⚔︎ Kingmaker.

[soiledcloak]

⚔︎ 𝐒 𝐎 𝐈 𝐋 𝐄 𝐃 𝐂 𝐋 𝐎 𝐀 𝐊 ━━ a highly selective and private roleplay blog dedicated to 𝑪𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒏 𝑪𝒐𝒍𝒆, est. 2024. This portrayal draws from Fire & Blood, House of the Dragon, and leans heavily into personal headcanons and original AUs. Mature themes ahead. Strictly 21+, minors do not interact. This is a sideblog to @starlitsonnets. Written by Lyra.

⚔︎ 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐀𝐁𝐋𝐄 : 𝐑𝐔𝐋𝐄𝐒. | 𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐄𝐒 & 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐒. | 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐓𝐒. | 𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐒. | 𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐓.

⚔︎ 𝐀𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐈𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 : @hightowerborn, @heirtoharrenhal, @thirstsforblood, @elitrezy, @halflion, @fireandverses, @driftmarksdaughter, @mistressofwhisperers, @museanthology, @daeremiros, @therightfulheir, @hurlilio, @serbreakspear.

[nixscriptum]

[soiledcloak]

[hightowerborn]

𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐎𝐍𝐄, 𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐁𝐋𝐄 𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇, 𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐇𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐒 𝐇𝐈𝐌 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐁𝐄𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐆𝐎𝐎𝐃. Her reflection stares back at her from the glass, queenly, pale, and privately starving. The green silk hangs loose at her back, parted and waiting; the ribbons trailing down her spine like ivy from a tower wall, like little serpents whispering temptation in the tongue of things she had been taught to fear before she had ever been permitted to understand them. Her fingers unfurl in her hair; the auburn mass spilling down over one shoulder in a slow, rippling fall. Alicent lowers her hands until they brace against the carved lip of the vanity, and she curls her fingers into it until the little bones of her hands show pale beneath the skin.

❛ . . . Tarnishing them, ❜ she echoes softly.  The word leaves a bitter taste upon her tongue. Silks may be tarnished by carelessness, perhaps. By mud, by wine, by the dark bloom of spilled blood. But she is not silk. But she has never been silk, no matter how often they dress her in it. Silk is treasured. Silk is preserved. Silk is held in cedar and lavender, folded away from moth and damp and careless hands, while she has been tugged into form by politics, laced so tightly by expectation that every breath became a negotiation. She has been displayed, handled, appraised, and then praised for seeming untouched by any of it. Her gaze lifts to the looking glass again. He has turned his eyes away, but the mirror is cruel enough to preserve what he would hide; his jaw is set hard enough to ache. His fist trembles at his side. The white cloak hangs from his shoulders in awful purity, a banner of everything he believes he has ruined merely by loving her in silence. There is something almost unbearable in the sight of him thus restrained, suffering from the effort of not reaching. She had known men who denied women because they felt nothing. Criston denies himself because he feels too much. ( That is the very thing that makes his refusal impossible to forgive. ) 

❛ As though I am some spotless thing. Some length of silk to be folded away from weather and moth, preserved from every hand that might leave proof it had ever been touched. ❜ Alicent turns slightly. She is not so brave, and perhaps not so foolish, to regard him wholly. But enough that the mirror no longer owns the whole of her. ❛ You have never tarnished me, Ser Criston. ❜ Her lips part. ( She should not. ) But she does. ❛ Criston. ❜

It is barely more than a whisper, and yet the sound of it seems to strike the room like a bell. Alicent feels the shame of it immediately, and her eyes sting, though she forbids the tears with an old, practiced violence. Queens do not weep over laces. Queens do not ache to be chosen by men they have no right to want. Queens do not stand half-dressed before sworn swords and call them by their given names as though the world were small enough, kind enough, to permit it. But Alicent is so tired of being only the queen. 

❛ I asked for assistance. Nothing more. ❜  Her hand still clutched the bodice. The other hung at her side, fingers restless against the skirt of her gown. She looked at his gauntlet, then at the bare place where his hand had been before he made a fist of it. There were calluses there, she knew. A knight’s hands. Hands made for reins and swords and shields; hands that had once steadied her elbow in a crowded hall with such tenderness that she had thought of it for the rest of the day, despising herself for the remembrance. For one brief, fevered moment, shame nearly conquered her. It rose with all its old familiar weapons: duty, piety, womanhood, crown. She saw herself as he might see her if his worship ever soured into judgment . . . a fool. A lonely, girl playing at temptation because she had been starved of tenderness so long that even danger seemed generous. She saw the tale they would make of her if anyone knew. The hypocrite queen. The pious woman with sin beneath her fingernails.

