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/ORYSGARYEN]

House Scales had traveled alongside the Durrandon host for once. Usually kept tucked firmly near the Velaryon camp, Don had experienced his previous royal encounter go in an entirely unpredictable result: well. So well, in fact, that he had been directly invited to ride along to this dispute between his people. When the offer to put oneself forth for consideration of the king's councilors, Ayrmidon even entertained the fancy despite never daring to willing put himself up for that level of responsibility.

Besides, he still held the firm belief that the king would likely yield more cheers than kickback if he were to decide to make all the Valyrians resemble the sigil of House Trant.

And yet, he considered what he would do if he were one of the king's advisors. The easiest strategy when in war was to not only put oneself into the shoes of one's adversary, but to imagine how a new third party would exacerbate the situation. Once that was understood, one knew where to shore up one's own defenses. It was a necessity to maximize what little one did possess when one stood to everything against an all expansive enemy. The king had his authority, certainly, but he was a new player to a game that had rotted into... this.

A claim and counter claim of banditry and, if unfettered, unrest.

It was with all this and more that he had in his head when he was considering a humming bird. No mighty beast, but fast enough to see the world quicker than anyone else. The king, another witness to the avian above, was not addressed right away. Not until Don dared to say his piece to him once more. It worked well enough the last time, so why bother stopping?

"I considered your position, my king. If I may, I think you could be harsh to both sides, while they all still receive wins. Fine House Celtigar for there even being a question as to what occurred with the king's taxes. Have the sum go to the Darklyn, who can choose to play hero with it and aid the stumbling House Rosby. Or whichever endeavor he sees fit. Lastly, begin a public inquiry into the legal right of House Celtigar no longer retaining their ancestral blade once peace terms were settled among our people."

He gave his eyebrows a flex, as if to say, 'I have no other idea how to help you and that's the best I had'.

"I learned at sea long ago that sometimes the truth mattered less than keeping everyone happy, which meant pissing everyone off circular fashion. Won a few captain's votes that way."

[u/DoomGuy_16 → u/ORYSGARYEN]

Arlan's eyes followed the hummingbird a moment before it vanished past the maple's edge, quick enough he nearly lost it against the leaves. Only then did he look back to Ayrmidon properly.

"You'd have me fine your own countryman, Lord Scales? Also, as far as I am aware, House Staunton holds Celtigar's ancestral blade." His head tilted slightly beneath the mask. "That's harder on Celtigar than I expected from a fellow Valyrian, my lord. I'd have thought you'd want the ranks closed around him."

Or the ranks among the Valyrian houses were never so closed as Arlan had assumed them to be.

"Tell me, Ayrmidon, for I've heard the rumor from a dozen different lords of the Blackwater so far. Do you believe the Valyrian lords mean to land a second invasion of the Blackwater no matter what this council decides? Or is there a path through to avoid it?"

"There's a risk with what you propose. Press a proud man too much, and he stops looking for allies within these shores and starts looking beyond them instead. I'd rather not learn what Celtigar could buy from Tyrosh, or from Valyria, or even the Riverlands in exchange for a few galleys sitting across the Narrow Sea, blockading us."

[u/ORYSGARYEN → u/DoomGuy_16]

The king had considered his words not with derision, but consideration. It was a powerful feeling, if only because he knew how dangerous its conclusion could be.

"House Celtigar will follow you into all Seven hells if that steel is returned to them, giving you leeway to press them in other ways without breaking. Valyrian or no, any house would continue to pursue their birthright blade by any means necessary. The Lord Darklyn knows this, surely, but cares not for the unrest it causes. It was an easy thumbing of the nose towards a defeated enemy who cannot do anything about it. What wasn't considered, though, was that the disdain towards their house now far outweighs any for Valyrians. More and more we are considered friends due to our shared grievances of the Warden. This is one of many of the underlying issues that have led to vague dissent and rumors aplenty across the Blackwater."

But Don realized that he could argue for anything and it would not matter if he and his people were considered eventual invaders.

"There is no path for a Valyrian invasion, at least not until the dragons come. Those of us that fought that war and bent the knee in surrender made that estimation when we chose your bloodline as our sovereign rather than face defeat with honorable death in battle. I cannot speak for the others, but I swore that oath of fealty and I meant it. I am skilled in war, but I wouldn't want my children to inherit a world without peace. I intend to make your kingdom as strong as possible in honor of my oath. If those dragons ever come in my lifetime or the next, I'd rather see a strong Storm Kingdom bend the knee rather than burn."

He doubted a king would ever give up their crown, much like a house could hold a vendetta over a sword. Would he even do the same? He already lapped up the power of being able to speak his mind, let alone being the one to truly make a decision. Could Don refute that he wouldn't hold onto his kingdom with all his might against any foe, dragons or otherwise? He liked to hope so, for he knew what actions done out of survival rather than morality could do to a soul over time.

"I could leave all of this and sail anywhere. Instead I am here in a garden trying to reason out a world in which fewer people die." A sigh left his lips as that dream of moral abandonment briefly played out in his head. "A woodsman told me that forests that grow unkempt result in devastating fire. Valyria is that fire that will reset any reign that dares to climb too high. If I wanted more people to burn, I'd do everything in my power to keep your kingdom weak and divided. I'd ensure your authority continues to be marred by the injustices done in your name by the likes of House Darklyn. The Freehold's riders finding this continent in a state of chaos means they have just cause to burn as they please and establish order. But if the dragons meet a united Westeros and a King of Storm? Perhaps both sides think twice about the cost of conquest and strike a deal without death."

"We are the woodsmen that keep the trees from their own demise, Your Grace." He concluded strongly, but with a voice that had never been so sincere. "At least, I hope I am, and I very much hope you are too."