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Chapter Text

Stannis Baratheon & Shireen Baratheon

They will tell you that your father lied to steal a throne, to plunder a realm.

I was never that grasping, that greedy. I never wished for a single drop more than what was rightfully mine.

They will tell you that your father was ensorcelled by a sorceress; bewitched, misled, misdirected, led astray by the red woman.

I was never that spineless, that weak-willed. I was never anyone’s puppet. I am my own man. I made my own choices. They may have been the wrong ones, at times, with dreadful consequences, but I chose. I have always chosen. As someday my daughter will have to choose. When you wear the crown, on your own head be it, the weight of all your decisions, all your mistakes, all your blunders. If we deserve the praise and the admiration for the good, then justice dictates that we deserve the blame and the reproach for the bad as well.

They may even mean well, some of them, when they tell you how I was ridden like a horse by the Lady Melisandre, how I was not culpable, how I did not know any better, how it was all her fault, her doing. You will not believe in that lie, because you are my daughter, and you must know that a lie is a lie and must be taken out, even if it is meant to defend, to justify, even to comfort. Even when it comes out of undiminished loyalty.

Even when it comes out of love.

There is no such thing as a harmless lie.

You are the Princess Shireen of House Baratheon, you are my daughter, and you do not belong with the ranks of self-deceivers.  

But I fear that you will believe what you wish to believe, about the distant father who had been like a ship passing through the dark night, about the stranger waiting to be visited by the Stranger.  

And how could I blame you, when I have never taught you to know your own father?

You will have your mother still, the mother who loves you and will protect you at the cost of her own life. She resents a great many things, your mother; we have that in common, she and I. But she does not resent her daughter and she does not hate her only child, despite the lies spread by a few unscrupulous fools. You know the truth of it far better than anyone; you who have known the tenderness she had never shown elsewhere.

You will have your mother still, if not your father; and for that, I could have almost forgiven the gods who were so monstrous as to drown both my mother and my father while their young sons stood watching, praying for mercy and justice that never came.

Forgiven, but not forgotten.

Chapter Text

Stannis + ancestors

The Laughing Storm had caught Robert’s imagination from the moment he saw a likeness of his great-grandsire in one of Maester Cressen’s history books. In the picture, Lyonel Baratheon was sitting proudly astride his horse, his head tilted back, his wind-tossed jet black hair falling over one eye, and he was depicted laughing uproariously at an unseen opponent.

“He must have been jousting at some great and grand tourney. Look how big his lance is!” Robert said, voice full of wonder and amazement.

“If it was truly a joust, then he would have been wearing his helm and we would not be able to see his hair at all,” Stannis pointed out, for the Laughing Storm was also famous for the gleaming rack of iron antlers atop his helm.

Robert groaned. “It’s a picture! Not boring history lesson.”

Stannis had been drawn more to the Baratheon grandsire he never met, the man who toiled in the perpetual shadow of his famous (some might say infamous) and larger-than-life father, the man Stannis’ own father had actually known. And loved. And deeply mourned still, years after Ormund Baratheon’s death in his son’s arms.

At times it seemed as if Steffon was struck anew at his father’s absence with each recall of his name. Stannis had no true notion of this, did not comprehend until it was far too late how daily present an absence could feel, howpalpable the impossible yearning for the dead could be. (Grief was not a void; it was a hungry, angry beast demanding to be fed, always clamoring for its due. He wished his father had taught him that.)

But then there were the fond and loving memories too; stories told, untold and retold by Steffon Baratheon about his lord father, scenes and episodes from a life gone by, a life never witnessed by Lord Ormund’s grandsons.

“If there was ever a likeness of my father in the history books, it should show him surrounded by quills and parchments, noting down the exact grain figures in the storehouses and granaries, and assessing the strength of our garrison down to the last man and the last horse.”

“But was he not a brave, strong warrior in his own right, like his lord father had been?” Robert asked, sounding less than enamored with his grandsire.

“He marched alongside his father when Lord Lyonel declared against the Targaryens, and later he led King Jaehaerys’ army against the pretenders calling themselves the Ninepenny Kings, but my father did not relish fighting and killing for its own sake. He saw it as his duty, a thing that must be done to protect his land and his people, but otherwise, something to be avoided.”

It was hard choosing for Ormund Baratheon, between his father and his king, the king he had been sent to squire for at a young age, back when Lord Lyonel and King Aegon had been fast friends, before the broken betrothal and the shattered trust. Like his father, Ormund had been furious at the shameful treatment of his sister meted out by Prince Duncan. But unlike his father, Ormund Baratheon thought that the matter had been resolved with Prince Duncan renouncing his claim to the throne. Duncan Targaryen was the guilty party, he paid for it with his crown, and that was sufficient punishment in Ormund’s eyes. Lyonel Baratheon thought otherwise.

“He chose blood, in the end. My father chose his lord father over his loyalty to his king, but only after all his efforts to convince his father to reconsider his decision had proved futile. After he became Lord of Storm’s End, however, my father was never anything other than a leal servant to King Aegon and King Jaehaerys. He thought the Baratheons were suspect, in the eyes of many, because of his lord father’s failed rebellion. He thought that he had to be the one to prove House Baratheon’s loyalty to the Iron Throne. He saw that as his duty.”

Ormund Baratheon had died under the Targaryen banner leading King Jaehaerys’ army in the Stepstones, twenty one years after his father had raised his own banner against the Targaryens. Surely even the Targaryens would see that as sufficient proof of House Baratheon’s loyalty, Stannis thought. “You never know. There is no telling with some people,” Steffon Baratheon told his son, when he explained why he did not dare refuse King Aerys’ summon recalling him to court and naming him to the small council.

Chapter Text

 Stannis + history (Siege of Storm’s  End), Stannis + ancestor (Argella Durrandon)

Maester Cressen found him at the parapet, staring out to Shipbreaker Bay at a storm of ships flying the burgundy banners.

“Would that your gods are useful enough to send another storm to destroy the Redwyne fleet, Maester.”

Cressen looked shocked, but his voice was gentle. “It is not a thing to be prayed for, my lord. Of any god.”

“What is not to be prayed for? To pray for the death of our enemies? Shall we pray only for the death of our loved ones?”

The maester’s hand hovered over Stannis’ shoulder. Once, Cressen would not have hesitated to place his hand there, even to squeeze the flesh in a gesture of comfort, of affection, of commiseration. But this was no longer a boy standing beside him, and he was no longer certain how welcomed the gesture would be to this young man.     

“Have no fear, Maester. I have no intention of praying to the Seven for anything, even for the death of our enemies.”

Standing on this same parapet, they had prayed together for Lord Steffon and his lady wife, and for the other unfortunate souls aboard Windproud. The storm did not let up, though. And the ship still sank.

“Has there been another raven?”

“No, my lord.”

The last news they had of Robert told of his march to the Trident. Prince Rhaegar had returned from whatever bolthole he had been hiding in, to lead an army of more than forty thousand men to meet Robert’s force, it was claimed.  

If Robert should fall in battle …

Bend the knee, my lord. Bend the knee and open the gates. And we may all live yet.

Never. I made a promise to my brother. They will have to come and take the castle.

You may take my castle, but you will win only bones, blood and ashes, the last storm queen had declared.

Would his men betray him, like Argella Durrandon’s men had betrayed her?

Ser Gawen had tried. Gawen Wylde and three of his knights, attempting to sneak out the back gate in the dark of night to surrender to Mace Tyrell. Stannis had caught them himself. Storm’s End’s master-at-arms, the man who had put the first wooden sword in Stannis’ hand when he was all of five, the knight who had told Stannis that a man should wear his scars with pride when Stannis’ first real sword grazed his own cheek and drew blood.

To be betrayed by those you trusted, by those you had foolishly believed were not capable of betrayal …

No, they were not truly his men, they were Robert’s men, given to his sacred keeping and made his solemn duty, as Storm’s End was, in Robert’s absence.

 “If your brother is dead –“ Cressen began.

“Not you too, Maester!” Stannis snapped. “I will not open the gates for our enemies to enter Storm’s End unopposed. I will not! That is the end of it.”

“You are your brother’s heir. If he is dead, then –“  

“Then they will make Eddard Stark king. Or Jon Arryn.”

“Neither has a claim to the throne.”

Neither did Robert, strictly speaking. His Targaryen blood came through the female line. “Aerys is mad. He has broken all covenants with his lords after his brutal slaying of Rickard Stark and Brandon Stark.” That had been Jon Arryn’s argument, that Aerys had nullified the leal service owed to him by his lords through his own unjust actions.

Argella Durrandon had declared herself the storm queen as soon as the news of her father’s death reached Storm’s End. Had his defeat come as a surprise to her? Had she been convinced of her father’s victory, of his invincibility? Or had she been prepared for his death all along? The history books were silent on these matters, and Argella herself disappeared from their accounts after her marriage to her father’s slayer. History belonged to the victors, not to the vanquished and the defeated.

“Robert is not dead,” Stannis insisted.  

“Pray gods that he is not, my lord. But we must be prepared for any eventuality.”

“He is not dead. I would know if he is.” When you have lived under someone’s shadow your whole life, surely you would know, if he was gone? Surely you could feel it, in your bones, if he was no more?   

“Shall we pray together? For your brother’s victory and safe return.”

Stannis scoffed. Cressen should have known better by now. “I would trust Robert’s warhammer before I would trust the Seven.”

He did not pray, but he spoke to Robert in the silence of his own thoughts, as he often did.

All your luck and all your charms, the sun always shining on you, always, your whole life; you cannot be dead.

You will not die. You must not.

Chapter Text

Canon divergence AU in which the conversation between Stannis and Maester Aemon in ASOS touches on their shared relations.

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“I am well aware of that,” [Stannis] said. “I am aware of more than you know, Aemon Targaryen.” (A Storm of Swords)

“Stannis... Stannis has some of the dragon blood in him, yes. His brothers did as well. Rhaelle, Egg’s little girl, she was how they came by it... their father’s mother... she used to call me Uncle Maester when she was a little girl.” (A Feast for Crows)

_________________________

King Aegon the Fifth had visited the Wall many years ago. He brought a page with him, his black-haired Baratheon grandson. Rhaelle’s boy. It was hard for Maester Aemon to think of little Rhaelle as a mother, the girl he used to bounce on his knees, the girl who used to call him Uncle Maester and begged to be allowed to play with his maester’s chains.

“My mother sends her love to her favorite uncle.” Those had been the first words out of Steffon Baratheon’s mouth, upon meeting his great-uncle for the first time. Words from a mouth shaped for smiling, for laughing. His eyes laughed too, drinking in all the new sights with wonder and amazement.

This man, this king, Steffon’s son; his voice was harsh, a bark. Maester Aemon did not need the power of sight to know that Stannis Baratheon was not smiling, let alone laughing.

Does he have his father’s look? Foolish to wonder. An old man’s foolish fancy, Aemon scolded himself. Even if he was not blind, he would not be able to tell. He had never known what Steffon Baratheon looked like as a man, after all. Only as a boy.

“Your lord father was here, when he was a boy,” he said, to Steffon’s son.

“I know. He was ten. He dreamed of joining the Sworn Brothers of the Night’s Watch and protecting the realm from the wicked enemies beyond the Wall. The dream lasted a whole day, until his grandsire reminded him that as the only son and heir of Lord Baratheon, he had more paramount duties to consider.”

“I was grieved to hear of his passing.” How many years ago was that? Aemon frowned to remember. Twenty? More than that? The years passed and blurred, the world turned and turned, and the death, oh the death. So much death. And yet here he still was. Why did the gods spare him when they did not spare so many?

