nysalogs | [OPEN] When I was a child I'd sit for hours staring into open flames...

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[OPEN] When I was a child I'd sit for hours staring into open flames...

Who: Daenerys Targaryen (

dorzalta) & others.
What: Chimera call to action in Wyver, post-kidnapping/torture, plus whatever goes down in April.
When: March/April catch-all.
Where: Wyver, Thesa Station, and others TBD.
Warning(s): Game of Thrones/Daenerys standard warnings, torture, self harm, etc.

Wyver
I. CHIMERAS
To get close to the dragons, Daenerys believes she must get close to the Beastmaster known as Thali. It would do her well to participate in this task for a multitude of reasons, the first of which includes keeping herself occupied. Her hair's braided back into one single plait, and whilst she's neither donning her Targaryen colors, nor wearing something entirely Dothraki, she is in leathers and pieces spun for practicality in the heat and humidity.

( a. ) Are you her partner in gathering the chimeras and feeding them? If so, have fun standing beside her as she stares at the creatures, frowning. "Which mouth do they feed themselves with? They're rather vicious looking."

( b. ) Or perhaps you're seated with her on one of the rocks near a spring. She's parchment with her, spattered in water and mud (is that blood?), with notes scrawled on the pages. Her legs are stretched out before her, hooked at the ankles, and she looks as if she is a queen in her element, not an onlooker studying a creature's behaviors. "It's a shame they've the head of a lion. That is a lion, isn't it?"

( c. ) Of course, living creatures--be it humans, dragons, or chimeras--can be spooked, and these are no different. One of the dragons in the nearby areas roars, and suddenly the chimera the two of you are guiding to a new location jerks. "Watch for its--mouths," she warns you, before ducking from the lashing snake tail. "Shh, friend, the dragons will not harm you."

II. FIELDS OF THE EXALTED (post-kidnapping)
She's reason enough to claim her spot in this place, having spied upon Thali during her work with the chimeras. After a few days of ignoring anyone and everyone, Daenerys is quick to reassert herself. It would do no good for a queen to show weakness. Likewise, she's determined to find a job to move out of her... less than acceptable living arrangements.

( a. ) If you're a friend visiting her, she may rope you into meeting a dragon--her dragon. For while Drogon is not free for her to ride as she'd prefer, he is still on the grounds, in the sanctuary. She can still interact with him. Which means you will, too!

( b. ) Work is good for the soul. When she was nothing more than a khaleesi, the khalasar kept her busy and exhausted. It might've been a simpler life, traveling with a nomadic tribe, but there were still things to appreciate. Do you help Dany gather meat for feeding younger dragons, lead in livestock for the adults, break up fights between dragons, tend to sick creatures, or training youngsters?

III. WILDCARD
HMU if you want some other interaction in Wyver prior to or post kidnapping!

Thesa Station
IV. STASIS
It's been some time since she's visited her people, and for that, there is a flare of guilt. Wearing her attire from home, she spends a vast majority of her time in the stasis room.

( a. ) She stands before ser Jorah's pod, staring up at him with a troubled expression. A palm rests against the glass of his pod, fingers gently smoothing the glass as if she would touch his face. It's intimate, but what of the stasis room is not? "I don't know what to do," you might overhear her telling her old bear. "I need you by my side. Please wake up."

( b. ) Missandei looks so peaceful, and that peace brings her peace. It's the first time she's smiled. "You'd have found them adorable. I know you've never seen a hatchling before."

( c. ) "You've left me with scars, brother," she murmurs to Viserys' slumbering face. No gold crown, not a crown for a king. No demonic teeth or flame-bright eyes. "But it was you who woke the dragon, this time."

V. MESS HALL
Wine and oranges--that's what Dany has as she sits in the mess hall. She's alone at her table, looking up, not at others. Up means she can gaze through the expansive glass lining the upper part of the room, and out into space itself. "Do you believe the stars are souls?" she'll ask someone, if they sit at her table.

VI. WILDCARD
Let's do it.

( ooc: Feel free to ping me on plurk to hash out some plans

bubblytangerine or PM me on this journal. Will match format, so if prose isn't your jam, no biggie. Daenerys was kidnapped and tortured, so she will be absent for a period of time. )

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It's a strange question, giving her pause. What was the connection between silver and what caused such a heavy mind? She wonders this and so very many other things, even as she makes her way over to the side of the building he gestures to.

If now were the time he intended on attacking her, he would certainly have done so with her guard lowered.

Curious more than anything, she ducks down to pull a piece hidden within her boot. Flat in her palm, she proffers it to him without question--save for the one in her arch of her brows.

