DAENERYS IV

"The sky was clear blue, the weather nice and bright again after the rain of yesterday, as Dany and Ser Marq stood watching the falcons, hawks and various other free-flying birds making thrends and ogles through holes and around tinners and towers. Edmure stood beside, still acting somewhat as her chaporon, as did Septa Merielle who was sitting in a garden chair close by, behind the youths, keeping an eye on the whole ordeal.

The lords and ladies of Pinkmaiden Castle and many nearby keeps all stood applauding, as the birds took their loops threading the ogle, and as Dany did her very best to recall all of their names.

Apart from herself, Melandra, Ser Marq and Edmure, there were Marq's and Edmure's old friend Karyl Vance and his wife Jeyne Lolliston, and their three daughters Liane, Rhialta and little Emphyria, as well as their cousin Lady Marianne Vance, Jonothor Shawney, Carellen Smallwood, the beautiful Lysinda Pinkton and her brother Rowan, the young Lord Lymond Goodbrook and his wife, and at least two or three others she did not yet know.

…

Pinkmaiden Castle was a vaguely pink stone castle, as might be expected, a vaguely rectangular and compact yet sufficiently [lavish/laudable/impressive] keep of some four or five stories high, from what she had seen and not yet dared to have asked out of propriety, a pretty yet perfectly comfortable and moderate castle located on the southern banks of the Lawne, the minor eastern estuary river of the Red Fork. Continue on the miles eastward and one eventually came into the lands of House Wode and after that into the southwestern parts of the Crownlands, north of Tumbleton, but that was still far enough away to be of little consequence. Pinkmaiden was in the southernmost heart of the Riverlands, with the hills somewhere beyond the horizon's forests and fields soon separating it from the edge of the Westerlands, where the Lannisters held sway.

The castle looked much like a regular keep, although adorned along its corners and at the higher stories with round towers and fanciful statues, most of them resembling the pretty maidens of the Pipers' sigil, crabs and fish, as well as gargoyles and brave knights, even some of them with true swords in hand. The steel glimmered off the parapets in the sunlight, Dany saw from afar.

...

She had come closer to Ser Marq during the past fortnight. He was a good man, she felt, one who might take care of her better than most, she hoped. He was often arrogant in matters of fight and game, and hot-headed at times, certainly, but that much she had known from long before.

Edmure and Marq had always fanned each others' flames, but perhaps marriage would still him, she thought. He had begun to speak more about siring an heir, and raising a family to take over his father's keep. Lord Clement was an old man, around seventy, not near as infirm as Lord Hoster but still aging. Nonetheless, she still felt as though their understanding of her age of marriage held itself cemented. They would not be married before she wished, in perhaps another two years, he had promised. She was grateful for it, and for a chance to get to know him and the keep she might be lady of before.

"Call him through, Marq! Call him through!" Lysinda Pinkton squealed in delight, as the great peregrine falcon flew in great loops high above and around the wooden hoop target. Bravebird, the falcon was named. Ser Marq had kept it for eleven years, rearing it from among the others of his father's flock. How strange, Daenerys thought. He has kept that bird almost for as long as I have lived, and he is still teaching it his tricks.

She wondered if she would ever be made to fly through hoops like that, if she ever sprouted wings. A dragon is no slave, Viserys's words echoed through her mind. We are no longer kings, but neither will we ever heed to the command of lesser men.

Ser Marq's falcon Bravebird finally went through the small ogle, to the loud cheer of her betrothed and all the others. Daenerys gave a little applaud, reluctantly fascinated with the fowels.

"Marq truly is a master falconer", Edmure said from behind her shoulder. "Almost as good as me."

"I heard that, Tully!" Marq shot back from where he stood in front of them, with a playful tone of his voice.

"How long time does it take to train them from when they are small?" Dany asked.

"It takes a different amount of time depending on which type of bird it is. Hawks are the finest and most well-mannered", her foster brother explained. "They naturally hunt in flocks, just like here, and so are easy to control after only a year or two. Falcons are harder, though most assuredly worth the effort, once they grow up."