“Why should you grieve for my father? You know him scarcely at all.”

“He was beloved by my brother. My brother -”

“I know who your brother was,” Stannis said, in a tone that denoted finality and brooked no argument, in a tone that reminded Aemon of his own father when he would declare a subject closed and done with. Maekar Targaryen did not suffer fools or endless chatter gladly.

Steffon’s son spoke again. “You could have been king, they said. You were the older of King Maekar’s surviving sons.”

“I was a maester of the Citadel, sworn to serve. And my brother would have made a better king, I believed. And I was proven right.”

“Were you? Or is that a tale you tell yourself to sleep at night, after shirking your duty to the realm?”

Aemon despaired. Egg, this is your great-grandson. Steffon’s boy. Did he not know all that you tried to achieve? Did Summerhall … Aerys … the rebellion … did they erase all the good you tried so hard to do, for the realm, for the people?

He raised his frail voice, shaking with the effort. “My brother … your great-grandsire was a good king. Or does it not suit the Baratheons to remember that?”

“He was better than most,” Stannis replied, grudgingly, it seemed. “Not that the bar is raised very high, when it comes to good kings,” he scoffed.

Perhaps this counted as high praise coming from this stern man, this king who reminded Aemon of another king, long ago.

Aemon thought of the cold sword, the sword without a heat Stannis had wielded.

He is not Azor Ahai come again. I must look elsewhere for that. But you would recognize him, Father, were you to meet him now.

Chapter Text

Stannis + mythology (Durran/Elenei)

There was a story his mother told him, long ago, one that existed nowhere in the songs and legends, nowhere in the pages of history; one that came entirely from her, of her own imagining.

“She went to the sea, Elenei, one dark and stormy night, when it seemed like Durran’s seventh castle would suffer the same fate as the last six.”

”To plead with her mother and father to spare her husband, the castle, and the stormlands?”

“To bargain with them. To bargain with the gods.”

“Did she offer to leave Durran? To leave her mortal husband and to be the immortal daughter of the gods once again?”

“No. She was mortal already, you see, after she chose Durran. There was no going back from that.”

“Then what was the bargain?”

“She told them – ‘I will drown myself in these stormy waters unless you cease your acts of vengeance, unless you promise to leave us be from this day forward.’”

“She loved Durran that much?”

“That wasn’t the point. She knew they loved her too much to allow her to die, her mother and father. That was the point.”

He had tried that, bargaining with the gods, the night before the bodies were washed ashore.

Take me. You can have me, if only you would return them alive from these stormy waters, my mother and father.

But why would they want him at all? Second son, second best.

He tried what Elenei tried – ran to the sea, waded into the waves.

I will -

But why would they care if he live or die? His gods were not Elenei’s gods. His gods were not the loving mother and father who could not bear to watch their daughter perish. His gods were the cruel monsters who had no trouble drowning a pair of loving mother and father while their sons stood watching.

His gods were no longer any god of his, he vowed, when the bodies were finally washed ashore. 

Chapter Text

Stannis Baratheon & Robert Baratheon, loss

“When we saw Tywin Lannister that day, sitting on the throne, I thought it would be so glorious to live as long as that, to grow that old and powerful, to sit there so majestically with everyone bowing and scraping, hanging on to your every word. Little did I know …” Robert’s voice trailed off into silence.

“Tywin Lannister was only six-and-twenty at the time. Hardly an old man.”

Robert groaned. “Don’t be so bloody literal, Stannis.” He added, “Though, it is strange to think of my good-father as a young man. Remember what Great-Uncle Harbert once said about him? ‘Born and fashioned a man of middle age, that one.’”

“You are mistaken. Great-Uncle Harbert was referring to me, not to Lord Tywin.”

“No, you are mistaken.”

“I am not!”

“We could ask Cressen, I suppose. How old is he now? Eighty? Close to it, I’d wager. Soon he will be gone as well, and there will be no one left who remembers.”

Except us.

But they recalled such different things, Stannis and his brothers. Shared experience very seldom translated into shared memory for them.

Stannis did not want to think about Maester Cressen dying. He changed the subject. “Did you ever tell Lord Tywin about us mistaking him for the king?”

Robert laughed. “Do you take me for a fool? Of course I never did. No need to inflate his hubris and his sense of his own importance even more.” Robert paused, staring into the distance. “I should have said no, when Jon proposed the match with Cersei.”

Stannis had even less of a wish to discuss his brother’s marriage. “You should have sent Jaime Lannister to the Wall,” he said instead.

Robert shook his head. “He did me a favor, killing Aerys.”

“Aerys should have paid for his crimes, but he should have been punished according to the law. That was ill done, how he died. It was murder, not justice.”

“You and Ned are in agreement about that. Except Ned spoke of honor instead of justice.” With a sly glance at Stannis, Robert said, “See, I don’t always listen to Ned either.”

“Or to Jon Arryn. Or to Father when he was alive.”

After a pause, Robert asked, “Why don’t we ever talk about them?”

No need to ask who Robert meant. Their father and mother.

“You only ever want to talk about Lyanna Stark.” It was as if her death had overshadowed everything, had become the defining tragedy of his life, as Robert saw it. As if the death of their father and mother had been relegated into some distant and musty corner for Robert, Stannis thought, not without resentment.

“Her loss was something I thought I could avenge. But smashing Rhaegar’s skull did not feel so good in the end. It did not bring her back, and that was the only thing I wanted.”

You could not smash a storm, or the sea, or the gods, with your warhammer. Though, Stannis had felt like smashing all seven idols in the sept with his bare hands while he and Robert were keeping vigil for their parents’ bodies.

“You should have done it. It would have made you feel better. At least in that moment.”

“Done what?”

“Smashed the gods in the sept. You wanted to, I know you did. I saw the way your fists were clenched. That was how I felt just before I smashed Rhaegar’s skull.”

“What good would that have done?”

“What good does silently brooding and seething with fury do? Except to make you lose your hair prematurely, and annoy people with the exasperating sound of your teeth grinding at all hours.”

Chapter Text

Stannis Baratheon & Steffon Baratheon

“We will return in time for Robert’s nameday,” Steffon says.

Stannis nods. Robert will be sixteen. A grand feast is to be expected, for the coming-of-age of the heir to Storm’s End. Robert will love it to no end. Stannis will wish for it to end as soon as it begins.

“Perhaps your mother and I will find a bride for you in Volantis, and the feast will be a celebration of your betrothal as well as Robert’s nameday,” his father says, clapping Stannis’ arm.

The mention of a bride unsettles Stannis, having overheard his mother and father discussing the possible consequences should they fail in the task of finding a suitable bride for Prince Rhaegar. The court is buzzing with rumors of King Aerys’ plan to appoint his cousin as Hand of the King after Steffon Baratheon’s return from Volantis, but the talk in Storm’s End is more ominous and far less celebratory. 

“It was a jape, Stannis,” his father says, noting the troubled look on Stannis’ face.

“I know, Father.” Stannis’ bride will be a daughter of one of the stormlords, his father had said before. The stormlords are expecting it, after Robert’s betrothal with a daughter of the north.

(Perhaps we need to find a bride who can teach Stannis how to laugh, Steffon had said to his wife, only partly in jest.

He knows how to laugh, Cassana had replied. He may not find mirth in the same things that others do, but that does not mean that Stannis does not know how to laugh.)

“Look after your little brother.”

Stannis nods.

“And Robert.”

Stannis frowns. “Robert knows how to look after himself.”

(Robert is eager, so very eager and bursting with anticipation for Windproud to depart.

Are you so keen to see them gone, Mother and Father? grumbled Stannis.

I’m only eager to show Father what I can do. To test my mettle and to prove myself a worthy heir, Robert replied pompously.

He is afraid, lad, Great-Uncle Harbert said. Deep down, your brother is afraid, like your father was afraid. Like your grandsire my own brother was afraid. You cannot be a good lord if you do not fear the consequences of your failure, my brother often said.         

But my father never boasted and puffed his chest like a peacock, surely? I cannot believe that Father ever carried on like Robert does. 

Each man deals with fear in his own way, rightly or wrongly, said Harbert Baratheon, who has served three Lords Baratheon in his time – his father, older brother and now nephew – and thought it his duty to teach Stannis how to serve his older brother.)

“Robert will need his brothers by his side when he is Lord of Storm’s End,” Steffon says.

That will not be for years and years, Father. You are strong and healthy, and you will be Lord of Storm’s End for many more years to come. You and Mother will watch your sons marry and your grandchildren being born, and perhaps great-grandchildren too.

Those words remain unspoken, though. He is four-and-ten, too old to believe in tales fit for singers, as Great-Uncle Harbert would say.

(Ormund Baratheon was strong and healthy, and he left his son fatherless when Steffon was only four-and-ten.)

“Pray for our safe return,” Steffon says, before embracing his son.

Chapter Text

For the prompt: Stannis & Shireen Baratheon, hope

The letter from his daughter arrived at a most unfortunate time, when he was spending all waking moments trying to extricate Robert and the realm from yet another disaster of Robert’s own making. It took him three days after its arrival to finally read Shireen’s letter, recalling all the while Maester Cressen’s gentle rebuke that he should be writing more often to the wife and the daughter he left behind in Dragonstone.

I have found a splendid pet, Father, Shireen wrote, before adding, Actually, Patches was the one who found her for me, in Aegon’s Garden.

We have found a most splendid fool, his father had written about finding Patchface, another lifetime ago. The fool had survived while the parents of three young sons, one of them still a toddler tottering unsteadily on his feet, had not. The High Septon was fond of prattling on and on about how just the judgment of the gods was bound to be, but where was the justice in that?  

Though, if Patchface were to perish now, Shireen would be inconsolable. Not that Stannis would have the least idea on how to even begin to try to console his grieving daughter. Her mother would know. Isn’t that what mothers are for?

Unbidden, the retreating figures of his own mother and father came to mind, his mother and father as he last saw them alive. Turn around! Let me see your faces for the last time, he always pleaded in his dream. They never did turn around, no matter how much he willed it. The sight of the backs of their heads seemed almost like a silent rebuke to Stannis, a judgment from the dead.

What kind of father have you turned out to be, Stannis?

Robert is worse!

Is that any consolation for us? Have we failed our sons so badly?

It is not your fault. Neither of you. We failed ourselves.

His eyes roamed through his daughter’s letter, not really seeing or understanding the words, until he reached a certain part. I hope she will be able to fly again, when her wings are healed. It must be sad and so lonely for a bird not to be able to soar in the sky like all her companions.

Stannis halted. He went back to the beginning of the letter, reading more carefully this time. The ‘splendid pet’ turned out to be a pigeon, a fallen bird with injured wings. Cook had wanted to put the pigeon out of its misery and serve it for dinner, but Shireen had run to her mother, promising to nurse the injured bird back to health herself, and Selyse had promptly put an end to the roasted pigeon notion.  

She is not in too much pain, I hope. Maester Cressen said the ointment -

I hope. I hope. I hope, his daughter kept writing.

I hope you will find a suitable bride for Prince Rhaegar. I hope you will return home safely. I hope I will see you both very soon.

You foolish, foolish child, he thought, but whether he was actually thinking of his daughter, or of his younger self, or perhaps both, he would not have been able to enlighten even himself.  

What should I name her, Father? Mother said you had a goshawk called Proudwing when you were a boy.

An ill-omen name if ever there was one, Stannis scoffed. Her pigeon would never fly again. Or it would, and then it would swiftly leave her behind. Either way, it was bound to end in tears, thwarted hope and grave disappointment. The trick, he had finally learned, far too late, was to expect the worst, always, and then you would never be disappointed, would never have to suffer the recurring pain of disillusionment.

