Valyrian Steel could be a Lostech Armour which is Superior to Ferro Fib/Allo Fib perhaps?
Could also be viable for HF/Vibration Swords, as only VS can cut/pierce VS.
Shuttles and Drop Ships and Monitors (No KF) makes sense yes.
Another possibility for the White Walkers is Belters in the Oort Cloud that have some Lostech Factories still maybe?
The Asteroid Belts for the Ironborn works I agree, though admittedly I am torn, as a Water World could work too.... Maybe even Volcanic Moons akin to Io.
There was another idea....
Valyrians are a Faction/Sect/Splinter Group of the Gene Caste....
They developed Bio-Mecha or Bio-Ships based upon Dragon Mythology.
There were more people in Myr than Jon had known existed. Everywhere he looked, there were people, going about their business. Nothing unusual, nothing he hadn't seen before, but so much. Far more than Winterfell, more even than White Harbor. Truthfully, it was a little overwhelming, and he kept his head low, pushing roughly through the crowds. There was an ever present chatter here and it made it difficult to think, especially as not a word of it was in common. Ghost pressed in close to his side, nuzzling gently at his hand, reassuring Jon with his presence. The Direwolf pup had grown since they'd found him, almost of a size with a hunting hound, now, and as Jon ran his fingers through Ghost's fur, he drew some comfort from his presence.
Myr was built around the sea and the streets radiated out from the harbour accordingly. Jon had picked almost at random - there were signs but the words were strange; myrish or perhaps High Valyrian. All roads would lead out of the city eventually, he felt confident of that much. Once he was out of the city and in the quiet beyond it, he could collect himself to consider his options.
As he walked, the buildings grew higher and the street narrower. The scent of the sea began to recede and in its place another smell began to grow in Jon's awareness, a cloying mixture of decay and shit that clung to the back of the throat and almost made him sick. For a moment he considered turning back, returning to the harbour, to the Storm Dancer and to Westeros, but as Ghost pressed on ahead of him, he swallowed his gorge and forged ahead. He was not a callow stripling, to be deterred by a foul smell.
Further from the sea and the cooling wind, Myr grew hotter and more rancid. Sweat began to prickle uncomfortably on his back and Jon increased his pace - the sooner he reached the gates the sooner he would be out of this foetid swamp of a city. Maester Luwin had always spoken of Myr with a trace of awe - it was in Myr that advances were being made, or so he said. As he struggled through the streets, Jon couldn't think of anywhere further from the centre of learning that Maester Luwin described. A thin stream of piss ran down the middle of the narrow street, and if Jon were to look up, the buildings extended up seven or eight floors, fair blocking out the sun. He squared his shoulders and continued heading up the street, away from the harbour.
There was a temple up ahead, to some god Jon didn't know, and a crowd had gathered outside it, fairly blocking the street. Jon put a hand to his coin purse; cities were full of cutpurses, Father had warned him of that much, before he left.
Jon squared his shoulders and Ghost pressed in close to his leg.
As he walked, a boy stepped in Jon's way, smiling disarmingly. He was slender, with delicate black curls, and dark eyes that glittered with some unspoken secret. He said something in Myrish, perhaps a question.
"Sorry, do you speak common?" Jon said, smiling.
The boy's eyes lit up with understanding. "Ah, sorrow! I have a little Andal, yes? I learn from the sellswords. You are lost, andal?"
His common was accented with a lilt that Jon had never heard before - certainly no one in Winterfell, or even the Storm Dancer. "I suppose I am lost. I'm just looking for the city gates?" Jon said.
The boy stepped forwards. "Oh, yes! I can take you to the city gates, for a dracar?" Ghost snarled, padding towards him. He paled. "Perhaps silver instead, andal? No need for the dog to hurt me?"
"Ghost! Back!" Jon said, and Ghost relented, somewhat reluctantly. Jon coloured with embarrassment. "I'm so sorry! He's not normally so aggressive. A dragon is fine, I have plenty"
The boy seemed to calm a little as Ghost retreated behind Jon's legs, cowed. He nodded, mollified, and then set off promptly.
"Follow me, andal!" He called over one shoulder, turning down a close between two houses on one side of the street, which Jon hadn't even seen. He had gotten himself terribly lost, and they had to take turn after turn, through tiny streets, barely wide enough for Ghost to walk at his side.
As they pushed deeper, Jon recognised the magnitude of the city he had found himself in, and the naivety of his previous decision seemed breathtaking - of course you could not simply strike out in a direction and hope to reach the gate.
"Hey, boy? What's your name?" Jon said eventually - it seemed strange to him that he didn't even know the name of the boy who had taken him safely out of danger.
"Morosh. Hurry, andal! We're almost there!" The boy said distractedly, glancing behind him to regard Jon with glittering eyes.
Jon didn't know what it was about the way Morosh said that, or how he looked at him, but he touched the hilt of his dagger, a touch uncertain.
"Ah, the andal is clever!" Morosh turned, a sliver of steel in his fist. "Perhaps had he been clever by the harbour, it might help, no?"
Another boy materialised from the darkness, and another. Ghost's hackles rose as the two of them were surrounded. Jon drew his own dagger, and bitterly wished he'd taken a sword with him from Winterfell, but he hadn't carried one in the North, and the thought had not occurred to him.
Jon cursed his own foolishness. Had he been in Winterfell, or even White Harbour, he wouldn't have fallen for this. He had been overawed by Essos, and his good sense had deserted him. He had followed a stranger into the winding sidestreets of a foreign city.
"Your coin purse, andal. Keep the dog in hand and I don't kill it, hm?" Morosh said, waggling his knife for emphasis. The boy spoke and acted like he had used the knife his whole life. Jon well believed it.
Jon placed a hand on Ghost's head, calming. The wolf acquiesced, though not happily.
One of the other boys called out something incomprehensible, and they erupted into laughter. Jon's ears burnt, and he weighed his chances if he rushed Morosh.
"Ah ah, Andal. Toss me your coin purse and we'll have done with it, no need for bloodshed." Morosh frowned. "Speed, andal!"
"Boys, boys, boys." A rough, deep voice interrupted them. "You've taken too long about it, boys. Scram."
The man was built like a barrel, his hauberk stretched across his gut, grimy but solidly made. His neck was thicker than Jon's thigh, and his head like a dropped apple, dappled with discolouration, faded white scars and yellowing bruises, but when his meaty hand fell to the hilt of his sword, the boys looked terribly nervous.
"But he is our mark! I lure him here and-"
"And now I'm here telling you to scram, boy. Don't make me ask again."
Morosh almost looked as though he would test the man, but he allowed the other boys to drag him away.
"Are you going to take my purse now, old man?" Jon asked, slightly impetuous. Ser Rodrik had taught him the blade back at Winterfell, and this man was fat, and likely slow.
"If you'd like, boy, I wouldn't turn it down." The man replied. "But I've a hankering for a drink. You're a damned fool, northerner. Better come with me, or you're like to be waylaid again."
The man's accent was curious - it has touches of the south, almost washed away by an odd melange of different influences - but Jon followed, still a little shaken - and Ghost's tail was wagging, which set him more at ease.
The man led Jon to a winesink a few streets over, pointing Jon to a dirty table in one corner. "I'll get the wine, you'd lose every groat you've got elsewise."
Jon sank into the seat with ill grace, whilst Ghost rested his head on Jon's lap and huffed heavily.
The man returned with two earthenware mugs of pallid green liquid. As he slammed them down, some of the wine spilt onto the table, mixing in with the patina of other stains and marks on the surface.
Jon stared into the cup with distaste; the wine was thick and syrupy, and it smelt medicinal, not at all like the bitter, thin wine he'd quaffed in Winterfell at the feast before he left.
It clung unpleasantly to his tongue and throat as he sipped it, and after almost a mouthful, he set it aside, and watched in grim fascination as his companion downed his entire mug in one smooth motion.
"That shit never tastes better, Gods' damn!" The man belched. "So, northerner. What brings one of you frozen pricks to Myr? You'll melt afore too long."
"I heard there was a war brewing," Jon replied. "And that a man can make his fortune in a Free City at war."
"Aye, well. That's as may be - but there's much a man can do that a boy cannot. A boy without a word of myrish, without a blade? You'll be dead by sun-up on the morrow. Finish your drink, and I'll take you back to harbour myself." The man was brusque, and Jon bristled.
"There is nothing back there for me!" He said hotly, "I can ride and fight as well as any man, and I'm near enough a man grown myself! The Young Dragon was fourteen when he invaded Dorne!"
"And he was eighteen when he died." The man said, "You know your history well. I have no doubt that you can handle a sword, boy. No doubt the master of arms spent long hours teaching you. It shan't save you from a knife in the kidneys. Run on home to your mother. No doubt the war will still be here, should you return a man."
"I don't know my mother," Jon snapped. "And I have nowhere to run home to."
The man sucked in a whistling breath through his teeth. "A bastard, then. Born in the Rebellion, raised by a Lord with a guilty conscience, no doubt. Near enough to coming of age and the guilt is wearing thin? His lady wife worries for her children…"
Jon scowled, but stayed silent. His father did not need defending to a common sellsword, and he would only make himself a fool.
"But you northerners have a solution to bastards, have you not? Why aren't you in black, boy?" The man continued, blithely ignoring Jon's dark expression.
"The Night's Watch slew my uncle," Jon said, defensive. He had planned to join them, had planned to ask Uncle Benjen to take him back to Castle Black, but his uncle had trusted the wrong ranger, and the man had killed him.
The man snorted. "And this told you the honour of the watch was a child's fable? And so you - a half grown boy, far too old for such tales - decided to sell your sword and seek your fortune in the Free Cities, where valour is commonplace and gold flows like water?"
Jon felt his cheeks flush. "I'm not a fool!"
"No? The street rats of Myr certainly took you for one." The man said. "But you no doubt wish to fight with men of principle, all the same?"
Jon nodded mutely.
"Only good sense; men without principles have a nasty tendency towards robbing their new recruits." The man said. "There's but a handful of companies Westerosi know to be honourable. The Gallant Men are common for hedge knights, but their history is ignominious. Perhaps you wish to join the Second Sons - an old company, but their recent reputation is as black as any. The Windblown are new, but already a legend of valour and glory follows in the wake of their chargers, behind the Tattered Prince of Pentos… But they serve along the Rhoyne, far from here. There is only one Company that Westerosi revere that makes their camp in Myr. Ours is a company suited to bastards, boy."
"You're in the Golden Company?" Jon asked, unable to keep the surprise from his voice.
"Have been since I was a boy no older than you." The man said. "Ser Franklyn Flowers."
Ser Franklyn sniffed noisily, after a moment. "So, are you coming? I can lead you into camp, speak to a recruiter, or I can take you back to the harbour. It's up to you, but I've finished my drink, and I doubt you're going to finish yours, so I'm not hanging around. Where'd you want me to take you?"
Summary: Lelouch dreamed about the past glories of his Valyrian family, when they'd held great...
forums.spacebattles.com
In the age of King Aegon V Targaryen, Lelouch Velaryon has come of age - just in time to embroil himself in the War of the Ninepenny Kings.
No Geass, no immortality, minor implications of magic, and the reborn Lelouch remains his scheming self. The only other Code Geass character seen so far is CC.
Hey everyone not sure if this is the right place to post this but just thought id plug my relatively new ASOIAF story I have just recently posting here, it focuses on Aegon Targaryen and his descendents immediatly following his conquests, the story up to date (written not posted) is currently sitting at over 190k words with much more planned and is accomponied with many pictures from the ck2 agot mod that uses it as a creative base
If youre interested heres a quick description/link
A House Targaryen story set immediately after the Targaryen wars of conquest, focusing on the lives, struggles and accomplishments of Aegon Targaryen and his descendants.
This story will take place over several generations and through the viewpoints of a wide variety of characters from Kings and Queens, Kingsguard, and rebels, and everyone in between. The story, while primarily focusing on Westeros, will take place over a large area ranging from the frozen wastes of the North, the deserts of Dorne, the pirate hideouts of the Stepstones to the Free City of Norvos and beyond.
So something I've been kind of mulling over recently because of House of the Dragon. I know SIs tend to be rather popular for fics but what about Various character being the reincarnations of past people from the universe? One idea I've had bouncing around my head for a bit is Rhaenyra Targaryen being either the reincarnation of Rhaena Targaryen or Visenya, her memories of her past life reawakening when she bounds with her pervious dragon (which seeks Rhaenyra out when they're about nine).
Rhaena because her horrible past with Meagor would likely lead to a vastly, VASTLY different relationship with Daemon, since he's very often said to be basically a second Meagor and Rhaena!Rhaenyra would definitely see the similarities particularly when Daemon holds Dragonstone and talks about taking a second wife. That combined with no bastards could lead to a rather different Dance.
Visenya because of that comment in Episode 1 of House of the Dragon between Viserys and his wife about them already having a Visenya in their family. Also because it would be curious to see how Visenya would react to how much has changed in the century since Aegon's conquest and how she would do as Heir herself instead of just being the power behind the throne for her husband or son.
So something I've been kind of mulling over recently because of House of the Dragon. I know SIs tend to be rather popular for fics but what about Various character being the reincarnations of past people from the universe? One idea I've had bouncing around my head for a bit is Rhaenyra Targaryen being either the reincarnation of Rhaena Targaryen or Visenya, her memories of her past life reawakening when she bounds with her pervious dragon (which seeks Rhaenyra out when they're about nine).
Rhaena because her horrible past with Meagor would likely lead to a vastly, VASTLY different relationship with Daemon, since he's very often said to be basically a second Meagor and Rhaena!Rhaenyra would definitely see the similarities particularly when Daemon holds Dragonstone and talks about taking a second wife. That combined with no bastards could lead to a rather different Dance.
Visenya because of that comment in Episode 1 of House of the Dragon between Viserys and his wife about them already having a Visenya in their family. Also because it would be curious to see how Visenya would react to how much has changed in the century since Aegon's conquest and how she would do as Heir herself instead of just being the power behind the throne for her husband or son.
Visenya would be honestly neat. Or that one daughter of Jahaerys who ran off to Lys having to deal with being Heir would be funny, in a trainwreck of 'oh god she has a dragon this time' kind of way.
Idealad von Carstein,his wife Gabriela von Carstein and Sylvania,all from WHF teleport into Game of Thrones.Most of the time people re wondering how they got the powers and the fact that somehow the magical vampire who wants to oppress mankind has a more functional marriaage and is a better husband than most of the Game of Thrones cast.
Visenya would be honestly neat. Or that one daughter of Jahaerys who ran off to Lys having to deal with being Heir would be funny, in a trainwreck of 'oh god she has a dragon this time' kind of way.
I feel like that one daughter would just end up being a repeat of her first life.
I'm admittedly rather attached to the idea of her past life being Rhaena since her troubled life would give Rhaena!Rhaenyra a very different perspective than canon Rhaenyra and could cause things to radically diverge even before Viserys marries Alicent (Mainly the events of Episode 2 of HotD)
Visenya could work, should be equally as contervsial as Rhaenyra is in canon just for vastly different reasons, demanding to be trained as a warrior while also perhaps not the most subtly sticking to the old Valyrian Faith.
Visenya could work, should be equally as contervsial as Rhaenyra is in canon just for vastly different reasons, demanding to be trained as a warrior while also perhaps not the most subtly sticking to the old Valyrian Faith.
I have personally being thinking about a Larys Strong SI into somebody of House Whent by the start of the TV show, but I think that would have to wait until season two of the show is released to really know who Larys is (apart from a sociopath).
It would be fun having three sociopaths all trying to get control of the realm for different stupidly personal and petty reasons, specially as Larys hopefully becomes as good a character as Littlefinger was in the early seasons.
Idealad von Carstein,his wife Gabriela von Carstein and Sylvania,all from WHF teleport into Game of Thrones.Most of the time people re wondering how they got the powers and the fact that somehow the magical vampire who wants to oppress mankind has a more functional marriaage and is a better husband than most of the Game of Thrones cast.
...because I've got something you might be interested in - not quite the same as what you're asking here, but similar enough to be fun. I've slapped it into a spoiler, as it's some 33k words of stuff, including a PoV.
**** The Bat and the Dragon
250AC
Of all the things that have happened during the reign of the Targaryens, perhaps few have threatened the future of their house than the rise of the Red Queen, a being sworn to cast down the three headed dragon and take the Seven Kingdoms for herself...and a being who rose to prominence only in the aftermath of a decision that the Targaryens themselves had made, a decision that could very well prove to be their utter undoing. It is a decision that was made twenty years ago, in the reign of King Maekar Targaryen, a king now that many wish never came to power at all, yet who did so only over the fact that Aerys failed to see an heir of his own flesh and blood, and that the Targaryens before him were almost as equally troubled, falling victim to injury and disease. Though the first years of the reign of a man that many would know as the Anvil had gone well enough, they had been home to increasingly troubled reports from the Riverlands and complaints form the peasantry that something sinister was afoot within the halls of Harrenhal - a castle that many had long considered to be cursed, but which found itself as the home of the Lothstons...a family of a dark reputation, one nearly as bleak and grim as the seat they called home. Though they had proven themselves loyal to the crown on multiple occasions, having led Daemon Blackfyre astray by pretending to be loyal to his cause only to reveal that their banners were raised for the Targaryens proper in a judgement that led the Blackfyres to ultimately march on the Redgrass Field where Daemon Blackfyre met his end, they had also overseen the end of the Second Blackfyre Rebellion by delivering troops to Whitewalls to put an end to that uprising before it could even begin. It was in that latter, short lived crisis that Lady Danelle Lothston first came to the attentions of the realm at large, and already, there were the whispers of a growing madness within her heart, a darkness greater than that of her kin.
Every account of what this madness was varied: for some it was that she had taken to talking to the dead and using their skulls as trophies, for others, it was how she so readily took to the pursuits of men and had specially forged battleplate so that she might take to the field in earnest, and for others still, it was that she had slowly but surely began to investigate the darker arts of sorcery, blood magic and necromancy, and other magicks best forgotten. There was even the news that she had begun travelling the realm with her consort, visiting places of curious interest - the ancient ruins of Oldstones, the silent woods of the Isle of Faces, the haunted shores of Witch Isle, these and so many others were all lands that she had visited, and each and every one of them was deemed to be of some interest for those investigating things that should not be learnt. Danelle Lothston herself had learnt of these rumors, learnt of the whispers of madness, and countered them with words of her own, saying that her visits to these grim and bleak places was simply the visits of a curious woman, that there were no sorceries, no feasts of flesh, no giant bats fleeing her towers to gather children for the cookpots, not them nor any other rumors, and that she was but a lady, an adventurous lady, with a bravery and a courage to match those of any man, wondering if there was any such truth to the world of wights and ghost, and that it was no crime at all to prefer the atmosphere of the dark and gothic to the bright and lively that so much of Westeros preferred.
That could very well have ended it all, and if it had, Westeros would not be in the situation it is in twenty years later.
But one of her most trusted guards came forward when she was busy, a household knight sworn to her service, a Whent of the same line that had served the Lothstons for as long as there had been Lothstons to serve. Riding to King's Landing whilst his liege lady and her lordly consort sailed on the lake that sat adjacent to her home, unaware of the journey on which he departed, he arrived to King's Landing and the court of King Maekar, calling out for all to hear that she truly was mad. His testimony spoke of strange rituals and bizarre sacrifices, of meetings in the dead of night with twisted, inhuman figures, of dalliances with the dead and the devouring of the unborn. Few would have believed such tales if he did not come with some measure of proof, and that proof was in a simple bag - a skull, bronzed and decorated, with gems for eyes and twisted, snarling horns that ruptured from its skull. An idol of blackest origin, he called out, and proof that she had not merely lost her wits, but her soul as well.
For King Maekar, it was enough. Raising his banners and gathering his troops, he assembled a house of some six thousand strong, more than enough to deal with a single lordship, and set out with his army for Harrenhal to put an end to this madness, and the Whent rode with him, already named as a potential candidate to take lordship over Harrenhal if the rest of the Lothstons prove to be as damned as their mistress. So it was that the army marched, but for all the claims of madness, Danelle Lothston was not without friends in King's Landing. and knew of the coming of the king before he might arrive. Hoping perhaps for a peaceful settlement, but wary of the risks, she raised her own banners, and saw Harrenhal made ready for battle. It's ancient battlements were crumbling, and in truth, the castle was in little state for a siege, with entire segments of its walls having collapsed into little more than piles of of stone crowned by placeholding walls of wood, and entire gates where the hinges had broken years before, but still, better to fight with broken walls than none at all, and she did not intercept his army on its way to her castle. Instead, upon his arrival, she hoisted a banner of truce to go forth and talk with King Maekar in person, and it was a banner that he raised in turn and agreed to meet, to try and see some truth for this matter for himself.
There, in the open between besieged and besieger, the two talked. Danelle as a woman seemed darker than almost any that he had met before, with darker interests. She was not at all afraid of the dead, or supposedly haunted places, and tales of witchcraft and monstrosity were something she found more amusing than unsettling...but as Maekar knew, this was not enough to mark someone as mad, only brave, and there was no sin or fault in that. Still, there were things he asked that she could not answer to his satisfaction, particularly in regards to her journeys around the realm, which seemed strange in his view when she had no children and should've been focused on ensuring the future of her house. She seemed at a loss as what to say in response to that, but what silence followed that turned to surprise at the sight of the Whent and his idol, and as the charges of madness were lain at her feet, surprise turned to wroth as she denounced the Whent as an oathbreaker, as a traitor and as a usurper in the making, a man who had born false charges against her and her house. She called the idol a false fabrication, and more than that, a desecration of the dead of Harrenhal - that skull was surely stolen from a tomb or a grave before it was affixed with the horns of a goat or aurochs or some other creature and made into a fool's idea of evidence. The Lady of Harrenhal threw everything that she had at the Whent, swearing her innocence before the gods.
It was not enough for King Maekar, not with the stories, not with the tales, and not with the testimony of the knight of Whent, for King Maekar was known across all of Westeros for being a man unable to forgive. He withdrew from their parley, giving her once last chance to yield the castle to him. Lady Lothston refused, saying she would never surrneder the castle of her birth on the grounds of such an injustice, and returned to her walls to make preparations for the defense.
And there ended the last chance for the Targaryens to avoid calamity.
What happened that day in Harrenhal, none can truly know, or will know. Perhaps there, where such great suffering may have weakened the walls between worlds, a pact had been made. Perhaps the Lady Lothston had always possessed such powers, but been disinclined to make their use, or only gained complete control over them at the last moment with the aid of tomes of sorcery. Perhaps desperation had forced her into a bargain with the Lord of the Seven Hells, or perhaps the legendary curse of Harrenhal made itself known and came to her aid, or perhaps one of any one of a thousand things may have happened. Again, none will ever know for certain what happened, for there were none close enough to her to know it but for Danelle Lothston herself, and she will speak of it to none at all, not even her lordly consort.
But something did happen that evening. As the sun slipped beneath the horizon, a sense of dread rose over the attacking host. King Maekar had ordered an evening attack, for the weather earlier was poor for an assault and the wet earth risked bogging his troops down. With walls of wood and vulnerable gates, he needed no siege engines but fire and flame to breach the castle, and so carts of pitch had been brought forth to put the wooden ramparts to the torch and burn a way into the castle. With fire and blood, it seemed as if Harrenhal was doomed to fall, and the Targaryen host marched eagerly to what seemed a certain victory. Aware of what was to come, the lord consort of Harrenhal sallied with his men to try and defend the walls, and a bloody battle began in the shadow of the walls of Harrenhal, where the archers loosed shafts as quickly as they could be notched and others threw stones taken from the castle's own ruins to hurl down at the men below. Maekar himself took to the field of battle with five of his Kingsguard knights and a heavy two handed mace in his hands, smashing his way into the ranks of Lothston footmen, aiming to break their morale and drive them back into the castle, and see the defenses burn, or better yet, to find the Lady Lothston on the field of battle, if she had came, and cut off his foes at the head, or slay her lordly consort and cripple the defense. That was his plan.
But as the last ray of sunlight died, a great and terrible screech echoed from atop the Kingspyre tower, so loud and furious as to stop the battle dead, for the sound was as if a dragon had came to the field. In the dark sky, a blur of a shadow fluttered and flowed in the night, the wings of a creature to match Vhagar herself beating.
