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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[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.

It doesn't ease the loss. I thought when the Usurper died, I would be overjoyed. After all the attempts on my life, it would give me some peace. Still, I pitied him. His death sounded gruesome and painful.

Justice is never so simple, neither is ruling.

Now, we are here.

[He hesitates. He was raised to revere Robert Baratheon. But he had also met the man late in his reign, and he is tired of lies. There is no one here to disapprove of what he might say.]

He was a pitiable man.

I met him, not for long, just before I joined the Watch. I wasn’t allowed to attend the feast — I’m sure you understand. My father’s wife did not wish to insult Cersei by sitting a bastard at her supper.

[Tired of lies, but he doesn’t immediately say how he feels about this, even if the way he speaks of it is revealing.]

[She'll listen, taking this as opposing counsel. She had always done her best to listen to what her advisors had to say, whether she liked it or not. The Usurper was a sore subject, but she never knew him. She could only rely on Ser Barristan and others to inform her of the man he was.

But not all of it was accepted willingly, not when she knew the fate of her brother's children.]

No, I don't understand. [Why wouldn't he be allowed at a feast? Given all she mixed with, the niceties of Westeros society didn't occur to her.] Why should your presence be an insult?

Because I am a bastard. [He shrugs.] It’s the way of things. Most lords don’t raise their bastard children alongside their trueborn ones. But I am grateful that he did. I’m grateful to have known my brothers and sisters.

Some of the most renown figures in Westeros were bastards. The Baratheons are descended from Aegon the Conqueror's bastard brother. Natural birth doesn't determine the fate of a man.

You were fortunate to be raised in your father's keep. Having a home, it isn't something many know.

[Like her.]

Aye, I was. Luckier than most. Didn’t always feel like it when I was just a lad, but I was.

[My father was a kind man, he almost says, but it may be something she doesn’t wish to hear. His father would forgive him for this, in light of the North’s great need.]

I only meant to explain why I saw so little of him.

[A pause, and he adds,]

It must have been hard — to grow up in exile.

[Her face crumples, unable to conceal the hurt that had long ago manifested in her. The lost little girl that she had never fully outgrown.]

I never had a home. Often we moved from city to city for our safety. We had very little and what my brother possessed, he sold.

[The Beggar King, the Cart King. These were not names he deserved, no matter his cruelty.]

The Iron Throne is my duty. [Not a right, not as Viserys might have seen it.] It's all I have left of my family and my home. There is nowhere else for me to go.

[As she explains this, his face settles into a slight frown — sympathy, concern. He has known so many men who didn’t grow up with homes, or much of a home, or who had been broken by their childhoods. What would it be like to grow up with a name, and such a name, and nothing else? A name doesn’t fill your belly or keep you warm when you sleep.

Still, he answers that last part.]

What about the city you hold?

[She opened her mouth before shutting it. The visions and voices she heard in the Dothraki Sea were sharp in her mind. Dragons plant no trees. That thought broke her heart though. She never forgot her desire for a happy realm, even if it seemed a bit beyond her.]

Meereen isn't my home, but I made mistakes that I didn't want repeated.

[She wrapped her arms around herself, smaller than she was before. She wasn't sure how much she trusted him, but still admitted the truth she had accepted in the grasslands.] I wanted it to be. I was tired and I wanted to plant trees and watch them grow.

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