[color=#B22222][h1][center]Kings Landing[/center][/h1][/color][hr] [center][img]https://awoiaf.westeros.org/images/b/b0/Aegon%27s_hill.jpg[/img][/center] [right][sub]Collab with [@Ruby] & [@Almalthia][/sub][/right] [hr][hr] The Flame of Lys started to straighten up her room. Leandra never let anyone else clean her room. She paid the girls to clean the other’s rooms that couldn’t afford it and kept a running tally for the girls so that they could pay her as they saw fit. There wasn’t much that needed cleaning besides her person and as she left her room she caught one of the girls. [color=#FF1493]“Can you please run me a bath Mya?”[/color] The slim girl nodded grinning. [color=#FFE4E1]“The lordling sounded like he enjoyed himself.”[/color] [color=#FF1493]“Yes, more than once. Though if you ask me he was a bit selfish."[/color] Leandra smirked. Mya blinked. [color=#FFE4E1]“Really?”[/color] Leandra shrugged. [color=#FF1493]“Some are like that. When I come out weak kneed is when I’ll cut my prices if the man, or woman, returns."[/color] Mya laughed as Leandra waggled her eyebrows moving past her. [color=#FFE4E1]“Never seen you like that Lys."[/color] Mya commented with confusion. [color=#FF1493]“Exactly."[/color] Leandra looked over her shoulder and smiled as she walked to the stairs. Past the stairs was a common room where things that did not have to be hidden happened. Though that skirted propriety more often than not. Unlocking and opening the front door Leandra leaned against the threshold and looked around. Kings Landing was the start of a massive city that, at times, she wanted to beat sense into those who decided to put a stick in the ass end of a drunk horse to mark the streets. The crowd had thankfully dispersed. Likely because the spectacle was over. He was half awake when it moved. Just a click, when he went for the bottle at the top that said ‘pickled yams’ upon the neatly scrawled label. Was he drunk? Yes. Did he remember how drunk? No. ‘How drunk’ just happened to be Serenna of Duskendale drunk, and that had been at least a bottle and a nap ago. When he woke up, still drunk, all that mattered was singing with the Tyrell guardsmen out front to the sun above. When was there sun? When was the sun? [color=#32CD32]“WHAT IS THE SUN!?........why is there a fucking door here?”[/color] He’d stared at it for time. How much time was to be debatable, but the point beyond contestation was the point of steel he held with the overhand grip within his right perfectly soft, supple, gloved hand. The bottle wasn’t a mistake, it was a confluence of fate and randomness, a true juxtaposition between what was and was could have been. Did he always pick that bottle? Was it really random? Was anything random? Did any of them have a say in what happened in their life, were they simply mummer’s puppets on the ends of a string? The tip of the sword proved to him the door was real. Dust, cobwebs. [color=#32CD32]“Why, hello…you have not been used in a very long time…”[/color] The destination was infinite. A great expanse of the higher mysteries that echoed with the sole of his leather boots and the swish and swoosh of his dark green trousers as he walked through the hidden vaults between what he believed, and what he saw. These were the thoughts that kept Lord Bertrand of House Tyrell up through the night into the day and back past twilight, second star down. [color=#32CD32]“Are we reborn? Are we reborn into the same life?...how many times have I picked that bottle? How many times has it opened?”[/color] His head tilted, eyes sharper, narrowed, in focus. There was only darkness, like a room with no door, no windows. On either side was stone, though of what luster, banding, layering, and grain size his other ungloved hand seemed to simply sputter at. There was no satiation of the underpinning unknown until he arrived at the threshold of light. It was there, in that gentle glow of the ghastly guise that guided him that he saw it. Dangling, noiseless, entombed in dust but as tangible and functional as his own flesh and sinew ever were, in darkness or in light. The decision to take it, to feel it’s rusty ring, to yank upon it with the strength of equal parts fear and fearlessness…so it gave him the mirror of the sound that had begun the journey through what he could not, did not know, and where he was now. The steel tip of that blade once more thrusted out, but to this end, it took more power than before. Wherein the scattered, dark, unvisited basement of the House Tyrell manse there was little but broken furniture and empty wooden barrels and a wall of shelves littered with bottles of various potent potions and picked parts, there was greater resistance here. Here, at the end, or the beginning, were it up to fate. Or up to him. He stepped lightly, blade out, arm ready, mind stiffened for the great climax of conflict! HE WAS READY NOW! FOR THE BEAST, FOR THE BURDENSOME WRAITH!...but there was nothing here, he saw, blade ‘clanking’ about the stone floor of what…just a… [color=#32CD32]“It’s just another fucking basement.”