Nerd In the North 6-12

The scent of rosewater was losing the war.

Soft hands, spotted with age and wizened with time, rested atop a polished wood cane, her breaths shallow and measured as she sat in the comfort of her heavy oak wheelhouse. The perfume dabbed carefully atop her wrists and beneath her collarbone had been a respite, one of the few she’d had, to ward off the dreadful stench of the outside. 

Yet, it did little and nothing against the force of a hundred thousand men marching, sweating, and spilling their bowels in the mud, a pure stench that no amount of floral assistance could conquer. Every second that passed her by, more of it seemed to seep through the velvet and penetrated her thick curtains regardless. Tasting of copper and rot, it all carried a stench that no amount of floral distillation could conquer. 

A scoff left the lips of Lady Olenna Tyrell, gaunt fingers gripping her cane head tighter as battle raged on just outside her doors. If only I was as deaf as I pretended…

Yes, that would be another blessing. 

Unfortunately, age had taken her strength and beauty but it had left her with full leave of her mind and had leached little of her senses. 

Said senses availed her as she cast an eye outside her window, catching sight of Left and Right standing just outside the carriage doors; both boys useless for anything beyond blocking the wind and intimidating lesser lords, but at least they did not chatter. Yet, the same could not be said for others.

Her gaze returned to the confines of her cabin, barely-restrained gossip and grief wafting off the two ladies sitting across from her like a poorly vented hearth.

The grief belonged to Catelyn Stark, of course, the widow of the North paler than even she at the moment. Skin the color of old old parchment was drawn tight over fine cheekbones, lips pressed so tight they nearly vanished to nothing in a bloodless line. But of course… Olenna nearly tutted.

Witnessing the boy’s death at his own brother’s hand — one would expect the Baratheon line after all this time to produce a son who could do more than fuck, fight or frighten — was enough to fill any lady with shock and the Stark was certainly northern widow was currently drowning in it. Her own fingers twisted in the fabric of her skirts, an incessant, nervous fretting that Olenna found profoundly irritating.

Beside her, her little flower sat with the posture of the queen she no longer was. Yet, that could still change. Shoulders back, hands folded perfectly in her lap, she looked the very image of regality.

Despite it all, Olenna needed barely more than a moment’s glance to see the eyes gave the game away. Red-rimmed and trembling from restrained tears, Margaery was holding the mask, but the strings were fraying.

Lady Olenna bit back a sigh as the clash of the battlefield drifted up the hill, distance and the damp air turned the slaughter into a dull, continuous grinding, punctuated by the occasional shriek of a dying horse. 

It was somewhat humorous as to how the dying of mensounded like nothing at all. Horses dying… Now, that sounded like the end of the world.

“My lady…”

A shadow fell across the velvet curtain, a voice calling through the window slat as the heavy snort of a destrier interrupted her thoughts as well. “Lady Olenna, I bring news.”

A messenger, of course; breathless and overly eager as always.

“Then speak, boy.” She clicked her tongue. “Unless you wish me to pass before you catch your breath.”

“Lord Tarly requests orders, my lady. The Stag’s forces are attempting to flee”

Olenna’s gaze fixed on the brass fixture of the carriage door. “Attempting. Mm. How quaint.”

Catelyn Stark’s head jerked up, her eyes wide and unfocused as a murmur left her lips. “He was…” Even as low as her voice was, Olenna did not fail to catch the roundness of the River catching on the jagged edge of a Northern burr. “He was kind to me. Renly. Even in…” 

The sentence failed the widow, breaking off into a sharp intake of breath.

“He was…” Margaery’s fingers tightened over each other, knuckles whitening ever so slightly as the tremor in her words shook still beneath the polish. “…charming. As a king should be.”

Olenna sniffed and shifted her weight, joints aching in protest against the damp. “A boy playing at war. Yes, a king, but still a boy.” Each word did what she meant it to, snipping the sentimentality from the air like dead leaves from a rosebush. “Stannis would execute wit for treason, of course, but almost better Renly died now than after he sat the throne. That would be another war and the fault of another king who think a crown good substitute for a brain.”

Catelyn flinched as if Olenna had struck her with the cane, words failing her.

Margaery’s jaw tightened, yet did not speak. Good girl.

“Do not mistake sentiment for strategy, Lady Stark.” Olenna tapped her cane once against the floorboards, the messenger’s bridle still rattling outside. “Grief is a luxury and we are at war.”

Before the Stark could speak again, Olenna closed her eyes.

The darkness behind her eyelids did not last as a spike of knowledge drove itself into the space between her brows — deeply unwelcome intrusion despite the growing familiarity. The Crone never knocked, of course, such courtesy only belonging to mortals.

“Lady Olenna, I-”

Olenna’s eyes snapped open and Catelyn’s mouth opened in a wet gasp, words once again failing the woman at the sight before her. Pale hands flew to her mouth, the Stark shrinking back against her seat. “…your… your eyes…”

They were no longer the rheumy brown of an old woman, Olenna knew very well. She could see them even with no mirror, the deep violet of a twilight sky staring out into the carriage.

