osite-audiotest

by Hankton

dont bother reading this.

2. bastardhighgarden1

I was about eight years old when my memories came back to me.

It began as a trickle, thoughts and feelings flashing through my head, brief and blurry. Ideas I could not grasp like a word lost on the tip of the tongue. Places I'd never been, faces I'd never seen, songs and stories I did not understand. All battled for time in my mind and it became hard to focus on the hear and now when everything around me seemed nothing more than a waking dream.

Maester Lomys, of all people, triggered the dam breaking, turning the trickle into a deluge.

"Lyonel." The maester snapped out my name in a tone that always meant he was at the end of his rope. My cousins on either side of me leaned away as our teacher strode across his small chambers toward us, his wispy white hair flying in every direction while a scowl made shadows catch on his many wrinkles. "Where is your head at, boy?"

I blinked and took a deep breath. The smell of salt and wind was still strong in my nose, and the image of a beautiful woman tearing a book from my hands while dragging me toward the water was slow to leave me.

"I-"

"Let's see if you've been paying attention at all." The maester apparently thought me too slow to respond, and pulled a book from a nearby shelf and slammed it before me. A Treatise on King Robert's Rebellion, the title read, by Grandmaester Pycelle. "Who was the first lord to declare rebellion against the Mad King?"

"Er, Maester Lomys, we-"

"Quiet now, Desmera."

The girl pouted at being interrupted, and glance toward Margaery only showed that both my cousins shared the same confusion.

But at least I knew the answer.

"Lord Jon Arryn," I said, shaking away the last of the thoughts of a beach I'd never been. "He raised his banners when the Mad King demanded the heads of Robert Baratheon and Eddard Stark."

It was the maester's turn to look confused.

"That's… correct," he said, scratching at the edge of his chin. "But how is it that you know this when I just got through saying we'd start talking about Robert's Rebellion tomorrow?"

"I..."

It came back to me at once, then. I remembered reading all about Westeros in a series of books, which led me to remember another world where everything Westerosi was nothing more than fiction, which spiraled into the random images I'd been seeing starting to connect and make sense.

It was too much for my brain to process, and I must have passed out, as the next thing I remember was waking up in my bed with a cold cloth being pressed to my forehead by a gentle hand. My mother sat at my bedside, humming The Bear and the Maiden Fair under her breath, and only took a moment to realize I was awake.

"Lyonel!" She smiled, wide but strained, and placed a hand over my bare chest, right above my heart. "How are you feeling, sweetling?"

"Fine," I said, surprised that I meant it. I went to sit up, but my mother's hand held firm. "Don't you move, I'll go and fetch Lomys." She tweaked my nose and left my room.

I ignored her order before my door was halfway shut.

My chambers were "comfortably cozy" as my mother always said, and so I was able to cross to my only window in just a few steps. I pulled aside the green and gold curtains and, sure enough, a spectacular view of the Reach greeted me. I was just high enough in the tower the Tyrells called home to see over the first wall, granting me sight of the whirls of color that were the flower gardens between it and the outer wall further down the hill. Beyond that, the great hedge maze continued for at least a mile before being cut off by the slow-flowing Mander. The sounds of steel clashing the general cacophony of people drifted on the wind from the other side of the tower, from the castle town I knew lay beyond the walls to the south.

Okay, I thought as I took a deep breath of sweet-smelling air. This is real.

I remembered years of playing with Margaery, Desmera, and Loras on the grounds below, with both Willas and Garlan tolerating our antics with varying degrees of patience. Endless hours stuck in a room with Maester Lomys with my cousins, learning numbers and letters and history. My mother, Janna, endlessly kind but always sad when she thought I could not see her. My lord uncle and lady aunt, forever indifferent.

But I also recalled over a quarter century more of life in a different world. Memories of a different mother, actually knowing my father, of having a sibling of my own. Twenty years of schooling only to work at mediocre jobs to fund pursuits of shifting dreams and lofty goals. Of loves lost and found, of friends sworn to be forever even as life drifted us apart. Of hobbies and endless media to fill the void.

I thought I should have panicked, or been having an identity crises, but both sets of memories felt right. Felt like me.

I could not comprehend the how or why of having apparently been granted a second life. Hell, I did not even know how my first life ended. At that moment, the only things I knew for sure were that I was somehow in Westeros, and there were going to be White Walkers and dragons to deal with in the not-so-distant future.

"Not terrifying at all," I said with a wry lilt.

The existential fear crept on me then. My knowledge of the future was limited to the extent of the fifth book, and – frankly – the Tyrells always seemed to back the wrong horse. I was just a kid at this point, a bastard besides, and I'm quite sure Lyonel Storm did not exist in the story I had known.

What could one man do to fight the coming darkness?

I shivered as a cool breeze drifted through the window and reached for the shutter. Need to make a plan. Figure out-

My thoughts screeched to a halt when I caught my reflection in the glass as I pulled the shutter closed. I had never much cared what I looked like in my current life before, but my new knowledge screamed a thousand warnings to me.

Wide blue eyes looked back at me beneath a fringe of hair dark as pitch. With high cheekbones, and a strong jaw, the only thing of my mother I could find in my face was the nose one might consider delicate.

The seed is strong, I thought.

"No fucking way," I said.

Before I could rightly being to freak out, my door creaked open and my mother walked in with Lomys.

"Lyonel," my mother said with a fond exasperation, shaking her head. "I told you to stay in bed."

"At least it is not just me he always disobeys," the Maester said with an accompanying grumble.

I don't believe I'd ever seen the man cheerful.

He crossed the room, his chain rattling beneath his grey robes, and I was still too busy wrapping my head around what my appearance met to object to the old man's calloused hand roughly grasping my wrist to take my pulse.

"All boys have a rebellious spirit at his age," my mother said, waving a hand in dismissal. She smoothed out the layered green and gold of her dress and sat upon my bed. "It's a good thing." She winked at me, brown eyes sparkling with affection.

The maester just scoffed.

"Makes it no less of a pain to deal with. Open." Lomys tapped my chin and I obliged, saying "ah" and all. Lomys hummed, then nodded. "Fever's broken, and there are no signs of inflammation." He turned toward my mother. "Your boy will be fine, my lady. If you'll excuse me."

He was halfway out the door before my mother could finish saying thank you.

"Well." She spared a frown toward Lomys' back before focusing back on me, her usual smile in place. "I know your cousins Margaery and Desmera will be overjoyed you're back on your feet. Just this morning they were pestering Maester Lomys to wake you so they could play come-into-my-castle properly."

She seemed so at ease in that moment that I almost hesitated before asking the question, but I needed to know.

"Mother," I said, and something in my voice drained the cheer from her face. Still, I pressed on. "Who is my father?"

She studied my eyes for a good twenty seconds, running nervous hands through her brunette curls, before sighing. "Mother always warned me it was only a matter of time before you asked. I've never known her to be wrong. Come." She patted the bed next to her and I obligingly sat down. She wrapped an arm around my shoulders and rested her cheek on my head.

"It was only a few months after the rebellion ended that King Robert and the new Queen Cersei were touring along the Mander from Tumbleton all the way to Brightwater Keep. The day they arrived at Highgarden was the first day I met your father," she said.

I tensed, my suspicious all but confirmed.

"And no man leaves an impression quite like Stannis Baratheon."

Wait, I thought, incredulous. What!?

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Threadmarks Interlude - Stannis I

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#2

The Feast of Highgarden

283 AC

They mock me, Stannis thought, gripping his goblet hard enough that the silver threatened to bend. They know they must.

For countless months he had been forced to watch the encamped Tyrell host feast with taunting cheer as he and his outlasted them, wasting away in starvation in the besieged Storm's End. At the wars end, Stannis had hoped never to see the likes of Mace Tyrell or Paxter Redwyne in good cheer ever again.

Yet here he was, not four moons later, subjected to participating in their folly by Robert's request.

And one did not refuse their king.

His jaw clenched, and Stannis took a deep drink to keep his teeth from cracking. The overly sweet honeywine cloyed at his throat.

"And then I spotted the royal prick in the shallows!" Robert's bellowing voice carried from the center of the high table. His cheeks were flushed from drink after the servants had only just taken away the first course – a medley of clams, muscles, scallops, and oysters from Oldtown.

"A course each for all the Reach has to offer!" Tyrell had boasted not five minutes after greeting their party.

The fat lord of Highgarden now sat to Robert's left, staring at the king with rapt attention. As if he was not about to hear about how the man he followed into war had died a gruesome death.

"Then it was if the seven themselves spurred me on," Robert continued. "And I knew no man could stop me from unleashing my fury!" He lifted a full stein to the cheers of the contingent of stormlander men in the hall.

Renly's men.

Stannis stabbed at his saffron carrots with more intensity than strictly necessary.

"Not even the kingsguard," Robert said after draining his cup. Behind the king, Ser Barristan stiffened. "Ser Jonothor Darry fell in just two blows before my wrath."

And his brother escaped mine.

A page in Redwyne colors refreshed Stannis wine, and he drank deep despite the sweetness.

"All say Prince Rhaegar was an able swordsman," Mace's wife asked from beside the queen. Lady Alerie clutched her hands as if she did not know the outcome of the story. "It must have been a terrible battle, Your Grace."

A shadow passed over Robert's face.

"None are so mighty as my husband," Cersei Lannister said, all smiles as she reached to grip one of Robert's hands in her own.

"Aye he put up a fight, but that only made it all the sweeter when the back of my hammer caved through his chest." Robert took another drink. "I shall never again experience a moment so sweet as seeing the bastard's broken body at my feet."

"It was then we knew the gods were with you, Your Grace!" Paxter Redwyne said from a lower table before a silence had a chance to form in the wake of the king's words.

If Redwyne felt the force of Stannis' glare from the far end of the high table, he made no indication.

"Here here!" His wife, heavy with child, declared.

Robert preened like a peacock from the praise as men around the hall drank with vigor.

Stannis swirled the remnants of his wine around his goblet before setting it aside.

"Here," the woman beside him spoke for the first time that evening, breaking what had been a thankful respite from pleasantries. "It would do no good for a prince not to drink to his king, bad wine or no."

The Queen of Thorns placed a goblet in front of him, full of a clear yellow liquid. He gave her a hard look, but she just quirked a brow and leaned her head toward the hall at large.

There were scattered men focused on him, whispering to themselves.

Tsk. Stannis took the offered goblet and draining it, finding it tart with lemon and spices he could not identify.

The curious eyes turned away.

"A Lyseni drink," she said. "I find it bracing."

He nodded to Lady Olenna, but said nothing.

She seemed as content in silence as he, as neither spoke through the remaining courses.

It did nothing to improve his mood, as every jape and shared praise passed between Robert and the reacher lords proved to stoke Stannis' anger and frustration to the point where he felt the heat radiate from his skin as his blood burned in the effort to contain it.

When the last of the fig tarts were eaten, Tyrell called for the singers and band to begin playing in earnest and begged Cersei for a dance. Only then did Stannis judge he would be able to slip away without protest.

He found an alcove that led to a balcony far enough away for the festivities to be a distant echo he could put out of his mind.

The cool air did little to soothe his heated skin and Stannis braced himself on the balcony railing, looking over the miles of gardens and farmland illuminated by the light of the full moon. The Reach seemed a land of plenty, untouched by the war.

He grimaced in distaste and, unbidden, his eyes drifted to the northeast. Where his new home lay beyond the horizon.

"You'll guard my realm for me, brother!" Robert had said with cheer, as if he had not ripped Storm's End away from Stannis' hands. "We'll get you married and a Baratheon will hold that bloody rock for all time."

Dragonstone, he thought. My duty. My punishment.

He cursed the gods for the storm that delayed them and let Willem Darry escape from Dragonstone with the last Targaryen children. For Robert's pettiness. For Mace Tyrell's very existence.

For being forced into a marriage to appease the lords outraged because Robert could not bring himself to punish his enemies.

His entire body shook in his anger, his knuckles going white as his gripped the banister.

He took deep breaths in an attempt to clear his head, but found it ineffective.

"My prince?"

He snapped his attention toward the hesitant voice, and the woman flinched, brown eyes going wide before she looked down, demure.

"I had hoped to speak to you," she said, clutching at the muted gold fabric of her skirts. "I'm Janna Tyrell, Lord Mace's-"

"Go away," he said, letting everything he was feeling shine clear in his voice. She flinched back again.

Stannis turned his back on her.

He heard her shuffle behind him. "I know it must be difficult for you. To be here after-"

She made the mistake to try and touch his arm, and he spun, quick as a flash, and grabbed her wrist in an iron gripped.

She squeaked in surprise, and for a mad moment Stannis felt the impulse to throw her over the edge. To force Mace Tyrell to feel a fraction of the grief and suffering he had caused.

But then a strong gust of wind blew Janna Tyrell's brown curls back, exposing the clear skin of her neck and turning Stannis' thoughts in another direction entirely.

Her free hand reached up to cup his cheek, guiding his gaze back to hers.

She smiled, hesitant, inviting, and gorgeous in the moonlight.

He kissed her, rough and forceful and full of every raging emotion this day had brought upon him. She did not balk at his intensity, and Stannis allowed himself to be selfish.

Just once.

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Threadmarks Lyonel II

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#4

The revelation of my father's identity spurred a chaotic need for me to figure out just how much or little I actually knew about the world from the stories I remembered. Maester Lomys bemusedly supplied me with his most recent copy of Genealogies of the Great Houses – under his supervision – and I spent hours scouring the text.

And now that I recalled printed text, reading handwritten books was a frustrating exercise in and of itself.

My brief bout with panic proved unnecessary, though, when I found the entries for the latest Baratheons. Stannis had still married Selyse Florent – less than a month after my mother said they met, in fact – and Shireen had been born in 289 AC, which matched up with the dates, as far as I could remember. Perusing the other great houses found all the Stark children, Robert's not-kids, and other characters I recalled in place and accounted for.

Satisfied that my presence had not already thrown the world into chaos and robbed me of my only advantage in this world, I put my need for the full story of how Stannis Baratheon forgot his honor on the back burner, settled back in my chambers for the night and tried to figure out what to do next.

It was early in 292 AC, just about a month after my eighth birthday, which meant I had at worst six years before the start of canon events, and nine at best if the timeline ended up matching the show's.

It was the first time I'd ever hoped the show would trump the books, canon-wise.

In either case I had a bit of time to figure out how to keep the realm strong enough to throw back the Walkers when the time came. Which meant I needed to thwart the War of the Five Kings. And stop Aegon VI and Dany. But I couldn't stop Dany, because dragons would be massively useful against an army of the dead, and – frankly – fuck slavery, so I should let that play out, right?

Even though that guaranteed a Targaryen invasion.

Fat chance on getting Robert to step down peacefully.

Would Stannis? Renly?

There were too many variables.

I let out a sigh and sat before my bed, laying out a quill, ink, and parchment on the ground. Wish I knew how pens worked...

In big, bold, messy letters I wrote – in English, not Westerosi – the words "Goal one: Survive," and underlined it repeatedly.

Beneath that I scratched out the words "training" and "learning" before setting my quill down and staring at the hilariously short list long enough for my legs to start to fall asleep.

It wasn't much in the way of detail, but there wasn't much an eight-year-old could do, let alone a bastard child. I thanked the stars that at least I wasn't reborn as a lowborn.

To enact any sort of change in the world, I would need influence. To get influence, I would need respect. And the only thing that was universally respected in Westeros was strength.

So, get a knighthood, then figure out how to change the world.

That next morning, just as the sun began to glow orange off the Mander, I walked into the training yard, straight up to the master-at-arms Ser Igon Vyrwell, and demanded to be trained with sword and lance.

