helvis baratheon in waiting for a confrontation with jacks bolton @toothd before the heart tree, in the godswood of the red keep, where he was to meet someone else, some time prior to the execution
The heart tree in the Red Keep was only an oak. Helvis watched it silently as she waited, its ancient branches live with plants. She was unfamiliar with the Old Gods and their keeping, but even the hills of Harvest Hall had held a weirwood at the heart of its Godswood. She wondered if those that kept to them found the presence of their Gods, such as they were, when faced with a mere oak. A sept was a sept, whether the Seven were marked in fine carved stone with jewels for eyes, or simple crude drawings upon the wall. Strange, as she found it, the girls’ attachment to their mother’s Gods so far beyond the Seven—she had never questioned their visits to the Godswood. Piety was becoming, no matter who one was pious to.
She would now.
Helvis did not look to the side as footsteps crushed leaves underfoot. “Speak cautiously,” she called, “I am not who you might expect to see.”
