Adam/CERSEI
Adam watched as the king was brought onto his bed. Servants hurried for his dressings; the chamber quickly became putrid and foul-smelling. She shook her head as Renly suggested the worse was yet to come when the wound was revealed.
It was a gaping maw of flesh and blood and bone. And Adam fixed the king in the eye and retched; the chamber pot in the privy provided adequate a vessel for shuddering tidings.
He drew up his pride and returned into the chamber where the Grand Maester ponderously, achingly, checked over the king. His beady eyes were lost in some haze; Ser Barristan was as white as his splattered armor; Renly fidgeted with the hilt of his sword.
The clanking of the cane announced Ned Stark's arrival; he gave but a glance to Adam who raised his head like a lioness, and Ned was bade nearer to the king's side who chuckled and made mention of the boar to be served at his feast.
A feast you won't attend, Adam promised, his green eyes upon the dying man. Underneath the folds of fat were stubby fingers which pierced like a knife. He would never know true warmth again.
"Out," Robert ordered, and Adam shook at the might. He had always cowered under volume. "Out, all of you!"
And so Adam's skirts swished alone; Renly and Barristan and the Grand Maester who would be the last to close the door, and so hope to eavesdrop however little. Adam took to the corridors with Ser Boros by his side.
How he missed Jaime… and soon, he would be free to conduct his own affairs. Yet he knew it may be quite a while before he saw that golden mop of hair again, in quite some distant state of disarray.
He stopped near Clara/Joffrey's rooms, where Sandor stood guard.
"Is - is my son in?" Adam asked, and Sandor begrudged a nod and opened the door.
Clara's angular hair cut sharp with a razor made Joffrey look more fierce. She glanced up as Adam entered, and the door was closed behind them.
"The king… you were there?" Adam asked.
"Yes," Clara replied. "And I don't want to talk about it."
Adam hesitated. He was never one for silence; as Clara and Max knew on long car trips. Clara's mother had had to stop the car to tell Adam to shut up; and so he did.
And god, how he hated people telling him what to do.
"You're not feeling guilty?" Adam queried, and Clara remained silent.
"Go away," Clara glanced to the door, and Adam found it.
Outside in the corridor, Adam saw Myrcella's rooms were empty; the guard stationed at her door told her the princess was praying in the sept. Further along were Grace/Tommen's rooms. Ser Arys greeted the queen with a bow.
"Thank god," Grace exclaimed, a vision as a golden-haired boy with long curls; Adam thought that Tommen had always been his favorite of Cersei's children.
Adam bent down to hug Grace, and she extricated herself with big eyes.
"What's going to happen now?"
Adam rose and adjusted his skirts and settled on a chair. He looked around for wine, and Grace focused on him as she did most big kids.
"I don't know," Adam fretted.
"But you know this show, right?" Grace asked.
Adam shook his head. "It's not just a show. It's a book, as well."
"Well, are we gonna be OK?" Grace asked her brother.
Adam shrugged, and laid his face in his hands. He glanced up, skin greasy from fingertips, hair mildly askew. He took a staggering, deep breath.
"It's dawning on me now how much I have to keep on top of," he admitted. "And how easily it could slip out of my hands."
Clara/JOFFREY
"Are you finished?" Clara snapped, and almost ripped the sleeve of her doublet from the shuddering grip of a servant.
She buckled and buttoned and turned on her heel, out from her chambers into the corridors of Maegor's Holdfast; the Hound took the lead along with several Kingsguard forming an escort. Myrcella and Grace/Tommen stood outside their chambers with a Kingsguard apiece; Myrcella was bravely red-eyed and drawing up her height, while Grace/Tommen smiled sadly.
At the far end of the corridor, Clara saw Adam/Cersei standing with Ser Barristan.
"Are you ready?" the queen turned to Clara, who merely nodded, and the royal party headed down the circular stone stairs.
Clara entered the throne room, where along the walls were gold cloaks; behind the Iron Throne were Lannister guardsmen. She ascended the throne with some difficulty; swords stabbed up at her if she were careless. Yet she sat however uncomfortably as though watching a soccer match with the rest of her class.
The queen sat on a lesser throne, her other children close by; Ser Barristan headed the escort of Kingsguard arrayed in a protective screen. Only Sandor stood beside Clara.
Theirs was but a silence and a wait; no doubt Ned would take his time on his cane.
"Sandor," Clara slid her eyes up to the Hound, who leaned over without keeping his eyes from the door. "There was a raven from my grandfather."
