[video] An Open Query

[northerndragon]

[Jon has been in Hadriel for a few months now, and because he's a member of the Guard, and Sansa Stark's brother, most other residents have probably seen him around. Still, he's a quiet man, however affable, and using the network is not second nature to him. It's likely that most people don't know much about him, except that they might be able to accurately recognize him as coming from a world where the technology is still set at "medieval." If they've heard him speak, they might also assume he's from Northern England, but the truth is that he's not from England at all.

He's dressed as he usually is, today, in a dark brown brigandine and a gorget with two facing wolf heads at the front center. His expression is curious and interested, while his tone is serious.]

I have a question for everyone -- for anyone who's willing to speak to me on the matter.

To some extent, I know what we face here. I'm always learning, but I'm beginning to have a better understanding of it.

What I want to know is: what do you face at home?

Comments

[smoketendrils]

The worst kind, unfortunately. Ancient Chromatic Dragons. Four of them, to be specific, though we've killed one. We're fighting battles and they're waging a war, and we are, at this moment, not winning.

[northerndragon]

Chromatic?

[He seems puzzled, but he'd prefer not to stay that way.]

Who are their riders?

[smoketendrils]

[Percy's about to respond with the technical definition of a Chromatic dragon, but he's caught so off-guard by the next question, he has to laugh.]

If a person is riding one, they're either trying to kill them or acting as an in-flight snack. You can't tame an intelligent creature, especially not a prideful, ancient one that thinks you're no better than cattle.

Do they actually tame dragons where you're from?

[northerndragon]

I wouldn't say they tame them. Everything I've ever heard said that the dragons accepted the dragonlords as riders, not that they were tamed, or trained like a horse. Even then...

To be honest, everyone thought they were gone. I've never seen one, myself. But there are three in the world again.

[smoketendrils]

They are mostly all far too proud for that- even the Metallic ones, who are far kinder than their Chromatic cousins.

[Percy doesn't know what to say to that. It's baffling that any dragon could allow a rider enough to have a name for it.] I wouldn't say they're common, but they're certainly around. Consider yourself lucky there's only three, even if they're on your side.

[Are they on his side? Well, the point stands.]

[northerndragon]

Three hundred years ago, dragonlords from Old Valyria -- the Targaryens -- conquered the Seven Kingdoms. An army of ordinary men can't stand up to a dragon; Aegon Targaryen and his sisters barely had troops. My own ancestor chose to kneel to them so that our people in the North wouldn't suffer. And from everything I've heard, the dragons were all sorts of colors. They called Aegon's dragon Balerion "The Black Dread," but another, later, was Silverwing.

So on the one hand, the dragons were on the side of the dragonlords, which might not have been everyone else's side, but those dragons died out when the dragonlords fought each other for the throne a hundred years later.

The ones more newly hatched... it's my hope that they're on the side of the living.

[Jon narrates all of this amiably, but with increasing seriousness.]

[smoketendrils]

[And Percy.... eats it the fuck up, as a giant lore nerd, who hasn't really gotten the full effect of how things work in other worlds, because he's been so internally focused.]

That's... Extraordinary. And I can only hope that as well. The dragons I mentioned have nearly decimated the entire continent. They are impossible to control and difficult to defeat. Three newly hatched shouldn't be an issue, however, if it comes to that. They're more powerful the older they get, in my experience.

[northerndragon]

The newly hatched ones aren't so newly hatched that they're still small. Daenerys [Have you seen her on the network?]-- she's their mother, she raised them. Aegon Targaryen was her forebear. They're big enough to fight, big enough to conquer, even just a few years on.

These dragons... I don't know what they do when they're wild. Steal a lot of livestock, I'd imagine, but there haven't been many wild ones since well before the Doom of Valyria.

They would worry me if she was my enemy, but she's my friend.

[Here, at least. At home, he can only imagine that they'll become friends again, and hope that he's not fooling himself.

And hope that, indeed, her enemies are worried.]

[smoketendrils]

A friend who can claim to be a mother of dragons is a good friend to have.

[They have J'mon sa Ord and a Paladin of Bahamut on their side, and that's going to be a lot, but.... is it.]

I wish we had such a friend back in Tal'Dorei. She must be quite alluring to have such a title.