Post by Varis/G'Lorth/Sundilar on Jun 14, 2020 12:45:43 GMT
27 Mirtul 1497 DR
By the time he’s removed his armor, cleaned it and himself, gotten some food in him and regaled Frankie about the fight it’s early evening. The days are long now, summer well on its way. The sunset is slowly painting the sky blood red and if Baine were a superstitious man he might have taken that as an omen. Instead he just tilts his head back and drinks it in as he leans against the wall next to the door of the Grandmaster’s chambers.
The door is open. Inside, Varis and Conrad are discussing strategy with Krovar, Kreattar and Snow. Something about scouting the K’ul Goranian countryside and what can only be described as a communications relay race. He scratches Frankie behind the ears, lets the sound of their voices wash over him and tries not to think about what happened the last time the Order went to war.
It’s not long before they file out; the Master Scout followed by two aaracockra and a tabaxi. Conrad claps him on the shoulder before disappearing towards the stables and Baine - with Frankie at his heels - steps inside, shutting the door behind him. As it clicks shut, his shoulders drop and a little of his usual ramrod soldier bearing bleeds out of him. He drops heavily into one of the chairs beside the fire and looks at Varis, poring over the maps splayed across the desk.
“You’ll be happy to hear that I survived,” he announces. The pale man looks up from his work and gives him a tired smile.
“Indeed I am. The others as well, I hope? What news from Crystal Spire?”
Baine nods. “Yeah, all safe and sound. The only viable farmland around Nrav’Garat was under attack. We held the heavy hitters off so the Shunned could get as much of their stores under ground as possible. Got it sorted without too much trouble. The Shunned lost some grain but all in all, it could have gone much worse. Fuck, but they were nasty. Some big Knights of Something or other. Sun knew who they were.”
He blinks a little and frowns in recollection, looking at once revolted and reluctantly impressed.
“One of them was like.. Covered in boiling blood? And another had literal faces sewn onto his armor. There was bugs and shit. Wild.”
A crooked, grim smile spreads across his face and when he turns to look at Varis again his eyes are dark and glittering in the fire light.
“And still just a taste of what Zariel is about to unleash. Hope you’re ready.”
Varis casts a quick glance at the door before turning in his seat to fully regard the younger man.
“Things are about to start moving quickly. I would have joined you today, but Aurelia and Khazifa asked me to stay here. They have...something of a plan.”
Baine nods.
“Just after we came back, Sheryl, Taz and Mace jumped us in the plaza. Offered us some magical shackles - for a ridiculous amount of gold, I might add, considering we’re supposed to be bait, distracting an Archduke of the Hells.”
He shrugs one shoulder dismissively.
“I nearly punched Mace, but also bought the shackles. Might come in handy in this Three-Pronged Attack. Aurelia and Khazifa give you any details?”
Varis' lips quirk in suppressed amusement at the thought of a confrontation between the towering knight and the diminutive tiefling “businessman”. He shakes his head to clear it of the imagined tableau. Standing, he moves over to the three tiered game board by the wall, gesturing for Baine to join him.
“The plan as it stands is this - the armies of Daring and K’ul Goran make a coordinated assault on Zariel’s beachhead, driving the fiends back through the rift and continuing the fight on the other side.”
He picks up some of the game pieces - finely carved soldiers in black stone - and clusters them at the centre of the middle tier.
“At the same time, three small parties of adventurers will enter Avernus.”
He picks up three more pieces - a crouching thief, a bearded wizard and a knight on rearing charger.
“One to open the way to Zariel’s tower-” he places the thief near the top of the lower tier “one to find and destroy the elemental force powering the rift-” he places the mage next to the thief “and one to draw the attention of the Lady of the First, lest she interfere with any of the other groups.”
The final piece, the knight rampant, goes to the middle of the lower board. Around it swirls a mass of grotesque red creatures, and at their centre, an incongruously elegant figure, delicate of feature and held aloft on two arching, feathered wings. He fixes Baine with a dark grin.
“Guess which straw we pulled.”
“My birthday’s not for another few months, you really shouldn’t have.”
“Because of the seal we managed to save from Galiel, the rift is still small. This has served us so far, but in order to break through and bring any kind of reasonable force to bear on the armies of Avernus, we’ll need to destroy the third seal and tear open the rift. If we fail, we’ll have accelerated our enemy’s success. But then, if we fail, there will be no-one left to stop her anyway.”