Ser Igon favored him with a frown, stretching the twin scars that ran from his chin across his face to the left temple. "Not going to run off on us again?" He asked, sarcasm dripping from his words. Several of the men at arms laughed at my expense and I schooled my expression as best I could.

Before the memories of my other life came to me, I had been a rather timid child, and I could never hide my fear of Ser Igon's scarred visage. After less than an hour's training I found I preferred the kind company of my cousins to the men in the training yard, and that had not done wonders for my reputation, it seemed.

"I'm ready this time, Ser." I jutted out my jaw, matched his eyes with my best glare, and stood defiant.

"Won't be wasting mine just yet," the aging knight said with a sigh. "Loras!" He barked my cousin's name over his shoulder, and the boy came jogging up, his green training leathers standing out against everyone else's dull brown.

"Ser?" He asked the knight, shooting me an incredulous glance.

"Little Lyonel here thinks he wants to fight again." I barely contained my scoff at the nickname. Loras was two years older than me, but I already matched his height. "You're to spar with him. Don't hold back."

In short order Loras and I faced each other in one corner of the yard under Vyrwell's bored gaze. I had been provided a wooden sword to match my cousin's, but no armor. I decided then that Ser Igon might just be a bit of a dick.

"Begin!"

Loras mouthed 'sorry' to me before he dutifully followed the Ser's orders. I tried my best to keep up, searching both lives' memories for any reference on swordplay, but the fact of the matter was Loras was both older than me and had been training for three years already.

And was a damn natural besides.

I was in the mud with a sword to my neck in less than ten seconds.

Vyrwell laughed. "Still think you wan-"

"Again!" I yelled out the word and rolled to my feet, ignoring the throbbing in my leg where Loras had struck me.

My cousin looked at me like I'd grown a second head, but took his stance nonetheless.

I lasted seven seconds this time.

"Again," I demanded once more. And did so each time Loras knocked me down for the full morning drill.

By the time it was over, I felt like a giant bruise, but Ser Igon looked me over with a new, speculative eye.

"I expect you back here tomorrow, Storm," was all he said before leaving Loras and I to our devices.

"I hope he doesn't have me do this every day," Loras said, throwing one of my arms over his shoulder. "It's no fun to just beat you bloody."

I laughed, which turned into a cough. "I'll just beat you tomorrow."

He snorted.

"Maybe in your dreams, cousin."

"I'll get better every day, you'll see."

And so I did.

Most boys trained at swords with dreams of being great knights, to become a hero worthy of the songs. This seemed to motivate them well enough, but I knew what was coming.

War, against mortal and supernatural alike, was never going to be a pretty picture. The only guaranteed way of surviving was to not take part. The second best chance was to be as close to godlike with a blade as possible. To get onto the level of the legends like Barristan the Bold, Arthur Dayne, or Jaime Lannister.

The greats all had to start somewhere, and so I took to swordplay like it was a damned religion.

I was in that yard every morning and evening. I spent hours pouring over history tomes, focusing on warcraft, famous battles, and the strategies of history's best generals. I pressed grumpy old Maester Lomys with question after question during our lessons to the point that I believed only my sudden and excellent grasp of numbers and language kept him from throwing me out in annoyance.

When Margaery and Desmera demanded my time (they were the two least thrilled about my change in priorities, but the Lyonel that was their lackey was gone forever), I convinced them that we should go riding instead of playing the games they were so fond of, just so I could have an excuse to get better used to being ahorse. Racing and hawking proved to be entertaining enough, besides.

Within nine months I was good enough to never lose to anyone of an age with me, and could hold my own against Loras to a point where I averaged a win every three or so bouts.

I enjoyed the routine well enough until the turn of the year threw a reminder in my face that canon was coming.

Lord Bryce Caron of Nightsong had thrown together a tourney both to celebrate the year's end and – according to my mother – to have a chance to show off for a potential match with the great houses of the Stormlands, Reach, or Dorne.

My lord uncle had sent both Willas and Garlan – both just squires – to represent House Tyrell despite their inexperience.

I did not think much of it at the time, understanding my lord uncle's desire to show off his elder sons. Garlan was a straight up monster in the yard, always sparring against knights twice his age or against multiple foes, and Willas was far from a slouch himself.

But then the raven arrived, bearing news that while Garlan earned a knighthood, Willas became a cripple after his horse collapsed on top of him during a tilt with Oberyn Martell.

It was the only time I'd seen Mace Tyrell truly in a rage, and truth be told half the castle found out about Willas due to the lord's shouting and cursing of the Dornish Prince that evening in the small family feasting hall once he was into his cups.

"Would you have us end up like the Greyjoys?" my grandmother demanded of Mace when I was convinced he was a hairsbreadth away from having Lomys send for the banners for a march on Dorne. "The Reach is not strong enough to fight six kingdoms at once." Her acidic tone broke through the fog of anger and I saw something break behind his eyes.

"Something must be done," he said, his hand shaking so badly wine spilled over the rim of his goblet. "He is my son..." His voice cracked and I spotted tears brimming before he downed his wine and left the hall without another word.

Alerie watched her husband go, clutching Margaery and a protesting Loras close. I sympathized with my cousin, as my mother had been hovering me since the news arrived as well.

It took two months and Willas' return to lift the somber mood the clung around the castle. Despite barely being able to bend his left leg anymore, the eldest Tyrell child was all smiles and japes, waving away any and all concern.

"It seems this is what the gods want for me," he told me one day not long after returning when we were both studying in Maester Lomys' chambers and I chanced questioning his constant cheery demeanor. "It would do me no good to lament what cannot be changed, would it?"

"I suppose not," I answered.

My respect for my eldest cousin grew tremendously that day, but my guilt at not figuring out a way to change his fate – not even expecting it to happen so soon – persisted.

"Besides," he said, snapping his book shut and tapping mine, open to a page depicting Ser Duncan the Tall facing off against the Laughing Storm. "I was never much interested in fighting. I'll leave that to you and my brothers."

He left not long after, managing to mostly hide his grimace as he limped along with his cane.

I returned to my book, thoughts churning on how to accomplish any meaningful change, with my cousin's optimism acting as a boon I had not realized I'd needed.

"Ser Garlan," I said the next day, deepening my voice as much as I could. My cousin looked up from sliding a whetstone along his blade. The steel somehow gleamed despite the gray light of the morning.

"Cousin?" He tilted his head to the side, looking me up and down with a quirked brow.

My training leathers may not have been as grand as Loras', but an hour spent cleaning the set that morning had it as bright as brown could be. A waste of time, considering I'd be landing in the mud within ten minutes, but presentation was everything in that moment.

I drew the dull steel of my training sword, flipping it to a reverse grip with a lazy circle of my wrist before planting it in the ground in front of him.

"Seeing to your new status," I said with as confident a smile I could manage. "I had thought you may be in need of a squire."

Garlan blinked at me for a moment before his chest rumbled in a laugh as he stood.

In full mail at his considerable, with his Tyrell curls pulled back into a bun, and the shadow of a beard along his chin, Garlan looked every part a knight far beyond his modest sixteen years.

"I would not go easy on you," Garlan said at length, scratching at his new whiskers. "Family or no."

How kind of him to give me an out.

"I can't be great if I don't try my best."

Garlan laughed again, smile brighter than his freshly honed blade.

"Then pick up your sword," he said, whirling his around to loosen up his shoulder. "And let us begin."

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Threadmarks Lyonel III

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#5

One flaw I was self aware enough to acknowledge from my first life was my tendency to get overconfident any time I became somewhat competent with a new skill.

When it came to swordplay, Garlan ground that notion out of me within a day.

Three months later and I was convinced I was pure shit.

At least while I was on my back I got a gorgeous view of the rising sun painting the forest of apple trees orange and pink on either side of the road. My stomach grumbled as I spotted a choice fruit the size of my fist, mottled gold and green.

"Where did you go wrong this time?" The giant form of Garlan took over my field of vision. His skin was flushed with a sheen of sweat, and I took solace in the fact that it took him some effort to kick my ass at this point.

"Fell for your feint."

"Again," he agreed dryly. He offered a hand and hoisted me up like a feather. "You get too aggressive when you think you have an advantage," he told me for the millionth time. "You need-"

"Patience, I know." I ran a hand through my sweat-soaked hair and grimaced, trying not to imagine how bad I smelled.

"Then show me." Garlan assumed a squared stance, longsword held diagonal across his frame.

I took a breath and readied myself. During my training in Highgarden's yard, aggression was often enough to put my opponents on the backfoot and win a spar, and always was encouraged by Ser Igon. Given that Loras, who I knew to be an excellent fighter from the books, used that style, I hadn't thought much of it.

And so I brought those months and months and months of habit in fighting Garlan, for him to turn around and tell me I'd get myself killed that way.

And knowing that Garlan was supposed to be as close to top tier as one could be without being Jaime Lannister or Barristan the Bold, I did not doubt the truth of his words.

But it was like fighting Obi-Wan Kenobi. An impenetrable wall of defense until I overextended and then it was over in a blink.

Sure enough, after a half dozen strikes and despite trying to keep my feet moving, Garlan caught the edge of my sword on his crossguard, twirled his wrists a bit and caught my side with the flat of his blade in a counter riposte.

Son of a bitch! I thought, hopping away while holding my side. That's going to bruise.

"Better," Garlan noted with a genuine smile. "But tomorrow we'll focus on your footwork." He sheathed his sword and I let out a long breath, grimacing as my new injury throbbed with the effort. "Need our friend to take a look at that?"

"I'll be fine. It's just another reminder of how far I have to go."

Garlan quirked a brow in consideration but only shrugged.

"Come on then," he said with a glance toward the sun just breaking over the treeline. "I want to be at speed again within an hour."

Garlan set out down the road at a light jog, meaning I had to go at a full run to keep up. Within five minutes we turned down a less-trodden road between the trees and came across the third member of our party right where we left him.

"Done with your morning training, m'lords?" Vormund asked as he filled a bucket of water from the babbling brook we set up camp besides.

It was a good thing that I'd gotten used to how little modesty there was on the road, as the man stood naked as his nameday in the water save for the rings of metal he wore on a hempen rope around his neck. Without waiting for our reply he hefted the bucket up and dumped it over his head.

"The water's bracing today!" The maester-in-training said a moment later, shaking the excess water out of his ashen hair and beard with a furious shake of the head.

"Could do for a swim," Garlan said, already stripping off his tunic. "But a wash will have to do."

I could not be sure if it was the case throughout the realm, but I took comfort at least the nobility in the Reach enjoyed the habit of bathing regularly.

"Aye," Vormund said, stepping out of the calf-deep water toward the dirt-brown robe hanging off his cart. "It's too bad it doesn't get deeper for a few miles closer to the Mander."

"Such is our fate," Garlan said with a false severity as he got to scrubbing.

Vormund laughed affably. "Lyonel lad, see to the ravens while I ready the horses?"

I paused halfway through shedding my own sweaty clothes to see holding out a hefty sack of feed. I bit back a protest at my own desire to be clean and took it, trudging over to the covered cart with no small amount of hesitation.

I'd never liked birds in my first life, and dealing with the creatures beneath the canvas had not endeared me to them at all.

"Good morning you creepy assholes," I said under my breath while yanking the canvas from the cage.

A cacophony of bird cries killed the tranquility of the morning in a mishmash of random one syllable words and pure cawing.

The latticed metal was built directly into the cart, towering seven feet tall and five feet deep. Inside, exactly three dozen ravens joined together in harmony to create their racket until I threw fistful after fistful of the seed and grain mixture into the multiple feeding bowls. Chaos quieted to a racket as they got to eating. It amused me that the ravens flocked together in groups matching the color of the bands on their talons.

Even birds stuck with their cliques, I supposed.

Job done, I raced away from the cage before they could do their staring thing.

Twenty minutes later and we were back on the road south to New Barrel, winding between the orchards that gave the Fossoways their sigils.

Garlan and Vormund made easy conversation as they had throughout the trip while I trailed behind both on my little rounsey. It suited me fine enough, as it gave me more than enough time with my own thoughts.

The entire assignment had been one of leisure save for training. Mace had sent us up the Roseroad all the way to Tumbleton, intent on having us retrieve the ravens from six Tyrell vassals on the way back, while delivering the ones raised in Highgarden.

It was not something I thought too much about before, but there was almost always a maester (or trainee, as with Vormund) on the road somewhere with the mundane but crucial task of delivering ravens between castles. Since the birds only remembered the castle they were raised in, it was a constant effort by the maesters to keep every castle stocked with ravens for every other holding in the kingdom.

Guarding such a convoy fell to hedge knights or basic men-at-arms, so it was a tad overkill for Garlan to be assigned to it.

Doubly so since he opted to go fully decked out in full plate whenever we rode, the steel polished so thoroughly it seemed silver under the sun. Between his personal twin roses emblazoned on his surcoat and his destrier caparisoned in gold and green, no passerby could mistake the imposing figure as a scion of House Tyrell.

I suspected this whole thing was Mace's oh so subtle way of saying "Hey vassals, I still have a son poised and ready to fight for my house, so don't get any funny ideas."

Which I got, but it still sucked considering how brilliant I knew Willas could be.

But Mace will be Mace.

"Lyonel!"

I blinked, coming back to the present at Garlan's muffled shout. He looked over his shoulder toward me and I imagined a look of mild annoyance behind his helm.

"Sorry?"

I fought down a blush at having been caught lost in thought. While these roads never seemed to be altogether dangerous, Garlan made me pay for complacency the next day during training.

"The Ser was just saying you're a right smart one with history," Vormund said, with a laugh. "But I reckon the archmaester would have a thing or two to say about your focus!"

"We're working on that," Garlan noted dryly, facing forward once more.

"Can't be helped at his age. Mind's always looking to the next most interesting thing. Why, I was about his age when I started at the Citadel, but I didn't forge my first link for three years 'cause I couldn't keep to one topic long enough!"

He pulled at the black iron link in his small chain, rattling it around. Several of the ravens cawed at the sound, and Garlan remained quiet, shaking his head.

"For ravenry, correct?" I asked.

"Aye. But it's copper that concerns me at the moment. The archmaester demands a treatise on," Vormund paused, puffing himself up and deepening his voice in a mocking manner. ""The underlying causes the First Blackfyre Rebellion." Wrong son got a sword and the whole realm went to shit. What else is there to say?"

I wondered if it would ever feel normal that all the 'useless' knowledge I had about this world was now very much applicable to the day to day.

"Well it all goes back to the Young Dragon, really. Dorne-"

I was cut off by a boy no older than five burst from the orchard, laughing and looking behind him until he ran straight into Garlan's horse and fell flat on his ass.

I jumped from my horse and rushed to the boy even as Garlan pulled his reins hard to the right to avoid crushing the kid under a literal ton of horse.

Vormund yanked the cart to a stop as I dragged the child out from beneath Garlan's destrier, and I took some solace in the ravens crying more than the kid.

"Are you alright?" I pulled him to his feet and started checking him over for injuries. Other than an unkempt mop of blond hair and splotchy cheeks, he seemed unharmed.

"You're a knight!" He said with all the wonder in the world, staring at Garlan over my shoulder with eyes full of stars.

"And you're a fool, lad!" Vormund yelled from his cart, holding a hand to his chest with a grimace. "What's got on your ass that you're running like a madman?"

But the kid ignored him, still with eyes only for Garlan. "Have you fought in any tourneys? I've heard a bunch of stories and can't wait to see one myself! Father says there might be one for the wedding!"

He said it all in a single breath with all the excitable incomprehension only children and fanatics could muster.

