The morning sun peeked over the Red Mountains and flooded the valley where Summerhall stood. He’d spent most of last night just sitting and staring at it from a nearby ridge, nursing a cider the woman had pressed into his hand with one of her hands while pushing at him from behind with her other hand, insisting he, “GO! There’s no more work. No fighting, no stealing, GO.”
She said it, laughing, but her tone seemed to carry a weight to it. Deeper parts of him thought she was just trying to rid herself of the annoying boy she must regret bringing alone by now. It wasn’t until she added the last part that made him uncertain what to think, at any level: “Just don’t come back TOO late, be safe.”
Not,
don’t be out late, there’s work needs doing in the morning. Just be back, because it was the safer thing to do. He just stared at her. She was beautiful, so maybe it was just that making it seem so strange? Although, he admitted, he didn’t remember the last time someone gave him a curfew out of care, instead of needing him to do work for them.
He thought of his mother as he took sips of the drink the woman gave him. Well, not just some woman. She was stranger than most women. She was nice, like a proper Lady. She was very rich, with more gold than he would ever see. She spoke strange tongues he’d never heard before, throwing bits and pieces of unknown languages at Ser Markus and he often, usually in a playful way—another unexpected turn. She was rarely serious, she rarely seemed to take herself so serious…but as Ser Markus had warned him, never let his properness slip none, not even a little.
That didn’t seem to be a problem for him. The problem for him had been not thinking about her chest: the one with the lock, and mysterious contents. When Ser Markus realized shortly after Dunc had awoken and scurried to be of use that the Lady wasn’t even in her tent, that she had obviously slipped away in early dawn, he seemed irritated.
Then he announced he was off to break his fast, and would return with something for Dunc, too. Dunc spent the time talking to the horses, brushing, feeding. He thought about peeking inside the Lady’s tent, but every time he got close, the hairs on the back of his neck raised and he found himself looking about, this way and that, back again…no one ever seemed to be looking, but he couldn’t help the feeling she’d know.
So he abandoned the sweet perfumed scent of the air coming from the tent, and stepped away from the front of it, instead finding relief in a shady spot next to his own tent, with an apple and a small skin of wine the Lady had tossed him yesterday during the trip. He saved it then, for later, and was very satisfied with himself now that he had, smiling and watching the people pass their camp site.
Knights, men-at-arms, lords, ladies, men, women, children would give queer looks to the flag the Lady’s tent flew. Some stopped and asked what it was, a House, maybe? Dunc responded with a shake of his head and an informative bit of, “Keyholder, Iron Bank of Braavos.” You know, like a real Braavosi might, he imagined. He was into a long drink with his head kicked back when he finished, wiping his chin with the back of his hand and blinking with a tiny jolt at the appearance of men-at-arms staring him down, wearing colors and a coat of arms even Dunc the Lunk knew:
Those were Lannister men.
“You, young man,” one of them sternly started, making Dunc blink and think to himself that he wasn’t a man, yet. He was still years away, according to Ser Arlan, and Ser Arlan knew life. “Where is Lady Celena?”
“…oh, she’s—”
The sellsword came back with a fresh swagger, the kind only possible after a nice morning walk about, a nice bit of bacon and bread and hash from a lovely young lady tending her father’s cart, and a belly full of still chilled beer. When he saw the Lannisters, the smile on his expression only seemed to widen, if only but a smidge. “—the Lady is away. Better luck next time, lads.”
Their sneers seemed to say it for them,
sellsword. Like any of them wouldn’t, given the opportunity, or the need. Let alone her sellsword, whatever price he imagined up in that Stormlands tavern where they met, she doubled it. And then she doubled THAT. It was, he found, supremely easy to smile at the group of crimson clad lion pets, and wait for them to make a decision.
“You are her sellsword, hm?” One said, while it’s entirely possible another muttered something about just one sellsword to protect such rumored beauty, causing his fellows to snicker aloud. Entirely possible, given the way the boy with a young man’s body stood up like a hot knife, anger twisting across the young lad’s face.
“He isn’t alone in protecting the Lady!”
His voice cracked halfway through, and the red clad Lannister men erupted in laughter, declaring to Ser Markus that the Lord of Casterly Rock demands an audience with Lady Celena, the moment she arrives. Ser Markus gave a rude gesture as they left, then looked at Dunc, frowning. Dunc’s head dropped, his eyes staring at the ground, his cheeks hot…but the Knight lived up to the teasing name the Lady had given him the day before of Ser Silence, and said nothing, just handed him a roll of bacon and stepped into their shared tent, leaving Dunc to watch the Lannister men fade away into the crowd thickening by the minute.
Morning stretched and brightened to midday before there was any actual lead to the whereabouts of the woman of the hour; the edge of all encampments, next to a towering oak tree and a little creek swollen to an actual creek from autumnal rains in the foothills of the Red Mountains. At the edge were found less savory and honorable types. Lesser merchants, common visitors with enough resources to travel and have a small roughspun tent, a tent belonging to a small troop of dwarves, and the big purple and orange slashed tent next to that tree.
It was a tent big enough to fit near forty men in, overnight it’s myrish carpeted floors scattered with bedrolls, during the day a largely open space with some chests and small barrels for impromptu seating as various minstrels plucked instruments while a pale white haired boy of ten danced a water dance with a man over a decade older, darker skinned and long hair dyed blues and greens, lithe and almost impressive.