Varis is silent for a moment, staring at the game pieces. A slight frown creases his brow. His eyes roaming the board in front of them, Baine cocks his head with a slight frown of his own.
“Last I checked we’re an order, not an army. Even if you arm us all to the teeth and we bring the squeaks with us, we wouldn’t make a dent. Have you been makin’ friends?”
“You’re right in that the Order cannot do this alone. But we will not be alone. Red will lead what we have to augment the forces of Daring and K’ul Goran. Six squads of highly trained heavy cavalry is enough to turn a flank, enough to hold a gap, and so enough to win a battle. But this war will not turn on the fight in the field. It hinges on destroying whatever is powering the rift from Zariel’s tower. The main forces are a feint, a distraction. You have concerns?”
The half-orc considers the board for a moment longer before his frown clears again.
“Nope.” He arches an eyebrow. “Well. Not about the plan, anyway.”
With a sigh he walks back to the chair by the fire and sits down again, levelling his commander with a pointed but not unkind gaze.
“We’re going back, Varis. Back to hell. Back to where she held you. We both have our duties and I wouldn’t be doin’ mine if I didn’t ask. Are you up for it?”
The older man’s smile fades.
“I do not relish the thought. But you know the words we speak, the oath we made. My duty and my people require that I face the thing I fear, and so I will choose to do what is right, not what is easy.”
Baine nods, seemingly satisfied with the answer.
“And I’ll be with you, every step of the way.” He hesitates for a moment; rubs a hand over his face and makes a pained grimace.
“You should know. Sunday isn’t happy. She thinks you’ve been actin’.. recklessly enough that she wants to speak to the Council about it. The thing with the soul coin. Sendin’ Tuevel in without warning in Sigil. I dunno who she’s gonna talk to or what she’s gonna say but we sure as shit don’t need to fuel that particular fire.”
He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees and when he speaks his voice there’s a sadness behind the solid steel, not for himself but for the fact that he has to say the words at all.
“They say you’ve built yourself a private army, and let’s face it, they’re not wrong. We all swear the same oaths and fight for the good of people in need but in the end, Varis, we follow you and no one else. Every time you speak, you speak for us. Everything you do, we do too. It’s one hell of a job, one I’ll never envy you, but that burden lies on your shoulders. If there’s ever anythin’ I can do to ease that burden, I will - and in return you need to tell me that you can remember that responsibility.”
He cracks a small, tenuous grin. “Even when you’re hacked off and filled with fury and righteousness and purpose and what have you. Especially then.”
It’s a long moment before Varis responds. When he does, his voice is low and level.
“If you think I carry this burden alone, my friend, then you haven’t been paying attention. Who was here with me when you arrived tonight? Who taught you to ride? To drill? Who sits across from me now, offering me council? I know it may seem - to you, evidently, and certainly to those looking in from outside - that I alone make the decisions that guide the Order, but in truth, I draw upon the wisdom of a dozen minds. It was a lesson hard learned for me, but no man is an island, and no leader can know everything they must to find the best course of action. Those letters at the front of your name are not there for decoration, Ser, nor is Red Master at Arms or Conrad Chief Scout because the sounds sit pleasantly upon the ear. Those titles are earned, by wisdom and valour, and most importantly, by proving that you value this Order and what it stands for more than you do your own skin. I was proud to give you your spurs, because I knew you had earned them, and because I knew I had added another head to my council. You need not ask to share my burden. You already do.”
Baine swallows thickly, audible in the quiet room, visibly taken aback. Varis runs a hand over his face, letting out a long breath.
“Now, it is true that I speak for the Order. It is true that my word is the final one. But that is because our business is war. You’ve spent a lot of time in the field. You were at the battle of Zot Goran. War is chaos, and it is fast. In peace, we have time to debate, to discuss, to dissent. In battle, the wrong action is often less deadly than no action at all. You’ve also spent a lot of time out on your own, with your friends and peers, with other adventurers. Powerful, certainly. Well intentioned, often. But decisive? Coordinated? Organised? The role of the leader is to distill the knowledge and expertise of a group into decisive action. That will not please everyone, but in war it is necessary. Even off the battlefield, true consensus is rare. Look at Aurelia - elected by popular vote, and with the power to change the lives of all those who live in Daring. Does she consult each citizen on every decision? Of course not - nothing would ever get done.
