Robert Chapter II [Voice]

[stagstrong]

What is the use of these damned vendors? I’ve no shortage of gold in my own keep, but these stubborn fools won’t take my word for promise of payment. Not even the bloody bank of Braavos is as hard nosed as these damned fools. The closets are little better. I've tried a dozen times to find a bow or spear for hunting, but all I have to show for it is are there tiny wooden sticks.

[Toothpicks! Why does he need toothpicks? Is he supposed to be hunting moths? He groans, rubbing his temple at the growing frustration of negotiating with the people who occupy this pace. It’s part of a larger symptom in that he simply craves some action, whether it’s fighting or fucking, he’s not picky.]

What this place could use is decent entertainment. We have a tavern, aye. But a sad one at that. But where are the tourneys? The action? Gods, but what I wouldn't do for a melee now. Seven hells, but I’ll end up fat and soft if I’m expected to live like this much longer. My armor will rust before it sees use again.

[A moment's pause. He adds testily:] And to anyone who might ask, I have no wish to read anything.

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[wolfwild]

"...Then it is perhaps best that she stay in your imagination," Lyanna sighed -- tugging at a corner of the blindfold because she found it crooked. Or maybe she too was imagining things. "Where she can do no wrong and never disappoint you, my lord."

And then, after a pause, she delivered onto him his sword. And picked up her own -- the curious curved one, though she had no notion of how to use it.

[stagstrong]

He gripped the sword in his hand. In order to know it's length, he drove its point towards the ground and used it to lift himself back into a standing position. He hefted in front of him and tried to listen for her. However, he was poorly trained for this kind of combat. So he decided the best thing to do was to keep her talking.

"She could never disappoint me. Not this lady."

[wolfwild]

"Oh--" her gasp was theatrical. Light and less serious than she'd sounded a moment ago. Lyanna accepted herself as the figure in his imagination only by degrees and syllables -- alluding to her understanding, but never quite confronting it. A careful verbal game of cat and mouse, one whereby she would never quite have to tell him how unseemly the words were becoming. "Careful, unless she hears you and takes your words for another challenge."

Testing her bravery as well as his reactions, she started out so simple: tapping her sword once against his.

[stagstrong]

There she was. He swung his sword awkward and clumsily, because he was ill used to fighting left handed. But his sword rattled on hers and he turned in her direction, ever smiling and seemingly unworried.

"Is she so easily challenged? It must make for a tiresome life."

[wolfwild]

"Would you prefer her listless? Without ambition and easy led? Maybe those who are instead easily challenged can be said to show promise."

She laughed to see his clumsy swing. But her laughter was sourced in a sharp knowledge that he could swing much stronger and much better when given half a chance. There were no illusions: she knew Lord Robert Baratheon was a skilled warrior. And every weakened blow was more to his credit than surely he even imagined.

Lyanna hopped backwards, circled left, and tried to tap his elbow instead. But she was still talking loud and boisterous: "Or is it you who would rather be unchallenged?"

[stagstrong]

He was becoming, by some small amount, a little better. She made it only too easy to keep facing her and keep a rudimentary kind of defense. His elbow bobbed away just in time for him to make another clumsy lunge at where he expected her to be.

"I love a challenge!" He roared boastfully. "But if we're so easily challenged, what does this promise hold?"

[wolfwild]

"Favours. Boons. Victory chalices. Rights to brag and boast that I felled a Lord of the Stormlands."

All her grandstanding and speechifying got her caught on her open side -- enough so that she huffed a quiet oof when the wood thudded harmlessly against her abdomen. A dire blow had they been real swords, maybe. But he was blindfolded and she did not want the game to end so soon: "My arm!" She screeched with laughing surprise, not a habitual liar but keen to keep their fun roused. "But not my sword-arm, thankfully."

[stagstrong]

"First blood," he declared and swept his weapon harmlessly into the air. "You should have brought a shield, my lady. Do you suppose your arm will ever heal?"

Now he was the one who spoke too much. He lost her in the shuffle and when he struck again, he was far from reaching her and only air greeted his useless attack.

[wolfwild]

-- And only then did she conclude that he was finding her by sound. Tricky! For only when she didn't speak did he miss so wildly, and Lyanna had not thought to count that sense. Of course she wouldn't; what did she know of actual battle? Of limited visibility? Of what a warrior had to do just to land a blow?

So she did not deign to answer his question, nor did she rise to his taunt. Instead she kept her blade up and tried to gently toe her way behind him.

[stagstrong]

The silence seemed so sudden now. He lunged at empty air. He frowned and tried to listen, but it was no use. He was not patient enough to slow his own breathing and truly listen. The wind rustling the leaves was louder than her foot falls and breathing.