[/color] The basement door of the establishment erupted, and out of it like a man from the grave with heart and mind asunder Bertrand Tyrell entered the short hall that led to the common area of— [color=#32CD32]“—wait a fucking…I’ve been here before,"[/color] he stated in confusion, puzzlement upon his fine, dark, sharp handsome features and parted mid-length dark brown hair. The very first person he saw, the tip of the blade came to point at, his eyes bubbling brown in intensity and the very hasty threat of violence. [color=#32CD32]“YOU! Why does my door have your door…on the other side of the…with the chain…..”[/color] The sword fell again, as he turned this way, that way, and back again, head cocked, [color=#32CD32]“…what the fuck?”[/color] The commotion of a muffled bellow in only semi-intelligible words turned Leandra's attention to her storeroom, cellar really. She went to investigate and a very, very intoxicated man stepped out brandishing a sword which was currently pointed at herself. He turned and Leandra shooed Mya back down the hall with a jerk of her head. [color=#FF1493]“Good day my lord. Unfortunately I do not have any idea what you are talking about. Please put your weapon away and I would be happy to see what I can do to clear up your issue. After all, what chance can a young woman like myself, unarmed, and in no way martially educated have against a fine specimen of manhood even if you were to sheathe your sword?”[/color] The slight accent made the words huskier than normal. Seductive to the ear. Her lips turned up at the corners ever so slightly as Leandra gracefully indicated with fluid gestures his sword, scabbard and person. She tilted her head and looked him up then down and tapped her cherry red lips waiting on him to put the sword away. She found that baiting men with honor separated them into two categories. Boring and dangerous or; interesting and dangerous. She had yet to see which one this man was. [color=#32CD32]“...day?”[/color] The very idea of daylight, of just what state creation outside the walls were, seemed to give him a pause of confusion—if only for the precious few beats of a heart. Immediately thereafter, his eyes refocused and his head set in the direction of the woman who challenged him so publicly. Not him in the sense of the man that he was, but him in the sense of who he was, and the twist of irony and presupposition. At her, this unnamed woman, his eyes narrowed, pride and love for the person some part of him hated more than any other bubbling to a surface, even as doubt and anger slithered beneath his skin, [color=#32CD32]“The most dangerous woman in the Realm can’t swing a sword to save her life, do not play at that feint, for I will not succumb to it’s temptations.”[/color] That secret, the one that burned through his veins like a sickness, that hollowed his heart whole, came to him as he carefully crossed the distance between them, blade still down by his side as he came closer, and closer, smelling like a drunken man recently doused in a fresh bath of rose water. Closer he came still, until there was not the possibility of anyone, or anything, else in all creation hearing what secret burst from him in that shaky whisper, [color=#32CD32]“...they’re my little sister."[/color] His hand became a steel trap upon her nearest upper arm, taking possession of her with the utmost of courtesy, [color=#FF1493]“Apologies, nameless lady, but we must take this to the very center of the matter at hand,"[/color] he said, even as his brown eyes scanned the room around, looking at the faces of uncertain women and a few men who looked poised, but ultimately did not chance the dice of destiny with her safety. The cellar door closed behind him, as he ushered her firmly, but unroughly, down the stairs and to the same sort of shelf filled with dusty old bottles that was mirrored in the cellar of the fortified Tyrell Manse from which he had begun his journey through intoxication and mystery. He pointed, with the non-sword hand, at the open heavy door disguised as a shelf. [color=#32CD32]“You’re lyingggggggggg,"[/color] he said, his voice a sing-song of playfulness over an undertone of pure intensity, bordering on real anger. [color=#32CD32]“The truth,"[/color] he stated, in open demand, before his body forced out a deep breath, an exhale of intoxicants and a long blink of his eyes as his mind tripped from the haze only to find its feet again, to refocus on the woman, to come back to the purpose at play, and his read of the woman before him, thinking to add, [color=#32CD32]“Please.”