bridgescribble | what sounds better? revenge or popcorn?

It's not good enough. He must know it's not good enough; she shouldn't even have to say it. It's been too long already, and she's been alone with traitors and her grief for weeks now.

When she finally meets his gaze to acknowledge she's heard, her eyes reveal deep shadows beneath them. She's not sure when she last slept. She'll sleep once she's repaid Cersei Lannister for all that she's taken, from her and from the people of the Seven Kingdoms.

"Four days."

Her voice is flat and hollow. Four more days was nothing in the overall scheme of things, but it had already been too long. Cersei would've regrouped by now. Her only hope was that her own army was stronger, and that one dragon would be enough. And that there would be anyone left worthy of her trust -- or her mercy -- at the end of it all.

"What do you expect me to say?"

He looks down at the table, then back at her, shaking his head as his shoulders rise in a slow shrug.

"That it's good enough. Time enough for the men to recover from the march, but not to get too restless. Time for me to return to lead them. Time for you to prepare." To eat a meal, to sleep more than an hour or two. It seems imprudent to say so as bluntly as that, but her eyes are hollow, and everything she does seems labored. "Will we have supper?"

The execution has left him with little appetite -- little and less -- but it might be that she will eat something if he's with her.

She isn't going to start lying to him now. Nothing would bring back Missandei, or Rhaegal, or Jorah, or any of those who had died believing in her along the way. So no, it wasn't good enough, but nothing would be. She holds his gaze a moment longer before giving the smallest nod of assent. She can concede, if not agree.

"The soldiers trust your judgment."

Truthfully, she hasn't been hungry in days now. In her grief, her body had stopped reminding her that she ought to do such basic necessities as eat and sleep on a schedule. But at least she likely didn't need to test her food for poison after making an example of her betrayer. Not that doing so had left her with much in the way of appetite, either.

"I can send for some food."

There's no enthusiasm in it, but she's aware that she has to eat in order to be ready to lead. She knows what she looks like. Her braids had been hastily plaited; Missandei had always been the best at making certain they were neatly secured, but in her absence Dany had gotten the job done with shaking hands. She no longer had the luxury of mourning. She'd have to pull herself together before those four days were up.

Edited 2023-02-02 03:14 (UTC)

I don't want the soldiers to trust my judgment, he might have said, though that is not true. I want you to trust my judgment. But at least she is agreeing, without enthusiasm, to a meal. He gives her a nod: good.

There is a beat of silence, and then he says, with a troubled sympathetic frown, "I'm sorry for it all. Missandei. She was a good lady and -- Cersei, the Lannisters, I know what it is to have them take people. That ends soon. I don't know if that's any kind of comfort."

Four days. He is not sure what help he will be, but he is here because he has promised it. He is not sure that he won't be the last thing Cersei takes, before that end, but someone else has taken him already, and he still isn't sure who. It is hard to blame Bran or Sam, after everything. It is hard to blame Ned Stark, and hard to blame anyone else.

This is the place of his fathers, as much as Winterfell, but Daenerys is the only thing he sees in it to love. A love that is ashes and shame. If he falls in this battle -- well, maybe that is something she can stand to lose to Cersei. He keeps his look on her: I am sorry for it, I am sorry for it.

She trusts him to know what's right when she loses sight of it. It's why she'd fallen in love with him; he'd never flattered her for personal gain, nor told her what she wanted to hear. He'd never once feared her retribution, not even when she was a stranger with three dragons. But it's difficult to accept his counsel when she's so close and it feels all on the verge of slipping away.

"It's not."

It can't be all for nothing. Missandei can't have died for nothing. She can't have sacrificed two of her children to this war only to lose. She's grateful to him for trying, but she doesn't dare take comfort in anything until it's done.

She looks back at him, her expression softening a touch, as though she knows his thoughts.

"Will I lose you, too?"

She doesn't mean to Cersei.

He gives another tiny nod, I know it isn't, when she says that Cersei's swift-approaching end is no comfort in the face of what she's lost. Might be that it was stupid to suggest it.

The rest -- again, he takes a moment to answer her.

"I'm here."

Is that enough?

Is that a comfort?

He sees some of the old softness, the old hope, creeping into her expression, and it breaks his heart. These last weeks -- three moons now, it must be -- it has felt smashed over and over again. Even with her untidy hair, her hollow eyes, the sense that she is a husk of herself, she is beautiful, and he wants her, and he can't have her.

A fortnight without him, without accepting any real comfort from anyone, has been enough that his presence is a comfort even knowing of his betrayal. She's not even sure she can call it that; he'd never promised not to tell his sisters, after all. That didn't mean she'd forgiven him. It just meant that she was delaying that discussion for a time when she felt she could trust herself to retain her composure.

All the same, things feel strained enough that she can't respond to what he's said, not directly. Instead, after a long moment, she returns to their earlier topic; Missandei deserved to be remembered aloud.

