"Again, woman!" His breath escaped him hurriedly, his chest rising frantically as he gasped for the moist and dirty air, his hands tugging at his limp member all the while. His seed matted his thick, bushy beard, growing dry and flaky. His body was slick with sweat, the linen sheets damp from his prior rutting, soiled in seed and the whore's juices. His breath quickened as his member yearned to grow harder, still squishy and fat in his hands, his belly so round he could hardly see his own manhood. Robert chased the feeling in his groin, grunting as his barely stiff cock spurts nothing, dry and empty from hours of use.
As his heart calmed, he heard a dull ringing in his ears mixed with the deep moans of the whores next to him, the dark woman's head plunged into the others pelvis. The blonde rubbed her groin hard against her mouth, biting her thick, wet lips with ecstasy as she screamed, her legs shaking in uncontrollable spasm as she tore the sheets from the featherbed in pleasure. Again, Robert thought, his hand squeezing his soft member, compelling it to harden, his other circling the round pink nipples of the blonde.
"Again," he said, his voice hoarse, but wrought with desire and a carnal lust, one as bottomless as the oceans and as endless as the horizons. "Again!" he commanded, grabbing the chin of the blonde, her lips pouted and wet. She smiled at him wolfishly, straddling his lap, rubbing herself against his limp member, kissing the dark woman who sat beside them who fucked herself intensely. They hardly even saw him, the King! What good were they? He moved his hips as much as he could, his muscles tired and his weight pinning him to the featherbed.
And yet still, nothing!
Robert cursed himself. He refused to harden, staying pathetically soft beneath her swollen sex. She laughed as touched herself harder, her moans muffled in the other whore's lips. For a moment Robert wondered if Lyanna laughed like that. Would she have giggled in joy as
Robert finished inside her? Her dark hair flowing across her teats, her pale skin marked and claimed by his bites, her grey eyes brimming with passion for only him. She would never failed to harden him, not like these whores. All their crafts and they cannot compel a man's blood.
His imaginings were short lived, the red glint of rubies and a bloodied nightdress flooding his vision. When he looked up, he does not find Lyanna, but the blonde, hair golden like that Lannister bitch, smiling wide like a Queen in a jester's court. It turned him crimson with rage, and stiffened his sword with a painful fury. He took her then, his stubby steel hands wrapped cleanly around her soft throat, tightening with no care for force, no care for plea or cry or whichever mocking insult the bitch cared to use. Her face turned pink and bloated, choking as he slams into her pelvis, finishing so deep inside her she screamed in pain, before letting her go roughly, leaving her to writhe on the bed, clamouring for air as the dark woman comforted her.
"Out," he said, walking to the flagon of wine half-full upon his desk. The dark woman glanced at him incredulously, her bruises blended well with her skin. He glared hard, the whores coughing and scrambling at their clothes haphazardly, making a ruckus that drove Robert into a throbbing headache. He threw the spare goblets to the floor in an instant, eyes flared at the whores that struggle with their ripped, dirty clothing. "Out, damn you! Must I say it again?" They said nothing, rushing for the door, slipping and crawling for the handles. A single flicker of a white cloak appeared, and Robert refused their gaze.
He bit his cheeks hard, massaging his temples and cursing the gods. The room is empty, finally, but dark as dusk fades into night, torches flickering like mocking shadows upon his walls. Robert searches for his breeches and torn chemise, both stained black from seed and gods know what else. His mouth turned dry, and the thirst felt painful, almost excruciating. He moved quicker than any knight on a battlefield, wine filling his throat straight from the flagon that never left his lips, even when the Dornish red spilled from his nose and blurred his vision, his body gagging, and the drink spilling onto the headdress.
When the wine was all but wasted and gone, he found the looking mirror a taunting thing. He saw his father's jaw staring back at him, buried by a mountain of fat and dry beard. He found his mother's nose, red and blistered and near broken. He saw his father's eyes, red rimmed and puffy. His mother's lips, frothed and cut. The veins on his forehead nearly burst as he downed another goblet of wine, before holding it limp in his hands. The ornate golden lions were carved into the folds of the golden cup. The sight made his teeth crack, and Robert felt the goblet crumple beneath his hands, before it hurling at the mirror that shattered into a thousand pieces, his mother's sleepless eyes the last shade of reflection left.
"Your Grace!" cried the Kingsguard, his white cloak flowing into the room swiftly, hands embracing Robert quickly.