❛ Refuse me plainly, Ser. ❜ Her breath caught, but she did not retreat from the sound of it. ❛ If that is truly what you wish. ❜

[soiledcloak]

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐊𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐖𝐇𝐎𝐒𝐄 𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐃𝐄 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐍𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐑𝐄𝐌𝐁𝐋𝐄𝐃 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐑𝐔𝐂𝐈𝐁𝐋𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐀𝐆𝐄 𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐎𝐃 𝐔𝐍𝐌𝐀𝐃𝐄 𝐁𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍 𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐒𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐍 𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐂𝐓. Ensconced in the amber hush of her chambers, the air itself thickened. It was the judgement of the Seven incarnate — pressing against his armour until each breath became a challenge he was hopelessly losing. His heart, once a steadfast pulse which had held him upright through battle without faltering, now stumbled as though an infant colt on treacherous ground. Guilt gnawed at him with the savagery of a beast that had tasted blood and meant to finish its meal; it sank its teeth into the tender places beneath his ribs and devoured until Criston himself tasted iron. Desire answered it with equal ferocity; tearing at the same raw flesh. The two warred until he could scarcely tell where one ended and the other began. He had no right to either. He had no right to stand here at all, to feel devotion as intensely as he did. His mind drifted to the coward's place it fled in the nights when the weight of his white cloak grew too heavy for sleep. Criston let himself imagine a return to the Dornish marches, to he family he had left behind in pursuit of honour. The thought had been a fleeting mercy, quickly poisoned. To flee would be to bring shame upon his blood. To break the sacred oath he had sworn before gods and men to shield her from every harm. He could not abandon her to the sinister loneliness that clung with merciless claws, to the hungry vipers that coiled around her. He could not flee when it meant to tear from his own chest the heart that now beat only in answer to hers. He loved her. The admission was a blade turned to his own throat, and Criston welcomed the wound.

His gaze fell to the ribbons that spilled down her back in a serpentine cascade, deceptively soft, deceptively innocent. He knew better. To touch them would be to press his palm against a thicket of fine briars; his calloused fingers bleeding where no eye could see. Through the loosened bodice was the thin weave of her chemise, and through that fragile veil, when the hearthfire flickered just so, he glimpsed the delicate curve of her spine. A graceful arc that made something deep in his chest pull taut and aching. The sensation slipped between the plates of his armour as though they were no more substantial than mist, lodging itself where no enemy’s blade had ever managed to reach. Criston's throat choked upon the air his body demanded. His lungs burned for sustenance. He gave them nothing. To breathe here, so close to her, was to draw her scent into his body, and that would be a sin that no god could absolve him. He stood suspended in that terrible arrest of breath, a man drowning on dry land. Then she spoke his name, and he was lost. Not Ser Criston. Not Lord Commander. Simply Criston; void of titles and dutiful cloaks. The sound struck him with the vehemence of lightning, driving the last of the air from his body. It was the sweetest blasphemy he had ever heard, and it wrenched his heart into two bleeding halves that beat in miserable unison. He wanted to hear it again. He wanted never to hear it again. Either was damnation.

❛ I believe that to be my curse, your grace. ❜ The words left him tense, edged with a self-deprecating huff of breath that bordered on a scoff, ❛ I cannot refuse you. ❜ Not for some reason of duty or power, but merely the heart. He had not intended to speak so plainly; the admission startled even him with its audacity. A bold dog earned the whip, yet Criston did not fear the lash. What he already suffered, wanting her, loving her, forsaking every vow he had ever sworn, was a far crueler punishment. He could not refuse her. He did not wish to refuse her. His eyes met hers once more in the looking glass, and the truth passed between them without need of further words. Her gaze was wide as a doe’s, brown and warm and holding within it the realm’s every grief. It was not a fair thing, to lay so many burdens upon a single heart that had never been given the choice to refuse them, a heart that had spent its life in endless sacrifice only to have another pound of flesh demanded when there was only bone. There it was again, the violent protectiveness flaring bright in his chest. Criston smothered it before it might catch; it was a perilous ember to possess, let alone give breath to rise into flame.

