#stormlanded

game of thrones starters / accepting .

“It is good to grow thorns in a bed of weeds, Your Grace.” A perfectly crafted smile on his perfectly even face. “We only grow as vicious as needs must. And in difficult times, our ranks grow sharp indeed.” He then lay a hand on the desk, an open, confident gesture, and never did the smile leave his face nor the glint leave his eye. “But no matter how vicious a rose might be, what has the Dragon to fear? We grow only to the light of the crown. We grow only on the hill that supports our nation’s throne. Vicious, perhaps. But our thorns point only outward.”

His smile slightly tugged, twitching at the corner of his lips. He wasn’t necessarily lying. And that was good enough for him. “As since the days of the Rebellion, we serve the Crown. Vicious in our loyalty.”

He stepped back after he had leaned over to her ear, and looked at her with melancholic pain in his eyes. The kind of pain that projected outward from a different person and was absorbed by the observer. An aura. He tried his best to let a smile break through on his face but got caught somewhere between half-smile and grimace. He felt very strongly that he ought to reach out, comfort her in some way, but sense of propriety forbade his hand from moving and saw him instead stand stiffly before her. 

“I tried, my lady, to the best of my ability, to relieve your shoulders of their burden.” There was little he could say but meaningless platitudes. He had been her liege and by technicality her brother in law. And yet had been powerless by the laws of gods and men. And ignorant, perhaps, for too long. It was a rather pitiful idea. To be one of the most powerful men in Westeros, a knight of the Seven, for fuck’s sake! And yet unable to do more than protect by proxy. Send letters with implications to the man in question. Try to provide a life with friendship and reprieve. “And I hope you might forgive me.”