“Now, Sunday is another matter. I am sad to hear she doubts my judgement, but in truth I am not surprised. For all her power, for all her good intentions, she has never been a leader, nor has she ever truly followed. In spite of your strength - or perhaps because of it - Red put you through hells when first you joined us. Not because she enjoyed it-” Baine shoots him a deeply skeptical look “-but because in order to lead, you must know what it is to follow. For most of her life, Sunday was a tool, a weapon created by her mother and her aunt to destroy their enemies. When she escaped Fierna’s court, she was driven only by her desires. She cared for nothing but her own amusement, and woe to him who crossed her path. I knew her in those early days in Daring, when she was capricious and violent. But then she found the light, she found Corellon and through him was transformed - now she is driven by love, by beauty, and by the desire to protect all life. It is truly one of the great miracles of my lifetime, to see such transformation wrought upon one who I had thought lost to all goodness.”
He’s still for a moment, lost in silent reverie, a gentle smile playing at his lips. He shakes his head again, as though to clear it.
“It has been, what, a year, since she returned? A little longer than I have known you, Baine. How much have you changed in that time? How much have I? Sunday is still learning - as are we all - how to be the person she wants to be. How to be ‘good’. The man who taught me the blade once who told me that the opposite of any fault, is another fault. It’s not a realisation that comes to many people naturally. They think to do good, you do the opposite of evil. In the bad old days, when she called herself Lady, she was impulsive, reckless, capricious. She cared nothing for the opinions of others. You can see flashes of it still, sometimes. And so can she. So, she tries to be the opposite of that, and in doing so, fails to see that this too is a flawed path. She is perhaps the single most powerful mortal I have ever known, but I told you the first time you met Red - power warps the mind. She has the raw might to change the course of nations, and I fear she is starting to think she can use that might to force the world to be good, to bludgeon people into her vision of righteousness. And that way leads to darkness. Not for nothing, the old adage - ‘The road to the Hells is paved with good intentions.’”
“Now, perhaps I shouldn’t have sent Tuevel to scout the temple - but we had agreed that we would do so, had we not? Perhaps I ought to have waited until people had finished eating their pies, but I did not think preserving the final seal was something we could afford to delay in the name of gastronomic tourism. The coin-” he lets out another long sigh “it was undiplomatic of me.”
Baine raises an eyebrow but graciously keeps his mouth shut.
“I ought to have waited, to let her have her say and her discussion. But I am imperfect, as well you know, and there are some moments when I will brook no delay. If you saw a child drowning, would you wait and ask your companions whether they agreed you should save her? If you pass a man bleeding on the streets, do you seek consensus from passersby before staunching the wound? To be bound within a soulcoin means an eternity of slavery, agony, and degradation. To be denied the final peace of death. To be denied hope. There are few things more vile in all the planes than to subject a soul - any soul - to that. I will not seek consensus to undo such an evil.”
Baine’s eyebrow stays where it is, a grin now firmly in place in the face of Varis’ lengthy exposition, in spite of the serious topic.
“You had consensus. You just couldn’t wait,” he smirks. “I don’t disagree, it was the right thing to do. Just… just, pick your moments, yeah? Don’t go trampling all over Jadefist and the rest with your honor and your morals if you can avoid it by waiting five more minutes.”
The line between Varis brows deepens, and he gives a small shake of his head.
“You do not understand. Bound within a soul coin, time means nothing. Remember, if you will, the moment of respite Wil bought us before we arrived at Corellon’s Fountain - an eternity frozen in an instant. Five minutes for a soul bound might as well be five hundred years, or five thousand. Sometimes, the wrong choice is better than no choice at all.”
For a moment there’s nothing but the crackling of fire and the soft breeze through the window, until Baine lets out a laugh that seems to take even himself by surprise.
“I keep askin’ you to use your words, don’t I? Bloody hell. Now I know you have them, there’s no gettin’ out of using them.” He winks at Varis, cheerful insolence bright on his face before it softens into something more earnest.
“You know, that was more words in under ten minutes than I think I’ve heard you use in total since you came back to us. I won’t lie, that’s more comforting than any cunning piece of strategy you can come up with for the next few days.”
The frown on Varis’ face begins to lighten, the ghost of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Beware what you wish for, Ser.”
