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Adrian Lannister
Adrian had braced himself for ruins. He had imagined blackened docks and skeletal masts poking from the waterline like dead men's fingers. He had imagined screaming. He had imagined smoke.
Instead, Lannisport gleamed like gold.
New planks shone pale gold where the old docks had burned, and the warehouses along the quay stood straight-backed and freshly mortared, their roofs tiled in the terracotta red that the merchant guilds favoured. The harbour was thick with ships, trading cogs, fishing sloops, a pair of fat Pentoshi galleys riding low with cargo, and the water itself was a clean, hard blue, scrubbed of ash and wreckage by months of tide.
It looked as if nothing had happened. As if the fire and the longships and the screaming had been a fever dream, and Adrian was the only one who remembered it.
The cheering started before the gangplank touched stone.
It began somewhere deep in the crowd, a single voice, then ten, then a hundred, and by the time Adrian's boots hit the dock, the noise was like an echo that would not stop, a wall of sound that pressed against his chest. Thousands of faces packed the waterfront and spilled up the cobbled streets beyond, hanging from balconies, sitting on shoulders, standing on barrels and overturned crates. Red and gold banners snapped in the salt breeze. Someone had scattered crimson petals across the dock stones, and they stuck to the soles of Adrian's boots as he walked.
Adrian looked at them, he looked at the towers, at the shadows, he looked at the sea of people before him, and wondered if someone was hiding amongst them, someone who would hurt him.
Stop it. You're home.
Adrian straightened his spine and walked beside his father.
Tywin moved through the cheering, his face showed nothing that he was acknowledging them, but Adrian could tell he was pleased. His crimson cloak billowed behind him, and his boots hitting the blanks, despite the hundreds of voices around them, his footsteps were loud. He did not wave. He did not smile, but he held his head high with pride.
Behind them came the rest of the front rank. Tygett lifted a hand to the crowd now, and he started grinning, especially at the ladies. Adrian knew his uncle loved to grin; he was good at it. Sandor Clegane walked at Adrian's right shoulder, greatsword across the side of his waist, his burned face turning the nearest cheers into quiet stares. And Cleos Frey, Aunt Genna's eldest, with his mother's jaw and his father's unfortunate ears, walked stiffly at the edge of the row, looking as if he could not quite believe he had been placed there and was terrified someone would notice the mistake.
Adrian's eyes swept the dock again.
Where is Tyrion?
He searched for the familiar shape, short, sharp-tongued, probably carrying a book, but Tyrion was not among the welcoming party. Adrian swallowed his disappointment and buried it somewhere below his ribs, beside the other things he was not allowed to feel in public.
The Lannisters of Lannisport were waiting at the end of the dock, arranged in a neat formation like they were soldiers presenting themselves to the general of the army.
Three men stood at the front. Brothers, all of them, and Adrian's third cousins through some branch of the family tree that Maester Creylen had once explained with a chart so tangled it looked like a fishing net. The eldest was Ser Loreon Lannister, tall and grey-bearded, with a nose that looked crooked in two different places. Beside him stood Ser Daven Lannister, thicker in the chest and redder in the face, full of sweat like someone had thrown him into the sea right before they arrived. The youngest was Ser Martyn Lannister, clean-shaven and sharp-eyed, the only one of the three who looked as if he had slept the night before.
Behind them clustered their families, wives in silk, sons in polished leather, and a row of daughters who stared at Adrian with the wide eyes, many of them held green eyes that he was so familiar with.
Adrian counted. Four girls. The youngest was perhaps ten, round-faced and fidgeting with a ribbon in her hair. Beside her stood two more, eleven and twelve, close enough in age to be mistaken for twins, though one was fair and the other freckled. The eldest was eighteen or near enough, tall and copper-haired; she was wearing very revealing clothes, and Adrian could see the top of her bosom.
