@clarke.griffin

[strove]

Thank you to Yalena for getting us sorted. [Sort of sorted. Sort of.] Now that we've arrived in New Tokyo and we're stuck inside for a little while, I think we should talk about some new changes that we're facing. I can't be the only one.

But first: a good number of us are here unwillingly, but we have to wait until we're fully prepped before we can go anywhere. Heading outside in these temperatures while unprepared could cost you your life. We all hate being trapped somewhere. I think that's pretty well-established. We also hate having to do anything or be anywhere when we didn't ask for that to happen. At least it doesn't seem like we were drugged, though it wouldn't hurt for Katelin and I to take some blood samples to confirm that. We'll have to store them until we get back.

As for the changes in your lives: have you noticed any? For instance, apparently I'm a lab tech at Giles Bell. I tried to set myself up for a new internship there that I could get easily, but I got ... elevated. Or hired beyond that? I'm not sure what the right terminology is here. Has anyone else noticed this? Or had it happen to them? I got permissions to take leaves from both of my jobs. And no, I'm really not prepared to work as a lab tech. I don't even know the first thing about setting up gels.

As a bit of a personal request ... does anyone think we can make pancakes in the small kitchen here? I have a craving for them. I've not really had cakes of the "pancake" variety before, but I want them now. And if you think we can, can you make them?

[This last bit is Loki's fault.]

Comments

[998]

The world we were on before this one. Like a series of rooms, with a mind behind it. It's hard to explain. We called it the Clock after--well, there was the big room with a clock, but it kept putting pictures of clocks in things. Or different, little clocks in other rooms. Like it was telling us its name. It communicated by--it gave us things if we asked for them. Sometimes if we didn't. To get from room to room we'd have to ask for a door. And--picture the room we wanted to go to. it was harder for some people than others.

Each room was like its own little world, except if you opened a door, it led to a different room, which was another little world. Everyone there had come from their own different worlds. They were displaced.

Some of the rooms were copies from other worlds, like our home. I think they were all taken from pictures in people's minds. Cobbled together, sometimes. It was a good place to live. Except--sometimes it seemed to be low on power. Everyone had their own theories as to why. We thought maybe it needed people to live. At first I thought it might be recruiting us, but nothing ever came of it.

Are you saying you came from the sky, before? From space?

[strove]

Were people brought there from all over? I mean, were they different worlds? ... And were any of them people you know here, but without the memories of them? If you need to answer that privately, I understand. It's just that it happened between three men who were here before, and I've been trying to figure out how that fits.

And yes. The Grounders I referred to call me Clarke kom Skaikru. [This won't translate: she hasn't spoken enough trigedasleng for it to.] It means Clarke of the Sky Clan—or people. I grew up in a metal ship, and you generally knew what to expect when you went from room to room.

[998]

Aye, everyone was from different worlds. I mean to say, no one was born on the Clock. Some of them came from the same, different, world, like my sisters and me. And--yes, I met a friend here, and she didn't remember me.

[he's also seen loki on the network, but he hasn't introduced himself, because loki is suspicious and irritating.]

I met a girl with a name like that--not here, but on the Clock. Lexa kom [it takes him a minute to remember the rest of it. she hadn't used it very often, and he's not sure if he ever saw it written down.] Treekru. She knew better how to rule than half the lords in the Seven Kingdoms. [honestly a generous estimate.] I would call her a friend, but I'm not sure that she would call me one. I can hope she would.

Could she be one of the Grounders you mention? She spoke of guards, patrols, coalitions. Truth be told, they sounded more like us than many of the other worlds I heard about. The Wildlings will choose a King-Beyond-the-Wall once in half a century, at most, and only to take the Wall or the lands below it. Beyond the Frostfangs there are the clans with their Magnars--lords, in the old tongue--who keep armies and work bronze and grow fine crops. But the Wildlings I knew best lived in small villages, herding goats and sheep, hunting deer and rabbits, and quarreling among themselves. To my mind it was a fine way to live, but there was no room for study or artistry, and children died as often as not. There were no silly laws about who could hunt where or pick what apples, but there was also nothing for the truly dangerous but to kill them, and no one to do it but the same herdsmen and hunters.

