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Holiday mingle log

It’s the most wonderful (welcome) time of the year

Christmas is coming earlier and earlier every year, which isn't a surprise but hey they're starting the Christmas/Winter stuff the week before thanksgiving. Because why not. this month’s party takes place in the Merchant dome. But it’s not the everyday appearance of the merchant dome. No, for the next five days the Merchant dome’s appearance has been altered to look like a sort of Bavarian Christmas Market. There are small clusters of tables every so often, so people can just sit and chat and eat and drink.

Some enterprising person has even managed to make it snow through some unknown means. It’s not cold, but the snow is soft and steady and slowly building up.

The entire dome, all of the streets and all of the merchant stalls are practically glowing with white fairy lights that are strung everywhere. Vendors in their stalls gleefully cry out to paterons passing by, offering them free food or drinks. The food consists of the sort of things that one might expect to find in a place like this: sausages on buns and on sticks, pretzels, pizza, loads of cookies of every variety that one could think of, including elaborately decorated gingerbread, chocolates, fruits, french fries. Think winter fair food, and be as absurd and as complicated and extra as you want. It is a fair, after all. Go nuts. Drinks are also along the same line: hot cider, mulled wine, hot buttered rum, hot chocolate both with booze and without, as well as all the normal things: water, coffee, tea, milk, soda, and a variety of fruit juices that you’ve both heard of and not.

But food isn’t the only free thing that people are giving away! They’re also offering characters hats and gloves and scarves, small toys, books, delicate ornaments, perfumes, wine… it’s a giant welcome party after all, and these people are cheerful and happy. Even offering to pay just gets met with laughter and being told not to worry about it.

Fun and frivolity.

There are even carnival rides set up! A medium sized ferris wheel, a carousel, a giant slide and ice skating ring are all along the outside of the stalls.

At the far end of the dome, the snow has fallen deeper and held to several inches. Wouldn’t you know it just happens to be perfect snowball snow! So, there of course needs to be a snowball fight! What did you think those free mittens and gloves and scarves are for after all? The snowball fight can be organized into teams, or one on one depending on the player’s choice. This is a friendly fight, of course, so no rocks or slush balls or anything. Well, probably not. No one in the Sphere is your mother.

So you want some summer?.

While the welcome party rages on in the merchant dome, people have made a smaller party in one of the recreation domes. Around the pools, as a matter of fact. There’s almost like a small barbecue clustered around the largest of the three pools, and the light is constant and sunny here. The large pool is olympic sized, and is a sparkling blue. It’s fresh water, and probably clean enough to drink. I still wouldn’t drink it. The second pool is slightly smaller and more kidney shaped with a gradual sand mound at one end of it. This pool is salt water and looks a bit more like a beach than a pool. The third pool is a kiddie pool, complete with a splash pad, that’s running. Buckets drop, it’s got one of those mushroom things, and sprinkler jets. There aren’t any kids though, so people are welcome to go nuts.

Bathing suits and towels are provided in the changing rooms. There’s frozen and fruity drinks flowing freely, along with finger food and snacks. Loud music is playing from a local band that’s just generally of a pop sort. There’s people dancing rather in a rather haphazard fashion, but the dance floor is there and present!

Oh yeah, and there's definitely the baths and everything too!

Network.

In the Sphere, the network is neural, and accessed via touching the glowing golden circle behind your character’s ear. They can identify themselves with a screen name if you so desire, but messages should be one of three ways or a combination of them. 1. Audio. Your character thinks audible words onto the network. 2. Writing: Your character thinks text into the network. 3. Video. Your character projects a broadcast of a video of themselves onto the network. Replies are determined by the player.

The network needs to be accessed by choice, so character broadcasts are not automatically beamed directly into people’s heads. The Sphere isn’t that rude.

Private messages are allowed by pressing and holding and pressing and holding again as you picture the person in your mind. This can be an image or a name, err more on the side of things being more accessible than less.

Welcome to my nightmare.

For anyone within the architecture dome, the library dome, the sunlight rec dome and any personal dome that people chose, around midnight people will have a curiously tired sensation. They just need to rest their eyes for a moment, or some may fall asleep for longer. No matter the length of time that the character is out, the nightmare infects them, and when they wake they will be filled with a curious but urgent sensation.

They have lost something. The loss can be a physical object, an emotion, a memory, a person or perhaps a sense of self. If the lost person is currently present in the game, they will be unable to be seen by the character who is experiencing the waking nightmare. Urgency will grip the character, because the longer the sensation goes on for, the worse it becomes. Characters can search and scrounge for their loss everywhere, but until the nightmare is over, they will not find whatever it is. Even if it is themselves. Instead, they may be frantic, angry, or just play old scared to death. They need to find this at whatever cost. Where they may find it is something that their own brains will settle on, but of course until the nightmare is over, they will not be able to.

