eastbound | [voice/video] I put my trust in you, a stranger (un: whitewolf)

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[voice/video] I put my trust in you, a stranger (un: whitewolf)

1. Voice

[A man's deep voice, colored with some urgency.]

My name is Jon Snow. I need the aid of two or three strong fighters, outside the city -- now. One of the Beastmaster's creatures is on me. He isn't alone.

2. Video

[Later, it's a young man, looking hesitant and unsure of where to begin. A curl of his dark hair is falling into his bearded face, and there are fine vertical scars above and below his eyes, as if someone once tried to claw them out. He has just been shown to his rooms after a long, hard journey, and he looks like it.

When he speaks, it's with the same deep voice from earlier in the day, now earnest and weary. The more he speaks, the more sure of himself he sounds, until in the end, it may become clear that he's used to addressing groups of people.]

I am sorry for my hasty messages earlier. The creatures are dead -- they won't trouble you or any of the people of this city.

I'm Jon Snow. I come from the Merchant -- I've been riding in and out of these canyons for most of a fortnight. Never seen anything like Taravast, but it is good to be in numbers again.

I don't expect that it will mean anything to any of you, but I am from the North. One of the Seven Kingdoms, it was.

I need to meet with Wrath and Wen Qing, as soon as either of you can. I am in the Palace of the Doxe.

For the rest -- tell me what I can do here in the city. Tell me what I can do to help our cause.

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No. There are no other sources. The maesters have hardly listened more than anyone else, though it was a friend in the Citadel who told me of the deposit on Dragonstone. And even if there was regular trade, we have little coin… Lord Manderly gives what he can, but we have so little. You speak of the wars. We have been left with as little as anyone. We didn’t have much to begin with.

[He gives a little shrug when she asks about the sword.]

Aye. Longclaw was given me by my old Lord Commander. He had no one else he wished to pass it to.

You needed someone from the Citadel to tell you obsidian was on Dragonstone? [That seems a bit silly. Where else would it be? Dragons lived and grew on Dragonstone for so long. They made caves there, hatched eggs there. All of that heat and all of that pressure? Of course it was no different than Valyria.

But that's not the point. She gives a small sigh, trying not to be frustrated. Quentyn Martell made more sense to her at times than this man. ~~At least he was pretty.~~

She took a moment to gather herself, uncertain if she was reading this situation or this man right. Even without their differences, matters in Meereen had shaken her and left her uncertain of her abilities to negotiate as needed.]

What then is it you seek in this alliance?

[She offered out her hand, her face curious as a girl's. A silent request on her features.]

Your Lord Commander was well armed.

[Wait? Lord Commander]

Lord Commander of what?

The Old Bear, Jeor Mormont — he was Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. I made a promise not to let the sword be taken from me, but —

[He thinks about it for a long moment, then capitulates, unbuckling his sword belt with a grim face. He wraps the scabbard with it, then approaches. She can look at it, but he’ll hold on to it as much as he can.]

[She leaned forward to get a better look. There were no ripple pattern, no shimmer. Strange. Jorah's sword. She doesn't need to ask how it ended at the Wall, she knows the reasons Jorah lost his home and his sword. It was strange that it was in the hand's of this King in the North...who was apparently in the Night's Watch.]

How can you be king when you are a Black Brother?

[Her eyes flicked up from her position, an amethyst gaze in this close position.]

[Her eyes are an unusual color, and this close, he doesn’t think he should be meeting them. So when she has finished examining Longclaw, he takes a step back, then coughs to clear his throat before he can answer.]

I’m not in the Night’s Watch anymore.

[She notices his awkwardness, wondering if he finds her pretty. It's difficult to think highly of herself when she looks like this now. If she had her hair, she would have washed it with scented oil and flowers. Would he have smelled them? Would he like them?

Her voice is gentle when she asked:]

How is that possible?

The Night’s Watch vows are for life, it’s true, but there are circumstances in which a sworn brother may be released from them.

[To him, his voice sounds too soft in the quiet room. He tries to say the rest more firmly.]

I have been released from them.

Circumstances?

[She gets to her feet, slowly moving closer to him as her gaze held his.]

What circumstances did you meet?

[Having someone move closer to him when he speaks of this, or tries to avoid speaking of it, someone who seems to be trying to peer into his soul, is close to unbearable. He looks down and to the side, at the floor, then at the wall on the other side of the room, then he looks back at her, ducking his head, his lips pressed together.

He has no stomach for lies… and if there’s any chance of an alliance, he must tell the truth, no matter how hard, how unbelievable.]

A mutiny, my lady, when I was the Lord Commander.

[She watches him, trying to assess his trustworthiness. She'd been deceived by two Westerosi. One, she forgave, and the other, a Northman, she had exiled. So far, he had said confusing things, but he seemed earnest.

Drogon had long ago moved from her shoulders to the bed. He seemed disinterested while Dany was riveted. She shouldn't push this, but she has to know. How did he go from Lord Commander to king?]

I imagine that was heartbreaking. I understand. [And she did.] What happened to allow you to leave?

[A helpless, bitter chuckle.]

Aye, it was heartbreaking.

[He squares himself again and looks at her more directly.]

I took a knife in the heart. I know it sounds mad. It was nothing I wanted or asked for. But putting an end on a man puts an end on his vows. I promised my life and I gave my life.

[It's far fetched, but she had said that magic shouldn't be dismissed. Hadn't she seen the Undying, preserving their life and feeding on magic? Was it so surprising that a man might be resurrected?

