#Oswald and his wife have laid low

[teethbomb]

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[meereens]

@asoiafrarepairs [a weekend in the stormlands]

argella durrandon x rhaenys targaryen

Argella Durrandon had been alone, watching the sunless waters slosh below the great seaward wall like black wine when the rider came. Maester Oswald was the one to inform her, with eyes as flat as his voice. Her father would not have sent only one man forth to proclaim a victory. Time slowed as she descended from the battlements, the wind lulling her along as it blew the ends of her dagged sleeves forward. Gold sleeves, gold fabric like the banners that had been raised so proudly when her father left to combat the invading horde. The man who had beaten the Dornish as a green boy and killed a green king before her lifetime rallied the men of the Stormlands easily, their brassy shouts melding with her own as all cheered his valor. He had placed a gauntleted paw on her shoulder and told her to keep Storm’s End from falling into the waves in his absence. He had given her a garrison of two hundred to aid in the task. 

Most of those men were in the courtyard now, the life sapped from their faces. Ser Harrold looked eons older than six-and-twenty, while Ser Brenwyl on his right had transformed his wide mouth into a straight line. At least they could stand each other’s company again; the other day she had found herself compelled to break up a heated game of dice, suggesting she would hand the instruments of their fun over to the sea god and his minions. The new face in the center drank from an offered wineskin, stroking the flank of his chestnut courser with his other hand. Its legs were caked with mud. He stumbled into taking a knee once Argella stood a hair’s breadth away from him. 

“My princess.”

She lifted a hand. “Rise.” 

He obeyed and glanced over at Ser Haldrick Cole.

“Ser Morrey, say your piece,” the commander said. If he had said it already, every soul presently assembled would have known before her, from knight to meandering washerwoman. Janson, the old, limping master of horse had crawled out from his post ahead of her to hear what had befallen their people’s champion. Ahead of her, his daughter, his heir, who should have been there to raise the gate. Ser Morrey heaved a breath, but Argella cut him off. 

“I assume my father is dead.” 

“Yes, Princess.” He seemed relieved to not have to say it to her himself, earning a quick glare. Small wonder her father had fallen if he had such yellow-bellies rotting his ranks.

“And what of his army?”

“The battle was done as soon as he was.”

They should have pressed on. Did the lords who had wet their beards with mead in her father’s hall and supped on pheasant swallow their oaths as well? Truer men would have fought for their homeland, for their king’s memory, for her. The battle was not yet done, not for as long as a Durrandon breathed; did they intend to serve her up on a golden plate? She raised her eyes from Ser Morrey’s apologetic ones and scanned the yard, a parade of statues swaddled in plate and mail, eying her in turn. Someone in the front started hacking, an ugly, feline cough that lasted long enough to disrupt the boiling in her veins. 

“You may speak on it more, ser,” she prompted.

“We met the enemy on the hills south of Bronzegate,” he began. “They had the high ground, but we had the numbers. Near twice as many men, and far more knights besides. It was drizzling as we closed in, by midday, storming. Your father’s bannermen wanted a delay, but he must have known the storm would ground the Targaryen monster. The rain blew from the south, blinding their men. He gave the command, and thrice we struggled up the steep and muddy slopes. It must have been night by then, or else the darkest day. As we broke through to the center, the dragon emerged.” 

Argella inhaled slowly. The dragon sicced on their hills was the same beast that had laid waste to the kingswood, incinerating Lord Errol. Lords Fell and Buckler had ridden back to warn her father of the creature and the queen who held it in thrall, the woman mated to her own brother. 

“It was impossible to see at first, hidden by the line, and with dark grey scales like the clouds overhead. The murk of the storm masked its true size as well, though it could fit a garrison on its back. Rhaenys Targaryen blinked, and the van went up in dragonflame. Panic set in, horses screeching, but your father did not yield. I fought until I heard shouts that he had been slain. By Baratheon, they said. Our spirits had been broken.” 

Her body would make no room for a yoked spirit, nor would her spirit permit useless grief. 

“Is yours broken still, Ser Morrey?”

He paused before answering. “Truly? It depends upon what happens next.”

“Then I shall tell you,” she said simply. Her father had possessed a deep, booming voice; thunder in a man’s throat, her mother called it. He could command any room by clearing his throat, a yard by uttering men! Hers was low for a woman, rich in timbre, but it had yet to capture the attention of an army. It had yet to inspire awe. She breathed deep within her and addressed not only Ser Morrey but all gathered under the white-and-grey marbled sky. You are my people, she thought. For as long as we last. 

***

She was the Storm Queen now, the first there ever was, in a world where another queen controlled the skies. Argella insisted on accompanying Ser Haldrick to watch the men drill with bows, spears, and crossbows. The grey-scaled dragon would fly hundreds of feet above their heads, armed with an intelligent rider as well as a flaming gullet. He knew as well as she did that their weapons’ chances of making meaningful contact were slim to none. Since she had barred her gates, however, maintaining the hope of a chance against the Targaryen threat was paramount. 

