Pre-Chapter A/N: Welcome to September, guys! Let's smash whatever goals we've set ourselves this year. More chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) -- same username as here and link in bio. Experimenting with two chapters a week, we'll see how long I can keep this up for.
Taking the castle had ended up taking the better part of the day. They had started shortly after dawn, and the sun had begun to set by the time a bloodied Borros Baratheon returned with a head clutched under his armpit in one hand and his trusty hammer in the other. If it was ever a question of whether the man could back up his arrogance and confidence, then I would always be certain the answer would be yes. Because beyond a scratch on his arm, in a gap in his armour's protection—Borros had spurned Westerosi tradition for this invasion and declined wearing full plate. It meant he had more weak points than most others, but it also meant he could be more nimble in the tight spaces they had fought in. I found it difficult to argue that it had not been the wise thing to do.
"Cousin, I bring you victory!" He yelled the last word out, and his men behind him cheered. I could see the smile appear on Rhaenys' face as Borros thrust the head high up in the air. They'd already killed all the proper pirate kings, so this was just the poor sod who had been left in charge of the castle. Tellingly, Rhaenys did not ask him to introduce his kill. Mockery like that was reserved for enemies, and Borros Baratheon, like it or not, was an ally of theirs for the time being.
I was still less than certain that he would stand with us when the dance eventually rolled around, regardless of which side we were on. Otto Hightower's cabal was not an option. I hated the man enough, and in truth, there was only ever enough space for one man to be the power behind the crown. Otto would not cede that position easily, and if I was not going to be wearing the crown of Westeros myself, then I would rule those kingdoms in all but name. How else would I ensure that the Stepstones would remain House Velaryon's in perpetuity, or that my children and their children would continue to have the right to ride dragons?
An ambitious enough king could always sign an edict banning it. Right now, we outnumbered the Targaryens when it came to dragon riders, and we outmatched them when it came to the power of said dragons, but that would not always be the case. If Aemond had not been born yet, then his time was soon enough regardless. After him would come Daeron. Rhaenyra, with or without my involvement, would have her own brood of children all likely to claim dragons. Luckily enough, they were all going to kill each other off in the Dance, but it went to show how easily our numbers advantage could be usurped. When the Targaryens had more power than we did, what would stop them from destroying us? I would have to either wed my house closer and closer to the throne over time or prepare to leave Westeros in its entirety.
"Well done, Cousin. You have done a great deed here today," Rhaenys said, sliding down from Meleys' back to walk towards Borros.
He met her with a wide smile and placed the head at her feet while she leaned in and embraced him. It was a full hug. Uncaring of his armour, his rough personality, and the audience. The men cheered it even as I watched Borros fold himself into the hug in a way I had never seen him. For the second time in knowing him, Borros Baratheon seemed human. Seemed more than the caricature of boisterous brawn that his House forced him to be. Maybe if I were a kinder man, I would try to find this part of him again. In truth, I just wanted all of this to be over, and counting the numbers that flowed from the castle… unless most of them had chosen to stay within the castle for some reason, we were going to have to be at this for a while.
XXXXXXX
Sadly, I was right in the end. One thousand knights and men-at-arms had sailed from Tarth under the command of Daemon Targaryen with the goal of taking Bloodstone. The campaign was over. The island was ours. However, only about two hundred of those men were battle-fit. The healers had begun their work, and we expected that another hundred would be battle-ready before the week was out, but the other two hundred non-battle-fit casualties were either going to need longer than that or would never be battle-fit again. Or at least my definition of battle-fit.
"This ol' thing? Only makes it a fair fight, you see, my Lord?" one of the men asked me when he noticed me staring at the stump of his right hand. I tried hard not to let my disbelief show on my face, even if I far from believed this man would ever be fighting again.
"Sure thing, Ser. Now lie still so I may look at that," I said, and he did. He pressed himself back to the bed, and to his credit, he only flinched once when I removed the bandage, doused the wound in boiled wine, and then began rewrapping it. Far from the best way to go about things, but with resources as limited as they were, we were doing the best we could with what we had available. Maester Bernard, when he had been flown over, had taken command of the healing tent, and after a conversation with my mother I had not gotten the chance to witness, I was here now.
Ostensibly under his command, even though he was sworn to listen to my orders. It was a funny thing being a Lord under a regency. I was Lord Velaryon, Master of Driftmark and Lord of the Tides. No one gainsaid it, but Mother could countermand any order I gave and give me orders herself. It went beyond just listening to her as a result of our relationship. There were other things involved there as well—she had authority over me as my Regent.
