[ ser criston had prepared him the best way he could, the only man that aemond could speak to about what to expect on a battlefield. though the knight's warring had been done against mere men, he's certain even tales of fighting demons and further abominations wouldn't exactly have prepared the prince better. by a different measure, watching demons wither into putrid piles on the ground is far more surreal and less traumatizing than watching fellow men crumple and die.
there is a certain thrill to it. blood pumping through his veins feels hot and heavy under the sickening curl of a scream, wrenching his blade out of muck. a semicircle of dragon flame catches the field of the final wave before the rift lurches as gwenaëlle wills it closed.
he straightens among the muck, eye locked to the ethereal tether shooting from her hand. perhaps the most remarkable of them all, he thinks. as the gap in the air contorts and collapses in on itself. leaving nothing but a scorch in the ground beneath where it once stood.
seven hells.
the look on his face is telling of a boy who hadn't really seen much, despite all to the contrary. he supposes he can't keep thinking the inquisition is just a crock full of shit now. he supposes now he has to make a decision. ]
( gwenaëlle lays in the grass near that scorched earth, her blade still in her hand and her gaze on nothing in particular until a hand breaks her sunlight and she considers batting it away, allows pavus to hoist her onto her feet, landing to rattle her teeth in her head.
imagine if they could strategize for a dragon—
well, she has been. imagining. but in this moment she's thinking of much more mundane things, with the mild complaint, )
Ugh, it always gets in my hair,
( a grumble, and not one there's much to be done about now when her hair is — for that reason among others — so tightly braided to her head. she wipes her weapon on one leg of her trousers, sheathes it— )
So that's that, ( she says, conversational, to aemond. ) I prefer doing them, now, when I get a weapon of my own.
( — someone says, so do we, and she laughs, bright with adrenaline. )
[ the prince blinks, looking away from where a gaping hole in the sky once stood. it is one thing to read about, of all the mysteries and horrors that lie beyond the seas of westeros. the men here did their due diligence in eradicating magic from their fields except for the forces that they cannot reckon with, the dragons and their riders, remain.
she speaks of it so mundanely, aemond is briefly embarrassed by himself for taking awe. like a child who'd been distracted by pretty lights. the spirits are high around him, his heart still thuds a deep thrum in his chest.
so there's that, she says. it was hardly a battle, over in moments. pure unfiltered chaos. liberating, terrifying, and suddenly no more.
he feels ill. he sticks his blade back into its sheath. somewhere behind him, his dragon sniffs the pile of corrosive ash from some abomination scorched into the grass before she turns away with disinterest. bothersome doesn't cut it, but he pretends it doesn't exist all the same. he can't think, his mind is buzzing with a flurry of other things before landing on something:]
How fast do they spread? You close one here, do others not pop up elsewhere?
( the sidelong glance he receives is— for a moment, she has to remind herself that there was a time this didn't feel ordinary to her at all. that she hadn't been numbed or made herself numb to the shock of it; that when they had taken her to the breach, the first time, she had wept.
that isn't any of what she says. but she thinks of it, for a moment, looking at him. )
Across Thedas they're a plague, ( is frank, because there's no sense being otherwise. not today, not to him, and not about this.
and, if you're gwenaëlle: not any other time, either, but josephine has been trying to encourage tact. diplomacy. delicacy. that's what other people and also knives are for, however. )
The breach belches them out. Few new, now, because of this, ( a tip of her hand, its sick green light, ) but finding them, that can be the trouble. They tear holes in the fabric of the world; they alter the world around them in ways we've not had enough time to understand the implications of. We don't always know there's one until we get there, or news travels of what it's done.
