A Fair Beginning
Twentieth Day of the Twelfth Month 293 AC
When the conversation turns naturally from your young wards to Garin and Selyse's own experience with becoming parents, the teasing smiles are inevitable and you can practically read Selyse's answer in her eyes before it is on her lips. "Thinking of following in our footsteps, are you?"
"We probably shouldn't grow an heir before we are married, there might be talk among the Lords of Westeros," Lya replies archly.
"Grow?" Waymar laughs, taking another drink of his wine goblet. "I can just hear myself explaining that to my father." With an air of exaggerated innocence he adds, "No, the queen isn't going to get pregnant in order to have a child, she's going to grow it in the flesh forge like the little leaf spirits..."
"We'd use the one in Gogossos, unless you fancy a babe with twigs growing out of its ears," Vee interjects.
"So like the corpse knights then, that's much better," As Waymar rolls his eyes dramatically, he briefly reminds you of the boy who had arrived alone in Braavos, a squire without a knight and unwitting sorcerer, but a flash is all it is. That boy would never have spoken so lightly of Qyburn's work stitching corpses together with a purpose to fight for you.
"You know I don't think it is our hypothetical progeny that is the most interesting here," you say, narrowing your eyes at Garin. "I have a feeling someone is attempting to underhandedly deflect the conversation and I would know being remarkably underhanded myself."
Ser Richard lifts his own cup in a light toast to the sentiment. "Truer words were never said, Your Grace." A ripple of laughter passes through the room at the logical tangle of that statement.
"It's wonderful, though a little odd and a bit frightening," Selyse says after a moment. "The sort of things I wanted as a child, the ones I hoped to provide as a mother, those are easy; shelter and food," she motions to the roof, the silvered plates filled with Myrish
savillum, the smell of
homes and bey leaves heavy upon the air. "But on the other hand, I helped bring them into a world where they are important,
special in ways wholly apart from my thoughts on the matter. And it's not just enemies. I trust the people in this room to march to the gates of Hell and knock them down if you have to, but..."
"People want their children to be friends with ours practically as soon as they learned about the birth, seeking alliances before the children in question can walk, talk, or stop soiling themselves," Garin picks up the thread of what sounds like a familiar thought between the two of them. "Some bit of fluff who is married to the Myrish Head of Public Works was talking to Selyse about engagements for our daughters a few days ago."
"There is always someone with more eagerness than good sense in these things," Tyene shrugs. "Tell them to go fuck themselves a few times and the rest will learn to stay away."
Vee is unsurprisingly less sanguine on the matter. "Should we be having crazy folk this close to the top?"
"If the lady in question is concerning herself with such nonsense, I doubt she has any position of power, however indirect," Malarys sneers.
For a moment the conversation pauses as the twelve of you find yourselves divided along a fault of mutual incomprehension with yourself, Dany, Rina, Tyene, Waymar, and to an extent Garin and Selyse, Alinor, Vee, Lya, and Malarys on the other. It is one thing to understand the realities of power and influence intellectually, even play the games as skillfully as Selyse often does, and quite another to find oneself receiving an unexpected engagement proposition for a child not even a month old, you realize. You are not even surprised to see Malarys fall where he did. While his childhood was hardly free of such concerns, his years at the temple of Balerion did spare him the worst of dynastic scheming and sycophanty.
"Remember that they are your children and Garin's," you say with a smile. "They'll not lack for wit to tell true friends from false, of that I'm sure." In a lighter tone, you add, "Especially if you let Ysilla and Kylla take them under their wings. They will learn to recognize a liar and cheat at dice before you know it."
"I think between Selyse and me, we have the cheating at dice handled," Garin laughs, and so the moment passes and the merriment returns to while away the hours deep into the night.
What next?
[] Receive a report (Interlude series)
-[] City of Brass Intelligence
-[] Plane of Earth Investigation
-[] Yi Ti Expedition
-[] Write in
[] Head out to deal with the Houses of the Reach
[] Perform a minor action
-[] Write in
[] Write in
OOC: This came out a little more serious than I indented, but hopefully the character moment works. We have not seen much of Selyse in quite a while. Not yet edited.
