Post by The Stranger on Jun 9, 2008 18:09:18 GMT -5
“He’ll kill you, you know,” a soft voice breathed behind him in the dark, following the rough sound of sheets whispering across naked flesh.
“He’ll try,” Olander answered dryly as he knelt over to lace up his boots with quick, deft fingers. The soft voice said nothing, but gave a single, small, matter-of-fact chuckle. There was a warm brush of air against the nape of his neck, and a wet noise as the pair of lips met his bare skin.
Olander had been at Last Hearth for nearly a week. After Lord Roose and he had parted company in White Harbor, the slight crannogman had traveled east and north to bring invitation from his liege lord to attend the royal wedding. Olander hadn’t relished the notion of journey, and of arriving late to King’s Landing, but he quickly a certain unexpected benefit.
As he began to relace his breeches, another set of hands began to worry at the clasps of his jerkin, following playful noises. Olander brushed them away, but the hands were persistent, and with a swift movement the crannogman pinned them to the chilly stone wall. He could feel gooseprickles form on the flesh he held, and a soft sound escape the lips before him in the darkness.
He kissed her then, his slim body pressing up against her buxom one. She stood a good half-head taller than he, and was quite possibly a deal stronger than he was too, but she was none so agile. While their lips met, parted, and met again in a hasty dance, she struggle and break free from the crannogman’s firm grasp, only to be captured again and pressed against the wall. Olander could feel his manhood stiffen beneath his laces as her naked shivering body pressed against his own, and with a final heavy kiss, he broke away to reclasp his jerkin and throw a grey-green cloak around his shoulders. She half-stood half-collapsed there against the chamber wall, saying nothing.
“He’ll try to kill me,” Olander said again, sweeping his cloak about his shoulders and heading for the door. He would have to muffle his steps as he did his voice. There would be sentries out this time of night, albeit not many away from the castle walls, but Olander would do good to remain unseen leaving this particular room. The crannogman threw one last look behind him and said in a whisper, “But we’ll wed none the less.”
//////////
A trio of scowls looked down on the crannogman as he made his proposal in the great hall of Last Hearth. They bothered Olander little; he had lived with scowls all his life, and learned in time that one of two things would happen: a man’s scowl more like than not could be broken and turned, and if, not he would wear the scowl for the rest of his life.
One of those scowls hid under the wild, greying mane that the Lord Borr Umber named his beard. He was a hulking brute of a man, as most Umber’s are wont to be, with a battle scar chiseled across the bridge of his nose. His eyes were hard like stone, but with the hint of shrewdness behind them, a gaze that matched the grimace that was so unabashedly presented.
The other two scowls belonged to the Lord Umber’s lady wife, Kerra Cerwyn, and to a young looking northman named Fyoran Flint. The Lady Cerwyn was as prickly as a porcupine, and prideful to a fault. Fyoran was the third son of the third son of the Lord Flint of Flint’s Finger, and by the looks of the wicked looking axe at his side and the massive shield on his back, a fearsome fighter.
The only face that seemed to look down on Olander Reed with any favor was the eldest daughter of Lord Borr, Osha Umber. She was a creature of the north, that much was certain. She had a hardy, yet comely face that was made for smiles and wicked grins, and warm grey eyes. Her light brown hair was thick, falling in waves about her shoulders. The blood of her father’s House was obvious enough; she was a sturdy girl with healthy curves and fair skin who, and stood nearly half-a-head taller than the slight crannogman.
Lady Kerra harrumphed for the third time, and turned her wary eye from the Reed before her to the Umber beside her, displeasure worn as brazenly as a sword. It was rumored that Lady Kerra reminded her husband, as loud as she did often, that she was a Cerwyn first, and an Umber second. Had her daughter Osha been a son, there was little question that she would have bore the black battle axe of her mother’s house along side the roaring giant of her father’s on her shield.
Borr Umber looked unpleasantly to his wife at her noise of irritation. “May the Others take you wife,” he exclaimed, “What is it now?”
“I’ve just wondered why it is that you deem it fit to deny our daughter and myself a say in the matter. She’s in no marriage arrangement with any man, and Osha as a mother as well as a father,” she said with an icy tone fit to belong in any northern hall.
“Say what you will, wife. I’m as like to deny you that as a she-bear from her meal,” he said, hawking a glob of phlegm and spitting to the side, scowling now from Olander to his empty mug.
