288 AC

Stannis Baratheon's hard eyes stared over the jagged rocks of shipbreaker bay. On this day, Robert and Renly saw their parents die from a terrible storm that shattered their ship upon the cliff of Storm's End.

That day had changed each Baratheon brother irrevocably, Robert ran from it and buried any thought or emotion about it with fighting, fucking or feasting. Whilst Robert seemed the happiest of the lot of them Stannis knew one day it would catch up with him and Robert would hate the man he becomes.

Renly saw life lose it's meaning there; he lived carefree treating everyone and everything like a joke.
After that day Renly stopped practicing with both sword and the maester and nowadays had Storm's End ran by its Castellan Ser Cortnay Penrose.
Stannis was thankful his brother had not been so lackadaisical to have a halfwit man the castle of his ancestors but he was always angry of being passed over for Storm's End by a younger brother.

Stannis though had received the worst end of the deal, and he knew that himself.

Stannis had shut himself off from that point hoping that through having nothing in this world he cared about meant he would not have to go through that same pain again.
He had had no intention of marrying until he was forced to by Robert's commands and as such, he now had a wife who not only didn't love him, but she also seemed to fear him.

He was now married for over a year and had yet to have children as he would not bed a woman that would not freely take him to her bed.
Stannis did try and talk to his wife more and more but found his duties as Master of Ships and Lord of Dragonstone to be all he had time for, so he hoped by having some of her family to be with her at Dragonstone he could start to thaw their cold marriage.

A lowborn voice broke his thoughts

"The sailors have been gathered and the wood has been loaded milord"

Davos Seaworth was a man worth fifty of Stannis's household guard, he was honest, smart and fiercely loyal to Stannis. Which Stannis repaid handsomely with both a knighthood and a small tract of land.
Stannis promoted based on merit rather than birth and whilst this enraged some of his less abled vassal Lords this had quickly shown dividends in his quickly formed navy during the battle for Dragonstone.
This also had the added benefit of being seen in quite the positive light by his subjects and sailors, as they all now felt some hope of escaping their ever toiling work by impressing the Stone Lord

"Then we ride to Griffin's Roost then sail from there"

Stannis broke line of sight with the bay, he had never used the port at Storm's End after reaching his majority.

Dragonstone was once again busy, building new ships, imports of wood and the import of sailors.
Unlike everything else needed to build a ship skilled sailors were hard to come across and in times of peace it was quite difficult indeed and so Stannis had men roam all across the many ports of Westeros and some even further afield and offered good coin for skilled men.

Stannis had to build an entire fleet from nothing after it had all defected to the Targaryen's during his brother's war and so he constantly and rigorously told his men they were loyal to the crown Robert Baratheon forged on the ruby ford and to the master of ships, in *that* order.
Stannis might of had Valyrians for vassals in terms of house Celtigar and Velayron but *his* men would be loyal to the stags that sit the throne.

A large horn was blown, and hammers stopped and so did some talk as in the horizon twenty large war galleys all bearing the fox of house Florent entered into view,
as the smallfolk knew few banners it was difficult for them to know if this was to be interpreted as a hostile raiding party trying to attack the still half built ships. Thankfully before any actual panic set in Dale Seaworth, Davos' oldest and current squire yelled out.

"That Is the House of Our Lord's Wife!"

Whilst houses and banners weren't well known, Selyse was, she was always out in the town of Dragonstone itself and talking with smallfolk, she was generous when buying and genial whilst bargaining.
It was because of her, every time a ship was built a cask of good rum was given out. It had been enough for the builders to not mind as much such long and hard work and in turn gave them some like of their new lord be him stag instead of dragon.

Stannis was suprised to see so many ships as he had not asked for any. He knew the Reach was famous for its intrigue and gift-giving that was supposed to carry secret meanings, but he cared little for that if the ships were well maintained and well manned that was all that mattered.

Erron Florent greeted him cooly,

"Lord Stannis, I thank you for accepting my sister's wishes of having us to accompany her on Dragonstone, as a sign of thanks from house Florent we wish to add our fleet to the royal one"

What was left unsaid was that during the rebellion they had refused to add their fleet to the Redwyne fleet to help besiege Storm's End and now this was a good way to both neutrally remove their fleet from Reacher politicking and gain favor with Stannis.

"I only wish to see my Lady wife happy, though I thank you for the ships" Stannis gestured to have Davos look them over.

Both The Florents and Stannis continued to stare at each other until eventually Erron thought to crack a joke.

"Though these ships have never seen east of Dorne, and I cannot say for how they will deal with the heat of Essos, They might well melt!.

That seemed to put Stannis on the backfoot. His eyes darted to some completed ships in port and others in various stages of construction.

"Why would they need to deal with the heat of Essos?"

"Well surely some of the trade Dragonstone does is with one of the free cities, or maybe I should say the cold of the north if it is with White Harbor, you have made your trades with?"

"These ships patrol from White harbor from the Step stones, we have smaller cogs that we take our trade in with"

Now Erron was on the backfoot, here was the captain of probably the largest fleet in Westeros and he was *only* using it to root out small scale pirating?

"Beg my pardon Lord Stannis but even if one in five of the ships in the royal fleet traded along the paths you protect or even offered protection to the ships doing trading in exchange for a part of the profits you would immediately make Dragonstone a trading hub of equal importance of White Harbour or Gull Town."

Stannis was not well versed in trading, Seven Hells he was not well versed in ships until made Lord of them but it had become his obligation to and as such he threw himself into learning wind patterns, mapping and the schematics a designs of over a dozen ships.
Dragonstone was not a rich piece of land, whilst fertile it had little soil to be used, what trees it did have were all used to keep Dragonstone warm and the only thing to mine here was obsidian which had little use outside of decorations.
Dragonstone was rich in prestige, being the seat of the Heir to The Iron Throne since Aegon the Conqueror.

If Erron was speaking truly then Stannis would no longer feel as slighted in losing Storm's End to Renly nor as slighted in always living in the shadow of Robert.

Stannis had surprised Erron; Erron had only heard tales of the boy who was starved for a year unyielding for fifty thousand Tyrell troops.
He was once again surprised hearing tale of the "Onion Knight" that had saved the besieged castle to only lose most of his fingers.
Stannis was an interesting figure with a presence that demanded respect and attention and right now Erron was giving him all of his, fearing he had come across as a greedy copper counter like most reachmen before him.

Stannis's Eyes were calculating and cold, though Erron was most surprised by how Stannis had just invited him back to his solar with a thin smile on his face.

AN: *This story will focus mostly on Ryam but there will also be some chapters from other POVs*