the glint of an amethyst unicorn against a shield of pure silver; dark strands falling into darker, weary eyes; deep laugh lines framing a smile of unmistakeable charm; the shadow of a lost man kneeling in front of the mother’s statue; the thunder of rebellion ringing loud and clear into the abyss of the night sky.
tucked away in the mountains of the westerlands, flanked by the thunderous rush of the red fork and sitting in the shadows of the golden tooth, was hornvale: a young boy’s little escape from the world. but lord andros brax was no simple-minded nobleman; he raised three knights, trained from birth to always surpass what was expected of them. and tytos was his firstborn - his heir, his pride, the perfect son he had built piece by piece. he was always smart, but never smart enough; he was always skilled with a blade, but never skilled enough; he was always charming to a terrifying degree - and well, nobody could beat him at that, could they? tytos had worked hard to balance what was expected of him and his doubts: the polished, unwavering and charming man, roguish and bold and challenging in a way only firstborn sons could be, and the quieter voice in his head that wasn’t all too sure what to expect from the world. but he soldiered on - enjoying a life of ease with his brothers, embroiling himself in political debates over wine stolen from his father’s collection with tybolt crakehall, and whiling away his nights with the most interesting person he could find that evening.
he was still outgrowing his one-man teenaged crusade to become the prodigal son when the greyjoy rebellion chased it away for him; a swift dose of reality he couldn’t hope to avoid. tytos went off to war tybolt, young men fighting a war they barely understood - a war that wasn’t even theirs, but one they would never be able to forget. by the time he came back to hornvale, he had shed his fanciful ideas and rebellious antics: he had fought and bled for his lands, the least he could do was learn how to rule them. the stag-king’s death had mattered little to him - at first. the man had left a lannister queen to inadvertently rule in his wake, and that could only work in their favour. but then the ironborn had begun to show up on their shores, just like they had all those years ago, and it wasn’t long before the northerners followed suit: forcibly taking stronghold after stronghold across the westerlands before they found themselves at hornvale. the three brax sons had made their escape from the only home they had ever known - gathering what men they had left and riding out to join the only man they could put their trust in. it didn’t escape any of them that cersei hadn’t come to their aid; it wouldn’t be forgotten, not when they all knew that tybolt crakehall was the lord paramount they deserved. but tytos was too smart, too in control, to allow his rage to seep to the surface like other men always did. instead, he appeared to be a cocksure lord of nowhere, while his distracting smile hid the great violence he wanted to wage against the north and the lannisters.
before his mother had died only a year past, she had hinted that perhaps tytos wasn’t his father’s son - but his uncle’s son instead. it had been a quiet moment with nobody else around, but the words had been said and could not be unsaid or unheard or ever forgotten. he hasn’t breathed a word of it to anyone else yet, and his father went to his grave never learning the truth either: instead, tytos succeeded him as lord of hornvale, his younger brothers unaware and unquestioning of the falsehood they believe to be true. maybe if he was a better man - maybe if he was a more honourable man - tytos would step down and let robert or flement assume their ancestral seat instead. but with the westerlands in total chaos and their own lands now controlled by northerners, he isn’t about to risk the stability of a whole kingdom just to do the stupid thing. his mother’s confession may not even be true, and deep inside, he knows he would be better at lordship than either of his brothers ever could.
tytos wears a chain around his neck: an intricate braid of gold that used to belong to his grandmother and her grandmother before her. his father used to say that wearing it was a bad omen, that the chain was cursed and wearing it would bring nothing but bad luck. but he’s never been much of a believer in luck - luck’s just a four letter word for giving up too easily and not trying hard enough. it’s complacency and defeat. tytos didn’t mean to start wearing it. he had stashed it away to pass it down to a daughter one day, if he ever had one. but now he wears it to prove a point, just because he was told to do otherwise. he lost his parents and his lands and his identity when it was just a trinket sitting in his bag, he isn’t about to care about luck ever again.
when everything else became too burdensome, tytos would escape to a secluded spot in hornvale where a large window would open out to the mountains and the headwaters of the red fork. it was a place where you could only see water pouring over rock and dirt, and the din of the terrifyingly fast river rushing past was deafening. it was where he would kip with his books or leisurely spend time for hours at a stretch, drowning out the many thoughts crowding his head. it’s the one thing he misses most about hornvale, especially since he doesn’t know when he might be able to see it again.
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