Who: Genna, assorted other noble children When: Day 63, afternoon Where: The Red Keep. A room which until very very recently was a secondary council chamber and will sadly not be likely to appear as such for a few days. Rating: PG Status: Open.
Genna stood in her favorite place in the world: the middle of a mess. She herself was mostly spotless, though the flower crown she’d woven earlier wasn’t quite in the best condition, but the room around her looked remarkably like it had been attacked by deranged artists (or at least very experimentally-minded ones) determined to coat the world in a color of paint only achieved by mixing several colors, adding some water, and contributing a few various plants and egg yolks and something that looked as if it might have been some strange sort of mud, and in point of fact, was. They had dug it up especially in a specific spot in the garden and it made a terrific yellow color- much better than the eggs.
Her assistants were much less pristine than Genna, although little Cerenna Tyrell had managed to be very nearly as clean. Genna sensed somehow this, in combination with something in the way the boys looked at Cerenna, was an omen of something. But Genna wouldn’t be here for it, of course. She only hoped Gwyn liked Cerenna.
It had been someone’s idea that the children needed time to get to know one another and to spend time together. Embroidery had been put forth as acceptable, as had dancing. Which was how the boys had ended up in the midst of it. The dance teacher had stormed off after one errant runaway and the children had meant to stay in the room, but Genna had been talking about a room she’d seen her father in one day and the interesting tapestry and then they’d all wanted to see it, and they’d meant to get back to dancing, but it had been a long time ago and surely no one was upset or they’d have come to say so already…
One of the Bulwer boys was red from head to heel and Mathis Dondarrion was covered in purple slashes meant to be his house sigil. “You’re a lobster now, Garrion,” Cerenna giggled.
“I am the RED VIPER.”
“Vipers aren’t red, they’re a funny greenish color.” Lucian Velaryon was going to be eight in a few months, and he liked to know things. Genna rolled her eyes.
“He means Prince Oberyn Martell. The hero, who killed the demon!”
“There’s not a demon in the Red Viper’s song,” Mathis put in. Genna gave him a look.
“There is so! It ate his sister and her children.”
“It didn’t eat them! It ate other people though, because the Viper didn’t kill it right,” Lyssanora corrected her.
“The Viper killed the stone giant,” Mathis told them all in the superior voice that usually meant he would try to tell a story soon. “You’re thinking of the Demon of Harrenhall, that ate virgins and pretty girls and had their hearts on necklaces.”
Lucian looked up from the book, his nose wrinkled. “That’s a stupid story, Mat. Can you get me those berries there?” Mathis shot his friend a disgruntled look but fetched a handful of the now slightly mushed berries. He glowered and wiped his hand on the table, leaving a smear of juice behind.
“Are you sure those berries are how you get blue?” Genna asked Lucian doubtfully. “They look awfully purple.” In fact it was a rather determinedly purple smudge on the wall that she was pointing at. It was supposed to be one of the Brandon Starks riding out to face an army of Others but he looked more like a Dondarrian since he was so purple… If you squinted it even looked sort of like a horse and rider, though.
Lucian poked the mushy not-exactly-blue bits on the table and fixed them with a critical gaze. “It looks blue enough, don’t it?”
“No, it looks purple.”
“Well it’s close to blue.” Cerenna was trying to be helpful but Genna was not satisfied.
“But it ISN’T blue.”
“… No.” Cerenna squinted hard. “Maybe if we made it lighter?”
Genna brightened. “How d’we do that?”
Lucian and Mathis consulted the book. Mathis had only recently and very daringly liberated it from the Maesters’ clutches, and it told of how to make colors. Mathis and Lucian were a whole year older and could read most of the words. Genna could make out some of them, but they were written funny and in ‘that old way’ according to Garrion, who had not bothered to look at it again. He occupied himself with attempting to paint Lyssanora Cassell’s arm with the not-quite-blue mixture arranged in squiggles. Her dress was already decorated but she just knew her arms had to be or she wouldn’t be a real merlady.
Genna’s sole decoration was a patch of almost-green on her cheek. She itched at it as she leaned over Mathis’ shoulder. “Well? What does it say?”
“Add the … white?” Lucian suggested. “It’s spelled funny but it looks like it should mean white.” Cerenna dutifully added a scoop of the greatly diminished stores of white paint. Genna frowned.
“Now it just looks sort of bluey-purple but light.”
“Bluey!” Lyssanora repeated with a shriek of laughter.
Genna narrowed her eyes and flung a glob of the undesired color at her. It missed but landed with a soft splat on the rushes.
Then came the sound of footsteps in the corridor. “SHHHH!!!!!!!” Cerenna hushed them with frantic motions while everyone scrambled for hiding places. The empty room they’d found had a large cabinet and a very interesting old trunk they couldn’t open but it also had a large table with a cloth to hide under. Genna found herself being dragged into one of the lower cabinet arrangements by Lucian, with Mathis right behind. Its original contents were a number of scrolls, now roughly shoved aside as the children crawled inside.
“I don’t have my sword!” Lucian said in a scandalized whisper.
“What do you need a sword for?” Genna whispered back.
“What if it’s an enemy? This place is in the middle of the keep. We could have been attacked.” Genna’s eyes went wide. She hadn’t thought of that. Suddenly the steps outside the doors became the ominous tread of Grumkins and Others and dark shadowmancers from Yi Ti and Asshai. Maybe they’d snuck in on the pirate ships, and they’d already eaten all the councilors and the king and queen…
“What’ll we do?” she whispered. “The other ones don’t know.”
“Garrion’s got a knife,” Lucian said reassuringly. “And I’m almost a knight, and Mathis too. We’ll just have to kill them.”
“But there might be lots of them.”
“We’ll be all right,” Mathis sounded less certain than Lucian.
Genna somehow didn’t believe him anyway. Grumkins didn’t like children. “Maybe I should surrender and give you a chance to get away while they’re distracted.”
“But… you’d be captured.”
“Then you’ll have to rescue me later.”
“What if they eat you?” Mathis protested. “Or spell you?”
Genna considered. “If they eat me right away they’ll probably eat you too. But spells always get broken. Just promise you’ll find a knight to rescue me. I hate spelling.” She tried to look brave, even in the darkness of the cabinet.
“They’ll have eaten all the knights,” Lucian pointed out.
“Not the Marcher knights,” Mathis said proudly. “We’ll go to the Marches and bring back my father’s bannermen, in Lucian’s ships. He’s Lord of the Tides now anyway.”
“We should just call an army and—“ Whatever Lucian’s next plan would have been, it was dropped as the sound of the chamber door opening sent them all to silence.
No one breathed, but Mathis leaned forward to peer through the crack in the cabinet door.