She smiled haughtily at that. “Well husband, it seems to me that Master Reed might be a perfect match. The acting lord of the Neck and heir to one the oldest lines in the north seems a better prospect than the third son of a third son of some middling House,” she said unabashedly.
Olander had no illusions of the fact that the Lady Cerwyn had championed his cause simply to spite her lord husband, but he gave a polite nod of his head nonetheless. If the young Flint had been bristled by this comment, he failed to show it, but instead stood sullenly to the side of the hall observing, with a hand stroking the head of his axe.
The Lord Umber growled deep in this throat as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat, casting a harsh eye on the slight crannogman below him. “Aye, that may be, but what use is such a small man as he to keep my daughter safe? Fyoran looks a better man to protect her,” he spoke, clearly stretching for a defense. Olander swallowed a chuckle and waited politely. Borr Umber meant well, Olander was sure, but protest as he might, wildlings weren’t like to sneak down through the entire north and into the Neck to steal Osha away.
“Perhaps Master Olander has other ways to keep our daughter safe? Fyoran certainly looks a might man,” Kerra Cerwyn said to the young son of House Flint, “but there are more to men than their muscles.” She chuckled lightly at that the ghost of a grin playing on the Lady Cerwyn’s lips, her eyes falling to meet Olander’s for the briefest of moments before snapping away.
If any in the room had thought it impossible for the Lord Umber to look more uncomfortable, they would have bee proven wrong. Underneath his great shaggy beard Borr Umber’s mouth was wrought with irritation. “Aye. Aye, but,” he started strongly, but fell into a grumbled mutter. Lady Cerwyn’s lips parted and she looked as if she would speak again, but her husband slammed his closed fist down on the table before him, sending his stein clattering to the stone floor. “They will fight, northman to crannogman, Flint to Reed. Till the lesser man yield, and damn you wife don’t say a word; I am still an Umber, and this is still my castle.”
//////////
A small flurry flew about the training yard the following morning, more wind than snow, but entirely cold. The billowing air caught the crannogman’s cloak and tugged at it urgently until he undid the clasp and cast it aside. Across the yard Fyoran Flint strapped a shield to his forearm and hefted his heavy iron axe.
Apart from the howling of the wind, there was silence in the yard. Olander was leaned against an icy stone wall, observing his opponent with a subdued air about him. Resting in the crook of his arm was his trident with gleaming steel head freshly polished. An undecorated black leather shield lay against the wall near his feet.
After a time, Lord Borr and Lady Kerra exited the hall with their daughter Osha in tow, and crossed the yard soundlessly. The three were dressed warmly in thick bear pelt robes, and took their place atop the battlements to watch below.
“Flint,” the Lord Umber barked, gazing down at the hulking northman before turning his gaze to slight crannogman, “and Reed. You battle here today not only for your own honor and the honor of your House, but you battle for the hand of my maiden daughter. The first man to yield yourself shall be the defeated. May the Old Gods find the one of you the rightly man for Osha.” He stepped back after that, giving no sign of commencement. The battle was to them now.
With a bellow, Fyoran charged across the yard with his axe at the ready. Olander was at the ready, his shield abandoned. The massive axe would had cleaved through the leather as if it were no more than parchment paper. Feinting to the left, Olander threw himself right and whipped around the shaft of his spear to smash into the back of the young Flint’s head. The northman stumbled with a grunt, then caught himself on his knee and pivoted, sending his axe whirling low at his foe’s unprotected calf. Olander leapt back and the axe sliced through empty air. Fyoran lumbered to his feet, and readied himself.
Olander was waiting. Three quick thrusts were turned aside once, twice, thrice by the oaken shield and returned in kind with an overhanded chop. His teeth clenched silently, the crannogman caught the axe blade between the prongs of his trident and twisted it aside, only to catch the iron rim of the Flint’s shield full in the lip. Olander reeled back and jabbed the butt of his weapon into Fyoran’s gut, pushing the burly northman back a pace.
The men panted for a moment, crannogman spitting a crimson gob of a spit from his mouth and wiping away a rivulet of blood from his cracked lip, northman hefting his weapon and sucking in the wind knocked from him. If only for a few second, the respite was welcome, but the fight was joined again.
