westwhere | "Darkness reigns at the foot of the lighthouse."

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"Darkness reigns at the foot of the lighthouse."

WHO: Daenerys, Five, Jon Snow, Mingyu and Lee Chang
WHEN: January to 1/28
WHERE: The Lighthouse (Plot Roll Stuff!)
WHAT: The mirror calls and must be assembled
WARNINGS: Violence, mind control, dragons, talk of death. Anything else will be added.

Drogon's habit of bringing gifts from the lighthouse had increased. It was still only trinkets and tattered bits of clothes, often singed, but something he was clearly proud of. The influence of the lighthouse still seemed to hold him, as he often flew off even as Daenerys called to him. Using a stern voice, showing the whip once in desperation, none of it stopped Drogon from flying to the 10th floor.

What was truly disturbing was that Drogon often seemed to circle around, low to the entrance of the lighthouse, screeching at her, as though demanding she follow him. For several days, Dany resisted, knowing that whatever was in the lighthouse was likely to be some curse or ill omen. Had it not enchanted them into paranoia and greed? No one had been hurt, but actually stepping foot in there might trigger something far worse.

Or she might find something worse.

Much like the House of the Undying, there was a part of her that wanted knowledge. She wished to know what was inside, what magic was fueling it and why it seduced her dragon so easily. That thought, along with the alluring call of something, haunted her dreams. Each time she woke, she had to question if it was dragon dreams or something more?

The fourth day, she followed Drogon, hesitantly crossing the threshold.

The atmosphere was heavy, but still humming with...something. The surroundings weren't very pleasing. There was dust, cobwebs and everything you could imagine in a land that seemed almost dead. Each floor did not improve. There were no visions, no sounds really except some sound of glass in the distance.

Drogon flew ahead, screeching whenever she fell behind. Step by step, stair by stair, she climbed. One floor passed and then two; higher and higher, she followed her dragon as he called to her, luring her ahead with a dark promise. It was an enchantment in itself. A part of her wished to find that last right door, the one in the House of the Undying that lead to the center of it all, where the Undying waited for her. Here, it was less clear what she would find, but there was at least a promise with the Undying.

The scene she found was an odd one. Unnerving, true, but also...rather beautiful.

There was a mirror on the floor or rather the shards of it and Five seated in the middle of it all. Light glistened over the different shapes of glass, some small and some large, all varying in grooves and curves. It was no simple puzzle, but Five seemed intent on assembling it, solving the mystery of it all.

"What is this?"

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He had not been expecting to find himself here again.

When he thought of anything but the fear, the pain, the idea that he might soon cease to exist, that something else would take his skin and bones and walk around in them, he had thought mostly of his failure. He should never have touched the mirror. He should have tried to keep anyone else from touching it. It had been in pieces for a reason.

He would be able to do nothing for his sister. He would be able to do nothing for the North. Nothing for the people of this world, either, but hurt or dying, he did not think of people he didn’t know, only of the ones close and dear, living or dead. He had marched into Mance’s camp once knowing that it might end in torture and a slow death, and it had seemed all right then, with so little left to live for. The last few days, he has had a lot to live for. There was no choice in giving in; he had chosen to fight.

The floor feels strange against his back after so many days of nothing except shards of glass pressing at the soles of his feet. There had been a cry, maybe — the beat of a wing. A burst of light in so much darkness. He raises his hand to cover his eyes.

Something is wrong with his back, he knows. Maybe it is cut by all the broken glass on the floor. He cannot yet sit up, but he takes a great gulp of air.

He is not alone, and he does not want to be alone — but the things that had been with him every moment of these last days, that had denied him even rest and sleep, are gone.

He prays to every nameless god he knows that they are gone for good.

The euphoria of completing the mirror as much of possible was snuffed quickly. The moment the hands shot out and gripped Jon's neck, her heart stopped. Just for a moment, she hesitated out of fear, something she would regret for days to come. When her feet finally moved, he was suddenly dragged into the glass. Her hand shot out, trying to catch him, but he slipped from her grasp. Her heart, still stopped, plummeted into her stomach.