He positioned himself so that his back was to the crowd passing by, making what he was about to do for her eyes only. Watching her, carefully, he reached out to pick up the piece of silver she held out for him. As soon as his skin touched the metal, there was a hissing sizzle, steam rising up from his hand. It grew as he took the coin and held it in his closed fist, little wisps of steam wafting upward, joined by flakes of dead flesh that was being burned off.

When he opened his hand and held the coin back out to her, there was a raw, seared spot in his flesh, bone starting to show through, the coin continuing to sizzle and burn at him as it sat there. "I would advise you to always carry some on you, Lady. Particularly with the way this world seems to pick at one's mind and emotions."

It hurt, of course. Burning always hurt, but Vlad was used to pain. He'd become accustomed to it before he'd become a man, let alone what he was now. But the sting and the whining tone of the silver he could hear in his mind helped dull those other senses of his. He couldn't hear her heartbeat as clearly, couldn't taste her blood under her skin.

There are no words to describe what occurs. Magic? No, surely not. He's no warlock. Those are a prideful bunch, ones who flaunt their abilities whereas he has attempted to hide what he is. So if it is not magic, then what sort of trade would allow silver to cause him harm? How could proffering his soul to the darkness result in that?

She's quick to reach out, cupping his hand within her palm. His skin continues to sizzle and hiss, smoke rising. A beat of hesitance--would she hurt him; how could she hurt him further?--before she lifts the piece from his skin. A chunk of his flesh sticks to it. She wants to toss the silver away, keep it as far from him as she possibly can.

"You would advise me to carry something that would cause you harm." Her tone is sharp and clipped, disbelief ringing true. She lifts her chin as she meets his gaze. "Because--what? You believe yourself weak enough to succumb to what this world does to us? You will not harm me."

"Because it can clear my senses. The pain. The... screaming sing of the metal. It drowns other urges. I've since found that even I am susceptible to the magics of this world. During the... fracas of before, I harmed those who were also affected." Granted, they'd been about to harm people he knew, but he had learned control over the years. He would have normally tried to talk a man down, not bitten his neck and feasted because he'd drawn a sword on a woman he knew.

"If I am to be in your company, and you in mine, I would offer you a means to protect yourself should I lose control. I am a monster, Lady. Or, I can be. Every day, I crave what I refuse myself. And should you be around me when that control breaks, I would never be able to forgive myself if harm came your way. So keep something on you, for my sake. A ring. A necklace. A handful of coin. Knowing you have some protection will bring me a small bit of peace."

A monster. Her gaze dips down to his hand, still in her grasp. It leaves her mind heavy for a number of reasons... this problematic view of himself. She could relate on a certain level. To hold power meant that terrible things would sometimes have to be done with it. It comes with a position of strength. More than that, however, are the days where she'd battled with the debates of her children being monsters.

"We should wrap this," she says, finally looking from his hand to skim the area. Vendors were everywhere; surely one would part with some cloth for his hand. "It's silver, you say, which allows for a break in your urges? I'll be sure to carry it on my person."

Though it's not a promise she makes happily. This was less for her and more for him, though.

"There is no need. Part of my... curse, I suppose you could call it, is the ability to heal quickly. Even from wounds of silver." True, as she could see the skin starting to reform slowly if she looked down at his hand. Silver burned, but the burn didn't seem to last long. Even the burns of daylight healed quickly when he gained them, unless he stayed out overlong. "There is another request I would make of you, Lady. To be careful with any wounds you gain. Blood is... well. We've talked of such things before, but not with my own involvement in them."

He trusted her more now, but more than that, he cared enough to make sure she knew what she might be walking into. She offered him refuge, a place to stay, and he would not lie to her or put her in harm's way due to ignorance.

Lo and behold, he's ever true to his words. The burn--if one might call it that--knits back together. That... that shouldn't be possible. Her brows furrow. All the longer she watches, the skin heals. It's like no magic she's seen before.

Magic.

She looks up to him, her look unreadable. He'd caused harm to himself, revealed something supposedly dark about him, and admits to blood affecting this. He likens himself to a monster. Warns her of the risk tied to their association.

"Can you sense mine, now?" Could he tell of the wounds upon her back, bandaged as they are? Long gashes from her nails as she'd clawed at herself in a fevered hallucination, convinced there were wings that must be broken free? Could he tell of the bruises on her limbs and neck--hidden by fabric and jewelry as they are? "How near must you be to..." Here, her forehead wrinkles as she attempts to word this properly. "Affected by blood?"

His eyes dip down, a small sign of apology as he looks back up at her. "I can tell you have wounds, though not the nature of them. All I can smell is old blood and that which is trapped under your skin. I do not know the nature of them or how they came to be, but I might guess they happened during your capture." A thing that shouldn't have happened. A pain she shouldn't have gone through.

