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[holyposition]

WELCOME TO THE SALTBURNT NETWORK

USERNAME:
t.laughlin

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[provoke]

And I'll learn them too, in time, if they're available here. Are you any good at these new weapons?

[ hmm HMMMMMMM ]

Before that: can you fight?

[holyposition]

I got my merit badge in marksmanship. It's been a while, but I could pick it back up, if I had a rifle.

That's a sort of...ranged weapon. Like a tiny metal arrow with firepower.

I've never had to fight up close, beyond little playground scraps.

[provoke]

Two different things, then. Ranged weapons require certain skills advantageous to it more than if you used them in a melee or a spar.

[ scraps. aemond has not been in a scrap since he was seven. ]

Have you killed anyone?

[ from zero to sixty in 3.5— ]

[holyposition]

No. I'm not a soldier. I worked for a lawmaker back home.

[provoke]

[ mildly disappointing, but not surprising. ]

We'll work on it, then. Footwork and grip first, then perhaps I'll arm you proper and train you.

Do you like the sept? The... prayer hall.

[holyposition]

Do you think you'll have to hurt anyone? Your mother told me about the truce. I'm hoping we'll only need to apply this learning to wolf monsters.

Yeah, I do. I spent my first couple months here renovating it myself.

[provoke]

I do not think it — I trust that I will. 'Tis folly to think we'll not needs defend ourselves simply because we are promised safety.

You must understand, Tim. There is a reason why our family settled for a truce with great haste upon my arrival. My uncle is a veteran of many wars. I am as close to an equal challenge that he has here, and why he has no shame in threatening my mother harm over a challenge mine half-sister's own son had issued to me.

[ he lets the implications stand. ]

Why is there a naked man on a cross?

[holyposition]

I understand. She's told me. I just don't see what good it will do to fight a war of succession in another realm completely. There's no way to win. I'm not saying not to be prepared, just to consider other options. There are other ways to best someone.

That's Jesus Christ, the son of God, where I'm from. He was stripped and tortured, when he died to protect the rest of us from our sins.

[provoke]

[ bluntness, because he's getting a little irked that everyone seems to think it's just about the stupid chair. ]

I am kin-slayer, Tim. Twice over. It's personal for them, when it comes to me.

This Jesus Christ, he cannot be presented with clothes?

[holyposition]

Do you think a third time will fix anything?

He can, and he is, on the windows. The crucifix is meant to portray a specific event as it was. Why so interested?

[provoke]

My half-sister cannot rule if my brothers and I live. We cannot live if she means to rule. All matters of law and precedence demand it.

I am not often met with a very naked man when visiting a place of worship. It's very striking.

[holyposition]

I've never heard of a monarchy that demands the one to succeed has to be the last one standing after a massacre.

I'm not trying to downplay the seriousness of the situation, but the more likely it is that violence breaks out, the more likely that your mother or someone else I care about gets caught in it. I don't want that to happen.

He's not naked. The sensitive areas are covered.

cw: all sorts of hateful language

[provoke]

I promised my peace. I am not so dishonourable that I would kill so wantonly, even if my whore of a half-sister and her child-murdering husband would wish me to. I have ever hewn to my duty loyally as a prince of the realm and they have spat at decency at every turn with bastards and lies.

[ incendiary language time! ]

House Targaryen cannot be split, because our dragons are ever loyal to us until death. The only way you free a dragon of its bond is if its rider dies, Tim. All siblings mine each have our own. And I ride the largest and most powerful of them all.

Do you understand?

[ there is only one way he'll be allowed to live. ]

His wounds needs not be exposed, either. It's grotesque.

[holyposition]

[ Yikes! A thousand times yikes... ]

What I'm hearing is mutually assured destruction.

It's a reminder of the sacrifice He made for us. It's meant to be.

[provoke]

Quite, doesn't it?

[ another thing to thank their father for, the weak-willed man that he is. ]

So he was martyred and glorified in death. And in life?

[holyposition]

He was a carpenter turned prophet, born to a virgin.

[provoke]

[ this keeps getting worse! ]

His mother was a witch?

[holyposition]

No. God is all-powerful, he put a child in her without her needing to become impure.

[provoke]

But she is unmarried. That makes your Jesus Christ a bastard true. Impurity is not in the piercing of the maidenhead but in the bearing of the sin.

[holyposition]

She was married. They were chosen to bear the son of God.

[provoke]

So her husband had lain with her. She is no maiden. The get of another is still the get of another, divine or otherwise.

[holyposition]

She was when she gave birth to the savior.

[provoke]

And there were witnesses to the deed? Attestations to her virginity beyond her own claim?

[ ...why does she sound like rhaenyra. ]

[holyposition]

The angel visited them both. What are you actually asking me?

[provoke]

Your faith has, seemingly, made god of a man. Why is it not questioned so?