[ she had wondered, honestly, if he would make himself known. yennefer can't help the lazy smile it warrants. she may have lost her power in the aerie, but she is not without the chance to reclaim it. ]
I'm not the same woman I was. Just as I wager you are not the same man. But it is good to hear from you, all the same. I can't help feeling some lingering connection to that life.
[ and therefore, she suggests, the people in it. this is true, but not in the way she's skewing it. ]
It was my life. I know it wasn’t real. I know who I am, and it isn’t that man. But for a time, it felt real enough.
[Which is to say that he now has a memory of complicated feelings towards a woman he’s never really met. Something more than feelings, too: the scent of her skin, what it felt like to kiss her. The fact that he had enjoyed it for a time; it hadn’t been wholly a matter of what she could do for him. This whole conversation would be much more difficult to approach if, in the life he had spent in the Aerie, it hadn’t been a while since what had passed between them.
He had not loved her, but there had been moments when he’d thought he could.]
If you think it’s good to hear from me, it might be that I don’t need to tell you I’m sorry for all of that.
[How can he put this? He’s never sought a lover, only found himself with one... and only the one. He had resisted any other temptations, or the timing hadn’t been right. But — ]
I wouldn’t take a lover because I thought it would give me power, or favor, or make me known to people who could give me those things. Do you understand? What I did to you there, even if it did little harm — it was wrong. There was no honor in it.
We both knew what it was then. You were no foolish maiden. But still, it was dishonorable. The man I was ought to have behaved better.
Are you worried I'll think you ignoble, Lord Snow?
[ he'd called her lady, so she can only assume it appropriate to return the honorific. he'd processed her via his preferred status markers, presumably. ]
How would you behave, now?
[ she doesn't ask because she holds any lingering sentiment. he'd been a distraction, in the aerie. but she wants to feel wanted, to take the edge off the injury of her return. ]
I think it was dishonorable. Unworthy of either of us — that’s enough that I should tell you I’m sorry. But I don’t know what you might think of it. I don’t know you now at all. It’s strange to have such memories of a woman I’ve never met.
I am not Lord Snow — not anymore. Please call me Jon.
I would behave better. I know that much. It doesn’t matter to us here, but before I came here to New Amsterdam, I thought that the next woman I would lay with would be my wife. I don’t have a line of abandoned lovers.
[Just one.]
Now, I’m not saying I mean to wed anyone who I bedded in the Aerie. I only mean to explain the difference.
[It sends his thoughts whirling. He might marry one day — he has thought, since they made him king, that if they all lived long enough, the next woman he bedded would likely be his wife. Women have tried, but it seemed wrong, so he turned them away as kindly as he could. He would have given his body and soul to Daenerys if she had asked, but she had never quite invited it, and he had never pressed the issue. And he’s lived another life since then, a life where honor hadn’t been a question at all, and so he had not behaved honorably, until it had come to him on its own somehow.
Still: if he marries, he may not be so lucky that it will be for love. Who is so lucky? It will have to be the best match for the North, though he will not take a wife who he can’t be contented enough with, and who can’t be contented with him. Is that so different from bedding a woman, sitting by her side, laughing at her jokes, being sure people see them together, knowing that people look on them with envy, all for what she might be able to do for him? But if he were to marry for love, for kindness alone, without any other thought of what house he was marrying, what troops they have, who their enemies are, the whole North could bleed yet again.
Didn't, I think, would be more accurate. You didn't have a line of abandoned lovers.
I doubt I was the only one you bedded in the Aerie with the hope that it would change your fortune. And it was you, even if another version of you. Those memories, those experiences. That life survives inside of you like anything else.
[ she can't help but take the jabs that she can get in. after all, it's impossible not to see the pieces of herself that yennefer hates, finds pathetic, in the person that jon snow had been in the aerie. distancing himself from it in this manner feels like slotting a thin knife to her ribs. ]
You seem to be under the impression that the woman that I was in the Aerie is not the woman I am on Earth. You're mistaken.