With hands that trembled despite years of discipline, he reached for the laces. Only the laces, even though the auburn hair and velvet skin just there lured him to his undoing. Each ribbon he drew through its eyelet was an act of exquisite, guilty tenderness. He pulled them slowly, carefully, as though he might somehow lessen the cruelty of what he did; closing her into the elegant, gilded shackles of silk and bone that would make every breath a labour, tightening the bodice until her ribs must surely protest the confinement. Ash gathered on his tongue, in his throat, in his lungs. His chest seared. He was meant to protect her, yet here he was — depriving her of breath.

❛ There, ❜ he whispered, the word falling soft and without ceremony into the charged space between them. His fingertips lingered against the small of her back beneath the pretence of smoothing the finished laces, stealing one final, selfish moment of her warmth through the layers. He knew it was terribly indecorous, indulgent, damning. He told himself the barrier of fabric might somehow absolve them both. It did not. It could not. He dared one final glance at her reflection before he tore his gaze away and fixed it upon the weathered flagstone again.

His fingertips burned. Indeed, the ribbons had been woven from briars and thorns.

❛ Beautiful. ❜

[soiledcloak]

gotta love a tortured knight yearning for a woman he can't have while simultaneously carrying immense guilt for yearning in the first place

[two-bees-poetry]

so soft it hurts

[soiledcloak]

[nixscriptum]

[bladeofdreadfort]

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON COUNTDOWN TO SEASON 2 EVENT day 5: tropes | alicole as courtly love

[hightowerborn]

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐌𝐀𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐍𝐒 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇𝐃𝐑𝐀𝐖 in a susurrus of silk and whispered courtesies, their departure a retreat of shadows that leaves her alone . . . or nearly alone, which is perhaps worse than true solitude, perhaps more dangerous than any crowded hall where eyes might bear witness and propriety might hold dominion. Alicent stands before the looking glass in her chambers; her gown hanging loose at her back, the lacings undone and trailing down her spine in a serpentine cascade of green ribbon. She had sent them away with some breathless excuse, a headache blooming behind her temples, a need for silence and solitude, plausible enough that they would not question, would not wonder, would not see through to the terrible truth beneath: that she wanted them gone, yearning for the room to be emptied of their gentle hands and knowing glances. Only Ser Criston remained, standing sentinel by her door in his white cloak and polished armor. The looking glass captures them both in its silvered surface: her shoulders bare save for the thin chemise beneath, the green silk of her gown pooling at her hips where the bodice gapes open to reveal her back. Her heart is a wild bird beating against the cage of her ribs; her breath shallow, no matter how she tries to don the mask of queenly composure.  ❛ . . . I require assistance, ❜ A command. A request. She lifts her hair from her neck with both hands, gathering the auburn waves, drawing the heavy mass over one shoulder to bare the vulnerable curve of her nape, the pale column of her throat. The lacings truly are beyond her reach—or she could reach them, perhaps, with effort and contortion, but it would be graceless, undignified, a struggle that would leave her flushed and disheveled and somehow more exposed than simply asking for help. ❛ The lacings, ❜ Alicent clarifies, and her eyes rise to find his reflection in the mirror's surface, meeting his gaze across the silvered distance. ❛ They are... beyond my reach. ❜

A lie. A small one, but it falls from her lips in a manner all the same. She could ring for the handmaidens again, summoning Talya with her soft hands and softer questions. But she does not. She stands there instead with her throat exposed and her back turned to him in an attitude of surrender that is also somehow a demand, waiting, the blood singing in her ears loud enough to drown out reason. Her reflection stares back at her from the mirror: a woman in green silk with her hair falling over one shoulder and her eyes dark with something unspoken she has buried beneath layers of duty and decorum. But it is there nonetheless, burning beneath the surface like coals banked for the night, as if anticipating breath that might coax it back to flame.

She does not look away from his reflected gaze, nor does she give him the mercy of pretending this is anything other than what it is.

