maskormenacelogs | semi-open.

[ It's raining in Pennsylvania. Silver drives down in stops and starts, coming down with a sudden hiss before relenting again. Quick feet between the taxicab now gliding away and the front door of Jorah Mormont's home means that Daenerys can escape the worst of it, and by the time she's found shelter at the front door, rain has only just started to glitter in her woollen coat. Once again, she's set aside the gown she'd arrived in in favour of more practical, more discreet items of clothing, bright silver braids notwithstanding.

She places her hand flat against the door, then curls it into a fist, and knocks twice. Her other hand grips her communications device, hidden in the pocket of her coat.

It feels as though the world should feel just out of rhythm as she, but she could hear the resignation in Jorah's voice, the semi-familiar sounds of his place of work behind it. Nothing has changed, and only a short time has transpired in comparison to her days, her weeks. It's something she reminds herself as she waits. ]

[ The contrast between the Jorah she left behind in Essos and the one that answers the door is as sharp as it is superficial -- cuts and scuffs long since healed over, trace evidence of his time in the pit and Vaes Dothrak etched in scar tissue.

He’s wearing a heavy cloak over his armor, beard scratched in thick for the winter. Now more than ever, he looks the part of a Northman. ]

Khaleesi.

[ The way he says it hasn’t changed, subdued in close quarters, and under odd circumstances. Being in deep enough shit to draw her out into Maurtia Falls is a novelty he hadn’t aspired to.

He pulls the door open to admit her, with a narrow squint across the street for onlookers.

It’s raining. There aren’t any. ]

[ The way she looks at him, in a moment that stretches on a little longer than it ought, indicates she's noting those differences, as if in search for something -- but ultimately, if she could find the answers she was after merely by looking at him, she needn't come all the way out here. That, and less identifiable causes and reasons have her giving him a small, tight smile of greeting, and stepping inside.

Up the stairs and into Jorah's den, Daenerys takes a moment to look around, just a glance, taking note of book spines and their titles. A moment later, she opts to shed her coat, and fold it over an arm.

Despite her attempt not to convey a sense of urgency-- ]

What was the last thing you remember from our world? [ They'd had this conversation, she knows, but they'd been circling each other -- or she had -- and the specifics had eluded them. Now, she is more precise; ] The very last thing.

[ Jorah endures her scrutiny in silence, feeling her out in milder kind from on high. As much as he dreads trouble, eye to eye, the utter lack of any anxiety in him for her hand in his fate might be the greatest tell. And that’s been missing all along.

He follows at a distance, same as ever, rounding out awkwardly at the top of the stairs. It’s a cramped space for a queen to visit, cool and dark in the corners, sparsely furnished. The bloodstained books are Moby Dick and The Hobbit. Most of the others are fictional adventures in similar veins. There are a few books on science. Geography. A few on history. ]

I remember you riding for Meereen at the head of your Khalasar.

[ He should offer to take her coat, and lies instead.

More of a shift of frame, really, meaningless in the scheme of things. She knows or she doesn’t. ]

[ Daenerys nods. Eyebrows drawn taut. The living quarters are small, especially when compared to the chambers of stone and bronze they grew accustomed to, for a time, but she is small too, made smaller in her soft blouse and straight cut jeans. She stands in the centre of the offered space, her hand fidgeting a little with the wool of her coat as she considers him very seriously.

Fire, he had said. And blood. ]

And did you do as I commanded? [ she asks. There's no pointed look at his arm -- he must remember what she said to him last, as she remembers it, now, all at once. ] Will you--

[ Another broken sentence, and with an in-drawn breath, she reshapes her words into something simply; ]

Are you healed?

Once I’ve found a cure in our world, perhaps. [ He’s just set off into the sand, there, riding alone. Tempting as it is to dwell in that uncertainty, he moves to cross for the kitchen, finally, where there’s still a full growler of beer. And one that’s nearly empty. ]

The damage hasn’t progressed since I arrived in this one.

[ He pops the stopper, and forces enough of a smile to pass for brackish good cheer on that account. A little cavalier. ]

At least we needn’t worry about Lord Baelish getting overly attached.

