Toran had been more or less ignorant to his situation as the room filled, whistling quietly and sitting down. Toruk raced onto the arm of his chair as he drew the burlap sack he’d discarded from beneath his chair. Opening the sack, Toran pulled out (likely to the shock of a few in the room) a small rat, very much alive and struggling to release itself from his grip around its tail. Toran held a hand out to stall his pet as Toruk grew anxious. After a moment, he waved the snake forward, and within the space of a blink the rat was dead and halfway down the snake’s throat. 

He repeated the process once more, before a now-sated Toruk coiled himself happily around his master’s forearm. Toran stroked the creature’s scales, admiring the spiny growths until his pleasant reverie was interrupted by an irate Ironborn girl. 

[i]"You know I truly expected better from the children of the High Lords. Willam Lannister has been nothing but civil but you act like he personally murdered your mothers. He had nothing to do with the actions of generations past and blaming him for those actions is nothing but cruel. I would think that you especially, Artoran Sand, would be able to understand how birth circumstance does not define who you are as a person.”[/i]

Robyn went on to scold the Stark siblings, leaving Toran with raised eyebrows. He hadn’t even noticed the lion’s departure. A wave of anger swept over him, tightening his gut and sending a jolt through his muscles. For a moment, he nearly acted on it, but thought better of it. Of course, the girl was right. A little bluntly spoken, but the had a definite point. 

Oh, how he hated when other people were right.

Still, how would she react if some Bolton boy waltzed into the dining hall? Surely the Ironborn, of all people, would resent the descendant of the man who tortured Theon Greyjoy out of his mind and his manhood, and into fearful submission. Toran knew, as she said, that birth was no indication of who a person was and would become, but couldn’t the girl understand that a river of your ancestors’ blood was hard to cross just to shake a man’s hand?

Soon enough, Robyn and Morgan Stark had left the dining hall, leaving a tense atmosphere in their wake. Though, not before a newcomer arrived.

Morgan introduced him as Aeryn Sand, and both Toran and the viper on his wrist bristled. What Dornishman didn’t know the Dog of Dorne? And why, why did the gods torment him with ancient enemies all at once? 

Toran decided against souring his day further and simply turned away from the sellsword, casting a glance to Alyssa Arryn. Well well, she’d certainly lost some vigour. She was the one who perhaps hated Toran the most, not that it bothered him; in fact, it was rather fun to cast a sultry gaze to the girl every now and then, and even now he treated her to a sideways smirk and a wink. 

He was about to make his leave to ready himself for the tournament when a newcomer, a sight for sore eyes, entered. She was a lovely thing, and more of a Targaryen than anyone sitting on the throne. She strode in with her silver hair and her deadly reptiles, and gave Toran a smile and a wave. Artoran Sand and Illysia Blackfyre had become fast friends during his earlier visits to King’s Landing, and it was good to see she still remembered him. She brushed past him and over to Alyssa, whispering something to her before addressing the room.

[i]"I hope you have slept well since your arrival; King's Landing is sorely lacking in allies for any one of us.”[/i]

Toran simply laughed. “Illysia my dear, why so grim?” He smiled, a warm thing that was known to be contagious. She’d always been dramatic, fancying herself a wave of black smoke; there to make an enticing entrance and make her leave with onlookers wondering. Toran would have none of her dramatics; he knew her too well. 

Still smiling, he sauntered over to his friend and moved to put an arm around her shoulder; the baby dragon perched there thought otherwise. It squeaked at him and fancied itself a threat. Horan backed away a step, but his grin never faltered. Instead, he brought his hand up in one smooth movement, snapping his fingers and blowing through his hand, in the direction of the dragon. 

From his hand erupted a cloud of crackling fire, not unlike a miniature of the spectacular fireworks shows that often lit up the Red Keep and the Blackwater. It wasn’t fire that would burn, simply crackle and bounce harmlessly off anything it touched with no more than a warm tickling sensation. The dragon regarded him curiously, and Toran made an exaggerated bow to the thing, his message clear. [i]See?[/i] His display said, [i]I’m just like you.[/i]