"Get off, you fool," he grunted, shoving the man away. His pale blue eyes watched him as Robert wiped glass from his sleeves and kicked the rest beneath the desk, Barristan. Loyal pup, pretending that men could not see the judgement in his eyes. Robert hated those eyes. Pity. He had spared the damn knight's life on the Trident! How dare he pity Robert. He would
not have pitied him, with his silver hair and silver voice. A growl grew in his throat, and he could only turn back to look at Barristan with rage.
"A flagon of wine, the boar from the feast and a plate of sausages and ribs, now," He gritted. Barristan opened his mouth dumbly, before nodding and leaving to do his duty. Robert scoffed. It was almost pathetic. The fiercest warriors in the world; the hero of Duskendale, the slayer of Maelys the Monstrous! Kingslayers and kingmakers, forced to mind the door during Robert's needs, scurrying along at every little demand. His stomach grumbled at the thought of a fight, of a hammer in his hand, a half-witted fool to crush beneath it.
Warriors were not made to be Kings, he mused. For a throne of swords was not steel in hand. It was a clever deception, one Robert had quickly realised, and was ever reminded of daily, a dozen cuts prickling his arms and back, some far deeper than others. "The Gods do not discriminate," Jon Arryn would say, "They make fools of Kings, Hands and cowherds alike." But the man wore no crown, what did he know? An iron brooch weighed less than a golden crown.
His mouth quickly turned dry again, the barest absence of wine and drink driving his skull mad, his fat fingers driving into his temples. The headaches were often, and they throbbed terribly. But they paled beneath the might of his dreams. They cowered beneath the fury of his nightmares. And the nightmares were frequent, and wrought with misery and horrid pictures that turned his vision red and his blood boiling in the rising hours of the morning. Oft he would return to the Trident, Ned buried beneath mountains of mud and blood, pleading with Robert as the bodies drowned him. Across the riverbed was Rhaegar, and riding with him were a thousand mounted men, each of them encrusted with the same rubies, the same gilded black armour, the same wretched laughing face. A thousand of Rhaegar to kill. A thousand to taunt him every night.
I'll kill them. I'll kill every last one of you, he would roar. And his fury would prove true, for each of them would bleed into the dirt, their final breaths like screeching dragons. The work is done, the armies lay dead and his friends blown away with the ashes of the wind. So he marched south, alone, to a burning city that cheered in emerald sways of fire, calling his name. Baratheon, they would cry, but in reverence or revulsion, he did not know. And finally, the day of reckoning would pass. The crimson cloaked babes would soak into the floor and colour the fine silk rugs red, the dragon skulls would wither and fade away.
But then comes the next dream. The same dream. The same nightmare. Of a thousand million blades that rose into a cavernous throne room that never ends, growing sharper with each step. Of a naked woman draped upon the top, moaning and glistening with lust as she rode him.
You won't have her! You can't have her! But they do not hear Robert's cries, their moans and carnal smells growing stronger as he latched onto the prickling poisons of Conqueror's monster. It taunted him all the whole, his body growing fatter and fatter, unable to move, pierced and staked and impaled upon the wretched throne, Lyanna's ecstasy growing louder until it deafened him, and his blood drunk and consumed by the beast beneath him.
Robert clawed at his temples. Gods! What was taking those aurochs so long? He paced for what felt an hour, his breathe escaping him, teeth gritted and room stinking, stomach churning. Letters littered his desk, spare parchment and half-finished messages and spilled
ink written for an quiet friend, a beastly friend, the Stark who thought him no better than an oaf, no better than a monster. He swiped those letters away with a grunt, watching them float and glide onto the hard floors, waiting for Barristan who returned not soon enough, a blotchy faced, brown-haired steward in tow, hands filled with a thick board as wide as a bastard blade. He plopped it down hard on the desk silently, Robert's eyes salivating.
A roasted whole pig, tinted a golden brown skin through a slow roast, the crispy crackling left behind in the nights prior. The greasy thing had been half gorged from snout to tail, but still thick and wet around the bones where flesh yearned for consumption. He could hardly smell the herbs or the soaked brine that flowed from its long hours of marination. He could hardly even taste it, gouging every bite within a second, scarcely chewing for a second before taking the next. Robert poured a deep, glossy gravy over the pork, intense and almost creamy, bright like blood, staring at the ripples, letting his mind think of savoury smells of garlic and onion and brandy and nothing else, caring not for whichever white-cloaked fool and steward stood watching. This was a King's meal, a King's desire. What good else did a crown serve?
