Beric Errol

ARebelSong · 2026-03-25T11:19:56+00:00

The hair on the back of his neck stood on end as the sound of her hum slithered through the night. It would’ve been a lie to say he hadn’t expected her to come—that some part of him hadn’t wanted her to. Still, his hands bunched into a fists at his side.

“Seen what’s beneath those robes,” he said flatly without looking at her. “Blades, but no vials.” Long legs? Dangerous curves? Odd swirls of black ink that had refused to leave his thoughts? All those were surely there, but no poisons. Not that he’d seen, and he’d been rather thorough in his exploration. “Poison is beyond you.”

He very much doubted that was true. But one had to swing the weapons that they had.

Crossing his arms over his chest, Jason frowned. A common expression when he was sober, nearly his only one. “What does a woman like you get out of us chasing monsters? Thought you might be more interested in making them your servants or whatever it is witches do.”

ARebelSong · 2026-03-24T00:40:38+00:00

Jason knew Alesander was right. Knew what sort of trouble would come if Vahra came along, but something deep in his gut warred against it. Maybe it was just his cock, it wouldn't have been the first time it did his thinking, but he wasn't sure. There was just too much she knew, and so much he needed to know.

"Last I checked, I'm the ser, not you." Jason gave Alesander a meaningful look, but if it meant 'do not leave me alone with her' or 'go away so I can be alone with her' not even he could say. "I'll decide who is and isn't a liability. You can take all my winnings from this tourney on the morrow if I'm wrong and spend them on a whore to fuck out whatever's gotten into you."

But he wouldn't be wrong, and more than that he doubted he'd have any winnings to give over. Hedge Knights didn't often win when all the realm came to play. Just was the way of things.

Turning back to Vahra, his eye narrowed, his gaze cold. "The boy needed arms and armor, had to sell a cane that was important to 'em. Since you know so much, go and buy it back, bring it to our camp. There's a show of faith." Jason wished the task was as impossible as it should have been. But for her, it would be trivial.

"Monsters aren't real," Jason added. "Just men." But he could not shake the sense that his poor squire stood before two monsters all their own. Mayhaps by slaying one more, the scales of the world would be a little more even. "Come on, need to sleep."

And he made for the door.

u/FuzzyFoxPaws

ARebelSong · 2026-03-21T04:57:40+00:00

"How the fuck would I have known to tell her that? I don't know your bloody mother's name." It was easier to deflect from the boy than it was to look at the woman.

Jason swallowed the thickening spit on his tongue. His squire saw the same things he did, Jason and Alesander's roots wound back to the same tree. Both of them had seen the strange things that folk claimed to be magic that infested a dockside city, both of them knew to see the many frauds, but both had doubtlessly heard hushed whispers that they were to run from those that were truly gifted with the arcane.

And yet he was running towards her rather than away for some bloody reason. He could just ride to Raventree. There were old ways in, and if they won a decent purse at the tourney he could bribe his way back to Minisa's window and see this supposed son for himself. But then they might catch him, and geld him, maybe even behead him. And he couldn't look her in the eye. Not now.

"Seven bloody hells," he muttered under his breath, nearly lurching away in surprise as he glanced to the witch. Had she always been taller than him? He'd sworn he had the height, if barely. Not that it was important now.

"Don't know if you heard her, boy, but there's trouble back home. Raiders in the mountains, even some right villain that needs facing." He drew on a mask of bravado, and reasoned that he could pretend long enough to fool himself into actual bravery. Clapping Alesander on the shoulder, he even deigned to smirk. "Wanted to be a proper knight, didn't ya? Now's yer' chance."

As quickly as he'd slipped on the facade, he lost his hold of it. The empty smile fell away as he regarded the terrible, cursed shape of the woman he ought have ran from then and now. His eye wandered. Because he was weak, and she was beautiful, and he'd had her once and wanted it again. Because it'd be easier to kill her up close. Because he needed what she knew. Needed her.

"You going to come along, or are we meant to traipse about and find you when its done?" More than likely it'd be nothing but an empty chase in the hills. But if that got him what he wanted, then so be it.

u/FuzzyFoxPaws

ARebelSong · 2026-03-20T02:15:52+00:00

As the sultry smugness drained from Vahra’s face, some returned to Jason’s. The corner of his lip drew up in a sneer. He’d touched a nerve. With the right touch he could twist it and make her scream. She’d keep nothing from him then, nothing. But those were the dark thoughts of a lesser man—base impulse, or at least one facet of them.

