Who: Claire Fraser and OTA + closed starters When: mid July through mid August Where: Solvunn, Nocwich What: Digging up stuff, research and junk Warnings: none yet but will change if necessary
It's only their second time meeting in Nocwich, and the first... well, they hadn't wasted too much time on words. But he likes to see her in the world, in the flesh, where he can tell himself that things are realer and truer than they are in the Horizon. They hold each other's hearts and minds in the Horizon, he thinks; they hold each other's souls. But in Nocwich, they can hold each other's bodies, too. He likes to hold Claire in his arms wherever he can.
This time, he had seen his sister back to the portal and then had come to meet Claire for supper, retrieving her from some dusty bookshop where she had spent the greater part of the day. My Lady Maester. It had made him reflect, not for the first time, that it is better that she had not come from Westeros, where a woman could not study at the Citadel.
He'd bought them each a good beefsteak in a tavern, with wine and mushrooms and little potatoes and onions, and a good plate of greens, and bowls of sweet berries and cream, then had more wine and cheese and apples and bread sent up to their room for whatever appetites might come later. And he had given her the gift he had brought for her: a fine linen scarf from Thorne, big enough to tie her hair back with, a deep blue that sets off her eyes.
And now he lies here, wrapped up in crisp sheets and in her, feeling better than he has since he left Nocwich last. He dips his head, presses his lips to her shoulder. Too spent to roll her to her back again just yet, and too pleased with her company to wish to sleep. So he says,]
That wolf cup you found, love -- will you show it to me again?
[ She now has a preferred way of ending a day of research. The last time she saw him in the genuine flesh feels like so long ago now, and anything could've happened to him in Thorne. Seeing one another in the Horizon was fine, it will always be welcome as better than nothing, but seeing him walk into the shop had caused a broad smile, research forgotten after pushing herself up from her chair and practically launching herself into his arms. Only briefly does she show him the chalice as she packs it away again.
At supper, she'd tried to pay for the wine, but when he'd insisted, she let herself get lost in the fact that they were truly together, in the flesh, in the same space, and she couldn't find it in her to continue to protest. Their food is wonderful and comforting, and the scarf is a beautiful surprise, one that she models for him once they're alone.
She's happy to be draped over Jon; she never really stops touching and nuzzling even as they speak, not giving in to any lethargy, unwilling to waste her time with him sleeping just yet. His request has her pressing a kiss to the center of his chest before getting up, not bothering with her robe as she carefully retrieves the now thoroughly clean cup. When she returns holding it carefully in her arms, she sits at Jon's side with her legs crossed under her body, knee brushing his hip. ]
I knew you'd like this the moment I uncovered the wolf's face.
[ Handing it over to him, she watches as he examines it, tilting her head to the side, light bouncing softly across her shoulders. ]
[Until he had met her in Nocwich last, he had not laid with a woman since long before the mutiny. Thinking of it like that makes it sound like there had ever been many women for him, when there had only been one before her, but never mind. They have not spoken further on his scars, though he supposes they will one idle day or other, and the silence on it suits him well enough. Yet it is still strange to him, and a small secret delight, that she kisses him so close to where a blade once had stopped his heart.
Now, she is pressing the big cup into his hands. It's old, and he thinks it's good that it's over a mattress: less chance that he'll fumble and drop her prize and shatter it. He smiles up at her.]
I do like it. [Propping the chalice against the mattress, he touches her knee with his free hand. He means to attend to just the cup for these few moments; elsewise, the way she's sitting without a stitch on her will distract him. He peers at the wolf-man in the middle -- it would make a good sigil for some house or other.] What made you want to go digging about for it?
[ The scars, to Claire, are visually nothing worse than what she's seen with Jamie. Jon's scars though, and especially the one over his heart, make her stomach knot and twist every time she sees it, and so it's become a spot her lips gravitate to, as if she could heal him now, herself. She's reclaiming these scarred-over places on his body, making them hers.
Watching as he examines the object, she lets her mind wander again to her questions about it, everything she's trying to find answers to in Luna. Were there centaurs at one point and did they all co-mingle? Or was this a hunt of some sort—if so, who's the prey? Or was the chalice used in a ritual, the pictures telling a story? She's pulled out of her thoughts by his question, and she thinks of all the answers, trying to sort them by importance to her. ]
I don't know what set it off, but I had a long period of missing my uncle. He raised me, and his job was to dig things up all around the world, and then deliver them to the descendants of those people. An archaeologist, he was called. It's how I grew up. No real home, we never stayed anywhere very long. [ This is the part of her life their false memories robbed her of, and it's everything she wants Jon to know. She wants him to know all of her, even the parts she's worried about explaining. ] Deciding to do this made me feel close to him again. [ Claire looks at Jon with a closed smile. ] He's been gone over thirty years, and I still have moments when I miss him so terribly.
[ That wasn't the only reason, and she takes a breath, then continues. ]
I also got curious after our glimpse into the future. You saw how much land Thorne lost, and we know the Lunae were pushed out of Solvunn. I began to wonder where Luna actually originated. Random curiosity, I suppose. This is one of the only things I've found in-tact.
[His smiling gaze goes from her pretty face, to the cup, back to her face. He tries not to let his gaze go past the cup: naked as they both are, there would be something rude about it.]
I joined the Night's Watch in part because my Uncle Benjen was First Ranger -- but he went missing not long after I got there. I thought I'd work at his side. Never got the chance.
Your uncle... I think he would have been proud of you for finding this.