Fyoran turned aside a stab forward by the crannogman, and answered with his own blade slicing wide at foe. Despite his size, the northman’s reach wasn’t enough to compete with the length of Olander’s spear. Every swing was checked or dodged or deflected, and it wasn’t long before Fyoran’s brute strength was wasted on a dozen empty attacks. His face unmoving and set with resolve, Olander continued to jab with his three razor sharp prongs, catching the blade of the axe, feinting strikes against the heavy oaken shield or flashing above his head and below his knees. The taste of blood still lingered in Olander’s aching mouth. He aimed to keep the Flint at bay.
Sucking in the chilly air, Fyoran slammed his heavy shield down on the head of the trident and pinned it to the ground. With a grunt he hacked at the crannogman with his axe with a savagery summoned from anger. Olander twisted his body out of the path of the axe, yet caught a red slice in the flesh on the left flank of his chest. Grimacing at the wound, Olander abandoned his grip on the trident and gripped the lip of Flint’s shield.
Before the northman could ready his weapon again, Olander’s booted heel smashed brutally into the unprotected knee of Fyoran Flint. Olander could feel the onlookers wince behind him as the wet crunch was followed by a howl of pain. Shoving the Flint, and his shield backwards, Olander retrieved his spear. Grunting like a wounded beast, Fyoran aimed a final savage swing of his axe at the crannogman. Olander turned the blade aside and twisted it from his owner’s grasp.
Fyoran Flint yielded, pushed flat on his back with prong of a trident pressing a red bead into his throat.
//////////
It was on the next evening that Olander of House Reed and Osha of House Umber were wed. It was a small ceremony, with only a handful of north and crannogmen watching on in the Godswood as the pair said their vows of love and devotion before the tower white heart tree. Lady Kerra Cerwyn watched on with a pleased face, as did her husband, Lord Borr Umber. After watching the duel Lord Umber’s gruff demeanor seemed to fade to a weak amiability, or at least as amiable as a father can be on the day he gives his eldest daughter away.
With his wife in arm, Olander and the crannogmen departed from Last Hearth to return to White Harbor. The Royal Wedding celebration had already begun, and there were still preparations to be arranged for the north’s part in the festivities. Olander gave a slight smile and nod to Osha at an unheard jest she’d made to one of his men, wondering if she would take to him in the bedchamber half as well her mother had.
==========
Olander Reed improves from Noteworthy to Expert Stealth
Olander Reed improves from Expert+ to Master Spearfighting
Olander Reed takes Osha Umber as his wife, the daughter of the Lord Umber and Lady Cerwyn
“He’ll try,” Olander answered dryly as he knelt over to lace up his boots with quick, deft fingers. The soft voice said nothing, but gave a single, small, matter-of-fact chuckle. There was a warm brush of air against the nape of his neck, and a wet noise as the pair of lips met his bare skin.
Olander had been at Last Hearth for nearly a week. After Lord Roose and he had parted company in White Harbor, the slight crannogman had traveled east and north to bring invitation from his liege lord to attend the royal wedding. Olander hadn’t relished the notion of journey, and of arriving late to King’s Landing, but he quickly a certain unexpected benefit.
As he began to relace his breeches, another set of hands began to worry at the clasps of his jerkin, following playful noises. Olander brushed them away, but the hands were persistent, and with a swift movement the crannogman pinned them to the chilly stone wall. He could feel gooseprickles form on the flesh he held, and a soft sound escape the lips before him in the darkness.
He kissed her then, his slim body pressing up against her buxom one. She stood a good half-head taller than he, and was quite possibly a deal stronger than he was too, but she was none so agile. While their lips met, parted, and met again in a hasty dance, she struggle and break free from the crannogman’s firm grasp, only to be captured again and pressed against the wall. Olander could feel his manhood stiffen beneath his laces as her naked shivering body pressed against his own, and with a final heavy kiss, he broke away to reclasp his jerkin and throw a grey-green cloak around his shoulders. She half-stood half-collapsed there against the chamber wall, saying nothing.
“He’ll try to kill me,” Olander said again, sweeping his cloak about his shoulders and heading for the door. He would have to muffle his steps as he did his voice. There would be sentries out this time of night, albeit not many away from the castle walls, but Olander would do good to remain unseen leaving this particular room. The crannogman threw one last look behind him and said in a whisper, “But we’ll wed none the less.”
//////////
A trio of scowls looked down on the crannogman as he made his proposal in the great hall of Last Hearth. They bothered Olander little; he had lived with scowls all his life, and learned in time that one of two things would happen: a man’s scowl more like than not could be broken and turned, and if, not he would wear the scowl for the rest of his life.
