hadriel_logs | [OPEN] Be my mirror, my sword and shield

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[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:

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That makes him laugh, although more because of the strangeness of the situation than out of any real amusement. She's more like a hellion of a younger sister than any mother he ever would have had in mind -- but he's had a hellion of a younger sister, and he was very fond of her when they were children. He can imagine Arya forcing him to ride behind her on a horse like a young girl.

"All right. Move your foot from the stirrup." He isn't tall enough to mount from the ground without it. Once he's behind her, he wraps his arms around her waist. She's solid and warm and her dark hair, so like his, tickles his nose.

He's a little old to be clinging to his mother, and he wonders when it is that he's going to be able to start denying her things.

"He's the horse I was riding south to go to Dragonstone when I wound up here. Tell me about Harrenhal."

It was a glimpse at the life that Ned had shared with her once. Much of her relationship with him had been an effort to expend her energy, jumping on Ned's back and trying to convince him into whatever idea crossed her mind. When he left for the Vale, it was Benjen that had to keep her company and he was far smaller than she was. She couldn't knock him to the ground without risking getting in trouble. Ned put up a good fight.

But time had passed and it had been a long while since she was the same hellion she used to be. Pregnancy and loss tempered her slightly. This was the first that the fire could surge forward, and it was likely because of her son's appearance and her desire to avoid the darker emotions that still haunted her.

She shifted on the horse, allowing him room to hop up. She grinned glancing back at him before she charged the horse ahead into a full gallop. Time enough, he would grow used to her, as she would him. It was almost like approaching a combination of Ned and Rhaegar, the restrained emotions they both bore.

"Did you have the chance to see Dragonstone? It was where your father was prince." And was technically his now. "Was it beautiful?" Her smile remained firm, refusing to flee in the face of her loss. "What did Ned say of Harrenhall and Howland Reed?"

The horse probably enjoys the gallop, the chance to run relatively free -- but he might not enjoy it for long with the weight of two people on his back.

"I didn't make it any further than riding out of the gates of Winterfell. I rode right into the arena here. I told Ghost to stay behind in the courtyard, to look out for Sansa, but he followed."

It occurs to him: she might have expected to be the Lady of Dragonstone, but she must never have seen it.

Her second set of questions makes him frown, clinging to her back. She can't see it, but she can hear the doubt in his tone. "I know Howland Reed was his friend, but he never said much about Harrenhal."

"I wonder if there is anything left of your father's there." His children and Elia had been moved to King's Landing. After, Dragonstone was likely given to someone else for some sort of accomplishment. It wouldn't take long before any trace of the dragons were gone. There was likely nothing that belonged to Rhaegar that hadn't been destroyed.

Somehow, the thought of the empty rooms was more than heartbreaking to consider.

She never expected anything in her marriage to Rhaegar, aside from love and happiness. Both of those foolish wishes. Being queen, princess whatever else, they were not her most foremost thoughts. It was foolish to admit that, even to herself. How could she not have? She knew who Rhaegar was and she had been raised to be a lady, but somehow it fell from her mind when next to him.

"He likely doesn't know it all." She shrugged, shifting against his hold. She was a smaller creature, no longer a bony creature as she was when she was a girl. She fleshed out, mature and bearing the features of a woman. However young she was, there was no mistaking that she was a woman. "Howland Reed attended Harrenhall, never been part of a tourney before. When he arrived, there were several squires that tormented him because of where he was from."

"Stannis Baratheon had it. Daenerys has it now. I can ask her, or you can. No -- I'm sorry. It's this place. She hasn't seen it yet; she remembers a little less of home than I do. When she found herself in Hadriel, it was as she was crossing the Narrow Sea."

He listens to the beginning of the tale. It's true that she's not bony or coltish: she's a woman grown, and a mother, something still strange to wrap his head around.

"A crannogman, aye? They live in the marshes near the Neck, and House Reed's castle is hard to find." He'd been taught as much by Maester Luwin. And they're his people now too, but they'd sent no one to his councils.

"It doesn't matter. If Robert gave it to Stannis then I imagine that much was destroyed." And it was better not to know how it had been changed than to carry that knowledge. There was so much else that she had to accept and bear, much of it caused by her own decisions. She didn't want to think about Rhaegar's home being torn apart.

He was a warm bundle against her back, acting as the cloak she didn't have with her. After the winds of Dorne, she wasn't prepared for a place that was a bit colder. A Northern woman no longer used to the Northern snows.

"They thought he'd be easy to torment. The squires started kicking him, so I took a wooden sword and beat them with it." That made her grin, remembering the surge of adrenaline as she charged at them. "Ned and Benjen and I helped patch him up, but it wasn't likely that he would receive any justice for what happened. Not unless someone got it for him. So we offered to get him armor to pose as a knight during the tourney."

"I'll tell you more of Stannis later. I knew him, for a time; he was..."

He trails off, shaking his head. Stannis wasn't an easy man to know, let alone an easy one to describe. He'd had no charm, he'd done great evil in the end, but he'd tried to do good, too, and his word had still meant something to him.

Easier to keep their attention on this tale of Harrenhal for now.

