revivalproject | 01 | If I Look Back I'm Lost

Entry tags:

01 | If I Look Back I'm Lost

WHO: Daenerys Targaryen

thebrideoffire
WHERE: Waiting room, Calibrations room
WHAT: Calibration Event/Arrival
WHEN: Backdated to 6/27 to 6/30

Waiting Room

There had been several days of moping, drifting between frustration, anger and heartache. Waking up in a different place, a different world was less strange the second time around, but everything she left behind in the city lingered in her mind. This was...far different than the Tower of Pride in the heart of the City. True, there were no demons and no threat of being infected by them. The downside was that she was once again surrounded by things that she didn't recognize or understand as well as others might. (That gel alone looked nauseating).

The waiting room was at least slightly large and allowed her room to roam, even if it wasn't far. There wasn't the sea, there wasn't vastly different districts to visit, there was just this common room where others frequented...and she gravitated to with little choice. There was at least her dragon egg, not the three that she had been granted in the City, but one. Drogon was still with her, encased in his black and red shell, still seemingly stone, but a familiar heat pulsating from within.

When she claimed a space in the waiting room, the egg went with her, placed next to her side. There had to be a way to hatch him...and even if there wasn't, this would at least occupy her until they finally were released from whatever this place was.

Calibrations Room

This isn't the room you'd expect for a woman with her long titles and claim to the crown. But it's a simple courtyard with a lemon tree that sways against the heated breeze. There's sand beneath your feet, white and beautiful and rough against your skin. There is a stone archway that leads to steps and a large red door where kittens are curled before it. If you try and open the door though, it will not budge. Eventually, it will slip back and draw away, seemingly farther and farther each time you look back at it.

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The longer they all stay locked up in these tunnels, the heavier the entire situation weighs on them all. And it’s not just the dreams and the visits to the minds of others. For Jon, it’s that thick, lingering anxiety that has taken up the entire space, making it hard for him to breathe at times. If the Archivist has come close to starving himself before all of this, he now feels outright bloated and about ready to just let it all out onto one of his tapes.

But those have started to become an issue: Jon hasn’t brought nearly enough to record everything he feels ready to spill. So he has taken to try and pace the urge away. First in his room, then through the pathway. Back and forth and back again, trying to avoid the common room as much as possible. And yet, eventually, his irate pacing takes him there as well.

Jon lets out a heavy exhale, sterling himself to try and make a casual round before wandering away again.

It’s on that round that he spots the woman with the... Egg? And he pauses at her table, curious as of what animal might have produced the egg - And whether this is little more than her personal breakfast.

“Uh.... Hello.” He tries, maybe a little awkwardly, but it’s only polite to greet her.

Sansa knows her face.

There's no mistaking Daenerys Targaryen, even younger, and she tries to decide whether or not she'll approach. Here in this place, titles wouldn't matter and neither of them can field armies. She has no dragon. Jon isn't here. Sansa remembers how lonely it was coming from Westeros to this place and she decides to sit down.

"You're Daenerys Targaryen," Sansa says lowly, easing herself into the seat next to her. Everything is harder with a baby now.

"I'm Westerosi. I'm Sansa Stark, Queen in the North. I've heard tales about what you look like so you're fairly unmistakable. Am I right or do you make gold by pretending to be her?"

He hates this: the intrusion into another's memories, completely uninvited. Even though the scenery seems pleasant it's hard to not feel as an outsider, treading where he should not go. Memories, thoughts, feelings; these should all be kept private until their owner deems it appropriate to share, not shared through the whim of some more powerful entity.

After a while of waiting for its occupant to appear, the Soldier moves to sit under the lemon tree. He can't help casting the occasional glance back at the red door, feeling a pull toward it and trying to resist. He doesn't want to impose and seems determined to wait it out rather than intrude further.

Dany looked up from her place where she had been watching the egg. Much as when she was younger, she found comfort from simply looking at the shell. The glimmer of the red that shined like fallen rubies and the black of obsidian, as though the dragon inside had created the shell encasing it. There was still warmth, something she could feel drawing inside of her, pulled into her heart, as though she were feeding on it.

The man was a surprise, but she supposed it was only a matter of time before someone finally appeared. It wasn't as if there were a number of places they could go. Between this room and their own, they could only go so far. He looked to be in a better mood than she would have expected, given how much this place would push them towards being stir crazy.

