Author's Note: Me again kiddos. Thanks for all the kind words and follows!

As always, I hope you enjoy this update.

Chapter 21

Original word count: 3,135

Revised word count: 3,692

It was a silent, weary camp, full of fear and sorrow.

The rebel forces had left thousands of their number on the field. The total count still hadn't been made, no one entirely sure who was dead or missing in the aftermath of the chaotic retreat. There were some certainties and many, many questions, foremost among them the fate of Hoster Tully, who had not escaped the battle. If my goodfather still lives, he will be the only grandparent my child has a chance to know. The rest have been taken, by natural means or murder.

Eddard had nearly lost the man he viewed as a second father as well. Lord Paramount Jon Arryn of the Vale, insistent on leading his troops despite his advancing age, had taken a dagger to his calf, struck by a no name knight whom Arryn thought to be dead. The man most certainly hadn't been, ignoring the fact that his own leg was gone to strike from his lying position and sink the blade into Arryn's leg. The sudden blow had brought the aging knight to a knee just as the Vale line broke. Though Jon killed the man who wounded him, he would have been killed in turn or captured by the charge if not for Lord Yohn Royce. Bronze Yohn and his knights had cut through the onslaught to their liege's side, bundling him onto a horse and fighting their way free to bear him to safety.

The wound was deep but not serious, making it hard for Jon to walk but not threatening to his life. The much more dangerous blow to the Lord Paramount had been the death of his heir Denys, the Darling of the Vale, struck down by Jon Connington at the ford. Lord Arryn had been trying to recover his body when he was himself wounded and hadn't been able to. in the ensuing madness. Ned knew that fact weighed on his friend as heavily as Denys' death.

Whether Hoster was dead or captured no one could rightly say. None of his retainers had returned, having taken the brunt of the Dornish charge. No one remembered him being struck down, yet he hadn't fled the field with the rest of the Riverlanders. Reason says he is dead. I wonder if my stranger of a wife will blame me for living when her father did not.

Many others had not either. Beyond Robert and perhaps Hoster, over a score of rebel lords had lost their lives in the bloodbath at the ford, and scores more of noble blood. Lords Swygert and Pryor in the first charge, lords Gower, Bigglestone and Wull in the melee, and lords Terrick, Melcolm and Hersy in the retreat were but a handful, and several more were wounded severely enough that they may not long outlive their companions.

If they were to fall upon us now, reeling as we are, they'd put us to rout and kill what's left of us.

It was for that reason that Eddard was relieved when the sentries called out that a rider approached, bearing a white flag. It was a single man who rode amongst them at dusk, riding a bay courser. In one hand he held a spear with a white cloth tied to its head; in the other he held the leadrope of a mule that trailed behind him, harnessed to an apple cart.

By the time the rider was escorted to the center of the camp Eddard and Jon Arryn were waiting for him, Ned standing while Lord Arryn sat in a chair with his leg stretched out before him. The war council, or at least what remained of them, stood slightly behind the two great lords, among them the Greatjon, Bronze Yohn Royce and Blackfish Brynden Tully. A score of bodyguards, hands on blades, made it an altogether daunting welcoming party for the rider.

A rider that proved to be a boy, no more than six and ten. Hypocritical of me, as I'm only a few years older. Tall and lanky, he was dressed in a magnificent set of black and burgundy armor, each inch of it scrubbed clean. Recently at that, if Eddard had a guess, for nothing had been clean after the Battle of the Trident; not armor, not weapons, and not the participant's souls.

The envoy reined his bay to a halt several paces away from the men gathered to meet him. His angular face was trying not to betray nervousness, but Ned knew the boy had to be feeling it. I would be. He was surrounded by men who, hours before, he had been trying to kill—and who had been trying to kill him, making it a less than an auspicious start. Despite those factors, he spoke calmly and clearly, tone caring in the crisp air. "I come with a message from Prince Aelor Targaryen, Lord of Duskendale of Hand of the King."

Greatjon Umber, ever a man for meritocracy, scoffed loudly as he regarding the boy atop the horse. "He sends a green boy to parlay? Does Targaryen mean to insult us, sending a whelp in his own place?"

The lad wisely didn't rise to the Greatjon's ribbing, though Ned thought he saw his face reddened in the dying light. "I was instructed to speak with Lords Eddard Stark and Jon Arryn."

"I am Jon Arryn," the Lord Paramount of the Vale said quietly. He gestured towards Eddard with a raise of his right hand. "This is Lord Stark. Who are you, son, and why did Targaryen send you instead of another?"

