Nerd In the North 6-11 (Patreon)

Stannis felt his breath drag out as his brother’s body met the ground, the mud of the Reach caring little for those that claimed themself king. His brother’s armor was swallowed up with the squelch of wet earth and a final rattle of breath.

He watched it all with steady eyes.Even as blood poured free and a final rattle left Renly’s emptied lungs, the true king of Westeros refused to look away.

No necessary act of his own hands had he failed to cast his eyes over. Not in all his thirty-five years, and certainly not now. A tremble in his arm forced his eyes down to his sword, white-gold light dimming to near nothing. What…

The blade cooled in the morning air, but the drain in his marrow remained. 

Each blow he had struck against Renly had felt... more strenuous than the past. Not the exertion of muscle against steel — he was a Baratheon, he had the strength for that — but something deeper. Almost parasitic, as if Renly’s summer blessing had not just defended against him but leeched at his vitality.The last blow more than any else had taken so much from him.

As if he had run a league in full plate uphill, Stannis forced out another breath as strength poured free from him. Hollow; something inside him felt emptied, the white-gold power he held close less than it should have. What…

The thought refused to finish as another harsh breath tore free. What is this?

“Y-you!”The true king breathed in again, air tasting of copper and churned earth as he raised his head.

The next scream that tore from the crowd was less than human.

"STANNIS!"

It was as much his name as it was an accusation.

The Knight of Flowers burned across the distance, the field swallowed beneath his feet as he charged forward. In full plate, his armor was nearly blinding, a light of pale gold that was the glory of the tourney ground made manifest; weaponized vanity that screamed of summer and soft beds.

"Monster!"

The word might as well have been a slap to the face, yet Stannis did not flinch. He raised his head higher, boots finding purchase in the grass and mud. The leather of the hilt was slick under his fingers, from sweat or blood or whatever else.Truly, it did not matter as long as his grip held firm.

“H-hold, Tyrell!” Despite his sudden frailty, his voice still carried the strength and volume of a man of his house. “The d-duel is done. Judgement has b-”

Loras had no ear for judgment as he struck out.

Teeth rattled in his jaw as Stannis caught the blow against his own blade, white-gold dimming under the pale gold of the Tyrell lordling. Where Renly failed to push him back, the man he so openly called ‘friend’ had strength of arms to spare. “Murderer!”Another blow forced another step, another to guard against a blow as strong as the screams from Loras’ lips. Another, another, and yet another as Stannis gritted his teeth, the blessing from above still present but far from the peak he had just known. “Cur!”

This was not the playful sparring of a boy; this was the fury of a lover scorned. The pale gold light of the Tyrell’s aura flared, hot and angry, searing against the waning white of Stannis’s own blessing.

"You murdered him!" Tears poured forth and turned to steam against a face that shone with beauty even in grief. "You cold, heartless—"

"I executed a traitor," Stannis shoved forward with his sword, forcing the younger man back a step. "By the laws of men under the eyes of the g-gods."

"Damn your laws!"

A figure charged from the left, wordless but enraged all the same, forcing Stannis to raise his blade high or risk his head. Damn! Another grunt spilled free as a blow even harder than the Tyrell’s forced him back yet another step. 

No helm showed the face of a woman, a wench nearly half a hand taller than he, with strength to rival his greatest blows. Where Loras was a pale gold for all the riches of his house, her light shone a faint silver, the color of the moon upon a pond.

Steadfast and pure, yet honed to martial purpose. "For Renly!" 

Stannis parried her second strike, the shudder traveling up his shoulder. Two of them. 

"Die!" 

And no sooner than he thought that, there was a third.

A boy?And it was.

A child, no more than twelve, and a Tarly by the look of the huntsman on his surcoat. Scarlet light burned bright around him as he surged into the fray. Not the red tinged with shadow of the Red Witch he’d slain, but an angry haze of dry rust and old blood as the boy swung a sword too big for him with a strength that was far too weighty to be his own. "Die, die, die!"

Stannis was forced back again, repositioning even as he fought for his life.

