...
The world was mind-bogglingly cursed, in her honest opinion. One she hoped would either end soon or start over and try again.
By the assholes that created it, she wasn't sure how they could've managed to screw it up this badly.
She let out a heavy sigh as she stared out the balcony, taking in everything down below.
She'd never believed in magic. Hogwash the lot of it really. Sure there might've been subtle hints of it in the past- When dragons roamed the skies and held the Targaryen chokehold over Westeros with impunity... Perhaps. But until recently she'd firmly believed that whatever chance such a concept had of existing, had died down, permanently.
Of course, that was the broader term itself that she didn't believe in. She'd had her own inklings of arcane and dark sorcery been a thing that roamed around quietly- Mostly in the rest of the world. Things that relied on true faith and an obscene amount of sacrifice- Sacrifice that usually wasn't quite worth the result in a way. That she didn't have a problem believing in. Seven hells the Faceless Men practically spouted it out whenever one looked to them for a solution.
But magic... Pure, wish-fulfillment, uncontained, power? Without consequences? Without sacrifice? The simple ability to bend the very world to one's whims? The thought was worth scoffing at.
Even Aegon Targaryen, the man who conquered seven kingdoms, had paid the price for it. Had lost one of his sibling wives and a dragon towards its end. Had been forced to adapt to customs he hadn't intended nor believed in.
Had changed his very gods.
And even after all that, his family line itself had been cursed.
For a woman in her position of power... Well, she had quite a bit to lose. Quite a bit for the gods to take away for whatever she might've wanted. What was the use in giving her granddaughter a crown filled with prickly thorns? A crown that would've buggered her long before she would've got the chance to use it?
No. She had been never desperate enough to tread those lines. To look for solutions she didn't understand and up until recently, she'd never had to.
Up until recently she'd had full faith in the fact that if such a problematic source of power was in play against her family, then whichever fool sought it would pay for it themselves long before she ever had a chance of making him do so.
And then the rumors started.
Of a mad man that had insulted the king repeatedly and lived to tell the tale. A mad man that had dueled one of the Kingsguard with a dagger and a tankard. A mad man that had laughed off and challenged every assassin thrown at him, for the first two acts of stupidity, to do better. A mad man that challenged the Mountain-that-rides. A mad man that had killed members of the Royal family.
She hadn't believed those preposterous rumors. Such a man couldn't possibly exist, for every one of those accomplishments would've ended in them dying.
And then the ravens came.
She had been ecstatic on the news that the first had brought her. That the Queen- though she hadn't shown it of course- had been removed from her granddaughter's path. That the king, who thought between his legs and favored a hammer to every problem, was available on the board once again.
And while the fools around her mourned, she had made to prepare her darling rose. Prepare her for her chance, for it had finally come!
Only to recall the rumors. Only to recall the source of House Tyrell's small blessing.
It was at that point that the second raven had come. The one proclaiming a manhunt for the impossible fool. A bounty placed, one that both her own house and the greaving Lannisters had matched and pushed up further.
Her son had done it out of some misbegotten sense of duty.
She had done it to get rid of a chaotic threat.
Only it had failed.
Every day, a new corpse was lined up, while another was collected. Knights of the Reach felled one by one. The price for families who lost because of it increased by day until... They were forced to seek out sellswords, for even the most hardheaded knightly fool had realized their chances were slim. Oddly enough any sellsword she'd tried to reach out towards had simply laughed the offer off, proclaiming their lives worth more than whatever sum of dragons they'd offered.
Her agitation had been rather vocal when the tenth attempt at hiring a sword-swinging fool had failed, if her granddaughter was to be believed. Yet, for all that, things had quickly settled in for a lull- To her surprise at the time. Even after Tywin Lannister had marched into the capital with an army. Even after the Wolves of the North had wiped their hands clean of the mess they'd run into.
For a moment in time, the game had resumed itself as if the mad man hadn't interrupted it. For a moment in time, she'd genuinely come to believe that the threat had been personal. That the fool had done what he did because he hated the Lannisters and that her granddaughter's pathway wasn't actually in threat. That whatever madness had fallen onto those caught in the mad fools' path, had been borne out of luck. A small part of her even considered the ridiculous notion that it was all part of the Starks plans of all things.
And then... The bleeding sky... Was set on fire.
It was then she realized that it wasn't just a mad fool- Because she'd seen his literal face literally appear in said fire. She'd realized It wasn't just a lucky idiot. It was one that practiced sorcery. Arcane talents, the fool had surely had for surviving for so long.
Yet, when the gods had cursed the mad fool for what he had done and chose to smite him down it had failed, and the cries of a red god had swept across their continent.
It was a sound that filled her nightmares to this day. A sound of pure, utter, agony come to life.
The mad fool had ignored the price expected of him.
The mad fool had killed a god.
And so, the Queen of Thornes as she was so eloquently called had decreed that so long as Karma lived with his intentions hidden, House Tyrell would involve themselves no further in the game.
And the gods immediately punished her for it by taking hold of her son.
By taking their army.
She watched it leave before her very eyes this instant, passively, without a thought of their so-called quest in her mind.
She watched the so-called Warrior as he led a hundred thousand men of the Reach out of the safety of Highgardens walls and towards their deaths.
She hadn't lived this long not to understand that if a lord had to bring a hundred thousand swords with him, to fight a smaller army, then that lord feared his chances.
The Warrior was leading them to fight one man.
And her gut feeling told her he was going to lose.
That she was going to lose her son.
And for all that, it also told her one, very, important thing.
If her son returns to her, then House Tyrell would rise further than ever. The glory of victory alone would cement them as the one true family in the continent, chosen by the gods themselves. A status that even the King himself couldn't hold himself to. A marriage to the royal family would be childs play.
Should her son return to her, victorious whether through a god's power or not, House Tyrell would hold Westeros by its figurative balls.
If he doesn't return, however, then her sweet Margaery had only one job to do then... Because whoever holds Karma in their corner holds the world itself. The seven kingdoms would become an afterthought to them.
And quite frankly, she wasn't sure which one was preferable, because, on account of the interactions between her and the god that had taken over her son, she found the Warrior to be an absolute cunt.
Worse.
He was a dumb cunt who had ignored her every word, her every piece of advice and warning, on account of her being born to the 'wrong gender.'
She'd never thought the day would come when Mace Tyrell had a chance at coming back to her smarter than before.
Truly, Karma was a magic-abusing miracle-working asshole.
And poor, sweet, Margaery might have to marry him.
The world was mind-bogglingly cursed indeed.
...
Hope You Enjoyed! Don't Forget Feedback!
Edit: I'll release the interactions between her and the Warrior at later date as part of the Sidestory series of snippets I intend to have made for this.