❛ . . . Ser? ❜ 

a starter for @soiledcloak

[soiledcloak]

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐂𝐋𝐎𝐀𝐊 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐁𝐄𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐄 𝐀𝐍 𝐈𝐑𝐎𝐍 𝐒𝐇𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐃 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓, 𝐖𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐁𝐘 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘 𝐒𝐀𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐃 𝐕𝐎𝐖 𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐃𝐄𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐃. It grew heavier with each uncertain step he dared take towards her, pulling him nearer hell's embrace of eternal punishment. To any unknowing eye the fabric was pristine ivory, yet he and the Seven knew it was soiled beyond all salvation, stained by sins no river could cleanse. It was why his chest was cursed to perpetually be plagued with cruel tightness; the festering tendrils of guilt burrowing through flesh and sinew until they carved rot and hollows into his bones. It was the cost of sin, of indulgence, of forsaking sacred oaths. In loving her, Criston had condemned himself, he had condemned her. He had obliterated every whisper of chance for divine absolution — and Gods help him, he would do it again in favour of seeking his salvation at her feet. His eyes were fixed to hers through the looking glass; breathstealingly warm depths that gleamed with aching desperation for reprieve, with a staggering strength that humbled him. Her eyes were redemption and damnation both; refusing to grant him the mercy of looking away, generously allowing him to drown there. Criston’s heart was a savage beast; lurching, wrenching, twisting violently upon itself until it tore into raw, bleeding ribbons as it warred between surrender and restraint.

Behind her, the warmth of her body and the delicate, familiar perfume of her skin invaded the distance that was beyond indecorous in its meagreness. A vastness of words left unspoken thrummed between them, the air alive and writhing with searing tension. What she wanted, what she was so tentatively asking of him, was indisputable, and it set every shattered fragment of him aflame with both glorious heat and devouring hellfire. He should turn away. He should step back. He should deny her this. But he could not. He could not deny her anything. Criston lingered for a fractured breath, each inhale shallow as though drawing less air might somehow protect him from the intoxicating redolence of her. It was futile, hopelessly, laughably futile. His gaze drifted helplessly, reverently, along the elegant line of her neck, the graceful slope of her shoulders, to her spine, almost entirely bared to him through the diaphanous weave of her chemise. The undone lacings fell in silken tendrils pleading to be touched — tempting him to surrender utterly to sin. To lean forward and press his lips to that sacred place between shoulder and neck, the one he knew would draw from her the sweetest, most holy sigh ever to bless mortal ears, and raise a vast, gloriously intricate constellation of gooseflesh across her skin. Breath choked in his throat, every wisp of air his lungs craved dying on the heel of his yearn. Gods forgive him.

❛ Your grace—I . . . ❜ Blood rushed sonorous in his ear as he raised his hand, trembling fingers hovering just shy of the luring laces. His calloused fingertips burned with the desperate need to bridge that final sliver of space, to revel even in the mere sensation of her garments — for even that indirect contact, not the brush of her skin itself, felt like something holy. Criston reached . . . and then he ceased. His fingers curled into a tight, shaking fist. His chest trembled upon a pulsing, suffocating wave of guilt. He met her eyes again through the looking glass. The collide lasted for but a painful heartbeat before he averted his gaze; as if in apology for having come so near, for having claimed so selfishly and thus forsaken his oath to protect and honour her. For yearning, still, to worship at her altar as she so richly deserved, though he knew himself unworthy of such divine luxury.

❛ Forgive me. ❜ he murmured, his voice low and tormented, little above a broken rasp. His chest was tight, some merciless serpent coiled around his ribs, constricting tighter and tighter until it threatened to crack bone. ❛ Perhaps it is best you summon Talya, ❜ A final, desperate attempt to resist, to salvage what little purity remained of his soul and of hers, ❛ she would better know how to tend your silks without . . . without tarnishing them. ❜

[prophecyprompts]

#ASOIAF: A STORM OF SWORDS. an assortment of quotes from george r.r. martin's a song of ice & fire series, the third in the series.

i can be strong too.

there's been no one. only you.

you're mine. mine, as i'm yours. & if we die, we die. 

any man who must say "i am king" is no true king at all.

sometimes i think everyone is just pretending to be brave, & none of us really are. 

they’ve never seen a battle, they’ve never seen a man die, they know nothing. 

please, make it stop! make it stop hurting.

i only rescue maidens.

we shall talk when i return.

i must be strong. i must have fire in my eyes when i face them, not tears.

all these kings would do a deal better if they would put down their swords & listen to their mothers.

we look up at the same stars & see such different things.

i dreamed of you.

woman? is that meant to insult me?

it does no good to speak of roads not taken.

sacrifice is never easy, or it is no true sacrifice.

a pure world... i do not belong here.

i get as frightened as anyone.

the gods made the earth for all men to share. only when the kings come with their crowns & steel swords, they claimed it was all theirs.

he was a fool about that, & so much more.

i never asked for this crown.

go. we shall talk again after you have composed yourself.

it all goes back and back, to our mothers and fathers and theirs before them. we are puppets dancing on the strings of those who came before us, & one day our own children will take up our strings & dance on in our steads.

you're not going to die. you're not.

we're all just songs in the end; if we are lucky.