[ in that moment, he must remind himself the gravity behind it. to not let what truth she has been peddling to rattle him. perhaps he hoped, to some degree, it was a farce — just a pretty face come to peddle snake oil to the king, as many have tried to do. his father has prided himself in starting no wars across his long reign. oblivious to the done due to rise after he is gone.
he considers her words carefully. how little certainty they promise it won't be an issue they can avoid. the threat is here, it can grow. perhaps not as fast, but it can still grow faster than ravens fly.
an agitated finger taps along the pommel of his sword as he thinks. ]
I will send word to my mother. If the threat is here and beyond mitigation by our own forces, she will have no choice but to aid you.
[ this is a burden as much as it is an opportunity, he too must remind himself. not quite the one he might have wanted for himself, but perhaps its something. the rest of the tangled web lying at his feet beyond that, he supposes he'll sort eventually. ]
I imagine we'll get word by morning that you've gotten what you wanted.
Edited (words, man. what are they.) 2023-11-09 00:25 (UTC)
( the slow smile is not unlike one that he's never seen waking; her satisfaction is real, even if not uncomplicated. to wit: )
That will make your mother the most sensible royal personage I've encountered throughout this entire mess.
( it is, to be clear, a low bar. gwenaëlle actively wishes to do a horrible murder on the royal personage she's spent the most time around, though the two things are in fact not as related as they might be. still, her admiration of the queen his mother is as sincere now as it was when she first met her; that is a survivor, she thinks, and that is what she needs. someone who understands that survival doesn't just happen.
the maker is not coming to save them. they are going to have to save themselves. )
If she isn't, or should the Small Council refuse to support her will, well...
[ no promises. the queen is the queen, but there are so many other things at play. things no doubt gwen's own council has directed her on. he could be blunt and realistic and wipe that smile from her face of what little hope he has just granted. his mother is a survivor, but she is yet the matriarch she holds herself to be. she still beholds herself to her father, her husband, her council. they do not always listen to her.
would they listen to him? well. aemond keeps his eye on his dragon, who returns his gaze with mild interest. a secret conversation at play, whispering between their bones. his gaze drops and looks back to the inquisitor. why does he placate her? he does not quite know, only that he wants to. ]
The unification of our realm relied much upon the difficulty of saying 'no' to someone mounted on a colossal dragon.
[ he can always run away, who is going to fucking stop him? ]
( the political wrangling that she is frequently forced to tolerate — to participate in — is a knot that gwenaëlle is constantly seeking a big enough blade to cut through, which is probably (definitely) not unrelated to her marked interest in allying with the people who solve their problems with colossal dragons. she swings violently between being certain that she's wasted her time here on just more of the same with different players to the sparking hope that she hasn't—
it's a surprise to some, how long she's lingered without surety, with lingering and even routine disappointments. to those who've watched how she operates elsewhere it's difficult to grasp a hold of, what only looks like patience to familiar eyes. but to those playing yet closer attention still, well.
some mysteries aren't hard to solve. it suits her, that he should want to please her. )
It's evidently effective. And I don't even want to rule anything—
(holding power is the hard part. she bumps him with her shoulder, beginning the trek back towards the camp that by full light tomorrow morning will be broken down again, this jaunt come to an end. ) A relief to my advisors. They argue with me enough about the make yourself hard to say no to school of diplomacy.
[ she's very unspoken in the way she actually challenges him. to the point where aemond isn't certain if it's deliberate or merely just her walking nature. when he wants her to be wrong, she knows she is right, and it forces him to see it through her eye instead. at least, that's how he thinks he sees it.
shoulder checked, he turns with a sort of grunt that can only imply there's a smugness behind it. he could burn everything down to the ground for her. one day, may she only just need to ask nicely ]
I wasn't their first choice, was I?
[ he calls after her. re: her very merry council of advisors. his steps soon follow with one more fleeting glance over his shoulder at the smoldering pile of veil juice as though he may have needed to remind himself of it.
though he's not sure who else her council could have landed on that is a seasoned dragon rider that settles things with diplomacy first and dragons second. they're all kind of horrible people, it's genetic. ]
( he startles her into a laugh — it is musical and light and out of place on a battlefield, the way that she no longer is, not any more. spins around, the bladed tails of her coat flaring out behind her, lovely and lethal (and a bit dramatic): )
If you ever see Skyhold, I'll answer that question.
