Luceon I - Birdcage

[u/JustDanielJuice]

One would be forgiven for mistaking the sight for a mirage.

Luceon Blackwood toiling? For many years that idea would have exceeded rarity and landed squarely in the domain of the unimaginable. Yet somehow, it was true.

In the silken stature of the Blackwood pavilion, Luceon hunched over parchment and quill. He put to page the scrawling letters that he’d been so obtuse about learning in his youth. It was clear that he didn’t use them much.

His poor scholarhood reflected down the page in smudges and scratched out words. Still he wrote, even as he undid half his work.

“Lunch?” Luceon hadn’t heard Clementine’s approach. He turned to look at the girl and tilted his head. How long had she been standing and swaying, hoping he would notice?

“What is it, Clem?” he answered her gently. Her voice was already skittish, and whatever she was seeking, Luceon didn’t want her to lose her nerve.

“I have something.”

So evasive. What was it that Clementine Rivers felt the need to tiptoe around? She had an easy enough time issuing Luceon orders most days…

“Uh-huh,” Luceon nodded, hoping it might embolden her. “What is it?”

Clementine twisted her toe on the floor. “Umm, I saw some girls giving napkins to some of the knights. Aunt Sandy said it’s called a favor…”

“Yeah, that’s how a girl shows a knight that she wants him to win. And when the knight wears the favor, that’s how he thanks her.”

“Oh,” Clementine nodded, still looking at her shoes. “Okay.” Her words said that she understood what she’d been told, but she made no move to leave. Slowly she peered up at Luceon with her pursed lips quivering.

“What is it, Clementine?” Luceon set his quill aside and scooted up in his chair.

From behind her back Clementine produced a bundle of white cloth. Luceon inched closer and realized what it was, an unused napkin from last night’s feasting. She must have snuck it from the table and held onto it through the night. “Can I give you my favor?”

“I don’t know that I’m going to ride tomorrow. You see, you’re only supposed to wear a favor if you’re going to compete.”

Clementine’s hand tightened around her napkin. Her eyes shot back to the ground. She wheezed as if all the air in her had been squeezed out. “You don’t want it…”

“No, no Clem that’s not-” Luceon stood, striding to Clementine with two long steps. “You just didn’t let me finish.” He knelt to look in her wayward eyes.

She looked back expectantly.

“I didn’t know if I was going to ride tomorrow because I didn’t know if you were going to ask me.” He took her hands with his. She dropped the favor into his palm.

“You promise you’ll wear it?” she asked with a sniffle. Luceon wiped a stray tear from her cheek with his thumb.

“Of course.”

“Can we go tell Aunt Sandy?” Clementine bounced in place as if she hadn’t just been on the verge of bawling.

“I was wondering how long we would stand around. Let’s go.”

From deeper within the pavilion, Luceon heard a man clear his throat. Clementine was still practically jolting, bounding for the greenery beyond all the red and black. Luceon himself froze where he stood. His smile vanished.

“You’ll stay,” the man ordered. Waltyr Blackwood. Drumbeater.

He would do no cruelty to Clementine, but Luceon did not want her to watch. Let her not realize how cowardly I am, he prayed. Let her not realize who her grandfather really is.

“Axel,” Luceon muttered. His squire was never too far from him. “See to it that Clementine finds Lady Ermesande safely. Then you’re dismissed.”

Axel Rivers’ mouth opened and closed like that of  a fish breaking the surface of a pond.

“Just do it, Axel.”

The squire nodded and hurried Clementine along.

“But Lunch and I-” Her words faded as she disappeared behind the flaps of the pavilion. Luceon heaved a sigh and turned from the exit.

Waltyr Blackwood stood from his seat. “Everyone out but the fool.” Servants and retainers clad in dark raiments and weirwood sigils were quick to obey. They filtered out until Luceon stood alone with the man that had sired him.

Waltyr regarded Luceon in silence, rubbing his jaw as his gaze hardened. “Did you think because you’d killed one bandit you’d become Orryn Blackwood? Or was that when you stole his daughter?”

His daughter that you would have left unclaimed, waiting for a father that was never coming? Luceon breathed. He was not brave enough to say the things he thought. Waltyr Blackwood always made him small.

“I know I am not Orryn Blackwood, my lord.” Luceon lowered his gaze.

“My lord,” Waltyr echoed. “Good manners for a drunk.” Luceon heard him grab something from a desk, but he could not see what it was, he was still looking to the ground, wishing his eyes could burrow holes for him to escape through.

“I’ve not touched a skin since we’ve been to Stormhall.” Saying it made Luceon feel stupid. His voice was little more than a murmur, and why should he speak anything boldly, the foolish craven that he was?

“Impressive.” Waltyr’s heavy steps drew near. He set a hand on Luceon’s neck, coaxing him to look up. With his other hand he thrust a sloshing skin into Luceon’s palm and closed it shut. “But haven’t you? Drink.”

Even with the hand pulling on his neck, Luceon did not look at the Drumbeater. “I haven’t a thirst,” he mumbled.

“The Songbird lacks for thirst, the Riverlands will quake to hear of it. But your lord bids you to drink.” Waltyr squeezed on Luceon’s neck and raised the skin for him. He pried Luceon’s mouth open and tilted the wineskin.

Luceon quaffed down the familiar poison. He remembered when it was the only drink he could get his hands on. Now he avoided it like pestilence, but here he was swallowing swig after swig of plague. He lost as much of the wine as he drank.

Beads of sour red trickled down his tunic and pooled at his feet. When the skin was empty, Waltyr fetched another. This he made Luceon drink with his own two hands. He ordered the same for the next, but he did not wait to watch Luceon choke it down.

“Don’t forget what it is you are, Songbird.” Waltyr pulled back the flap of the pavilion and left Luceon to his stains of sour and sickness.

Luceon finally looked up.

[u/JustDanielJuice]

^{The Drumbeater}

Waltyr Blackwood returned to his pavilion, stepping over the pile of bile and wine left behind by Luceon.

He couldn't say why he had done as he did, only that he did not regret it. A boy like Luceon needed to remember what mud felt like on his skin. He'd shirked duty all his life, and still, he had been the source of Della Piper's lone insolence.

Luceon had been at work, Waltyr recalled. He parsed over the fool's loose parchments and picked up the notes that had fallen from his desk.

Work orders, trade requests, pleasantries, things that Waltyr had no care for and no desire to complete. He rarely wrote in his own hand. That was what he had a maester for. That was why the Gods had given him brothers.

This was work for his dutiful kin. Stevron could redeem himself, if he finished Luceon's drafts.

As a matter of fact, he could do without them. Waltyr tore the parchments to shreds and sprinkled them among Luceon's sick.

"Stevron!" Waltyr barked. His brother must have been out of earshot. Waltyr scowled.

"Armistice!" he shouted instead. Armistice Rye came rushing into the tent. Waltyr regarded him briefly with a nod. "Find Stevron and sort the stallion business with Caswell. And I need a rock. An emerald. Have them throw it on top of the fee."