The boy straightened noticeably. "I am Ser Desmond Langward, squire to Prince Aelor during the battle and knighted shortly afterwards." He fell silent for a moment, then continued in a more somber tone. "I suppose he sent me because everyone else he trusts is dead, courtesy of your lordships."

"Do you knight children in the south, Lord Arryn?" the Greatjon asked, intentionally pushing the lad's control. It was a character trait of the man, always ruffling feathers just to see which ones fell out. "Targaryen insults us by sending half a man in place of a full one."

Eddard opened his mouth to hush the Lord of Last Hearth, knowing this was not the place for his mind games, but Bronze Yohn Royce beat him to it. "Peace, Greatjon." The Lord of Runestone was judging Ser Desmond with a cool, calculating eye. "If he is who he says he is, Ser Desmond is man enough to be here. We knocked Prince Aelor off his stallion during Robert's charge but didn't manage to finish him. His squire got in the way, fighting off some of our best men while prince Aelor regained his feet."

Langward's chest swelled at that, pride evident on his face though he tried to conceal it. He's more man than boy, if Bronze Yohn is correct, but still part boy nonetheless. Eddard couldn't relate, no matter the scant few years between them; he felt old on the inside, as old as the godswood in Winterfell.

Ned cleared his throat, addressing the young knight. "What word does your prince have for us?"

Langward's voice took an even, rehearsed tone, repeating what was certainly heavily practiced words. "Prince Aelor offers your Lordships the opportunity to reclaim your dead. Come morning, you may send a burial detail of no more than one hundred fifty men to the ford, where you will be left in peace to claim what bodies you wish; rebel dead have been lined out on this bank, though there is limited order to it. Whomever you leave shall be cremated alongside our own dead at dusk tomorrow." Ser Desmond gestured towards the mule and cart slightly behind him. "He sends this as a token of his goodwill. It is your heir, Lord Arryn."

The Lord of the Vale didn't move for a long moment, his face blank, before he turned his head in the direction of Bronze Yohn Royce. Though no words passed between them, the Lord of Runestone immediately exited the half circle of rebel leaders, quietly stepping up to the cart's side. He peered inside for a moment, then turned back to his liege lord and nodded softly.

Jon Arryn's jaw worked silently as Bronze Yohn waved for several of the Vale lords and guards to join him, the men lifting out Denys Arryn's fallen body with great reverence and bearing him away towards Jon's tent. The Lord of the Vale only spoke again once those men were gone, and even then he spoke quietly. "Give him my thanks."

Desmond Langward nodded softly, then continued his prepared speech. "Prince Aelor also invites lords Stark and Arryn to discuss peace terms while the bodies are claimed. He proposes to meet on this side of the river, between the lines of dead and the edge of the forest. He agrees to fifty men in your personal guard, though he will bring double that due to the burial party and the location of the meeting. He also invites a single representative from the Stormlands in lieu of a Lord Baratheon."

Lord Roose Bolton, another bannerman growing accustomed to Ned as their lord instead of his father or brother, asked the question on several lord's minds. "How do we know this isn't a trap?"

Ser Desmond turned to meet the Lord of the Dreadfort's odd eyes evenly, the slightest touch of anger in his own. "Prince Aelor is a man of his word." His lips turned up in a small smile. "And if it were, I wouldn't be like to tell you, would I?"

Greatjon Umber laughed at that, as Ned had suspected he would. "You have balls, lad, I'll grant you that."

Eddard for his part was unsmiling. "You made no mention of a lord from the Riverlands."

The young knight nodded as if he'd expected the question. "We already have some, Lord Stark. Hoster Tully is our prisoner, along with Lords Piper and Wode."

Brynden Blackfish Tully, so far having remained quiet, bulled his way to the front. "Is he hurt?" He found that surprising, for Eddard had never seen the Tully brothers at anything other than the other's throat. But blood is blood. I went to war for my own brother, for all the good it did.

Ser Desmond shook his head. "Lord Hoster was trapped beneath his dead horse, but the man himself is unharmed."

The Blackfish grunted, satisfied, and Ned felt another bit of relief that his wife's father was alive. For now, at least. Eddard glanced down at Jon Arryn, who was already looking up at him. After a moment of unspoken conversation, the Lord of the North turned to Ser Desmond. "Tell Prince Aelor we will be there at dawn."

If their war had accomplished nothing else, it had aged Aelor Targaryen a decade.