[How could he be otherwise? But he had not understood how much of her own world Claire had seen until now... or how much a home of her own must mean to her. A serious expression begins to settle in on his face, and he turns it to the cup again, to one of the figures on it. He traces it gently with his finger.]
The wolf man, we know that's one of the Lunae. But what's this other one? It looks like a centaur. We have those in Westeros. [Before she can get the wrong idea, he chuckles and adds,] Not in truth. There are old legends from Essos, across the sea, and a southron house, House Caswell, has a centaur for their sigil.
[ His short story about his uncle has Claire reaching out to rest her hand on his leg, gently squeezing and staying there, leaning over to look at the chalice with him. It's good he clarified about the centaurs because she was about to ask a dozen questions, but she hums instead. ]
Everything idea is born from something. What are legends and myths but stories so old we can't prove them anymore? Maybe there were centaurs once. [ She gets excited again, looking at him and answering his question almost before it's out. ] That's why I enjoy this so much. An even deeper dig could reveal a centaur skeleton, we have no clue.
[ Claire knows this isn't the sort of thing everyone enjoys; even people who do like history don't necessarily understand the need to dig things up that have been long buried. She's lived with that all her life, and it doesn't bother her anymore, unless people try to stop her. ]
I don't think I'll be going that far, though. [ One hand reaches up so that her finger can glide along the lip of the cup. ] I think there could be more artifacts like this in the area I'm in, but for the most part, this has filled me up. Unless the council says they want me to continue, I feel good about being finished soon.
[ She has her answers about how far in the Lunae lived in Solvunn, and research is proving useful; Claire can't say she necessarily wants to find actual remains, though she's already promised the council nothing but respect should any bones be discovered. ]
[He nods, rubbing at the soft skin of her knee with his thumb.]
In Essos, they say it's the Dothraki that might have been the beginnings of tales of centaurs. They're horse lords, men who ride more than they walk. They learn to shoot a bow from the back of a horse as children -- that's a feat the men of my lands can't match. I don't know much else about them, but they tell us that much when we're growing up.
But here, it's just as like that there were real centaurs once, the way there are real wolf men now.
My friend Sam would be a help to you here. He loves all of this -- old books, the histories. How people used to live. I have not seen him since I sent him south to the Citadel to become a maester, a learned man. It was his dream.
[ She loves the idle touches, the soft caresses. She thrives on touch, and the last year and some months without have left her craving these sorts of moments, the idle hand holding and the pads of fingertips smoothing against skin just for the sake of it.
Claire tries the name of the people he says, wondering how it sounds on her own tongue. ]Dothraki. They sound like a nomadic tribe. [ The only other cultures she knows of that depend so heavily on horses have been that way. Desert people use camels, but it's essentially the same, so she makes an assumption across planets and time.
As Jon speaks of a friend, she grins, unable to suppress it. ] You're pretty fond of bookworms, aren't you? [ She says as a bookworm, herself. Her hand rests on his leg, idly moving up and down his calf.] Sam does sound like someone I could get lost in a conversation with. I can't explain why it's so interesting to me, and this isn't even my world. There's just something about holding something a person long dead crafted and held. It was a part of something, was made with purpose, and it gets my curiosity going.
[ Unlike with a certain husband of her past (future?), she doesn't feel sheepish when she talks about what she's passionate about. She knows there are things Jon doesn't understand, but he's never made her feel awkward, or like she can't share her excitement with him. She'd been nearly vibrating to show him this cup, and not just because of the wolf insignia. Because she knew she'd have his attention, even if he doesn't match her enthusiasm. ]
[He nods.] Aye, they wander through their grasslands with their herds of horses. They attack cities, or they're well paid not to. [But then, with a little shake of his head, he dismisses the subject.]
[There had been times when he had found Sam's interest in books tedious. What had it mattered how men of the Watch had lived five hundred years ago, a thousand? What had it mattered if there had been six hundred or nine hundred Lord Commanders before Jon? What the men of the Watch needed was a man who could tend to their wounds as Maester Aemon had. But the Watch has need of anything the Citadel knows of the White Walkers and the Night King, and Jon had been glad of Sam's desire to read anything he could cast his eyes on when Sam had sent the message about the dragonglass on Dragonstone.
Though there is nothing Jon can do about that now. His gaze flicks back to Claire's face; it had become lost, staring at the wolf in the chalice.]
In truth, the Winterfell I grew up in is said to be eight thousand years old. I don't know if it's so old as all that, but the one you knew during those three hundred years, that was as close to the real one as I could make it. The one you visit now is only -- a mummer's version of Winterfell, little pieces of it.
I can make more of it for you to look about in, the older parts, the crypts. The parts I've seen. [He hesitates, then adds, a little more shyly,] If you would like that. There are statues of the old kings of winter and the direwolves that were their companions.
[ Claire listens trying to find the parallels between her world and Jon's. What he's describing sounds to her like a culture similar to the Mongols, or other groups of Eurasian nomads.
With her hand still resting on this leg, she listens with rapt attention as he describes Winterfell, and when she hears his hesitation, she squeezes, giving him a warm smile of encouragement as she pushes her hair away from her face, gazing at him. ]
I would like that. I want to know everything you're willing to share with me, all of it. Including your home, the places you remember with the most fondness. [ She looks back at the chalice, reaching out to lightly trace the pattern closest to his hand. ] That's what I wonder about when I find things like this. Was this a...a harvest chalice that everyone drank out of in the autumn? Did someone hold this cup and put their hopes and dreams into it before pouring an offering?