Though...at the back of her mind, she had to wonder. Was he trying to make a fool of her?

She wanted to reach out and touch him, to feel if he was warm and soft or if he felt like death.]

Magic?

[It had to be something from Asshai. That was what Mirri Maz Durr was taught, but her living death was much, much different.]

[He doesn’t move, nor does his expression change much.]

A red priestess of the Lord of Light, come to the Wall with Stannis Baratheon. She prayed over me and I woke on a table in my quarters.

[She seems less dubious than he would have expected, but maybe it’s easier to believe something like this with a live dragon curled up an arm’s length away.

He does not say the rest: Gods forgive me, but it was a long time before I no longer wished they hadn’t done it. Sometimes I still wish they hadn’t.]

[She nodded, her suspicion confirmed.]

My husband was dying of an infection. I asked a maegi to heal him, to bring him back to me. She told me that only death paid for life.

[It was an intimate moment, one where there were no barriers. Only because of this did she feel able to share this story with him. One of the memories that always made her vulnerable.]

I lost my son, not realizing he was the price I would pay. I thought it would be my life. What she brought back though, it was a living death. He never moved, spoke or felt. [She won't share how she ended his pain. That was too much from her.] When he did die, I placed my dragon eggs on his pyre. During that night, they hatched. Death pays for life.

I’ve killed enough men in my time. My last act as Lord Commander was to hang the mutineers.

[Saying it like this, it’s like it happened to someone else.

But he can’t help being interested in her story. That is much to lose, even to gain three dragons.]

I am sorry for your losses, my lady. For your husband and your little son.

[She pursed her lips, trying to smile but the emotion still too much for her.]

It was a heavy price. [One born of her naivety. It seemed that happened a great deal for her.] It's a comfort that my people are my children. I'm no longer alone.

[She felt badly for him, that he had to execute the men he served with.]

You did what was right, but it doesn't make the decision any easier. It's little wonder you were chosen as king.

I was chosen as king because I led the army that took Winterfell back from the Boltons.

Do you know what the North has suffered, these last years? I ask so that you’ll understand what it meant to them, to the Northmen, to see an end to the Boltons.

Perhaps that is the reason you think, but men don't willingly follow someone unless they believe in them.

How can I? The last I heard of Westeros was that there were four kings fighting for the throne.

My brother…. [(His jaw sets; this is as hard to speak of as his own death, so he speaks carefully again.)] We never spoke on it, I never saw him after I left Winterfell to join the Watch, but my brother Robb would never have wanted the Iron Throne. He marched south because the Lannisters held our father in King’s Landing; it was his bannermen who made him their king, same as they did me. And when our father was killed, it was a war against the Lannisters.

They called him the Young Wolf, because he was barely more than a boy then. He was betrayed, murdered at a feast with many of his men, by his own allies who had been bought by Tywin Lannister. The Boltons were among them, and the Lannisters made them the lords of Winterfell and Wardens of the North.

But the Boltons, they skin their enemies. The flayed man is their sigil. And Lord Bolton’s son… he was cruel, even for a Bolton.

So the Northmen feared them, and for good reason, and most were glad to be well rid of them.

Edited 2021-11-22 08:49 (UTC)

[She listened patiently, curious what became of the Northmen since Lord Eddard's death. She had a moment of pity for the man, even with the complexity of her feelings towards him. A pity that his son was forced to take command at a young age. It was no easy thing to command when you were still learning to do so.

But the words 'Young Wolf', 'killed at a feast' hits her with all the force of a punch in the stomach. She stumbled back a few steps, her eyes wide with a mixture of fear and awe.]

What did you say? [The rest, the rest she processed. Little surprise Tywin Lannister was so treacherous. Flaying though, it shouldn't surprise her, but it does. All of that, however, sits in the back of her mind as she thinks on her time in Qarth.] I saw him. I didn't know that was him.

It was horrible.

[Much as the tale makes her stumble back, a reaction that doesn’t make sense to him until she explains it, what she tells him makes him take a step back, too. His face is that of a wounded skeptic.]

What do you mean, you saw him?

It was in Qarth. There was a place called the House of the Undying. It was a place of magic. [Until Drogon.] There, if you drank the Shade of the Evening, you would see visions inside.

Visions of the past, present and future. Visions of this that have been or could have been.

I saw a man seated at a table, at feast. Bodies and blood were around him. He seemed so sad.

He had a wolf's head.

[He turns away from her. The pain, three years gone, is suddenly sharp and new. He looks at the wall, then the floor; he looks at nothing.]

There is a story that it was done to him. He had a direwolf — we all did. They killed Grey Wind, too, and when my brother was dead, it’s said they put the wolf’s head on his body.

[He turns back to her with a discomfited shrug.]

People say all sorts of things.

[It's shocking. She hadn't doubted these visions exactly, but that was all it was to her at the time. Hearing it was true, it rattled. It made her want to curl up with Drogon and block it out of her mind.

What did it all mean? Why did she see the Stark boy? What did the other visions mean?]

I'm sorry to remind you of something so painful. It's heinous and I hope some sort of justice was exacted.

Truly, I'm sorry for these losses.

[A slow shake of his head.]

You can’t have known. You had no part in it.

Tywin Lannister, he was killed not long after. Lord Frey… he was the host, the one who broke guest right. He and all his sons were killed, not long ago, but men say they have been judged by the gods. And the Boltons… the son killed the father, and he died in his turn when he lost Winterfell.

So as much as there is any justice in the world, it has been done.

idk Dany it’s adaptational differences!

D&D were stupid and everyone knows this

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