400 B.C

Realizing he was surrounded by traitors and enemies, Tyler Teague grew doubtful - had this been the right choice? Had he come here, speaking against his family and the cause he had been adamant to fight for some hours past for nothing?

Had he come here to die a traitor?

"You won't be needing this anymore will you Princeling?"

The jeering footman held the elaborate helmet, gazing at its gold and emeralds with a dreadful smirk on his scarred face.

"The prince won't be needing much of anything anymore!" The man shouted before he raised the helmet up and waved around its crimson plume in the air.

That seemed ample enough encouragement for the surrounding soldiers who gave a loud cheer before rushing at Tyler Teague. His armour was quickly ruined, bits and pieces of it being looted off it even while he still held breath.

One of his plate gauntlets had then been ripped right off, to reveal the shining heirloom ring underneath. Tyler quickly clenched his fist, hoping the footmen had not seen it. This small wish was shattered as men quickly seized his hand, trying to forcefully open it so they can get at the ring. His strength had long since been sapped by the long ride in coming to the Stormlander camp, yet Tyler tried to use whatever was left of it to fight them off. It was a desperate effort and ultimately proved ill-fated as the soldiers wrestled him into the ground and he felt the ring being taken off. He then watched powerless as the man who took it then held it up in the air with a cheer, as if it was a well-earned tourney prize.

Whatever struggle Tyler was trying to put up stopped the moment he lost the ring; he did not care enough to try and fight them anymore. The vultures ceased their relentless assault when a command came over the cheering. The crowd dropped him onto the mud and started shuffling away as the commands continued to come.

Two Stormlander knights came forward and picked him up from where the crowd had dumped him, shouting at the rabble to disperse. Tyler wanted to ask for the return of his helmet, a gift from his brother. He wanted to beg to have his ring returned, the last he had of his mother. But he couldn't bring himself to utter a single word as the knights began shackling his hands with cuffs and chain.

Perhaps it was luck that they hadn't just cut his hand off to make off with the ring.

Once the rush of fight had faded, Tyler Teague could feel nothing but the throbbing pain from his arm. It had to have been broken, the knights dragging him through the encampment appeared to have notice his pain, as they seemed to take a longer route to what he assumed was where they held the captured. Though as the bellows and shouts started up from all around him, Tyler realized that the knights had done this so more men could look upon the captured prince. A traitorous prince, coming to make common cause with a foreign invader.

He was not the only one, he knew, as he looked upon the flying banners over the tents and on posts. He saw the rebels of Tully, with their silver leaping trout on a blue and red field. The green dragon on white and a white tower on black of the Vances of Atranta. The flock of ravens on scarlet surrounding a dead weirwood upon a black escutcheon of House Blackwood, the red stallion of the Brackens, the two enemies united in common cause. And then there was the black dragon on white, two golden eyes in a golden ring on black of the Vances of Wayfarers Rest. Some of the most prominent of the rebelling river lords.

The shouts of men became ear-splitting as Tyler was finally thrown down at the Storm King's feet - and not a cell, strangely.. He must have made quite the sight, covered from head to toe in mud and blood. A Prince of the Riverlands, wrestled down to the ground and robbed of his trinkets. There was no shortage of taunts and insults being thrown at him, by Stormlords and defecting Riverlords both.

Tyler looked up to the heir of Durran and wondered what the Storm King made of him, for he could find nothing but passivity on Arlan's face. There was no dark smile or jarring laughter as with the gathered crowd. He found nothing on the kings' expression but passivity. He betrayed no emotion, no smile or smirk that would suggest anything.

What exactly did the astute king think of an enemy prince brought so low and humbled? Was Tyler an unexpected prize, to be paraded around and humiliated until they put him to death or have him swear the black? Was he now a hostage, to be used against a father who cared for nought but his ambition?

Though, by all accounts, the Storm King had no need for a hostage.

Despite his potential death looming, the idea that he needed to do this grew. It was for the survival of his house more than that of his own, or his brothers or his father.

To be true, he knew what would become of his honour if this turned out as he hoped. He would become a craven, to be laughed at and ridiculed. Even if he retained his father's seat - which he hoped to do, at the very least, at the cost of the kingship, the survivors of the coming battle would have no respect for him, and might even work to see him dead.

It didn't matter. Tyler would die - he had no doubt, and had no care for it, so long as his name lived on through the children he would have.

The king raised his hand, whilst staring into Tylers' eyes with a masked expression still, and the cheering dwindled into nothingness at his silent command. Continuously, when all were quiet, he said nought, and for a moment, Tyler grew stressed, but then, he spoke:

"Relieve him of his chains," His voice was strong, and hard, giving no room for protest from anyone who might have had something to utter, "Then bring him into my tent."

Then he turned, and stalked away, his guard in their gold cloaks following him.

It made Tyler wonder, even as the chains were removed from his wrists by confused-looking men. He had been intending to gain a private audience with King Arlan, wherein he could negotiate the survival of his family through him. But... He had not at all expected to receive it immediately, or especially without even asking for it directly. He brought himself up to be a prisoner, who refused to take up arms against his captors - something he hoped would get him some leniency should his father be defeated.