Ser Loreon stepped forward and bowed deeply. "My Lord Tywin. Welcome home. Lannisport stands ready, as always, to serve."
"Rise," Tywin said. "How stands the city?"
"Rebuilt and whole, my lord." Loreon straightened. "The harbour quarter was the worst of it, fourteen warehouses, six taverns, the chandler's row along the eastern quay. All restored. The merchant guilds bore half the cost without complaint, and the city's own vault covered the remainder. Shipwrights delivered the last replacement vessel a fortnight past." He paused for a moment as if waiting for Tywin to praise him. He did not. "Trade has recovered to nine parts in ten of its pre-war volume. The Pentoshi are back, and so are the Tyroshi. The Myrish are negotiating new terms."
"And the fleet?"
"Sixty-two warships at anchor, my lord. Another thirty under construction at the Westerling yards."
Tywin nodded once. This appeared to satisfy him.
Adrian felt the girls' eyes on him before he saw them move. The youngest had crept forward, craning her neck to look at Red Rain, which hung from his belt on his right hip, the scabbard too long for his height so that the chape kissed the dock stones with every step, leaving a thin scraping whisper beneath the cheering. Scrrrk. Scrrrk. Scrrrk. A small sound. Adrian liked it. It meant the sword was there.
The two middle girls whispered to each other behind cupped hands, and their eyes were bright and curious in the way that made Adrian think of the cats in the kitchens at the Rock, the ones that watched you eat and pretended they weren't watching. The eldest watched him with a strange expression; he wasn't sure what...but it kind of reminded him of the way ladies tend to look at Uncle Tygette
"Lord Adrian." Ser Martyn bowed, and his smile was genuine, or at least it looked genuine. "The city is glad to see you home safe. Your courage has been the talk of every tavern and guildhall from here to Kayce."
"Thank you, Ser Martyn," Adrian said. Be polite. Be brief. Be remembered for your composure, never your enthusiasm. He looked around at the new houses, and new...everything, before looking back at Ser Martyn with a smile. "I am glad to see the city restored."
"Thank you for your kind words, My Lord."
The freckled girl, Ser Daven's daughter, by the look of her, eleven or twelve with a spray of brown spots across her nose, leaned forward and grinned at him. "Is it true you killed twenty men?"
"Merra," her mother hissed.
"I heard it was thirty," the younger one piped up, bouncing on her toes. "And that you burned a whole ship with just a torch. Ellyn told me you set fire to the sails and jumped off before it sank."
Adrian blinked. "It was four," he said. "And I burned nothing."
"Only four?" Mera tilted her head and pursed her lips, and there was something in the way she said it, the way her eyes moved across his face, that made Adrian feel as if he were being measured for something he didn't understand. "That's still very brave. For someone your age." She smiled, wide, showing her teeth. "I think you're the bravest boy in the whole Westerlands."
"The bravest boy in the whole world," the youngest corrected, as if this were an important distinction.
The eldest stepped forward. And her smile was strange, her eyes glittered like green pools filled with crystals. "Ser Loreon says you claimed a Valyrian steel sword from the lord you slew. The songs already call it your birthright." She glanced down at the scabbard dragging at his hip, and her eyes lingered. "May I see it? I've never seen Valyrian steel up close. I imagine it must be beautiful."
Adrian's hand moved to Red Rain's hilt, and he pulled it a little upwards to show more of it, but he did not reveal the red blade underneath.
"You must have had such an amazing adventure," Merra said with excitment looking at the sword then back at Adrian...
The foolish girl did not know what this adventure was like, she was not chained, she did not have to endure rats across her skin, she did not have to endure the hands of someone all over his body, not a dark cell that smelled like rot and piss, not the sound of choking, and the way their eyes burned away like candles when they died, it was like...watching the color leave their eyes without really leaving.
Monster. The boy's scream, wet and ragged and cut short by steel. You Monster. He felt something rise in his chest, hot and red and terrible, and he grabbed the girl by the shoulder and shook her, screamed at her, threw her to the ground....Adventure!!