[goodnightmemes]

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON SEASON TWO SENTENCE STARTERS

❛ Duty is sacrifice. It eclipses all things, even blood. All men of honor must pay its price.

❛ War is coming, to the whole of the realm.❜

❛ I am indebted to you. ❜

❛ I'm afraid. ❜

❛ We should've just killed her when we had the chance. ❜

❛ When the king speaks, Your Grace, all hear it. ❜

❛ I find myself wondering...do we pursue the same end? ❜

❛ You must accept that the path to victory now is one of violence. ❜

❛ Did you think I would wither in your absence? ❜

❛ You only blame me because your true enemies are out of reach. ❜

❛ She holds love for our enemy. That makes her a fool. ❜

❛ I promise you, you will have all the vengeance that you seek, but you must keep a grip on your impulses. ❜

❛ Do anything but what I ask, and I'll bleed the whole lot of ya. ❜

❛ The gods punish us. They punish me. ❜

❛ This is not the time for blind accusations. We'll know who did this soon enough. ❜

❛ I will not be seen as weak. ❜

❛ Sometimes, we have to pretend. ❜

❛ I cannot trust you. I've never trusted you, wholly, much though I wished to, willed myself to. But now I have seen that your heart belongs only to you. ❜

❛ You think me some kind of monster. ❜

❛ You're pathetic. ❜

❛ We can afford no further mistakes. ❜

❛ You are mad. Mad! You cannot think that I did this! ❜

❛ You would send me to my death. ❜

❛ I would remind you only that when princes lose their temper, it is often others who suffer. ❜

❛ I see all your great adventures have done nothing for your looks. ❜

❛ For too long, I made it my aim to be of consequence. But now, I see that was the wish of a child. ❜

❛ I wish to spill blood, not ink! ❜

❛ Instead of judgment, you display impetuousness, and diminish us in the eyes of our enemy! ❜

❛ Fuck dignity! I want revenge. ❜

❛ They wish now not for the good of the realm, but for the petty satisfaction of vengeance. ❜

❛ Soon they will not even remember what it was that began the war in the first place. ❜

❛ There is no war so hateful to the gods as a war between kin. ❜

❛ I'm as fearsome as any of them. ❜

❛ You showed me grace when you could have withheld it. I'm not often surprised. ❜

❛ I cannot promise to make you happy. But I ask you: make this sacrifice willingly, for all of us. ❜

❛ If you've not yet surmised, you are welcome here. ❜

❛ Sin begets sin begets sin. ❜

❛ If dragons begin fighting dragons, we invite our own destruction. ❜

❛ Do not coddle me. Grant me at least that dignity. ❜

❛ Sadness is a condition of motherhood. ❜

❛ You have as much claim to grief as anyone. ❜

❛ Tales take on a life of their own, like weeds. Unless they are tended. ❜

❛ Always coming and going, aren't you? And I have to clean up afterwards. ❜

❛ You will die in this place. ❜

❛ I have been, at times, unkind, but never untrue. ❜

❛ You must go before you are discovered. ❜

❛ Your mother must've been very beautiful. ❜

❛ You should've burned them when you had the chance. ❜

❛ Is there no honor left in this world? ❜

❛ This is a better death than a traitor deserves. You should thank me for it. ❜

❛ I will not be made to look a fool in front of my allies and enemies. ❜

❛ I believe it is a sin to deny your appetites. They are what make us fully alive as mortal men. ❜