"Easy there child." Garlan kept his voice light, but I could hear the strained edge to it. "Is he unharmed, Lyonel?"

"Seems to be." I snapped my fingers in front of the kid's doe-eyes. "What's your name, kid?"

His face soured. "You're a kid, too!"

"Older than you," I said, deadpan.

"So?"

Ugh, children…

"It's only knightly to name yourself once asked," Garlan said from the saddle.

The kid puffed himself up in an admirable likeness to a peacock. "I'm the heir!"

Vormund snorted.

With his self important stance, I could see a shield embroidered on his grass and dirt stained tunic; gold, quartered with 4 apples alternating green and red.

"Fossoway," I said. "Just not sure which Fossoway."

"Both!" The kid supplied.

"Helpful."

"Simon!"

A woman's shout preceded another pair of people to come rushing from within the orchard's thicket. The first skidded to a halt, falling to her knees to wrap the Fossoway kid into a hug despite his protests. The second woman hovered nearby, clutching her cloth skirts as she tried to catch her breath.

"Lady Leonette!"

Garlan raced to dismount his horse and almost stumbled as made to remove his helm and bow at the same time. An actual blush tinted his cheeks when he stood back up.

"Ser Garlan," Leonette returned the greeting with surprised joy in her voice.

Huh, I thought, looking between them as Leonette stood.

She was of an age with Garlan, if I had to guess. Petite and lithe, only coming to Garlan's chest, with delicate features and honey-colored hair she kept in braid coiled at the back of her head, but it was her eyes that drew the focus; big and bright and green.

I understood why Garlan was stricken.

"Mayhaps we should be gettin' back to the castle, m'lady," the other woman said, tutting as she looked Leonette over. "You'll have to change your dress."

Her words broke the two from their staring contest and Leonette looked down to see the splotch of brown marring the otherwise unbroken gold.

"So I will," she said with a self-deprecating laugh. She dipped her head toward Garlan in a bow. "Thank you for finding my nephew, Ser, but we should be going."

"Of course. Think nothing of it," Garlan said, his smitten smile still in place.

"But I want to stay with the knight!" Simon complained.

"We're a good few miles out from New Barrel," Vormund noted. "Mayhaps the ladies and heir should ride with us?" He jerked a thumb toward the blissfully quiet ravens.

"Yes!" Garlan agreed, Vormund's leading tone seeming to bring him back to the present. "We are heading in that direction, in any case."

Leonette looked indecisive, worrying at her bottom lip.

"If it please you, m'lady, the walk is long and we've already been out longer than Ser Jon said to be."

"Plenty of room in the cart," Vormund said.

"And your lady-in-waiting can use my horse, my lady," I said with a deferential bow. Garlan shot me an approving look from the corner of my eye.

Leonette's indecision gave way to a soft smile.

"Such chivalry should not be refused."

Such was how Leonette and Simon piled onto the cart next to our maester-in-training while I ended up on foot, leading my rounsey by hand.

"I thank the Seven that the little lord found you when he did," the maid said in a low voice. She rid sidesaddle, massaging her feet with a grimace. "When my lady said we were to take a stroll, I had not imagined she meant the entirety of Ser Jon's lands!"

Up ahead Leonette and Garlan were making conversation both boring and polite, yet each wore a smile all the same.

It was telling that Garlan kept his helm off.

"She do things like this often?"

"Only of late." She cracked a spot on her foot and groaned in sheer relief. "You're a good lad, letting an old woman ride in your stead. What was your name again?"

She could not have been more than thirty, without a speck of grey in her brunette curls, but it seemed impolite to bring up.

"Lyonel. Yours?"

"Rila."

"Good to meet you Rila."

She smiled and went about working on her other foot.

Within an hour the orchard trees thinned enough to see New Barrel and its small castle town growing in the distance, surrounded by vegetable fields in every direction.

It was a small castle by Westerosi standards, with only a single curtain wall to protect its keep, which sported just a modest pair of towers that paled in comparison to the height of Highgarden's smallest. But such was to be expected from knightly house, and one that was relatively young at that.

And only a fool would dismiss the wealth these lands brought to the green apple Fossoways.

The closer we approached the castle, though, I noticed the more strained Leonette's face grew even as Simon was happily chatting away to Garlan about everything New Barrel had to offer.

Foreboding twisted in my gut.

We made it through the gate and were met with a woman of an age with my mother striding across the open yard just short of a run; the bright red apple broach giving away her identity. A pair of maids trailed after her, lifting their skirts to keep pace.

"Simon!" She plucked the boy from Leonette's lap the moment he was within arms reach and pulled him close. The two shared the same shade of blonde, and the kid made much less of a fuss than he had with Leonette.

"Lady Fossoway," Garlan greeted after a moment of being nonplussed. "It has been some time."

The woman seemed to recall herself and stood straight, still keeping Simon on her hip.

"Ser Garlan," she said, glancing over our party. "I offer you both congratulations on your knighthood and my thanks for finding my wayward goodsister."

"I was hardly wayward, Alys." Leonette took Vormund's proffered hand to help her down from the cart. "The day was so lovely and my company so lively that we simply lost track of the hours."

Alys regarded Leonette with a deadpan look that screamed she wanted to call bullshit, but instead let it pass.

"In any case, you are expected in my lord husband's solar." She looked Leonette up and down. "And do make yourself presentable."

Leonette tightened her jaw, but did not argue. She turned to us and dipped her head.

"I thank you once again for your aid," she said, voice strained. "But I must offer my farewells for now. Vormund, Lyonel, Ser Garlan." She offered us each a nod in turn, but would not meet our eyes.

"My lady..." Garlan said in a gentle, concerned voice, taking a step forward.

Leonette matched it with a step back. "Goodbye, Ser."

She turned on her heel and strode to the keep with all the restrained haste her goodsister had shown on the way out. Rila trailed after her with a muttered "Oh, seven hells..."

Garlan looked like a kicked puppy and the knot in my stomach tightened.

"Shall you be needing to speak to my lord husband as well, Ser?" Lady Alys asked, regarding Garlan with a raised brow.

"Yes," Garlan said after a moment of collecting his thoughts.

"I can show you the way!"

"The only place you're going is to bathe," Alys said with a stern rebuke, handing the pouting child off to one of her maids. "If you would follow me, Ser?"

"Of course." He stood stiff, now, his tone formal. "And if you would be so kind as to have someone guide Vormund to the rookery?"

The maester-in-training had kept quiet against his nature and lowered his head in deference when Lady Alys' attention turned to him.

"Wylla will show you the way," she said, and with a snap of her fingers the remaining maid was guiding Vormund away. "Now." She gestured toward the keep and Garlan fell in step beside her while I trailed behind, choking on the awkward atmosphere.

The solar was mercifully only a short way into the castle, and Alys ushered us in after only a quick knock.

Like everything else about New Barrel, the lord's solar was small compared to every other one I'd seen, but it was roomy enough to serve its purpose. A fireplace dominated the far wall, unlit on this muggy summer's day, above which hung a portrait of an armored knight ahorse with a shield bearing the Fossoway green apple. The rest of the walls were covered by a mural of a tree bearing the same fruit, it's branches weaving over the walls in random patterns.

Westerosi themes were always on point, I mused.

"My lords," Alys said, as Ser Jon was not alone. The knightly lord of the castle sat at the head of a table hewn from mahogany, gazing at Garlan with an expression of distinct annoyance. With his receding hairline and greying goatee, he must have had at least fifteen years on his sister. "May I present Ser Garlan Tyrell and his squire..."

"Lyonel Storm, my lady," I provided as she trailed off.

Ser Jon's eyes snapped from Garlan to me and annoyance morphed into naked anger before the knight hid it behind a cool facade, grinding his teeth hard enough that even Stannis would take note.

I took a step back at the open hostility until the reasoning clicked in the back of my mind.

Oh, I thought. Oh shit.

By his wince, Garlan figured out our faux pas as well.

"Ser Garlan!" Ser Jon's guest broke the tension with a jovial greeting. He stood from the table and matched Garlan in height. He had an air of of confidence about him, marking him either skilled or privileged. "It is good to see you. How does your brother fare?"

"He heals well," Garlan reached out a hand and grasped the man's in a firm shake. "I admit I am surprised to see you hear, Lord Caron."

The Lord of Nightsong smiled, genuine and with anticipation.

"It was a sudden thing, in truth. Ser Jon and I were just toasting to a finalized negotiation."

"Oh?" Garlan led, looking back Ser Jon, who had yet to even rise.

The man spoke with a tone as cold as his gaze. "Lord Caron and my dear sister are to be wed within a moon's turn."

Garlan had been off his game since we'd ran across Leonette in the orchards, which I was sure was the only reason his hurt flashed across his face clear as day.

He retreated behind courtesy in a flash.

"I offer you my sincerest congratulations, then."

"I take it gladly," Lord Caron said with a hearty laugh. "But I overstep myself, you had business with Ser Jon, did you not?"

"Yes." Garlan focused on Ser Jon. "My lord father sent me along with several ravens raised in Highgarden to replenish your flock, and asks that should you have any issues that require the aid of House Tyrell, state them, and I shall gladly return to my father with word."

It was the same speech Garlan had given to every lord we met on our journey, and it was always welcomed with jovial approval and an offer to stay the night as the lord's guest.

Such was not the case today.

"If I have need of House Tyrell, I will send one of my new ravens. Now, if you'll excuse us to finish our business?"

All else aside, it was ballsy to dismiss your overlord's son so out of hand. Even Lord Caron's demeanor cracked against the blatant disrespect.

"My lords," Garlan said with the shallowest of nods, and we left, not even waiting for Lady Alys to guide us out.

Disrespect beget disrespect.

We caught up with Vormund and were back on the road within twenty minutes, where Vormund had sensed the mood and opted to ride behind us while he easygoing camaraderie we had developed replaced by sullen silence.

It had somehow never occurred to me that my unmarried mother may not have been so single in the original timeline. Only Jon Fossoway's anger at seeing me reminded me that he and Janna had been married in the stories I knew. The only explanation for his fury hinted at a betrayal, which probably meant Janna was promised to Jon right about the time she met Stannis.

And a betrothed getting pregnant by another man would kill an engagement pretty much every time. And leave one hell of a grudge moving forward.

It was no small injustice with how little it affected the reverse.

I glanced at Garlan's forlorn expression and bit back a sigh.

Just my being born had caused a ripple I could not control that cost one of the better men I knew a marriage that was by all accounts a happy one.

"I am sorry about Lady Leonette."

The words would do little, but Garlan still managed to work his expression into a smile.

"Do not linger on the thought, cousin. It was just a childhood infatuation, nothing more."

Telling him just how wrong he was would accomplish nothing, so I held my tongue.

We rode on.

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Dreyden90

Apr 26, 2019

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Dreyden90

Dreyden90

Apr 26, 2019

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#6

Life as a squire to a knight of Garlan's growing reputation proved to be a one of constant motion. Garlan only chose to return to Highgarden sparingly, and never for more than a fortnight at a time. Keeping the peace, taking on missions great and small, tourneys, and half a dozen other knightly responsibilities befit of the second son of a great lord took up the majority of our time until I was certain Garlan had treated with have the Reach.

Gaining favor with most, and at least the respect of the rest.

I stood just behind him for it all, but only a precious few lords ever took note of me.

"And your squire." Those like the stout and shrewd Lord Mathis Rowan would note, eyeing my features and doubtlessly placing my likeness. "How did he avail himself?"

"Well enough," Garlan would always reply with a critical eye my way. "But he still has far to go."

"I do my best to preserve the King's Justice," was my practiced reply. Always delivered with a sincere smile and a humble nod. "Any new challenge is a welcomed test."

A good first impression was well worth its weight in gold for me, and was well worth every second spent cleaning Garlan's armor or tending the horses.

Time pressed ever forward, though, and by the time around my fourteenth nameday, the ever-present worry in the back of my mind grew into a constant internal voice shouting "Canon is coming."

I needed freedom of movement, and maybe then I could finally figure out how exactly I was going to change the timeline.

"Knighthood?" Garlan asked with plain incredulity the one time I broached the subject around the campfire. "Even Arthur Dayne and the Kingslayer did not earn their spurs until their fifteenth nameday. Loras only earned his this past year. You are but four-and-ten, cousin, have patience." He bit into his hare then, leaving no quarter for grease to run into his beard. "Your time will come."

It was a reasonable observation and sage advice, but it was already 298 AC. The story I knew had a very real chance of starting.

And if I was still attached to Garlan's hip, the soonest I could possibly have a say would be when Renly came to Highgarden, proposing both marriage and a kingship.

And how could a simple bastard hope to stop that when the ball was already rolling, royal blood or no?

So it was that I sat ahorse atop up a hill one morning on the misty island of Greyshield, determined to earn that knighthood in the coming conflict.

"They do make a sight, don't they?" Jarrett Leygood said from my right.

We were of a height despite him being four years my senior. Jarrett wore orange enameled plate over blackened chainmail, the three sable thunderbolts of his house painted across his breastplate. He would look the image of a knight if not for how the color of his armor clashed with the blood red shade of his hair and an unfortunate case of acne that marred his youthful face.

"That they do," I agreed, looking to the six knights waiting on the crest of the hill with their gazes turned to the sea. Garlan was joined by Ser Garth Grimm, son of the Lord of Greyshield, along with two hedge sworn to House Grimm, Sers Dantis and Nestar. Ser Erren Florent had met us at the shores north of Brightwater Keep, and Ser Arnol Oakheart – to whom Jarrett squired – had been riding with Garlan and me for some months now.

All were fully armored in plate, atop destriers similarly fully armored, with lances held at the ready.

Compared to them, I felt as if I were a boy playing pretend with my mail and leather ensemble that was already beginning to feel too tight.

"You grow too fast," Garlan had complained not long ago. "We'll dress you in plate once your growth spurts have stopped."

"I would wager Ser Arnol will bring a half dozen ironborn down low on his own," Jarrett said.

"Ser Garlan could do the same with ease."

Jarrett laughed. "Whomevers Ser takes out less owes the other a favor, yeah?"

I shot him a conspiratorial grin and nod despite the bubbling anxiety in my belly. In the short time I'd known him, Jarrett's favorite form of distraction proved to be gambling – if only with chores rather than gold.

Squires did not boast much of in income.

"Sails!" Garlan shouted then, and each of the knights pulled their horses about, trotting in our direction just beneath the southern crest of the hill.

"Our friend wasn't lying," Jarrett said with some surprise.

I glanced behind me to the ironborn man held firm between two men-at-arms, Relief pulled at his features beneath the purples, greens, and yellows of his many bruises.

"Taking the black is better than facing the gallows," I said.

Jarrett clicked his tongue in disagreement. "At least the seven hells are warm."

"Tallard!" Ser Garth spoke now, the knights having come abreast of us. "As discussed."

The shorter of the two Grimm men gave a sharp nod and raced up the hill and lay himself flat on the crest, hands shadowing his eyes as he observed the small fishing town I knew rested on the other side.

"And if the day looks lost," Ser Erren said to the other. "Gut the bastard and ride for Grimston."

The ironborn man fell to his knees, muttering prayers beneath his breath.

"Aye, m'lord," his guard said.

"Ready yourselves," Garlan said to Jarrett and I as the knights formed rank to our left. I spared a look to my fellow squire, who shot me a cocky grin before donning his greathelm. I let out a low breath and adjusted my halfhelm before closing my eyes and waiting.

I was hardly a stranger to combat, but there was a distinct difference between fighting a brigand or a pair of cutpurses and facing down three score rogue ironborn.

