Usually it was a maester who crafted them, and a septon blessed them. They were a sacred object. It was not just a practical means to keep the dead man's eyes closed; the painted stone eyes were meant to show him the way to his just heaven.

They made an exception for Hoster Tully when his brother Brynden asked to paint them himself. He also dismissed the septon's support; the man could bless them when he had finished. They granted his wish because of his visible bereavement, and also because the Blackfish's impatience was a thing to be feared.

Brynden shut himself inside Hoster's room. He sat at the bedside table by the first light of day, close to his brother's dead body. All his painting instruments were in front of him, together with a small pile of round smooth river pebbles.

The first stone had turned out quite well. The blue of Hoster's eye looked almost lifelike. Brynden's large hands were not unused to fine work. He remembered the time he had crafted a silver bracelet for Cat, and drawn Lysa's portrait on her parchments when he was supposed to be tutoring her. Edmure must still own a polished wooden fish with a hole to wear around the neck. Unfortunately Brynden's life as a scout and a warrior had not allowed him to pursue such arts.

Brynden took a second stone and set it beside the first. The eye he had already painted was beautiful, but expressionless. He dipped his brush in the carmine flesh tone to draw the shape of the second eye, then started painting the iris in blue.

A darker blue would capture Hoster's dark moods, and they were frequent. Brynden's tendency to laugh in his face had never helped it. He used the dark red again and added a small line at the corner. Hoster's stern gaze.

But then again, for all his sternness, Hoster had been a loving husband and father. And brother. Brynden only had to recall the way he had always looked at Catelyn. He added white around the iris, to widen the gaze. Sometimes Brynden himself had been the receiver of that proud, affectionate look. But very rarely, and only when they had been very young.

Ah, those were the times, when their quarrels were nothing more serious than brotherly scuffs, and Hoster was quick to laugh again as soon as the storm had passed - before he became Lord Tully of Riverrun, and the responsibilities turned him into a busy, bitter man. Brynden tried to remember that boyish laugh. He opened another small bottle and added flecks of silver to the iris.

He had forgotten the pupil. He needed the black paint. How often had he seen his own face reflected in Hoster's dark pupils, almost always in anger? Aye, he had laughed, then. But he had missed Hoster for a long time even before his death. Now he was mourning the brother he had had only for a little while. Their careless youth had vanished back into the fog of the Trident, forever.

The painted stone blurred in front of him. Brynden dashed tears from his eyes, angrily. He took a deep breath and steadied his hand. How many times had he tried to recapture that youth, and then had ruined everything with a misplaced joke, a scornful laugh? His brother might have been the insufferably stiff Hoster Tully, Lord of Riverrun. But he was the unforgivable Blackfish, who had repeatedly betrayed family and duty, out of pride, fucking pride.

His hand jerked. A slash of black marred the perfection of the painted eye.

Brynden grabbed the stone, staining his hand with paint, and threw it in a corner, where several unfinished pebbles already lay. He bent his face into his hands, marking his cheek with streaks of blue and dark red.

THE END

Time: 40 min ca.