Catch-all post!

[ragnarsson]

who: Ivar and others
what: Monthly log catch-all post
when: Starting about Dec. 10th and continuing throughout the month
where: All over the Quarantine
warnings: Graphic description of broken bones, sparring violence



Prompts below! Anyone who wants anything specific can PM me or contact me at Light_shade

Comments

[ragnarsson]

Ivar stays quiet as she talks, listening as most people do not, focusing on what is being said, rather than thinking of other things or deciding what they're going to say next. The fire in his eyes is being stoked back up again. She'd rose from ashes and become the woman before him, much as he'd clawed and fought back against the world until he'd made his own place in it.

At the end, there's a low chuckle out of Ivar. "You're a tough one, Unburnt Queen." Ivar was not one who idly handed out compliments. Vikings respect might, power, and unbending courage, things that would give them a place in their war hall of an afterlife. Plus, having a dragon didn't hurt. That was just cool.

He sits up straighter, wincing hard as he bends his legs to get them in a more comfortable position. Though Ivar's crippled, he's not paralyzed, something that he thinks about when he supposed things could get no worse for him. "My father told me that I don't think like other men. It's a great asset to my people, for they all only focus on what is right in front of them, battles and land and treasures, things that they can hold in their hands. I'm the one to see ahead, to know other's minds, and see what might be. He told me I was the most important of all his sons to the future of the Norse."

He reaches out a hand towards Viserion, though he stops a few inches away. He's definitely a different looking sort of dragon than Toothless. "Does he bite?"

[jelmazmo]

Much better, she thinks while holding his gaze intently. It doesn't strike her that part of the reason she's come may very well be Viserys; who'd been overtaken by bitterness and humiliation and never recovered his wits. Something Dany has no real care to witness repeat for anyone else. There is something in him she recognizes in herself, in Tyrion and others she's met and known—and respected.

She doesn't smile immediately, instead accepting his praise with an incline of her head. "One must be to survive. You would know, as well." It's what she believes and knows to be fact moreso than praise, though it will do. Dany also has a penchant for respecting those who've overcome great odds and emerged the stronger for having done so. Finally, there's a hint of a smile upon her face.

Sitting up as he is nearly renders them the same height, and thus easier for her to meet his gaze. Which she does unflinchingly. She listens to all he has to say, head tipped to the side, considering. "That's the truth of it. Such a way of life is sustainable only for so long, especially if your homeland has little arable land." His people remind her of the Ironborn, from what she's heard of both. And too of her ancestor, who'd taken a look at greener pastures and gone on to take them for himself. "To see the larger picture is important. Jon does so, to the benefit of his people. He became king because of his strength of character as much as his sword arm. And was chosen for both. When you teach your people to value your true strength, they will choose you."

Whether she thinks he's right to want to be feared or not—Olenna Tyrell's words come back to her now: be a dragon. Something to think on. In the meantime, her smile broadens a little.

"Only those who wish to harm me." Turning her head, she urges the little dragon forward in their mother tongue: "Jikagon va, byka mēre." Go on and meet him; and he does, shifting forward enough to butt his head against Ivar's wrist with a quiet hiss.

[ragnarsson]

Ivar's greatest strength has always been his mind. Despite all he's been through, being a cripple and reject, ignored or pitied most of his life, he's never broken down. There have been many hard moments that have knocked him down, but always, he gets back up and continues on. Now he was one of the leaders of a great army and had plans to go far.

"Vikings value strength and cunning both. So long as I continue to win battles for them, they will eventually learn to accept me." Any who had seen him on the battlefields would know he was no mere cripple. Were it not for his legs, Ivar would have been the ideal Viking leader: smart, brave, ruthless, and with an iron will. Then again, if he had his legs, he might not have worked as hard as he did.

Ivar runs a rough finger over the top of the dragon's head, down the horns to the spines on the back. It looks so small, almost cute in a way, but it still has claws, teeth, and can produce fire. He looks gleeful as he does so, for Ivar loves animals of any shape or size. "Does he have a name?" He just sort of assumes the dragon is a he, but what does he know about the difference between the sexes of dragons?

[jelmazmo]

"There are different sorts of cunning, too. My Hand is better at politics than he is with warfare and strategy. He is no military man, but Jon is; his counsel served me better than Tyrion's. You are a little like me, then: I'm no politician, nor have I ever wished to be." Daenerys is a visionary in other ways; she's gained two armies by outwitting the Masters and the Dosh Khaleen, and having faith in herself. This conversation reminds her soundly of that fact.

Looking at Ivar now, it's impossible not to see a little of herself. She'd been as young not terribly long ago; and she's still as underestimated now as she'd been then. The need for respect, to demand it is a known thing to her. Something she understands better than a well-born man of her country would be. But this well-born man from another world can.

Dany watches on with a serene expression, mouth curving in a faint half-smile. "Viserion, for the brother I mentioned earlier. Viserys was weak and cruel and stupid; this dragon will be all my brother could and would not." At her waist is a bag of raw meat. Reaching down, she plucks a tender morsel from it and hands it to him.

"Toss it in the air and watch."

