Caralyn had known in the back of her mind that Jon Snow practiced a combat style unlike anything her (admittedly limited) experience of fighting told her that could be found in the rest of Westeros. But if she was to be truthful: it was easy to forget that when he was instructing her how to quickly draw her dagger and how to use it to prevent anyone from doing as Ramsay's men had done to her ever again. Moreso with the revelation that the odd fire god he worshipped was capable of peering into the future and allowing others to see what he saw.
But now that she was one of the audience watching how the Tourney of the Hand's melee competition played out the eyes of all the capital, it was becoming abundantly clear that even seeing him slowly go through the scant forms he'd been able to practice in front of her during their brief companionship together on the journey to White Harbor that Jon had shown barely anything at all in terms of his capabilities.
Her one time teacher had come to King's Landing with his lord father some time ago, though she herself had only encountered him by sheer chance as he stopped by the alehouse where she happened to work that was located close to the city's Dragon Gate.
As she'd dodged Ser Antario Taggard and Ser Josian Rosethorne attempting to regale each other as to who had gained the favor of the most beautiful maidens by determinedly keeping her gaze off them, her eyes had caught a glimpse of familiar black hair near the corner. His head was tilted slightly downward, a single tankard by his left hand as the two walls that formed a corner of the alehouse his back faced toward seemed to frame his thoughtfully frowning face.
One could've mistaken him as one of King Robert's older bastards if they were to look solely at the hair and solid build before shrugging off his presence altogether. But Caralyn would know those distinctive grey eyes anywhere. She couldn't have stopped the overjoyed smile that came to her face even if she were inclined to try as she quickly made her way toward the person she could honestly call her most cherished friend.
As she came beside his table, she noticed that his drink was virtually untouched, but his posture had straightened a slight bit; as though waiting to see who was approaching him without giving away he'd noticed her there.
"Seems your campfire advised well Jon." She remarked, a snicker escaping as he glanced at her with a determined suppression of lips twitching upward that she was sure he knew she saw.
"Lady Caralyn." He remarked in greeting, facing her fully as he allowed the small smile to reach his eyes as he took her in.
"Still not a lady. Though I'm not sure whether serving wench is much better than farmgirl." She said in response, setting down the tray of ales in her left hand on the table and leaning forward to give him a hug as a more proper greeting for an old friend.
He'd moved his upper body toward hers, his legs on either side of the bench as his arms automatically encircled her shoulders, the heat of his body tangible even through the wool and leather clothing he wore.
"So long as you can say you're happy, I should imagine it to be better." He answered, as her arms around his back squeezed and his own answered with a brief increase of pressure, their chests briefly connected before he let his arms go to give her the chance to pull back.
She allowed her memories of Bette to come to the forefront of her mind as she thought on it. It wasn't the same as having her love back again. But it was a place away from what she'd suffered. It could serve as the start to something without so many memories attached to it.
"Not sure I can say that yet." She admitted in a low voice as her smile at seeing him left her face, her quiet confession almost lost amidst the background noise of the hustle and bustle of the alehouse.
"But I'm certainly trying to get there." She continued, allowing a shakier but no less genuine grin make its home on her lips.
He nodded in acknowledgement, his eyes glancing around briefly.
"Care to sit with me for a few moments?" He offered.
Caralyn shook her head.
"Can't right now." She said, gesturing to the wooden tray she'd placed on the table by his right hand. "Should have a bit of time after I make sure no one needs more though."
Jon nodded in understanding.
"Go then. Best not to get in trouble over a few ales." He said.
When she had a moment, gaining Jon a distant but appreciative once over from the proprietor Margot in the process, she returned to her friend's table and sat alongside him.
They talked for hours on end it felt, Jon finding out that she was living in a building nearby the alehouse, doing what she could to get by and keeping a low profile. Not exactly difficult in a place with as big a slum as King's Landing possessed.
As to her friend, it seemed his father Lord Stark had been brought to the capital to act as King Robert's new hand. Jon himself was trying to get a feel for the capital outside of the Red Keep, a place that only represented the king and his court rather than the people who had to live beneath them. Caralyn couldn't dispute that assessment, being one of those aforementioned people who lived in the shadow of the Red Keep.
In the following days, he stopped by multiple times leading up to the tourney. Jon's presence became a regular fixture to Margot who was in turn convinced that he was some young man who was smitten with her newest serving girl. Caralyn tried to say they were only old friends, that Jon was not smitten with her (nor she with him when the proprietor gave her a knowing smirk) and that there was nothing untoward going on.
She was forced to mentally throw her hands in the air and give up trying to correct her mistaken impression when Margot insisted on telling her "for any young lady who wished to know" how she could find a midwife capable of brewing moon tea anyway.
Within the two days before the tournament, Caralyn noticed that Jon felt…different to her senses. It wasn't his clothing or his physical body, she knew that much. It almost felt like the campfire: when he'd had her extend her hand and she'd felt something of its heat travel through her arm into her head. She wondered to herself if that meant he was practicing magic to try and give himself an advantage in the tourney.
The feeling was even stronger once she joined the rest of the spectators who surrounded the large ring that the melee was to take place within.
There was a feeling of…well, anticipation felt inadequate as a term and uneasiness wasn't quite right either. Whatever it was, it had everyone on edge. She found her friend near the left side of the field: a picture of stillness amidst movement and motion.
And then the horn blew and the melee was joined.
Immediately, it was clear that the competitors were taking this far more seriously than she had imagined they would. More than half the fighters unleashed war cries that wouldn't have been out of place upon an actual battlefield whilst the horse riders charged forward with a recklessness that seemed at odds with the stakes at risk for this portion of the tourney.
