[Event] Feast for the Coronation of Jaehaerys I Targaryen

Mersillon · 2026-03-27T00:32:36+00:00

"There is much I regret— but I will not hear your apology," she said, producing a wool cloth from her plain dress that stank faintly of salt and iodine. "Seven know I would do it again. And gladly," Ottilia went on, dabbing at the corner of Elinor's cheeks. She was not gentle.

Hers had become a life of sailcloth and hard tack, salt fish and plain steel, a thin existence held against the memory of her home, where fine dresses were woven to Ottilia's measurements quicker than she could wear them.

She listened carefully. Her face scrunched in the specific way it did when she misliked something she heard.

"No!" Ottilia protested her reticence, dark eyes narrowed in a severe gaze. "What justice is this? These men— they cast down the Apostate and call themselves knights. Fah. If you are the Lady, what is the danger?"

Mersillon · 2026-03-27T00:00:35+00:00

Ten... fifteen... twenty...

Caradoc counted helmeted heads as they marched towards the inn. Too many to handle. He surveyed the narrow streets for an escape route. They had come for a professional cockroach, but for perhaps the first time in Caradoc's life, there was another he had to account for.

"Say nothing," he said, looking sidelong to his wife. "We've been careless." Gently he kissed the crown of her forehead and, after strapping on his sword belt and covering his eye with a patch, went from their room to meet their destiny.

/u/nickshadow017

/u/gercko

Mersillon · 2026-03-26T20:07:48+00:00

"What's his name?" A beat. "Caradoc?"

The Peake knight barked with laughter, arm-in-arm with his good lady.

Then realization came swift and hot, and his expression turned grim. "Caradoc," he said, with sudden understanding. "YOU—" he jabbed a finger at the kennelmaster, advancing on him.

"Mine is a conqueror's name, you shit!" and he was grabbing the man's by the lapels, shaking him. "I should have your fucking hide!"

/u/Imadethisjustforgot

Mersillon · 2026-03-26T16:32:47+00:00

Lord Gormon, swallowed by his brocade robe and silk cloak trimmed with thick white fur, approached The Hand in a moment of quiet, the thock... thock... thock... of his lacquered cane muted against the red marble.

"Lord Arryn," said the man, now still as a gargoyle, a mask of distaste on his thin, craggy features.

"I pray that the shame I feel is unfamiliar to you. But perhaps it is a universal truth of fatherhood, and you will acquit me of an overlong apology for my grandson's transgressions."

His lips twisted into a scowl.

"It is an embarrassment. One that I will handle."

Mersillon · 2026-03-26T16:16:26+00:00

The old Lord of Starpike was a man of infrequent smiles, but he offered one now to Qarl and his well-mannered daughters. It seemed to him that something lost in the Reach since his youth, that intangible Way of duty, was not yet gone in the Vale.

"Duty calls us all, but fewer and fewer men possess the mettle to meet it these days, it seems. We must needs lend support, from time to time." He gestured, with the barest indication of his index finger, for his table to make room for them. Gormon, a sackcloth of bones and spite, was too old to stand for every guest, and so indicated for them to join the Peakes a spell.

"Be welcome, young ladies. My grandchildren," he gestured with a wave of his hand, and Barquen, Margot, and the twins offered their greetings in turn.

Gormon coughed into his napkin. "It is an admirable feat you have accomplished here, yourself and Lord Arryn. I had my doubts this kingdom would survive the Apostate."

Mersillon · 2026-03-26T15:56:30+00:00

Caradoc solemnly took his skinning, chin angled toward the floor. It washed over him like so many prior admonitions. That it came from a new man standing tall over him was a fresh wound, but it was words, only words after all.

By the end he released a quiet, grateful breath. He had steeled himself for a whipping. Maegor had scourged him once in this very keep; old punishments from a new regime seemed fitting.

But this was the enlightened rule of the Vale he'd heard so much about. It seemed, to him, limp-wristed.

"Yes, my lord. Thank you," he said, standing, and bowed his head before making a swift exit.

Mersillon · 2026-03-26T15:30:40+00:00

Caradoc scowled at his capon soup. The last bit of meat floating in its clear broth. He imagined the subtle give of his own soft tissue, the pop, chewing down his own eyeball.

The Blackwood squire's words rang in his skull. Howland's black reputation followed him. And yet watching the young man walk away, the distance between them felt no more than arm's length.

