Adam/CERSEI

Adam strode into the Hand's apartments beside the king; it wasn't as though he had anything better to do. Things were changing in the broad landscape of Westeros; he had heard the rumors, and knew it was time to begin laying plans into motion.

This included play-acting as furious as Cersei would; to do less, would draw suspicion.

Ned lay underneath his canopy of bed, his leg injured and the king despite his ire eyeing it with some concern. Adam felt vaguely out of alignment with the brotherhood the two had: was it so much to ask that he be joined in some friendship with someone else?

Thank the gods he had Jaime; though with the clinginess he had so far exerted, Jaime had begun to find sparring an amiable practice. He was puzzled with the degree to which his Cersei now clung, and the secretive affair they knew they must carry out was one reason he stated for keeping his distance.

"Your leg," Robert affirmed, with gruff, amiable silence. His breathing was steady.

"I'll live," Ned cast his eyes to Adam, who tensed and whose mouth became a puckered sneer.

"Is it true, then?" Adam raised an eyebrow. He did not need to feign some of the anger. "You attacked my brother?"

"Quiet," Robert forced her to capitulate, sooner than even had begun the trance of words which would see Adam fit around the script; and he smouldered, if only to be told what to do by a disciplinarian. "Is that the way of it? Littlefinger says you came out of a brothel."

Robert's chuckle was fit to make Cersei burst; Adam broadened his shoulders like a goose, and looked not unlike a wrong yoga pose.

"He attacked my men, killed Jory - " Ned entreated.

"Your wife will return Tyrion, by your order," Robert insisted. "Seven hells, we'll not have you pulling the lion's tail."

"It's already pulled," Adam drew himself up. "My father - "

"Your bloody father," Robert's glare, otherwise one used to from rewatches, was quite different in presence. It could not be said, Adam knew, that Robert's fat made him entirely lacking physically. He fumed and reddened and almost wept at the threat. Robert turned back to Ned.

"You'll do it, I swear," the king raised a finger. "I'll not suffer division; not with the Targaryen girl threatening our shores."

He chucked the pin on the bed, and Adam collected himself and swayed out, skirts swishing. He rather felt like the headmaster had chastened him and led him on a tour to show him his wrongs.

Kingsguard ringed them in the corridors where Robert's breathing became heavier up each step; and when Adam moved for his own chambers, he became vastly aware that he was followed within.

Robert towered before him; hairy, rank, breathing with his nostrils flared for a challenge; his beady eyes looking over Cersei, his lips forming an invite: "Well?"

Adam shuddered not in disgust, but in fear. And with practiced subservience, let him enter and the door closed behind.

If he had not the small experience in bed Jaime had leant him, Adam would have frozen like a deer and remembered for ever long the spidery touches and pain in the gut that would accompany such an encounter. But as Robert unbuckled his belt, unhesitating even through his surprise at her acquiescence; Adam's fingers went to the gown and slip underneath and saw the look in Robert's eyes.

It was one of enough determination to break the siege of Storm's End, and Adam knew that though he might lay there and never know a greater pain; it was with some speed that he took the lead; he led Robert onto the bed, who with greater surprise took his stead.

It could not be said that Robert expected the greatest of pleasures; he who only eyed Cersei as a redoubt worth claiming, and even as had been in the past, surely only smaller pleasures that he had been used to if Cersei was to pacify his ardor.

Yet it was not Cersei; it was Adam in her place, and with fastidious need bound from knowing the alternative, did he hear the grunts and sighs and consider however inept his job correctly carried out.

The snores which had followed the smell, texture, taste and sight were only a small burden; and if his friends were ever to wonder why he did not grimace and revolt, then they did not truly know him.

For at just about any cost would he commit to another's pleasure, and earn their favor; and if such a transaction could proceed as smoothly as knowing the semantics, then time and again Adam was setting himself up for a long road of hurt when the simulation was said and done.

Clara/JOFFREY

"Is it true?" Clara asked Sandor, who if he had quite recovered from his grumpy mood from the tourney, she wouldn't know it. She beckoned to him from the wall where he stood; where she broke her fast. "Is it to be war?"