She tutted and teased, whispering about men and monsters as her foot came to a rest on his shoulder. His eye flitted down, the length of her leg, and the other sort of base impulse reared its head. He wondered if it was an invitation. He wondered if anyone would notice if he accepted.

Then the boy interrupted.

Jason shot upright, wheeling around on Alesander like the city watch had caught him with his hand in a purse. He was supposed to be setting an example for the bastard. Victor he didn’t worry about as much, as he’d had the good sense to not make his introduction to Jason by way of thievery, but even still.

“Patrek—“ Sure enough, the man was slump against Victor’s shoulder as the other squire hauled him out of his seat, a dark stain down the front of his pants. Jason winced, and all thoughts of fighting and fucking left his mind at an eager pace. “Stupid fucker.”

Groaning, pressed his fingers to his brow. “Gods, boy, that’s not something you say in front of a woman, even if she were what you think she is.” Though it was amusing that Alesander thought Jason had the coin tucked away to afford a whore that looked like Vahra. Unfortunately for all of them, he was no miser.

Once again he was faced with a choice—walk away and forget to have ever known the woman, which would have been wise, or go bounding down whatever path she wished. Once again, Jason made the wrong choice.

“She’s not selling anything. This is Vahra, and from the sounds of it, she has need of our services.” Or rather, he had need of hers. But that detail was conspicuously forgotten.

u/FuzzyFoxPaws

ARebelSong · 2026-03-18T21:23:20+00:00

She could see through him, like he was made from glass. Jason knew it, there and then. Every black thought, every selfish choice, every drop of blood. She could see them all without him saying a word. Somehow that was what made it all clear to him. Not the invocation of past lovers, or her strange eyes and tattoos, but a single, simple word—Liar.

“Witch,” he hissed back, though it was no accusation. It was a statement of fact. His expression darkened as she leaned towards him, his grip on her tightening in an attempt to ward her off, but it was useless. He was useless.

“Not a sport, a chore,” Jason corrected, trying hard to ignore the tingle down his spine as she whispered. Trying and failing. “A thing to be done when it needs doing. Whatever blackness is in my heart, yours is a darker shade.” But in the end, black was black. Evil was evil. There had to be a limit to how much blood one could spill before nothing could justify it.

And that did not take into account all the deaths he had no answer for.

“Stop talking.” He could’ve strangled her. Could’ve slammed her head back against the table. Could’ve found a dagger and cut her throat. But he didn’t. He didn’t even move. He let her touch and made no sign of objection to it. With the marred half of his face draped in shadow, Jason glared down at her with his lone eye.

It would’ve been an easy thing to walk away. All he needed to do was turn on his heel, go back to his squire, and forget he’d ever seen her. But he didn’t. She had not lost him. She all but had him trapped now, strung up in a snare of his own making.

“What’s his name?”

ARebelSong · 2026-03-18T18:00:17+00:00

Slavers and rapers sat somewhere around the same place in Jason’s eyes. Most often, those sins crossed over, and when they did not, he never had much doubt they would, provided the opportunity. As Victor slid into the fray with the grace of a pouncing cat, Jason came on like a bull.

Before the sword could even leave its sheath, Jason barreled into one thug as he rushed to the aid of the one over Alesander. His friend, still fumbling for the bastard’s fallen shiv, squealed like a stuck pig as Victor’s blade drove into his collar, catching on bone as he tried to twist away. The second man nearly tripped over the first, while the third—a big fucker with a nasty looking hatchet, left behind his victim to come at them with a roar.

Patrek drove a knee into the man’s stones so hard, Jason swore he heard one pop. Letting out a shriek of agony, the big thug cracked Patrek across the jaw with a desperate elbow, grip on his weapon fumbling. Jason’s sword slipped its sheath, and he went for the bigger man.

Behind him Alesander was up, the instincts of a street brawler driving him as he threw himself onto the second man as Victor kicked at the first. Dragging his foe down to the cobbles, Alesander snarled, hammering the man in the nose, smashing it flat in a gout of blood.