Even on such a small scale, battle were chaos, and all the skill in the world could not save you from a lucky shot.

My fist tightened around my lance and I cleared my head. What-ifs could only do so much good.

The echoing rumble of waves crashing to shore was interrupted by the creaking of wood of what I knew would be three longships coming to land.

"For the glory of the Drowned God!" Came a shout, followed by the echoing battle cry of dozens of voices working in tandem.

We waited. Five seconds. Ten.

Tallard took a horn from his belt and gave a long bellow, drowning out the sound of our horses to my ears as we all urged our mounts into a full gallop.

We crested the hill in the blink of an eye, racing down its other half with gravity aiding our speed.

The ironborn had already turned to face us, forming ranks on the beach below to meet our charge without fear.

It had to be a ridiculous sight, I thought. Eight men charging sixty.

But we now had their backs to the sleepy little hamlet, and Tallard gave two sharp blasts of his horn once we were within fifty feet of our enemies.

Twenty feet behind them burst a half a hundred men-at-arms from the town's outlying huts. A mix of Florent and Grimm men eager for bloodshed.

But then we were on them and I could only spare thoughts to what was right ahead of me.

My lance struck true, skewering two men together before it was yanked out of my hand. I drove my horse on, digging my heels hard into its flank and pulling my mace to bear from its saddle hook. It was a simple weapon – a shaft of reinforced ash topped with a ball of iron the size of my fist – and not my preferred, but it proved deadly enough when combined with my mount's momentum.

By the time I broke through the line I managed to strike at another three men, landing blows that felt solid even if I had no time to confirm a kill.

When I brought my horse around I saw that the battle was already turning into a rout, the bright colors worn by the reachman already outnumbered the dull greys of the ironborn. All sense of their formation had been shattered, but they still fought with reckless abandon.

I spotted Garlan on foot, his green armor caked with mud, as he defended against three reavers at the same time. His sword moved in a blur. Each failed to get past his defense.

I raced to his aid, the stench of blood and salt and shit assaulting my nose with every breath.

He felled one while I caught up. A swift strike to the back of one's neck from my mace evened the odds. Garlan kissed his steel to the third's neck only a moment later.

"Keep moving!" He shouted and rejoined the throng.

So I did.

I ran my horse ragged, waving my mace at every axe wielding pirate wannabe until my shoulders burned with the effort of it. At some point the longships caught flames and Jarrett's laughter rang over the battlefield, mad and joyous.

The ironmen were only heartened when their retreat went up in smoke.

But the writing was already on the wall.

There came a moment where I could not find a target that was not dead or being secured by my allies. Spinning my horse around in place, I only saw one ironborn still able and fighting Jarrett within a ring of onlooking reachmen.

"I know my future, greenlanders!" The ironborn dodged each of Jarrett's strikes, a whirl of hair and robes. "The Drowned God protects me!"

Jarrett's attacks grew more sluggish as the ironborn continued to dance just out of his longsword's range, and I put heel to my horse once more, intent on intervention.

But my friend overextended before I could, and his foe took advantage. The axe struck Jarrett's chest so hard the haft split into two.

My breath stole from my lungs at the sight, but I could not process what happened before Jarrett brought his longsword below, cutting clean through both the ironman's arms at the elbows.

Both fell to the ground.

I hopped off my horse and skidded down next to Jarret, whose gauntlets fumbled ineffectually at the clasps beneath his pauldrons.

"Gods this hurts more than Betha's five stag special." His breaths came in shallow, wheezing gasps that echoed from his helm. "Get this thing off of me."

"You're lucky to be alive," I said, noting the axe seemed to only be embedded a half inch or so. I made quick work of the clasps securing his breastplate and gingerly peeled the steel back. The chainmail beneath the butterflied metal had broken, but his skin was hardly nicked.

"The Mother watched over me." He took a deep breath, taken easily without his armor restricting him.

"I'd send your prayers to the Smith." I eyed the breastplate, crumpled and bowed inwards around the lodged axehead. Ruined now, but that blacksmith earned his gold.

"As long as the Maiden visits me to play nursemaid, I'll praise them all for the rest of the days." He poked at his cut like a child.

"Your piety is inspiring," I said, deadpan, and fell back on my ass as the adrenaline left my system.

I plopped right into a slurry of bloody sand.

My gut twisted, and I added its meager contents to the mess with a violent retch.

"The aftermath is always the worst of it," said Ser Erren Florent, approaching us and offering me a hand up. He'd removed his helmet, and the hair matted to his head had the unfortunate effect of making his overgrown ears all the more prominent.

"Yeah..."

I stared at the corpse of Jarrett's foe as Ser Erren go the squire to his feet. Blood still dribbled from the stumps of his arms.

I did not even remember if he screamed.

I turned to look across the battlefield through dull eyes. Dozens lay dead, mostly ironborn, waves already lapped at the stained sand, and the fires on the ironborn vessels had become a veritable inferno.

The battle had not even taken fifteen minutes, I realized, and I hadn't even drawn my sword. All evidence of the skirmish would be washed away with the tide within hours.

It inspired an empty sort of regret within me that begged the question "what was the purpose of this?" despite knowing how much damage we'd prevented.

An odd sense of disassociation, truth be told.

"Come," Ser Erren said. "There's still work to be done."

The longship pyre was joined by a second that evening as we burned the bodies of our enemies. Forty-two in all. Compared to the seven fallen reachmen, battle had been a textbook example of the importance of both surprise and superior positioning on the field.

Information won wars. I knew it now more than ever.

The four burned out villages on the coasts of the Florent's lands proved what the men we'd met could do, and I shuddered to think of how much damage they could have done had we not gotten lucky our captured man.

All so they could burn every sept they were ballsy enough to attack.

Ermund the Waterbreather, our prisoners named their leader. The way they told it, he was a lowborn man from Great Wyk who'd gained a following by making it a habit to drown himself on a weekly basis and never staying dead for more than a few heartbeats. He and his set out with the will to raid in the hearts. Not for gold or glory, but to spark a holy war.

The thought of it curled my lip.

I hated fanatics.

But their little tale of terror was over. Their leader was slain, and the hero received his just reward as we all were joined by the returning townsfolk that night at the edge of the beach to watch.

"Now rise," Ser Arnol intoned in a somber tone, all poise despite the bandages wrapped around his head and his newly crooked nose. "As Ser Jarrett Leygood. Knight of the Realm."

Arnol lifted his blade from Jarrett's shoulder and the scion of House Leygood rose to his feet, all smiles and cheer.

"It is a fine thing to see," Garlan said from my left, a relaxed smile on his face. He and I were the only two of our mini cavalry to come away completely unscathed.

"Would that there could be two such ceremonies tonight."

Garlan's good mood evaporated with a sigh.

"You availed yourself well today." His hand found its way to my shoulder in a firm grip. "But there is more to being a knight than skill at arms. Your time will come."

"As you say," I said, angling my head to meet his eye. "But the world waits for nobody, cousin."

I let my frustration get to me and wrenched my shoulder free, going to my friend with excuse of offering my congratulations.

"Where do you intend to go now?" I asked as we crushed each other's hands.

"After we get this lot back to Grimston?" Jarrett nodded toward the group of surviving ironborn tied together in a tight circle. "Heard about a tourney in King's Landing before this mess began." He waved a hand toward the funeral pyre. "I think it is meant to start soon, and I aim to win it."

I blinked, surprised, and did the mental math.

It seemed far too early to be the Hand's Tourney. Surely we would have heard word if Jon Arryn had already kicked the bucket?

"What's it to celebrate?" I asked, doing my best to keep my voice light.

"The crown prince's nameday, if I recall."

"Ah," I said with full eloquence, both relieved and annoyed at once. On the one hand, I still had time. On the other, I was at the point where the original timeline could start up at any time.

Being a passive passenger was always going to be a temporary thing, but knowing that did not make it any easier to take the step into being an active player.

I glanced back toward Garlan, who now stood among the smallfolk, no doubt offering them peace of mind.

A good man, I thought. A rare thing in Westeros.

And I was going to betray his trust.

"Say, Ser Jarrett," I said, putting emphasis on the redhead's new title. He preened at the word. "About that favor..."

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Threadmarks Interlude - Willas I

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#7

"Easy there, Gwayne," Willas said in his softest voice. He leaned down over the coal black foal and ran a hand along its flank. The young horse whinnied, but settled back into the hay. Its eyes watched Willas, fearful, but he kept up his ministrations. "Rest now, young one."

Gwayne drifted off to sleep after another minute and Willas stood with a sigh. The foal was through the worse of his illness, but it would still be touch and go for some time yet.

And it would be a shame to lose this one given the unique combination of its parents.

He made a mental note to write Oberyn once again to give his thanks for the Dornish Mare should the young one make it.

"Keep fresh water nearby," he instructed one of the stable hands. "And alert me if there are any changes."

"Aye, m'lord," he said before racing off toward the well. Willas said a small prayer to the Stranger, begging mercy, and made his way back toward the castle proper.

His knee throbbed with every step and Willas made thought to see Lomys for a poultice when the main gates opened. Garlan rode in, his face twisted in a grimace.

Willas reversed his path and met his brother at the stables. Garlan was already off his horse by the time he caught up.

"Brother!" He greeted with a wide smile. Garlan grasped his hand with his strong grip and bowed his head, eyes flicking to Willas' crippled leg.

"Willas. How do you fare?"

"As well as always." He waved away his brother's concern. "Where is our cousin?"

Garlan's face fell and he ran a hand through his hair, sending the curls loose of the tie that held them.

"Proving himself a fool."

Willas raised an eyebrow in question. The scarce days that Garlan and Lyonel spent at Highgarden following the start of the latter's squiring always left Willas an impression that the youth was thoughtful and inquisitive.

Garlan sighed. "I come only to resupply and beg your fastest mount, brother."

"Of course," Willas said, turning to limp toward the far end of the stables. "What trouble has Lyonel gotten himself into?"

"A youthful folly, in truth." Garlan slowed his pace to match Willas' gate. "The boy thinks he is ready for his spurs and I suspect he has made for King's Landing."

"The prince's tourney?"

"The very same. He's like to get himself killed."

Willas grimaced and felt the pain from his leg all the sharper. He knew well the cost of overestimating your own abilities.

"How far ahead is he?" he asked as they came upon the very last stall. Within, a mare colored a soothing rusty red rested.

"A day and a half," Garlan said. "He stole away during the night after the Battle of Greyshield." Garlan shook his head and looked east for a moment. "It was almost smart. I had to finish delivering our captives to Lord Grimm before I could follow."

"He must feel strongly," Willas said. He reached into the stall and ran a hand along the mare's head. Sunstrider woke with a snort, eyeing the Tyrell brothers with annoyance. Willful as always.

"At four and ten we all feel strongly about everything," Garlan said, irritation clear in his voice. "Most of us are not foolish enough to give into our whims without trusting our elders."

"I remember how often we spent out in the labyrinth," Willas said while waving over another stable hand. "Dreaming of leaving Highgarden and making our fame by our skill at arms alone."

"And they were just fancies, Willas." Garlan watched as Sunstrider was saddled. "We never would have though to abandon our knights."

"You speak true," Willas said, taking the offered reins from the stable boy. "But I just ask you bear in mind how blinded youth can make us to reality." He guided Sunstrider from the stall, patting her along her neck.

Garlan grunted. "It's the only reason I am not going to father."

Willas could only imagine his father would assume the worst of Lyonel's desertion. Aunt Janna's pleas would mean little in the wake of perceived insult.

"My Lord Willas!" Both brothers turned to a redfaced page jogging toward them. The sandy haired youth's eyes went wide when he spotted Willas was not alone, a flush crossing his cheeks. "Oh! Ser Garlan! Welcome back!"

Garlan nodded his acknowledgment, but the page remained silent with stars in his eyes until Willas cleared his throat.

"L-lord Mace requested your presence, my lord," the page said after gathering himself. "I suppose he would have asked for Ser Garlan to attend him as well had he known..."

"I haven't the time," Garlan said. The page opened his mouth to object, but Willas cut him off.

"Tell my father I will be along in a moment," he said. "And make no mention of my brother."

The page nodded and raced off from whence he came.

"Go gather our cousin before he does something that cannot be undone," Willas told his brother. "Sunstrider here was a gift from Prince Oberyn." Willas ignored how Garlan grimaced. "She is not my fastest, but she has the most endurance by far. You can be in King's Landing within the week."

"I thank you, Willas."

They grasped hands once more and embraced. A brief moment of familial comfort before they once again parted ways.

Five minutes later and Willas was stepping into his father's solar, trying to ignore how loud his cane clacked against the stone with every step.

Even after all this time it was truly a distracting sound.

Father stood at the far end of the chamber at the window overlooking Highgarden's western reaches. Grandmother sat at the solar's lone table, to the right of the lord's seat, her shrewd eyes looking over Willas in the same way that left him always feeling exposed in her presence. Mother sat across from the Queen of Thorns, offering Willas a strained smile.

"How does young Gwayne fare, Willas?" Mother asked. Grandmother scoffed, but Willas pretended not to hear.

"He's through the worst of it," he said. "I'm certain he'll grow into a spectacularly useful beast."

"I'm glad to hear so," Mother said, but her smile did not quite meet her eyes.

"As wonderful as horse husbandry is," Grandmother said in her typical dry tone. "We have a different type to discuss entirely. Mace?"

His father turned from the window, and Willas noticed a scroll in his hand. A broken purple seal bared a mark he could not make out at this distance.

"Son," he said without any of his usual cheer. "You know I have been hesitant with promising my children's hands over the years."

He stepped away from the window and moved to the lord's seat at the head of the table. He laid out the parchment on the aged wood and Willas could make out a blocky script, but not the words written.

"Ever since the incident with the Fossoways-"

Grandmother snorted, but his father continued in any case.

"I have debated the merits of seeking alliances within the Reach." He met Willas' eyes then. "And without." He tapped the parchment twice, decisively.

Willas eyed the parchment as if it bore news indicating the end of the world. He had always known, in the back of his mind, that it was an inevitability that he would be promised to another. Yet once he was injured, offers had dried up, and part of Willas' mind had been convinced he would be exempt from this one expectation.

"Who is it?" he asked, doing his best to keep his voice even.

"It's taken years to set the terms of the agreement, but the lord has finally got over his dithering and realize you are a better match than any Lightning Lord." His father met his eyes. "You will bind the houses of the Torrentine with our own."

Willas clenched his jaw to hide his instinctive disappointment. The logical part of his mind knew it to be a good match. To enter an alliance with some of the Martell's strongest vassals would only strengthen the Tyrell's position in the realm. But the idealistic part of his brain still longed to find love on its own.

The way a knight would in the field.

An ideal best left to children of Lyonel's age; not crippled men past the age of twenty.

"What is her name?"he managed to say.

"Allyria," Mace Tyrell said with the beginnings of a grin. "Allyria Dayne."

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Threadmarks Lyonel V

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#8

We caught sight of King's Landing the moment the Kingsroad left the Kingswood.

A kingly sight, was my sardonic thought.

The Red Keep and the Sept of Baelor drew the eye; two massive structures towering high over the city walls from the hills named for Aegon and Visenya.

I had thought that growing up in the gorgeous behemoth that was Highgarden would make me immune to the splendor of Westeros' castles, but there was something about the sheer scale of the city that took my breath away.

For as large as the structures were, the city they dwarfed stretched for miles between them and in every other direction besides. Half a million people called the city home. Easily the biggest concentration on the continent, and likely the closest I'd ever feel to being back in my old life.

Sanitary considerations aside, I let the wonder of it keep my mood afloat.