[ She can't help her curiosity and she gives a small, one shouldered shrug that accompanies a soft smile. Her fingers move from the chalice so that she can drag the pads of her fingers over the back of his hand. ]
If we're being completely honest, showing me every old thing you can sounds like a night out, to me. [ Her smile grows into a one dimpled-grin. ] Whatever you can think up, never worry if I'll want to see. The answer is always going to be yes.
[Gods, he could stare at her forever... her blue eyes, her lovely face. Part of him wishes that he could take her back to Winterfell in truth, make her a queen... but that is a fool's dream, he knows. Not only because of the difference in their ages, because she is foreign and could not give him a son now, something that matters very little in this world but would matter much in the North, but because it is selfish to want to take anyone back there with him. All that might wait there is death. He does not like to think of Claire as a wight, but already, it haunts him at night, wakes him in a sweat.
Still, when he smiles at her now, it isn't the smile that many in Thorne see, the sad one that hardly reaches his eyes. It's warm and soft and true.]
I'll show you the parts I can, then. There are older places that I don't think many people have seen in a long time -- parts of the crypts we children never went to. Crumbling in on themselves. Or the First Keep, that my brother fell from -- I don't know much of what it's like in there.
[Something strikes him then.]
Harvest. We had a harvest feast at Winterfell. My father's bannermen would come -- a chance to meet with their lord, if they had need of it. They could discuss matters of import.
A wolf-man isn't a centaur. Is this when they came together? Might have been in joy, might have been in council. There's nothing to say it couldn't have been a bit of both. [He tips his head and looks at the cup again.] To find out about this, you need to find out about the centaurs, and what became of them. One of the men has a bow. Did they fight? Other than that, this doesn't seem to show a war.
[ The way Jon looks at her, the way he smiles only for her, melts Claire in a way that feels impossible to describe. She brings that happiness to his eyes, makes them squint a bit at the corners when he smiles at her. It's something she's quickly grown fond of doing, making that smile appear.
She likes listening to him always, especially talking about the good things he remembers, though that my brother fell from doesn't sound much like a happy memory. She files it away for later to ask about. She said she wanted to see everything, and she does, not just the good. ] Harvest is always an opportune time for gathering together. So many cultures around the world come together then, and many times it was the only opportunity they had to see one another the entire year.
[ Carefully, Claire moves herself so that she's sitting shoulder to shoulder with Jon, able to look at the cup with the same perspective he has. ]
I don't feel like it's a violent image, even with the bow. I suppose it could be something along the lines of a general hunt, but not war, I agree with you. If there were centaurs and they were linked to the wolves, I'm hoping to find my answer in Luna. There's another bookkeeper I'll try tomorrow.
[ Her last opportunity before Nocwich closes, and she takes what she's found to the council. ]
[Three days to Nocwich, so they have just one more night -- and not much to the last day. He will spend much of tomorrow hunting, he decides, and then sell whatever of the meat and hide that Claire doesn't want, if he is lucky enough to take down any game at all.]
No. It might be that it's a chase, the way they circle about each other. But the wolf is at the center of it all. Might be that's because a wolf made it -- but only the wolves would know.
[And that's about as far as his insight on this subject goes. He adds, a little regretful, after another long look at it,]
You should wrap it back up.
The time we have, it's already half gone. Things in Thorne.... [How to describe them? He had emerged from that undercroft into a new kingdom. It would be hard to call it better, but easier to say, in an instant, that it's better for him.]
And that's exactly what I'm trying to discover. How much influence did the Lunae have once? They had so much territory at one point, I can't help but wonder.
[ Getting back out of bed, she carefully takes the cup and pads to the table, wrapping it as he speaks. A frown gently tugs her lips down, hating that three days is all they have together, and should Nocwich ever close again, that's it for being together in the real flesh. It's almost enough to want to abandon her studies for the day. The idea tumbles around in her mind, and then he mentions Thorne. ]
If I could keep you with me in Solvunn...[ She lets out a breath, then looks at Jon from across the room, eyes holding a weight of fear to them. ] I'm not ashamed to admit I'm afraid for you. And others in Thorne.
[ Making her way back to the bed, she sits beside him again, this time tucking in close and kissing his chest softly. ] Because of that, and because you're right, our time is almost up, I...don't think I'll go to Luna tomorrow. I have plenty to start and keep me busy until I can return.
[ The more she thinks about it, the less she can stomach bending over books all day over simply being with Jon. She's learned her lessons about not taking time for granted, and she's learned them the hard way. ]
[When she tucks back in against him and says she doesn't plan to do any more research tomorrow, all thoughts of going hunting flee from his mind. Why would he spend the day chasing through a forest when he can spend any day doing that back in Thorne? He did not begrudge her the time spent sifting through books if it was important to her, but they have so little time to see each other in the flesh as yet that it had still disappointed him. The last time they had met in Nocwich, they'd hardly left their room.
But that had been different, he supposes. There had been three miserable weeks of waiting and not knowing and not seeing her. And then he had come to her, and he had held her, and he had said into her ear, I choose you. Not really a wedding, but as close on it as they were like to see for a while.]
Until we can't. [His expression is pleased, and he bends to kiss her forehead.] The woods can do without me. The whole world can do without the both of us for the day.
If my sister was not in Thorne, I might have left it when I came out of that undercroft. Well, I might have tried. I wanted to run to you; I did not like that we might have each died where we were, underground, with no way to see each other and no one to know. But the new king... he treats us better. Most of us. I can carry my sword in the castle now.[He doesn't sound tremendously impressed, but it's still an improvement.] Yet what he did, it put all of us in danger.