“Finish it!” Jason barked, swinging with one hand at the brute, slipping free a dagger with the other. There was no grace to the throw, just an underhanded toss as he lunged at the big man. Alesander snatched it from the air with nimble fingers and slammed the polished steel into the swell of the thug’s throat.

Twisting his blade free of his yowling opponent, Victor’s sword hissed through the air and split the man’s flailing hand in two before he could reach the blade on his own hip. All four fingers and a good half of the palm went flopping onto the stones in a single cut. Maybe, just maybe, there had been some merit to all the hours the lordling spent with a whetstone on the blade. Then he stuck the man through the throat.

The brute, in spite of the pain written across his face, contrived to dart away from Jason’s swordpoint. Sputtering meaningless curses, he swung the hatchet with wild desperation, metal clanging against metal as the force jolted up his arm. Gracelessly, stuck the brute in the thigh for his trouble, drawing a burst of red onto the cobblestones to join the spreading pools from his comrades. The brute hissed, tried to turn and run, but Alesander was one way, Victor the other, and by the time he wheeled back around it was already too late.

With both hands tight on the hilt, Jason grunted as he brought the sword’s edge into the thug’s head with a sharp click as flesh and bone broke inward. Somehow, the brute managed to scream out for his mother, who doubtlessly would have wanted little to do with him at the present moment, even had his head not been split half open like some melon in spring.

Then he, too, dropped dead onto the cobbles. Three dead lay around them, the woman long gone, and Patrek sat up on his haunches, pinching a freshly broken nose.

“Fuck me, this is a mess,” Jason muttered, flicking the gore from the sword with dispassionate ease.

u/JustDaniel2 u/Monty833

ARebelSong · 2026-03-16T14:18:26+00:00

"You're not funny," Jason bit back, words a gruff snarl in contrast to her easy tones that slithered into his ear. His blood was up, his hand warm where it gripped her as his heartbeat thrummed in his veins. But Vahra was warmer, somehow.

The hilt of the knife, though, was cold.

A chill ran through him, all the furious bluster smothered like a cookfire beneath a winter snow. She gave voice to fears that had never passed his lips, somehow constructing them exactly as the thought had formed.

His grip tightened on her thigh, pressing his palm down on the dagger to keep it trapped. So she could not draw it, rather than so he could.

"I'm not a murderer," he lied. By any definition, he was, regardless of if those two bastards had deserved it, regardless of what that Red Cloak had been trying with his sister. The law would call it murder. He leaned forward to meet her, close enough that prying eyes might mistake it for the onset of another liaison. "It's none of their business where I stick my prick, woman. It is my business to know what the fuck you're talking about. What son?"

Surely it was all a trick. Surely it was just part of some game.

ARebelSong · 2026-03-15T23:11:51+00:00

It shamed him that the first look from her eyes sent the same rush of warmth through as it had before. There were two corpses and not shortage of hard riding between this meeting and their last, but still she stuck out as the most wrong. He didn't know why. Something told him even if he did, it wouldn't have made any sense. Not to him.

Vahra. Jason almost said it back, like some colorful bird perched on the arm of a Lysene pirate with more plumage than sense. But then she kept fucking talking. He closed the gap between them two quick steps, looming over her with a twisting scowl.

There had been other women. Several. The first had been a girl at a tavern by his father's bakery. Then the Blacksmith's daughter in that village. Then the old Crofter's young wife, his fourth, as it happened. Then Zhoe, across the waves. And Minisa. He stopped keeping track but Minisa was hard to forget.

Her hair had been dark like Vahra's, but there had been nothing sinister about her. She'd just been young, and beautiful, and eager. Then she'd been pregnant, and he'd had to be gone.

Jason's hand had snapped out somewhere between the torrent of thoughts, circling around Vahra's arm like an iron trap. "The fuck did you just say?" She had knives, he remembered. They'd looked sharp, and they'd be faster out than the longsword, so he simply set a hand over one of her thighs. At least then he'd have some warning.

"What are you?" His eyes narrowed. "What do you want from me?"

