Chapter Text
They were just the two of them in the teachers lounge, alone for about two hours so Melisandre didn’t know if he had thought long and hard on the question or if it was a spur of the moment thing:
“Did you change your name ?” Stannis said breaking the silence.
“Huh ?” came her reply, the history professor was not one to engage in idle conversation, that was what stunned her.
“You’re a priestess of R'hllor ... ” at least somebody noticed that without jumping on her case for proselytizing “ you are from Ashai ...” yes her accent was mocked by some of her more heathenish students “and your name is Melisandre.” Stannis finished as if delivering the final evidence which in a murder trial.
“Yes, thank you for giving me a short review of my own life, now what is your point ?” she asked a bit peeved in return.
“I thought it too much of a coincidence, so that why I asked if you knowingly changed your name when you converted.”
“The name 'Melisandre' doesn’t have any special significance in the theology of the Lord of Light.” Melisandre replied smiling, maybe this discussion would allow her to preach the red gospel to Stannis for a bit.
“She was one of the most influential Red Priestess who lived.” Stannis replied with a definitive tone as if he had some royal prerogative to end the discussion at that moment and be in the right.
“This Melisandre never authored a book which was included in canon ... this I can assure you, nor do I remember her writing any prayers or hymns… ” Melisandre began but Stannis seemed to have second thoughts about starting this discussion with her and retreated to grading his papers.
Still this odd interaction continued to eat at her, distracting her through the day until she could get home and begin to comb her collection of books and online resources for any mention of Melisandre yet she couldn’t find a trace, it infuriated her as she was a professor of religious studies she should have been aware of a influential priestess who happened to share her religion,name and place of birth.
She considered briefly if Stannis was just fucking with her, but she quickly cast that thought aside, from what she knew of the strict man his idea of humour wouldn’t include sending her on a wild goose chase.
It then struck her just as she had given up and was making some tea, Baratheon was a history professor so this Melisandre if she had existed was probably influential in a secular way and would be mentioned in his field not necessarily in hers.
Armed with this new knowledge and better search terms she finally found her mark, the first hit was a small very small history blog dedicated to a Westerosi king Stannis Baratheon.
“You’ve got to be kidding me … ” Melisandre said aloud as she read the first paragraph about the so called "True King of Westeross" reading on and cross-referencing with Maesterpida she learned that the historic Stannis had been a pretender to the Iron Throne having fought in some long ago war called “The War of Five Kings” which happened just before the last long winter.
The blog had turned up when searching the historical Melisandre was due to a small section discussing the king’s religion with him having been a early convert to the Red God, yet Melisandre was surprised at this even to this day the Red Faith still had little hold in Westeros, this convert king must have failed spectacularly in spreading the faith if he was never acknowledged by the Red Priests from Essos.
Continuing to read she found the cause for this, the Melisandre of old had hailed the would be king as Azhor Ahai, such a bold move could only result in the Essosian branch of the faith purging her from any documents when the pretender failed to sit on the throne and with his warmongering must have pushed the Westerosi even more into the arms of the Seven and the Old Gods.
Still the blog was very rigorously written having links to other more harder to find sources which proved Melisandre’s existence and even gave much more juicy details about her, most interestingly a physical description.
“Well well my king, let’s see if I can pull together an all red outfit for tomorrow and we shall see if you can handle the past you’ve dug up …” Melisandre said with a mischievous glint in her eyes, a wicked smile fixed on her lovely face as she schemed how to best tease her Stannis when they’d meet again.