An easy feat, given that a second city sprouted outside the walls. Pavilions great and small extended over the hills around King's Landing, threaded with people in constant motion. Commoners, knights, shop keeps, squires, whores, and nobles alike came together in anticipation of the festivities.

And as we made our way into the throng, I felt just one turkey leg shy of being back at a Renaissance Faire in my old world.

"A wager is a wager," Jarrett broke out companionable silence as we rode, his eyes trailing after a lovely pair of women walking the opposite direction with arms full of flowers. "But now that we're here, I admit my curiosity is getting the better of me."

"I aim to compete."

Jarrett's eyes snapped toward me, green and full of disbelief.

"The melee," he said with doubt. "You're risking Ser Garlan's ire for the melee?" He ran a hand through his thick hair, shaking his head. "And here I had it in my mind that you wished for a chance to meet your father."

"And how would I have done that? Walked up to the Red Keep and demanded to see the Master of Ships?"

Jarrett shrugged. "Hadn't thought it through, but you're the sharp one," he said. "Which is why I cannot fathom why you would trade away squiring for Ser Garlan for a bloody melee."

"Ser Garlan will understand," I said, calm in the face of his incredulity. Granted, stealing away in the middle of the night to go and compete in a tournament against his wishes was tantamount to spitting on Garlan's boots and declaring I had no faith in his judgment. But I was counting on both Garlan's even temperament and my carefully worded letter to curb his anger.

Well, that and actually proving myself right.

"And besides," I said. "I aim to enter the lists as well."

"Would that this were a lesser tourney," Jarrett said. "But this is one of Prince Joffrey's follies. Only knights and nobles will be allowed in the joust."

"It won't be a problem."

Jarrett gave me a long look. "Before you ask. I will not knight you."

I met his gaze with a reassuring smile. "Never planned on asking."

Knighting another man's squire was something of an unwritten "no-no" in the rules of chivalry.

Besides, I didn't just need to be knighted. Had that been the case it would have been a simple matter of bribing the right people and boom, insta-knight.

No, I needed a shortcut to establish a reputation. Being dubbed by Garlan would have been a solid start, but in the need for haste, creating some fanfare would be my next best bet.

I could deal with the fallout from the Tyrells in due time.

"Now," I said. "We just need to find a blacksmith." I turned my head and strained for the telltale cling of hammered steel. "Preferably a cheap one."

Jarrett arrived back at our rented pavilion, took one look at me doing my best to turn my plain wooden kite shield into a Jackson Pollock, and let out a groan.

"This the definition of foolhardiness."

I lined up my horsehair brush with one eye closed and gave it a sharp flick. Fresh yellow splatters joined the motley mess of every other color of the rainbow.

"Aye," I agreed. "But this is how songs get made."

"Or how people get dead."

He sat down on his cot, the wood creaking beneath the weight of his armored frame.

"Have you not read the stories of Ser Duncan the Tall? The Knight of the Laughing Tree?"

"Only one of those ended well."

"But people loved both." I traded yellow for blue and continued my work. "Everyone loves the idea of a mystery knight."

"The smallfolk maybe. But you chance earning the ire of the knights."

"We'll see," I said and placed my paints to the side, satisfied with my work.

Jarrett eyed the shield with distaste.

"It looks as if you slaughtered a unicorn."

I laughed. "More or less what I was going for."

The abstract mess of colors would hopefully draw the eye.

"I'm beginning to think you might be half mad."

"I would take it as a complement."

Jarrett barked out a laugh.

"Well madman," he said. "The melee will not be long in starting, best get this shit armor on you."

Jarrett was not wrong about my newly acquired gear. The plate was thin, roughly dented in places, and an ugly, dull grey still stained with the soot and debris from the forge.

I had doubts it would last the full tourney.

But beggars could not be choosers when you only had stags and pennies to trade, not dragons.

Plus my chainmail was still castle forged, so I did not doubt tourney blades would pose any significant threat to my health.

Hopefully.

"I trust there were no problems signing up for the lists, then?" I asked while forcing the clasp connecting a pauldron to my breastplate to close.

"After suffering the suspicions of no less than a half dozen of the king's men," Jarrett said while fiddling with his sword belt. "Both myself and the "Knight of the Many Colors" have a place in the jousts." He gave me a side-eye. "Consider us even."

Right then, I thought as I donned my new full helm. All that's left is to kick some ass.

While the tent city sprouted up all around King's Landings walls like so many mushrooms, the main tourney grounds were set up in the open fields between the Lion's Gate and the King's Gate. Stands had been erected and draped in gold and black in the colors of the royal house, crowned by the royal box in the center standing twenty feet higher than the rest. Below, four palisades had been set up for the lists, with the melee ring and archery yard dug in closer to the water. The Blackwater Rush provided a natural backdrop, its current far swifter than either the Mander or Honeywine.

By the time Jarrett and I made it, it was packed. Nobles and anyone of notes sat on the glorified bleachers while scores of smallfolk jostled for position in the "standing room only" section. A cheer rumbled from the crowd as a man, tall and wearing a cape of bright green and scarlet feathers that contrasted with his dark skin, loosed a series of three arrows in quick succession. They hit the target with a good grouping just around the bullseye.

From the way his opponent threw down his longbow and stalked off, the archery competition had just been decided.

While the herald proclaimed Jalabhar Xho the victor and embellished his skills to the rapt audience, I found myself in a queue with dozens of knights and lords.

Funny how some things seemed universal.

As the line moved forward at a glacial pace, I made an effort to spot familiar faces in the crowd.

The royal box was packed. Robert was as fat as advertised, his cheeks flushed as he guffawed at something Tyrion Lannister was saying. The dwarf's jest was lost on the queen, as Cersei sipped at a goblet with a curled lip and a side-eye toward her husband. Behind her the Kingslayer spoke with smirk of his own and the king laughed harder. Ser Barristan the Bold stood behind the king, vigilant despite the mirth around him.

Joffrey said something then from his seat just beneath the king's. He placed a hand on the pommel of his sword and smirked, all arrogance and swagger. I could not be sure if it was simply my knowledge of the truth, but the boy was the spitting image of Jaime.

There was the built in excuse that Cersei was Jaime's twin, but it still begged disbelief how his parentage wasn't obvious.

Whatever the prince said earned a rebuke from his mother even as both his siblings shied away from him. Joffrey screwed up his face, going red from the chastisement, and sulked with crossed arms.

A truly terrifying sight…

Thousands upon thousands would die because of that little shit. It was a difficult fact to reconcile with the image he displayed.

To my surprise, Tywin Lannister chose that moment to step through the cloth of gold divider to claim the empty seat on Robert's right I had assumed been saved for Jon Arryn. Bald save for his impressive sideburns, Tywin's head was lined with permanent creases that spoke of furrowed brows and deep frowns. Robert made a jest in his direction, which the Lannister patriarch met with nothing more than a droll look.

Seven Lannisters to one Baratheon in the royal box. No clearer display of power and influence could be had unless Robert donned a "Team Lannister" jersey himself.

"Your name, Ser?"

I blinked, surprised to find myself at the front of the queue, and answered.

"The Knight of Many Colors"

To his credit, the haggard looking herald only gave a weary nod while scratching my pseudonym down on his parchment. He gestured for me to enter the pit before repeating his question to Jarrett just behind me.

The melee yard was a good one hundred yard by fifty yard field of packed dirt. Given the amount of men entering, though, there was not going to be a lot of room to maneuver until the competition thinned out.

As knights continued to trickle into the field, I let my attention wander back to the crowd lest it start recognizing my nerves.

I found the other Baratheon brothers below the royal seats and to the right, joined by the rest of the small council amidst a group of nobles baring symbols from the houses of the Crownlands and Stormlands. Renly held the attention of most around him, all smiles as gold and silver exchanged hands. Littlefinger was among them, though his eyes were focused further down the row on my father.

Stannis seemed isolated despite the crowd around him. Only old Jon Arryn spoke with him, looking thin frail to me at this distance. Ser Davos stood behind them, eyes darting around him and his stance screaming his discomfort.

The heralds started announcing their list of knights and I shook my head, clearing it of any thought besides the here and now.

There were champions from all over the southern half of the kingdoms in the field, but I only a few names stood out to me to avoid at all cost in the hopes that somebody else would take care of them for me.

Sandor Clegane; Arys Oakheart and Meryn Trant of the Kingsgard; Bronze Yohn Royce; Balon Swann; Thoros of Myr; and because of course he was there, my cousin Loras.

All great swordsman from my knowledge of the story, and many of them more bloodied than I.

Don't have to win, I reminded myself as I spun my blunted sword around to loosen up my wrist, elbow, and shoulder. Just have to put on a show.

The herald reached the end of his list and bowed out of the arena while Robert stood to his feet.

I fell back into a solid stance and put my head on a swivel, trying to find a likely first target while not overthinking how my armor did not allow me to move with my normal fluidity.

"Good luck, my friend," Jarrett said, his back to mine.

"See you on the other side."

"Begin!" Robert bellowed, and I heard Jarrett race off with a battle cry that was soon lost among dozens of others.

Then came the song of steel upon steel.

My first opponent was a man in mail beneath a white tabard bearing the purple unicorn of House Brax. He swung a morning star in tight circles over his head and brought it down as we came together. My instinct was to dodge, but I instead caught the spiked flail on my new shield and angled the momentum so I could sidestep the knight and push him stumbling past me.

I followed my opening with a strike to the back of the knee and a quick blow to the dome of his helmet. Without an edge, a sword became something of an inefficient bludgeoning weapon. It proved effective enough, though, and the Brax man went sprawling to the dirt.

"Yield!" I shouted over the din, placing a boot on his ass.

He raised his hand and made a deliberate show of dropping his weapon. "I yield!" He wheezed out the words and I left him there to find my next engagement.

The melee proved to be vastly different to actual battle. While the noise and chaotic nature of being surrounded by dozens of others remained the same, there was a hint of order to the madness. In knights seeking one-on-one fights in the crowd. The air did not hold the same stink of desperation I remembered from Greyshield.

I expected to spend half my time trying not to remember the Ironborn, but it grew further from my mind with each knight I forced to yield. By the time I took out my fourth – a fumbling man of House Frey – I was joining the others in shouting my mirth in a battle cry. Happy to be part of the spectacle.

Which of course screwed with my focus and let a greatsword get close enough to where I only had enough time to just get my shield between my face and the blade.

A great crack echoed in my ears as I my gauntlet was driven into my visor and I was lifted into the air with enough force to throw me a few feet back. I landed on my back, my left arm throbbing in pain with my shield scattered about me, a shattered rainbow of color lost to the mud.

To my immediate concern, a giant of a man stalked toward me. His helm shaped into the gaping maw of a snarling hound marked him Sandor Clegane, and all the missing fight or flight instincts kicked right into overdrive.

"Yiel-"

I cut him off right as he stood over me by lobbing a fistful of mud straight into his helm's open jaws and thusly right in his face.

Not the most honorable of moves, but hey, he was the fucking Hound.

Also, I had liked that shield. Superfluous as it may have been with plate armor.

I scrambled to my feet in a squat and wrapped my arms around the man's legs beneath the knees while the Hound choked on earth. I heaved backwards, engaging all of my core and leg muscles until the screamed a murderous protest.

The Hound realized what was happening and brought his oversized sword down across my back, fast as a whip. My armor bent badly and pressed my chainmail painfully into my back, but it held as I managed to lift the hundreds of pounds of man and steel off the ground.

It was only an inch, but it was enough to steal Clegane's feet from beneath him.

I drove my shoulder forward, adding my strength to gravity's as the Hound slammed into the hard ground with a harsh wheeze and a comical puff of dirt.

I got to my feet, kicked his greatsword away, and held my own longsword to his neck. He stared up at me, eyes wide and unfocused.

"Yield." I wheezed out the word and did my best to pretend like every muscle in my body was not screaming at me in protest and my armor wasn't making it difficult to breathe.

"Cunt." He snarled the word and started to get his arms underneath him.

I panicked and kicked the bottom half of his helm's dog maw so that his head bounced off the unforgiving ground again.

He lay still, then.

"Holy fuck," I said through labored breaths, backing away. "That just fucking happened."

I took only a moment to bask in my survival of that encounter and tried to get my breathing under control while surveying the rest of the melee.

To find that I was one of the final few fighters.

Huh, I thought dully and watched as Loras moved away from a downed Balon Swann to engage Thoros of Myr and his sword bathed in green flames. I have a shot.

I didn't have time to revel in that realization as the only other man besides Thoros and Loras still standing stalked towards me, his bronze plated armor giving off a handsome glow in the afternoon sun.

He stopped five feet from me an assumed a defensive stance. I took a deep breath, winced at the metal digging into my back, and sank into my own form.

"Lord Royce," I said by way of greeting.

"Mystery knight," he returned with a brief nod.

Then we clashed.

I hoped to overwhelm him with a flurry of furious blows, but he was far faster than I had expected given his age and he weathered the storm by giving ground.

I backed off before I could overextend. Bronze Yohn just resumed his defensive stance, serene and content to wait for me to resume an offensive.

A patient fighter, I thought. Like Garlan.

Sweat dripped down my brow, my muscles ached something fierce, and I still could not get my breath under complete control. I had no shot at a battle of attrition at this point.

So I went with a feint.

I approached the old lord with a show of aggression as before, but left a few tantalizing openings he would be a fool to miss.

He did not take the bait for the first few traded blows, and it was only the fourth time I pretended to put too much weight on my right foot was he tempted to strike at my exposed midsection.

Had I truly been off balance, I would not have been able to dodge the straight strike to the gut. A blow that would be a sure kill with a live blade.

As it was, though, I pivoted to sideface so Royce's sword sliced through only air and threw its barer of balance. I grabbed his sword arm at the elbow and followed through on my pirouette. Our combined momentum sent the lord to the ground.

Gravity is the real MVP, I thought with a grin while placing my sword to the back of Royce's neck.

"I yield," Yohn said with a coughing chuckle. "Well played, ser."

I helped him back to his feet. "You fought well, my lord."

"Not well enough today," he said while removing his helm. "I wish you luck." He nodded behind me and made his way toward the edge of the pit.

I turned to find Thoros of Myr standing twenty feet away, Loras nowhere to be seen.

He held out his flaming blade in my direction with a wide, challenging grin. For a man who could make it this far without a helm and wearing only mail beneath flowing ruby robes, I did not begrudge him the confidence.

Well then.

I held out my arms wide in invitation, to raucous applause from the crowd.

Thoros barked out a laugh and charged while I forced my protesting body into a defensive stance.

Note to self. Try not to take a direct hit from a man over a foot taller than you ever again.

The only way I was going to win was to do it in one shot.

So I held my sword more like a bat, and swung with all my might when the red priest was in reach.

Not at the man, but at his blade.

A crunch of rent metal echoed in my ears as my sword cracked clean through the flame weakened steel of Thoros'. We both watched the arc of green flames as the blade went flying, burying itself in the ground a good fifteen feet away.

I took a step back, resuming a defensive stance, but Thoros only looked at the jagged remains of the blade he held with a quizzical expression.

"Well," he said after a moment, grinning. He dropped the remnant of his weapon and held his hands up. "I suppose I yield, then."

The cheers from the crowd redoubled to a deafening degree.

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Threadmarks Lyonel VI

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#9

Banks, I thought while staring at my new chest full of gold. Should definitely figure out how to start a bank. Or get to Braavos.

The prize for the melee had matched that of the archery contest. Five thousand gold dragons delivered in a bronze-stained and copper-inlaid chest that had to be worth more on its own than the armor I'd purchased yesterday.