She was sick, dizzy, feeling the breath disappear from her lungs. "No!" The only word she managed to shout before she could hear Drogon's screech, a sharp cry of fury and pain. She had heard it before in the House of the Undying. While she struggled to to move, to feel anything beyond horror and hysteria, her dragon had come to free her. The invisible chains, the final grasp of the mirror, and her desperation to find Jon.

Black and red scales appeared in the air, shooting out a dark flame. He took matters into his own hand, melting the glass into silver drops. The heat of his fire seared against her skin, but she didn't move, couldn't move. Not until suddenly, Jon was thrown back and in the room again. She gasped, finally coming up for air.

Dany darted forward, grasping hold of him, enfolding him in her arms. No tears. She was careful not to cry. She was the Blood of the Dragon and couldn't show fear, not when her son was currently destroying whatever evil they had found.

"Jon!" Her voice was strained with emotion, even as she tried to get ahold of herself. The girl was in control, not the queen. "Gods, you were gone! You were taken! Are you all right? Are you hurt?"

Anything is brighter than the deep darkness, so his eyes are still not used to the light. He still holds them closed and tries to cover them. He is pulled from his place on the floor into someone’s lap, and someone is talking to him, asking after him. Slender arms, not too strong, and a woman’s voice. Daenerys.

His shoulders ache where they press against her knees and thighs.

“Think I am. Hurt. My back.”

His shirt, one of the ones Sansa had made for him in Taravast, is soaked with lines of blood and sticking to his back. He has not been wearing anything over it. A brigandine and gorget had interfered with his work on the mirror, so he had left them off, and the gambeson, too.

The thing would have torn at him whether he had been wearing them or not. He doesn’t know where this certainty comes from, but he is certain.

She doesn't want to move him, even to see the injuries on her back. Part of her worried about what could happen if she jostled him. Would he pass out? Faint? All of this rattled her. Her fingers ran through his hair, internally debating about what to do. She was trembling, her hands couldn't stop shaking.

"I need to lift you to look. Do you think you can stay awake while I do that?" Without thinking, she pressed a kiss to his temple, if only to impart some strength to him. If she could offer anything, let it at least be that. He needed it, given the state he was in.

"Jon, hold onto me. Stay with me."

Don't leave me, she meant to say.

Did she just kiss him? Only two women ever have, and in truth, one of them was his little sister. But he has not been back in the world long, and he can’t think on it.

“I’ll stay awake. Don’t think I could sleep. It bloody hurts.”

It had been like Orell’s eagle, only it had not been his face, and it had been that tearing moment, ceaseless, for days.

“Something clawing at me, in there, down there. Trying to get in.”

Already, the deep scratches in his back are beginning to feel a little better, or it might be that he doesn’t know how to be comforted.

Edited 2022-02-15 07:13 (UTC)

"In the mirror?" She hadn't even thought to ask him about what he saw or experienced. Instead, her focus had been on his return, keeping him close and making certain that he wasn't pulled back again. There was no room for anything else in her mind. Not even the mirror.

She lifted him carefully, trying to ease him up slowly, stopping anytime he might make a noise. But when she saw his back, it didn't seem nearly as bad as she feared. Everything looked to be healing. The amount of blood on his shirt seemed to indicate that it had been worse, but looking at the wounds, they were closing up.

"You are healing rapidly," there was surprise in her voice. "Does it still hurt?"

The only thing that keeps him from lifting up as easily as he might is that his eyes are still covered. He struggles to show her his back.

It’s when she says that his wounds are healing that he makes a crack between his fingers, so the light can get in.

“Aye. Still hurts.”

But perhaps not as much as it had before she looked at it.

“How long?”

He does not know when he lost his sense of time, how long it had taken, but he would be as unsurprised to hear that it had been three weeks as three days.

It takes her a moment to register what it was he was asking her. When the question finally hits, it sends a cold wave through her blood. How long? Did that mean he lost track of time in...wherever he was? She did her best to keep him steady, even as her hands trembled and turned to ice against his skin.

"Only a few minutes." She couldn't exactly name the amount of time. She was too absorbed with him disappearing to actually keep track. Not that it occurred to her that she needed to. Jon disappeared and Drogon appeared. "You returned when Drogon melted the mirror." Thank the gods he wasn't killed in the process.

