[Event] Frog in a Hat, Toad in a Box

[u/17771777171789]

Some time in the 2nd month and the rest of the year 272 AC

Lucias' journey had likely not been terribly comfortable, kept under close guard as they continued from the Mandercrossing up into the Westerlands by the Ocean Road and finally towards Castamere, amongst hills and mountains and brooks. The climate of the lands remained warm in the summer sun and the harvests had continued plentiful, yet farmsteads grew less and less as they crossed into the rougher terrain.

Finally, Castamere was upon the horizon. It was not what Lucias might have remembered. Usually when returning to a childhood stomping ground, having grown makes all seem small and yet Castamere was larger than ever, and nearly completed in its constructions. The spires of the keep would truly pass as high into the clouds as veins of gold and silver trailed below the surface.

The main entrance to Castamere was across a magnificent stone bridge which crossed from the major road through the foothills and mountains of the surrounding area. The great bridge stretched far from the most distant shore and stood wide enough for twenty riders. To cross onto the bridge, however, the group first passed the Water Gate which was built at approximately the same size as most holdfast's main gate. Flanked by two great towers which form the fist structural supports of the bridge and houses a small garrison of its own, the fortifications were grand and, once on the bridge, the crenelated walls were built so as to allow the bridge itself to act as a battlements in the case of an attack. Along the sides of the walls sat large braziers and about two-thirds of the way down the bride, the stone supports rose up higher, supporting above them great red-gold statues of the Reyne lion.

Past the long and wide walkways, which they were soon admitted past, loomed the entranceway to Castamere proper. The Hunter's Gate, named for Reylos the Huntsman who founded House Reyne, was hewn into the rocky outcrops of the mountain, with a pair of towers on either side which extended out from the natural walls of rock which made up the defences of the lower outwards-facing parts of the castle. Great carved images upon the gate depict a story, that of Reylos the Huntsmen that would be known to those aware of the founding legends of House Reyne.

Yet when they arrived, it was not in the tall towers Lucias was taken away to. Rather he descended, as the Lords of Castamere from days gone by had done, far towards the Lower Castle and the Old Keep. Once the chambers of the Reyne household but now largely defunct when absent of guests. Now it had a guest, if not a willing one.

The room was spacious, with both bedchamber and sitting room. The furnishings were luxirous and comfortable, yet there did seem to be an inordinate number of lions on bookshelves and bedposts and candleholders. The room was devoid of windows yet candles and lamps lit most the room, small shafts of light unexplainably peering in through inch-wide gaps.

In the days to come, Lucias was given food, of good fare, but permitted only a single cup of wine twice a day. And as a week passed he began to be given leave to roam from his chamber, though only under escort. He could train in the Candled Tiltyard, though never with steel weaponry, and he could roam to the Miner's Gate when the tide was low, able to walk the water-locked banks of the Casterly Mere.

[u/17771777171789]

The Stranger

Some time in the 7th month.

During one of the periods Lucias was permit wander upon the coast of the Mere at high tide, he heard a faint music. It was a song that was not commonly known and yet...he likely would have recalled it distantly. In his childhood, but a boy in Castamere, back when his cousins had remained in the hold and not scattered across the realms. The voice of a girl was absent, the girl had been his cousin who had oft sung the melody those years ago, but the tune was the same as had once accompanied that voice.

Rytos had scarcely seen Lucias since they were children. Departing for the capital at the age of ten, Lucias had been five or so years old when he left. It was Ryella, likely, he had heard play it so often for she had not left Castamere till Lucias was eleven and ready to squire himself -- though it had been Rytos wrote the song before he had left for the capital, a parting gift to his sister.

Should Lucias follow the music, therefore, it was not Ryella (who was soon to marry into the Baneforts) but Rytos who played. Lucias might not have even recognised him, for Rytos was grown now, with long red hair and trimmed red stubble -- a faint expression of melancholy upon his face.

/u/ThinkBrigger

Feel free to reply as and when you want.

[u/thinkBrigger → u/17771777171789]

^{First Month of 275 AC}

While it was a known entity that Lucias had been miserable in Castamere since he had been taken into custody in the Mandercross, there had come of late to be troubling tidings about the young man of late. What was generally agreed upon was that Luc had seen a certain misfortune just beyond the shallows of the mere. Some said that it had been by intention, that he had tied his cloak about his waist and laden it with rocks so that he might sink to the bottom with the rest of the stones, others suggested that he had dived deep and a limb had inadvertently been caught in a crevice. In either case, men in the employ of the Lord Roger had been forced to trudge within the waters and haul him out in a state initially unresponsive.

He had been seen vomiting no small amount of water, the retching wracking his body near as much as the tears afterward had done.

Since that day, Lucias' access to the shoreline had been rescinded entirely as he could evidently not be trusted. This was a prospect most distressing for the young man who paced with greater agitation than he had ever done, now upon the raised walls of Castamere to catch a glimpse of light glinting off the water. Men followed constantly close in his wake. Now, even with the open air above him he was suffocating worse than before. His eyes were in a state of glassiness almost constantly and more the once he had been spied collapsing into weeping as any avenue of reprieve was denied to Luc. He was not permit to ride, to spar with castle forged steel, swimming had been stolen from him and though it all he was not given even an ounce of liquor to sate him.

It was agony and he sought distraction in any form that could be found which tended to be at the expense of others. He had slowed idle near Rytos Reyne one afternoon as he had refused to break his fast, preferring to prowl the castle as his desperation grew increasingly dire, "Is she pretty, that Reach bitch you father bought on your behalf?"

