bridgescribble | what sounds better? revenge or popcorn?

"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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