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[gidge]

PICK YOUR POISON
PIC PROMPTS / TFLN / RANDOM SCENARIO
HAN SOLO velocities	BETTY MCRAE bombsheller	RIVER TAM subsulcus	RIVER TAM (AU) comprehender
SIMON TAM vest	BRIA THAREN exulted	NADINE CROSS bridaled	GU JUN-PYO toddler
available on special request: veronica sawyer, benjamin linus, imani, maria deluca, mushu, poseidon, niccolò machiavelli, malik al-sayf, chloe

Comments

[comprehender]

"Annulment," she says, clipped and defensive.

It's disconcerting, speaking to him like that, feeling the need to, and the tone in the room isn't one she finds any comfort in. There's the sensation of snow melting underfoot with no solid ground beneath it, of an edge unseen but barreling closer every time she opens her mouth.

River, at the moment, would prefer to run. Take her leave and hide in her room and await some inevitable disaster. The possibilities for which, those that are too many and her imagination too prone to bias the dire end of sad fairytales, would haunt her until she's-- cast out. Thrown in the dungeon. Called a witch and tied to a stake.

She forces herself to stay, to look at his face and do her best to speak past the tremor in her voice to tell him, "It's the truth. I've only ever told you the truth. You don't have to do anything about it, and I swear I won't say a word of it outside this room, but... Before you go to meet her, you need to know."

[nighted]

The sharpness of that word, that lone word, grazes against his skin like the cold steel of the knives his former brothers in the Night's Watch had driven through his chest. It pierces his heart with whispers of possibility instead of the promise of death; he's completely taken aback by it.

Could it be possible? Could Prince Rhaegar have annulled his marriage to the Dornish Princess and married his ill-fated aunt — mother? — instead? But then... If they were wed, the ill-fated part of her story takes on new meaning. It changes the entire premise of Robert's Rebellion entirely.

He doesn't know what to do with the prospect of this new narrative, nevermind the very real possibility that he's a Targaryen.

"Say I believe you. What do you possibly expect me to do with this knowledge, stroll into Dragonstone and announce to my dear aunt that he beloved nephew has come to ask her to fight alongside the North against the Night King and his army of the dead?"

[comprehender]

"Maybe?"

She doesn't like not having an answer. Not when it should be simple. Not when she was so sure he had to know, and now isn't sure of how to advise him at all. There's the hint of a direction from the people that brought her to his gates, but...

River holds her arms to herself, hands on elbows, head down. Her hair isn't braided today and hangs now in front of her face. A shield, kind of. A way to hide her own unsureness.

"There would have been blood, if you didn't know. Mistakes. It felt like fire and shame, and I don't know what you do with it now." She hugs herself tighter, eyes closed and white knuckled squeezing against the sensation that all she's made up of is wisps of smoke and if she compresses it tight enough she'll see where to turn. Where to turn him.

Carefully, slowly, she lifts her head back up and opens her eyes. There's still hair in her face, and she must look mad when she finally looks at Jon and sees.

"There's going to be more fighting. Living and dead, and... I can't make the choices for you. I can only you where they are."

[nighted]

He has questions and she doesn't have any answers. Who does he even ask about any of this — Davos? The sister that is actually his cousin? What would they say if they knew he wasn't Ned Stark's son? All these Northern lords chose him to be their leader because he was the last living son of the great Eddard Stark. And now he's nothing more than his sister's orphaned boy, a spark amidst a war fought in the wake of two people who loved one another saying fuck all to duty and honor and running away together in the hopes of being happy.

His parents' quest for happiness started a war. By the Seven...

Jon rubs his hands over his face, peering at her over the tops of his fingers. That crazed look on her face, the way she stares at him so intensely— She's never lied to him. He knows this. Somehow, he knows. Perhaps what they say about the Valyrians and the magic their blood is rooted in is true. Perhaps he got some of that from Prince Rhaegar.

Quietly, he stalks past her and out the door. Should she go looking for him, she'll find him in the crypts beneath Winterfell, staring up at the great stone statue carved in Lyanna Stark's likeness.

[comprehender]

Jon swoops out of the room and the air seems to leave with him, oxygen chasing after him to feed the new flame.

She doesn't follow immediately. At first she sits, curled up in a chair, knees to her chest and her face in her hands as she breathes (the air isn't gone, it's just a metaphor, it's just a sensation and not a fact) through the confusion of the moment. Truth is overwhelming, and it carries her away even when none of it is hers.

Outside in the hallways Davos is upset. Wonders where his King has gone, what was said to him, and River collects herself enough to brush her hair back into something less mad, grab the letter, and go to where Jon is.

It's quiet, in the tombs. She knows it wouldn't be if Jon didn't know already. That bones would be screaming out to her with truth and pain. But now, it's quiet.

When she approaches she does so just loud enough not to surprise him. So he knows she's there before she says, soft, and maybe it's to him and to the statue he's facing, "I'm sorry."