[right][img]https://i.imgur.com/ARh9iUd.jpeg[/img] [sub][color=gray]Collab between [@Arnorian] and Ruby[/color][/sub][/right] [sub][color=037a03][b]Lady Vittoria Tyrell, High Marshall of the Reach[/b][/color][/sub] [color=gray] Their relatively small force was scouted the night before as they camped; Knights of Highgarden had appeared at their camp, men she knew. Ser Wesley and Ser Kace, former knights of the hedge, had impressed the other Knights of Highgarden over time enough to be invited a life at the great keep. She’d known them most of her life, and that was a good thing, given the tension that had erupted upon their arrival at camp. The pair of Knights had arrived at the Bulwer side of their camp, and the Bulwer men-at-arms were far from courteous. According to the men-at-arms, the two Knights hadn’t been very courteous, either. She had been out walking when it happened, and luckily nearby enough to hear shouting. When she approached, she watched Wesley and Kace look, look away to the Bulwer men, then quickly double back to her: “Lady Vittoria?” That had been the end of the tension. The Maester and High Steward of Highgarden would be pleased to find her unharmed, as much of the Reach, and Realm beyond, had believed the worst. It wasn’t what Vittoria cared about, but her primary concern wasn’t something she would speak of in front of people she didn’t know…or even people she did know. The family had been quiet about that, much like Bertie’s attack on her years ago. She bid the two farewells as they ran off to tell Highgarden she was arriving tomorrow. She rose before the sun, on her horse and awaiting before Garin appeared outside his tent. When he spoke…she didn’t hear him, her mind drifting over the flower hills and lush green of the Reach that surrounded them, over secrets. When she looked at him, he was staring at her, as if expecting her to say something. Instead, she tried not to frown. “Pick a handful of men to accompany you and your family into my home. Men who deserve a fine day at Highgarden, Captain, I’ll be waiting for you all just outside camp.” She spent the time waiting racing the mare against some invisible competitor. Further and further she went, one eye on the ground and one eye on the way ahead, again and again, pushing the animal harder, faster with each sprint. The horse came to a sliding stop as her body positioned itself near perfectly atop the beast. It was rare Vittoria Tyrell showed off the rider she was, but something had changed the closer they got to Highgarden. Her heart raced nearly as hard as the mare’s as she sat there, staring at the sky. For once in her life, she didn’t care who heard her. The scream came angry, filled with the fire of pain and the weight of grief, so loud it shook her entire body and discomforted the animal she rode for a moment. She could march against the Seven themselves. She would if it kept her out of Highgarden…but there was no escaping it, and now, with the castle in the distance, she knew it. Highgarden loomed like a white rose amid an endless landscape of flowers. If only the very sight of it didn’t fill her heart with misery. Her only respite was seeing through the eyes of others. Today would be a day to remember for Garin’s wife and daughters; Vittoria would see to that. It was the only reason she rode back towards camp, instead of just riding off in any direction that wasn’t Highgarden as fast as the mare would take her. It would be impossible to see the earlier outburst on her face she rode up on the waiting group. Six men rode with their captain, among which were two that bore the look of the Dothraki, she’d read of. Though curiously, neither one possessed the braids the men of the horselords were said to have. In fact, their hair was cut almost brutally short. Perhaps a penance for some secret misdeed? Either way, it was hardly the Black Rose’s intention to pry. They looked to be just as hardened and dangerous as their master. Vittoria nodded to Garin with a bright smile that was really meant for his wife and daughters. To them, she could have glowed like the sun in warmth and joy. “Ladies, are we ready?” “We aren’t la—” his youngest started with a blurt, but Vittoria corrected her before it all poured from the girl’s mouth. “—today you ride into Highgarden at the front, next to me. Now. Shall we?” His wife looked at Garin, before looking back, until Vittoria surprised her with a request regarding the woman’s youngest daughter: “May she ride with me? I will care for her like she was my own.” Hesitation gave way to the motherly instinct to let your children enjoy life. How often would the girl get to ride into Highgarden with the High Marshall of the Reach and eldest daughter of House Tyrell? After a moment, Martella nodded and smiled gently, Myrna slowly approached Vittoria and very carefully raised her hand up, the other held a very patient kitten that never seemed to leave the young girl’s side. Martella and her daughter swung into the saddle with practiced ease, though Rylla rode more like one of Garin’s horse and scanned her surroundings with the same care as the mercenaries. Though clad in a crimson dress - at her mother’s gentle but adamant insistence - she bore herself more like a reaver, seeking prey, than a member of fine lady’s retinue . . . more so for the trousers she wore beneath her skirt and the broad-bladed dagger she had strapped to her leg. The small cavalcade rode on and by the time they arrived, it was a scene: news of her survival, and arrival, spread like fire through the area. Tyrell men-at-arms lined the Rose Road branch that led to Highgarden, with smallfolk three to four deep in most places behind them to get a look. Myrna smiled and waved right along with Vittoria, the pair of them riding back and forth along the road to greet and thank those who came. It took a short trip to the main gatehouse thrice as long because Vittoria Tyrell and Myrna Sands played the assembled crowd. Though she only wore a green dress with a high collar covered in a burst of colorful flowers threaded in bright, shiny, thread, she moved with the confidence and joy she normally had when she rode in armor. Once past the main gates, Vittoria began pointing and explaining every bit of history, and anything else half interesting, to the small child riding with her, one hand always firm around the girl’s body, the other pointing. Every question was carefully and enthusiastically answered. The briar maze, the walls, the various heights of the towers, their different shapes, the climbing roses, vines, grapes, and every last flower