[ As they lie together, one leg drapes over his, head resting against his chest as she draws random shapes and patterns on his skin with her fingertips. Stowing away with him sounds better than anything else now, and with his agreement, she lets out a soft, content breath.
Then she listens, to his words and to the steady beat of his heart. She likes that he feels more confident, it gives her a little hope that perhaps Thorne will stay level-headed and reasonable. Although if level-heads prevail, Winifred's sacrifice was, if anything, premature. ] There's fear in Solvunn, that Thorne will attack our ocean border, and so a woman sacrificed herself to the water and now there's a barrier, a new god's protection.
[ There are other things she needs to tell him, specifically about others she knows in Thorne, but it can wait, and she isn't exactly eager. ]
[His arms about her, he holds her as close and comfortable against his chest as he can. When he answers her, his tone is thoughtful.]
He is a soldier -- a naval man. I am a soldier, trained to it, but I know little of ships -- I've only been on the sea two or three times in my life. Solvunn does well to fear an attack by sea by that measure, or at least to want to defend itself by sea. But what does Solvunn have that he would want? A land route to Cadens? You still have to send men and horses by ship part of the way; it isn't necessarily easier than just going around it, unless he means to conquer it all. Then he has other troubles. Crown in Thorne can't even manage Nott -- why take on more of it? It'd just be a bigger Nott, to them.
That's how I'd think on the matter. Thorne does not trust Solvunn, but it is the Free Cities that are the enemy, as I understand.
No one ought to be the enemy. We all have to live in the same world.
[ It doesn't exactly make her feel better that her friends in the Free Cities are targets of this king's wrath, but it does make her feel better that Solvunn will be alright for now. She makes a soft sound in the back of her throat, finding one of his hands and tangling her fingers through his. ]
It's always another bloody war, everywhere I go. [ And somehow she's always been right in it, in danger but only terrified for the people she loves. ] I'm so tired of it, Jon.
[ Her voice wavers a little and she closes her eyes, taking a deep breath and exhaling a confession. ] It's another reason I let myself get lost in the digging. I don't want to think about this anymore, I want a time in my life when war doesn't occupy every thought.
[ But that's a pipe dream. What will happen next? Who will be in the line of fire? What will she be able to do to help? Are they prepared enough? Will she lose someone she loves? And so it goes on and on; she knows she can't be free of it, but it's been so many decades of her life. ]
[Surprising bitterness and tiredness in how he says it, particularly for a man of his years. It isn't the eight centuries they had lived, some of which he hardly remembers, and some of which he remembers quite well. It's that he sees the same foolishness here that he does back in Westeros. What would they do against a true threat, one that held no care for whether a man lived in Thorne or the Free Cities or Solvunn? One that saw all of them the same and wished to crush them all the same, as what he faces at home does? The new king in Thorne might be a better king than his niece had been a queen, that remains to be seen, but his way of taking the throne had involved needless aggression against Solvunn and the Free Cities, when the time may still come one day when they all need to work together. He has not seen much evidence of that, but he hopes to the gods with the way the people here go on that he never will.]
I am tired of fighting. I've been tired of fighting for so long. I'm glad you had the digging to occupy you. Glad they're letting us out of the city now in Thorne now, too -- I feel a little more myself out in the wilds. Castle Thorne isn't much like Winterfell, it is -- well, I never saw King's Landing. Winterfell is a wilder place, Castle Black wilder still, in its way.
[OOC: OOPS. Let's pretend I didn't get the timeline confused and think this all happened in early July Nocwich when it's actually happening in early August Nocwich! No big deal, just insert one more Nocwich meeting than I said a tag or two back and assume Jon has been taking time out of his busy horse-capturing schedule for this hangout time, etc.]
[ Closing her eyes, her head raises enough so that she can press another kiss to his chest, letting her lips linger there for a few beats of his heart before resting her head. One hand reaches up to idly glide along his jawline back and forth, the other rests on his hip. ] I would say that I despise us being brought here only to fight their battles, except that then we wouldn't have met, and I can't regret that at all. No matter how it started.
[ She still marvels sometimes that he did choose her, that their true age difference, her silver hair and her body marked with the passing of time, didn't deter him in the end. She's never lacked self-confidence, but she's also never thought of herself as particularly eye-catching, and not to someone who could likely have any woman his age he set his eyes on. ]
I wish there were safe woods to retreat to. [ Like in her domain, once. She feels at her best when she's lost in the forest, foraging and quietly letting herself blend into and become a part of the nature around her. ] Too deep into the woods of Solvunn and beasts are likely to stalk and kill. I have a magic bracer that will shield me with a thought, but it isn't enough to feel safe living deeply among the trees. [ Not after being nearly eviscerated; if Wrench hadn't found her and Michael hadn't subsequently healed her after, she'd be another Solvunn fatality. ] When the rifts opened and creatures poured out, some stayed behind and have a home there now.
[ OOC: Yeah, I'd put it halfway between both months so that I could get that sweet, sweet Nocwich time before Claire went to the council. It's no worries, I honestly didn't even realize we were rping from two different perspectives until your note, LOL. ]
[ Claire hums at the kiss, thumb gliding along his scruff. She wonders if she should tell him what happened, but she has no scars, she's fine, and it seems like it would only worry him for nothing. Something happened to a lot of people during that time, and she's whole now. ]
I can't recall what they're named, but it's something deceptively cute, just like they are. They have one eye that's pink and glows in the dark, and they're adorable. Until they open their mouths, the jaws unhinge, and dozens of razor-sharp teeth are exposed. [ She shifts uncomfortably. ] Of all the things that could've stayed behind. I had to raise and reinforce the garden fence with magic.