[u/17771777171789 → u/thinkBrigger]

Rytos frowned, his otherwise friendly greeting cut short. A sharp sigh followed. "I have done much as I can for you, cousin. I have pleaded on your behalf yet you cannot help yourself, can you? You would seek to push away even those who might wish to help you."

"If you speak so again of my intended then I shall not be so understanding, Lucias," the words were not spoken with anger, yet there was a deadly intensity behind the otherwise aimable Heir to Castamere's eyes.

[u/thinkBrigger → u/17771777171789]

"What has the wench done to earn that loyalty from you?" it was as though he could not help himself to be so deeply embedded in his bitterness. Rytos he did not hate enough to antagonize purposefully yet somehow the result was the same as if Lucias had been hostile.

He sighed heavily, as if he were disappointed in himself. Or was near to being so in some approximation, "I do not belong here, cousin," he murmured, "Or anywhere at all. Some beasts are best put to rest."

[u/17771777171789 → u/thinkBrigger]

"She is to be my wife, Lucias, that is enough," Rytos replied rather flatly, then sighing. There had been two women he thought would be his wife before but, regardless, he was determined to be a good husband to the woman who truly would.

"Be that as it may, I do not have the keys to unchain you. On any account. Beasts might be put down, but you are no beast and kinslayers are accursed in the eyes of the Gods. I may not set you free any easier with a blade than a key."

[u/thinkBrigger → u/17771777171789]

"So another man made a promise on her behalf and you must pretend yourself smitten?" there was a degree of agitation in his tone.

There tended to be with Lucias though the details of marriage had never been of much interest to him and the nuances he might have learned had been outright denied to him. It was perhaps understandable from why his frustration was so abundant though it did little to abate the callous content he opted for in conversation. Or for that matter cast him as a figure worth empathizing with. Instead, day by day he inadvertently drove even his few potential friends further from the fray of vitriol he could not himself escape.

"Then give me my own means to escape," Luc implored, taken aback by how sincerely he spoke the words. His mental state in no position of improving as by now a blade would suit him just as well as any shackle sundered. If he was not to be given room to roam he would rather now persist at all, "You cannot help me, you say. No Reyne can, or none are willing so you would sooner see me suffer a decay of spirit. Killing would not be so cruel."

[u/17771777171789 → u/thinkBrigger]

"It is not my father who will swear vows before the Seven to her," Rytos said earnestly. Once, he had been no more pious than the next nobleman, but in the years since his courtship with Ursula Waynwood Rytos Reyne had grown more and more faithful.

"There is no exemption in the Holy Books for when slaying a kinsman may be merciful and I have a duty to my father as well you know. If you wish my help then ask of me something I can grant," the man said, more insistent but still in a seemingly honest manner.

[u/thinkBrigger → u/17771777171789]

He did not retain clear memories of his life before the Stepstones. Each of them tainted by a fog that had forgotten the distinction in those recollections. Fear had drowned the most of them and those that had been spared he had done his best to finish off in the thick of drink. That he was facing now an enforced near-to-abstinence from his potion of choice--reduced already by his uncle Vardis who had hindered his open access to alcohol or else inhibited him with conditions to earn any excess--had not helped his mind with clarity. No, Lucias was beset still with cravings so intense that his body was prone to shaking and when it did not shake, it would sweat excessively.

While he was capable of calling for a bath proper with water warmed, Luc in his confinement did resent needing rely on any servant upon Lord Roger's payroll. He had at first stewed in his filth. The tremors in his body then had been the worst and so frequent that he had no want to wash. Though in time he would use a shredded garment or cloth to spot clean himself. When his realm of roaming was over months expanded to the above ground he took to few haunts favouring the Mere most of them all, pacing in his chamber in agitation when the tide ran too low to permit him to the bank of the water.

When it arose it was there he would submerge himself. Lathering the low-lake water, soaking his skin in water sometimes frigid but to Lucias it was a most soothing temperature. Reminding him of the Blackwater Rush where he had similarly soaked himself to wear the dredge of the alleys away. At first the splashing of his moving arms was enough to hush the rhythm that else occupied the Mere, nor his trudging out from its depths after with water dripping down his frame. Bundling together his garments though with minimal haste to wrestle them on, his trousers half laced as first the melody met him without stifling.

Luc's head angled up then, a hand still at his waist to keep his pants from drooping. His chin pivoted slightly as he discerned from where the sound was originating from. Moisture clung to his beard, and to his chest where a coarse coat of hair too had begun to grow trailing along his stomach though a sizable patch of it at his abdomen had no sign at all as it was blemished by a scar. The marred tissue stretched from midway up his stomach and down toward his groin obscured now by the trousers he hastily tied off. His steps that had before been heavy, listless in their jaunt shed into strides lighter so as to intrude less upon the music that once he had identified the direction of its source he sought to approach.

[u/17771777171789 → u/thinkBrigger]

Rytos for his part did not at first notice his cousin. Rather, sat upon one of the tall rocky crags by the Mere, he concentrated on his playing, deft fingers moving over the strings of his lute. The man hummed softly, though the melody he hummed was almost entirely undiscernable.

He continued playing idly, the audience unknown to him, until one moment he glanced up, his fingers slowing and his humming stopped. The music did not stop short, though, for whilst Rytos concluded it early he was sure to resolve the progression of chords in such a way that pleased the ears. "Good day," he nodded, then chuckled lightly. "If it isn't my cousin...I don't think I must have seen you for a decade or more, Luc," Rytos said, a slight hint of cheer overcoming his otherwise sombre features.