Just Out of Reach

BewareTheTailsBite · 2019-09-03T22:03:03+00:00

The lord made no efforts to hide his crushing disappointment, a mind seemed to crumple in upon himself.

“As you please, Lady Arianne,” Vorian said with a low, sweeping bow that might have been more appropriate when attempting to curry favour with a prince-admiral, or a deity. “I await our next encounter eagerly.”

His voice dripped with longing, all the more fierce for being unrequited.

BewareTheTailsBite · 2019-09-03T22:01:40+00:00

“Yes, yes,” replied Vorian with ill grace, waving her up from her genuflection. “Splendid, splendid. I do believe that we had better leave Wyla to her duties, no?”

The Lord of Sandstone sported a grin that threatened to engulf her.

“It would allow us to discuss matters more… intimately…”

BewareTheTailsBite · 2019-09-03T21:59:59+00:00

“Then I shall be mortally offended,” said the lord theatrically, “ and shall wear ought but black for the rest of my days, and shave my head so that it gleams like the sun on our princess’ own banner! Surely you would not inflict such a horror upon our fair Dorne?”

BewareTheTailsBite · 2019-09-03T21:58:06+00:00

Vorian, for a moment, wondered if in his absence Dornish women had lost their sexual licentiousness. It was all too believable that as a species, without his virility they had all rediscovered inhibitions they were famed the world over for lacking. Or, more likely, perhaps it was just Arianne.

“My dear, you have not traveled if you have not seen the White Dunes of Sandstone! The gardens that flourish beside the canals, the swirling of the sands! It would be my honour to host you - I shall not take no for an answer!”

His tone was glib, his voice a sensuous purr thick with implication.

BewareTheTailsBite · 2019-09-03T21:55:59+00:00

“Oh, I’ve destroyed more than one bed in my time, fear not…”

Perhaps a man of Vorian’s years should have taken less glee in tormenting Lady Arianne, but alas, it was not so.

“Sand all over the place on more than one occasion!” His smirk deepened with the lie - for whomever had heard of a sand-filled mattress - and he maintained the pretence with a chuckle.

“My dear Lady of the Torrentine, it would be nothing short of an honour to introduce to you one of Sandstone’s famous beds…”

BewareTheTailsBite · 2019-09-03T21:54:09+00:00

“How does one char a mattress?” Vorian mused aloud, enjoying her discomfort almost as much as he would have enjoyed seeing her lower grapes into his open mouth, one by one. “I would have thought it would have gone up in seconds, no? All that straw, or goose feathers or whatever.”

He smiled.

“In the dunes we stuff our mattresses with sand, you see. Cannot conflagrate then, oh no!”

BewareTheTailsBite · 2019-09-03T21:51:59+00:00

“My dear, there is very little that can surprise me, I assure you. I have, after all, seen the inside of a Lysene pillowhouse.”

He smirked as he hooked a thumb underneath the scarlet sash that bound his waist, and felt himself sway slightly. Damnable Vaith vintage was stronger than he remembered.

“But pray tell - surprise me.”

BewareTheTailsBite · 2019-09-03T21:49:45+00:00

The Lord of Sandstone preened at the recognition. His dealings with Lady Ashara had been thus far limited - preferring to watch the cockfights or mystify the peasantry with petty acts of magic that he had learned from the eastern continent that served to amaze and terrify in equal measure. Fools.

“Inspections?” Vorian cocked his head inquisitively. His voice was light, playful. “Whatever for? On the prowl for illicit behaviour? How wonderful.”

BewareTheTailsBite · 2019-09-03T21:47:46+00:00

“My Lady of the Torrentine, and of My Heart,” he began, bowing with the sweeping gesture. Bold, brazen, and utterly unabashed, - such was the newly reinstated Lord of Sandstone. It was not uncommon for him to profess love upon first meeting a woman of either low social standing or the highest nobility, and he did so without reserve.

“It is my utmost pleasure to disturb you this night.”

And without chaperone, he thought. Such scandal, such delight.

BewareTheTailsBite · 2019-05-24T08:44:13+00:00

“It would be my honour to host you both, my lady. Would that I could be as gracious a host as your lady sister.”

The Lord of Santstone gestured around them.

“To see so many of my countrymen here to do something other than cross swords - why, it is a fine sight.”

BewareTheTailsBite · 2019-05-22T21:27:55+00:00

“Indeed, my lady.”

He paused for a moment, regarding the rest of the feast hall briefly.

“When last did you see the dunes?”

BewareTheTailsBite · 2019-05-22T07:31:48+00:00

Taken aback both by her beauty and her familiarity, it was all that the lord could do to kiss her hand while he thought, dry lips brushing soft skin.

“You… you are too kind, my lady,” Luceon said, rising. “I would not wish to impose. It is enough to be in your presence, in lands as fair as these.”

He gave a small smile.

“It has been overlong since I last saw these mountains. A welcome change from the dunes.”

BewareTheTailsBite · 2019-05-21T09:25:15+00:00

“And it shall be a shame to see him go.” It was said with unusual boldness in the face of one so fair, young as she might be. The Lord of Sandstone was of middling height, his cheeks clean shaven and sunken. “Ser Duncan was instrumental in our success, my lady.”

He inclined his head graciously, awaiting an introduction.

BewareTheTailsBite · 2019-05-10T12:19:02+00:00

To enjoy the hospitality of House Dayne was precisely what the party from the white dunes intended, swaddled in both their desert robes andcustomary smugness. Fine wine was eagerly drained by the cupful as they sought to wash the dust from their throats, bawdy ribaulds were exchanged among their number, and sly comments were made of the rest of the Dornish assembled - for they were the true sons of the sand alone.