Suddenly, he blinked, and her eyes were looking at him back with excitement; he wasn't shaking her, and she wasn't lying on the ground with tears across her face.
I am a Lannister. Lannisters do not scream at girls on docks.
"Merra." The girl's mother, Ser Daven's wife, a sharp-boned woman with anxious hands, pulled her daughter backward by the arm, firmly enough to make the girl stumble. "You will not speak to Lord Adrian of such things. Wars are not adventures, and you are not a child in a storybook." She turned to Adrian and dipped into a curtsy. "My lord, forgive my daughter. She has a tongue that runs faster than her sense. We are grateful to see you returned home safe and fully healed. That is what matters. Not stories."
"There is nothing to forgive, my lady," Adrian said, and for a moment felt like someone else was talking. "Merra was being kind."
The woman looked relieved. Merra looked chastened. The youngest looked confused.
"Another time," Tywin said from behind Adrian, and the conversation died as cleanly as if he had cut its throat. "We ride for the Rock. Horses."
Grooms appeared from behind the welcoming party, leading mounts already saddled and brushed to a shine. A black destrier for Tywin, tall enough to look down on every man in the square. A bay courser for Tygett. A roan mare for Cleos.
And for Adrian, a dappled grey pony with a braided mane and soft dark eyes that blinked at him.
Not Moonbeam. Moonbeam was stabled at the Rock. But the pony was gentle and small, and Adrian mounted without help, swinging his right leg over and settling into the saddle with Red Rain hanging from his belt, the scabbard's tip scraping the stirrup leather as he adjusted his seat. His left hand throbbed as he gathered the reins, but he did not wince.
The column formed. Tywin at the head, Adrian beside him, Sandor a half-length behind on a horse so massive it made the surrounding mounts look like foals.
As they rode through the streets of Lannisport, the cheering followed them like a tide. People leaned from windows. Children ran alongside the column, laughing and pointing. A woman threw a garland of golden flowers that landed across Adrian's pony's neck, and Adrian left it there because removing it would require using his left hand.
Red Rain's tip caught on the cobblestones whenever the pony dipped its head, and the thin scraping sound followed Adrian through the golden streets like a second shadow.
"Sandor," Adrian said quietly, eyes forward.
"Hmm." The sound was less a word and more a vibration in the Hound's chest.
"Why are they cheering?"
Sandor was quiet for a moment. Then he snorted, a short, ugly sound, half-laugh and half-contempt.
"Because you killed people," Sandor said. "And they didn't have to watch."
Adrian looked up at him.
Sandor's burned face was unreadable, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. "People don't like killing," he said. "Makes them sick. Makes them pray. Makes them swear they'd never do it themselves. But put a killer on a horse and ride him through the streets?" He gestured at the crowd. "They'll throw flowers. They'll name their sons after you. They'll sing songs about what you did, so long as they never have to see what it actually looked like."
A child darted close to the column, reached out, and touched Adrian's boot before sprinting back into the crowd, shrieking with delight.
"They're cheering because you did the thing they're afraid of," Sandor said. "And you lived. That's all a hero is, boy. Someone who kills people, and other people cheer for him and give him a different name to make him sound noble."
Adrian said nothing. He rode on through the golden streets with flowers on his pony and a sword on his hip, and Red Rain's tip scratched the stones beneath him, and the cheering followed him all the way to the gates.
The Lion's Road climbed.
It was not a gentle climb. Every step his pony took, he felt on his ribs, clk, clk, clk, like a second heartbeat. The road was carved from the same golden stone as the Rock itself, and it wound upward through switchbacks and gates and watchtowers that grew from the cliff like teeth, and with every turn, the ocean dropped further below, and the wind got colder, and the air got cleaner, and Casterly Rock got bigger.
