Chapter Text
The first thing Rickard notes about the Stepstones is that it’s hot. He had been raised in Winterfell, among snow and wind, had grown up building castles of snow and sliding over frozen ice. Perhaps he would melt, if not for the fire in his veins.
It is easy to see Rickard has the blood of the Kings of Winter and the Dragonlords, in his dark hair and grey eyes with the hints of purple, as well as that almost inhuman grace and way about him that the Valyrians were known to have. He has that, amongst most everything else, to thank his mother, Princess-Lady Rhaelle Targaryen-Baratheon-Stark, for.
He isn’t the only fortunate one though, his cousin Prince Aerys has dragonblood on both sides and seems quite unbothered by the heat where most men are sweating - but then, Aerys was raised in the Crownlands, wasn’t he?
Rickard’s elder half-brother Steffon - who he had met too few times in the past - aLeo had Valyrian blood and seemed to also be unaffected by the heat. One thing that makes both Rickard and Steffon laugh is Tywin Lannister, who was overly proud for a son of the Laughing Lion, going red with the heat!
Would that he could spend his time japing with Steffon, but Rickard is here to fight, to protect. Rickard gets to know his fellow great heirs, thinking of how his mother would want him to have allies.
Aerys was odd, perhaps simply eccentric but Rickard wondered if they should prepare for an insane king; Tywin was clever and intelligent, if a little too wise and experienced for a boy; Steffon was brilliant, in Rickard’s barely biased opinion, being smart and kind in equal measure; Hoster was a laughing man who spoke constantly of his new wife.
Jon was slightly older than them but happy to tell them tales of previous battles; Luthor was an enthusiastic man, newly a lord, but was a skilled enough fighter; Doran was the youngest and was either shy or cautious, Rickard wasn’t sure; Quellon was rarely on land but when he was he told wild tales of the battles at sea.
Rickard’s younger brother, Beron, was serving as a squire to Aerys but spent more time with the younger boys. Rickard’s goodbrother, Jorelle’s husband, Rydan Bolton also came and unnerved many a Southroners. Though those below the Neck knew little of the tales that came from the Dreadfort, none were too pleased to look upon a man so pale that his veins were bright as his pink sigil. Jorelle had picked him though, so Rickard tried not to think nor speak too ill of him.
His other sister, Serena’s betrothed is also here. Yohn Royce was a handsome lad, Rickard supposed, with his mess of dirty blonde hair and greyish eyes and booming laugh. He and Serena had met at a tourney and had gotten along so splendidly, despite Serena not yet being flowered and Yohn barely more than a boy, that their Lord Father, Jon Arryn and Lord Royce thought a match between them would be brilliant.
Father had been speaking of marriages for a while now, his mother too, and Rickard knew Beron would be wed to a Northernwoman, likely a younger daughter. But no girl had been picked for Rickard himself yet. Wedding any Stark was a good thing to any Stark vassal house but having your daughter as Lady of Winterfell was every Northernman’s dream.
At one point Rickard had thought he’d wed his cousin, Branda, to join together the two Stark lines but then Branda had fell in love with the heir to a relatively small house in the Stormlands - to her mother, Arya Flint’s fury, and Arya had sworn that if Branda wed the man she’d never be allowed above the Neck again. Perhaps Rickard might see her now that’s he down South?
It was a matter for another time however, as now he must go fight for his kingdom.
The battlefield is bloody, of course, and unlike any Rickard had ever fought before. The Blackfyre men fought with an incredible determination, not just of men who wanted to come out the fight alive but of men who were angry and had been for generations. Most have blood in their veins, these men have fury.
Jason Lannister dies fighting Maelys the Monstrous - who Rickard had yet to have a good look at, but knew that the man was a kinslayer, having eaten his twin brother in the womb and later killing his cousin for command of their men - in single combat and almost killed the bastard too.
Ser Jason had some eight children, Rickard heard, one betrothed to Tywin Lannister - who showed some of that rare emotion when told of his uncle and future goodfathers death. Jason’s son Stafford publicly teared up at his father’s death which earned him a glare from Tywin and a look of pity from young Kevan Lannister. No doubt they, and the others who sent Stafford such looks, thought he was foolish for grieving so openly.
Rickard didn’t understand that. In the North, men and boys were proud of their father’s and if you weren’t upset at news of your father’s passing then you would be considered a bad person.
After all, should you not be proud of the man who raised you? He himself would be more than sorrowful at his father’s passing - and perhaps such a thing would come soon for his father had gotten rather ill suddenly, which was why he couldn’t come fight.
But those below the Neck were strange, Rickard had found.
In his time on Stepstones Rickard kills more men than he’d have liked, some just boys. We are all fighting someone else’s war, he thinks. Every time he slays a man he whispers a prayer to the gods that they be treated well in whatever life they go to next - he doesn’t know how much use his gods would be down here, given that there are no weirwoods and the Essosi worship different gods anyway, but he does it nonetheless.
It is an especially warm day when the fighting ends, finally. Ser Barristan Selmy, who had been knighted by Prince Uncle Duncan himself, defeats the Blackfyre pretender in single combat.