As far as Dany understood and could put it together inside her head, Ser Marq had his peregrine falcon Bravebird, and several goshawks as well, while Lady Lysinda kept a merlin, the perfect bird suited for a lady's gentle fist, Jonothor Shawney had a lanner falcon, notable for its red-headed plumage, and Edmure had also brought with his own impressive peregrine, Spearstriker, all the way from Riverrun for the occasion.

…

After a goodly while of showing off the birds' flying through the tinners and towers of Pinkmaiden, it was decided to put them to use and go out hunting along the river with them. Edmure and Jonothor both hoped that they would find some nice fat partridges, or perhaps quail, to have for dinner. Marq had his hopes set on duck and mallard.

"Do you know what the merlin is named for, my lady?" Lysinda Pinkton asked her, as she rode close to Dany, with her bird sitting prettily on her gloved hand, the hooves of her palfrey clonking beneath them both.

"I'm... afraid that I do not, my lady", Dany confessed.

"It comes from High Valyrian. The old and noble tongue of your house, my lady", Lysinda told her.

"From High Valyrian? Are you certain?" Dany asked, quite surprised. Viserys had never told her as much on her rare visits to see him, even though he tried to teach her as much as he could each time.

"Yes indeed", Lady Lysinda assured her. "The word has changed quite a bit, but its root has the same meaning. Emerellion. It means to swivel and twist in the air. It is said that your ancestor King Aegon the fourth brought a merlin from Lys and gave to his mistress Serenei, who also hailed from there. I find it most fascinating!"

"I did not know that, my lady", Dany had to admit again. She knew about Aegon the fourth, of course, the Unworthy, and his many mistresses, but Viserys had never told her the story about the mistress and the bird. Dragonstone did not have any falcons or hawks as far as she had noticed. Its soil and lands were too small to sustain a population of land birds beyond the castle rookery, she guessed. There were only small patches of forest and some small acres of farmland, but no rivers or marshes where ducks or partridges might be found for prey.

"I am sure that Marq will be most happy get one for you, if you ask him", Lady Lysinda promised. "Any noble husband should be happy to find himself a wife who is as interested in the sport as he is himself.

And they are not difficult to train, I assure you. They are most sociable, happy little birds. It is just like keeping a small dog, only it is smaller, quicker, and can fly away from dangers, or perch on your hand for safety, instead of barking all throughout the night."

She laughed, a pretty, frolicking summer laughter of joy.

"It flies wherever it wants... And it never barks... Just like a dragon..." Dany whispered for herself.

"What did you say, my lady?" Lady Lysinda overheard her. "Oh yes, quite so indeed!"

She laughed once again, clearly amused by the comparison.

"I suppose that you would have better luck asking for that from your brother, though! Has he ever shown you some of their skulls? Or a dragon's egg? Oh my, how I should like to see one some day..." She began wandering off inside her mind.

"No...", Dany mumbled in quiet. "The skulls were... are... all in King's Landing, with the king..."

She had seen the eggs, though. Viserys had shown her several times, with immense pride and excitement as she had never seen in him before, as they went up to the Dragonmont and stared at the beautiful black and gold, red and silver, green and swirvelling cream coloured eggs, still laying in clutches and incubators as they had for hundreds of years without hatching.

But she did not say so to Lady Lysinda. Viserys would not have wanted her to tell of them to any outsiders, she knew. She had not told Edmure, nor her friend Melandra, nor anyone else, and neither would secrets were not meant for lesser men, as Viserys had told her time and time again.

"By the river?" Edmure asked.

"Certainly!" Ser Marq replied, "if we are to catch any waterfowl, as I have decided."

"The undergrowth is thick enough", Jonothor Shawney noted. "This will be fine grounds for partridge as well."

Thus content, they parked their horses and tied them to a large gathering of old alders and linden trees. Ser Marq hurried to help Dany off her palfrey, his large hands carrying her dainty frame from the saddle down to the ground.

"Thankyou, my lord", she said.

"Thankyou, Marq", ser Marq corrected her with an intense flashing smile beneath flaxen locks.

"Yes... Marq", she agreed, smiling up at him slightly. He still seemed so tall to her. But he was good, she knew, once again. He had a good heart, if only a little fiery. He would take care of her, help her, give her anything she wanted, if all went to plan.