Maekar looked skywards, peering past the colors of his banner bearer.
And men realized that the shadow above was no dragon.
It was a gargantuan bat, the very sigil of the Lothston house, and it was diving directly for the Targaryen banner. Men screamed in horror, falling back, and even the Lothstons knew nothing of what to do. Arrows shot into the sky to try and down the creature, but they were too little and too slow to react, and the Kingsguard Had no chance to drag their lord to safety before the bat was above them -
- but what struck the ground was no bat, but a woman, a woman encased in armor so dark as to seem like a hole in the world, lit only by the ripples of burning torches and pitch barrels, and from this figure came a terrible sense of fear and unease that made horses skittish and filled men who had tasted battle with a primal sense of dread, instincts howling and telling them to leave this place. Some did. Some took the chance of this momentary pause in the fighting to drop their weapons and run whilst they had the chance, fleeing the field as quickly as their legs could carry them.
But the pause could not last. It was a Kingsguard knight that first rushed forward to try and challenge this new foe, and with an exchange of steel that lasted a heartbeat, the Lady of Lothston punched her blade through his breastplate as though it were parchment, driving the tip clean through his front and out the back, bathed in steaming blood.
That was eno7ugh to see the battle erupt once more, and for the king to be dragged backwards by one white cloak as the others rushed to try and stop this creature, as did so many others, Targaryen men and household knights all trying to defend their king from one, single woman.
What followed was a massacre. Man after man came before the Lady of Harrenhal, and man after man ended up dead at her feet, and like the Stranger incarnate, not a single man who crossed steel with her lived to tell the tales. So fast and precise and strong were her sword strikes that even the Kingsguard that crossed blades with her, paragons of knighthood and champions of swordsmanship, were no more than clumsy children in comparison. Another white cloak hit the ground, blood pouring from a neck slashed open. A Targaryen knight rushed forward with his lance, but his horse threw him from the saddle before he could get close, into a horde of Harrenhal's footmen who cut and hacked him apart on the ground like butcher's fodder. An archer loosed an arrow, but her blade struck it out of the air with trivial ease. Lothston men pushed forward against a confused and horrified Targaryen battlehost twice their number, warhorns screeching and the bat banner soaring high as the Targaryen dragon was trampled into the earth. Horses fled the field before their masters could climb atop them, and Maekar had fought on foot. His steed, for all its discipline and training, for all its love for its rider, galloped away from the Lothstons, leaving him alone without a mount, and with death itself stalking his name.
"Take mine," the last of the Kingsguard said. "I will hold her as long as I can."
No sooner did the words leave his mouth than a spear find his back, a knight slain by a common peasant man driven on by the example of the Lady of Lothston. But Maekar was already saddled, and turned as quickly as he could to flee this battle. He needed more troops, more armies, more knights, more heroes, more everything if he was to tyr and best this foe, and all of Westeros had to be warned -
- and a firm hand grabbed his arm, and even the man known as the Anvil, a man so many thought to be beyond fear, knew terror when he looked down and saw the Lady of Lothston, moments before she dragged him from the back of his steed.
There is no denying what happened that day. With one hand she forced one of the largest men in Westeros to his knees, and with one hand upon her blade, she struck his head clean from his shoulders. Hoisting it high for all to see as men lifted the shattered bodies of his Kingsguard as if to display them to the rest of the royal host, what followed was not merely a rout, but a complete disintegration of the force that Maekar had brought, a total collapse of organization in the face of mass panic and terror. What should have been a simple and easy battle fro the crown to win turned into a bloodbath as the Lothstons went on the attack, following their lady into the jaws of the heaviest fighting, and then Harrenhal's heavy horse took to the field at last, and what followed became nothing other than raw butchery as the shattered army proved unable to offer any resistance, even in retreat. Of the amount that died that day, no maester could ever give an accurate tally, but of the royal host, one thing could be said and said honestly: all intents and purposes, it was destroyed utterly on the field of battle, with it said that nearly a thousand men died at the hands of the Lady of Lothston alone, cut down by her blade or slaughtered by the great bat that hunted and haunted the fleeing Targaryens for a day and a half.
And on the back of such a massive victory, the Lady of Harrenhal returned to her holding, carrying with her the crown of King Maekar himself, and with her husband placing it atop her brow, what followed was a coronation. Vowing to all those who stood before her that she would not allow such injustices to occur, she denounced the Targaryens as unworthy of the throne that they sat upon and the service that they demanded, she announced for all to hear that she would never again bow to King's Landing. Westeros had need of new leadership,, and she herself would be that leader.
The Red Queen was born.
"And with her crowning began the fall of house Targaryen, with the dragon cast down so that the bat might soar," maesters loyal to her realm would write.
For the first few years, it seemed as if they were unquestionably right. The Riverlands were her homeland, and they were the first to fall. Marching at the head of her army, the Red Queen destroyed or forced into submission any and all opposition, taking oaths of fealty from every lord she could and adding their forces to her own, and what was but once an army of Harrenhal swell to a host tens of thousands strong as she gathered the entire might of the Riverlands beneath one banner. The Tullys, like the Freys and the Blackwoods and the Brackens, were all forced into submission, and one after the next, the lords of the Riverlands followed them into submission and servitude. Wherever one went, the Targaryen banner would be absent from sight, pulled down and replaced with the black and yellow of the Lothstons, and for many, this was meat with cheering, for King Maekar had proven to be an unpopular king. But such a campaign was but a beginning and not an ending, for like blood pooling beneath a corpse, the Lothston empire would begin to spread over the lands of Westeros almost as quickly as Aegon the Conqueror had first forged it.
In King's Landing, where a newly crowned King Aegon V Targaryen sat upon an uneasy throne, the response was horror. A king was dead, a royal army wiped out, an entire realm lost. This was no mere revolt, no minor uprising. This was a civil war of a kind that had not been seen since the Blackfyre Rebellion, or worse still, since the Dance of the Dragons. The Red Queen's proclamation had sent a shockwave through the realm, and made it clear that the Targaryens could expect this war to be one for the very survival of their house. They could not count on armies from the Crownlands to settle this. They needed the entire realm, and so they called for it - the entirety of Westeros was to be mustered for war to crush the Red Queen's kingdom, but mustering such forces took precious time, and time was a resource they had little of. The Red Queen had the advantage and the initiative both,and she could have came to King's Landing itself to conquer them there with little but a few undermanned castles to slow her path. Such was the arguments of Lord Bloodraven, Brynden Rivers, who suggested a retreat to Dragonstone.
But as new as he was to the throne, King Aegon defied such advice, for his love for the common folk was great, and news of her blood thirst had spread. He would not abandon the city to her if she came for it.
Such, in hindsight, was the wiser course, for Lord Bloodraven misunderstood the Red Queen. She did not care as much for the destruction of the Targaryens as she did for the construction of a new realm, and she cared for that even less than she cared for the defense of her homelands. She was at heart a defensive leader, and her attentions first went to securing her position. Her gaze turned not towards the south and the vulnerability of King's Landing, but to the east, and to the Vale of Arryn, where the first armies of the Arryns were already beginning to muster and prepare. They would be the first kingdom she would need to conquer in its entirety, and they would prove easier than one might expect. Nestled behind the Mountains of the Moon, many would have called the Vale of Arryn to be a natural fortress...yet as Aegon the Conqueror had once said to Black Harren, walls are no protection against dragons, for dragons fly, and so too could the bat. Like Visenya Targaryen before her, and before the Valemen could decipher rumor from truth, the Red Queen soared over the mountains and to the pinnacle of the Giant's Lance, and found herself before the Arryns themselves, stunned and surprised along with so much of their war council and upper nobility.
She asked their fealty.
Amazed that she had made it that far, the first response was awe, but then, amusement, as they called the guards to dispatch this foe and cut off the head of the rebellion at once. Had they known that the stories they heard of Harrenhal were the truth and not a mummer's tale, they may have submitted outright, for the Red Queen made a feast out of Arryns and guardsmen alike, devouring every member of a Great House in a single night...except for one soul, one boy, she spared, and took captive on a flight back to her own host. No sooner did the Valemen find the exsanguinated remains of their lords and leaders did they receive terms from the Red Queen demanding their fealty, bringing with her the young Jon Arryn as a captive, and as the last of the Arryns, the natural lord of the Vale, he had the right and power to order their submission. With the mountains having proven to be no defense against her and the news of the slaughter of the Eyrie spreading like wildfire through the land, with the promise of safety and fair treatment in return for their fealty and their own natural liege lord calling for them to surrender lest he be killed with the rest of his kin, and with all the other lords they may have looked to guidance already slain, there was nothing that the Vale could do but surrender, and they too joined the Rivermen in hailing the Red Queen as their sworn sovereign...at least, some hoped, for the time being.
No sooner did she have the fealty of the Vale did she turn her attentions to the Northmen. A knife at the back of her kingdom, pressure from the south would surely be followed by an invasion from the North into the rear lines of her realm, and opportunistic lords might take this chance of division as a possibility to turn their cloaks back to the Targaryens. This was a threat she foresaw, and so she made it clear that the North too would have to be forced into submission, however loosely, so as to remove the threat at her back before the rest of the realm could completely muster. With the Vale ramping up for war and the Targaryens still gathering troops, she had a matter of months to do what the Andals had not done in thousands of years, and force Moat Cailin. Leaving behind the footmen of her host with her loyal and beloved consort to prepare a defense, she rode north with all the horsemen she could muster as the Arryn boy was delivered back to her stronghold and castle to be kept secure. Young Walder Frey had no qualms about giving her passage, having heard very quickly of the butchery that transpired outside of Harrenhal and having no desire to see her make herself a guest at the Twins for too long, and so she rode, and rode, and rode, til the Neck loomed and the Crannogmen began their work of delaying her host, though they themselves took heavy tolls, for the Red Queen's thirst could be great in times of war, and mortal men had little means of hiding themselves from a woman who could see and hear the blood pumping through their veins like torchlight. Facing a supernatural foe, the Lord Reed made the decision to abandon such harryings, and instead form their forces to support the Starks in making a defense at Moat Cailin itself. There, the Northmen were mustering for war, a thing that would take far longer than any other land, for the North was vast, and it took time for troops to cross such distances in snow and sleet.
But Moat Cailin had repelled vast armies before, and without her infantry, the Red Queen could count only on a parity with the Stark host at Moat Cailin.
Parity was not enough, the Starks said. She could never breach their line, the Starks said. The terrain was a natural bottleneck, and allowed a handful of their men to be attacked by many times their numbers on the defense, the Starks said.
All these things were said to the Red Queen, who presented them with a banner torn from the walls of the Eyrie, and warned them to reconsider. Bend the knee, surrender now, and she would leave them in peace so long as their troops returned to their homes.
But a cousin shouted loud and for all to hear that the Arryns were Andals, and that the North was the land of the First Men, ancient and strong and proud. They could do what the Arryns could not. They could halt her, and Lord Edwyle Stark felt confident. He too had heard tales of the south.
So he declined her terms, and like the others before him, made ready for war.
Of them, the Red Queen spoke honestly afterwards. Lord Edwyle fought confidently, fought bravely, and fought with skill.
But he still died. Bypassing his entire army with a strike from the air, she did to him what she had done to Maekar, and beheaded the host of the North at the peak of battle. Those that were there say that she swooped down and grabbed him from the air, taking him to the peak of one of the crumbling towers of Moat Cailin before tearing his throat out in front of all his men, drinking his life's blood as his army panicked, and worked her way down through the tower, slaughtering any and every man that did not fall to one knee at the sight of her, dragging the corpse of the Warden of the North down the steps. It did not take long at all for the battle to be won in the aftermath of such a horrific sight, but before it could be completed, reinforcements arrived for the Northmen, marching under the banner of the Dreadfort. It was to them that the Red Queen went, and it was before their lord that she threw down the corpse of the Lord of Winterfell as Lothston banners unfurled from the ramparts of Moat Cailin behind her. Offering him mastery over the North in exchange for fealty, the Lord Bolton did what the Lord Stark would not, and surrendered his host and swore fealty to the Red Queen, alongside a great number of the North's most powerful lords and leaders, who saw now why the South could not contain this foe. Though the remaining Stark kin would flee Winterfell before the Boltons and their new southron allies could lay siege to it, the Red Queen's attention went back to the south.
And it was time that they did, for the Targaryens and their allies were on the march. A war had begun, and it would not end so quickly. The Red Queen prized the safety of her people over the advance of her borders, and she could not be everywhere at once. Defense was more important to her than offense, and she would sooner take to the skies to hunt down raiders and ravagers trying to slip into her queendom than slaughter her foes on the battlefield. Already, the Targaryens denounced her as truly mad, for not only had she slew a king, she had done so with terrible magicks and sorceries to empower her to do so, and it took little for Lord Bloodraven to convince the Faith of the need to condemn her, utterly, as a living enemy of all that was holy in the world. Attempts would be made on her life. Knights would come to try and strike her down when she least expected it, but such would see them in graves. Holy artifacts would be brought forth in the hope that they could banish her, but sacred oils and golden stars did little to deter the Red Queen. Castles were consecrated as holy ground, but like pushing on a wall of fabric, she could walk through such barriers with ease.
There seemed nothing that could stop her, and Aegon dreaded that it would soon be a matter of time before she slaughtered her way into his realm.
Except where they could do nothing, the Red Queen could do all, and she halted herself. Defense over offense. She could push forward, but not without making gaps that would let the Targaryens bleed her people. She would not allow that to happen, and she did not need to. She was ageless, now. Eternal. Undying. She could wage this war for a hundred years, or a thousand, if she wished it. Time was on her side, now, and the Greyjoys too, seeing the way that the wind was blowing, and bending the knee when Stark and Arryn did not. She could play a longer game, a calmer and calculating strategy. Little by little could she break down the Seven Kingdoms and digest them, like carving one's way through a feast of fifty courses, one did it a bite at a time...
...and so the years pass, and the Targaryens find themselves in a fight for their survival against a foe that slowly, but surely, grinds its way into their lands.
The Realm of Night
The House of the Bat in Harrenhal
250AC "The dead do not rest easily in the Riverlands these days..."
Eternal Queen on the Crimson Throne: Danelle Lothston, the Lady of Harrenhal, though she also styles herself as Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, and with it the traditional titles: she is the First and Last of her Name, the Red Queen of all Westeros, the Undying Mistress of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lady of the Seven Kingdoms and Defender of the Realm. Those are but a few of the titles that might come from total dominion over the Riverlands, and those beyond the reach of her expanding domain know by another name - the Mad Queen, a word uttered in halls that still bow to the Targaryens, but never by those who might live beneath the banners of the bat. Her rise to glory and success began at the nadir of the house of Lothston, for Harrenhal itself had been besieged by King Maekar, come to put an end to the strange mutterings and rumors of twisted, dark practices that had transpired within the heart of that ruined castle, to supposed feasts of human flesh and baths of blood. The day of the assault had at first proceeded as expected, but whether in a grand unveiling of powers that she had always possessed, some revelation within evil texts or even a bargain struck in desperation with sinister powers, the attack on Harrenhal soon turned into butchery, for Danelle Lothston emerged from the burnt towers of her castle with inhuman strength, speed, endurance, and a thirst for the blood of men, and what should have been a simple victory for the Targaryens and the few thousand men they brought turned into a bloodbath that saw King Maekar himself beheaded on the field of battle after the death of half his Kingsguard. With his army put to rout in horror, fleeing back to King's Landing to bring word of what they had seen, Danelle Lothston rose from Harrenhal as a queen, and took for herself the crown of the king she slew as her own, plundering it from the baggage train and encampment his soldiers had abandoned...and so began her rise to power. Clad in ebon black battleplate, Westeros has not seen a fighter of such sheer lethality since the Dawn Age, for surely not even the gods themselves can protect those who get between her and the enemy commander, who she might seek out and slaughter along with all their retainers so as to behead the enemy army before battle even truly begins, though her enemies have been spared such things for a time now - she has returned to Harrenhal for a time to focus on running her queendom for a time rather than on building it...or perhaps on studying her gifts further.
But eternal as she seems to be, unaffected by the passing of years since when she might've died in 227AC, she does indeed have family of her own.
King-Consort: Ser Tristimun Wayn, the Queen's husband and the first with which she shared the Blood Gift, Ser Tristimun had been wed to her long before she had became Queen - indeed, the two of them had been wed when she was still but a young lady herself, seventeen years of age in 208 Aegon's Conquest, married together by her lord father before he died not even two years later. The thirdborn son of the Wayns, it had always been expected that he would find himself as either a sworn sword or some other lower position within the realm, suiting his birth and the lesser stature of his house, but when Lord Victor Lothston abandoned his hopes of siring a son and instead settled on the inheritance of his sole daughter, the young Tristimun soon found himself a groom to the future Lady of Harrenhal...and where so many men who might live in the shadows of their lady-wives with no real power of their own might soon find themselves full of resentment, what blossomed between Wayn and Lothston was genuine warmth and affection. Long did the two ride across the lands of Lothston, or travel the waters of the God's Eye on a river galley, and even as many grew concerned over the dark rumors flowing out of Harrenhal, the warmth that the two shared did not fade, nor was it sullied by their union's seeming inability to produce children - indeed, the two took a greater comfort from one another than any words that a septon or maester might offer. When Maekar came to Harrenhal with his troops, Ser Tristimun would've been eager to follow his wife to the grave, but the death of the king and the rise of the Red Queen meant that he need not die in such a fashion, and when she raised her banner in rebellion and named herself Queen, he was the first to drop to one knee and pledge fealty to her, following her forward as her first subject. For his faith and loyalty, he was rewarded with the Blood Gift, given the same powers that Lothston herself has, and perhaps in some demonstration of their nature, it is said that their affection for one another, their love, is enough to see that his supernatural gifts are far greater than any other recipient that Lothston has bestowed it upon, making him the ideal champion to go to war in her stead when she is busy or otherwise indisposed. His authority also extends to the Queen's court, and though he is not Hand of the Queen himself, his power eclipses that particular office, allowing the King-Consort to act as a check on the Hand.
Whilst their union did not result in any children, the Queen has since adopted a number of men and women, a handful of individuals who she has deemed worthy of not merely receiving the Blood Gift, but taking on her name, and the power that might come with being a member of the royal household. What she looks for in such people is a mystery, though rumors abound: ambition strong enough to make use of it, a strength of wit and wisdom to control it, a way of thinking that might keep them from degenerating into beastdom, or perhaps simply sharing a name with the children she never had, no one is sure what it is that makes someone special enough to receive such a gift, but that does not mean that she does not hand it out.
Prince Manfred Lothston, the Queen's cousin and one of the few blood Lothstons left besides herself, Manfred has the mixed fortunes of sharing his name with another Lothston who came before him: their great-grandfather, Lord Manfryd Lothston, was a man with a reputation as dark as that of the Harrenhal that was his castle, infamous across the Riverlands for the black hoods that masked the faces of the men that died on his gallows or were hung from the crumbling battlements. Prince Manfred is not quite so dark and brutal, more grim than anything else, inclined to little in the name of cruelty, but equally as little fazed by such concepts as honor. That is perhaps what earned him his dread reputation, for in battle, men see in Manfred a mortal incarnation of the Stranger itself: cold and dispassionate, going about the work of battle like a farmer bringing in the harvest, laying about himself with his greatsword and slaughtering peasants and nobles alike with equal disinterest. Off the battlefield, however, the truest part of his nature becomes more apparent, for Queen Lothston did not choose him solely for his name. Quite intelligent and prone to reading is one strength, but the greatest of them all is that he possesses a deep understanding of the "logic" of feudal politics and the intrigues that dominate them, a familiarity with their workings to match a farmer and their mill, or an engineer and their trebuchet. He understand the hierarchy of lords and nobility as though it were a physical thing lain out before him, and that makes him far more dangerous off the battlefield than in it, for he knows the exact men to target to make the enemy fall into discord at the exact hour they need unity most. More than a few lordships have disintegrated into chaos only days before the armies of Queen Danelle Lothston crossed into their land, their lord or heir slain with no idea of who to replace them, just as entire armies have ground to a halt when the only lord of high station amongst their leaders turns up dead, leaving the rest as a band of equals, bickering and arguing as their enemies advance.
Prince Raymond Lothston, formerly of the Vances of Atranta, Prince Raymond Lothston has the boon of having once been one of Danelle Lothston's most stubborn opponents, a field commander around whom a great many Rivermen had rallied in the hopes that they do what Maekar could not and put an end to her empire of night before it could begin. Ultimately, they were mistaken, and the Vances fell before her like any other house of the Riverlands, but they did not fall easily and without a fight. The Vances of Atranta were one of the mightiest houses in the Riverlands, and fought furiously, but what had allowed them to strike even further beyond their weight was Ser Raymond's absolute mastery of heavy horse, utilizing formations like wedges and diamonds and armoured walls to make the best use of his heavy horse, and did not do poorly with its lighter counterpart, either. Such turned the campaign through the Vance lands into a chase, and such earned him the respect of the Red Queen, who offered him the choice to march beneath her banners and guarantee the safety of his kin, or die, and know nothing of what might happen to their fate. Facing such a choice, Ser Raymond Vance became Prince Raymond Lothston, his reception of the Blood Gift binding him to her will...but with the power it gave flowing through his veins now perpetuating his youth and might, it did not take long for him to fully embrace his new role as one of the Red Queen's top field commanders. Though some portion of the man he had once been still shines through and he conducts his war with nobility and gallantry alike, his hunger for blood must be sated, and so the values of honor and chivalry that he had once adhered to with such pride have become as hollow as a suit of armor, but those who encounter him in battle can still expect the courtesy of a "fair" fight - he is not afraid to test his skills and sorcerous physique in single combat duels, and if his foes fight with honor, they can expect the same courtesy in turn, and his offers made to castles under siege are honest and true.
Princess Celia Lothston, known before her adoption as Celia Tully, sister of Lord Gareth and aunt of the young Hoster Tully, complemented by singers across the realm as the Fair Lady in honor of her beauty, though whispered of as the Red Widow for what seems to happen so often to those men that might crave her affections. She came willingly to the Lothstons after the collapse of the Tullys and the conquest of the first of the realms that would become Queen Danelle's expanding empire, pleading lady-to-lady for her kin to be spared and acknowledging the supremacy of Lothston rule over that of the Targaryens, throwing herself on the mercy of this blood thirsty conqueror. More was said, words exchanged that no man was around to hear, but when night fell that evening, it was Celia Lothston that emerged: free, independent, and unneeding to bow before the will of any man, or fear them, thanks to the power of the Blood Gift that the Queen had bestowed upon her. She is amongst the most dangerous members of the House of Lothston, for Celia's beauty is great, and seemingly greater still thanks to the Gift that her lady bestowed upon her, a beauty tempered by great charm sufficient enough to distract men from the fact that her reflection does not appear in mirrors. Warm blooded men, mortal men, are quick to hurry to her bidding for the tiniest hint of her favor, so drawn to her charms as to become willing slaves, and even in the midst of battle have men been struck into a fatal hesitancy by the sight of her on those few occasions when she might take to war in person, but as her charms show, warfare is not the greatest use of her strength. She, like Manfred Lothston, have their greatest value off the battlefield, where Celia might be able to use her charms to fracture alliances and turn sworn friends against one another, using the desires and wants that burn within the hearts of so many men against them. More, she maintains a network of shebats of her own, a collection of mortal informers, women who would risk everything for the chance to receive the Blood Gift from Celia in turn and women who are entirely willing to leak information as to supplies and troop movements to the Lothston court. These women are a great asset to her, and in those territories that are the Lothston warhosts claim, she makes a purpose of visiting them and ensuring their safety, bringing them to her side so that they might join her court of ladies; these lady companions of hers are her friends, confidantes, companions and, usually, her preferred source of blood, and count women born high and low amongst their number.
