Aegon "Jon Snow" Targaryen (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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hadriel_logs2018-11-08 11:16 pm
northerndragon) wrote in hadriel_logs2018-11-08 11:16 pm
Entry tags:
[OPEN] Be my mirror, my sword and shield
Who: OPEN. Jon Snow and… maybe your character?
What: Open direwolf meet and greets, horse exercise, hanging out at the Speakeasy, planting trees, and attempting to start to come to terms with some extremely difficult truths about his identity: the man he thought was his father, and idolized, was not; his parents accidentally started a war with their elopement; that throne people have been fighting over for seven seasons should have been his all along. [This is written in prose, but any format is fine.]
Where: All around Hadriel.
When: Late October/first half of November, up to the upcoming memory share event. Fourth Wall is technically over, but since this log is partly intended to deal with the fallout of those events, fourth wallers are still welcome for threads set before the end of October, or threads set after that if they have apped and been accepted.
Warnings: Jon is a good guy, but interactions with him always carry a general Game of Thrones warning, mostly for violence (medieval warfare and justice) and adult themes (heavy sexual content, various incestuous relationships that are varying levels of scandalous and central to the plot, etc). Anything set during or after Fourth Wall has an additional disclaimer for the fact that he's learned about his actual parentage during this event… which means, sorry dudes, but he's just figured out that the girl he's fallen hard for is his aunt. The show has not addressed the potential problems with this one way or another yet... but while the books suggest that marrying your aunt or uncle is juuust within acceptable limits in their culture, it seems important to acknowledge that it's obviously way outside of acceptable limits in ours.
This log is intended to deal with the fallout of that revelation, so it's definitely going to come up in some of these prompts -- not least because his claim to the throne is better than hers if he chooses to pursue it. Still, you can leave me an ooc note about your comfort levels, avoid the prompts where he's visibly upset, set stuff a little before Fourth Wall or after the first week of November (where he's likely to be less upset about all of it), etc.
Prompts in the comments! Here's a visual reference for Ghost, by the way:
What: Open direwolf meet and greets, horse exercise, hanging out at the Speakeasy, planting trees, and attempting to start to come to terms with some extremely difficult truths about his identity: the man he thought was his father, and idolized, was not; his parents accidentally started a war with their elopement; that throne people have been fighting over for seven seasons should have been his all along. [This is written in prose, but any format is fine.]
Where: All around Hadriel.
When: Late October/first half of November, up to the upcoming memory share event. Fourth Wall is technically over, but since this log is partly intended to deal with the fallout of those events, fourth wallers are still welcome for threads set before the end of October, or threads set after that if they have apped and been accepted.
Warnings: Jon is a good guy, but interactions with him always carry a general Game of Thrones warning, mostly for violence (medieval warfare and justice) and adult themes (heavy sexual content, various incestuous relationships that are varying levels of scandalous and central to the plot, etc). Anything set during or after Fourth Wall has an additional disclaimer for the fact that he's learned about his actual parentage during this event… which means, sorry dudes, but he's just figured out that the girl he's fallen hard for is his aunt. The show has not addressed the potential problems with this one way or another yet... but while the books suggest that marrying your aunt or uncle is juuust within acceptable limits in their culture, it seems important to acknowledge that it's obviously way outside of acceptable limits in ours.
This log is intended to deal with the fallout of that revelation, so it's definitely going to come up in some of these prompts -- not least because his claim to the throne is better than hers if he chooses to pursue it. Still, you can leave me an ooc note about your comfort levels, avoid the prompts where he's visibly upset, set stuff a little before Fourth Wall or after the first week of November (where he's likely to be less upset about all of it), etc.
Prompts in the comments! Here's a visual reference for Ghost, by the way:
no subject
"What is it?"
Her tone is a mix of hesitation and concern, and all that and more shows in her expression. Trepidation is a light description of what she feels, considering that something has thrown Jon Snow off so much that he summoned her with no explanation and a tone that is very unlike his usual.
Her shoulders are stiff as she muses over what it could possible be. Whether it has to do with some of their guests over the past few weeks, or the move from these islands to their next location, or...something else entirely.
"Jon?"
CW: the one in the log setup will probably apply to this entire thread.
When he turns to her, he looks haunted and apologetic.
"Did you speak to your brother?"
Before she can answer, he adds, "Did you meet my aunt Lyanna? It touches on that. Did you ever -- did you know much of her, when you were growing up?"
A useless beginning, he thinks. But he doesn't know how else to begin.
It's a subject that's always been good for a Stark, even a bastard one, to avoid as much as he can in conversation with a Targaryen. What possible use would there have been to pointing out that her brother had stolen his aunt?
no subject
"I spoke to Rhaegar after you told me of his arrival." His aunt Lyanna, though? She hadn't spoken to the woman, and only knows of her what the stories told. That her brother stole away the She-Wolf for his own. What is it you know, Jon?
"I knew that she was taken from her betrothed by my brother." There is a pause, and something stirs behind her eyes. "...I believe that he loved her."