[ Raising herself up on one arm, she leans over him so that she can see his eyes. ] Maybe other parts of that...potential future will come true. Maybe the borders will fall.
[His brows draw together. That would be complicated for him.
For one thing, he does not plan to be beholden to the King of Thorne, whoever that may be, for a century and more. He is no slave -- is he? He serves, though he had not asked to, but he is not a slave. He does not mean to wait so long as that before he can make a home with her.
But for another, he remembers that what rose and what fell did not always have much to do with what anyone deserved, and that reasons for war... most of them have come to seem foolish to him. Most people have not seen what he has seen. Most make war for greed, or like mummers make their shows. He had not liked to see Thorne fall, no matter their mistakes. He does not like to see the smallfolk suffer.]
Might be that they will. It would be better if they could fall in peace, but I would not be such a fool as to think that that will happen.
Don't think I mean to wait more than a hundred years before I can share your bed, Claire.
I wouldn't want the fall of them if it weren't peaceful somehow. I want it to be. I wish it could be.
[ It never is. Claire pushes her hand through his hair at his words and she smiles softly, hand drifting back down so that her thumb grazes his bottom lip. ] One day, and hopefully not a hundred years from now. [ But if she has to, if they're here together that long, she'll spend every day of Nocwich just like this with him, as often as they can. There has to be a way, though. She knows of others who have moved, but not many, and it doesn't seem to happen with any amount of frequency. ]
You're more than welcome in my bed, as soon as you have a way to it. It's going to be difficult, going back to sleeping alone after this weekend. I feel as though I miss you next to me already. [ She hates sleeping alone knowing Jon is too, that it doesn't have to be this way. ]
[She runs her hand through his hair, thumbs at his bottom lip, and he chases the pad of her thumb with kisses, then pulls her in closer. It's been long enough since the last time that he can make love to her again now.]
I like to see you in the Horizon at night, love. But it isn't really enough.
[It's like a dream of her at Winterfell, or a dream of visiting her in a forest cottage. It feels real while he's there, but he always wakes up alone -- comes out of a trance in his own bed. It's different here in Nocwich. It might be that, one day, they won't even really have their own old bodies anymore, these bodies that currently give them such delight together. He doesn't like to think on that. He likes what is real, what he can touch and hold, like the way he moves his hand down now to caress and grasp the curve of her hip, her bottom, as he kisses her mouth. She is so firm and alive here, the scent of flowers and herbs in her hair, and the dust of the bookshop.]
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Inn, first evening, mild NSFW.
This time, he had seen his sister back to the portal and then had come to meet Claire for supper, retrieving her from some dusty bookshop where she had spent the greater part of the day. My Lady Maester. It had made him reflect, not for the first time, that it is better that she had not come from Westeros, where a woman could not study at the Citadel.
He'd bought them each a good beefsteak in a tavern, with wine and mushrooms and little potatoes and onions, and a good plate of greens, and bowls of sweet berries and cream, then had more wine and cheese and apples and bread sent up to their room for whatever appetites might come later. And he had given her the gift he had brought for her: a fine linen scarf from Thorne, big enough to tie her hair back with, a deep blue that sets off her eyes.
And now he lies here, wrapped up in crisp sheets and in her, feeling better than he has since he left Nocwich last. He dips his head, presses his lips to her shoulder. Too spent to roll her to her back again just yet, and too pleased with her company to wish to sleep. So he says,]
That wolf cup you found, love -- will you show it to me again?
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At supper, she'd tried to pay for the wine, but when he'd insisted, she let herself get lost in the fact that they were truly together, in the flesh, in the same space, and she couldn't find it in her to continue to protest. Their food is wonderful and comforting, and the scarf is a beautiful surprise, one that she models for him once they're alone.
She's happy to be draped over Jon; she never really stops touching and nuzzling even as they speak, not giving in to any lethargy, unwilling to waste her time with him sleeping just yet. His request has her pressing a kiss to the center of his chest before getting up, not bothering with her robe as she carefully retrieves the now thoroughly clean cup. When she returns holding it carefully in her arms, she sits at Jon's side with her legs crossed under her body, knee brushing his hip. ]
I knew you'd like this the moment I uncovered the wolf's face.
[ Handing it over to him, she watches as he examines it, tilting her head to the side, light bouncing softly across her shoulders. ]
What do you think?
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Now, she is pressing the big cup into his hands. It's old, and he thinks it's good that it's over a mattress: less chance that he'll fumble and drop her prize and shatter it. He smiles up at her.]
I do like it. [Propping the chalice against the mattress, he touches her knee with his free hand. He means to attend to just the cup for these few moments; elsewise, the way she's sitting without a stitch on her will distract him. He peers at the wolf-man in the middle -- it would make a good sigil for some house or other.] What made you want to go digging about for it?
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Watching as he examines the object, she lets her mind wander again to her questions about it, everything she's trying to find answers to in Luna. Were there centaurs at one point and did they all co-mingle? Or was this a hunt of some sort—if so, who's the prey? Or was the chalice used in a ritual, the pictures telling a story? She's pulled out of her thoughts by his question, and she thinks of all the answers, trying to sort them by importance to her. ]
I don't know what set it off, but I had a long period of missing my uncle. He raised me, and his job was to dig things up all around the world, and then deliver them to the descendants of those people. An archaeologist, he was called. It's how I grew up. No real home, we never stayed anywhere very long. [ This is the part of her life their false memories robbed her of, and it's everything she wants Jon to know. She wants him to know all of her, even the parts she's worried about explaining. ] Deciding to do this made me feel close to him again. [ Claire looks at Jon with a closed smile. ] He's been gone over thirty years, and I still have moments when I miss him so terribly.