As the prince of the Iron Throne rode towards them on a massive black stallion, surrounded by a hundred men, Eddard felt he barely recognized the man. While he and the Dragon of Duskendale had not been close, Ned remembered a laughing, smiling youth, one who made jokes at his own expense and loved to dance. The figure approaching them now looked older and sterner, his easy smile replaced with hard eyes and a clenched jaw, an air of command about him.

It appeared the war had nearly killed him as well. A vicious gash carved through the right side of his face, framed by silver beard grown long. Though mostly healed, new pink flesh visible around the tear in his pale skin, it was an undeniably ugly thing, drawing the attention of any who looked his way. It made Aelor seem more sellsword than Prince, brilliant black armor and destrier aside.

Until he spoke. After that, the authority in his deep voice left no doubt of his royal blood.

"Lords Stark and Arryn, I am glad you came. Let us put an end to this bloodshed." The Dragon of Duskendale looked to his right, where Ser Barristan Selmy sat a white courser beside Hoster Tully. The Lord Paramount of the Riverlands was tied to his saddle like a common bandit, though he looked clean and no worse for the wear. The prince nodded at the Kingsguard knight, and Selmy withdrew a dagger to cut Tully's hands free. A thin Dornishman atop a sandsteed, undoubtedly Prince Oberyn Martell, slapped the lord's courser lightly on the flank, prompting the horse to trot the few dozen paces between the two sides. Hoster Tully reined up beside the Blackfish, the two brothers looking at one another only a moment before turning back towards the loyalist.

"Prince Aelor," Jon Arryn began, having insisted on riding to this meeting despite the wound to his leg. "I want to thank you for returning Denys' body to me."

Aelor Targaryen nodded firmly. "Enemy or no, the man fought bravely. He deserved to rest with his own."

"And Robert?" Ned asked quietly.

"I have his, too, on a pallet in my camp."

Greatjon, never able to stay quiet for long, spoke from beside Eddard. "Did he not fight bravely?"

Targaryen cocked his own brow. "Are you a Baratheon? No? Then you aren't 'one of his own', are you?" The prince let his words hang a moment, then continued. "What happens to him depends on what accord we reach today, my lords. If peace is reached, I will consent to his body being returned to Storm's End. If we do not reach peace, I'll have his head removed and sent to King's Landing, where it will warm a spike on Maegor's Holdfast until the flesh falls from the skull." Aelor lowered his head slightly. "So will the heads of each rebel lord killed in the fighting that follows."

Jon Arryn, the grumblings of the men behind him buoying his words, answered. "You start talks of peace with threats?"

Aelor Targaryen shrugged. "I'm merely stating what my intentions will be if these talks fail. Forgive me if it seemed to be more; diplomacy was always my brother's battlefield, not mine. As you might recall, your lordships killed him." He raised a gauntleted hand to forestall further protest. "But I'm not here to rehash what has already happened. I am here to discuss what happens now."

The thunk thunk thunk of bodies being loaded into wagons behind the prince filled the sudden silence of the parlay, only broken by the even keeled Lord Arryn sometime later. "What is it you had in mind?"

"Surrender," the Dragon of Duskendale said at once. "Yours, here and now. This war was started over the personal disagreements of a few men. Most of those men are now dead, with thousands sharing their grave. I see no need for thousands more to join them."

Hoster Tully, glancing at Eddard—likely thinking of Cat and our child—spoke. "I imagine there will be repercussions."

"Of course there will," Aelor answered, impassive. "For all of you, though some will fare worse than others."

The rebel lords waited for the prince to continue, but the Dragon of Duskendale simply met their gazes evenly. Jon Arryn prompted him. "Explain if you would, Prince Aelor."

The big Targaryen nodded, absently patting the neck of the huge stallion he rode. The sound of the dead being loaded behind him colored each word. "Some, like Lord Stark, had just cause to despise my father and brother. Others, like you, Lord Tully, acted out of ambition. I can understand the first. I struggle with the latter."

Tully raised his chin slightly. "Your father was a madman."

Aelor seemed unperturbed. "Yes, but it wasn't your father and brother he killed, now was it? Or yours, Lord Arryn, yet you refused to surrender your wards when ordered to."

Eddard cut in. "It was my father and brother Aerys killed, as well as one of Jon's kinsmen. He meant to do the same with us."

"Yes, he did," Aelor agreed with a nod, extending his hands out to either side of him placatingly. "You didn't let me finish, Lord Stark. I am not one for diplomatic words, so let us all speak plainly. My father, though still my father, was an unfit king and a madman. My brother also made several mistakes, and the realm has bled heavily because of them both. But they were, one after the other, your king. You swore vows to them, vows that you broke. I'm not saying you were not justified in revolting, my lords, but the truth remains that you did revolt. You revolted against the crown you swore to obey, and you lost."