He knew what Cressen would say. The old maester would say that it was too cruel a lesson to be taught to a child, any child. But was it any crueler than leaving them vulnerable and defenseless against the cruelties of the gods?

But then again, how much had always expecting the worst truly protected him from disappointment and disillusionment? Or was that just another layer of illusion he had never managed to shed despite his best effort - the illusion that he was a man completely without illusion?

She may never fly again, your pigeon. You must be prepared for that possibility, he wrote his daughter.

But I hope she will, one day, he finally added, the words coming hard, like an old friend that had become a complete stranger.

Chapter Text

“Don’t,” Stannis says, his hand clasping Robert’s arm before Robert could raise his bow. “Not this one. Leave him alone. Just leave him be.”

The stag makes no move to run. Surely he must hear them coming, and yet he does not move a muscle.

“Why not? He is right there for the taking,” Robert protests. “If the creature is too stupid to run and save himself, why should we not put him out of his misery?”

Because it would be a cruelty to hunt those who cannot save themselves, Father used to say.

The stag is mourning his true mate, Mother said, of another stag who also did not run.

Robert should have remembered, Stannis thinks, bitterly. He manages to remember each and every little thing Lord Arryn tells him after all. And it is not the hunting knife Father had given him Robert is carrying, but the one gifted to him by Lord Arryn. “The blade is sharper,” Robert says, as his excuse. Of course the blade is sharper; it is the knife he uses every time he goes hunting, while the one Father had given to him is rusting in the box carved with prancing stags.

‘I’d rather be hunting boars than stags,” Robert grumbles. “Last year, Ned and I –“

Stannis stops listening. Last year, they had been five, not three. He watches the stag, as still as an effigy, waiting, still waiting, for the one who would never return.

Robert sighs. “I miss them too. You are not the only one, Stannis.”

Chapter Text

Windproud sank in sight of the shore where Steffon and Cassana used to stand, holding hands, watching the sun go down, painting the sky a brilliant shade. Where they had their first kiss, the year his father died in his arms and she held him in her arms while he wept for the father who would never see him become a father. Where he held their firstborn and promised her that they would both live to see their son become a father, even a grandfather.

At least they were together to the very end, people kept repeating, as if it was a consolation, or even a strike of good fortune. But Stannis knew better. They would not have wished to die together, his father and mother, not now, not yet. They would not have wished to leave their young children both fatherless and motherless in the same instant. They would have prayed, fervently, for the other to survive, as fervently as Stannis had prayed for both of them to survive.

Chapter Text

Mother, flee.

Father, run.

He had not had that dream in years, the dream where the raging sea, aided and abetted by the howling storm, rose and rose higher until it resembled a dragon, a merciless dragon devouring his parents whole. This time, there was a third figure with his mother and father, a boy he would have recognized with his eyes fully closed.

The boy managed to escape the clutches of the monstrous sea-dragon, only to be menaced by another threat, a looming shadow chasing him, ready to pounce.

The shadow took on the countenance of a man.

I was asleep. My hands were clean.

The boy screamed.

I was asleep. My hands were clean.

The shadow pounced.

I was asleep. My hands were clean.

He refused to see. Refused to recognize the face staring back at him. No, this is not me. And that is not him, he is not that boy, no longer that boy, he is a man grown, he is a traitor, he is -

Still your brother, Stannis.

Mother, I was asleep! And when I woke, my hands were clean. 

Open your eyes, Stannis.

He opened them, as his father insisted. And screamed. 

Chapter Text

If only, they kept saying. If only he had a son to continue the fight, the fight for the throne that was his by right. The son he never had; they mourned for that young man who never was. The son he always dreamed of, the son he desperately yearned for, they claimed, as if in life he had been the kind of man eager to reveal to all and sundry his deepest dreams and desires.

Never mind the daughter he already had, the flesh and blood already existing.

Never mind that it was the daughter of another man, not the son, who defeated him in the fight for that throne.

If only, they kept saying. if only he had a better wife able to give him sons. They mourned for that 'good wife' that never was, like they mourned for the 'glorious son' who should have replaced the 'disappointing daughter.'

As if it did not take two, husband and wife, to make a son, or a daughter.

As if the wife was always solely to blame.

As if the daughter they had made together was pointless, completely beside the point.

You are loved. You are valued. You are worthy, they told their daughter.

But am I enough?

I will win your throne back for you, Father.

You will win your throne for yourself, her mother tells her. 

Chapter Text

“Do you consider Dragonstone your home?”

Stannis frowns. Who is this woman, this stranger Selyse swears by? Who is she to ask him that question? How dare she?

“How presumptuous of you,” Stannis retorts, glaring at her with eyes fit to curdle the blood of most mortals.

She does not flinch. She does not look away. She smiles; not a meek or contrite smile but a challenging one, as if to say, I dare, Stannis. I dare to presume. And what will you do about it?

“What is it to you, my lady, whether I consider Dragonstone my home or not?” he asks, suspiciously. 

“It is not to me that it matters.”

“Storm’s End is my home,” Stannis snaps, before he could think better of it. “Was my home,” he amends, his bitterness at the lost of that home present still in his voice, despite his best effort to curb it.

“Was,” she repeats, softly.

“Was, as opposed to is. I presume you know the difference, my lady?”

“Oh I do, my lord. I assure you that I do.” She does not even look offended. She looks as if ... as if she is humoring a sulky and bad-tempered child.

Damn the woman!

“My lady Selyse tells me you spend most of the year at court. Is King’s Landing now your home?” 

“King’s Landing is where I serve my brother and do my duty to the realm. That is the beginning and the end of it.” That viper’s pit was certainly not his home. 

“Then,” she asks, “where is your home?”

It makes him furious, that he has no ready answer to give her. It makes him even more furious, that he could not get her question (and the sound of her voice, and the look on her face) out of his mind, even after his return to King’s Landing, his return to yet another place that is not his home, never his home. 

Chapter Text

He chose the firmest of the apples, not the reddest. His mother said the reddest apples were not always the best, just like the brightest and shiniest of things were not always the best.

“Who,” Mother pronounced, in her make-believe giant voice, “has been stealing my apples? My precious, precious apples.”

Shrieking, Stannis ran around the apple tree, while his mother tried to catch him. She almost got him a few times, but he was quicker and managed to elude her. “You can't catch me, Lady Giant,” he said, as he paused to catch his breath. “You'llnever catch me,” he declared, as he continued running.

Hitching up her gown so she could run faster, Mother said, “Just you wait, Ser Apple-Stealer. I'm coming for you. I'm coming to get you.”

This time she got him. She really got him. They were rolling around on the grass, laughing and shrieking, when Stannis saw his father coming towards them. “Father's back!”

His mother had a smile on her face, until she saw that Father was not alone. Swiftly, she pulled Stannis and herself off the ground, rearranging her gown with one hand and Stannis' hair with the other. She smiled again, as the two men approached them, but it was a very different kind of smile from before. A lady's smile, Mother called it. Mother had put on her proper lady's face, to greet their guest.

“Jon has come to visit us, Cassana,” Father said. He also had a smile on his face, a real smile, as if he was really glad that this particular guest had come to Storm's End. Then, more tentatively, his smile fading slightly, Father said, “He is here about the matter we discussed earlier.”

“Of course. You are very welcomed at Storm's End, Lord Arryn.” It was not her make-believe giant voice Mother was using, but it sounded like a make-believe voice to Stannis all the same. His hands still clutching the apple he had taken from the basket, Stannis peered at this guest, this tall man who was taller than his father. Older too, from the lines on his face and the grey in his hair. Mother did not like him, or did not like how much Father liked him, Stannis guessed. Her hands were wrapped around Stannis' shoulders, tightly, as if she was afraid the tall man was a boy-stealer who was going to steal him away from her.

The tall man bent down to get a closer look at Stannis. He smiled kindly and asked, “Is this the lad? Is this young master Robert?”

“No! This is Stannis. This is our younger son,” Mother replied.

Chapter Text

In his dreams, he destroyed them a hundred times, nay, a thousand times, each and every face of the Seven. Hacked at them with his sword, crushed them with his bare hands, even appropriated Robert's warhammer to bash them to oblivion.

This, he drove home the first strike, is for the mother and father you forced to die within sight of home, within sight and embrace of their waiting sons.

This, was for the lovers who drowned, the husband and wife torn asunder by the sea and the storm.

This, was for the man and woman who had been more than just his father and mother, who had died before he was old enough, and wise enough, to see them and to know them as more than just his father and mother, as the sum of all their parts.

This, was for the silence, the thundering, deafening silence – the laughters that no longer rang, the warnings and admonitions that no longer instructed, the cajolings and encouragements that no longer comforted.

This, was for the absence, the sheer physical absence, that monster whose daily presence could not be ignored and could not be forgotten. Or forgiven.

“They would wish you to forgive the gods,” Maester Cressen implored.

“They would not wish for you to lose faith in the Seven,” the septon at Storm's End insisted.

But how easy it was, to attribute wishes and desires to the dead, to attribute our own wishes and desires to the dead. How easy, and how futile.

Chapter Text

They came across the herd on their daily walk together. The stags were dancing, his mother had told him, her own eyes dancing with glee.

He had not believed her. Even as a boy of six, he had not been very credulous, already a budding skeptic in the making. Stags don't dance, he announced, solemnly.

Why not? You've heard of dancing bears, have you not?

He nodded.

So why can't there be dancing stags?

Stags don't dance, he repeated, stubbornly. They just don't.

They can if they wish it, his mother said. Why, the stag in the Baratheon sigil is a dancing stag!

He laughed. That's not a dancing stag. That's a prancing stag.

What's the difference?

You know the difference, Mother.

I don't. Show it to me. Show me the difference between dancing and prancing.

Despite later claims to the contrary, he did know how to laugh. He even knew how to dance. Or at least, he used to, once upon a time.

Chapter Text

Say His Name

 “R’hllor is with us,” said Ser Clayton Suggs. “Melisandre is not,” said Justin Massey. The king said nothing. But he heard. Asha was certain of that. He sat at the high table as a dish of onion soup cooled before him, hardly tasted, staring at the flame of the nearest candle with those hooded eyes, ignoring the talk around him. (A Dance with Dragons)

R'hllor is with us, he heard. Then another voice, muttering, Melisandre is not. Justin Massey, thought Stannis. Of course. It would be Justin, who mouthed all the words and dutifully watched all the burnings, but in the end only believed what he could see with his own eyes. And Melisandre had done things – impossible things, terrifying things. They had all seen this.

Did he wish that she was here with them now? The northmen, with their tree god, would not approve, he knew. But it was not only about dueling gods. She was a woman, a woman with terrifying powers, and for many, northmen or not, that was far more terrifying than a new and foreign god. 

It was not pride, he told himself, again and again. Blackwater this was not, with the lords beseeching him to leave her behind, or else the victory would be said to be hers and not his.

In the end, it was Melisandre who made the decision to remain at the Wall, and he had said nothing. Was he relieved? Or disappointed? He searched the flame again, and found no answer. 

Fool, he thought. Why would the Red God, or any god, know what is in my heart, if I do not know it myself?

They were marching through the storm and the snow. Through the snow and the storm. Endless, enduring, unceasing. At times, he thought that this was the gods mocking him. No, not R'hllor, but the Seven, the gods he did not believe any longer, the ones he had cast aside long before the Red God came.

The storm that killed your mother and father, and changed your life forever. The snow in that man's land. Because it was still his land, and his people, long dead as he might be. The man his brother had loved and cherished above all else. The man whose home he's marching to now, through the storm and the snow, the price he had to pay for the northmen’s support.