[ That wasn't the only reason, and she takes a breath, then continues. ]
I also got curious after our glimpse into the future. You saw how much land Thorne lost, and we know the Lunae were pushed out of Solvunn. I began to wonder where Luna actually originated. Random curiosity, I suppose. This is one of the only things I've found in-tact.
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I joined the Night's Watch in part because my Uncle Benjen was First Ranger -- but he went missing not long after I got there. I thought I'd work at his side. Never got the chance.
Your uncle... I think he would have been proud of you for finding this.
[How could he be otherwise? But he had not understood how much of her own world Claire had seen until now... or how much a home of her own must mean to her. A serious expression begins to settle in on his face, and he turns it to the cup again, to one of the figures on it. He traces it gently with his finger.]
The wolf man, we know that's one of the Lunae. But what's this other one? It looks like a centaur. We have those in Westeros. [Before she can get the wrong idea, he chuckles and adds,] Not in truth. There are old legends from Essos, across the sea, and a southron house, House Caswell, has a centaur for their sigil.
You mean to seek more?
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Everything idea is born from something. What are legends and myths but stories so old we can't prove them anymore? Maybe there were centaurs once. [ She gets excited again, looking at him and answering his question almost before it's out. ] That's why I enjoy this so much. An even deeper dig could reveal a centaur skeleton, we have no clue.
[ Claire knows this isn't the sort of thing everyone enjoys; even people who do like history don't necessarily understand the need to dig things up that have been long buried. She's lived with that all her life, and it doesn't bother her anymore, unless people try to stop her. ]
I don't think I'll be going that far, though. [ One hand reaches up so that her finger can glide along the lip of the cup. ] I think there could be more artifacts like this in the area I'm in, but for the most part, this has filled me up. Unless the council says they want me to continue, I feel good about being finished soon.
[ She has her answers about how far in the Lunae lived in Solvunn, and research is proving useful; Claire can't say she necessarily wants to find actual remains, though she's already promised the council nothing but respect should any bones be discovered. ]
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In Essos, they say it's the Dothraki that might have been the beginnings of tales of centaurs. They're horse lords, men who ride more than they walk. They learn to shoot a bow from the back of a horse as children -- that's a feat the men of my lands can't match. I don't know much else about them, but they tell us that much when we're growing up.
But here, it's just as like that there were real centaurs once, the way there are real wolf men now.
My friend Sam would be a help to you here. He loves all of this -- old books, the histories. How people used to live. I have not seen him since I sent him south to the Citadel to become a maester, a learned man. It was his dream.
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Claire tries the name of the people he says, wondering how it sounds on her own tongue. ] Dothraki. They sound like a nomadic tribe. [ The only other cultures she knows of that depend so heavily on horses have been that way. Desert people use camels, but it's essentially the same, so she makes an assumption across planets and time.
As Jon speaks of a friend, she grins, unable to suppress it. ] You're pretty fond of bookworms, aren't you? [ She says as a bookworm, herself. Her hand rests on his leg, idly moving up and down his calf.] Sam does sound like someone I could get lost in a conversation with. I can't explain why it's so interesting to me, and this isn't even my world. There's just something about holding something a person long dead crafted and held. It was a part of something, was made with purpose, and it gets my curiosity going.
[ Unlike with a certain husband of her past (future?), she doesn't feel sheepish when she talks about what she's passionate about. She knows there are things Jon doesn't understand, but he's never made her feel awkward, or like she can't share her excitement with him. She'd been nearly vibrating to show him this cup, and not just because of the wolf insignia. Because she knew she'd have his attention, even if he doesn't match her enthusiasm. ]
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[There had been times when he had found Sam's interest in books tedious. What had it mattered how men of the Watch had lived five hundred years ago, a thousand? What had it mattered if there had been six hundred or nine hundred Lord Commanders before Jon? What the men of the Watch needed was a man who could tend to their wounds as Maester Aemon had. But the Watch has need of anything the Citadel knows of the White Walkers and the Night King, and Jon had been glad of Sam's desire to read anything he could cast his eyes on when Sam had sent the message about the dragonglass on Dragonstone.
Though there is nothing Jon can do about that now. His gaze flicks back to Claire's face; it had become lost, staring at the wolf in the chalice.]
In truth, the Winterfell I grew up in is said to be eight thousand years old. I don't know if it's so old as all that, but the one you knew during those three hundred years, that was as close to the real one as I could make it. The one you visit now is only -- a mummer's version of Winterfell, little pieces of it.
I can make more of it for you to look about in, the older parts, the crypts. The parts I've seen. [He hesitates, then adds, a little more shyly,] If you would like that. There are statues of the old kings of winter and the direwolves that were their companions.
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With her hand still resting on this leg, she listens with rapt attention as he describes Winterfell, and when she hears his hesitation, she squeezes, giving him a warm smile of encouragement as she pushes her hair away from her face, gazing at him. ]
I would like that. I want to know everything you're willing to share with me, all of it. Including your home, the places you remember with the most fondness. [ She looks back at the chalice, reaching out to lightly trace the pattern closest to his hand. ] That's what I wonder about when I find things like this. Was this a...a harvest chalice that everyone drank out of in the autumn? Did someone hold this cup and put their hopes and dreams into it before pouring an offering?