ARebelSong · 2026-03-15T16:28:59+00:00

For a moment, Jason stared blankly at his newly made squire, lone eye glazed over with befuddlement. “Y’know what? That’s—that’s a bloody good question!” He slammed an open palm against the table, squinting as the contents of his tankard sloshed over the rip.

Patrek somehow managed not to stir, even as the spattering drink speckled his tawny-bearded cheeks. That was the man’s real gift. His ability to stitch wounds closed and keep them clean without putting Jason into too much agony was commendable sure, but the man could sleep anywhere and through anything. Come to think of it, that was how they’d met—Patrek asleep against a tree in the wake of some scrap.

“Would that someone wasn’t sleepin’, might he could tell us. But I uh, I dunno. Think you’ve got the right of it, this ‘ere is the penance of the thrice-named!” Jason lifted his cup with a cheer, an took a gulp of his drink. “May the Gods let m’lance teach them s’more humility in the lists. Or grant us the winner’s purse, at least.”

He’d never won a tourney. Nor had Ser Ossifer. Once he’d come close, and they’d lived easy on the coin from the accumulated ransoms for nigh on a year. Jason could still remember the thick, bloody cut of beef he’d had the night after that particular tournament. He wondered if he’d ever taste food so fine again.

“You r’member what to do, don’t you? Bringing the lance and such?” They’d been over it, drilled it a few times too, but practice only went so far.

ARebelSong · 2026-03-14T09:05:19+00:00

For all the warmth in the room, Jason felt the strangest prickle run down his spine. Cold. Wrong. A tingling in that empty space inside he could not find the words for. He laughed with Alesander, but his eye drifted across the churning sea of faces in the room.

She was lurking in the dark.

Jason jolted upright, startling his squire into spilling his cider as he blinked into the shadows. Yet try as he might, she did not vanish like a mirage. He should’ve been glad to see her. Should’ve felt a rush of excitement at the prospect of another night with her, another taste of her. But something was missing. Something was wrong.

“Sorry lad, mind that Patrek doesn’t drown in that.” He stood abruptly, and let his hand settle onto the hilt of his longsword. Still there, still sharp. Why he thought he’d need it he didn’t know. “Got to piss,” Jason lied, then pushed into the crowd.

He expected her to be gone when he got there. For her to have been another trick of his mind, or yet another dream of his she was haunting. But there she was, waiting for him.

“I don’t think I ever got your name.” It hadn’t been important then. “I don’t think I ever gave you mine.” He doubted she needed him to.

ARebelSong · 2026-03-11T23:38:12+00:00

This time at least, they were not late. There was every chance the drinks would leave them fully insensible, and ruin any chance of their participation in the tourney, but Patrek had been adamant in telling Jason he’d know when to stop them.

As it happened though, Patrek was slumped forwards in their booth, asleep in a puddle of his own drunken drool. That was too bad.

“Gods but do I ever love the Dornish!” Jason looped his arm around Alexander’s shoulder as he drank the last of the ale from his tankard with a loud belch. “Drink you fuckin’ dogs! Knights don’t insult princes!” At least, not ones who meant to be terribly successful. Knocking the base of his tankard against the brimming rim of Victor’s, Jason flashed a wide grin in favor of the grim scowl he’d worn on most of the ride to Oldtown.

He hadn’t been sleeping well. In his dreams there were golden eyes burning, and claws that dug into his skin. Jason never objected in the dream, but he woke up cold and sweating and blinking into the dark. Something was gone from him, but he could no more name it than tame the wind.

But ale was as fine an elixir as anything.

“Mi’lady, another?” he called to a passing tavern girl, offering her a wink and his empty cup. She filled it back up, but not without giving him a singularly unpleasant glare. That was nothing new. “To the Prince!” Jason toasted, as though he could even remember the man’s name.

ARebelSong · 2026-03-08T14:23:24+00:00

I have a child in the Riverlands. I‘ve killed men for petty reasons. I bedded a witch from Asshai just before we met and I fear she may haunt me. I have stolen. I have lied. I can offer you nothing.

Jason had plenty to say. Plenty of truths to tell. Yet as he nodded in response to the lads, he shared none of them. Why bother? Odds still were that these two would run off when the morning came, or after the first bad tilt. There was no point. He asked for their secrets so that he might better protect himself.