The pork soon rattled on the plate cold, overshadowed immediately by thick stuffed lamb sausages, roasted until black. They swam in pools of grease, oozing puddles of thick sheen from every bite, Robert's hands and beard and chin and lips and wrists and chemise smeared shiny as he abandoned the silver cutlery, thin and slippery and troublesome to use. The rabid chewing and meaty smells drowned the crashing of the waves, old ships tattered and ruined, sinking beneath the unforgiving waters. Next came the ribs, cooked perfectly and glazed in the deepest mahogany, caramelised and still tender, the spices sharp and the shape symmetrical and succulent and sweet and savoury and slimy and sickening and septic. They fell off the bone like rotted flesh, tasting delicious, delectable, tasting dull, dreary, like nothing. He felt his throat drown, his stomach shatter, his eyes yearn for a greedy sin.
The bile crept up his throat, meat and grease still lodged in his chest, trapped behind his teeth and seeping into his lungs. It tasted revolting, repugnant, swiftly solved with a sip of wine, sip that turned to a swig, the cap never leaving his lips even as the drink spilled outward into his face. But the relief gained is short lived, his food belching onto the marble flooring. He choked on air for a moment, heaving on his hands and knees, sweat from his brow and beard mixing with the pale orange liquids of the floor. He could barely stand, his head burning and his eyes watered, breathing heavily on one knee. When he finally stood, grasping into the desk, his hands poured another cup effortlessly, the red of the wine gushing like waves of blood in a stormy sea. It fell down his throat in an instant, swishing for barely a second before he downed it, and poured another, until the flagon grew dry. Loyal knights rushed to procure more, and all Robert could do was spew onto the now red stained floors.
He reached for another, but met a cold armoured gauntlet instead. Barristan's wrinkled face peering through his white steel helmet, furrowed and frowning, eyes glancing to Robert and the pool of sickness that dirtied his sollerets.
"It's vomit, you fool," Robert groaned, struggling against Barristan's armoured grip.
"It is blood, sire. Your back…" He could smell it now, mixed with the bile and lingering smell of drink, sex and seed. The horrid popped blisters and pus that bled from his back and his arms, staining his small-clothes, the floor a thin pool of blood and mucus.
"The maester," Robert hears Barristan say, the thin little steward rushing off. "I don't need the maester," he murmurs. Gods, why did his head throb so? "Your Grace—"
"Am I a King or a damned squire?" Robert gritted venomously, still trapped in the old knight's unyielding hand.
"I must protest. Your bandages have come undone, Your Grace. If this were battle…" If only. He would be as good as dead, aye, but what a good death that would be, stained in the blood of your foe. But here, he swam in the blood of his own throat, the only battle a clash of wits and wines and whores. He stood slowly, pushing Barristan away with a growl, gasping for every breath of air, eyes watered and stomach threatening to tear itself open. Soon, the drink would wear away and the wretched pain of old cuts and prickled skin would return, stinging and burning like little fields of fire across his flesh. The maester then, Robert groaned. Let it be done quickly so that he may be free of crowns and councillors and courts for the day.
Robert huffed at Barristan's open palm, "I can walk well enough, man. I'm not a damn woman." He lumbered to a small corner of the antechamber by a lit fireplace, the smell of shit fading as he shut the door harshly to the bedchamber, crumbling onto a small wooden bench, leaned over and breathing heavy, his chemise stuck to the open wounds blotted across his back. The maester took an age to arrive, hunched and wobbling, his long chain rattling, his lush velvet robes smelling of a rancid cat piss that flamed Robert's headache even further. He spoke with Barristan quietly, a tray of small bottles, wears, plants and a mortar and pestle carried by Robert's steward.
"Ah, Your Grace," Pycelle unveiled small steel scissors, the handle wrapped in soft leather, "I will need to… cut away your small clothes. To assess and access the wound. May I?" Robert grunted in agreement, biting hard as the torn clothing ripped harshly, little remnants of dead skin ripping with it. The maester took his scalpel and his small knives, cutting away at the oozing wounds of his lower back, the skin rough and blackened and scabbed, a rancid smell emanating that watered his eyes.
"I have cleared the rot, thankfully. Bite this, Your Grace," he handed Robert a leather strap wrapped in hard cloth, pouring a hot firewine over each cut, scrape and stab, cleaning the moist wounds with vinegar that irked Robert intensely. "There is little cause for concern, Your Grace. I assure you. The Iron Throne can be a troublesome thing. Prickly! In fact… I had spent many an occasion administering the same concoctions for King Aerys… loathe that he was to receive it." Pycelle rubbed a cool poultice mixture onto each cleaned area, moist and soft and made of a dozen different herbs and plants.