[ She can't help her curiosity and she gives a small, one shouldered shrug that accompanies a soft smile. Her fingers move from the chalice so that she can drag the pads of her fingers over the back of his hand. ]
If we're being completely honest, showing me every old thing you can sounds like a night out, to me. [ Her smile grows into a one dimpled-grin. ] Whatever you can think up, never worry if I'll want to see. The answer is always going to be yes.
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Still, when he smiles at her now, it isn't the smile that many in Thorne see, the sad one that hardly reaches his eyes. It's warm and soft and true.]
I'll show you the parts I can, then. There are older places that I don't think many people have seen in a long time -- parts of the crypts we children never went to. Crumbling in on themselves. Or the First Keep, that my brother fell from -- I don't know much of what it's like in there.
[Something strikes him then.]
Harvest. We had a harvest feast at Winterfell. My father's bannermen would come -- a chance to meet with their lord, if they had need of it. They could discuss matters of import.
A wolf-man isn't a centaur. Is this when they came together? Might have been in joy, might have been in council. There's nothing to say it couldn't have been a bit of both. [He tips his head and looks at the cup again.] To find out about this, you need to find out about the centaurs, and what became of them. One of the men has a bow. Did they fight? Other than that, this doesn't seem to show a war.
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She likes listening to him always, especially talking about the good things he remembers, though that my brother fell from doesn't sound much like a happy memory. She files it away for later to ask about. She said she wanted to see everything, and she does, not just the good. ] Harvest is always an opportune time for gathering together. So many cultures around the world come together then, and many times it was the only opportunity they had to see one another the entire year.
[ Carefully, Claire moves herself so that she's sitting shoulder to shoulder with Jon, able to look at the cup with the same perspective he has. ]
I don't feel like it's a violent image, even with the bow. I suppose it could be something along the lines of a general hunt, but not war, I agree with you. If there were centaurs and they were linked to the wolves, I'm hoping to find my answer in Luna. There's another bookkeeper I'll try tomorrow.
[ Her last opportunity before Nocwich closes, and she takes what she's found to the council. ]
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No. It might be that it's a chase, the way they circle about each other. But the wolf is at the center of it all. Might be that's because a wolf made it -- but only the wolves would know.
[And that's about as far as his insight on this subject goes. He adds, a little regretful, after another long look at it,]
You should wrap it back up.
The time we have, it's already half gone. Things in Thorne.... [How to describe them? He had emerged from that undercroft into a new kingdom. It would be hard to call it better, but easier to say, in an instant, that it's better for him.]
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[ Getting back out of bed, she carefully takes the cup and pads to the table, wrapping it as he speaks. A frown gently tugs her lips down, hating that three days is all they have together, and should Nocwich ever close again, that's it for being together in the real flesh. It's almost enough to want to abandon her studies for the day. The idea tumbles around in her mind, and then he mentions Thorne. ]
If I could keep you with me in Solvunn...[ She lets out a breath, then looks at Jon from across the room, eyes holding a weight of fear to them. ] I'm not ashamed to admit I'm afraid for you. And others in Thorne.
[ Making her way back to the bed, she sits beside him again, this time tucking in close and kissing his chest softly. ] Because of that, and because you're right, our time is almost up, I...don't think I'll go to Luna tomorrow. I have plenty to start and keep me busy until I can return.
[ The more she thinks about it, the less she can stomach bending over books all day over simply being with Jon. She's learned her lessons about not taking time for granted, and she's learned them the hard way. ]
Stay here with me tomorrow. Until we can't.
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But that had been different, he supposes. There had been three miserable weeks of waiting and not knowing and not seeing her. And then he had come to her, and he had held her, and he had said into her ear, I choose you. Not really a wedding, but as close on it as they were like to see for a while.]
Until we can't. [His expression is pleased, and he bends to kiss her forehead.] The woods can do without me. The whole world can do without the both of us for the day.
If my sister was not in Thorne, I might have left it when I came out of that undercroft. Well, I might have tried. I wanted to run to you; I did not like that we might have each died where we were, underground, with no way to see each other and no one to know. But the new king... he treats us better. Most of us. I can carry my sword in the castle now.[He doesn't sound tremendously impressed, but it's still an improvement.] Yet what he did, it put all of us in danger.
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Then she listens, to his words and to the steady beat of his heart. She likes that he feels more confident, it gives her a little hope that perhaps Thorne will stay level-headed and reasonable. Although if level-heads prevail, Winifred's sacrifice was, if anything, premature. ] There's fear in Solvunn, that Thorne will attack our ocean border, and so a woman sacrificed herself to the water and now there's a barrier, a new god's protection.
[ There are other things she needs to tell him, specifically about others she knows in Thorne, but it can wait, and she isn't exactly eager. ]
Do you think the king will send the order?
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He is a soldier -- a naval man. I am a soldier, trained to it, but I know little of ships -- I've only been on the sea two or three times in my life. Solvunn does well to fear an attack by sea by that measure, or at least to want to defend itself by sea. But what does Solvunn have that he would want? A land route to Cadens? You still have to send men and horses by ship part of the way; it isn't necessarily easier than just going around it, unless he means to conquer it all. Then he has other troubles. Crown in Thorne can't even manage Nott -- why take on more of it? It'd just be a bigger Nott, to them.
That's how I'd think on the matter. Thorne does not trust Solvunn, but it is the Free Cities that are the enemy, as I understand.
No one ought to be the enemy. We all have to live in the same world.
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It's always another bloody war, everywhere I go. [ And somehow she's always been right in it, in danger but only terrified for the people she loves. ] I'm so tired of it, Jon.