The nightmare ends with either the character falling into a normal, restful sleep naturally or through some other means (someone might mention the infirmary has sedation medication just for the is purpose, or that there’s always a brick) or when they are woken with the intervention of someone else. The intervention of someone else is entirely up to you, and can come from a player character or a NPC, depending on how the player is feeling with the thread. By intervention we mean someone who is able to talk the person out of the nightmare, or to slap or shake them out, or to use some sort of trick that shows them that they are indeed inside of a nightmare. The knowledge that someone is affected by a nightmare must come from an external source, and should come from a character that your character would trust. After all, would you believe someone who told you that you were in a nightmare if you didn’t know that? That said, the best way to deal with waking someone is to remove them from the affected domes. Too bad you don’t know which domes are affected.

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He's aware already that not everyone comes here from the same point in time; Sansa knows things that haven't happened to him yet, so if it can happen to him, then why not to someone else? She's obviously from a point when she doesn't know him yet.

That might help with some of the awkwardness.

"You've met one of us already?"

"The Queen of the North," said with a measure of good humor. Considering the situation, she was more willing to laugh than to fret over titles as Viserys might have. She was Queen of Meereen, yet before arriving in this place, she was squatting next to a hunk of burnt meat, eating with less grace than a queen should. What did it matter what they called themselves here? "Sansa Stark?"

On reflection, it was obvious that he seemed to know her as well, given how he spoke to her when he approached and the ease of his approach. They must have met in that future, but he was as much a stranger to her than anyone else from Westeros.

"Do you mean to tell me you are King of the Riverlands?"

"Sansa is my sister." In all the ways that count, at least. There's no need to get technical at the moment. There's plenty of time for that later.

"The riverlands haven't got a king. They're part of the seven kingdoms." Well. "Six kingdoms." Even in his own time, the North has broken with the rest of them, thanks to Robb. "I am the King in the North though." Reluctantly, but he doesn't need to mention that part.

"Another? How many does the North need?" Not only had she lost track of the current state of the North, but it seemed that she had missed several rulers as well. It seemed that Westeros was in a constant state of cycling rulers. Baratheons, Starks, Lannisters, was there a king in every House? Gods, thankfully Westeros would be spared Viserys and his reaction of this.

"Your name is 'Snow?'" Bastards were a different matter in Essos, certainly not marked because of a birth that they could not control. Westeros apparently was more rigid. If that was true, it was impressive that a bastard could rise to the status of king.

"Am I to meet another while I am here?"

"Just one." The fact that it doesn't seem to be a very stable position doesn't worry him as much as it should, since from what Sansa said, it seems like he has many years ahead of him still.

"It is." He had never expected to rise to the rank of king -- Lord Commander of the Night's Watch was about the best he could hope for -- and it had surprised him that they had so much faith in him. But they had wanted a Stark, and someone who could lead them into battle, and he had fit the bill in both cases.

If Ned had told him the truth before he had left for the Wall, would it have changed things later? He has no way of knowing.

"Who can answer that? This place works in mysterious ways."

The Northern realm seemed very unstable to her now, where before it seemed that the most unrest was in King's Landing, but perhaps that was simply the center of her frustration and suspicions. Too long avoiding assassins, she focused to heavily on what was happening in the capital, rather than the rest of the realm.

"I have heard stories of the North since I was a child, but I imagine that it is a great deal more foreboding and serious than the stories make out?" Which was saying something really. From what she knew, it was a place where justice was swift and the lands were harsh. Maybe it wasn't surprising there were so many kings? It didn't seem to be a place where many lived long.

"It is a mystery in itself. A world under water."

"I haven't been farther than Dragonstone. I don't know how the North compares to the rest of Westeros. From what I've heard of the rest of Westeros, the North is quite different. "Harsh, is how they tend to describe it. That sounds right to me." It's just living, to him, whether others find it harsh or not.

"I didn't know that it was possible to have a world under the water like this."

"Why would the King in the North be at Dragonstone? The last I heard of my family's keep is that it was in Baratheon hands." Stannis apparently. It rankled her, knowing something that had once housed Aegon the Conqueror was claimed by a traitor's brother and his family. Their connection might be through marriage, but they would never understand what it meant to her family.

"Nor did I. I did not think any world like this would be possible."

"There are no Baratheons anymore." There's hardly any family that hasn't lost sons (or daughters) during this war. Some of them have even died out completely.

Including, he now knows, the Targaryens themselves.

