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

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QueenPally said:
I'd like an interlude, personally. Other perspectives are fun! Is Garin going to be there, or is he stuck working? I think he and his wife could use a date night away from the kids.
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He will be there. It should be noted though that Garin only gets the fun times with his kids and so does Selyse. That is the advantage of being staggeringly rich, and also the mores of the age when it comes to child rearing.
 
DragonParadox said:
Also and perhaps most importantly she would find him kind of boring.
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Does she never get bored of Viserys because he can keep a straight face at her flirting and banter with her cleverly without being distracted?

Because Theon's not lacking for charisma, but impulse aversive... well, just look at how he dealt with Embra.
 
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Interlude MLXXVIII: Fish Out of Water
  • Threadmarks
    • Fish Out of Water ​

    Twenty-Seventh Day of the Fifth Month 294 AC

    Catelyn Stark was no stranger to guilt. As a child she had felt guilty over being glad that Petyr had been sent away because of the way he would take up all her sister's time, only for Lysa to be devastated. As a young woman she had felt guilty over the relief she had felt over the fact that she would not see her husband again for months after their wedding night, giving her the chance to get a hold of her tangled twisting feelings. As a wife and a mother, a lady in her own right, she had felt more guilty than she had thought possible sitting by the bedside of a sick Jon Snow wishing with all her heart that this was not some cruel fate that had heard the words she had spoken to herself alone in the cold nights. But all of that had passed, Lysa was content enough staying here with her son, her husband loved her and even Jon Snow had been revealed like a prince in a tale to have been of royal blood after all...

    Like a tale, you could say that about this whole palace, a city where you could feel neither the weariness of the day, nor the weight of age, where the most humble of souls had a spark of sorcery, where angels and devils walked the earth and gods danced in the clouds above. It was more like a child's imagining of what a court was than anything that should be real under the sun. She loved it... and she hated herself for loving it.

    What kind of woman, what kind of mother, found it in herself to smile and look about in wonder at a time like this. When her son was gone, dead and worse than dead. And so each morning she dressed herself in black and to that black she consigned her thoughts, as sternly as if a a septa had laid a penance upon her she kept her gaze down and her words in the bounds of courtesy, not curiosity.

    So it was with a roiling mixture of dread and anticipation that she greeted the news that there would be a closing feast for the Curia. When she heard that it would take place in the Hall of the Sea she imagined a place that was draped in fabrics of blue and sea green, perhaps one with murals and mosaics fitting the theme as was the case in other parts of the palace.

    As was so often the case since she had come south to see the Imperator crowned and the realm set to order her expectations could not live up to the heights and the depths of the truth.

    Looking down did not spare one the wonders of this place, the floor entire was one vast stretch of water like the sea in miniature. Tinny forests of kelp played host to strange leafy eels emerald and blue and all the colors of the deep sea and other things that were simply spun of molten glass that had no color of their own, but broke the silver light of that enchanted water into every hue of the rainbow. There were strange squids that opened like flowers of flesh, fangs of ivory opening like uncanny flowers to snatch delicate darting fish that had never swam in any earthly ocean. Those should have looked grotesque or frightful, but somehow they did not and added instead to the otherworldly beauty of the strange garden that was not just underneath her feet but all around her, in the walls of glass, as though it was not the creatures of the sea that were on display, but the lords and ladies of the Imperium in all their splendor, and such splendor it was that no court of kings could ever match it as far as Catelyn could imagine.

    To call it dreamlike would be to give more credit to her dreams than they really deserved. No, this was a thing far stranger, enchantment in ever breath you took and in every look a thing of wonder. Here side by side stood the lords of the west and the sorcerers of the east in glittering raiment, and angels in armor of gold and devils in plate black as soot taking counsel. In a corner lost in her own thoughts a small green-eyed figure contemplated the dance of little golden sea horses that seemed to have come from the craft of some master jeweler. A Child of the Forest, Cat knew and for a moment, just a moment, she allowed herself to feel wholly the wonder of this place and all its impossible things and folk.

    There was a whale no bigger than the length of her arm floating serenely beside her, just on the other side of the glass, dreaming its own slow whale dreams. According to Ned they had been made especially for the purpose, and he said it in a faintly disapproving way, as though making anything like that simply because you could was some sort of sin...

    Aloud Catelyn had agreed of course, she was nothing if not a dutiful wife, but in her heart she was glad that there was place in the world for making little whales, just because you could, a selfish sort of joy she did not dare reveal to another.

    "You are allowed to feel more than one thing at once you know," a familiar voice called out from behind her.

    She whirled to see Lysa, approaching, garbed in greed that set off her hair nicely, but did little to mask her pallor, nor the lines that had already started to mark her face. But it was her eyes that looked most different from the last time she had seen her little sister, older and sadder, more knowing somehow.

    "I... I don't know what you mean..." She started to busy herself with he meal. It was some kind of fish that she had never seen before, doubtless strange and maybe even arcane, but for all the attention Cat gave it the stuff might as well have been porridge without salt.

    "It hasn't been so long that I had forgotten what you look like when you are moping you know. The sadness will still be there waiting even if you do not attend to it hand and foot like a slave," Lysa continued.

    "Moping?" Catelyn's tangled feelings caught on the word like a spark to dry kindling. "How dare you..." she was talking too loud and she did not care.

    "I could call it something else if you like, something poetic and grand, it won't hurt any less for it." A shaky laugh, like the sound of glass breaking, left her lips. "I've been to that well more times than you Cat and it's not all the pretty sorrow the poets like to speak of. You are going to hate yourself for not being strong enough to stop it, then you are going to hate your husband, then you are going to curse the gods for letting it happen, then..." She did not need to speak the last words, but Cat heard her all too well. 'You are going to hate Robb for dying'.

    "They say time heals all wounds." She was not sure what made her say the words, desperate hope maybe, or the reminder that Lysa was speaking from experience that she had lost so much more.

    "Well 'they' are dirty liars then," Lysa replied. "Time may knit the wound back together, but a scab is not clean flesh. Take it from the woman who feels more like a living scab some days. It is not about being healed, not about being fixed, like you used to be, it is about growing past it, about becoming someone who can bear the weight and a part of that. The biggest part maybe is acknowledging that there are still things worth living for and if for you that is pretty fish... well, you always were the better Tully then me."

    "That is... what?" It took Catelyn a long moment to get the joke and when she did she could not keep down a laugh at the sheer absurdity. "When did you get so wise?"

    "When I started paying someone for the wisdom," Lysa shrugged. At her elder sister's confused look she added. "I'm going to a mind healer now. It is nice to talk to someone who really wants to help, even if it is only because you are paying them gold for the service. I think I am starting to understand why some men are so fond of whores..."

    "Lysa!" Some habits ran deep, and few so deeper as the urge to keep her little sister from saying a dirty word.

    "Look around you Cat, does it seem like anyone noticed or cared?" It was clear that she was talking about more than her words choice. And indeed the whole of the hall was more concerned with the golden figure of the Imperator who stood up and announced the wedding to all but the most blind, or the most desperate, who knew it would come just from the way he looked to the woman at his side.

    "The wedding will take place in the Temple of Unity, under the eyes of all the allied gods of the Imperium and it shall be preceded by another grand tourney alike to the last one, though with perhaps fewer mystery knights this time around..." a laugh passed through the assembled guests like a gust of wind in the sea of whispers and speculation.

    "I... thank you, Lysa," she squeezed her sister's hand as they would do so long ago in Riverrun. "I'm sorry that I couldn't..." She was not sure what she would say, what she could say. 'Be there for you' sounded so hollow when both of them had been bound to their husbands and their duties.

    "There is no changing the past, but we might yet do something about the future," her sister replied and for a a time they sat and spoke of things not so grand and grim.

    What next?

    [] Write in

    OOC: This may be the largest interlude I ever wrote. Hope you guys enjoy.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • DragonParadox said:
    Fish Out of Water ​

    Twenty-Seventh Day of the Fifth Month 294 AC

    Catelyn Stark was no stranger to guilt. As a child, she felt guilty over being glad that Petyr had been sent away because of the way he would take up all her sister's time, only for Lysa to be devastated. As a young woman, she felt guilty over the relief she had felt over the fact that she would not see her husband again for months after their wedding night, giving her the chance to get a hold of her tangled, twisting feelings. As a wife and a mother, a lady in her own right, she had felt more guilty than she had thought possible, sitting by the bedside of a sick Jon Snow wishing with all her heart that this was not some cruel fate that had heard the words she had spoken to herself alone in the cold nights. But all of that had passed, Lysa was content enough staying here with her son, her husband loved her, and even Jon Snow had been revealed like a prince in a tale to have been of royal blood, after all...

    Like a tale, you could say that about this whole palace, a city where you could feel neither the weariness of the day, nor the weight of age. Where the most humble of souls had a spark of sorcery, where angels and devils walked the earth, and gods danced in the clouds above. It was more like a child's imagining of what a court was than anything that should be real under the sun. She loved it... and she hated herself for loving it.

    What kind of woman, what kind of mother, found it in herself to smile and look about in wonder at a time like this? When her son was gone, dead and worse than dead? And so each morning she dressed herself in black and to that black she consigned her thoughts. As sternly as if a septa had laid a penance upon her, she kept her gaze down and her words in the bounds of courtesy, not curiosity.

    So it was with a roiling mixture of dread and anticipation that she greeted the news that there would be a closing feast for the Curia. When she heard that it would take place in the Hall of the Sea, Catelyn imagined a place that was draped in fabrics of blue and sea green, perhaps one with murals and mosaics fitting the theme as was the case in other parts of the palace.

    As was so often the case since she had come south to see the Imperator crowned and the realm set to order, her expectations could not live up to the heights and the depths of the truth.

    Looking down did not spare one the wonders of this place, the entire floor was one vast stretch of water, like the sea in miniature. Tiny forests of kelp played host to strange leafy eels emerald and blue and all the colors of the deep sea, and other things that were simply spun of molten glass that had no color of their own, but broke the silver light of that enchanted water into every hue of the rainbow. There were strange squids that opened like flowers of flesh, fangs of ivory opening like uncanny flowers to snatch delicate darting fish that had never swam in any earthly ocean. Those should have looked grotesque or frightful, but somehow they did not, and added instead to the otherworldly beauty of the strange garden that was not just underneath her feet but all around her, in the walls of glass, as though it was not the creatures of the sea that were on display, but the lords and ladies of the Imperium in all their splendor, and such splendor it was that no court of kings could ever match it as far as Catelyn could imagine.

    To call it dreamlike would be to give more credit to her dreams than they really deserved. No, this was a thing far stranger, enchantment in every breath you took and in every look a thing of wonder. Here, side by side, stood the lords of the west and the sorcerers of the east in glittering raiment, and angels in armor of gold and devils in plate black as soot taking counsel. In a corner, lost in her own thoughts, a small green-eyed figure contemplated the dance of little golden sea horses that seemed to have come from the craft of some master jeweler. A Child of the Forest, Cat knew, and for a moment, just a moment, she allowed herself to feel wholly the wonder of this place and all its impossible things and folk.

    There was a whale no bigger than the length of her arm floating serenely beside her, just on the other side of the glass, dreaming its own slow whale dreams. According to Ned, they had been made especially for the purpose, and he said it in a faintly disapproving way, as though making anything like that simply because you could was some sort of sin...

    Aloud, Catelyn had agreed, of course. She was nothing if not a dutiful wife, but in her heart she was glad that there was place in the world for making little whales, just because you could, a selfish sort of joy she did not dare reveal to another.

    "You are allowed to feel more than one thing at once, you know?" a familiar voice called out from behind her.

    She whirled to see Lysa approaching, garbed in green that set off her hair nicely, but did little to mask her pallor, nor the lines that had already started to mark her face. But it was her eyes that looked most different from the last time she had seen her little sister, older and sadder, more knowing somehow.

    "I... I don't know what you mean..." She started to busy herself with her meal. It was some kind of fish that she had never seen before, doubtless strange and maybe even arcane, but for all the attention Cat gave it the stuff might as well have been porridge without salt.

    "It hasn't been so long that I had forgotten what you look like when you are moping, you know. The sadness will still be there waiting, even if you do not attend to it hand and foot like a slave," Lysa continued.

    "Moping?" Catelyn's tangled feelings caught on the word like a spark to dry kindling. "How dare you..." she was talking too loud and she did not care.

    "I could call it something else if you like, something poetic and grand. It won't hurt any less for it." A shaky laugh, like the sound of glass breaking, left her lips. "I've been to that well more times than you, Cat, and it's not all the pretty sorrow the poets like to speak of. You are going to hate yourself for not being strong enough to stop it, then you are going to hate your husband, then you are going to curse the gods for letting it happen, then..." She did not need to speak the last words, but Cat heard her all too well. 'You are going to hate Robb for dying'.

    "They say time heals all wounds." She was not sure what made her say the words, desperate hope maybe, or the reminder that Lysa was speaking from experience that she had lost so much more.

    "Well 'they' are dirty liars then," Lysa replied. "Time may knit the wound back together, but a scab is not clean flesh. Take it from the woman who feels more like a living scab some days. It is not about being healed, not about being fixed, like you used to be, it is about growing past it, about becoming someone who can bear the weight, and a part of that, the biggest part maybe, is acknowledging that there are still things worth living for, and if for you that is pretty fish... well, you always were the better Tully then me."

    "That is... what?" It took Catelyn a long moment to get the joke, but when she did she could not keep down a laugh at the sheer absurdity. "When did you get so wise?"

    "When I started paying someone for the wisdom," Lysa shrugged. At her elder sister's confused look, she added, "I'm going to a mind healer now. It is nice to talk to someone who really wants to help, even if it is only because you are paying them gold for the service. I think I am starting to understand why some men are so fond of whores..."

    "Lysa!" Some habits ran deep, and few so deeper as the urge to keep her little sister from saying a dirty word.

    "Look around you, Cat. Does it seem like anyone noticed or cared?" It was clear that she was talking about more than her word choice. And indeed, the whole of the hall was more concerned with the golden figure of the Imperator who stood up and announced the wedding to all but the most blind, or the most desperate, who knew it would come just from the way he looked to the woman at his side.

    "The wedding will take place in the Temple of Unity, under the eyes of all the allied gods of the Imperium, and it shall be preceded by another grand tourney alike to the last one, though with perhaps fewer mystery knights this time around..." a laugh passed through the assembled guests like a gust of wind in the sea of whispers and speculation.

    "I... thank you, Lysa," she squeezed her sister's hand as they would do so long ago in Riverrun. "I'm sorry that I couldn't..." She was not sure what she would say, what she could say. 'Be there for you' sounded so hollow when both of them had been bound to their husbands and their duties.

    "There is no changing the past, but we might yet do something about the future," her sister replied and for a time they sat and spoke of things not so grand and grim.

    What next?

    [] Write in

    OOC: This may be the largest interlude I ever wrote. Hope you guys enjoy.
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    Made some additional edits to the chapter, DP.

    This was really great, dude. From Catelyn's angst to the awesomeness of the Hall of the Sea, not to mention Lysa's cameo. Good stuff!
     
    Awww, wow I think that's one of my favorite interludes so far! I feel like you've really captured Cat's voice well, and while "gawking at SD" might be a little old hat, I still like those interludes and thought the newness of the aquarium and the sorrow+guilt mixed in with the wonder kept it fresh. Really like seeing Lysa being able to heal and the two sisters potentially regaining their bond! (what is the deal with Robyn again? Really is mostly curiosity)
     
    A_Somebody said:
    Awww, wow I think that's one of my favorite interludes so far! I feel like you've really captured Cat's voice well, and while "gawking at SD" might be a little old hat, I still like those interludes and thought the newness of the aquarium and the sorrow+guilt mixed in with the wonder kept it fresh. Really like seeing Lysa being able to heal and the two sisters potentially regaining their bond! (what is the deal with Robyn again? Really is mostly curiosity)
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    At this point I would rater do an interlude on it. It might prove to be an interesting distraction in between the longer turns.
     
    Wayman is the best Wingman! :D

    Has side benefit of keeping the princess off of him.:p
    DragonParadox said:
    I mean you guys introduced Psychiatry to the world of ASOIAF. If there was ever a fictional universe that needed it... :V
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    If nothing else, we will be a hero just for that.

    What should we vote for? I think plan was just to hang out with Lya unless there was something important I am missing.
     
    Duesal said:
    A divine blessing would be nice, though. ;)
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    You know what would be great? A blessing everyone present can feel when it's given, but which then does absolutely nothing. Just a giant mind game + a way for whichever God does this to steal a share of the credit from our reign's accomplishments.
    We couldn't ever be sure that this wasn't just some extremely subtle blessing, because Gods are haxx and we don't want to start an argument with one for no reason.

    This would maybe even give us a little more legitimacy (as if we need it at this point).
     
    I mean at the end of the day, as Azel succinctly pointed out, legitimacy of your claim matters sufficiently less than the size of you army (or in our case the force we can bring to bear). And we have so many different kinds of sticks that we can swing that the amount that people believe we should be in charge is largely down to how effective at keeping that force projection and our general solvency (can't have one without the other).

    Otherwise there are enough unique factions with disparate values and desires who seek to challenge the Crown when it built itself in such a way that it cannot afford challenges to its authority, so that would largely have a snowballing effect the minute it failed to stand up to one challenge.

    Granted, the way I look at things, so long as Viserys is still alive, I don't think anyone can do much of anything. He's too good at gathering funds, and too persuasive to allow for negotiations in the long-term, and a vicious streak a mile wide so if you slight him you know you'll be getting it back times ten.

    So everyone's step one is pretty much inevitably "kill Viserys or render indisposed".

    Edit: The dynamic above only relates insofar as internal divisions go. Obviously an external power can have more nuanced goals about its points of interaction with the Imperium than trying to grab for a piece of the pie, even if in essence it will always be a competitive relationship that sees after its own well-being before outside parties.
     
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