53 Down by the River
Early 283 Spring
"For a man who's days are all glorious victory and tiddy fuck celebrations, you don't seem very happy." Dacey needled me as I sat on the bank of the Blackwater and watched the water transition from seemingly placid to white rapids in the river's infamously treacherous way.
"Are you capable of romantic love, Dacey?" I questioned the woman without turning to her.
"What kind of question is that?" the woman gruffed out her response.
"A pressing one." I replied.
"Well, yeah. Of course I am." she shrugged, "Why would you even need to ask?"
"Bear Island is a place of little love." I answered back, "And I have made it an even harder place, full of cruelty. When would you have even seen love in your life?"
"Oh, this about that Dornish Princess of yours?" Dacey mocked, "The Ice Man went south and had his itty bitty black heart melted, found out he can feel things? Bet you're feeling the squeeze right now. What's going to happen to that princess of yours and her little dragon brats once you and the boys kick down the doors?"
"Hmmm. Well struck." I nodded, "A part of me wants to abandon all I have built, go to King's Landing, and rescue her." I took in a deep breath and let out a heavy sigh, "I know I can accomplish it. It is what my heart calls out for." I growled at my weakness, "But I must stay the course."
"Good on you!" Dacey shouted as she clapped my back, "Consistency. Stability. Prosperity. Jorah Mormont. Love is for other people. You've put in too much work to piss it all down the river now."
"You're only saying that because Bear Island has gotten too big for Maege to handle without the fear of me looming over everything." I revealed.
"Hssshhh… was it that obvious." Dacey frowned and exposed her teeth, "Listen, Jorah. If you get into your head to run off and save your princess, I'll track you down like a dog and beat you into submission. If you get all treason happy they might not let your get take over, and then it won't be long till I'm in charge of all the shit you leave behind. It'll be a disaster. Fuck me, mom already wants me getting involved with how absent you and your boys are already. If you're gone I'll have to be a responsible person, and fuck that. I love my life the way it is."
"You are a beacon of human empathy, cousin." I deadpanned, "I will suffer in silence as the love of my life and her children die, so that you can enjoy your life unencumbered."
"That's the spirit!" she smiled, completely unphased by my sarcasm or plight, "Good talk, cous."
The big bitch stomped back to camp and I went back to my river watching. Even as I take steps to distance myself from Elia - such as my marriage to Lythene Frey - the specter of my lover lingers, accusing me. If there is a path to victory in which both Elia lives undiminished and my plans continue uninterrupted, then it is hidden from my sight.
The woman is not some delicate wallflower yearning for gentle hands to come plant her in new soil. She is uninhibited passion and grasping ambition, ruthless in her application of agency and power. As long as she maintains her blood connection to the throne she will pursue it, and if that connection is severed then the woman herself will not linger long after. I could rescue her as a white knight in her hour of need, and her children, build a life for us in Essos, amass power, and seize all she wants.
But the thing is… why would I give up all that I have built with my own two hands for the other guy's kids?
For love? More like, for simping. It is a deep pain, these feelings. One that is hard to resist. Feelings, those treacherous things, cut right through the walls we build and wreak havoc on the foundational logic of our being. Those who give into their feelings build their lives on shifting sand, and will pay the price over and over until they are finally swept away to their destruction. Those who reject their feelings become hollow shells, caricatures rather than characters in the story of their lives. And they are doomed to failure, due to the cutting nature of emotion. They may seem a cold and calculating person of principle, but in truth the formulas are all complicated by feelings, and always have been.
When I was a boy, I lost sleep thinking about the nearing problem of the Wildlings and the Others. I'd spend late nights trying to understand a way to save the world from the coming cold and army of the dead. The political math was beyond my scope, to somehow undo thousands of years of hostility in preparation for a threat no one believes in anymore. It was all too complex, too many moving pieces, to many variables that could change due to emotional responses rather than logical arguments. Eventually, the anxiety and angst was too much driving me to madness and depression so I just gave up on finding some perfect solution, and thus I came up with the final solution.
I chose to depopulate as much of the Lands Beyond the Wall as I possibly could, and from then on I finally slept soundly through the night. And now my sleep is ruined by my complicit agreement to the murder of my lover. Feelings, why must you feel so feel?
"You alright, Dad?" Ulfric asked as he approached.