"Hello. I'm Daenerys." He'd probably be able to guess she was new.

She emerges from the shadows, her silver hair catching in the sunlight, seeming to glow like the moon come to earth. She smiled at the stranger, unperturbed to have someone in this memory. It seemed so distant to her before, more of a collection of images and feelings that overwhelmed everything else. It was so warm, so beautiful, finding someone else there seemed natural, if only to share everything she was feeling.

She knelt beside him, glancing back towards the red door. She made no move to reach it or try and open it, content to simply look at it and see it tangible in front of her. "How did you manage to find your way here?" Not that she minded, but he was the only thing that stuck out as odd and unfamiliar.

She's surprised to hear someone bluntly speak her name and approach her, but after Jon's recognition of her, she understands that people can come from different times and even different worlds. The last she heard of the North, they were in rebellion against the Lannisters, but she hadn't heard that a woman was leading them. But given how little information she received in Meereen, she couldn't exactly decide whether this was her Westeros or not.

"I imagine there are some who can pretend to be me in Volantis. They have the silver hair and some possess purple eyes, but I am Daenerys. Not that I have given you much reason to believe it now." She grinned, turning the egg in her hands. "There is little else I can give you save for my word that I am who I say I am."

He really only appears in a better mood on the outside. Jon wants to leave the tunnels as much as everyone else. Even though he can't deny that everyone being trapped like this has worked quite well in his favor so far.

"Ah- I'm Jonathan - Jon. I don't think we've met before." Jon replies, clasping his hands together for a moment before gesturing towards the egg. "That... Is that from a local creature?"

That's a valid question, right? Because if there are animals on this planet that produce eggs of this size? Well, Jon certainly doesn't want to encounter them.

That mask is something she is familiar with adapting, especially after being drawn to a different world twice and being trapped there. It was easier to smile to the locals than to let them see her sour mood.

"No, I only just arrived." Was that the way to describe it? She's still not even sure what happened. One minute she's in the City and then suddenly she's in a tunnel she's never seen before. "No, this comes from my world. It's a dragon egg."

She offers him the chance to hold it. Were they not stuck in this spot, she might be hesitant to let someone else hold the egg, given how valuable it was, but there was very few places he could go with it. She would extend trust to him. "It feels like stone, but there is a living dragon inside."

"The egg of a- A dragon?!" Okay. Forget about the rest for a moment. Is he really looking at an actual dragon egg? Those huge creatures that only exist in fairytales back on Earth? This brings up so many potential questions...

Jon's eyes flick from the egg back to her when she offers it to him. Of course he's very curious about it, but can he truly trust himself with something like this? What if he breaks it? So instead of taking it, Jon runs a cautious hand down the shell, his expression a mix of excited wonder. "W-will it hatch?"

And that may be the most important question at the moment. Will there be a dragon in Temba at one point in the future?

The eyes of a sniper didn't need the light catching on her hair and clothes to notice her, but he let his gaze be drawn fully when she stepped out from the shadows. He didn't recognize her; he didn't even recognize the drape of her clothing. It didn't mean much with his shattered memories, but the sense that she could be someone he wasn't supposed to know did cause him to relax minutely.

"I'm not sure." It was dreamlike certainly, and he was pretty sure he'd stepped into a Calibrations dream, but pretty sure was exactly only that: pretty sure, and not at all positive. Certainly the landscape was more peaceful than any he thought his own mind capable of producing, and if he was to force his presence on another's mind, at least he could try to keep his hands to himself and thus preserve her privacy. "I opened my eyes and I was here, but closing them again certainly does not do much to bring me elsewhere."

Not that he thought exiting would be so easy. Two ways to leave these dreamscapes, he knew: to interact with the dream and force it to play out the scenes it held, or to wait it out. The second option was certainly the more boring of the two, but he just didn't feel right about trespassing in someone else's thoughts.

"Well, a woman's word is good enough in the North," Sansa says, not letting on that she does actually know who Daenerys is, intimately. It isn't fair to her to operate on such information and people can take different paths. She isn't Ramsay. Ramsay was a monster before she ever met him. This is different.

"And I am a woman of word myself. Two queens without kingdoms ought to stick together, anyway. Perhaps we have them back home but here, no one owns anything unfortunately. I promise we're not always stuck together quite like this."

