⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ the hand of the late king welcomes eledrion celtigar, the lord of house celtigar, to the kingsmoot. the realm knows them to be tenacious and perceptive, but the master of whisperers has unearthed information that speaks to their unyielding and dishonest tendencies. to dream of them would be to dream of tumultuous waves wearing down stone; your hands a reflection of your sigil, red scratches across pale skin; a crown of silver melting atop a heavy head; the sky and the sea indistinguishable along the horizon. they themselves dream of house celtigar on the throne. time is an unwieldy mistress, and only she may tell who will sit the iron throne when the dust settles.
basics.
NAME eledrion celtigar.
TITLES lord eledrion celtigar, heir to claw isle.
AGE three and thirty.
PRONOUNS he/him.
MOTIVATIONS to help his mother sit atop the iron throne.
visuals.
HEIGHT tbd.
EYES both bright blue, though the left has brown sectoral heterochromia.
HAIR a golden blond, chin length.
NOTABLE FEATURES tbd.
FACECLAIM freddie fox.
connections.
PARENTS lady maelora celtigar (mother). lord lorent celtigar (formerly rowan).
SIBLINGS lord daemian celtigar.
UNCLE ser lucerys celtigar.
COUSIN elaena pyke.
WANTED tbd.
your birth is an easy one, though your crying and fussing does not settle until you are placed atop your mother’s breast. you are not sure if your father hangs around her birthing bed long enough to acknowledge what a good lad you are, but he certainly did not have enough of a presence in your life to foster any memories. the septa and nursemaid tell you he adores your mother, so either you are such a strong burden that he has forsaken his own love, or he never truly loved her at all. you quickly decide it is the latter. your mother and grandfather remain by your side, so they must see something worthwhile in you. (and if they hadn’t, you would have likely fallen apart, turned into seafoam and spread across the shores of claw isle.)
so your father leaves to see the world. and your brother leaves to see the world. you see enough, while traveling with her, but otherwise you remain on claw isle, and that suits you just fine. you are the third most important figure upon the island, the heir of the heir, and you grow up on your grandfather’s knee, learning stories about your riches and your seas and your silver blood that runs through your veins, about what you are owed. it takes some pushing and prodding from your mother, but you live to please her, the woman who stayed, and in your early tens you sit in on council meetings and converse with the grieving and groaning townsfolk under her watchful eye. you study your history and your houses and your myths. you are the perfect heir.
your fifteenth nameday comes and goes alongside your grandfather’s death. by then, you feel you are good at your duties of heir, too good. at seven and ten, the boredom eats at you, eroding your resolve. you big her to go to king’s landing on your own, to the manse your house owns for when business needs be conducted in king’s landing. this is an easier request for her to acquiesce than your brother’s desire for squiredom. she at least has eyes in king’s landing, and a brother in the kingsguard to boot. the world feels open to you for the first time in your life, and with your freedom comes mischievousness. your eyes wander at the possibilities; delicious wines, and delicious men, and delicious women.
you become a bit of a nuisance in court, with a reputation that bodes ill. it is not until your brother decides to fuck off for good when you are five and twenty that you slow down, when you see her disappointment and her ire and remember that she has always been the one who stayed. even your grandfather had the gall to die. your resolve starts anew, and you seek the world with more of a level head, your whimsical days behind you. you are the son of lady celtigar, valyrian blood courses through your veins. you are better than alester westerling with his brood of mismatched bastards and you are better than those who seek nothing grander than to be a knight, always at someone’s beck and call. you return to claw isle with business on your mind, working your mother’s trade deals and focusing on her people, and remain thus for the following years.
and then she covets something far greater than either of you; the iron throne. ever her golden boy, her favorite son, you support her claim. the return of your father and brother mean nothing to you; just as she has stood beside you, you have stood beside her in return, a symbiotic relationship, where you give as much as you can to make up for all you have taken. the throne knows who is worthy of it, and it will soon call your mother’s name. you will be there to see it happen.
