The young storm.
The world was so different in the air, soaring above the realms of men and gazing down at the endless stretch of rivers and canals that fueled trade between the seven kingdoms and created unprecedented wealth for the Riverlands even as the West and the South rose to new heights. Townships, riverports, castles, and keeps looked like tiny toys on the canvas of a child's model. Farmland etched into the land itself rising as light greens and golden color patterns and herds of cattle and sheep and auroch could be seen as specks of whites and blacks and clay browns and the wild mammoth herds becoming more and more common (and at times, pestilential to farmers.), rising like large brown anvils to the view of a dragon rider. It's easy to see why the mightiest lords of the Freehold thought themselves Gods…Stupid, but easy. Gendry was blessed with the sense that the Gods gave a turnip, so he never looked below and saw mortals of him to play with.
On the contrary, as a former Blacksmith's apprentice, Gendry looked down and saw tools, resources, and fuel. Each piece is essential to the whole and utterly useless without the other. An anvil was just dead weight without a forge, iron was just a lump of rock without flame, and a hammer without a piece of metal to beat stopped being a friendly tool and became an instrument of wild violence.
To Gendry, the skies revealed the beauty of the world of the Gods and the magnificence of the realms built by men far greater than a humble bastard-born lordling could ever hope to be. He did far too much thinking for his own good in the air, though it made his head hurt, but he couldn't help but relive the wondrous and terrifying things he witnessed in the North. There were always rumors that the spider bites that killed the male Redwyne infants were the work of Wargs sent by the hand. After my stay at Sea dragon keep… Winterfell and Wintertown were beautiful, and Lord Stark and Lady Stark warm and gracious even if Lady Stark was strained in her hospitality (Lady Lysa had warned him of this.), Lady Rhaella was as kind and wise and fierce as Queen Cersei pretended she was, and he saw where King Daemon got his sense of pragmatism and wit, for he was the son of the old Lady Stark's sister. Princess Daenerys was interesting, uprooted from the place of her birth, wherein she came into the world during the sack of King's Landing by Lords Tywin Lannister and Tully. He expected a child as sullen and hard as his uncle Stannis, yet she was gracious, warm, and friendly and introduced Jon Storm, the Stark bastard, as "Your brother in name." He liked Jon; they had bonded over their status as bastards. He was grateful that Lady Lysa was kind to him after he proved himself (and she hadn't been cruel to him before that. She treated him as a servant, and he was apprenticed to master Noye, thus making him a servant.). Gendry offered him a place in his household should he not find one in the North (Once castle Greystorm was finished anyway.), but it was Robb and Arya Stark with whom Gendry truly bonded. Like him, Robb was a natural with a sword and shockingly good for a future high lord (Who often had to balance martial education with sums and figures and politics.), he spoke the common tongue well, and as Gendry was still learning High Valyrian was immensely gratified for it. Robb promised to journey to visit castle Greystorm when it was finished at the end of the year, and they could attend a tourney in the South together.
Greywind was a remarkable animal, and Gendry found himself the new favorite plaything of the Direwolf pups who tackled him and wrestled with him and little Rickon, who clung to his leg or hung from his back like one of those lemurs of the Dothraki sea. The Starks were a loving family, something he had at Storm's End but never had in the years before. And Robb agreed to let me fashion scaled armor for Greywind, and little Bran has the makings of a better sword than myself or Robb. Arya and Jon would be natural dragon riders when the eggs Winter laid hatch finally, assuming they can bond with a dragon. He still couldn't believe he had won the affection of Stormwind. The young grey dragon was an ill-tempered savage that only avoided being hunted down and riddled with arrows while still an infant because he favored hunting dolphin to sheep and cattle, and one or two were enough to sustain him for months at a time especially when he gorged himself on schools of fish between feastings. Shiera told him he made his lair in a system of hidden caves on the cliffs ad hillsides near Storm's End. Taking the ghastly shipbreaker bay as his kingdom, he hunted the schools of pilot whales that frequented the seas not so far from Shipbreaker Bay. Below him, Stormwind shifted, sensing the change in his heartbeat as he recalled their first encounter. He had spent months watching the dragon determining where he'd made his lair, and then another moon's turn leaving roast fish and salted and cooked venison out at the mouth of his cave. He could still remember the frustration when Aurane Waters seizing on his hard work, attempted to enter the caves claiming to be the mysterious benefactor that left him all those meals.