[ Her voice wavers a little and she closes her eyes, taking a deep breath and exhaling a confession. ] It's another reason I let myself get lost in the digging. I don't want to think about this anymore, I want a time in my life when war doesn't occupy every thought.
[ But that's a pipe dream. What will happen next? Who will be in the line of fire? What will she be able to do to help? Are they prepared enough? Will she lose someone she loves? And so it goes on and on; she knows she can't be free of it, but it's been so many decades of her life. ]
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[Surprising bitterness and tiredness in how he says it, particularly for a man of his years. It isn't the eight centuries they had lived, some of which he hardly remembers, and some of which he remembers quite well. It's that he sees the same foolishness here that he does back in Westeros. What would they do against a true threat, one that held no care for whether a man lived in Thorne or the Free Cities or Solvunn? One that saw all of them the same and wished to crush them all the same, as what he faces at home does? The new king in Thorne might be a better king than his niece had been a queen, that remains to be seen, but his way of taking the throne had involved needless aggression against Solvunn and the Free Cities, when the time may still come one day when they all need to work together. He has not seen much evidence of that, but he hopes to the gods with the way the people here go on that he never will.]
I am tired of fighting. I've been tired of fighting for so long. I'm glad you had the digging to occupy you. Glad they're letting us out of the city now in Thorne now, too -- I feel a little more myself out in the wilds. Castle Thorne isn't much like Winterfell, it is -- well, I never saw King's Landing. Winterfell is a wilder place, Castle Black wilder still, in its way.
[OOC: OOPS. Let's pretend I didn't get the timeline confused and think this all happened in early July Nocwich when it's actually happening in early August Nocwich! No big deal, just insert one more Nocwich meeting than I said a tag or two back and assume Jon has been taking time out of his busy horse-capturing schedule for this hangout time, etc.]
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[ She still marvels sometimes that he did choose her, that their true age difference, her silver hair and her body marked with the passing of time, didn't deter him in the end. She's never lacked self-confidence, but she's also never thought of herself as particularly eye-catching, and not to someone who could likely have any woman his age he set his eyes on. ]
I wish there were safe woods to retreat to. [ Like in her domain, once. She feels at her best when she's lost in the forest, foraging and quietly letting herself blend into and become a part of the nature around her. ] Too deep into the woods of Solvunn and beasts are likely to stalk and kill. I have a magic bracer that will shield me with a thought, but it isn't enough to feel safe living deeply among the trees. [ Not after being nearly eviscerated; if Wrench hadn't found her and Michael hadn't subsequently healed her after, she'd be another Solvunn fatality. ] When the rifts opened and creatures poured out, some stayed behind and have a home there now.
[ OOC: Yeah, I'd put it halfway between both months so that I could get that sweet, sweet Nocwich time before Claire went to the council. It's no worries, I honestly didn't even realize we were rping from two different perspectives until your note, LOL. ]
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I wish I had a way to keep you safe. Wish we could have a little place in the woods, all our own.
What sort of creatures stayed behind? If any survived in Thorne, I don't know of them.
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I can't recall what they're named, but it's something deceptively cute, just like they are. They have one eye that's pink and glows in the dark, and they're adorable. Until they open their mouths, the jaws unhinge, and dozens of razor-sharp teeth are exposed. [ She shifts uncomfortably. ] Of all the things that could've stayed behind. I had to raise and reinforce the garden fence with magic.
[ Raising herself up on one arm, she leans over him so that she can see his eyes. ] Maybe other parts of that...potential future will come true. Maybe the borders will fall.
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For one thing, he does not plan to be beholden to the King of Thorne, whoever that may be, for a century and more. He is no slave -- is he? He serves, though he had not asked to, but he is not a slave. He does not mean to wait so long as that before he can make a home with her.
But for another, he remembers that what rose and what fell did not always have much to do with what anyone deserved, and that reasons for war... most of them have come to seem foolish to him. Most people have not seen what he has seen. Most make war for greed, or like mummers make their shows. He had not liked to see Thorne fall, no matter their mistakes. He does not like to see the smallfolk suffer.]
Might be that they will. It would be better if they could fall in peace, but I would not be such a fool as to think that that will happen.
Don't think I mean to wait more than a hundred years before I can share your bed, Claire.
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[ It never is. Claire pushes her hand through his hair at his words and she smiles softly, hand drifting back down so that her thumb grazes his bottom lip. ] One day, and hopefully not a hundred years from now. [ But if she has to, if they're here together that long, she'll spend every day of Nocwich just like this with him, as often as they can. There has to be a way, though. She knows of others who have moved, but not many, and it doesn't seem to happen with any amount of frequency. ]
You're more than welcome in my bed, as soon as you have a way to it. It's going to be difficult, going back to sleeping alone after this weekend. I feel as though I miss you next to me already. [ She hates sleeping alone knowing Jon is too, that it doesn't have to be this way. ]
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I like to see you in the Horizon at night, love. But it isn't really enough.
[It's like a dream of her at Winterfell, or a dream of visiting her in a forest cottage. It feels real while he's there, but he always wakes up alone -- comes out of a trance in his own bed. It's different here in Nocwich. It might be that, one day, they won't even really have their own old bodies anymore, these bodies that currently give them such delight together. He doesn't like to think on that. He likes what is real, what he can touch and hold, like the way he moves his hand down now to caress and grasp the curve of her hip, her bottom, as he kisses her mouth. She is so firm and alive here, the scent of flowers and herbs in her hair, and the dust of the bookshop.]
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