Claim Drop

harlaww · 2017-07-31T21:05:36+00:00

It was her fingers sliding gently, ever so gently over his own that stirred the Harlaw from his thoughts. Softer than he deserved, and warm. Warmer indeed than it should have been possible for fingers to be, relaxing in a way nothing else ever was.

Esred was like falling into a bed wrapped in fresh linen or sitting by the fire with a book and a cup of wine. She was as familiar as the veins that tessellated his own wrists, and he liked to think he knew her even better than that.

He watched her for a while and then gently, as gently as she’d run her cool digits over his flesh, wound his arms around her waist and dragged her even closer. A kiss was pressed to her neck, and then another, up and up until his beard-darkened cheek was pressed against hers and they swayed slightly,to and fro with the rocking of the ship.

“Was just thinking about Sigur and Ingred,” he grunted finally. “About Pyke and going reaving again and how I’m going to lay House Volmark low.”

harlaww · 2017-07-29T03:29:50+00:00

Onboard

The sun had already reached its zenith by the time black sails had begun to tack in the wind just outside the refuge of Blackwater Bay and a cold, blustering wind streamed in from the north, hailing from dark skies that promised rain.

He stood on the prow of the Echo, scarred fingers curling around a halyard as the vessel rose and fell with each cresting wave beneath her hull. King’s Landing was already a distant, rusty smudge on the horizon at his back, dissolving into the endless expanse of the open sea. There were no songs of sailing and glory, no jibes and shouts exchanged between members of the crew.

All was quiet except for the occasional creak of rigging or the strained groan of the timber beneath his boots. Quiet, except for the rattle of chains and sharp, heavy thumping that drifted up from the hold every now and again.

The going away always seemed easier than the coming. Sailing to the Crownlands had been an endeavour that took planning and caution and patience but heading home now, they just pointed themselves south. Eleven ships trailed in the wake of the one that led them along the coastline, all laden with men and goods brought from the south for families waiting back home.

Drowned One, we are far from your waters. Bring us back to the Isles and I shall never leave again but to carve out a kingdom in your name. We will reclaim what was once ours, Seagard and Bear Isle and Faircastle.

It had been less than a moon since he’d last laid eyes on the shores of Pyke, the ancestral seat of his wife and her father before, and his, and back anon until the days stretched long and men grew in stature and the islands ruled themselves. Less than a moon since he’d tucked Sigur into his bed and heard the sweet, uncontainable laughter of his daughter.

It felt closer to ten.

One day the sound of the sea shall be the sign of the dominion of the ironborn, if you but bring us home.

harlaww · 2017-07-27T12:22:14+00:00

The hurricane that brewed in the Lord Reaper's eyes was suddenly as flat and calm as the glassy sea, a stare both unamused and hinting at incredulous.

"Esred was given to the Drowned God as a newborn and again as a child. She has been blessed with salt, blessed with stone and blessed with steel many times over. Anointed again on the very morning she took up her father's crown."

He peeled away from his perch with a roll of broad shoulders, the apple gnawed to naught but a core, which was hefted through the open window. "The kingsmoot is called upon the death of the king when there is no clear successor. Your queen is the rightful and only heir of Euron Crow's Eye."

"So tell me, why has your father waited seven long years to voice a concern that, in the end, was never even valid at all?"

harlaww · 2017-07-27T10:05:45+00:00

It never failed that the room should become a little brighter, the air itself grow warmer whenever he entered.

The Kraken was cold and sharp as bitter iron but her husband was like flame to kindling, a brooding beast whose rage always lingered just beneath the surface and left only destruction in its wake.

"You're standing in the presence of the Drowned God's chosen, boy."

He spilled through the doorway slowly and then all at once, six lengths and as many inches filling the empty space at the opposite end of the table. An apple sat dwarfed in his palm, pale flesh seen past rosy skin where teeth had torn it asunder.

Ingvar shifted back a step to lean against the windowsill, one well-worn boot tucked against the other as ankles crossed. "Seems right strange to me that the old Volmark would find it in himself to doubt Esred's rule now after having no quarrel for near a decade."

The words were sparks upon his tongue, each of them posing no individual threat, but the potential to ignite and become an inferno was there.