Adrian had seen the Rock a thousand times. He had been born inside it. He had learned to walk on its floors and read in its library and swing a wooden sword in its yards. He knew the shape of it the way he knew the shape of his own hand.
But today, when the final switchback opened and the full fortress revealed itself against the sky, something happened in his chest. It felt like a weight he had been holding onto, finally slipping away. It says you can let go now.
The golden stone blazed in the afternoon sun. The banners, crimson and gold, a hundred of them, snapped from every tower and parapet, and the ocean crashed against the base of the cliff three hundred feet below with a sound like distant drums. Even the ocean below didn't seem as dark as it did in that ship, through the small circle window of his room.
This salt air smelled like home.
The gates were open. Household guards in crimson cloaks lined the entry passage, standing at attention with swords and shields. As Adrian rode through on his dappled pony, Red Rain dragging from his hip, its tip scrrrking on the stone, the guards looked at him.
Some nodded. One younger guard whispered something to the man beside him. And an older guard, grey-bearded, thick through the shoulders, someone Adrian vaguely remembered from the training yard murmured, "Welcome home, my lord."
Adrian nodded to the man and said, "Thank you," and rode on, and the words sat in his chest like warm bread.
The main courtyard was full.
Servants and guards and household staff clustered along the walls and archways, and he could sniff something in the air, a familiar smell, and it was the smell of Casterly Rock, the smell of before, and Adrian breathed it in until his lungs felt full.
He dismounted carefully, favouring his left side, and a groom appeared to take the pony's reins. Red Rain's scabbard scraped the courtyard stones as Adrian's boots hit the ground. He stood beside the pony and watched the rest of the party dismount, and he watched the first reunion happen before his own did.
Aunt Genna came through the courtyard like a ship at full sail.
There was no other way to describe her. She was not a small woman and she was not a quiet woman, and her crimson silk dress billowed behind her like a mainsail, and her voice cut through the courtyard noise. Her arms were already open before she reached Cleos, and when she caught him, she nearly lifted the boy off the ground despite being a full head shorter.
"My boy," she said, and kissed both his cheeks, and Cleos went red from his jaw to the tips of his unfortunate Frey ears. "My beautiful, brave, stupid boy, you've gotten thin, have they been feeding you? You look like a scarecrow."
"Mother," Cleos managed. "I'm fine—"
"You are not fine, you are thin," Genna corrected. "Emmon! Come here! Look at your son! He's thin!"
Emmon Frey stood further back, near the arch that led to the east wing, thin and nervous and profoundly relieved, and he expressed this relief by fidgeting with his sleeve cuffs rather than embracing anyone. He took two steps forward, then stopped, then took one more step, then cleared his throat. "Yes. Good. You're... you've returned. That's..." He cleared his throat again. "Good."
Behind Genna, Cleos's younger brothers swarmed. Lyonel and Tion pushed each other out of the way for hugging position, and the littlest one, Walder, who was seven and worshipped Cleos the way Adrian worshipped Tyrion, grabbed Cleos's leg with both arms and refused to let go, so Cleos had to walk the next ten steps dragging a seven-year-old like an anchor.
Adrian watched from beside his pony, and he smiled.
Things are going back to normal.
Then Genna spotted him.
She released Cleos mid-sentence, "I've had the kitchen prepare your favourite—" and turned, and the full force of her attention landed on Adrian the way a wave lands on a dock. She crossed the courtyard in six strides and descended upon him, and her hands cupped his face before he could blink.
"Let me look at you," she said, and her voice was different now. She studied him, the bruise on his cheekbone, faded to a sickly yellow-green; the thinness of his jaw; the bandages on his left hand. Her thumbs traced the edges of his face as if checking that all the pieces were still there.
Her eyes went glassy.
"You are thin," Genna announced. "The kitchens have been preparing your favourite foods for a week. Honeycakes, lemon soup, that lamb with the rosemary that you eat until you're sick. I told Cook if the honeycakes were not perfect, I would throw him into the sea myself."