The Seven Kingdoms are little better, when it comes to war. We can scarcely go twenty years without one. But we give them grand names and we live in grand castles, and our Maesters write books and make medicine. And our swords are made of good strong steel.

[a sigh. he doesn't know if time and distance have made him less bitter, or if revelations concerning his family history have made it worse. mostly he's tired, tired of fighting monsters he can't kill with a sword.]

Can you tell me--what did the stars look like, when you were up in the sky with them?

[strove]

[There are a lot of words there, and because there are, it takes Clarke far longer to respond. It has nothing to do with the amount of words, though someone could certainly think as much. She has no problem with that, or with having weighty conversations over the network. No, it has everything to do with Lexa.

Clarke sits in her dormitory bunk alone, trying to deal with the tightness of her throat and the tears welling in her eyes. Lexa. Of all the people caught up in these multiversal situations, she had never imagined. Just before the dreams—the dreams which felt neverending—Alex and Clarke had spoken about what would happen if the dead rose. If they had to face those people.

There is no Bellamy to reach out to, and for the first time she wonders if he should be there. Having people around her—having Bellamy here period—kept her from needing to speak to him as she did. Now she desperately misses him. Even just being able to have him by her side would steady her right now. No matter how much she's come to depend on the presence of Markus, it's not the same.

Time to reply. She gathers herself. Raised as a part of the "privileged" class on the Ark—as much as anyone could be privileged there—she knows the significance of her words. Her actions and appearances. She knows them now.

Though she first begins with addressing his message in order, she deletes it all and starts again. It feels ... like everything revolving around the hot point of Lexa doesn't matter. Stars. Wildlings. Lost friends. What does it all matter?]

Trikru. It's Lexa kom Trikru. She was the Commander of her people. [No matter how much care she gives her words here, Clarke doesn't notice the past tense.] She and I were close. I'm not surprised that you found that she was special, or that you'd like to be her friend. That she had the chance to make one away from her people is good.

You're right to think that her people are like your Wildlings. Even as you go on, they sound similar. Only Lexa was the first to unite her people. She was the first Commander accomplish this feat, as most Commanders didn't live very long and there were a lot of clans to unite. They believed in a harsh method of "blood must have blood," so when the dangerous acted out, they ensured to inflict upon them the wounds that they deserved. I'm not sure if your Wildlings had a similar mantra.

Was there a time when the Wildlings had to be united that way?

As for the stars, they felt as far away as they do on the ground. We were among them, but not. I'm not sure how much you know about astronomy, but the stars are many, many light years away from this solar system. We only feel as if we're close to them because you can see them and imagine them clustered up there around ships.

[This last part is somehow easy to relate. Knowing that he connected with Lexa, she finds herself immediately fond of him. Eager to explain, and hopes it comes across as an eager explanation. He had already reminded her a lot of the Grounders, even if he seems to speak of the Wildlings as if they're separate. It may just be the nature of his world and its technology.]

[998]

[jon almost laughs--so that's who she sounds like, it had been nagging at him--except there's a melancholy tone to her message. it reminds him of the few times he'd had to discuss robb.]

My apologies. I never saw it written out.

It's funny you ask about the Kings-beyond-the-Wall. I knew one of them, and he spoke of how much trouble he had uniting his people. Lexa did the same. We often spoke of our duties back home, as we shared a similar title--I was Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, an army of sorts meant to hold the Wall, and guard the people of the Seven Kingdoms from threats beyond it--and we were both rather young for it. I told her once or twice that her role was closer to that of a queen than mine own, and I don't think she appreciated it. In my world, at least the part of it I know, a commander is given an army, and a queen is given a people. She spoke as if queens were lesser lords she had the rule of.

The Free Folk have no law or principal to unite them, except their right to do as they please. Families may fight for centuries, exacting revenge on one another. We are not so different below the Wall, except that we're better at it. When the Mad King killed my lord grandfather and uncle, my lord father had no choice but to take up arms against him.

