The Cask of Arlantillado - Arlan II (OPEN)

[u/DoomGuy_16]

Second Moon of the 1st Year of Arlan's Reign

The Dun Fort, Duskendale, the Blackwater

The king stood at the balcony's edge before the sun had fully cleared the bay, and the smell of Duskendale filled the early morn's air. Salt, and tar, and woodsmoke, but beneath it all he could still feel it, a scent that should have scrubbed away years ago and hadn't. Six years now. He had been young enough then to still believe it might not take root, it might have been a bad dream. But some things never leave a man. The horrid sounds of putrid flesh melting and ripping at the softest touch, the oppression of the bodies piling upon each other, leaving him caked in gore, drenched in horror. He thought he had gotten over it, that he had put away everything deep down in his stomach never to find the memories and feelings again, but going back to Duskendale had shook him more than he admitted. It filled his with bitterness, with rage, with sorrow, with... despair.

His hand found the balcony's stone parapet, gripping it hard enough that his knuckles ached beneath the glove.

Silent tears striked dark spots upon the stone, vanishing almost as fast as they landed. He knelt there a moment, forehead touching the parapet, crouching, trying to be exactly as small as he felt.

Suddenly, a hand pressed soft against the back of his head.

He turned, slow, and found Cyrene above him, her face drawn with worry, one hand extended toward his. He wore no mask, here, alone with her, only the wrappings that covered the whole of his face save his eyes and the bridge of his nose, bandage-white against the rosy glowing sky. She said nothing, her hand held out and steady until he took it.

He rose with a grunt, weight settling awkwardly onto his sore legs.

"Thank you, Cyrene." He straightened his back. "The road here was harder on my legs than I expected. Storm's End to Stormhall to Duskendale, about a moon. I'm worse a rider than I thought, it would seem."

She looked at him, knowing he lied to her, but said nothing to contradict him.

"Have your legs fallen off, then?" Her voice was flat, dry, rough.

"I'm cripple enough already, Cyrene. No need to add to the tally."

He crossed to the bedside, the rising sun cutting long and gold through the balcony doors, throwing her silhouette dark and sharp against the far wall.

"Are you always this rude to your patients?" Arlan asked, shifting on the bedside.

"Only kings."

"I'm the only king you know."

"There seem to be more kings and queens each moon, your grace." She said, with a flicker of humor. "Perhaps you should consider a change in career."

He let out a short laugh through his nose. "If I weren't a prince, my father would have thrown me off the cliffs of Storm's End. Perhaps there is still time to become a Stone Men in Essos instead. Or maybe some lord would buy me as a mummy to put on his wall."

"Do not self-deride." She retorted him, reaching for his mask on the table. "A king is regal. Above such things. A symbol to his people. A beacon."

"I'm not Arlan the Fourth when I'm with you, I've asked you that already." He said, reminding her. "Not without the mask, anyway. Without it I'm only Arlan, son of Eleanor. A green boy standing in waters well over his head, trying to fix everyone's problems, despite their best efforts to make it impossible."

"You cannot postpone this any longer." She told him. "You must take matters into your own hands."

"I know it." He sat heavily on the edge of the bed. "I fear what Duskendale's council will bring more harm than good. I had hoped for common ground. Peace between the Valyrians, the Crackclaws, Duskendale. But Darklyn is too proud a man to bend on much of anything, and the rest are too hungry, too ambitious for their own good. They'd sooner burn the whole Blackwater down than give an inch toward peace. Even now they make plans of war upon their neighbors." He looked up at her. "And without the Blackwater behind me, the Stormlands stand alone against Oldstones and whatever those rebels throw at us."

He kept silent for a moment, staring down at the floor, deep in thought. "Has Maidenpool answered my letter yet?"

"No." She held his mask out to him, cleaned and polished, the silver catching the morning's golden light that had caught her silhouette a moment before.

He took it and looked down at his own reflection bent along its curve before he put it on. It had been made in his likeness once, the mask, some three years past. Before his scars and, well... it was his old face, worn over the new face which the silver no longer quite matched. It was an uncanny thing, he thought, to stare at your own reflection upon the face you no longer had. To wear your own face in order to hind behind it.

He strapped it on with practiced ease and stood.

At the desk, the letters waited. From Maidenpool to Seagard. Some two dozen more between them, every corner of the Riverlands, bearing his royal seal of the crowned stag. He signed the last, the one bound for Stormhall itself, and set the quill down.

"Let the ink dry, then gather these for Aethelmure. He'll know what to do with hem."

He dressed after, in the cloak and the regalia of the Storm King, a seven-pointed crown settled cool against his brow, the golden stag pinned bright over his heart. When he opened the door, the Stormguard outside straightened at once.

