Day 16 of @oc-growth-and-development OC-tober. Here we have my female character from Game of Thrones: Conquest mobile game. As always, shoutout to my wonderful wife @nightsminx for assigning the characters to the prompts and for helping write the dialogue for this one. You’re the best!
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The sand storm raged outside, which wouldn’t be so bad, Jorlyn supposed, if she didn’t know what was waiting within it. At least her scouts hadn’t been found. The sand storm had given them the perfect cover. If only they had better news to tell. If only it wasn’t all so dire. Not impossible. Certainly could have been better. Could have been much worse as well.
Well, at least it was only bandit groups camped outside her walls. Though if her scouts were to be believed, there were also troops from rival lords mixed in as well. Not that she’d be surprised if it were true. There was always someone who wanted her dead. Who couldn’t accept that she was their lord. Who wanted her position for themselves.
She’d spent her entire life fighting to prove her worth. They never mattered to her. It just hurt more than it should that she could count her own mother amongst them. That her own mother could never accept her. That no matter what she did, it was never enough for her.
It had only gotten worse when her feelings for Aryana deepened. When she made no move to hide how much the Dornish woman meant to her.
Suddenly it wasn’t her own bannerman
that she had to worry about, but her own mother conspiring against her and Aryana.
Of course, her mother wasn’t so foolish as to act directly against her. But Jorlyn knew who some of the bannerman really answered to. Knew who had paid some of the assassins.
As if she wouldn’t find out.
As if Aryana didn’t have an immense spy network.
“You must know it’s hopeless.” Her mother said. “You must know they outnumber us.”
Jorlyn’s grip upon the handle of her sword tightened. She could practically hear the smugness dripping from her mother’s words.
“Just surrender, daughter, and we might be spared.”
Jorlyn derisively snorted. “You would like that, wouldn’t you mother? For my keep, my land, my people to fall on their knees and pretend they are loyal.”
“Sometimes that is the only way to survive.”
“Surviving is not living, mother.”
Her mother rolled her eyes and sighed. “This is unlike you, daughter, to put your life at stake for others. That Dornish who—“
Jorlyn slapped her mother across the face, her ring cutting her mother’s lip. “Don’t you dare talk about my wife like that when you have sold yourself to any man who was stupid enough to bed you for any kind of solace.”
“What I have done, I have done for our house.” Her mother snapped back. “No different than what that Dornish-“
Her mother’s words were cut off with a strangled scream. “You can lie all you want,” Aryana purred from behind her mother, twisting the dagger deeper. “Everything I have done, I have done for Jorlyn.”
“I’m done with your games, mother.” Jorlyn spat, turning to gaze out the window. “Are the troops ready?” She asked Aryana.
Jorlyn ignored the sound of her mother’s body hitting the floor. “Of course they are,” Aryana said, coming to stand next to her. “They are some of Dorne’s finest soldiers, this sand storm will not hinder them.”
Jorlyn nodded only once. It was time to finish it once and for all.