( in skyhold, and not before. it is not the presumption that he will, exactly,
so much as — besides having a vested interest in giving him a vested interest to follow her there — the assurance that the honest truth might obligate an end to this diplomacy altogether. )
[ ominous, and how painfully drawn to ominous things he is. it's enough of an answer to confirm his belief without shattering his ego. though he might consider himself capable, he isn't daft and blind to the order of the world around him. would it offend him to know? maybe a little, maybe it wouldn't change a thing at all.
still, she draws and he allows himself to be drawn. ignoring the dozen or so of her company littering the earth around them. the great thudding a dragon's steps. he allows the image of her with all that power in her hand and the feeling of the earth and air thrumming down into the blood running through his veins. ]
What questions will you answer now?
[ does he even have questions? he can think of something, when pressed, to stay in her orbit. why does this feel like he's chasing? she's not running, where is she going? where is she leading him??]
or rather— questions directed to herself. her willingness to refrain from prying has less to do with respect for other people's privacy than the way she keeps a jealous guard on her own; far be it from her to suggest to someone implicitly that prying questions in turn might be welcome, allowed. asking a person a question tells you only how that person answers questions is a clever deflection from someone who does still want to know all of the things she doesn't ask and seeks them out in other ways—
her observation sharp, unsettlingly keen. so the dozen or so of her company, who have heard her say it a hundred times,
there are glances, when she tilts her head and says, )
What questions do you have?
( like a twisting half-step in a dance, forward and then back, an invitation.
the problem is the same as it always is: she cannot fucking leave well enough alone. )
[ in the long march back to camp, aemond could think of at least a dozen. some on topic, some off, some better off not in the wide company of her peers and compatriots. on one hand, curious questions are only something children ask. the naivete of wonder peeling back his well-crafted mask of someone far less traveled and inexperienced. why doesn't he know everything already? it's unfair, honestly. ]
What constitutes a good one? I'll see what I can narrow down.
[ an answer is still an answer, even a non-answer. the way she moves is an answer. the way she looks at him is another. but it has been this way the whole fortnight it took for them to get there, hasn't it? her dancing ahead looking like she has the right answer tucked under her tongue. only he needs to ask the right question.
he'd be annoyed, he is annoyed. whether it is more at her than himself, he's not yet decided. ]
( hungry for knowledge and reluctant to be seen reaching for it — now, where has she seen that before?
in her mirror. if he were a little less handsome, the recognition that sometimes sparks between them would be a little more annoying; she is so rarely pleased to be reminded of herself, a thing that doesn't bear any further examining at all, actually, thank you. )
What about this, ( she proposes, slowing a little too abruptly, the way she'd wandered into his path meaning she is in his way when she does it, ) I'll trade you a secret for a secret.
( she turns a hand palm up, as if to accept one: ) I'll give you as good as you give me.
[ Almost no sign of him letting up as his long legs close in on the space between them. His pace staggers to meet hers, within reach of the tips of her fingers if she stretched them far enough.
History would teach him not to play games. This sort of attitude is destined to only make some mockery of him — her gentle baiting and tricksy smiles. Fully acknowledged here before him and yet it's almost as if he's incapable of ejecting the lure thrashing before him. It's the age old game: would he rather feel shame or cowardice? ]
'Twould depend on what left of my life hasn't been picked apart and prepped to you by your spymasters.
[ Certainly, there are things she doesn't know. He doesn't know what pieces of his life he's starting with and he's not an idiot to think she knows nothing about him. The inquisition may be a world away, but he has witnessed them be nothing but thorough with their operations. ]
( leliana would never have let her come this far blind, he's right; had not been thrilled about it at all, so if anything she had been overprepared, each new piece of information laid before her with repressive disapproval. look at this. why are we still entertaining this. the truth is that there wasn't a first choice— courting another front of war that has too many already, entangling themselves at potentially great risk and great cost and for what?
we've got deranged inbreds at home, leliana might as well have said.
he was not the first choice. he is not unrelated to gwenaëlle's stubborn determination to I don't know, we'll play it out, at least in a way that she'd rather die than admit right now. )
What about this, then, ( a reframe, rather than a concession: ) Something personal. Not of strategic import.
