agogelogs | [OPEN] Oh, in dreams I have watched it spin

His tongue feels thick again, remembering it, and leaden; he's never really spoken of it before.

He hadn't killed Ygritte, and he hadn't really even been responsible for her death, but he'd still felt guilty for it. The choice had been to betray her love or to betray everything he'd ever known and everything he was, even his father's memory, and the faith that people like the Old Bear and Maester Aemon and Qhorin Halfhand had had in him. So he had betrayed her love. The fact that it was the better choice didn't make it any less a betrayal, and it didn't make her any less dead.

He could have been free, but not with honor, and not for long.

"She died in my arms. I took her body north of the Wall and burned it."

She stiffens against him. Involuntary her reaction might be, it comes forcefully. Just as swiftly, she's craning her neck to peer at the corner of her room where a simple and small box sits. It's not a simple box at all, though. And inside it... She squeezes her eyes shut.

Did you kill her? What use would his answer be? Certainly nothing to make either of them feel better about, and it's clear he still carries the guilt for her death, no matter his role in it... or hers.

"The Dothraki believe that every star in the sky is one of the Great Stallion's fiery khalasar. In order to ride with the Great Stallion, their bodies must be burnt so that their ashes can rise to the heavens."

Talking about this... she doesn't want to do it. But if she doesn't, he'll become lost in his own memories, won't he? If I look back, I am lost. With a sigh, she sits back up, not meeting his gaze, not looking at the box with the fragments of Drogo's remains, but instead, she stares at the remnants of the egg she'd failed to protect and drags her fingers through the ends of her hair.

"His wound became infected, and I made an agreement with the witch to save him. But she used blood magic." Her fingers snag on a knot. She falls silent, working the strands loose. "That magic took his soul, turned him into something that was half alive, and killed our son. He didn't return. Do you know what she said to me, when I demanded she return him to normal?"

He'd burned Ygritte's body under a heart tree, which had seemed right at the time. He'd built the pyre himself, alone, and walked away from it as the flames rose with the Old Gods presumably looking on. He hadn't gone back to that spot since; he hadn't wanted to see her as a pile of ash and bone.

He doesn't understand at first why Daenerys pulls away, but it doesn't take long for it to come to him, particularly after she begins to speak. He rests his hand against her leg above her knee.

"What did she say?"

That there's nothing after death, no feasts, no Great Stallion, no halls to walk with the great and the good, just an encompassing void of nonexistence? He can attest to it, but he doesn't think that's what Daenerys is about to say.

"When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child." Now, and only now, is there a waiver in her voice. Not because of a dead lover, but because she's lost any and all chances at a child or family. "Then he will return, and not before."

She meets his eyes; her own are dry. The first time telling someone of those exact words. By the time she finishes speaking, she feels exhausted, as if speaking the words again somehow has cursed her once more.

"I smothered him with a pillow," she says, voice blunted and dull. "And then I burnt his corpse on the funeral pyre. The witch and I burnt with him."

She glances toward the box again, and her fingers resume with her hair.

"I don't know if you killed her, or if someone else did. It doesn't change that having someone you love die in your arms feels like a part of you is dying as well. But you were with her. She didn't die alone."

"-- And you."

All of that, and this is what he seizes on. The idea of her burning herself in a pyre makes him heartsick.

"I didn't kill her, though for a long time I thought I might as well have. Someone shot her thinking they were saving my life... the boy you saw. He might have been right." He doesn't tell her now what Olly did later.

"If you died, it would feel like all of me went with you."

Would he say that if it weren't the middle of the night? If they hadn't flung themselves into wakefulness, if they hadn't been losing track lately of where one of them ends and the other begins?

Edited 2018-01-02 03:41 (UTC)

Her lips quirk, despite herself. All of that, and this is what he seizes on. "There's a reason they call me Unburnt, raqiarzy."

He didn't kill her, but he blamed himself as if he had. Guilt is such a terrible thing, eating away at one's heart and mind like a festering wound. Likely the boy did believe he helped. Who knows if he's right?

None of it matters. Not Drogo, not Ygritte, not Mirri Maz Duur, or that young boy. There's only him and her, and she's gripping his shoulders, settling herself on his lap, smoothing her palms up his neck. Reverent. Always reverent, her touches. She leans into him, banishing the words and thoughts from his lips with a kiss.