By the time he’s removed his armor, cleaned it and himself, gotten some food in him and regaled Frankie about the fight it’s early evening. The days are long now, summer well on its way. The sunset is slowly painting the sky blood red and if Baine were a superstitious man he might have taken that as an omen. Instead he just tilts his head back and drinks it in as he leans against the wall next to the door of the Grandmaster’s chambers.
The door is open. Inside, Varis and Conrad are discussing strategy with Krovar, Kreattar and Snow. Something about scouting the K’ul Goranian countryside and what can only be described as a communications relay race. He scratches Frankie behind the ears, lets the sound of their voices wash over him and tries not to think about what happened the last time the Order went to war.
It’s not long before they file out; the Master Scout followed by two aaracockra and a tabaxi. Conrad claps him on the shoulder before disappearing towards the stables and Baine - with Frankie at his heels - steps inside, shutting the door behind him. As it clicks shut, his shoulders drop and a little of his usual ramrod soldier bearing bleeds out of him. He drops heavily into one of the chairs beside the fire and looks at Varis, poring over the maps splayed across the desk.
“You’ll be happy to hear that I survived,” he announces. The pale man looks up from his work and gives him a tired smile.
“Indeed I am. The others as well, I hope? What news from Crystal Spire?”
Baine nods. “Yeah, all safe and sound. The only viable farmland around Nrav’Garat was under attack. We held the heavy hitters off so the Shunned could get as much of their stores under ground as possible. Got it sorted without too much trouble. The Shunned lost some grain but all in all, it could have gone much worse. Fuck, but they were nasty. Some big Knights of Something or other. Sun knew who they were.”
He blinks a little and frowns in recollection, looking at once revolted and reluctantly impressed.
“One of them was like.. Covered in boiling blood? And another had literal faces sewn onto his armor. There was bugs and shit. Wild.”
A crooked, grim smile spreads across his face and when he turns to look at Varis again his eyes are dark and glittering in the fire light.
“And still just a taste of what Zariel is about to unleash. Hope you’re ready.”
Varis casts a quick glance at the door before turning in his seat to fully regard the younger man.
“Things are about to start moving quickly. I would have joined you today, but Aurelia and Khazifa asked me to stay here. They have...something of a plan.”
Baine nods.
“Just after we came back, Sheryl, Taz and Mace jumped us in the plaza. Offered us some magical shackles - for a ridiculous amount of gold, I might add, considering we’re supposed to be bait, distracting an Archduke of the Hells.”
He shrugs one shoulder dismissively.
“I nearly punched Mace, but also bought the shackles. Might come in handy in this Three-Pronged Attack. Aurelia and Khazifa give you any details?”
Varis' lips quirk in suppressed amusement at the thought of a confrontation between the towering knight and the diminutive tiefling “businessman”. He shakes his head to clear it of the imagined tableau. Standing, he moves over to the three tiered game board by the wall, gesturing for Baine to join him.
“The plan as it stands is this - the armies of Daring and K’ul Goran make a coordinated assault on Zariel’s beachhead, driving the fiends back through the rift and continuing the fight on the other side.”
He picks up some of the game pieces - finely carved soldiers in black stone - and clusters them at the centre of the middle tier.
“At the same time, three small parties of adventurers will enter Avernus.”
He picks up three more pieces - a crouching thief, a bearded wizard and a knight on rearing charger.
“One to open the way to Zariel’s tower-” he places the thief near the top of the lower tier “one to find and destroy the elemental force powering the rift-” he places the mage next to the thief “and one to draw the attention of the Lady of the First, lest she interfere with any of the other groups.”
The final piece, the knight rampant, goes to the middle of the lower board. Around it swirls a mass of grotesque red creatures, and at their centre, an incongruously elegant figure, delicate of feature and held aloft on two arching, feathered wings. He fixes Baine with a dark grin.
“Guess which straw we pulled.”
“My birthday’s not for another few months, you really shouldn’t have.”
“Because of the seal we managed to save from Galiel, the rift is still small. This has served us so far, but in order to break through and bring any kind of reasonable force to bear on the armies of Avernus, we’ll need to destroy the third seal and tear open the rift. If we fail, we’ll have accelerated our enemy’s success. But then, if we fail, there will be no-one left to stop her anyway.”
Varis is silent for a moment, staring at the game pieces. A slight frown creases his brow. His eyes roaming the board in front of them, Baine cocks his head with a slight frown of his own.