The other invaders hadn’t ever been truly interested in taking Westeros, only Maelys had truly wanted that, and it is soon enough that they go back where they came from. Barristan is toasted to that night, among all the other heroes and those who didn’t make it to the end. Hoster admits that he had almost been killed if not for the help of a small lord named Ayden Baelish of the Fingers.
No doubt Baelish shall be rewarded in some way, Hoster was a giving man after all, to those he believed had earned it. And saving someone’s life is no small thing, especially if said person values their own lives so much as the confident, arrogant, proud Tully does. (Hoster is all those things and more, but Rickard cannot help but respect him.)
It is the other Tully who people speak of though. Brynden has proved himself a fierce fighter, even better than his elder brother, and seemed happy enough to have become more known than his brother, heir though Hoster is. They aren’t close, the Tully brothers, or so Rickard sees, despite their words having family as coming before all else.
People speak of cousin Aerys too, and the Knighthood he received by his friend, Ser Tywin. Aerys flaunts his new title of ser and Rickard wonders if he is truly deserving of such a title but who is he to question the Crown Prince, and besides Aerys has fought well enough to live and have little marks to show he’d even been in such a conflict.
Rickard had a cut on his left cheek, near his mouth, which a maester had told him would scar. He was lucky though, some men had lost limbs after all. Thankfully, his brothers weren’t of such a group. Beron was shaken from seeing so much blood and death - he was young, after all, had turned eleven during the war; which caused him much pain as every nameday until then he had shared with Serena, his twin who was in far away Winterfell.
In hopes of cheering him up Steffon had gifted Beron with a wooden dragon painted gold and black that the old King Aegon, their grandsire, had once given Steffon for his nameday.
“I have a dozen,” Steffon had shrugged when Beron insisted he couldn’t have it, not when the king had given it to Steffon specifically. “Besides, you haven’t gotten to meet grandsire yet, not properly. Hopefully once all our men are better again we shall see him in the capital?”
Yes, King Aegon was holding a grand feast in honour of the Westerosi winning the war and defeating yet another Blackfyre pretender. Rickard and Beron would meet much of their family that they hadn’t been able to see in years - they hadn’t seen their Aunts Jenny and Bethany and Shaera in a long while, or their grandparents, King Aegon and Queen Betha. He’d be able to also see his uncle-by-law, Ulson Dayne, who had wed Aunt Shaera. Not Uncle Daeron though, who had died putting down a rebellion years ago.
Prince Uncle Duncan was here on the Stepstones fighting and spent most of his time among the elder war generals but spoke kindly whenever he saw his nephews - whether that be Rickard, Beron, Steffon or Aerys.
“Will you show us around?” Beron asks Steffon, voicing Rickard’s own hidden fears. He knows so little about the capital, the last time he visited was almost a decade ago, wasn’t it?
“Of course,” Steffon answers cheerfully, passing Rickard a goblet of watered down wine. They were sitting around a fire, the three of them and some other boys. “Aerys, won’t you show Beron all our favourite hidden spots of the Red Keep?”
Aerys, who had been speaking with Tywin, looked over with an easy smile. “But of course, dear cousin. No doubt Rhaella shall be pleased to see you as well!”
Rickard almost forgot about his cousin Rhaella, who had already birthed a son! Rhaella, from what he could remember, was shy, thoughtful and dutiful. And so young for a mother, Rickard thinks, and it was rather odd to think that Aerys was a father, let alone a married man.
It is the next morning that Rydan comes with a letter from his mother and Rickard sees his goodbrother has a letter of his own, the handwriting quite familiar. “Who wrote you?” Rickard asks.
There is a glimmer in Rydan’s pale blue eyes when he says, “Your sister, my wife. No doubt what your mother wrote you is the same as what my bride told me.”
When Rickard opens his mother’s letter - and indeed it is his mother who wrote him - he is happily surprised to find that she shall meet them at the capital, with Serena. Jorelle wasn’t coming, instead staying at Winterfell to care for their father and the North.
Leaving his goodbrother to himself, Rickard goes to tell Beron the news - who grins upon hearing he shall see their mother and sister again - and Steffon - who actually hugs him. Rickard is always so jealous that Steffon has been able to know their cousins Aerys and Rhaella, and their uncles and aunts - even Aunt Shaera’s half-Dayne children - and their grandparents.
But Steffon hasn’t seen his own mother is years now, and his father, Lord Ormund, died when Steffon was little more than a babe. He’d been raised at court by the greatest wetnurses and ladies and princesses and had been taught to read and write by the Grand Maester and his attendants, had been shown he ways of swordplay alongside the future king, Aerys, having been taught by the greatest knights in the realm.
He had been raised alongside Aerys, with the education of a future king - but he hadn’t grown up knowing who his parents were.
I shall never let him feel left out again, Rickard decides. Steffon was his family, his blood. The pack protects one another, and while Steffon didn’t have any Stark blood, any Northern blood, they were family. He might not be a wolf but he was part of the pack - just like mother, Rickard supposed.