text ▌seelie & private locked.

[impeaches]

For those that are unaware of me, my name is Renly Baratheon. Times have been trying of late, I believe, and we have all been suffering ills that there are few words best to describe. It is for this that I would desire to offer myself as a helping hand or soothing ear for all that desire it or have found themselves lost or without an ally to aid in soothing their turmoiled emotions. You may find me through this network or in my rooms in the castle; the marking of a stag is upon my door and you will be greeted by my fawn, Laurel. I doubt it will be hard to miss.

[ And now for the main point of his post:

LOCKED TO: SANSA, ARYA, MARGAERY, JON, GENDRY. ]

My dear friends and kin; I would hope that I could meet you all sometime in the near future, once your own missions and duties are attended to. I have brought gifts for you all that I would like to pass on as soon as matters are in hand. I would also wish to hear more of the fate of Ned Stark. You have my thanks.

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[baseborne]

Then I am, I suppose. Free now.

locked

[impeaches]

Then will you allow me time to visit you?

locked » action?? come at me bro

[baseborne]

If it please you, aye.

[Jon waits in his king's rooms, don't ask him why he has them, he doesn't know and questioning the fairies got him no satisfying answers. He assumes the choice was made to mock him, but what can he do about it other than stay with Arya sometimes instead? Either way he's not going to invite Renly over to Arya's rooms, so it's here he waits instead.]

action i suppose so snuh

[impeaches]

[ And Renly comes to Jon's room, not so far from his own, knocking upon the door with a sure hand. Behind him walk two squires, suitably dressed, one carrying a bound item wrapped in silken cloth; the gift, hidden from Jon's eyes. ]

Good day to you, Jon Snow.

[baseborne]

[Jon hesitates when he sees the company. If he'd known it was going to be a party he'd have cleaned up some no he wouldn't have. As it stands, he steps aside to let them pass through the door because he's rude but he's not that rude.]

And you, my lord. [But not Your Grace, ha haaaa.]

[impeaches]

[ you fucking rude piece of shit i knew i hated you.

Renly simple shakes his head and turns, reaching to pluck the package from his man and turns, holding it out for Jon to take. Inside is a cloak, deep black, of course, designed to weather elements. ]

Your gift.

[baseborne]

[Shit, it's actually quite nice and very practical and Jon will actually have to use it?? He was hoping for some dumb, pretty but useless thing that he could say his appropriate courtesies over and then throw into a corner and never look at again.

Damnit, Renly. You make hating you really hard but Jon tries his best anyway.]

Might I ask why? [He means "thank you."]

[impeaches]

[ He raises an eyebrow and shakes his head. ]

You and I know your father was a dear friend of mine, both in our own lands and here. I would not ignore his child, no matter his heritage, no more than I would ignore my own nephew. It seems heartless to even consider it.

[baseborne]

[A dear friend: Jon almost scoffs, but he reigns it in at the last moment. For Sansa's sake, he ought to at least try to be more civil than that. Instead his fingers curl in the strange, smooth fabric, awkwardly.]

Then thank you, my lord. It is... kind. [Overly kind. Stannis definitely wouldn't have done it, at least not without getting something in return, which is part of the reason Jon is trying to figure out what Renly thinks he can gain out of this.]

[impeaches]

[ My lord again. If Renly cared much he would be a little more frustrated with it entirely - sadly, he dismisses his title here, death having ripped it from him, no matter what others might say. ]

You are quite welcome. I thought it most apt for your time here.

[baseborne]

It's said Cothromach is much colder, where it lies beneath the earth. [There is a definite tone of thank the gods for that in his words.]

[impeaches]

Then my gift is fitting. I hope it serves in keeping the cold from your bones.

[ He waves his hand and the squires are dismissed, returning to his room. ]

Are you well?

[baseborne]

I am fine enough. [AKA no, because daddy, but he's 2 manly to talk about it such things.] It's my sisters that need your worry.

[impeaches]

And they have it, they always shall. I have taken them under my protection and that is no trifle, ser.

[baseborne]

As you say. [Ha haaa.... 110% unconvinced, and not bothering overly much to hide it.] Bran is here, that's why Arya and I have returned from Troichean Beinn.

[impeaches]

[ Renly raises his eyebrow, tilting his head. ]

I fear I have done something to offend you.

[baseborne]

Of course not, my lord. You've done nothing. [Nothing except receive intensely bad PR from a brother. Jon doesn't add that Gendry's plainly been the one protecting his sisters, not Renly, though he's definitely thinking it. Rudely.]

[impeaches]

[ Only so much can be done with a sword, Jon. Who went to Truen to make sure no Unseelie captivated an ally that might better help protect his sisters? ]

Nothing save be the brother of Robert and Stannis, I'm sure.

[baseborne]

[Don't use your logic on Jon, damnit!]

It might have made sweeping all the Baratheon banners out from under King Stannis more difficult if you weren't. [Hahaaa... yeah he's the one Jon remembers to afford proper titles whoops.]

[impeaches]

King Stannis?