"Aye," Sandor nodded, and irritated her that he would not elaborate.

She cast a glance over to the king and queen; she was tight-lipped, as though holding a brave face. Her eyes schemed this way and that; alight with the methodical metronome of phasing out.

Serves him right, Clara decried. There was naught but hurt at allowing a man's ardor to spill over; and of all people, the king was perhaps the worst person to taunt. Perhaps Adam imagined Cersei would be so beautiful as to hold people at bay… and if so, then Adam knew nothing as a bystander from what he imagined for her life was a carefree strut through life.

Of course, her mother had always never let her have boyfriends. Yet she knew too well the cost; the price was much to pay, and Adam was paying in kind. Perhaps he'd understand her plight, too.

Clara broke a trencher of bread and glanced over to where Grace/Tommen sat with Myrcella; Sansa was praying in the sept, and she knew she should go join her.

Yet this business of being Joffrey was tiring; simply to turn fate, she had paid visits to give gold out to the poor. They had only clawed over each other and hardly were about to spread the news that Joffrey was a chastened born-again.

And so she rose and took Sandor with her out to where she could see Blackwater Bay, dull with ripples on the surface from what was a cloudy day. She needed no shade, at least; and wandered the parapets, wondering if Sandor or anyone else was yet still invigorated by Joffrey to push her off the edge.

She took a flight of stairs, and the gathering tumult quite convinced her to join the throne room. The clamor was growing, and she saw Ned sitting the Iron Throne; he who had attacked her uncle, and who Joffrey would have considerable enmity with, as she cut a figure, walking through the assembled smallfolk to stand behind the throne.

Ned looked at her as she imagined her real father would; one of his many moods or gazes, which she had never been blessed to know. Yet it was curt enough, the gaze he spoke volumes of that her presence was a kid trying to act like an adult; and she itched under his chastening.

Varys offered his seat at the table, but she shook her head; and Littlefinger stroked his beard.

"Please continue," Clara tried to act neutral, but with some misgivings did the smallfolk continue half his other sentence, and soon droned out while Sandor merely glanced about the room; his horrible burned face.

"... burned our holdfasts, and took our women," moped the villager, or so Clara would make of his drabble, and she sparked into action. It came into clearer focus about what activity they were discussing.

"Any arms? Sigil on their shields?" Ned proposed, and the villager shook his head.

"Well-armored," guffed the man with some near-certainly. "Well-ordered and well-led."

"And you cannot say whose men they are?" Petyr dared, and the villager shook his head.

"Then I will send a party of men to help," Ned nodded, and beckoned forth Beric Dondarrion. "You will lead the contingent. If it were not you, it would be but for my leg that I would take charge…"

"Lord Hand, I shall bring you justice," bowed Beric, and so he ventured forth.

Clara's eyes glittered, and she said nothing.

Max/ARYA

Max had been quiet when he had waited in his rooms to hear news of Ned - or his father, as he had come to know him as - and while the game of thrones was more serious than honor would allow, he had come to brew a quiet respect for a fatherly presence persisting in the face of danger, or of Max's flights of fancy.

It was grudging, aching, hurting that Max was beginning to admit he held a shred of love for a father he'd never had.

And so when he was permitted entry, he paid attention and listened to whatever drivel he spouted on about; rocked by the permanence with which Ned was sure to have wrapped his real children in.

And it came slowly to Max that he wanted Ned to stay alive. He wasn't just a character. He was a very solid backing; a wallpaper against which Max's life might play out. He was the watchful eye as he took to the swing and who might scoop him up if he fell flat on his face.

Rather than keep his hurt inside where it might lash out, Max could tell Robb was a boy raised well.

And why wasn't he Robb?

These thoughts led Max to understand that whatever scheme had been concocted by Adam/Cersei or Clara/Joffrey would have to stop. He would not permit the Starks to lose.

His defining flaw in this instance was that he knew next to nothing of what would come.

And so when Ned traipsed through the door, hale and hearty as one could be from listening to petitioners all day, it was not entirely to his liking the announcement that they were to return to Winterfell.