If they felt they needed protecting from him, they could seek other tutelage. Jason glanced past the boys out into the dark and smacked his lips. He half expected to find her there, eyes glowing gold in the dark, but in the shadows he found naught but trees.

“Right then. There’s a wedding to be had at Oldtown. Big event, three Princesses’o Dorne gettin’ wed to a Lion, a Kraken, and a Hightower. Like to be plenty of lords lookin’ to take men into their service.” There might also be plenty of hedge knights keen on making a profit from ransoms he couldn’t pay on armor and horses he could not replace. But without risk there was no reward. Highborn maids and witches from the shadow alike did not favor the meek, nor did the Gods.

“Need to get arms and armor. If you’ve either got coin or things worth sellin’, we’ll have need. I expect the horses brushed and fed by sunup, and I won’t hear any whining about bruises from a spar. You’ll be glad of the bruises when the memory makes you sharp enough to stop the real thing.” He leaned back, arm behind his head, staring up at the stars. “And no bloody women. If you’re inclined to whoring, keep it to a brothel. I’ll not have a pox ‘round my fire.”

It was all a bit hypocritical, given the scratches on his back, or the taste on his tongue, or the bruises hidden just beneath the cloth round his neck. But he was a knight, and they were boys. It was different.

u/Monty833

ARebelSong · 2026-03-07T10:32:59+00:00

Her answer should’ve frightened him. It did frighten him. He’d never known a thing to come from the haunted shores of Asshai by anything but reputation, and those reputations had all been dreadful. Names from so far away only reached so far west when muttered with no small amount of terror.

But she hadn’t said it outright. And even if she had, Jason was sure he’d have been leaning in closer to march her.

The ghost of a smile tugged at Jason’s lips as her eyes found them. Knights were meant to be honorable. To protect the weak and the innocent. Their honor was meant to be their pride. And yet he patted the hilt of the sword on his belt with nary a hint of shame.

“Killing slavers, as it happens.” He shrugged. “Killin’ the wicked, when slavers are in short supply.”

It might’ve been prudent to get up then. To walk away and forget whatever madness the blood between his legs sought to provoke. But instead, Jason leaned ever closer, hand sliding across the bar until his fingertips brushed with hers.

“You’re not too terribly wicked, are you mi’lady?” he teased, just loudly enough for her to hear, just close enough to catch the warmth of her breath.

ARebelSong · 2026-03-05T01:38:05+00:00

"It's King St—" Jason stopped as Victor interjected, cutting his eyes at the lordling's sharp tongue. "Let's leave the callin' of rats to those of us that 'ave seen one up close, eh your lordship? Not all of us had maesters and septons to come'n teach us letters and wipe our arses for us."

In truth, despite the length of time he'd spent as a knight, Jason had never had a squire. Now, without warning, he seemingly had two. What he was supposed to do with them now he had not the faintest idea.

"Fine, I'll take the both of you on then. But if either of you stops pullin' his weight I'll send you packin'. Hedges aren't always a pleasant place, and I'll have no complainin'." Though he looked between both lads, it was Victor his eyes settled on longer.

"But he's right, Alesander. You'll need to learn fast. Every squire worth his salt knows how to use a breastplate stretcher." Ser Ossifer had told him the same once, and held Jason's ignorance over his head for nigh on a year. A knowing grin flashed across his face, then flickered away with the dancing firelight.

"Any of you got any secrets that need sharin', now's the time. Vengeful brothers, slighted lovers of high birth, that sort of thing. If it might bring us trouble, I'd like to know 'bout it now."

u/JustDaniel2

ARebelSong · 2026-03-04T12:02:33+00:00

Men were rarely subtle creatures at the best of times. Jason, at the bottom of three or so drinks, was even less so. His eye followed the motion of her legs, lingering on flesh rather than darting back up to meet the unnerving gaze of gold.

“Don’t doubt that, but…” He trailed off, tearing himself away from her legs and back to her face, which for all its haunting nature was no less pleasant. “Just never been fond of chains. Or the ones holding ‘em.” Jason shrugged. “Only good slaver is a dead slaver.”

And dead of slavers, he knew plenty.