[ Aemond's lips purse, resisting their souring into an annoyance. What about Aemond is left from the statecraft built up around him? He is a child soldier, a son of a king, his life is lived in a wall that whispers and when has he had time for anything but his duty?
It's bleak. What does he have to offer her that she doesn't already know? What does he have worth her time in order to get a worthy secret in return?
He has to think about it a bit more. He still kept her pace and held her eye. There's a firmness in the way she moves, clearly challenged in some way. It makes his movements feel sharper and determined. ]
( gwenaëlle is smiling, before he speaks — she's not a creature that's terribly difficult to read, as a rule, she's riding the high of battle and how much she likes whatever the fuck it is she's doing with and/or to aemond targaryen, she looks like she's pleased with herself because she is — but there's something about last night that catches her off-guard in a way that seems
distinct
from only, perhaps, thinking it's very sexy of him to be dreaming about her, or something.
it's not displeasure, but— her brows pull together, an expression that looks more like the struggle to decipher something set in front of her than objecting to it. and there's not really anything about what he just said that's so fucking mysterious, is there, he could mean anything in specific but it's not as if it's vague. it's not as if she's some naif who can't imagine what dreams a man might have about a woman, either,
or who couldn't come up with a way to make that strategically relevant to her. so. )
[ The sad truth of this dragon prince is that he gets well ahead of himself all too often. The tragic consequence of his being overtly confident in territories he's never once fathomed treading. Speaking to Gwen, the days spent getting to know her, dancing this little dance they always seem to play with their words. He doesn't have a fucking clue what he's doing.
Only that what he's doing is working. Whatever answer he's given her opens her up to him just a little bit more. Rewarded by the turning of her gaze into something different, perhaps dangerous. Her answer isn't one he expects, it catches him farther off guard than his notion ever did to her. ]
Is it?
[ Short and to the point. Lingering on the fact without spreading his fingers through what that means to her. Let it sink in for a moment before he can volley back into the banter with renewed confidence. ]
it would be true. it would be more true than any sort of denial she might be inclined to make; in the immediate, she doesn't actually give him an answer, studying him still instead, a curl slipped to frame her face. and it's probably just a coincidence. coincidences do exist, even if so much has happened in the months since she ascended a throne built from a creature she personally killed to make her sometimes doubt it. her position atop it is more unlucky happenstance than fate, maker knows.
but she knows a dreamer. it's hard to think of dreams as nothing when someone else has walked in your mind, and made you know it. )
It isn't a secret, I think, that I wish to be in yours.
( but maybe if he had told her literally anything else, she still wouldn't have said it in so many words. )
[ That could mean several things, the more obvious one doesn't appear to come to mind or at the very least is rejected despite the rather warm connotation. He is not the right brother, he has never been the right brother. He is the brother that doesn't oft take the company of women or otherwise, shunned from the ladies in court for being mangled and too intense to properly try to court. Oh, but some had tried. They only failed to keep his interest. ]
Beyond the politics that brought you here?
[ Even as he says it, he knows it's a stupid question. The longer they stand staring at one another, he knows it's definitely not the intention she is meaning to make. It would be easier for all of them if it would. It would save him from the feeling that his ears are burning.
He pushes onward, closer. What jumbled nerves of an inexperienced boy gets shoved against a calmed and collected expression. He steps around her, head turning to keep her eye as he goes. ] Maybe you are.