He blocked another of the Tarly boy’s wild swings, light sparking against his own. A heartbeat later, he deflected the giant wench’s heavy chop and caught a thrust from the Tyrell atop his crossguard.

Three lights; Pale Gold, Faint Silver, and a Blaze of Red.

All three against his fading White-Gold.

The Father Judges. The words were grim even as he felt the blessing waver further. The Warrior Fights. 

“Kinslayer!”

If any other insult had been a blow, this was a hammer strike from Robert before his elder brother had gone to seed. Stannis would not shy away from his actions, and he knew the reason for them, but…

Kinslaying... 

The act had a cost, clearly. 

Stannis had known there would be a cost, no matter if it was simple kindness. Yet — his eyes darted to his dimming blade again — the act of killing his own blood, however necessary, however just, had stripped him of something more than just favor in the eyes of man. “Kinslayer!” The word was screamed aloud again, driving Stannis from his thoughts as a gauntlet drove itself into his face. "Back!" 

Stannis roared the word, breath hitching as he pushed as much of his blessing as he could through the blade. The ground shattered apart, mud and earth thrown into the air from the force of it. It was not the thunderous explosion it should have been, not the arc of power that had smited the Drowned God’s beast.

Yet, it threw both boy and woman back.

Loras drove his sword into the ground to catch himself and raised his head again, eyes burning with power. "I will mount your head on a spike, Stannis! You will beg to be fed to the dogs! I will show you all the mercy you showed your brother!"

"You will try.” His jaw stung, blood pouring free from the only wound he’d taken so far as he kept on the retreat. "And you will fail. Stand down, Ser Loras. I have no wish to kill grieving children."

"I am no child!" Loras spat at the ground as he stood to his full height and raised his sword hight. “To battle!”

The Tyrell host surged forward at the call; a hundred thousand men in a sea of green and gold rolling forward against their rightful King, screaming for his blood.A horn blew, the horn of a messenger, as a rider galloped up to him. "Your Grace!" Horse foamng at the mouth and face pale as milk, the man wore the stag and kept his eyes firmly on Stannis, seemingly oblivious to the duel or the encroaching army. "Your Grace! The coast! The ships!"

Stannis did not look away from Loras as the Tyrell man walked forward. "Speak, man. Clearly."

"The Iron Men! Th-they came from the river! Longships, Your Grace, l-longships and… and monsters!" Voice high and thin with terror, the man spoke nothing but what Stannis knew as truth. "Leviathans! Great and small beasts of the sea! The Fast and Furious, the Man of Antlers, the Stag of the Sea, all gone! They’re eating the supply lines and…and  eating the ships!"

Stannis felt the world tilt as he took in truth after truth.

The rear…

His supply lines. His retreat. His connection to Dragonstone.

A roar tore free from him as he sent Loras flying back with a brutal slash, the edge catching the Knight of Flowers firmly against his chestplate. 

Stannis looked up, fury in his gaze, at the ocean of Reachmen charging his way. The Tarly boy, panting and red-faced, and the Tarth girl, weeping silently, rose to their feet with swords raised and ready for more.

Divine Right… His grip tightened around his swordhilt. This was supposed to be my victory. Am I not blessed with your WIll? 

Yet, Renly was dead by his hand and a greater portion of that same Will had been stripped from him as recompense. He had sacrificed his brother, a traitor to man and gods, and was punished for it; surrounded on both sides. By land, an army of summer children playing at war and by sea, monsters from the depths.

He was the King. He was the chosen of the Father and the instrument of His Justice.

And yet, he had no throne, no heir, and no brothers.

"...Sound the retreat.”

He did not shout and yet his voice cut through the screaming, through the weeping, through the madness that surrounded him..

"Your Grace?" 

"Back to the ships.” The words were poison as they left him, his face a mask of bitter iron. "What remains of them. We sail for King's Landing."

“But Your Gr-”

Stannis paid no further heed to the messenger as he took flight back to the line of his men, dimming sword sheathed. He did not look back at his brother’s body, the sound of his teeth meeting loud in his skull.

This war shall be won. I swear it.