"You'd trained enough to beat the squires?" He's never heard much about that. He can just see the way the sides of her face change as she smiles. "Or was it that they were surprised to see a lady coming at them?"

"I never met Stannis, but I heard of him." Robert never really spoke about his brothers, but his opinion was rather clear in the way he spent his time with Ned rather than his family. "He laid siege to Dragonstone." That much she knew and it didn't did much to endear him to her.

Her son might have known him and may have thought well of him, but simply hearing that her child was next to a Baratheon, brother to the man who slaughtered his siblings...it left her uneasy. "Thank the gods he didn't know who you are."

The terrain was a bit treacherous to navigate, but she followed it more easily than most other women she knew. The horse never faltered in its step or slipped under her urging.

"I wouldn't say that I was using any particular swordplay. More that I hit them over the side of the head with the wooden sword and kicked them back." She went at them wildly rather than with strategy, as she had with most in her life. "They didn't see me until I was on them."

"What happened then? Did Reed avenge himself?"

The landscape, such as it is, slips past them, and sometimes it's a little hard to hear her over the low roar of waves all around.

"Can't imagine the squires went crying to their masters. Beaten by a girl... it's not something they'd have wanted to boast about."

"No, he refused the armor." This was a story her brothers knew and she had never had the chance to tell before. There was a hint of excitement for her to see how much her son might be able to work out on his own. Given that she was interested in telling him this story should be enough of an indicator, but he seemed to focus on the present rather than more elusive details.

"Strangely, the next day a mysterious knight entered the tournament. He had mismatched armor and a booming voice. The only sigil he carried was a laughing Weirwood Tree." She leaned forward, steadying the horse as he travailed over rocks and crevices. She didn't need to slow them, only to shift her weight to properly distribute them over the uneven land.

"Their masters learned about what happened when the knight beat them. He only agreed to return their shields if they punished their squires. After that, the knight disappeared and was never found."

"A laughing weirwood tree?" He sounds dubious. "It sounds like a heart tree. Some of them look like they're laughing." Some of them are quite a bit more imposing. "A Northerner, I'd guess, unless he wanted to throw people off the scent."

He watches the rocks flying by under them, and it occurs to him that the stories of her horsemanship were rather understating things. He's this good -- maybe. Maybe not. Either way, it takes years and enthusiasm to get to this point.

"The mismatched armor. Either the knight didn't have armor of his own, or he wanted to hide who he was. I'd say the latter, if he disappeared and was never found. Did you watch these fights?"

He has his suspicions.

"There was a bit of romanticism in the sigil. Weirwoods are considered frightening by Southroners." More often strange, but frightening as most of them had been destroyed. "Or perhaps the knight needed to paint something that would be both memorable and easy in such a short amount of time?" It only took white and red paint, after all.

"The squires served knights belonging to House Blount, Haigh and Frey. Those knights placed high, but when they were beaten by the mysterious opponent, the small folk cheered. They were hated as much as their squires." True, she was basking in this memory, preening at the accomplishment of this mystery knight. It wasn't a story she got to tell very often and she would prolong it as much as possible.

"Perhaps both?" She grinned. "I wasn't in the stands when it happened. Though I heard Robert Baratheon and Richard Lonmouth said they wanted to unmask the knight. Aerys thought that this was some sort of plot against him, so he ordered his knights to fight the man the next morning so his identity could be revealed. But the knight disappeared without a trace. Prince Rhaegar was sent to find him, but there was only his shield, left next to a tree."

"If they'd painted the sigil to frighten, then why make the tree laugh? Enough heart trees have a forbidding look. The knight wasn't a Blackwood, or there would have been ravens on his shield."

But he feels like he's humoring her, so he hazards a sharper guess. She wasn't in the stands, and she'd wanted to tell him this story to begin with. It doesn't sound like her beating the squires with swords is the point of it; the mystery knight is the point of it. Prince Rhaegar is the point of it.

He tenses slightly against her back, and says more quietly, "Is that how you met him?"

Are you the sort of person who wanted to fight for a little crannogman, even though it was forbidden? He can't think of any other reason to hide the knight's identity. If it wasn't her, it was probably Benjen, but his heart says no.

Edited 2018-11-15 05:55 (UTC)

"Is there a Northern House that would paint a laughing Weirwood tree? We're a gloomy lot. This knight was more concerned with how he might appear and whether he would match the songs that often come from such things. A mysterious knight seeking justice, he needs a proper sigil." Said as though this were a fact that anyone should know.

He was a clever boy and she wasn't trying to make this into much of a mystery. It was something she was proud of and didn't want to disassociate from, especially now that they didn't have to worry about anyone else finding out and harming her. She could view it with fond eyes rather than anxiety for all the trouble it brought.

She let one hand fall against his arm, gently squeezing it reassuringly. Clever boy. "Mhm. I saw him during the feasts, but we didn't speak until I was pulling off my helmet and he managed to catch up to me."

"What did he -- "

He clears his throat. The wind is whipping into his face, and if his hair weren't tied back, it would be at his eyes.

"What did he say to you?"