I don’t know what impression I should be under, Yennefer.
If you’re the same, then I know you better than I thought I did.
If that man is in me, if he is a part of me, he is not the greater part of me now.
But even there, I came to regret it. Not the time I spent with you — it was easy to spend time with you. For a while, it made me happier than I deserved. It was the rest of it — why I did it, how it ended.
Why bother coming to me at all? To appease your conscience?
[ she suddenly feels very defensive, mostly because she can't see what he'd possibly get out of this. yennefer is finding she preferred the other jon, the one easily understandable, to all this sincerity. ]
No. What’s done is done. I can’t change it. None of us can change anything that happened there.
When it was happening, I thought we both knew what it was. That may be true enough. I don’t fool myself that you felt anything for me then. But whoever you are — the woman I knew, or someone else — you’re not a thing to be used.
I dishonored you. I don’t know how to make it right. I don’t know if I can.
[ it is both something she needs to hear and something she loathes to hear. yennefer aches to feel valuable, important, loved. yet she cannot brook the vulnerability required of it, and he paints her as someone very, very vulnerable — helpless, even — to his manipulation. it rankles her. ]
Has it ever occurred to you that I was using you?
[ to feel something, to distract herself from the gnawing nothing that power had gotten her. she paces her apartment now, furious. ]
You're giving the awfully strong impression that you want to be taken in hand, Jon Snow.
[ if not punished and left underfoot, then at the very least, that he didn't linger around the cardinals to social climb so much as that he enjoyed feeling beneath them. ]
(“Except the memory of Ned Stark and a million pounds of guilt and obligation.”)
To hear the people of this world tell it, there's a wasteland there since the war. But if the rest of the world has overgrown in our absence, revived with wildlife, then certainly it has been as well.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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[ she had wondered, honestly, if he would make himself known. yennefer can't help the lazy smile it warrants. she may have lost her power in the aerie, but she is not without the chance to reclaim it. ]
I'm not the same woman I was. Just as I wager you are not the same man. But it is good to hear from you, all the same. I can't help feeling some lingering connection to that life.
[ and therefore, she suggests, the people in it. this is true, but not in the way she's skewing it. ]
Are you familiar with the feeling?
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[Which is to say that he now has a memory of complicated feelings towards a woman he’s never really met. Something more than feelings, too: the scent of her skin, what it felt like to kiss her. The fact that he had enjoyed it for a time; it hadn’t been wholly a matter of what she could do for him. This whole conversation would be much more difficult to approach if, in the life he had spent in the Aerie, it hadn’t been a while since what had passed between them.
He had not loved her, but there had been moments when he’d thought he could.]
If you think it’s good to hear from me, it might be that I don’t need to tell you I’m sorry for all of that.
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For all of what, exactly?
[ it will not hurt to hear, even if she had already moved on to what she could use this relationship for in the world they'd returned to. ]
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I wouldn’t take a lover because I thought it would give me power, or favor, or make me known to people who could give me those things. Do you understand? What I did to you there, even if it did little harm — it was wrong. There was no honor in it.
We both knew what it was then. You were no foolish maiden. But still, it was dishonorable. The man I was ought to have behaved better.
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[ he'd called her lady, so she can only assume it appropriate to return the honorific. he'd processed her via his preferred status markers, presumably. ]
How would you behave, now?
[ she doesn't ask because she holds any lingering sentiment. he'd been a distraction, in the aerie. but she wants to feel wanted, to take the edge off the injury of her return. ]
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I am not Lord Snow — not anymore. Please call me Jon.
I would behave better. I know that much. It doesn’t matter to us here, but before I came here to New Amsterdam, I thought that the next woman I would lay with would be my wife. I don’t have a line of abandoned lovers.
[Just one.]
Now, I’m not saying I mean to wed anyone who I bedded in the Aerie. I only mean to explain the difference.