It was more wealth than I had ever owned, and, frankly, it was unnerving to think someone could just take it and I would be up the figurative creek.

"I still can't believe you won," Jarrett said. He lounged on his cot in the dim torchlight, staring at their pavilion's ceiling. "I mean, the Hound, Lyonel. I lost to a damned drunk."

It was the dozenth time he'd said it, as if losing to Thoros was a source of shame.

"If he'd had a real sword I'd be half the man I used to be."

Jarrett snorted.

"I just hope he's not in the lists tomorrow," I said, closing the lid to my new fortune and settling back on my own makeshift bed.

"He couldn't even walk straight afterward."

I winced at that. Clegane had likely been concussed, but his glare felt strong enough to murder me on its own.

"In any case," I said. "We'll have to get up early tomorrow. I need you to buy me new armor."

The breastplate on mine was busted beyond repair, with the rest of it in little better shape.

Plus I had an idea on how to make myself stand out.

Jarrett grumbled. "Am I to act your squire, too?"

"I'll owe you a favor this time," I said. "And pay you for the trouble."

"I will hold you to it."

Jarrett fell asleep quickly, his snores filling the quiet air, but I laid awake some time longer.

I had been tempted to reveal myself at the end of the melee. To demand to be knighted then and there, and beg a place in the king's household. Robert had been in good enough spirits when he praised my victory, but I had hesitated.

I only had one shot at the reveal, and while winning the melee was an impressive feat, the nobility of Westeros valued jousting far, far more.

Gotta earn a place in that damned castle, I thought before sleep finally came to me. Need to be in the best position when I go for it.

"I do wonder how your mind works." Jarrett eyed me up and down and shook his head. "You look as if the court fool wanted play at being a knight."

"I imagine the smith didn't give you any trouble once you flashed the gold?"

I tested my range of motion, finding much more room to maneuver than the day before despite its heavier weight.

"He did not, but I have not been judged so harshly since I first joined Ser Arnol."

"You have to admit," I said while donning my second new helm in as many days. "It fits the name better than just a mess on a shield."

My new steel was painted in seven different colors to both match my pseudonym and to earn a few brownie points with the Faith if I managed to create a story today.

A red great helm, an orange gorget over a green cuirass, golden spaulders and blue gauntlets, capped off with a pair of violet greaves. All of my exposed mail had been stained white, as well.

It was a ridiculous getup, but that was the point. It would stick in people's minds, and either I would win and it would only add to the story I wanted to present, or I would lose and never have my identity revealed.

Granted, I would have no idea what to do next if I did not win, but after coming out on top of the melee I was somewhat more confident than I had been the day before.

"At least no sane knight will want that armor if you lose." Jarrett shook his head before hefting his orange helm under an arm. "But we should get to the lists. If the prince means to have the tournament finish today, the bouts will begin soon."

We went to our horses which I had already saddled and made ready. While Jarrett mounted and made off, I spent a moment to speak softly to my mare.

"Rest well, Stormflower?" I asked, stroking her neck. She was a handsome beast with amber fur and a coal black mane. I had grown fond of her in the year since Willas gifted her to me to the point where I had not even risked her in the skirmish with the ironborn. "Think we have it in us to win today?"

She tossed her head and whinnied. Call it sentimentality, but I took it as an affirmative.

I led her toward the tourney grounds, joining Jarrett amongst the pavilions set up for the knights to house in between bouts. I saw others sending long looks my way, but ignored them to study the crowd as I had the day before.

It was packed again, which was something of a surprise given it was no more than two hours past dawn. A welcome surprise came as the Baratheon brothers were all in the royal box proper this morning, even if a half dozen others separated them from each other. One of said peoples was the Hound acting as the crown prince's shadow, I was happy to note.

Jon Arryn was noticeably still absent from the box. I scanned the faces nearest the royals and spotted him speaking to a man who appeared even more ancient than the frail Vale lord.

A man whose face looked suspiciously similar to a weasel.

My stomach sank.

The Late Lord Frey was in King's Landing speaking to Jon Arryn. Something ticked at the edge of my memory, just out of reach.

Beside them, plump Lysa Tully's face was red enough to match her hair and pinched in blatant annoyance. Little Robert Arryn sat in her lap, leaning forward with wide eyes as he looked over the knights assembled.

They had been absent yesterday when Jon had been speaking with Stannis.

The memory clicked.

Fostering the young lord had been the topic that drove Lysa to poison her husband at Littlefinger's behest.

Said man was currently jesting with Renly, not a care in the world.

Welp, I thought, clutching Stormflower's reins in an iron grip. Gotta win now to have anything resembling a chance…

Win the tourney, cause enough of a stir to gain Robert's attention, gain a post in the Red Keep, and proceed to give the timeline the ol' what for.

The plan hadn't changed, but damned if seeing the dominoes about to fall did not light a fire right under the ass.

"Your graces!" A herald called in a roaring tenor, standing before the first jousting barrier. "My lords, my ladies! I beg your attention to the lists for the first bouts of the day!"

He rattled off eight names of which none stood out to me as memorable.

Given there were the better part of two hundred competitors, it was hardly a surprise.

I kept an eye out for any notable competition, but none seemed extraordinary by my measure. I wondered then if my judgment was so thrown by growing up with the Tyrell boys, but by the time the herald announced my name, the only knights that gave me pause were Jaime and Loras.

My pseudonym was met with a hefty amount of cheers. I grinned beneath my helm and found the weight of their expectation reassuring rather than daunting.

I rode Stormflower to the third jousting fence and met my opponent in the center. He wore naked steel, and only the quartered gold lion on crimson and blue bridged towers on grey gave way to his identity.

"Good luck to you, Ser Cleos," I offered.

"And to you," replied the Frey.

Simple, but pleasant enough, I thought as I made my way to the far end of the field, nearest to the Blackwater.

The herald bid us begin, and I rode Stormflower hard, my lance held firm. I aimed for the center of his mass and broke my lance on his armor while his struck my shoulder and glanced off without breaking. Three bouts later and it proved much the same, with me breaking my lance on his armor twice more before unseating him.

We met in the middle once more and Ser Cleos guaranteed his armor and horse would be delivered to my pavilion by day's end.

I waved him off, though, claiming a worthy competition was worth its own weight in gold.

Sappy, perhaps, but it earned me the good will of the knight. And frankly, following the purse from the melee, I had no real interest in robbing knights of their wealth.

The field narrowed rapidly, halving with each round and turning into a veritable Frey buffet. None of Lord Frey's many sons and grandsons made it to the top twenty, and it was my luck that I had matched up against Frey scions twice more by the end of the fourth round.

Jarrett had performed admirably as well, not unhorsing his foes but by beating each by number of broken lances in good order. He earned favor with the crowd when he defeated the likes of Ser Lyle Crakehall and Ser Addam Marbrand, but his luck ran out when he drew Jaime Lannister upon our return from the mid afternoon break.

"Try to get in his head." I offered when my friend lamented he had no chance in any of the seven hells. "Ask him instead if he enjoys standing guard while his king fucks his sister."

Jarrett let out a surprised crack of laughter before shaking his head. "I dare not," he said, but his nerves appeared settled by my jest.

Even so, Jarrett was unhorsed by Ser Jaime on their fifth tilt.

"There are worse opponents to lose to." Jarrett was in good enough spirits following his loss. "And I guarantee the Kingslayer is going to win the day."

When there were four competitors left, the herald seemed to have a need to hype up the matches.

"He earned your love in the melee!" he said, waving in my direction. "And continue to cheer for him in the lists. With victory upon victory, this mysterious fellow seeks grander conquests still! The Knight of Many Colors!"

"And hailing from Driftmark, anxious to prove himself as able ahorse as he is with a ship beneath his feet, the Lord of the Tides! Lord Monford Velaryon!" He wore plain armor but for the decorative seahorse enameled in sea green across his chest. He saluted me from the other end of the list rather than meet me in the middle, and I returned the favor.

When we rode upon the other, he proved more skilled than any of the others I faced that day. He broke three lances on me before I found his number and managed to break my next three while avoiding his blows. On our seventh tilt, we each sent scattered wood in all directions, but Lord Monford's horse took a bad step and tumbled.

It was a miracle that the lord only suffered a separated shoulder from the fall, but the poor beast had to be put down.

A lackluster win, and one that left the crowd lukewarm.

Their good cheer soon returned though when Jaime Lannister and Loras took the field against one another. Jaime was a generational talent with a blade, but was not quite as naturally gifted with the lance. He relied on speed and bursts of power to overwhelm his opponents while his reputation did the headgames for him. Loras, though, had a knack for finding just the right spot to knock an opponent off balance.

And had an ego a mile wide, that gave no shits to an opponent's reputation.

I idly stroked Stormflower's mane while watching the bout, not surprised when Loras managed to unhorse Jaime on their third tilt.

The stands erupted in gasps and cheers at the perceived upset, and my friend was no exception.

"You're fucked," he said succinctly when he picked up his jaw from the dirt. "Ser Garlan always said Ser Loras was the better lance, and Ser Garlan's damned good."

"And Garlan's the better sword," I agreed while mounting Stormflower once more. "But I trained with both since I was a boy." I took a breath and shot my friend a grin he could not see beneath my helm. "I probably had no chance against Ser Jaime, but I'll beat Loras in one tilt."

"You are mad," Jarrett said. "But I wish you luck."

Loras and I took our positions at the jousting fence closest to the stands and he took the time to play to the crowd with his helm removed, cantering up the list and waving his lance about. When the herald called my pseudonym I simply raised my lance in salute, and my ego was fed as the crowd cheered for me in equal fervor.

Grinning beneath my helm, I shouldered my lance and stuck Stormflower's flanks with a gusto when the herald called the beginning of our bout.

When Garlan began my training at the lance with a gusto, it was Loras he sought to test me against. Over the years Loras would always beat me no matter how much I improved, until I learned his tell.

He would always rear back right before he went for the strike, to get a little extra oomph in his attack. It was always just an inch or two, but it left a split second opening that could be exploited. It told of Loras' skill that he corrected for my read after I beat him several times, but he only ever did so against me.

And he had no idea the Knight of Many Colors knew of it.

Sure enough, as we pushed our horses toward the other with the intent of violence, Loras pulled his shoulder back just a touch.

I unapologetically struck at the opening and the sense of vindication I felt at watching my cousin go ass over teakettle was matched only by the first time it happened all those years ago.

The crowd roared their approval as a mystery knight defeated the Reach's favored son.

The king bellowed for order after I had taken a victory lap, and quiet fell as I dismounted to stand before my royal uncle. Loras stood to my right, looking quite put out.

"Ser of the Many Colors!" King Robert said with his arms held out in a wide stretch, his voice booming. "You have proved your might and mettle these past days, but I would know the name of the man I call champion!"

"Your grace!" I said in my loudest voice. My helm muffled it some, robbing it of gravitas. "I beg your pardon, but I am not yet a knight!"

The statement drew gasps from the smallfolk and a murmur of surprise from the nobles. I took a steadying breath. Now or never.

I bent my head and removed my helm. The stands were shocked to silence.

My uncle and I shared quite the resemblance, even with my gaunter features.

"My name is Lyonel Storm, your grace. Of Highgarden."

I dared not look toward my father, and studied the faces of the others instead. Cersei regarded me with a clenched jaw and withering stare, while her father held me with a gaze as cold as it was calculating. Even Tyrion seemed serious, tapping his chin with a frown while Renly grinned like a fool two seats down.

Of a bit more concern were the intent stares both Littlefinger and Varys had locked on me, and the murderous glare the Hound sent my way.

Problems for later, I thought.

By my side, Loras was working his way through shock and onto anger, and he was not the only knight to regard me less than positively.

Robert though, was beginning to grin.

"Your Grace!" I continued after the pregnant pause and fell to one knee. "I beg your forgiveness, but there would be no greater honor than to be knighted in your name. To join your household and serve the crown with all my strength!"

Come on Robert, I thought, keeping my head bowed. You know you can't resist the spectacle of it all. Take the bait so that I might save your sorry ass.

"Bold and brave and skilled besides!" Robert bellowed, cutting off both my thoughts and the murmuring crowd. "Would that all youths would show such promise!" The king laughed then, and then turned toward his brother.

My heart skipped a beat.

Robert, no

"Stannis! See to it that the boy's wish is honored. Knight your bastard!"

That caused quite the stir as people who hadn't put two and two together looked at me with new light.

My father rose from his seat with his jaw clenched and heavy brow furrowed. He did not look to the king, but stared me down as he descended the steps.

I did not think this through, was my only thought as I could not tear my gaze away from Stannis' glare. The dark blue of his eyes swirled with the fury the Baratheons boasted of with their words.

My throat clenched and I could not find words to speak though I desperately wanted to. I had assumed the king would call for any of the knights assembled to grant me my spurs. A kingsguard, if my luck held, but it never even occurred to me that he would make Stannis do it.

Any chance to bring his brother low, I thought as Stannis reached the ground. His expression only hardened as he came to tower over me. I'm a damned fool.

When he drew his blade I half thought he would take my head.

I lowered my eyes as he bit out the flowery words of the ceremony in his strained voice. His sword thumped down on my shoulders and he bid me to rise a knight, but was already stalking away as I did so.

The crowd was in good spirits and Loras was saying something behind me, but I ignored it all and made to follow Stannis.

If there was to be any salvaging of a relationship, I needed to confront his perceived humiliation straight away.

But a hand gripped my shoulder then, and spun me around so I was face to face with Garlan.

"Ser Lyonel," he said through clenched teeth. Loras stood over his shoulder, looking just as displeased.

Well, I thought, trying to scramble for words to say. Fuck.

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Threadmarks Lyonel VII

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Apr 26, 2019

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#11

Garlan was not an easy man to anger. I had seen him deal with disrespectful bannermen, scumbag outlaws, stubborn drunks, and obnoxious bootlickers alike without losing his temper. Patience was his defining virtue. Disappointment his weapon.

He levied it against me in full force.

"What in all the seven hells were you thinking?"

He towered over me as I sat on my cot, making me feel half my age. I was lucky in that he had agreed to not do this in public.

"It is… difficult to explain," I said, wishing I could simply tell him the future. I did not have a fully thought out excuse, having figured I'd have time to pen a letter later on.

"Because you were not thinking," Garlan accused. He crossed his arms and shook his head, hair waving about his shoulders. "That is the reason you were not ready. Still are not ready."

"I-"

"You have the skill at arms," my knight interrupted me. "But you lack for discipline, foresight, judgment, patience, and humility." He ticked off each virtue with a raised finger and my hackles rose.

There are lives at stake! I wanted to shout. War is coming if someone does not act, and I'm the only one who has a shot at stopping it!

"There are things I want to do," I said instead. "Need to do. That can only be done in the capital."

"Stannis Baratheon is not going anywhere," Garlan said, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose.

It was both convenient and annoying that people kept assuming he was the sole reason I wanted to be in King's landing.

Loras snorted from his place lounging on Jarrett's cot.

"And you're more like to squeeze love from a stone than Stannis Baratheon," he said. "Would that I knew it was you, cousin, and I could have ended your folly."

"Or I would have beaten you anyway," I shot back. The smarter move would have been to let him soothe his pride, but it was too tempting to take down his ego when he was being an ass. "You've grown sloppy in your knighthood, Loras."

His nostrils flared, but Garlan stood between us as Loras got to his feet.

"Enough. You do yourself no favors, Lyonel."

I sighed and stood, coming up to Garlan's nose and doing a decent job at staring him down. "I cannot change my decision now, Garlan. It is done. And I am not here to just meet a man who by all rights seems to hate me."

And that was going to be a right mess to figure out and fix.

