[D7:LE] After the Ball (closed)

The wheel tower was rapidly becoming one of Baelon's favorite places in the castle.
It was out of the way and hardly ever occupied, and the river water rushing through the room kept the air refreshing and cool.
Additionally, between the noise of the water and the creaking of the wheel, private conversations were much more likely to stay private.

It was a simple decision then for him to lead Gwyn there after the Grand Ball. There was much for them to discuss and the Marsten camp was simply not suitable fora variety of reasons.

Gwyn followed Baelon with light steps, nearly skipping. She'd taken her fancy shoes off for the cobble steps up to the tower, so there was very little sound save the rustling of fabric and her humming softly to herself. When she caught up with Baelon she bumped her forehead to his shoulder quickly, then retreated a few steps to teasingly evade his anticipated attempt to embrace her or catch hold of her.

"
Back to the Wheel Tower,"
she said with a grin. "
Back to where it all started. You have a poet's soul, even if not a poet's words. We shouldn't stay too long though. This dress won't appreciate all the water."

Baelon grins.
"
Well, you could always leave it outside."


He kicks off his shoes, pulls off his stockings and hikes up the legs of his breeches, sitting on the floor to dangle his feet in the river, enjoying the sensation of the cool water sweeping across his skin.
Laying back, he looks upward at Gwyn.

"
So, what do you think? Positions of authority with House Marsten, or a House to call our own?"

Gwyneth made a little 'eeeee' noise and covered her mouth for a moment, then uncovered it...and then covered it again.

Finally she answered, "
First, I love that we're asking ourselves that question! Second...it's strange to think that just a week ago that wouldn't have even BEEN a question in my mind, if it had been given to me. But with Corrine as Lady...it's a harder choice."


She swished to and fro behind Baelon, unwilling to get her nice dress dirty by sitting down.

"
But not that MUCH harder, I think. I'd love to stay with Corrine and Dyana forever, but they don't really NEED me. Oh, I know I can be of use, be of help, be of service..."


Gwyn trailed off. "
I'm overexplaining this,"
she decided abruptly. "
I think we should take the Coldbrook offer. It's more risky, but higher reward, and I think we're up to the challenge."

Baelon stands and, bare-and-wet footed crosses to Gwyn, smiling.
Taking her into his arms, he looks deeply into her eyes.

"
Yes, we are up to the challenge. I also agree with Coldbrook over Tullison. Dunstan is a fine man and a good friend, but Daveth has the potential to be a great lord. Coldbrook may be humble now, but with the two of us and Daveth it has the potential to reach previously unimagined heights... and if it should falter, well, with our royal connections we can hopefully keep our house from following. Let Jon have the Tullison house... perhaps his pragmatism will help counterbalance Dunstan's... inexperience."


An amused grin crosses his face.

"
What shall we call our house? House Waters just won't do... and as much as I would love to be House Targaryan of... wherever... I doubt that legitimization is an option at this time. I haven't even been officially recognized. Still, some nod to my heritage would be good. Something with 'dragon' or 'drake' or something like that. Or maybe something with 'blood' or 'fire' in reference to the Targaryan words. Not 'blood', actually - our name will be a first impression on those who have never even met us, and that might give a bad impression."


EDIT: due to an overlooked rule of the Grand Ball event, I edited out a passing statement that might not be correct.

"
Mmm, well bear in mind you'll have to hear yourself referred to as 'lord such and such' whatever it is,"
she points out, draping her arms comfortably around his shoulders. "
So lets not get too melodramatic. Do you know any Valyrian? We could borrow from that, perhaps. That hints at your heritage without needing any specific references or words... And what of our sigil? And Words? For my part, I'd like to include a star in there somewhere. A guiding star. That's mine as much as a dragon is yours."

"
I know a word here or there, not enough to really matter. Still, if there's a word or idea you had in mind, I'm sure we could find a reference book in the library, or ask one of the many Maesters here."


He ponders.

"
Perhaps it would be best not to include a dragon at all. It might be seen as overreaching. I do not wish to draw the ire of those I seek recognition from. I shall consult with my father when I train with him tonight. There are plenty of less explicit ways to make the reference. Currently I use black and sanguine - similar to Targaryan black and red, but hinting at blood to suggest a blood relation. As for a star... as long as it is not of seven points. I would prefer not to imply affiliation with either the old gods or the new."


OOC: translation of "
consult with my father when I train with him tonight"
: I'll PM Reader for the prince's opinion. :;
):

Gwyneth laughed at that. "
There we're in complete agreement. Let the heavens reign in the mountains...I'm quite content to reign on the ground. I'm thinking four points. Really, that's not important."


She hugged Baelon and sighed happily. "
What's important will be letting Isobel sneer at me for turning down marrying a lord in favor of a hedge knight...and then letting her know that's not quite how things are working out. Not that I wouldn't have married you regardless...but this does add a delicious opportunity to it all."


"
Mmm...so does this mean we should head to the library? Consult books of language and families and so on? I had other plans for tonight, if I'm to be honest."

"
We don't have to decide it all tonight."
He says with a grin.

"
Oh?"
Gwyn's hands, wrapped around to lace behind Baelon's back, dropped down...and down...to give him a very cheeky squeeze.

"
Well what else might we do then?"
she asked with exaggerated innocence. "
I'm not remotely tired."

"
Well, I suppose we could go get..."


Whatever wisecrack remark Baelon was going to say fades into unintelligibility as his desire overwhelms his reason.
His hands drop down Gwyn's back, mirroring the movement her own made just shortly before, but rather than squeeze, his hands slid around to her sides and he hoisted her up a ways. Holding her against him, he buries his face into the warm flesh at the side of her neck, his lips walking their way up to her earlobe, then back down and across her throat and back up the other side. Meanwhile, holding her up with one arm his other slid up her back to the laces of her dress untying them with a practiced ease. Shifting her upward his lips descend down to her collarbone, then to the slipping neckline of her dress, following it downward...

Somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind, a small spark of consciousness had somehow inexplicably remained unabsorbed by the enjoyable task at hand. This tiny, almost insignificant spark flickered with the recognition that this was something new to Baelon. He had lusted before, many times, and satisfied that lust more times than he could count, with friends, strangers, whores, even one young woman who elsewise seemed to long for nothing but his ruination... even with a certain inescapable golden-haired mountain lass... but this was not the same as any of those times. It was not just a desire to satiate and be satiated. Oh certainly, that was undeniably present as well, but there was an indefinable something else - a warmth, a feeling of rightness and completion, a willingness to let the world to burn rather than interrupt this. Blacks, greens, fathers, inheritances, kingdoms, lords, houses, honor, glory, pride, place, acceptance... none of it mattered. THIS is what mattered. Not this act of lovemaking, but rather the conjoining of two people into one inseparable unity that manifested itself in this time and space as this act. The spark of consciousness had no words for it, even if Baelon had been capable of forming more than monosyllabic utterances he would not have been able to express it. It was not something that could be expressed in words - rather, it was a pure and unadulterated awareness of the fundamental truth of the world, and everything else was but a mere shadow-play, an airy nothingness that existed as naught but window-dressing for the concrete reality of two people indivisibly become one, a state of reality both temporally bound yet spanning from before time to after the last second, localized yet spanning infinite realms.