I finished bandaging the wound with a series of quick movements. One thing my posting here had achieved was that my hands had grown even more nimble. Maester Bernard did not have a forged link in healing—an oversight that I would see him replaced for when I returned to the mainland. What kind of lunacy had possessed the Citadel not to send us a fully competent Maester? Yes, his links in Admiralty, Shipbuilding, Commerce, Governance, History, and Warfare probably made him one of the best in the realm, and as a Maester, he had more than a passing knowledge of the art of healing, but to lack the chain said something.
Looking over at the man, I decided replacing him was probably shortsighted. I would see him given an assistant. The Red Keep had more than one Maester, after all—there were nearly a dozen. House Velaryon deserved at least two. We'd get someone who specialized in healing, maybe even midwifery if that was a link offered.
But back to the matter, he was teaching me healing and in no time had decided I knew basically as much as he did, so now I operated with no oversight. Just freedom to do as I wished. I moved to the next cot in the room.
"Ser Bonnifer, how goes the cut?" I asked.
"Feels good, My Lord. Can't even feel it anymore when I move. Might be fully healed," he said. He was a blonde man—rare enough in the Stormlands, but add his lithe frame to that and it was clear he had some foreign ancestry to him.
"I doubt that," I said with a smirk that he returned as he scratched at his blonde beard.
"I'll take a look at it if you don't mind."
"Of course not, My Lord. As you wish," he said.
I sat on the stool I'd dragged over and began to work on him. I only worked on the knights. The standard men-at-arms were not worth the time of the Lord of House Velaryon—no one had said those words to me, but I knew it was the truth. There was a reason the Maester and I worked only within this hall—one of a dozen that dotted the castle, which was far larger than it had any right to be—on the fifty or so knights that had been wounded. The rest of the wounded were down in a separate hall being attended to by healers and camp followers. Being completely honest, considering all the combined experience of those healers, they might have been all the better for it. Bernard was not the type of man with much patience for those he considered beneath his station. I made a note to ask Mother which House he had belonged to before he forged his chain. Hadn't cared before, but now that I was the one in charge, I might as well.
XXXXXX
I walked around the castle. We'd had it for a week, and this was my first chance to truly explore it. I had the scout's report and had even seen a map drawn of the place by one of the stewards. I had left that behind though, just wanting to get lost in the privacy of my own thoughts.
"This is so boring," a voice cut through my musing as I leaned in to examine one of the many carvings on the wall. It was Laena. Yeah, the part of getting lost in the privacy of my own thoughts had gotten solidly ignored. No matter what I tried, she remained attached like a leech that just could not be shaken. It wasn't just her, even. Ser Ben stood behind me like a solid shadow. These days he scarcely left my side when I was not atop Igneel. He had even begun to brave his fear of the dragon somewhat to step closer when I was on dragonback. Mother had done something there. I wondered when I would need to remind him who it was he truly answered to.
"I didn't make you come," I lashed back, more tersely than I would have otherwise. It was the fourth time she had reiterated that complaint. Part of me regretted teaching her so much modern vocabulary when we were kids. Mother and Father had taken it as quirks of my genius and paid my sayings no mind beyond asking what they meant and then telling me the "proper" way to say such things. Laena, on the other hand, had been an ever-attentive student. We had grown up as twins, more or less. The second I'd learned to walk, I had been keen to see as much of the world as I could. And whether I liked it or not, Laena had been the best route to that. They'd let me leave the nursery with her by my side.
I turned back, noting her spurned expression.
"I'm sorry, Sister. I'm just a bit impatient these days," I said. It wasn't much of an apology. I wasn't very good with them—because I was rarely ever truly repentant. Still, she perked up.
"Of course, Laenor, I understand," she practically simpered. I looked at Ben in alarm. I wasn't the only one seeing this, was I? He turned his head, studiously avoiding my gaze. Oh god, this man.
I leaned back from the carving. It was not a dragon; that was easy enough to tell. The fact that it had no limbs made that clear enough. No wings either, or terribly malformed ones. It was a wyrm, probably. I itched for my copy of Barth's Dragons, Wyrms, and Wyverns: Their Unnatural History. Alas, it was back on Driftmark with the rest of my things, ferried there by the same captain that had seen them taken to Storm's End.
"Let's do something more fun," she suggested.
"Nope," I denied almost instantly. I knew Laena's idea of fun and would be having none of it today.