[ Daenerys almost makes the effort in return, just a twinge of tension about the eyes and the corners of her mouth that might suggest the beginnings of forced smile, but she banishes the attempt before it can begin. It's not the yes she'd been hoping for.

And another thing-- ]

You didn't see fit to tell me, [ she notes, more sedate than accusatory. Resigned, almost. Of course he didn't. She can count on her fingers the reasons he might have for keeping his condition to himself -- whether to protect her, always to protect her, or because it didn't present itself as a pressing matter in need of disclosure, or pride, an unwillingness to seem pitiable -- but it doesn't mean she has to be thrilled about it.

She takes a breath, and her attempt to stifle her feelings of grief, tinged as they are in remorse, has the opposite effect. It finds a new location.

And thus pierces Jorah like an arrow, sudden, just as she is saying; ]

We live in a universe of plenty, now, populated by people from unlimited worlds. I could find for you healers-- doctors-- who may help, especially if it causes you pain.

I did. [ He pours one pint and then another before plugging the stopper back in, game to drink them both if she denies the offer. ] In the hills beyond Vaes Dothrak. [ When the time was right.

Before he can set himself against counter argument, her grief squeezes him to a stop. Eye line broken and throat closed, he stands with his wrist set forgotten over the growler.

Maintaining composure is a largely invisible struggle with self-control. He manages a hazy, ] Ehm, [ when he registers the kitchen silence pressing in, still hard-pressed to swallow, and disoriented as a half-drowned horse. Sodden through with emotion he hasn’t spent much time examining. Personally.

In the end, by instinct or by some discrete detection by his power, he circles his way back around the bar to her, near enough to close his right hand around hers. It’s warm, and coarse, and he coaxes her fingertips carefully away from the wool underneath.

He also keeps his left side angled away. ]

There’s no pain.

[ He’s telling the truth, firm in the way he usually is around unpleasant truths. ] I don’t have any wine, but a warlock brought beer over for Christmas. [ Which is a thing that exists. ]

Edited (thpt) 2017-01-07 10:47 (UTC)

[ The touch is permitted, and returned, her hand clasping his in a more delicate touch. She ordinarily runs just as warm, but coming in from the cold puts a little chill in her bones. Besides that, her posture and poise adjusts, adopts a little ease, and there's a familiar kind of exasperation filtered into the concern broadcasted up at him from her smaller stature at report of no pain. Good news, good enough for the moment, if not entirely the point and purpose of her worry.

And also-- ]

A warlock. [ Really, Jorah. ] What fine company you keep.

[ But this time, sass has a shared kind of humour to it, and she is definitely accepting a drink, nodding her acquiescence. ]

[ It’s enough to see exasperation, his own relief blended into something more readily recognizable as affection. Bleak, for the circumstances, prickly edges buffed down smooth in close quarters. He still smells like Westeros -- horse and steel and now woodsmoke atop mustier sweat.

Simple a gesture as it is, it’s also short-lived: he opens his hand away from hers at her implicit agreement to think about anything else, and draws away.

The better to return to their beers -- hers brought around and offered out, again with the right hand. ]

He’s followed around by a walking chest that devours people, [ he says, conversationally. ] I've never seen him use magic.

[ Having set her coat aside, Daenerys takes the glass, still with a hint of being unwillingly dragged into a different topic than the one that drew her here. Although, if she were being completely honest, perhaps that topic was more of an excuse for being drawn here at all, a matter settled silently by the time she lifts her beer to sip from.

She gives Jorah cynical eyebrows while she does so. It doesn't taste evil. ]

You have a talent for making acquaintances out of the strangest people this land has to offer, [ is just a fact at this point. ] And our own land, at that.

[ Tyrion worked out pretty well, though. ]

A talent that has served you well. [ Jorah wastes no time in saying so, either, withdrawn deeper into neutral standing ground. He cuts a lonelier figure in the shadows further from the fire, black cloak and dingy armor swallowing castoff light, even with beer glowing warm between his fingers. ]

It’s harder going, here. [ And not for lack of trying, in his plodding way. ] There are dissidents, but they’re slow to trust.

