It's supposed to make him feel better. It's present of sorts he supposes, commissioned by his father in the hope that it will bring some of his old spirit back, as if a new suit of armour might go some way to filling the hole Renly left behind.
Margaery of course knows better and she gives him a small sad smile as their father rambles on about the embellishment on the helm and other such decoration that Loras finds means nothing to him now.
He tries to smile though and doesn't even bother to point out that he shouldn't be wearing anything but the white of the Kingsguard now.
His grandmother does bother though. She throws down her sewing and laughs, calling her son a preposterous fool for buying such a ridiculous gift. His father bristles at this and reminds her that Jaime Lannister wears armour of solid gold, Kingsguard or not.
Loras bites back a sigh and exchanges a glance with Margaery. He has no desire to be like Jaime Lannister. He has no desire to be anything anymore. He just nods however and tells his father he will pick it up this afternoon. His family's patience with him is wearing thin. Their initial sympathies are turning to annoyance and barely a day goes by now without his father making some sort of veiled comment that he needs to pull himself back together. Only Margaery seems to understand his grief and often she will sit with him late into the night, a comforting presence that goes at least some way to keeping his nightmares at bay.
She offers to accompany him to the armoury but he waves her words away. She has enough to cope with he thinks without having to deal with him too.
The place is empty when he arrives but the armourer presents his father's gift to him with a flourish, pointing out proudly the intricate detail that has gone into its design.
The armour is undeniably beautiful and he tries to seem pleased with it, but even the sapphires set into the helm do nothing towards making Loras smile. The emeralds on the shoulder plates do stir something inside of him however and his heart clenches as he thinks of the deep green armour that sits still in his chambers, still with the scratches and mud from Garlan's charge across the Blackwater. Garlan himself has tried to convince him on many occasions that he would do better to part with it, but Loras cannot bring himself to do it. He's still half hopeful that at only seventeen he might yet grow some more and that one day he'll be able to wear it. It's a ridiculous notion he'll admit to no one and yet Loras is sure he'd feel somehow less empty if only he could make it fit.
He has no desire to wear this armour and yet he thanks Tobho Mott for it with as much stiff courtesy as he can manage before turning to leave.
He's almost to the door when the harsh sound of a hammer on steel happens to make him glance up. He doesn't know why he turns round but he does, his breath catching in his throat when his eyes fall upon the man wielding the hammer. He's quite sure he's gone mad now, that something in him has finally snapped.
Renly is standing before him, and this time he's more than just a shadow on the wall or an imagined voice in the dark. He looks very much alive as he brings the hammer down to meet the steel and Loras is sure that if he reaches out and touches him he'll be as solid as the armour in his hands.
A small voice tells him he's dreaming and that any moment now he will wake up and find himself in his chambers, tears on his face and the bed painfully empty beside him. All the same he takes a hesitant step towards him. If it is a dream, he's quite certain he never wants to wake from it.
The illusion is soon shattered though and as he gets closer it becomes clear that it isn't Renly. This man is younger, more a boy than a man, and Loras is reminded painfully of the fourteen year old who welcomed him to Storm's End to be his squire all those years ago, a very distant past now.
The resemblance is uncanny Loras thinks sadly, but the differences are there. This boy has thick, coarse stubble that covers his jaw and neck, and his hair is greasy, matted almost in parts. His arms are thick, the powerful muscles rippling under the skin as he wields the hammer. Renly had been strong, strong enough even to pin him down and fuck him until Loras forgot his own name if the mood took him, but never that strong.
The boy notices him watching and looks up, his deep blue eyes meeting Loras' own. "Can I help you m'lord?" He asks, his voice rough and coarse, quite unlike Renly's.
Loras begins to shake his head and then changes his mind. "Can I sit and watch a while?" He blurts out, stumbling over his words as if he were a small child meeting his lord again for the first time.
The boy looks mildly confused but shrugs and gestures to a bench in the corner of the room before carrying on with his work.
Loras takes a seat wordlessly. He soon figures out that if he blurs his vision slightly then the boy looks even more like Renly and he can imagine him smiling, laughing, dressed in green velvet instead of rags.
The boy gets up shortly, mumbling something about needing to show what he's made to his master.
Loras stands too, watching the boy leave before slowly making his way out of the armoury. He knows it's not Renly, but part of him desperately wants to believe that it is. He's half sure as he walks out of the door that Renly is going to run after him and pull him close, running his fingers through his curls and whispering his name.
Nobody runs after Loras that afternoon but his dreams of Renly that night are more vivid, more real, and he wakes up in the morning feeling slightly less alone.
…...
Gendry shakes his head as he watches the knight leave and his master walks over to him.
"What did he want with you?" Tobho asks gruffly, gesturing after the knight and taking the dagger Gendry had been working on out of his hands.
Gendry shrugs. "I've no idea. He just wanted to watch."
Tobho laughs. "Well for the amount his lord father paid for that new armour of his, he can sit and watch all bloody day if he likes."
Gendry just nods and picks up a breastplate off the counter that needs the dents hammering out before returning to his work bench.