One of those scowls hid under the wild, greying mane that the Lord Borr Umber named his beard. He was a hulking brute of a man, as most Umber’s are wont to be, with a battle scar chiseled across the bridge of his nose. His eyes were hard like stone, but with the hint of shrewdness behind them, a gaze that matched the grimace that was so unabashedly presented.
The other two scowls belonged to the Lord Umber’s lady wife, Kerra Cerwyn, and to a young looking northman named Fyoran Flint. The Lady Cerwyn was as prickly as a porcupine, and prideful to a fault. Fyoran was the third son of the third son of the Lord Flint of Flint’s Finger, and by the looks of the wicked looking axe at his side and the massive shield on his back, a fearsome fighter.
The only face that seemed to look down on Olander Reed with any favor was the eldest daughter of Lord Borr, Osha Umber. She was a creature of the north, that much was certain. She had a hardy, yet comely face that was made for smiles and wicked grins, and warm grey eyes. Her light brown hair was thick, falling in waves about her shoulders. The blood of her father’s House was obvious enough; she was a sturdy girl with healthy curves and fair skin who, and stood nearly half-a-head taller than the slight crannogman.
Lady Kerra harrumphed for the third time, and turned her wary eye from the Reed before her to the Umber beside her, displeasure worn as brazenly as a sword. It was rumored that Lady Kerra reminded her husband, as loud as she did often, that she was a Cerwyn first, and an Umber second. Had her daughter Osha been a son, there was little question that she would have bore the black battle axe of her mother’s house along side the roaring giant of her father’s on her shield.
Borr Umber looked unpleasantly to his wife at her noise of irritation. “May the Others take you wife,” he exclaimed, “What is it now?”
“I’ve just wondered why it is that you deem it fit to deny our daughter and myself a say in the matter. She’s in no marriage arrangement with any man, and Osha as a mother as well as a father,” she said with an icy tone fit to belong in any northern hall.
“Say what you will, wife. I’m as like to deny you that as a she-bear from her meal,” he said, hawking a glob of phlegm and spitting to the side, scowling now from Olander to his empty mug.
She smiled haughtily at that. “Well husband, it seems to me that Master Reed might be a perfect match. The acting lord of the Neck and heir to one the oldest lines in the north seems a better prospect than the third son of a third son of some middling House,” she said unabashedly.
Olander had no illusions of the fact that the Lady Cerwyn had championed his cause simply to spite her lord husband, but he gave a polite nod of his head nonetheless. If the young Flint had been bristled by this comment, he failed to show it, but instead stood sullenly to the side of the hall observing, with a hand stroking the head of his axe.
The Lord Umber growled deep in this throat as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat, casting a harsh eye on the slight crannogman below him. “Aye, that may be, but what use is such a small man as he to keep my daughter safe? Fyoran looks a better man to protect her,” he spoke, clearly stretching for a defense. Olander swallowed a chuckle and waited politely. Borr Umber meant well, Olander was sure, but protest as he might, wildlings weren’t like to sneak down through the entire north and into the Neck to steal Osha away.
“Perhaps Master Olander has other ways to keep our daughter safe? Fyoran certainly looks a might man,” Kerra Cerwyn said to the young son of House Flint, “but there are more to men than their muscles.” She chuckled lightly at that the ghost of a grin playing on the Lady Cerwyn’s lips, her eyes falling to meet Olander’s for the briefest of moments before snapping away.
If any in the room had thought it impossible for the Lord Umber to look more uncomfortable, they would have bee proven wrong. Underneath his great shaggy beard Borr Umber’s mouth was wrought with irritation. “Aye. Aye, but,” he started strongly, but fell into a grumbled mutter. Lady Cerwyn’s lips parted and she looked as if she would speak again, but her husband slammed his closed fist down on the table before him, sending his stein clattering to the stone floor. “They will fight, northman to crannogman, Flint to Reed. Till the lesser man yield, and damn you wife don’t say a word; I am still an Umber, and this is still my castle.”
//////////
A small flurry flew about the training yard the following morning, more wind than snow, but entirely cold. The billowing air caught the crannogman’s cloak and tugged at it urgently until he undid the clasp and cast it aside. Across the yard Fyoran Flint strapped a shield to his forearm and hefted his heavy iron axe.
Apart from the howling of the wind, there was silence in the yard. Olander was leaned against an icy stone wall, observing his opponent with a subdued air about him. Resting in the crook of his arm was his trident with gleaming steel head freshly polished. An undecorated black leather shield lay against the wall near his feet.