[ And they all have their own motivations. ]

[ Preen more suggests Daenerys' sideways look, gentled with a subtle smile that isn't quick to vanish again. Thoughts of home, of people she can rely on, of the fresh memory of Tyrion kneeling to her, bring about a pang that only reads on her expression in the form of a flickered glance downwards.

The usual internal counter: they are waiting for her still, frozen in time.

At his next statement, she starts to nod, then stops. She has much she wishes to return to, and perhaps that exists the ultimate goal for most. She finds herself asking-- ]

Given a choice, would you wish to remain here?

[ Here, where his illness is stalled, perhaps reversible. Looking at him now, in his Westerosi garb and isolating shadows, he still gives off the outward appearance to her as a man in a holding pattern. ]

No.

[ He doesn’t have to mull over his answer, conviction bone deep at the thought, given freely. It’s been over a decade since he’s seen Westeros. He has commands he’s sworn to carry out. They’re captives here, marked, separated from destiny.

The Iron Throne is waiting.

Her acclimatization to a more native style of dress hasn’t escaped his notice -- he’s sly enough to use the shadows to look a little closer, and is given away by a short stretch of silence. She’s always been shrewd about adjusting for the influence of her audience.

He’s added or removed layers as the weather requires. ]

Not unless you did. [ There is that one exception. ]

[ His answer, halfway expected, goes acknowledged with a faint smile, fond and faraway. That one exception is not exactly a question, but one in need of answer anyway. ]

The last thing I remember-- now, [ she says, amending ] is the ocean. My dragons flying over the masts of a great fleet. A fleet sailing west.

[ There's a glow to her when this news is given, quietly in her voice and subtly behind her expression. It's a unique indulgence, having this conversation here, where in the true world, Jorah would have to find out via his own sources and she would only ever know if he managed to save himself and return to her. But there is something in all the sweeping momentum of war that feels like a promise they made together, of two people yearning for home.

And the Iron Throne is waiting.

Fashion jeans in tasteful grey notwithstanding. ]

I would not stay. But having felt how easily time can move and stand still between realms, I certainly feel less like I've been taken captive.

[ Jorah drinks while she speaks, longing drowned into pride on her behalf. It’s not as difficult as it used to be -- removing himself from the bigger picture. She has what she needs.

The imminence of near certain death has a way of refining perspective.

This is what he wanted.

That he wishes he could’ve seen it is more depressing than supportive, upon reflection. He lowers his glass only to raise it again in favor of lending voice to the thought. This might’ve been easier when she was still mad at him. ]

The Lannisters won’t know what hit them, [ he decides, within reasonable response time. ]

Where did you find the fleet?

[ If she takes his silence on the subject of captivity for disagreement, she’ll have the right of it. ]

[ His decision isn't a bad one, and Dany's eyes narrow as she does when she smiles, bringing her drink up to sip from. She has the affect of a woman who is choosing to bide her time, a woman who is ready, rather than one locked in limbo and restless. ]

Yes they will, [ she counters, turning the sentiment around with a knife's edge flashing in her tone, in her eyes.

This next part is trickier, eyebrows twinging upwards. Given givens. She watches Jorah steadily as she imparts that story. ]

Yara Greyjoy and her brother arrived in Meereen on the run from their own kin, and we discussed all we stood to win if I accepted their allegiance.

[ Yes, they will.

He acquiesces with a dip of his head, easy. As you say, Khaleesi.

As to the rest: he listens at a slow-building, slack-jawed loss. Not quite a wince, or a recoil, but a bone-deep bafflement that acknowledges his own miscalculation as much as it weighs out the likelihood of betrayal. Raising his concerns here won’t do the war effort any good.

Maybe she’s already calculated for them.

More slowly than before, he lifts his glass to drink. ]

One hundred ships, and their continued alliance in the war to come. In return, I allow Yara Greyjoy to take her throne, and put an end to the Ironborn way of raping and pillaging.