❛ If I may be so bold, you have not seemed yourself of late. ❜

❛ I've barely had the hours to grieve one tragedy before suffering the next. ❜

❛ I've come to know the face of tortured rest well enough. ❜

❛ Do you think simply wearing the crown imbues you with wisdom? ❜

❛ You have no idea the sacrifices that were made to put you on that throne. ❜

❛ What would you have me do? ❜

❛ Do simply what is needed of you: nothing. ❜

❛ Where have you been, these last days? You vanished without so much as a word.❜

❛ There are those who have mistaken my caution for weakness. Let that be their undoing. ❜

❛ If you die, all is lost. ❜

❛ The horrors I have just loosed cannot be for a crown alone. ❜

❛ Do you take issue with me? ❜

❛ I can sit still no longer. I must act. ❜

❛ I did not think they would be so eager to die. ❜

❛ I need them alive. I came here to raise swords, not corpses. ❜

❛ Will you goad me? When your bread and shelter now depend on my pleasure? ❜

❛ I mislike feeling powerless. ❜

❛ I do not know my part. The path I walk has never been trod. ❜

❛ What you cannot do, let others do for you. ❜

❛ There is more than one way to fight a war. ❜

❛ I do not wish to stand alone. ❜

❛ Has your loyalty faded? Or does it flourish only at night and flee the sunrise like a moth? ❜

❛ What we must do now is... terrible. ❜

❛ This is not war. These are crimes against the innocent, that any upright man would repudiate. ❜

❛ And once again, in the name of power, it's the weak and the women who must endure. ❜

❛ Was it worth the price? ❜

❛ I caution you, boldness is one thing, but overconfidence… ❜

❛ You have the impetuousness of youth, and its arrogance, neither of which is to be desired in a king. ❜

❛ Have the indignities of your childhood not yet sufficiently been avenged? ❜

❛ To claim a dragon, you must also be prepared to die. ❜

❛ You can't possibly still be angry about this. ❜

❛ You weren't going to bid me farewell? ❜

❛ It is your way, is it not? When something does not please you, you run. ❜

❛ There are older things in this world than you or I, or living memory. ❜

❛ You are not the player, but a piece on the board. As am I, for that matter. ❜

❛ It is my fault, I think, that you have forgotten to fear me. ❜

❛ It was worth the risk, no matter the outcome. ❜

❛ The enemy without may be fought with swords. The enemy within is more insidious. ❜

❛ Do you take me for a fool? ❜

❛ Oh, you make an art of provoking me. ❜

❛ Stop wasting your life waiting for something that'll never come. ❜

❛ I'm sure you did your best. ❜

❛ They will underestimate you, and this will be your advantage. ❜

❛ If the gods call me to greater things, who am I to refuse them? ❜

❛ Nothing is clean here. ❜

❛ The order of things has changed. Why not embrace it? ❜

❛ It does seem to me that you've made rather a mess here. ❜

❛ I don't need their love. I need their swords. ❜

❛ Mind your tongue. ❜

❛ I mislike all of this. ❜

❛ It seems you need us more than we need you. ❜

❛ So, what was the fucking point in all this then? ❜

❛ It's best to live, I think. However you do it. ❜

❛ You are not alone. ❜

❛ Will you prepare to face such an enemy? Or will you stay here and make yourself easy? ❜

❛ If you hinder our efforts through sloth or unreadiness, I will see you hanged, and your body fed to the dogs in the street. ❜

❛ You've arrived just in time to see my new army. What do you think of it? ❜

❛ This place will have you barking at the moon. ❜

❛ We must all make our sacrifices. ❜

❛ 'Tis no longer our rule that is threatened, our very lives. ❜

❛ Perhaps all men are corrupt and true honor is a mist that melts in the morning. ❜

❛ The dragons dance, and men are like dust under their feet. ❜

❛ We march now toward our annihilation. ❜

❛ There will be time enough to see which one of us is a coward. ❜

❛ There are omens here for those who seek them. ❜

❛ It's all a story and you are but one part in it. You know your part. ❜

❛ I am meant to serve you, and all of these with me, until death or the end of our story. ❜

❛ Be strong. You know you are just. ❜

❛ History will paint you a villain. ❜

❛ I am at last myself, with no ambition greater than to walk where I please and to breathe the open air. To die unremarked and unnoticed and be free. ❜

❛ You speak as if from a distant dream. ❜

❛ Come with me. ❜

❛ My part is here, whether I will or no. It was decided for me long ago. ❜

[soiledcloak]

cracks knuckles time to actually breathe life into this boy.