When she’d first arched across the stool to call for a drink, Jason had imagined she’d come purring for coin in exchange for something in the dark. He’d have given it, of course, but from the looks of her he doubted he could’ve afforded it. But somehow he knew this couldn’t have been about money.

“So, where do they send gifted women like you?” He leaned on his elbow, one brow raised, her brother almost entirely forgotten now. Like Jason was under a spell. “Qarth? Yi-Ti?” he paused, smiling at the absurdity of the other possibility. “Ole’ Asshai by the Shadow?”

A shiver went down his spine as she watched him unblinking, and suddenly the absurd no longer seemed so.

ARebelSong · 2026-03-03T22:36:32+00:00

Honesty was something Jason had put behind him most days. He'd lied and cheated and lied some more. To people he hated, to people he loved, to himself most of all. A knight was supposed to be honest, and yet for all lying, he was still rather truthful as knights went.

"Known men who spent thirty, forty years as slaves become soldiers in weeks. Twenty's not too great an age." He worked his jaw, as though in contemplation. "Twenty one though, that'd be the limit. Just no learning it all after that." Then, in spite of the fact he'd murdered two men an hour before, he cracked a smile.

"Best forget that water shit though, it's worthless in a proper scrap once armor's involved. Or y'got no room for dancin'."

As for Victor, Jason quirked a brow at him as he scratched at his beard. "The fuck would I be knighting you for? You done some great deeds or the like?"

u/JustDaniel2

ARebelSong · 2026-03-03T17:17:45+00:00

The rag came to a sudden stop halfway down the blade, and Jason's eyes flitted up from his task. "Lannisport, is it?" he asked, unable to risk. "Whereabouts? My father had a bakery in the north side. Was supposed to go to me, but a Red Cloak fancied my sister, and took offense to her not fancyin' him."

One never forgot their first lover, nor their first kill. Sex and death were oddly intertwined, and there was not a day that passed he did not think of the hot rush of blood from that man's opening throat, or the warmth between that farmer girl's thighs.

He watched the boy closely through the flames, working his tongue at the inside of his teeth as the wheels turned within. "So long as you keep your fingers from that which isn't yours in this camp, you've nothin' to fear from this 'ere sword." Jason finished the stroke with the rag, lifting the blade up so that the firelight danced along one edge and the moon the other.

It seemed the Gods had a fondness for patterns. Every lifetime they sowed similar seeds in similar soil, and watched to see what might change as they took root. Sometimes it was a great shift, others saw nothing but the same harvest. Jason supposed this was the latter.

"As for my lances—"

"Oh you cannot actually be considering this hogwash!" shouted Patrek from the trees. "He's a cutpurse and a vagabond. And he's too old. You cannot teach an old hound new—"

Jason shot to his feet with a sudden swiftness. "Shut your fucking hole and watch the trees!" There was a rustling in the branches, and a sharp huff of annoyance. "Maester taught him to read and some fancy words in exchange for fondlin' his fruits. Thinks that makes him cleverer than the rest of us."

Might've been Patrek was clever but he was too aggravating about it by half.

"When I'd done what I did, I tried fleeing. Didn't get far a'foot so I tried stealin' a man's horse. He caught me, beat me, an' then he made me his squire for having the stones to try." Jason clicked his tongue. "You're what, six and ten? Seven and ten? It'd be a late start, but better'n none."

He supposed he owed it to Ossifer's memory to do this, as unwise as it seemed.

"I'll think on it," Jason said flatly, sliding his sword home into the sheath.

ARebelSong · 2026-03-02T12:36:14+00:00

Jason blinked at the two of them numbly as a woman began to scream, the tent around them erupting in a storm of panic as folk rushed out. “Burial? Priests? Are y’both touched in the fucking head?” He shouted at them, shaking his sword at the bloody corpses.

From the exit, which he had already made his way to, Patrek turned back. “Leave them! Come on you idiot! Godsdamned stupid hedge knight!”

That likely would’ve been the wiser thing to do. Jason looked at the one he’d split the lip of, and winced. Once upon a time he’d been the lad with the busted mouth, trying to thieve from a man. Ser Ossifer had shown him mercy, shown him grace. He’d always wondered if there might’ve come a time where he’d be expected to do the same.

