Casterly Rock

Kevan watched as his brother read the first message from the capital - wondering, waiting for his reaction. His pale green eyes trailed over the message, though his face gave no reaction to words in front of him.

After a few moments, Tywin finally glanced up at him. "Where is Gerion?"

Did it really matter where our youngest brother is at this very moment? You won't like the answer, brother. "He is with Tyrion."

His brother continued to stare at him, letting silence fill the room. The rising sun had creeped into the room and made the gold flecks in Tywin's eyes flash like the spark of steel tested.

"They're reading together," Kevan finally continued - admitted, really. "It's Gerion's latest favorites - about the wonders." He rather enjoyed observing Gery with their nephew, the two were quite happy together. It was the only time he saw any joy in the child, truth be told.

"Gerion fills his head with nonsense."

"They're just books, Tywin - "

"He indulges him," his brother chastised coldly.

He's the only one who does, Kevan thought sadly. After a few moments, he dared to ask what he wanted the moment the raven arrived. "You've read the pr- King's message, I trust?"

Tywin tossed the parchment onto his desk carelessly as though it were false currency. "Of course. Do you have the other?" he asked.

Kevan produced the second piece of parchment and handed it over. "A slightly different tale."

He watched as Tywin's eyes went over the words before him, though his face betrayed nothing of what he read.

"I used to think Rhaegar had promise. If things had gone differently at Duskendale…" he trailed off before resuming his line of thought. "But then Harrenhal, now this. He has squandered it all."

"What was he thinking? The Stark girl is nothing extraordinary. Perhaps there is some sort of wild beauty there. But if it were beauty, surely he would have looked west," Kevan pondered. "Is he simply a love-struck fool? He never seemed one to fall that way."

"I learned long ago that more often than not, there is little use in searching for logic in the mind of a Targaryen." Then he raised the piece of parchment once more, inspecting it as he rolled the dry paper between his fingers. "But for all his follies, I do not believe love could be all there is to this. He cannot be that weak," Tywin pondered, his eyes narrowing over the sea of scrolls on his desk.

"The Baratheon boy is furious."

"Of course he is," Tywin agreed. "I would expect no less."

"What was Rhaegar reading all those days he spent in the library if not at least some of his family's own history." Did the young king not care to remember the Laughing Storm? What concessions will the crown make to the stag this time? Kevan then recalled the rest of the Grand Maester's whispers. "Pycelle seems to think there is a friendship between the Dornish princess - "

"Queen," his brother and liege interjected. His voice was short but distant - perhaps even with a hint of dissatisfaction.

"He seems to think there is perhaps an...alliance of sorts between her and Brandon Stark. She cared for him when he was injured."

Tywin gazed at him, his eyes narrowing as he seemed to be in thought. "So he says. That was a daring gamble on her part, saving him like that. It could have easily turned the other way with Aerys."

"But now it has yielded its benefits, it would seem," Kevan observed. Tywin's mouth quirked with a small cluck as he sunk into thought.

"They'll need to make many concessions to the Starks for what Aerys has done - but his death itself is the biggest one they could have given, so in that there is already a start. Still, Rhaegar has shaken it all again with this folly with the Stark girl."

"What will you do?" Kevan finally asked.

The Lord of Casterly Rock looked at him, his eyes glinting and cold. "Find out how weak the ground is, of course."

Sunspear

Hotah watched as the maester handed the various parchments to the prince, placing two carefully on top. He knew those must be of importance.

The prince unfurled the first one and a small smile looked near apparent. "He's coming back, good." He read it once more, eyeing it carefully and closing his eyes for a moment, as though he were in prayer. Then he opened his eyes and put quill to parchment. "If we send this now, it should reach him at the next port."

Caleotte nodded in agreement and was about to take the finished message from Doran when the door to the solar burst open.

In tumbled the little princess, tears streaming down her cheeks. Princess Arianne's speed was slow as she moved with a slight limp, holding the skirt of her lilac dress a bit just past her knee. When she was in front of her father's desk, she looked up at him with a frown.

"Arianne, what's wrong?" her father asked steadily. She made the turn around the desk slowly, her feet shuffling and her eyes watery. When she got to him, he placed one hand on her cheek and asked her again with simply a look.

"It hurts," she sniffled and pointed at a skinned knee. "Obara and Nym go too fast." Her cousins were just a bit older, but always faster than the little princess.

"Let me see," Doran said softly, examining the reddened patch of skin on her small knee. "I believe you will live, but let us have Maester Caleotte confirm, hmm?" After Caleotte had agreed, hiding his amusement at the false severity of the situation, he left to find a small bandage for the girl.

"Come now," the prince said, huffing slightly as he brought his plump daughter onto his lap and kissed her forehead gently. "The pain shall ease, it always does."

She nodded solemnly as he wiped away the remnants of her tears. "Mama is with Quentyn." Then she looked up at him, slightly indignant. "He won't play with me."

"You must give him time to be able to walk first before you involve him in your mischief, Arianne," he replied with a small laugh.

"But I don't have a mischief," she grumbled in confusion before turning to look at the papers on his desk. "What are you doing?" she murmured with a huff of a sigh.

"Working - just as you will when you are older and rule Dorne."

That raised her curiosity as her face brightened then. "Will you teach me?" she asked, seemingly having forgotten the source of her earlier troubles.

"Well, I've written to your Uncle Oberyn -

"I miss Uncle Oby," she lamented. "Will he come home soon?"

"Soon." The prince said no more than that.

Though he did smile.

"And now," Prince Doran continued, "I am reading a letter from my sister Elia. You remember her, do you not?"

A sharp stress had taken over the prince when he found out that his beloved sister was in the capital by order of the King. But when the news came of his death, some relief found its way back to Prince Doran.

"Yes! I remember Aunt Elia," Arianne exclaimed excitedly. "She is a princess like me. And she let me hold her baby when we went to the capital. Rhaenys, she was very sweet," she confirmed with a solid nod. "She would play with me, I'm sure," she added in a mumble, more to herself than her father.

"Perhaps so." The prince's eyes read over the message from his sister once more before he was roused from his thoughts by his daughter tugging on the sleeve of this tunic. "Your aunt Elia is now a Queen, my dear."

The little princess looked at him with wide eyes. "What does that mean?"

His eyes moved past his desk to a small table on the other side of the room where a cyvasse board lay. The various pieces were in a bundle on the side, waiting to be placed where needed.

"It means we must ensure she stays a Queen."

Back to King's Landing in the next chapter