Barely a week has gone by before the knight returns. He asks the same thing of him, refusing to meet Gendry's eyes and instead looking down at his feet as if Gendry is someone whose opinion means something, rather than the bastard boy he is. He half expects him to ask about his mother for that's what all the other high born lords asked, but this one just sits and watches, a small smile on his face that Gendry can't decide if it's happy or sad.
It's irritating having someone watch him but he gets on with his work, feeling the steel bend underneath his hands as he heats and shapes it.
He glances up after a time, and the knight is still sitting there unmoved. He's staring straight at Gendry but seems to be in another world entirely, his eyes glazed over. He's a slip of a thing really Gendry thinks, barely older than himself and with deep golden brown eyes that seem somehow sad. He thinks he recognizes him from the tourneys he's occasionally seen, but there is no sigil on his armour and so he can't be sure.
He decides to ask. It's not proper he knows for a bastard boy to speak so to a high born knight such as this one, but he figures that it's not such a grave crime. He's half hopeful even that the knight might take offence and get up, leaving Gendry in peace.
"You're that Knight of Flowers aren't you m'lord?"
The knight looks up and blinks, looking rather dazed. "I was" He says after a moment, looking blankly at Gendry.
Gendry waits for him to elaborate but the knight says nothing more. He shrugs and picks up his hammer again. Perhaps the knight has chosen a new name he thinks, he'd always thought the Knight of Flowers was rather a ridiculous title.
The knight looks so miserable when he looks up next that Gendry can't help but ask if he's alright. He grows sullen at that and turns away, getting up and leaving shortly after.
Gendry knows he spoke out of place there but finds he cares little. His master was not there to see it, and perhaps now the knight will leave him be from now on.
He's soon proved wrong however. The knight continues to come almost daily for a moon, not even bothering to ask whether he can watch anymore. Instead he just resumes his usual seat and sits quietly for a few hours before getting up wordlessly and taking his leave.
His stares don't bother Gendry so much anymore. He's grown used to them and it seems now that the knight's presence is as commonplace as the workbench and the tools hanging on the wall.
It's a fortnight before Gendry decides to speak to him again. "You're one of them Kingsguard aren't you ser..." Gendry falters, realising that for all the knight's daily visits he doesn't even know his real name.
"Loras." The knight says absent-mindedly, looking past Gendry. "My name's Loras."
"Ser... Loras." Gendry tries the name out, deciding it suits the moody young knight well.
"Just Loras." the knight tells him blankly.
He doesn't ask Gendry's name and Gendry gets the feeling the young knight doesn't care to know it. Even so he can't help but feel rather sorry for the handsome young knight that comes so often and yet says so little.
…...
Loras glances at the deep green armour sadly, running his fingers once more over the steel gorget and feeling the slightly jagged edge where it has been sliced open. He cuts his fingers badly on it and the sight of blood against the green steel is enough to bring angry tears to his eyes.
He comes back for it once he's finished trailing after Margaery for the morning and takes it with him to the street of steel.
The boy is in his usual place, and he must have recently have washed Loras thinks for he looks more like Renly than ever, his usually greasy hair uncharacteristically shiny and slightly tidier. He resists the urge to move to run his hands through it, reminding himself sharply that the boy isn't Renly for all his imaginings.
He brings out the gorget instead. "Can this be fixed?" He asks quietly.
The boy looks up and takes the gorget from him wordlessly, turning it over in his strong coarse hands and examining it. Loras hears his intake of breath as the boy finds the gash in it.
What did this m'l-" He drops the title hurriedly for which Loras is grateful. He had never been anything more than just Loras to Renly, even when he'd been no more than Renly's squire.
Loras shrugs miserably. He has no answer to give the boy. He too has no idea what could have cut through such steel. "Can you fix it?" He asks instead.
The boy grunts and examines it again. "I might." he admits. "I'll show it to my master for you. He's better with repairs than I am."
The boy makes to get up but Loras stops him. "Wait" He tells him. "I want you to do it."
The boy looks confused but merely shrugs and sits back down, turning the steel over once more in his hands.
"I'll pay you well for it." Loras adds hurriedly before allowing himself to sink back into his daydreams. The green steel looks so right in the boy's hands and if he squints it's Renly holding it, admiring the metal instead of fixing it. He's showing it to Loras now, grinning at him with laughter in his eyes. He's Renly's squire again, and even though this armour was commissioned long after he was still anything of the sort, he's leaning up to fasten it around Renly's neck, Renly laughing as Loras has to stand on tiptoe, not quite yet able to reach.
The boy's gruff voice brings him out of his daydreams and his vision of Renly slips through his fingers, merging back into the dirty boy before him. Loras scowls at the interruption. "What is it?" he asks, trying to bite back the irritation in his voice. It's not the boy's fault that he isn't Renly, not truly.
"I'll have to melt it down a bit." The boy was saying. "The colour might fade a bit."
Loras shrugs, not really listening. He just nods and lets the boy get on with it, retreating back into his imagination as soon as the boy stops talking.
The boy is done with it by the time Loras gets up to leave, and Loras takes it from his wordlessly, putting several gold dragons down on the workbench as he turns away and walks out into the dark streets.