“Grandmother is gifted by the Crone.” Margaery leaned forward, her words and motion drawing the Northern woman’s attention in an attempt to ease her panic. “Her blessing has done much to help the war efforts and father’s men have come to rely on her a great deal.”

Olenna ignored them as the wheelhouse walls dissolved around her. The thick velvet, the wooden frame, the broad backs of her guards; it all faded to nothing, vanishing to a grey fog as distance became irrelevant and she saw. 

She saw the Baratheon forces, Stannis’s men on the battlefield with mud thick on their boots and blood painting their armor. Paths branched out across the terrain like the roots of a dying tree, Olenna’s eyes lighting up as she stared down at the battlefield laid out below her like a cyvasse board.

Her grandson’s radiance lit her vision, pale gold light bleeding from his armor as he stood a beacon on the muddy field fighting with all his might. Men near him fought harder, swinging swords with arms that should have been long weakened from exhaustion. 

He was radiant. Literally. Pale gold light bled from the seams of his armor, a ridiculous, theatrical glow that made him a beacon on the muddy field. He was fighting like a man possessed. No, not possessed. Inspired. Men near him fought harder, swinging swords with arms that should have been dead from exhaustion. A banner-bearer tripped in the mud; a single hand from Laoras caught him and set him upright, the Knight of Flowers parrying a blade in the same fluid motion.

Born from his love for glory in battle, that light. Olenna shook her head. A fool, just like his father and grandfather. A candle burning at both ends to prove its own light.

Her gaze shifted across the field to the Wench of Tarth, that freakish oversized girl who played at knighthood. Silver coated her armor, duller than the gold Loras shone with, but somehow more solid all the same. The girl stood at a gap in the lines where wounded men were being dragged back, Baratheon soldiers rushing forward.

A spear thrust caught her square in the shoulder as she held it alone, the shaft shattering to splinters against her armor. Loyal, that one is, like a dog. 

Then she looked to the flank.

Dickon Tarly, a boy of two and ten, fighting like a seasoned veteran of three wars as the red of the Warrior’s blessing guided his hand. A grown Baratheon knight, twice the boy’s size, swung a massive broadsword down in an arc meant to cleave him in two.

The knight never saw the counter that sent his sword flying or the second slash that took his head.

The Warrior’s full blessing… It was a terror to witness.

Olenna blinked and the twilight vanished, returning her to her cage of rosewater and shit. Her breathing came heavier than she liked, a shallow rasp in her throat from another strain on an old woman’s body. The Crone is wise, not kind.

Tully blue eyes stared her way, wide with the terror that came from a life of piety and fears of magic. Olenna paid the woman little mind as she turned back toward the window slat. “Tell Lord Tarly to take the left flank before the Stag crosses the Northern ford.”

“My lady, that’s…” The messenger shifted on his horse. “The scouts say they are moving east, toward the mouth of the M—”

“I’ve seen it, boy!” Olenna snapped, the high wire of her voice vibrating with absolute authority. “He will try to ford the river within the hour. Randyll’s horse will arrive just as they commit. Crush them there. Now, go!”

There was a second of silence, then the sharp crack of reins and hoofbeats quickly faded down the hill.

“A gift, they call it.” Olenna scoffed, leaning back against the cushions as she shut her eyes to rest them. “A lazy gift. Given to someone with bones too old to march.”

There was silence in the wheelhouse for a scant moment, till the Stark broke it.

“The Seven… they are blessing so many.” Catelyn swallowed audibly, throat sounding nearly as belabored as Olenna’s own. “My son has written to me from the North. They have granted a gift to my own son, Robb.”

Margaery blinked, a curious glint in her gaze. “Truly?”

Lady Stark nodded. “As well as some of his bannermen, those closest to him.”

Olenna opened one eye, fixing the Stark with a stare that had withered bolder men. “The Seven seem to be giving blessings to everyone, you say?”

Margaery tilted her head. “Is it not so, Grandmother? Are the gods not moving through their faithful?”

“No.” Olenna clicked her tongue. “Not the Seven. Not entirely.”

Both stared at her, a matching set of confused frowns worn openly.

“Myself.” Olenna sat up straighter, dropping her cane down again. “The Tarly boy. Even Stannis, for all his stupidity. Crone, Warrior, and Father, yes, those are blessings. Heavy things that strain the vessels they are poured into. Truly blessed.”

“A… a war of the Gods?” 

“Then what of Loras?” Margaery’s question came at nearly the same moment Catelyn’s own cracked question left her lips. “Brienne? And… and Renly?”

Olenna’s expression softened, the corners of her mouth easing somewhat. “Their gifts are fainter. The Baratheon boy shone, yes, but there was no patron. Not of the gods themselves, but something else, something from within. Their own desires made manifest. Sheer, blinding human vanity and stubbornness, mostly.”

Catelyn looked down at her hands, breaking the silence Olenna’s words had left. “…Is this it, then? Are we to war against each other for the Gods’ content? Their sport?”

Olenna laughed, the sound sharp, bitter and entirely devoid of humor. “Silly girl. We would have done that anyway. Men do not need divine permission to open each other’s veins. They only need an excuse.”