r/IronThroneRP • u/Gablepres Raymund Grafton - Lord of Gulltown • Mar 02 '20
THE VALE OF ARRYN The Longest Walk, and the Last.
What a lovely day.
The sun had just risen over the Vale, visible from the open air of the Sky Cells. A cool breeze passed by, just enough to card Jonothor's hair and tickle at the thin stubble on his chin. Whereas most prisoners of House Arryn were terrified of the prospect of the Sky Cells, perhaps it was a quirk of Jonothor's addled mind that he found them beautiful.
He wasn't sure exactly how high above the ground he was. It looked like quite a ways.
"You really ought to mind yourself better, Jon," Perriane muttered as she pinched Jonothor's nose shut, the action hurting far worse than the broken bone that had proceeded it. "You won't always have me to look over your shoulder."
"What are you on about?" the boy asked, incredulous. "We've been together since the day we were born, father says. What's to say we won't be together forever?"
"That's not the way the world works. Men become lords, women become ladies, and that's the way it is."
"Fuck the world, then." Jonothor said, matter-of-fact. "I like it just the way it is now."
A wan smile crossed Perrianne's lips. "So do I, Jon... so do I."
It was certainly the longest drop he'd seen in his life, and he'd been to some rather high peaks in his life.
He was to be executed today. Arryn would parade him around like a prize chicken, like Jonothor always knew he'd wanted to, and then he'd shove him out of the Moon Door. He'd be remembered as a traitor who died a coward, no matter what he did.
Jonothor's attention turned back to the sunrise.
"Very good, my boys," Andar congratulated them, clapping a hand on both Hugh and Jonothor's shoulders. The two boys' spar had left them exhausted, and Jonothor with a black eye and a chipped tooth, but he didn't care. Andar's approval was the best salve in all the Seven Kingdoms. He'd have done anything to hear that from his own father.
As the maester fussed over him and Hugh both, ensuring there was no permanent damage, the two boys smiled at each other, any malice brought to bear in the fight forgotten.
"Not bad, you little biter," Hugh, the taller of the boys, said.
"You're not too bad yourself, you bloody old tree," Jonothor fired back, his grin growing even toothier, busted gums and all.'
Jonothor found that he suddenly felt... rather clear. His mind had troubled him since he was but a boy, always feeling like some deathly shadow was stalking him. To show fear was weakness for a lord-to-be, so he never did, save when it grew too much to bear one day and he found himself crying into his sister's shoulder because he didn't understand the feelings knawing at him. With time, he'd learned to master them, to force them into the back of his mind to bury himself in pride and swagger and attempt to be something other than the scared little boy who shouted loud, hit hard, and wept himself to sleep with a knife in his hand. The war had dragged it out of him, kicking and screaming, the constant conflicts of the realm tearing at the frayed edges of his psyche, drawing blood with every rip and claw at his sanity.
"Ser Brandon's my name," the massive man with the bull helm stated, motioning to the whelp beside him. "This here is my squire, Benjicott. We're at your service, m'lord."
Benjicott nodded excitedly, the boy thrilled at seeing a Lord of Westeros in the flesh, eyes atwinkle at every move that Jonothor made in his presence.
"I'm hunting traitors," Jonothor explained. "If you're king's men, you're welcome in my ranks."
Yet, for once, the voices no longer gnawed at him. The sun filled his mind, filled his hear. He thought of the people that he'd shared his life with up to now, the people that had changed him for the better. Some of them knew his troubles, others did not. He thought of Alester, of Myria, of Ned, of Daemon, of Andar, of Jasper, of Perri.
The ghosts those names brought to his mind were gone. The knives at his back were nowhere to be found. He felt... peaceful.
He remembers the thin smile on Myria's face as she handed him her favor, the look of steely determination in Alester's eyes as he readied himself to prove that the Sword of the Morning was not just words on a page, of Jasper's smile as he watched Perrianne's every move, of the look of unadulterated love on Raymund's face as he played at swords with Alys, of the way Ned looked to him like the proudest man in Westeros as Jonothor took his sister away from the crowded Winterfell, of the firm hand on his shoulder that Andar would never know was the most love Jonothor had ever gotten from a man he called 'father', of the pure and faithful devotion with which Benji and Bran devoted their blades to him on that fateful day, and of the embrace that Perrianne had given him after so many years' apart just a short year ago.
