Powers and Principles
Eighteenth Day of the Twelfth Month 293 AC
"You are not going to enjoy this conversation," you begin as you take your seat opposite the lord of Storm's End once greetings and formalities had been dealt with. Not words you would usually begin persuading someone to your point of view, but Stannis Baratheon is anything but ordinary. Ordinarily you would suggest a drink, not so much to dull the sharp edge of realization as to provide something to do with one's hands, some natural pause to the conversation, but you are not quite sure how he feels about wine and business given his elder brother's excesses. It was Dany who had suggested magically cooled orange juice, some sort of new whim of the court, not that you have any intention of mentioning that. The day is certainly warm enough, not even the man high windows opened behind Stannis enough to tempt in a breeze.
"I don't expect to enjoy business." The flat reply is almost enough to make you wonder if he is making a particularly dry jest, but one look at his eyes is enough to dissuade you of the notion. He is determined as ever, yes, but there is wariness there also and pain he cannot quite hide even behind a mask of iron. Every deed done in your name is a fresh reminder of his 'betrayal' to his brother and no matter how justified he may know it to be he feels it still.
For a moment you consider just asking to move the tree, but cannot justify it to yourself. It will be years before time alone can grind down the stone of Stannis Baratheon's regret to something he can more easily live with and you do not have years, there will be other more heartwrenching acts in the months to come. Hopefully your request today will prove obscure and esoteric enough to be distracting.
"What do you know of the Storm God against whose wrath it is said these walls was built against?" you ask carefully, willing to let him lead the conversation rather than lecturing as though to a Scholarum initiate.
"Practically nothing," he grinds out. "One of the pyromancers has shown some small interest in the legend, you would have to ask him about it. I simply gave him permission to look all he likes so long as he does no harm and brings to my attention any useful information he may come across."
By accident, though the last words are not said aloud the tone makes them clear. The Lord of Storm's End does not believe ancient myths could be of any worth or use here and now.
"He was once a god of war and thunder when the First Men first came to these lands," Dany interjects before the silence can grow too long. "He still is depending on your definition of 'god'. Old and faded but not gone, people still remember him when thunder crashes over head and the vaults of septs shake."
"And what does that memory serve them?" This time the words are almost toneless.
"For now very little, though he does seem to pay more attention to those few meager prayers then the Seven do to their thousands upon thousands of worshippers, as a poor man counts his coppers more carefully then the rich count gold." Thus you launch into an explanation of devotion and divinity, the powers of gods and their limitations, keeping nothing back. Not the way gods are constrained by their domains, nor the manner in which all but the most ancient and primordial of spirits depend on prayer or sacrifice and would starve without it. Father Sky and the Seven serve as examples throughout the account but you do not yet try to sway him one way or another.
Through it all the Lord of Storm's End is almost entirely silent, only asking for clarification here and there, mostly where you do not quite have words in the Common Tongue to explain the similes that are most convenient to use. His High Valyrian has obviously not been used in years, but it is clear he had been as dutiful in learning it as in any other aspect of his education.
The first question he asks once you and Dany are through with the account is not what you had expected, though perhaps you should have. "Highness, you and Lord High Justice Malarys as well as others in your service can make use of these magics of healing, divination and whatever else the priests receive by propitiating themselves before their gods. If you must hold a singular purpose for this particular tradition of sorcery, why not an abstract concept? Why encourage worship when all it does is chain people to fickle otherworldly beings buried in lies?"
Dany gives you a brief but meaningful look, the obvious answer is because gods keep one's soul from wandering or being devoured, but you are not certain you want to open that particular box of knives. Then again this is a man who values honesty above all other things and if there is a man who could bear the weight of this truth unbent it is this one.
Do you explain the Broken Spheres to Stannis Baratheon?
[] Yes, the knowledge will serve him well
[] No, best to explain this in a more gradual manner
[] Write in
OOC: Wasn't really expecting this break point until I got into Stannis head, but once I did it became obvious.