"I love you." You're my everything. If he died, she thinks everything so essential to her would die with him. Tiredness gives way to that fire inside her again. A manic sort of determination. "Your queen forbids you from dying, Jon Snow."

He may look troubled, but he still leans into her kiss. Her lips are soft. When it breaks, something in his expression has resolved, shifted away a little from the fears that circle through his mind and the sense of failure that the dream had given him, shifted towards his love for her.

But the thoughts themselves linger.

He had been ready to die that day, the morning after Ygritte did: he had been prepared to walk into Mance's camp unarmed to try to kill him, and only Stannis's arrival had really saved them both... though, in Mance's case, not for long. Soon after, he'd built the pyre for Ygritte and burned her. It had been one of the worst days of his life. And Thorne had still found a way to execute him as a traitor, no matter who'd won the Choosing for Lord Commander of the Watch.

Daenerys forbids him to die. The irony doesn't escape him: she still doesn't know.

"Your love doesn't like to think of you in a pyre, Unburnt or not." Because he can picture it now, having to burn her the way he'd had to burn his earlier love... or worse, not having the chance, because so little of her is left... and how little he'd want to live afterward, how hard it would be to fight. "But I'll do my best to obey you."

Edited 2018-01-02 14:20 (UTC)

There's a story to be told if one watches his face carefully enough. She's not become fully adept at understanding all the minute details yet. Yet. Someday, if they were lucky to survive all that looms ahead of them, she would. That one simple thing becomes a comfort in and of itself, when a nightmare leaves her still feeling chilled.

"Fire won't hurt me." Still, his concern is touching. How fortunate she truly is, to have those concerned about her wellbeing. She's brushing the backs of her fingers against his cheeks, pressing another light kiss to his lips. "My clothing, on the other hand, cannot attest to the same."

With a quiet sigh, she slips off his lap and reaches for the blanket. Ducking into the space to his side, beneath his arm, insinuating herself against him, curled close. This is fine. This allows her his warmth and she can still watch him. Study him. Learn him.

"It's the only command that I ever truly wish for you to follow." Let him resist and battle her in wits and resolve for all the others.

He welcomes her as she curls up under his arm; he leans over to kiss her head, then rests his against hers.

"It's also what I would ask of you. That dream... I don't like you facing him. I don't want to send you against him. I wouldn't if I thought we had another choice."

A pause, and he adds, "Drogo returned... for a while. If that's possible, then the other things might be too. The mountains and the seas and the sun."

Exhaling, she settles further against him, relaxing. Her eyes even drift shut, and had there been a longer span of silence, she might've even drifted off.

"So that you might face him yourself, one day? No. We do it together." Liability or strength? It all depends on the one making the determination. To her, he is a strength. Her feelings could make her hesitate when she might not have otherwise... not a weakness, though. Never with him. "You came to me because you needed allies, and I offer my help to you freely."

Her own pause stretches far longer. And the children. He doesn't say it, but of course this is what he means.

"I would need to become pregnant for his return."

"Or the witch lied to you, or she was simply wrong. The only witch I've met had some power, but she was wrong about some things. She thought Stannis Baratheon was the return of some prince from legend. Then she decided it must be me. They're people like anyone else... they make mistakes."

Or Daenerys will become pregnant at home, in the future. Or all of it is nonsense, nothing by which they should try to live their lives, and children will come when they will, if they will, and Drogo's temporary presence in COST is unrelated.

As to the rest of it... men follow Jon, to a degree that sometimes surprises him, but it's still rare for someone to tell him so bluntly that they won't leave him to face an enemy alone.

"We face the Night King together, but I would rather you didn't have to. Well, I would rather no one had to. I would rather he had never risen.

"How often do we get what we want, when it concerns our enemies?"

Edited 2018-01-04 02:46 (UTC)

She squeezes her eyes shut. Sleepy relaxation flees when he speaks in opposition to prophecy.

"She spoke highly of you." His words are in reference to Melisandre, she knows it; the Red Priestess had come to Dragonstone and Varys told Dany as much of her faith in Stannis Baratheon. But it is not the Lord of Light who stole her unborn son, nor had this god morphed the only family she'd had into horrible monstrosities.

