it's not your act of creation

[beautifullies]

Who: Claire and closed starters + opens
When: September + October
Where: her house in Solvunn, the Horizon, will add more locations as needed
What: An open where Clarie discovers she can control bees (up to 30 ft), an option to bake bread or garden with her, eventual questing, a handful of closed starters and more!
Warnings: Will update as needed
Notes: Please feel free to match the brackets or switch to prose, tag with your heart. Assume wildcarding is on the table, just message me first or hmu on plurk @ babybananas w/any ideas!




look how cute, how adorable, how perfect

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[northerndragon]

[He nods, serious. As they walk along, he names off a few more, but no one really matters much until he reaches...]

This one is Torrhen Stark. He was the last King in the North until my brother Robb. They called him the King who Knelt, because he gave up his crown.

There had been an empire, old Valyria, across the Narrow Sea for thousands of years, but they had never troubled themselves with Westeros much until about four hundred years before my time, when one of their dragonlords brought his family to live on an island they called Dragonstone, off the coast down south. Family was called Targaryen. Valyria fell not long after, in some catastrophe -- the nature of it is a mystery still.

Targaryens kept much to themselves for a hundred years, until Aegon and his sisters decided to take the Seven Kingdoms with their three dragons. The North is one of those kingdoms. Some were taken in a battle they called the Field of Fire, but some were taken without blood. Torrhen did not want his people to bleed, so he knelt to Aegon. It was an honorable choice.

[And yet he sounds a bit glum. It was, wasn't it?]

When they pulled me here, I was on my way to Dragonstone to treat with Aegon's last descendent. She has three dragons. She means to retake the Iron Throne. The North needs her aid. I know what she may ask of me.

[And if he ever has to face that, it will mean he is away from here and away from Claire -- nothing he wants to think on now. He squeezes her hand on his arm, and his face looks more dismayed than it ought to.]

[OOC: If this is beginning to sound suspiciously like Rome and England to Claire, only with dragons... well, Jon wouldn't know. But it's not unreasonable!]

[beautifullies]

[ Claire listens, as attentive as promised, and she can't help but make certain parallels with the history familiar to her. She's lost in imagining certain royals to take place of the names Jon's saying, but then he begins speaking of himself, and she turns so that she's facing him more fully, then stands in front of him so that he can see her eyes.

Taking both of her hands in his, she looks at him as her thumbs stroke the sides of his hands. ]

Others here believe there's still a version of us living the life we left behind; how else would Lord John have experienced years with me, if I've been here?

[ She cannot imagine now, what it would feel like to lose Jon, she knows it's something neither of them likes to speak of. What if one of them leaves without warning? But it could happen, they both know it's true. ]

And if, someday you do go back to live that life, if she does ask that of you, I have to believe that you, Jon Snow, will consider every option, down to the last dragon, and make decisions accordingly. I know you, and I believe in you.

[ They're just words, she won't be there, she can't help, she doesn't understand the deep intricacies of it all. But she means what she says and says it with love. Raising his hands to her lips, she kisses each set of knuckles before tucking her arm in his again. ]

Today is for understanding the past, not solving the future.

[northerndragon]

[He shrugs.]

Don't like to think that there is some other me making decisions for the North without me knowing it. I already left a regent.

Mat has gone back to his home, in some way, and come back. I could ask him what it's like, what he remembers. But -- [He smiles down at Claire, squeezes her arm and gives it a little shake after she tucks his hand back in] -- I am happier to be here with you.

[This is true. He has never been happy to be in Abraxas. He has great differences and disagreements with how anyone is ruling their lands or caring for their people. They go too far to seek power, he thinks, when that is not the right way; they do not understand that they are really only exalted servants.

But he is always happy to be with Claire. He moves through the next Starks faster. The Targaryens married brother to sister, and so there was a religious war down south about it, with many religious exiled to the Night's Watch and the Starks of the time left to deal with any trouble they caused. Then a Targaryen woman and her brother fought each other for the throne, close on two hundred years ago, and here's Cregan, he sided with Rhaenyra. Later in life, they called him the Old Man of the North.

Where they are now, the swords held by the statues are swords, not just thin strips of rusty dust crossing their laps.

Finally, they come to an end, beyond which there are no more statues. Among the statues of men, there's a woman, her hands out.]

My grandfather, uncle, aunt. I told you there was a woman's statue here. A war was started over her. She was only a girl. The heir to the throne, Prince Rhaegar, crowned her Queen of Love and Beauty at a tourney. A great scandal - he ought to have crowned his wife. He kidnapped my aunt a little while later.

My uncle Brandon was the heir to Winterfell, or should have been. Went down to King's Landing to demand his sister back. The Mad King, he was Rhaegar's father, he executed my uncle and my grandfather for treason and demanded my father's head. My father was being fostered then with Jon Arryn in the Vale, and Lord Arryn refused. Robert Baratheon, he was Lyanna's betrothed, he was also being fostered with Lord Arryn. The Mad King also wanted his head. All three of them called their banners instead.

[beautifullies]

[ Claire steps closer to the statue of his Aunt, looking up at her carved face. ]

What did your aunt want? Where is her voice in the story? Assuming she ever had one.

[ Her words aren't harsh, but as she listens, she can't help but wonder. She's reminded of the Greeks, of Troy. Did Helen want to go with Paris, or was she kidnapped? Helen has no story, no version of events from her perspective. But there are dozens of stories attempting to depict whatever might've happened, none of them with her input. ]

There was a time in my world, where what a woman wanted, mattered very little. I assume it's true of many worlds, at some point.

