The man who raised me as his son lied to me his whole life, but what it cost him — it was treason. And he was the best man I ever knew. To be that good —
I can only hope to ever be that good. But I wish he had told me about my mother. I never knew who she was. I always wondered. I thought it was lost when he was murdered, so I tried to stop thinking about her.
Hopefully this will be the last. Logically, I wouldn't expect anything further, but fate always enjoys surprising a man, especially after he utters something along those lines.
Jon, for as long as I've had the fortune to know you, you have met those standards in your own idiom. You've seen how some of my own students have turned out. I could wish a few had your sense of duty and self-discipline.
It...does make for some complications back home, I imagine. What do you plan to do with what you've learned?
[He's about to say something about how he doesn't like flattery, but he recognizes that Chiron is not a flatterer: this is deep praise.]
I try. I try to be what my father would have wanted me to be. Both of them, now.
Whether or not it changes anything at home depends on how much of it we remember when all of this is over. My claim is better than hers, far better. It seems unfair, when she's spent her whole life working towards it.
I don't think she'd want to sit on the throne in her own right, married to me and knowing my claim was better, and I don't think I'd want to do it without her. But when we marry, our claims are the same. We'll do it together, or we'll die together, but she'll be my queen one way or another.
And if we forget all of it, we'll still marry. She'll still be my queen. I've lived longer at home than she has. I remember more. What happened between us here in COST happens there, too.
There will be a point where you reach that place. Then you will need to move beyond that, and build upon legacies and examples rather than simply measure up to them. I think you're ready to do that now, if you wished me to be candid.
If we were to discuss practical matters with regards to claims, I feel that hers is much easier to prove than yours, given that most involved with the matter are no longer living.
But let us move beyond that. I have always seen an emphasis on equality between the two of you. So long as that's achieved, I doubt claim would matter. In many ways from what you've said, it seems that it is mostly settled. This information just adds a new dimension to that.
It's what I'm trying to do — what we're trying to do. Neither of them ever faced anything like what we'll be facing.
And you're right. I'm not eager to lie to the people, and I doubt she is, either, but it's not a claim I'm much eager to prove. You could argue that I already gave it up, years ago, when I didn't know what I was giving up.
[In so many ways.]
It still can't be the easiest thing for her. We have to trust each other. I was afraid it might change something.
All that time, we talked about becoming each other's family, and now this. It's not too close, aunt and nephew or uncle and niece, not where we come from, but it's very near to it. Her family married closer for centuries. Our family. Her parents were brother and sister.
In that case, I'd consider that an improvement. In many cases back home, violence and trials cycle through, rather than present new challenges.
I believe the point about your blood relationship goes back to claims, proving them, and what you have and haven't forfeited due to what seemed like the right choice at the time. If the matter can't be proven, you save yourselves from a good deal of problems. But if there is documentation discovered later, it could be a double edged sword in many respects. Especially given from what I know of her own family and how marriages were brokered.
If you two were simple private individuals, none of this would matter. I don't know your land's politics well either, and I am trying to leave any political thoughts to the wayside for now. Are you both comfortable with this degree of separation?
I wouldn't go looking to marry my aunt. The family I was raised in — it's happened once or twice, long ago, but it's not our way.
But when I learned of it, I already loved her. We'd already spoken many times of the children we might have, and how we wanted them. I didn't think of how I might become king in my own right; I never wanted to be King in the North, let alone the king of all the kingdoms. My name isn't even what I thought it was, it's
well, we know what AEGONNER means now.
All I could think of when I learned of it was how I might lose her over it, and lose those children, if we might be so lucky as to have them. She's been working towards pursuing her claim for a third of her life now, and she's been determined to prove to the people that she isn't the sort of cruel tyrant that her father was, and if it's ever known back at home, marrying another member of her family might not be best for appearances. When I told her, her greatest fear seemed to be losing me.
Learning that she's my aunt couldn't make me stop loving her. Loving her like this makes me forget that she's my aunt.
I want to know who makes up these names for the BCEs. Their sense of humor and depth of knowledge is concerning.