Of all the times Daario was invited into her bed, not once had she taken child; now is no different. How could it be? Barrenness was not debatable, for there was nothing to do to correct it. And what happened to Rhaego... scales like a lizard, blind with bat-like wings, innards full of graveworms--

"I would rather you didn't have to, either." Easier to focus on the Night King. That terrifying face is easier to think about than a dead child. "As for our enemies... it depends, I suppose. Individually, we've defeated a number of them already. Together, I imagine that will continue."

She was never very good at losing.

"We'll achieve what we want, because we cannot lose. Not against the dead, nor against Cersei."

"She spoke of me?" He pulls back just enough to look down at her with a confused expression. "Melisandre? When?"

The rest can wait.

Edited 2018-01-05 02:57 (UTC)

"Melisandre, yes." She tilts her head up enough to return his confused look. "She came to Dragonstone the night I told Tyrion to send you a raven."

Of course, the priestess' disappearance so soon after her arrival was strange, but there were other things to worry about.

"She was the reason you'd been told to attend."

He pushes his eyelids together, still a little sleepy, and tries to process what she's said.

Where did Melisandre go in the time between when Jon exiled her and when she turned up on Dragonstone? She'd ridden off alone from Winterfell, and any voyage to Dragonstone would have needed a ship, even if she'd taken the Kingsroad most of the way. But she might as easily have sailed from White Harbor as anywhere further south. How soon had she known to go to Daenerys, and why?

"How long had you been at Dragonstone when she came to you? And what did she tell you?"

She watches him for a beat too long, her silence ringing in the small space.

What does it matter? The Lord of Light doesn't have many followers in Westeros; its lack of sway on the continent was unsurprising in some ways. Many of the Essosi seemed to be more tolerant to religious differences, whereas the Westerosi were settled in their ways with very few gods to follow amongst the kingdoms.

"She asked me to summon you. To listen to what had happened to you, the things you'd seen."

The things that have happened to him... those are all tied in with the dream he's just had, the dream Daenerys had walked into. And they were, indeed, why he'd gone to Dragonstone, but Melisandre couldn't have known about the information about the dragonglass that Sam had found at the Citadel.

Could she? She saw things, she said, but she was wrong about them... so unforgivably wrong, and what she'd done --

"I had just exiled her from the North. She -- killed someone. Stannis Baratheon's young daughter. A sweet girl, Ser Davos doted -- " He falls into slightly confused silence. The thought of Shireen's fate still causes a tight knot of anger in his belly.

It would have been reasonable for Melisandre to assume that he might go to Daenerys to ask for her help because of the dragons. If she knew anything about the history of his land and of his family, it would also have been reasonable for her to think he might need an extra push to go, particularly when he had so newly been made king.

She tilts her head, gaze sharpening with interest... until the one murdered is named a young girl. Then her eyes go shuttered as she looks away. The Usurper's brother deserved whatever fate awaited him for his participation in the decimation of her family. He came to kill her when she was nothing more than a baby girl.

But to murder his daughter? This doesn't align with her impression of the priestess. The Lord of Light's followers had aided her in Meereen. Melisandre spoke in favor for Jon. She'd followed Stannis--and admitted to mistakes she'd made.

"For what reason?"

He sees her eyes go shuttered. The knowledge that he'd see that much is what had initially kept him from saying more. The same tension is mirrored in him, and he speaks slowly and reluctantly when he answers her question.

"She said Shireen's parents agreed to sacrifice her to their god when they tried to take Winterfell. They all burned her at the stake."

Her eyes fall shut, whether to block the imagery from her mind, or to imagine it, she doesn't know. She wants both, neither.

"Murdering little girls. I wonder just how many times he'd done it in his life." Almost her. Already his daughter. Both innocents. He's a wretched man, and she has no regret that his corpse rots somewhere. Let the worms eat his decaying body, the scavengers rip him to shreds. He is no king.

...But to think that one would sacrifice a child for whatever the cause? It's sickening, much like the Masters and their crucifixion of so many children. Melisandre spoke of being a slave. She should know better. And yet she'd truly burned a girl at the stake...?

"You exiled her, and she still spoke highly of you. Why?"

He frowns. His expression is inward, and he lets out a heavy, closed-mouthed sigh, but he also strokes Daenerys's arm where he holds her in his.

"I can't say, but maybe...

"All she was interested in was fighting the dead. She knows what I've seen, and after Stannis died, she thought I was the man to lead the fight. Not hard to say that when I can't think of anyone else who's seen the Night King and could rally support in the North, and from there, it's not much of a leap to think that your dragons might be a great help in the war. I don't think she knew about the dragonglass, but maybe that's something she saw rightly."