After a time, Lord Borr and Lady Kerra exited the hall with their daughter Osha in tow, and crossed the yard soundlessly. The three were dressed warmly in thick bear pelt robes, and took their place atop the battlements to watch below.
“Flint,” the Lord Umber barked, gazing down at the hulking northman before turning his gaze to slight crannogman, “and Reed. You battle here today not only for your own honor and the honor of your House, but you battle for the hand of my maiden daughter. The first man to yield yourself shall be the defeated. May the Old Gods find the one of you the rightly man for Osha.” He stepped back after that, giving no sign of commencement. The battle was to them now.
With a bellow, Fyoran charged across the yard with his axe at the ready. Olander was at the ready, his shield abandoned. The massive axe would had cleaved through the leather as if it were no more than parchment paper. Feinting to the left, Olander threw himself right and whipped around the shaft of his spear to smash into the back of the young Flint’s head. The northman stumbled with a grunt, then caught himself on his knee and pivoted, sending his axe whirling low at his foe’s unprotected calf. Olander leapt back and the axe sliced through empty air. Fyoran lumbered to his feet, and readied himself.
Olander was waiting. Three quick thrusts were turned aside once, twice, thrice by the oaken shield and returned in kind with an overhanded chop. His teeth clenched silently, the crannogman caught the axe blade between the prongs of his trident and twisted it aside, only to catch the iron rim of the Flint’s shield full in the lip. Olander reeled back and jabbed the butt of his weapon into Fyoran’s gut, pushing the burly northman back a pace.
The men panted for a moment, crannogman spitting a crimson gob of a spit from his mouth and wiping away a rivulet of blood from his cracked lip, northman hefting his weapon and sucking in the wind knocked from him. If only for a few second, the respite was welcome, but the fight was joined again.
Fyoran turned aside a stab forward by the crannogman, and answered with his own blade slicing wide at foe. Despite his size, the northman’s reach wasn’t enough to compete with the length of Olander’s spear. Every swing was checked or dodged or deflected, and it wasn’t long before Fyoran’s brute strength was wasted on a dozen empty attacks. His face unmoving and set with resolve, Olander continued to jab with his three razor sharp prongs, catching the blade of the axe, feinting strikes against the heavy oaken shield or flashing above his head and below his knees. The taste of blood still lingered in Olander’s aching mouth. He aimed to keep the Flint at bay.
Sucking in the chilly air, Fyoran slammed his heavy shield down on the head of the trident and pinned it to the ground. With a grunt he hacked at the crannogman with his axe with a savagery summoned from anger. Olander twisted his body out of the path of the axe, yet caught a red slice in the flesh on the left flank of his chest. Grimacing at the wound, Olander abandoned his grip on the trident and gripped the lip of Flint’s shield.
Before the northman could ready his weapon again, Olander’s booted heel smashed brutally into the unprotected knee of Fyoran Flint. Olander could feel the onlookers wince behind him as the wet crunch was followed by a howl of pain. Shoving the Flint, and his shield backwards, Olander retrieved his spear. Grunting like a wounded beast, Fyoran aimed a final savage swing of his axe at the crannogman. Olander turned the blade aside and twisted it from his owner’s grasp.
Fyoran Flint yielded, pushed flat on his back with prong of a trident pressing a red bead into his throat.
//////////
It was on the next evening that Olander of House Reed and Osha of House Umber were wed. It was a small ceremony, with only a handful of north and crannogmen watching on in the Godswood as the pair said their vows of love and devotion before the tower white heart tree. Lady Kerra Cerwyn watched on with a pleased face, as did her husband, Lord Borr Umber. After watching the duel Lord Umber’s gruff demeanor seemed to fade to a weak amiability, or at least as amiable as a father can be on the day he gives his eldest daughter away.
With his wife in arm, Olander and the crannogmen departed from Last Hearth to return to White Harbor. The Royal Wedding celebration had already begun, and there were still preparations to be arranged for the north’s part in the festivities. Olander gave a slight smile and nod to Osha at an unheard jest she’d made to one of his men, wondering if she would take to him in the bedchamber half as well her mother had.
==========
Olander Reed improves from Noteworthy to Expert Stealth
Olander Reed improves from Expert+ to Master Spearfighting
Olander Reed takes Osha Umber as his wife, the daughter of the Lord Umber and Lady Cerwyn