He already knows. Not the words, but from what had come of it: Prince Rhaegar had liked the gallantry. He hadn't turned her in to his father. He had lied to protect her, which means he must have known what she was up to.

"He said I had a good heart."

There were natural questions about how she managed and how such a small girl had knocked three grown men from their horses. Whether it was courage or madness that pushed her to this. But when all of the initial circling was through, there was the simple fact that she had seen someone being tormented and gone out of her way to help them.

No matter the risk and cost.

She couldn't tell him everything that happened, because a part of it would always be hers and should be secreted in a place in her heart. However, this would at least show him that they had known each other before they had run off.

"He thought I deserved a reward because of my courage, but he couldn't do very much otherwise everyone would know. He found a way around that..."

"You did," he says quietly, near her ear. "You do."

Have a good heart, he means, but he understands the impulse to give her a reward for her courage. And it says something about his father, too, that he had been so taken by the way the girl defended a lad who was being bullied.

"But the way he found around it, what was it?"

That was a matter of debate now. She had good intentions, but it seemed that they only managed to bring further conflict to Westeros. Her family suffered, friends were killed and House Targaryen had nearly been destroyed.

But she wasn't going to linger on that. There had been enough misery. Having Jon behind her, holding firmly to her waist as they raced along the coast. It gave her something more than the shadows of the past, it was a glimpse of a future she had prayed for but would never have in Westeros.

"He gave me a crown of winter roses."

He's very quiet for a long moment, and she doesn't allow the horse's pace to flag.

"There were blue winter roses in the glass gardens at Winterfell when I was a boy. Not now, but -- then."

"They were there when I was a girl too." They had always been her favorite. Despite playing in the courtyard with the boys, she often spent time collecting flowers for her room and for her brothers. "Your father made certain that I had winter roses in the Tower."

She had clutched them close when she spoke with her brother, the blue petals turning brown against the air. The beauty was lost in the stench of blood and death, shifting the perfume to something sickening.

"What happened to them?"

Again, it takes him a moment to answer. Even though he's slow to speak, the story is a brief torrent.

"After my fa-- after Lord Stark was killed, and after Robert died, there was a war. The Northern lords would not follow the Iron Throne anymore, not after that... they made my brother Robb King in the North. He lost Winterfell to an Ironborn who attacked it in his absence, someone he trusted who had been raised as a hostage there -- you know Lord Stark's way, he treated him as a ward. Theon smashed and burned much of it, the wood and the glass.

"Robb was murdered at supper, at a wedding, by Roose Bolton and Walder Frey, but... Tywin Lannister's hand was in it. Winterfell was given to the Boltons after that, along with the North."

It is a lot to take in and this wasn't the way that it should be digested. She tugged at the reins, rearing the horse back until they stopped. For a moment, she sat in silence, watching as the waves slammed against the coast. This was the world that Robert left behind. Her brother was murdered, as were his children and their home was seized by a house notorious for torturing their prisoners.

It left her sick. She slid off the side of the horse, breathing in the harsh sea air. It could almost take her back to White Harbor. There was no snow in the hair, no wisps of ice tangled in her hair from the water sprinkles and cold wind. She frowned, trying to sort it out in her head. She had given him so much information, but it seemed that it was repaid to her now, telling her of a future she couldn't imagine.

"But you were named King?"

He follows her down from the horse more slowly, not really surprised that this is what made her stop in her tracks. Once he's on the ground, he takes the horse's reins, pats the side of its neck. It doesn't want to halt so quickly; it steps here and there, as horses do.

"Aye, but not then. They married Sansa to Bolton's son. He was -- his cruelty was -- well, he was cruel to her, kept her locked in a room, beat her. She escaped from him and came to me at Castle Black, and Ramsay Bolton killed his father so that the North would be his."

Thank the gods that she had never met any of the Boltons, save for passing interactions at feasts and festivities. But would she have even seen the evil in them? She didn't trust Tywin, but she didn't contemplate what the man was truly capable of. She knew the song of his House, she knew the legends, but the true horror was beyond her comprehension.

As it should be for anyone with a good heart. Though...wasn't that what brought her family to where it was? What was the answer in the end? Play the game and go to such depths or keep your integrity? It was something she hoped her son would never have to answer, but seemed forced to.

"And then? You raised an army?"

He nods.

"Our brother Rickon, the youngest. He was a lad of twelve, and Bolton had him, and -- there really wasn't anywhere else we could go. Couldn't stay at Castle Black, and couldn't leave him to Bolton. The Wildlings were willing to fight for me, right enough, but the Northern lords were harder to convince.

"We had the Mormonts, and the Mazins and Hornwoods, and in the end, Sansa was able to call on the help of the Vale Knights, because -- her aunt Lysa had been married to Lord Arryn. The young lord is her cousin.

"And Ramsay Bolton is dead. We found once we got past the gates" (how do you get past the gates of Winterfell?) "that they'd done a good part of the work of rebuilding what had been burned. But no winter roses just now. The glass garden had been all smashed."

He shrugs, pats the horse again. "When the lords all came to council to swear fealty to the Starks again, they named me king."

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