Princess Lyarra Lothston, known before her adoption as Lyarra Royce, daughter of Benedict Royce and Jocelyn Stark, Princess Lyarra is physically the youngest of all the adopted children of the Red Queen and her husband, having only just seen her twentieth name day when she received the Blood Gift. The exact nature of why she was selected so early remains a mystery to most, but there are those who are willing to make some conjecture; the thought goes that she had impressed the Queen with her graces and wit, or perhaps revealed that she had some greater intelligence that most men might've looked past, or any of a myriad number of things, but most likely, it is considered that she presents a careful balance of talents. Cunning but not devious, intelligent but not arrogant, strong but not brutish, she she sits at the natural confluence of ability within her siblings, the ideal balance between them all, and is thus the closest to the Red Queen out of all of them. That, it would seem, makes her the most obvious candidate for ascension that she had yet seen so far, for between the two is a great similarity, and from that comes loyalty: though the Red Queen has no reason to doubt that her other children will remain loyal to her, they do tend to act in ways more according to their own traits and personality than in full accordance to her will and wishes. Manfred will get the job done, albeit unpredictably, Raymond will engage in acts of gallantry, and Celia can be distracted by the need to tend to the womenfolk who come under her protection. Not so for Princess Lyarra, who obeys her commands to the letter, a thing that sees her sometimes act as the most "daughterlike" of all the adopted children of the Red Queen, the one that is closest to being a true member of family, but it also means that she is entrusted with the most delicate of works, the things that need to be handled with the greatest care. Such a work is manifest in her most unique of tasks, one that none of her siblings have been trusted with: Lyarra is the Queen's official ambassador and dignitary to the Iron Bank of Braavos across the Narrow Sea. For what it is said, the Braavosi have grown quite fond of her, though they do find her tendency to wander with her escorts under the cover of a parasol or from within a well covered palanquin to be quite odd for a Westerosi, as is her preference for meeting at night. If they had any inkling that the tales of bloodthirst coming from Westeros were actually true and not merely the stories of singers and mummers trying to be dramatic, they might very well have not received her so eagerly, or treated her as fairly as they did her counterparts from the Targaryen court. To them, Lyarra Lothston plays the part of the perfect lady - graceful, kind, dignified, warm, and inclined to humor and romance - and so the Iron Bank is entirely comfortable to offer loans to the Lothstons at a fair rate, in turn allowing the Rivermen to augment their armies with foreign soldiery from across the Narrow Sea.
Prince Thoron Lothston, of House Harlaw of Ten Towers before his adoption into the house of Lothston, this Prince has the unique nature of being the sole Iron Islander to have received the blessing of the Red Queen. Grandson of Lord Theomore Harlaw, who raised the castle of the Ten Towers that became the seat of the most powerful of all the Harlaw families...or at least, started it, for building a castle is a work of generations, and it was a work that Thoron had inherited, a second son given the work of seeing through the construction of another great swathe of the castle so that his elder brother might focus on all the other aspects of rule. It was in this area that he earnt the attentions of the Red Queen, for whilst Thoron was proven to be an acceptable warrior, he was far greater when it came to the work of organizing and managing larger projects, with a good head for numbers and the resources that might be consumed on a day to day basis, and more importantly than that, he quickly proved himself to have a knack for architecture itself when some of the original plans that Theomore had ordered were found to be damaged by damp and needed to be redrawn and recalculated. It was these things that earned him the attentions of the Red Queen, and it was these things that saw him summoned to Harrenhal - though the original plans for that castle had been lost with Harren Hoare himself at the top of the Kingspyre Tower, Thoron's experience and understanding of Ironborn construction and architecture, and familiarity with other styles owing to working on the amalgam that is the Ten Towers, made him the best possible candidate to redraw them. It was a test of ability, in truth. No one man could redraft a castle as vast as Harrenhal in so little time, but Thoron went to work and redrew the designs of one of Harrenhal's battlement towers, a humble piece of its outer fortifications larger than the keep of a lesser stronghold and did it both quickly and to a high standard. Respectful, courteous, loyal and eager to please the Red Queen, and gifted with a talent for construction, he received the Gift at the age of twenty six, receiving immortality in exchange for service as the Royal Architect. His great work, and the focus of all his efforts, is Harrenhal itself - burnt by the Targaryens twice, worn down by the years and damaged further by siege and skirmish, the years have not been kind to the Lothston castle, yet Thoron Lothston vows to see the castle restored, completely, by the end of the century...and not merely repaired, but modernized and refitted, built to a more complex and intricate plan than Harren Hoare had ever imagined - the crown jewel of the Lothston empire to come.
All the princes and princesses that carry her gift are able to also bestow it upon others, however, these individuals receive increasingly small fractions of power the further it goes from Danelle Lothston herself. The hierarchy of the House of Lothston is often considered confusing by outsiders, for there are other blood Lothstons than Manfred, who remain outside the reach of the Queen's Gift, either by their own choice or by the choice of the Queen. As such, the House of Lothston functions somewhat differently than most houses: the blood and gifted Lothstons come first as does their immediate kin, then comes the adopted and gifted Lothstons, then the remaining blood but ungifted Lothstons, then everyone else who may have received the Blood Gift from one of her adopted children.
The Crimson Court
Hand of the Queen: Lady Alayne Mooton, Lady Dowager of Maidenpool, a friend of the Red Queen before she was the Red Queen, these two ladies had known each other for many years before Maekar marched on Harrenhal, and the dowager lady of Maidenpool was one of the few within the Riverlands ot object to his intervention, saying that for all his royal graces, he did not understand what was happening within the castle and that some rumors are simply just rumors. When the king lay slain and her friend raised her banner in total revolt, aiming to depose the Targaryens and replace them with the Lothston banner, the Lady Dowager (cousin to the last Mooton lord and regent for his son and heir after a boating accident saw her husband's skull smashed on the rocks) was the very first to come to her banner and join forces with her after her husband. The Lady Mooton is no great and glorious beauty, nor is she the greatest intellect or most superb commander of men, but she did not need to be these things to be Hand - what she has is what no one else can profess to say, not even Lyarra, a gift shared with the King Consort alone: she has a genuine understanding of the Red Queen in the way that only the closest of friends might, so close that the Red Queen even offered her the Blood Gift just as she had given it to her husband, only to be politely declined for the time being, wishing to preserve her mortality for a few more years yet whilst her son grows, a thing the Queen Lothston accepted with grace. Lady Alayne is not the first to have the title of Hand, but she has held it longer than any other, for as a personal friend of the Queen, she knows what it is that Lothston wants her to do: not to run the realm for her or conduct her plans, but to provide wise counsel, to speak against her opinions when no one else might, and to provide a permanent linkage to the "mortal" peoples of the realm and remind her of the nature of those that she rules over. It is these tasks that Mooton does, and she does them very well.
Master of Coin: Lord Walder Frey, Lord of the Crossing, a lord of forty two years, yet infamous for his greed, his holding of grudges, his ambition, his envy and pride, all traits that might've seen his old masters in Riverrun condemn him, or see him alienated by his fellow lords of the Riverlands...but if one was to only look at Walder Frey and see his personality, they would forget that the Twins have done more than just fine under his rule, but have outright thrived. With full coffers, good connections to the merchantry and a myriad number of other boons, the greed and temper that others might consider flaws serve him well in his role as Master of Coin: the former sees him hungrily hunt down ever last copper, the latter sees him push back swiftly against any who would deny the taxman their proper due. It is a job that he does very well, and despite concerns from other Rivermen that he might simply prove to be a thieving weasel and steal from the crown, he hasn't even proven to be corrupt, either, and it takes but a few understanding of House Frey to know why. With the Riverlands poised for ascension to become the preeminent power of Westeros in the event that the Red Queen should prevail, the Freys would stand to benefit enormously as a strong house within the heartland, with close connections to and friendship with the royal house, and a seemingly ever growing number of sons and daughters with which to wed and even a seat on the Small Council - the perfect combination, Lord Walder has said, to show the realm that the Freys are not at all a house to be looked down upon as gilded peasants sitting on their Crossing, but a house with a history and a glory to rival that of the Hightowers themselves at but a fraction of the age. The Lord of the Crossing has made a gamble in throwing his entire weight behind the Red Queen, but should that gamble prove fruitful, he could very well see his house spoken of as akin to the Great Houses themselves.
But in regards to work, the greatest expense that Lord Walder must deal with, other than warfare, is the reconstruction of the Lothston's prized seat of Harrenhal. Unlike the Hoare that built it, the Red Queen has a desire to see the Riverlands elevated by its construction, not impoverished, so resources must be paid for fairly when taken - this alone has led to something of an economic boom throughout the entire region, and the once crumbling stronghold has become a hive of activity, surrounded by new villages and even new towns full of all the laborers, masons, carpenters and smiths needed to carry out the work, along with their families, who need food, and clothes, and shelter. It is a seller's market within the Riverlands, but that does not make the cost of restoring the castle to its former glory any easier. A plentiful supply of lowborn prisoners taken from the armies of the Queen's enemies, however, does simplify things - kept in prison camps outside the walls of Harrenhal until they are needed, such men provide easy labor for the mundane works of hoisting blocks, moving rubble and mixing mortar, working to earn their keep and freedom. It can be hard work, and more than a few men have died of it, but as Prince Thoron Lothston is keen to remind them, it is far, far less punishing than what Harren Hoare did to build the castle in the first place. To fund such work can be difficult, for it requires endless sources of coin, but if there is money to be found, Lord Walder Frey can find it: no one escapes the taxman, and the crown will always, always have its due of gold and silver, and copper too.
Master of Laws: Lord Gareth Tully, Lord of Riverrun, a man who finds himself serving the lady that had once been his father's vassal, Lord Gareth Tully has found himself in a far lesser position than his forefathers. When King Maekar marched on Harrenhal, it had been with the acknowledgement of the Lords of Riverrun that their liege lord was acting to suppress a revolt, but when he died at the hands of the newly crowned Red Queen, the Tullys were the first to try and take on the burden of her uprising. With the Riverlands falling into immediate chaos, it quickly devolved into a war of Riverrun against Harrenhal, a war that Riverrun lost...yet where others may have taken the chance to annihilate their house and remove a potential opponent for control of the Riverlands, the Red Queen demonstrated her confidence in her position by allowing them to live, and more, allowing them to maintain their seat, taking only their title of Lord Paramount not so that it might be handed to another, but so that it might be destroyed as part of the Riverlands' transformation into her new crown territory. Other than that, she has had rather little attention to spare for the Tullys of Riverrun, and little desire to punish them further, something that is perhaps best shown in how she felt comfortable placing one of them on her Small Council, naming the son of the lord she fought against as Master of Laws, not merely as a formality and as a kindness whilst a loyal subject did the work behind the scenes, but as a genuine appointment with equally genuine responsibilities. The Red Queen does not mean to merely conquer the Seven Kingdoms, she intends to utterly rebuild them under her rule; making the Riverlands its predominant power and capital is only one of many changes that has to be done, with others ranging from considerations of the feudal contracts between lord and Queen that must be considered to the relationship between the commonfolk and the nobility that, in some regions, might very well need a tax of blood.
Arranging all these things, and considering their legality (or how to make them legal without causing a peasant revolt) is a duty that Lord Gareth takes all too seriously, desperate to prove to his lady in Riverrun that the Tullys can be of use, though it does sometimes leave a bad taste in his mouth. Still, he just hopes he can keep his head down and keep his sons, Hoster and the very young Brynden, safe. If his duties can guarantee that, then there is nothing that his work offers that he will not do.
Master of Whispers: Ser Manfred Lothston, the Queen's cousin, had been chosen for this role before he had even received the Blood Gift, and remains the one and only recipient of it to have a seat on the Small Council and gain power and privileges beyond that afforded to him as a prince of a royal house. It is not hard to see why: his understanding of the structure of the realm is second to none, and as any siege engineer knows, understanding a fortress is the first step towards pulling it down...and Ser Manfred's task is to do exactly that, and demolish the Targaryen realm, brick by brick. His work as the Red Queen's Master of Whispers is not to be an informant or a gatherer of things that their foes would wish to be kept secret, but to be an assassin. With knives in the right place at the right time, two houses that had forged a simple marital alliance can be merged, upsetting the balance of power in a given region and bringing discord as fathers panic over the death of their house and its impending union with another, and that is to say nothing of what they might do to houses with but a single heir, or which are kept going by a handful of old men. If their blades cannot find a way in, then scandals can be fabricated - the Lothstons have no shortage of handsome men or beautiful women whom might be emplaced at the right spot with the right charm, able to lead many to doubt even the strongest marriage is true, and sometimes questions as to the paternity of a woman's child is far more devastating than a murder, even if they vow and swear that they have been loyal. Feeding rumor, encouraging treachery, dealing out death, all these things are the work of Ser Manfred Lothston, and he's good enough at doing such things as to be able to do them whilst on the campaign march, attended to by runners and couriers who might bring him the latest reports...if he is even on the battlefield at all, and not allowing his armor to be worn by another.
Master of Ships: Quellon Greyjoy, son and heir of Lord Rodrik Greyjoy, and a mighty sailor and captain of men in his own right, Quellon Greyjoy seemed a natural pick for the role of commanding the Lothston fleet, such as it is. With the Red Queen having asserted her dominance over powers mostly content to wage war on land rather than at sea, it was perhaps only natural that she would choose a man from the most maritime of her dominions to command the fleet they brought. Such a thing would make sense in its own right, and be reason enough to select a Greyjoy, but Quellon is so much more than that, for he is perhaps the greatest Ironborn raider in centuries: barely even twenty years old, and already a blooded captain and killer of men, strong and as fast as lightning and yet with the wits to hone his abilities to a razor's edge, Quellon Greyjoy is the kind of Greyjoy that comes but once every few centuries. So great is his talents that he had been away from the Iron Islands when his lord father swore fealty to the Red Queen, not on any normal reaving, but making a game of sport by hunting corsairs and slavers in the Narrow Sea, the hardest enemies he might find, and even then he did not come back empty handed. He has already proven that he is a true son of the sea wind, and even as young as he is, the men loyal to the Targaryens flee at the sight of his longships and their sails of black and gold, for Quellon is clever beyond his years and knows that his navy is not enough to match the Royal Fleet of the Targaryens in open battle, so he scatters them like flotsam and avoids a pitched battle. Instead, he plays to the advantages of the Ironborn, and picks his foes off one by one at open sea, weighing a dozen of his ships against half that number of enemy vessels at a time to gain easy victories that slowly but surely bleed the enemy white and allow his forces to accumulate numbers. Such has been the game since the start of his admiralty, as has been raids up and down the coast to keep the enemy off balance and forever guessing where the next strike might come, but the true goal, for now at least, is to aid the Lord-Paramount of the North in mopping up the last of the Stark loyalists on Bear Island. Simple work, but work that needs ships to ferry troops to the battlefield, and a task he has to deal with.
Master of Arms: Ser Uthor Egen, a young but skilled fighter from the Vale of Arryn, who although not the best bladesman in Westeros is familiar with a wide variety of armaments and fighting practices thanks to meeting the mountain clans in battle on so many different occasions. Normally, it would be expected for the Master of Arms to provide tutelage in the ways of warfare for the children of the royal house and to provide advice on matters of battlecraft, but with a lack of children to be tutored and the Red Queen and her dynasty more experienced in warfare than he, Ser Uthor finds his appointment to be rather...boring, at least for the usual work. Instead, the Red Queen has given him another challenge: the Targaryens have the potential to outnumber them on the field of battle, so to ward that off, she needs to make sure that her troops are better trained and prepared so as to nullify this difference in numbers. Quality, not quantity, is to be the name of her stratagem, and it is a task she has given to her Master of Arms to see done. Whilst there is never enough time to drill an army as much as it might wish to be, he has the time to take the latest musters and gather them together into a host of a few thousand, and then give them six to eight months to practice the art of war, bringing back veterans from the other armies to serve as drill masters and as sergeants to give the new formations some much needed strength. The lessons he teaches are not great games of swordsmanship or anything of the sort, but critical things that make a difference: the way for men to march in formation together and hold steady in the face of a cavalry charge or understand the calls of command and what to do when ordered, these things are not glorious or graceful or worthy of song, but they are the bricks and mortar from which war winning armies are built, and it is exactly what which the Red Queen has asked for.
Grand Maester: The young Qyburn, a maester of only some dozen years at the Citadel, but one of the handful who were willing to go against the bidding of the Archmaesters and pledge his services to the Red Queen rather than support the Targaryens in their defense of the realm. Cast out from his order, the Red Queen is all too happy to allow him to maintain his posting at Harrenhal and serve as her Grand Maester, for whilst he brings useful knowledge to her court, the greater value is in the legitimacy that having a man with such a title brings...and the sign of him being allowed to live and work and continue his studies under her hall has only served to inflame issues within the Citadel itself, for it showed all the other knights of the mind that their order could continue functioning and existing beneath the rule of the Red Queen. Such a thing has led to a fracture, for whilst the Citadel is meant to remain neutral in the affairs of the realm, this is a great civil war between its kingdoms, and victory or defeat for their chosen side could perhaps spell an end to the order, or at the very least cast them out of favor. With this threat holding true and over their heads, more than a few maesters have seen fit to follow Qyburn into defecting to the realm of the Lothstons, believing that she and her soldiers are more likely to win than the Targaryens. To say that the crown in King's Landing did not smile on this judgement would be an understatement, for it presents a los of faith in their ability to ultimately win this conflict, but for the Citadel at least, it shows that at least some are taking steps to make sure that the order of maesters survives, regardless of who carries the day.
Lords of the Realm
Lord-Paramount of the North: Lord Rickard Bolton, Lord of the Dreadfort and Warden of the North, a man who has somewhat recently came into his title, and wears the unique addition of being the first Lord-Paramount of the region. He has the title owing to the hubris of his predecessors, the Starks, who made a grave error in judgement when the Blood Queen called on the Northmen to offer fealty to her throne. Clearly, the North would fair better than the South had, more than a few lords said proudly. It had been a failing of the Andal gods to resist such a creature, but their gods were not those born only of parchment, but were instead nestled in the very roots and soil of the world, the Old Gods. So it was that Winterfell stood in defiance to the Queen, mustering their armies for war and confident that the First Men could do what the Andals could not, enduring her power and mayhaps even slaying her outright. Unfortunately for them, however, they were sorely mistaken. The markings of weirwood trees proved to be as little a barrier to her as the seven sided star did, and upon the crumbling battlements of Moat Cailin, unnatural power won out over ancient glory - scything through hosts of men in pursuit of her prey, the Red Queen sought and found the Lord in the North...and the Old Gods of the North protected him as little as the New Gods of the South, for in full sight of his lords did she tear out his throat with her fangs and gorge herself on his life's blood. From that day on, the North has paid its tribute to the Red Queen beneath the banners of the Boltons of the Dreadfort, those Starks who had survived the battle having fled to the Sun Court for protection, whilst Winterfell itself remains as one of House Lothston's holdings, a retreat from the heat of summer.Lord Rickard's rule is not necessarily an easy one, for it is said that he would gladly trade masters once more, swap the blood drinkers of Harrenhal for the Starks he had grumbled about in his cups and see them restored to Winterfell (and the Starks indebted to the Boltons forever in exchange for this, of course), but with Lothston watching close, there is not much he can do but be an obedient and loyal lord by enforcing the will of the Blood Queen throughout the land.
Lord of the Vale: Lord Jon Arryn, Keeper of the Gates of the Moon, Lord of the Eyrie, Defender of the Vale and Warden of the East, titles that he holds all of and does nothing for, kept as he is as a permanent "guest" of Harrenhal. If the tales hold true, then what happened at the Vale of Arryn was far more terrible than any demonstration of the Blood Queen's power and prowess before, for those who witnessed the day of the assault will swear on their lives that the Lady of Harrenhal transformed into a gargantuan bat and soared up beyond the triplet forts of Stone, Snow and Sky, straight to the battlements of the Eyrie...where she then feasted upon the entire garrison in a single night, cutting the head off the falcon right when it was about to face its most desperate of battles. Such a blow would have been catastrophic for the Vale of Arryn, but worse still was that she reenacted the history of Visenya's own visit to the summit two centuries before, finding the ten year old heir of the Vale of Arryn and leaping from the mountain top to carry him back to her armies - with the young Jon Arryn securely held in her grasp, the Vale was forced into submission lest its liege lord be put to death and the house of Arryn rendered extinct. Since that day, the Valemen have marched at the command of the Queen in Harrenhal, making war in her name, and though things may have started in reluctance, they have become more eager as time has gone on, for she has not spared them the chance to obtain the spoils of war for themselves - though they had their complaints as to the nature of their fealty, gold soothes a great many wounds and woes, and the promise of new seats and territories for second sons has done much to make them willing partners in her conquest of Westeros. Few have seen the young Jon Arryn for months, though he lives at Harrenhal, and is said to weep for the deeds they do in his name.
Lord of the Iron Islands: Lord Rodrik Greyjoy, Lord of the Iron Islands and Lord Reaper of Pyke, was a lord who came willingly to the banners of the Great Bat of Harrenhal. The last son of the mighty Dagon Greyjoy who had warred against the Seven Kingdoms before, smashing Starks and Lannisters and Redwynes alike only to be crushed by the Targaryens, Lord Rodrik remembers all too well the indignity that came from their defeat - his elder brothers were slain, their fleet smashed, their strongholds cracked open, and his own father's head taken from its shoulders by a swing of Dark Sister. The Ironborn were ravaged as a power, beaten and bloodied, but weakened as they were, the voices of the Drowned Men sang out all the louder: what is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger. With the Targaryens buckling under the fury of the Red Queen, there was no better time or chance for the Iron Men to gain their vengeance, and signing their fealty over to Danelle Lothston won them a powerful ally on the continent, one entirely comfortable with allowing them access to the Wolfswood of the North to feed their shipyards and allow them to restore their fleet to its former glory, and so, just twenty years after the end of the last war, the Greyjoys are once more on the march. This time, however, they do not come alone. As the principle naval power of the Red Queen's empire, they have a weight of resources that they have not seen in years, and the freedom to make use of it, for now at least, as they see fit. From Casterly Rock to the Arbor, Ironborn warships sail, ravaging the coastline, taking what they can and burning everything that they cannot, with a particular eye for the destruction of enemy dockyards, warehouses and seasoning sheds so as to deprive their foe of replacement vessels. Their forces are scattered here and there, but they also field sizeable complements of heavy infantry to support the Lothston war effort on land, protected in battle by strong mail and their great round shields, and are expected to provide the bulk of the effort in helping Lord Bolton to mop up the last real Targaryen-loyal stronghold in the North in the form of Bear Island, where a twenty year old Lord Jeor Mormont readies himself for a last stand worthy of song.
Lord of the Riverlands: It would be easy to believe that the youngest of the great titles of Westeros, the Riverlands, would be suffering perhaps the worst out of any of the realms subdued by the Red Queen. The Riverlands are a land with a tragic history, their own attempts to carve out a destiny of their own under the Mudds and the Teagues seemingly doomed to failure, the land conquered and despoiled by one kingdom after the next - how could the Red Queen have been any different, it was asked. Such thoughts forget one vital thing, and that thing is that Danelle Lothston is a Riverwoman herself. For all that can be said of her humanity or lack thereof, she still remembers the lands of her birth, and hopes to dell well by them the most, and many amongst the peasantry would say that she has done exactly that: with Harrenhal bound to be the center of her Seven Queendoms once they are conquered, the wealth and power of her empire flows back to the Riverlands that are its geographical as well as political heart, and the massive rivers that give the land its name serve as the arteries to ferry this lifeblood of trade and tribute to all corners of the land. From the ever busy crossing of the Twins to the markets of Stony Sept and Maidenpool, the Riverlands thrive as the center of the Lothston dominion, and even those lords who had followed her only begrudgingly after being brought into submission now fight eagerly to further this dominance of Rivermen over Westeros, and such represents the greatest transformation of the Riverlands beneath Lothston rule: it is a united realm, undeniably and unquestionably bound to the will of a single lady, its once bickering houses united into a single, steel fist. The price of such ascension would seem a bargain - the peasantry around Harrenhal and the Riverlands are often fed upon by the Red Queen, though she takes care not to slaughter them like cattle, bringing those who sustain her unlife close to, but not at, the brink of death. Most tend to survive such feedings, and those maesters who have acknowledged Lothston supremacy have seen such survivors for themselves, and interviewed them as well, finding and writing that the loss of so much blood in a single moment can leave them so light headed as to seem almost euphoric, something that makes being chosen for such feedings not quite so terrible a fate.