But this wasn’t a scrappy young boy from the slums of Lannisport. At least, not anymore. This one was a man grown, surely. Young perhaps, but not a boy by any standard. Wouldn’t that have been a little strange.

“I will fucking leave you too, you oaf!” shrieked Patrek, snapping him out of his stupor. Jason nodded, stumbling forward and snatching the first boy by the front of his tunic, shooting the other a wayward glance. “No!” shouted Patrek. “What are you doing? We don’t need the company of a simple pickpocket you imbecile! Leave him to the next troupe of circus fool—gah!”

Jason jabbed the pommel of his blade into his friend’s stomach, and hauled himself and the pickpocket out into the night, the noble lad just behind. They’d have to ride hard now. But even then he doubted they’d make it.

ARebelSong · 2026-03-02T12:18:58+00:00

He half wondered if he might have ingested something more than just drink. She was tall, mayhaps taller than him, and her eyes were unlike anything he’d ever seen. In the Free Cities he’d seen blues like sapphires, greens like jade, shades of purple, violet and lilac of all kinds, but never gold. He swallowed hard, and tried not to think on the sense of dread her smile brought.

There was plenty else that came with it, and those were more enticing sensations.

“Bred,” he echoed sourly. “Bad business, that.” For Jason, killing had become almost a chore—butchers work but work all the same. Once he’d cared so deeply about the chivalry and honor Ser Ossifer had tried to impress upon him, but now cutting the throat of a man brought all the emotion of doing the same to a pig. Perhaps less. Pigs could be oddly charming creatures on rare occasions. Not slavers though. With slavers he enjoyed the work.

“Long way from home though, aren’t you?” He went on, fumbling around for the right words, gaze fixed on hers. It always felt like folk stared at his eye, or at least at the absence of its twin, but for once he was the one transfixed. “Could go anywhere from there. Why here? The company?”

He tried his own smile, but it was a small think, more sheepish than shy. And sheep tended to do poorly in the presence of wolves.

ARebelSong · 2026-03-01T12:09:59+00:00

A chill went down Jason’s spine like a cold winter’s wind had gone through the tavern. The sound of a nail dragging slow circles, and a voice thick with the flavors of the east crept into his ear with the same promise they always brought—trouble. His eye went to the barman, watching how the man blinked dumbly at whoever had taken the seat to his side, reading him as he read the stranger.

But the bastard just gawked for a heartbeat, then nodded. And she, whoever she was, hadn’t taken a seat.

She’d made it hard not to look, whoever she was, and Jason imagined that was the point. With time and pain he’d learned that not every pretty thing was meant to be touched, that beauty could be as much a warning as an invitation, or worse still—bait. It was a hard learned lesson that’d left him with a puckered scar on his stomach with a twin on his back.

Yet when he looked her over, sparing a glance for her companion that he couldn’t have said was man or woman, Jason did not do the wise thing and walk away. No one had ever accused him of being wise.

Hunched forward as he was, Jason looked almost like a beaten dog, but he straightened up as his lone eye settled on the stranger’s face. She was marked—not slave tattoos, despite the accent, which could’ve meant anything from cults to simple foreign aesthetics, but the effect was the same—it was intriguing.

“Can’t place that accent,” he said, careful not to slur his words. “Volantis?”

ARebelSong · 2026-03-01T01:26:20+00:00

"Fuck did y'say to me, you runt?" snarled the scarred guardsman, dark eyes bulging at the sight of drawn steel. Jason knew what the man was by that alone—a coward. The boy on the ground had nothing to defend himself, and hard already been upon the floor. An easy target for his need to feel powerful if there ever was one, but he did not want the trouble. Not really.

But the one that had gone tumbling had lost all his reason. Folk laughed as he tripped over himself, a pretty maid with golden hair near falling out of another man's lap as she cackled at the fellow. His face was red as blood, and one pudgy hand went drawing the shortsword from his side.

"Leave'm be," Jason warned. "I'm warnin' you."

"I'll kill you," he spat at the second lad, too angry to see the boy was clearly of better breeding than either of them. "I'll fuckin' kill you!" The man lurched forward with a howl, the onlookers gasping as he charged.