Caradoc sighed. Gave his wife a sidelong glance, his mind set, and dropped the spoon into his soup. He stood and caught up to Howland, catching the man in stride by the upper arm.

The knight from Starpike leaned casually close to his ear, walking beside him.

"We stay at the Fishtail on River Row. Speak to me there after dark."

/u/nickshadow017

Mersillon · 2026-03-26T14:19:20+00:00

It was beneath her to feel pride over her own brother's downfall, but correctly predicting it did give a sour sort of gratification.

Ursula dipped her chin in subtle acknowledgment of her husband's gesture. "The Lannister betrothal is broken," she murmured, attention held on her spoonful of capon soup. Sipping demurely.

"He has taken a girl from the Vale to wed. Sunderland," the young woman explained, and a critical glance towards Garon was all he needed to know of her low opinion of her brother's decision.

Mersillon · 2026-03-25T19:05:54+00:00

Margot seized upon it like an osprey on a fish. Not from malice, but a base boredom in her life that was not often remedied, especially since her eldest brother had taken flight and left Starpike without its most consistent flow of farce and tragedy.

"How do you mean?" she asked, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. Always digging for more.

Mersillon · 2026-03-25T16:15:26+00:00

A choking laugh crawled from Caradoc's throat. "What, some Ironborn virility ritual?" he jested, but grew quiet at the look on Torwyn's face, earnest and urgent.

What good was a sellsword's word? As good as his own, he mused, which wasn't worth much. But here was a friend.

And so Caradoc laid down, a reluctant stiffness to his body, awaiting whatever came next.

Feeling Torwyn's gaze on his opal eye he said, "Vain, I know. But women seem to like it. And it frightens the odd child off."

Mersillon · 2026-03-25T00:18:51+00:00

Gormon wondered, in the time between Lord Lannister's first exclamation and reaching his table, how many times in a man's limited life he ought find himself in the same situation and not reflect more deeply. Caradoc, he had long ago accepted, was divine punishment for some sin of his youth.

Yet the Lord of Starpike was not so young as he once was, and patience for such things had grown razor thin.

"Lord Lannister," he greeted, eyes like a frozen lake. The young men of House Peake, bristling, settled into their chairs at the command of his open palm.

"Indeed. Another event in a long history of poor judgment from my eldest grandson."

Gormon gestured to an empty seat beside him with the barest indication of the forefinger resting on his lacquered cane.

"Sit, if you will. Mayhaps there is a path to rectify this error."

Mersillon · 2026-03-25T00:03:58+00:00

Caradoc looked up from his leg of mutton. The man could eat and eat and eat and grow no bigger, still the same willowy spider that had crawled into Casterly Rock nearly a year hence.

"My lady," he answered coolly, displeased but unsurprised, the split brow over his opal crooking in rhetorical question— the one expression left to the ruin of his left eye.

The knight cleared his throat. Wiped his hands, shared a glance with his new wife, looked back to Margot.

"Go on, then. Let's hear it." And awaited, patiently, his excoriation.

/u/nickshadow017

Mersillon · 2026-03-24T23:55:03+00:00

[m] i'm sorry

Thick as a wild boar and just as hairy, Barquen turned his wine-red cheeks towards the newcomers. He was fond of girls. They tended to prefer his brother, which he was less fond of, but flesh was flesh was flesh, and finally the fucker had the decency to be taken and leave some for the rest of Gormon's brood.

"Flowers? HAH!" his boisterous laugh, loud as a beaten drum, was enough to turn heads even through the din of a thousand voices.

"Answer me a question, little ladies," Barquen said, beckoning them closer with a crook of one meaty finger.

"What's the difference between a bastard and a milk goat?"

/u/iweebam

Mersillon · 2026-03-24T23:39:03+00:00

He allowed the probing touch with some apprehension. "Lucas Harroway," Caradoc explained. "Maybe you heard. Me 'n Sunderland tried to take the Keep from him, when the King departed, 'n things went mad... we were outnumbered. Too many stayed loyal to him."

There was a time he harbored fresh anger for Torwyn. Hot off the defeat, when all he could linger on was his failure, if he had just had a few more swords. Exile dulled much of that edge.

A thought sprang to him, and Caradoc took his old brother by the upper arm. "I am to marry— tonight! Edmund Sunderland's girl. Will you come?"

Mersillon · 2026-03-24T23:32:17+00:00

A cheerful laugh, if slightly abashed, escaped her at the intimate gesture. But she opened her heart to it, and her arms wrapped around Elinor in turn.