Greatjon scoffed aloud. "We haven't lost yet." The big man threw a thumb over his shoulder, gesturing to the woods beyond. "There's still an army behind us."

Aelor shrugged at the big Umber. "You're right, there is, one likely equal to my own. But how long will it remain there?" Aelor leaned back in his saddle, meeting first one lord's gaze, then another's as he talked. "Your claimant through Rhaelle Targaryen is dead, and with him died your only chance to pass this off as a war of succession instead of conquest. Robert's brothers are both still alive, yes, but you likely already know that they are being besieged by Mace Tyrell and the Redwyne Fleet. While reports say they are holding out remarkably, all of us here know it can only go on so long. If you were to decide to keep up the fight, you would have to go through me and my army to even have a chance to reach them. And I promise you, my lords, you would pay for every inch of ground from here to Storm's End with blood." He shook his head. "You don't have time. Stannis and Renly would either be in Lord Tyrell's custody or dead of starvation by the time you reached the Kingswood; either way, their own claims would be gone. So tell me; without a claimant for a war of succession, what happens?"

Eddard had nothing to say to that. Thankfully, Selwyn Tarth—the chosen voice from the Stormlands, and the man who successfully flanked Aelor at the Straits—did. "Independence. This great unified throne has given us ill will; maybe we should no longer have one."

To his credit, Aelor Targaryen seemed completely unsurprised by the assertion. He was also bluntly dismissive. "Nonsense. There has been a King of the Iron Throne, proof that one man can rule all seven kingdoms. Sure, were you to successfully eliminate my bloodline your cooperation and friendship with one another may well let you rule independently for a generation, but what about your sons? What about their sons? I ask, how long before one of your descendants decides that we do need a king, and that that king should be him. Therein begins war, then more war, then more war."

Lord Arryn smiled, smally. "There have been wars beneath the Targaryen dynasty before, prince Aelor. Bloody ones, oftentimes between the Targaryens themselves, both trueborn and bastard."

"I don't deny that, Lord Arryn. But there were a great many more wars before Aegon landed. Any one of you who denies that is a liar, and any who think it wouldn't be the same a generation after independence is a thrice-damned fool."

"So we should all bow to the Targaryen's again, eh?" Hoster shook his head. "I recall the same histories you do. Aegon landed with dragons. He held the realm together with their fire and the fear they wrought. And last I checked, Prince Aelor, all of the dragons are dead."

Aelor Targaryen's eyes almost seemed to start burning, so intense was his stare at the lord of Riverrun. "No, Tully. The dragons are most certainly not."

There was silence.

The Dragon of Duskendale's glare seemed to ease a bit, as did the fire in his tone. "The best outcome for your families, both now and a hundred years from now, is to end this conflict today. Bend your knees here, and I promise I will take into consideration your reasons for rebelling." The spark of fire returned. "If you decide to continue this war, though…when I defeat you, and I will defeat you, there will be no such consideration. I will reclaim what you tried to take from my family with fire and blood; the blood of you and your kin, down to the very last drop."

A quiet hung over the field again, even the sounds from the burial parties grown low. The rebel leaders glanced among one another as Aelor Targaryen and his men looked on in silence, tension as thick as the piles of bodies.

Eddard was the one to break the stillness this time. He met Aelor's intense gaze as he did so, Stark grey to Targaryen violet. "My sister."

Ned did not look away. Neither did the prince. "She is alive and unharmed."

"Do you know where she is?"

"I do."

Eddard took this information and silently scoured its implications in his brain. Aelor didn't interrupt him, sitting silently and letting the Lord of the North do so. Finally, the lord of the north narrowed his eyes. "When this is all over, she will return to her family and the North unharmed."

Aelor did not hesitate. "She will stay there; she has no place in the south now. We all will rest easier if Lyanna and I never see one other again."

Eddard nodded. "And my child?"

Aelor raised a brow, not used to being questioned and not enjoying the experience, but he answered Ned anyway. "The sins of the father are not the sins of the son. I know that, perhaps better than anyone. Though I will punish innocents if I am forced to, I have no desire to. If we reach an accord today, there will be no need for it. On this you have my word."

Eddard turned first to Lord Arryn, then to Hoster Tully, before looking back to the prince of the Iron Throne. "What are your terms?"

The Dragon of Duskendale smiled.