“Last I checked we’re an order, not an army. Even if you arm us all to the teeth and we bring the squeaks with us, we wouldn’t make a dent. Have you been makin’ friends?”
“You’re right in that the Order cannot do this alone. But we will not be alone. Red will lead what we have to augment the forces of Daring and K’ul Goran. Six squads of highly trained heavy cavalry is enough to turn a flank, enough to hold a gap, and so enough to win a battle. But this war will not turn on the fight in the field. It hinges on destroying whatever is powering the rift from Zariel’s tower. The main forces are a feint, a distraction. You have concerns?”
The half-orc considers the board for a moment longer before his frown clears again.
“Nope.” He arches an eyebrow. “Well. Not about the plan, anyway.”
With a sigh he walks back to the chair by the fire and sits down again, levelling his commander with a pointed but not unkind gaze.
“We’re going back, Varis. Back to hell. Back to where she held you. We both have our duties and I wouldn’t be doin’ mine if I didn’t ask. Are you up for it?”
The older man’s smile fades.
“I do not relish the thought. But you know the words we speak, the oath we made. My duty and my people require that I face the thing I fear, and so I will choose to do what is right, not what is easy.”
Baine nods, seemingly satisfied with the answer.
“And I’ll be with you, every step of the way.” He hesitates for a moment; rubs a hand over his face and makes a pained grimace.
“You should know. Sunday isn’t happy. She thinks you’ve been actin’.. recklessly enough that she wants to speak to the Council about it. The thing with the soul coin. Sendin’ Tuevel in without warning in Sigil. I dunno who she’s gonna talk to or what she’s gonna say but we sure as shit don’t need to fuel that particular fire.”
He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees and when he speaks his voice there’s a sadness behind the solid steel, not for himself but for the fact that he has to say the words at all.
“They say you’ve built yourself a private army, and let’s face it, they’re not wrong. We all swear the same oaths and fight for the good of people in need but in the end, Varis, we follow you and no one else. Every time you speak, you speak for us. Everything you do, we do too. It’s one hell of a job, one I’ll never envy you, but that burden lies on your shoulders. If there’s ever anythin’ I can do to ease that burden, I will - and in return you need to tell me that you can remember that responsibility.”
He cracks a small, tenuous grin. “Even when you’re hacked off and filled with fury and righteousness and purpose and what have you. Especially then.”
It’s a long moment before Varis responds. When he does, his voice is low and level.
“If you think I carry this burden alone, my friend, then you haven’t been paying attention. Who was here with me when you arrived tonight? Who taught you to ride? To drill? Who sits across from me now, offering me council? I know it may seem - to you, evidently, and certainly to those looking in from outside - that I alone make the decisions that guide the Order, but in truth, I draw upon the wisdom of a dozen minds. It was a lesson hard learned for me, but no man is an island, and no leader can know everything they must to find the best course of action. Those letters at the front of your name are not there for decoration, Ser, nor is Red Master at Arms or Conrad Chief Scout because the sounds sit pleasantly upon the ear. Those titles are earned, by wisdom and valour, and most importantly, by proving that you value this Order and what it stands for more than you do your own skin. I was proud to give you your spurs, because I knew you had earned them, and because I knew I had added another head to my council. You need not ask to share my burden. You already do.”
Baine swallows thickly, audible in the quiet room, visibly taken aback. Varis runs a hand over his face, letting out a long breath.
“Now, it is true that I speak for the Order. It is true that my word is the final one. But that is because our business is war. You’ve spent a lot of time in the field. You were at the battle of Zot Goran. War is chaos, and it is fast. In peace, we have time to debate, to discuss, to dissent. In battle, the wrong action is often less deadly than no action at all. You’ve also spent a lot of time out on your own, with your friends and peers, with other adventurers. Powerful, certainly. Well intentioned, often. But decisive? Coordinated? Organised? The role of the leader is to distill the knowledge and expertise of a group into decisive action. That will not please everyone, but in war it is necessary. Even off the battlefield, true consensus is rare. Look at Aurelia - elected by popular vote, and with the power to change the lives of all those who live in Daring. Does she consult each citizen on every decision? Of course not - nothing would ever get done.