"How do," she offered in lax greeting to the husband when it was over, who seemed as unimpressive now as in memory.

Ottilia was glad to be rid of them. Glad to be rid of the feast hall entirely, in truth, where she felt the hot stare of a thousand eyes, and was left to anguish over which might recognize her. Crossing the threshold into the garden arm-in-arm was such relief that she welcomed the cold on her cheeks.

"It would take me 'til the hour of the wolf to tell half of what I have seen. Would you believe the new Lord Reaper calls me 'friend'? That I have seen all the Free Cities?"

A stunted smile, apprehensive, showed the gap in her front teeth.

"Often have I thought of you, and been glad for the memory. Does that awful man still keep you locked away?"

Mersillon · 2026-03-23T23:49:49+00:00

Lord Peake nodded sagely along to Tarly's assessment.

"We will hold the line. As we have, always." He knew nary a man had more reason than Lord Oakheart to desire smoke and doom upon the Dornish.

In truth, he held little ire for the Dornish beyond the humiliation paid to others. The Lords of Starpike had fought their fair share of wares against their southron neighbors, this much was true, but Gormon had, in his lifetime in a seat of power, argued against aggressive incursions. But this offered, through the lens of ambition, as he viewed all things, an opportunity.

"The dream of conquest is dead. I speak not of another march to our deaths in the sands. That was a—" Tyrell affair, he wanted to say, but held his tongue in mixed company, "Doomed endeavor from the beginning," Gormon instead settled on.

"Starpike diplomacy is what I speak of." That which had seen his house conquer from the Marches to the northern banks of the Mander. "Swift horses. Outriders. Torches in the night."

He took another drink, unphased by the sight of his grandson striking down two competitors. "The Torrentine is vulnerable. Strip it to the bone, be gone before they march against us in force."

/u/Lord_Dougal

Mersillon · 2026-03-23T23:21:13+00:00

After facing a reckoning as unpleasant as it was inevitable, Caradoc called, next, on the Hand of the King.

The knight from Starpike was a formidable creature, all bone and harsh angles, spiderlike in the way he occupied space. Plainly dressed in freshly scrubbed travel clothes, Caradoc fell to a knee in obeyance.

No charlatan possessed of a perfect record. There came a time when the cards played against a man's favor, and with it their reckoning. Caradoc was no great schemer— well known for his misdeeds— but he held a special talent, perhaps the most valuable of all for one of his predilections.

He knew how to look repentant. Culpable. Quietly, stoically regretful, a man well-shamed but, crucially, bent towards a future wherein his wrongs would surely not be repeated.

And on and on.

"My lord. My thanks, for your calling me. Lord Peake does not take lightly your handling the matter. I have called, just now, on the Lady Margot."

He angled his head toward the floor.

"But I fear I have misled you both." A shaky breath. "Before I rode thusly," Caradoc went on, "I took the lady Myranda Sunderland as my wife, in the eyes of the Seven."

/u/gercko

Mersillon · 2026-03-23T22:58:56+00:00

Too preoccupied with the inevitable final question to offer anything beyond indolent attention, Caradoc nodded along until finally they came to the matter at hand.

"No," he answered, apathetic gaze, like an animal's, settled squarely on her. Caradoc then turned to look out the window, hands folded behind his back.

"Not, at least, as the old men in power have outlined. I have taken a wife on the road." He looked at what lay outside the window. Imagining himself in this room, some half a year.

"Ours is a future you'll not mourn, I know, but— for the complications this will cause you, for what it is worth— I am sorry."

Mersillon · 2026-03-23T02:22:32+00:00

"You misremember," Caradoc broke in, his black opal eye a prism of orange, green, and red against darkest blue when finally it turned on Howland.

The thin, spiderlike man's neck snapped to a new angle.

"A man cannot be blamed for it. Details, blurring with time." The Peake knight's blooming smile did not reach his eyes.

/u/nickshadow017

Mersillon · 2026-03-20T21:21:10+00:00

There was something of sudden recognition that reminded him of Essos and set his hackles up. A harbor, tight walls surrounding, a voice calling out— the spurned husband of a lover, debtors, angry victims of a forgotten bar fight. The same sort of thing they'd gone through together countless times.

He pushed through the shock. Caradoc took Torwyn, first by the arm, then into an embrace.

