bad at it."

Nothing with godlike powers can be infallible, after all. Even gods.

He adds lightly, "I met Baelish. What a weirdo."

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