Her last question almost made him laugh, and he settled it into a small huff of released breath instead. "I am always affected by it, Lady. I can hear the heartbeats of everyone in this city. I can smell the butcher's shop and that he's got a fresh animal to work on. I can smell old blood mingled in with the mud under our feet from a fight the night before. I am always affected by blood, but my control is usually firm. Barring magical interference, as there was during the chaos before the abductions. You can ask your Jon Snow about that."

She lifts her chin in response to that look of his. She would not accept apology for his knowledge. If his abilities told him of this, so be it. He'd respectfully kept quiet on the matter as opposed to fretting and smothering her.

"The shamans are dead," she says in response. As if that's all the explanation needed with regards to her wellbeing. "Trapped under my skin... as in injuries, or the blood in my veins?" Or both?

Dany looks away: to the ground, which she toes; down the road where the butcher shop is (though she cannot see inside it); at every face of passerby. Only when he mentions Jon does she look back to him with a question in her eyes. Neither made mention of knowing the other, nor of any altercation.

"And so this association with blood. Your senses. Your eyes, earlier--this is the deal you made with the darkness?"

"Both. I can tell there are bruises, but your blood sings to me in more dulcet tones than the silver screams." She's asking, and he will answer. If she truly wishes his company here, than he can do no less than to give her the full truth of himself. Of what he is.

Jon, though, had made mention of his lady love to Vlad before, and they had both come to an accord to have her best interests at heart. Vlad sensed the younger man felt somewhat jealous of him, which was ridiculous. Fierce and lovely though Daenerys was, she was her own woman. She went where she chose.

"Mm, yes. And teeth, among other things. My... abilities are somewhat dampened here. Different. Muted of a sort, but I am still the creature I was back in my world."

"Dulcet tones?" She chuckles, amused versus alarmed by his coined phrase. "Were you a poet in your past life, my lord?"

Crouching down, she wipes the piece of silver in the dirt. Any remnants of blood on it are brushed away before she slips the sliver back into its place.

"You're not a creature," she sharply says. Of course it was strange to fathom that he sensed blood, that his eyes could shift, and that his teeth were... well, she hadn't seen how they were altered and never noticed anything different about them. It would be silly to demand he open his mouth for her inspection, so she gestures instead for him to follow her. "We do what we must to protect those under our care."

She doesn't mention Drogo or Rhaego... not even her dragons.

"Mm, everything about you is a sweet song, Lady. Even the ferocity of your roar." He watched her bend to clean the coin, offering her his arm when she rose again.

"We do. If we are worth the blood we carry in our bodies, we do. That doesn't make it less a terrible thing. Perhaps... perhaps more understandable to those who have had to make that decision themselves, but no less terrible."

She doesn't need his help, but she accepts it all the same, using the opportunity to inspect his hand again... just to make sure. His compliments earn him a smile and a tug to bring them along. She leads them to one of the less affluent sections of the city, though far better than what she'd started with. Her apartment is in a clustered space, stacked upon others, but there is something near peaceful in the chaos of life around them all the same.

"Strength can be terrible, my lord, but still necessary to bring about change. You could easily call me a monster for using my dragons in war." She regrets none of it. If it meant peace, she would do it all over again. "The difference between a good and terrible ruler isn't that we're forced to use that power. It's how we learn from it after. But sometimes, we're faced with traitors or those who would threaten the peace we fight for. It can't be helped."

He lets her, because she seems to be the type to want to fuss and there is no harm in letting her see that there is nothing to fuss over. He is used to letting those special women in his life have their head when they demand for it.

"And how long will your dragons live? Or you, for that matter? That, I feel, is part of the crux of my argument, Lady. For most, a bad decision lasts as long as they live. It can carry on beyond that, but they will suffer for only as long as they draw breath. Those who suffer under them can pray for that day, if there is suffering and not love. On either side of a good and just ruler or one who is bent towards tyranny and fear, a life is only so long. That, my Lady, is not may case. I have lived longer than any man should. My... regret has lasted that time."

Indeed, the skin is unblemished. She stares at it for a moment, then remembers herself. A light pat to his palm--a show of her satisfaction--and then she releases him, pleased. At least it didn't cause him damage. Far better than her own wounds, at least.

"Balerion the Black Dread was two hundred years old when he died, my lord. Mine have only lived for a handful of years, since my husband's death." She doesn't mention her sweetling, Viserion. She can't. She won't. "In matters of agelessness, I am like any other man or woman in my world. One may choose to take my life, or I may be fortunate to live for a hundred years."

She listens, because he deserves her ear. There's a wisdom to him to respect... and from the sounds of it, likely, that is due to--

"How many years?"

