Note: Some of you guys have asked for longer chapters, so that's what I'll do now. Mind you, I break chapters up specifically for Webnovel because that's what the algorithm rewards, many, many chapters, and I can't really compete with translations/AI writing when it comes to output.
I'll test this out for a bit to see if it works numbers wise.
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When I strode into the spacious pavilion provided for the semi finalists, Pate was standing right by the entrance of the tent, as far away from Arianne as was physically possible.
The poor boy was fidgeting with an armor polishing kit of sand and vinegar as he stood awkwardly by the corner, shoulders hunched over like he wanted to disappear into himself.
I walked up and gave him a pat on the shoulder. "Thank you for looking after my sister, Pate."
He murmured his thanks, still deeply uncomfortable.
"I do not need looking after," someone said from the other end of the pavilion, but I chose to tactfully ignore the girlish voice.
"Don't worry about the armor either, it's not meant to be polished." The whole mystery knight image would be broken otherwise. "Why don't you go outside and feed Smoker a couple of apples for me, eh? I tied him up just outside by the trough. Give him a brush down while you're at it too, and make sure I'm not bothered by anyone barring the king himself."
"Yes, m'lord," he said, then quickly scurried away, eyes firmly avoiding the girl sitting at the long bench that spanned the far side of the pavilion.
I raised an eyebrow at her. "Should I bother asking what you said that made him so scared?"
Arianne huffed and crossed her arms over her front. "You need a better squire. It's not my fault he scares so easily."
"And you need better manners." Walking up beside her, I let myself fall onto the bench with a loud clank. I reached up with some difficulty and unclasped my helmet.
"You'll have to serve as my squire now," I said, voice finally clear. "Get me some water from my bag over there, then start taking off the pieces starting with the gorget and the pauldrons."
Surprisingly, she did as she was told. The boiled water felt heavenly after being stuffed inside jousting armor for so long, despite its stale and slightly leather-ish taste from the wineskin.
Truly, there were few human rights violations I wouldn't commit for a proper bottle of mineral water.
I let her work in silence for a minute. She struggled with the tighter knots, but soon the gorget lay to the side and the dented form of my left pauldron was next.
That one would be trouble. Every shift of my arm sent a stab of agony coursing through my shoulder.
When Arianne pulled at the cord tying the armor piece, I almost cursed her out. She quickly stopped once she realized I was in pain, but I waved the concern off.
Better to do it now when the adrenaline of the recent jousting was still pumping through me.
I tried to talk my way out of paying attention to it.
"When you said you wanted to help," I started, "is this what you meant? Serving as my squire?"
"Not really," she said glumly.
"So you just decided to run down to the lanes to talk jousting with the mystery knight for no reason?" I shot her a disappointed glance over my injured shoulder. "Someone could have recognized you, Ari. Then how would that have helped me?"
She had no answer to that, though I felt her hands bunch up into fists at my back.
I let out a sigh. If younger sisters could be this hard to manage, how much worse was having your own kids?
I usually wouldn't have to think about this were I a normal fifteen year old, but here I would have to marry and produce heirs sooner rather than later.
A headache for another time.
"What about father and mother?" I asked. "Do they know you are here?"
"Yes." Her answer came a bit too quickly.
I frowned and turned to her again. "Ari…"
She shifted in place, as uncomfortable under my scrutiny as Pate had been under hers.
"Well, they will know I'm here soon enough, I think," she explained. "I told Alysanne to distract them for me, and when they realize I'm gone, she'll come up with something."
Then her eyes turned defiant and she shook her fists at me.
"And—and I had to do something, Gal. Father said you had given up in the middle of the bout. Said you were riding like you knew it was over already, and that Ser Arthur had something about your measure."
I felt my eyebrows climb as she spoke. Given up?
Lord Selwyn normally had plenty of confidence in whatever I did, more than most lordly parents granted their children, but I could see how my kamikaze jousting could be taken as that.
A boy still, with all his exuberance and youth, going head to head against a kingsguard knight, and the Sword of the Morning at that. He probably thought my morale had broken against a superior opponent.