[an EXTREMELY abridged version of the rebellion, leaving out the most important bit.]

Beyond the Wall, he would have had the choice. Lexa always reminded me of one of the dragon queens, who conquered the Seven Kingdoms, uniting them into one realm. She was never free, as Mance Rayder--the King-beyond-the-Wall--was. She found no comfort in the knowledge that she would be returned to her people as if no time had passed. I tried to help her see that the people of the Clock were worth protecting, too. I don't think it made much difference to her.

I'm glad to hear she had friends among her people. When I was Lord Commander, it was difficult to spend time with my friends without setting them up against the other men. The two of you sound as if you have much in common.

[in that they both tend to monologue and ask questions with complicated answers. it's almost uncanny.]

[strove]

[Lexa's reluctance to return to her people tells Clarke everything she needs to know about the timing. Perhaps her lack of comfort was in knowing what would come next. Perhaps it's because she knew, though it's hard for Clarke to guess. To say. Not without asking and trying to guess who may have told her.]

No, her people weren't free, and as their leader, she couldn't be, as well. In my world, leaders are expected to carry all the burdens of their people, even when they try to do otherwise. She was raised and expected to slot into that role. You're right in that she was no queen. She rose to her role despite that expectation. Won it, actually. And her people were a warring people. I'm not sure if it's the same with the dragon queens you spoke of, but it was with her. She knew the significance of leading her people into battle. Of being on the front lines.

It's not surprising that you'd find us similar. I guess. [He can't see it, but she smiles at this.]

I'm a leader of my people, too. ["A" rather than "the." A significant distinction.]

It might be strange, but thank you for telling me about this. I didn't expect ... I never expected it.

Then again, I guess most people don't expect someone to come from another world, meet your friend, and then meet you in a different one. This is a first for me. Well, first hand, anyway. Like I said, I'd seen it happen with others.

[998]

There were many dragon queens. The Targaryens brought their dragons with them to Dragonstone from Valyria, before the Doom. They used them to conquer the Seven Kingdoms, after the Storm King killed Aegon Targaryen's envoy and sent him his hand in a box. Lexa reminded me of his first wife, Visenya, the warrior. Visenya carried a sword, and commanded troops from dragonback, while Rhaenys, the other queen, had no sword, and was a diplomat foremost. Though they conquered us, they united us as well. We were not one people before the dragons came. We still make war among ourselves, but now it's what they call a 'civil war.'

They way you speak of leadership is how our lord father spoke of it. A good king or queen, or lord or lady, must feel the same. But there as many if not more bad kings and lords as good ones. Aegon and Visenya's son was called Maegor the cruel, for he made war with the Faith of the Seven and killed hundreds, if not thousands. But he built the Red Keep, which stands in King's Landing today.

[also jon's ancestor. wild.]

All this happened three hundred years ago. The dragons are all dead now. I'm glad I could bring you news of your friend.

[strove]

[It's hard to continue this conversation, but continue she does. His information is fascinating, and Clarke knows that she'll have to go back to it later to reread it. To truly understand it. Right now, it reads like a cluster of words she can't make sense of. Her mind wants to be elsewhere. She'd like to go off with it.]

Thank you again.

There are always good and bad leaders, but most often, they fall somewhere in between. Lexa was good. Legendary, even. The type who's not easily forgotten.

What happened to the dragons that made them extinct?

[Is it more environmental nonsense or thoughtlessness by humans?

Clarke wouldn't be surprised.]

[998]

[jon is mildly exhausted by this effort, but he does his best to rally all that he knows of dragons, valyria, the dance.]

Most of the dragons died with Valyria. Nobody knows what caused the Doom. I don't know what happened to the ones in the Freehold, where the Free Cities are now. I know Daenys Targaryen dreamed of the Doom, and her father brought his House and their dragons to Dragonstone.

Some hundred years after the Conquest, there was one of the civil wars, with dragons and Targaryens on either side. Most of them were killed in the fight. The one that was left, her eggs never hatched, and then she died, too.

[strove]

So, it comes down to wars either way.

Thanks for explaining.