"I think she was my only real friend. The only one who chose to stay with me without wanting anything more for herself than what I already gave."

She'd always meant to let Missandei return to Naath once she'd brought peace to the Seven Kingdoms. She would've missed her, but she couldn't deny her friend the chance to return home. She wishes she could kill Cersei twice for robbing her of that chance.

I am your friend.

Is he? He had not sought her aid for himself. What they had done together had cost her dearly, but would benefit her in the long run, in that she would not have to fight an Army of the Dead swelled by every person in the North, with no Northern aid. He is not sure how many people would see it that way. And it is a poor thing to put himself against her lost companion.

"A true friend is a rare thing." And he has been luckier than many, he knows. "You knew her for a long time? She said you had freed her in Astapor."

How long ago was that? He would have been in the Watch then, maybe his early days in the Watch. It makes him think of Edd, who had fallen to the Dead.

"It was the first city I freed. My dragons were still small; smaller than your wolf."

Had it truly only been five years? She felt like she'd known Missandei for half her life, and she supposed in some ways she had. Her childhood seemed a distant blur; she would have barely recognized the girl she'd been before she walked into a pyre and came out with three dragons and a khalasar of her own.

"I should have moved faster. The Iron Fleet should never have gotten there ahead of my own."

Half a day, perhaps, and they would both still be here. Half a day and King's Landing might be hers already. But she'd stayed to celebrate, to watch as people praised Jon while looking at her with unfriendly eyes though she'd helped them win their war.

He shakes his head.

"There's no use in thinking that way. No way of knowing how long they were waiting. Theon came up after freeing his sister near King's Landing. The Iron Fleet might have sat near Dragonstone the whole time." A pause, then he adds, "When I was still a boy, in the Night's Watch, I wanted to leave. To help my brother, my father. I couldn't. You tried to help her."

It's a small comfort. If they'd been there for any length of time, she ought to have known. The truth was that in her haste she'd simply failed to account for them as any sort of threat. She'd underestimated their ability to kill a dragon.

And she'd underestimated Cersei's sheer cruelty, besides. There had been no benefit to killing Missandei. She gained nothing at all but a false sense of victory that would be all the sweeter to rip from beneath her.

"You had a duty to the Night's Watch. I had one to Missandei."

And to the rest of her people, besides. To the Seven Kingdoms. She had to win, whatever the personal cost, or she'll have failed them all. Take Cersei Lannister off the throne and survive to lead her people out from under the wheel that had crushed them for generations. It was the only thing that could begin to pay for Missandei's life, and her friend's last wish had been clear.

"I had more than one duty. Sometimes -- sometimes you cannot satisfy both. It was hard to -- I know it's hard, wondering if there was anything you might have done."

Words are hard too, just now, and it is not the only time he has had to offer her condolences these last few moons. It isn't just Missandei, it's Ser Jorah, and those Dothraki and Unsullied who fell: she mourns them all.

And the city will fall, but now it will fall for Missandei as much as anyone else. Will that be enough?

Edited 2023-02-03 05:23 (UTC)

She knows he's trying to comfort her. It counts for something, but it also reminds her of the reason she'd had to execute one of her last advisors in the first place. Her voice is still soft, but there's a sharper edge to it than before.

"You try though, don't you? To satisfy both, even when it's clear you can't?"

She wonders what will happen when she's taken the throne and Sansa keeps pushing for Northern independence. How long it will be before she lets her brother's true bloodline slip to someone like Lord Varys, how long before the next attempt on her life? Which duty will win out when it's Sansa who declares herself an enemy?

There it is: the trouble they had never resolved at Winterfell. Dany's voice might be soft, but he can hear a dangerous edge in it.

There was a day, a few weeks past, when he had caught Lord Darry looking at him speculatively. He had been unsure, then. But after Varys spoke to him on the beach, it became unmistakable. His sister, his own sister, had betrayed him, after promising him in the godswood that she would not. And he is furious -- her intentions, which he assumes she thinks are good, are no matter. What she is playing at puts his life in danger, and Dany's, and Sansa's own, as much as they ever have been.

"I wish that anything was ever so clear." Words that would be more pointed if they were not as tired-sounding as they are. "But aye, Dany, when I know my duty, I try to do it. I am not -- " A hard sigh. "I am not here to stand in your way. I'm here to help you. For the rest, I am sorry."

He can't really apologize for Sansa's betrayal, only for giving her the opportunity. He should have been able to trust her; he should have known that this is what he could trust her to do. It all has a bitter tang.

"I suppose I should not blame you. You never had cause to believe your sister would betray you before now."

She counts herself lucky in that regard; Viserys had shown her very early what a sibling would do for the sake of more power. She'd let him do it; she'd thought her brother would secure their safety, and so she'd been willing to endure a hundred small slights right up to the day he'd told her exactly what he was. Jon had been raised by a loving family. They'd protected one another as she and her dragons had.