It at least told her enough about his world that she could infer a few details. Like her own, dragons were mythical and rare (if they existed at all beyond stories). That wonder was something she enjoyed seeing in others, and while she met some people who had dragons in their world, it was always better when they didn't. Just that excitement in their eyes, she could connect and relate to that easily, having felt the same when she received them.

"I don't know," it was a painful honesty, but what other answer could their be? "The circumstances for hatching them the first time were unique. I don't know if I could recreate that here." Or even if she wanted to.

Only death paid for life and she had nothing left to give for her dragons. "It might be possible, but it was a heavy price."

"Not all dreams can be controlled. There must be a reason for you to be here and to see this." It was private, something that she had held deeply in her heart and returned to over and over again, no matter the pain it caused her or the longing. She felt naked before this stranger, letting him see her truest vulnerability, as well as her childhood desire that had never really manifested beyond this dream.

Still, she found herself enjoying the company. This memory was a lonely one, something that Viserys had never shared with her and seemed to be empty of what she truly wanted. Finding a friendly face among the scenery, it proved how barren this desire really was. True, she wanted her lost childhood, true she wanted that safety and warmth again. But without someone else, family or otherwise, would it really ever be fulfilling?

That would be enough to explain why and how she found someone else here in her dream, but why he may be seeing it? That was more difficult to put to words. "This is the only happy memory I have from my childhood." He had already witnessed this private scene, there was little to hide or shy away from here.

"This world runs on its own magic?" She wanted to at least get a sense of this place. There wasn't so much of an introduction as she received in the City. There, she at least had a welcome basket and people to explain the nature of the world, as well as the dangers it posed. Here, she simply walked into a tunnel and found herself trapped in these rooms.

It had to be a sort of magic, anything else didn't make sense in her mind.

"It has been some time since I heard what was happening in Westeros, but I thought the son of Eddard Stark was king? The little history I know of Westeros, there has never been a queen in her own right."

"There never has," Sansa agrees. "My brother is dead. I have lost two brothers to the Lannisters and their machinations. My other brother is...distant. I am not untouched by tragedy. I am Eddard Stark's eldest and the true heir now."

Sansa pauses and tries to figure out a way to explain Temba and this world. "There are many things magic about this place, different from Westeros. There are wonders but there are dangers too. I want to help you, Daenerys, and keep you safe. Women should stick together."

"There's undoubtedly a reason. Doesn't mean I have to like the thought of invading someone else's privacy." Surely nothing here came from him; the memory was hers alone. It seemed a pleasant one which put him a little at ease; people tended to sharing pleasant memories more readily than unpleasant ones. The intrusion might be forced, but worse if it was something she wanted to keep unknown.

Eyes skated over her form again, then back down to the sand; keeping that neutral line of sight was the best he could do to preserve her privacy. "I'll not force you to tell me the tale, if you'd rather keep it as your own." He didn't have peaceful memories like this, and wouldn't deny a certain sense of relief at being allowed the respite of this seeming paradise. Though one wry thought did occur: fortunate for it to be a dream, as sand was not fun to clean out of the joints and plates of his arm. "I hope you don't consider it too forward that I'm glad this place chose to show you something you could enjoy."

She could at least admire Sansa's determination and strength. Dany knew what it was to be a woman and the last heir of her House. It wouldn't shock her to know that Sansa likely faced a great deal of push back and doubt from the men around her. How often had she been talked down to as well?

"You must be very strong to hold your position so well." She was grateful at least that she would no longer be alone, not simply in being a woman holding her position, but also in this world.

She gave a small laugh, trying to shake the sense of irony at all of this. "You do not fear or hate me for what I am?"

"It would seem that my mind is not attempting to force you out or fighting back against you. Perhaps I do not mind all that much?" A small attempt at humor. Once she moved past the vulnerability this created, she almost felt relief to share this with someone. It was like showing off her home, something she cherished and felt a great deal of pride in.

She was dressed in a simple, worn gown, the sort that she would have worn during this time. Her hair was unbound and hanging freely at her waist. It was the first time in a long while she wasn't a khaleesi or a queen, she was a simple girl, as she had enjoyed long ago. "I don't find it forward and I don't mind sharing. To be honest, I don't remember much of this place. I lived most of my life in exile, but this is the only place that I felt happiness. It was only brief images and memories, nothing substantial. This is the first time it's seemed...tangible."

"...Perhaps." It was natural for him to assume that others would hate the mental intrusion as much as he, but he reminded himself that it might not be so. Besides, the memory did appear both pleasant and calming, what he imagined would be a welcome break from how life in this place might be otherwise.

