Chapter Text
Fifteen years is a long time for some while for others it all passes by like a dream. Ser Barristan Selmy was stuck in a nightmare. Some horrid dream that never ended. He had served three kings now and felt he had failed two of them along with their family. Now he served King Robert Baratheon, the usurper. Never would he forget that title reminding people of how their King ‘earned’ the throne.
Barristan, despite his old age, was still skilled with his sword. Quick to draw and cut down his King’s foes. The knight shuttered at the thought, calling Robert his King felt like sludge vomiting from his mouth. He could respect Robert for his prowess as a warrior, but he made a terrible King. Robert whored and drank, but his worst crime in Barristan’s eyes was allowing the men who killed Elia, Daena, Rhaenys and Aegon live. Men who should have been executed as traitors, but in a way so was Barristan.
He had been wounded at the Trident, swords, spears and arrows that forced him to his knees. He had seen Robert smash Rhaegar’s chest with his Warhammer. How the rubies shattered and flew off the young prince’s breastplate. The Ruby Ford they called the crossing now, a fitting name Barristan supposed. After all, rubies and blood are both red.
Blood: Barristan felt like he was drowning in it as he walked the halls of the Red Keep. Countless horrors had happened in the castle walls. Many he was unable to prevent but some he could have. He had been unable to defy King Aerys and now King Robert. Still Barristan felt guilt for his shortcomings. Rhaella, Elia and her children and Daena; Barristan believed that he had failed them all…and no ghost can absolve his guilt.
A part of Barristan wanted to cut King Robert’s belly open and watch his guts pour out. Another piece of him wanted to watch Tywin Lannister and his bloody men burn for what they had done. Robert was lucky Barristan hadn’t been there when Tywin presented the new King with the bodies. Oh, how he would have cut them all down if he saw a hint of a grin that day. Who could grin at such a gruesome sight? Innocents slain in their homes, children ripped from their mothers and unjustly put to the sword. And now Robert wanted to kill another innocent girl and her unborn child. It took everything in Barristan to not leap across the table and strangle the fat King. He wondered if his hands would even be able to wrap around Robert’s neck.
Was killing Rhaegar not enough? Letting Rhaegar’s wife, children and sister be murdered not enough to satiate him? Now he wanted to kill another young girl and the babe in her belly. Barristan shook the violent thoughts from his head as he walked out of the Red Keep. Making his way towards the crumbling ruins of the Dragonpit. The old knight sat on a broken stone, maybe it was a bench once before falling into disrepair.
While whores and thieves made the Dragonpit their resting place, during the day most were nowhere to be found. Thus, the Dragonpit became Barristan’s place of solace. His sad pale blue eyes drifted over to the center of the pit, a blackened patch of dirt in a circular shape still remained, mostly undisturbed. He remembered how Elia and her children's bodies were returned to Dorne, King Aerys and Prince Rhaegar were cremated; their ashes drifting in the wind. And Daena’s body, Barristan had taken it upon himself to build and lit her funeral pyre, standing vigil for her in place of Arthur Dayne.
He wondered if Daenerys Targaryen had Daena’s qualities. Was she kind and timid? How much did she resemble her poor mother and sweet sister? Barristan thought of them often, always fondly but with a grief-stricken heart. His memories were bitter now, he could still remember when Daena was born. The maester had been the first man to hold her, then her father King Aerys. But Rhaella let him hold her once, she forced him to sit down and instructed him on how to cradle the small baby. Barristan recalled how her squinting violet eyes looked up at him that day, memories that made him weep.