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ the hand of the late king welcomes torrha snow, the bastard of house bolton, to the kingsmoot. the realm knows them to be curious and independent, but the master of whisperers has unearthed information that speaks to their irreverent and self-destructive tendencies. to dream of them would be to dream of scarlet bruises upon your jaw clashing horribly with your auburn coils; the surgeon’s precision means nothing to you who strikes to overwhelm; a wonder at the world that has shown you nothing but teeth; the lone wolf dies, but you are no wolf. they themselves dream of house bolton on the throne. time is an unwieldy mistress, and only she may tell who will sit the iron throne when the dust settles.
basics.
NAME torrha snow.
TITLES none. hope that helps!
AGE five and twenty.
PRONOUNS she/her.
MOTIVATIONS adventure. mischief.
visuals.
HEIGHT tbd.
EYES dark brown and odd in their emptiness.
HAIR a bajillion copper curls, typically in two messy braids or a ponytail.
NOTABLE FEATURES freckles galore despite living almost entirely in the cold northern sun. always has a cut or a bruise of some sort somewhere.
FACECLAIM erin kellyman.
connections.
PARENTS lord randyll bolton (father)(deceased). lady myriame glover (formerly ryswell).
SIBLINGS lord jorah (older brother), lord jacks (older brother).
WANTED tbd.
tw: child abuse
your mother was a fiery thing in her youth, a lover of adventure and a shunner of emotions. she was betrothed in her early twenties, as young ladies are wont to be, but with a difficult year on the horizon, her wedding is postponed for moons on end. she is bored, and your father is quite the handsome man, though sadly attached. or, perhaps not so sadly? he seduces himself into her bed, and she is all too willing, reveling in the secret scandal of it, a betrothed lady coupling with a married ruling lord! a father of two sons already! how horrid! she is delighted.
some illness comes and goes during the next few moons, but overall she is well, in excellent health, until she isn't. the pain had been unbearable, she has told you, and no maester can figure out the cause. there was no reason to fear, however; a baby comes out, ugly and bald, covered in blood. but how! she comes out with the truth; there is no babe without coupling, and the last time she had had the chance had been during lord bolton's visit…..explanation well enough, for your mother is no mystical being, but the invisibility of the pregnancy stumps them all. had she known….had she had an inkling….she would have drunk a hundred cups of moon tea, just to avoid you. alas. you are here, and you are now a problem.
her previous betrothed is disgusted at the disloyalty, at his untouched bride being, well, touched, and the betrothal is forfeit, leaving both you and your mother with a very irate lord ryswell. he screams at her, but in the end she is his daughter…you, however, are the ill begotten whelp she has cursed the family with, and he reminds you of that every day of your young life.
the ugly little head soon sprouts curls of red, matching your mother's: a beacon for the north of her indiscretion. and you…you are not an easy child. only half loved, as a little girl you filled your days with exploring the keep. with no maester appointed to your studies, there is not much else to do. you are regularly underfoot, and the servants find you both exasperating and pitiful. when the older kids (cousins, stableboys, children of servants…) push you down and find no rebuke from your grandfather over it, you become their little game. the bullying is harsh, but you cannot be held down. years five, six, seven see you covered in cuts and bruises, both delivered to you and a consequence of your revenge. your mother tries to put an end to it, many times, but your grandfather puts a stop to her; she is not like you, myriame; she will not grow up to be a lady. best not hide from her how she will be treated by the world.
still, you are her daughter. she buys you pretty dresses that are destroyed after a few wears, has servants braid your hair into plaits that unravel come nighttime, feeds you sweets when she feels sentimental, curled up with you under her covers. her last act of motherhood comes moons after you turn eight. another offer is made for your mother’s hand, this time by as lord nonplussed regarding her bastard child. she has proven herself a woman capable of birthing healthy children, and that is all that he really wants. arrangements are made for your mother, but no agreement comes to you. your grandfather had assumed your mother would take you with her, but her betrothed does not want another man’s bastard running about. each side tries to push you off, until your mother writes to a lord bolton, begging him to have you or else you will be thrown out.
