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

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)

There are things to push for, and things to remain patient for. When it comes to Jon, she pushes when it suits her (oftentimes failing in achieving the result she sought, so early on) and otherwise leaves things alone. If he wishes to tell her of his past, he will make mention of it in some way. It still doesn't lessen her curiosity about ser Davos' words, or about the scars on Jon's chest.

"Do you have that faith now?" Her fingers shift against his, curling, settling.

Upon mention of leaving the Watch, she intentionally does not look at his chest. The wispiness to his voice, like smoke in the air, makes her think this was a poor line of questioning on her end. But what did he wish to tell her, when he began asking of those vows?

"...A mutiny against who?" She doesn't dare move.

Please don't say him.

He doesn't answer her first question yet, and when he speaks, he doesn't try to coat his words in honey. It's easiest for him to just say them, though they're hard to say and though he expects them to be hard to hear... easiest for both of them if he explains calmly, if he's honest and forthright.

But his hand threatens to tremble a little, something he's able to still; his jaw is tense, and his heart continues to race. What it felt like to die, and what it felt like when life surged into him again: both come rushing back as if they had only happened yesterday.

"Against me. For my decision to allow the Wildlings to pass through the Wall, so no more of them would be killed by the White Walkers."

Edited 2018-01-08 12:29 (UTC)

Me. He'd said men disliked him. His own brothers at the wall, courageous men and cowards within the ranks. And those who hated enough rebelled.

"He wasn't exaggerating." Not a question, but it is one all the same. Ser Davos had said he'd taken a knife in the heart, and she'd attempted to ask Jon about this as well before ser Jorah interrupted. The northerners and their fancies...

She feels numb, as if the Night King's touched her and the ice of the Wall's seeped back into her limbs. She doesn't quite realize that the color's drained from her cheeks as she sits up at meets his eyes, the blues of her own reminiscent of a stormy sky. Her grip is tight on his, even as her gaze dips to his chest... even as she reaches out with her free hand to drag the tips of her fingers against his skin. Not on the scar, just on the edge of it, before his skin lifts.

"Are--" She swallows, licks her lips, frowns down at each and every wound. "--are these all from that night?"

At first, he doesn't know who she's referring to, or what she means about exaggeration, and then he remembers. Davos had said too much at their first meeting, and she'd asked about it later, and he'd told her that Davos gets carried away. That's true when it comes to speaking for and defending the men he follows, but not true at all when it comes to what he'd said about what had happened to Jon.

He looks at her, almost apologetic, shifting his grip on her hand so that they're palm to palm. What isn't remorseful in his gaze is haunted and pitiless.

If he thinks about it too much, he can still feel an echo of the sensation of a knife twisting against ribs and cartilage into his heart, and the way everything slowed and went cold. And now there's her hand, warm and welcome, but she can't make the scars less livid or knit them away out of existence. They've been slow to heal, though better than the gaping wounds he'd awoken with, and the one she traces is the one that had been fatal.

"Yes."

Edited 2018-01-09 01:19 (UTC)

It doesn't matter the betrayal: each and every one leaves a gaping hole. His are manifested, bared to the world if those in it only cared to look. How could she possibly blame him for wearing his layers like a second skin at Dragonstone... even when they were all so relaxed around him, otherwise?

A sharp shake of the head punctuates how very uninterested she is in apologies. He's allowed his secrets. But these wounds... her fingers hover before she balls her hand into a fist. Knuckles soon turn white, four crescent indentations growing more and more pronounced in her palm as she clenches her hand, trembling.

How could they do this to him? His eyes are so very dark and distant, in some ways, despite his hand being so warm and solid in hers.

"How did you survive?"

He looks at her for a passage of time -- he isn't sure how long.

She still doesn't understand, he thinks, but he doesn't blame her. Who could understand this? Didn't it sound mad to him, and isn't it embarrassing, in its way, as if anyone who he tells will doubt him, as if they'll think he thinks he's more than a man? What would that say of him?

No one knows better than him that he's only a man.

"I didn't. Survive."

Part of him is distant and separate from all of this. He has to be able to stand aside from it, to look at how the story sounds to others, and in another way, to think of it as something that happened to someone else, to the boy he used to be. The rest of him still feels sorry for what he's telling her, for the way it will hurt her, even though it all happened long before he knew her.

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