"I'm glad that it's been given back to you," he said cautiously. "I know what it's like to lose hold of a memory." He didn't consider himself the best at relating to others; he wasn't quite sure what to say. But she'd been nothing but polite with him thus far, done nothing to threaten, and he forced his natural tendency to be on guard down. Nothing in this place seemed to threaten and while he knew that could likely change, he also didn't want to be the catalyst for tainting a pleasant memory with something else.

He glanced over his shoulder at the kittens sleeping by the red door, then above to the leaves of the lemon tree. The sand was warm beneath him. Overall the scene really was quite peaceful. "I am sorry that an exile took you from this peace."

"You have lost memories before?" She's gentle in her questions, curious but not prying if he wished to keep them to himself. She had been so young when this happened, it was natural for the memory to become less tangible. It was almost a lifetime ago, a different dream that Daenerys might never return to, no matter how much she imagined King's Landing resembling this.

"Such is the nature of exile." She was calmer about it than she might normally be, this place serving as a balm. "I truly never knew any other life than running, going from host to host with hand out for charity. This was the only place that was my own. It belonged to my guardian before he died. After, my brother and I were forced to wander."

"Yes," he replied with a shrug of the shoulder. He normally didn't like talking about it, not at all, but perhaps it was the dream nature of this space that put him slightly more at ease with the admission. Besides, that simple fact tended not to stay secret for long, though he guarded fiercely the things that were done to cause such a loss.

He did however appreciate both her calm and her seeming practicality; it served her better than hysterics, in his mind. "I imagine it would not be so if the exile were of your own choosing, but that's a different situation entirely." His pause was a little awkward, just on the side of too long. "You may not need to return this exact place to find somewhere else with a similar peace."

"Why? For being a woman? Some would fear and hate me for it too," Sansa says. She has to keep this secret to protect Daenerys and she intends to. Sansa doesn't know if she can change a woman just by being kind to her but she's going to at least protect her from the horror of her future.

"It is different here. I will help you and you can trust me. We have to help one another as women in the world and I imagine you've never had anyone to help you. I had my family."

She won't push or pry, only watch him with a gentle expression. Memories were precious things and to lose his would have been crushing. She might not look back at the parts of her life that made her weaker or would lead her to being lost, but they still shaped the woman she had become, as she imagined he had been shaped by his own experiences. Having them wiped away, it would be a staggering loss. "Were you able to recover them? Any of them?"

She pulled her knees to her chest, "In a way it was our choosing. It was either exile or murder, as my brother's children were murdered. But we have been striving to return home since." She blinked, having never considered that and still a bit uncertain about abandoning this dream. Where else would she belong but here? "I have nothing, only this..."

"I meant as a Targaryen. I am well aware of our family's history." Did she not call Eddard Stark the Usurper's dog? Things were not so simple though, not since Ser Barristan had come into her service and dispelled much of Viserys's embellishments. "I am grateful for the chance to know you."

And it was true. Anyone from home was needed, and thankfully, knowing Jon as well had helped her understand his family better. "Your family was here? Was Jon among them?" Not her Jon, or rather, the one she knew from the City.

"Very little of it." Normally he wouldn't have been as plainly honest, but something about this place — both its representation as a place of peace from her past, and the reality of it as a shared dream experience — seemed to allow it. He pushed his hair back from where it wanted to fall into his face and looked at her, instead of the sand, since she'd expressed her welcome several times. "You don't need to worry over it. My situation is...unique."

In other words: not something likely to threaten anyone else in this place.

"Choosing to live is harder than most people credit it," he replied; they might not have a complete understanding of each other's situations, but he felt that they probably had that in common, just from the little bits they've shared so far. "This, and a will to live. That's hardly nothing."

"Is there nothing that can bring them back?" It may be a unique situation, but they were in a unique place as well. Not simply the dream, but far from their worlds and the rules that guided nature and fate. Certainly there had to be a way to help him. If she could step in her memories like this, he must be able to find his way to his.

Given his demeanor, she doesn't fear him, instead feeling drawn by someone that might need help. Someone who might be as lonely as she is.

"It is. Given certain adversities, it would be easier to give up and make the pain stop. The more difficult route is finding a way to adapt, to turn the situation to your advantage. There are ways, but there is a loneliness that still comes with it."