Misery, why must you love company so? Can a man not stand by a river famous for drowning folk while feeling sad, and not be approached by people thinking he is going to throw himself in. Like this guy could stop me if that is what I wanted to do. Don't make me laugh.
"Boy." I responded with that perfect non-response.
"That's not a yes." Ulfric infrared correctly, damn him and his emotional intelligence.
Where'd he even learn that stuff? His mom's sarcasm dripped with acid and venom, and her heart beat even and cold even while she beat a bitch. His dad is me.
"Want to talk about it?" he inquired.
"No." I denied.
"Well, you got people feeling kinda nervous with the brooding by the river thing you're doing right now." he extrapolated.
"Good." I continued offering one word responses to end this conversation.
"You remember back when I had Helgi in my heart, and then she grew up and you took her to your bed and made her a mother?" Ulfric took me back to good times, "That caused me a lot of heartache. I watched my hopes and dreams die as her belly swelled with another man's get. What the fuck is wrong with you, moping over some bitch that moved on and pupped for another man twice. So what if it felt nice being together, and the relationship gave you that inner strength to keep pushing in this cold and cruel world, and nobody else in the world makes you feel that way anymore. That shit is gone. It's in the past, and you were weak for needing someone else to give you all that. True grit and real strength come from within. Self motivation. Be a man."
The conversation paused after Ulfric finished his monologue, letting his words settle.
"Leave." I eventually told him.
Ulfric wiggled his jaw and took his leave. Good that he did so, for it is not good for a man to see his father cry. Even tears of joy. Something about my son, and his spine of steel got me choked up and misty eyed. I'm proud of my boy, and I'm gonna kill Arthur Dayne and his pals.
I spent yet more time down by the river, enjoying the simple visual and audible beauty of flowing water. I've always been able to lose hours staring at moving water, rivers, lakes, the sea, public fountains. Waterside is my happy place, which is why the crunching of yet another set of boots approaching me filled me with a deep aggravation.
"Lord Mormont." The Ned addressed me.
"Lord Stark." I addressed the Ned back while continuing to look out over my happy place.
"My Lord, I have not been a friend to you despite your relationship with my brother and your excellent service to my father." Ned informed me of the obvious, "I am… loath of change, slow to warm to it, and suspicious of too much success. I am of the mind that if someone always reports success, then they are hiding the failures behind words they think I want to hear, or worse words they want me to hear."
"A cautious and reasonable mindset." I graciously delivered the verbal peepee touch to my young Stark overlord.
Not exactly the verbal fellating my aunt prefers when graced with the presence of our esteemed masters, but a man has to pick a hill to die on.
"I have consulted those I trust about you…" Ned paused and I chose to cut short the lads circuitous route to bringing up my abilities as a Greenseer.
"She is in a round tower, in the northern half of the Princess Pass, east side." I interrupted.
"I…I…" Ned tried to find the words to express the emotional storm inside.
"Take a maester with you, one you do not mind dying to keep your secrets." I instructed the young and headstrong man, "And only those companions that will go to the grave before betraying you."
"What secret must be kept so tightly?" The Ned gasped, his naïve mind refusing to process the possible result of a man stealing a woman away.
"Your sister bears the spawn of the enemy." I dropped the truth bomb, "She will tear grievously in the birthing, and die soon after if not tended too well and swiftly. The boy will be a threat to the new dynasty, and a constant reminder of tragic events that brought about this war."
"Lyanna." The Ned choked up, tears in his eyes, but not manly tears of joy.
"I will accompany you on this quest." I told my liege lord, "My boys too. We'll get you to her safely."
"Before we are able to set off, you will see with your own two eyes the need for secrecy." I told him, turning my gaze away from the river for the first time in three conversations, "Pick wisely, Ned Stark."
The Ned nodded and backed away, keeping me in sight until he felt sufficiently far away for comfort. Not that any distance is safe from me.
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Its been a while since I did a chapter of Jorah's me time getting interrupted by people he doesn't want to talk to. That lack of desire to talk to other people is unique among my protagonists, though Kiba was close. As such most chapters are of Jorah doing things. I need to pull back every now and then so we can get more views into Jorah's as a character rather than Jorah as an actor.
In other news, I got commissioned to do a couple chapters of a Skyrim fic. I'm going to start a story for just my commision work rather than use my limited story slots for them. It'll be up some time this week.
Once again big thanks to 4REEESEARCH for supporting me and my family
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