Say it, say his name, a voice whispered. Ned, he whispered back, softly, if only in his head. No, not Ned, he was never Ned to me, the way he was Ned to Robert.

Lord Stark. Eddard Stark. The unluckiest man in the Seven Kingdoms. Or maybe the luckiest. Was it better to know, or not know? The fate of your wife and your children after your demise. Did Ned fear for them, in that last moment before the blade fell? 

What man wouldn't?

Did he bargain with the gods? Cursed his enemies? Wrestled with his convictions?

Would I?

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The Boy Who

The boy who grew up in his brother’s shadow would one day use shadow against another brother, and would live long enough to regret it. My hands were clean. It was a dream. I was asleep. Those were the words he whispered to himself, and spoke aloud to the only man he trusted. He saw the look of disbelief on the other man’s face, and knew that look was mirrored in his own heart of hearts. He would use the shadow against another man later, and this time he did not lie to himself. I am a man capable of this act.

The man capable of that act would lose a battle, and for a while thought that he had lost the war. The red priestess spoke of a bigger battle, the only war that counted, against the forces of eternal darkness. A sacrifice, of a boy with the blood of a king flowing through his veins. His brother’s child, conceived in the man’s marital bed, yet another slight in a lifetime full of slights. What was the worth of one boy, over the lives of all the boys and girls in the kingdom, whose fate were hanging in the balance?

“Everything,” the only man he trusted insisted.

The only man he trusted saw the folly of his ways, and spirited the boy away. Honesty. Loyalty. Service. These he had demanded from that man. Honesty to tell me the error of my ways. Loyalty to my cause. Service in protecting my people. “The boy is one of your people. I protected him, as you had asked of me,” the only man he trusted had answered, to the charge of treason laid at his feet.

His own words were being used against him, to remind him of his duty. It was about duty, not wants or rights. A king’s duty was to protect his people, here at Dragonstone, or far north at the Wall. What is a man, if his words are just wind? What sort of man would I be, if my words are merely words?

His army would win a battle against a force superior in number, yet inferior in weaponry. The victory would turn out not to matter to the outcome of the other battle, the battle to win supporters for his claim to the throne. The enemy beyond the Wall only mattered to the smattering of Night’s Watch men, men sworn not to take side in the war of kings, men who would never be his to command.

The man who was the boy who grew up in his brother’s shadow would laugh bitterly at this turn of event. What was this, after all, if not the encapsulation of a lifetime of disappointment and disillusionment? The folly is mine, for expecting anything different. Yet, it was beyond this man’s ability to yield, to turn back, to run away.

The boy who grew up in his brother’s shadow, who secretly grieved that his brother loved another boy like a brother, would not have been surprised had someone told him that his fate, in the end, would be determined by a desolate march to that other boy’s home. Of course it would end that way, intertwined as our lives have always been. The brother of my brother, the chosen kin of my blood.

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In the Company of Others

What was he in the eyes of gods and men? In the eyes of a god he had made use of but had trouble believing? In the eyes of men who claimed to fight for him but in truth were fighting for others – R’hllor, the north, Ned Stark?

A king who sat on no throne except the one of his own making, carved from his unshakeable notion of rights and duties. A purported promised savior wielding a cold, cold sword, colder than his own heart.

What was he in the eyes of a knight? In the eyes of a knight holding on desperately to his finger bones for dear life?

A lord, a king, a man owed loyalty. A man owed honest counsel and the truth, as harsh and bitter as they might be.

What was he in the eyes of a priestess? In the eyes of a priestess with convictions stronger than his own?

Her lord’s chosen, her god’s weapon against the darkness and the night that would never end. A man who was hers to wield, as she and her god were his to wield.

What was he in the eyes of a wife? In the eyes of a wife wielding power of her own, through her family and the god she chose and the priestess she brought into their midst?

A man who could rise and rise, if only he was willing and ready. A coldness chillier than the wind beyond the Wall, but one she was resigned to, familiar and recognizable as it was.

What was he in the eyes of a daughter? In the eyes of a daughter said to be a sadder child than he himself had been?

A story heard from the lips of others. A breeze that passed too quickly to be felt or understood.

What was he in the eyes of an older brother? In the eyes of an older brother whose untimely death set the motion for war and bloodshed?

The man who said “No.” The chastiser, the scolder, the lecturer. The blood brother who was less of a brother than a cherished man from the north.

What was he in the eyes of a little brother? In the eyes of a little brother who still haunted his dreams, night after endless night?

A source of endless japes and mockery. A fatal shadow passing through the night.

What was he in the eyes of a maester? In the eyes of a maester who loved him best of all, among the three brothers?

A boy who lived in his brother’s eternal shadow, a shadow that was never lifted even with the brother’s death. A man who deserved better, much better, than the life he had lived.

What was he in his own eyes?

The man he always was, the man had always been, and the man he would always be, he insisted, adamantly, desperately. But if he had lost faith in many things, he had lost faith in this most of all.

____________________

A Child In Time

He was not present for her birth. She was the girl born amidst salt and smoke at Dragonstone, while her father labored unheralded in King’s Landing for his royal brother. A raven was sent to King’s Landing announcing her birth, and a raven was what came back to Dragonstone, not her father.

He came home when she almost died. His first touch was on the dead, flaky skin on her cheek, a legacy of her illness.

“Are you certain it does not hurt her? Absolutely certain?” he had asked the maester over and over again.

“She will not feel anything there, my lord,” the maester had assured and reassured him.

She did not cry when he finally held her in his arms. With her eyes wide open, staring at this stranger who had never held her before, this man who should have held her long before this, she had let out a gurgle that startled her father. He considered her as if he was considering a fully grown woman. He stared at her wide blue eyes, the same color as his own, wondering what her thoughts consisted of, what her dreams were made of.  

He left again, back to his duties and to his brother, and she saw him only occasionally. She grew and grew, learned to read and write, learned not to lament his absence. His letters were dull and dutiful, devoid of any feeling or sentiment. “I have missed you,” he had never written. “I love you,” he had never said. She was shy and wary with him, a father who was more like a distant uncle. He was inconsistent with her, alternating between extreme brusqueness and excessive courtesy. She had a thousand questions and a million stories to tell him, but her tongue always came up short in her father’s presence.

The unexpected death of the King’s Hand, and the appointment of a new Hand, suddenly precipitated her father’s return to Dragonstone. Absence turned into continuous presence, if only in body and not in spirit and mind. He was home, but not really. He was there with them, but barely. He spoke not a word during meals, spent his time brooding over the injustice his older brother had visited upon him once more. “Storm’s End should have been Shireen’s inheritance,” he thought, fixating over the old injustice, never forgotten or forgiven.

Another death changed many things for her. She was now a princess. Princess Shireen. Her father was still home, but more preoccupied than before. Letters and ravens and ships and knights, all clamoring for his attention. He left for battle without saying goodbye. He came home, defeated, without saying anything at all.

Her mother’s uncle incurred her father’s wrath for conspiring to trade her away to the enemy. “She is my only child, my rightful heir,” he had shouted. His only child, the child he had barely paid any attention to, the reproachful voice in his head – his constant companion these days – was reminding him.

She is better off without my bitterness and my fury infecting her, he tried to convince himself. And my despair.

“Will you miss Cousin Edric if he is gone?” he had not dared ask her.

“I miss Cousin Edric,” she had told him anyway, after the bastard boy was safely smuggled away by his onion knight. “Will he be coming back?” she had asked. He had no answer to that.

“Will you miss me if I am gone?” he had no intention of asking her that.

“I will miss you every day, Father. I will pray for your safe return,” she had told him anyway, when he left her and her mother at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, on his way to battle the wildlings. “Will you promise me that you will come back?” she had asked. He had no answer to that either, except to touch her scarred cheek once more, a repeat of his first touch, and fervently wished that it would not be his last.

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All That I Am     

“Tell me who I am,” he had never asked her.

“You are the Lord's chosen, the prince that was promised, Azor Ahai reborn,” Melisandre had repeated all the same. But not to convince him, never to convince him, for she knew that to convince the world was a less futile task. She had never needed convincing herself. She knew, and had always known. The flame did not lie, not to her, at least. 

“The flame is full of trickery,” was his rejoinder. What is, what will be, what could be, what may be, warnings and prophecies all tangled up and mistaken for one another.

“Blame me, not the flame, and certainly not our god,” she had told him. The reader was at fault, not the book, for misreading a prophecy.

But his faith, if he had any at all, was never in the flame, or in her god. It was in her, with her, about her. The fear she struck in the hearts of men. The mysterious power she had over life and death. But mostly death. She was his new hawk, his red hawk, not R'hllor, not the Lord of Light.

Still, he would let her believe what she wanted to believe.

“My power comes from my god. The one you doubt,” she would have told him, if she thought it would have made any difference.

She, too, would let him believe what he wanted to believe.

What he told himself he wanted was only what was rightfully his, as dictated by the rules of law. What he really wanted was for the world to make sense, to be ordered, to behave as it should, and not to descend into chaos, confusion and disorder at the blink of an eye.

What she told herself she wanted was only to serve her god. What she really wanted was to save the world, and by doing this, saving the part of herself that she had always believed was beyond saving. 

“Tell me who I am,” he did ask her, at the end of all things.

“You are a man, for good and ill,” she replied.  

____________________

This Mess We’re In

He had fought her all the way, unwilling to believe, unwilling to submit. Not to her, but to her god. Their god, she wanted to be able to declare. But in her heart of hearts, she knew that he had but the one god. Duty, that was his god. She would have to make do with that, would have to arrange her ways around it. Through it.

His queen wanted to believe. Yearned for it, hungered for it, in fact. Melisandre saw it in Selyse’s bright, shining eyes, that day she was summoned to meet the Lady of Dragonstone. “He could be so much more, my husband, if only he is willing to reach for it,” Lady Selyse had declared.

“I want him to have everything that he deserves, and more, much much more. We are not to be ignored, my husband and I. They have laughed at us both for too long, much too long,” she had whispered to Melisandre later, when she was queen to a king still trying to win his throne.

“No one will be laughing at you or your husband once we are done, my queen,” Melisandre had promised Selyse.

Putting him on the throne was simply the means to an end. He had a much bigger purpose, one she was determined to make him see, to make him understand.

 “You are the lord’s chosen,” she whispered to this unbeliever.

“Your god has chosen the wrong man,” was his reply.

“It does not matter. You still have a duty.”

He had made his own calculations, and saw her god’s hold on his men as his path to the throne. She knew this from the very beginning. “She bewitched him and led him astray,” men whispered behind her back, as if she could not see them whispering in her flame, as if their words were not merely child’s play to her ears. “If not for that evil witch, he would not be this lost,” they claimed. Their naivety and gullibility about a man who existed only in their imagination amused her considerably.

Your king made all the choices. I merely presented him with the options, just like his onion knight.

Those men never knew how hard she had to work to steer their king to a particular path, how often he had frustrated her plans and rejected her counsel, how frequently he had told her no. And they would never know. Never. The trick, she was taught, a long time ago, was to make it all seem easy, to make everything appear effortless and painless. Only then would they believe in your power, and in the power of your god. She would keep her pains and her strains to herself, always.

But he had had an inkling, somehow. He saw more than she wanted him to, in the moments of intimacy that was supposed to reveal his weaknesses, his fears, his doubts, not hers. She was seeking to unravel his defenses, to penetrate his ice shield, to reach his iron core, and yet it was as if she was revealed too, naked in all her glory and un-glory. She did not dare pull back, for fear of losing her tenuous grip on what made him who he was. They danced an intricate dance of concealments and revelations, of knowing but not telling, of understanding but not disclosing.