I continued. "I can make a difference here, cos. I promise that you'll see the reason of it in time. Trust me."

Garlan regarded me with sadness and disappointment. "You'd best hope you do find a place here, Ser Lyonel." His voice went formal and my throat tightened. "I do not think my father will welcome you in Highgarden after this."

He turned on his heel and made to leave while my heart panged with homesickness I did not expect.

For all the relatively little time I spent in Highgarden since squiring, it had always been a beacon of warmth, songs, and love offering shelter from the road. I thought of my mother, her kindness never wavering, her love resolute. Of Willas' endless determination and his pure joy for animals. Of Margaery and Desmera, when their fondness for me had not been tainted by the realization of what a bastard was. Even of old Olenna, whose wit was often as hilarious as it was biting.

Straight up banishment had not crossed my mind as a possibility.

"You do not have to tell him the truth of it," I found myself saying before I could think better of it. "If you say I had your blessing-"

The Reach's second son whirled back on me, eyes wide with righteous anger. I stepped back in surprise, falling back onto my cot.

"How could you even think to ask me that!?" It occurred to me that I never heard him shout from anger before. Even Loras recoiled behind him. "You say to trust you? You did not trust me! You made it quite clear how you regard me when you stole away in the night and abandoned your duty. Yet still you ask me to further stain my own honor in your name."

I gaped at him, at a complete loss for words once more.

That was happening too often of late.

"I don't know where I went wrong with you," were his final words as he left, stalking out in a fervor.

Loras left a moment later without so much as a taunt, and any sense of normalcy I held drifted through my fingers like smoke on the wind.

My stomach twisted in knots and chest wrung itself in pain.

"I made the right choice," I told the empty air around me. "Save Jon Arryn, save the world."

The words offered little comfort to the gaping chasm where Garlan's camaraderie had been.

"Are you sure you're up to this?" Jarrett asked me as we made our way up Aegon's high hill. To my shame, he had been standing just outside our pavilion while Garlan lambasted me

"Don't have much in the way of choice." I pulled at the collar of my new doublet. Silk dyed a vibrant green, it had been hastily made when I flashed some of my new gold to a tailor on the Street of Looms. My new coat-of-arms had been sewn on the left breast to my specifications.

A shield split per pale. On the left, an emerald rose on gold. The right, a golden stag, rampant, on black. Both my parents' houses with colors inverted.

A bit too close to Joffrey's theme for my liking, but to do anything else would invite insulting one house or the other.

Considering my current footing with Tyrell, I dared not take the risk.

"The king technically offered me a job," I continued. "I'm going to want to lock it in tonight, lest the opportunity slips away." I smoothed down the front of my trousers, also silk but of the deepest black, and tried to shake off the feeling that I was walking into a job interview.

My new getup was the close enough to the formality of a suit where old, instinctive nerves were trying to kick in. Not something I wanted to deal with on top of everything earlier that afternoon.

Those emotions were best left bottled up for a better day to work through them.

"I would say you have little chance," Jarrett said. I was jealous at how easily he wore his own fancy clothes, orange on black like a walking advert for Halloween. "But I've already been wrong twice."

"Even if it goes spectacularly badly, there will still be lords and knights from half the seven kingdoms there. Plenty of shoulder rubbing to do."

"Don't I know it." He ran a hand through his ginger fringe. "Father would kill me if I passed up this chance."

The lord of Leygood was a rather ambitious fellow, from what Jarrett had told me.

"Mayhaps some lady will have swooned over your dashing clash with Ser Jaime?" I offered my friend a sly grin, but he just gave a rueful laugh.

"Mayhaps."

We had little trouble gaining entry to the Red Keep as the night's festivities were hosted in one of the castle's first large courtyards. Well away from the drawbridge to Maegor's Holdfast.

Lanterns hung on black and gold streamers lit up the yard in a soft glow, and dozens of long tables framed a clearing of thick grass left open for dancing. A bard played a jaunty rendition of The Dornishman's Wife in a throaty voice, much to the enjoyment of the couples already moving about in spins and whirls.

We were fashionably late, then.

The king seemed well in his cups at the table isolated at the opposite end of the clearing from the gate. He forced a goblet into Renly's hand with a bellowed laugh and forced his little brother to take a drink, causing far more wine to spill than make it into the stormlord's mouth.

The display earned a round of laughter from those nearby, and Renly tried to play it off with the expected grace, dabbing at his wine stained jerkin even as Robert clapped him on the back.

I turned away from the two to search for their brother, finding him engaged with Jon Arryn and Davos Seaworth in a corner closer to the innards of the keep.

"I hardly know where to begin," Jarrett said. His eyes were darting between the various tables, where a motley collection of Westerosi nobility mixed and mingled. No group seemed to stay cohesive for long, as men and women drifted off from one circle to the next at a steady rate.

Networking is a thing in all worlds…

"Well," I said, eyeing a buxom woman walking by in a purple dress fringed in bronze. Crescent moons had been sewn into her collar. "How about with her? My lady!"

"What are you doing?" Jarrett asked below his breath, but I ignored him.

She stopped to regard me with a quizzical expression before her brown eyes lit up in recognition.

"If it isn't the champion!" she said with a smile, stepping toward us. "I don't believe we've ever had the honor, Ser Lyonel."

She offered her hand, and I took it and gave her the customary kiss on the knuckles.

"We have not," I said once I stood. "Might I beg your name?"

Her red painted lips curled into a smile that my pride insisted was not patronizing.

"Lady Myranda Royce," she said. "A pleasure."

"It is, Lady Myranda, but I beg forgiveness for my boldness."

"Oh?" She raised a deliberately maintained eybrow.

"Yes, you see, my friend here made comment that he had never seen someone of such beauty or grace in his life," I said, ignoring the gaping Jarrett behind me. "But I knew he would be far too shy to beg a dance for himself. So I do so on his behalf."

"Is that so?" Lady Myranda looked at my friend and gave him a once over. Her smile turned genuine. "I'm flattered. Ser…?"

"Right. Yes. Jarrett," he supplied as his face was slowly starting to match his hair. I lifted her hand to his. "Ser Jarrett Leygood." He took her hand from mine and I stepped back.

"I have not had the pleasure of traveling to the Reach," she said. "You simply must tell me of all its beauty!"

Jarrett's eyes shot toward me, half panic and half excited, and I offered him a wink while walking away.

By luck or providence, hopefully the Lady Royce would keep my friend entertained for the evening.

I sought my father.

I made it within two hundred feet of his little posse before he spotted me. His jaw tightened and he said something to Davos and Jon Arryn before making haste toward a corridor that no doubt led further into the Red Keep.

This motherfucker, I thought, annoyed, then cringed at the implication.

I picked up my pace to just under a run and raced to catch up to him.

We wound through a half dozen twists and turns, torches casting dancing shadows along the walls, before crossing through a set of iron gates into another courtyard. The tower of the hand and the keep's sept stood as twin guardians over the open area, the drawbridge to Maegor's Holdfast open between them.

The yard stood empty save for patrols on the ramparts.

"Father!" I shouted now that I had clear line of sight on him. His shoulders stiffened and he stopped short. He was slow in turning around, working his jaw as he looked at me with eyes shades paler than mine.

Where to start? I thought. A "how've you been" seems inadequate.

"Do not call me that," Stannis said through gritted teeth. He was fantastic at icebreakers, it seemed. "There is no part of me in you."

I imagined a boy of fourteen in my place, faced with such an outright rejection without meta knowledge to soften the blow.

This is how daddy issues are made.

Lucky for me that I recalled the supportive father I'd had in my first life, and met his disdain with a straight face.

"My lady mother would beg to differ," I said, deadpan.

"Speak of me often, does she?" His lip curled a bit. "How she made Stannis Baratheon forget his duty?"

Oh joy, I thought, nostrils flaring. Patriarchal bullshit.

"More oft of a melancholy lord," I said, injecting heat into my voice. "Who'd suffered injustices during the war and earned little reward for it. Yet he still held to his duty. How it made her curious. How she wanted to see if he could smile.

"But please, keep projecting your anger onto my mother," I continued. "And pretending you are without fault."

"Do you seek to shame me, bastard?" Stannis stood to his full height and closed the distance between us, towering over me by a half foot. He cut a damn intimidating figure with the shadows dancing in the gaunt lines of his face.

I held my ground, not daring to blink.

"That was never my intention. I only-"

"Was it not? You come to play at war and remind half the realm of my biggest mistake. To earn the king's favor by offering his brother another humiliation. The Tyrells will find no quicker path to royal grace."

I came into this aware that Stannis had an ego, but he blew away all of my expectations.

"The Tyrells were clueless to my plans," I said. "I came here on my own."

He laughed, hollow and grating and in full disbelief.

I let out a harsh breath at his blatant dismissal. "You see enemies where there are none while planting the very seeds of the disdain that draws your ire so. It seems to me that you're the type of man whose worst enemy is himself."

Part of me wanted to turn my back on him and walk off. The king was well into his cups, and certain to grant me a position should I approach him the right way.

But the less pragmatic side of me begged me to crack Stannis.

So I held his gaze, unfazed by his grinding teeth and steely stare.

"There is good to be done in this world," I said. "And few places are in as much need of it as King's Landing. I had hoped to begin here."

"A child's notion," Stannis said. Some of the anger drained from his words, though he still stood tense. "And a weak excuse."

"I admit that my curiosity about you may have weighed my choice," I lied. "Mayhaps a chance to meet my sister, should I be so lucky, but-"

"You will never meet Shireen." The anger was back as quick as it left, and he spoke with the complete conviction one usually found in the most devout of priests. "Nor step foot on Dragonstone."

The implication that I would do little Shireen harm for the sake of land was left unsaid..

"You assume my intention again." I shook my head in disbelief. The Stannis I remembered from canon was far more pragmatic than this. I underestimated how much he hates the Tyrells... "And your paranoid mind goes to the worst possibility."

I stepped back, lifting my chin in defiance of his judgment and cutting him off as he made to reply.

"I have no wish to steal my sister's inheritance, Lord Stannis. The only thing I ever sought from you was the chance to meet." I looked him up and down. "But I find you disappointing."

I took only a moment to relish in Stannis Baratheon looking taken aback before I turned my back on him and made to stride away.

Only to find Jon Arryn standing at the gate, a half dozen goldcloaks at his back.

Nonplussed, I dipped my head into a quick bow. "My lord."

I heard Stannis' footfalls walking off in the opposite direction behind me. With a gesture, the Hand of the King dismissed the city watchmen as well. They stepped through the gate without a word, presumably back to their posts.

"Racing through the Red Keep without an escort," the old man said with a raised brow. "You are lucky I decided to follow, lest the guards would have had you in the dungeons by now."

"I… thank you." I had not even seen them as I'd followed Stannis.

"And you confront Lord Stannis and accuse him of folly while rubbing salt into wounds long left open," Jon Arryn continued. "Tell me, boy. Do you have any brains in that thick skull?"

I sighed, suddenly too tired to draw on any anger after spending it on Stannis.

"I'll admit I may have misjudged the situation." I paused for a moment. "Badly."

The Hand snorted. "You at least have a gift for understatement." His eyes trailed toward where Stannis had gone. "Do not begrudge him his suspicion, boy. It has been a trying time for all here in the capital."

"That is hardly an excuse."

"No," the Hand agreed. "But it is a reason." He brought his hands together in a loud clap, ending that line of dialogue. "In that vein, I do believe King Robert granted your request for a position here in the keep. We can always use an able swordsman, so-"

"Forgive my continued boldness, my lord," I interrupted with a bowed head. "But I had thought toward another post of which I could be of better use..."

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Threadmarks Interlude - King's Landing I

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#13

Barristan I

Barristan took a deep breath as he emerged onto the training yard. The air on this side of the keep was mercifully free of the stench that plagued most of King's Landing. He let out a contented sigh. This early, the sun had not yet stolen the crispness from the wind.

Beyond the normal hustle and bustle of servants rushing through their morning routines and the guards on the ramparts, few in the Red Keep bothered to rise with the sun.

He could train in peace. He had hours yet before he was due to relieve Ser Arys.

"You move slower than an overworked mule!"

Barristan's hope for solitude was dashed by the pair sparring across the center of the yard. They were of a height, both wearing the plain training leathers left for visiting knights and nobles. He knew neither face, but the resemblance one of the boys held to the king and his brothers was unmistakable.

"I have you to thank for that!" The red haired one shouted while parrying a heavy overhead blow with a grunt.

The old knights made himself unobtrusive to observe the two.

"You weren't complaining at your seventh ale." Lord Stannis' bastard moved just enough to avoid his opponent's counterattacks, conserving energy and turning his defense back into offense with a retaliatory strike.

"My company was much more pleasant." He caught Ser Lyonel's blow with the flat of his blade, but it was followed by a punch to the gut that sent him reeling.

"And much more comely besides," Lyonel said, resting his sword on the back of his opponent's neck. "But I'd imagine such a night was worth the asskicking waiting you the next day."

"One could say." The redheaded knight held up a hand and Lyonel removed his weapon. He stoo d with a grin that belied his pale skin, sweat-drenched brow, and shadowed eyes. "Though the hangover is a bit much."

"I'd imagine," Lyonel said drily. He rested his sword against his shoulder. Interestingly, he bore no sign of effort. "But you're no good in a fight in your state."

"Does that mean I'm free to go back to bed?"

Lyonel blinked, nonplussed. "You don't need my permission, Jarrett."

"Oh?" Ser Jarrett said, head tilting. "Here I thought your fancy new title would go straight to your head."

"I'm little more than a glorified steward."

Ser Jarrett snorted.

"If you say so." He clapped his companion on the shoulder. "But, my lord, I'm off to see if my Lady of Royce also favors this ungodly hour." He took his leave under the bemused gaze of Ser Lyonel, and Barristan approached the newly minted knight.

"You fight well." The younger man jumped, startled. Barristan smiled. "Though perhaps your situational awareness could use some work."

"Ser Barristan!" he said, hastily bowing. "It is an honor, Ser."

Barristan waved him off. "None of that now. It is rare enough that anyone else graces the yard at this hour." He drew his sword, and Ser Lyonel's blue eyes went wide. "I would not have the time wasted."

To his credit, Ser Lyonel's footwork saved him from Barristan's first blow, and he had his weapon ready for the second. Barristan pressed him, hard, determined to get the measure of the green knight.

There were none that would call the Red Keep home that Barristan would let remain an unknown.

Ser Lyonel's footwork proved excellent, with little wasted energy. Each strike and defense intentionally led into the next movement in a show of fluidity. He had the advantage of strength and was far more patient than most men his age, but speed and experience were on Barristan's side. It was not long before he had the boy face first in the dirt.

Ser Lyonel hopped back up without complaint. "Again?" He asked with a grin.

Barristan obliged, and they kept at it for an hour until Ser Lyonel glanced toward the sun with a curse.

"I must beg your leave, Ser," he said with dipping nod. "My duties must be attended to."

And he was gone in all the rush of youth.

Barristan chuckled, amused, and wondered how long that enthusiasm would last.

He could not deny his own improved cheer as he sought a fresh opponent to wile away the morning hours.

Davos I

"Ser Davos!"

The old knight stopped and turned with a quizzical brow raised as he searched for the caller among the dock's hustle and bustle. Few beyond Lord Stannis addressed him by his earned title, and none did outside the lord's presence. Beside him, Maric stopped reading from his ream of Braavosi manifests.

He smiled at that. Part of him would always swell with pride that his boys had been lettered.

"Do you know him, father?" Maric asked, pointing toward the approaching black-haired youth. A sense of unease took the Onion Knight.