The two were mostly idle entertainment, same as the minstrels. A game of cyvasse was being played towards the back by an older, bald, man in silks with a woman middle-aged beauty and sharp eyes that always seemed to be looking around for dangers, dark brown hair falling in curls towards her shoulders near exposed with the simple gown of light blue she wore. Nearly a dozen others mostly concentrated between the game and the performers going through their practice routines.
When they entered the tent, she was nearly hidden behind the big, older, bald man in the silk pondering intensely, hand on his chin, at the game of cyvasse. The two red, lion, cloaked men almost left just moments after they walked in unannounced—until one of them saw the glitter of golden blonde Lannister hair sparkle in the natural light let in by his holding the tent open. There, past the big bald one, he pointed to the other Lannister man.
Emeralds shadowed and smoldered at the man staring into them as Celena locked eyes with him, the rumor of a smile playing at the corners of her full, lush, lips pale pink and unpainted. She wore an ivory gown of Dornish silk and lace, lace of gold filtered through the bodice, with raised collar that plunged a quarter-way down her chest, the kind of dress that covered everything and hid nothing.
The big, bald, man stretched long with arms reaching behind him and nudged his chair backward just a bit before resettling in the seat, further revealing the woman seated behind the Cyvasse table. His accent was thick, Braavosi, with a voice that bellowed as deep and impactful as a large wave against a curtain wall. Booming, if dressed with a smile fueled by the recently finished morning beer Celena had brought him, “Hoy, friends, the Mummer Show isn’t ‘till sundown.”
The older of the two Lannister men, with dark hair and rough stubble, was quick to answer. “Not here for a show.”, his words sharp with ill-concealed contempt. A gloved hand lifted from the hilt of his blade to brush aside the red cloak draped over his shoulder, pointing in the direction of Celena, “Here for that one.”
The younger, with long brown hair and curious eyes, was silent for the most part - his attention fixed on the Lioness, struck by her beauty. It was he who had spotted her. After his colleague, and likely superior, had announced their intention, he raised his own, uncertain, voice. “It.. is the Lady Celena, is it not?”, he asked none in particular.
The other didn’t wait for an answer, his chest instinctively puffing out as he spoke, “The Lord of Casterly Rock
demands your presence.”, he commanded firmly. If his tone and the dumb, smug expression on his face was anything to go by, this man was used to getting his way by invoking the name of his lord. His hand fell to rest on the plain hilt of his blade as he took a step forward.
The unflinching eyes of the Keyholder stayed on the young man, as he asked his question, as her lips allowed him a direct answer, rare enough as such things were from her, even if it carried the burden of deeply buried secrets with it, “It was.” She needn’t speak loudly; there wasn’t a noise made within the tent at that moment.
A deafening silence broken by the strum of one of the minstrels’ lute; one older, one younger. The younger was a tall, attractive, bright brown eyed Braavosi. The older, his mentor, had skin like weathered leather, a coarse stubble along his jaw and cheeks of gray hair, the lines around his narrow blue eyes testifying to his experience, to what he’d seen. The strumming of the lute produced a slow melancholy of a sound that drifted from the background until the gentle depths of the old minstrel’s voice could be heard giving life to the tune played.
“Every prayer was heard that night
When the golden light made the world right
Against the wicked bravos of the twenty-eight
At bloodied blade and dagger tip came their end, their fate”Every Braavosi in the tent stared at the minstrel as his play faded to a stop, his face in the direction of the two. Everyone of them except Lady Celena, and the minstrel whose voice faded as his strumming of lute strings faded to a near whisper looked off in his own direction. She watched the Lannister men as her thoughts skewered her with memory. A freed slave lost at sea and reborn upon the tide, sailing past what was known of Sothoryos, survived where the Doom and water collide, when vessel and crew broke off it was reported she was killed. But she was still alive. Sword and dagger by her side, she rode across the Disputed Lands, too many a young man losing his lifeblood to her blade.
Braavos was the place to rest. To stop.
’With what you earn with blood spilled tonight, if you survive, you can finally rest that spirit of yours.’ He was an old friend. She trusted him, she believed him. She thought of her Sealord with suppressed sigh as she slowly slid to her feet from the seat she had taken.
Now every eye was on her, no one daring to speak, let alone move, faces watching her, convinced of what was to come and the tension that came from the very idea of two Westeros men wearing officious sigils dying at the bare hands of a woman wearing silk. A slow, deep breath, and Celena disappointed them.
It was her friend, Ohoro, big and fat and bald and glorious to her, that spoke up with his body leaning back in his seat with his large hands now linked and settled behind his head as he eyed the men, “You do not know what this Lady is to Braavos, friends. Go gently, and may your Gods protect you.” He said it plainly, almost matter-of-fact. He said it for their sake.
She saw both men-at-arms. Armor was well-fitted, but mostly leather. She read the way they stood, the way their bodies wore their weight, compared their frames and structures to similar men of the many she’d killed before. Careful estimates of their reaction time, of their balance, of their flexibility—of which of them could take more pain than the other. Which was the better blade. All with that hint of a smile, all standing there, arms down by her side and just towards her back as one finger from her left hand hooked with a finger from her right, keeping both hands at her lower back, chest out, head high, green eyes shadowed as she faced them and away from the internal light sources within the tent of brazzier and odd lantern.
That smile of hers had grown just enough to be plainly seen, and closer to a grin than a proverbial Braavosi blade in the back, “After you,” she said to them, for the first time sounding like a Westerosi noble lady. Like she was used to giving commands to men such as these two.
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