[ Another reason she's happier now, where she is. It was getting better, heading into the 1970s, but the 18th century? Christ, she's on a countdown to being called a witch again in that time, she knows it. ]

[northerndragon]

[He looks at the girl's statue for a long moment. It's only what he can remember of the statue. He is not sure he got the face right. His father would have done a better job of it, he is sure.]

I don't know. My father wouldn't speak much of her. Everyone always said she was beautiful. A little wild -- she liked to ride. Dark hair, like most of the Starks.

[Like his. In fact, the statue shows very little, but perhaps it looks a little like him.]

I don't think it matters much what most people want where I come from, women or men, but you're right that a lot of highborn girls don't have much say. I don't know how she felt about Robert, or Rhaegar. They were both very handsome, both great warriors -- though by the time I saw him, Robert was a fat old drunkard with a cruel wife. His wife helped kill my father, she's tried to kill my sister, she's still trying to kill me. Rhaegar kept Lyanna in a tower down in Dorne -- that's way down south. He called it the Tower of Joy.

My father became Lord Stark, married his brother's betrothed. Her father's men joined his men, and Robert's men, and Lord Arryn's men. King's men began to lose, and eventually, Rhaegar's armies met Robert's armies at the River Trident. It had been more than a year since the war began, and my father had got me on some woman in that time. His wife was not best pleased. Once they knew each other, he would not look at other ladies, but during the Rebellion, they were hardly more than strangers. He'd left just after their wedding night.

Ah, well. Robert and Rhaegar met in single combat, and in the end, Robert slew Rhaegar with a blow to the chest with his war hammer.

The old Hand of the King, Tywin Lannister, he had held back his armies, not taken sides in the war, because of some quarrel he had with the Mad King, but when he saw which way the wind was blowing, he joined his banners with Robert's and sacked the capital. So my father went to the capital, found that Tywin's son had slain the Mad King and his knights had slain Rhaegar's wife and their little children. He didn't speak of that much, either, but everyone knows it happened; Jaime Lannister is called the Kingslayer more than he's called by his name. Then my father went looking for his sister.

When he found my aunt, in the tower where Rhaegar had been keeping her, she was dying of a fever. My father and his friends had to fight and kill Arthur Dayne, the greatest Kingsguard of his time, might be the greatest Kingsguard of any time, to get to her, but he did. Many of the Northmen with him were slain in the fighting. But he saw her as she died, and he brought her body home to be buried in the North. It was in accordance with her wishes. I don't think she wanted her bones to lie somewhere so hot and dry, where she had been a prisoner. She was just sixteen.

[There's her voice, at least, as far as he knows. And now his voice is a little bit apologetic, as he continues,]

I have happier tales, for a crypt.

[beautifullies]

[ Somewhere in the middle of Jon explaining, Claire frowns. As much for the story itself as the picture he's beginning to paint. Her mind moves in a different direction, and she looks up at the statue of Lyanna's face, to Jon and back again, murmuring. ]

Poor girl.

[ But the pieces he's laid out, that his father left looking for his sister and returned with a baby, she can't help but see what feels obvious. ]

Jon-

[ When Claire looks at him again, she realizes this has never occurred to him, that Lyanna is actually his mother, and she doesn't know now is the time to say it. She isn't even sure she has a right to be the one to lay out the possibility to him. For now, she changes her mind and shakes her head, reaching up to press her hand to his cheek, stroking her thumb over his skin fondly. ]

I didn't expect stories with happy endings. I'm glad to know all of it, even the barbarism. Honestly, it mimics so much of the history of my world. I could easily exchange cultures and it would still make sense.

[ She drops her hand and tilts her head, giving him a wry smile. ]

You explain as well as any historian or...maester could.

[ She's learning his world's language for things, a bit. He calls her that sometimes, his Lady Maester, and she quietly loves it. ]

[northerndragon]

[When she pauses, says his name, he gives her a little frown, a questioning look. Had she not dropped her hand, he would have leaned in to kiss her, but it breaks the mood. Instead, he laughs.]

I had it from the maester who taught us. Luwin, his name was. A good man -- kindly. He liked all these old stories. I don't think a man becomes a maester if he does not, though some attend more to their potions.

[He gestures down the wall: unfilled tombs, no statues.]

The rest of the tombs are empty, for the rest of the Starks. I knew my bones had no place here -- I'm not a Stark. Bastards don't get buried down here. I thought I'd lie in the lichyard at Castle Black someday; now I don't think I'll be half so lucky.

I remember once, my brother Robb and I played a prank on the others. He brought them down to show them where their bones would lie one day. Only I had hidden in the tomb, covered in flour --

[All those years of wondering who his mother might be -- it has never occurred to him, not once, that he ought to have been wondering who his father was. That he might not be a Stark at all, but a Targaryen. That there was no reason for there to be three Kingsguard protecting the mere mistress of a dead prince, rather than his bride, who carried in her belly what might be the last Targaryen king. That it was never Ned Stark's way to betray his own new bride, no matter how much of a stranger she might have been, but that it was his way to protect his sister's son, particularly once he had seen what Tywin Lannister had had done to Rhaegar Targaryen's other children. What Lyanna had wanted was a life with Rhaegar, and when she couldn't have it, a chance for her son to grow and live.

Everything is there in the story, but Jon has always believed in Ned too much to question it. Everyone did. Ned was too honest, too honorable, to have lied about it. Having a bastard son was almost the only scandalous thing he had ever done; everything else was upright to the end.

Ned, whose statue he has barely shown her. Ned, who, in stone, looks a little like Jon might.]