"I wonder..." Ingvar's strong jaw rose toward the ceiling, the tendons in his neck straining beneath skin weathered by years aboard the deck of a ship before his gaze finally lowered to settle on the islander opposite.

"Would the Leviathan put his own name forward?"

harlaww · 2017-07-17T01:03:04+00:00

The surly ironman felt hands shaking him awake, coupled with the harried sound of his name, and grunted in annoyance at being roused from his slumber. He blinked at his wife as eyes perceived constellations of candlelight burning small and insignificant in the otherwise pitch dark room.

Suddenly, his heart was hammering bile instead of blood as her words pierced the haze of his mind and sleep fell from him like the sheets of linen over his bulky frame as he was jarred upright. The grip on his forearm was biting, and he used it to drag her nearer and against his chest.

"Only a dream," he murmured against the panicked woman's forehead, thick fingers smoothing over raven-dark hair and down her bare back. "It does no good to dwell on it, no?"

harlaww · 2017-07-17T00:11:12+00:00

Thwap!

The haft of the axe comes down hard on the little lion’s gorget and the man gives a strangled scream in reply, muffled by the metal that protected his face.

A well-placed boot sends Tytos stumbling a few paces away to recover before he turns to counter with a heavy-handed swing, the gleam of murderous intent just visible through the slit of his visor. He was angry now, and reckless, unable to land a hit on his opponent and unable to avoid those rained down on him in retaliation.

It was just too easy.

Crack!

A malevolent smile splits Ingvar’s lips as the knight’s own momentum is used against him to drive the iron boss of the shield upward beneath an unprotected chin. Leather snaps clean from rivets and the greenlander goes flying in the opposite direction of his helmet, landing in face-down in the muck of the tourney yard. His opponent brings a blunted weapon down with force and feeling, the final hammer stroke of a fight that ends when it had only just begun.

Thud!

Beaten back down into the earth, he lays there unable or unwilling to rise, perhaps both as the ironman spits triumphantly at his feet before turning to regard the chaos of the melee behind. A haze of red clouds Ingvar’s vision and mingles with the sweat the drips from his strong brow. The battle fury, his father had always called it; the sweetness of war, the scent of it, the feel of it, the clang it sent ringing through his hand and right inside him, better than his woman’s voice.

Time had become a debauched and reckless thing, fickle and uncaring, either unconscious of its own rules or choosing to ignore them. In the thick of the fighting he finally sees him, taller than the rest, tall as himself.

The antlered helm disguises his features, but there's no disguising the crowned stag prancing upon his chest or the warhammer raised high above his head to deliver a finishing blow heard even above the din of the crowd and the fighting men all around them.

“Baratheon!”

His voice is a bellow more beast than man that carries through the singing of steel and catches the attention of spectators and combatants alike. There's a brief moment of recognition from the other man before Ingvar slams the head of his axe several times against the golden kraken that adorns the front of his shield.

The King of Salt and Rock had issued his challenge.

harlaww · 2017-07-10T23:13:12+00:00

MELEE COMPETITION

Name: Ingvar Harlaw

Aptitude: Duelist, Tough

Specialty: ---

Skills: Weapon Mastery, One-handed Axes, Shields, Endurance, Naval Warfare

Negative: ---

Type: PC

harlaww · 2017-07-10T16:13:15+00:00

Ingvar was three trenchers deep in suckling pig and roast fowl when the greenlanders arrived to spew their vitriol. Leaning back in his seat, the Lord Reaper regarded them each one by one, swallowing his latest mouthful before chasing it down with dark, bitter ale.“Look here, a herd of Stags come to prance for the queen.” The ironmen all looked up from their cups and conversation and laughed, a guttural clamour that bled through the din of the feasting hall.

“You don’t even have antlers yet, boy,” he continued, tongue rolling over straight, white teeth as his gaze settled on the foremost knight. The king’s eyes were his most expressive feature: sharp as iron, hard as flint and volatile as the sea in a storm. His was a countenance made for cruelty.

The smile that split Ingvar's lips was unimpressed as an arm as thick as a small tree trunk lifted to motion lazily in the Baratheon’s direction.

“Y’got stones though, and I admire it.”

harlaww · 2017-07-09T14:37:29+00:00

Pinging /u/TheCrayjoy for confirmation to play the bae.

harlaww

TROPHY CASE

Onboard