Blood Knights of the Queensguard "...yet such power that they carry is but the faintest reflection of that of their lady, who needs no real protection. Instead, such warriors are her field commanders and champions, trusted to settle certain matters in her stead, so that she might place her attentions upon greater studies. Their will is shackled to her own - none can refuse a command given by their sire, and all owe their lineage to the Red Queen herself. Ageless, tireless and with a strength beyond that of mortal men, the Blood Knights are the most dangerous warriors alive in Westeros today bar the Red Queen herself."
Lord Commander, Ser Lucan Mallister, the Hawk, a man who could've been a fellow rebel, Ser Lucan Mallister was an obvious choice for her Queensguard, even if she passed over his old friends and allies in the Rat and the Pig to choose only the greatest of the three. At first glance, Ser Lucan would seem to be the very image of a knight, marrying martial prowess with a bottomless well of courage...but looks, as they so often are, can be deceiving - Ser Lucan Mallister wears the veil of knightly virtue the way that a member of the ice river clans might wear the flayed skin of his enemies. It covers him, and others might see in him a hero, but beneath the valor is the heart of a truly cold blooded murderer, completely devoid of mercy and compassion. The Targaryens had grown slowly to recognise the truth beneath the surface of this man, and grown to turn against him, but not quickly enough: it was the Hawk that engineered the suicide of Aelora Targaryen, striking her with the harshest of words when she was most vulnerable after the death of her brother, throwing her into such despair that she would take her own life before the week was out...yet no one could ever tie such deeds to him in person, for he had never lain a single hand on her, and though there were whispers of the great contempt he bore for the Targaryens and Blackfyres alike, it too could never be substantiated, and no charges could be raised against him. Though many whispered that he was a frequent killer of men for sport, he was too clean, too tidy, and no proof ever came. It was this nature that drew the attentions of the Red Queen, who came to Seagard early in the days of her uprising in the guise of a simple traveller, the exact kind that Ser Lucan was said to hunt...and as planned and as desired, he soon came to try and kill her for himself, not because she was an enemy, but for the joy of it. It would very quickly have been a fatal mistake, for the Red Queen is said to have transformed into a great bat and effortlessly overpowered him with neither weapons nor armor, using her wings to flee the city with her prize in tow. The exact nature of the bargain is unclear, as is why she might have chose someone so devoid of genuine nobility to command her Queensguard, but the bargain was struck, and the Hawk became the first member - the only clue as to why is perhaps the nature of his hunts, for in their experience of hunting down and seeking out single men is the understanding of what has to be done to prevent exactly that, and to kill without mercy is certainly a boon for a Lord Commander expected to shed the blood of fellow Westerosi in defense of the Queen. He alone has guard over the Queen's personal bedchamber, where she rests but once a week, and any who would wish to try and kill the Red Queen at her most vulnerable would need to get through the most lethal member of the Queensguard first.
Ser Androw Butterwell, the younger of the pair of twins born to Lord Ambrose Butterwell and his Frey wife, conceived on their wedding night, Ser Androw Butterwell was one of the first members of the Queensguard, setting out on his journey to Harrenhal within moments of learning that Danelle Lothston intended to see herself crowned as Queen. The reason is simple: even for one of the Blood Knights that march into battle in armour as black as dusk and with red cloaks around their shoulders, Ser Androw's hatred of the Targaryen lineage is a pit without a bottom, born into existence as a result of Bloodraven's destruction of the castle of Whitewalls and the throwing down of his house. The result of such exile was a cruel and harsh life in Essos, an adversity that served as the spark to light a fury that burns brightly to this day, a fury that fed his training int he way of the sword and would have seen him gladly sign his entry into the Golden Company if the rise of the Lothstons did not present another way to bathe his steel in Targaryen blood. It is that sheer rage within him that makes him a fearsome fighter indeed - against most enemies he might simply seem a superb swordsman, but when the dragon banner is present on the field, to stand in the way of Ser Androw Butterwell is to stand in the way of a man who would seem the Warrior incarnate, a hardened killer that will hack his way through the enemy with neither pity nor remorse in the hopes that he can put one more Targaryen in their grave. So far, he has been denied that chance, but a great many men who have fought loyally for them have found their death at the end of his blade.
Ser Tywald Lannister, who also comes from a pair of twins, though whose story is one of tragedy that sees him now march for the master that he had once sworn to slay. Unlike the others who had accepted her bargains willingly, Ser Tywald did so under great duress: the rebellion of the Lothstons had only just overran the Riverlands, and the Westermen had been called upon to join an effort to crush the Red Queen's uprising before it could spread further. Ser Tywald Lannister, as the heir to the Westerlands, had command of that army alongside his own twin brother, Ser Tion Lannister, both of whom were regarded as absolute paragons of nobility - courteous, strong, graceful, intelligent, there was no way that that the Westerlands would not have thrived under their leadership. Unfortunately for them, however, like so many others in those early days, their lord father had underestimated the strength of the Rivermen, and the Westerman army of some nine thousand souls was fell upon in a horrific ambush not far from Riverrun. Assaulted in marching formation and surrounded by mists so strong as to seem almost supernatural, the battle turned into a bloodbath, and then the Red Queen herself took to the field, hunting lords and noblemen as though they were no more than rabbits. Scything through their bodyguard, it took little time for her to make it to the Lannister twins, and though they fought valiantly and with a coordination that no other men might match, though they even succeeded in landing blows, they could not withstand her power, and before long, both lay gravely wounded at her feet...yet she was impressed by their skill, and revealed quickly her intent to give the Blood Gift to the both of them, a thing that would bind the both to her her will. Protective of his younger sibling, Tywald volunteered to go first, even as his brother called it madness with his dying breaths, the elder said that he had to prove it safe for Tion before they did it. So it was that the Red Queen indulged his request and turned the elder brother first, but in the last flickering sparks of his own free will before he might be bound to her for eternity, he drew his blade and plunged it into the exposed joints of his brother's armor, piercing his heart, slaying him in an instant...and sparing him the servitude that the Red Queen would demand. Tywald had impressed the Red Queen with the love he had for his brother, but now, he was bound to her...and though it took time for him to fully succumb to the temptations of the Blood Gift, allowing him to accompany Prince Raymond Lothston for a time saw him slowly but surely surrender until, much like Raymond, he accepted his role, even if he is often lost in a quiet melancholy.
Ser Otho Bracken, the very same as the famous Brute of Bracken, Ser Otho had already been in his early thirties in 209AC, the infamous Tourney of Ashford, and the twenty odd years that passed between then and the rise of the Lothstons to dominance over the Riverlands did much to damper his strength...but with the promise to be all that he had once been and more if he would take on the Red Queen's blood gift and don the scarlet cloak of her Queensguard, Ser Otho accepted, and was reborn. Though he might seem a man still in his fifties, he no longer ages as he once did, and fights with such power and energy as to eclipse his younger self entirely, going to battle with a mighty axe that he wields with both hands, long enough to strike a man on horseback and able to deliver such force as to tear open open the heaviest suits of armor. One of the most famous members of her Queensguard, Ser Otho Bracken once dueled a man who had came to him for aid at that great tourney: Ser Duncan the Tall, Lord Commander of the Targaryens' own Kingsguard...and in what was a display for both sides alike, the fight ended inconclusively before heavy rains threatened to flood the battlefield when a nearby river burst its banks. The fact that Ser Otho failed to win such a battle shames him, and he fully intends to make their next encounter their last and deliver the head of the Lord Commander to the Red Queen in person, but for now, he contents himself by fighting on foot with the rest of the infantry, using the great reach of his axe to remind knights on horseback that they are not at all out of his reach.
Ser Myles Upcliff, the Sword of Witch Isle, is a relatively new addition to the Queensguard. After the subjugation of the Vale of Arryn and its mobilization to support the Lothstons in their conquest of the rest of the Seven Kingdoms, the Red Queen's travels across the newest of her dominions led her to encounter a man that she had not came to, but who had came to her: a swordsman of the house of Upcliff, a family from the Vale of Arryn with a sinister and black reputation, born of the rumors of how they practice sorcery and other black arts upon their homeland of Witch Isle. Ser Myles carried that same reputation, and rode out to find the Red Queen when so many of her new subjects were full of fear and anxiety to pledge his service to her. It is said that he did not come empty handed that day, and that he may have brought with him tomes of sorcerous knowledge of the kind that gave Witch Isle its name, but whether this is true or false remains uncertain. What is certain, however, is that the Red Queen recognized in this man a spirit of great bravery and confidence as to be willing to come forth and offer his service to the woman that just slew the kin of his liege lord, a courage of a kind that was very useful and interesting to her. Although not the greatest swordsman in Westeros, Ser Myles did not need to be, for the Blood Gift would increase his abilities many fold, but to be certain that he was worthy, she set him a task to slay a defiant Lord Corbray, who was preparing to muster forces in defiance of the Arryn submission. It was a deed that he saw done, and delivered the Valyrian steel sword, Lady Forlorn, to his new Queen in exchange for receiving the Blood Gift. Since then, he has proven himself to a dangerously intelligent foe, and rumors of sorcery persist.
"Ser" Mullin of White Harbour, a man unique in the ranks of the Queensguard in that he is not actually a member, or even a Blood Knight at all, for he represents something of an experiment by the Red Queen to try and recapture the "magic" that led to the excellent abilities of the Lord Commander of the Targaryen's own Kingsguard, Ser Duncan the Tall. Born low as the bastard son of a brothel girl and any one of a myriad number of possible fathers, Mullin is a giant of a man at some six and a half foot, and like many such boys born into bastardry, had found himself as a street thug, a local hard man collecting loans and debts when the guards were busy and chopping firewood when they were on the lookout. Street brawls and savage fights had taught him things that no master of arms might ever teach, and it was this essence of raw savagery that the Red Queen wanted, for it was exactly that which had led Ser Duncan the Tall to victory over Aerion Targaryen, and paved the way for his ascension. When she learnt from a vassal Manderly of impending executions for thievery, she personally saved him from the noose, and after inspection, sent him to the Master of Arms to be drilled in the way of swordsmanship, and after a few years of learning how to make war with real weapons and armor, she has released him to the care of her Lord Commander for further instruction and training. The hope here is to create a warrior that will think outside of the aristocratic norm, utilizing tactics that others might consider dirty, but which might bring victory when it is needed most. Should this go well, he will surely receive a real cloak of the Queensguard, a knighthood, and of course, the Blood Gift itself...and the promise of such things in exchange for dutiful work is enough to motivate any man to try very, very hard to uphold expectations indeed.
The Black Knight, the most infamous of all the champions of the Queensguard, and perhaps the most dangerous, no one is sure of the real identity of this man, or if they are a man at all. The truth of his identity is questioned over all of Westeros - some say he is a traveller from across the Narrow Sea, others that he is the results of Danelle Lothston's forays into blood sorcery, a knight designed to be the greatest possible fighter, and others instead say that the claims of sorcery are true, but it is not blood magic she used, but vilest necromancy. Who came back to become the Black Knight if such claims are true is a mystery, but those who think such things can name a handful: the vengeful wright of Aemond or Daemon Targaryen, dredged up from the bottom of the God's Eye with their mounts soon to one day follow, Daemon Blackfyre pulled from his hidden grave to shed the blood of the red dragon once more, or perhaps even King Maekar himself, forced to march at the command of his Lothston mistress for eternity as punishment for his trespass in her home . Whatever the truth of his origins, none can doubt the sheer lethality of this fighter: with sword, lance and maul, the Black Knight can slay any man he comes across in battle with trivial ease.
****
The Realm of Day
The Royal House in King's Landing
King on the Iron Throne: Aegon Targaryen, the Fifth of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Defender of the Realm, a king who finds themselves fighting not just for the survival of the Targaryens and their inheritance of titles, but for all the Seven Kingdoms. Quickly crowned king by Lord Bloodraven after the sudden death of King Maekar outside the walls of Harrenhal, it had first seemed that King Aegon's reign would begin with a simple revolt to be crushed, but then the Riverlands fell, and then the Vale, and it became far too apparent that what the Targaryens were fighting was no mere uprising, but the greatest threat to their reign since the First Blackfyre Rebellion itself, yet this conflict is worse still than that war of brothers, for the Red Queen draws upon gifts of an unnatural, unholy origin. House Targaryen has been pushed to the absolute breaking point, but it is said that times of exceptional need have a habit of producing exceptional men, and Aegon Targaryen is one of those men. When the realm has need of soldiers who will fight desperately for their king, he comes as a king that is so beloved by the peasantry that they will do exactly that in exchange for his promises of reform and new rights. When the realm needs someone well educated to find a way to deal with such foes, he comes as a king that is forever curious and eager to learn more from the texts and tomes that might yet contain some secret of how to slay the Red Queen once and for all. When the realm needs commanders to lead its attacks and coordinate its defenses, he sends forth his sons, who are all skilled warriors. There is no Targaryen better suited for dealing with such foes, but it speaks to the sheer scale of the threat that even a man seemingly so perfectly suited to face the Red Queen struggles so much. How does one kill what is perhaps already dead? How does one slay a being with unholy powers, when items of faith seem powerless in the face of her? Dragons would have made this much simpler, that is certain, but that is something that Aegon does not have, and so this must be done with simpler, cruder means - with fire and steel.
Queen-Consort: Betha Blackwood, the bride that was married for love and who remains Aegon's beloved, there were those that thought that Black Betha might have been a traitor in their very midst, funneling information to the Rivermen that had risen in revolt, and who included her own house...but as would surprise no one who knew of her willful and stubborn nature, it was only the kindness of King Aegon Targaryen that stopped his lady wife from ordering their tongues torn out and thrown to the dogs. Though the Lothstons have tried to call upon her through her kin, her loyalty is not to the house of Blackwood anymore, but to that of her children and her husband - the Red Queen has no power over her, and though having to see her sons fight their cousins from Raventree Hall upsets her, it would not stop her from telling them to do what has to be done. Indeed, there have been more than a handful of Rivermen who have thought the same and followed her example, fleeing when they can to the Targaryen realm in the south and to King's Landing, vowing that they have no love for the Lothstons and wish instead to continue to serve the Targaryens as they have done for centuries, exiles fighting for home and country. These men have rallied together in her name, and what had once been an army from one realm has grown to incorporate Valemen and even Northerners, the Starks, who have lost their homes to the Red Queen. These men have no homes to return to without victory, and fight harder than any other force to try and retake what was once theirs, and as a show of solidarity, each and every soldier in their number wears a black ribbon around their sword arm, the mark of Betha Blackwood's personal favour, who finances their campaigns from her dower lands.
Crown Prince: Ser Duncan Targaryen, Prince of Dragonstone and the firstborn child and son both and thus heir of the Seven Kingdoms, Duncan is a prince who is the future of the Targaryens and the realm both, a future that many hope to be far more peaceful than this dark and bloody present...but before such peace might come, the war must be won, and it is a war that the crown prince has taken to with a grim dedication. Too important to be allowed to take directly to the field of battle, especially in the event that the Red Queen might get her hands on him and forcibly bestow her Gift upon him, Duncan instead serves as the overall commander of the Targaryen forces in a single region of the war, and one of the most vital: the Westerlands. Protected within the heart of Casterly Rock, a fortress mighty enough and well guarded enough to resist infiltration by would be assassins, he can oversee and command the defense in safety, only ever a week at the most from some of the heaviest fighting, and less still by raven, and though there are those amongst the nobility who would question his distance from the frontline, the commonfolk are quick to applaud his orders. Like his father and the man for whom he is named, Duncan Targaryen has a close bond with the peasantry of the realm, sometimes even preferring their company over that of the nobleborn lords that might otherwise fill his retinue, but it is that bond that has kept the Westerlands fighting. Castles have fell in the east, but rather than succumb to fear and fall back to more defensible positions, Duncan oversaw a fighting withdrawal from the eastern border, working with the lords of the Westerlands and the Warden of the West, Lord Tytos Lannister, to make the best use of the terrain to slow the advance of their foe. Such allowed a great number of lesser settlements and rural mining communities to evacuate westwards, safe from the risk of being despoiled by marauding armies. There lies the secret to the defense of the Westerlands, not in the numbers of these men, too few to make an army, but in the love that such a thing inspired in the common soldiery that hold the Lothstons at bay, knowing now that their lords care to keep their loved ones safe and sound, and such thoughts are written well in the words that Prince Duncan said: a man fights at his strongest not because he hates what it is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him. With that love of their countrymen burning within their hearts, the Westerlands holds like a fortress, with the very mountains serving as their battlements and ramparts...and as the Westerlands continue to hold, the gold continues to flow to the rest of the embattled Targaryen realm, giving their allies a fighting chance to see the war won.
But it is not just a question of war that dictates the day to day affairs of his life. Whilst he and his Baratheon bride may not necessarily be genuine lovers, the marriage is happy enough that both parties have few enough complaints, and it serves as the bedrock for the Targaryen-Baratheon alliance...and though war has slowed any chance for the two to grow much accustomed to one another, Prince Duncan has the fortune to know that he has a newborn son awaiting him at King's Landing, when this nightmare is over and done, a child that represents the hope that peace might yet conquer war.
Prince: Jaehaerys Targaryen, Prince of Summerhall and the secondborn child and son, it would be expected that a prince of his stature would take to the field of battle in his brother's stead, carrying the royal banner and surrounded by what knights of the Kingsguard can be spared, a sign that the Targaryens themselves are in the struggle alongside their vassal lords. Unfortunately for the Targaryens, the realm and Jaehaerys himself, he is a prince of poor health - long has he struggled with sickness, marking him as pale, slender and frail. It was an illness of his birth that had robbed him of the chance to be a knight, and took from him now the chance to go to war: against the unholy strength and preternatural speed of those that carry the Lothston curse, Jaehaerys Targaryen would be no use at all, and more likely to put the men around him in danger than bolster them. It was clear to all Targaryens and to their advisors that he had no place on the battlefield, or anywhere near it, but that was not the true strength of the King's secondborn son, whose mind seemed to be all the stronger for the weakness of his body. Ever fond of books and learning, Jaehaerys had a talent for sums and numbers, and it is that talent that he gives to the crown when it has need of him. Although he does not carry the title of Master of Coin, he does much of the work of that particular office personally, but such is mere menial labor - instead, the principal goal of his work is to do what has never been done, and utterly unite the economies and supplies of all seven realms into a single, unified force. It is a reform of a kind that could never pass in times of peace, for the lordso f the various kingdoms would never stand for it, but here, now, the Lothstons threaten them all, and desperate times call for the most desperate of measures. Stripping away one of the key vestiges of independence from every realm at once, Jaehaerys uses them to weave the fabric of a more centralized kingdom, one where the Crown has the power and influence to move resources of all kinds as and when it sees fit in times of crisis. For some in this war this means moving large quantities of weapons and armor, for others it means food and the oxen to carry it, but for all, it means no lord, high or low or even Paramount, can defy the rules, regulations and principles set by the Iron Throne in matters of all things economic.
But much like his elder brother, a marriage has been one of the most recent and large events in his life. He had long desired to wed his sister, Shaera, with whom he shared a special bond, similar to that of past Targaryens and their sister-wives...but the king had no interest in such unions, and planned for every child of his to wed outside the house, to end the practice of Targaryen incest once and for all. However, Jaehaerys had very nearly got his wish: when Celia Tully was lost to the Lothstons and later discovered to be marching alongside them, there seemed no obstacle for his desire to wed his sister. However, with the collapse of Targaryen control in the Riverlands and the fall of the Vale of Arryn not long after, followed then still by the Northmen, it became all the more clear to the king that he had to bind the realm together, quickly, or risk the entire kingdom falling apart in the face of the Lothston onslaught. Wasting no time on pleasantries or fanciful arrangements, the king saw to that his daughter Shaera was shipped off to the Reach for an immediate marriage to Luthor Tyrell, so as to bring the full force of the Reach to war as soon as possible...and before anything might be done to try and escape this fate, it became clear that Shaera had been impregnated on their wedding night, forever sealing her marriage to a Tyrell groom. It is said that Jaehaerys has never forgiven his father for this, with rumors circulating that he might intend to flee Westeros entirely, or perhaps worse still, turn his cloak and join the Lothstons in vengeance for the theft of his love, but so far, these rumors have proven false, and he remains within the crown capital of King's Landing, expecting his father to find him a bride sooner rather than later...
Princess: Shaera Targaryen, the thirdborn child and the firstborn daughter, Princess Shaera Targaryen's recent life is a story of tragic romance and forbidden love, the importance of duty, and the joy of finding one's place in the world. It is the material from which songs are spun, and already, the singers flock to Highgarden to record the tales of her life. It had always been intended by her mother and father that she wed outside the house and become bride to the Lord of Highgarden and master of the Reach, Luthor Tyrell, a match that many a lady would be envious for, but which she herself had no taste nor interest in, for instead, she wished to be united in matrimony with her elder brother, Jaehaerys. In another world, this could very well have happened, but the rise of the Red Queen and the march of the armies of the bat put an end to any such romantic dreams at the very moment they seemed most likely to be fulfilled, for the loss of Celia Tully meant her brother's hand was free. To his regret, King Aegon Targaryen had no time at all to allow for love of the kind that he and his wife had shared, for the Seven Kingdoms were facing the greatest struggle in their history, a war for the very survival of the realm. He refused their request to wed, and rather than allow a moment to mourn their lost love, immediately sent her on a journey to the Reach so as to bind the Targaryens and the Tyrells in union...but whilst their marriage may not have been born of love, it has certainly proven very full of possibilities for a Targaryen princess, for Luthor Tyrell is both a kindly man, but also one somewhat lost to the challenges of lordship. Ask him what a bird is in the sky and he could tell you the exact breed and whether it is male or female, ask him the name of the trees in the wood and he can give them instantly, but he finds himself lost in the myriad possibilities that come of rulership, and is more comfortable taking the advice and wisdom of his lady wife than in running the Reach directly. Indeed, this is so much the truth that it could be said that Princess Shaera rules the Reach in his stead, acting like a regent might, allowing him to focus his energies on other things more suited to his talents and to ride to war safe in the knowledge that Highgarden is in good hands, though even there, Luthor needs attending to - though no one knows it but the pair, a knight of the Arbor wrote to his sister, Olenna, that Lord Luthor was akin to a particularly excitable dog, always chasing after new things and with no mind at all for what he was doing already. Surprisingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly, this makes him a terrible commander of a host at large, but a shockingly good master of light horse.
But for Shaera herself, her husband's overly active nature presented an enormous opportunity, and it is one that she took. With child from their wedding night alone, none could doubt her claim to be the Lady of Highgarden, and from that responsibility came power, and with her husband being indisposed, the opportunity to take nearly total control over the castle, the lordship, and the Reach. Though she signs her missives in his name and with his seal, the entire region effectively marches at her command, which means that the Reach is, at least for now, effectively a Targaryen province. Home to the highest population of any of the Seven Kingdoms, it is the Reach that feeds the manpower that the royal army needs to make battle, a steady stream from a nigh inexhaustible reserve, and it is Shaera Targaryen that sees it done, and so great is her influence over the land that men call her the Green Dragon for the color of her gowns. With a young daughter, Rhaella Tyrell, to watch over, there is no doubt at all that Shaera Targaryen is doing everything she can to protect her family.