I felt myself deflate a bit. I couldn't blame Arianne if she wanted to help me in what she thought was a desperate situation.
"Well, at least now we know you have a keen eye for jousting," I told her. "Keener than father's, it seems, if you saw something in Ser Arthur's form that even he wasn't able to."
Truthly, I didn't think I would've been able to notice it myself had I not basically stopped any striking and defending to simply observe Ser Arthur's movements.
And all that up close—I had no idea how Arianne had managed to glean anything from the stands. I didn't think any but the best riders and jousting enthusiasts in attendance might have figured something out.
Sure, she had not gotten the complete picture of what Ser Arthur had been doing, thinking he was only counteracting a specific striking pattern on my part, but it was still impressive.
She could be my secret weapon to win tourneys, like a twelve-year-old on-site analyst against any future jousting opponents.
I laughed at the absurd idea, and Arianne must've thought I was laughing at her.
"Don't laugh." She pouted. "I wouldn't have bothered coming if I knew you could see it too. Why didn't you tell me before?"
Now I really barked out a laugh. "I should've asked the king to pause the games so I could let my little sister know I had figured out Ser Arthur's strategy?"
I nodded sardonically. "Yes, that would've worked, my lady. What a great idea."
"No, you idiot." She gave me a push on the shoulder that actually hurt. "You should've told me you could see auras too. I have been wanting to tell you for so long, Gal, but I always worried you would hate me for it, or think me a freak. I should've known you could see it too, considering you're the weirdest person in the world."
I tried to make sense of whatever she had just told me but came up with nothing? Auras?
"First of all, I cannot be the weirdest person in the world, since you are definitely weirder," I said. She giggled at that. "But also, what in the name of all the gods are you even talking about?"
"Auras," she said as if the word explained it all. "Or do you call it something else? That's possible, I suppose, it is not as if I read the name in a book."
She gained a thoughtful look.
"It's just what made the most sense for me when I started seeing them. Emotions, maybe? Definitely not thoughts. Well, whatever it is you call the colorful thing around people, their energy, their… aura. Ugh. I don't know, Gal, but you said it yourself, you can see them too."
"When did I ever say that?"
"Just now by the tiltlane. You told me not to worry, and that you could 'see what I had seen too'." Her eyes narrowed, and she seemed to grow agitated. "Don't pretend otherwise."
"I'm not pretending anything."
My brows furrowed as I thought back on that moment, only to realize I had really said it. Just not what she thought I did.
"I meant I had also seen that Ser Arthur was reacting to my movements even if it didn't look like it. Was that not what you meant?"
Silence answered me.
Frowning, I turned to her fully, swinging my legs over the bench. My sister was looking at me wide-eyed, her posture skittish like a cat about to bolt.
"Are you telling me you see things around people?" I spoke calmly, afraid she would take my questions as an inquisition. "Is that how you managed to figure out what he was doing? These… auras."
She flinched back like I had just slapped her. I put two hands up to give her some space, but she took that like I was somehow scared of her.
Her eyes filled with tears as she confused caution with rejection, and she suddenly tried to run.
She didn't get far. Hitting her shin against the bench, she let out a cry and rolled down onto the ground. She was crying now, and I knew for a fact it had nothing to do with her shin.
I was on her in an instant, trying to calm her down, to reassure her.
"I, I just—" she started to hyperventilate, sobs coming out louder than words, "—please don't hate me, please, please…"
She kept repeating it like a chant, and I just held her as she cried.
xxx
It took her a few minutes to calm down, at least enough to make me think she wouldn't run off the moment I took my eyes off of her.
"Ari, I need you to listen to me right now, alright?"
I held her by her arms and looked at eyes the same color as our mother's, the green now surrounded by an angry red, puffy from crying.
"Let me make something very clear. Even if you are a demon from the deepest pits of Asshai, here to conquer the Seven Kingdoms by means of blood magic and child sacrifice, you are still my little sister. Short of you shaving my head bald, there's no way I'd ever hate you. Not truly. Do you understand?"