( it doesn't necessarily seem wise to say something like, for instance, that politics alone might have seen her long since gone already. accurate, maybe, but not wise. she gives that its due consideration as she studies him, the way he closes the distance between them. the steadiness of his expression. what she might imagine lies behind it.
maybe. in her experience,
by the time you're bargaining with yourself like that, the thing is done. on the other hand, it could really be for her benefit alone, which would be disappointing but not impossible. she cannot allow herself to forget that he was bred for this. almost, according to her spy mistress, literally. )
I don't think the politics that brought me here are the most interesting thing about either of us.
( this is true, regardless of all else. it sort of feels like it needs to be true, or what's the fucking point of any of it. )
[ They've reached camp by now, a whole field away from preternatural carnage dusting the tall grass. Aemond's boots kick trampled weeds as he stops and half turns to keep her eye.]
Depends on how you could look at it, doesn't it?
[ Is this not just some other sort of politics? Whatever ball it is getting tossed between them. He's playing at it now like it isn't the very thing he might conspire to poison him. The idea is grasped and released almost within the same breath, but not forgotten. ]
( gwenaëlle pretends not to notice the glances from nearby; they are not quite in earshot, but not far enough away to call it privacy, and she should be more mindful of that—
well, people are always telling her things she should be more mindful of. she sort of misses the days before she had a throne, when she thought that having one might mean people did that less. )
The way I dreamed it,
( catching his elbow with her hand, close enough that the scent-oil in her hair mingles with the smell of wet grass and demonic ichor, )
there wasn't anything between us.
( it would be very easy to interpret that altogether wrongly, except that that would probably make a very boring and unmemorable dream, whereas the correct interpretation is probably going to keep her going for weeks at least. )
[ Aemond's chin tips down at the hand wrapped around the bend of his elbow, eye trailing up to meet hers. No clear indication she's onto something, but he can't ignore the creeping heat rising up his neck. The sort of implication should cause him to divert his eye in a cover of modesty, yet he holds steadfast in staring her down.
There's no question to how she means it.
Stranger things have happened, stranger things are possible. Gwen hails from a land where the mysteries go higher and farther than what most of Westeros can comprehend. It it such an out of the world idea that they could have shared a dream? Hadn't his own house founded their migration on a dream?
We should compare notes. [It would seem, when confronted with the reality, his confidence wavers on its foundation. His response doesn't come nearly fast enough to let it suggest otherwise. ] Mayhaps we're closer to the same page than anticipated.
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there is a certain thrill to it. blood pumping through his veins feels hot and heavy under the sickening curl of a scream, wrenching his blade out of muck. a semicircle of dragon flame catches the field of the final wave before the rift lurches as gwenaëlle wills it closed.
he straightens among the muck, eye locked to the ethereal tether shooting from her hand. perhaps the most remarkable of them all, he thinks. as the gap in the air contorts and collapses in on itself. leaving nothing but a scorch in the ground beneath where it once stood.
seven hells.
the look on his face is telling of a boy who hadn't really seen much, despite all to the contrary. he supposes he can't keep thinking the inquisition is just a crock full of shit now. he supposes now he has to make a decision. ]
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imagine if they could strategize for a dragon—
well, she has been. imagining. but in this moment she's thinking of much more mundane things, with the mild complaint, )
Ugh, it always gets in my hair,
( a grumble, and not one there's much to be done about now when her hair is — for that reason among others — so tightly braided to her head. she wipes her weapon on one leg of her trousers, sheathes it— )
So that's that, ( she says, conversational, to aemond. ) I prefer doing them, now, when I get a weapon of my own.