Princess: Rhaelle Targaryen, the fifthborn child and the secondborn daughter, and the only one other than Jaehaerys to currently remain unwed - Rhaelle was something of a spare for the plans of the King and his Queen in securing the Targaryen place on the throne through amicable marriages, a princess born too young to be part of the greater plans except for some consideration that she might be wed to the young Jon Arryn. Indeed, were Lord Tytos Lannister not already married and his son and heir not too young, either of them would have made a perfect match, but the hope remains that the young Tywin Lannister might yet find a Targaryen bride of his own in a generation or two, a good settling of the debts that the Targaryens are very quickly building up with the Lord of Casterly Rock. For now, however, the young Rhaelle remains unwed, a spare piece on the Westerosi battleground that Aegon might find a use for, though more than a few men have tried to win her favor all the same, boasting that they would slay Danelle Lothston and earn her hand, but all such boasts have gained them so far are shallow graves. But even as an unwed maiden, the Princess plays a part in the great war against the Lothstons - with her eldest brother too valuable to take to the field and the second too sickly, it would become all too easy for the fighting men of the royal army to grow apart from those whom they are fighting for, and from their, become despondent and easily overcome by the terrifying force of the Red Queen. To help bolster their spirits, it is not unheard of for Princess Rhaelle to visit the army before it goes into battle, speaking with the men, highborn and low, giving them gifts from the royal house, awards and medals, too, especially for those wounded fighting for the crown, and though it may not seem like much, being commended by a daughter of the King for one's deeds in battle is enough to bolster the fighting heart of a great many men, especially from the People's Princess...and getting a new pair of boots fresh from the shops of King's Landing is always a good thing.
Not to be forgotten is Ser Daeron Targaryen, the fourthborn child, who has signed his name into the White Book and become a member of the Kingsguard, with the fair approval of his father and king. His example inspires the men to fight harder, for he is the only Targaryen to be directly engaged with the Lothstons, and never alone, for even as a Kingsguard knight, a Targaryen is still a Targaryen, and so he must be protected by a fellow Kingsguard knight - his best friend and close companion, Ser Jeremy Norridge.
The Small Council
Hand of the King: Lord Lyonel Baratheon, Lord of Storm's End and Acting Warden of the East, and now, Hand of the King, Lord Lyonel is a giant of a man, just shy of seven feet of stature and with the strength to carry a greatsword with but a single hand and the swordsmanship to make use of it. Perhaps the greatest warrior in Westeros, it is not at all a surprise that King Aegon would choose him to serve as his Hand in a time when the realm is wracked with strife and the Targaryens fighting for their very survival, and so this Hand of the King is more rightly called by the people of the realm as the King's Fist, a title he wears eagerly, and has seen him replace the famous hand shaped brooch of his office with the icon of a gauntlet, clenched tight. With Aegon managing the realm and keeping it united and strong, it is Lord Lyonel who sees to teh day to day affairs of the war: ordering armies to advance or to withdraw, arranging for strongholds to be stockpiled, reinforced or abandoned, for new troops to be raised and siege engines moved from the workshops of Oldtown and King's Landing to where they can do the most good, these are all things he can do, and still, he takes to the field of battle in person. With his massive blade in one hand and a veritable wall of wood for a shield in the other, Lord Lyonel is a nigh unstoppable force in combat, cutting through men like a farmer scything through wheat, and laughing all the while as he does it. There is no man loyal to the Targaryens who can say that the sight of this does not bolster their courage, for Lyonel's courage is legend. Unfortunately for the Targaryens and for the Baratheons alike, however, Lord Lyonel is not as young as he once was, and his strength wanes when the realm has need of it most: he is fifty five years of age, and though his years bring experience and wisdom, they bleed his endurance and energy both, and more often are the times that he must remain mounted on horseback to ease the burden of moving around the field of battle than leap from the saddle to cut his way into the heaviest fighting as he might've done when young. Still, his service guides the realm well, and the union of his daughter to Prince Duncan has guaranteed the loyalty of Baratheons for generations to come.
Master of Coin: Lord Sandor Darklyn, Lord of Duskendale and Keeper of the Dunfort, a man in the middle of his years, and a man burdened greatly by the duty of his office. Although Duskendale has produced more than a few Masters of Coin over the years, few have had to conduct the work of their office under anywhere near as much pressure that Lord Sandor finds himself buried beneath now, for the war against the Lothstons is a war that threatens not just to empty the crown's coffers, but to deprive the fields of men for so long that the harvest might fail and bring forth a famine, or for trade with Essos to collapse and put an end to a vital source of weapons, armor and other war materials. Therein lies part of the truth of this war, for it is a war that will be won as much on the marketplace as it will be on the battleground, for whoever runs out of material first will surely be the loser, and the Lothstons are very, very good at inflicting more damage than they take. For the Targaryens to prevail at all is to need them to be able to replenish their losses quickly, and to do that needs the realm to be kept at peak warmaking condition for as long as possible, not for weeks, not for months, but for year after year of grueling struggle. That alone is an enormous challenge for any man, and it is a challenge that has fallen on the shoulders of the Lord of Duskendale himself. Unfortunately for the Darklyns, however, things are due to get much worse, as the war appears to be coming home. The Lothstons have made a heavy push into the Crownlands over the last few years of war, the bat trying to encircle the dragon in its lair. Crackclaw Point has already fallen to their forces but for a handful of holdouts in the eastern edge, leaving the board open for a further push to the south that would place Duskendale on the front line. With Rosby only a small castle despite attempts to improve and enlarge its defenses, Duskendale would present the last serious opposition between the Lothston war host and King's Landing itself, and such a reality means that the city must be prepared for war...and a city it has become, for in recognition of the fact that Duskendale is going to be a vital part of the defense of the Crownlands, King Aegon saw fit to give them the charter they have always wanted so as to give them the resources and independence they need to make their fortifications battle ready. Such is a feat worthy of celebration, not that it can be celebrated so soon with the bat breathing down their necks. It is for that reason that Lord Samwell has sent his son and heir, the young Denys Darklyn, to ward with the Targaryens in King's Landing; the relations between Duskendale and the capital have always been strong, and perhaps the future lord of Duskendale might make friends with those who are his lord twice over.
Master of Laws: Lord Daemon Peake, Lord of Starpike and, if the gods are kind to him, perhaps Lord of Dunstonbury and Whitegrove once more. For a house that is so down on its luck, the appointment to Master of Laws was an unexpected blessing, and has allowed the Peakes to regain some of their past glory and prestige, for it is clear to all that Lord daemon does his best to serve the king to the very peak of his abilities. But for all that he has done for King Aegon, the Peakes have a history that goes reign of his liege, and the name of this particular lord provides an obvious clue: Daemon Peake was named by his father - the infamous Lord Gormon Peake who was executed at Whitewalls for his part in the Second Blackfyre Rebellion - for the first Daemon Blackfyre, and his house has been more fond of the black dragon than the red one ever since the start of that conflict. It could very well have even been that the Peakes might have rebelled to try and reclaim the two castles that were stripped from them in the aftermath of the first Blackfyre Rebellion, but however history could have gone in another world, in this one, King Aegon recognises the critical need to reconcile the black and red dragons, for a Westeros of divided loyalties would never withstand the power of the Lothstons. The appointing of a relatively minor house to the role of Master of Laws shows that Aegon is serious in his promises of amnesty and unity, for the Peakes were Blackfyre men through and through, but black or red, a dragon is still a dragon. Such words are poetic, but of mixed reception here and there; for Brynden Rivers in Westeros, it is little more than a momentary foolishness, for too much blood has been shed for peaceful words to ever mend. Yet for many within Westeros, it at least provides some kind of opportunity to bury the Blackfyre Rebellions once and for all, and indeed, it seems this may have delayed an attempt by the Golden Company to march on Westeros, for it was rumored that the Golden Company was preparing to embark for Westeros in 236AC under the banner of Daemon Blackfyre, whose supporters styled him as Daemon III, yet this invasion never materialized for whatever reason.
But moving away from the past and to the present, and considering the tainted nature of his house's recent history and the question of its loyalties, his appointment to the Small Council came as a surprise for many, for whilst the Peakes had once been a great house, those days were behind them now...but despite coming from lesser standings than most, Aegon had a free choice of a great many houses sympathetic to the Blackfyre cause, even the Yronwoods in Dorne, and settled on a Peake because he knew him to be competent. It is that competency that he needs, not for reforms, but to hold the Westerosi system of laws together. With the Lothstons forever pushing against the Targaryens, trying to find a vulnerability, the patrols that would have once hunted for brigands and kept the threat of banditry in line have been needed elsewhere, allowing such things to fester and grow, and stopping the situation from getting any worse with the least amount of resources possible is what Lord Daemon Peake must do. It is a work easier said than done, but the fact that the realm has not fallen into anarchy shows that he knows what he is doing.
Master of Whispers: Ser Brynden Rivers, the Bloodraven, a man on the Small Council who needs no introduction at all, a living legend with the darkest of reputations. The man that slew Daemon Blackfyre, rooted out their supporters and crushed their second uprising before it could begin, it was Ser Brynden who had provided King Maekar with intelligence and information on his march to Harrenhal, but even he could not have expected this. Believed to have bizarre, sorcerous powers, many have heard the words that he has a thousand eyes and one, but against the Lothstons, he was blind, for Maekar went to Harrenhal not to crush a revolt, but to die there, and since then, the realm has bled to feed the thirst of the Red Queen and her kin. With the Targaryens having been decimated by sickness and rebellion and now by war, he was the only one amongst their number with anything approaching genuine battlefield experience, and twenty years ago, when the rebellion was still young, would have had the youth to ride to war still. For many, he seemed the obvious commander for the Targaryen war host, for with him and his legendary company of Raven's Teeth and their weirwood bows, the hope was that he might have been able to end the war at the very start by somehow slaying the Red Queen much as he had ended the First Blackfyre Rebellion. However, Lord Bloodraven has had to remain in King's Landing for a time: perhaps as a credit to the success of his time as Master of Whispers, he has earnt the personal attentions of the Red Queen. Recognising him as a man born of the Riverlands, she desires to return this particular sheep to its flock, or if such cannot be done, to butcher him like mutton, and more still, the Lothstons have spies and influence enough in King's Landing that she would very quickly know of his absence and dispatch her champions to capture him. Such a thing cannot be allowed to pass, for those who receive the Blood Gift can refuse no command of their mistress, and Lord Brynden knows far too much about the defenses of the Targaryens. Should he be captured, it would compromise the entire Targaryen house, allowing the Lothstons to destroy the crown's own networks of spies, informants and infiltrators, or worse, to coerce them for their own use. For this reason, he remains within the capital, organizing things from the background, and more, he maintains a number of poisons on his person, able to claim his own life in the event he should be captured...but what he is up to in the deep, dark tunnels of the Red Keep, no one knows.
Master of Ships: Lord Lucion Hightower, Lord of the Hightower, the Port and Oldtown, Lord Lucion would seem something of an odd choice for Master of Ships, for whilst his city has a port, the naval prowess of the Hightowers is much eclipsed by those of the Redwynes, and the Velaryons have a long history of serving the Targaryens in this office. But it is not a question of what is that shapes the placement of Lord Lucion, but a question of what will be. Oldtown is the second greatest of all the cities of Westeros, and a vital port for trade throughout the realm, but all its focus on the sea, the Hightowers have never truly been one of the great naval powers of Westeros. Under King Aegon Targaryen, however, that is going to change: with Tytos Lannister willing to provide gold as needed to the crown without hesitation, over a hundred thousand gold dragons have been invested in the construction of a massive new dockyard within Oldtown itself, constructed not in the traditional Westerosi fashion, but modelled upon the great Arsenal of Braavos. It is a fortress in its own right, able to be quickly and easily locked down to protect itself from the Ironborn or any who might do it harm, but far more vital is that it will be able to produce war galleys at a phenomenal rate: a new ship could be lain down at the keel on the first day of a week and launched just seven days later, or so the hope goes. As of now it is only partially complete and will require another five hundred thousand gold dragons to finish, coin that is flowing in from all over the realm and from the treasury of the Hightower in specific, but already, it is able to produce warships faster than any other yard under the rule of the Targaryens - using cranes powered by cattle and with armies of carpenters, ropemakers and smiths, three of what is intended to be twenty slips are already open and at production, allowing for new warships to be launched on a nearly monthly basis. A great deal of work remains to be done, for the Great Shipyard of Oldtown is only expected to be complete some ten years from now, and needs seasoning sheds for drying timber, workrooms for the various craftsmen, offices and private spaces for the naval architects that design war galleys and a massive variety of other things from workshops for building siege engines to ropewalks a mile long, all that needs to be done. But when it is, the hope is that it will mark a permanent end to the Ironborn threat, for Westeros will have multiple great fleets in the west that will give it such supremacy as to make immediate invasion of the Iron Islands themselves possible.
Grand Maester: The young, and shockingly brilliant, Pycelle, a man who was not even meant to be Grand Maester, or so it is said, for a multitude of candidates were meant before him, but they were both old and decrepit men, and each and every one of them died on the way to King's Landing. With the realm in chaos, it is not at all surprising that King Aegon asked for them to send someone young, someone guaranteed to survive the trip, and so the young Pycelle was chosen. But it was not by youth alone that he earned the title of Grand Maester, for by all accounts, Pycelle is a rare breed of mind indeed, wearing a dozen different links in his chain at thee mere age of thirty four, Pycelle is one of the strongest minds to have been seen in Westeros since the arrival of Aegon the Conqueror. There is little put before him that he does not understand, and little that can be pondered for which he does not already have an answer, a strength that the king has sore need of in this most trying of times. Often is the Grand Maester called on for aid and advice, and often does he give it, providing insight into the nature of the realm's finances, the structure of its markets and the nature of its geography, everything he can do to help the Targaryens in their war. Of course, outside of his attempts to aid and advise the king, the Grand Maester is also hard at work doing his own research, studying every tome of history and legend he might find to see if there is any recorded accounts of someone akin to the Red Queen ever emerging in Westeros before, and if so, how their ancient forefathers might've dealt with it. He has also leant his considerable knowledge to the science of warcraft, working with the men of the Street of Steel to try and devise new weapons that could turn the tide of war. Their work on replicating Essosi crossbow designs has proven quite successful, and his designs for a hand cranked crossbow that can be rapidly made ready for another bolt are an improvement over even the latest Myrish examples of craftsmanship, though unfortunately it has yet to be determined if such a weapon will be of any use against the Red Queen and her ilk. Still, it presents something of a threat for the giant bats that seem to be spreading across the realm out of the Riverlands, for being able to fill the skies with quarrels is a nightmare enough for anything that isn't a dragon to say the least.
Lords of the Realm
Lord of the Reach: Lord Luthor Tyrell, Lord Paramount of the Mander, Lord of Highgarden and Warden of the South, along with a myriad number of other lesser titles, Lord Luthor is a man of a mixed reputation in Westeros, none of which is bad. Young, strong, confident, there were many who thought that his rule of the Reach would bring forth a golden age for the Tyrells, but a trait that those close to him knew of that so many others did not was that he was somewhat...inattentive. Though there was certainly nothing wrong with his mind and many would applaud his tireless energy, Luthor is a man who is never content to stay in one place, nor to focus on one thing, for too long: Luthor Tyrell is a man who must always be doing something, and better still if that is something new or something he hasn't done in a long while. This would have perhaps been a problem with the Reach, for ruling one of the greatest of the constituent realms of Westeros is a task that can be far more mundane and routine than he would enjoy, but to his great fortune, and to the fortune of many of his lords, he happened to find himself with the hand of a Targaryen princess, Shaera, who was entirely happy to take on such responsibilities, especially as it became clear that their marriage would be an entirely content one, as proven by the child she bore just nine months after their wedding. But if she is able to rule Highgarden for him, then he is free to take to the field of battle, and has done exactly that as a master of light horse. Taking his massive warhorse and wearing full plate, but removing his steed's heavy bardings, the Lord of the Highgarden rides with his men in the field, forever darting from one place to the next, unable to be chased, unable to be predicted, slipping here and there like a bee darting around a man's hands. In one moment he will be hunting archers in the backline, and in the next, chasing down fleeing men, and in the next, going after the baggage train, and in the next, coming about to support a knightly charge. This gives the man a reputation for being as predictable as a game of dice, which is to say, not at all, and feeds off his ceaseless energy and desire to do new things in a way that makes him a very dangerous foe indeed.
Lord of the Westerlands: Lord Tytos Lannister, Lord of Casterly Rock, Shield of Lannisport and Warden of the West, a man that many know and love as the Laughing Lion...a man, some discontented vassals realize, who has the direct backing of the Iron Throne itself. Famous across the realm for his generous and open handed nature, Lord Tytos Lannister puts the legendary wealth of Casterly Rock to work, giving loans to any who might ask of them, from powerful lords of the land to merchants in need of investment to the occasional lowborn tradesman, who might need but a handful of gold dragons to double the size of their smithy or give their bakery new ovens. A few might call him weak for such things, for he cares not for interest, but is more known for taking joy in making these things possible, for being delighted at seeing the works and wonders that his coin can create - if he charged interest, some said, he could've sent his gold dragons out and had them return with hatchlings, but he doesn't. Yet it is the great generosity of this Lord of Lannister that has proven itself one of the saving graces of the Targaryens, for in their greatest hour of need did they have a lord in the Rock willing to throw open the doors of their vaults and allow the Targaryens to take what they must, loans at a fair price to be repaid at the end of the war and in the years that follow. It was gold that the crown needed desperately, and gold that they have spent well: the hiring of mercenaries from across the Narrow Sea to bulk up their forces with veteran troops and provide skilled drill masters to hone the levies into a force capable of withstanding the fury of the Rivermen is one vital thing, as was hiring skilled engineers and architects to modernize their fortresses and to man their siege engines. More, it allowed for orders to made to armories and weapon foundries across the South and in the Free Cities both, allowing a constant supply of good quality weapons and armour to outfit the troops, to say nothing of the carpenters hard at work on siege engines, the horsemen who owe their steeds to recent loans and the masons working on repairing and upgrading castles in key regions. Were it not for the generosity of Tytos Lannister, none of it would have been possible, and all of Westeros might've found itself answering to a new, blood thirsty mistress. For this reason, the Targaryens hold him in great esteem, and watch over the Lion of Lannister with a protective gaze; though some might grumble with discontent, none would dare act on it, not when he has the protection of a far greater power.
Lord of the Stormlands: Though this title accurately belongs to Lord Lyonel Baratheon, it is in reality mostly fulfilled by his son and heir, Ser Ormund Baratheon, who serves as the acting Lord of Storm's End whilst his father conducts the business of war. Of lesser and more limited power compared to his father, there is not as much for him to do as for the other lords of Westeros, but that does not mean that he has nothing on which to work: with the Red Queen intent on driving southwards and likely to try and take King's Landing before the end of the year, it has become all the more important that the Targaryens have a place to retreat to in the event of that the city might fall. Dragonstone would be that place, but the fall of the capital and the loss of its port would leave the Targaryens with few ways to return to the mainland, taking them too far from the action, but there is another holding that could serve as a replacement lair for the three headed dragon: Summerhall. Although designed and built to serve more as a palace than a fortress, Ser Ormund has been given the work of seeing the third of the Targaryen holdings made ready for war, with proper battlements, a reserve of food and water for sieges, and a proper armory to outfit a proper garrison. Such work is far easier said than done, for the "keep" of Summerhall is built for comfort and luxury, not defensibility, where its design to let in as much light as possible on a bright summer's day would only serve to let in a great number of troops if it ever came under attack., to say nothing of how it lacked a proper curtain wall and had no real gatehouse but for a fanciful archway. To construct such things is outside the knowledge of most men, Ser Ormund included, but he has a great knack for numbers and the management of projects in general, a natural sense of leadership strong enough to understand the value of delegation - traits, men would say, that would make him a natural candidate to be Hand of the King in his own right, were his father not already filling the post. Such abilities means that he oversees the construction of these defenses more loosely as part of a general work on fortifying the Stormlands and making ready for war, and of course, in aiding their allies and king in fighting back the Lothstons; with the Rainwood full of trees, some so ancient as to predate Aegon's Conquest, the Stormlands has no shortage of timber with which to make into bows, spears, siege engines and raw material for fortifications of all kinds. More critically, however, is how Ser Ormund keeps the Targaryen banner soaring high in the east, and especially on Tarth - a reminder to the Essosi, and to the slaver ships that might prowl the Narrow Sea, that the war has not stripped away all of their strength. Such might not be enough to keep the Blackfyres at bay forever, but there is no harm in trying.
Princess of Dorne: Princess Ariandra Nymeros-Martell, Princess of Dorne and Lady of Sunspear, the young mistress of Dorne, and a new mother, too, having given birth to a baby boy, Doran Martell, just a few years ago. The furthest removed from the fighting of all the great leaders of Westeros, it would be easy to believe that Princess Ariandra has little interest in the conflict, or little vested in it, but this would be a mistake: when the defense of the North collapsed at Moat Cailin and the Ironborn bent the knee, it became far too clear that this was not a conflict that would ignore the Dornishmen if allowed to come near their lands. The Principality of Dorne was sworn to serve the Targaryens ever since the days of the second Daeron, and when the Targaryens called on them for their arms, the Princess answered, sending hosts of spearmen north to support the crown in its war against the Lothston usurpers...but these sons of the desert sun fared as poorly as most did against the Red Queen, and the victory they promised the crown failed to materialize. But the spear is a reliable weapon, piercing and defensive both, and though it failed to win them an easy victory, it serves as one of the cornerstones that keep the Targaryens in the war and the Red Queen from asserting dominion over Westeros as a whole, with Dornish troops providing a strong and reliable wall to support their allies. More critically, however, is that Dorne is thus far outside the reach of the Red Queen entirely, a place of safety for those things that need protection the most - a great many lords near the battlefront have sent their sons and daughters to Dorne for safety in the event that their castles are lost, and with King Aegon desiring to waste as few lives as possible, those warships of the royal fleet that might be spared often bring the wounded from the war in the Crownlands to Dorne, where dedicated hospitals have been raised to tend to their injuries, see them healed, and made ready to return to battle as soon as is possible. Such is a revolutionary new approach to warfare, for even in the Blackfyre Rebellions it would have been more likely for the wounded to be left to fend for themselves in the baggage train or perhaps delivered to a septry for some modest care, but desperate times do not call only for desperate measures, but new ones, innovative ones, to gain whatever edge they might give. Preserving the lives of his lowborn troops might seem an oddity, but the advantages are obvious, for men fight harder when they have some confidence that their injuries might be tended to, and those who are wounded are the most experienced of all, the core of a far stronger army.
Champions of the Kingsguard
Lord Commander, Ser Duncan the Tall, a living legend who rose from the gutters of Flea Bottom to serve as Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, Ser Duncan is considered to be one of a handful of true knights in the history of Westeros, more so than many born into nobility, a hallowed fraternity that counts other greats like Ser Aemon the Dragonknight and Ser Galladon of Morne. It is well that the Kingsguard is led by a man of such talents, for the realm has need of him now more than ever, for the Tall carries the hopes of a realm upon his shoulders, for he is believed to be the only swordsman of such skill and calibre as to have even the slightest chance of slaying the Red Queen...yet this hope is tempered with fear, for so far, no one knows a means by which she might be felled. With holy oils and icons of faith did the first knights try, but these did nothing against her, and the Northmen had little luck with things cut from weirwood or done in the gaze of their heart trees, but just as little use were swords and arrows. Even fire did so very little to her, an attempt made in case the Essosi were right, but doused in hot oil and set ablaze, the Red Queen had walked through the flame howling in agony, skin growing back faster than it had melted before regaining her composure. What then, is to be done? Stab her through the heart and hope it works? Try and behead her? No one knows what to do, but Aegon has a hope, born of a childhood tale - the gods themselves had once gave a magical sword to the greatest champion of all of Andaldom, and it is perhaps only that sword which might be enough. That sword would be the Just Maid, carried forth by Ser Galladon of Morne and drawn only ever against beings of an unnatural and demonic nature, yet the blade has been lost for so long, but if it could be found, and delivered to the hands of a knight skilled enough to use it...