Sandor grunted, but did not show any intimation of caring. The queen stood idly by and watched.
"Your brother has turned against the Lannister name," Clara told him. "His lands and title are yours."
Sandor accompanied this with the briefest of surprise, and hesitation. He nodded and continued to watch the door. Clara heard the rustles of silks from the queen; clearly she wanted to elaborate further, to be the bearer of good tidings, as only a sycophant lusted for.
"You are to be congratulated, ser," the queen simpered.
"I'm no knight," Sandor rasped.
"You are now," the queen advised. "And to good duty and honor may it bestow you."
Clara rolled her eyes, and the room stilled and tensed as the door opened; Adam made an unhurried gait to the lesser throne, and Sandor readied his sword arm.
Ned Stark made his entrance, with a handful of northern men notably more scruffy than the Lannister contingent; Varys simpered by with his hands tucked in his robes; Littlefinger's gaze swept over the room and hid a little smirk as he bent himself into a posture.
Ned stood before the Iron Throne and glanced up at Clara, who watched dourly from above.
"Ned Stark," she announced. "How good of you to join us. Today, from you and from others, I will accept oaths of fealty."
Ned retrieved a slip of parchment, and nodded that Ser Barristan might come forth. The seal was unbroken; read out as king Robert's, and among trivialities, it was declared,
"... that Lord Eddard Stark serve as Regent, until the heir do come of age."
The rustle of silks passed by Clara before she could think of an adequate response.
"Ser Barristan, if you would be so kind," the queen extended her hand. "Of course, no one doubts your sworn word."
Even Ser Barristan raised an eyebrow. The queen mulled over the contents, and glanced to Ned.
"What good is this? King Robert is dead. Such cannot be binding if he is no longer with us."
Clara rolled her eyes. That's why it's called a will, you idiot.
"As my son was saying," the queen placed a hand on one of the swords of the throne, and her lips tightened to conceal her crimson hand, shaking by her side. "H-he will now accept obeisance from the realm. My lord, you need only bend the knee."
"Your son is not Robert's heir," Ned called out, and Grace/Tommen gasped as though watching a soap opera from when she would pretend to be sick to get a day off from school. "Nor any of your children - "
Ned's northmen warily eyed the crowd who gasped.
" - Stannis is the true heir," Ned finished.
Clara raised a finger. "Ser Barristan Selmy, and the loyal men of my Kingsguard; take him to the cells."
Northmen ringed Ned; Ser Barristan stepped forth, and the Lannister soldiers drew their swords. Grace grabbed for Ser Arys' hand; painfully polite to merely shrug off the royal prince.
"Do not harm Ser Barristan," Ned called, the scuffle halting; and turned his head. "Janos, take the queen and her children into custody. I will have no bloodshed!"
Clara raised an eyebrow; the queen wore a grimace of disgust. At once the tide broke, and swung inward as did the spears of the gold cloaks; theirs was a massacre of the Stark soldiers, and Ned who swung around on his injured leg.
Sandor drew his sword; Ser Arys tugged Grace/Tommen from his side; the queen watched with satisfied silence; and Littlefinger leaped for Ned's throat with a dagger and a rebuke.
Max/ARYA
Max tossed this way and that; and when Syrio's beatings were enough to throb his body, he still did not give up.
Yet the time was nigh, he knew; and so he bowed out of the race, and Syrio clicked his teeth at that.
"A boy will learn nothing," he observed, and Max watched him plainly. He did not know the fate he would suffer.
And so Max turned tail, knowing his trade as an apprentice assassin was at an end; he took to the corridors, and found his and Sansa's chambers where Nymeria looked up from his entering. He gave her a quick pat, stuffed Needle under his mattress and checked his wounds, alerting to hear the scuffle of footsteps; of raised voices; and finally a booming knock on the door.
Max was no craven; but he was a little girl, and his earlier beatings from Syrio had reminded him he was no master water dancer.
Ser Meryn entered, followed by Lannister guards; he sized Max up, and his hand rested on his sword hilt.
"The queen regent, and the king, request your presence," Ser Meryn barked, as flowery words as he would ever utter.
At least they're not so stupid as to say my father's ordered it, Max figured Adam had made this order a kind of code, and so came along, as meek as he'd ever be -
The leap and flash of fur, the bark and tearing of teeth and he was pulling back Nymeria with haste; one of the soldiers was on the floor, and others drew their swords and Max was held back, wide-eyed, fear stilling his nerves as his direwolf's moans were silenced with the thrust cut of a blade.