This was an outcome that was unexpected, but he welcomed it.

They raised and dragged him forward, more roughly than was necessary, and one man in Tully colours Tyler did not recognize stopped them on their way entirely, only to clench his fist and punch him on his face. The young princes' vision was swimming when they got on their way again. There was some laughing, some more cheers, but he did not focus on them.

'One day,' He swore to himself silently, tasting the blood in his mouth, 'The sons of these fools will bow once more to the name of Teague.'

Tyler knew better than to utter such words to these men, but the strangeness of it all made him equally angry and sad. Only a year passed had some of these rivermen called him their prince, now they sought to see him dead as if he had not helped them with their grievances, as if he had not called them friends and given them whatever council he could when they asked.

The candles inside the golden tent gave it a glow apart from the darkening sky, and it shimmered with shadows of the kings' servants and the imposing figure of the king himself. The crowned stag flew large and proud at the head of the castle-like tent, and four Durrandon guards stood at the pavilion, their hands gripped at the hilts of their blades as they watched them come cautiously.

Two of the guards shifted to take the responsibility of pushing him on and into the tent and did it so hard that he almost tripped.

The King was seated patiently, staring into the fires of one of the small iron braziers inside the tent. At the end of his table, there were a string of maps and parchments that he did not seem to care if Tyler managed to peak at.

The prince stood straighter when the guard let go of his arm, and only then did the king turn to him, "Leave us."

The guards took a gentle bow before leaving, and that left him alone with the king with but a single servant, standing obediently near one of the braziers.

"Come, sit," The king looked to Tyler, his words more an invitation than a command, and that confused him greatly, "Give him a cup of wine."

Wary, Tyler walked to take a seat across the Storm King, watching the man silently, a silence that continued to grow as the king regarded him in turn – both far too engrossed in their thoughts for it to grow strange.

"Most men would avoid looking at their captor in the eye, you are braver than many I know." The man leaned back on his seat, raising an eyebrow at Tyler when his wine was brought to him by the servant woman. "Though most men would also not walk to an enemy camp to allow himself to be captured, so I suppose you're special in more than one regard."

It was difficult to imagine how the king had known that he had come with the purpose of being captured, unless, perhaps, a rider had horsed forward to alert the king of what had transpired.

"I'd imagine not... Your grace." It was strange, to use the words to address anyone who was not his father. "I handed myself over as a surrender. I've no intention of fighting this folly of a war, for a fool of a father whose piety will cost him his kingdom."

"Oh?" That almost seemed to amuse him, but his lips turned into a frown moment after. "Then you've not come here to surrender with the hope that we would crown you instead, with you becoming a more amiable leader for my allies?"

"No," Tyler said as he regarded the cup of wine laid for him for a moment, before deciding against it.

"No. We are ill-loved amongst the Riverlords, for reasons I've no understanding of. We hadn't even treated ill most of the lords that stand with you here, your grace, yet they rose all the same. No, Another Teague king would mean another rebellion in the future, and that is no sound foundation for a thriving realm."

"Then what is it you ask?" Now it was the kings turn to look confused, leaning back into the table with his eyes narrowed.

"That you allow me to keep the lands of the Castle of Fieldstone and its incomes, for my surrender to you before the bloodshed has begun with your presence. In turn, I will publicly renounce my claim to the Kingdom of the Rivers and the Hills, and vow loyalty to the next king that you choose for our people."

It was all he had to give, and he doubted that it would be enough, but what more was there for him to do? This was for his house, and it just may well end in him being killed, but it was the best he could give. He wondered if, in his last moments, he would think he had done enough.

King Arlan snorted, "Your mere existence would be a threat to the next river king after. Even if you renounce your claims, you would find yourself being hanged before the years' end."

It was true, and here... Tyler hoped to play on a gamble. Just and courteous this king maybe, but he had no doubt that he still had a king's ambition, and he had seen from his father, pious as he was, what he had was never enough. Especially with other kings around him on all sides.

"That is true, your grace," Tyler regarded the man evenly, "Though only if there is a river king. As a Teague, I don't recall having any sort of claim to the Stormlands, and should the rivers be brought into the realm, your realm and the title be destroyed. What is there for a hated man to contest?"

Tyler didn't have the words to put the idea into the man's mind with subtlety. This was how it had to be said, and he knew the king would at least appreciate his directness. He also knew as much that the storm lords were in question for why they were fighting, and what this war had to do with them. If Arlan crowned a river lord, and left empty-handed, that would be akin to their men having died for nothing, in a foreign land.

But new land brought about new opportunities for a large realm, so the river lords bending the knee to the Stormlands would at least bring about satisfaction to them.

Arlan was clearly chewing on his words, and his expression grew passive again. Tyler wondered if he had already agreed to crown a certain lord and if this would be the hurdle that would get his idea dismissed, along with his head. Though he truly had no interest in being king, that was for his sons to see to, no, his duty was seeing his family to that point once more.

Then, when the king smiled, the Lord of Fieldstone knew he had done it.