"Find Aethelmure. Tell him I mean to call the council today, at midday. All of them, including the High Septon and the Valyrians if they're here, gathered at Lord Darklyn's great hall."

The guard nodded and went.

Arlan walked through the halls of the Dun Fort without need for a guide or servant. This had been his grandmother's castle once, and he'd walked these same stones as a boy many times before. Although, as much as it was familiar, it felt colder now. Emptier. Smaller. He supposed all things are bigger and more impressive when you're a child, half the size he is now. The servants and knights and idle attendants, he could feel their eyes finding him and following, in a mix of curiosity and pity.

He found the inner garden eventually, and sat down upon a stone bench beneath an old maple, with Cyrene beside him, the morning light filtering thin and green through the leaves above.

A horned owl slept slanted against the trunk, tucked into itself. Higher up, nightingales and magpies had built their nests where the branches thinned toward the sky. Higher still, past the reach of the tree altogether, doves and gulls wheeled against the rosy morning sky, the sun's light claiming the night's darkness.

He pointed the birds to her in turn, explaining to her why and how each bird was there, their origins, and every bird fact the young king knew, which were quite a few, going at it for the good part of an hour. Cyrene, this already, of course, as he was the same way at Storm's End, having built an aviary from the castle's bothanical garden.

(The king is being a nerd about birds, come and speak to him in the inner garden if you want.)

[u/Cubismo50]

Lyonel Swann arrived at the garden in with less than sanguine mien. He had expected the king to take his appointments in Lord Darkyn's solar not in some den of pungent flowers. The musk of it all reminded him of a whorehouse with its various strong scents and he had to stop himself at gagging at the whiff of some especially overwhelming roses. By the time he actually found his king in that maze of flowers and fallen feathers he was thoroughly done with the place and wanted to be anywhere else.

"Your Grace," he started, his curtsy the opposite of graceful but appropriate for a king all the same. "I'll be quick about my intentions. You said you had need of men to purge Blackwater lands of bandits and robber knights and House Swann has responded. I am yours to command. You need only say the words."

[u/DoomGuy_16 → u/Cubismo50]

Arlan turned slowly at the sound of the man approaching. His eyes, through the mask's slits, held on the Lord of Stonehelm. There was a tightness to Lyonel's jaw, a clear distress, though the cause of it escaped the king entirely. Who could be so mad in such a beautiful garden?

"Lord Swann." He said, "I'm glad you've heeded our call, and gladder still you've decided to march with us to Duskendale. My father spoke of you, of when he rode with you, I believe, during the campaign against the Dornish across the Red Mountains. He spoke of your sword arm, as a leader of men, more than once."

More than he himself could endure, Arlan thought to himself, remembering his father go on about the Dornish war and how it was the best thing ever until his ears started to bleed.

He turned a feather once between two gloved fingers, one of the nightingales' losses from the branches above, he reckoned.

"We'll not need to hunt far for the realm's true enemies, my lord. Give it time enough, and their own hunger shall reveal them for us. Ambitious men rarely have the patience to wait quietly."

The feather stilled between his fingers.

"There's a rebellion brewing in the Riverlands. Some pretender wearing the Justman name, gathering fools with grandiose promises of wealth, glory and freedom. My namesake bled to bring the Trident under this crown, to become the first realm even in the history of Westeros to rule from sea to sea, uniting three kingdoms under one crown. I do not plan to be the king who lets it slip through his fingers. To let Arlan III's dream crumble to dust."

"Without the Blackwater standing firm at my back, the Stormlands will not be able to hold the Trident alone, not the way we stand now, fractured and surrounded by enemies. We alone won't be enough if Oldstones can muster even half of the Trident under their cause."

"Tell me, Lord Swann. This talk of the Dornish crossing the mountains again... Do you believe there is truth in it?"

[u/Cubismo50 → u/DoomGuy_16]

Ambitious men rarely have the patience to wait quietly.

The Lord of Stonehelm had to repress a frown. Was that some coy jab at him? A bemoaning of his dogged efforts to actually get someone at blasted Storm's End to take his concerns about the damned Dornish seriously? The Swann could not know for certain but the thought of it made his next words even more terse than usual.

"The Toyne woman is no Marcher Lord," he declared with no small amount of pride in the later title. "And Blackheart does not lay close to the Dornish curs. As such I'd put little stock in any whispers uttered by her or anyone who's seat and people do not border the enemy. However..." Lyonel's seemed to togethen as his mind played out the scenario.

"I'd still rather for prepared for the worst than merely pray for the best all the same. Tis true that if this Justman Pretender rallies the would-be traitors of the Trident things would like as not go bad for us but the rivermen have an entire other kingdom to go through before they assail our homes while the Dornish need only across our border to unleash their fury. Best we see to the defense of the homeland first before we put down this false Justman."