He brings the rest of the armour the next time and shows it to the boy.
"Can this be altered?" He asks, placing it down in front of the boy and refusing to meet his eye.
"To fit you?" The boy sounds incredulous, and Loras can understand why. The armour is much too big for him. Loras is adamant however and eventually the boy agrees to have a go.
"It'll never be a good fit mind you." The boy adds gruffly. "But with a lot of padding it might just do."
Loras almost smiles at those words and moves to take his usual seat. He finds he needs this more than ever today. Renly didn't visit him last night, his sleep was instead dreamless, and he awoke painfully alone, without Renly's voice in his ear and the imagined weight of his hands on his hips. He closes his eyes slightly, sighing when Renly is once more standing in front of him, there for him to see but never for him to touch. It's torture some days, and yet Loras can't bring himself to put an end to it. His imaginings might be painful, but they're less painful than the alternative.
He glances up however when the boy speaks again and tries to listen to what he's saying. He's beckoning him up from his chair and gesturing for him to come towards him. His heart clenches as he grasps the boy's meaning and stands stiffly as the boy measures him, looking solemnly down at the floor as the boy passes a tape measure around him.
He's imagined many times what it would feel like if the boy were to touch him, but the reality is disappointing. The boy's fingers are rough, they prod and poke where Renly's would have been gentle.
He is glad when it is over and he can return to imagining what Renly's touch used to feel like. He is even gladder when the alterations are finished and he can take the green armour back to his chambers.
The boy is right however. Despite the alterations it does not fit particularly well, hanging loosely across his shoulders and rattling about his hips. He tries a few steps in it all the same, walking to the mirror hopefully.
He stares at his reflection for a good few minutes, turning away angrily when he finds it does nothing to fill the emptiness inside him.
…...
The next time the knight comes to visit him he is drunk. He all but stumbles into the armoury and Gendry has to help him to his seat. His eyes look rather red and Gendry wonders whether the handsome knight has been crying. For all his sullenness the knight never seemed the sort.
He doesn't comment on it and continues with his work as always. Despite his red eyes the knight seems to watch him with less sadness than usual, and he even smiles a few times, an expression that Gendry realises he has never seen on the knight's face before.
He looks away awkwardly, unsure on how he should react to this. He supposes he should have smiled back however, for when he glances back up at him, the knight looks pained. He looks more than pained Gendry thinks, he looks as if Gendry had reached across the workbench and slapped him.
The knight doesn't smile again after that, but he stays put all the same, watching Gendry wordlessly as usual.
He gets up to leave some time after dark but stops in the doorway, turning back to face him. "I'm going away now." He murmurs quietly. His words slur into one another and whether he is speaking to Gendry or to himself Gendry can't be sure.
He supposes he must have been talking to him however for the knights face falls when Gendry doesn't answer.
"I might not come back." The knight adds, a note of desperation in his voice now.
"That's a shame" Gendry mutters, thinking he should at least try and say something back to him. He seems somehow pitiful standing there all alone in the doorway, as helpless as a child in the darkness that looms out in the street outside.
He takes a step backwards when the knight turns and walks back towards him. For a terrifying moment he's sure the knight is going to kiss him, ridiculous notion as it is.
He doesn't, but Gendry is just as taken aback when he instead leans his head on Gendry's shoulder, wrapping his arms tightly around Gendry's chest. His first thought is to push him away angrily but his heart softens slightly when he glances down and realises that the knight is sobbing. Instead he simply stands stock still and lets the knight bury his head in his shoulder, his tears soaking his shirt. The knight calls him a name Gendry doesn't recognise then and Gendry pats his curls awkwardly, not quite sure what the knight wants from him.
There are still tears on the knight's face when he releases Gendry and he doesn't look at him again, he just walks out silently into the night without a word.
He doesn't come back the following day, or the next and soon Gendry forgets all about him, the months passing uneventfully as summer fades bleakly into autumn.
He's reminded of him however one cold autumn day when he sees his master making green steel for one of his richer customers, a proud knight from the Stormlands who tells his master he wants armour like one of the late king's brothers.
"Whatever happened to that knight who used to come here so often? Gendry asks as the customer leaves.
His master doesn't seem to know who he's talking about for a moment. "Oh you mean Loras Tyrell?" He asks gruffly. "The pretty one with the curly hair?"
"Yes that one." Gendry tells him, picking up his hammer and returning to his workbench. He'D never known the knight's full name, but he supposes there probably aren't too many knights called Loras, even fewer who are handsome and with curls.
"He fell recently taking Dragonstone." Tobho says. "A nasty death apparently. Boiling oil or the like."
Gendry finds himself feeling rather sad. "A shame." he says absent-mindedly, more to himself than to his master.
"Why I didn't know you cared for the boy?"
Gendry shakes his head. "Not particularly. But someone somewhere must."
"Aye then explain to me then why he'd come and sit here for hours if he had someone who cared for him. More like the kid was lonely." Tobho turns away and picks up the steel he's finished tempering.
Gendry shrugs. He likes to suppose that someone cared for the curly haired knight that was pretty as a maid and yet silent as the grave but he guesses he'll never know.