002. video.

[jalan]

[ Unlike most instances when Daenerys addresses the network or those on it individually, she is more practical today than pretty. Intricate braids decorate her hair, but they likewise serve a purpose to control silver waves and keep them lashed down. Her face is clear of makeup, and her garments, leather and wool, are better suited for adventuring than high fashion.

Behind her, a late afternoon Virginian landscape from on high, as if she has climbed Whitetop Mountain just to make her pronouncement. ]

In light of recent attacks and violences against our little minority, I'm moved to address the fact that my imPort bodyguard has since been vanished home again. [ Feelings on the subject are mild, or have already been processed, practical in the moment. ] I envy her. And I've yet to determine whether appointing another is necessary, but--

[ The wind swamps her speakers, and she squints against it while it endures, before she starts again. ]

But I would be remiss if I did not learn how to defend myself. If there are those among you both adept at physical defense as well as willing to teach someone who is not, I'd like to come to an arrangement. I've no instinct for weaponry, [ she adds, to fend off the prospect of sword lessons and the like. ] But I would welcome the advice.

I hope you all remain safe. We have but one another.

[ Her message finishes with an understated smile, and an odd sound in the background, an animal, bass-deep purr, that some would recognise as to belonging to a dragon. Most may just think it to be more noise interference. She ends the transmission there. ]

Comments

[jalan]

It's my custom, admittedly. That, and I was due to travel beyond the Porter cities and engage with the media. Fans. [ She says the word delicately, like it's still unfamiliar. ] My agent thought it prudent that I see to some security, so I hired on someone I could trust.

[flightforfreedom]

[Okay, that is cute. He offers a sympathetic smile.]

That's rough, losing someone you trust, like that. There's no one else that might take their place?

[jalan]

There are some who might, should I require it. But I can't ask them to commit themselves to my every waking moment.

And as for Herian, I think she must be happier in the world she came from. She was like me -- not of a world that bore any resemblance to this one.

[flightforfreedom]

I got that impression, somehow. [He smiles, but it's sympathetic rather than teasing.]

Neither am I, really. This is like stepping back a few dozen millennia, for me, and even then it's nothing like it would have been at home.

Yours sounds like it must have been a pretty dangerous place, if you needed a bodyguard.

[jalan]

The world was dangerous, as was my place within it.

[ Her instinct, always, is to refrain from launching into detailed explanation, not unless it's invited explicitly. Context cues seem to satisfy most.

There'd been a tolerant smile for this first line, one that eases and shows around her eyes at the next claim to have this thing in common, in a way. ]

I can't fathom one millennia, let alone a few dozen. What moves you to imagine such great expanses of time?

[flightforfreedom]

[He is very curious, but the statement seems to shut off that particular path of conversation. It's okay. He'll probably ask at another point, maybe over drinks.]

What moves me to it? [He doesn't laugh, though he does smile - but then he takes her question seriously and considers it.]

Just the nature of my galaxy, I guess. I can travel from one planet to another in days, where the light would take 8, or 800, or 8000 years. Kind of hard not to think of Millennia when every time you see a star you think "huh, that light that I'm seeing is ten thousand years old". But to be honest, I'm not sure exactly how old civilization in my galaxy is. It kind of arose in different places and at different times. But it's definitely been several thousand years since they invented space flight - and they don't even have that here. Other than to the moon, I understand. Once. Which sounds like - a tuesday, for me. Or a tuesday morning.

[jalan]

A casual lunar venture before brunch.

[ Space travel -- space itself, at that -- being something she's hardly given thought, certainly not home, and rarely here. The sky has always struck her as static and unreachable, masked only with the fitful movements of their own atmosphere.

And she's the only living person who has flown, at such heights. ]

This world must feel very small to you.

[flightforfreedom]

[He gives a shrug with a sort of bemused smile.]

A bit. But at the same time it feels weirdly huge, you know? There's a lot more universes out there than I ever even thought about. I wouldn't have known that, before coming here. What's your home like, other than dangerous?

[jalan]

[ She tips her head at that observation. True. Even intergalactic travel must be bound by the physical nature of time and space, unlike-- however this place exists in relation to her world.

Speaking of which. ]

My home is what those of this world would think of as something from a history book, or, our nations are alien ones, a more fanciful imagining of long ago. We've horses and wagons in place of cars, and fire in place of electricity. Dragons, in place of fighter jets.

[ Her eyes smile, at that, as if daring him to think she's kidding. ]

And civil war and rebellion in place of peace.

[flightforfreedom]

[He at least has heard of horses, now, but--]

What's a dragon? I'm assuming it can fly, but if you don't have cars, how are they powered?

[The mention of civil war makes his face fall a bit.]

... Well, that sounds a lot more like home than here is, I'll be honest. Just think of civil war across a galaxy, destroying planets, and you've got home.