"I went to Dragonstone to meet with you. To ask you for dragonglass for weapons."

Despite her thoughts on the Baratheons and the role they played, there was still a pang in her heart knowing another family was gone. "I'm sorry for it. Not that Robert Baratheon and his line is gone, but that even this small connection to my family is destroyed. Even small drops of Targaryen blood are being removed from the world."

And all it did was make her feel more alone.

"Your sister seems to know me as well from my time in Westeros. It is a distant thing to me, a plan I had once but put aside for those I freed. Now, I don't know when I would be able to return home." If it might be ever called that. Home was a red door and a lemon tree, not a pile of stones she had never seen.

"There's a link between the Baratheons and the Targaryens?" It had probably been mentioned at some point during one of Maester Llewyn's lessons, but he hadn't had to pay as much attention to those as the trueborn Stark children did. And if he talks about this, then he can put off telling her about the Targaryen blood standing in front of her for that much longer, although he knows that he will have to bring it up sometime.

"She knows things I don't know yet. You will have to ask her how she knows you."

"Of course. How else could he claim the crown unless there was Targaryen blood?" She looked at him with mild amusement. "I thought the story was well known? One of the first Baratheon rebellions." Of course, not everyone would cling to these stories the way she had, crawling into Viserys' bed when she was small and listening to stories of their House. "Prince Duncan, son of King Aegon V, was betrothed to the Lord of Storm End's daughter. Duncan fell in love with a girl from the riverlands, Jenny of Oldstones, and married her instead. No matter how much his father pushed him, threatening to take away his place as heir, Duncan would not give Jenny up."

Her thoughts drifted to Daario, remembering how she was presented with a choice of marrying for love or for her people. Duncan and Rhaegar chose differently, she put herself on the executioner's block. If Hizdar was involved with the Harpies...she chose wrong. Another failed marriage in her life.

"The Lord of Storm's End was angry so he rebelled against the King. Thankfully, he agreed to a trial by combat and the King's word, so the rebellion was short and bloodless. He was defeated in combat and Aegon pledged to marry his daughter Rhaelle to Ormund Baratheon, Robert Baratheon's grandfather."

"Robert Baratheon's grandmother was a Targaryen?" He doesn't want to consider the implications of that, but he knows that he should. It hadn't been that many generations ago. Robert had done that to his own family, and it hadn't even been that distant of a connection.

"I wasn't expected to pay as much attention during lessons as the others. Bastards don't usually rise to be kings. I missed a few things." Things he'll probably be discussing with Sansa later. Even if she hadn't heard that particular story, she had spent more time around Robert than he had.

"And Targaryens are...a bit thorny for the Starks. The Mad King burned two of my uncles." He pauses. "Then there's the story about Rhaegar and Lyanna."

"You were never told these stories?" The North was a place entirely its own, large and unwieldy. It would be understandable if they had less concern with the Southron Houses. It seemed the only time that there was such a connection, it was through marriage. The root of all things. "A number of Houses have Targaryen blood. House Tarth, House Baratheon, House Martell. None as strong as House Baratheon."

But she doesn't want to think about kinslayers or the Usurper longer than she must. Too long she had lived in fear of his assassins's shadows. Enough of her life had been stolen by them, she didn't want it have them occupy anything further. If they were gone, it was a pity, but a necessary one.

"That's a pity." And she truly meant that. No one should be judged for simply being born. "I was told what my father did. I know he was a monster." Which, if she had to confess, sometimes she worried that she was as well. "My brother, Rhaegar, I was told how honorable and noble he was. That he was the Last True Dragon." Which didn't fit with the stories the Usurper spread.

"I'm sure the stories were there, as part of the history lessons. I didn't pay as much attention to them." But they all had, of course, heard about what happened to Lyanna and Brandon and Rickard. Up there in the North, the squabbles between the Houses to the south didn't seem as important as protecting the North from a threat that no one had really understood until he put it all together.

"I know that Rhaegar didn't do what Robert said he did. Robert's Rebellion was built on a lie."

"I thought House Stark believed him to be a rapist?" There's a hint of distaste in her voice. While she had been naive to believe Viserys about their father, all who had known Rhaegar seemed to love him. Ser Barristan viewed him highly and it seemed that he was not a man to give praise lightly. "Growing up, Viserys only referred to Lyanna Stark as Rhaegar's 'lady'. He didn't believe she was kidnapped."

And there was the name her brother whispered in her vision. What was it? She couldn't remember now, but was it Lyanna? All she could recall was that it was a woman's name.

"Was it all a lie? My father killed two men in a terrible way and then demanded the heads of others. This, I don't believe, was a lie. Everything else, it was small details fanning a larger fire."