Sansa's apprehension and outrage were understandable from her perspective, if Max had ever given a girl's point of view on events any broad thought. Yet for his own, Max would be saving his skin. To go back to Winterfell, he could help Robb in the good fight; but wouldn't it be better if he could remain, and save Ned? Wouldn't that make him the hero?

Max crunched his eyes tight to remember; but it was no good. It was Adam, or Clara, who held nostalgia of the events to pass. He knew wide swathes, but could not articulate at what junctions might overlap or meet to form an event for a wholly Stark victory.

And it was when Sansa began to panic that she'd never raise golden-haired babies, that Max remembered with a curl of a smirk that there was something he might intimate to Ned. With just enough subtlety, of course; Arya could hardly expect to know any more than that.

And with Ned stirring on the cusp of an idea, Max began to think of one, too.

Grace/TOMMEN

Grace felt abandoned in her chambers; and if Adam, Clara or Max had originally meant for her to be so excluded, then it had been other counterparts in their lives which had drawn them away.

Ser Arys guarded the door, and Myrcella had long since made her excuses; even Sansa who fretted for her father's safety could not be persuaded to visit, and Grace began to long for the days when the capital wasn't so full of simmering chaos waiting to boil over.

She had no part of play in this game of thrones, yet she must sit here and pout and pretend to be a boy not yet old enough to capably swing a sword or ride a horse. In that, she was in Max's predicament; yet where she would gladly cling to a family, there was not much of one here.

The king paid her little mind, the queen was always in chambers with Jaime, and Clara treated her as Clara always did. Max chased cats and Zoe, it had been said, wanted nothing to do with any of them.

Grace sighed and Ser Arys with a refrain almost felt sorry for the lad. He was so bumbling and full of life, and a little prince he was, and a good brother to Joffrey who would one day be king he would make, but there was nothing here for him that might enrich the veritable spirit he bought forth into the world.

Grace wondered very much why she obeyed her friends the way she did; and thought she could never be a trendsetter; she'd be laying out the party food and stringing balloons while her mother spoke vague words about that her friends were busy. And they weren't her friends, Grace would say, they were people from her class who barely even knew her… and meeting new people would not be such a chore, her mother would cotton on; and Grace would rail and decry why Clara never spent much time with her.

In that, she was to Clara what Adam was to Max. They were lambs, led through force of will for something better; they longed for obedience to be the tool with which to break into popularity.

And they were left poolside with their inflatable arm tubes watching as the big kids lined up for the slide.

"You know," Ser Arys began, breaking Grace out of her reverie. "If you like, we can go hunting for berries in the kingswood."

Grace's was a hushed rapture. "Really?"

Ser Arys nodded, liking the gleam and sudden thrall to which he was paid accustom. It was only fair that the boy had a chance to gad around.

Zoe/GREGOR

Zoe was spurred on at the sight of the inn coming into view, and stationed her horse at a post before entering. Hers was a silence she knew she would draw: yet the inn was not as packed as she expected, for such a location. The innkeeper, her teeth red shook and stammered to see Gregor towering over her.

"Could I have a room, please?" Zoe tried brusquely, knowing the politeness would only make her more timid.

The innkeep nodded, and led her to a room. She seemed almost to rock and tremor on the cusp of a truth she was unwilling to part with.

"S-ser, if you must," the innkeep stumbled. "Please. Don't take my family."

"I won't rob you," Zoe said, with a bite of impatience that only made the innkeep more scared.

"Y-you don't know?" the innkeep wondered, and Zoe's attention perked up.

"About what?"

"About - about my lord of Lannister," the innkeep stammered.

"Yes," Zoe began slowly. "He was captured."

"A-at this inn," the innkeep nodded. "And by the gods, I did nothing to stop it; and now I wish I had."

Zoe walked over with what she hoped was a calming stride; but the innkeep only wailed and those few patrons she held host to ducked further under their tables.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Zoe reassured. "I'm not working for them anymore."

"What?" this seemed almost to offend the innkeep, to insult her intelligence. She drew herself up, more wary that she was drawn into a trick.

"If you don't mind… I'm going up to rest," Zoe found the stairs, and collapsed into a featherbed. It was a long time before she could close her eyes to sleep.