"Objection noted and overruled," she said and practically manhandled me as she dragged me forward.
"A lady like you has no business being this strong," I said, even as I knew that I could break her hold in a matter of seconds if I decided to do so. Age could mean a lot, but training in the yard was one hell of an equalizer, and Corlys Velaryon, no matter how progressive and love-filled for his daughter he was, would never have allowed her in the yard.
"Ser Ben helped me prepare this little surprise," she said as she practically frogmarched me forward. I knew there was one of the smaller rooms there. Most of the rooms were either empty or sparsely furnished. Centuries of occupancy by pirate after pirate had seen everything of value not nailed to the ground—and even some of the things that were—taken and never returned. We would furnish it ourselves in time. Mother probably had a hundred ideas already. Well, as soon as she and Daemon decided who got to keep the castle. The men were loyal to her, not him. Borros would smash Daemon's head in in a second if she asked it of him, but she and father had promised the man the Stepstones. A gift that Father had ostensibly rescinded in his dying minutes. A mess, it was. So many things were a mess.
The room Laena led me to was not one of those things. It was empty. Nearly empty, I amended, as I noticed the rack of training swords in the corner.
"Nope. Hell no," I said, breaking out of my sister's hold.
"You promised."
"When I was five. Do I still look five to you? And I remember Father almost had my hide when we got caught that one time and the servant told him I'd been beating you with a stick. Do you know how long that lecture had been?" I spat. I could remember it vividly. No matter what I said, Corlys had gone on about it and given me a lecture on not hurting family. It had been slightly amusing that the lecture was about not hurting family rather than not hurting women in general. Of course, that smile had led to an even longer lecture.
"Well, Father isn't around anymore, is he?" she asked, and there was something in her eyes that told me refusing her would be a bad idea. Also something that told me the words had not been as easy for her to say as she made them seem. She was hurting; there was no doubt about it.
"Ben, talk some sense into her," I turned to the knight.
"As her Lord, you have final rights over what she learns and doesn't learn."
"Is Mother aware of this?" I tried my final card.
"It was half her idea," Laena smiled. "She thought it would help get our minds off... things."
"Of course."
"Well, go pick a sword," I said, even as I reworked my plans for the day. I'd tire Laena out with an hour or so of training and then get back to my exploring. I'd even send Ben to escort her to bed and get some privacy. I hid my smile as I saw the route to solving all my problems.
XXXXXX—
"Again," she growled as she pushed herself to her feet.
"That was the seventh time. You should be tired," I said.
"I can do this all day," she said, taking the rudimentary stance I'd taught her at the beginning. Scarily enough, she looked like she could. Where the fuck had she got all that stamina from? I wasn't tired—far from it—but I was a well-trained knight in the making who had spent years basically doing naught but fighting. A noble lady with no exposure to manual labor or tasks of any sort should be gasping for air after five duels like this, not looking like prime Captain America after seven.
"Okay, come again," I said and took my own stance.
She stabbed the blade straight at me. I slapped it to the side, perhaps a bit harsher than I should from the wince on her face and the harsh sound the training blades made as they clashed.
"Top right," I warned before bringing down my blade in a straight slash. She blocked it with her own, and instead of easing up like I usually did, I broke through her guard in a matter of seconds. It didn't matter that I held my sword in one hand and she used hers with both. The strength gap was just that large. She could not twist her blade in time to force the contact to end, and so mine was at her neck in a matter of seconds.
"Again."
"You should get some rest."
"No. You're just trying to get rid of me so you can get back to your exploring. I'm your sister, Laenor, you should be happy to spend time with me. What happened to the little boy who used to toddle after me like a lost puppy?" Why did it sound like she was genuinely hurt? Of course this wasn't what I wanted to be spending my time doing. Still, the look in her eyes did enough to tug on my heartstrings.
"First of all, I never toddled after you. Any accounts to the contrary are untrue. Secondly, you're right. I'm sorry. I can look around the castle later. Let's keep going." She brightened in such a way that I felt even my spirits lifted. Had her smile always been so beautiful?
"Good. And if you teach me enough, we can look around the castle a bit before dinner."
"What qualifies as enough to you?" I asked suspiciously.
"Enough for me to land a hit."
"Then we'll be here for years," I laughed, even as she growled and ran at me. This could be fun; I just had to stop treating it like a chore.
A/N: And here we go with another chappy. This one gets us some downtime in Bloodstone. Next five chapters up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)(same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.