( — someone says, so do we, and she laughs, bright with adrenaline. )
i didnt forget about this
she speaks of it so mundanely, aemond is briefly embarrassed by himself for taking awe. like a child who'd been distracted by pretty lights. the spirits are high around him, his heart still thuds a deep thrum in his chest.
so there's that, she says. it was hardly a battle, over in moments. pure unfiltered chaos. liberating, terrifying, and suddenly no more.
he feels ill. he sticks his blade back into its sheath. somewhere behind him, his dragon sniffs the pile of corrosive ash from some abomination scorched into the grass before she turns away with disinterest. bothersome doesn't cut it, but he pretends it doesn't exist all the same. he can't think, his mind is buzzing with a flurry of other things before landing on something:]
How fast do they spread? You close one here, do others not pop up elsewhere?
suspicious specific denial but it checks out
that isn't any of what she says. but she thinks of it, for a moment, looking at him. )
Across Thedas they're a plague, ( is frank, because there's no sense being otherwise. not today, not to him, and not about this.
and, if you're gwenaëlle: not any other time, either, but josephine has been trying to encourage tact. diplomacy. delicacy. that's what other people and also knives are for, however. )
The breach belches them out. Few new, now, because of this, ( a tip of her hand, its sick green light, ) but finding them, that can be the trouble. They tear holes in the fabric of the world; they alter the world around them in ways we've not had enough time to understand the implications of. We don't always know there's one until we get there, or news travels of what it's done.
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he considers her words carefully. how little certainty they promise it won't be an issue they can avoid. the threat is here, it can grow. perhaps not as fast, but it can still grow faster than ravens fly.
an agitated finger taps along the pommel of his sword as he thinks. ]
I will send word to my mother. If the threat is here and beyond mitigation by our own forces, she will have no choice but to aid you.
[ this is a burden as much as it is an opportunity, he too must remind himself. not quite the one he might have wanted for himself, but perhaps its something. the rest of the tangled web lying at his feet beyond that, he supposes he'll sort eventually. ]
I imagine we'll get word by morning that you've gotten what you wanted.
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That will make your mother the most sensible royal personage I've encountered throughout this entire mess.
( it is, to be clear, a low bar. gwenaëlle actively wishes to do a horrible murder on the royal personage she's spent the most time around, though the two things are in fact not as related as they might be. still, her admiration of the queen his mother is as sincere now as it was when she first met her; that is a survivor, she thinks, and that is what she needs. someone who understands that survival doesn't just happen.
the maker is not coming to save them. they are going to have to save themselves. )
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[ no promises. the queen is the queen, but there are so many other things at play. things no doubt gwen's own council has directed her on. he could be blunt and realistic and wipe that smile from her face of what little hope he has just granted. his mother is a survivor, but she is yet the matriarch she holds herself to be. she still beholds herself to her father, her husband, her council. they do not always listen to her.
would they listen to him? well. aemond keeps his eye on his dragon, who returns his gaze with mild interest. a secret conversation at play, whispering between their bones. his gaze drops and looks back to the inquisitor. why does he placate her? he does not quite know, only that he wants to. ]
The unification of our realm relied much upon the difficulty of saying 'no' to someone mounted on a colossal dragon.
[ he can always run away, who is going to fucking stop him? ]
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it's a surprise to some, how long she's lingered without surety, with lingering and even routine disappointments. to those who've watched how she operates elsewhere it's difficult to grasp a hold of, what only looks like patience to familiar eyes. but to those playing yet closer attention still, well.
some mysteries aren't hard to solve. it suits her, that he should want to please her. )
It's evidently effective. And I don't even want to rule anything—
( holding power is the hard part. she bumps him with her shoulder, beginning the trek back towards the camp that by full light tomorrow morning will be broken down again, this jaunt come to an end. ) A relief to my advisors. They argue with me enough about the make yourself hard to say no to school of diplomacy.
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shoulder checked, he turns with a sort of grunt that can only imply there's a smugness behind it. he could burn everything down to the ground for her. one day, may she only just need to ask nicely ]
I wasn't their first choice, was I?
[ he calls after her. re: her very merry council of advisors. his steps soon follow with one more fleeting glance over his shoulder at the smoldering pile of veil juice as though he may have needed to remind himself of it.
though he's not sure who else her council could have landed on that is a seasoned dragon rider that settles things with diplomacy first and dragons second. they're all kind of horrible people, it's genetic. ]
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If you ever see Skyhold, I'll answer that question.
