[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]

[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.

[song_of_fire]

He might be dead or in the dungeon.

[Perhaps a mercy, but still a firm reminder of all her failures.

There were small burn marks under Drogon, the sheets singed by his heat. This was no place for him.]

I hope it's true, what you say. Viserys claimed the people would welcome us and flock to our banner, but I doubt that.

Having the Martells and Tyrells, maybe the people will want me home?

[northerndragon]

[A curious look.]

Why would he be dead or in the dungeon?

[song_of_fire]

He tried to poison me.

Ser Barristan is clever and he's never liked my husband. I don't doubt he realized what nearly happened.

[northerndragon]

Then he deserves to die.

[Simple!]

Ser Barristan, he was a legend to us boys growing up. If he is with you, it might be that Lord Tyrion will follow him.

[song_of_fire]

I hope not. Ser Barristan has no love for the Lannisters and isn't likely to trust the Queen's brother. I believe the Lannisters tried to have him killed.

You seem to hope that I do accept Lord Tyrion. Didn't the boy Lannister execute your father?

[northerndragon]

Aye. And they say Lord Tyrion killed him, too, though my sister doesn’t believe it. They married her to him; they accused her of the killing as much as him. She had no part in it.

It isn’t a matter of accepting, only of —

[He hesitates, then shakes his head in frustration. It’s a matter of thinking or knowing it will happen, that it must, because it’s what he knows. Hard to explain that.]

[song_of_fire]

What are you afraid of, Jon Snow? [She stared up at him curiously, this man who died but was brought back.] That what you remember might not be for me?

[His face was half bathed in shadow. A shifting shadow.]

[northerndragon]

[I’m not afraid of anything, he almost says, but it isn’t true. No point in fearing that — things will happen as they will, he almost says, which seems wrong somehow, wrong to say if not wrong in fact.

So he hesitates, swallows against his dry throat — this day has already held a hard ride and a hard fight — and says more quietly,]

— I’m afraid of the end of everything.

[song_of_fire]

You have seen the end. What happens after, there's no mystery for you. I thought it was the unknown that made men fear?

[For small girls, it was emptiness and cold horizons, angry fists and harsh words. Death, it was too familiar to her by now.

Daughter of Death.]

They say my brother Rhaegar had an air of doom about him. I wonder if you're not the same?

[northerndragon]

[That is complicated for him. He does not mourn an aunt he never knew, one who was seldom spoken of when he was a boy. At the same time, it’s hard to appreciate the comparison to the man who had stolen her away. His face settles into a slight frown again.]

I don’t fear it for myself. I fear it for my people, the southrons, the people of Essos. You, your people. Everyone. I fear the world becoming a graveyard. But there would be no graves, only people forced to march — not to feel, not to rest, not to sleep. Nothing they’d do if they had a choice. Just march and kill until there’s nothing left.

[song_of_fire]

[It's quite the tapestry he weaves, but she well sees the image. She was not be familiar with the Others and the stories that Jon might have grown up knowing, so the threat was less real to her. What he spoke of was a world away, but suddenly it was grounded in a threat she knew and understood. A threat that was painful and real.

She knew death and she knew slavery. They seemed to go hand in hand with these Others.]

That would be worse than death.

[She felt aged, facing another war with no real respite in sight.]

The gods made kings to protect those who cannot protect themselves. If this threat is real and we meet back in Westeros, we can discuss this more at length.

cw child death

[northerndragon]

It would be. I’ve seen it. Children who had been playing moments earlier killed and turned to fight their friends.

[His gaze is still direct and troubled and serious, and finally, he purses his lips and nods.]

This is all I am king for. It might be all I am alive for.

[song_of_fire]

[She could only look at him in utter bafflement as she slightly bristled.]

You're king because your people follow you, trust you and believe in you. This threat sounds dire, but you are the only source of justice and hope the smallfolk have. What happens to them if you die? After all they suffered in these wars, they need a king that thinks of them, not simply a war.

I grant you, it will protect them if you defeat this enemy, but what about after? You are their father, their guardian.

You are alive for them. That's why you live.

[northerndragon]

[A long look and a slow nod. It’s strange that a woman he just met — almost still a girl, really — should have such faith in him.]

I am alive for them, but the rest — only if I live. Only if I live.

[His survival is not a sure thing. No one’s is. It may be that the war is won, but not for him. And that would be all right.

He makes a dismissive little gesture before he continues.]

If that’s really how you feel, you’d have my aid in taking the throne from Cersei. My aid, the North’s aid. We don’t have much, but what we could offer, we would.