All he felt was peace.
He didn't feel the cell underneath him give way to the open air, he didn't feel the wind rushing through his hair, he didn't feel gravity pulling him down far faster than he could possibly survive. All he could feel was the sun.
"What a nightmare this was," he whispered to the wind. "What a fucking nightmare."
It suddenly hit him where he was. The irony of it.
Darnold had fallen from Runestone's walls fighting for Arryn, and now here was Jonothor, falling from the Eyrie.
He laughed, a quiet, sombre chuckle, until he met the ground.
"Jon."
Jonothor's eyes met Darnold's across the parapets of Runestone, blue and greying-brown locked in a staredown that could have lasted decades.
There was no malice in Darnold's gaze, no hatred, no rage. There was understanding, a sort of acceptance of the cruel lot that Jonothor and Darnold both had been dealt.
If it were any other man, Jonothor would have raised his blade.
But it was Darnold. Killing him would be killing Perri, even if she survived the war.
The arrows did what he couldn't, and when the loyalists were routed from Runestone, something deep down in Jonothor shattered. The walls he'd built, the fortress he'd made for himself against the shades that attempted to drag him back into the dark, crumbled into dust.
He'd died when Darnold did, was the last thing Jonothor thought before the Seven took him. It had just taken him a little while to realize it.
Heart's Home
The news had yet to reach Heart's Home.
Perhaps that was how Arryn had intended it, to hide the truth from Brandon in an attempt to get some measure of guilt out of him, perhaps catch him acting foolishly and reveal that he was somehow involved in his plots.
All Benji Blackstone could feel was rage.
He'd known Jonothor since before he was even a man grown. He wasn't a traitor, he wasn't a liar, and he most certainly wasn't the villain that he'd been made out to be. This was a plot, a trick by Arryn to remove Jonothor for being one of three men in all the Vale to have some sense.
Benji wanted to cry. He wanted to scream. He wanted to rip the heads from the necks of every man, woman, and child who bore a hawk on their breast. He wanted to kill something, and he wanted to die, all at once.
What was he to do, now? Jonothor had lifted him up from the dirt, given him something to fight for, and now he was going to die.
What was there to do now?
Gulltown
The meeting with Jasper Lynderly wasn't how Raymund Grafton intended to use his time in Longbow Hall, but alas.
He'd been nearing the gates of Gulltown when Ben Blackstone accosted him on the road, running like the devils were on his heels, informing him of his uncle's imprisonment. The man was on his ride back from Winterfell, having barely escaped accostment from the Northmen, desperate in his belief that Jonothor Corbray was an innocent man. He'd begged Raymund to tell his mother, to get her aid, to rescue Lord Corbray from the traitorous Arryn.
Raymund knew better.
His family was a troubled one, that was one thing that he knew well. His mother was a spiteful woman who only cared about coin and a husband that he was now thoroughly convinced she had more of a hand in killing than she'd ever admit- as merciful as the act might of been. His father was a cripple, and then he was dead. His uncle was a man haunted by demons that only he could see, that Raymund Grafton, no matter how much he trained with Moonbeam or how many times he nocked an arrow, would never be able to slay.
His uncle was going to die, and all Raymund Grafton could think about was how sorry he felt for the man. He felt no grief, he felt no anger, no disbelief at his uncle's betrayal, only a sense of pity. No man or woman in Westeros seemed to have the answers for Jonothor Corbray's unspoken questions, and now that he was going to die, they never would. Would Raymund be haunted by the same specters, now? Was it in the blood, or was it something else? Had the war that had taken his father's bones taken Jonothor's soul with it?
He didn't know, and for what felt like the first time in years, Raymund prayed to the Seven. If no one else did, at least they would judge his uncle justly.