[It sends his thoughts whirling. He might marry one day — he has thought, since they made him king, that if they all lived long enough, the next woman he bedded would likely be his wife. Women have tried, but it seemed wrong, so he turned them away as kindly as he could. He would have given his body and soul to Daenerys if she had asked, but she had never quite invited it, and he had never pressed the issue. And he’s lived another life since then, a life where honor hadn’t been a question at all, and so he had not behaved honorably, until it had come to him on its own somehow.
Still: if he marries, he may not be so lucky that it will be for love. Who is so lucky? It will have to be the best match for the North, though he will not take a wife who he can’t be contented enough with, and who can’t be contented with him. Is that so different from bedding a woman, sitting by her side, laughing at her jokes, being sure people see them together, knowing that people look on them with envy, all for what she might be able to do for him? But if he were to marry for love, for kindness alone, without any other thought of what house he was marrying, what troops they have, who their enemies are, the whole North could bleed yet again.
It all gives him pause.]
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I doubt I was the only one you bedded in the Aerie with the hope that it would change your fortune. And it was you, even if another version of you. Those memories, those experiences. That life survives inside of you like anything else.
[ she can't help but take the jabs that she can get in. after all, it's impossible not to see the pieces of herself that yennefer hates, finds pathetic, in the person that jon snow had been in the aerie. distancing himself from it in this manner feels like slotting a thin knife to her ribs. ]
You seem to be under the impression that the woman that I was in the Aerie is not the woman I am on Earth. You're mistaken.
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I don’t know what impression I should be under, Yennefer.
If you’re the same, then I know you better than I thought I did.
If that man is in me, if he is a part of me, he is not the greater part of me now.
But even there, I came to regret it. Not the time I spent with you — it was easy to spend time with you. For a while, it made me happier than I deserved. It was the rest of it — why I did it, how it ended.
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[ she suddenly feels very defensive, mostly because she can't see what he'd possibly get out of this. yennefer is finding she preferred the other jon, the one easily understandable, to all this sincerity. ]
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When it was happening, I thought we both knew what it was. That may be true enough. I don’t fool myself that you felt anything for me then. But whoever you are — the woman I knew, or someone else — you’re not a thing to be used.
I dishonored you. I don’t know how to make it right. I don’t know if I can.
I’m willing to try.
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Has it ever occurred to you that I was using you?
[ to feel something, to distract herself from the gnawing nothing that power had gotten her. she paces her apartment now, furious. ]
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You didn’t stand to gain much. You could have had anyone. As for me, I was young, but I was no innocent.
[It occurs to him now that he’s inviting her to use him again, but in a different way.]
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But you, I'm beginning to think your problem is the opposite.
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[ if not punished and left underfoot, then at the very least, that he didn't linger around the cardinals to social climb so much as that he enjoyed feeling beneath them. ]
(“Except the memory of Ned Stark and a million pounds of guilt and obligation.”)
No one rules me.
LMAO
I recall what we did together, Jon. Every moment. You don't have to feel ashamed, with me.
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[Or any of the other places.]
It’s only wrong that I hoped to gain something from it.
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In fact, I do have need of you, if your offer is genuine. I have a few pursuits of interest at the moment, and I am in the market for like minds.
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I can promise that I will listen. I can promise my aid if you’re in danger.
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New Amsterdam is harboring us for now, but the UN government wants blood, and sooner or later, they will get it.
We need a place the Displaced can go that will be safe —secluded from their reach.
I understand a continent was destroyed in one of their wars. North America. I'd like to see if it has a gate.
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We also know that things came through the gates. We don’t know what’s in North America.
Where I come from, we built a wall to keep monsters out. It works, to a point. The cities have those now, but I don’t see how much good they do.
A lot depends on what we might find there.
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It will be a haven.
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Might be that there’s a reason they can’t touch it. Elsewise, why wouldn’t they?
Either they don’t know what’s there, if there’s anything at all other than some trees and rocks, or they do, and they don’t want anyone else knowing.
[Trees and rocks and water, he thinks. Are my father’s gods to be found here in this world?]
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just some light treason in here, it’s ok, they never swore fealty to the UN
LMFAO
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