"Have you run away, my lady? I would hate to think my betrothed to be craven in battle."

[wolfwild]

A step! A slide! A lean to the left. In this fashion, Lyanna inched her way 'round until she stood with the back of his neck in her sights. Broad strong shoulders and a body like an animal: built for killing, she understood. Built for winning wars. Like a flash in the pan, her gaming turned to horror when she thought of this man crashing his mighty hammer down on Prince Rhaegar Targaryen. On one toe's tip, she swayed. Stumbled. Caught herself with her second foot and turned.

Lyanna shook her head and chased the thought away. Now was not the time to wonder at the whys and hows of war she would never fight and hoped never to see. Now was only a chance to prove herself. So she raised her sword and thought to try and press its blunted tip between his shoulder blades. She did not press; she did not jab. She held it there like a mild thread. "I have you," she said -- soft and uncertain. As if she did not know whether she had him or not.

[stagstrong]

After so long a silence, he had begun to suspect she would do just that. But before he even thought to turn, he felt the tip of the blade at his back. But it felt so light that even bared skin with a bladed sword, he reckoned she would not drawn blood. He stayed motionless as he tried to get a sense of where she was standing now.

"Have you now?" He asked airily. "I'm still standing."

[wolfwild]

She thought about what might be necessary to take this giant to his knees: a hard thwack behind the legs; a brutal jab in the ribs. And again Lyanna was confronted with the hard requirements of a fight. Although they did not outright discourage her, she felt a creeping uncertainty as to whether she wanted to invite honest violence into her and Robert's equation.

She was right behind him. And she pressed the sword's tip a little more firmly into his back. "Alright," she sought to correct herself: "I might have you. If I so wished."

But there would be no good in pretending her hesitation was mere mercy. In every moment, she knew, mercy was his to dispense.

[stagstrong]

Though he felt the tip now, he could sense her uneasiness. He knew that even blinded and using the wrong hand, he could chance to spin around, knock the sword from her hand, and so have her. He also knew how likely it was he would strike her instead of her blade. But the truth of it was, he did not desire to beat her. So he did turn, swiftly, but he never raised his blade. He merely exchanged his spine for his neck.

He grinned, in spite of his apparent defeat. "Will you kill me or have my surrender, lady knight?"

[wolfwild]

Ah! Now she had him: point to throat. Her wrist twisted and she pressed her advantage -- stepping forward and letting the blunted tip jab and probe the hollow of his neck. Those bones that in the finer sex were so delicate and pronounced, but which on Robert were like an ox's great collar bones. Promise and possibility hung in the air between them. And, indeed, the sword twitched all at once like she was prepared to pull back and give him a great and violent thwack against the ribs. She wondered if he would fall; she wondered if he would even stagger.

So in the last moment she chose another option: abandoning the sword. She dropped it. She let it fall onto the grass and instead of charging with it, she dropped her shoulder and charged with her body instead. Lyanna drove her graceful shoulder hard against the lowest mid-point of his ribs. She was strong for her size and for her station, but she was not strong like he was strong. She knew there was little opportunity to topple him, and so she put all her power behind that one shoulder.

She aimed not to drop him to his knees but to leave an impression upon him. To remind him that she was not some pliable Stormlands girl. She was Lyannna Stark -- the she-wolf; an oncoming winter; a child of Winterfell.

[stagstrong]

Robert expected a many great things, but not to be charged. It did hurt to feel the sudden blow against his chest, but not enough to wind him. Regardless, he'd not anticipated it, and suddenly was stumbling back, reaching for something to steady him. His empty hand found her sleeve, but his foot found a raised root. He could steady himself no longer. She did not expect to topple him, but she did, and in his brief but blind panic, he pulled her with him for a fleeting seconds, before he released the fabric.

[wolfwild]

So much happened in a span of moments. Lyanna felt Lord Robert stagger. First came triumph: she laughed, gave a cry of victory, and beat a loosely closed fist against his barrel of a chest as if to say look, my lord, i am indeed your match! A childish sentiment, certainly -- but any thin scrap of a win made her absurdly pleased with herself, even if it was gained by the way in which he did not take her threats so seriously.

But victory gave way to shock with such speed. She felt herself snagged and tugged along with him. Him blind and her suddenly footless, they crashed together on the floor of the forest's edge: hard roots amid soft grasses. Lyanna landed with her elbow driven unintentionally into his stomach and (when she realized it) she tried to roll away. Her attempt to make some sort of retreat did not come from any scandal or discomfort, but she found herself legitimately concerned for him. To thrash him once or twice in a game was one thing -- but she did not want to cause any accidental damage, however unlikely.

"My lord?" She groaned.