She pondered once again how their banners would look together on a dress or banner. It looked fair, she supposed. Not too terrible... Though the sight of a naked lady next to a fire-breathing dragon did trouble her at times. On the other hand, there was a certain truth to it as well.

"Come, my lady", he called for her and stretched out his arm.

She took it, gently, and he led her on along the stream to where the waters were the thickest with reeds and vass and duckfeed.

He hushed her as they went up behind a grove of trees, his goshawk waiting still, perched on his glove with its thick claws/talons.

"He will fly out beyond that small ridge there and hunt", Ser Marq explained in a hushed voice. "Hopefully there are some ducks nearby. I thought I heard them when we were riding earlier."

"Will they not hear him coming?" Daenerys asked.

"No, he flies swiftly and in relative silence. The prey never hear him approach. Just see."

Ser Marq angled his arm and hawk-hand, gave the silent command, and the speedy goshawk flew from his arm to take wing straight beyond the enbankment of the little ridge, disappearing beyond some sedge, tall reeds and willowtrees.

"He is a beautiful sight to behold", Dany complimented. "Marvelous."

"Indeed", Ser Marq agreed. "They are fine fowels. And even finer when they bring us back a nice supper", he japed. "I assure you. This is the best place to find waterfowl south of The Neck."

"The river is certainly very gentle here", Dany noted. "Not at all like at Riverrun."

"Yes, it is still mild", Ser Marq agreed. "It has its start already in the western mountains, did you know?"

She had heard so from Maester Vyman several times, and from Lord Hoster and Septa Merielle at times as well, but it always seemed strange to think on that the red river of the Riverlands should start in their old rivals' neighbouring, and substantially dryer, territory.

"So it is located in the Westerlands?" She asked, her curiosity sincere.

"Yes, indeed", Ser Marq confirmed with an excited nod of his long flaxen-blonde hair. "It is said that the old Kings of the Rock even tried to quench the river at its source once or twice, when they were at war with us, by building a dam close by south of the Golden Tooth, near Hornvale, but some way or another, the river always found its way forward and broke free from the westermen's grip."

"That is a very good story", Daenerys said in earnest.

"It is the truth, as far as the maesters wrote it down anyway", Ser Marq shrugged his shoulders. "I could tell you many more such enticing things about the castle and lands if you would like."

"Thankyou, I would like that", Daenerys said, trying her best to give her betrothed a smile. Ser Marq was already focused on the willow tree-covered horizon, however, as he spied the goshawk coming back from the thickets of the wood.

She heard it shrieking, as it flew up with a large dangling sack of something dead which had recently been living, jangled in its talons/claws. It was a duck, she was certain. Its soft fat neck and head hung down already, dangling against its plump pear-shaped body. It was dark, though, with white and red patterns on it, not exactly like a common duck.

"Bravo, Speck!" He jubled loud as the swift bird of prey swept in and landed on his glove again, its heavy prey dangling like a sack under it.

Ser Marq grabbed the duckfowl from his pet's grasp, held it up into the sky in triumph and called out to Edmure and the others who stood a bit brought away.

"A nice, ripe red prize! Already! See here, Tully!"

Edmure held his hand up to cover his eyes from the sun, mock-pretending to not see the duck.

"I'm so sorry, Piper. I can't quite spot it. Is that a little grebe or other? A little duckling perhaps?"

Lady Lysinda laughed at the insolent poke, and Ser Marq returned the insult right back.

"We were not speaking of what's in your breeches, Edmure! Have a look! This is a fine, fat fowl from my own river!"

Edmure calmed himself at that.

"I'm sure it is", he said in a calm voice. "But it will pale most diligently in comparison to what Gladstone brings me. There will be supper enough for all of us soon."

"Your bird could not find a fly on a cow's byle[/bile]!" Ser Marq shot back, his temper still rising.

"It is lucky then that your cows have better pasture than these woods here", Edmure shouted, and Lysinda practically steagered herself backwards with laughter, Edmure taking his hand around her back so that she did not fall over laughing.

"Fool!" Ser Marq only said, as his face turned red and he tossed his wineskin towards his friend. He was hoping to hit Edmure hard in the groin, Dany understood.

Edmure caught it quick as it bounced against his thigh, however, and took a quick jaunty swig of it.