( in skyhold, and not before. it is not the presumption that he will, exactly,
so much as — besides having a vested interest in giving him a vested interest to follow her there — the assurance that the honest truth might obligate an end to this diplomacy altogether. )
🎄💝
still, she draws and he allows himself to be drawn. ignoring the dozen or so of her company littering the earth around them. the great thudding a dragon's steps. he allows the image of her with all that power in her hand and the feeling of the earth and air thrumming down into the blood running through his veins. ]
What questions will you answer now?
[ does he even have questions? he can think of something, when pressed, to stay in her orbit. why does this feel like he's chasing? she's not running, where is she going? where is she leading him??]
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or rather— questions directed to herself. her willingness to refrain from prying has less to do with respect for other people's privacy than the way she keeps a jealous guard on her own; far be it from her to suggest to someone implicitly that prying questions in turn might be welcome, allowed. asking a person a question tells you only how that person answers questions is a clever deflection from someone who does still want to know all of the things she doesn't ask and seeks them out in other ways—
her observation sharp, unsettlingly keen. so the dozen or so of her company, who have heard her say it a hundred times,
there are glances, when she tilts her head and says, )
What questions do you have?
( like a twisting half-step in a dance, forward and then back, an invitation.
the problem is the same as it always is: she cannot fucking leave well enough alone. )
I'll answer a good one.
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What constitutes a good one? I'll see what I can narrow down.
[ an answer is still an answer, even a non-answer. the way she moves is an answer. the way she looks at him is another. but it has been this way the whole fortnight it took for them to get there, hasn't it? her dancing ahead looking like she has the right answer tucked under her tongue. only he needs to ask the right question.
he'd be annoyed, he is annoyed. whether it is more at her than himself, he's not yet decided. ]
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in her mirror. if he were a little less handsome, the recognition that sometimes sparks between them would be a little more annoying; she is so rarely pleased to be reminded of herself, a thing that doesn't bear any further examining at all, actually, thank you. )
What about this, ( she proposes, slowing a little too abruptly, the way she'd wandered into his path meaning she is in his way when she does it, ) I'll trade you a secret for a secret.
( she turns a hand palm up, as if to accept one: ) I'll give you as good as you give me.
( like, maybe always. )
crawls out of hell
History would teach him not to play games. This sort of attitude is destined to only make some mockery of him — her gentle baiting and tricksy smiles. Fully acknowledged here before him and yet it's almost as if he's incapable of ejecting the lure thrashing before him. It's the age old game: would he rather feel shame or cowardice? ]
'Twould depend on what left of my life hasn't been picked apart and prepped to you by your spymasters.
[ Certainly, there are things she doesn't know. He doesn't know what pieces of his life he's starting with and he's not an idiot to think she knows nothing about him. The inquisition may be a world away, but he has witnessed them be nothing but thorough with their operations. ]
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( leliana would never have let her come this far blind, he's right; had not been thrilled about it at all, so if anything she had been overprepared, each new piece of information laid before her with repressive disapproval. look at this. why are we still entertaining this. the truth is that there wasn't a first choice— courting another front of war that has too many already, entangling themselves at potentially great risk and great cost and for what?
we've got deranged inbreds at home, leliana might as well have said.
he was not the first choice. he is not unrelated to gwenaëlle's stubborn determination to I don't know, we'll play it out, at least in a way that she'd rather die than admit right now. )
What about this, then, ( a reframe, rather than a concession: ) Something personal. Not of strategic import.
"wₑ'ᵥₑ gₒₜ dₑᵣₐₙgₑd ᵢₙbᵣₑdₛ ₐₜ ₕₒₘₑ"
It's bleak. What does he have to offer her that she doesn't already know? What does he have worth her time in order to get a worthy secret in return?
He has to think about it a bit more. He still kept her pace and held her eye. There's a firmness in the way she moves, clearly challenged in some way. It makes his movements feel sharper and determined. ]
I had a dream about you last night.