Ser Donnel of Duskendale, a knight who hails from a family of the lowest nobility and who had risen to great influence and ability in his prime, Ser Donnel of Duskendale rode gloriously at the Tourney of Ashford Meadow, taking part in Aerion Targaryen's doomed trial by seven. He had been a great knight then, but he had been over ten years the elder of a young Duncan...a Duncan who is now fifty six years of age. Ser Donnel is the old man of the Kingsguard, now, a champion whose greatest days are yet behind him at just shy of seventy years, but despite his age, he carries a weight of experience that younger knights would be wise to listen to: though it shames him, Ser Donnel has outlived a great many kings and princes. Daeron, Aerys and Maekar have all perished during his time in the white cloak, as have princes and princesses, a thing that more than a few would consider to be a sign of incompetence on his part for him to have survived so many of his charges, but with the years comes an understanding of where and how things might go wrong, and what needs to be done to make sure that the Targaryens remain safe. It is simple enough to say that one should have a food-taster, but how should this office be filled, how long should they be allowed to sample, how long between a sample being taken and a Targaryen being served must they wait, and at what point is the food taster to be placed? In the kitchens, on the way to the hall, at the dais itself? What of antidotes to common poisons, of which there are so many that must be considered? Which are to be kept close, and which can be kept further away? If the king must be induced to vomit for a fear of poison, how should this be done to minimize harm to his personage? If the king is to make a royal appearance, from where is the most likely risk of assassination? From the streets with a knife? From a window with a crossbow? From above, from behind, perhaps from below in the drains and gutters with a poisoned blowpipe? These are all questions that a knight of the Kingsguard must consider, and they are all things that Ser Donnel of Duskendale knows the answer to. What he lacks in raw battle ability, now, he provides with planning and consideration.
Ser Rolland Darklyn, the youngest ever bearer of a white cloak, and a man who very nearly lost his life within an hour of receiving it, he is one of the few surviving members of King Maekar's own Kingsguard. He had received his cloak with the expectation that he would be able to join the king for the assault on Harrenhal, an assault that turned into a massacre when the Red Queen beheaded his king and lifted his severed head high over the field. Badly wounded by an arrow that very nearly found an artery, he had already been evacuated from the field of battle by the time it turned into a rout, making it possible for him to find a horse and ride to King's Landing, bleeding through his bandages and nearly dying half a dozen times on the way. He had only been seventeen, then, and the wound could have crippled him for life, but it did not, and instead filled a young man with a terrible determination. He is the only one of the Kingsguard knights to have seen the Red Queen in person and lived to tell the tale, and his stories of what he saw that day are legend. The wound leaves him less able to fight on foot, for it permanently weakened his left leg, but on horseback, it is very easy to see why King Maekar chose him for the Kingsguard: with the speed of a mount to make up for his wound and a lance or sword in his hand, he silences any who would have thought him too weak to be truly worthy of the white cloak of a Kingsguard knight. Such a reality of his wound means that he is rarely given sentry duty, but instead given the work of protecting the Targaryen princes whenever they go to war, riding at their side as their last line of defense...and having seen the Red Queen with his own two eyes and stared into the face of death itself, there is not a mortal man in all of Westeros that could put fear into the heart of this one.
Ser Harlan Grandison, one of the younger members, and one who brings a great strength to the Kingsguard even without many tournament victories to his name. In what is an unusual fluke, but one that plays to the advantage of the Kingsguard, Ser Harlan Grandison is much like the symbol of his house during the day: a sleeping lion. In what more than a few were concerned could've been a marker of him carrying the Blood Gift of the Red Queen and perhaps being an assassin sent to slay the king, Ser Harlan is most active during the night rather than during the day - it took the flight of ravens to his homeland and the direct arrival of kin, and the maester, to explain that Ser Harlan had been like this since he was but a boy, with the maester explaining that he simply seems to suffer from a nearly total inversion of sleeping routine than almost everyone else in Westeros. When other men are getting ready for bed, he is about to wake up, and as others go fast asleep, he wanders down to the larder to find a meal when all the servants are abed. Such makes him a very unique and rare addition to the Kingsguard, for not only is he a capable warrior, he is at the absolute peak of his awareness when all other men are tired, and has absolutely no complaints at all about taking the night watch, of which he can stand the entire shift by himself if needed. Sleeping through the day and on watch at night, he is the perfect guard to keep watch for the night-haunting children of the Red Queen, but he is also the most likely to encounter them if they should make a strike against the king. For that reason, he has taken the challenge of finding a counter to them very seriously: his armor is covered from top to bottom in etchings of the seven sided star, and he regularly has it polished with a mixture of ink made from weirwood leaves and the holy oils of the Faith, and keeps bottles of both on his belts...and in a curious practice taken from stories from the Rivermen trying to avoid a visit from their liege lady, he has developed a fond appetite for garlic toast in the evening, and keeps a healthy sized bulb in his pocket. Whether this works is a mystery, but to Ser Harlan's credit, there has indeed been no attempt on the King's life since he started such practices, so perhaps they might very well work.
Ser Jeremy Norridge, a recent addition to the Kingsguard, it is thought by more than a few jealous knights that he would never have had the chance at all at a white cloak if it was not for his childhood friendship with a young Daeron Targaryen when both of them were but squires at Highgarden, saying that he is nowhere near good enough with a weapon to have such an honor. Whatever the truth of how he joined the elite warrior fraternity that is the Kingsguard, there can be no denying that his abilities are better than most expected; bravery is nine tenths of being a good fighter, and courage is something that Ser Jeremy Norridge has in abundance. First into battle and last to leave the field, Ser Jeremy fights with a fanatical devotion to the Targaryens and for his sworn brother of the Kingsguard, Ser Daeron Targaryen, a bravery married to a youthful exuberance that sees him fight against the Lothstons with an indefatigable determination. It is that which makes him one of the most valuable wearers of a white cloak, for many amongst the common soldiery are deeply afraid of the enemies that might be across the field from them, fearful for their immortal souls in the event that they fall into the hands of the Red Queen, the Blood Knights of her Queensguard and her adopted kin. For them to see a knight of the Kingsguard push on against them with a smile and a jape, utterly unfazed by the nature of the enemies he might meet in battle, does much and more to bolster their spirits and make them realise that they too have a fighting chance of victory, not an easy one, but one that they can win all the same if they fight hard enough and with enough determination. To say that this is an important thing is to understate the value of it, for morale is the greatest decider of war, and the men of the Targaryen armies need every encouragement they can get to face beings that seem to radiate dread itself...yet his greatest strength is only revealed when his sworn brother, Daeron, is on the field alongside him, for the two fight with such a perfect coordination as to seem as though they were twin brothers with how well they can predict one another's actions.
Ser Daeron Targaryen, the youngest son of the king and his fourth born child over all, it is said that the bond of friendship between him and Ser Jeremy Norridge was so great that he could not help but follow him into the Kingsguard when the opportunity presented itself, and beseeched his father for the chance to do so in the aftermath of Maekar's attack on Harrenhal, which saw his Kingsguard all but destroyed. It was not an easy choice for the King, who was tempted more by the idea of using his youngest son to find another marital alliance of some kind, but with his elder children wed into strong alliances and none of them allowed to follow their hearts in the face of duty, he found that he could not refuse this desire and request so easily, and after a few days of consideration, granted it...after making it clear that he would have to take to the field of battle in his eldest brother's stead, to show for all to see that the Targaryens are in this fight along with everyone else. It was a condition that he accepted, and so Ser Daeron TArgaryen joined the knights of the Kingsguard as one of their younger members, eagerly joining his sword with that of his closest of friends and lifelong companion, Ser Jeremy Norridge, who protects him as a Targaryen when the two are on the field together, and often are they, for a duty of the Kingsguard is to command the King's armies and keep them from harm that way, and Ser Daeron has the birth and rank to do exactly that. With the war devouring Westeros providing ample chance to gather the necessary experience, Ser Daeron served first as a subordinate to more experienced men before taking command of a full royal warhost of some fifteen thousand men, and it is that army that he leads to war in the Crownlands itself, trying to stall the Lothston advance before it might become a drive on King's Landing itself. For all the nobility of his role and duties, however, there are rumors about him and Ser Jeremy Norridge to do with the nature of their relationship, not that anyone would dare to say them...
Ser Gerold Hightower, the White Bull, the newest member of the Kingsguard, Ser Gerold's title is well earnt, for he is a giant of a man, only a fraction smaller than Lord Lyonel Baratheon himself. Though he is not so fortunate as to be able to say that he carries the long lost Valyrian steel blade of the Hightowers, none can deny his skill with a sword or lance, skills that go beyond simply making use of his great brawn to crush the foe with hammering strikes, but with a genuine finesse, able to place the tip of his sword into the lightly armoured joints of a man in full plate with surprising regularity, and more still, to back that precision with the strength to punch through ringmail and make a bloody wound into a mortal one. But success in battle is but only one part of being a good knight, and Ser Gerold combines them with grace, dignity and loyalty, a practiced nobility and etiquette that makes him popular both on and off the battlefield with the highborn lords and the common soldiery alike. Altogether, he is a very strong addition to the Kingsguard, a man that bolsters its strength, but with that understanding comes comes another: but only for the Lord Commander and Ser Donnel of Duskendale, the Kingsguard is filled with a whole new generation of knights, men who will replace those veterans of the Blackfyre Rebellions and tell those young squires to follow them of their deeds in fighting the Lothstons in the decades to come, and from those five is surely the next Lord Commander after Ser Duncan the Tall...but with Ronnel carrying a permanent injury, Harlan nocturnal with a preference for sleeping through the day, and with Norridge and Daeron preferring to share duties in close proximity, it would seem that only Ser Gerold Hightower could be said to be the perfect fit for the role of Lord Commander.
Situations & Peoples of the Realm
The Night's Watch: Kept under the trusted care of Ser Martyn Crakehall, the 994th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, the black brothers have had both good times and bad times, and the latter has led to the former. Now as in ancient days, the order is sworn to remain neutral in the affairs of the rest of the realm, and takes no sides in the conflict between the Lothstons and the Targaryens, a thing that has spared them from conflict with either side and even saw them receive a visit from the Red Queen, curious as to their situation at the edge of the world, the first visit by anyone of a royal title to the Wall in decades. Such is part of the good, for the war in the rest of Westeros has led to the Night's Watch receiving a great influx of recruits ever since Maekar died at Harrenhal, with noblemen being banished to the Wall if their kin could not afford to pay a ransom, and with them comes the occasional group of lowborn sergeants and captains, all helping to provide them with a much needed base of experienced manpower to bolster the defense of the realm at large. Where the downsides, come, then, is that regular recruitment is all but halted, as the wandering crows that might travel the realm looking for recruits cannot make it safely across the war torn lands of Westeros, and more still, the donations that they might've counted on from a myriad number of lords over the realm have also been cut off, and so they find themselves with a dire lack of coin. With the New and Old Gifts to provide them with food and drink such things are not necessarily lethal to the order, but coin is needed for far more than that, and its shortage hurts the order's ability to acquire raw materials. Were it not for the lack of coin, they might very well have been able to bring another castle back to support the five they have left: Castle Black, Eastwatch-by-the-Sea and Westwatch-by-the-Bridge are all so heavily manned as to be on the verge of being overpopulated and unable to support the number of black brothers that call them home, but without the coin to repair Icemark and Queensgate, there's not much that the Night's Watch can do to make use of its new strength.
The Citadel: The long serving order of thinkers, healers and advisors, the Citadel is no stranger to a Westeros divided, having long served the Seven Kingdoms even when they were still truly seven separate kingdoms, and they know how to survive when parts of their order happen to be on opposite sides of a war from one another. The war between the Lothstons and the Targaryens is not particularly different from anything that they have seen before, and as before and as surely they will have to do again in the future, the Citadel maintains strict neutrality in this conflict - they serve the realm, not any specific house. Such leads to grumbling from many, but survival for all of their members, and that is the real goal of the order in making sure that the knowledge that they have accrued over the years manages to survive the conflict without harm and is ready to serve another generation...but neutrality is a delicate line to walk, and the Citadel finds it difficult to keep both the Lothstons and the Targaryens happy. The former does not ask much, only for them to serve as they always have and provide advice, the use of the ravens and the care of their healing knowledge for those that have need of it, but they do not take kindly to the Targaryens asking them for advice on how to slay the Red Queen, and the Targaryens in turn do not like how it seems that the Citadel is playing both sides in order to be ready to take up work with whoever comes out on top. Still, this does not mean that the Citadel is not trying to keep both sides happy, however difficult such a task can be.
The Blackfyres and the Golden Company: Although Westeros finds itself ravaged by war by a new enemy of the Targaryens, are more traditional and older foe finds itself watching the slaughter from across the Narrow Sea, a force that could play a vital role in the years ahead if it should get involved - the Blackfyres. Once a grave threat to the Targaryens of King's Landing for their claim on the Iron Throne, two failed attempts to take the Iron Throne have bled much of their former support, and they must now count on the backing of their great mercenary brotherhood, the Golden Company, the finest band of hired soldiery to be found in the world, though one neither of the factions at war in Westeros would dare to hire due to the name of the man that leads it. Daemon Blackfyre, or Daemon III Blackfyre if one considers him to be the rightful king, has led the Golden Company ever since the death of its founder, Aegor Rivers, and is a battle tested commander of men with sons of his own ready to take up the cause in the event he should falter, and the Golden Company itself has swollen with the contracts to fight in the wars of the Free Cities that other bands chose to abandon in favor of fighting in Westeros. All this has done much to rebuild their strength, and the Golden Company eagerly marches to war with the banner of the black dragon soaring overhead. All this has led to King's Landing keeping the closest of eyes on them, fearing that the y might take this chance to smash the Targaryens once and for all, but despite the weakness of the Westerosi, the Golden Company has shown no real sign of activity in the Narrow Sea...something that is as distressing as it is comforting, for it surely means that they are up to something. What that something is an uncertainty, but there are thoughts that they may be preparing to topple the government of one of the Free Cities and install a penny king of merchant origin to further fund their wandering army, or perhaps more likely, they are instead content to watch and wait as the Targaryens and Lothstons bleed one another dry...and then sweep in at the end to crush both sides and take Westeros for themselves. Whatever the truth, the Blackfyres lurk in the shadows as a threat unseen...and especially since the Iron Throne has lost sight of Aenys I Blackfyre, who should be master of the Golden Company as a trueborn son of the first Daemon.
The Starks: When Edwyle Stark died at Moat Cailin, he died with the knowledge that his lady wife was already with child, and though he never lived to know if it was a boy or a girl, Lady Stark gave birth in the back of a carriage fleeing Winterfell to a son to carry his name and legacy - little Rickard Stark, the rightful lord of Winterfell and the North. He is a little lord that would never have made it out of the North were it not for the help of ancient allies and the deliberate ignorance of those who would be their enemies to give them a fighting chance, the reluctant Boltons knowing of his existence and allowing him and his mother to flee, but with the warning that they cannot surrender the North to them without the Red Queen being disposed of, else the Boltons will join them in having a child lord in exile. For that reason, Lord Rickard must be raised in the south, in King's Landing where it is safe, and it is there that he has grown to manhood: at eighteen years of age, he is a Stark with no memory of the North or of Winterfell, a boy who has only ever known the warmth of the summer courts of King's Landing and who never learnt much and more from his father, a thing that presents the death of a great many traditions...but for all that, he is a Stark all the same, of unbroken lineage tracing back to Brandon the Builder himself. Some believe that he is a potential candidate for the hand of Rhaelle Targaryen, but until he has a seat of his own, there is not much worth in a union with an exile, but that does not mean that he does not help in the war, for he wears the black ribbon of the Blackwood queen's own army, and hopes to do a part to help in ending this war once and for all so that he might finally see the castle that his mother has told him so much about.
Tywin Lannister: The son and heir of the Westerlands, Tywin Lannister is an eight year old boy who knows of nothing but this war, and yet nothing truly of it, protected from the worst of it all by his father. Harder and harsher than Tytos Lannister had ever been, some thought that his eventually rule over the Westerlands could have seen the emergence of a strong man in Casterly Rock, someone who could wield the power of the Lannisters like a hammer...but the reality of the war against the Lothstons has shaped him as much as it has shaped so many other young boys, and put this future Lion of Lannister on an entirely new path. Though he had always doubted that his father's open handed approach to using coin was wise, the reality of it as being critical to the defense of the realm has made him second guess that judgement, and the presence of Prince Duncan in his home, who has taught him much of the critical importance of inspiring love in the commonfolk, for it is only their dedication and support that can make any resistance to the Red Queen possible, has done even more still. He understands that there is a great strength and power in being beloved of the masses, for the peasantry, although initially of little importance, are perhaps the single most important resource he has - it is they that forge the weapons for Lannister knights, they that garrison Lannister castles, and they that endure the worst hardships. They are the backbone of the realm, and it is only with their support that it is possible for the Lannisters to endure the worst that the Lothstons can throw at them. Learning that lesson has changed this boy for the rest of his life, for he understands now that his lord father is no fool, but far more clever than he might seem: Lannister gold might seem powerful, but it is the love that it buys that is what keeps the Westerlands secure.
Maegor Targaryen: A prince of the royal blood and technically of the superior line as his father was Aerion Targaryen, Aegon's elder brother, Maegor had not even been conceived when his grandfather was slain and his uncle crowned, for Lord Bloodraven had no interest at all in crowning Prince Aerion when the realm was heading for civil war, and Aerion Targaryen himself died in somewhat mysterious circumstances the year after, perhaps assassinated by the Master of Whispers to keep him from trying to crown himself and risk fracturing the Targaryens when they need unity most. But for all the fears, the son is not the father, and the Maegor that was a newborn babe in 233AC has grown into a young man by 250AC, a young man who happens to be a close friend of Lord Rickard Stark and a young man who is treated better by his uncle Aegon than Aegon ever was by Maegor's own father. Not considered a "true" part of the royal family due to being a brother of the king, he is still a valuable and important man, though one too young for command of any armies or to take part in battle. Fortunately, he is not expected to, for King Aegon intends to send him to Oldtown when he has the chance so that Prince Maegor might be able to serve as a royal representative to the new fleet and shipyard that is being built there, and make sure that the crown's funds are being well spent and not invested in a Hightower plot to welcome the Red Queen with gifts and gold in the event the Crownlands collapse.
****
As he looked up to the broken spires of Harrenhal, he was not nearly so certain that he was doing the right thing as heh ad been on the day he had first set out, with defiance burning in his breast like a second sun and the invitation clutched tightly in his hands. The escape had been easy enough, and he had done it eagerly, but now...now he felt his confidence and certainty ebbing away, weighed down by the bleak atmosphere and air of this place. He had hoped to arrive with the sun still high in the sky, but rain had washed out the roads and seen him reach his destination at the exact time on the parchment: the dead of night, with only a full moon trapped behind thick grey clouds to guide his steps through the mists that so covered this part of the Riverlands, a suffocating blanket of damp chill. It rippled and rolled as if it was alive, disturbed by the low breeze that came in off the God's Eye lake, earthy and wet, but it was the noise of the wind he heard the most, a low and faint whistle, almost like a scream heard through a wall, and he would've thought it a scream if he hadn't realised that it was the sound of the air flowing through the most damaged parts of Black Harren's monstrous and cursed stronghold. Bats chirped in the dark, wings fluttering. Torches burnt on the castle's ramparts, and braziers too, lighting the scaffolds that surrounded the walls of Harrenhal like scabs wrought of wood, flickering flames that rivaled the stars above in number. It all felt to him as if he had walked out of the Westeros he knew and into the land of a mummer's tale, into some story or song of nightmare and horror meant to frighten men and children alike.
Mayhaps he had.
He swallowed, hard. His throat and mouth were dry, but no drink could quench a thirst born of deep, gnawing fear. He was not sure of this, now. Would it be too late to turn around and pretend this journey had never happened? Would his kin even take him back if they knew anything of this treachery? To have received the invitation and said nothing of it was a dangerous choice in its own right. To have accepted it and made the journey, that was treason. Treason, treachery, betrayal. He could hear the words already, and they filled him with a grim resolve. There was no going back, now. Not truly, not easily. Things would never be as they once were, and what they once were was not what they were meant to be.
He looked about himself, hoping to see some banner or sigil marking an entrance where he was expected. There was nothing. Nothing but the greatest of Harrenhal's gatehouses, a structure as large as half the castles in Westeros were in their entirety, whose maw hung open like the jaws of some colossal creature. The main gate was open.
The wind blew harder. The invitation crinkled and fluttered in his fingers.
He drew a breath, deep and strong, and urged his horse to move onwards. His steed was reluctant. It answered the pressure of his spurs with a whine, and a neigh, and noises of fear and unease. It did not want to be here, did not want to go closer, and put one hoof forward only to draw it back, skittish in a way that a trained war horse so rarely was. His fingers rubbed soothing through its dark mane, but what words of comfort he offered did nothing to sooth it. He would have to go in alone, truly alone.
Aagin, he looked at the castle. Again, he swallowed.
He climbed off his horse. Never strong and fed so little during the ride, his muscles ached with the exertion, and the feeling of wet earth beneath his boots did little to comfort him. His steed stayed where it was, loyal enough to stay here, but not enough to go further. Again, his fingers rolled through the mane of an old friend,and he turned towards the castle...and walked, and walked, and walked further still. With every step forward, the true scale of Harrenhal became all the more apparent. Walls rose like sheer cliffs, the towers looming over them like man made mountains, and all of it seemed to be even larger at night. It took what felt to be nearly an hour to make it from his steed of the mouth of the gate, so little progress did it seem he made, but as he dew close, a figure emerged from the dark, a knight in full armor, smooth and dark, with a great red cloak flowing down from their shoulders to pool on the castle's stone. His sword was free of its scabbard, but not gripped for war, no, resting against his shoulder, its pommel gripped loosely in armored finger...and as he drew near to this sole guardsman, to this one knight, a sense of dread churned within his belly, an instinctual understanding that something was not right with this man.
But as he had at the start, he pushed through it. The figure stood, unmoving, unwavering, til he came close. A hand reached out, warning him to halt.
He answered not with words, but with the invitation he had found hidden in his chambers.
The man took them. He glanced, reading. A moment passed, then two.
"You are given entry to this castle," the man spoke. His voice was hard, and he never once revealed the face behind the armor. "Her Grace awaits you in the ballroom. I shall escort you there, so that you do not lose your way. Do not wander."
"I shan't, I promise it," he said, drawing a breath. The dank, foggy air played havoc on his lungs, and his voice came out as a wheeze, weak and feeble. "I mean no trouble."
The knight did not answer. He turned, never losing his rest, and led the way into Harrenhal. The journey through the gatehouse tunnel alone was like stepping into a cavern, for a full minute of walking passed before they reached the other side: Black Harren had been clever with the size of this gate, making use of all the space it gave by giving it corners and loops, a circuitous route through the dark that only the torches mounted on the side gave any hint of light. Beyond its second maw, the massive citadel loomed on all sides, with the towers so tall that their peaks were shrouded in cloud cover, looking more like great fingers emerging from the earth than buildings built by mortal hands. Night had emptied out the courtyard of Harrenhal of men and women, of servants and builders, but it had done nothing to reduce the sheer number of structures - every castle in Westeros had a small town's worth of buildings within their battlements, store rooms and craftsmen and kitchens and homes for all of them, but Harrenhal was so large that it was as if an entire city had been built within, and the small fraction of its courtyard that he he could see and stand upon was as large as a market square in King's Landing itself. The knight gave him no time to look about, however, and led them on quickly, paying little attention to his slower pace, urging him on to another building, joined to one of the great towers at the first few floors, a structure that he would have taken to be Harrenhal's great hall were it not for the shadow of that far larger structure looming in the background, surrounded by scaffolds...and when they came to its front and found a door, a large and hefty thing of dark oak studded reinforced with beams of iron, even that seemed built more to the scale of giants than mortal men.
But for all the grandeur of it, the knight paid him and it no heed, and simply pushed the door open. Warmth and light flowed out, and the visitor stepped through and inside. The warmer, drier air was a comfort for his throat and chest, but it was the light that he cherished more, at least at first. It gave form to the world, let him see and understand that the things lurking at the edge were not monsters waiting to pounce, but stones and chairs, columns and decoration. He would've looked about himself, were it not for the creak of the knight starting to close the entrance behind him.
"You do not wish to search me?" he asked. "Make sure that I am not armed?"
The knight laughed as he closed the door.
And with a thud, he seemed alone again. He looked about, properly now, trying to find some sign or sight of his host. The room was vast, and for all his eagerness to see light, it was dimly lit, with some two dozen torches in their sconces when a room of such size might've needed four times that number, and chandeliers with candles as well, for here, the ceiling was so shrouded in darkness that he could not see it at all. Only a handful of glass windows loomed in the furthest wall, flooding the chamber with what little moonlight could come through the cloud and wrought black iron, and a handful of mirrors feebly reflected it from wall to wall. On a bright summer's day, it would've seemed as welcoming as any other hall. But here, now, he did not feel at all welcome.