“I see you as you truly are,” they never said to one another, even when the veracity of those words could no longer be denied.

There were no hidden truths between them, not after a while. They knew the best and the worst about each other, without anything ever being said out loud. This would bring them to their doom one day, she feared.

____________________

Tell Me I Got Here At The Right Time

 The storm came suddenly, howling, and Shipbreaker Bay proved the truth of its name. The lord’s two-masted galley Windproud broke up within sight of his castle. From its parapets his two eldest sons had watched as their father’s ship was smashed against the rocks and swallowed by the waters. (A Clash of Kings)

It was the silence he remembered the most. They had neither of them said a word, the entire time, from the moment they spotted Windproud entering the bay, to the moment Maester Cressen and Great Uncle Harbert forced them to come inside. Robert had resisted, but with motions rather than words. Stannis had done neither. He had allowed Maester Cressen to take his hand and to lead him inside, quietly, without putting up any resistance.

He had regretted it later. I should have stayed, and watched everything until the end. Until the last man or woman had been thrown overboard. Until the last piece of wood that used to make up Windproud had sunk into the bottom of the sea. He vowed never to turn back that easily ever again.

Did they know, or suspect, what was about to happen, when they came out to the parapet? He could not remember. Robert had wanted to wait down at the bay for the ship to dock, but Stannis had told him that it was a foolish idea. “Mother and Father will be concerned if they see us outside in the rain,” he had said.

He remembered that Robert had scoffed. “Don’t be such a baby, Stannis. A little rain won’t hurt us. Besides, Mother and Father will be happy to see how excited we are that they have returned. It won’t hurt you to pretend to be excited.” 

Robert had let out another one of his long-suffering sighs. The one he had been using constantly ever since their parents left for the trip to find a bride for Prince Rhaegar. His ‘it’s hard to be the man in charge’ sigh.

You’re not really in charge. Uncle Harbert is the castellan. He’s the one doing everything that really matters, Stannis had thought at the time.

Stannis had also thought it a strange thing, the task the king had commanded his father and mother to undertake. Why couldn’t Prince Rhaegar marry someone from the Seven Kingdoms, instead of looking for a bride from across the sea? After all, the Targaryens usually wed brothers and sisters, and that was even closer than marrying the daughter of one of the lords in the same realm.

He had said those things during a feast the night before his father and mother had set sail. It had been met with awkward and uncomfortable silence, except from his mother, who had laughed, but immediately covered her mouth with her hand. No one had noticed except Stannis.

She came to his room late that night, when he was already half asleep.

“You mustn’t say things like that in front of others.”

“But you were thinking it too, Mother. You laughed! I saw you.”

She seemed poised between impatience and amusement. This time, amusement won out. She smiled. “Well, it will be our little secret. But we have talked about this before. You must learn to guard your tongue more carefully, Stannis. There are times for speaking blunt truths, and then there are times for delicate diplomacy.”

Stannis frowned. “But Father said we must always tell the truth.”

Impatience won this time. His mother said, sounding a touch exasperated, “It is not always that simple. Not as simple as your father would like to believe.”

He waited for her to continue.

“Never mind, it can wait,” she said. “I have to say goodbye to Robert and Renly too.”

He had spent most of his adult life wondering what else his mother had wanted to tell him. That had been another grief on top of the grief of lost – that he had not known her well enough to know what it was she would have told him, if only she had come back.

It was raining the day their father and mother were supposed to return home. It started as a light drizzle just before dawn, turning into a heavier rain by the time they were eating breakfast. Renly had been afraid of the sound of thunder, Stannis remembered. But none of them had thought that a great storm was coming.

Why didn’t we? he wondered now. The thunders had boomed loud enough, and the wind had swayed and shaken the trees so hard that some of the branches had been snapped off. To his eternal shame, his main thought that morning had been an almost gleeful satisfaction seeing that one of the branches broken by the wind was the one Proudwing had flown into, the first time he took her hawking. The exact tree and the exact branch had been etched into his memory by the sound of Robert’s laughter and the snickering from a few of the household knights. 

The storm that would kill his parents were building up strength, and he had been wasting his time thinking about an old slight, an old grievance towards something not even flesh and blood. I should have been praying to the Seven for their safe return instead, he had thought, the day their bodies were finally washed ashore.

That thought had lasted for less than a day. By nighttime, he was so full of rage and anger and wrath he thought of running through the castle screaming and breaking everything. But what would that have accomplished?

I did pray. I started praying the minute Robert and I saw the storm across the horizon, as we stood silently on the parapet. And I didn’t stop until they laid out the bodies inside the sept. Where were the gods then?

And yet, through the distance of time and age and blunted grief, he finally saw that it was not the gods he was truly angry with. He hated himself the most, for his own naivety, for believing that the gods were rational creatures, bounded by rules and laws, and most of all, order. They were not, and that was a truth he should have known by heart. He vowed never to forget.

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Here to Read the Future              

 Stannis’s  face darkened. “Do you mock me to my face? Must I learn a king’s duty from an onion smuggler?” Davos knelt. “If I have offended, take my head. I’ll die as I lived, your loyal man. But hear me first. Hear me for the sake of the onions I brought you, and the fingers you took.” Stannis slid Lightbringer from its scabbard. Its glow filled the chamber. “Say what you will, but say it quickly.” (A Storm of Swords)

“To the five kings,” Davos read. “The king beyond the Wall comes south. He leads a vast host of wildlings. Lord Mormont sent a raven from the haunted forest. He is under attack. Other birds have come since, with no words. We fear Mormont slain with all his strength.”

My Onion Knight reads well, a fleeting pride crossed his mind, before Stannis remembered, No, not my Onion Knight. The King’s Hand, the man I raised to be a Lord and an Admiral, the man who betrayed me. The hand clenching the sword was beginning to hurt, but the pain was a welcome distraction. What did I mean to do with this? Take his remaining fingers? His head? "Anger makes fools out of men," his father had told him once, when he was still too young to understand. But he understood it all too well later.

Why was the man who betrayed him still here, in this room, calmly reading a letter? He could not understand this. Why did Davos not take Devan, gather his wife and two other sons, and slip away with Robert’s bastard boy to safety? Far, far away from here.

Away from me, and my wrath. Why come to me and confess to your betrayal? What is it that you think I would do? What if I decide to take your head this very moment? Or offer you to the Red God? Your wife, your children. Have you considered their fate?

His anger mounted. You presume too much. You dare to presume that I would forgive you this betrayal because it is done by you, and not by another man.

The silence surprised Stannis. Davos had finished reading. It was a short letter after all. He stared at his betrayer’s face. He expected … well, he was not certain what he had expected. What he saw unsettled him nonetheless.

I know this look, on this man’s face. I have seen it before. I saw it the day I made him a knight, and took four of his fingers.

“A good act does not wash out the bad, nor a bad the good. Each deserves its own reward and punishment.” That was what he had told the man who saved them from certain death. Because it was true. Because he believed it then, and still believed it to this day. Davos had met his gaze then with an indecipherable look. “Yes, my lord. But only if you deliver the punishment yourself. With your own hand.”

Stannis had spent days trying to decipher that look, after the cleaver had done its job. Was he challenging me? Testing my mettle and conviction? He thought he saw a glimmer of hope in that look as well. The hope that I would turn out to be cowardly, and he could escape his just punishment?

No, not that. Not from this man.

It was years later before Stannis finally understood what the look on Davos’ face had meant. It was the hope that I would be a man worthy of his faith and loyalty.

And what did that look mean now? He knew the answer even before he finished asking the question. The hope that his faith and loyalty, all these years later, had not been misplaced.

You ask too much of me. My duty is to the kingdom, not to you, Davos.

Yet was that not what Davos was trying to remind him? His duty to the kingdom. “A king protects his people, or he is no king at all.” The smuggling away of Edric Storm was no longer the pressing issue. The letter. The letter from the Wall Davos had just read. If the wildlings were to breach the Wall, who knew what calamities might befall the kingdom?

And what of the Great Other, the true enemy beyond the Wall? The cold, and the night that never ends, Melisandre had said. And it was not just her words he was thinking of. I have seen it in the flame myself, with my own eyes. Without the Wall, and the men protecting it, the real battle would be lost before it even began.

A voice intruded, “Your Grace. A true king would protect the kingdom to win the throne.”

“I am the true king, the rightful king by all the laws of Westeros,” he snapped.

Davos hesitated, before his reply came. “You are a man of duty, Your Grace. Duty should come before rights.”

He heard no trace of fear in Davos’ voice. The moment of reckoning had arrived.

“We sail for Eastwatch-by-the-Sea in two days. The black brothers there will take us to the Wall through the ranger’s roads.”

____________________

Trick of the Moonlight

“Your Grace?”

“It would seem that saving the kingdom from the wildlings is not enough to help me win the throne after all”.

His Hand looked down, averting his gaze. That surprised Stannis. He had not meant those words as a rebuke. “I do not regret answering the call of the black brothers. It is my duty to protect the kingdom, as you rightfully reminded me,” Stannis continued. 

Davos looked up, finally looking him in the eyes. The Hand of the King seemed … uneasy. Hesitant. Wary.

Are you still thinking of Alester Florent? Must we go through it again? I told you why that was necessary.

Davos had been present during the chaotic scene at the Painted Table, when Stannis told the assembled lords and knights of his plan to sail to the Wall. There had been very little appetite for another battle, especially one so far north. He had done what needed to be done, so that he would have men to bring to the Wall, to defeat the wildlings and to protect the kingdom. 

Alester Florent had screamed, long and loud. Davos had watched with an impassive expression, but Stannis could guess what was in his mind. “Did I save that boy only for another man to be burned?”

His patience snapped. Why does my Onion Knight not see that it is not the same thing? Alester Florent was a traitor, who would have sold me to the Lannisters, who offered the Lannisters my daughter as a hostage. Whether I take his head or offer him to the Red God is immaterial. He signed his own death warrant when he wrote that treasonous letter.

And yet, a voice whispered in his head, you were ready to burn the boy too. An innocent boy who never offered your daughter as a hostage to anyone, but was actually her cousin, her playmate, her companion.

But I didn’t burn the boy, he insisted. I came here instead.  

You would have, if not for your Hand.

“Lord Snow claims that I must have White Harbor’s allegiance if I am to have any gold. To fund the war, to pay your pirate friend.” Stannis rushed out the words, to drown out the words in his own head. 

Stannis watched incredulously as Davos started smiling. I have not seen him smile in a long, long while. Not since the wildfire took his sons. Not since my war took four of them.

“I fail to see why my words would amuse you so, Lord Davos.”

“Forgive me, Your Grace. But it seems that Lord Commander Snow is more than just a stubborn boy who haggles like a fishwife. His advice is proving to be valuable to Your Grace.”

He barked out an involuntary laughter. It seemed to shock Davos, as much as Davos’ smile earlier had shocked Stannis. They stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity, across the years, across the divide, across all the dead sons and the burning men. He thought of faith, of doubt, and of faith restored. And then broken again? He envisioned a rope, frayed and worn, yet still durable. It would take a very long time for it to fray into nothingness. Yet, there could be a faultline, unobserved to the naked eyes, and the rope could just snap one day, if you pull it too hard from opposite directions. The thought saddened him immeasurably.

He saw it already in Davos’ eyes – the weariness, the longing for home, and the uncertainty and the doubt, raising their heads again. And yet I must ask this of you, Davos, because there is no one else. No one else he trusted as much, depended on as much.

“Lord Snow is Lord Eddard Stark’s son after all. It is only to be expected that he has information about all the northern lords. It would be very ignorant and negligent of him otherwise,” Stannis said.