"A fine vintage!"

"Finer than your face, Tully!"

They all laughed again, and Dany did her best to let out a nervous tiny giggle, but quickly fell quiet after that, preferring to not pick a side in the conflict, even if it was mostly in jest. It was not ladylike to partake in such glirings and men's talk, Septa Merielle had told her once before, when Ser Marq had visited Riverrun long ago and they'd had a similar throe of words.

"Take ease, Daenerys. Your dear brother won't find any better prey than this", Marq assured her. "If it is partridges he is looking for, he will be better off deeper into the forest to the east. Therein, among the lindens, oaks and walnut trees, are the best gamebirds all around. They feed off the acorns now in late summer."

"I am certain that you know these lands best", she said amiably, as she fingered the silver lining of her dress sleeves. "It is a fine fowl. Truly."

"Yes..." He said, trying his best to regain his composition and took a look at the bird.

"What is it, exactly?" Dany asked. "It looks like a duck, but not quite so in its colours... And the beak seems different."

"Different?" Ser Marq tested her. "In what way, my lady?"

"I don't know. It is... thinner... and longer as well."

"You have a good eye, my lady", Ser Marq complimented her. "It is a loon. A red-throated loon, in fact. Quite common down here. They have dwelt here ever since my ancestors first came to the Red Fork. They can sing most forlornly at times, thus their name. Did you know?"

"Loon", she repeated, feeling somewhat simple-minded from all the words that he had just spewed at her. "Yes, I know now", she said. "I remember them."

They stood so for yet another while, as Marq made sure that the loon was truly dead, before hanging it on a rope and in a small sack that he had brought with him for the purpose.

"Good boy", he told his hawk, as he scratched it on its chin. "Would you like to pet him?"

"Gladly", Daenerys lied.

In truth, she was still a little terrified of the bird of prey, even though it was far smaller than the falcons they had brought out earlier. Smaller than Edmure's falcon...

Yet if her ancestor Baelon the brave could have the courage to punch Balerion the black dread on the nose as a small child of six, surely Dany could muster the courage to get a peck or clawing or other from a little goshawk, she heard her brother's voice calling inside of her, meddled with her own.

As it turned out, the hawk did not peck at her, nor did it show any particular motion at all towards the handling. It simply stared back at her, with intriguing eyes of a different type of wisdom than of men, that of birds and beasts, and of dragons, as she imagined within her silly mind...

Then, suddenly, the bird cocked its head with a quick little motion and flew up and away.

"Where is he going now?" Dany said.

"To find another one, of course", Marq said. "One loon will not fill all of our stomachs, even if it is well fattened by the growth of summer. There is bound to be at least a good half-dozen further on. Loons, ducks, divers, soot-hens, perhaps a small mallard or two if we are lucky indeed. Their meat is the finest of them all, plus their colouring makes beautiful plaids if prepared right. Our hunting master Perwyn knows how to do it just right, and get all of the blood out before."

"Why did you not bring him?" She heard herself asking. They were out at least an hour's riding north, away from the castle. Perhaps the mallards would bleed out before they could reach back again.

"It would not be much of a chance for poor Edmure if Perwyn was with, don't you think?", he said, only half joking on his best friend's behalf. She did her best to show a moderate smile at the joke, once again.

They stood so for a while, a goodly while in fact, as they stopped up to hear the sounds of the river in its fullness. Small birds chirping from the trees, the buzzing of mosquitoes and swattering of huge green and red dragonflies amongst the reeds, the croaking of frogs or toads somewhere she could not fully place, though she saw none, and the muffled shouts of excitement and laudor coming from Edmure and the others from somewhere beyond the forest to their left.

"I must say, once again, Daenerys... How very fond I have grown of you already.", Ser Marq suddenly said, as he reached for her hand.

"I hope you know that. I will treat you well when we marry. I hope that I am treating you well already now", he said, showing a glimting smile. He was handsome.

"Thankyou Marq", she managed to say. "I feel your generosity towards me, and your kindness... I know that you will look after me. …"

She hesitated, before speaking the rest that she had thought on since the ride.

"We will be as two butterflies when we are wed... One pink, and one red."

