aviary | OPEN | prompt three

[ It had been a good fight. (He isn't the worse off. He is iron in the ring, unstoppable, unbreaking.) Stannis can feel his heart strain against his ribcage, pounding like a jackhammer inside his chest. There is blood in one eye and a line of pain drawn clean across his face, but he doesn't flinch when she touches him, doesn't move, just lets the line of his jaw grow taut, teeth ground together, as activity buzzes about him. (Those who follow him are divided into two: one part, those who believe in the purported power of the red woman, and for the other, those who believe her to have bewitched him, to have made him hers.

To be fair, neither is completely true nor false. There is power in fear, and she is the most feared of those who surround him. And nothing cannot be got for free, so he says nothing when her fingers dig into his wounds because there is much worse than to bleed and because he has to give her some ground.)

For an instant, one might be forgiven for thinking that the harsh set of his mouth was almost the curve of a smile. (The taste of sweat and blood are thick on his tongue.) But that indulgence is gone in the flash of an eye, replaced by a sort of pride as he tips his chin up, drawing in a deep breath.

Quietly: ] Would you have me keep all of my scars? [ It isn't complaint. ]

[ Everything, even blessings from god, come at a price. Whether it be worship or fealty or humility, whether it be money or influence or blood — there is nothing in this world that cannot be attained without sacrifice. Even destiny.

Stannis Baratheon has a destiny. Melisandre has seen it. And whether that is insight or foresight, whether that's convinction, intituion or just plain madness — it makes no difference. Her course is set and his, in tandem, and nothing (no sacrifice too great, no cost too dear) will sway her from it now. In this bloodsport of ordinary men, Stannis Baratheon has the will of a king. He has a resolve like iron and bones like steel and while his brothers had looked to temper him to brittle breaking, Melisandre has gone to great, immeasurable lengths to see his will forged properly. Her well of influence is the crucible; her dogged fanaticism is the flames. Those that are drawn too close are inevitably burned, but not him, not Stannis. He has walked through Melisandre's tests, one after the other, and only grows harder with each new baptism — purged in both fire and blood.

She does not release his face. The tongue behind her lips is red. ] I would have the earth shudder beneath you, open, and swallow your enemies. There will come a time when none will doubt what I have already seen to be true.

[ Again, not quite a smile, but the pronounced hollows of his cheeks and the sharp angles of his jaw come the closest that they ever will. (Everything comes at a price, and this one that he is willing to pay.)

Her fanaticism is not one that he shares, but his conviction burns just as strong. It has been his shield through the fires she has sent him, and his armor within the ring. He believes in his own right, and that is more than many can say of themselves. (It is what has lasted, through fire and blood.)

The tongue behind her lips is red (as is everything about her, seen through a curtain of blood), and it is the red that he focuses on, eyes burning even in the shadows, and when he speaks, his teeth are colored with his own blood. ]

The earth has begun to open already.

[ There are rumors about Melisandre. The whispers follow her just as eagerly as the zealots who worship her blood-blazoned god do; they trail in her wake, leaving fingerprints wherever she goes — proof in bruises and broken glass that the Red Woman and her god of chaos have been here. There are fingerprints on Stannis as well — lines etched across the skin of his face and carved deep and unforgiving into the muscle of his body. Not all of his scars were earned in the ring but each and every one of them has been given her blessing.

Rumors say she drinks the blood of her enemies. Rumors say she drinks of Stannis' blood too.

(False and not so false. She's tasted Baratheon blood more than once.) ]

They'll find their knees or fall forever, Stannis. [ Finally, she releases him. ]

[ Lines etched across the skin of his face and carved deep into the bone, marks of wear and tear (the lives of other men thrust upon him as soon as he had become old enough to be called a man, himself; nightmares the color of the blood the Red Woman sows in the shadow of his brothers' deaths to the point that only she herself can soothe him to sleep) but never breaking, never yielding. Scars that had gone unseen until the coming of the flame.

When she lets go of him, he stands, turning his head this way and that (the scar will set). He has passed doubt, where she is concerned. She is his warrant or he will be nothing, a brilliant flame that dies too soon. Some would question that faith, he knows, but those who do follow him anyway (the light is too bright not to), and so he drinks from that font like a man dying of thirst. ]

They will bend the knee or I will raze them to the ground, [ he says, a near echo. (They are subject or foe. None stand in between.

They will bend the knee or he will destroy them with his own two hands. The ring has seen that carnage before.) ]

[ Stannis rises and his retinue shivers, Melisandre's declaration made manifest (it would not be the first time something she says come to pass). First whispers, the nervous and reverent shuffling of feet, and then silence as they are all compelled to stillness in anticipation. Each of them know they are not to speak while Stannis exchanges words with his Red Woman and while none are so ignorant to think that this is a reveal of their inner workings, they consider proximity to the both of them to be nothing short of a blessing.

Stannis rises and Melisandre turns — pride burning brightly in her cheeks and her eyes. Had the she made him more than a man or had he lent credence to her madness? Regardless of which half of the equation is true there is no separating them, one from the other. Those that have tried in the past have burned. A white hand slices through the air, dismissing those that would crowd around them to touch the hem of her dress or the edge of his shadow. ] Leave us, [ she tells the others. (None dare protest.) ] He is in need of council.

[ To have such command over so many people is both a funny and a terrible thing. (His retinue is not the biggest on the block, but no so-called army is when one gets down to the nitty gritty, for the human will is weak and the wrong kind of fervency will sputter and die out all too soon. He knows, at least, that wherever he goes, she will follow — or is it the other way around? — and so will the smuggler. That's two, by his side. Two more, he imagines, than most can say.)

Just as the room has emptied, he becomes the shadow at her back, intangible (only for the time being) but practically sewn onto her heels, made of the terrors that loom in the darkness, woven together by her sheer fervency. Blood still draws a red line down his face. ] Council, you said?

OPEN | prompt three | PAIN

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