He knew the question was coming, yet it still stuck a little in his throat to answer. "Almost six hundred. I was thirty-one when I was made what I am now. And I will always look just so. Barring an unforseen event, I could live for another six hundred. Or six hundred past that." He sighed, patting the hand that rested on his arm gently. "That is another part of my curse, Lady. Watching the world go by. Being of it but not truly involved in it. Watching those I loved live, age, and die. I admit, sadly, it's made me colder than I wanted to be. Before coming here, I'd distanced myself from most. Having to... be a part of things again is taking its own getting used to."

Nearly six centuries. Gods, to imagine life for such a long stretch of time... to watch the world shift, lives flirt past in the blink of an eye. She looks ahead, silent, troubled, mind racing over the idea of it. He's spoken of his wife--how long has it been since he's lost her?

"I've noticed no such coldness, lord Tepes." When she looks back to him, it's not with pity, but with a stubbornness which dares him to argue. "You were the second person I met in this world and offered me a kind ear and a bright mind. You continue to offer me both."

The hand curled on his arm tightens just a bit in response to his touch. Six centuries... such loneliness, and he speaks of the prospect of them all--she and those who walk this land now--dying and he surviving.

"You do carry a terrible burden." There was no denying that. The sacrifices he made to protect his people were far greater than she'd anticipated. And that, unsurprisingly, is what makes her respect him all the more. "If you would allow it--it would please me to help you in rejoining the world."

"But I'm not rejoining my world, Lady. I am finding a new one and attempting to see what place there is for me here, if any. I am a new monster in a new land, and that balance can be a tricky one to maintain."

Still, he gave her a smile, continuing to walk peacefully with her. "I appreciate the sentiment. You have been far kinder than perhaps I deserve. Whatever world you came from, your people were fortunate to have you."

Technicalities. "You're joining a new world," she concedes, inclining her head. "As are the rest of us. Your breed of monster is different than some of the others here, but I can assure you there's great value to having you among us."

Knowledge. Kind words. Levelheadedness. His optimism that first day they met frustrated her, but she's begun to see his side to this, now. Might not've seen it soon enough without a conversation with him.

"Your perception of what you deserve and what you are is biased, my lord. You offer me kindness. I've returned it. Ah, we're here. It's not much from the outside, but mine is six balconies up."

"My perception of what I am and what I deserves is biased by my knowledge of the truth of myself, Lady. Even before my... bargain, I had done horrible things. Things I wouldn't take back, because they saved more lives than they took. Yet my time in my world has made me wish there had been alternatives. Life is precious."

He stopped with her, then looked up at the building. A small smile tickled the edge of his mouth. "Shall I carry you? Six flights is quite a way."

"You think yourself strong enough to carry me?" She arches her brows at him, amusement dancing in her eyes. "I wonder what you'd think of the great pyramid of Meereen."

She steps closer, acceding to the offer. Not often one carries her, but with the heat of the day, the events so recent, the ache in her back from healing wounds, she doesn't mind it. At least it would mean privacy soon enough.

"It is precious. All the more reason to protect it." For once, she backs down from this argument about his nature. Only time would prove her point, and perhaps he would see that one day. In this, she's sure.

"Perhaps some day I'll show you the extent of my strength. But suffice it to say, my Lady," he said as he swept her up easily into his arms, "carrying you up a few flights of stairs will not tax me in the slightest." He didn't clutch her too closely, didn't put hands where they didn't need to be. He carried her carefully, aware of the fact she'd been wounded, though not the extent. He walked as if he carried nothing at all, breezing easily up the stairs.

He also knew that the subject had merely been shelved, not forgotten. His wife had a similar way of drawing conversations out of him. Particularly ones he wished not to have with her. Wise and intelligent women could be rather terrifying. "You find this place to your liking, then?"

"I'd enjoy seeing that strength, I'm sure." She's always enjoyed a great display. Suffice it to say, when Drogo swore to fell those in Westeros, she'd been near overwhelmed with how much she enjoyed it. But witnessing Vlad's strength would be different, for he is not her husband, and she had no intentions to lust over a man who still held his wife so close to his heart. Especially when she was involved with Jon. "Not in the slightest?"

He lifts her so easily, the hand not pinned between them reaching for his far shoulder. But there is no waiver, and it's a useless motion, for she needs no steadying. He moves quick, like the wind, and the gust of air is sweet against her cheeks.

Like flying, almost.

"I like it enough." It's not home, is what she means. "It's not large enough for my people, should they ever wake. But it's higher, and there's a breeze.

"What's more important is whether you find it to your liking."

He could tell which living area was hers based on smell, and he stopped outside it, setting her down carefully. "Higher is good. Reminds me of my original home." Nothing quite felt like living in a castle, or even visiting the Sanctuary that had overlooked the mountains, all but build into them. He had no fear of heights, and found the air sweeter up high.

"I hardly think that's of import. I have lived in many places in my life. I'm sure to live in many more. A closet would do me well enough."

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[OPEN] When I was a child I'd sit for hours staring into open flames...

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