But Stormwind knew better, and the Velaryon bastard was sent running for his life, a wave of white fire surging behind him, his cape alight, and one of those ridiculous feathers he kept on his wide-brimmed hat singed to nothing but a blackened quill. He'd hopped back on his rowboat and scuttled away, slinking back to the Blackfyre fleet for which he plied his ancestral trade as a captain. At least he had an ancestral trade. Gendry thought at the time; no one ushered him into the smithy save for the Lord Hand. Lord Aenar had been good to him, but he was terrifying in his own way. Gendry had entered the caves then, adorned in his simple blacksmiths smock, trousers, and a thick beat-up tunic that smelled of coal and ash—hoping that the smell of his forge and the sea might convince the dragon that they were both of salt and smoke. Perhaps it worked, or Stormwind merely recognized his scent from the gifts. But the dragon bellowed, and the cave walls shook, and it was all Gendry could do to keep from soiling his breeches.
He'd walked through a cave larger than a city block in King's Landing. He was entering an even larger secondary chamber, with only the flickering light of his torch and the blue glint of Stormwind's eyes. In the dark, the light of his torch and Stormwind's eyes seemed to reflect one another, forming an unnatural beacon. The cave's walls glittered with pearls and seashells, fossils of seals and walruses, and what looked like a sea serpent and a pool of clear blue sea water shimmered in the torchlight. There were bones at the bottom of the pool that belonged to something that might have been manlike but wasn't a man at all if the fangs and unusually elongated jaws and heads were any indication. Not that Gendry knew much about anatomy, but he knew enough to take measurements for suits of armor and helms, and it caused a chill to creep up Gendry's spine. There were runes of the First men and father, and Steffon later told him they believed this was one of the roots of the castle; there was a power in there that Stormwind seemed to derive nourishment from and that seemed to derive power from Stormwind in turn. He felt as though he'd stepped into another world, another time.
And something was watching them both, whispering and calling his name and telling him to go forward and seize his destiny. He was at once terrified and excited, and when Stormwind opened his mouth Gendry, lacking the Valyrian words to command, the dragon merely knelt and extended a hand.
The flames erupted over his head, and his hand would be red and sore for a time, but Gendry was used to the forge and held firm. Eventually, he felt a snout nuzzle his stinging, aching hand.
And when Gendry departed those caves, he did so on dragon back.
His father and siblings had embraced him and cheered, but Lady Lysa looked hateful and angry, murderous and mad. He never forgot that look, no matter how kind she was to him now.
The wind caused his raven-black hair to flutter, wildly becoming a mess of tangles that he knew would need to be cut out later. He had departed Winterfell with a silk-lined cloak whose shoulders were covered in the fur of a red wolf and gloves made from doe hide. Kingly gifts for a bastard, Gendry wore them now as they shielded himself against the cold better than his traditional garb. The letter and its contents played through his mind; I cannot trust a raven little boy. Lady Lysa always called him that; she was beautiful and had shed most of the weight from her pregnancies better than most women her age. Auburn hair and pale blue eyes framed a face that revealed Targaryen ancestry; she was kind and loving to him, but there were moments when he feared her smiles, and the glint in her eyes seemed almost like the look of a reptile. She claimed to love him like a son, that she had been so distant and commanding because Robert sending for him from the capitol hurt her, but then she saw how loyal he'd been to Steffon and how gallant he was saving her from bandits and felt ashamed. Am I the son she never had? Or a well-trained attack dog for her son? Well, he was born in flea bottom, and Lord Seaworth made a good point "Don't fret, even if the lady loves you like a favorite hound, that's more than most of these Highborns love their children half the time and more than we get in the bottom between bowls of brown."
It was true, Gendry thought. He accepted the wisdom, ceased fretting over it, and was glad for that as he seen what overthinking one's position in a family had done to Jon Storm. Much of what he'd seen in the North confused him, the Starks were loving, but at Sea Dragon Keep, he saw a family that loved each other yet saw each other as assets in a merchant's game. The Aetheryon's were a cold people, and he was glad to be in the air and on his way home. The most magical part of his trek home was when Lord Howland Reed invited him to sup with his family and stay the night at Greywater watch when he landed in the swamps of the neck for a night. The crannogmen had come out of nowhere; even Stormwind hadn't sensed them. Small men, whom he towered over, but there was a dangerous glint in their eyes and a power in the swamps of the Neck older than the lineage of his Dragon. Stormwind felt that…I could tell.
"Come, young lord, you're like as not to die from a bug bite or a poisoned frog brushing up against you in the night."
