Cressen I

As the old Maester made his way up the stairs, he realized that Stannis had no reason to have summoned him. He thought of him as the child he never had and while very intelligent and responsible he was also very grim, pedantic, meticulous and utterly inflexible. For him to have called him to his solar out of his normal schedule, indicated some extenuating circumstances indeed, this line of thought was further confirmed upon seeing Ser Harbert Gower, the master-at-arms of Storm's End waiting to me admitted into Stannis' solar.

Both men eventually came upon the door which was now guarded by a Baratheon man-at-arms as well as Stannis' personal sworn-sword, Qarro Volentin, a Braavosi Stannis had hired when he was a child to teach him the way of the sword, but soon became one of Stannis' most loyal and fiercest protectors, a dawning look appeared in his eyes as he knocked on the door and announced their presence.

"Bid them enter", the low growl of Stannis' voice resonated through the hall, both men nodded silently at each other before they made their way into the young Baratheon's solar.

Ser Harbert and himself entered the room, Harbert of course hurrying to where their Lord sat behind his desk, the scratching of a quill on parchment the only sound in the room. He slowly walked after him, noticing that Stannis had not even raised his eyes from what he was doing once, neither to acknowledge their entrance nor when either of them had sat before his desk, without asking if could they sit, a privilege he only afforded Cressen, Qarro and Renly, not Ser Harbert.

They sat there, Ser Harbert becoming increasingly annoyed as Stannis worked on the document before him. As a Maester Cressen was accustomed to being ignored momentarily, but it was not a trait Ser Harbert shared. This continued until finally he took the pot of wax from where it sat on a stand above a lighted candle, pouring a small amount of the wax onto the document and impressing the Baratheon Sigil that was embossed unto his ring into the pool of molten wax.

Stannis flicked his gaze over to them and Cressen noticed that he looked even more grim and impassive than usual if that was even possible and Nevermore, the Raven perched upon his shoulder, somehow mimicked his owners' countenance, looking downtrodden and serious overall. Stannis bent down briefly and poured Ser Harbert and Cressen a goblet of wine each, their eyebrows shooting up in surprise at this, "Stannis never offered nor drank wine.", they both thought. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but Cressen could briefly glimpse in his ward's blue eyes that Stannis knew what they were thinking and could feel amusement at their surprise, but he shook his head and drank modestly, interested in what new oddities this day would bring.

Stannis waited for both him and Gower to finish before sipping at their wine before his blue eyes suddenly became hard as flint and equally as merciless flicked to the both of them briefly until he sighed tiredly and said: "I hope your ravens have been well fed and watered Cressen.", as grimly as his countenance as the atmosphere he had managed to create would warrant.

"They are my lord, but why do you ask?", he said judiciously. Stannis rubbed his forehead and his blue eyes blazed with something he hadn't seen in him since his parents died in the shipwreck, worry.

"I ask because you will be sending a lot of them, Robert plans to call his banners.", Stannis answered simply.

Both men's faces were shocked at this, but before they could voice their very fair questions and objections Stannis raised a hand to silence them and said: "I don't know this for a fact, but I do know Lords Rickard and Brandon Stark were executed by the mad king and that he will likely demand Ned Stark's head as well…", he trailed off for a moment before continuing, "my drunken oaf of a brother will have been pushed over the edge, I suspect he's on his way right now in fact."

"You mean to call your banners in rebellion against the crown?", Ser Harbert asked affronted and Stannis nodded sharply: "I take my oaths seriously in general, to my King especially, but they pale in comparison to the sacred ties of Family, if Robert intends to fight, then I'll side with him.", he shot back.

"And if you're wrong?", Ser Harbert asked simply, Stannis met his gaze with steely eyed determination and his jaw clenching and unclenching, being the only thing that betrayed his anger, until he said: "I'll do my duty and take responsibility, it would seem those ravens to Castle Black were not a waste of time after all.", the last part was said in jest though it made Cressen grimace and Ser Harbert briefly nod with approval, before sighing as an indication of his acquiescence and finally meeting Stannis' gaze with the same determination that had characterized the gruff old knight throughout his whole career.

"What would you have of us?", Cressen decided to ask straight to the point as Stannis liked it and sure enough Stannis nodded approvingly and said: "Send Ravens to all the houses, except the Conningtons asking them to muster their troops at Storm's End and bring as much food as they can reasonably spare, also tell my uncle Lomas that I'll be sending Renly along to him, he's too young to endure a siege and it'll be the safest place for him barring Winterfell or the Eyrie."

