agoge | >>FROM:@AEGONNER

Let's just say this isn't my first rodeo.

There are a many so-called gods in my world. I prefer to put my belief in what I can see and feel.

What do you think of when battle looms?

It is so very strange that you speak of gods being forgotten and stories passing out of knowledge, and others being trapped here. Let me finish writing responses to other things, and then I'll meet you in the mess hall. This first part is something I've noted as a reoccurring theme.

Your Old Gods might have wisdom in some of their decisions though. I cannot say with any confidence.

Apollo was...complicated. He raised me, whereas my birth parents did not. Under his purview were the arts of prophecy, prophecy, music, the sun, poetry, and health. One of his temples, the one in Delphi, held an oracle that those from seemingly everywhere went to in order to make decisions both personal and at a state level. He can be as flippant as the other gods, but I also cannot mask fondness for him.

I'll see you presently.

[It is definitely easier to talk in person, and so Chiron does just that. He didn't think to alert Jon he'd be back in human mode again. He takes it for granted, and just finds Jon's table.]

Shall we continue?

i wouldn't be where i am without them.
do you have pre fight rituals or something?

Don't really believe in anything of a higher power. Just reality and living in right now.

The only thing I try to think of is whether my weapons are ready or not.

I've never been in fight before. I've just had to watch other people and wait...

Edited 2018-01-12 07:01 (UTC)

Nothing else? Some men have a drink or two. Your way isn't far from mine, though. Does it help keep you focused on the fight to come?

What do you think you'll do now?

All a drink will do is take the edge off. Frankly, I'd rather keep the edge.

It keeps me from overthinking.

How about you? What do you believe in?

My father's gods, as far as it goes, but I'm not sure it's a matter of belief, or that they're the only gods who hold any sway in the world I come from. You're not alone. I'd rather keep the edge. Fighting with swords or arrows or shields or spears, you can't be sloppy. You train for a lifetime so you can live through those few hours or days, and so that the people you fight for can live through them.

Would you still believe in them, if they didn't have sway?

That's how I feel, yeah. In something like what's coming up, one mistake can cost too much. I'd rather not bring that misfortune.

It's hard not to believe in them a little when I was raised to it, and when I have other reasons. Even when there's doubt, their trees have stood for thousands of years, since before there were men at all. Where other gods have sway, the people have cut down the weirwoods. There was a time when I could have had almost everything I'd ever wanted if I'd agreed to cut down a few acres of forest that my people had held sacred, to make way for a new god, and I couldn't do it. But it wasn't so much a matter of my belief as... I had no right to do it. It might be better to continue in person. I'm in the library, trying to understand this war.

Rodeo? Another word for battle? Not mine either, but there's a difference between someone who's been fighting for a year and someone who's been fighting for seven and someone who's been fighting for twenty. What's the hardest fight you've ever been in?

I'll meet you there.

[ And so he does, showing his face in the library not too long after his last message. He remembers Jon– though he barely had any time to speak to him in France.

He supposes it's better late than never. ]

Good to see you again. I see you obviously survived Paris.

The Old Gods. Where I come from, we have the Old Gods and the new. Some people also hold to the Drowned God, and some people hold to the Lord of Light. It's hard to talk about the Old Gods. They don't have names or faces or clergy, or even very many rules. Respect the Godswood and the heart tree, keep to your vows, don't lie. Don't kill the innocent, don't steal. They're part of the land itself, every tree and rock and river. But they watch from the heart trees. It's said that they know us by watching us. Not the same as your hippie granola, but maybe a little like your Pan. I don't know how forgiving they are, though.

[Arthur was one of the very first people Jon had spoken to after finding himself in COST, and as such, the look Jon gives him when he arrives is pleased and friendly -- a brighter face than his everyday one, though since their arrival from Paris, most of his everyday faces are a little brighter than they had been before it.]

It's good to see you well -- and you did too. Where did you spend it? Daenerys and Ashitaka and I were mostly spying in the Tuileries... trying to, anyway. She was a maid and we were guards.

No. But when I was younger, I was part of a brotherhood that guarded one of our borders, and at one point, we took most of the able men out on a Great Ranging. The night before we left, some went to a brothel and some went to the sept for prayer. I noticed that that seems to be the way it is for a great many people. Most of my faith was in my brothers themselves — not all of them, but enough.

We spoke of this before. Those Southron Circles. [Nice try, Jon.]

Where I'm from, they worship other gods in the South — the Seven, the gods of the Andals. My people in the North are descended from the First Men, not the Andals, and most worship the Old Gods of the Children of the Forest. When the First Men came, they began to worship the Children's gods too. The Andals came later, but you might guess that.

No, I know. [She knew more than she wanted to. Perhaps she had even known before he left for the Twins? Why hadn't she insisted that he stay, she had ridden after him, but she had let him reassure her and send her back to Riverrun.] Afterwards, the Frey men and Jaime Lannister took control of Riverrun.

[Given how they would travel through time to stop the Regency and how they were pulled from different points in time, it wasn't a surprise to hear him say that he was older and many years had passed. It was hard to describe, but there was something reassuring about that. Robb had spoken a great deal about Jon, that he was someone that he trusted and cared for, enough that he wanted to name Jon his heir.]