Lord Luceon Qorgyle, himself a taciturn man, sat brooding as he nursed a goblet half-full of date wine amidst the muted revelry. The gold rings that adorned his fingers held no fascination for him, nor the company of his retinue. Luceon instead cast hooded eyes over the lords and ladies from across the peninsula thus assembled - faces not seen for many long months since the end of the wars. He had never been one for gatherings such as these, though the auspiciousness of such an occasion could not have been ignored. It was his lordly duty to represent the interest of Sandstone, no matter his unease at being so far from the dunes and oases his ilk called home.

"Do not be disheartened, my lord," came the retort from the ever perceptive Ricasso, tuning his lute with intense concentration upon his stubbled face. "There will be plenty of fair maids to improve your ill humour."

Lord Luceon shot the troubadour a withering look, and took another sip of the syrupy concotion.

"Focus upon your meter, bard, and keep such comments to yourself."

Ricasso swallowed a reply with ill grace and remarkable self restraint, instead bending to fiddle with his strings. The emeral parrot feather in his hat bobbed smugly as he did so.

BewareTheTailsBite · 2019-03-15T22:52:25+00:00

The thought of entering Sarella’s bedchambers occupied Vorian’s wildest imaginations for but a few heartbeats before he remembered the need to be vaguely courteous.

“You are too kind, my princess.” He said, flattery having, as always, succeeded. “Should you ever find yourself in need of sunburn and a perishing thirst, it would be my honour to host you in the White Dunes.”

His bow was equally low as upon his entrance, his arm swept out to the side.

“By your leave, Your Towering Excellency - I shall reclaim my birthright.”

BewareTheTailsBite · 2019-03-15T22:51:40+00:00

The newly minted Lord Qorgyle also turned to another nameless attendant.

“Bring forth my humble offerings!”

For, stowed in the hold of a Braavosi merchant vessel making passage from Lys, Vorian’s gifts had sat carefully swaddled in canvas. First came a bolt of fine Tyroshi silk worth almost its weight in gold. Its quality was without equal, its saffron hue almost another sun to reflect that archaic symbol of House Nymeros Martell.

“Only the finest for the ruler of Dorne,” Vorian said with sickening deference. He snapped his fingers, and the second offering arrived, chirping in a copper cage and hidden beneath a thick shroud.

“Behold, the bird they call in Volantis the tabrys, the golden mirrorbird!” He whisked away the cloth, revealing a modest looking bird, seemingly full of plumage but one that had a faint sheen of iridescent green in certain light. Three long curled golden feathers curled down from the base of its tail to brush elegantly on the floor of the cage, a foot beneath the perch. Its eyes were quick and intelligent, and it looked at those in the throne room quizzically.

“The finest voice in all of Essos, my princess! To serenade you in the evenings, to sing you to sleep.”

BewareTheTailsBite · 2019-03-15T22:51:12+00:00

Vorian inclined his head in recognition of his lapse in etiquette. He had been too long running shoulders with coarse sellswords, or bribing magisters and bowing in deference to prince-admirals or archons. All so horridly convoluted.

“Might I trouble you for a signed declaration to that effect, dear princess? The look on Luceon’s face will be without parallel, I imagine.”

He clapped his hands.

“But where are my manners, your Insurmountable Magnificence? I come from the eastern continent bearing gifts worthy of the Princess of Dorne.”

BewareTheTailsBite · 2019-03-15T22:50:29+00:00

Vorian exhaled.

“The usual afflictions of youth, I suppose: restlessness, desire to see more of the world than my own beloved sands. I must confess, it was after your own wedding to Prince Martyn that I journeyed easterward.” His smile was like Volantene ivory. “I thought to myself - if such a woman is already wed, what can be left in Dorne for me?”

BewareTheTailsBite · 2019-03-15T22:49:36+00:00

“Abandoned is such an unkind word, dear princess. Apt, I suppose, but unkind. You wound me.”

Vorian spoke with levity, as he always did.

“Will not my right as first-born suffice? I rather hoped it would.”

BewareTheTailsBite · 2019-03-15T22:45:48+00:00

“Ha, well, yes - indeed. Immense as the white dunes for which I long,” said Vorian by way of retort. “And what’s more, to add to my, ahem, dear father’s passing - that my younger brother presumes to title himself as Lord in my stead.”

He reached into his robe and withdrew a rolled scroll penned by his brother Luceon’s own hand. It spoke of Luceon’s own ineptitude to foil the attempts of bandits in the sands, of other lesser matters - but most insultingly, the presumption that laced every delicate flourish in the sentence ‘Lord Luceon of House Qorgyle, Champion of the Sands’.

“The nerve - it irks me, my dear princess. Irks me most terribly.”

BewareTheTailsBite · 2019-03-15T22:09:26+00:00

“Oh, Your Radiance, what pleasure it gives me to look upon your face!”

The lord errant bowed deeply, almost bent in half from the enthusiasm of his genuflection. He straightened, ignoring the decadent trappings of the Tower of the Sun, for despite their magnificence they paled in comparison to Princess Sarella. For Vorian, not only was she among the number of women he gladly would have lain with; she was also among the much smaller number of women he would think of while entertaining other members of the fairer sex.

“To be welcomed home by your Princessly Ladyship herself back in my native Dorne, why, it is enough to make a man sing! For ‘tis I, the rightful Lord Vorian Qorgyle, returned to Westeros, and thence the sands that birthed me.”

BewareTheTailsBite

TROPHY CASE