"You fuckers!" Max launched his fists on the armor of Ser Meryn, and he chuckled and the soldiers fell upon Max to restrain him, which was no difficult deed.
Grace/TOMMEN
Grace had been sent back to her chambers with Ser Arys; Myrcella came along with her own guard. The two parted ways, their rooms but next to each other; and Ser Arys shook his head when Grace invited him inside.
"The castle's thick of fighting, lad," he closed the door and Grace snapped her mouth shut.
She glanced around in despair, and went for the small balcony where she could hear what was happening but see less of it. Adam would be well-organised, and Clara not about to let her new crown slip; but what of Max? He was a Stark girl. She hoped he would be OK.
Grace blinked tears, out of confusion and fear; nobody had thought to tell her what would happen in the throne room. She hadn't even seen the show, but for sitting beside Clara and trying to ask her questions about other things, and being rebuffed and sitting in morose silence.
She hated being left out; it was all her fears in one.
Zoe/GREGOR
"You'd not be wanting to head to Seagard," offered Ser Stevron, a piece of advice.
"Why not?" Zoe frowned.
Ser Stevron glanced around the hall; servants were cleaning up, Freys were dotted about. The sliver of steel began in their scabbards and in the racks and of the flash of eyes for ravens flocking north.
"There's fighting," he began in a low voice. "The lions are treading lightly before gearing up for a hunt."
"Hunting who?" Zoe specified.
Ser Stevron, exasperated, erupted: "Tullys, of course! By the gods, in revenge for lord Tyrion's capture."
Zoe shook her head. "He can't take over all the riverlands."
"Lord Tywin will," Ser Stevron nodded, to what was her distaste. "If he has any breath left in his body."
Zoe turned away and flexed her sword arm. There was nothing she'd like more than to show her overlord some justice. It seemed Adam, Clara, even Grace had picked the winning side after all.
She'd show them, she wagered. She'd show them what it meant to fight with honor. To fight on the right side of history, and be proven right. For this was one escapade she could prove her worth in.
"Then I won't go south," Zoe decided.
And so Zoe saddled her horse and rode out into the drenching rain; the clatter of her horse's hooves upon the drawbridge and out onto the kingsroad; dotted with little homes here and there, and the Trident fed by the heavens and the waves slopped and greedily hungered for more.
For the few travellers she met riding north - and there were few and far between - their curiosity was eschewed by the sight of Zoe on her rearing red-eyed horse, and rain be damned!
She rode until her horse was lathered of the mouth, for shelter at least for the poor thing. Zoe felt the rain drench her soul and coughed and sniffed as the bare grassland, thin trees and what seemed like an unending stretch of road finally ended.
She came upon the bog-land; suckered holes and poisonous flowers and quicksand, with the narrowest of roads which her horse whickered at. Above, rose in discordant time three towers where bowmen peeked out from arrow slits, and called out and blew horns and she stilled with fear.
"Halt!" came the breath of voice that seemed to come from far away.
The bowmen got more in place from one tower than the others slightly further away. Torches raised, and Zoe raised the visor of her helm and met the god's embrace. She blinked water and saw only movement; threatening movement, and her station permitted but one soldier to beckon her close.
She rode slowly, and felt for the poor creature so drenched; she could see clearly the sigil of a mailed fist.
The archer who bent from the window, echoing his voice across the sparse wasteland, hallooed:
"You are a stranger in these lands. What say you?"
Zoe rode closer, and theirs was a shock and a grimace. Bows notched with arrows were drawn taut, and some raised to aim.
"Hold fire," ordered the archer, raising his hand. "Ser. Are you not the Mountain?"
"I am," Zoe called out, over the pounding rain. "I come alone."
She hated that they had to talk amongst themselves first. He poked his head out once more.
"And what business are you to treat for?" the archer yelled.
"Let me inside and we can talk," Zoe called, and earned some pitiful laughter for that.
The rain pelted her horse and she steadied it with a hand and dismounted, leading her horse by the rein. The archers tightened their bows.
"Halt!" their commander cried, and Zoe looked up where she could see the flicker of a torch sconce, high up in the arrow slit.
"I mean no harm," Zoe cried. "Only safe passage onward."
"Onward where?" the commander scrutinised.
Zoe spat out a burble of spit mixed with rain. "To the Starks."