A Tale of Stags and Lions - Mine is the Fury (Game of Thrones)

Chapter Six - Sorrow

Fanart: By Magali Villeneuve

Word Count: 4558

Riverlands – 298AC

Aeron was no stranger to grief. He never met his father but he did know his mother. She didn't look like him at all, she had softer features with red hair and amber eyes. She was a common girl. She wasn't the best of mothers but she did what she could. She fell to a fever when he was six. He knew for days that she was going to die and he never had any hope for her recovery, people in Flea Bottom died of things less serious.

Despite this he did grieve for her terribly, he was just another orphan now.

He would continue to grieve for many, majority of his friends had died of infections and accidents. The baker who gave him bread for free when he was starving, died of old age illness. Even the first man he killed, who attack Lyonel, he even grieved for him.

When he was told about King Robert, he couldn't help but feel a sense of loss. King Robert gave him his Lordship and knighthood. If not him, he would have to be like that thief he killed, threating little rich lords to survive.

But he couldn't really give himself the room to get that sadness out of his system. He had to be strong, because Lyonel sure as hell was not doing a good job at it.

Father and son were very close, if anyone doubted it before, they would not dare do it now. That look of pain of Lyonel's face, you couldn't mistake it for anything else.

On top of that there was also Ned's imprisonment, his claims that the royal children were not Robert's and that it was Lyonel who was the only true heir. Aeron could imagine it was all a little too much for him.

Completely untouched plates on his tables meant he didn't eat and the dark circles under his eyes meant he didn't sleep. He didn't leave his tent very often, his skin looked paler than usually. But he pretended like everything was fine.

Every day he would sit at his desk scribbling something.

Aeron felt helpless to do anything. He thought Lyonel would feel better if he talked about it, but the black haired prince avoided the subject like the plague. His main focus was worrying about his siblings and Ned's daughter's safety. Aeron though it to be good, it was probably taking his mind off his father.

But then there was the Joffrey issue. That was worth being concerned over.

Joffrey hated Lyonel and now he was the most powerful person in Westeros with much more cruelty than sense. It was likely he was even more pissed now that Ned pronounced Lyonel on the throne that he believed was rightfully his. Even if Joffrey didn't try to kill his twin, he would certainly make his life miserable when he returned to court.

He knew Lyonel would need to get back to his strength is he was going to live through his brother.

"Eat" he said one week as he sat across from him.

Lyonel looked up at him from his desk, he was holding his head up with one of his hand lazily and writing something down with his other. His usually neat coal hair was in a curly mess on his whole head, falling into his dull eyes. His eye under circles have gotten even darker and his skin was pale as snow. He looked sad, like an injured stag, not the proper prideful stag of the Baratheon's. Aeron pitied him.

"I did" Lyonel replied.

Aeron looked at the barely touched plate.

"Three bites won't do it" He mused leaning back in his chair.

The Prince ignored him continuing to write something down. Aeron looked over his friends arm and he didn't resist.

'To the beloved Princess Myrcella'