that decorated the walls and buildings of the magnificent seat of House Tyrell. When Martella and Rylla had questions or comments, Vittoria went out of her way to ask them to be repeated if she missed them, so she could answer them. “Papa says I will have a horse when I am older. He said it could be black and white like my cat. But I can have red boots like Rylla.” Myrna said at one point. “Ah, well, those are good things to have.” Vittoria said, trying not to laugh. Garin, for his part rode along, hand never far from his weapons but a small smiled graced the corner of his mouth at Myrna’s happy chatter. His cold eyes seemed oddly gentle at times, showing a hint of the man he might have been in a different life. For a moment, one could see why a miller’s daughter would have given up all she had to follow a sellsword, across the sea and stand by him. The second ring of Highgarden that was nearly nothing but shady courtyards and endless gardens and fountain squares wasn’t as visible from the main entrance, but Vittoria still described it at length, letting them see it through her eyes as much as she could. Past the third gatehouse they were arranged and awaiting, what household that hadn’t gone with Lord Theo, with the exception of her mother. Vittoria waited for Garin before she thanked Myrna for joining her and helped her down to Garin’s awaiting arms. The girl waved shyly and then tucked her head against her father’s shoulder. “She’s nice, Papa.” Myrna whispered. Vittoria’s features dimpled in a cheerful grin, though she couldn’t have said exactly why she was so happy. Then she turned to the High Steward, “Captain Garin’s family will be staying with us for a time.” The man gave a look to Garin, to his family, and nodded, slowly, “Guests?” It mattered, and Vittoria knew it, “Yes. Find them jobs should they want it. If they want to learn a trade, arrange someone to teach them. Make sure no one is confused on their role here, please.” “As you wish, Lady Vittoria. We do need to speak—” “—I’m going there now. We’ll speak after.” Martella nodded her thanks, turned to follow the steward and chivvied her children along. Yet she didn’t move except dismounting so Ryam could take the mare to the stables. It wasn’t until Garin dared to ask her something unrelated that she looked at the man with hard, dark brown eyes, and blurted it out: “Come on. You’re coming with me,” before she finally began to move towards the one of the near countless beautifully kept paths that branched from the main bailey towards a side entrance, and stairs. Her only explanation was given when they walked into a tower door and began to climb stairs, her voice sounding anything but the sunshine and honey it was for his wife and daughters, “My mother is sick. My mother is dying…don’t say anything, just…walk me to the bedchamber door and wait for me, please.” Garin raised an eyebrow, but nodded his assent. Such things were hardly his concern. But then he’d served far stranger lords. Though this Vittoria Tyrell was certainly keen to try and win the whole damn world over, it seemed. Still, her coin spent as well as any and she had been kind to his daughters. The room had been filled with joy and love and warmth. She remembered so many spring and summer mornings when it seemed like laughter and hugs would last forever. The large hearth with the timber frame, carved with a hundred and more flowers and vines. On cold spring mornings with large furs spotting the stone floor to keep chill from toes and the bottoms of feet. The large, wide, chair with its impossibly soft cushion next to the bed. She’d learn to read there, with either her in the chair, her mother in the bed, or the opposite. She’d confessed her first heartbreak in that chair. She’d broken her mother’s heart in that chair, telling her of her intention to go to Oldtown. She’d taken more afternoon naps than she could count in that chair. And yet, today, now, she wanted to be anywhere but in that chair. She entered the room and didn’t even want to walk away from the doors that led to the bedchamber. Somehow, she did. The woman laying under the coverlets was a ghost of the woman who had once been her mother. When she neared the bed, her mother seemed to push past the ghost, and reclaim her features…even if just for Vittoria, even if just for this moment. “Hello, High Marshall.” It happened so quickly she was taken completely unawares. Her mother smiled at her, with the greeting filled with Lady Bethany’s typical warmth and wit, yet before she knew it, Vittoria found her vision lost behind the crystalline lens of tears, her heart falling in what felt like an endless agony as she took desperate steps to the side of her mother’s bed, and dropped to her knees to hug her, to cry on her. “I don’t want to do this without you. I don’t want to, please,” the High Marshall was gone, Lady Vittoria was gone, all that was left was little Vitt, scared and hurt. She was sure when she looked back, she’d be amazed at her mother’s strength in the moment, as barely a tear filled her mother’s eyes as she leaned over and hugged her, the woman’s body almost half the strength and size had been before her illness took hold. Despite that, the embrace was as strong as she ever recalled her mother being, as laughter mixed with sadness in voice she would always remember, the voice of her mother, “My love, if ever there was a child of mine who I wasn’t nearly as worried about…” Her tear-stained face stayed, even if the act of sobbing stopped, her mother holding her cheek with a hand, to look and smile and talk to her, “Do not despair, love, and do not dare mourn me while I still remain. Now sit here and talk to me. Tell me about Oldtown, tell me about the battles, tell me about this betrothal. Tell me it all!” When Vittoria left the room, it was steely-eyed. They talked about everything, including, eventually towards the end, what Vittoria would have to do: Lord Theo, Lady Bethany was certain, would be okay, but would need Vittoria to nudge him into being happy again. Once she found Lady Mina, Vittoria would need to ensure the girl’s future, however she wished it done, on her terms, as Lady Bethany stressed that part of the deal. The boys…the boys she would have to be more to. Especially the youngest, Lorent, would need her, perhaps at times in the role of motherly figure. Vittoria promised to be there for him, even if it meant a direct conversation with Davos. The look she gave the awaiting Garin was raw, and private beyond measure, but nothing more. “Let’s see how your family is settling in, Captain.” [/color]