"Am I a king such as the Mad King then, Pycelle?" Robert remarked sardonically.
Pycelle jumped, knocking a jar onto the floor, "I— I, of… course not! Your Grace, I meant no offence, I—" He raised his hands, still filled with the poultice defensively.
Pathetically, Robert thought.
"Enough of that yammering. Finish the work before my ass turns raw." Even Pycelle's quiet murmurs fell silent, each man sitting without a word said for a half hour, a terrible beating mallet hammering at Robert's temples, ears ringing, his nose stuffy.
"There, Your Grace." Finally! He stood with a groan, losing his balance for but a moment, arm stretched against the wall. Pycelle mixed a pale creamy drink, swirling with strands still stuck to his granite pestle, before pouring it into a small goblet mixed with wine, the rest into a small leather pouch with a stag sewn on each side.
"A single dose now, and the remainder prior to sleep. It will alleviate the dull stings and aching head. Your fever must be carefully watched. I would also—" Robert downed the poppied wine in a single gulp, head pounding, before taking the rest in the pouch without a second's thought, indifferent to the Grand Maester's shocked stutter.
"What else?" Robert asked, brow raised and the pouch and goblet tossed aside on a long leather chaise.
Pycelle took a long pause before answering, glancing at Robert and Ser Barristan dumbly, "R-Rest, of course. I would also implore you visit the sept, Your Grace. Fevers and wounds of this kind are the Stranger's work. The Mother's mercy will do wonders, as shall the Crone lead us from the fray."
Robert scoffed, "No doubt Jon will have my hide if I rebuke the gods." He opened a large ironwood wardrobe across the chamber wide, sifting through whichever spare garments remained.
"A— Uh, Y-Your Grace! I would advise rest first, please. Four hours, to ensure the fever does not wreck any further havoc on your body."
He scoffed with an annoyed snort, "Four hours? I'll hardly sleep with my skull beating away at itself. I think not."
"Your—"
"Am I a mewling babe or a King? I trudged through mud and gore older than you on the Trident. You've done your work maester and you've done it well. Bugger off, now." He watched as Pycelle stammered his apologies and waddled off, the smell of soiled juices from prior finally reaching the realms of the antechamber. Carefully, he adorned his silk tunic, cursing as it even lightly brushed against the dressed wounds, his cloak and made of fine velvet, coloured a deep indigo with speckles of golden antlers running downward. He had tossed his crown aside long before in the bedchambers as the whores came sprawling for his flesh, leaving it to soak in the bile.
"Lead the way," Robert commanded to Ser Barristan, trailing along slowly without half a care or idea to where in the castle they were, knocking the side of his closed fist into his forehead roughly, the pain refusing to subside. Gods be good, Robert cursed. Will this headache be the death of me? It was persistent, drumming away at the walls of his skull like raging waves do castle walls. It throbbed and crashed and roared, all with a terrible fury that dragged him to the pale grey stones of Storm's End, stones turned black in the swirling of
midnight rains. Storm's End, a hulking mess of stone and shit. What was there for him? He had not been there in years, and he likely would not return for many a year more. It was his brothers', and he had not seen Renly in years. Let Renly have it, what good is Storm's End?Let him have the rage that sweltered upon the sky and darkened the land with harsh rains. Let him have the swirling waves of Shipbreaker Bay and the winds that clamoured against the castle. What was there to be proud of? What was there to cherish? Let him have it. Let himhave it and let me never step foot there again.
And the red walls of the Keep quickly turned pale, white and pristine and shining with the flurry of old familiar friends. He swore he could hear the wind whipping at his toes. The falcons soaring high above, the High Hall and its speckled and veined walls where mischief had run amok, the mules and goats and the men of the mountains who bore steel and against his hammer and plate. The Red Keep was a sickening maze of blood and bronze, and even a decade passed he hated the hues of its colour. It was not the Eyrie, sprawled across the peaks of the world, no. There, he would find Jon Arryn, free of the brooch that weighed his oldest friend down beneath the marble. Where the man could laugh and sing and enjoy a cup of wine without the grey, the sunken tiredness that wracked his eyes and turned his words sour and free of fun. A place where Robert could find Ned Stark, quiet and honest and perhaps too sullen for Robert's liking, but funnier and kinder than a man would expect of a wolf.