[ Relentless, she unfolds the rest, only after that small pause in which Jorah sips beer in place of voice objection. It's a little bittersweet that he does not. The flicker of a smile visible at eye and mouth corners is older than her neat two decades. ]

I rewrote the future of Slaver's Bay, of Vaes Dothrak, and I intend to do the same of the Seven Kingdoms.

[ Her terms are absolute. Betrayal may come, an eventuality she has to consider in spite of choosing to shake hands with the Ironborn princess, and if it does, they will be crushed. Left burning in their seas like the Masters. In the meantime, she's on course for Westeros.

She sips her beer. ]

This Theon is from before that time.

Edited (correct spelling for high fantasy placenames) 2017-02-03 01:22 (UTC)

[ The basketball makes a distinct kind of sound when it strikes the slightly damp asphalt, like it's full of its own echo and ricochet by the time it smacks leathery against outstretched human hand. Daenerys is merely watching and doing so on the other side of a diamond-wire fence in which she hooks her fingers. There are other people attending the young men in their game and so she doesn't feel desperately out of place, but may look it, silver-blonde pulled back into braids and cascade.

Her clothing is indistinctly modern, for the most part, with a hooded coat, fitted jeans, ankle boots. Her expression is one of curiousity, easing into content and interest, startling bodily when she watches someone go sprawling from an awkward collision, and relaxing when another gives him a hand up.

Lately, everything feels a little new to her again. Eventually, she will move as everyone else does through these streets, like a natural part of its ebb and flow as opposed to something caught in its current, catching on everything. She has yet to ease back into her routines, and is no hurry to do so. ]

Edited 2017-01-03 04:34 (UTC)

[ Since he got out of prison, Elliot has liked basketball. Watching it is kind of meditative, and though he'll never play, he's even started to understand the rules a little. The complex pattern that moves the game from start to finish. Sometimes he thinks that if he could just understand it better he could predict a winner from the moment each team steps onto the court — but that's just residual dexamphetamine thinking.

There's a girl here today, and she's making Elliot feel like he's on drugs, or coming off them. He remembers his hallucination of an ideal world (how fucked up is that, that his ideal is the opposite of a utopia because it's where he's most useful). So that must have made her his ideal girl.

By the time half time is called he's not event paying attention to sports, completely focused on watching Dany across the court. ]

[ Inevitably, there is that inexplicable sense of being watched that finally has Daenerys focus through the game of the swift-shifting bodies, towards the figure who has his eyes on her. Imperceptibly, she tenses. Being the focus of a stranger has rarely portended anything good for her in the past.

But recognition clicks into place a moment later, strange though it is. A dream she had. A vision. She knows without any doubt that this boy, this man, is named Elliot.

She remembers all of her dreams. That one had felt different. She had felt different.

Her head tips to the side, meeting his stare squarely. Her impulse is to move towards him, but she doesn't want to have to move so quickly as to draw attention, or inspire him to get up and walk away. Instead, Daenerys unhooks her fingers from the wire fence and stretches them in a sort of finger-wiggled wave. ]

[ Elliot startles. His eyes widen, his shoulders tense, his head visibly moves. But then after a second of absolute surprise he lifts a hand in return and gives a little wave back, his expression blank.

One of the weird things about Elliot is that for all his social anxiety he doesn't really get particularly nervous about women, doesn't really see them as very distinct from men. Behind a screen people are all the same. So after the initial contact is established he just walks around the court to where she is. He has no idea what the fuck any of this means or what to say (does he ever know what to say? Words come regardless.) ]

Hey.

[ Her posture straightens incrementally more, upright and alert, when the young man approaches her. Daenerys, not unused to having people come to her rather than the other way around, stays where she is, any excess wariness well hidden behind cool interest. ]

Hello.

[ She unhooks her claws off the fence, turning now to consider him properly while the basket ball game continues to one side. Her eyes narrow as she summons the name. ]

Are you Elliot?