Two people stood out to Caralyn's eyes: a bald man in dirty red robes who ran his blade along the palm of his left hand, seeming to set it aflame when he did so. His excited shouts as he sprinted forth from the field opposite Jon were loud enough to be heard even over the whinnies of the horses. And of course, there was Jon himself: who hadn't made a sound as he charged forward, but whom Caralyn was certain made the greatest impact on everyone's initial clash by leaping into the air and slamming his right knee into the face of one horse rider while throwing his shield like a discus at another who was attempting to charge from side. As the fighters on the ground clashed, Jon's body came down upon the rider's, pinning him to his back with his feet still in the saddle. With a punch using his now free left hand, Jon summarily knocked him out as a man on foot attempted to charge her friend.
Of course, the man who tried to attack him did so from the horse's side, startling the creature into slamming its rear hoof into his chest and sending him flying into the dirt.
Even as enthusiastic as they'd become, the fighters were noticeably reluctant to attack the man who swung the flaming sword as proven by the fact that there were never one or two men at a time attacking him. As the fiery swordsman managed to frighten one of the remaining horsemen, Jon leapt at the other as he charged toward a group of seven who were engaged in a smaller free for all amidst the larger chaos. The tackle managed to knock the horseman out of the saddle entirely and cause the horse to divert its course toward the thick wooden poles of the fence separating the screaming spectators from the action on the field. As they landed in the dirt, the man's impact knocked the wind and consciousness from him as Jon rolled forward over his body, coming up in a crouch in front of two fighters whose swords were currently locked in a stalemate.
Their attention turned to Jon and seemingly as one, they decided he represented the greater threat. They simultaneously swung their swords downward at the northern bastard's crouching form. Caralyn's heart raced as she watched her friend quickly roll to his left side, coming up in another crouch beside his opponent with a bridge emblazoned upon his light chainmail armor.
A sharp left-handed punch to the man's right leg had him buckling forward as Jon's right hand took control of the right arm holding his dulled tourney sword. As the bridge man's enemy attempting to swing toward Jon in a rushed follow-up attack, her friend brought the captive's right arm up to block the swing not with the blade, but with the forearm.
The bridge man let out a wounded bellow as his arm visibly fractured beneath the cloth even as Jon's left hand grabbed the back of his helmeted head and drove it into the attacking man's stomach. Jon was in a lower stance with only his feet on the ground now, his right fist quickly making a powerful impact on the winded man's left cheek, distracting him from the fact that her friend's arm was now around the bridge man's neck.
Jon drove his right knee into the bridge man's side, causing him to buckle again. Caralyn almost couldn't believe her eyes when her friend then proceeded to grab the man by his belt with his left hand and, right arm still around his neck, lifted him up so that his body was in Jon's arms almost as if he were a groom carrying a bride. Of course, that brief impression changed quickly once he proceeded to throw the injured man headfirst at the now straightening enemy's skull, collapsing them both to the dirt with little indication of rising again coming from either.
The bald man whose flaming sword made such a loud spectacle had managed to wade his way to the center of the field, his burning blade a bright indicator of where all the action was centered around. His hacking movement and powerful strokes were strong enough to drive away all but the most determined opponents who tried to charge him through the sea of other fighters.
He had only locked swords with one man thus far: one whose red owl was a strange sigil to Caralyn's eyes and who didn't manage to last beyond a savage headbutt to the face followed by an even worse kick to the groin.
The crowd was going crazy, many seemingly howling for blood as many others looked almost frightened and faint. Caralyn herself could feel the blood pounding in her ears, unwanted flashes of memory toward the burning of Ramsey's camp and the looks of brutality his men bore coming to mind as the sun beat down upon the dirty field. Her breaths couldn't seem to become deep enough to calm her racing pulse. She tried to focus herself, her attention drawn inadvertently back to her dark-haired friend as he picked up a dropped tourney sword in his left hand as he rolled toward the flaming swordsman away from a doggedly pursuing enemy who was swinging wildly at his heels.
Caralyn's green eyes felt as though they were deceiving her when Jon came into a standing position behind the flaming swordsman, turning to face the charging knight who was raising his tourney sword for an overhead strike and for a few moments in time being physically back to back with the red-robed figure.
Surely reality proved stranger than illusion when it looked like Jon said something to the empty air before spinning to his left as the red-robed fighter's blade came up to strike the downward swinging man's strike to his right. Jon flipped the tourney sword in his left hand so that the blade was in his palm before quickly using the handle guard as a hook around the stymied man's neck and yanking him straight toward a strike across the face from the tourney sword in Jon's right hand. As he collapsed into a groaning heap on the ground, with blood leaking from behind his gloved hands, the red-robed bald man's right foot came out in a sharp kick to the face that stilled all his movements.
Jon's grey eyes and the red-robed man's blue eyes met over the stilled enemy as the remaining fighters continued onward. They exchanged what looked to be more words before nodding briefly at one another: the red-robed man's grin becoming a full bellied laugh while Jon's face remained as stoic as ever before they turned back to back again.
As the other fighters seemed to all glance toward the loud laughing man, Caralyn couldn't be sure whether the sun was playing tricks on her eyes or not: but it seemed to her that the flame on the red-robed man's sword had somehow grown brighter and more powerful than before.
A/N: Second chapter representing first half of chapters relating to the tourney of the hand plus return of character not seen in a while. Hope everyone enjoys it despite long delay in release. -Mx4