Viserys thought the same, and she acknowledges in the privacy of her own mind that this is likely why she believes it, too.
"I only knew stories, though. Viserys', and others'."
no subject
"My father -- Lord Stark -- he wouldn't speak of her much. The story in the North was always that she had been taken against her will, and he never really said much to make me think otherwise. But Lyanna, Lyanna says that she loved your brother, and that they were married. I didn't get the chance to ask him about it, but I don't know why she would lie about that. She said that his marriage to Elia Martell was annulled by the High Septon."
So, that accords well enough with what Daenerys knew growing up, what her other brother had told her.
He looks out over the water again. All those useless distant islands, just lonely little patches in the sea.
"The stories you heard: was he a good man?"
He doesn't explain why he's asking.
no subject
Not a question. The way Jon speaks is an answer. They were married. It isn't such a surprise that someone like Rhaegar - based on what she was told of him - might have a secret wedding with the woman he loved.
She thinks of Elia and the children all the same. Of their fates on that night.
"...Yes, as I've heard it." She hadn't been able to make a fully-formed decision of her own, based solely on the brief interaction she'd had with the man in Hadriel, but the stories she'd been told pointed in the same direction. A good man, one beloved by many and who surely could have done the good for Westeros that their father could not.
"I don't imagine your Lyanna would have said those things if he weren't a good man." Not based on the stories she'd heard of the headstrong Lyanna.
no subject
There's no real reason that there should be any shame in what he's about to tell her: indeed, it should wipe away much of what he's felt his whole life.
And yet, and yet. He feels as apologetic as he looks. He thinks she won't like this news, and if it hurts her... that's the last thing he would want to do.
When she says that she's heard that her brother is a good man, he nods, troubled, as if it's a piece of information he has to reconcile with a greater whole. One thing hasn't changed: Jon is still the son of a man who had abandoned a wife for a paramour. But it's not the same at all, and even the slightest reassuarance that his father wasn't a knave or a monster helps.
A reassurance Daenerys has never had, he realizes.
"She says they had a child together -- a boy, who she gave into her brother Eddard's keeping as she was dying in childbed a little while after the Sack. Begged him to protect her son from Robert, and from Tywin Lannister, because of what they'd done to Rhaegar's other children. She says Lord Stark himself had no son other than the one Catelyn Tully had given him."
He watches her carefully for a moment to see how she's taking what he's telling her, but then, he capitulates with a resigned sigh. "She says she thinks I'm her son, Rhaegar's son. Trueborn."
And again, he thinks, I'm sorry, Dany.
None of this is his fault, or hers. So why does he feel such guilt?
no subject
Time slows. Her hair stands on end as this washes over her, and she might accuse any other person of trying to make some kind of joke (one she would not look kindly on, certainly). ...But, this is Jon Snow. A man of deep seriousness and earnestness. Rhaegar's son.
Her brother's child, and...another heir.
Dany's heart pounds, but irregularly.
"...How?" is all she can say, at first, but he's already explained. Their child, given in secrecy to Ned Stark and raised as his bastard. How many knew about this, if any? Very desperately, she wishes she could impart this crucial piece of knowledge upon herself in their home world, to warn that Daenerys of what might come.
She thinks, of course, of their time together thus far. Of moments aboard that ship, just the pair of them. Of feelings she hadn't quite made sense of, and of the way she's seen him gazing back at her...
"...What is it you want me to say?" she asks finally, tearing her eyes away, tone tinged with bitterness. "I thought myself the last of my family for so long, but this means that there is another in our world." Not just like Rhaegar, who had come and gone from Hadriel: a phantom. "I will not give the throne to another, not after all I have done."
Whatever feelings she had are still there, stirring uncomfortably. They are less decisive by far.
no subject
"At home, we may not have any memory of things we learned here. If my father is a man other than who I thought he was, it may not matter there. You and I will meet as strangers and you'll go on to pursue your claim. If we do learn of it -- you have two armies, three dragons. I have a hungry land that's lost too many men in foolish wars over the throne. I'm not going to make the North suffer so that I can try to take a throne I've never cared about. What I care about is saving them from the Army of the Dead."
He tries to keep his words calm and gentle, but bitterness creeps into them, too. His expression becomes sadder, more pleading.
"And you. I care about you. You must have realized it by now. I couldn't... it wouldn't have been right to lie to you about this, or hide it from you. But I knew you wouldn't like it, I know you've worked and suffered, and when you're in love with someone -- "
He stops right there, closing his mouth, looking deeply unhappy.
She must realize that all of this... he doesn't want any of it, except for her. This is not how he had planned to tell her. He's not sure when he would have done: it has the same air of futility that his knowledge that he may be the heir to the Iron Throne has. If he and Daenerys were to become lovers, or to marry, what would happen to them at home? Would they forget the hours they might spend in each others' arms, start again from the beginning, maybe fight? Or would it matter, so long as they were happy here?
