A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover

Eleventh Day of the Twelfth Month 292 AC

As you approach the constantly, if discretely guarded door to the chamber of Stannis Baratheon, you find yourself feeling something rather uncommon for a man intent on visiting his prisoner, no matter how highborn or formidable. You would not call it quite trepidation, for you do not fear what you may find, nor quite resignation for you hold some hope of wringing some reasonable outcome from the... storm to come. Something between those two sentiments perhaps, almost as though you were grinding yourself for battle.

Taking great care to hide the shadow of amusement at the sheer absurdity of the situation, you enter, though not before bidding the guards, "If you hear shouting, ignore it."

As ever you receive a short greeting as the erstwhile lord of Dragonstone lays down a book. You imagine that of necessity he has been expanding his scholarly and literary horizons in the past months. "What did you find?" There is something more than his usual curt manner to the words, an impatience that speaks of deeper feelings, and unfortunately passions.

"I am not in the habit of putting on mummer's plays and still less offering reports, but in the interests of going over this all once and clearly I ask that you do not interrupt what I am about to say and keep any questions to the end," you answer with a bluntness you would have never used with another, save perhaps as deliberate insult.

"I'm listening." Lips thin in frustration as much as thought, but you cannot yet hear the grinding of teeth so you would count the approach a success.

And so you launch into a dry recounting of the facts including your meeting with the lesser fey, a brief explanation of their inability to outright lie, and then the parley itself, emphasizing the presence of the diabolic assassin and its purpose to cause chaos and strife. You even go so far as to recount everything you learned from the dogai of its master and others who deal in infernal powers. At least then there is a chance you and your friends will not have to personally handle that threat also, comes the rather uncharitable thought.

The first words Stannis Baratheon speaks when you are done, and to his credit he did not interrupt you, are not a question. "He's lying," he grinds out.

"I do not believe he is," you answer. "He is certainly no common mortal man and he gave every sign of extreme distress when his identity was called into question by events."

"How the hells could a usurper take Storm's End for his own and not know he is one?" The question is not quite loud enough to be considered yelling, but it is certainly getting close.

Once you might have quipped something like: 'How did your elder brother convince himself his ass belongs on the Iron Throne?' but such a thing would be beneath you. The simpler answer 'magic' is unlikely to be satisfactory, so you struggle for some terms of comparison.

"Imagine if you will a common child raised from birth to believe that he is a lord. He is taught the proper ways to act and speak, even the responsibilities of rank are impressed upon him, and then he is through stealth and trickery placed in the place of a true noble heir. Whatever fey spirit is responsible did this very thing, though far more quickly and thoroughly the same way I can do this," you will fire to bloom about four feet below the ceiling of the room between you, "without the need for kindling, flint, or steel."

"Where did you say Renly is?" he asks in what you imagine is the most gracious way he can manage to coincide the point.

"Not upon this world, as far in some ways as the dead from the living," you answer, hoping to hold off some foolish quest to return a man clearly unwilling and thus unfit for rule.

Unfortunately this appears to have been the wrong thing to say. "Damn him! Damn him to the hells and back! Robert gave him the Stormlands and he will rule it, him not some spirit's puppet wearing his face!"

A rather cynical part of you wonders if the man before you has been disappointed and shamed so many times that he draws some perverse comfort in it. No, there is concern beneath the anger, concern for family not merely for one's House. You wonder if he realizes it himself.

"I believe, my lord," you cut him off, "that offering up one's name and face to a fey lord that he may craft a changeling to rule in one's stead is a far more thorough means of abdication than Duncan called the Prince of Dragonflies ever managed."

"Robert is Renly's heir," he says at last. "The imposter should present himself to the king's justice then..."

"It really is quite remarkable," you interrupt with deceptive mildness, "how far up your own ass you can shove your head, my lord. What do you think will happen to the poor man who would offer himself up thus for royal judgement?" you spit out the last words. "The same man who was willing to pay twelve-thousand golden dragons for your release, and step down willingly the moment he realized what he is out of a sense of duty."

Stannis had paled almost white with anger as you spoke, but your final words make him flinch almost like physical blows. When he speaks his voice is rough but not loud. "What business is this of yours?"

What do you answer?

[] I will not see the Seven Kingdoms tear themselves up in war and strife nor the will of fiends be done

[] I intend to get paid the ransom I am owed

[] Write in

OOC: If this somewhat resembled beating a lump of iron into shape... well it's supposed to. It's not that Stannis is incapable of doing the practical thing, it's just that it runs very much so against the grain.