"Thank you, Aunt Genna," Adrian said with the biggest smile he had on his face, and he felt his eyes burn.
"And if anyone on those wretched islands harmed a single hair on your head beyond what I've already heard about, I swear by the Mother and the Warrior and every god who cares to listen, I will sail to Pyke myself and I will—"
Tywin looked at her.
That was all. Just looked. Genna subsided, but not before pressing a kiss to Adrian's forehead hard enough to leave a mark.
Aunt Genna kisses like she's trying to brand me, he thought to himself, and he liked it.
Then arms scooped him.
Uncle Gerion lifted Adrian clean off his feet.
"There's my nephew!" Gerion grinned, setting him back down but keeping both hands on his shoulders. His eyes were bright and crinkled at the corners. "Let me look at you. Still in one piece. Mostly." He squeezed Adrian's good shoulder. "You scared us half to death, you little terror. I nearly sailed after you myself, but your father said I'd only make things worse, which is deeply unfair and also probably true."
"I'm sorry, Uncle Gerion," Adrian murmured.
"Don't apologise. You came back. That's all that matters." Gerion's eyes flicked to Red Rain hanging from Adrian's belt, the chape resting on the courtyard stone. His eyebrow rose. "That is a very large sword for a very small lord."
Adrian's mouth twitched.
"Does it come with a smaller lord, or did the sword adopt you?" Gerion grinned. "Because from here it looks like the sword is wearing you."
"It's mine," Adrian smiled. "I earned it."
Gerion's grin softened into something warmer. "I know you did." He ruffled Adrian's hair. "Tyrion's been carrying that wooden dragon around like a holy relic, by the way. I caught him talking to it once. He claimed he was rehearsing a lecture on Valyrian metallurgy. I believe roughly half of that."
"Where is —" Adrian started.
Something hugged him.
For one moment, his hand flew to the pommel of his sword.
Then he heard the crying.
Not scared crying. Not hurt crying. Happy crying, the messy, gulping, hiccupping kind that only very small children can do, and it was coming from the person attached to him right now.
Joy.
She had her arms wrapped around his shoulders and her face pressed into his neck, and her golden hair was wild and her cheeks were wet and she was talking into his clothes so the words came out in a muffled, soggy rush.
"You came back," Joy breathed against his tunic. "You came back, you came back, I was scared, I thought you weren't coming back, I drew you pictures every day, I drew so many lions —"
Adrian wrapped his good arm around her and pulled her in, and she pressed her wet face into his neck, and her small body shook against his.
"I'm here," he murmured into her hair. "I'm here, Joy. I'm not going anywhere."
"You promise?" she hiccupped.
"I promise."
Joy pulled back. Her eyes were red and her nose was running and she wiped it on her sleeve in a way that would have made Septa Marilla faint. She looked at Red Rain hanging from his belt, and her eyes went wide.
"Is that the sword?" she whispered. "The real one?"
"That's the real one," Adrian nodded.
"It's big," Joy breathed, staring.
"It is big."
"Can I touch it?"
"Maybe later. When there aren't so many people."
Joy nodded solemnly, and then she hugged him again, tighter this time, and Adrian closed his eyes and held her and breathed in soap and charcoal pencils and honey pastries.
"I missed you," Joy murmured into his shoulder.
"I missed you too," Adrian breathed. "More than anything."
Gerion appeared beside them and gently extracted Joy, who protested loudly. "Let the boy breathe, sweetheart. You'll see him at the feast."
"But I have drawings —"
"You can show him at the feast."
"But there's seventy —"
"Then you'd better start organising them," Gerion chuckled, lifting Joy onto his hip. She glared at him with the devastating fury of a four-year-old who has been separated from her target.
And then he heard the voice.
"I see Aunt Genna has already begun her campaign to feed you until you cannot move. A solid strategy. A lord who can't walk is a lord who can't get kidnapped."
