Morning Winds

28 Feb 2017

And now, for something completely different.

I've started taking part in a forum-based role-play game based on the universe of Game of Thrones. If you're interested, it happens over here (warning: 90s web design).

As part of that, I made an RP post to introduce the character I'll be playing, the somber Lord Nyron Gaunt. Some very biased people told me it was good. I'm not under any such illusion, yet here it is for the records:

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Like every morning, Lord Nyron Gaunt stood atop his battlements to take in the fresh morning air. A faint drizzle was falling, making his face and the surface of his clothes slightly wet.

Nyron liked the weather. Most men despised it, he had noticed. They complained about it much more than they would about a heavy downpour. Like if the gods had decided to take a piss on what would otherwise be a perfectly good day.

It was sixteen years ago on this day that he became lord of Honorton. A bitter memory, that. His father, murdered; and the culprit known almost beyond doubts. And yet, justice had been sorely lacking on that day. Instead, Nyron had brokered an uneasy truce. It had been necessary, he knew.

Lucan had been howling for blood, of course. That was the worse of it, to hear his heart echo in the words and wails of his younger brother; but, in the end, to do nothing.

It had been the right decision. He knew it back then, and knew it even now. It still left a bad taste in his mouth.

Sixteen years of strife. It had been hard. He hadn't expected to trade his leisurely hunts and the comforts of a good book for the burden of command so soon. He always had had his head on his shoulder however, so he made do.

Fortunately he had his wife, and their children. They were the sun rays in the unending drizzle of his existence. Them, and his people, whom he had worked so hard to protect. A good people.

Nyron Gaunt was no fool. He knew there was nothing magical in the seed of the men living in the plains around Honorton. Nothing inborn that made them better than other men. But he thought — hoped — that he and his predecessors had put something in their minds. Inspired them, somehow, by their example. A bit like when you took good care of a plant or a flower, it grew and bloomed.

His people were plants. That made Nyron Gaunt chuckle.

Sixteen years of strife. And not much to show for it, truth be told. At least, there was peace now. He would not have his sons waste their youth like he had, warring and angling and currying favors.

There was peace now, and there would continue to be peace. He would make sure of it. He was not about to let his hard work undone by some fools.

Nyron sighed heavily. Then he turned around, and got back to work.