"Aye," he said, but he had no idea why his lord's son would seek him out.

Considering Lord Stannis' reactions to those fools brave enough to broach the subject that morning, Davos put up his guard.

Anyone who could incite the Lord of Dragonstone's ire so easily likely meant trouble.

"It seems luck is on my side," the lad said once he was close enough not to shout. He bowed his head in greeting and hefted a thick tome under his arm. Without his armor it was plain to see that, despite his height, he was younger than Maric by at least a few years. His face had not fully lost the softness of youth, and he wore an easy smile even as the blue of his eyes betrayed tiredness.

Those eyes slid toward Davos' son.

"I don't believe we've had the pleasure." He held out his free hand. "Ser Lyonel Storm."

Maric shot Davos a quizzical look, but remembered his courtesies all the same.

"Maric Seaworth."

The two grasped hands, firm and brief.

"Good to meet you, Maric, and you as well, Ser Davos."

Davos considered himself able in spotting dishonesty and ill intent. The skill born in Flea Bottom, honed on the sea, and tempered in Lord Stannis' service. Yet he sensed nothing from the boy, and could only guess that his friendliness was genuine.

All the more confusing that this same boy caused Lord Stannis to betray such hostility.

He took the boy's offered hand, noting the lack of reaction to Davos' shortened fingers.

"And what draws a knight to seek me out today?" He asked, eyeing the bronze falcon-and-moon pin on the boy's doublet. He had seen similar on member's of the Hand's household.

"Would that I were only seeking fine company," Ser Lyonel said with a grimace. "But I'm looking for the Master of Ships' office. I've heard he keeps his here at the docks, but I'm at a loss." He gestured around toward the crowded wharf before running the hand through his hair."

"Lord Stannis will not be there this time of day," Davos said.

The boy's shoulders tensed. "That's probably for the best," he said.

"Then what need do you have of his offices?"

"Records," he said. "Imports and exports that used the crown's coin. Manifests and the like."

"For what purpose?" Maric asked, leveling Lyonel with an incredulous look.

"To learn." Lyonel smiled, then, with exasperation. "Lord Arryn has shown good faith by offering me a role in service to the Hand. I don't wish to repay him by blundering around like a halfwit." He patted the tome under his arm. "I've already retrieved this ledger from Lord Baelish's solar. Covers the same timeframe."

"Why focus on trade?" Davos asked, raising a brow. "It was my understanding that falls to the master of coin."

"Who answers the Hand." Lyonel shrugged. "And it's as good a place as any to start."

Davos sympathized with the boy's plight. Half of his time in Lord Stannis' service was spent wondering how he had gotten there, while the rest was doing his best to tread water.

"I don't see the harm in it," he said at length. Lyonel's expression brightened.

"Then I am in your debt, Ser." He inclined his head again, but Davos waved him off.

"None of that, now. Come."

Davos led them back on the path he and Maric had been following, while his son and Lyonel struck up conversation behind him. They spoke in low tones, bonding over shared complaints of work so common in boys their age.

Davos never before questioned Lord Stannis' read on people before, but he wondered what the lord saw in his bastard son that inspired such anger.

"I'm no knight," Maric said twenty minutes later as he piled a fourth hide bound book on the pile Lyonel held. "My place is on a ship."

"Even so," Lyonel replied, adjusting his stance so the weight would not fall on his back alone. "The offer stands. To you as well, Ser Davos."

"I try to avoid fights," Davos said with a wry humor. "Not seek them out in the yard."

The youth shrugged, then took a step forward to regain balance as his books wavered in a threat to topple over.

"I'd best be on my way then," he said, nodding to Davos and his son in turn. "I thank you again."

Davos watched him go with a critical eye.

"He looks just like him, doesn't he?" Maric said once Lyonel was halfway along the pier.

"Aye," Davos said. Perhaps too much.

His thoughts turned to Shireen, kind and earnest and good despite every injustice she had endured.

An ill sense of foreboding loomed in his mind,

Renly I

It was not the throbbing headaches that were the worst, Renly thought, but the ones that placed a constant pressure on the inside of the skull. An insistent pain at the edge of the mind that made it impossible to focus.

He sighed and slammed his quill down hard enough that ink splattered across his desk and shirt, souring his mood further.

A pair of fingers came to rest on his temples, rubbing slow circles. When did he move behind me? Renly closed his eyes and leaned back into the ministrations, groaning in relief.

"What irks you so?"

Loras had leaned down so his breath tickled Renly's ear as he spoke. A pleasant tingle ran down the stormlord's spine and his blood began to run hot. He longed for distraction, but could not act on it here. Loras knew that as well, but tempted him anyway.

A habit of his.

Renly hated and loved him for it.

"Inheritance dispute," he said, not bothering to hide his disdain. It was not often that smallfolk concerns reached the desk of the master of laws, but when they did it was always a mess. "A smithy at the edge of the city. A man's daughter and brother both claim he left it to them." He let out a long breath as Loras' hands moved to his shoulders, pressing into his muscles with a firm grip. "The smith's guild could not resolve the matter."

"And so it made its way to you."

"It's not even on the Street of Steel," he said, irritated once more. "I have half a mind to seize the property and let Littlefinger turn it into a brothel."

Loras snorted and pressed a thumb in the back of Renly's neck, earning an instinctive groan of approval. He could imagine his lover's self-satisfied smirk and his willpower was truly tested.

It would not be so difficult to disappear up the stairs to his chambers, he mused, potential visitors be damned.

A sharp rap on the door stole Loras' touch away, and Renly's headache and impatience rushed back to fill the void.

"Enter!" He called once Loras resumed his position on the couch across the room, lounging with a book opened halfway.

The door creaked open with deliberate slowness and one his guardsmen poked his head in.

"Someone here to see you, m'lord," Ser Dale said. Large and strong and simple, Renly could not ask for a better combination in a doorman. "A Ser Lyonel Storm."

Loras stiffened, his handsome face shadowed with with a scowl. Renly could not blame him for his anger once he'd gotten the full story of his lover. Of how wounded Garlan the Gallant had been.

But Loras had spoken well of his cousin before the tourney incident, and the boy irritated Stannis so wonderfully that Renly could not help but feel some good will toward his bastard nephew.

"Allow him in." He held up a placating hand against Loras' betrayed glance. Loras stood and rested a hand on the pommel of the dagger he always wore when unarmored.

Dale nodded and disappeared, replaced by a version of Stannis that had not discovered the joys of grinding teeth and glaring.

"Lord Renly," he said, bowing his head in the proper deference. "Ser Loras." He gave the Knight of Flowers a shallower nod. If he was surprised by Loras' presence at all, he did not show it.

"Lyonel," Loras replied with a deliberate lack of title, his eyes hard. The boy weathered his cousin's disdain as a rock did a storm, unwavering.

"Nephew," Renly said, offering friendly harbor. Only then did Lyonel's calm expression break into a brief look of surprise. "How can I help Lord Arryn's newest steward?"

Renly did not know what possessed the ancient lord to bring Lyonel into his service, but he thanked the Seven that he had.

The small council meeting the day before had been almost enjoyable with Stannis' steely silence and glares toward the Hand.

"Research," His nephew said, regaining his composure quickly. "I had hoped you would possess copies of the current tax law for the city. Perhaps a ledger of businesses owned and bought and sold as well? Or at least those funded by the royal treasury?"

Renly blinked, nonplussed.

"Doing some light reading?" He asked for lack of a better response, feeling as dumbfounded as Loras looked.

Lyonel chuckled and ran a hand along the back of his neck.

"Odd as it may be, I'm trying to wrap my head around everything to do with this city," he said. "If I'm to help the Hand to the best of my ability, I believe it will help."

Admirable, Renly supposed, if in a strange, altogether unusual way. But who was he to judge a boy for his odd fancies? He pointed to the lone bookshelf in his solar, stuck on the far wall and full of dusty tomes.

"You can find a full account of the Laws of King's Landing among those," he said. Lyonel dipped his head and made his way toward the shelves, hand trailing over the book spines. "But Grandmaester Pycelle would be who you want to speak with regarding the record of businesses. He and his aides record all such transactions."

His nephew pulled out a book the size of his chest and turned to Renly with a small smile.

"I appreciate your help… Uncle."

The familial term came out hesitant, a test of uncharted waters. Renly ignored Loras' sour expression and returned the boy's smile.

"Think nothing of it, nephew." On a whim, he continued, "Mayhaps you can be of some help already."

He laid out the problem with the smithy's inheritance to the boy, curious how his mind worked.

"The daughter has the better claim," he said easily a moment after Renly finished speaking. "If the man left no word, his child would be the sole heir."

Interesting. "Some of the guild objects to the notion of a woman joining them," Renly said in a mild tone.

"Surely this is not the first time a situation like this has happened."

Renly shrugged. "Doubtlessly. But I lack the time to find a precedent."

The unspoken suggestion hung in the air and Lyonel accepted it with a small sigh.

The brief dour look he wore matched his father's perfectly.

"I will let you know if I come across such during my research."

"I thank you, nephew."

The boy took his leave then, and Loras stared at the closed door to Renly's solar, shaking his head.

"I don't even think he sat for a single lesson once he squired with Garlan," he said. "This doesn't make sense."

"Your brother's disapproval may have inspired him to change," Renly said, already placing the dozen and a half missives from the smith's guild into a drawer. To be forgotten about for at least a week, or forever if his nephew came through.

"Possibly," Loras said, his brows furrowed. It was Renly's turn to touch, then, and offer distraction.

"Put him from your mind," he said, arms wrapping around Loras' waist and lips finding the curve his neck. He nipped at the sensitive skin, and Loras made a throaty sound that drove Renly into a fervor. "And come with me."

Jon Arryn I

Jon studied the chaotic mess of parchment and papers that had just been dumped in front of him with a frown. He flicked his eyes up to his newest steward, who stood across from the table with tense shoulders and anxiety shining in his Baratheon blue eyes.

"So," he said after the quiet grew toward discomfort. "This is what you have been doing with your precious little free time?"

By all measures Lyonel had been diligent in the duties Jon assigned to him over the past week. Bright and inquisitive, he had shown something of an aptitude for administration. A welcome surprise that offered Jon a justification for his recruitment of the boy.

But it seemed the knight be both too curious and too quick to jump to conclusions.

"At first I was just trying to gain a better understanding of my duties, but." He paused to lean over and tap the open book at the center of the mess. A page with line after line of transactions lay open, notes scribbled in the margins in a hasty hand. "But when I was looking into the crown's finances, I couldn't make it make sense. It shouldn't be possible for us to be in such dire straits. And the further I dig, the hazier it gets."

He gestured toward the other documents. Shipping manifests, property deeds, writs of credit, and a half dozen other types of paperwork that were an inevitability with trade and ruling a kingdom.

Jon tongued his gums where a molar used to be, taking his time to respond.

"And why come to me and not Lord Baelish?" He studied Lyonel's body language, noting how he tensed and hesitated. "Speak freely."

Lyonel looked him dead in the eye. "I think he may be stealing the crown's gold."

It was unnerving how easily the boy spoke of treason.

"Baelish is one of the only reasons our coffers haven't been completely emptied." Jon did not hide his annoyance, and Lyonel flinched back. He opened his mouth to argue but Jon held up a hand. "His grace is a generous man, as you well know." Fifteen thousand dragons and a knighthood was no small thing to earn over two days. "It has always been his way, but it has the side effect of being expensive."

"With all due respect my lord," Lyonel said, unmoved. "When was the last time you oversaw Littlefinger's work?"

"Lord Baelish," Jon said, tone sharp. Lyonel flinched. "Has been in my service for over a decade. He has done nothing but bring profit and show loyalty to me at both Gulltown and here in King's Landing." Jon steepled his fingers and leveled his most disapproving look at the youth. "And you come to me after a single week of service to accuse him of betraying not only me, but his King.

"You have an arrogance about you, Lyonel Storm. See to it that you keep it in check, or I may reconsider my generosity."

Lyonel's jaw tightened, but he stood his ground.

"I don't ask you to believe me at my word." He nodded toward the pile of paper. "Just that you consider the evidence I've brought."

Jon restrained an annoyed sigh. "You are dismissed, Ser Lyonel."

They stared each other down before Lyonel broke his gaze.

"My lord," he said, bowing, and took his leave.

Leaving his "evidence" behind.

Jon scratched at his white-and-grey whiskers, considering the pile before him once more.

Keeping Lyonel around court was an advantage if only for his appearance to serve as a contrast to Cersei's children. But if he was to start chasing ghosts and causing trouble where none was to be found, Jon would have to reconsider if he was worth the risk.

His thoughts were interrupted as the door to his solar opened once more, admitting his wife into the room.

Jon's patience was preemptively tested at her stormy expression.

Lysa had not been pleased with his plan to foster little Robert on Dragonstone, and had not been shy in voicing her disagreement.

Loudly. Every night since.

His temples began to pound in a warning of the inevitable headache.

"My lady wife," he greeted, not quite hiding a sigh. Red made its way onto her plump cheeks.

"My lord husband," she returned just as shortly. She glanced down toward Lyonel's notes. "Will your duties keep you late tonight?"

Jon almost grasped at the offered excuse, but a thought occurred to him. Lysa was fond of Petyr, and would take an offense to his honor worse than Jon had.

He could at the least redirect her anger for a day. Mayhaps two.

"No," he said. He reached out to tap the ledger of sales. "Someone got it into their head that Petyr was stealing from the realm."

Lysa did her best impression of her house's trout sigil, gaping at the words. Jon schooled his amusement.

"Surely you do not think him capable of such folly?" Lysa asked once she'd found her voice again. "Petyr has been nothing but loyal!"

"I know," he said. "Which is why the last hour has been quite trying. I could use a break."

A half dozen emotions passed cross his wife's face before Lysa settled on smile.

"Perhaps we can supp together?" She angled her head so she looked to him through her fringe. Demure and all vulnerability as she had been years before.

"I would like nothing more."

Lyonel

Just keep your head, I told myself as I approached the Tower of the Hand. The morning sun peeked just over the outer walls, and the breeze carried a lovely mix of salt and piss to my nose.

After a week of sleepless nights and days clawing together all the evidence I could get my hands on, my unveiling of Littlefinger's treachery the night before had gone less than swimmingly.

Granted, between all the records I'd gathered, there were only enough gaps and sudden windfalls to draw suspicion that something was amiss. I figured out early on that Littlefinger had to have been keeping separate ledgers somewhere, but I hadn't the faintest clue where to find them.

Still, what I did have should have been enough to warrant further investigation.

But I had not counted on Jon Arryn having a fondness for the master of coin.

He's a prudent man, I thought, entering the Tower and trekking up the stairs. He will have looked over the books.

I was going over different tactics for my arguments when I entered Lord Arryn's solar, only to find Grandmaester Pycelle and Ser Arys of the Kingsgard within. They spoke in low tones, and my heart dropped like a stone.

I have a week, was my only coherent thought as I brushed by the two and raced up the stairs into the Hand's personal chambers. They followed. Two weeks from the tournament. I know I remembered that right.

But my fears were confirmed as I burst into the Hand's bedroom. Jon Arryn lay on his bed, blankets bundled around his waist even as the lord was still. Sweat still clung to his brow and there was no stench in the air, yet his chest did not rise under my scrutiny.

I approached the bed and reached a shaky hand to press two fingers into his neck and found no pulse.

Jon Arryn was dead. A week earlier than he should have been.

"A fever claimed him not five minutes past." Pycelle's wheezing voice spoke gently and with false comfort, but I could not bring myself to turn away from the fallen Hand.

What the fuck do I do now?