Both men's eyebrows once again shot up, before Ser Harbert incredulously asked the same question Cressen had on his mind: "You expect a siege!?"

Stannis nodded sharply and said: "Robert will likely take most of the forces I gather as soon as he arrives, he'll leave me with little food and a bare bones garrison, something the Tyrells will no doubt take advantage of. They should be at the gates within three weeks, two if Mace Tyrell defers to Randyll Tarly.", he paused before getting up from his chair and pulling out a map of Storm's End, unfolding it he pointed at the surrounding area and said: "Storm's End is easily the third most defensible castle in Westeros, they could march here with the combined might of the Reach and they still wouldn't breach our walls", he now pointed at Shipbreaker's Bay and said, "they'll try to starve us out by using the Redwyne fleet to blockade the keep and their army to stop food from getting to us from our vassals."

"That's where you come in Ser Harbert, I need you to take some men and forage the surrounding area for all the food you can reasonably recover, I don't want to let those bastards have even the scraps", Stannis commanded with steel in his voice, Ser Harbert bowed an exited the room with an impressed look on his face, presumably on his way to completing his task.

"Stannis, why not the Conningtons if I may ask?", Cressen knew better that to question a Lord's decision outright once it had been made, but he was there to offer advice, and with this issue it seemed prudent. Stannis thought on how to phrase his answer for a moment, before he began with: "Are you aware of why House Lannister is currently the strongest house in Westeros?"

The non-sequitur threw Cressen of kilter for a moment, first of all the fact that a Lord had admitted that another house was superior to his was, no matter how true, very surprising in it of itself, but also utilizing the Lannisters, a house Stormlanders normally held little except contempt for, was even stranger. He ignored these self-posed questions and instead opted for trying to answer the initial question Stannis had posed, his mind immediately wandered to the simply absurd amount of gold in the Westerlands, but his musings were interrupted by the song Stannis had begun to hum. He recognized it of course, who in Westeros didn't, 'The Rains of Castamere'.

"You mean you believe them to be as strong as they are because they wiped out the Rains?!", Cressen asked incredulously. Stannis nodded gravely and began, "Tywin Lannister has the absolute loyalty of every single one of his bannermen, despite the fact that even most of his close family despises him…", he paused here to let that sink in, "This loyalty is not solely born from fear, but rather the fact that House Lannister can't be ousted from power as there is no one in the Westerlands strong enough to do so. Every single House Paramount has a rival that could potentially replace them, the Tullys have the Freys, the Arryns have Grafftons, the Starks the Boltons, the Tyrells the Florents.", he paused to see if he had Cressen's undivided attention, which he did, before he finished, "…and we have the Conningtons, I fully expect them to side with the Crown if a war breaks out, don't get me wrong, I hope they don't, but if they try my patience the Griffons will weep o'er their halls with no one left to hear.", Stannis' expression was severe as he said that last part, so severe that it made Cressen involuntarily shiver as Stannis never made a threat benign or otherwise that he wasn't perfectly willing to carry out.

Cressen rose up from his chair, a determined expression on his face, he bowed and left to accomplish his task, but before he could cross the threshold of the door Stannis interjected: "Oh and Cressen", handing him a list, "see if you can have the castellan procure some of the items on this list, it's not as high a priority as Renly or the food, but they'll be useful", Cressen nodded with a proud smile and left to do his Lord's work, looking over the list briefly he exclaimed: "What in seven hells does he need so many pig bladders for!?"

Renly I

"But I want to stay and help!", Renly's voice was laced with all the petulance he could muster, a trait that his older brother could only stomach in him, but Stannis still scrunched his jaw in anger all the same. "Renly, we've been over this, if something happens to me and Robert, you're the future of our house and Uncle Lomas will take good care of you.", Stannis repeated for the nth time. "But I don't want anything to happen to you!", Renly practically shouted as tears began to gather in his eyes, Stannis kneeled to face him at eye-level, a difficult task considering the older Baratheon was over 6ft tall, but he still managed to hug Renly to his chest and comfort him. The Cheshire grin that only showed itself with close friends slowly began to appear on Stannis' features as he said in a faux worried voice, "Gods, I should hope not Renly, I don't want anything to happen to me either.", the unexpectedness of the response was enough to throw both of them into a fit of laughter, or in Renly's case a half laugh, half cry.