“Has Lord Manderly replied to Your Grace’s letter? He has no love for the Boltons. One of his sons was slain at the Red Wedding. And with the Lannisters appointing Ramsay Bolton as the Warden of the North, his fealty should lie with Your Grace.”

Stannis scoffed. “Apparently even that is not enough for Manderly to bend his knee to me. His letter spoke of nothing except his old age and his infirmity.”

The silence stretched out. He waited, watching Davos trying to choose his words carefully.

“It could be that Lord Manderly is weary of all the fighting and the deaths, Your Grace.” Davos spoke so softly that Stannis had to strain his ears to hear him.

“There are always deaths in war, Lord Davos.”

“Of course, Your Grace. I did not mean –“

He steeled himself, and interrupted. “If he does not mean to come to me, then I will send for him. You will go to White Harbor and treat with him, with Salladhor Saan’s fleet as proof of our strength. I must show him that I am not a man to be trifled with.”

“Salla is already making noises about his gold, Your Grace. I do not know if –“

“Tell him he will have his gold, the ones I owe him and more, when White Harbor has sworn loyalty to me.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

He searched Davos’ face. “I need White Harbor, my Onion Knight. Will you bring it to me?”

“I am your man, Your Grace.”

____________________

And Promise Me This

 “It is every man’s duty to remain loyal to his rightful king, even if the lord he serves proves false,” Stannis declared in a tone that brooked no argument. A desperate folly took hold of Davos, a recklessness akin to madness. “As you remained loyal to King Aerys when your brother raised his banners?” he blurted. […] “Aerys? If you only knew… that was a hard choosing. My blood or my liege. My brother or my king.” (A Storm of Swords)

“Aerys is the rightful king! How could you even think of rebelling against him?” He was following Robert from room to room, as Robert gave orders after orders to one knight after another. He would have preferred to have this conversation in private, but Robert would not sit still for one moment, and he was leaving very soon.

He was not sure that Robert was even listening, and so was shocked when Robert suddenly shouted, “Out! Everybody out. I need to speak to this clueless brother of mine.”

Robert closed the door himself, with a loud thud. Wonderful. Now he can yell even louder. Stannis braced himself for the explosion, but it never came.

“Sit.” He heard the brusque command.

“I would rather stand.”

“I am Robert Baratheon, Lord of Storm’s End and your liege lord, and I order you to sit.”

He took the seat opposite Robert.

“A green boy of not yet twenty, and you prattle on and on about rightful king and duty and loyalty. What do you know about any of that?” Robert’s voice was contemptuous.

“I am not a boy! And you forget, you are only a year older than I am. What do you know about those things?”

The explosion finally came. “What do I know? I know that the Aerys’ son took Lyanna by force. My Lyanna. Ned’s only sister. And that “king” you wish to be loyal to, he burned Ned’s father alive, and made Ned’s brother watch. Do you know how Brandon Stark died? He strangled himself with chains trying to save his father.”

Stannis had learned of the deaths, but not the details. “I –“

“He killed Jon’s nephew too. Elbert, his heir. And the “king” wants me now. And Ned, too. He sent a raven to Jon Arryn, demanding that Jon surrender us to him. What do you think he means to do with us, dear brother? This “king” you want to stay loyal to?”

I did not know, Stannis despaired. You came home and called the banners and never said anything to me. 

“How do we know what is our duty?” he had asked his father once, back when life was not so complicated.

His father had smiled and said, “You are too young to worry about that.”

But Stannis had insisted. “How can we do our duty, if we do not know what it is?”

“You know it from the law. And from what is just," his father finally said.

But what if the law is unjust? And what good is the law, if the king means to flout it to kill my brother? My own flesh and blood.

Without law, there would not be any chance of justice at all. There would only be disorder, only chaos, only –.

Stannis was so lost in thought and so preoccupied with arguing with himself that he did not notice that Robert had been watching him silently. Watching … and waiting. With a look of disappointment mixed with disgust blaring on his face.

“It took Jon less than a minute to crumple that letter from Aerys and to decide to call his banners. Yet my own blood, he hesitated and hesitated. Forget Lyanna and Ned, or all the dead Starks and Arryns. They mean nothing to you, I know. What about your own brother? Do I mean less to you than some abstract notion of duty and loyalty?”

No, he wanted to scream. You mean more … but I am who I am, and I cannot decide at the drop of a hat. Everything must be considered. But Robert would never understand, he knew. There was an unbridgeable divide between them, a fatal lack of understanding made worse by all the time spent apart. 

“Well? Has my dear brother made up his mind yet?”

“If he means to kill you, then all Baratheons are facing the same danger. I will march with you,” replied Stannis.

Robert snorted. “I suppose self-preservation is as good a reason as any for fighting.”

Stannis stifled the urge to respond. Robert will never understand. There is no point.

“You will not be marching to battle with me. I will be taking most of the men with me. I can’t afford to leave many at Storm’s End. I need you to hold the castle. Aerys is sure to send a force to capture Storm’s End once the fighting starts. If Storm’s End falls to the royalist army, men would say, “How could Robert Baratheon hope to win the throne if he could not even hold on to his own castle?” It is imperative that Storm’s End must not fall. You must hold Storm’s End for me, no matter what. Will you promise me that?”

Stannis did not hesitate this time. “I promise.”

Months and months later, when they were down to nibbling on rat’s bones to stay alive, he would remember the look of disappointment mixed with disgust on Robert’s face, and his own promise. When Davos slipped through with his onions and salted fish, his first thought had been, I can keep my promise. When Ned Stark came and lifted the siege, his first thought was, I kept my promise.

____________________

The Third Man

“You let them get away? That Targaryen whore and her son?”

“The queen died in childbirth. Viserys and the babe were smuggled out before we even arrived.”

“What queen? She’s no queen. I am the king now!” Robert’s voice boomed louder.

Trust Robert to berate me in front of everyone. In front of Jon Arryn. In front of Ned Stark. His true father, and his true brother, flesh and blood be damned.

Stannis heard Jon Arryn’s calm but insistent voice telling Robert, “What is important now is that your brother has taken Dragonstone for you. The Targaryens no longer have a seat in the Seven Kingdoms to plot a rebellion. And it muststay that way. You must appoint a strong lord to rule over Dragonstone.”

Probably the only man in the world who could make Robert see sense, Stannis thought. And then thought better of it. No, not the only one. He is one of two.

And I am not the other one.

The man who was the other one chimed in. “Jon is right. This is no time for blame. We must move forward.”

Blame, he scoffed. Is that the consensus between these three? That I am to blame?

“Besides,” Ned continued, “Stannis is not at fault. We should have planned better. We should have foreseen that Aerys would have sent his pregnant wife and his only surviving son to Dragonstone after Rhaegar’s death.”

He saw Robert’s anger visibly receding, after Ned’s words. The sight only made Stannis angrier. I do not need you to defend me to my own brother!

Robert said, “It’s obvious, isn’t it? Dragonstone should be ruled by the man who took it for me.”

Stannis did not understand Robert’s words at first. Surely he does not mean for me to rule over two castles? The other lords would view it most unfavorably. Not that it should matter what the other lords think. Yet, he reasoned, Robert’s hold on power was still very vulnerable at the moment. A sense of urgency grabbed hold of him. I must warn him not to –

“Storm’s End will go to Renly as my next heir. You will find defending and ruling over Dragonstone hard enough work, brother.”

Stannis met Robert’s gaze unflinchingly. The king was the first to look away.

____________________

The Hand That Wields The Cleaver

“The trick is not to hesitate. It must be a firm cut, with one swing of the cleaver, so the bones don’t shatter, but break cleanly at the joints. Otherwise, they might not heal properly, and he could lose the use of that hand. Or worse, the rot might set in, and we would have to cut more to save his life.” 

Stannis shuddered listening to Maester Cressen’s recitation of everything that could go wrong. Could this actually kill him, if I don’t do it properly? I must prepare very carefully.

“I have used weapon on a man before, Maester.”

“To kill, my lord. Hardly the same. And you did ask me the best way to do it in a way that would ‘spare him any unnecessary hardship,” as you put it.”

Maester Cressen’s voice turned softer, “You don’t have to do this yourself, you know. The men would understand.”

“He wouldn’t.”

The maester seemed confused for a moment, before it dawned on him who the ‘he’ was.

“The smuggler? It’s hardly his place to dictate the method of his punishment. Perhaps … he was hoping that you would lose your nerve, and he could escape with his fingers intact.”

“Then he is sorely mistaken. I mean to go through with it, no matter what,” Stannis snapped in irritation.

Even our old maester? He doubts my resolve as well?

Maester Cressen did not seem to notice his irritation. Or pretending not to notice, more likely, thought Stannis.

I know your ways too, old man. You do not have the monopoly on understanding.

“I do not doubt that you mean to go through with it, my lord. But this man … he does not know you the way I do. He may have judged you wrongly.”

“I have considered the reason he asks that my own hand be the one to deliver his punishment. I doubt that it is because he wants to escape it. He does not seem to be that sort of man. When he came to our aid, Robert was injured and hiding from Aerys’ men. The smuggler did not have to endanger himself to help the side that seemed to be losing at the time, but he did so anyway,” Stannis mused aloud.

“Then perhaps … “

“Perhaps I should not punish him for his years of smuggling? Is everyone at Storm’s End in agreement about that? Even you, Maester Cressen?”

“You said it yourself, my lord. He endangered his own life smuggling the onions and salted fish that saved our lives.”

“And he will be rewarded for that! A knighthood, a good piece of land. A crabber’s son from Flea’s Bottom, a man who spent most of his life breaking the law, rising to such heights. He is a hero and a smuggler. He will be rewarded for the heroism. Should he not be punished for the crime as well? The good act is not diminished by the bad, so why should the bad act be excused because of the good?”

“A gentler punishment, perhaps. Not just for the smuggler’s sake, but for the sake of the people here at Storm’s End, who have suffered so much for so long. A show of mercy from you would be very welcome to your people.”

“My people?”

“Your brother is king now. You will replace him as the Lord of Storm’s End. You will need their loyalty, and their love.”

Love, Stannis scoffed. They loved Robert their lord who was never here and made his home in the Eyrie, and hated me for being the one doling out the punishments and actually ruling in Robert’s stead.

But perhaps it would be different when I am the rightful Lord of Storm’s End, not merely ruling in place of another. He allowed himself a split second luxury of thinking this, before sanity and reality made themselves known once again. To be loved was not the point. Law and justice were not to be trifled with, not for the love of all the men and women in the known universe.

Or even the love of the man who saved our lives.  

“The law is the law. It cannot be bended this way or that way for the sake of the chosen few. Where is the justice in that?”

Chapter Text

For the prompt: Little Stannis and Cassana in bed, inspired by this fanart:  http://madaboutasoiaf.tumblr.com/post/94126853889/cassana-and-little-stannis-by-isouru

“One little stag, two little stags –“

“One giant stag –“

“Giant?”

“I don’t like little. Robert calls me his little brother. I’m not little!”

“He only means that you’re his younger brother.”

“Then he should say younger, not little. Little is not the right word.”

“Should we count the stags in the woods again? One giant stag, two giant stags –“

“Three giant stags, four giant stags, five giant stag, six …”

“Stannis?”

There was no reply. Persuaded that her son was finally asleep, Cassana slowly and carefully extricated herself from the bed, intending to return to her own bedchamber. She was halfway off the bed when her son’s eyes shot open.

“Mother?” Stannis called out. His hand was reaching out for her, this boy who recently had started squirming and wriggling, keen to get away, every time his mother tried to embrace him in the presence of others, even his own brother and father.  