Lord Reed was a gracious host if quiet. His son Jojen unnerved him but in a way that filled him with wonder and not dread. And Greywater watch was a magical place, a floating castle that wasn't quite a castle, and he wasn't even sure if Stormwind could address it properly with his flames. Even Dragons fire seemed to yield to the Neck, and Stormwind spent the night atop Greywater watch, keen eyes on the darkness of the swamps below as if he sensed…something out there that a young dragon like himself should be wary of. On the flight home, he wondered if the rumors spread by Lord Tyrell that Ol'Lord Aenar had used wargs to murder the male Redwyne infants in their sleep were not entirely unfounded. From the way he heard the tale, the Northern navy hit the Redwyne fleet so hard they lost half their ships, and cries for surrender were ignored by Admiral Monterys Aetheryon (who descended upon the fleet with Daeros and did not let up until there was nothing left) and Wyman Manderly. It was a small wonder that Vhagar was loved by the current Redwyne fleet (Or rather the Arbor fleet as it was now called.) and the merchants of the Arbor. But then again, Lord Davos and Uncle Stannis were strange men who, in their absolutism, won loyalty that they ought not to have won and then held such loyalties for longer than a man ought to. Then again, Maester Cressen says the vendettas of the Reach are bitter and involve blood ties. Stannis may not be of the Reach, but many a Storm King wed Gardener maids, and his wife is a Redwyne, which is more than the house of the former Stewards of Highgarden can say.
There was a danger in that, being an outsider with at least one dragon, sent to cow a vassal who overextended himself. Any other man might quickly become a pawn in another's game, or so Gendry saw it anyway. What little he knew of the intrigue of high lords reminded him so much of flea bottom gangs and their feuds that he was surprised no bard had ever written a song on the matter nor any fool make such into a series of jests. Thinking made his head hurt, and he was glad to see the great drum tower of Storm's End from the air, and he felt himself smile as he saw the shapes of his half-sister and lady Lysa waving to him.
I'm home.
…
Against the current.
If there was one thing the loss of her first child and the hollowness of Petyr's words of comfort taught her was that there was no such thing as happiness in this world. Or that is to say, Lysa Tully of the House Baratheon learned the hard lesson that she would never be a happy woman unless she forced the world to conform to her desires. Cat settled herself with Winterfell and the immense Northern Kingdom and all its mysteries and wealth; her Goodbrother Stannis contented himself with spiting House Tyrell with his very existence and increasing the wealth of the Arbor and the shield isles as much as he could to ensure he was remembered as the best Lord of "that realm of useless country gentry and cattle lords." He had ever seen because he never shirked any duty, and King Daemon and her lord husband had charged him with founding a Baratheon dynasty that would one day see a cadet branch usurp and assimilate Highgarden in retribution for their crimes during the rebellion.
She admired Stannis, but he was not a man capable of the deception her Petyr was, nor was he capable of the charisma of her Lord Husband. But she had learned a valuable lesson from each man in her life; Petyr taught her the sobering power of heartbreak that dashed her innocence and revealed how childish and stunted she was. Lord Stannis taught her that she was utterly ignorant of the way of the world. Her lord father taught her that even if the seven proscribed slavery, a noble was little more than chattel with the right to use violence against the smallfolk who were genuinely free (And the condition of freedom was filth, violence, and brief lives.) and her Lord husband, Robert Baratheon taught her the value of using the debt owed to friendship and kindness as leverage. He cheated on her, roused her wrath even as she roused his, and in their early marriage, paid for that in bruises. Still, over time both had confided in each other, and she admitted to the loss of the babe, and he confessed to just how much he missed Lyanna and how horrid he was for spurning her. She'd taken his massive bear-like hand into her slender ones and kissed his fight-worn knuckles. It might be that neither of them ever loved the other, but "We are alone against the world, Robert; the King denied you the right to open vengeance against Highgarden while wielding your surviving brother and his children as living weapons against enemies you have a blood right to." She had told him and my how he thundered and raged at her for daring to put down his foster brother and boyhood friend. Yet she could see something in his eyes told her the rage was halfhearted. "I will be your shield, Robert; let us fight side by side. You with your war hammer and me with my wiles."
He agreed, but his concept of being a shield meant that he needed to enrich the Storm Lands to the same degree that the Reach and the West were so that he could begin raising a proper army (Robert wanted to prepare to move to back up Stannis in case any fighting started but Lysa had other plans.)Robert, of course, couldn't work sums to save his life, and while Lysa would traditionally ask Petyr for help, she knew she couldn't. Not when it was clear he was no better than her lord father and would embezzle everything he could. And unlike Cat, where lord Tully did educate her at least halfway, she had to learn everything from scratch, and her first ventures were a disaster. Then she picked up an old book on economics by a rather unscrupulous money lender exiled from Braavos, and everything began to fall into place. First, she acquired an outrageous loan from Braavos and bought up almost all the seasonal yield of the poppy from Dorne. Then when scarcity hit, it sold for a hundred times the cost, and people bought it.