It came from somewhere behind the crowd, lower than the other voices.
Then two servants stepped apart, and there he was.
Tyrion, he thought to himself, and the thought rang like a bell.
Tyrion stood near the base of the great stairs in a dark crimson doublet with golden thread at the cuffs. His mismatched eyes were fixed on Adrian. And the way he looked at Adrian was the same. That was the important thing. That was the only thing. Everyone else looked at Adrian differently now, with awe, or pity. But Tyrion looked at Adrian the way he always had.
Adrian crossed the courtyard. He walked very quickly in a way that was absolutely not running.
He reached Tyrion and hugged him. Carefully, because his ribs still burned. Tightly, because of everything else. Tyrion's arms went around him, and his hand rested on the back of Adrian's head, fingers against the silver-gold hair, and neither of them said anything. They just held on.
He smells like ink and old leather and wine, Adrian thought to himself. He smells like the library. He smells like before.
Tyrion pulled back. He held Adrian at arm's length and examined his face with those sharp, mismatched eyes.
"You've grown," Tyrion murmured.
Beat.
"Slightly."
Adrian laughed. It felt wonderful to laugh.
"Did you keep Balerion safe?" Adrian grinned.
Tyrion reached into his doublet and pulled out the wooden dragon. Small, hand-carved, three days of careful work. Adrian took it, and his fingers trembled around it.
He tucked the dragon into his pocket beside Joy's wooden lion.
"I also reorganised your section of the library," Tyrion smiled, walking beside him. "Alphabetically, by subject, cross-referenced by era. You're welcome."
"You didn't have to —"
"I was Acting Lord of Casterly Rock. I had to fill the hours somehow between terrifying grain merchants and sleeping in Father's bed." He paused. "Don't tell Father about the bed."
Adrian stared. "You slept in Father's bed?"
"It is a wonderful bed."
"You can't say things like that," Adrian hissed, but he was smiling.
"I can say exactly things like that. I held Casterly Rock while the rest of you played at war. I earned the right to say whatever I like." Tyrion tilted his head. "Now, you should know that Joy has drawn you a picture every single day since you left. That is seventy-three drawings. Seventy-two are lions. One is what she insists is a dragon, but it looks considerably more like an angry chicken."
"I want to see them all," Adrian grinned.
"You will. She's been terrorising the kitchen staff for weeks. 'Is Adrian coming today? Why isn't Adrian here yet? Can you make honeycakes for when he comes?' "
Adrian laughed again. It came easier this time.
"What did you read while I was gone?" Adrian smiled.
"Everything," Tyrion chuckled. "I read everything. Father's entire collection. I also read every raven scroll that came through Maester Creylen's study, which is how I know Lord Crakehall's gout is worsening and Lady Yarwyck's eldest daughter has eloped with a hedge knight. Neither piece of information has any strategic value whatsoever, but I found both deeply entertaining."
"You read Father's private ravens?" Adrian murmured.
"I was Acting Lord. They were my ravens." Tyrion grinned. "Temporarily."
They walked on together through the familiar corridors of Casterly Rock, and Tyrion kept talking, about the books, about Joy's drawings, about the grain merchants and their shocked faces when a dwarf half their height threatened to seize their stocks, about Maester Creylen's new obsession with a medical treatise from Oldtown, about the cook's ongoing war with the scullery boys, and Adrian listened and smiled and asked questions and laughed, and the warmth in his chest spread and spread and filled the hollow places. He could not wait to tell Tyrion that he had met Jaime. He knew Tyrion had not seen Jaime in years.
Everything is the same, Adrian thought to himself. Tyrion is the same. The library is the same. Joy is the same. The Rock is the same.
I'm home, he thought. And everything is going to be just like it was before.
If you want to Read 7 More Chapters Right Now. Search 'patreon.com/Drinor' on Websearch