[INDENT][COLOR=SLATEGRAY][CENTER][sup][h1][center][img]https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/awoiaf-rp/images/5/54/Sept.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20171206183040[/img][/center][b][center][color=black] T H E   R E A C H[/color]
[color=#D4AF37]T H E   R E A C H[/color][/center][/b][/h1][/sup]
[color=#D4AF37][sup][i]Old Town — The Starry Sept[/i][/sup][/color][/CENTER]
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[COLOR=darkgray][indent][color=#D4AF37]"Gentle Mother, we are hollow, something loved has gone away. Crone, your lantern lights the darkness, help us bear another day.

Father, grant us strength to carry what no judgement can repay. Stranger, take what must be taken, Mother, hold what chose to stay."[/color]

Rhaena's hands were knit together as she spoke the words. Unlike her sisters she had been shy in her youth, although years spent in service to the Seven-Who-Are-One had provided her with the ability to lead prayer and song without feeling the dreaded touch of shame. Now the quiet voice of the scared girl had returned as she knelt in solitary prayer. The Starry Sept had many locations of great beauty within its walls, and the great stained glass fresco that towered above her, casting all incoming light into the rainbow touch of the Seven, was one of her favourites.

It did not depict any great scene out of Westeros' long history of faith, but instead the blazing comet of the Seven Gods, their mighty fallen star, soaring above the hills of faraway Andalos. A distant realm, she had once thought to see it herself, although she now understood the folly of such things. The Seven had led the faithful away from those hills, to return would be to refute their judgement.

Today the majesty of such failed to lighten her spirits. The surface of her cheeks remained stained with the slow trickle of her tears as she tried to find solace in prayer. It was made all the harder for the thought her sister would likely have found her foolish for doing so. In these more trying moments she even considered that she may have been right. Close to her sat the letter the Raven had brought her, the one she had never really expected to receive. Daena had been a feature of her world as sure as the Sky itself, and often just as aloof to her. She had considered that while life seemed to happen to everyone else, it was Daena who happened to life. Now she was gone, the first of them, taken when she was sure their family needed her most.

Part of her grief came from the missing words of her other sister. The news had come to her in the kind yet unknown words of a stranger, not by the hand of Elaena. In some ways she had found distance from her sisters a relief after years at court, but now most of all the lack of their presence was a painful want, only made worse by the silence lingering between them. She had attempted to break this silence herself, but had found the words slipping away from her. Thus, she had returned to what had always brought her comfort, and felt only worse for the lack of its success. With a heavy sigh she stood from where she had knelt before the window, the warmth of the Sun still touching her through the coloured glass. The cloth of white and gold about her frame fluttered into place, before she turned to walk back into the heart of the great sept. Even at this early hour there were still many to be found among its hallowed halls, more and more now that fear of war plagued the city. War and Plague were the greatest fire to faith, she had found, in her years helping to organise the faithful of the Seven with Old Town, although that specific observation she had made long before that.

[color=#D4AF37]"Fair Morn, Septa Rhaena."[/color]

She was pulled from the worst of her thoughts by the greeting, a faint smile touching her lips as she dipped her head in turn.

[color=#D4AF37]"Ser Redfort, Seven Bless You."[/color] The younger brother of the current Lord of House Redfort, the man was a fair few years her junior as well. The Vale had often forged some of the most faithful of the Knights of the Realm, and Arros Redfort was no exception to this. While the Faith had been forbidden from maintaining true men-at-arms, that had not prevented some knights from travelling to Old Town to seek the favour of the faith while still performing their martial duties. Arros had spent a number of years in the Southern Reach and was one of the more dedicated members of the Sept's flock. His presence reminded her of a time when the Knights of the Vale had championed her at court, so it was hardly a great trial to speak with the man. [color=#D4AF37]"Did you wish to see the Sept before the crowds of the day?"[/color] She spoke again as she lifted her head from its respectful bow to look up to the man.

"A good guess, Septa, but not in this case. My brother has called me home, with the troubles brewing as they are. I wished to see the wonders of the Sept once more before I am taken away to duty."

At the Knight's words, Rhaena knit her hands together once more. [color=#D4AF37]"I will pray for your safety, and the realm's, Ser."[/color] Rhaena could read sadness, and something more desperate, beneath the stoic face of the Knight. It was no great surprise, all the Realm must be in a state of distress with the dark words the Ravens brought across its length and breadth. [color=#D4AF37]"Duty is ever a noble purpose, to the Kingdom and to family."[/color] She offered a smile as she attempted to aid in the lifting of the Knight's spirits, even as they began to walk towards the exit of the Sept's main hall.

"You do me a great honour, Septa Rhaena." The man's heavy tread carried much further in the hallowed halls than her own soft tread, muffled by both the cloth of her robe and the silk slippers beneath. He seemed poised to say more, before the great doors opened before them and the morning sun of Old Town bathed the pair in the warmth of its light. He paused, his hand resting upon the pommel of his sword, and looked back at her with something like regret in his eyes.

[color=#D4AF37]"The Seven will guide you, Ser Arros,"[/color] she said softly, [color=#D4AF37]"and bring you back to these halls when peace returns."[/color]

"I shall hold to that hope, Septa." He bowed his head once more, deeply, and then turned to stride through the great archway and down the steps toward the city below. She watched him go until the press of the morning crowd swallowed his tall frame and the gleam of his mail.

When he had vanished, Rhaena let out a slow breath and turned back into the shadowed cool of the sept. The grief that had settled in her chest since reading Daena's letter had not lifted, but the brief exchange had reminded her of something else, something that pressed upon her with greater urgency than sorrow.

She found one of the novices near the Crone's altar, a girl of perhaps sixteen with pale hair and earnest eyes, sweeping the flagstones with slow, reverent strokes.

[color=#D4AF37]"Child,"[/color] Rhaena said, and the novice looked up at once, setting the broom aside. [color=#D4AF37]"I require a message sent to the Hightower. Would you see that Lord Hightower is made aware that I wish to speak with him at his earliest convenience?"[/color]

"Of course, Septa. Shall I send word now?"

[color=#D4AF37]"Now would be best."[/color] Rhaena's voice was quiet but firm, the voice she used when she wished to be obeyed without discussion. [color=#D4AF37]"Tell his steward that the matter concerns the Faith and the Crown both. He will understand the weight of it."[/color]

The novice nodded and hurried away, her slippers whispering against stone. Rhaena watched her go, then turned her gaze upward to where the great dome of the sept arched overhead, painted with stars that never faded even in the brightest hour of the day. Her hands found one another again, fingers lacing together of their own accord.

Lord Hightower. The name sat heavy in her mind. Oldtown was his city, and the Starry Sept sat in its shadow as surely as it sat beneath the Seven's gaze. If war came, if plague followed, if the realm tore itself apart as it had done so many times before, then it would do to be aware of where the Hightowers stood.

She thought of Daena again, and her throat tightened. Her sister had never prayed. She had never needed to. She would simply act and the world had rearranged itself around her will.

[i]I cannot be her,[/i] she thought. [i]But I am not nothing.[/i]

The novice returned sooner than expected, slightly out of breath. [color=#D4AF37]"Septa, Lord Hightower's steward sends word that his lordship will receive you this afternoon, after the hour of the Smith."[/color][/indent][/COLOR]

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