in a matter of weeks, you meet your father. he is tall, striking, old. he does not smile when he sees you, nor does he squish your cheeks as your mother does when she is feeling motherly and fond. in fact, the moment you step foot into the dreadfort, you are given rules, and rules, and rules. you have two older brothers (brothers! what fun!), one you must never disturb and one who is away. you will be quiet. you will not cause trouble. you will sit with a maester every day to learn to read and write and count. no children bother you, lest they meet your father’s wrath. in fact, they seem…scared of you, which is thrilling, at first, before it becomes boring.
you have moved from half loved to unloved. bastards have their use he had told your mother, though what use that is, you never figure it out, for a year later he is sent to the wall and your lord brother becomes the lord bolton. you keep to your studies and your loneliness and your boredom, but when they threaten to overcome you, you seek out fights with whomever is willing to take on lord bolton’s bastard. he is not here to intervene, and you are the one asking for it, so be it.
you are a mess, but you are young. the keep’s master-at-arms has you train under him. you refuse to fight cleanly enough to properly wield a sword, but the bow calls to your name, and soon enough you are begging him to help you with your archery every morning. the boltons have no short list of enemies, and the master-at-arms joins forces with the castellan to teach you how to defend not only yourself, but also the keep.
from then on, you have something of a job, though since neither man has left his position in all these years, you are still something of a wanderer. the surrounding villages see you upon horseback, and your curiosity takes you back and forth between the north and south, though never past the riverlands. southern lords do not look upon northerners with a kind eye, let alone northern bastards, and your now is a signifier for narrowed eyes and pursed lips.
the kingsmoot comes as a surprise, and you beg your brother to join, knowing your time at the capital will be much better with the bolton retinue there to keep others from bothering you. (you are surprised when he acquiesces, for your begging rarely brings about change. you would know; you have begged for his name for years and years, but all it does is fall upon deaf ears). you have no use trailing along, not really, but it matters not. you are here for an adventure, and you will grasp it any way you can.
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ the hand of the late king welcomes imry redwyne, the lord of house redwyne, to the kingsmoot. the realm knows them to be clear-headed and resourceful, but the master of whisperers has unearthed information that speaks to their high-handed and opportunistic tendencies. to dream of them would be to dream of turning water into wine into gold; meticulously embroidered robes of burgundy and azure signifying well placed pride in a house; black hair lightened by shades out of a love borne for the sun; easy smiles and kind eyes because you never had the need to be hardened, only shaped and molded as a family sees fit. they themselves dream of house redwyne on the throne. time is an unwieldy mistress, and only she may tell who will sit the iron throne when the dust settles.
basics.
NAME imry redwyne.
TITLES lord redwyne, lord of the arbor, master of coin.
AGE five and thirty.
PRONOUNS he/him.
MOTIVATIONS to get to the iron throne...or as close to it as he can.
visuals.
HEIGHT 195 cm (6'5").
EYES dark brown. knowing.
HAIR long and black, often in multiple braids. some areas are lightened from a lifetime chasing the sun.
NOTABLE FEATURES tbd.
FACECLAIM uli latukefu.
connections.
PARENTS lord kairo redwyne (father) (deceased). lady sela redwyne (formerly estermont) (deceased).
SIBLINGS lady mela (younger sister), lady vaiora (younger sister), liege tbd (younger sibling).
UNCLE lord henare redwyne.
WANTED tbd.
your parents have always told you you were perfect.