"Oh, no, not here. I meant just in life. I grew up happy and surrounded by my family. You were exiled and hunted, from what they said at court. I couldn't...well, unfortunately I can identify with you in that sense. I was branded a traitor by the Lannisters and made their prisoner. We have a common enemy."

Sansa reaches her hand toward Daenerys. "But that enemy is not here. And we have people here that we can trust, I swear it on my honor as a Stark and on my crown."

“Time, maybe.” He didn’t know for sure; decades of HYDRA programming, of having electricity shot through his brain, of being put on ice until he was needed, and he had no real answers about what he would regain. If he would regain any of it. His missions yes, and the skills needed to complete them, but the rest of it?

Probably not worth dwelling on that he might never regain.

“That loneliness may likely be one you’ll not escape.” Not that he wanted to bring such negative thoughts into her pleasant memories but he appreciated honesty and hoped she did as well. “There are things that happen to a person that are absolutely inconceivable to others. It sets you apart. What you do with that isolation, though...” he trailed off, glancing back toward the painted door once more.

“A memory need not be your only strength.”

She nodded, remembering how Viserys spoke of the various enemies they had. The stag, the wolf, the lion and so many others. He listed them off at times, as though he were presiding over their trial, speaking of their crimes. It was a jumble in her mind now, the rantings of her brother when the dragon was let loose. Ser Barristan had helped her understand Westeros better, as well as the others Houses, but he had no love for Lannister or Baratheon either.

"No, not here yet." Such was the nature of this world. Someone could be pulled in, as easily as they were pulled out. "Tomorrow, perhaps one will arrive?" Or perhaps a friend would?

She did appreciate honesty. She wished she could link him to the familiar figures of her past, someone that she loved and trusted, but he was so unique unto himself. There didn't seem to be anyone else like him. Haunted, lost and brimming with potential danger and power. She could respect that without understanding it fully. He was intriguing without any associations, someone that she hoped to find a bit more easily outside of this dream.

"No, it never will be. When you are born in sorrow, you tend to carry it as your mantle. Loneliness is a natural companion of it." Made even worse by being a queen and the last of her House. It was said Rhaegar carried a sense of doom with him, was she the same? Or was it simply that sense of sorrow? "It doesn't bar smiles or warmth though. I have my share of it, the memory simply makes it stronger."

But he was right. The memory shouldn't make her stronger...yet she didn't know how else to be, save for this. "This is home and I need to find it." She held firm to that, afraid to relinquish it and lose everything in the process. "But my strength is my own. I'm the blood of the dragon..."

"Well, you came to me. I would like to be friends, if we could," Sansa says. She has to keep her secret close to the chest; there is no way she's going to ruin Daenerys when this one seems different than the one she'd met. It's not fair.

"So perhaps we'll get someone else from one of our families. If not, we'll have one together."

That's quite a suggestion, one that touches her heart. Given the way that Jon pressed her to be his and how he made clear that he was her family, it wasn't a stretch to accept such an offer from Sansa. Had she finally given in, it would be true. They would be family through their connection to him.

"Of course." She smiled softly, running her hand over Drogon's egg. "I would like us to be family as well. I have never had that before, not until the City."

"See, there you are. It's not so difficult to become a Stark, I suppose, but I'm not upset by it," Sansa says, laughing a bit. "I just can't let you go through this place alone, whether our names are Targaryen and Stark or Blackfyre and Snow. Women must stick together as men aren't going to be kind to us, nor the world. We both know that."

It's...easier than she thought to be friends with Daenerys and perhaps it's because she's pushed the Daenerys she knew behind and is accepting this new one no matter what.

She was right and her heart longed for a friend and companion similar to Irri and Jhiqui, though on a more equal and intimate level. She trusted both women with her life and viewed them more than handmaidens, but it would never be exactly the same as this. Sansa was offering to be a sister where she had none, a sister in the sense that gave her something she was searching for. Not an exact home with a red door, but a woman with red hair.

"I have only ever been surrounded by men, save for my handmaidens. This is strange for me."

"A world of men is a lonely one for a woman," Sansa says. "And I've lived my share of it. More than my share. It's about time that there's a place in the world for women."

Sansa reaches for her hands to touch them. "We'll be friends here. I'll make it happen and I'll make sure you have anything you might need. It is my duty as a queen and a friend."

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01 | If I Look Back I'm Lost

Waiting Room

waiting room

Calibrations Room;

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