They eventually gathered themselves and Stannis gazed at him with all traces of levity vanishing from his features before he said, "Renly, I've got no intention of being Sean Bean.", the private joke they shared stemming from a made-up story Stannis used to tell Renly when they were both younger, he understood the implications well enough, Stannis was saying he has no intentions of dying.

Renly sobered up and nodded, making his way to pack his clothes to board the next ship bound for Tarth, he sent his brother a thankful look, though he still wished he could remain with him to help somehow, his brother gazed at him with a small smile, a rarity on his normally solemn features, before he said, "Oh, and Renly…"

"Yes, Stannis?", he turned back to see what his brother wanted.

"Be good", he said simply. Renly rolled his eyes and made for his chambers.

Stannis I

Make no mistake, synthesizing chlorine gas in medieval times was anything but an easy task. You might be wondering, "What the hell, is this guy going to WW1-Germany the Tyrells?!", and the answer to that is yes, very much so, yes. I have no intentions of slowly starving to death in Storm's End while simultaneously looking out for people who might betray the castle just to get something to eat. I knew I'd have to grit my teeth, (read: furiously grind), and bear it, until the would-be onion-knight showed up. A little starvation was a relatively minor price to pay for someone you could unequivocally trust in the Game of Thrones, not to mention the fact that an experienced sailor like Davos would be an integral part of my later plans to claim the throne. I was also quite curious to see if he looked anything like Liam Cunningham, the world so far was an eclectic mix of book and show in terms of looks. The Baratheons as in Robert, Renly and myself looked nothing like our respective actors, but Cressen looked eerily like the old man who had played him in the show and Tywin Lannister looked almost exactly like Charles Dance, except he was slightly bulkier and had sideburns that would put a Civil War general to shame.

It was with these inane musings that I returned to my thankless task of synthesizing a 20th century biological weapon with tools that may as well be scraps, it was much easier than expected and thinking about it now I'm surprised that more school shooters and terrorists don't use it. Chlorine or Mustard gas essentially has two components Chlorine (no shit sherlock!) and Ammonia, which for all intents and purposes in medieval times essentially translates to Bleach and Piss, as in I only have to mix those two things together so that a large chunk of the army outside of my gates dies painfully. The difficulty lay in synthesizing the chlorine to make the Bleach, but I was getting on quite well. The items I had asked Cressen to get for me were as eclectic as it gets, mostly animal parts and copper forged into thin strands (wires) and I was sure he was starting to think that I was performing blood magic in the cellar, which in all honesty wasn't too far off, as I was essentially sacrificing pigs and turning them into a magic miasma that'll kill our enemies, the thought made me snort with amusement outwardly.

No, as I said the actual difficulty lied in synthesizing the Bleach. You needed a lot of chlorine for that, but luckily, I was making a lot of headway with my electrolysis. Essentially, I put two nails inside a small glass with sea-water, I run an electrical current through the nails and badda-bing badda-boom, the Salt or NaCl, breaks up into its respective components, and I trap the gas I actually need inside a pig's bladder. The electric current coming from a guerilla style, ancient Egyptian battery which worked with Zink, stomach-acid (pigs were harmed in the making of this battery), and clay as an insulator, now if only I could learn actual alchemy to speed this whole process up…

Davos I

After arriving in the hidden cleft of Storm's End he had discovered in his youth and announcing his intentions several times he was quickly ushered into the solar of acting Lord Paramount Stannis Baratheon. He had taken a risk here and he knew it, Stannis was anything but lenient and he despised Pirates more than anyone else. To the point where he had even ordered the small fleets the Stormlands possessed to periodically sweep the Stepstones of their presence, something which hadn't been properly done since the War of the Ninepenny Kings and did not initially make him popular with his vassals, even still Lord Stannis persisted. Though Davos was not exactly a pirate he doubted that any Lord would make the very reasonable distinction between piracy and smuggling and he could only pray to the Seven that the hunger his men were experiencing would be enough to turn a healthy profit, perhaps even enough to retire and spend more time with his wife and children.

Once he crossed the threshold of the door, he noticed the young man who had not even deigned to cast his gaze up to him sitting behind a large wooden desk which looked to him like it was made of some very fine and expensive, wood. Lord Stannis, he noticed belatedly, had a way of using his presence to dominate every room he found himself in, much like some experienced captains Davos had worked under in his youth. The posh cunt had not bidden him sit, and he knew better than to offend a Lord's sensibilities by doing so without permission, so he just stood in the middle of the room while fidgeting awkwardly.