…
…
all right, perhaps that is not the exact term they would use. you yourself do not consider yourself perfect; even the gods are incomplete, each upholding a pillar of knowledge the other lacks wisdom in. but seven, you have always been self assured. the world is large, yes, but you are larger than life, grabbing it by the ropes the way you would a ship, forcing the winds in your sails to obey what you saw fit. your childhood was spent between islands along westeros; estermont, where your maternal cousins resided, fair isle, the shield islands…each piece of land offered something to learn about defense, offense, commerce…but nothing so dear as the arbor, your pride and joy. as heir to it, the island is, naturally, where you had spent most of your time.
studying had never been your forte; you learned by doing, and your father understood that. it is easier to learn of sigils and history and trade from the mouths of the men who lived through everything. you are a known face around the island, boisterous in your youth, but mellowing down into a graceful sort of leadership. your chin has always been held up high, your optimism contagious. your mother’s death does not hit you as it does your siblings, and your father’s demise passes with little fanfare in your mind. life is a series of transitions, from boyhood, to adolescence, to the lord redwyne of the arbor. there is no event you bear, no responsibility you cannot carry.
your excellence comes in the prosperous endeavors you add to the already numerous areas of success your house has. really, there is nowhere to go but up; the sky is the limit, and you need no rest, not until you can perch upon the clouds. as your turn thirty, you are requested as master of coin, and you leave the care of the arbor to your younger siblings, having complete faith in their ability to take the reins of the island.
you who are shrewd, wise, knowing…you do not foresee the suggestion of the kingsmoot, but you cannot deny its appeal. why, what good is a discarded princess and her brood of street urchins? the late king aegor had disowned her for a reason, and as a man on his council till his final breath, you trusted his opinion. and since the sky still remains out of reach, the closest thing your hands can grasp is the iron throne.
if you win, you are king. and if you fail, you have never fallen without taking hold of a ledge to pull yourself back up.
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ the hand of the late king welcomes davos swann, the lord of stonehelm, to the kingsmoot. the realm knows them to be protective and sincere, but the master of whisperers has unearthed information that speaks to their uncharitable and willful tendencies. to dream of them would be to dream of the light of the moon catching steel striking steel; a large heart with its gates sealed shut; the pursuit of perfection in a craft till mastery or death, whichever comes first; tension in the shoulders unravelled only under deafening thunder and blinding lightning. they themselves dream of house baratheon on the throne. time is an unwieldy mistress, and only she may tell who will sit the iron throne when the dust settles.
basics.
NAME davos swann.
TITLES ser davos, second sibling of the lady swann.
AGE seven and twenty.
PRONOUNS he/him.
MOTIVATIONS a good marriage, he says, but inside there is nothing.
visuals.
HEIGHT 185 cm (6'1").
EYES dark brown and dimmed, with the occassional glint when something piques his interest.
HAIR tight coils, always neatly cropped.
NOTABLE FEATURES white, feather like markings across his back and shoulders.
FACECLAIM victor alli.
connections.
PARENTS lord borros swann (father) (deceased). lady perianne swann, formerly bracken (mother) (deceased).
SIBLINGS lady tbd (older sister), liege tbd (older sibling), lady anora (younger sister), lady jerica (younger sister).
OTHER lord triston connington (trained under) (deceased), lady helvis baratheon (former host).
WANTED tbd.
tw: death, um. lightning?
your father believes the pen to be mightier than the sword, yet the weapon has been an extension of your limb since the day you turned four, your little hands barely wrapping around the grip of the wooden sword your stonehelm’s master-at-arms had given you, eyes sparkling with kindhearted laughter at the furrow between your brows (an expression drawn on your face purposefully, for it is the same one your mother has when she says she is focusing on something).
your lady mother says you require balance, in your life, so you take her words to heart: even if you do not wish to spend more time on your education than is strictly necessary, you still ensure you excel at such endeavors, for you are a little lord, after all, and little lords must know how to defend from both hand and mouth.
still, it comes as no surprise when at nine you are sent to griffin’s roost to squire for lord triston connington. carrying a lord’s armor, grooming their horse, following their orders…the dullness of these tasks is quickly overshadowed by the sense of adventure. nine and living away from home for the first time, learning the weight of a nonwooden sword in your grip, following your lord out to hunt and seeing the stormlands in ways you had never seen before, not when you were a little boy, begging to be released from behind your mother’s skirts. you miss her, naturally, miss her squishing your cheeks when you said something silly, miss her soft hands gracing your forehead whenever you fell ill or were injured. but you are becoming a man (and a knight, soon!) and you are as obstinate in your training as you are in every other section of your life.
