Loyalty's Due
Eighteenth Day of the Eighth Month 293 AC
The seat of House Darry is neither grand nor in its present incarnation particularly ancient, for though the House which holds it can claim lordship from before the coming of the Andals the many wars that wracked the Riverlands saw it burned, sundered, and raised again a dozen times and more. Still, the keep looking down upon the bridge where the King's Road crosses a tributary of the Green Fork looks strong and secure, the black plowman on brown flying in the brisk evening breeze.
If there is any fault to be found in these lands it is the one Ser Richard, ever alert for trouble, noted—it's a little
too quiet. The rustling of leaves is more often the doings of hare and dear than man, and upon the road one sees more merchants and travelers than local smallfolk about their business. Less smoke rises from the village near the keep than you would expect to see from a distance, though once you enter the cause is clear to see. The marks of war are still all too present here, scars still fresh enough to be painful. Men avert their eyes from ruined weed-choked houses, and children in the streets do not play at battle as they do in so many other places.
"Hoster Tully harried these lands to trim back the power of a troublesome vassal when he had he chance, but it is the people who suffered for it." Dany's thought is sad, but more than that it is resolute:
"The Legion could do good work here, so would some proper clerks and the Iron Bank come to that."
"If all goes well these will be rich lands and favored soon enough," Waymar offers in encouragement, though he too is aware that growth will not turn back the losses of yesteryear... at least not for most.
***
The four of you ride into Castle Darry as perfectly respectable merchants, or rather as a merchant, his sellsword guard, and a hedge knight met on the road, the sort of folk who might dare to try for a room in the keep rather than the local inn if the lord is feeling generous enough. Considering the wealth of fine goods in your packs, from silverware to silks to lace and fine brandy there is not much chance of being refused either. True you get the odd suspicious glare and one old armsman muttering about Lannister spies, but from the looks his fellows give him you suspect he calls every third traveler down the King's Road that.
Along the way to meet with the local lord Dany hands out a bit of silver to the stable boys and maids, wishing she could instead offer some of the figurines you had made for the festival but knowing it would be far too noticeable yet. Perhaps in a few months once they had time to pass from hand to hand.
Ser Raymun Darry, head of House Darry, reminds you painfully of Ser Willem's strong craggy features before the sickness hollowed them out. Even the way he looks in askance at you, head tipped slightly to the side, is familiar, though one would never catch the sober old master-at-arms wearing the pink and orange doublet his nephew does.
Silently you weave a
ward against eavesdropping into the very walls of the solar just in case the old guard outside was right in his suspicions, and only then do you address the lord: "I fear that we have found our way here under false pretenses, my lord, though I hope you will forgive the presumption once we are revealed."
So saying you release the glamour as your companions do the same to stand before the Lord of Darry in all your obviously magic accouterments, a test of sorts to see how he would take it. No sense proposing something deeper if he should balk at seeing armor worked with glyphs of flame.
"Your Grace, I am at your service," Ser Raymun rises to his feet with surprising swiftness given the shock writ clear upon his features and starts to kneel.
"Please stand up, Ser. I've no desire to see men fall on their faces before me," you offer a smile and add. "A fact which I have been slowly training Essosi magisters into recognizing." The jest has the effect you had expected, not to mention the fact that you brought the most Westerosi gathering you could. Dany is even wearing a dress instead of pants or armor... or at least she seems to. Unlike the rest of you she had only shifted her glamour rather than dispensing with it.
"Of course, your Grace," the man says, a courtier's response if somewhat rusty in the delivery. He'd been a fourth son before the Trident, a man likely not unfamiliar with the court, though you do not recall meeting him in person. "What do you require of House Darry?"
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OOC: Just leading with the resurrection would not work, so I need to know what other arrangements you wish to make first. Also I've seen a lot of discussion about Ser Darry being Viserys' father figure. That may have been the truth four years ago, but right now the closest thing Viserys has to a father figure lives in a cave up north, resting on a weirwood throne. However, that does not mean he does not respect both Ser Darry and his sacrifice. 
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