Ser Marq let out a little stifled laugh at the comment, yet quickly stopped himself, and transfixed his blue eyes on her violet ones again. He took her hand up to his chest and kissed it softly.

"Yes... I suppose I had not thought about it that way before, my sweet lady... But I believe you are most right."

He let down her hand again, and they stood side by side, looking over the beautiful mild slouthing of the river. It shone in speckled shadows, black and white from the sunlight, and re d from mud in the sunlight from among the canopies high above. The breeze swept still around them.

She felt safe with him, she had to admit it to herself. And he was handsome, and kind. She thought she could feel his pulse from through the neck of his large hand, the hand of a man, in her dainty one. She felt strangely calm, and yet also felt something stirring awake deep inside of her as well.

That soon changed, however, as Edmure, Lysinda, Jonothor, Karryl Vance and all the rest came tumbling down the forest hillside with bouts of laugther and shouts of joy heralding their catch.

"A partridge! Two partridges!" Edmure called out.

"And quails! Dozens of quails!" Lord Karryl Vance added merrily in his dark ponderous voice. "An entire flock! Did I not say before? We caught four of them!"

"Did you now?" Marq replied. "That is most fortunate, Lord Karryl. The lands of Piper bid you welcome."

He made a large elegantine bow with his hawk-hand outstretched, but he still held on to Daenerys with his left hand, even as they turned to face their friends.

[ ]

...

They returned to the castle within the hour, their pouches and horses packed with birds along with a hare that Lord Jonothor caught at the last moment before they took their leave of the river. After a goodly hour or two of preparations, as Daenerys washed herself from the road of the dirt, Trea and Servetta helped her into a beautiful blue and pink dress signalling House Piper's colours. She was in the room which Marq had promised would become her own if she liked it, only two rooms away from his own bedchamber, up on the fourth floor of the castle looking southeast.

Trea combed her hair until it shone like silver again, put it up into an elegant side-braided length, doused her with sweet rosewater around her neck and put her silver dragonpin on her chest as well as her silver dragon hairband.

"When you are wed, in perhaps a year or two, Ser Marq may give you a brooch of his house, and then you must wear it instead", Servetta noted.

"I do not wish to exchange my dragon", Daenerys said, with a worried tone. "I am sure that he will let me wear both of them, if I so desire. I will be a Targaryen and Piper both, one by blood, and one by marriage."

Servetta looked at her, doing her best to not trifle with her combing as her hand went like silent waves through Dany's silver streams of hair.

"Certainly, my lady."

They were both quiet for a short while, as Trea tied her corset into place for a second time, stringing it along thread after thread in her back.

"Edmure still carries a brooch from his late mother Lady Minisa sometimes", she insisted, as if her previous words had not been enough. "He is part Whent, after all."

"Indeed. As you say, my lady", Servetta agreed. "Forgive me, my lady."

...

After she was dressed and ready, she wandered the corridors of the castle with Melandra for a time. The walls of Pinkmaiden Castle were a ruddy pink grey, even from the inside, courtesy of the waters of Red Fork from where they'd been quarried thousands of years ago. It was a beautiful castle, and Dany let her thoughts get lost for a moment as her friend spoke to her of the smaller rivers that ran throughout House Piper's lands.

"And there is a waterfall here as well! We have a waterfall! Yupeshear, it is named. Ninety feet high it is, can you imagine, Dany?"

She could not. She had seen equally wondrous things. She had seen the foothills of the volcano at the Dragonmont with Viserys, where the black molten rock was petrified into strange and demon-like shapes of a thousand mortlings and meddlingsome meldings, and she had seen the sea of the Blackwater, rising high withs is frothing waves and terrible storms raging of a night, when she had been so afraid that she had prayed to be back at Riverrun and cried herself to sleep, but she had still never seen a waterfall. She supposed that it looked much like the castle walls of Riverrun had in her youth, when the waters had flown high.

"I have only seen it once, though", Melandra said. "When I was six. It is a long and deep ride into the forests to the east, but it is well worth it when you see it, I promise."

"I believe you", Dany said. "I will ask Marq if we may go and see it some day."

"Oh, do! Oh please do, it is so stunning. I should like to live there some day..., I still remember how beautiful it was..."

Daenerys smiled and took her friend's hands into her own.

