westwhere | ...This Curse Has Run Its Course

[He still watches her, but he doesn't try to take her hand. She is beautiful, he decides again, and he doesn't like to see her in pain like this.]

No. We follow it back to where it came from.

[She shivers under his gaze, her hand sweeping over the silver fuzz covering her head. Here he was being open in some way, but she was closing herself off.

It was the curse, but perhaps also a level of fear. How many men had betrayed her trust? Jon, Jon was different, but she couldn't bear another hurt and possible rejection.

Did she like him that much? That she was afraid of what they shared?]

I have an idea where to begin. I worry though, if I'll be turned away.

Why do you think they might turn you away?

[He hasn’t moved, and apart from a slight frown, his expression hasn’t changed.]

I am not myself, as you can see. My appearance as well. With the fox spirits and other dangers, they might see me as...as a threat.

[A small girl, lithe and delicate, save for the roughened parts of her skin. No hair to speak of, only a pair of sad and tired violet eyes. Alone, save for Jon. No Drogon, only him to help her, as she tried to push him away.]

[He shrugs, but he is not unsympathetic.]

They took us in easily enough. They know of the curses: it was a condition of our acceptance here. Don’t see why they’d turn you away for doing as they asked.

[Maybe it was insignificant and rather pointless to be worried, but she felt it all the same. It was likely she was afraid of what might happen as she tried to undo the curse. It wasn't something easily explain, but still rooted in her.]

I suppose so.

[She's noncommittal in her response, looking back towards the lake.]

It will be sorted eventually.

[He nods, a gesture much more firm than her noncommittal response.]

It must be.

Dany —

[He has never called her this before, not with intent, but it slips out of his mouth now.]

[She's startled by the sudden intimacy, the use of a name that hardly any used. She whirled around to stare at him wide eyed, so surprised that the curse didn't color her response.

She could ask him what made him call her that? What gave him the right? But those questions died on her tongue. She can only meet his eyes, feeling tongue tied.]

[He speaks to her gently after she turns around.]

Ask one of the other ladies for aid with your back. Ask Wen Qing, or Moiraine, or Yennefer. I think one of them might be willing to help. Some sort of poultice, or something that will make it trouble you less.

I do not know if it will be any better if it is a woman touching me. All touch, it feels sickening.

[Her voice was sad, hurt by this sudden need for isolation and how it affected the people she knew.]

Even if there is a poultice, it is unlikely that it will heal for long. I imagine it will grow worse the longer this goes.

[He thinks of reaching out to appeal to her, but if she hates to be touched, it would be unkind. So he doesn’t: only with his look.]

Even if it doesn’t heal for long, it may still give you some comfort.

Take the comfort, if you can, even if it’s only a little. I don’t like to see you suffer if there is no need.

Edited 2022-04-03 07:21 (UTC)

[He is being open in a way she wasn't used to normally, which was confusion enough without the curse. She wrapped her arms around her waist, wincing a little as a few scratches opened.]

You should consider talking your advice as well.

[Something in his face is a little more closed than it had been a moment ago.]

I am well enough. The dangers here feel more familiar than they did in Ellethia. Not the same — I’m not enough of a fool to think that — but a troublesome forest and an undead lord make more sense to me than a mirror in a lighthouse.

Edited 2022-04-04 03:41 (UTC)

[It's a painful reminder, the mirror. Her mistake and her ignorance had pulled him into something dangerous and life threatening. She should have known better or fought more.

She nodded.]

From the Wall? That is how it is familiar?

[A solemn nod.]

Aye, from the Wall, and north of it.

Though this place is not as cold. There were times in the Haunted Forest and in the Frostfangs when I thought I’d never get warm again. And things up in that forest —

Well, I saw a White Walker there. First I ever saw.

[It's less hard to believe in the Others after their time here. The undead seemed different in these two different worlds. It was little surprise Jon felt more at ease with this.]

What did it look like?

Like a strong old man. They stand tall. They are wizened, all blue and white, and their eyes are all blue, with a cold burn.

They shriek like… well, like what they are. Never heard anything like it.

[He is very still, and there is little emotion in his voice just now.]

I think I dreamed of them one night. I remember that at first I was my brother Rhaegar on the Trident, but after, I was riding Drogon and raining fire down on armies that turned to water.

[He hesitates.]

When they meet dragonglass or Valyrian steel, they shatter like ice and melt away.

Do you often — have that sort of dream?

On occasion. I remember having one before my dragons were born.

I turned into a dragon, wings tearing from my back.

That’s not what’s happening now.

[… Is it? He doesn’t think so, but he waits to hear more.]

What do you think it meant? That they were coming?

[Or nothing at all, mayhaps.]

That my dragons were coming? I believe so. The ritual to hatch them, it was strange and strong. I think the dream was pointing the means of bringing them to life.

[She knows that Dragon Dreams aren't uncommon in her House, but it still hasn't occurred to her that this might be what is happening.]

[He doesn’t know what to say to that, except — ]

All my dreams were always about how I would never be buried in the crypt with my family. There would be no one at Winterfell, and I’d have to go down there… and I knew that there was no place for me.

Nothing I didn’t already know. Just dreams.

[He says it in a way that dismisses the idea that it could be anything else, in his case.

He is not convinced that her dream meant much of anything — the one with the dragon wings — but he isn’t convinced that it didn’t, either.]

[It was a telling dream, one that could easily be dismissed as his insecurity and feeling of rejection. The things that she knew he felt, but could not truly understand, in terms of the Westerosi response to bastards.

Still, there was something in it that grabbed her attention.

The way he said 'Down there'.]

Are you afraid in the dream?

[His look sharpens.]

Aye, in the dream.

But when I’m awake, there’s nothing to fear in the crypt. Only my family is there.

[So why does she ask?]

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