For all that he saw, the room seemed empty.
But it wasn't empty. He knew that without looking. He knew that instinctively, some ancient and primal part of him that knew he was not alone here. His heart fluttered hard in his chest, thumping with such strength the noise pounded in his ears. He was not alone in this place. Instinct howled. Cold flowed through him, and the hairs of his arms stood on end. Every fibre of his being told him to turn back whilst he had the chance, to flee, and never once return to this place. A step back took him closer to the door, but his eyes darted upwards to the dark. Enough light below to see the ground, perhaps, but up there....
"I see you have arrived alone, as was asked of you," came a woman's voice. He couldn't tell where it came from, so well was it carried off the walls of this place. "I am so delighted you accepted the invitation to my home."
"Where are you?" he asked with a trembling voice, calling out into the chamber. "Show yourself."
There was a soft and quiet thump behind him. He blinked, and then he turned -
- and there she was, on the ground, as if to curtsy. He froze. She looked up at him, smiled, and rose to her feet. It took a moment and a breath for the realization to burn into his shocked mind. This was her. This was their archenemy. This one woman was the greatest threat to the Targaryens that had ever walked the land of Westeros. A woman of a height to match his own, with a slender waist, pale, gaunt, but beautiful and not nearly so terrible to look upon as the stories said. A woman who, dressed all in black, radiated a presence that seemed to flood the entire chamber in the way that only a king might. It was the hair that caught his gaze the most. It was exactly as it was said to be, the exact proof that his was no trick. It was the true source of her name. Long and tumbling, and burning with an auburn so bright and strong as to seem as if fire itself flowed down her back, interrupted only by the vast sleeves of her gown, hanging from her arms like wings. There could be no denying it.
This was her.
This was the Red Queen.
She looked to him, curiously at first, and he thought she might ask a question before he realised her gaze was not at him, but through him, through his flesh and blood and bone. His chest, his heart. It was as clear as glass to her. She looked to his eyes, then. "Your heart beats so terribly quick inside you that one could dance to its tune. Are you afraid, good prince?"
"I would be a fool not to be," he answered. Try as he might, his voice cracked, and what came out was a hoarse, fearful tone.
She did not laugh, but she did smile. "I suppose it is only natural for our first meeting. Most men are terrified in my presence, but give them time and they grow accustomed and comfortable."
She gave him the lightest, tiniest bow of acknowledgement. "I am Queen Danelle Lothston. I bid you welcome to my castle and realm."
"I saw the scaffolds," he said, taking the chance at a distraction, a chance to trick his mind into believing this was any normal talk. It did not help as much as he had hoped it would "You truly mean to repair this place?"
"That I do," she answered, looking up high to the walls and ceiling overhead before her gaze returned to him. "Harrenhal is more than a castle. It is my home. I was born within these walls and towers. They are no strangers to me. They kept me safe for years when a great many wished me dead, and the least I can do in thanks for their service is make them whole again."
She smiled, innocently, as if admitting to some girlish truth. "But even broken as they are, they are still so very impressive, are they not?"
"They are," he agreed, quietly. "But this cannot be the reason why you invited me to this place."
"You are most right, I did not ask you here merely to talk of my plans for Harrenhal," she said as her hands came to rest over one another. "I asked you here because I had hoped to talk things through with a reasonable man, someone who could explain to my enemies why we must fight one another."
His brow narrowed. "Do you...seek peace with the Targaryens?"
"No, but I would seek understanding, and need an envoy to carry such words. You are a man they would listen to, I think, and certainly one who can understand my reasonings this day. I would not have the Targaryens and their men believe that I wage war on them simply for the sake of it."
"I can give them that message," he said, his voice weaker than it might've been. He coughed, as he often did. "But I make no promise of them listening to it."
"Listen, or listen not, it changes so very little, but I could say then at least that I did try to make them learn the error of their ways," she said, her voice powerful...
...and then it relaxed, and she spoke more quietly, more personally. "But by all means, allow me to speak from the beginning."
He stood, attentive. She acknowledged, and spoke.
"This war of ours began with an injustice. Your king came here on false pretenses. He sought to destroy my house and home because of lies fed to him that he chose to believe over hearing the truth from myself," the Red Queen spoke, as if lamenting for a moment what had them to this place. "If he had not done that, he would still be alive today, and this realm would be at peace. The blame for this falls on the shoulders of the Targaryens, and the Targaryens alone."
"Then...you deny the claims of feasts of flesh -"
The Red Queen laughed before he could even finish his sentence. "Feasts of flesh and cauldrons filled with children snatched by giant bats? Of course I deny them. In what child's tale would such things ever be real? They did not exist outside the imagination of those who would wish to take Harrenhal for themselves...and that of King Maekar, of course."
"They called you Mad Danelle," he said, delicately.
She did not take that phrase kindly. She stepped closer, and when she spoke, he saw the pinprick tips of her teeth, and eyes of a blue so pale as to verge on white. "I would not say that in this place, if I were you."
He did not know where he found his bravery, or foolishness, but he added to that phrase. "But that is what they called you."
She looked at him, coldly, and for a moment, for a minute, he did not know if she was to strike him down or speak once more.
His answer came when she spoke once more, her voice neither angry nor mad, but determined, and iron.
"They have called many a woman mad over the years," she said, simply. "Rohanne Webber was thought a witch who sold her unborn babes to the Lord of the Seven Hells and murdered her husbands, and Visenya Targaryen was said to be a sorceress, a kinslayer and a kingslayer alike. What value do any these words have, when all they have for evidence is the testimony of bitter men angry at those who would go against the grain of Westeros and do things deemed unwomanly? Must a woman lie with demons to be able to carry a sword and use it well? Must we be mad to step out of the shadows and act in our own right?"
Her smile came back to her, then, and she regained what composure she might have lost. "You need only look into your own history to see the truth of this. They did not call me mad when my troops helped crush the Second Blackfyre Rebellion, no. The peasantry called me such because they knew nothing better, but the Targaryens did, and they called me a loyal lady of Lothston, and smiled on everything I did until a penniless Whent wanted a castle to call their own. No, my guest from King's Landing, you will find me to be quite sane, and not at all mad, except in the sense that I do have a matter to settle with the Iron Throne."
"Maekar's attack," he said, understanding that much already.
"Rightly so. It was unprovoked, unwarranted, and nothing more than an act of base tyranny," the Red Queen nodded in agreement. "The fact that it was allowed at all over a matter of hearsay shows that this realm is sick with a pox that the Targaryens cannot heal. A change in leadership is in order, so that someone new can do what they cannot."
She walked away from him, then. Further into the chamber, and said nothing, but he felt as if she bid him to follow, so follow he did. Harrenhal was vast, but the damage made it a husk of its former glory, and rooms that were marked for one thing had to serve as many others until the entire castle could be restored. As large as it was, this ballroom - and he doubted that Harren Hoare ever intended it to be such - was ideal to serve as a meeting hall where lords might make their plans, and the Red Queen had seen it furnished with exactly that on the far sides. Bookcases of darkening weirwood hung close to the walls that dwarfed them, and a table of younger timber, a desk, covered neatly in maps, books, and a great collection of other things, and wine, too, or a deep red that he hoped was wine. What caught his eye the most whas what she kept to weigh down her parchments and keep them organized: a skull, still the pale cream color that marked it to have never once been buried. His eyes lingered on it, and the Red Queen took notice quickly.
"Oh, do not mind him," she said, simply. "Ser Alester Whent had been a friend of mine, once, before he traded friendship for foolishness. Sometimes I would speak to him for advice on ruling over my lands and castle...I still do, but one would find him to be rather less talkative now than he was before he turned his cloak."
"And Maekar's head?"
She only smiled at that. She found a map, and rolled it flat atop the surface of her desk. This was not at all like the royal maps in King's Landing, that still saw fit to mark the realm as wholly under the control of the Targaryens. This one was more honest to the way that the Lothstons saw it, with vast tracts of land marked in the black and yellow hues of her house, from the Wall in the north to the Trident river and beyond, slowly but surely being updated with every realm to fall under her sway. Without figures and wood carvings to mark the place of castles and armies, there were no great secrets on it, she was not fool enough to risk him learning any of that sort, but it showed in an instant how this war had developed, and the risks that the Targaryens were facing. Danelle Lothston hadn't aged a day since King Maekar came to lay siege to her stronghold, and she and her kin had proven patient: time stood on their side, for they were ageless and eternal, and could afford to wait a few years for an opportunity to come. They were comfortable with a long war, to slowly but surely grind themselves forward across the land - ten years or a hundred, it was all the same to her, or so the stories went. He had the chance to ask her that now, if he wished, but he thought it wiser than risk revealing some secret of the Targaryen defense for himself.
But for all that, she seemed to know full well what he was thinking.
"You are losing this war."
Her fingers trailed over the map. They lingered on the North, on Bear Island. "Your loyalists here are isolated and alone, and do not have the numbers to hold back the Greyjoys when they arrive with Bolton's men. They will die alone on that island, and all the strength of the North and the Iron Islands alike will be mine to command."
Her fingers moved south, slender hands resting over the Westerlands. "The Lannisters cannot hold us back forever. Rich in gold as they are, they can trade wealth for time, but the Riverlands is far more fertile and has more men to muster for war, and on the scales of conflict, steel weighs heavier than any coin."
Again, her hand moved. It reached across, and a finger drummed on King's Landing itself. "The Crownlands are next to fall. The Westermen can hold out for a few more years behind their mountains, but a siege is a siege. The Crownlands are flat, grassy lands. My armies will march through them with speed, and King's Landing will be mine before this time next year. No doubt your king will intend to make me pay for the city, but I will take to the field with all my sons and daughters, and there is no army in Westeros that could hope to hold back us all at once. King's Landign will fall, the Iron Throne will be mine, and lords across Westeros will tip their banners when they see that the Targaryen cause is withering, and this war will be over."
She stood straight, and looked him in the eye.
"I would have your king learn this," she said. "His cause is lost. I want you to tell him that, and to tell him that I am open to terms of his surrender. I will not harm him nor his kin if they surrender the throne to me, and I will be merciful upon them and their loyal lords alike. Why, I will even be so generous as to allow them to keep holdings of their own, at Summerhall and Dragonstone."
"But not King's Landing?"
"The Crownlands as you know them will not exist once my reign begins. The southern half shall be return to the Stormlands as they were before the coming of Aegon the Conqueror, and the northern half will be integrated into my Riverlands. King's Landing will make a fine port, but a royal seat? I think not."
He shook his head.
"He will not surrender."
"I met him when he was a boy. His great compassion for the smallfolk does him credit, but the suffering of war will take its toll on him. He hasn't the heart for a long war."
"Then you do not know him as I know him," he answered. He coughed, and a curious brow rose on his host. "The Aegon that sees through this war is not the Aegon you knew. He is...harder, firmer. There is a pride in him, and a strength as well."
He coughed again. The thoughts of the king were bitter and harsh, and soured his mood, and sour moods brought the sickness out of him with twice the usual strength. One cough turned to two, two to three, and then he was wheezing, and gasping, and struggling to draw a single good breath. It was only a hand on the table that kept him from falling, and he practiced his breathing as best as he could, as the maesters had taught him, and slowly, slowly, he caught it. But the tickle still burnt in his chest, and he could feel each and every powerful thump of his heart, working harder to try and account for the missing air, pulsing through his veins and arteries.
She felt it, too. She did not need to lay a hand on him to understand, and to see and say plainly what he already knew.
"You are dying."
"Little by little," he answered, truthful. "The maesters say I am lucky to have made it this far. My lungs and heart do not work as they should."
"Then you yourself are also running out of time," she said. A hand reached out, gentle and slow, and caressed his neck with the back of her fingers. "Twenty five years of age, and a shadow of what you should be."
She looked at him anew, more serious, and took her hand away. She glanced at the skull on her table for a moment. "I would be lying if I said that I had brought you here solely to serve as my messenger. I called you here for another purpose as well."
He knew where this was going. He was not fool enough not to. If he was to leave, it had to be now. If he was to have even the slightest chance of redemption and acceptance for this journey, it had to end now. For any of a million reasons that might have stopped this, it had to be stopped now.
But he let her speak on, and stood his ground with but the table for support.
"The truth is, I know what it is that brought you here, and it is not duty," the Lothston said, walking around him, examining him. "You too have received an injustice, and within you is a desire to see it put to rights. I can do that for you, and better still, I can make it so that you can put it right yourself."
"I would be little use to you," he said. "The sickness -"
"- is something that could be...mended," she said, temptingly. "You would not be the first with some ailment or another. Ser Otho Bracken was in far worse a shape when we met, and now he fights as if he was in his prime once more."
He did not answer.
"I do not need to tell you what you could do," she said. "I believe you thought of that yourself already, have you not?"
He did not answer.
"You want your sister back, and know you will never have her if your kin win this war. Is that not why you came here?"
He did not answer.
The Red Queen smiled -
- and ever graceful, she offered him her hand.
"Come with me. I walk a path that is not meant to be travelled alone."
Her hand loomed before him, an invitation within an invitation. This road only went to one place. So many would call it damnation. His kin would abandon him and cast him out, and his father would strip from him the name of Targaryen, that was for certain...but what elese was there to do? Nevermind the war, what of his own life? Of the sickness that might claim him on any day, or of the sister that he loved with all his heart and had torn from him by an uncaring father? Did he not deserve better than that? Did he not deserve more? Did he not deserve the chance to live his life, and to live it well?
He swallowed hard.
His heart thumped furiously.
Bloodraven would try and kill him for this, he knew that.
But he still reached out, still took her hand and clasped it tight.
Danelle Lothston looked to him with a genuine smile, a smile that revealed a thousand razor teeth.
"We are going to do such great things together."
Jaehaerys Targaryen was the man that came to Harrenhal that night.
But the man that left was Jaehaerys Lothston.
****
EDITx2: Managed to get it into a spoiler tag after all - it was weird as hell but the default way of doing it through the toolbar flat out didn't work right, so I had to do it myself in BBcode. Weird, but at least it won't warp the page now
Crossposting this. So I've been in a writing funk for a bit so I wrote this to get me out of that funk. Basic Idea is instead of Season 7 and 8, things go different leading to Jon Snow taking the throne as Aemon Targaryen and ruling, for 25 years, only for the Crownlands to be sent back in to 298 AC, (30 years into the past) when King Robert was coming back from Winterfell with Ned Stark. To complicate matters, Jon wasn't in King's Landing at the time, leaving his Wife and children in a very awkward and dangerous situation.
It was late at night, during the hour of the owl in early 298 AC when the Glow appeared, a nickname given by those awake to witness the event as it occured. The Glow was a massive half-sphere of red light, the light greatly resembling the Red Comet that would soon dominate the skies over Westeros and Essos in the months to come, The Glow extended from Crackclaw Point to Massey's Hook, from the outskirts of King's Landing and the Blackwater Rush to the Gullet and the shores of Dragonstone. The Glow was not a solid wall despite its appearance, a small number of gaps would appear inside the Glow itself, leaving rooms and even entire buildings within King's Landing untouched by its light, this would have significant effects on the political fallout in the months that followed. The Glow only lasted a few seconds, though when it vanished it was clear to those who were nearby, particularly those closest to King's Landing, that something had drastically changed in those few seconds.
King Robert Baratheon was nowhere near King's Landing when the Glow appeared, he had just crossed the neck as he made his return from Winterfell along with his new Hand, Eddard Stark. While a few in the royal procession saw the Glow, it would take several hours for the King to even begin to understand the seriousness of what was occurring. By late morning, nearly a dozen riders reached the camp, carrying with them messages of distress from lords who'd been near Glow, some fearing it was some Essoi attacks, others saying the Seven had come to punish them. A more coherent, though much more alarming, message would reach the King several days later.
The message was from his youngest brother, Renly. While most of the Small Council and nobility within King's Landing had vanished, Renly had the good fortune to be in one of the few gaps within the city not affected by the Glow. Renly would describe to his brother how he found himself in a city completely transformed, while a few remnants of familiar buildings remained, most of the city had been replaced with new construction, indeed many of the streets ran in different directions. Even the Red Keep showed signs of change, its outline reshaped by new construction and much of the old keep looking burnt in places, though Renly barely made note of this as he was far more distressed and confused by what he saw hanging near the keep. The Banners of House Targaryen, flown proudly alongside Stark Banners. Renly would claim that almost every major building and fortification he saw within the city proudly flew both the dragon and the direwolf. It's said that upon reading this, King Robert clutched the note so hard his palm bled.
Though Robert and his royal entourage did not understand this at the time, King's Landing and much of the Crownlands had been transported back in time from the year 330 AC.
The Crownlands of 330 AC had seen assassinations, treason, civil wars, the return of Dragons and magic, the somewhat accidental but near complete destruction of King's Landing by Queen Daenerys Targaryen followed by her scarfice to help stop the Night King and end the Second Long Night. With Daenerys dead and the Baratheon line basically reduced to one legitimized bastard, a Great Council was called in 305 AC, taking place in the ruins of King's Landing. After much debate, a selection was made. Jon Snow, former King in the North, former Lord Commander of the Night's Watch and hero of the Second Long Night, was Legitimized (As there were none who accepted his father's marriage to Lyanna Stark as valid) and became King Aemon Targaryen, the First of His Name, ruling alongside his new Queen, Sansa Stark, the Lady Paramount of the North.
The Marriage was largely a political decision, Sansa feared her cousin would be vulnerable to manipulation and privately worried Jon's heirs might try and claim the North for themselves in time. Growing up thinking of each other as (Admittedly quite distant) half-siblings made the marriage deeply awkward at first but eventually matured into a close political alliance and friendship.
The five and twenty years King Aemon reigned before the Glow could not be truly called prosperous, years of war, unrest, poor harvests, a brief but harsh winter and the war against the Night King had left much of the Seven Kingdoms decimated, but King Aemon and Queen Sansa quickly provided to be capable administrators and leaders (Helped by their allies and friends on the small council and what was left of their family as well), rebuilding King's Landing and the Seven Kingdoms slowly but surely. Establishing new towns, forging alliances, making new trade deals and rewriting numerous laws to better serve the Smallfolk Many of these people were poorer, but they were far safer then they had been since the days of Aegon the Unlikely. In time Aemon Targaryen would become known as Aemon The Restorer.
While some lords protested these laws, these protests would amount to little thanks to both Queen Sansa's political skill and King Aemon's Dragon, Rhaegal. The Dragons had returned to Westeros after centuries, with new ones being hatched on Dragonstone. The Dragons are usually kept away from the rebuilt King's Landing at all times, as the sight of one is still enough to send many people in the city running in terror, the memory of Queen Daenerys' mistake would prove very enduring.
Aemon and Sansa would have three kids together, all girls, Jaehaera, Arya, and Elaena. Jaehaera, the eldest, was named Heir to the Throne and Princess of Dragonstone when it became clear the King and Queen would not have a son. Aemon and Sansa agreed that their second child, Arya would inherit Sansa's Titles as Lady Paramount of the North, adopting the Stark Name as well. Ironically Catelyn would be the only one of her siblings to inherit the silver-gold hair that was once synonymous with the Targaryen Family. Jaehaera would eventually come to ride the dragon Drogon, once ridden by the late Queen Daenerys, while her sister Catelyn would come to bond with a young she-dragon she named Dawnfyre.
By 330 AC, King Aemon had reigned for over a generation, his eldest daughter was an adult of two and twenty years, and there were many in the Kingdom who could barely remember anything beyond the peaceful reign of King Aemon the Restorer. While the King and Queen were still in good health, time was beginning to take its toll on their allies. Much of the original small council, formed from allies and friends such as Tyrion Lannister and Ser Davos Seaworth, had passed away. Davos disappeared in a storm on his way to visit his wife in the Stormlands in 319 AC, Tyrion dying unexpectedly from a burst belly in 325 AC. Of the original council first formed by the King and Queen, only Grand Maester Samwell, one of the King's oldest and truest friends, remained by 330 AC.
The night of the Glow was fairly average for King's Landing, The Small Council was up late debating funding for further reconstruction and expansion of the city but beyond that there city was largely quiet, with little of note going on, save for one crucial detail, King Aemon was not within the city. Having flown off on his dragon a few days prior to visit some old friends among the Wildings. The rest of the Royal family was within King's Landing (Or Dragonstone in the case of Princess Jaehaera) but King Aemon vanished along with the rest of the Seven Kingdoms as they were in 330 AC when the Glow appeared.
As the city around them panicked, Queen Sansa and the Small Council tried to make sense of what had just occurred, their answer came quickly as the city watch hauled in people from the gaps in the city. Dozens of confused merchants and brothel workers told the council that the king was King Robert Baratheon, and that he had left the city some weeks prior to visit the North. One or two such claims could be dismissed but a dozen or so were hard to deny, particularly as dawn broke and Ravens came in from Sweetport Sound and Rosby telling similar tales.
The news brought the Queen joy and fear in equal measure. Sansa quickly realized this meant that her father, mother, and all of her siblings were still alive, the North having not yet suffered at the hands of the Lannisters and Boltons, but this came at a cost. Her husband was gone, replaced by a moody teenage boy, and more distressingly, the Seven Kingdoms swore fealty to a man who's hatred for the Targaryens was legendary and who would no doubt see her husband's parentage as a direct and grave insult to him. Sansa knew Robert Baratheon would not rest until her daughters were dead and all her husband had accomplished was torn down. If her sister had been anywhere near King's Landing, dealing with Robert and his court would have been a simple matter, but Arya Stark was far far away when the Glow appeared.
The Queen worked fast, imprisoning those she knew who still harbored loyalties to queen Daenerys, sending ravens to Dragonstone and urging the Small Council to Crown her eldest as the new Queen. Some were uncertain at first, arguing they should wait to see if King Aemon might still live, others believed that Jon Snow should be crowned, acting as a replacement for his older self. Sansa quickly convinced the council that there was no chance Aemon was here, and that Jon Snow, as much as she cared for the boy she once believed to be her brother, was entirely unsuited for the throne at this point in his life. They needed to crown Jaehaera soon or King Robert would kill them all, she argued. The small council quickly folded to her wishes.
By the time Princess Jaehaera arrived in King's Landing, preparations were already underway for her coronation. Two days after the Glow appeared, Jaehaera was crowned in the throne room of the Red Keep, her mother placing the warlike crown of Maekar atop her head, a clear message to all gathered that Queen Jaehaera was prepared to fight for her throne if need be.
While the new Queen was confident that she could win any conflict with Robert Baratheon, having two dragon riders gave her an enormous advantage on the battlefield, even if one of the dragons was distinctly on the smaller size, she hoped to avoid a war. Both out of concern for grandparents and uncles she had never met, along with a general desire to avoid killing soldiers in what she saw as a minor war. Men on both sides would be far better put to use preparing to fight against the Night King and the Others beyond the Wall.
On the advice of the Queen-Mother, Queen Jaehaera ordered Ravens be sent to almost every lord of note, emptying the Red Keep's Rookery. Each Raven carried with them a letter, detailing the bastardy of King Robert's supposed sons and daughter with Queen Ceresi, listing evidence as well. It also listed some of the many crimes Prince Joffrey would have committed if he became king, along with the crimes of his grandsire Tywin as well. It is hoped that the knowledge King Robert had no trueborn sons and that his Lannister allies would betray him the moment he died, combined with the threat of Dragons, would be enough to undercut King Robert's support so drastically he would have no choice but to yield. Queen Jaehaera hoped this would be a war of letters and ravens rather than steel and fire.
Not far from King's Landing a different messenger took flight, the golden Dragon Dawnfyre, and its rider Arya Targaryen. Arya flew north, carrying personal messages from her mother to both Winterfell and the Night's Watch. Sansa, now Queen Mother, hopes to ensure that the Starks would be on her side, no matter what was to come in the days Ahead.