"We did believe that, only it wasn't true." Ned had known the truth of it for years and he'd passed on the lie anyway, and while Jon knows that this was for his safety, and that it had been better that way, there's still the fact that Ned Stark, the most honorable man he's ever met, lied to him. Lied about him, and about his true parents, for years. Ned Stark had let him take an oath giving up a claim he didn't even know it was his to make.

He still doesn't know how to feel about that.

"He didn't kidnap her. He married her. Only she was supposed to marry Robert."

Somehow these things don't shock Daenerys. She believed her brother a better man than that. Marriage though, that was more extreme than she imagined. There were a number of questions there as well, but from what she had seen in the House of the Undying, it seemed both Rhaegar and Elia were aware of some greater prophecy. If that was the reason...

All of it was a bit much for her to process at once and she couldn't make sense of it all without Ser Barristan to speak to. He might know better, whether marriage might have been possible. Not for the first time, she longed for his presence.

"The Pact of Ice and Fire." She chuckled, crossing her arms over her chest, wishing she had her lion's pelt. "Supposedly a Targaryen princess was to marry a Stark prince. Rhaegar chose a Stark instead. How could you know this?"

Edited 2019-12-22 04:28 (UTC)

And then there are the things that he's sure were never mentioned during the lessons, but with the Targaryens all but gone and the history between them, it probably hadn't seemed important.

Then it comes right down to it and he's going to have to mention it now, although the conversation had turned that direction awhile ago anyway, and it's better to get it out there earlier than later. "I'm not Ned Stark's bastard. Jon Snow was a fabrication to hide the truth. Ned's not my father. He's my uncle."

Hopefully she can figure it out from there, with what he's already told her.

He's not suggesting what she thinks he's suggesting?

She's torn between laughing and crying. It was almost a perverse joke. All of her life, she had been on the run with Viserys, the last two Targaryens cowering and huddling together in whatever place would shelter them. She had dreamed of Rhaegar and her mother, she begged to be told stories of their family, always searching for any small connection to their history. She had never known home or family, the throne was her duty and last connection to the Targaryens. All she had done was try to return and find something of the red door in the throne's shadow.

Viserys was gone, her mother was gone, Rhaegar was gone and she was alone...only this boy that she had never met claimed that he was the last of her family, family she had never known existed. What was based off of? A period of time when Rhaegar was missing with Lyanna Stark and what else?

But as much as she fought against it, knowing deep down it was likely a lie, a deeper part of her wished it was true. How much easier and warm would her life be with someone else? Someone who might understand? She longed for it, needing her brothers, her mother, another Targaryen. But she had seen how tempting images could be nothing but false visions.

She took a breath and turned her face away, unable to look at him. The bitter blow, the painful reality made this jape too difficult to bear. "Don't mock me."

"I'm not." Not that he has any proof. All he has is his word, which was all Sansa had, but at least she's someone he knows and he knows she wouldn't have lied about it. Especially with the information coming from where she says it came from.

"You know what would have happened if certain people" -- whose name he doesn't want to say right now -- "had known the truth. It's why I didn't even know. Only one person knew, and he got the information from my mother."

"I know what would happen. My entire life was spent running from free city to free city, always trying to outrun the Usurper's assassins. When I was carrying my son, he had a man sent to give me poisoned wine. He put a hammer into my brother's chest and let him bleed out on the banks of the Trident. He allowed and rewarded the man that raped my brother's wife, slaughtered his daughter and battered his son. I am well aware of what the cost is of being a Targaryen."

She shuddered, not meaning to have taken it out on him. If he was joking or not, she didn't want to unleash that sort of frustration on someone she didn't know. It was the only response she could give. So many years alone, so many years afraid. She felt close to breaking. Tears were the safest option and anger at the man who brought the tears.

"You say you are Rhaegar's son, but..." she shook her head, trying to find the right words and the most pervasive thought. "...I can't believe based on want. I want one of his children to live, so I won't be alone." Gods, she didn't even care if she lost the throne. She may be Viserys' heir, but she wanted Viserys, no matter what he did. "The last man I trusted sold my secrets to the Usurper."

He had known that Rhaegar had had another wife before Lyanna, and that there had been children. Children who were his siblings, his actual siblings and not cousins passed off as such, but he hadn't really thought much about them until now. He'd been thinking of his parents, and what had happened to them.

Robert really had destroyed his family. Even the Starks felt the effect of Robert's Rebellion.

"My mother asked her brother to keep me safe. So he took me back to the North and claimed me as his son, and spent the rest of his life as the only person alive who knew the truth."

[ooc: Continued HERE]

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