"How long was it for you?"

His heart sinks when he hears her answer.

He sets the flat of his hand down on the floor to support himself, finally, but still squints against the light. It’s a weary, halting gesture, but it is a way of being in the world again. Even this world.

Daenerys is very close.

“I don’t know. Days. No way to keep track of time, no day or night, no sleep, just the dark with a little glimmer sometimes far above. It felt like a long time.”

She feels sick at the thought. So much time passed for him where she only had to take a few breaths and he was back. What he saw, what he felt, she couldn't imagine. Only the terror that might be in him. All of it shook her deeply.

Dany wanted to ask him about what was on the other side, the face that was in the mirror, but it doesn't seem to be time yet. Not when he was just pulled free and brought back to this world. For now, she needed to look after these rapidly healing injuries and see that he was taken from the tower safely.

"Do you think you can walk?"

He blinks and squints at her.

“I’d rather not.”

But he pulls away from her and pushes against the floor anyway, managing to rise a little. His shirt sticks to his back where it’s bloody. Eventually, he gets to his feet, wincing, then takes a few deep breaths. He goes only as far as the nearest wall, then leans against it.

A good wall, good to lean against. Good air. Light. Not trapped in the deep dark anymore.

“It felt like I was walking on something sharp, in there.”

He managed to get to his feet, surprising her, filling her with worry at his state of mind and health. When he leaned against the wall, she was quick to hurry to his side, brushing his hair from his forehead as well as trying to keep him steady.

"I imagine it was similar to walking on the shards. It seems like something a magic mirror would do." But he was here now. He was safe and she could hold onto him. Gently, she put his arm around her shoulders, urging him to put his weight on her.

"Slowly. Lean on me."

He does not especially wish to be handled — not after being torn at for what felt like days — but being close to someone feels better than not, and he doesn’t really mind it when she brushes his hair off his forehead. It is nearly absurd that such a small woman wants to act as a crutch, but for the moment, he allows it.

“I just want to go down to where we have camped.” That’s only a flight or two of stairs away. “I want to rest. Real rest.”

"Then that is where we will go. There will be others there, you won't be alone." She's able to pick up on that at least. That he is allowing this because he wants to be near someone. The idea that he was trapped there for so long, walking on shards of glass, hunted and torn at. All without help no matter how much he might call for it, she felt hollow, every ounce of feeling and warmth spilling into him.

It would be slow going, but she would get him downstairs. This slightly bigger, heavier man, leaning on her tiny form.

"I'm so sorry, Jon. This is my fault."

The idea that there are others there gives him a sense of relief. The idea of going somewhere away from the lighthouse… a place where he might find himself alone, whether or not it’s dark… fills him with terror.

As they walk, his arm over her shoulder, he clutches the fabric on the other side with his fist.

“No. It isn’t your fault. It’s this place. That mirror is magic. Sorcery. I would be a fool to doubt it. Seems like anything might be sorcerous here.”

He has seen the dead walk, and he has been dead, and he is speaking to a woman who often has a dragon wrapped around her shoulders the way Jon is wrapped now, and still, this is the stuff of cities filled with wizards and mages. It is the stuff of the far edge of the world.

He could say it wasn't her fault, but it doesn't reassure her. She does her best not to tremble against him, afraid he might sense her emotions. Tears might be easily summoned if she lingered too long. Focusing on Jon, taking him from this place at least was a distraction.

"I brought you to the mirror. I put you in its path." That was the truth of it. Without her pulling him along, he would have been free and perhaps it could be her inside. Better her than him. "You were the only one I wished to share it with and because of that, I put you in danger."

They had discussed it before, but it was all the more true now. He being threatened with near death, it crushed her strength.

"I thought you were gone for good."

“I could not,” he begins, but his steps are laborious. As far as he knows, the mirror did no true injury to his feet; that still doesn’t make walking easy. He takes a few steps and deep breath, in and out, and then tries again.