He shakes his head slowly, still looking thoughtful.

"Do you know what the Night's Watch vows are? That dream puts me in mind of them. All the lads who take them will remember them as long as they remember anything, though some don't always hold to them."

Edited 2018-01-06 03:37 (UTC)

"Our people make mistakes, and instead of killing them for their betrayals, we banish them." Her laugh is dry and humorless. It's a silly thing, really, no point to make the comparison but she does regardless. How similar this is to ser Jorah's betrayal, and yet how different it is all at the same time. "Yet they always manage to find a way back. To help us."

Doubtful Jon views Melisandre's aid as helpful in any way, and she cannot blame him for such a stance. To murder a child in such a way is unforgivable.

"I don't know them all, and of those I do, it's details. Like taking a woman to bed."

"I don't want her help. And I may not be able to do without it," he admits. "And it may be the end of her if she gives it."

If Melisandre comes back, he'll have to kill her, and if he doesn't, Davos will. Exiling her had been mercy: as much as she unsettles him, as angry as her role in Shireen Baratheon's death had made him, he knows that in some way, he owes his life to her, and that had made him unwilling to pronounce a death sentence on her... at the time.

Since then, he's occasionally wondered if he's lied to himself about it. Was it a way to preserve her life for her potential usefulness in the struggle ahead while appeasing Davos at the same time? Or was it only that Jon himself hadn't had the heart to kill her after so much death in taking Winterfell? There was also the memory of the pale, hopeful face Melisandre had turned to him after he'd awoken to a new life on the long table in his quarters at the Wall, her wide, lovely eyes, the awe in them. There is some beauty to her, and there had been some temptation when she'd offered herself to him, but it rides alongside something he finds profoundly unnerving. His body would have been willing, but every part of his instinct had told him to resist her.

For now, he decides not to tell Daenerys exactly what kind of intimacy Melisandre had attempted to establish with him.

"I told you that the Watch had lost sight of its purpose. The vows are old, probably as old as the Wall itself. Taking a woman to bed... well..."

He shrugs expansively, indicating her position in his arms: he's not in the Watch anymore, but she can judge the extent to which he still upholds these vows for herself.

"Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night's Watch, for this night and all the nights to come."

Whoever holds the North is a fool if he doesn't think himself beholden to the spirit of them, if not the letter.

She cranes her neck to look up at him, ignoring (for once), the soothing drag of his fingers on her arm. The way he speaks of her hints to things she may not wish to learn the answer to, but it will be answers she reaches for, nonetheless.

"What has she done for you?"

Whatever it is, it must be important to proffer banishment versus death. That was a mercy, was it not? Melisandre did not appear to be in distress upon her visit. She was calm, much like the Lord of Light's other followers in Essos were. Regret swam in her eyes when she hinted to mistakes.

Despite herself, she feels pity for the woman. Perhaps she truly does make it a terrible habit of comparing her own experiences to those around her.

Her mind is quick to jump back to conversations past, and even her questions on Dragonstone with both Jon and Tyrion. The look Jon had given ser Davos...

He took a knife in the heart for his people. He gave his own--

He wishes for children with her... and he may very well have children in the future. He wishes to marry her. He's won himself glory, and he wears a crown as King in the North (perhaps not literally).

"You're no longer a Crow, you said."

But he still fights as the sword in the darkness, she thinks, if the undead are that darkness. And he attempts to shield the realms from that evil which had killed Viserion.

His pulse quickens, and he worries, as he feels it thumping, that she can feel it too.

"No, I'm not. Melisandre -- "

As he hesitates, he seeks Daenerys's hand with his own, places his palm against the back of it, and laces their fingers together.

"-- has some kind of faith in me that I didn't have in myself."

But he knows that Daenerys has seen the scars... so many times now, sometimes with a question in her eyes, but never actually asking about them. She seems to be trying to ask about them now.

They're never going to be easy for him to talk about. He's never going to be less reluctant.

"Are you asking about what happened to me that caused me to leave the Watch?" His voice is very soft, hardly above a whisper. But the room they're in now feels safe to him, even though there's no reason it should other than that they're together. "There was a mutiny."

Edited 2018-01-08 02:19 (UTC)

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