You have been here longer too, I think? You understand COST better and have participated in their battles, haven't you?

[Even just a foothold of information was better than nothing. She had an idea of what she was signing on for, but it didn't make this training any easier. It had to end when this mission did, it had to get better.]

What is it you remember last from our world? Were the Freys ever punished?

More or less.

The first war I fought was for humanity's survival. It doesn't get much harder than that.

I wonder if they would in retrospect.

[ Ultimately, it doesn't matter what they would prefer... but she would see to these things being addressed when she is queen, because she remembers the toll it took on Viserys when he sold their mother's crown. ]

She would be foolish if her intention was to cause harm. She's no allies here.

[ Not that it's stopped a person before. With a sigh, she rolls onto her back and stares at the overhang of Jon's bed. It seems strange to know not one, but two people with altered memories of events that haven't occurred. But she has to believe that Jeyne isn't lying, if only for the simple fact that Drogo hadn't been. Perhaps it makes her foolish to believe the word of a stranger. Perhaps it opens her to betrayal for it. ]

Even if he was held under duress? Tyrion made mention that your sister was in King's Landing at one point, held captive by his family. Could that not have played a part? [ Now, she frowns, staring hard at the overhand. ] We want to believe our brothers have done good.

[ Rhaegar sounded like a good man, from all she's heard. He couldn't be a rapist. And Robb? His men were loyal, from what she's been told. Jon held him high enough in regard. ]

We'll give her a chance. It's all anyone's ever needed.

[To the bit about taking the black or losing a hand, he only gives her a significant look, eyebrows raised.

In retrospect, many would choose the hand. It had been that sort who had mutinied at Craster's Keep and killed the Old Bear. And even among those who would choose the Watch, most hadn't come willingly, as he had.

-- Sometimes COST and these days at BASE make him think overwhelmingly of Pyp and Grenn and how bravely they'd died, even though their laughing faces have faded a little.

The conversation moves on to the subject of Jeyne Westerling.]

She wouldn't have joined COST knowing that we were here... would she have? It's true enough that the Lannisters held Sansa after Robert's death: Tyrion married her. But I think if Robb had been held, they would have just killed him then.

[His expression turns curious when she mentions not just his brothers, but her own.

What has he heard of them? Nothing good.]

We don't really have any other choice. There's Grothia to deal with. Maybe Chiron can shed some light on it.

[But that's not really why Jeyne will get her chance from him. Even if she takes the Lannister side, even if he has to be wary of that, even if she's lying about his brother, sides matter less and less to Jon these days. For now, he has to think of her as being on the same side.]

The Frey men are dead.

[He says it abruptly. Word had reached Winterfell by raven, not too long before he left for Dragonstone, but the scroll had been heavy on what and light on how. Poison, a whole room of them -- it said that much. What little rumor he's heard circulating spoke of the ghosts of Robb and Grey Wind tearing through the men until they were dead, finding their revenge at last, but that can't be it. And Jon can't say he thinks the Freys will be much mourned.

He exhales deeply.]

Walk with me to the library. We'll sit.

I've been here since Jerusalem, a few months ago, but we've only been on BASE the last few weeks. We were in Paris after Jerusalem... they're in the same world, not our world. Jerusalem was a little like our world, like what I've heard of Essos, but Paris was... later, six hundred years later. There were no knights anymore, and no arrows, and more spear-guns than swords. I don't know if it's what Westeros will be like in six hundred years, or --

What you know of me... should I still be at Castle Black? Am I the Lord Commander there?

It's punishable by death.

It's as you've said. Some people use magic for evil, but not all. But Uther will never see it that way, and good people have died.

[It's strange how empty she feels. In her darker nights, she had wanted to see them choke on their blood. She had imagined clawing at their faces, as she had fought her mother when she took her crown. There were a number of ways grief ran its course in her (though it never found its end) and sometimes the thought of revenge was comforting, but it was as hollow and empty as her nights. Even if they paid, it would not bring Robb back.

She considered the pipe in her hand but ultimately decided to leave it behind. It might be naive and foolish, but she didn't fear death and she would trust Robb's family before her own. She would let him lead her wherever he wanted and assume he meant her no harm.]

If Westeros is still standing in that time, perhaps? Men find new ways to kill each other. It wouldn't surprise me if they created something that didn't need arrows, like what we are training with. I don't know if we could say there are still knights in Westeros or if they ever truly existed. After everything I have seen, it's hard to believe the stories of heroes.

[She met his gaze with surprise, but shook her head.]

When Riverrun was under siege, we didn't receive much news. After the Freys and Lannisters seized the keep, we were under their control. I was kept in my room unless Jaime Lannister wanted to speak with me and I had no desire to see anyone. I never heard that you became Lord Commander.

You shouldn't be Lord Commander. Unless I had a child by Robb, you were his heir. He told me that was what he wanted.

>>FROM:@AEGONNER

no subject

@basicwitch

no subject

no subject

>> FROM: @POINTANDKICK

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject