RED RIVERS

House Estren would not how him a place to sleep and he would not be insulted by being given an offer of another cupboard or perhaps some stable room. He didn't mind sleeping rough or, when he had the coin to spare, sleeping in different inns and taverns which was how he found himself standing at bar of the inn drinking mugs of ale between recounting tales of glory. But, someone was distracting him. The man tucked away in the corner. Most wouldn't notice but Cato was trained to notice.

And as he started to walk through the crowd, away from the bar and toward the man he tried to place him but his face was hard to see. This was not his place nor were these his lands but as a knight of the Westerlands, and as a man with no lands to speak of, he was duty bound to ensure none would bring them trouble. There was a time when he would see a shadow in the corner and block them with the view of a woman. And now, well, he loved the company of women but he needed to be better. And one day he could be on the Kingsguard. Or even better, landed.

Lucius raised a hand and caught the attention of the barmaid. With a silent tilt of his head, he indicated that a pint of ale should be brought to the companion now talking to him. After that silent exchange, he reached out for his drink and took a sip. “You won't be causing me trouble on this fine evening, will you, Hill?” he asked as he set down his drink. Only a moment later, the pretty maid served a nearly overflowing pint for Cato.

“I'm having quite a calm night myself,” the big Riverlander mused, leaning back more comfortably against his seat. He was in no hurry to have to use his bow or his knives on this day, but he would be ready to do so if the situation called for it. “What about you?” he asked pointedly.

news of what lucius rivers had done to his true-born half brother had spread quickly from raventree hall, and perhaps alone of the men of the riverlands, malachi was not horrified to hear of it, but instead, grossly intrigued. he knew the bastard, had come across him during his wonderings in the riverlands forest, in search of signs of the old gods. malachi's devotion was a well-kept secret, but lucius worshipped those same gods. it left the two with a sort of kinship.

and now, here lucius was, looking to cross the river. and malachi, in his capacity as the toll collector of the bridge, would be the one to decide to let him continue on his journey or not.

"they're looking high and low for you, friend." he did not sound as though he much cared for it, beyond the strange twinkle in his grey eyes. he leaned against the tree, his posture casual, but his expression remained the same, darkly amused by the whole thing. "north you're heading, is it?" he must be, if he had found himself in the frey's lands. something tugged at the back of his mind, knowledge that the starks and the blackwoods had a kinship between them. then again, so did the starks and the tullys, and that had not stopped queen iona putting a price on his head.

if he was heading north, crossing to the west bank of the green fork was most sensible. it would take lucius close to seagard, which was a risk, but if he made it to the neck and crossed the border, he could skirt around the edges of the bogs and continue his journey along the edges of the lands of house flint until he reached moat cailin. to head north from the east bank would lead him directly to the heart of the swamp, a treacherous terrain even those who knew it well could find themselves drowning in.

"toll's same as it always was. everyone needs pay it, even you." of course, it was malachi who set the toll, and it wasn't as though he did not take alternative methods of payment when he chose to, though he doubted lucius would let him take what he was owed in tooth or blood. gold would have to do.

The Bastard of Raventree Hall had not gotten here by chance. His path had twisted with intention, following quite a roundabout way to get here. He'd left false trails to disorient those who chased him, and now he was finally closer to the Starks' lands. It was a suitable place to disappear. It was familiar enough to adapt without much trouble, and close enough to make his way back to the Riverlands to finish what he started when the time was right.

Crossing meant running into the Freys at one point or another. Fortunately, Tully loyalty had never been their distinctive virtue. And of them all, Malachi was perhaps the best person he could've crossed paths with. “Even me? What's that supposed to mean?” Lucius asked with a scoff, a slight smirk briefly curving his lip. “Fret no, Frey. I've no habit of owing money or favors”. He slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out the small pouch of coins he'd reserved for this very encounter.

the feeling that rose next in her was not one of contemplation, but of envy. she knew well the liberation that came with people looking past you, had sought it out in many ways by making herself smaller and quieter, easier to miss next to more dominant personalities, but that was becoming ever harder to do. lucius had found that in another way, through giving people something to expect of him, and doing as he pleased with the extra room that it afforded him. "it is the trade off, i suppose." when last they had spoken, she had decided that blood was blood, no matter the circumstances of his birth, but that did not mean she was blind to the reality of what that meant for him. her words were not born of sympathy, just a simple acknowledgement. "burdens fall unevenly, even amongst siblings, and the greatest weight is not always the most obvious one."

Her following words caught his attention. They puzzled him, really. Nothing was ever even. Not between bastards and trueborn children. Not between men and women. Not between royals or those lower on the hierarchy. Lucius had begun to notice something subtle weighing down Dacey. She did not look haunted or wounded, but there was something he couldn't quite name that made her seem contained to the point of a quiet suffocation. The greatest weight is not always the most obvious one. Sharp blue eyes settled on her, trying to understand her. He didn't. But he was interested in doing so. “What is burdening you?” he asked plainly, his tone somewhere between sharp and kind. There was no judgment in his words, just his own unpolished way of offering to the princess to listen if she wished to speak. “If you wish to share it, I swear it by the old gods, I will not repeat a word I hear,” he added, assuring her of a sworn silence after this conversation.

The Riverlander accepted her thanks with a quick, solemn nod. If she ever wished to take him up on the offer, it was there. “Speak whenever you feel like it, or write,” he added, for those times the distance between the North and the Riverlands stood in between. “Fret not, you're not dull at all. You're a sincere person,” he added, the subtext of how rare that quality was hanging in the air. “I've seen dozens of nights like this one. Nothing ever surprises me,” the bastard added, not sounding too terribly thrilled about what the Litha festival had to offer. He'd go and have a drink, he'd eat the same traditional dishes, he'd write a note and let it burn as it drifted atop a sunwheel through the river, and he'd see some improvised acting and dances. The same things every year. With a quick glance and a nod, he quietly communicated to his cousin that she wasn't making him miss out on much.

"how?" she asked, a little more suddenly than she expected as she turned back to look at him. "i'm quite predictable, really." a shrug followed. he had not asked her what it was about him that had surprised her, and if he had, she doubted she could have given him and answer, but elia pressed at it. she wanted to know what it was about her, what made her special, what exactly had shattered his expectations. perhaps she was fishing for a compliment, or perhaps she wanted to gauge how much of her he had seen, as opposed to what he had thought he had.

a little hum escaped her, her disagreement plan on her face. "i don't think that's true," she wasn't trying to be contrarian this time, she just genuinely didn't believe what he was saying. "everything's got more than one use, doesn't it? even a weapon. a knife can peel an apple as easy as it can slip between the ribs." she'd seen smallfolk prepare to march to battle, and they took whatever was on hand, pitchforks once used in stables or scythes, not special-made swords. and besides: "people aren't weapons, anyway," she pointed out. "i mean, nobody is entirely one thing, are they?" she wondered if it was a comfort to him to have that clarity, to believe he was made for war and devote himself to that purpose and that alone, but it raised a sort of dissonance in her chest.

The Bastard of Raventree Hall shook his head lightly, settling back to rest more comfortably as he let out a light exhale. “I only imagined I’d go through the same thing again as every other Litha festival. Compete, eat, drink, watch the play, see sunwheels burn”. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy the festival per se, but it usually was predictable, repetitive, unremarkable. And like he said, Elia Martell had not been a predictable encounter in any way. “I've enjoyed talking to you”. His direct delivery made it sound like it was just a matter of fact, while it could also be taken as a compliment. He didn't know who to attribute the fact that he'd been having a good time in her company thus far. Was it the princess' merit for her conversational skills? Was it the setting they were in or the situation? Whatever threads were pulled for them to cross paths as they did, he was content that it happened so. At least, this year he'd have something more remarkable about the Litha festival to remember.

He lingered on her ideas and the questions she asked. He had to pause and think longer than he would have liked to admit. The bastard prided himself on certainty, on moving through the world with a kind of determination and clarity that could be enviable or threatening, for he did not pause or second-guess himself. Very few challenged him, and fewer still made him think more deeply. Her question etched itself into that certainty of his, attempting to cut through it. Lucius studied her, brow faintly drawn. “You’ve a good point there,” he replied, which was the closest thing to conceding he could get to. “But still, after a lifetime of walking on a single path, it’s not so natural to find alternatives. And perhaps I like the path,” he added for good measure, unafraid of what that last part sounded like. He was a soldier first and foremost, and he kept walking the path of being one. The bastard never thought of himself as anything more than what he was made to be, and maybe he was choosing to continue down that road. He was created by his path just as he simultaneously created it.

The princess' claim about being a predictable person managed to bring another subtle smirk from him. “Perhaps one day I’ll know you well enough to find you predictable. But that’s not today,” he added in a lower voice, tilting his head slightly to the side, watching Elia with the kind of interest she managed to elicit from him through their entire conversation. Then she teased him about plotting to pry her secrets away from her, and Lucius simply shook his head. “Not all,” the bowman confessed with ease. His gaze lingered on her for a moment before turning to watch the flames, the firelight catching in his blue eyes. “Not tonight. I have enough patience to wait for that other fire”. He was certain that the opportunity for them to have another conversation like this would come.

as lucius had given her space to speak, she fell silent, listening to him in that quiet, attentive way she did. even when speaking of spaces that held so much uncertainty, lucius still sounded so very certain, as though he had found the things in his life that made him who he was, and clung to them even tighter. in a way, dacey envied that. there was a sort of liberation that came from not caring that she wasn't sure she'd ever achieve herself. "i suppose if that's where they choose to stop looking, it gives you a little more room to move," she spoke thoughtfully, her eyes finding the glassy surface of the river in the dark. "it's a luxury in itself." one it did not sound like lucius' siblings enjoy. dacey's brow knotted, concern blossoming on her features. she could relate to his words, in the way that they echoed the worries she held for her own brothers and sisters. "it's never easy, is it?" she wondered aloud. wherever they found themselves in life, they all had their burdens to bear.

He let her next words settle before responding. A luxury, she called it. But Lucius saw it more as some sort of leeway. “There’s a kind of freedom in being overlooked,” he admitted easily, sounding even a little pleased that such were his circumstances. No doubt some people thought he aspired to claim a Blackwood lordship, that he craved the title Ben had because that was the nature of ambition. Because that was what could be expected of a bastard brother who was also the firstborn. What a misconception of who Lucius Rivers truly was. “People think they know what to expect, or they don’t expect much from you at all. That leaves more room to move, as you said”. In many ways, he'd had it easier than Ben and Agnes. Easier than Dacey and his other Stark cousins. He didn't carry the kind of weight that was placed on people like them. Royals. Nobles. Lucius didn't pretend to know what that was like, but he saw that looming force there, around all of them.

"then you better be on your best behaviour, lucius rivers," there was enough levity in her tone to make it plain she was not being serious when she spoke. "i don't let just anyone around my fires." that much was true. elia lived her life in a strange, in-between sort of space, craving the feeling of mattering, but far too used to the opposite, and feeling both defensive and suspicious when attention did turn to her. "i didn't expect this, either," she admitted. "not in the riverlands." she had never thought about the riverlands much at all. her entire presence here was simply because it was something to occupy herself with. "i usually think i know how nights like this will go. you've quite ruined my predictions."

there was nothing particularly tragic in what he was saying, about feeling ill at ease when peace was won, but she frowned all the same. "you live with it, i suppose." it sounded like the most obvious thing in the world to her, she who knew far too much about dresses and jewels and far too little of what it meant to hold a sword in your hand and know your purpose was to wield it. "you find other things to fill your days with, like i do with my horses, and you enjoy yourself until there's something else to worry about." it was never quite that simple, even in her own charmed corner of the world.

He looked at her again, just as she said he’d ruined her predictions. Their eyes met then, and Lucius held her gaze in silence for some time. He did not apologize for skewing whatever she'd expected, and didn't ask what her predictions had been. “You’ve ruined mine,” he said plainly. It wasn't an accusatory statement, though. He had expected the usual from the Litha festival: the same distant, half-hearted, performative enjoyment from years past. And yet here he was now, leaning closer to the fire beside a Dornish princess whose mind moved with grace and wit, who spoke like she wasn’t trying to impress anyone, and who had managed to draw his attention in a way no one had in a very long time.

Her next words drew a silent glance from the bastard, one that lingered on her for a few heartbeats before he turned back to look at the fire before them. It sounded so simple, to articulate peace, and what someone's place in it could be, in the way she did. Maybe it truly was that easy and he simply failed, stubbornly, consistently, to be anything beyond than what he was. “When you build weapons for war, they can rarely be given a different use,” he stated in a low tone. The bowman felt that way. He was a soldier, but he was also the weapon that filled rivers with blood. Lucius Rivers was made up of certainties, but for a moment there, sitting next to Elia Martell and speaking of peace, he doubted. The princess spoke of what filled her days when the chaos of the world gave them a respite, but he didn't say what filled his own in the absence of war. He didn't want to admit that most of that time felt like preparation for something else to crumble eventually.

"it is," she admitted, a sheepish sort of smile crossing her face. "it's not... it isn't that i don't like people. i do, very much. but like this," she gestured first at herself, then at him, wordlessly indicating that it was the smaller, more personal interactions that she enjoyed. "there's something about being part of a crowd that makes me feel like i'm out of place." her eyes fell on the river, water surging gently forward. "it's like everyone is watching me trying to hold water with my hands, and laughing that it keeps slipping through. does that make sense at all?" there was a flush upon her face as she looked at him, and she could not recall the last time she had tried to put those thoughts into words, nor if anybody had ever asked.

lucius had already offered his own thoughts on the matter ; but even if he had not, dacey was not clueless enough not to be able to guess at why he might not enjoy crowds of people, even if it did not come from the same place that her own need for quieter spaces did. his mention of performance, though, surprised her, for it was at odds with the vision that she held of him. "and yes. the performance of it," she paused for a moment, as though weighing up whether to say more. "i wouldn't have expected that to be the same for you." it was not a question, but phrased lightly enough for him to elaborate if he wished to, or ignore if he did not.

His eyes narrowed slightly, thoughtful. “It’s different for me,” Lucius went on, not as a correction but as an offering. “I don’t feel out of place in a crowd. I just don’t care for the game of it. All the nodding and smiling. The words that mean nothing, or mean everything, and you’re meant to guess which,” he said, glancing toward his cousin. For someone as straightforward as him, those labyrinths were unnerving. “I know what people see when they look at me. A soldier, a brute, something simple. And that’s fine. I let them see that”. His tone held no bitterness. “But I’ve seen what it’s like for Ben. For Agnes. The way people, even inside our own halls, watch them. Waiting for them to fail. To lose”. He paused, then glanced at her. It was not the experience he lived in his own flesh, but he'd seen closely what it was to be measured by standards one never chose.

what she could not grasp, more than anything, was how he had known to ask it in the first place. what exactly was it that had slipped through the cracks of her mask, and alerted him to that which lingered at her core. it wasn't that she was sad about it. not anymore, at least. it had become, over the years, something she was accustomed to. perhaps that was the worst thing about it.

the silence had stretched, and elia knew she needed to break it, and so she looked at him again, and despite herself, she managed a smile. "too close." she said, her voice low. "i think that's a story for another fire." it wasn't a refusal, nor a denial of what he said, but it was a deflection. his question had brushed too near to something she hadn't named aloud, and wasn't sure she wanted to name at all. "and preferably one with better wine. the stuff you drink here is horrid." she scrunched her nose up, before her face gave way to something else, gentle, if near unreadable. "but thank you for asking." it was not an empty platitude. whilst she did not want to answer, it wasn't lost on her that she was glad he asked.

the brush of his hand on her back was fleeting, but she noticed it. her brow arched slightly in response, more in surprise than anything else, but she said nothing of it. she only tucked that moment away, and allowed it to pass without comment. she was far more interested in the topic of conversation, anyway. there was a steady sort of certainness to the way lucius spoke that, in a way, unsettled elia. it was so at odds with the way she lived her own life. he spoke every word as though it was irrefutable fact, and she wasn't sure if she envied that or not. he did not carry with him the boastful pride of a man eager to prove himself, nor the shaken horror of someone who had seen to much. his manner was matter-of-fact, both quieter and more rooted than most. "so it is second nature, then?" she continued to poke at him, her foot tapping against the earth beneath it in a thoughtful sort of way. "you don't enjoy it, but you do it anyway." there was no judgement in her words, she was merely trying to understand.

A story for another fire. “I would like to be near when that fire is lit,” he said at last, the corner of his mouth curving ever so slightly. “I did not expect to be talking like this tonight,” the bastard added, his voice low. It went without saying that he did not expect her. The words held no weight beyond their sincerity, only the soft surprise of finding himself engaged in a way he hadn’t planned, at a gathering he thought he could predict.

When she pressed again, speaking of a second nature, his eyes dropped to the ground, where her foot tapped lightly against the earth. “Maybe,” he said after a beat, thoughtful. “Maybe it is. Maybe it runs in the blood,” he murmured. “My brother Ben... He doesn’t know what to do with peace either”. He didn’t elaborate. The thought wasn't grim or mournful; it was just a simple recognition. A quiet sort of acceptance that some men weren’t made for stillness. They understood war, they understood their duty in such times. Peace had a way of being more confusing, having more blurred lines, a less structured path. At the end of the day, the bastard of Raventree Hall was merely a soldier.

she did not need to make that known, though. it felt like too much of an exposition for a man she had only just met, and elia was not in the habit of showing much of herself to others. instead, she merely smiled and shrugged, the very picture of a social butterfly with little concerns of such matters. "maybe they do," she said. "i shall have to ask when i am home."

her thoughts were drawn away from herself, and back towards him. this sort of conversation was what she enjoyed, being able to dig into who someone was, even if his words only seemed to skim the surface. he spoke of war, and her head tilted, assessing him as he spoke. "does it not get tiring?" she asked. "constantly waiting for the world to burn? or do you enjoy it? some men do. they sit around hoping for a chance to prove their glory like a lover waiting at a window." her words rang with amusement, though she was genuinely curious. she'd never much thought about it, what men who waited for war did in the spaces between.

for his part, lucius did not sound eager - more resigned, as though it was an inevitability that would find him whether he chased it or not. even as he spoke of himself, as though his entire being was the will of his father and the gods, was of indifference. "and you have never thought of having your own hand in who you became?" the question slipped out before she could fully think through what she was asking. "or is it all the will of your father and the gods to decide that for you?" she did not know why that was where she was lingering in their conversation. perhaps it was the fact that she often felt like she had little control over her own life, and the way she chafed at that notion.

“What is it like?” he asked after a beat, his curiosity tempered with something sharper. “Being given all you want, except what actually matters?” Lucius leaned forward a little, looking to the side to truly pay attention to her reaction, her response. He wondered if she would recognize the question for what it was. Genuine curiosity, a strange and persistent feeling to wish to better understand the woman at his side. And he wondered if she would let the question slip past her, or if she would meet it head-on.

Their conversation kept shifting, from him to her and back to him, just as the people around them, enjoying the Litha festival, were moving from one place to the next. One of the revelers ran very close to them, carrying a torch to light another bonfire nearby. Lucius' hand landed on Elia's back, a quick protective motion as the man carrying the fire passed just behind them. The bastard glared at the man for a moment as he withdrew his palm from the Dornish princess, not saying a word.

He thought about Elia's question then. Did it get tiring? Men like him only knew war, truly. “It's what I've trained for all my life. I'm familiar with it,” he said at last. His voice was even, somewhat quiet but certain. Chaos was not something he feared. It was something he understood, something as inevitable as the tide pulling back to reveal what had always been beneath. Others might wait anxiously for the world to burn with yet another conflict, but Lucius could merely walk through those flames with the knowledge that in truth, they had always been there. “I wouldn't say I enjoy it,” he said. Perhaps it was a lie to phrase it that way, because he knew deep down that he also never rejected the feeling that bloomed in his chest when he fired his arrows, when he found they met their target and spilled blood.

And you have never thought of having your own hand in who you became? The Dornish woman asked, and Lucius looked at her for a moment in silence before he answered. It wasn't due to uncertainty that he lingered before he spoke. He did not feel rushed. He was enjoying the silences between them as much as learning what the princess had to say. “My own hand is moved with and by the gods, the way I see it,” he murmured after a few heartbeats. “I decide, and they choose to let me get away with it or not”. He offered a subtle shrug then, having no other way of expressing how he saw things. Anything the gods did not wish to see him accomplish, they would stop. Thus far, they had never stopped him.

she could see shades of how she felt of cassana in lucius when he spoke of ben, obvious in the quiet but steadfast pride in his words. benjicot blackwood was her cousin as much as lucius was, but she had never exchanged more than a few passing words with the ruling lord of raventree hall. all she knew about him truly was what the songs said, but lucius' certainty left little room for doubt in his abilities. "it sounds familiar," she admitted, with a knowing smile. "all that stubbornness. a trait shared by starks and blackwoods alike." few would look at dacey and assume she was a woman who knew her own mind, but it was not entirely true. in the things she believed in, she was quietly resolute.

the tension she hadn't entirely realised she was holding on to ebbed away as they stepped towards the bridge. the other side of the bank was, as lucius had promised, far quieter, giving her more room to breathe. the sounds of the river were lighter here, and though the festival was still visible, the sounds of it carrying in the breeze, it was enough of a distance for her to relax. she hadn't realised how much she needed this, a moment of peace and the simple comfort of company that did not demand more than she had the capacity to give. she turned her gaze upward, to where the wind rustled the leaves of the trees gently. "you were right," she said, simply. "it's nicer over here. less... well, constricting." she returned her eyes to him, her smile showing her gratitude to him for suggesting the walk. "thank you, lucius."

The pair walked on the quieter side of the river and he glanced at his cousin, his eyes lingering on the soft gratitude she offered him. Hers was a gentle warmth that stood in stark contrast to the steeliness of his own demeanor. There was commonality between the cousins, as they spoke about earlier, but for the most part, Lucius Rivers and Dacey Stark were almost perfect opposites. Despite that, he found himself at ease in her company. “You don’t like crowds,” he observed. Lucius’s gaze was sharp, perceptive. A lot of people saw only a big brute in him, but he did see more than most gave him credit for. More than once he'd run into his cousin as she walked on her own. “Too many eyes, too many voices. And the endless performance. It's exhausting,” he stated, offering his own perceptions on the matter, his own reasons for wishing to oftentimes stand on the side of it all. He did wonder what was the part that caused his cousin to trail away.

but lucius was listening. it was plain in the fact he was looking at her like she was a puzzle he'd yet to crack. it struck her then, as the words left her lips, how unguarded she was. that was not a luxury she often indulged with. as others did not speak their truths to her, she hid hers behind a gilded facade, sunspear's halls less a home and more the battleground of some invisible game she could not remember when she had started playing. and yet here she was, under a foreign sky, offering plain truths to a riverlander bastard whose name she had only just learned. the strangeness of it lingered, and she could not decide if it unsettled her, or if she did not mind.

her head tilted, watching him speak of the land of the rivers with something like pride in his voice, quiet and unwavering. she could respect that. "more than enough," she echoed, gaze slipping from him to drift over their surroundings, the dancers and dim lights of candles floating into the distance. it was joyful, but not in a way that elia felt like she was part of, as though she was watching it all through glass rather than truly experiencing it.

"and what do you do with the rest of your days?" she asked, and it was clear then that she knew so little of what life was like here, though her curiosity was evident, shining in her eyes along with the light of the bonfire. it was always her way, the little social butterfly of house martell, always far more interested in what she didn't know than what she did. beside the fire was a bench, hewn from an felled log, and she lowered herself into it, gesturing with a lazy hand for him to sit beside her.

when only silence met her next words, she looked at him again. he had a way about him that felt like he was turning her words over in his palm before responding to them. most men would have taken her words as a compliment, being told they were not like rest bolstering their ego even if it was not supposed to, but lucius simply looked at her, waiting for an answer.

she leaned forward, elbow propped against her leg, and rested her cheek in her hand. "i don't know," her brow furrowed, as though she was struggling to find the words. "you're quieter, i suppose. and it isn't a shy sort of quiet or a weird quiet. it's more deliberate than that." she looked again to the dancers, then back at him, her expression pointed, as though she was daring him to tell her that he was just the same as them.

"i'm not one of you, though." she countered. she was a child of sun-baked desert, river mud as alien to her as the accent that seemed to prevail here. but he was right. for just a moment, she let herself get swept along in it. "wasn't a wish," she admitted. "i have everything i could ever want." it was not a boast, or at least, it wasn't intended to be. she'd long ago come to the belief that if she told herself enough times that she was blessed, she'd begin to believe it herself. "suppose i just thought the river would carry all my secrets away. better chance here than in dorne, anyway. the sunwheel would dry up in the sands before it got all that far."

there was another brief silence that followed, filled only with the crackling of the bonfire. "what was it you wished for?" she asked, eventually.

“In times of peace, nothing too exciting, I'm afraid,” Lucius Rivers mused, looking at the bonfire between them. That was the key, of course, the peace men like him rarely knew what to do with. It was in times of war that the man known as Red Rivers really did something with his days. These were calmer times, more monotone times for him. “I’m a soldier, not a lord. So my days only involve training, hunting, praying. Getting ready for when the world next burns, because it always does, doesn't it?”

The Dornish princess leisurely gestured for him to join her and it took the bastard a moment to decide whether he wanted to sit at her side or not. Or rather, why he wanted to sit beside her. Lucius moved towards her, no rush at all in his motions. He was slow yet deliberate. Elia Martell wasn't the first person to point out his quiet and stern nature, and yet she didn't react to him with caution or disdain. She behaved with an ease that was rare. “I’m just the son my father raised,” the bastard of Raventree Hall stated plainly, almost too casually. “And what the gods willed me to become after he was dead and gone”. There was no depth to his words, just the indifferent simplicity of being the result of something. He was the will of the gods, but also just a man. That was the line Lucius Rivers walked every day of his life, embracing the divine and being aware of the mundane.

"what would that solve?" he asked, though there was no heat to the question. it was as though he was unwilling to exert any real control over his elder brother. "doing ronan bracken's job for him, and leaving me to explain to the rest of the riverlands why my brother turned two trueborn blackwoods into corpses." it was not meant as a slight on lucius' own birth. just a simple, if blunt, statement of what was true. he bristled a little when his brother mentioned his soft side, but said nothing. there was no denying that it existed, even if he didn't want to acknowledge it.

“Brains instead of blades,” Lucius echoed, his voice even but tinged with skepticism. “I’ve no objection to strategy, Ben. But it must be a strategy that keeps the family safe”. It went without saying that such family unit only included Ben, Agnes and himself, none of Willow's offspring. “If you believe words and maneuvering will keep Willow Wylde in check, then so be it.” His arms remained crossed, but there was a slight shift in his posture, a readiness to relent, at least for now. “But don’t mistake restraint for weakness. She will take it as such. Make her believe she is playing her game and winning it, but be ready to strike when her mask slips. That is how you outsmart someone like her”.

He paused, glancing toward the room and paying attention to their sister once more. The beast that he was always guarding, always ready to protect his siblings. “Fine. Her boys will remain untouched, you have my word. Unless she oversteps. I’ve no qualms about sending a message that needs sending”. There was a quiet intensity to his words, a rare concession that Lucius offered only for Ben’s sake. “You’re right about one thing,” he continued, his tone softening just slightly. “This is what she wants. Your doubt, your exhaustion. But you’re stronger than she is, and far more powerful, Ben. Do not let her forget that in Raventree Hall and everywhere else, you are the Blackwood, not her”.

Lucius patted his brother's shoulder then. There was nothing else he needed to say to his brother for now, in here. And the Blackbar lord had been dancing with Agnes for far too long as it was, so the bastard of Raventree Hall began to move towards his sister, ready to interfere.