He would've learned, given time. But he hadn't. It's why she can't fully forgive his mistake even knowing he hadn't willingly turned against her. She's still quiet, still doesn't move from the chair in which she sits, but her devastation at having to act as she had this evening creeps around the hard edges of her voice.

"What I don't understand is why it had to be now. Why you couldn't have chosen to wait to tell your sisters if you were so set upon it."

He moves closer to the chair she sits in, then pulls another over, sits leaning toward her, half reassurance and half appeal. It is a dance they've done the last few times they were alone in a room. He might take her hand, but he doesn't.

"Same reason I sent Ghost off north with the Free Folk. It could be years before I see them again, if I ever do. What life I have will be in the south now." A pause. "They deserved to know. I wish I never did."

"You mean to stay, then? I thought -- "

She shakes her head minutely, glancing down for a moment until she's certain she can speak without the quiet waver that wants to creep into her voice.

She knows it bothers him, their relation, and not just because it forces his loyalties to be further divided. She understands in some abstract way that it must seem strange to him to harbor more than familial love for one's aunt, but she can't convince her heart that it ought to be ashamed of what she feels.

"What am I to you, Jon? I asked you once before if we could be as we were."

She searches his expression, trying to read the truth of his heart before he has the chance to talk himself out of it.

Doubt and hesitation do creep into his expression, but what they veil, after a moment, is sympathy and love and longing. He cares for her; he cannot make himself do otherwise. It's hard to imagine loving anyone else while she's in the world.

It's simple.

"You're my queen."

But he is used to not getting what he wants. If he does, then he is used to finding a sting in it. He had wanted her for five turns of the moon, then found joy in their love, real joy, something of which he has not seen much. That in itself makes him luckier than most, he knows.

Then he had learned why it was wrong, and now, it's a wound. His heart is all torn up, nothing but scars, and still, it can ache and ache. Past that, he fears for her -- for her pain, and for what she might do.

Edited 2023-02-06 07:12 (UTC)

She looks at him for a long moment. There's nothing soft left in her expression, now; she can't afford to have the gentle heart she'd once been accused of. But there is hope, still. She can give up love for the sake of a throne. She'd always assumed she'd have to. And yet...

"Is that all I am to you?"

She rises to lean over him, her hands coming to rest on the chair arms on either side, pinning him in as her eyes search his for the thing she'd seen in them a hundred times before. She knew when a man wanted a woman. Could he deny himself and her, if challenged?

She is so close, and it makes his heart beat faster. The look of her, her scent, the hope in her eyes, everything he has missed and everything he hasn't. To escape from this now, he'd have to push her off -- a force he doesn't want to show to her.

His gaze drops down and to the side.

"No." It comes out soft and gruff.

Looking up at her again, he adds, "But what kind of -- ," then sighs in frustration and leans up to kiss her.

She sees that hesitation and feels the walls around her heart start to rebuild themselves, cold and unbreakable as the one that had held the dead at bay until it hadn't. She's ready to tell him it doesn't matter, that she doesn't need love to be queen, that there are other ways to rule --

-- and then he's kissing her and whatever he was going to say can wait, as can the willful destruction of what's left of her own heart. At least for a while longer. She kisses him hungrily, in fierce defiance of whatever gods there are that would take even this from her after everything else.

There is little to do during a long journey by land: hours of riding with nothing much around you but the road. One tree is much like another, and no party is strong enough to clash with a whole army moving down the road, so no party tries. He had spent the ride, the weeks of it, trying not to think of her; he had thought of little else. He had dreamed of her at night, dreams that he had cursed himself for at dawn.

He has missed every inch of her, every breath. He has wanted nothing more than to hold her and be held by her. None of it is anything he can have. And what sort of man wants to be comforted when he learns that he is higher born than anyone could imagine? What sort of man goes to the woman whose hopes have been dashed by it, whether or not she is his blood?

What sort of man is he?

The hunger in her kiss is met with his own, and he pulls her into his lap. A few moons ago, this would have ended with him in her, her riding him sweetly, her hands in his hair and her tongue in his mouth. He had thought that, if they survived, that was something they could have -- each other. Children, gods willing.

Had he been a fool? Had he? He feels more himself than he has the whole way down from Winterfell. This should not feel right. It is not right. It cannot be. And beyond that, there is his fear of her and his fear for her. But this all feels the same as it had when he was another man, a happier man. Jon Snow could love Daenerys Targaryen. Aegon Targaryen should not, but he does. He cannot do anything else.

He doesn't wrench away from her as he had the last time they kissed, but when the kiss breaks, he lowers his forehead to her shoulder.

"Dany." He turns his face into her neck and holds her. This might be the last time: it can be just a little longer. "I don't know rest."

Edited 2023-03-30 09:22 (UTC)

what sounds better? revenge or popcorn?

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cw incest for the rest of the thread (I assume anyone reading this knows that already)

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