[ Taken down off whatever shelf she'd placed it upon, dusted, presented with a little uncertainty. ]

[ His eyes flare wider, like he can't believe it, even though he came over here because... because he knew. It just seems so unbelievable. But then, that's his life, right? Half the shit that happens to him feels made up, it's why knowing what's reality is so — difficult. ]

Yeah.

[ A nod. He watches her coolly. She doesn't seem that different. He's... well, a thousand times less panicked right now, though there's a swirl of some unnamable anxiety taking sludgey form in his belly. ]

So uh.

[ He leans on the fence, hooks in two fingers and looks at her kind of sideways, doglike. ]

You actually a robot? -- Cyborg.

[ It doesn't feel like it, she doesn't ping his brain as a computer he can tap into. ]

[ That causes something to flicker behind her expression, something that is not quite confusion and not quite dismay, because she doesn't allow it to be either. She shakes her head, a subtle movement, although it's almost a gesture of frustration than it is a flat no. Both, perhaps. ]

I do not know what that is, [ she admits, her hands knitting together in front of her. ] Something inhuman.

I was hoping you might tell me.

[ Elliot's gaze flickers down. ]

Huh. Okay.

[ There's no hint of laughter in the slight crease of his brow, though he does see the irony here he comes at it with bemusement more than amusement. He still isn't sure, in the context of the dream world, what it had all meant. But he gets the impression that isn't where her uncertainty lies.

But he can try and explain. ]

You know what a computer is?

[ Expecting a yes here, maybe foolishly. ]

[ The first time he saw Daenerys Targaryen he knew she was a born conquerer. The kind of steel and disdain that Cersei desperately tried to convey to cover her grasping desperation for power was made real in Daenerys, who had none of Cersei's amorality or fear. She was simply a queen, standing there above him on the dais, and she is a queen now, dressed far more casually but no less elegantly than he would expect, burdened by some bag or another, the misty pre-rain sprinkle glittering in her moonlight hair.

Tyrion takes a knee, It's not like it makes much difference anyway, and the dampness that spreads through his trouser material is worth mitigating the risk that — as has already been his experience — their recollections of events are not entirely the same. He is as much the Imp in any universe as she is a queen, and he doesn't want to make a poor impression if it's their first acquaintance.

But he arises again quite fast once he realizes it's, you know, not. Brushes himself down uselessly. ]

Let's both pretend that didn't happen.

[ Slightly pained, because believing in things hurts him — and he hasn't even been disappointed yet. ]

As you're yet to conquer America.

[ It's the relief that catches her by surprise, having not quite named what she was missing until running into Tyrion Lannister on her way home. Not just Tyrion alone -- she misses Missandei keenly, too -- but all that he offers, that she had gone without. Trust, in a remarkably uncomplicated form, so different to the series of negotiations that come with Lord Baelish, or the tentative reconciliation between herself and Jorah.

Levity, too.

Tyrion rises back to his feet, and she is smiling at him. It's little more than a subtle glow to her expression, but there. Glad to see him, and glad that whatever their memories, they align closer than they could have otherwise been. ]

I arrived here with a dragon, and now stands before me my Hand. It's merely a matter of time.

[ She glances down at her burdens. Two brown paper bags of a stiff, labelled kind from one of the fancier food markets near her home, her handbag at her shoulder and tucked between her arm. She offers one of the former to Tyrion to help her with.

Starting small, when it comes to service. ]

Come. The rains here are swift and sudden.

[ Tyrion takes a paper bag, careful in the crook of his arm so that it doesn't block his line of sight. It probably looks very slightly comedic, but he tends to ignore his self-conscious idea of how another set of eyes may see him and trust that well-practiced dignity and formal clothing serve him well enough to get away with it. ]

One of your dragons is here?

[ Surprised, but also quite pleased about it. As terrifying as the creatures are, he is quite enamored of them. There's something about them that make all his boyish fantasies seem possible again. (At least the dragon ones... perhaps not the ones where he is made magically taller. ]

You seem otherwise quite comfortable with this world's dress.

[ She has a handbag, she goes shopping. Though he thinks Dany's cultural flexibility is a large part of what will make her a good ruler, he's still curious: ]

How long have you been here, exactly?