Tycho Nestoris, the iron bank envoy, said no one had ever repaid the Iron bank so swiftly. She was able to purloin that into another loan with a lower interest that she used to finance a project by Qyburn, a disgraced Maester in her employ across the narrow sea. He found a way to boil bittercane with a simple powdered tonic used to address pain in the belly after meals to create a hyper-concentrated version of the bittercane, which became so popular amongst the wealthy and the whores and the sellswords in the free cities (Even those under Westerosi control.) that she was receiving shipments of gold, silver, silks and rare spices through the ports of the Stormlands regularly. I'll have to find a way to disperse those funds through other Kingdoms and proxies to redirect them to Storm's End safely. I must also ensure that this "sweetsmoke" doesn't reach our shores. I mislike the…changes it makes to the mind and body of those who partake in it.
Not that she cared if certain foreigners debauched themselves into an early grave or if any decadent lord of the seven Kingdoms made a series of similar poor choices, but she wouldn't have a plague of depravity and indolence in her own home.
All this, of course, served a purpose. Lysa Baratheon might have struggled to love her lord husband, but she cherished and loved her son and daughter, and yes, even the bastard; on some level, she'd come to love the boy. It would be foolish not to; my son will need him devoted for what's to come.
Lord Aenar's death was no accident; it wasn't old age though he was incredibly ancient. Though I can't tell if it was the Lannister bitch, my dear Petyr, or his own heir…a great-great-grandson that is as ambitious as a Lannister. Or a faceless man, or perhaps my own lord father. Lord Aenar had blocked several of Hoster's proposed reforms for taxes on the nobles, and both her lord father and Lord Tywin's proxies on the council were growing increasingly hostile to the faction that supported King Daemon's reforms and projects even though they remained in a majority. The builder King was beloved by most of the minor and middle nobility and half the High Lords of the realm. And the smallfolk adore him, the first King whose birth language was not high Valyrian. Robert didn't care for politics, nor did she, apart from how to better wield it to protect her children.
Ours is the fury.
Family, duty, honor.
Her lord husband was convinced there would be war soon, sooner than anticipated, and he believed it wouldn't start with the east. And so Lysa would use the harsh lessons taught to her by the men in her life to build herself a dynasty of furiously loyal dragon riders that would be untouchable for a thousand years. Though, if she had her way, her heirs would never sit upon the Iron Throne. That way lay madness; unless you were a Targaryen or Blackfyre, that demonic monstrosity of a chair would devour you whole. But if they were the men and women whose fire and fury and sense of duty were the underpinnings of the realm, then my children and grandchildren would have the power to protect themselves and the means to remain useful, and through that…
She allowed herself to breathe; the serving girl was done fastening her cloak. She stared at herself in the reflective piece of Myrish glass. Her eyes were less dark; her skin hadn't fully adjusted to all the lost weight. I was lost and stupid for so long. It was ironic that the final ingredient to the potion that shocked her out of long sleep was a bastard, but the boy's loyalty to her son and daughter was without question. Though he doesn't fully trust me, I think. And she couldn't blame him, she thought as the servant finished laying out her curly auburn hair, letting it drape along her back. The red contrasted with the black and gold of House Baratheon's colors more vividly than it ever did with Tully blues and reds. When she turned to leave for the roof, Lysa stopped to look at the portraits of Lord Robert and herself and a newborn Steffon—sleeping motionlessly in her arms. Yes, a part of her did love Gendry because it was preferable to champion a bastard and mold it so that the bastard's loyalty was unquestionably tied to its trueborn siblings than if you raised it in neglect and sullenness.
Catelyn Tully would one day be devoured by Winter under Jon Storm's orders, even if they came out of Robb's mouth. Of that, she was confident, but Gendry Greystorm would rule over the Ranwood down to Weeping Town and do it well in his brother's name, and when any vassal raised an unseemly implication about if it was Riverrun or Storm's End that ruled the Storm Lands as they had before.
Well, Steffon would have his own personal Gregor Clegane in the form of the Lord of Greystorm castle.
Standing at the top of the tower of Storm's End, taking in the sea salt-rich air and the smell of thousands of years of history, she looked to Shiera and smiled. Auburn hair and blue eyes, but Baratheon in all the ways that counted.
She took another deep, long breath as half-siblings hugged, and then her daughter squealed when Gendry presented her with seeds of the winter rose. Lya Tully of House Baratheon took in the power, majesty, and might of the ancient castle and all the history that lay within every stone and brick and in her lord husband and his blood, and she smiled. This had been a place of might so great it resisted the tempest wrath of the Storm God and sheltered Elenei, the daughter of the storm. Duran's Godsgrief rebelled against the very gods and broke the power of the storms to shelter and shield her lady love.
This time, it would be the lady love shielding the mighty lord and his brood when the storm broke.
Family, duty, honor.
Being a Tully wasn't always easy.
But when things went to plan.
She would allow herself to enjoy it.