Robert laughed weakly, bitterly, the poppy seeping in, his feet numb and gliding behind Ser Barristan with a miracle, somehow never falling fast down spiralling steps and long walkways. He could hear the rustling of the Godswood below. It made him think of Ned Stark, kneeling and mumbling some silent prayer upon a weirwood a hundred leagues from home. Ned Stark, he grumbled. Ned Stark! His mind screamed. Dozens of letters sent in eager earnest, dozens of letters returned with silence. Ned Stark, who had named Robert brother at arms and brothers without blood. He should be here, by my side, ruling this city as we were destined to do. But Ned had long forgone the stink of King's Landing, Lyanna's bones in hand, a disgust and disquiet upon his face, defeat within his eyes, despite the shadow of victory upon the sacked city.
"It is this way to the sept, Your Grace," Ser Barristan called, three hallways sat before him. "It is not far to the Trident, Robert," Ned had said, three forks across the horizon. Even here, whisking through the outer ramparts of Maegor's Holdfast, past the Serpentine Steps and high above the lower bailey, he could taste the fog that rose from the winter air. He could feel the fire, and the men all littered around it, counting each single minute, wondering whether death would show his many faces on the morrow. Across the camp, Ned's question remained, drink and small smiles in tow. "What type of King shall you be?" And when Robert had answered, an answer lost to him now, they had laughed and sang and wept for all they lost, so when the sun did come, all that was left would be their rage, and his fury.
When the storm washed against the beaten stone of Pyke, Robert had cheered and gloated and gleamed, eager to crush a fool beneath his steel and reunite with brothers long lost. And what a brother Ned had become, bearing blood across his armour and a sword as sharp as the Warrior's fantasy. TheDemonofPyke, and beside him, his beast of judgement, fangs long and dripping, Balon Greyjoy's body a tangled mess of blood and bone and spare flesh. Robert had clapped and jeered and taken the entire encampment to celebration. Yet the Stark lord did not join them, red-faced and red-run with rage, an ageless anger in his tone and a implacable
betrayal in his stare. Robert had met Ned's fury with his own to no avail and without victory, for when the tourneys and feasts and celebrations died, it was Ned Stark's words that had been branded upon Robert's skin.
He could almost tear his hair out. "Your Grace?" asked Ser Barristan, his armour as blinding as the fading summer sun, the Red Keep glowing at its peaks, darkened at its base. The castle sept was only a few dozen feet away, his muscles slowly crumbling with each step. He wanted to feel the wind flow through his hair and brush against the mane of the stallion beneath him. He wanted to cross swords with Ned Stark and dream of a woman beyond the reaches of living. But he could not find that solace in this bloody city, in this damnable castle. Robert could feel the Iron Throne watch him, even through thick castle walls, even past fields and across rivers. Its grotesque misshapen form, cackling, every blade taunting him. Many a king had sat upon it. Madmen and tyrants and butchers and murderers, fools and fiends. "What type of King shall you be?" was the old question. A coward, Ned had answered. One who turned a blind eye to every madman and tyrant, to every butcher and murderer, to every fool and fiend that run amok as his kingdom crumbled.
He could hardly understand the man's words. He could hardly fathom the man's rage, this sullen northern fool who had never once seen him in a half-decade. But it mattered little, for somewhere beneath the cups and the feasts and the warm grip of a woman's cunt that Robert loathed and lusted with equal fervour, there was truth. Damn him, Robert wished to scream. Damnyou,NedStark,foralwaysbeingright,foralwaysbeingtrue. For every little sin tallied up, the northman holding not a single word back. "They were babes!" Ned had screamed, the Targaryen girl wet in his eyes, her squashed guts that spewed from a hole in her chest heavy in hands. Half a hundred times they had stabbed her. "Butchered!" cried Ned. And he remembered her eyes, once so purple, a lifeless rotting grey, still open. And her nightdress, drowned in blood, hidden by the crimson cloak that wrapped her broken body.
"She committed no less crime for being born than Mya!" Ned had bellowed, his beast growling with him. Mya, Mya, Mya. Black of hair and loved and left by a father black of heart. "Will you catch me, papa?" The girl had asked. With her toothy smile and bright blue eyes. "Always, Mya." He had said. "I will never let you fall." But he had. She had fallen far from his hearth, trapped in the corners of his boyhood, buried atop his father's rotting corpse in Shipbreaker Bay, hand in hand with his mother.
The castle sept stood before him, taller than towers with the doors barred shut, unwavering and unyielding and unable to allow him entry. But Robert supposed it mattered little, he could hardly even see in front of him, hardly even breathe. He never felt his head crash against the stone floor, nor hear the cries of Ser Barristan diving over. He only felt the cold and the darkness and the faint laugh of a girl's laughter.