Drogon. He arrived with me, [ she confirms.

Not without rue. A queen is a more adaptable creature than a dragon, but the gritty details of that can wait until they have wine in glasses, glasses in hands. Whatever it is, it's no longer urgent that it can't be shelved for more present topics.

Inside the bag given to Tyrion are a couple of small wheels of cheese dressed in foil, a light-weight loaf of bread, a skinny slab of artisan chocolate. Her own package has containers of salady sides, dried fruit, and slices of roast meats. You know, dinner. ]

This world's dress is quite comfortable, [ she counters. ] And it's been five months.

[ This isn't spoken like it's new information to her, like she's lost track. It's spoken like someone who is keeping count. ]

Ser Jorah has six, and Lord Snow seems to have arrived along with you. Theon Greyjoy announced himself a little over a month ago. And Lord Baelish [ and this comes with a side along look ] far longer.

Littlefinger.

[ Dryly disapproving. He wishes he'd had more time to council her on the more minor threats of Westeros, beyond the simple fact of the Great Houses, the Targaryen history. Baelish is a formidable enemy but can't at all be trusted as an ally, and while his presence here isn't new information, the length of his time here is. ]

Not exactly my favourite person. It isn't even that he hates me, particularly, I don't think. I'm simply an easy scapegoat.

[ Because it's very easy to make other people hate him. That irks him more than all of Cersei's genuine disgust at her little brother. Tyrion tries to focus on the presence of their allies — and the dragon. ]

[ A nickname she suspects Petyr was quite glad to shake, but might be unable to should more and more of their kind fall out of the Porter. She glances his way at his assessment, an eyebrow raising. ]

When first I met him, Lord Baelish drank to my imminent arrival in Westeros, and that of my dragons, and called me your grace.

[ To her credit, this doesn't sound like an argument in Baelish's favour so much as her observations, offered now to Tyrion. ]

No doubt he finds comfort in holding a title. He's an elected ambassador of the imPorts of Maurtia Falls.

[ And funds hospitals, and builds libraries, and makes very peculiar friends. ]

[ Of course he did. Of course he did. It's not as though Tyrion can blame him for being an opportunist in that regard as much as any other. Hadn't Tyrion been the same before he actually met Danaerys? And loyalty means so little this far from the Iron Throne. Still, he'd rather not immediately let his personal distaste for the man color his judgement as advisor to the Queen, so aside from an eye-roll, a scoff of a facial expression, he doesn't immediately condemn Baelish's acknowledgement of her regency. ]

I must say, that gives me great concern for the intelligence of my new home city,

[ Because seriously, who votes for Baelish. But then, Tyrion's faith in other people is in general fairly low,so he's not really surprised either. Baelish loves crawling upwards, and here his birth will be no obstacle.

Tyrion sighs. ]

That man would have married Joffrey Baratheon if it took him a step closer to the Iron Throne. I've no doubt he's enjoying his new title.

[ He glances up at her, wryly hopeful. ]

I don't suppose you've any interest in ambassadorship?

Naturally.

[ Wryly reassuring, and perhaps equally, a grain of truth. ]

I believe your home city hadn't much to choose from at the time, but they've thus far benefited from his presiding over their interests. And the interests of those that interest him. Ser Jorah was operating as his bodyguard when I arrived. [ She adds; ] I asked him to remain as such.

[ And more than that, become trusted. ]

My house isn't far from here. [ House. Residence. 'Home' doesn't often get voiced. ] You'll have a meal with me, won't you?

Of course.

[ A prompt reply, mild geniality covering the fact that he's quite pleased to be asked. Anyway, it's not as though he has anything else to do or an abundance of new friends in the new world (and has he shown up even once to his assigned job?) ]

You can continue to catch me up. I do so hate to feel ill-informed on political matters.

[ And also every matter, ever. ]

semi-open.

maurtia falls. for jorah mormont.

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nonah. for elliot alderson.

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pre-event? can be during if u like /confetti

pre-event!

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