Cassana lay back down on the bed. She brought her arms around Stannis, and this time, with no one else in the room to see it, he did not try to wriggle away from her embrace.

“Are you going to tell me what is troubling you?” That something was troubling him was clear to Cassana, from his insistence that she stayed with him tonight. It had been almost half a year since the last time Stannis had asked his mother to stay with him at night, to sing to him, and for the two of them to count stags together until he fell asleep.

The last time Cassana had offered to do so – for her own sake as much as it was for Stannis, for she missed this nighttime ritual they used to share – - he had loftily announced, “I am not a baby anymore, Mother,” in a voice that Cassana scarcely recognized as coming from her own little boy.     

“Stannis?”

“I don’t want Robert to be Lord of Storm’s End,” Stannis blurted out. Both his hands were clenched tightly, his knuckles white.

Gods have mercy, Cassana swore silently. Steffon should have been the one to explain the matter of succession and inheritance to their sons; why the oldest should have everything, and the others, almost nothing. He had promised Cassana that he would, knowing that her tongue would be far too sharp and blunt were she the one who tried to explain it.

This is the way of the world, and we must live with it, as we must live in this world and no other, not even the better world we envisioned in our mind. The world is neither fair nor truly just, my child, and best you learn that from a young age. No, she could not say this to her son, her solemn boy, whose face was inches apart from hers, whose eyes, so like and yet so unlike his father’s eyes, were gazing at Cassana with an intense concentration that broke her heart.

“Robert said that when he is Lord of Storm’s End, I must obey him or else he’s going to cut off my head. I told him Father won’t let him! And then Robert said Father will be dead when Robert is lord. Mother, can’t we do something to stop Robert from being lord, so Father won’t have to die?”

“Oh Stannis, Robert didn’t mean it like that. It’s not that your father will die because Robert is Lord of Storm’s End. Robert will be Lord of Storm’s End after your father’s death, just like your father became Lord of Storm’s End after his father died.” Cassana paused, weighing her next words carefully. “We talked about dying, remember? When you asked me about my mother?”

Stannis nodded. His right hand unclenched and reached for Cassana’s face. “I’m sorry you were sad, Mother,” he said solemnly, his fingers grazing her cheek. “Are you better now?”

Smiling, Cassana said, “I am better right this moment, yes.”

Her son was not smiling, though. She could almost hear the thoughts churning in Stannis’ head, the earnest little boy trying to work things out to its logical conclusion.  If Mother’s mother could die when she was so young, then …

“Should we count the stags again?” Cassana said, to distract him.

“Can we count turtles instead?”

“Of course we can. One swimming turtle, two running turtles –“

“Turtles can’t run. Mother, you’re being silly!” The fleeting burst of giggles that accompanied this pronouncement was as precious to Cassana as a gale of laughter would have been, coming as it was from Stannis.

_________________

For the prompt: Stannis Baratheon, & Cassana Estermont, footsteps

“You should not have derided the singers so openly, Stannis.”

“You misliked their favor-currying songs too, Mother. I know you did. I saw the way you were smiling. You might have fooled others with that smile, but not me. I know that smile.”

“But I did not show them my contempt and my displeasure so overtly, in front of all our guests.”

“You want me to be false?”

“No, I want you to be kind, Stannis.”

“Where is the kindness in pretending?”

“Sometimes it is necessary to pretend, in order to spare others.”

“To spare them from the truth?”

“To spare them from our sharp tongue. From our at times too-quick censure and judgment. We share that, you and I.”

“They were trying to curry favor with Father. You know that as well as I do, Mother. You see it as clearly as I do. All those songs about the supreme and unmatched glory of –“

“Do you think your father is so foolish as to fall for it? It is the singers’ task to curry favor with whichever lord is paying them to entertain his guests. It is how they make their living, how they put food on the table for themselves and their family. Your father knows that they do not truly mean the praises they are heaping on him and his ancestors, but he smiles and claps nonetheless and praises them for their songs. It is how the game is played. It is a dance in which all the steps have been decided and set in stone beforehand.”

“I do not care for it. I do not care for it at all.”

“Neither do I. But this is the world we live in. We have to learn to accommodate it, if we wish to make our way smoothly and safely in this world.”

“Is that why you and Father are going to Volantis to find a bride for Prince Rhaegar, even though neither of you really wishes to go?”

“That is a king’s command, Stannis. It has to be obeyed, not merely accommodated, if we wish to keep our family safe.”

_________________

Stannis, Great-Uncle Harbert and Proudwing

“One day our great-uncle Ser Harbert told me to try a different bird. I was making a fool of myself with Proudwing, he said, and he was right.” (A Clash of Kings)

“She will not fly higher than that, lad.”

“She will! I know she will. She just needs more practice.”

Harbert sighed. The boy was as stone cold stubborn as his lord father.

“Your cousin Aerys is not the man you once knew, Steffon.”

“He still is, Uncle, deep down, if only he would remember it. I am not prepared to give up on him just yet.”

Proudwing soared and soared, high above the treetops. Stannis clapped and cheered with glee. Ah, if only …

In truth, Stannis was still trying to coax his bird to take flight. “Maester Cressen said her injuries are completely healed. Why should she not soar as high as any other bird?”

“She’s afraid, lad. Lost her spirit. Never the same again. You can try and try, but you will not make her soar as high as Thunderclap.”

“I don’t care about Thunderclap.”

Harbert laughed. “Of course you do. I cared, very much, when my brother had the faster horse, the bigger sword, the stronger arms. Younger brothers are much the same anywhere.”

“But did my grandfather ever call your horse Weakwing?”

“Why should he? Horses don’t have wings. Except in your drawings, of course.”

That managed to coax a smile out of Stannis. “They’re supposed to be dragons.”

Solemnly, Harbert said, “Even dragons can lose their spirit and be afraid to fly, let alone a bird.”

“She can be brave again,” Stannis insisted. “Or she can be afraid and still fly, but more carefully this time, so she won’t be injured again. Father said fear is useful. Fear makes us careful. Fear keeps us safe. Father said only a fool is never afraid.”

“And only a fool will continue doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different ending. How much time have you spent training Proudwing to fly again?” Longer than the time the boy had spent patiently nursing the bird back to health, Harbert knew.

Stannis refused to meet his great-uncle’s gaze. “She needs more time.”

“It’s time you try another bird.”

“I won’t abandon her!”

“Seven hells, Stannis! I’m not telling you to slaughter your goshawk for supper. Keep her if you wish, as a plaything, or for company. But you must try a different bird for hawking.”

Hard enough being a younger brother, hard enough living under the constant shadow, without your own foolishness making that shadow larger, thought Harbert.

_________________

Stannis Baratheon, Shireen Baratheon, Proudwing and Windproud

 “Why was your goshawk called Proudwing?”

“That was her name. What else would she be called?”

“But you gave it to her, Father. You gave her the name. There must be a reason you chose the name.”

“I didn’t choose it. Your grandfather did.”

“He did? Then why did Grandfather choose that name?”

“He said it was a more suitable name for a bird than Wingproud, which was the name I originally wanted.”

“Wingproud. Like the name of Grandfather’s ship?”

“No, his ship was called Windproud.”

“Did you really like Proudwing better than Wingproud? Or did you use it only because your father wanted you to?”

“It was a more suitable name. I thought so as well, after my father suggested it. And it pleased my father to hear me use the name Proudwing.”

“But Father, you have always said that we must not do things only to please others.”

“I said we must not do the things that we know are wrong for the sake of pleasing others.”

_________________

Stannis the son

 His eyes were open wounds beneath his heavy brows, a blue as dark as the sea by night. (A Clash of Kings)

Green was the color of his mother's eyes, a green as lustrous as the brightest of emeralds. Green was the color of Cassana's watchful eyes, eyes that saw too much and never refused to see all that there was to see, eyes that fought against any kind of willful blindness, even when it came to those she loved and cherished the most.

Blue was the color of his father's eyes, a blue as light as the sky on a sunny day. Blue was the color of Steffon's laughing eyes, eyes that too often refused to see all that there was to see, a form of willful blindness most prevalent when it came to the failings of his royal cousin.

Blue was the color of his eyes, a blue as dark as the sea on a starless night. Blue was the color of Stannis' watchful eyes, eyes that saw too much and yet at times still fought a losing battle against his own form of willful blindness.

Blue-green was the color of the sea, the day his father's blue eyes and his mother's green eyes met for one final glance, the day his eyes turned into “open wounds beneath his heavy brows.

 _________________

Stannis the brother

 “Only Renly could vex me so with a piece of fruit. He brought his doom on himself with his treason, but I did love him, Davos. I know that now. I swear, I will go to my grave thinking of my brother’s peach.” (A Clash of Kings)

The peaches came from Highgarden, crates and crates of them, accompanied by a letter from Mace Tyrell, the Lord of Highgarden, welcoming Lord Steffon of House Baratheon back to the Seven Kingdoms “upon the successful completion of the delicate and most important mission entrusted to you and your lady wife by our wise and most esteemed king.”

“I suppose Mace Tyrell does not know that your father is returning from Volantis with no bride for Prince Rhaegar. And so he is blatantly trying to curry favor with the man he thinks will be appointed by the king as the next Hand. Currying favor with peaches. Peaches, I tell you! If he thinks a few crates of peaches could sway your father's thinking, he has another thing coming,” Great-Uncle Harbert said to Stannis, his voice full of scorn for the man from Highgarden.

Stannis had no thought to spare for the man from Highgarden. All his concern was solely concentrated on a single matter. “Will the king be wroth, because Father and Mother fail to find a bride with the blood of Old Valyria for Prince Rhaegar? What will Father do, when he is summoned to court to answer to His Grace?” Stannis asked.

Great-Uncle Harbert pretended to be busy examining the peaches in one of the crates. “Too ripe by half, all of them. They'll be ruined before Windproud finds her way back to Storm's End,” he harrumphed, before abruptly walking away, leaving Stannis with his little brother.

Renly snatched away one of the peaches with both his hands before Stannis could stop him. He opened his mouth wide, showing the two new front teeth that had not yet descended when their father and mother left for Volantis. When Renly tried to cram the entire fruit into his mouth, Stannis quickly took the peach away from his brother's chubby hands.

“It's too hard and too large. You'll choke on it,” Stannis admonished Renly, shaking his head and wagging his finger at the toddler.

The piercing scream came swiftly. But Stannis was not swayed, resisting his brother's effort to take back the peach. “No! You can't have it. It's not for you. Not yet.”

Then came the tears, the tears streaming down Renly's cheeks. The rosy, blooming cheeks their father had delighted in gently pinching and their mother had delighted in showering with kisses.

Stannis had his mother and father on his mind, when he finally relented and said to Renly, “Oh, very well. You may have a piece of it. Only a small piece, mind you.” He tore a chunk off the peach flesh, before halving it, and then halving it once more. He pressed the now small piece between his fingers to soften it. His hand sticky with peach juice, he fed the small morsel to Renly, whose eyes lit up with surprise, joy and delight, having never tasted a peach before. He continued feeding Renly small pieces of the peach until almost the whole fruit was gone.

Renly smacked his lips and then rolled around on the floor with glee. When Stannis tried to pull him up, he buried his face - his face that was smeared with peach juice - on Stannis' chest, staining Stannis' doublet with the same sticky substance. Vexed, Stannis gazed sternly at Renly and said, “Now look what you have done, you naughty boy.”

Renly laughed. Strangely, the laughter seemed most welcome to Stannis at that moment. It was a respite from the gloomy thoughts haunting his mind about the king's wrath. He smiled, a brief, glancing smile, trying to coax another laugh from his little brother.

