THADDEUS RAVENSWOOD

The sun was up and about with the clouds, not as bright as it used to be, but bright nevertheless, and it was spreading its warmth to wherever its gold touched, and like its brightness, that was not as much as it used to be. The sun’s warmth was slowly losing its valour to the cold of autumn’s end, and as there were no hearths blazing with fires that would make the inferiority the sky’s warmth was currently feeling any lesser, he had to dress himself in something that would keep the hooves of cold from racing in a gallop through the fields of his skin, and what better than a tan leather jerkin and gloves all beneath a dark-brown bear fur of tender feel to prevent the cold’s seige, and to clinch it all, his mother had chosen it for him… a honour to anyone who was not Thaddeus. He did not like that she still chose his clothes, he was of age to do such himself, or so he always told himself every morning.

At the very least, he chose his seat himself today, not without the grumbles of the child he thought he was not and the intervention of his ever so benevolent brother, the king, his mother would not have allowed him regardless. He would show her one day, he had told himself, that he was a man. He knew she took pride in the strength of her guard, Olly, that man beast of a giant, and he would knock the man down with a longsword and prove that he was not a child. Soon. Soon enough.

A longsword took his eyes now, the one the victorious peasant brandished around in the air to the throng in the gallery in celebration of his advancement to the tourney’s clincher. It was a sword he had seen before. He pinched his head with a grimace as he tried forcing his mind to recollect. He hated having things left forgotten, that was not for him.

“Brother,” he called to Zephyr who was seated next to him. He had taken the place of his mother, it was her seat he had wanted. She had been the one beside his brother on the yester, but he wanted to be the one to sit close to him today. Now he did, not without effort though. “Do you recall that sword?” He pointed down at the boy who had begun to make his way off the grounds with a slow gait that made it seem like he would fall any moment. “I feel like I have seen that somewhere.” Thaddeus focused his fingers on the crescent moon pommel hoping his brother would know what he did not.

Zephyr watched the boy for a while until he faded wholly from the grounds, then he furled his mouth at an angle with a tsking sound shortly after before he made a reply, “Hmmm, why should I tell you?” Thaddeus watched his brother turn back at him with a roguish smile on his face, the gemmed crown seated a lure on his blue hair making it a tad more comical.

“Because I have forgotten.” Thaddeus was not having it. He really wanted to remember.

“Then find it out… and tell me when you do.” Zephyr turned back to watch the other knights waltz in from their ends, Thaddeus had little concern for them now as they had not started fighting, he wanted answers first.

His mother answered in his brother’s stead, “It’s Ser Gale’s sword.” Thaddeus turned sharply at her, shifting in his seat to listen better. “Good of you to remember, Thaddeus.”

“I did not, that was why I asked.” He had a pout.

Thalia pinched his cheek. “You did, you just didn’t remember completely… and shame on you Zephyr…” She glanced at her other son, the first she had had, the king, and he looked back at her, his eyebrows turned up with a face full of wonder. Thaddeus was watching them both, one at a time… “how dare you play with my little boy’s mind?” She scoffed her eyebrows to a narrow with a gape.

“I’m not a little boy!” There was Thaddeus’ rebellious roar again, and with it came a light slap of his mother’s hand off his face. “I’m a man grown,” he added.

She pinched again unrelenting, this time on the two cheeks, playing with it as she did. “Yes, of course you’re a man grown, how could anyone not see that? Pardon me… man-grown.”

She was mocking him, he knew, and his brother was chuckling, along with the silver-haired woman that was to be his wife. It almost made him beet red, but no man grown should be seen red. He hmphed instead.

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“But how come he wields it?” Thalia continued. “If I recall, Ser Gale stays far away at Oldtown, did he willingly give someone his own sword, the crescent moon even? Quite queer.”

“Why don’t we ask him after the tourney ends? I want to know as well,” Zephyr chipped in from across Thaddeus.

“Oh, I intend to. It just slipped my mind before. Good thing he made it to the last bout. If he wields it without the accord of the Mormont knight, then I will have it off his hands. We do not want someone waving around the sword your late father made for a man he held dearly to heart.” Her face was different, still had the same beauty, but different, Thaddeus noticed.