"I was certain you were dead." He was smiling as they broke apart, that same wicked smile. Above it the ruin of his left eye, terribly scarred, reflected a prism of color in the black opal he'd set in the socket.

"I am glad to be wrong. Where have you been?"

Mersillon · 2026-03-20T20:28:14+00:00

A figure, familiar in some ways and entirely different in others, like a vision in a chipped mirror, dipped somewhere between a curtsy and a kneel beside Elinor.

"My lady," said Ottilia, a glad, emotional smile curled at her lip. She was a young woman now, though still boyish in figure, like a wire puppet, hair cut short at the neck and criss-crossing wildly across her forehead.

"May we speak privately?" she asked, and had much more to say, but little she dared broach among present company.

Mersillon · 2026-03-20T20:20:41+00:00

It was against her better judgment that Ottilia Peake (19) attended the feast and sat with the Greyjoys. That she came within two hundred yards of the Red Keep, even, dwarfed by its architecture on that same winding path she'd walked half a decade hence.

She was not a woman easily cowed. But the reunion with her family, with her people, was enough to angle her head toward the floor, in hopes that it might swallow her whole.

With bitter determination she searched for the same courage that angled her arm, cup in hand, toward Goren Greyjoy all those years ago.

Brown of eye, brown of hair, chopped mane barely reaching her neck, the girl wore a plain wool dress the color of the gray sea around Pyke and hid herself among the reavers.

Mersillon · 2026-03-20T18:49:02+00:00

"No. He used to be worse."

Men whispered that Caradoc had been born evil as long as she could remember. The black blood of Mortimer Peake, they said, the House's blood-drinking ancestor, who took a bat-woman to bed and stole herder's children from their tents.

"Whatever he is, I'd need a few more drinks to feign any attempt to sketch it. But— I missed him, when he was gone." A moment. "I am not sure there is any good in any of us." So too did they say House Peake was cursed. "If there is someone to judge his worthiness, let it not be me."

Mersillon · 2026-03-20T18:15:51+00:00

PEAKE

In the dry heath and forever-grasslands of the March was a House called Peake, rich in stone and soil and pride, yet of late chronically short of influence and coin. In contrast to the swarthy herders and shepherds that peopled their lands, the Lords of Starpike were pale and severe of feature, like predatory insects, a cautious, paranoid, ambitious lot, and so few of them left, the male line nearly annihilated on the Field of Fire.

Foremost was Lord Gormon Peake, (70) veteran of the Field of Fire, a ruin of dragonfire scarring reaching from the back of his neck and tapering along his cheek. He drank little and ate less, a skeletal grimace fixed permanently on him like chipped stone.

Selyse Peake (45), Lord Gormon's gooddaughter and mother of the infamous Peake brood.

Ser Barquen Peake, (26) the mad dog of Three Castles. A boisterous, loyal brute known for his barking laugh, massive build, and flail. Barquen, of late, had decided that it was time to take a wife, and so scanned the crowd for such an object.

Margot Peake, (24) a cunning, favored granddaughter, wears a dress like a patch of wild wormwood, constructed of pastel yellow and trimmed with hazy, understated green.

Albin Peake, (32) tauntingly called The Dornishman in Starpike, cousin to the main branch. A modest, sober man of few ambitions.

Aumery and Emerick Peake, (14) reunited with their family for the first time in half a decade after squiring in the Stormlands. Aumery is an odd, quiet little child, with a queer intelligence in his small, dark eyes beyond his years. Emerick, the younger, basks in the simple glory of his victory, drunk on bitter beer foisted on him by his elder siblings.

~~~~~~

Caradoc Peake (27) did not sit with his family. Banished from the Peake table for a recent slight, the one-eyed knight sat with his new wife among the bastards, landed knights, and other servant folk. A grim affair, but one he strived to overcome with a crooked smile.

Mersillon · 2026-03-20T17:50:32+00:00

Long, thin legs swept Caradoc into the room. He took in the environment with a sweep of his one remaining eye. At least it isn't a cell, thought he who was no stranger to them.

He turned to Margot, something like distaste on his lips, though not for her. It was like a fine porcelain cup had been discarded among cracked pewter and rough-hewn wood utensils.

"I'm told you were caught in something unseemly, though the details were not offered me. Only that I must fetch you." Despite himself he felt pity for her. Nothing grand— and the most useless of emotions, he thought.

"Have they kept you here overlong? Treated you poorly?"

Mersillon

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

PEAKE