[ragnarsson]

"My father always said that a man must do two things: fight and protect his family. I suppose the same is true of rulers. You must have a lot of strength to command people no matter who you are." He could see that strength in Dany. Were he the type at all to follow instead of ruling under his own power, he could see himself following this woman. "It was good you came today. Sometimes, I need a reminder that I'm not broken, no matter what everyone else may think." Ivar didn't often thank people, so this was a rare occurrence.

Ivar runs a finger under Viserion's chin. The dragon wrinkles up his eyes in a pleasurable look. "Sounds like my brother Sigurd. If only I could replace him with a dragon." Ivar looks a bit wry at the thought. Sigurd was a bitter, cruel, and stupid individual. There was no lost love between him and Ivar. Sometimes, Ivar dearly wished he could just kill him and be done with it.

He tosses the meat up high to the little dragon. When he chars the meat and then snaps it up with sharp teeth, he's suitably impressed. "How big do they grow?" He couldn't imagine it was just going to stay the size of a big parrot forever.

i forgot if she mentioned viserys' murder - if she has, lmk and i'll edit

[jelmazmo]

"It is." She raises her head, meeting his gaze levelly. "Your people are your responsibility, as family would be. To safeguard, to shelter and feed. Usurpers have left a mess of my country. Whether they fear, love or hate me, I still have work to do." Because her Dothraki and Unsullied had followed her across the Narrow Sea, not Cersei Lannister. Nor the Night King. "Should you lead your people one day, I would counsel this: find a balance between love and fear. They will follow." Olenna Tyrell hadn't been wrong, but nor had Rhaegar. And they'd both died.

"Should you ever need another one, I'll gladly oblige." You're welcome, she says without overtly saying so. Viserion leans a little closer, and she watches on, seemingly serene. "It was a relief when he died. A weight off my shoulders. I'm unaware of the intricacies of your situation, but cruelty should never be borne."

The dragon's snapped up the meat in no time, and she smiles to watch; it brings to the fore memories of another lifetime, or so it all feels like now. "Drogon is the largest of them, and not fully grown yet in the slightest. He dwarfs the ships we use to ply the sea."

[ragnarsson]

"I shall try to. As Vikings, my people respect those that are strong, who show no weakness in battle or in ruling their people. I shall strive to to as best I can." No one thought the teen capable of ruling a great army just yet. Ivar knew differently. This is what

"It's jealousy that plagues his mind. We were born only a year apart and my mother ignored him as soon as she had me because of my condition, paying me all sorts of special attention. He hated her and hates me still for it." Ivar snorts indignantly. "As if it was at all my fault that she loved me more." Ivar had never asked for the lion's share of his mother's love or attention. Indeed, more often than not it had suffocated him. But what was he supposed to do? No one else ever gave a damn about the poor little crippled prince.

Ivar's ice blue eyes go wide with surprise. It's hard to imagine a beast of such size. It would seem to be as big as a mountain. "I hope to see him someday. Why is this one so little? Was he born after the other?"

[jelmazmo]

"I told Jon once, that as we both wish to help our people, we might only do so from a position of strength. Sometimes that means being terrible. But as my Hand pointed out, there is a right kind of terrible: that which prevents our people from being even worse. Maybe that counsel will be of benefit to you, as it has been for me." She's speaking to him now as one adult to another, one ruler to another who would be. His age and condition in no way impede her from seeing that if he were to put his mind to it, he could be quite capable.

If he might curb his urge to have the world fear his name. "Viserys resented me because our mother died birthing me." And that she'd been born too late to wed their elder brother Rhaegar, and prevent him from running off with Lyanna Stark. She can empathize there, in a fashion. "It was not. And I don't doubt that she loved him too, in her way. You never love your children the same." Hers for the son of her body and her dragons are very, very different. But no less equally fierce.

Speaking of that, she grows very still, and the dragon at her side tenses. "No. He was killed by the abomination Jon calls the Night King. No human weapon can harm them, but that creature—" Her lips press together firmly, and Viserion seems to understand, and bares his teeth in a reflection of the rage she still feels with that thing over what he'd stolen from her. "It's a miracle of sorts that this dragon has been returned to me."

[ragnarsson]

"I shall do my best to remember." Ivar listened to precious few around him, but he understood that Dany knew what she was talking about, for she was a ruler. "Someday soon, I'm going back to finish the war my brothers and I started in England." Then he was turning his attention to becoming the leader of the army. Ivar was always the dark horse in that race, the youngest crippled son of the great Ragnar Lothbrok. But his brothers were too weak or stupid to do what was necessary to rule their people.

"She loved all of us. It wasn't easy raising four sons born as close together as we were." Four sons in five years and one of them physically disabled. No wonder Aslaug had turned to drink more often than not to get her through the day. But Ivar loved his mother with a fierce and devoted sort of love. She was the one who had kept him alive throughout his childhood against all odds.

He listens. She's spoken of the monsters that plague her world. Such a being that could take down a full-grown dragon was a terrifying thought. He taps Viserion playfully on the end of his snout. "You have a second chance with him here. May he grow large and fearsome."