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

[northerndragon]

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.

Comments

[northerndragon]

[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?

[song_of_fire]

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.

[northerndragon]

[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.

[song_of_fire]

[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.

[northerndragon]

[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.

[song_of_fire]

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.

[northerndragon]

[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.]

[song_of_fire]

[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?

[northerndragon]

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.

[song_of_fire]

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.]

[northerndragon]

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.

[song_of_fire]

[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.

[northerndragon]

[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?

[song_of_fire]

[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.

[northerndragon]

[He isn’t sure of the meaning of that.]

Plant trees?

[song_of_fire]

I wanted to set down roots.

[She supposes that is the simplest explanation.]

[northerndragon]

[A slow nod.

If nothing else, his roots are old roots — as old as the Winterfell godswood. For a while, it seemed he had nearly lost them. There were others, but he knows nothing of them, and so the North had to be enough. The North should be enough for any Northman.]

Did you mean to stay there?

I go to Dragonstone, but I have never seen it. It’s the old seat of your family. Might be you will find them there, those roots.

[song_of_fire]

I don't know. [She had to laugh at her own naivety. Westeeos had been put aside, but given how things descended, that seemed impossible.] I stayed to keep the newly freedmen safe, so they wouldn't be reenslaved and the city could have peace. I capitulated, tried to make myself more palatable. I even wed one of the men from a noble house. Anything to avoid bloodshed.

I think I forgot myself there.

[He was offering some comfort and it didn't escape her notice. He was a stranger, yet she was pouring out all her troubles on him.

Perhaps because he was safe or because she needed someone other than visions. He didn't seem bothered.]

Maybe I'll find a book on dragons there. I think I need that badly.

[northerndragon]

There was something, in our library. Lord Tyrion was reading it on our way to the Wall when I was a boy.

[He stops himself here: she hasn’t been told enough to understand.]

My uncle was in the Watch. Benjen. He rode down for the King’s visit, rode down on Watch business and to see us all, and when he returned, I went along with him to make my way. Lord Tyrion had a wish to see the Wall, so he rode along with us and stayed there in my early days. He’d been offered the freedom of the library at Winterfell, and you know how he does like a book.

[song_of_fire]

Lord Tyrion? [In all of the stories of treacherous Houses, supposedly loyal bannermen and great lords that were noteworthy, she couldn't remember Viserys mentioning a "Tyrion".] Which House is he from?

[She rather liked the story. Jon might have mentioned he was kept out of sight, but the activity and pomp, it had to be a grand thing to see.

Even if it was the Usurper.]

So you three traveled back to the Wall. [Her smile was bemused.] Did you see any blue flowers growing from it?

[northerndragon]

[What a strange question! He chuckles.]

Not much growing around the Wall but sentinel pines. There were blue roses at Winterfell when I was a boy. They do grow in the North.

Lord Tyrion is the queen’s brother, the dwarf, but… you don’t know him?

[song_of_fire]

Isn't it too cold for flowers to grow at Winterfell? If you are coming to request my assistance, you should at least bring flowers to soften me.

[Daario had brought her flowers, but she was curious how it would feel for a stern Northerner to make a similar gesture.]

No. I know only of the Kingslayer. I didn't know Tywin Lannister had another son. I can't see why he'd leave the comforts of home to find me.

[northerndragon]

[TOO LATE DANY HE WAS ON THE ROAD.]

Not many flowers that would survive a journey taking a whole moon. I’d have to bring a gardener to Dragonstone.

Lord Tyrion told me once that he might as well have been a bastard, for all his father’s care for him. It was his stature. But I think he’s a good man. Killed his father, they say, but a good man.

It was him who invited me to Dragonstone. He is your Hand.

[song_of_fire]

A pity. I wish I knew if Dragonstone has flowers. A gardener might not be amiss. I doubt the Baratheons would appreciate simple beauty like that.

[She couldn't help but laugh, pressing her hand to her forehead. This had to be a fever dream or some sort of joke. She trusted a number of men She shouldn't, but she'd never name a Lannister her Hand.]

I have no Hand. I have a council made up of various men from different backgrounds. I'd rather hear everyone's advice instead of taking just one.

My husband might be ruling now in my stead, or Ser Barristan.

[northerndragon]

[Another shake of his head.]

I don’t know of any husband.

Don’t know much about Dragonstone, either, except that there used to be dragons on it.

[His glance falls again on the little sleeping dragon.]

Might be he will like it there.