prismatica | (Text; UN: motherofdragons)

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(Text; UN: motherofdragons)

I will not hide my identity nor pretend these words are not attached to me. There were men who thought I committed many wrongs before I came here. One man held me accountable and spared me nothing besides a lingering death, which leads me to my question: in your estimation, are there any crimes that are unforgivable?

What a common man or woman cannot - should not - do, a king or a queen can do for the good of their people, correct? Great sacrifices are expected in battle - in war - however do you think that a ruler's life should be forfeit for them? What good can they do if they are slain prematurely?

I can admit when I am wrong, but on this...

I don't understand.

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Your world has advanced from swords and arrows, I take it?

Sometimes they're used for sport, but in terms of war, well beyond them except for some highly specific scenarios.

What does "well beyond" mean? Are the weapons you are accustomed to using present in this world?

Think: kill millions with the push of a button, weapons that could allow a small child to kill dozens of grown men.

A lot of the weapons I've seen here are similar, but far more advanced.

I have my own weapons from home with me, mine are a nearly two hundred year old design and still one of the best.

...I see.

I'm not sure anyone should have that much power. Are you planning on killing so many people?

When one person has that power every one wants that power and it eventually settles into a stalemate where everyone tries to settle their bullshit by backing smaller countries in their disputes.

I don't believe I'll reach the seven digit mark, my skill set is meant for an individual level, but I intend to kill as many as is needed to achieve my ends, if it means need to kill myself or the man I love, I'll simply do it.

Some might find your ambition disturbing. What are your ends? What do you hope to accomplish that is more important than your life or the life of someone you love?

That is a secret I'll take to the grave. Perhaps one of my co-conspirators may share once it's done, but ultimately I don't expect I will live through it.

All anyone need know is that I am a monster who intends to destroy their maker.

For a man to have your focus, something horrible must have happened to you.

I'm a monster too.

You still feel too much, you question your actions and regret them. You've got a way to go yet.

[Notably not addressing the truth to the first part.]

I don't know how to be any other way. I will do what I must - even if it breaks my heart.

Either you'll harden to it or you won't.

It's perfectly normal whichever way it goes.

Edited 2019-10-13 14:41 (UTC)

I have hardened myself to a lot of things.

I should have never let myself soften. Not for him. Not for anyone.

You should have understood his limits enough to know you'd need to kill him once those limits were thoroughly violated.

There's nothing inherently wrong with forming the connections, you just need to know when you need to break them- and how.

[After all, it's important to know when you should kill someone vs when you should leave them to be tortured and permanently crippled as a prisoner of enemy combatants vs when you should frame them for treason and embezzlement vs killing their parents and kidnapping their children as hostages.]

(She isn't sure he has ever been in love. At least not like her. When she gives her heart, her trust follows. Perhaps that is dangerously naive, but she isn't sure how else to be.)

You let no one close; you stand by yourself with only your ambitions for company. Is that how kings and queens should be? How will they understand their people if they are so detached?

[Oh he loves plenty, it's just quite alien as his experiences and what he was designed and trained for since birth are so completely outside normal human experience. It's like child soldiering but with psychological reconstruction.]

Actually I have a number of companions. People I consider friends. People who share my goals, people who love the same man I do who care for me the way I care for them. Even people who were trained to be exactly the same as I am.

Personally I think royalty in general is unnecessary, but what I'm getting at is that detachment is unnecessary, you just need to be realistic about when to step back and when what you want will conflict. It will hurt, but hurting doesn't mean you have to stop.

For an example: to my understanding, you were killed by your lover.

Imagine you had the opportunity to live, but if you choose that option your child is killed. Do you still make the choice to live? Now, consider your child gets to live if you kill the man you love? do you make that choice instead?

If you make no choice, all three of you die.

There is no outcome where no one dies, but every single person takes a moral perspective on which decision is the right one.

None of these choices necessarily mean you have no attachment to the life you select to end, the more times you need to make a choice however, the more callous making a choice will come across.

Of course you can choose to die or let all three die and therefore stop having to make the choice altogether, or you can make the choice as many times as it needs to be made to destroy that which keeps asking you to choose.

Edited 2019-10-15 15:13 (UTC)

That isn't a choice at all. He would have perished if he threatened the life of one of my sons. No man can matter more to me than them.

(Her limits are clear when it comes to her dragons. If you kill them or harm them, you can expect a violent, devastating end.)

I was born a princess; I didn't choose to embrace the title until I was married and a khaleesi of the Dothraki. My brother threatened the life of the son in my womb - he threatened me - and I made no move to stop my husband from executing him.

The idea isn't that he makes the threat, in this dilemma, the point is that these ultimatums are made by an outside party you can't control, you can't threaten, and for the most part, you cannot actually stop.

For context though, my mother chose the option of killing my father, then the next time she was asked to choose she chose to stop choosing. My orders were to ensure she didn't kill herself and make sure the son she adopted in my place completed the execution. In the event of failure I was to kill both of them.

Your world might be crueler than mine. You have my sympathy.

Though I wonder if you need it - or want it. If you are the sort of man your words paint you as being, you are like ice. I am the opposite; all Targaryens crave fire.

Maybe when I was quite small I'd have wanted it, but I knew better than to trust sympathy in adults back then. It was always a test.

The trouble with fire is that it consumes. When there's nothing left it burns out.

I wish I could have met you then. I wasn't raised to trust anyone either, but there is good in the world.

I will let it burn and I will rise from the ashes.

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