[/color] The shaky whisper raised the hairs on Leandra’s neck. Danger sense was inherent in her profession if a fallen woman wanted to stay alive, and normally men do not like scars on their whores. The men that did were either Ironborn, Northmen or deadly, sometimes all three. This man, [i]this man[/i] was either a guard or - hopefully not - part of Lady Vittoria’s family. The odd way that he [i]"escorted"[/i] her made Leandra think he truly just wanted some answers from her. The fortune that she thought to have smiled down on her by seeing the dragon and the argument. Finally having something to report other than the Faith and their grumbles. Which had been getting louder. Not something someone in her line of work could afford to ignore. The Faith were dangerous either before or after they had sated their worldly appetites and unless you were paying or fucking a guard then you stayed out of the way. The fact that he had called Leandra a lady had raised her eyebrow and kept her silent. [color=#FF1493][i]He really does not know or perhaps the drink impaired his vision in some way?[/i][/color] He did not force her unkindly through the tunnel that led to the Tyrell Manse revealing more of his drunkenness in the sing-song way he accused her of lying and demanded the truth from her. [color=#FF1493]"Forgive my ignorance and impertinent questions but how are you gauging the truth? I do not wish to start off on the wrong foot and lose more than my morning."[/color] [color=#32CD32]“I’ll see the truth, as clearly as I see you dodging it."[/color] His head tilted, everything about the man’s body and face sharpened close enough to the degree of the sharpness of the short sword that he now raised into the air, towards her. [color=#32CD32]“No more lies. No more half truth. I am Lord Bertrand of House Tyrell, future Lord Paramount of the Reach—you will answer my question, or your life will never be the same again, one way or another.”[/color] His eyes darkened, his jaw set, and that blade never moved, tight and accurate as if it was an extension of his body, from mind to shoulder to forearm to hand to tip of that steel blade, it couldn’t have been more clear how comfortable and capable he was with the weapon. [color=#32CD32]“...why is there a tunnel from my manse to your brothel, my Lady? What does my sister, Vittoria, have to do with it?”[/color] He didn’t have to know, to know it in his bones. Vittoria was always ahead of him. Vittoria was always the one with the answer. She was always their father’s favorite. Leandra dipped into a curtsey that would have done a court lady proud. [color=#FF1493]“My apologies, Lord Bertrand of House Tyrell."[/color] She rose from her curtsey. [color=#FF1493]“I find myself in a singular position of you having more information than I do. I did not know that the Lady in question had anything to do with it. I confess I had thought it was a smuggling tunnel or perhaps something more… salacious in nature. I have never personally been through the other door and thought we had secured it quite well. I stand corrected. I can only guess why it was originally created for if you notice I am not quite old enough to know the exact reason."[/color] Bertrand Tyrell cocked his head to the side, and blinked at her in casual confusion, [color=#32CD32]“…why would you apologize? You’re not the one holding the blade.”[/color] And so it lowered, that steel, as he looked at her one last time. This woman who so clearly was part of a ‘we’ with his sister, he only nodded to, muttered an apology even as he moved past her, back into the tunnel of darkness, pulling the hidden door shut behind him, sadly, and leaving. Perplexed by his sudden retreat, Leandra considered her position. As much as she was moved Leandra, The Flame of Lys, knew who buttered her bread. Lady Vittoria. She would die before that confidence was betrayed, even to the Maiden’s brother. She bit her lip and turned away, then back again. Walking into the darkness she made to open the door Bertrand had just closed. Reaching for the door her hand stilled. Leandra was not going to give Vittoria away but she could at least assure the Lord Paramount of the Reach that the tunnel was not used for nefarious purposes. [color=#FF1493][i]No. To answer more deeply will invite more questions. Prudence is the better part of valor in this case.[/i][/color] Dropping her hand Leandra turned and walked away moving silently. Shaking her head she headed for the upstairs so that Mya did not panic.