“Now, Sunday is another matter. I am sad to hear she doubts my judgement, but in truth I am not surprised. For all her power, for all her good intentions, she has never been a leader, nor has she ever truly followed. In spite of your strength - or perhaps because of it - Red put you through hells when first you joined us. Not because she enjoyed it-” Baine shoots him a deeply skeptical look “-but because in order to lead, you must know what it is to follow. For most of her life, Sunday was a tool, a weapon created by her mother and her aunt to destroy their enemies. When she escaped Fierna’s court, she was driven only by her desires. She cared for nothing but her own amusement, and woe to him who crossed her path. I knew her in those early days in Daring, when she was capricious and violent. But then she found the light, she found Corellon and through him was transformed - now she is driven by love, by beauty, and by the desire to protect all life. It is truly one of the great miracles of my lifetime, to see such transformation wrought upon one who I had thought lost to all goodness.”
He’s still for a moment, lost in silent reverie, a gentle smile playing at his lips. He shakes his head again, as though to clear it.
“It has been, what, a year, since she returned? A little longer than I have known you, Baine. How much have you changed in that time? How much have I? Sunday is still learning - as are we all - how to be the person she wants to be. How to be ‘good’. The man who taught me the blade once who told me that the opposite of any fault, is another fault. It’s not a realisation that comes to many people naturally. They think to do good, you do the opposite of evil. In the bad old days, when she called herself Lady, she was impulsive, reckless, capricious. She cared nothing for the opinions of others. You can see flashes of it still, sometimes. And so can she. So, she tries to be the opposite of that, and in doing so, fails to see that this too is a flawed path. She is perhaps the single most powerful mortal I have ever known, but I told you the first time you met Red - power warps the mind. She has the raw might to change the course of nations, and I fear she is starting to think she can use that might to force the world to be good, to bludgeon people into her vision of righteousness. And that way leads to darkness. Not for nothing, the old adage - ‘The road to the Hells is paved with good intentions.’”
“Now, perhaps I shouldn’t have sent Tuevel to scout the temple - but we had agreed that we would do so, had we not? Perhaps I ought to have waited until people had finished eating their pies, but I did not think preserving the final seal was something we could afford to delay in the name of gastronomic tourism. The coin-” he lets out another long sigh “it was undiplomatic of me.”
Baine raises an eyebrow but graciously keeps his mouth shut.
“I ought to have waited, to let her have her say and her discussion. But I am imperfect, as well you know, and there are some moments when I will brook no delay. If you saw a child drowning, would you wait and ask your companions whether they agreed you should save her? If you pass a man bleeding on the streets, do you seek consensus from passersby before staunching the wound? To be bound within a soulcoin means an eternity of slavery, agony, and degradation. To be denied the final peace of death. To be denied hope. There are few things more vile in all the planes than to subject a soul - any soul - to that. I will not seek consensus to undo such an evil.”
Baine’s eyebrow stays where it is, a grin now firmly in place in the face of Varis’ lengthy exposition, in spite of the serious topic.
“You had consensus. You just couldn’t wait,” he smirks. “I don’t disagree, it was the right thing to do. Just… just, pick your moments, yeah? Don’t go trampling all over Jadefist and the rest with your honor and your morals if you can avoid it by waiting five more minutes.”
The line between Varis brows deepens, and he gives a small shake of his head.
“You do not understand. Bound within a soul coin, time means nothing. Remember, if you will, the moment of respite Wil bought us before we arrived at Corellon’s Fountain - an eternity frozen in an instant. Five minutes for a soul bound might as well be five hundred years, or five thousand. Sometimes, the wrong choice is better than no choice at all.”
For a moment there’s nothing but the crackling of fire and the soft breeze through the window, until Baine lets out a laugh that seems to take even himself by surprise.
“I keep askin’ you to use your words, don’t I? Bloody hell. Now I know you have them, there’s no gettin’ out of using them.” He winks at Varis, cheerful insolence bright on his face before it softens into something more earnest.
“You know, that was more words in under ten minutes than I think I’ve heard you use in total since you came back to us. I won’t lie, that’s more comforting than any cunning piece of strategy you can come up with for the next few days.”
The frown on Varis’ face begins to lighten, the ghost of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Beware what you wish for, Ser.”
They sit in companionable silence for a while, as the fire burns low, each privately glad of the other’s company, and of a final moment of peace before the storm that was about to break. There would be little enough of it in the days to come.
In collaboration with Ser Baine Cinderwood 🔥🌼