"I am glad that Marq is your cousin. We will be bound together now", she promised. "As I am dear to my brother's wife, so will you be to me."

"Yes, Daenerys", Melandra almost whispered, agreeing in her sweet youthful voice, as she slipped a tiny token of ribbons into her hand. Blue and pink.

"We will be as close as sisters together. I know it."

...

...

Lord Clement, Ser Marq's father and the lord of Pinkmaiden Castle, gladly welcomed them all to the supper. He was sixty-and-seven, or perhaps sixty-and-eight, as Dany thought she remembered from what Septa Merielle and Edmure had both told her on different occasions.

He was handsome for his age, and clean-shaven, with hair much like his son but cropped somewhat shorter, and what Dany thought she saw as the tiniest hint of ruddiness mixed with the flaxen blonde hues.

Upon the chest of his deep blue doublet, he wore proudly the sigil of House Piper, the pink maiden wrapped in a white silk [ ], on a a dark blue background. His cloak was spread out behind his shoulders, resting on the two empty chairs to either side of him, representing the absence of his two younger brothers, as Dany understood it from what Edmure had whispered to her earlier.

[ ]

As the lords and ladies of the hawking party all assembled, the hall grew warm with excited murmurs and laughs, as they awaited with great anticipation for the dinner to be served. The cooks and serving boys put forth what they had caught, presenting each dish-right with an introduction. Marq and Edmure and all the others cheered and toasted heartily as the game master Perwyn hailed their fine hunt.

"A merry toast! To the fine, fat and plump partridges of Pinkmaiden's peaceful western shores!" Edmure toasted, quite drunk and happy already, Dany could see to her inner amusement, though she took care to not show it. "Whether they have swum across the Red Fork or flown above it from the fabled eastern woods, they were right there where I and Gladstone needed them!"

"To the quaint quails and still streams of late summer's sweet forest!" Karryl Vance declared. "The Mother above is blessing us with the bounty of summer still!"

"To the fair, red and ripe loon of the Red fork!" Ser Marq lifted his cup of wine, and sprung his glass together with Dany's, as she did her best to raise her cup as high in the air as her betrothed, and to match his proud smile with her own more calm visure.

"And to my very fairest bride-to-be, my sweetest lady, Daenerys...!" He continued. "May she always have a home in our halls. May she find happiness here, upon my honour, and the happiness of my heart as well, for she is waking it most assuredly already. The horn of duty is calling to summon me, to do right by her as her husband in time, and I shall gladly answer...!"

He raised his cup again, smiling with fervour.

"The time is still very early, as we all know... But one day we shall celebrate this union further. As for now, and from all of us: Welcome! To my sweet lady Daenerys! For she is both the bravest and most beautiful maiden in the land, as I have seen even clearer after today!"

"Hear, hear!" Lord Karyl called out, dunking his fist into the table in unison and sharing a toast with his wife, Lady Jeyne Lolliston, and their three daughters, whom Daenerys still had only had a brief chance to greet with, but who she felt to be very [ ] and curious of her.

"Indeed!" Edmure shot up, as he made to give his own speech over the union of his best friend and young fosterling sister. "From Riverrun to Pinkmaiden! Among all the fine lands in my father's kingdom, and all the lords and ladies of fine renown, of which we are all here, I could have wished for no better match than this. And when there some day shall be so that there comes a wedding, I will be the first to bless the union in heart and in word. To Marq and Daenerys!" Edmure smiled and clinked his cup in unison, Lady Lysinda soon doing the same by his side.

"To my fine son and to his utmost fair young betrothed", Lord Clement inclined and rasied his cup for all to see. "Lady Daenerys, I hope with all my heart that you are glad to be with us here. This will be the first of many happy occasions. To all of my dear friends gathered here in my halls today... To my son and heir... To my brave and beautiful new good-daugher!" Lord Clement raised his toast, and everyone drank at his [ ].

The namesake of their house, the pipers and other musicians began to play merry tunes from beside the dais. Servants hurried to refill the trenches with [ ] and vegetable pies, honeyed turnips and gourds, roast beef and duck. The cups clanked high, and the red wine flowed, as the halls of Pinkmaiden Castle rang with cheer."