at three and ten, a heavy storm looms over the keep you and your lord are residing at. he tells you to come inside, that you will grow sick from the weather, and you pretend to acquiesce, only to sneak off later with your heavy sword in hand, wishing to try out the new moves the lord of the keep had taught you. what can a storm do to me? you ask yourself, the storms run through my blood. your mother had always said that, both when she chastised your willfulness and when she praised your determination. you have your father’s blood. only three and ten, yet already with the hubris of a man, and it becomes your downfall. well. almost.
you do not remember much from the incident, only the trees billowing in the winds, the hard pattering of rain against the wide open courtyard you practice in, your hands gripping onto your sword like a life line before bright light flashes and tosses you what feels like miles away into the dirt. your eyes slip closed, at some point, but your ears pick up a deafening noise, a familiar sound from throughout your childhood but with the volume multiplied a thousand times. i should go back inside, your mind blearily supplies, but your fingers will not move, let alone your legs. or not. the fear grips you in a distant way, as if you are watching someone else trapped in their paralysis.
the next time you open your eyes, you are in a bed and your eyes are tearing up before you even register the pain. you do not recall the maester’s name, but you remember his ecstatic smile, his prayer sent to the father, as he rushes out. in moments, it feels as if the entire keep has returned, and your eyes go back and forth between the faces your migraine addled brain tries to register. you look for your mother, but she is not here. where is she?
they recount the story, reminding you time and time again of your foolishness, how you had been struck by lightning, how there were now patterns, white in both heat and in color, trailing up your back to your shoulders. the maester had to keep you down to allow you time to recover from the shock, and he fears for you, your future. someone young as yourself, could you handle the aftereffects?
but you did not die, did you?
yes, there is a permanent ringing in your ears. yes, sometimes (not often!) you feel confused, uncertain, not knowing where you are or who you are. the burns across your back are horrid and memorable. but, seven.
you did not die, did you?
had this not been the excitement you were looking for?
you know, now, not to train during heavy storms. but the feeling…you cannot describe it. all you can do is throw yourself headfirst into your craft. and your swordsmanship, shoddy as it is right now, is your craft. you know you have nothing to inherit; what is there for you? an administrative position within your keep? no. you are a squire because your parents wished for you to become a knight. no one can lock you up in the safety of a castle.
your heart is large, and there is a cell within it for everyone you meet, with a large hall in the middle housing the members of your family and your lord connington, who showed you the world as you grew from boy to man. you will help others when you can, a kindness taught to you by your mother, but you do not hide any snide remarks or try to keep your brows from raising at what are, to you, ridiculous decisions. you may understand politics, but keeping your tongue in check has never been your strong suit. you win your first squire’s joust at four and ten, and inform your losing opponents of every wrong move they took. you see your older sister embroidering a piece you find particularly hideous, and you tell her exactly what she should change to better suit your tastes. this, to you, is generosity, friendship, love. it leaves you with the opposite of admirers, but you cannot bring yourself to care enough. in your own eyes, you deserve to be heard.
you are (finally, finally, finally) knighted at eighteen, and rather than continuing with tourneys, which you find fun in their own right, but nothing worth dedicating your life to, you hunt down bandits with lord connington, determined to keep your little pieces of the stormlands safe. (well, none of it will ever be yours, truly, not in a way that matters, only in that you find the lush trees mesmerizing and the harsh claps of thunder as gentle as a lullaby.) it is during one of these excursions, when you are four and twenty, that lord connington loses his life. you become closed off, then, your opinions barely register to yourself, all that is on your mind is the gleam of your sword and the fastest way to get a man to his knees.
each year since your knighthood, you have found a darkness seeping in, though it is not until lord triston’s demise that you register it. was it leftover, from your near death? replaced by a mighty search for adrenaline, only now finding its place within the valves of your heart when life starts to slow down?