Privately, as they sat with a tankard of ale between them, Maester Oswald had invited her to speak in candid terms. 

“My terms are always candid,” she had said. “I would rather die a queen than live a wife.”

A row of men launched their spears into the air. Eight out of ten struck their makeshift targets in the belly. When the host approached, would her father’s killer ask the queen to spare her for her useful womb? Another row lined up to aim, spears at the ready, when a large shadow passed over the ground. She saw heads lift, heard the wonder worm its way through the fear as the shout rang:

“Dragon!” 

Slowly, her eyes made their way up until she was craning her neck to see. An overgrown gargoyle, that was what it resembled from afar, with its massive batlike wings. It dipped down long enough for her to catch a glimpse of its lizardine foot, gnarled and wicked, before it rushed higher. The beast abruptly took off for the top of Storm’s End’s sole tower, completing a lazy circle as Argella’s spine prickled from her vantage point. The beast was by rights an ungodly mishmash of creatures, yet moved fluidly, sinuously. When it brought itself low, sailing back toward the courtyard, she could comprehend it in full. Ser Morrey had been wrong about its scales. No dark grey, they were instead a varnished silver. She caught herself; mulling over a monster’s appearance as it prepared to cook her in her gown would not do. “To me!” Hitching up her skirts, she ran across the raised wooden platform without bothering to take stock of Ser Haldrick behind her. Her heart pounded frantically in her chest as she made it to the corner and went down the stairs to the yard itself, where the dragon still hovered. Her men had not broken out of the spell the sight of it had put them under. “To me, to me! Inside the tow—”

“I have come to parley!” Yelled Rhaenys Targaryen. 

She turned around, incredulous. The queen was visible on her dragon’s back, hands gripping two spikes for leverage. Her long, loose hair was a strange silvery color that could have been plucked from the moon, and it flowed effortlessly as she slid off her mount like it was ice. She wore ringmail but no sword, the black belt dangling from her crimson tunic empty. 

“Your intentions were not clear,” Argella said. 

She inched closer toward her with raised palms. “Forgive me. It is difficult to wave a flag whilst maneuvering a dragon.”  

Ser Haldrick caught up to her and edged his body in front. “I am the queen,” she reminded him. “I need no aid in this matter.”

“Of course.”

The dragon’s tail thunked against the ground, as if it were a bored child that wanted to leave because the sweets were elsewhere. Her crossbowmen had their weapons trained on it, poised. If she gave the command, some of them would hit their mark. Whether they could pierce through the shining scales once the bolts sprung free was another matter, and another still was the issue of the creature’s proportions reducing them to needles in a giant’s side. She crossed her arms. “Parley.”

Queen Rhaenys beamed. “I believe you know of the terms my brother offered forth. That you would marry Orys Baratheon, your dowry starting with the lands east of the Gods Eye. Massey’s Hook would come too, and the woods and plains from the Blackwater south to the Wendwater and the Mander’s headwaters. King Aegon would be your liege lord, and you would be Lady of Storm’s End. The sea is beautiful here, like the night sky,” she added, unexpectedly. “You can wake up to it for the rest of your life.” 

“I will wake up to it for the rest of my life regardless, should you kill me in a day,” Argella said. Rhaenys’ smile must have been stuck to her face, since her words did not tear it off. Being the Lady of Storm’s End meant being the lady of a usurper, come to rip her crown off her head and her gown from her shoulders. The queen could not dull the truth any more than she could sweeten the circumstances. “Orys is pleasing to look upon, and well-muscled,” she said. “He is a man in the summer of his life.”

“Then perhaps you should have married Orys Baratheon instead of your brother.”

She took the slap gracefully. “There are worse fates.” 

“Did he kill my father himself?” 

Rhaenys sighed. “Yes. Regardless, this is your way out.”

Out of a fiery death. 

Argella pictured the slight woman riding her beast to the top of the tower again, this time to meet her. She would call upon the wind to send such a gale that it could sweep the dragon up inside it and spit it out somewhere far away, or the sea to rise up and absorb all the flame it had to hurl. The Storm Queen would stare the dragon queen in the face and bare her teeth. The Storm Queen would not flinch. 

“You may take my castle,” she said slowly. “But you will win only blood and bones and ashes.” 

“While you could remain living in your castle should you cease talk of ruin.”

Her eyes locked onto Rhaenys’, surer than ever. Lightning ran through her gaze, a blue lightning strong enough to pierce through scales and char the flesh beneath. 

“Ruin is what you have brought to the Durrandons already. May you choke on ours sevenfold.” 

Instead of moving to leap on her dragon and commence the assault, Rhaenys moved closer. “You will not bend the knee?” 

She was looking down on Rhaenys, at the bridge of her nose. “None of us will. Down to the last man, we will resist you.” 

Whip-fast, she darted up and laid a kiss on her cheek. Argella glowered as the woman stepped back, bouncing on her heels.

“Farewell then, Durrandon.” 

Later, as she mused, she realized she did not know if she had meant it as a goodbye to her or her House.

[teethbomb]

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