She nodded through sniffles. I think that as soon as she realized I did not hate her for seeing these auras, she became more embarrassed by her outburst than anything.
It was a very Arianne way of doing things.
"I said, do you understand, soldier?"
With a teary smile, she said, "Ser, yes, ser." Then she raised her hand in a halfhearted army salute, just like I taught her when we played as kids.
"Good," I said. "Now please, will you tell me about these auras?"
So she told me everything. All the strange dreams, the auras she has seen since she was a child, up to how it all changed ever since she arrived at Casterly Rock.
Once she began, the words flowed out of her like they'd been stuck in her heart forever, begging to be let out.
It wasn't easy to parse it all out, and I asked as many clarifying questions as I could come up with on the spot.
I imagined it would all be much harder to accept had I not been someone from a whole different world with a completely different perspective on what's possible and what wasn't.
If anything, I was likely the most knowledgeable person alive when it came to magic. Not about the magic itself and how to use it, but the certainty of its existence, and the foreknowledge of how different people with different means would go about practicing it.
Dragon dreams, skinchanging, pyromancers, greensight, alchemy, bloodmagic, glamors, and even how to raise the dead with the last kiss, as Thoros of Myr did with Ser Beric Dondarrion. And that's without counting the existence of creatures like dragons and the Others, and possibly even higher beings like R'hllor
Yet, for all of my knowledge, I had never heard of someone able to do what my sister did, seeing people's auras and their flickering emotions. Not in this world.
Then again, I could not say I knew everything there was to know. Many powers were left as mysteries, and many more, like the aeromancers of the far east and the rhoynish water magic, were only mentioned as far flung rumors and ancient tales.
My own better-than-normal physical prowess, wherever it came from, was not something explicitly stated to exist, but fighters like an adult Jaime Lannister, Barristan Selmy, and Arthur Dayne stood so far above others that it made me think it was an underlying reality of the world.
Then there were the true freaks like Ser Gregor Clegane, the Mountain-that-rides, or even Brienne of Tarth, a sister I was yet to have, who as early as seventeen was said to be six and a half feet tall and heavier than Jaime by a lot, all without being burdened by their size.
"Well?"
Arianne's words broke me from my musings. She was looking at me expectantly, a hint of wariness still clinging to her. I flicked her on the nose, and she let out an indignant squeak.
"No, I don't think you're a mad witch, Ari. If anything, I wish you would've told me sooner," I said, shifting my left shoulder awkwardly.
Looking at it, the skin had started to swell already, and I could tell something in there had popped out of place.
"Your way of figuring out Ser Arthur's jousting is definitely easier on the joints."
I would not have needed to banzai charge the Sword of the Morning if I knew Arianne could see the most minute shifts in emotions on people's auras. My plan for her as a field analyst in the next tourney was still a go.
Seeing my discomfort, Arianne tried to prod my shoulder with a finger and I slapped her hand away.
"Stop that."
"Will you be able to ride in the finals?" she asked.
With fifteen thousand gold dragons on the line, I'd ride even if they had to tie me up on Smoker, though winning might not come without its consequences.
Mercurial as he was, I dreaded to think what Aerys Targaryen would do if he saw my crowning of Cersei the Queen of Love and Beauty as a slight. Logically, he shouldn't, but I couldn't count on the Mad King being rational. Crowning the hosting lord's daughter was quite common, so worst comes to worst, I hoped to hide behind the wide skirts of tradition.
On the other hand, losing would mean tanking the deal with the Lannisters. A madman on one side, Tywin on the other. Something had to give either way.
Before I could answer her, Pate burst into the pavilion. If he was uncomfortable earlier with Arianne, then he looked down right distraught now. He was covered in sweat, face red, his hands moving about like he was trying to grasp something in the air that would come and save him.
"Milord, iss' the Lannisters, milord. Ser Lannister," he corrected himself, though that didn't help me at all. "He's here to see you, milord. I told him about the king and interrupting you, I told him as much, but he insisted, and he's got other men with him, many men, around the tent."
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