After a few moments Lord Stannis put down his quill, presumably having finished writing whatever he was working on, and he finally cast his gaze upon him. If he was fidgeting awkwardly before he lacked the words to describe what he was doing now as the young Baratheon's stare feltlike it pierced his soul, Stannis feigned a cough to gain Davos' attention though he had it before and said: "So what brings a famous smuggler like yourself to come visit us?"

That stopped Davos cold, his mind whirling and tumbling and refusing to come up with any answers, eventually he managed to croak out a weak, "famous…?"

"Oh yes, quite famous indeed", Lord Stannis began his tone almost jovial, though the 'disarming' smile he plastered on his face sent shivers down Davos' spine, "you needn't worry however, you aren't very well known among other Lords, but I take an interest in learning about capable men such as yourself and don't worry I fully intend to pay you a fair price which includes the dangerous task of circumnavigating the Redwyne fleet for each and every onion you've brought." At Davos' uncomfortable countenance and Stannis' disapproving look he merely said: "Pardon me milord, but I half expected to have my right hand chopped off, not the skills I've gained in my trade be praised", Davos commented wryly and to his immense surprise Stannis actually let out a small chuckle at this.

"I do have that reputation, don't I?", Stannis asked rhetorically before shaking his head and continuing while gesturing at the paper he had placed on his desk, "here you are Davos, payment for services rendered and all that."

It pained him to admit this to a respectable customer who would actually pay him no questions asked, "Pardon me milord, but I'm afraid I can't read…", he began before Stannis waved him off and said, "then I'll read it for you, in exchange for providing sufficient food to prevent the starvation of Strom's End's garrison Davos of the newly created House Seaworth will be provided a knighthood and a small keep on the cape wrath peninsula.", Stannis' expression practically exuded equanimity, which was good as Davos was fairly sure that his own face was slack-jawed and stupid.

"Why?", he managed to ask breathlessly, "I'm a good judge of character.", Stannis said simply, the vague reply bewildering Davos even more before Stannis continued, "Fighters and Intriguers I have aplenty, but an experienced sailor who presumably has contacts across the narrow-sea and who has the stones to tell me what he thinks and not what he thinks I want to hear well, let's just say I could use more of those."

Mace I

He strutted up to the massive wooden doors of the fortress they were besieging, his attitude cocky as a peacock, along with his party consisting of himself, his cousin Paxter and Lord Matthis Rowan with a detail of guards. Visiting and arguing with the "Stubborn Stag", as his men had dubbed Stannis was not a task he particularly enjoyed doing, but it was the only way to make him see sense and cease this futile resistance. As his party got closer and closer to the wall, he could vaguely make out the sounds of archers on the parapets preparing to lose their arrows, though unlike Lord Rowan he didn't fear for his life, despite being the single most infuriating man he'd ever had the displeasure of meeting the young Baratheon was nothing if not pedantic, so he'd probably have to be driven to lengths beyond even starvation to break a sacred rule of war like the truce.

"Who goes there?", a voice bellowed out, the slight Braavosi accent marking the speaker as Qarro Volentin, Stannis' sworn-sword and a man who had single-handedly killed five experienced knights when they had initially tried to storm the walls.

"Lord Mace Tyrell, here to discuss terms with Lord Stannis.", he said simply and this time avoided saying something along the lines of 'you should damn well know who by now, you essosi barbarian', tongue and cheek answers like that which were more reminiscent of his mother than himself would only get him snubbed by the Baratheon as he'd learned the hard-way. "A moment please.", the voice returned from the other side of the door, and a few moments later a latch clicked open to reveal the hateful blue-eyed glare of the young Baratheon quickly scanning over the lords he'd brought with him, before landing on him, 'does he have no other way to look at one apart from skull-fucking one with his eyes?', Mace wondered idly.

"Lord Tyrell, a pleasure to see you again, is there anything I can do for you?", Stannis drawled impassively though the sarcasm when he'd said pleasure came through loud and clear. Mace stifled a chuckle, but he couldn't help smiling ruefully. The Stag could be as stubborn as a mule and his tongue was sharper than most, though he was inured to this through a lifetime of criticism by his mother and thus Stannis' lackluster insults had little to no effect on him.