“After his bout, we shall ask how he got it,” Zephyr put in, his voice quite strong as he waved begin the commencement of the fight below. Thaddeus turned fully at him, the throng’s shrieking almost too much of a greater loud than the one they had had for the previous fight.

Thalia turned to meet the king’s eyes. “After his bout,” she confirmed with a nod. Thaddeus turned fully at her too as she spoke, all the while silent. He was a man grown, but sometimes he wondered what the manner of speech adults gave themselves meant. His brother and mother had spoken just a few words, but it felt as though they had said something more.

He heard a sound of steel on armour and a loud gasp from the crowd, and he turned sharply to look down at the fight below. He always preferred fights to thinking and there was one going on down beneath the terrace he was on. It called for him and he took its call to watch.

Ser Wayne, he had called himself, the knight that was down on one knee, strapped in a banded mail coated in a shimmering red that symbolised the enamelled dragonfly soaring through the sternum of his breastplate. Swift, he had said after his name and after he had lanced people down from their horses on the yester, a jape maybe, because he always had a smile, but Thaddeus had taken him serious and now he wondered why someone so swift was on his knee without his smile, and in its place a glint of shock and timidity in his eyes, one filled with a fearful restraint to wield his sword that was plunged into the sands. Thaddeus had a look of queerness on his face for what he was seeing.

“Fight!” They shouted, the crowd, a man first and then another man and then a woman, and even a child. They were all shouting and booing. “Craven!” One proclaimed. “Pick up your sword! You are no knight!” They were enraged, Thaddeus saw, he glanced at his brother to see what he would do, but he did nothing, he just watched.

Thaddeus turned back to the grounds, the knight still knelt not moving and the boos were growing ever louder, and as if he had missed it before, he saw the reason why the man could not stand. The reason glowered before the kneeling knight, clad in a grey banded mail as dark as the first call of night, with the head of a golden tiger roaring on its chest, his gold cloak swaying as his sword nestled uneasily on the shoulder of the Ser Wayne, the helm he wore, forged to be in the likelihood of a roaring tiger, fierce and mighty it was made to look, and it was no doubt mighty to the knight who knelt fearful to pick up his sword and fight. It was already a defeat, Thaddeus knew, and it pained him that he missed what had led it there.

“Craven,” he whispered in anger. In anger that he had missed the fight, and in anger that this knight could not stand to fight anymore. He jumped from his seat in a fit of rage and spat a shout, joining the crowd but at the same time dying their own out, “Craven!” And the grounds went silent. He wondered why as even the two knights on the ground below looked up at him, the one kneeling with a sullen look beneath the unlocked visor of his dragonfly-head forged helm, while the other’s eyes he could not see as his visor was closed. All the people seated in the gallery gazed at him too and it left him uneasy, then a tight grip stormed his wrist, forcing him to turn sharply at the one who was holding him, and it was his brother, the king, with a look of disapproval on his face. Zephyr shook his head at him and he sat back down, slowly and sourly, it was not until he was done seating did he feel his brother’s hand loosen up and let his wrist free. His mother did not even look at him.

Zephyr waved the battle over, and that was all. The Lockeheart knight, the other queen’s nephew moved on to the last bout, but Thaddeus did not even gaze down to see whatever celebrations were going on there. His fists tightened on his fur. He just wanted to see real knights fight, he was going to be one one day, he just wanted to see them fight, and it was utterly disappointing. “No craven is a true knight, no craven knight is a knight…”

His fists tightened further, and then he felt a hand, warm and soft despite all the cold nearly on its way, cup his hands, allowing them to a loose. It was his mother’s, and as he glanced up at her she whispered to him with a smile, “A true knight is no craven, true, but a true knight also knows to yield when the battle does not seem to be in his favour.”

“Is that not running away?” Thaddeus queried.

“It is not running away when he did not turn his back to his opponent's sword. He knelt and yielded, on his honour as a knight.”