Then it sounds to me that the part that is most important and hardest to work around is a long settled matter, and that you're fortunate enough to have zero doubts on that front. Especially since you've moved well into the stages of life after marriage, when that sort of work truly begins. I'm not going to give additional thoughts or advice on relationships, they're perilous enough in my time and place that if I say something, some god has probably changed circumstances on a whim anyway.
Everything else, it seems, is politics and any compromises that may be made. And I trust you both to plan ahead for them.
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no subject
I could do without any more dramatic revelations.
The man who raised me as his son lied to me his whole life, but what it cost him — it was treason. And he was the best man I ever knew. To be that good —
I can only hope to ever be that good. But I wish he had told me about my mother. I never knew who she was. I always wondered. I thought it was lost when he was murdered, so I tried to stop thinking about her.
She was everything I'd always hoped she might be.
no subject
Jon, for as long as I've had the fortune to know you, you have met those standards in your own idiom. You've seen how some of my own students have turned out. I could wish a few had your sense of duty and self-discipline.
It...does make for some complications back home, I imagine. What do you plan to do with what you've learned?
no subject
I try. I try to be what my father would have wanted me to be. Both of them, now.
Whether or not it changes anything at home depends on how much of it we remember when all of this is over. My claim is better than hers, far better. It seems unfair, when she's spent her whole life working towards it.
I don't think she'd want to sit on the throne in her own right, married to me and knowing my claim was better, and I don't think I'd want to do it without her. But when we marry, our claims are the same. We'll do it together, or we'll die together, but she'll be my queen one way or another.
And if we forget all of it, we'll still marry. She'll still be my queen. I've lived longer at home than she has. I remember more. What happened between us here in COST happens there, too.
no subject
If we were to discuss practical matters with regards to claims, I feel that hers is much easier to prove than yours, given that most involved with the matter are no longer living.
But let us move beyond that. I have always seen an emphasis on equality between the two of you. So long as that's achieved, I doubt claim would matter. In many ways from what you've said, it seems that it is mostly settled. This information just adds a new dimension to that.
no subject
And you're right. I'm not eager to lie to the people, and I doubt she is, either, but it's not a claim I'm much eager to prove. You could argue that I already gave it up, years ago, when I didn't know what I was giving up.
[In so many ways.]
It still can't be the easiest thing for her. We have to trust each other. I was afraid it might change something.
All that time, we talked about becoming each other's family, and now this. It's not too close, aunt and nephew or uncle and niece, not where we come from, but it's very near to it. Her family married closer for centuries. Our family. Her parents were brother and sister.
no subject
I believe the point about your blood relationship goes back to claims, proving them, and what you have and haven't forfeited due to what seemed like the right choice at the time. If the matter can't be proven, you save yourselves from a good deal of problems. But if there is documentation discovered later, it could be a double edged sword in many respects. Especially given from what I know of her own family and how marriages were brokered.
If you two were simple private individuals, none of this would matter. I don't know your land's politics well either, and I am trying to leave any political thoughts to the wayside for now. Are you both comfortable with this degree of separation?
no subject
But when I learned of it, I already loved her. We'd already spoken many times of the children we might have, and how we wanted them. I didn't think of how I might become king in my own right; I never wanted to be King in the North, let alone the king of all the kingdoms. My name isn't even what I thought it was, it's
well, we know what AEGONNER means now.
All I could think of when I learned of it was how I might lose her over it, and lose those children, if we might be so lucky as to have them. She's been working towards pursuing her claim for a third of her life now, and she's been determined to prove to the people that she isn't the sort of cruel tyrant that her father was, and if it's ever known back at home, marrying another member of her family might not be best for appearances. When I told her, her greatest fear seemed to be losing me.
Learning that she's my aunt couldn't make me stop loving her. Loving her like this makes me forget that she's my aunt.
no subject
Then it sounds to me that the part that is most important and hardest to work around is a long settled matter, and that you're fortunate enough to have zero doubts on that front. Especially since you've moved well into the stages of life after marriage, when that sort of work truly begins. I'm not going to give additional thoughts or advice on relationships, they're perilous enough in my time and place that if I say something, some god has probably changed circumstances on a whim anyway.
Everything else, it seems, is politics and any compromises that may be made. And I trust you both to plan ahead for them.