you had already stopped seeing to the bandits at five and twenty, stopped looking for adventure and coin and bodies to keep you warm. the world feels so heavy, suddenly, and all you can think of is your fingers and your legs, trudging through molasses, twelve years ago, unable to move. the burns upon your back flare up, and you hold back your winces as you look into the sad little faces of your younger sisters.
this downtrodden persona persists, until your beloved parents pass, and instead of consoling your family, your struggling older sister, whom you have not seen in many moons, you turn your nose up at her, and the opinions are back, yet in your continued grief, they are harsher than they ever had been. she is not doing enough, she is hysterical, she is allowing this event to cloud her judgement. how can she be the ruling lady of stonehelm? how can she hold up what their parents had. no, no. she is doing it all wrong. she has to…she has to…
you do not know, for you have forgotten your parents’ teachings, by now, and all you have is a sword in hand and nothing else to give the world, to give your own family. with the kingsmoot in close sight, you find following your parents’ bid for the throne to be laughable, at best, and humiliating, at the worst. instead, you look to your liege lord, lord baratheon, and his new wife, a woman you knew for many of your formative years, and hope that, should their dreams for the throne be actualized, you can get them to remember you, their loyal subject, and ensure your weak willed sister does not bring upon the collapse of what remains of house swann.
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ the hand of the late king welcomes sabitha tully, the lady of riverrun, to the kingsmoot. the realm knows them to be resolute and purposeful, but the master of whisperers has unearthed information that speaks to their dissonant and touchy tendencies. to dream of them would be to dream of a tine of a trident bent out of shape; memories of giggles and sweet words overshadowed by the clink of coin; a defiance obstructing no one but yourself; dark velvet waves pinned meticulously away from rolling dark velvet eyes; the father and the maiden with hands of stone at each other’s throats. they themselves dream of someone outside of house tully on the throne. time is an unwieldy mistress, and only she may tell who will sit the iron throne when the dust settles.
basics.
NAME sabitha tully.
TITLES lady sabitha, third child of the lord tully.
AGE one and thirty.
PRONOUNS she/her.
MOTIVATIONS newly has an eye on a spot in the small council. her usual motivation is spiting her father till his last breath.
visuals.
HEIGHT 178 cm (5'10").
EYES a velvet dark brown, often rolling or narrowed.
HAIR a long, soft black with the slightest wave, usually pinned together or braided with accessories fitting her outfit.
NOTABLE FEATURES tbd.
FACECLAIM simone ashley.
connections.
PARENTS lord balan tully (father). lady hema tully (formerly dayne) (deceased).
SIBLINGS lord tbd (older brother), lord mordhred (older brother), lady priya (younger sister).
NIBLINGS lady amerei, lord grover, lady aila.
WANTED tbd.
you have had all of three name days when your place as the beloved newest member of house tully is overshadowed by your goodsister growing heavy with child, and four name days when you become an aunt in your own right. we are not so different, you think, she has brown eyes. i have brown eyes. she has black hair. I have black hair. Yet she is the first grandchild, the heir, evidence of the legacy continuing, and she has taken your place atop your father's knee.
a sibling follows, and your older brothers bring about three more children, pushing you lower and lower in order of importance, of adoration. the heir and the spare now have their own heirs and spares, and what does that leave you as? the pretty bait your father uses to lure the other fish of the riverlands. you will not inherit, but that does not mean you cannot warm a bed, cannot bring in others to boast marriage into the tully legacy.
your family is a happy one, and you think you are happy too, even as this bitterness stirs inside your heart, claws at your chest. you manage to find your own circle; even if you are heir to nothing, there is no shortage to young lieges whose parents wish for them to get into the tullys’ good graces. you find attention in your gaggle of riverlanders, in the teachings of your septas and maesters (you are an excellent learner, they tell you, and you tell yourself any compliment must be true), under the eyes of the gods within the sept. how wonderful it is, to have the adoration of such large beings, hearing your prayers, offering you their wisdom, their kindness.