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Stannis the husband

 “Renly says that Robert carried the girl upstairs during the feast, and broke in the wedding bed while Stannis and his bride were still dancing.” (A Game of Thrones)

At the sept, Selyse had not smiled the nervous smile of a shy maiden, when Stannis cloaked her with Baratheon colors. Instead, she had met his stern gaze with an equally implacable look of her own.

“A proud lass,” Robert had grumbled afterwards, at the wedding feast. “Haughty, too. Too haughty by half, considering she does not exactly look like love's young dream,” he snickered in his loud, booming voice.

'Lower your voice!” Stannis hissed. “You have no call to shame my lady wife in front of half the realm.” It was you who commanded me to wed a Florent, he could have added. Robert had not dictated which Florent, as long as the bride was a Florent; the better to check the Tyrell's presumption by having their most overmighty bannerman related to the king by marriage, according to Jon Arryn, whose head had dreamed up this marriage alliance in the first place.

Having no unwed daughter to offer to the king's brother, Alester Florent, the Lord of Brightwater Keep, had first offered his more comely niece Delena. But Stannis thought the girl was flighty, prone to fits of giggling and squeals of delight that grated on his ears and would surely drive him mad with frustration if he had to live with it for years and years to come. Robert thought Stannis was already mad for choosing the other niece, the far less comely one.

“You'll have to dance with her, with your overmighty bride. She'll probably insist on leading,” Robert said, with relish. “With that mustache on her upper lip, some might even confuse her for the groom.”

“Be quiet!” Stannis snapped. Whispering furiously in Robert's ear, he reminded his brother, “The whole point of making the Florents your kin by marriage is to check the power and influence of the Tyrells, and to warn and remind them to stay loyal to you, on pain of losing their position as overlord of the Reach to House Florent, should they ever waver in their loyalty. If you were to shame the Florents at this wedding, then that defeats the whole purpose of this marriage.”

Red-faced and snarling, Robert raised his hand as if to strike. “How dare you tell me to be quiet? I am your king! You … you -”

“Your Grace.” Her voice was like a whip, and it stayed Robert's hand and silenced his tongue. “Will you honor me with the first dance?” Selyse continued.

Flustered, Robert replied, “I … well, I … yes, of course, I will be honored to dance with you, Lady Selyse. But perhaps the first dance should be reserved for your lord husband?”

“How much did you hear?” Stannis asked his lady wife, as they were dancing. Robert was nowhere to be seen; his promise to dance the second dance with Selyse merely another one of his empty promises, it seemed.

“I heard enough,” Selyse replied.

“My brother had no intention to shame you or your family.”

Selyse regarded him evenly, without saying a word.

Stannis resisted the unfamiliar urge to turn away, to escape from her sharp scrutiny. Her gaze was almost as scornful and withering as his own, each time he thought he was blatantly being lied to, or being made a fool of.

“I will make no excuses for my brother. He is who he is, such as he is,” Stannis finally said. And I will make no excuses for myself. I am who I am, such as I am, he could have added.

Selyse nodded. “Good,” she said, curtly. “Then we are in agreement, lord husband.”

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For the prompt: Stannis reading the Conquest of Dorne for the first time.

“The arms of House Martell,” Robert read, “display the sun and the spear, the Dor … Dor ..”

“-the Dornishman’s,” Maester Cressen interjected.

-“the Dornisman … the Dornishman’s two favorite weapons,” Robert paused, taking a breath.

-“but of the two,” he continued, “the sun is the more deadly.” Robert paused again, fidgeting and looking out the window towards the courtyard, where the men-at-arms and Lord Steffon’s household knights were training with their swords and their lances. 

“Well, go on then, read the rest of the page,” Stannis said, impatient. Robert had insisted on being the first one to read out loud during every lesson, not because he had any particular love for books and reading, but because as he was constantly reminding Stannis, “I’m the oldest!” and therefore he should come first in everything.  

Robert closed the book in front of him with a thud. In a sweet, charming voice he asked, “May I be excused, please, Maester? Before he left for King’s Landing, Father told Donal Noye to forge a new sword for me. A real sword, not a wooden one. I think I see Ser Gawen holding my sword now.”

“How do you know that is your new sword?” Stannis asked, suspicious. “It could be any old sword Ser Gawen is holding.”  

“You’re just jealous because you still have to practice with a wooden sword,” Robert’s sweetness quickly turned into venom, angry that his words were being challenged by his little brother.

“You must not quarrel. Remember your lord father’s instructions before he left,” Maester Cressen said with some consternation. Cressen was a wise and learned maester, but discipline had never been his strong suit, and quarrelling boys more often than not left him feeling helpless and disconcerted. Lady Cassana would have been able to stop Robert and Stannis arguing merely with the raising of her eyebrow and the narrowing of her eyes, but alas, Cressen did not share that talent.

Robert turned to the maester, the smile back on his face. “Please, Maester, may I be excused? Father will be ever so happy if I can show him how good I am with a real sword. But I have to practice constantly to be good at something, that’s what you told us.”

“Well, now …” Cressen hesitated. “Only if you promise to read the rest of the chapter in your own time before our next lesson, Robert.”

“Oh thank you, Maester. Thank you so much,” Robert said effusively, bestowing a hug on Cressen. “I promise I will,” he declared as he was walking out the door. Almost in an instant, he was gone, lured away from books and lessons by the sight of men with arms.

Cressen turned around to see Stannis regarding him with something approaching disappointment. “He won’t do it, you know. Robert will not read the rest of the chapter like he promised you.” You should have known better, was the unspoken rebuke from the serious, solemn boy sitting in front of Cressen.

Feeling disconcerted once again, Cressen cleared his throat and said, “Will you read the rest of the chapter out loud, Stannis?”

“Can I ask you a question first, Maester?”

“Of course, of course.”

“What did the Young Dragon mean when he said the sun is a more deadly weapon than the spear? The Dornishmen cannot take the sun and wield it in their hand as a weapon to kill someone, like they could with a spear.”

Cressen did not laugh at the question, the way some might have done. He knew Stannis well enough to know that the boy meant the question entirely sincerely and earnestly. “King Daeron did not mean it in quite such a literal way. The sun is not a weapon a Dornishman can wield in his hand, that is true; but the extreme heat has been known to kill many enemies before they could draw the blood of even one Dornishman.”

“The sun is the Dornishmen’s natural weapon then, not a man-made one. The same way the storm would hurt our enemies, if they try to take Storm’s End.”

Cressen nodded, smiling with approval at the boy’s quick understanding. Of course, the ferocious storms frequently assailing Shipbreaker Bay could hurt friends as well as foes, but Cressen did not think it the right time yet to alarm Stannis about that. He was still only a boy, no matter how strangely un-childlike he might seem at times. 

“What about the goat track, Maester?” Stannis piped up with another question.

“The goat track?” Cressen searched his recollection. They had not reached that part in the book as yet, if he was not mistaken. Stannis must have been reading ahead, impatient with the rate they were going during his shared lessons with Robert.

“Did the Young Dragon really win the war because he used goat tracks to get to Dorne? And no one else thought of that before? How clever of him.”

“It is not as simple as that,” Cressen replied, and went on to explain about ships and naval battles and the role played by Oakenfist.

“So the Young Dragon lied in his book?” Stannis asked, looking shocked. And very disappointed.

“Not lied … exactly. He was trying to make things simpler, less complicated. It is an elegantly-written book, very concise and –“

Stannis interrupted. “Why should it matter that it’s a well-written book if the writer is not telling the truth, Maester? He lied to make it seem like he was the only reason they won, like the victory was only because of his doing, and no one else’s.”

“Well, perhaps King Daeron did somewhat exaggerate his own role,” Cressen conceded, “but it was still a glorious deed, for someone so young to accomplish.”

“I should have known,” Stannis grumbled. “He sounds like Robert. When he’s writing about this great thing or that great thing he did, the Young Dragon sounds just like Robert boasting about every little thing he does.”

Chapter Text

The king—the old king, Aerys II Targaryen, who had not been quite so mad in those days—had sent his lordship to seek a bride for Prince Rhaegar, who had no sisters to wed. (A Clash of Kings)

“The king commanded Father to sail to Volantis, to find a bride for Prince Rhaegar. Why do you have to go too, Mother?” Stannis asked, as he watched his mother watching Renly’s progression across the floor. Renly had just begun crawling, and he was slowly making his way towards where his mother was sitting. Cassana was coaxing and beckoning Renly forward with expressive smiles, murmurs of encouragement and vigorous gestures of her hands.  

She took her eyes off her youngest son for a moment to focus on her second son, replying to Stannis, “There are certain questions that only a woman could ask and would know how to ask a potential bride, to determine her suitability to be the future queen consort of the Seven Kingdoms, as well as her fitness to be the mother of a future king of the realm. My presence in Volantis is very much required as well.”

Turning her gaze back to Renly, she sighed, heavily. “Your little brother is only six months old,” said Cassana. “I have no desire to leave Storm’s End at this time, but your father and I both have our duties to perform, and those duties cannot be avoided, I’m afraid, for the sake of the safety and security of our family.”   

Renly finally reached his mother, who was waiting for him with both her arms held out, ready to embrace him. Cassana’s full-throated laughter and her hands tickling Renly’s belly caused him to giggle, gleefully and animatedly. This was a babe who showed his feelings and his emotions clearly, loudly and unmistakably, who was not stingy with either his tears or his laughs. He rested his head on his mother’s lap for a few minutes, but soon enough, Renly was restless to begin crawling again, to continue exploring this amazing new world of mobility, where he could go where he wished without waiting to be picked up and carried from place to place by his nursemaid, or his mother, or his father, or anyone else.            

Robert had often bragged to Stannis that he never went through the crawling stage at all as a babe. He went straight from rolling over to sitting up and then standing up, and of course, Robert took his first step well before his first nameday. Stannis’ progress as a babe was slower than both his brothers. He did not begin to crawl until his eighth month, and he did not take his first step until four months after his first nameday.  

“Renly will probably walk before his first nameday, just like Robert,” Stannis remarked, the expression on his face depicting a confused cauldron of pride and envy. Pride at his little brother’s accomplishment, and envy that he was going to be the slower one, again. His progress as a babe had been slower than his older brother, and now his little brother would surpass him too.   

“Every child is different, my lady mother used to tell me,” Cassana told her second son.   

“Some are faster, and some are slower, did she mean? And the slower one will always remain the slower one, throughout his life?” questioned Stannis.

Cassana shook her head. “Not at all. She meant that every child will take his or her own time, to crawl, to sit up, to take that first step, and to do everything else after that. There is no point in making favorable or unfavorable comparisons, because every child is different, and every child is special in his or her own way.”

“And yet it is done all the time, that comparison,” pointed out Stannis.

“It certainly is. But just because that comparison is done by others, it does not mean that we have to follow suit. What others unfairly believe about us could only be true if we believe it to be true about ourselves as well, and therefore by our own actions, we cause it to be true.”     

Stannis did not look convinced. “I don’t believe that I am worse than Robert in all the things that mattered, but many people treat me as if I am that way nonetheless. What I believe makes no difference at all to them, Mother.”

“But it makes a difference to yourself, Stannis, and it makes a great difference to the kind of man you will grow into, believe me.”

Stannis smiled one of his rare smiles, usually reserved only for his mother. “Is this another one of those – you will understand this when you are older, and you will tell me later that I have been right all along – matters, Mother?” he asked, in a tone that could pass for teasing, coming from Stannis.

Cassana laughed. “I am right about this, and years from now, you will tell me that I have been right all along,” she said, “especially after you have been blessed with a child of your own.”