[ Renly covers his mouth, doing his best to smother his laughter. ]

Now I understand. I thought Starks had more honour than to follow Kinslayers.

[baseborne]

My name is Snow. [Jon's tone is flat and cold (he's not a big fan of being laughed at.) Plus Stannis, a kinslayer? That's news to him. Stannis named the Lannisters guilty of seeing Robert dead, after a fashion, and by all accounts that ever came up the Kingsroad Renly was slain by his own kingsguard. So who, then? Jon doesn't ask, remembering all too well the terrible things he'd done for Mance Rayder's son, for the fear that Stannis would let his red woman burn even a babe in arms for power. For... dragons.] And it's Stannis who rode to the defense of the realm while the Lannisters and Tyrells sat on their golden arses in King's Landing, even with his... diminished army. ["Diminished" is putting it kindly, after the Blackwater.]

[impeaches]

But you are your father's son. I had imagined he would teach you better than that.

[ He can't help but chuckle again, lifting his head and looking at Jon with new light in his eyes. What a fool. ]

And I would not have done the same, had I lived? Do you think I would have allowed any of my people to be murdered? I would not have let the Lannisters sit and claim themselves defenders of the realm had I a chance to do otherwise.

[ He waves a hand, absently. ]

Unfortunately for me, and my life, my coward brother had me slaughtered on the eve of our battle. He remains a kinslayer, a false king, and a failure.

[baseborne]

In all the time my brother marched his host from the North to the Riverlands, what did you do? Little and less, it seems to me. My lord father died alone in King's Landing, and where were you? Where was that huge army of yours? You let him get murdered easily enough, was he not your people? You called him "near enough as kin."

[Jon could reasonably call Stannis any number of things, a good few of them unflattering, but coward? No, that he doesn't believe. Ruthless enough, cold enough to kill a brother... maybe. Still, though: surely men would have spoken of him executing his own brother for treason, if he had. Jon regards Renly, unconvinced and a tad judgmental.]

Your brother was ahead of you in the line of succession, surely a man of the small council would be familiar with laws. If he is a false king, than you were more false than he ever was. And in any case, what he remains is alive. [Probably. Maybe. More alive, at least, than Renly or Joffrey or Balon Greyjoy... or Robb.]

[impeaches]

Where was I? I was the man that offered your father a means to save his head. I offered him a route to protect our realm and save ourselves from war - I urged him to do as my brother wanted and reign as regent, to protect the Seven Kingdoms from the slaughter than ensued. It was not my doing that your father lost his life - that was all the Lannisters, Jon Snow. Do not dare to lay blame at my feet when I did all within my power to save the man our kin called brother. I would have ended Joffrey's life had I the chance for the things that he did to your family.

[ He's furious, now, feeling it burst in his chest. He steps forward, hand gripped tight at his side. Perhaps he loathed Ned, at times, for the closeness he shared with Robert, their relationship, and he shifts as he shakes his head and bows it. ]

I was the king the people chose. Had you been there, on the lines of war, instead of upon the wall you might have known that. I had an army numbering the hundreds of thousands and the common folk wished to have me as their king - and they wished to keep me, not just for my kindness but for my knowledge. Stannis would, and does, make a king the gods themselves would shit upon had they half a chance. He is no king, no leader. Good soldiers do not make good kings, Jon Snow, look at my eldest brother.

[ His breathing comes out as a hiss and he leans back, eyes flickering. ]

My brother created a monster that came to me in the night, the eve of the battle he knew that he would lose. It came to me in my chambers and slid a blade through my chest and ended my life. I am sure he has not told you that tale of my demise.

[baseborne]

Words are wind. [Renly can say he did such things, he can even say he'd have ridden to vouchsafe the realm when the Wall began to beg for aid, but the plain fact is that he didn't. Stannis did. And Eddard Stark lost his head, alone on the steps of some southron sept.

When Renly steps forward, Jon's hand goes halfway up to the hilt of his bastard sword, strapped across his back and peeking over one shoulder. He is reminded all at once just how Baratheon the man is, no matter how little he resembles the fat old sot that visited Winterfell so many years ago, or the gaunt king with eyes like bruises that came to fight for the Wall. He wishes in that moment that he'd thought to bring Ghost in with him before meeting anyone (but he hadn't known how far to trust the other, wilder direwolves inside such a populous castle, so he'd left them all out in the forest.) Ghost tends to make men keep their distance better, no matter how bloody tall.]

He leads well enough, I've seen that. And I'd sooner a man that fights when all the fury of the wildlings and the worse that follow after them threatens to spill over into the realm than a tourney host who is popular enough. [And really. A monster in the night sounds absurd. It sounds like some fool tale that Old Nan might have told little Bran when asked for a scary story. ... It sounds like the Red Woman, all over. He thinks of Mance Rayder wearing Rattleshirt's old bones, and of Stannis' refusal to spare him no matter how much easier it might have made things for him. Jon recalls his exact words being something like laws should be made of iron, not pudding.] That much, he didn't say. No.