“I could not leave the mirror. I could not even think to leave it. Whatever you did, it must be what it wanted, or what the man wanted… I don’t know the difference. But we couldn’t stop putting it back together. It can’t be your fault, not in truth.”

He does not mention that he had agreed because she was the one to ask.

She clutched him tighter, his shirt bunched in her fist. It might seem like exertion to hold his weight, but it was emotion tightening her fingers. Drogon was singing in the distance. She could hear his wings before anything else, meaning he was flying furiously around. Thank the gods he came. One blast of fire and the mirror was destroyed.

Jon was with her again. It seemed a greater rescue than the House of the Undying.

He was warm against her, no different than the dragon scales that often touched her bare neck. It was comforting, no matter his weight. "Perhaps," she allowed the excuse, but still didn't feel absolved of blame. "Drogon saved you where I couldn't. He must wish to protect you."

He shakes his head, mystified. He can’t imagine why the little dragon would take any interest in him. It can’t just be Daenerys’s flirtation — he remembers that, right enough, only it does not seem to matter now, when he is rattled and wants nothing else but to hold on to something solid and real and warm. Might be that it is that they come from the same place… but he hasn’t seen Drogon take the same interest in Sansa.

“I don’t look to question the reason why — I am grateful that he did. But what do you know about dragons? What do they know?” Had the dragon known that the man in the mirror was looking to steal someone — had he known, in some way, that Jon was in real trouble?

She hated to admit her short comings, but it was better with Jon. There was less judgement that she was only a little girl, clearly new in the ways of the world, particularly the magic of her family. "No." She murmured, at least close enough to his ear so he could hear her.

"There was nothing left to me to understand my dragons. Viserys knew nothing and that lore was lost with the last dragon." Now she would have to start again. "I only know what I have learned on my own. I remember though, the House of the Undying that I told you of. There was a moment where the Undying tried to feed on me, as this man tried with you. They surrounded me, bit and groped at me. Drogon, he sensed the source of their power and burned the beating heart in the room."

It mystified her, but he was intelligent beyond her understanding. "Perhaps Drogon is only responding protectively, spewing fire wherever, but it sometimes seems as if he knows."

He takes a few more labored steps… down, and down, and down… and pauses to look at her.

“There was a book at Winterfell when I was a boy, but I never took an interest. I thought the dragons were gone. Now — well, I suppose it does no good to think of things I haven’t done, but I wish I had read it. What if he has some sort of feeling for dark magic? My wolf is canny — why not a dragon?”

He tries not to notice that, in her guilt and in the darker space where the stairs are, her eyes are especially fine.

Edited 2022-02-22 03:13 (UTC)

"There is a certain magic between dragon and dragon rider. A bond that's inexplicable. It wouldn't surprise me that he could sense that sort of danger and respond." Another step down. Her body was aching, no different than the early days on horseback, but at least now she was stronger, if not small. Their heads were close together as they gingerly took each step. The heat from him comforted and soothed her worries.

"Your wolf has such an ability?" She hadn't asked about him much before, only hearing bits and pieces. It seemed fated. Strange that they both crossed paths with creatures that would share such a link to their souls.

"It doesn't matter the how or the why. I'm relieved he saved you."

“I don’t know if Ghost has such an ability, but he’s - smart. Knows who my friends are. Knows who a foe is, sometimes before I do. A little like your dragon and rider.” He takes a step.

“I’m glad he saved me too. I don’t know how it could have - “

Jon bites off the words, hesitant.

How it could have ended. Would he have survived it? Would that have been better or worse than dying? What would have happened to his body?

She stopped him, turning to face him. Still keeping one arm around him, she pressed her palm to his cheek. Her heart raced, beating as quickly as Drogon's wings. No, she wouldn't allow that thought to even manifest between them. Giving it voice, paying it credence, it would be real and the fear would exist fully.

"No," she murmured, brushing her thumb over his cheek. "Don't think it or speak it. You are here and safe. I'm with you and soon you will be downstairs in the camp." He could sleep, likely face night terrors, but resting and regaining his strength. She would stay with him, as long as he needed.

"Hold tight to me." She offered, knowing he needed her presence, or perhaps hoping that he did.

The Outcome

WELP.

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