It feels like, whatever else he's gaining, they may be losing that chance of brief and passing happiness.
no subject
Love? The part of herself that must be steadfast and strong in the face of-...frankly, temptation stiffens. Would this man try and manipulate any feelings that she might have in an effort to undo her? He wouldn't be the first to try. She swallows, and a tiny voice chastises her. Would Jon Snow ever do something like that? Everything she has heard about him and seen from him suggests otherwise. Just as he says, he would never put his own gain above the good of the North, of others. If he truly loves her, then...he could never, would never, unravel her. Betray her.
(She sees Drogo, and Jorah, and Daario. Hizdahr, even. Love is so rarely an unspoiled thing.)
Even without his challenge to her throne, the situation is - fraught. To say the least.
"You are my brother's son." She nearly laughs, thinking of all the Targaryens before her, married to each other to preserve their blood. She had once thought that a marriage to Viserys would be in her own future. Now? To have known Jon as a stranger, an ally, a friend? What is he to her? What could he possibly be?
"...What do you want me to say?" she asks, voice greatly strained. "You admit this to me, but how am I to--"
How can things continue on the way that they've been?
no subject
There have been moments in his life before when he felt like he was cracking. Some of them had to do with the man who raised him, not least the moment Jon had learned that Ned Stark had been killed. Ygritte's death in his arms had been hard, but it had been much harder, more final, to consign what was left of her to the flames: she had been so tiny and pale on the pyre of twigs he'd built for her, and he knew once he lit the fire that she would never exist anymore in any real sense, only as a memory. And Robb -- there had been the story about what they did with his body and Grey Wind's head, the desecration of them both.
He feels like he's cracking now.
"I don't know. I couldn't keep it from you." A deep sigh, and he turns his head to look back at her and continues, "I would never hurt you, never betray you. I didn't -- this isn't something I wanted."
And their blood relationship -- it's not too close for a marriage, especially between two people who don't care about the Faith of the Seven, but it's close enough that such marriages aren't common.
"-- She says she named me Aegon."
no subject
Her grandfather's name, and her nephew's. Her brother's firstborn who had been murdered alongside his mother and sister. Why that name, she finds herself wondering of Lyanna. Did she name the baby Aegon to honor the child who had been killed, or to replace him?
"What do you want, Jon Snow?" She won't call him Aegon Targaryen. She can't, not yet, if ever. "You've told me this, you've been reunited with your mother and have learned the truth of things after so long. Now that the scales have gone from your eyes, what will you do?"
His life has changed from this revelation absolutely. Hers has been rend asunder, too, in a way. The ripples will affect the others from their world even in Hadriel, where none of this really matters.
Back in Westeros? If this comes to light, then...what will it mean for all she's done, even if he does decline his bid for the throne? How many of those who stand behind her now will turn tail to rally for the male heir?
She can barely bring herself to look at him. A fire crackles in her belly, hot and growing.
no subject
Not to use you as a stepping stone to the Iron Throne. Not to do anything but love you and delight you, for as long as I can.
He is agitated and heartsick. He shakes his head.
"You're not a path to something. People would have said that I saw you as one, but I don't. I only see you." And the way he looks at her should show that he speaks the truth.
Still, he goes on. "I always wanted to meet my mother: I wanted to know who she was, whether she knew anything about me, whether she'd cared when she let my father take me. And I knew I was a fool for wanting to know; I knew I wouldn't like it when I found out.
"I never thought it would be -- this, I thought I was a bastard, I thought that even as a king, I might not be good enough for you. And she was a child, Daenerys, just a young girl -- and I killed her."
It doesn't occur to him to remember that Daenerys's birth had also killed her own mother. It doesn't occur to him to think of Rhaella Targaryen as his grandmother, or that she'd given birth to Rhaegar when she was thirteen or so.
After a pause, he adds, rather miserably, "Part of me thinks we should have stayed on that boat. There was enough food that we'd still be out there now."
In spite of the long, dull days, the storm, the danger, the cold interminable dive to the sea floor and the way he'd felt afterward that he might never be warm again, that it had briefly been remarkably like bleeding to death in the snow... their time on the water seems in retrospect like a happy, innocent one. He remembers waking up one morning with his face in Daenerys's hair, all by accident, and her warm sweet scent, and how he'd wished every morning might be like that.
"-- But I can't regret meeting her." Only what he's learned, only that it changes so many things.
"Daenerys. What do you want?"
no subject
"...I want to be alone," she says finally, and she turns halfway round, gaze down. Her expression and tone aren't harsh or angry, but - regretful, almost. "I am glad that you could meet your mother, Jon. And your father." I am happy to have met him, too. "I have no answers for you. Not now. I may not ever have them."
Who could have an 'answer' to something like this? Even without the question of who he is and what that means, she hasn't fully sorted how she feels about him. For now, it'll have to wait. To stew a bit so that she can turn the concept over in her mind, try and make some sense of what he's said and what she's learned.
"I don't blame you for this. I thank you for the truth." But. "...I need time to think."
How long that might be, well...they would see. She doesn't intend to leave their shared home, but she also won't spend so much time alone with him as she had.
What other revelations might come to light as time in Hadriel marches on?