The Royal House in King's Landing
House Targaryen:
With Rhegar's son (And now Granddaughter) upon the Iron Throne it would be quick to assume the Targaryens have been fully restored and the pre-Robert's Rebellion status quo had been mostly restored before the Glow. The truth is far more complicated, Aemon was raised by the Starks, spending most of his life as Jon Snow, the bastard of Winterfell (Indeed most people who knew the king still called him Jon in all but the most formal of circumstances). He had been raised in the North, taught Northern Values, worshiped the Old Gods, when he sentenced a man to die he was the one to deliver the sentence. Many remarked that the Targaryens under Aemon had become "Direwolves wearing Dragon scales". Little remains of old Valyrian culture of the old Targaryens, though there has been some effort to restore it, the Valyrian language for example has not been completely forgotten though this is largely out of necessity as that is the only language the Dragons will listen to beyond the whip. The Dragons, though changed, endure.
Queen on the Iron Throne: Jaehaera Targaryen, the First of her Name, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lady of the Seven Kingdoms and Defender of the Realm. Jaehaera has been preparing to ascend the Iron Throne since her fourth name day, but at barely two and twenty years old, this has come far sooner than ever expected. At first glance most would not think of her as a Targaryen at all, due to her dark gray eyes, short red hair and rather plain features. Jaehaera is rather tall for a woman, standing a eye to eye with her father, this combined with her broad features has lead more than one to joke that Jaehaera's real mother was not Sansa but Ser Brienne of Tarth, this remark has led to more than one broken nose delivered by Jaehaera herself.
While comfortable in silks, Jaehaera is often found in armor, having been trained in combat from a young age by her Aunt Arya, Brienne of Tarth, and even her Father, who argued to a scandalized court that "A ruler should be able to defend themselves, no matter their sex". On her sixteenth name day she was given the Valyrian steel sword, Dark Sister, by her Uncle Bran. Her mother and Grand Maester Samwell also made sure she was also well studied, many hours being devoted to studying subjects such as history and economics, as well as matters of the court.
Jaehaera rides the black dragon Drogon, once ridden by Daenerys Targaryen herself, alleged to be the reincarnation of the Black Dread itself. The Battle of Winterfell, the final battle against the Night King, saw Drogon heavily wounded and Daenerys killed. Some thought Drogon would not long outlive his rider and "mother" but to the surprise of many, the dragon slowly recovered from its many wounds on Dragonstone, though the scars inflicted by Night King have remained. Jaehaera bonded with the dragon at the age of eight, having sought the dragon after an argument with her mother. While many worried such a large and aggressive dragon would prove impossible to control, Jaehaera provided a quick learner when it came to dragon riding.
Jaehaera was betrothed to Lyonel Hightower, the Lord of Hightower's second son, but as Lyonel was not in the Crownlands when the Glow occurred, the arrangement has been effectively annulled, much to the delight of Jaehaera. Jaehaera had been all but hiding out on Dragonstone while she fought with her mother over the marriage, Jaehaera finding the man so meek and mild as to be intolerable. Jaehaera notably has a close relationship with a number of women at court, most notably Asha Greyjoy, daughter of Queen Yara Greyjoy, and the Bracken Twins; Alysanne and Barba. The latter two were on Dragonstone with Jaehaera at the time of the Glow.
Growing up as the child of Aemon Targaryen, AKA: Jon Snow, the hero who defeated the Night King, the Prince who was promised, she was instilled with a fierce sense of duty, to the realm and the people who live in it. But listening to all the stories people said about her father, how he saved the seven kingdoms from a eternal winter, how he ended seven years of civil war and strife, how he reforged a broken realm and made it whole together, these stories of how great her father was and how he was destined to save them all (even if her father did everything he could to downplay it), combined with Aemon's lessons of duty to create a rather complicated view on rulership in Jaehaera's mind. As far as she is concerned, she and every Targaryen to come has a divine duty to serve the Realm. A Targaryen must sit the Iron Throne or the realm will suffer.
Her personal coat of arms is the Targaryen Dragon quartered with the Stark Direwolf.
Princess: Arya Targaryen: Age 18. Said to be the spitting image of her mother during her younger years, save for her hair, Arya, was once heir to Winterfell, set to take the Stark name upon her mother's death and ensure the Stark line survived, the Glow has complicated that. Named after her somewhat infamous aunt, Arya was the closest among her siblings to their mother Sansa. Often following her mother around so much in her younger years that many at Court called her "The Queen's shadow". As she matured, Arya became famous for her sharp wit and way with words, more than once reducing a lord to tears with a few choice words as she worked on her needlepoint.
Of the three Targaryen sisters, Arya is the most attached to the North, being more wolf than dragon. Often spending many a month in Winterfell along with her mother or father. She would spend many an hour praying in the godswood. On more than one occasion in recent years she has asked to move to Winterfell full time, her father and mother refusing out of fears the distance might cause a rift between her and her sisters. While not estranged, Arya is noted as being distant to both of her sisters.
Arya is betrothed to Torrhen Ryswell, third son of Lord Ryswell. Torrhen was in King's Landing at the time of the Glow, the two were set to be married a few months after King Aemon returned from his trip.
She rides the dragon Dawnfyre, "The only southern part of me" she once remarked. Dawnfyre was the first dragon hatched after the second long night, the new dragon eggs in centuries. Dawnfyre's development was slower than that of the three hatched by the late Daenerys, eventually Arya was able to take her first ride on Dawnfyre when she was 12. The sight of the Golden dragon flying to and from Winterfell has been a common occurrence in recent years. Before the Glow, construction of a dragonpit had started in Winterfell, largely due to fears of what the winter months, even if that had become far shorter, would do to the beast
Arya's Personal coat of arms is a white direwolf on a black background, flames coming out of its mouth.
Princess: Elaena.Targaryen: Age 13. Much like her older sister Jaehera, she has inherited her mother's red hair, though she wears it far longer than her older sister, she is thin and fairly average in terms of height.
Elaena was an accident, though her parents would never admit it to anyone, least of all her. After it became clear both of their older daughters would survive the cradle, Aemon and Sansa considered their duty done, they had an heir to the Iron Throne and an heir to Winterfell, the realm didn't need anymore. But copious amounts of wine at a tourney feast had other ideas, leading to their youngest daughter. Despite how she came about, she was well loved by both of her parents, becoming particularly close with her father. The two often hunting together in recent years.
While nowhere near the warrior her eldest sister is, she has proven skilled at riding horses and shows talent with a spear, though her real talent is music, particularly the lute. She can often be found wandering the Red Keep, practicing her music.A few times she has wandered the city, protected by Kingsguard, playing for the delight of the smallfolk. While Elaena enjoys her music, it serves another purpose as well, it helps soothe her troubled mind after the strange dreams she often has. Many a night Eleana is wracked with terrible visions of fire and wars to come. She has yet to tell anyone about these dreams.
Elaena is betrothed to no one. She is also the only one of her sister's to be without a dragon, her father fearing that two many dragon riders might lead to later unrest, though in the days following the Glow, both her mother and eldest sister have suggested she take a dragon egg or try and tame one of small wild dragons on Dragonstone. A prospect that Elaena finds deeply terrifying for reasons she can't quite put to words.
Her personal coat of arms is a three-headed Targaryen Dragon, but in Stark colors.
Dowager Queen: Sansa Targaryen, née Stark: Age: 45. Lady of Winterfell and Warden of the North. Formerly Queen-Consort, Now Dowager Queen/ Queen Mother.
Many would argue that Sansa Stark is the real power behind the throne, a claim with some merit to it. She was the first and strongest supporter of Jon/Aemon's claim at the Great Council and Aemon often left much of the day-to-day running of the Seven Kingdoms in her hands, often being the strongest voice on the small council. Sansa would deny such claims of course, arguing instead she is simply a strong supporter of her husband.
After being used as a political pawn by Littlefinger, the Lannisters, and the Boltons, being subject to horrific physical and mental abuse for years, slowly but surely clawing her way to power, becoming Queen-Consort to the Seven Kingdoms was a far greater victory then she ever expected, but not one she was going to let go to waste. Her old enemies were long dead, her new ones were a far lesser threat, she had a strong voice on the Small Council, a Lordship in her own right, the ear of the King, and a hand in shaping the next generation of rulers in King's Landing and Winterfell. Few had the level of power and influence she had managed to attain. And yet now it all seemed like it could fall apart at any moment.
Her joy at regaining much of her long lost family is soured by the knowledge that so many of her enemies are now alive, to say nothing of the threat to her family posed by one Robert Baratheon.Sansa has no intention of seeing her houses, Targaryen and Stark, brought low by the same chaos that once dominated her younger years. She will see the stag humbled, one way or another. And as for Ceresi Lannister, her bastard Joffery, the Boltons, and Littlefinger (If he has even survived the Glow), she had plans for them. The Seven Kingdoms may have forgotten their crimes, but Sansa's hasn't, and she has no intention of forgiving any of them.
The Small Council (WIP)
Hand of the Queen: Warrick Manderly
Grand Maester: Samwell Tarly
Lord Commander of the Queensguard: Ser Podrick Payne
Master of Laws: Edmure Tully
Master of Coin: Perros Blackmont
Master of Whispers: Unoccupied.
Mistress of Ships: Princess Asha Greyjoy
Mistress of Ships: Princess Asha Greyjoy, Age 21. The daughter of Queen Yara Greyjoy, Aemon honored Queen Daenerys' deal with the Greyjoys, while they vassals, they now have similar rights to those of Dorne. Asha largely holds her seat to act as her mother's voice on the Small Council while she was off fighting pirates in the Stepstones. Asha is one of Jaehaera Targaryen's oldest friends, much to the dismay of Jaehaera's mother, who views Asha's wild nature as a dangerous influence on her daughter. Asha was a wild teenager, running horses through the streets of King's Landing, getting into drunken brawls with knights, and stealing the ships of merchants and fishermen. While she has calmed down somewhat as she's entered adulthood she still has a notable wild streak.
She is also a Skinchanger. Magic burned more brightly in the two decades before the Glow then it had for centuries, glass candles are burning again.While Skinchangers and Wargs are much more common in the North and beyond what remains of the Wall, a few have appeared in the Iron Islands and even the Riverlands. Asha has shown an ability to control seals, regularly controlling two in particular that currently reside in Blackwater Bay. The seals have proved very useful as marine spies.
Asha commands The Undying, a Galley built in part out of the remains of Silence, The Late Euron Greyjoy's flagship.
The Glow has left Asha sullen and confused. Her mother is gone, replaced by a woman her own age who doesn't know her, and an Uncle and Grandfather she'd never met. Would these people accept her as a Grejoy? Would she even care if they did? What did destiny have in store for now that she has been cast adrift in the ocean of time?
Author's Note: This is basically setting up the characters and the general situation, might do another update explaining the shit show that unfolds when Robert discovers exactly what and who he's dealing with.
Her hair is still unpleasantly short, and Cersei swallows the urge to touch it, to run her fingers through it and shiver.
Ser Robert Strong's silent bulk at her left shoulder remains a comfort as she watches the procession arriving from Harrenhal.
"Eighty seven, your grace," Qyburn murmurs. The chainless maester stands on her right hand. She has done well since her uncle's death - his murder, and Pycelle's. Her brother's work, no doubt, the vile little Imp. Ser Robert dealt with her guards, and she has reclaimed much of her influence in the Red Keep - the Tyrells continue to grumble and grouse, but the trial of their little Margaery is coming up soon and sooner. "They lost 14 at the Blackwater. They ought to be 86. One holy warrior too many."
"Eighty seven or eighty six," Cersei dismisses, "The city is already full of holy warriors. What is one more?"
"These holy warriors marched with your brother, your grace, and were set to garrison Harrenhal. Is this not a cause for concern?"
Cersei shrugs.
"Perhaps that last man is my brother, hiding himself away?" Her tone is cutting. "But no matter. I have a stronger protector now, do I not?"
Ser Robert Strong slams a mailed fist into his breastplate, and Cersei smiles thinly.
"As you say, your grace," Qyburn mutters.
The hindmost of the Holy Hundred raises his head, shrouded beneath his cloak. Somehow, impossibly, he seems to look directly at Ser Robert Strong. And somehow, impossibly, Ser Robert Strong looks back.
Queen Cersei's trial comes barely a week after the arrival of Ser Bonifer Hasty and his men, and the Queen's procession makes its way to the Sept of Baelor, men clad in crimson, hands upon the hilts of their swords. Their feet splash noisily through the snow - though it only fell the night before, the city has already turned it to a thin brown slush. Three knights of the Kingsguard surround the Queen Dowager and her young son, King Tommen. Ser Borros Blount's horse plods along steadily, making heavy work of carrying the knight, his face pallid and sheened with sweat, steam rising from his armour. Ser Meryn Trant rides proud, his head held high, his nose upturned, his visor misting with his breath. Leading the procession, Ser Robert Strong rides shrouded in Kingsguard white. From him comes no fog, even in the cold winter's morn. The Queen rides regal at the centre of it all, her shorn head uncovered, framed by a slender crown of gold.
The streets are packed with sparrows, with people of King's Landing itself, watching, silent and judgemental as the grave. Men fill every alleyway, women and children every window and alcove. A blonde youth watches from behind the wooden lattice work of one of the taverns they pass under, piercing green eyes tracking the second of his cousins to be King in under a year.
The Great Sept looms before them atop Rhaenys' Hill, and the flanking crowds grow more armed and grimmer with each passing street, as Sparrows and Warrior's Sons displace the curious denizens of King's Landing. The Lannister guardsmen draw closer. Sparrows watch guardsmen, desperately yearning for a man to be fool enough to bare steel.
But they are well drilled, the men of Casterly Rock, and the Queen arrives at the Sept untroubled.
The Lannister Guardsmen unfurl like the wings of a great bird, filling three of the seven sides of the Sept - the mother, the father and the smith. The Tyrells are already here, Queen Margaery sitting demure in a green dress beneath the stained glass of the Maiden, her hair braided behind her head, her eyes down, the picture of a faithful queen.
Margaery's trial will be held in a week, once Cersei's is resolved. Few imagine the trial will take long - the only accuser that remains is the Blue Bard, and he is rumoured to chew furniture - but none are willing to let the matter drop; best to have the matter out.
A grand stone dais fills the centre of the room, where the high sparrow sits a crystal throne. Before him, seven septons and seven septas proclaim exaltations from the Seven Pointed Star. Sunlight shines through the stained windows of the Sept. A mist still lingers above the heads of those gathered, dyed many colours by the sun.
The High Sparrow stands, and his followers fall silent. The words of the Seven Pointed Star echo for a time in the Sept, but soon even they yield to his unspoken demand. He is not a tall man, but his presence demands attention.
He raises his staff aloft, a simple rod of thick oak. The rumours claim he allows himself to be beaten with it, for his sins.
As he moves, all gathered drop to their knees.
"Queen Cersei Lannister stands accused of treason, of fornication, of the murder of the fruits of her fornication, of adultery and of bearing false witness. The wages of her crimes, so the Father tells us, are death." His voice is not loud, but it carries across the Sept. "Let the Gods look down and bear witness to the truth in their daughter's soul, and lend their weight to the arms of the champion of it. Let the Gods grant her life and freedom if she is innocent, and let the Gods grant her the death if she is guilty."
Ser Robert Strong rises to his feet as the High Septon brings down his staff, the crack of oak on marble echoing through the Sept. In one hand he holds a greatsword, six foot in length, whilst in the other he bears a shield, massive and oaken, its white paint flecked with brown where it has splintered, rimmed with shining iron, scoured for rust early the same morn.
Across the Sept, the last of Ser Bonifer Hasty's Holy Hundred steps forward. He bears no shield, his armour burnished, unadorned steel. His helm appears old, with no visor, but his face is cast in shadow. Water drips noiselessly from beneath his helm, leaving a small puddle wherever he walks.
His sword appears but a pick for teeth compared to that of Ser Robert, a slender longsword, as though crafted for woman's hand, and he has not even drawn it free from its scabbard.
"I know you, ser." The man rasps, circling Ser Robert as the larger man pivots where he stands, always keeping his opponent in sight. "Ever has your family stood for honourless curs. It is no surprise that even now, I find you here."
Ser Robert sweeps forwards with his greatsword, but the man bends and twists, and somehow, impossibly, the blade finds no purchase.
The man's head almost seems to loll, and his gaze fixes on the King.
"Your grace," He says, and somehow the rasp comes out stunningly languid. "Was the lesson of usurption not learnt at Storm's End? Did nothing come of the humbling I gave your uncle at Harrenhal, when he came to wave his sword around, to laugh and jape? Was Joffrey's death an insufficient lesson?"
Even the High Septon's presence could not have prevented the shock that rippled through the crowd at this, but the man pays no mind.
He twitches his neck, and his head shifts to regard Ser Robert again. "I believed, ser, that all your wretched ilk had perished. I would remedy this, Strong."
He draws his blade, that little toothpick, and the sight of it makes the shock of his words seem nothing. The sword is a dappled shadow, and even those who have never seen the stuff before recognise it. Valyrian Steel.
"She is not my blade," The man muses, "But we were so closely acquainted, she insisted upon accompanying me for this duty."
Ser Robert tries again to strike this peculiar, twitching man, but the valyrian steel flickers, and Ser Robert's armour parts, leaving an angry red score across his chest, and his own blade crashes harmlessly into the floor, sending up shards of marble.
"Too slow, Strong, too slow. It intrigues, however, that we have so much in common. A mortal wound, yours, yet here you stand."
Ser Robert says nothing still, but he spins, and his sword flies unerringly at the other man. The Valyrian Steel rises, and the two blades kiss, the Valyrian Steel biting deep into the larger blade. It seems to take neither man any effort to hold their blades so, but all watching can almost feel the weight of the clash.
As Ser Robert pulls back, the other man drives forwards, but Ser Robert's shield absorbs his momentum, and he staggers back.
"I forget myself, Strong. My apologies. You and yours were ever champions of the more brutish aspects of war." The man resumes his circling, his sword held at a level with his face. "It has been a joy to train with you, Strong, but to the point."
He dodges beneath Ser Robert's next blow, and his sword scythes up again, rending open Ser Robert's armour all up his spine.
Queen Cersei swallows nervously as Ser Robert's knee crashes to the ground. One great fist of lobstered steel crashes onto the floor, then the other, and the knight's head drops.
"Oh, Strong," The man's rasp is almost mocking, "You cannot mean to yield. It has been so long, Ser. I have a hunger."
Saying this, he reaches with his left hand to his helm, unbuckling it. "I lay peaceful for centuries, Strong. Mine lady love awaited me in the crypts below Harrenhal until this day came, and I yearn to return, to her or to the God's Eye."
The helm comes free. Silver hair lies plastered around an angular face, even falling over the eyes, and water drips softly from each sodden lock. He raises his hand again, as though to push the hair from his eyes, but Ser Robert attempts to rise and the man kicks him savagely, knocking him down.
The man pulls his hair from his face, and the sight of it is horrific. Even the High Septon pales a little, and it is testament to the shock that none raise issue when Ser Boros Blount blasphemes, looking almost sick with fear. Of everyone, only Ser Bonifer Hasty keeps his composure, for the old knight has seen the horrors before.
His flesh is white and pallid, that of a drowned man. A ragged scar opens his upper lip all the way to his left nostril, as though a fishhook had been caught there, and water trickles out through the gap, running down his chin and dripping onto his armour.
All this pales in comparison to his eyes. His right eye is gone, a long healed scar running the length of his face on that side. In its place sits a sapphire which glows an unnatural blue. Most unsettlingly, it moves in the socket as though it were an eye.
Where he ought to have a left eye, however, is a gaping wound, deep and black as night. When he turns to look at the King, Tommen lets out a tiny scream. The hole passes through the man's entire head, and light can be seen through it, if one is to look.
"I am Prince Aemond Targaryen," The man says, raising the Valyrian Steel blade high. "For seventy years and a hundred, I lay peaceful in my grave. But the scourge returned to Westeros, and by my blade shall it be extinguished."
Saying this, he swept it down, severing the helm of Ser Robert Strong from the body below, and Qyburn's magics at last failed.
"Let it thus be done. The queen stands guilty, her three bastards revealed. The Strongs lie ended. The honour of the Green Queen, beloved of the Reach, is defended." Prince Aemond says. "I have no intention to claim the throne, mine though it is. My duty is done."
Saying this, he lets Dark Sister drop to the ground, and stoops to replace his helm. "Should the Strongs return, I shall be there to face them. In the Stranger's name, I swear it"
Between the eyes of the helm, water begins to flow freely, and within moments, the whole suit of armour crashes to the floor,
I'm enjoying Canucks over on AO3. A small Canadian unit and a pair of military vehicles get transported north of the wall. They don't go crazy driving everywhere but as long as you don't think too hard about gas consumption everything else hangs together pretty well.
I'm enjoying Canucks over on AO3. A small Canadian unit and a pair of military vehicles get transported north of the wall. They don't go crazy driving everywhere but as long as you don't think too hard about gas consumption everything else hangs together pretty well.
Have they invented hockey yet? How much Canadian stuff is being brought into the story vs how much is generic modern soldiers in Westeros? I'm really interested in this but don't want to dip my toes back into the fandom if it's the standard uplift. I want at least a few Canadian specific upgrades.
The story so far seems to have been less than a month elapsed time, uplift mostly related to organization and social structures of the folk directly associating with the Canadians (They'd rather not work with irredeemable folk), and I'm not familiar enough with actual Canadian military stuff to tell. They've got a lead on possibly getting home south of the wall so they're doing what they need to do to investigate that but with less than 7 modern people, limited supplies, and active walkers, they're not in a position to uplift north of the wall.
I think the author has done a good job nailing relationship dynamics within the Canadian's group, the political reactions for groups they're interacting with, and also the impact of the weapons they have without it feeling like they've got unlimited ammo and aim-assist.
The story has the main cast on a journey where they gather/lose resources, allies, enemies, and information rather than a farmer's tale type uplift.
I'm enjoying Canucks over on AO3. A small Canadian unit and a pair of military vehicles get transported north of the wall. They don't go crazy driving everywhere but as long as you don't think too hard about gas consumption everything else hangs together pretty well.
0/10, utterly unrealistic, they haven't even built a Tim Hortons yet, these are some burgers masquerading as Canucks. p I kid, I kid, but thanks for the link, there's not many modern force meets Westeros around.)
Since this Is the rec thread, I was wondering If there were any Fics where during Ned's Investigations In King's Landing he took Jon's The Seed Is Strong, to be referring to his own son and Ned starts looking Into Robert Arryn, Baelish and Lysa Tully? Or any fic where Ned's Investigation Is completely derailed.
I have not but … Ned Stark, the KID (King's Investigating Detective) could be a fun short piece. Not sure if a competent or incompetent Ned would be more fun, ditto on whether him losing his head is literal.
I also read and recommend "To go Forward" by togo on AO3. 150k words so far and the premise is Jon Snow's consciousness is sent back in time from the moment he's getting knifed to around the Baratheon visit to Winterfell. He's got future knowledge but is missing a bunch of key details that he'd not know since he was at the wall. Jon and Dany are the right level of frustrating but shouldn't make you want to rip your hair out. It's not a shipping fic and time travel doesn't = instant win. The story was recently updated (fair warning the author has been working at the story for like 7 years), doesn't jerk you around with a lot of repeat events with different POVs, and has significant events occur.
If you can deal with some Jon angst and are looking for a new story, give it a shot.
Edit: The Weirwood Queen by Redwolf17 also on AO3 is pretty good. 600k+ words so far, much less angst, updated 2 days ago. Sansa is a better Bran while spending time near King's Landing, the Riverlands, and Dorne so far. She's also a better Sansa. (Note that Bran, while being a minor side character with near canon arc, is also a better Bran). As a heads up there are scenes that are unpleasant but it is ASOIAF so they make sense.
Thinking on a possible crossover fic with Ranger's Apprentice, but I'm not sure what it should focus on. Having Araluen Rangers up north running around with Jon and Sam could be fun; but the War of Five Kings is my favorite part of the series so I'd like to write focusing on that.
Oh, maybe Will and Co get involved in Robert's rebellion?
lad von Carstein,his wife Gabriela von Carstein and Sylvania,all from WHF teleport into Game of Thrones.Most of the time people re wondering how they got the powers and the fact that somehow the magical vampire who wants to oppress mankind has a more functional marriaage and is a better husband than most of the Game of Thrones cast.