best of all, perhaps, you find comfort in the arms of lady walda wode. you grow from giggling youngs girls to mischievous teenagers, rubbing shoulders during dinner, holding hands under the table in the library, sneaking kisses in the gardens around the sept. she is yours, and yours only; your cousins and your siblings and your father and the riverlands cannot have her.
at twenty, you asks your father, again and again, to allow you to marry her, but all your pleas and convincing fall upon deaf ears. why not, you implore, my brother has married a bastard! why can i not marry a lady? he holds a grudge against her father decades deep, and tells you it is mercy enough for him to have allowed her to be your lady-in-waiting. but a wife to his daughter? out of the question. so, together you hatch your plans. she returns to her family’s home, so that no one may suspect a thing, and write to each other of plans to escape together. you will not be able to live on the streets, highborn as you are, too spoiled to fend for yourselves. but the sept, well, what an honor it would be to join there. perhaps you will not be women and wife, but you can live together as you learn the teachings of the faith, and you will figure out how to be stationed together, somewhere that requires two septas, where you can live together for the rest of your days.
it is a foolish plan, you realize now. the night you grab the few belongings you have decided to take with you so that you may take the wheel house (its driver handsomely paid to sneak away with it without a word to your family), the guards descend upon you and drag you to your father’s study. he is calm when he calls you an idiot, to think you can make such plans under his nose, as if every person within riverrun, within the riverlands is not pressed directly under his thumb. quiet, as he tells you he forbids you from leaving the keep for the next year, so that you may think upon your foolishness, your audacity to go against him and what good it has now served you. but you can feel it, the anger simmering between his solemn features and his somber tone. you must remember that, in the end, any choice made by your family has to be approved by him. any marriage, any adoption, the stranger; everything goes through him, first; he has not held this house together by being so easily disobeyed.
moons later, you find that lady walda had found herself alone at the sept, and with her own father’s angry with her as well, continued in their original path to become a septa. you spend your year watching everyone coming and going within the keep, your depression creating a field of misery around your person that no one wishes to encroach upon. but when the year ends, and some of your freedom returns, you are not left alone long enough to plan again. the suitors come in their multitudes, from all over the riverlands and even without. he cannot leave you to think for much longer, you know. an attachment to his benefit is for the best, for him.
but you….you are his daughter, and you can hold your own grudges just as long. every suitor or charmer or wellwisher is shunned away; you make your stance explicit: you do not wish to wed them. you do not wish to wed anyone. arguments break out between you and your sire, about the little molehills (your dress, your pickiness for food, your seclusion in your room) and the mountains (how you are humiliating him, unwilling to accept your place in the house, what your place has always been, a pretty face to bring the vassals closer to their lieges). your mother dies amidst your combined reign of terror, and it makes you all the more sullen and horrid.
years after, your uncle, a fully grayed man a decade younger than your father, demands you make yourself useful. he teaches you of coin, how to balance the family’s ledgers, where the gold comes and where it goes. you were always a good student, and so the knowledge grips onto you like a barnacle. your nieces’ dowries, the staffs wages, your father’s medications (for he is quite old, and the hammer of age will soon fall harshly upon him), any information of the keep’s money is now within your hands. when that same uncle retires himself from his position, stating he is much too old to follow every dragon coming into and out of the house’s coffers, you gain full control.
your father is unhappy with your position. he tells you fine, run off and become a titleless septa then. and perhaps if this was years ago, you would have, but the timing is too little too late. you had loathed the lack of control you had over your life, but now you have this, the strings of the family almost wrapped around your fingers, if not for your father’s final say so. the feeling is addicting, and you were always one for obsession.
he continues to breathe, and you continue to hold your grudge, though now with the king dead, your eyes are leaving your keep, the only place you have truly ever known, and looking up king’s landing, upon the position of master of coin. surely you, in your brilliance, your meticulousness, your sternness, would make a good candidate for such? you await the kingsmoot with baited breath, but do not tell your family of your ideas. the seven bestow their blessings upon you, you know it to be true.
