Work Text:
Kermit did not remember his father well. He had been young when Lord Elmo had ridden to war, to fight at Rhaenyra’s side—young enough that his father still spoke to him as if he were a child, though he was a man grown and newly knighted. “When Elmo returns, Elmo will tell you such wonderful stories, all right?” his father had said, his red hair blowing in the wind. His father always baby-talked him that way, calling himself “Elmo.” Kermit had never known why. He’d been three-and-ten when the war had broken out, and surely his father should not have treated him like a child. But Lord Elmo had, and only now did Kermit realize how much he missed it.
His father had given him another hug. “Now be good, and heed Byrd, Kermit. Now, smile for Elmo. Go on, Kermit. Smile.” But Kermit had been unable. He’d felt near tears, in truth. “No smile for Elmo?” his father had asked. “Does Elmo need to tickle Kermit?”
Kermit had shaken his head. He didn’t remember much of his father, beyond his red hair, but he did remember that Lord Elmo had loved tickling, and he had tickled Kermit until he’d laughed and smiled before mounting his great steed and ridden off to his death, his bastard son Oscar and his younger brother Cook at his side.
It was thus that Kermit Tully learned that life was not a song.
“Come now, Ser Kermit,” Byrd had said. Byrd was Castellan at Riverrun, a tall and lanky man with a thatch of yellow hair and an easy demeanor. “There’s no use being sad. Lord Elmo would not have wanted it.”
But in those days, sadness had been practically second-nature to Kermit. “I could have gone with him,” Kermit had said sadly when news of his father’s death had reached him. “I should have.”
Byrd had sighed. “My Lord, you are young still. A green boy compared to the knights your father had with him. For all you know you would have died as well. Even Ser Cook could not withstand the fighting, and he was positively monstrous in the field.”
That was not what Kermit had wanted to hear. He hated being reminded that he had never truly fought in a war, and that his knighthood had come so early from Lord Bracken, who had wished to curry favor with the late Lord Elmo. “It’s not easy being green,” he had muttered.
It was what Oscar always said, most often to annoy his little brother. Though Oscar loved Kermit, Oscar was a base-born and his bastard’s blood made him perpetually grouchy. He had been knighted by Lord Blackwood, and had fought by his father’s side in the Dance of the Dragons, but he had returned to Riverrun only briefly when the war was ended. “Such a lofty place for a bastard like me,” he had said bitterly. “I love you well, brother, but I am too lowborn for Riverrun.”
“But where will you go, brother?” Kermit had asked. He had been sad that his brother would not stay, sad that he would lose father and brother and grandfather in such a short spurt.
“Anywhere,” Oscar had laughed. “Everywhere’s got places for leavings like me.”
“You’re not a leaving,” Kermit had insisted, reaching for his brother’s arm, but Oscar had shaken his head.
“I’ve more in common with a festering pile of shit than with you, brother. It’s best you make your peace with that. So let me live in my dunghills, and know that it’s as happy a place for me as Riverrun is for you.”
But Riverrun wasn’t happy—not for Kermit. Riverrun was lonely—lonely for a man who’d once been surrounded by family. He remembered his great-grandfather fondly, who, even in the failing health of his sunset years, had helped Kermit around the castle, teaching him all the things that a future lord should know. When his father had been training in the yards, it had been Lord Grover who had taught his three-year-old great-grandson the difference between near and far, hobbling back and forth along the parapets until he was out of breath and Kermit was laughing loud enough for his father to look up and demand, “What are you teaching Elmo’s son, grandfather Grover?”
Kermit too often wondered what would have happened if his father had sided with King Aegon during the Dance, if he and Uncle Cook would have lived, if Oscar would have stayed, and it wouldn’t have just been Byrd and Kermit, alone in Riverrun.
And now, though he was Lord of castle, Lord Paramount of the riverlands, he’d never felt more like that boy his great-grandfather had called a frog so easily had he swum in the river.
“I should be a trout,” Kermit had complained. He was a Tully—he should be a trout.
“I’ve never seen a trout kick like that, or hop about as you do,” Lord Grover had said toothlessly. “Only a frog kicks when it swims. You’re no less a Tully for being a frog—I promise you Kermit.”
No less a Tully for being a frog. But fish swam in schools, and he had no other fish with him. Perhaps he was destined for the frog’s solitary life.
“I am lonely, Byrd,” he told the castellan one day. Byrd’s hair was a more faded yellow now, and his knees were a little more knobby, but he was still the same kind, big Byrd that Kermit had known all his life, who had been more constant than any of his family.
“My Lord,” Byrd said, and he reached over and patted Kermit fondly on the shoulder, as if he were Kermit’s father. Lord Elmo might have tickled him to make him smile, but it was Byrd who knew how to be the balm to Kermit’s aches. “Perhaps it is time you wed, and filled this great castle with children of your own.”
Kermit stared at Byrd for a moment, taking in his thinning hair and increasingly beaklike nose. He wondered how old Byrd was—older than he looked, that was to be sure. And how long would it be before he, too, left Kermit behind.
Kermit nodded. “Yes, I should. But who?”
He could not marry Delia Bracken. She was too much like a sister from his time spent at Stone Hedge for him to feel comfortable taking her to wife. Nor could he marry Melinda Blackwood—and besides, there were rumors that Oscar had tainted her while he’d been fostered there. Lord Whent only had sons, and Lord Mooton’s daughter was promised to a lord of the Vale, and the Smallwood’s daughters were two and six in age.
“There’s Pigella Mallister,” Byrd suggested.
“Pigella Mallister?”
He knew much of Pigella Mallister. She’d served as a cupbearer at Casterly Rock, and had a taste for finery. She was a woman of great…girth, and had been called “Lady Piggy” by those who had mocked her. And, upon learning of the mockery, Pigella had adopted the name completely, demanding that everyone call her “Lady Piggy” for it was a sweet name, and she was a sweet girl.
And so Kermit found himself riding to Seaguard with a small riding party. It rained as they reached the coast, though the sun was shining as well, sending odd flashes of colors through the sky. I’d never thought to meet my bride beneath a rainbow, Kermit thought, almost in wonder. It was like something in a song. Lady Piggy was waiting for him just inside the castle gates, and as he dismounted she practically shrieked with excitement. “Oh Kermit! You’re truly here! My Kermy!”
He could hear her father’s displeasure, her mother’s chiding that she mind her manners, but Kermit could not care. My Kermy, she’d called him—she who was to be his wife, and mother to his children. That even without meeting him, she would greet him so warmly—he had wondered if he would be a beggar for her love, and she gave it to him freely.
“Lady Piggy,” he said, smiling down at her. He took her hand in his and kissed her palm. It felt forward, but he knew that she would not mind, and, true enough, she gasped, and blushed, but did not look away from him.
“Oh, Kermy,” she murmured, delighted, and as she did, a rainbow arched through the sky. A sign, Kermit thought, A sign that our love will be the greatest and shall shine through all of time. Such is the stuff of singers and dreamers. All lovers’ connections made between a rainbow are so.