"You know what I'm here for…", he began, before Stannis interjected with, "yes, yes, open the gates, surrender unconditionally, there's no way your brother can win, you'll be treated fairly…", he drawled his voice hard set and unemotional, "no need to repeat the same conversation we've already had fifty times, but as it happens I have something new to say this time."

Between the two Lords Stannis was the master of using his glare to intimidate people, so Mace never even bothered, and instead simply raised a bemused eyebrow and asked, "Oh, and what would that be?"

"A warning", Stannis began in a tone one would use if one wanted to announce they needed to make water, "if you don't march your fat-ass out of the Stormlands yesterday, a lot of your men are going to die very painfully. Though for my part, it would be most welcome if you stayed so I may extract due price for your enmity."

Mace barely managed to avoid laughing at the absurdity of the jape, though his cousin and Lord Rowan lacked the same self-control, and they nearly fell off their mounts laughing at the desperate bluff the Stag had seen fit to use, Mace smiled at him, the fact that he was resorting to such pointless tactics only proved his desperation and said, "Tighten your belt then my lord, and we shall see whose men will die.", then promptly signaled for his party to return to camp, he'd really wished he'd stayed in Highgarden and allowed Tarly to deal with all of this shit, but being a Lord Paramount meant pretending to be a capable commander and thus waste his time doing shit like this.

If he'd stayed, he might have further pondered the look Stannis had given him. It was not one of hate for laughing at his 'bluff', nor one of his typical impassive looks that gave absolutely nothing away, it was something Mace had never seen on the Baratheon's face before, a smile, a small and fleeting one, but a smile, nonetheless. Not one of warmth that a mother might share with her child, but rather one of a hunter who had just found out how to kill his prey and was letting it know.

The reason for that look become clear soon enough as he was violently woken from his night's sleep by the alarm that indicated that their camp was being attacked by projectiles, he'd thought they had set up their tents just out of range from Storm's End's catapults, but apparently they were chucking what looked like large stones over to them, he panicked but only slightly, after all, they could just move their tents back and nothing else would come of it. But once the projectiles landed, Mace realized that they weren't stones at all, but rather barrels that contained what smelled to him like rancid piss.

It soon dawned on everyone that the Stag didn't do this as some sort of twisted prank or desperate gambit as a yellowish miasma began to rise from the puddles of liquid that had exploded out of the barrels. Mace had seen several battles in his day, though none as large as this one he'd admit, but the sight of his men running and screaming, emerging with burnt caustic skin reminiscent of what he'd imagined people with greyscale looked like scared him to his core, 'Stannis had told the truth', his mind seemed to say to him on repeat, the screams of his men aiding and abetting the exacerbation of his fear, "Retreat!", he bellowed in his most commanding voice, it was not an organized retreat, there was no time for that with the amount of fear both the men and the commanders were experiencing, as the panic began to set in seasoned soldiers turned into callow milksops and ran for their lives, the only commanders who could have possibly brought order to this mess were Paxter Redwyne who was with his fleet and Randyll Tarly, who was caught in the middle of the Baratheon's spell.

It would forever be remembered as the day Stannis Baratheon made the whole of the Reach scurry away like a scared group of rabbits.

A/N

Hey guys, as always hope you enjoyed this chapter and if you did please drop a review, that warm feeling you guys get whenever a story updates is the same feeling most writers get whenever we see a new review, so please take some time to do it. At any rate, I know I rushed Davos' stuff but honestly, I didn't want to spend too much time on him seeing as how everyone can guess how it turned out. So, addressing some of your concerns in the order I found them in:

A Hobbit is a race from J.R.R Tolkien's "The Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings", they're basically dwarves who farm instead of mine, have hairy feet and are generally very nice, but not very adventurous. Their mention in the story is an 'Easter Egg' which indicates that Stannis has basically been telling Renly stories from our world, including the work of Mr. Tolkien.

Yeah, I just can't see a way for a pairing with Dany to fit into the story logically without some major leaps from what would be essential for the SI to do to stop the Ice Zombies.

Yeah, even in this story Robert is much more popular than Stannis wo there's no way he could successfully lead a counter-rebellion against his older brother.

Stannis is not the older brother, it goes Robert, Stannis, Renly.

Yeah, I made Renly a little older than in Cannon because I wanted him and Stannis to interact a little more before he leaves.

Arianne Martell won the poll results and to my immense delight Sansa Stark lost by a wide margin, while a pairing with her would've made a lot of sense in the story and I could have written her fairly well I always disliked her chapters in the books.