Of Hopes Great and Small
Twenty Fourth Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC
After securing Rickard back in Sorcerer's Deep, with a mental apology to the cat whose body he had stolen, you check in on the huntsman, alas finding no change. His heart beats and his chest rises and falls with perfectly even breaths, but his gaze is hollow and staring, like the windows of an abandoned house.
One in which a thief had made his home. You shudder to imagine a vibrant determined Lady Catelyn reduced to such a husk. Likely as not she had been spotted meeting her elder sister, perhaps even speaking of your plans thus driving the enemy to act in haste. Even with the common disbelief in magic in the fading age Rickard would not have endured this long if he were in the habit of possessing either either Bracken of Blackwood, much less leaving such obvious signs of his passage.
"Should we grant him peace?" Rina ask somberly. "I've never had to do it myself, but the Silent Sisters are sometimes called to the task when life becomes a burden, the mind darkened and only the body struggling to blindly live."
Waymar and even Ser Richard look at her in askance. You have never heard of such a thing expressed aloud, but you are a bit less surprised, having read a theological tract or two that could be interpreted in that light. Still, you shake your head. "We leave him as is, there might be a way to restore his mind or soul if indeed it has fled, and even if not the state he is in should at least provide some measure of proof of sorcerous maleficence beyond a cat acting strangely." However, you do take the poison with you lest a servant stumble over it and come to harm.
It has been a very long time since exhaustion had caught up with you, but this has been a very long day indeed. Had it been twenty two hours since you last slept or twenty three? Judging by how quickly sleep finds you it may have been longer.
***
The grey light of false dawn wakes you, though no sooner had you opened your eyes to it that you feel Varys' mental prod. A message had arrived from Stone Hedge, short and a touch uncertain in tone, but marked with the twined looping Bs of
Barbara Bracken, heir of that House, inviting you to meet surprisingly again in her younger sister's rooms. The letter invokes the greater privacy of the tower, but Lya jests about 'wanting the support of one who has already bearded the dragon', perhaps not without cause.
"Well then it is fortunate for the lady's peace of mind that I have no beard, it makes a poor showing as the wise sorcerer I am told," you reply in like manner.
You can feel her laughter against your cheek as she kisses you. "I'll see about getting our not-quite feline friend into some form he can bear witness for when the lords must be spoken to. Getting them to understand him should be easy enough, but I do not imagine he would be minded to do so unless it is to sow yet more strife."
With that you dress and ready yourself for the day, with Dany, your mother, Ser Richard and Rina once more at your side, as well as Waymar to speak on matters of the First Men and their history, you return to the Riverlands once more.
"Your Grace, I am glad you could arrive in such good time again," Lady Barbara Bracken is about seven years older than her sister, her words more even from the habit of dealing with an heir's duties, but her voice is low, almost a whisper, as though afraid her father would somehow hear her here. "Catelyn said you had a solution... or a proposal at least for..." now she hesitates, weighing oath against conviction. "The sad state of House Blackwood and House Bracken."
You lay out the plan just as you had the day before, the cadet branch in Essos, the securing of current borders once and for all, the guarantee of her inheritance by royal decree and if need be by royal arms, but then you also add what you had found last night, the grim tale of Morvin Blackwood and Rickard Stark, and how the latter had carried vengeance in his heart for an age.
"It's like something out of a ballad," the older Bracken sister shakes her head as though to physically clear her thoughts.
"More like a dirge really, given how many people have died over the whole of the tale," the younger finishes. "I hope the cat is alright."
"Catlyn, how can you think of the cat at a time like this?" Lady Barbara asks shocked.
"Well, it's innocent isn't it?" comes the soft reply. "I figured that if there is hope for it there's hope for the rest of us too."
"You... you were always too good at convincing me of things." The smile she wears softens, the words giving off a sort of fond exasperation. Turning to you she pledges. "I will support this agreement before my lord father and do my best to argue its merits, and when I am Lady of Stone Hedge, hopefully in a day far off from this one, I will do all I can in the service of healing the wounds between Bracken and Blackwood."
What do you do next?
[] Speak to Hoster Blackwood about intervening with his elder bother
-[] Write in
[] Speak to Ser Brynden Blackwood directly
-[] Write in
[] Write in
OOC: So far so good, but this was far from the hardest person to convince in this conflict.