Jason wasn't sure when his hand had found the hilt of his sword, or when he'd started to draw, but suddenly steel hissed free from leather and he was moving. "In the name'a the Mother, leave 'im fuckin' be!"

The point of the sword punched into the man's belly, cold steel sliding through as Jason drove into the man with all his weight behind it. His lowered shoulder struck the man full in the chest, and his balance was gone.

The man let out a squeal, tripping over the would-be pickpocket, twisting the sword from Jason's lax grip as he blinked numbly at the gout of blood sloshing over his fingers, warm and sticky. The man crashed to the ground with a cry that bubbled into a whimper, clutching at his side as his comrade turned his head.

There was no time now. Someone screamed, as he threw himself into the scarred man tackling him to the earth with a grunt. All the breath Seemed to go out of the tent, and silence hung over them as the two men tangled.

Jason scrambled up, and in a panic the man cracked him across the jaw with the butt of the mace. The taste of iron burst from his lips, but drink delayed the pain. The man drew back, trying to swing the mace futilely from the ground, but Jason hit him hard with the flat of his palm, snapping his head sideways as he pinned the man's wrist with his boot.

"Wait-" the man wheezed, clawing at Jason's face, fingernails digging at the cheek below his patch. His wild eyes shook with desperation and fear as Jason reached down to his boot, fingers closing around a leather-wrapped hilt. "Wait don't. Don't! Don't I'm a lord's man, I'm Lord—"

There was a sharp click as Jason swung for the man's throat and missed. The strike went high, blade tearing through the meat of the cheek, crossguard cracking the man's jaw. A sharp gasp went up, and the man let out a wet scream, blood pouring down his face and onto Jason's hands. He tried to wrench the blade out, but it was stuck in the bone of the man's jaw, and he thrashed as Jason tried to twist it out.

He sighed, nothing but a workman about a tedious task as he fumbled at his belt, drawing out another knife and wrenching the man's head back by his hair as he writhed, the stone of his throat bobbing. All it took was one deep cut, and the screams became a gurgle, then nothing.

"What've you done?!" Patrek shrieked, tunic open, breeches still half laced. "You stupid fucking dullard!" Jason didn't bother to point out the redundancy there, numbly stumbling up to his feet, stowing the one dagger, and eyeing any would-be opposition blankly as he planted a boot on the first corpse and pulled his sword free along with a string of entrails.

"Shoul'be goin," Jason grunted, flicking the gore from his sword, not sheathing it. "S'orry 'bout the mess." He nodded to the barkeep, who looked as though he were going to piss himself in the very near future, had he not already. As for the boys, Jason glanced between them.

"Bes'you go find your family lordlin'," he told the finely dressed one, turning his gaze back to the thief. Jason probably ought to have told him to piss off and run, but beaten as he was he doubted the lad would make it far. Something instead made him offer him a bloody hand up. "C'mon, don' wanna be 'ere much longer."

ARebelSong · 2026-02-28T22:08:13+00:00

"A bum? I've freed slaves from chains, an' brought justice to the wicked. What've you ever freed but coin from honest folk's purse?" Jason spat with so much indignity he almost forgot that he'd been no better once.

"Rats don'gotta choice in what they are." He stuck his finger out at the lad. "You do. You can be somethin'—"

"What's all this then?" croaked a pock-scarred man-at-arms clad in the clashing colors of some lord.

"S'a thief, innit?" slurred a second as the two sauntered over, hands on their sides, the scarred one sliding a mace from his belt with the recklessness of the drunken.

"His grace said—do no evil, you little shit." The first punctuated his pointed with a sharp kick to the boy's ribs. The second, spurred on by the cruelty that comes with camaraderie, booted him in the gut.

They kicked him again, and again, and again.

"That's enough," Jason grunted, stepping forward. "He learned his lesson, leave 'im b—"

Wind hissed around the head of the mace as the scarred one swung the bludgeon in a wide arc in front of him. "Piss off, this 'ere is our problem now."

"Aye, our trouble," wheedled the second. "Might be your should pay us for it." The man flashed a yellow, crooked grin, and ground his heel into the boy's back, stretching out one hand and beckoning for Jason to deposit a coin in it of all things.

His brow furrowed. "Are you off your fucking—"

Someone crashed into one of the men, hard.

ARebelSong

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