@halfgigas, " i never considered myself tough. "
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀two moons have waxed and waned since the levin fell and struck, two moons since its fire made ash and blackened bone of lyonel's eldest boy, and two moons since the storm swept his ashes across the sea and sky. so ended the son of tempests, with skyfire for his pyre and shipbreaker's bay his sepulchre, born beneath a blistering sandstorm scourging the dunes of the south and reared amid salt and sea, from the waters of the womb unto the waters of death; thus spoke the maester monfryd in parting from the fallen, but lyonel recalls naught save the terrible din of wind, ringing hollowly through his hearing 'til it drew itself into a thin-boned, tormented strand, one taut string of a lute stretched ceaselessly and trembling through his skull. the wind, and his son's flesh melting from his face, sliding slick and sagging from his bones.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀at times, 'tis brienne's face that melts, too; the ruddy flesh of plump cheeks puckering and curling like scorched parchment and the sea-blue eyes running as water from the two hollows of her little skull. revellent these visions be and lyonel stands as beset by ghosts, throttled by grief and wrath alike, scarce a man now but a storm seething and slaughtering. recalls not monfryd's words, nor the precise day nor hour wherein the war was kindled but undying and bloody it now gnaws at the realm's bones, raging and howling. but rages and howls duncan not, but unmoving he stands as though wrought of the very steel that girds him.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀" tough as iron, are you? " lyonel says from astride his mount as they'd met him, lyonel's retinue and the kingsguard's own beneath a rain-swollen sky. i never considered myself tough. " i never considered you a dragon. " he makes a face as eyes of honeyed amber settle upon the man within whose palms his brittle, blackened heart sits and where laughter was once wont to flicker. " no men, but honourless dogs, the cunts in their white gowns. " he declares, cocks his head and looks upon the plates of white steel that encase this ser duncan. " it fits you well. "