[ That's worth something. ]
like is she wrong
distinct
from only, perhaps, thinking it's very sexy of him to be dreaming about her, or something.
it's not displeasure, but— her brows pull together, an expression that looks more like the struggle to decipher something set in front of her than objecting to it. and there's not really anything about what he just said that's so fucking mysterious, is there, he could mean anything in specific but it's not as if it's vague. it's not as if she's some naif who can't imagine what dreams a man might have about a woman, either,
or who couldn't come up with a way to make that strategically relevant to her. so. )
That's a funny coincidence.
no :(
Only that what he's doing is working. Whatever answer he's given her opens her up to him just a little bit more. Rewarded by the turning of her gaze into something different, perhaps dangerous. Her answer isn't one he expects, it catches him farther off guard than his notion ever did to her. ]
Is it?
[ Short and to the point. Lingering on the fact without spreading his fingers through what that means to her. Let it sink in for a moment before he can volley back into the banter with renewed confidence. ]
Keeping me in your thoughts, Inquisitor?
how tf has it been 2 wks.
it would be true. it would be more true than any sort of denial she might be inclined to make; in the immediate, she doesn't actually give him an answer, studying him still instead, a curl slipped to frame her face. and it's probably just a coincidence. coincidences do exist, even if so much has happened in the months since she ascended a throne built from a creature she personally killed to make her sometimes doubt it. her position atop it is more unlucky happenstance than fate, maker knows.
but she knows a dreamer. it's hard to think of dreams as nothing when someone else has walked in your mind, and made you know it. )
It isn't a secret, I think, that I wish to be in yours.
( but maybe if he had told her literally anything else, she still wouldn't have said it in so many words. )
makes time illegal
Beyond the politics that brought you here?
[ Even as he says it, he knows it's a stupid question. The longer they stand staring at one another, he knows it's definitely not the intention she is meaning to make. It would be easier for all of them if it would. It would save him from the feeling that his ears are burning.
He pushes onward, closer. What jumbled nerves of an inexperienced boy gets shoved against a calmed and collected expression. He steps around her, head turning to keep her eye as he goes. ] Maybe you are.
[ What will she do with that? ]
time crimes
maybe. in her experience,
by the time you're bargaining with yourself like that, the thing is done. on the other hand, it could really be for her benefit alone, which would be disappointing but not impossible. she cannot allow herself to forget that he was bred for this. almost, according to her spy mistress, literally. )
I don't think the politics that brought me here are the most interesting thing about either of us.
( this is true, regardless of all else. it sort of feels like it needs to be true, or what's the fucking point of any of it. )
I didn't dream about politics. Did you?
it happened again
Depends on how you could look at it, doesn't it?
[ Is this not just some other sort of politics? Whatever ball it is getting tossed between them. He's playing at it now like it isn't the very thing he might conspire to poison him. The idea is grasped and released almost within the same breath, but not forgotten. ]
It wasn't politics between us.
by talos this can't be happening
well, people are always telling her things she should be more mindful of. she sort of misses the days before she had a throne, when she thought that having one might mean people did that less. )
The way I dreamed it,
( catching his elbow with her hand, close enough that the scent-oil in her hair mingles with the smell of wet grass and demonic ichor, )
there wasn't anything between us.
( it would be very easy to interpret that altogether wrongly, except that that would probably make a very boring and unmemorable dream, whereas the correct interpretation is probably going to keep her going for weeks at least. )
happy dragon day
There's no question to how she means it.
Stranger things have happened, stranger things are possible. Gwen hails from a land where the mysteries go higher and farther than what most of Westeros can comprehend. It it such an out of the world idea that they could have shared a dream? Hadn't his own house founded their migration on a dream?
We should compare notes. [It would seem, when confronted with the reality, his confidence wavers on its foundation. His response doesn't come nearly fast enough to let it suggest otherwise. ] Mayhaps we're closer to the same page than anticipated.