Paradosi
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A Song of Blackjack and Hookers (chapter 29)
🕑 Added 2025-07-07 23:00:10 +0000 UTCMargaery
The sun caught on her garden as she worked, smothering every part of her with a gentle warmth. It had been queer at first to feel the wind on her skin where there was none, to feel the sun when she sat in the shade, but she had quickly grown to love it.
Even now she could feel every snip of the shears as if she was tidying up her hair or nails. A garden was not a forest, wild and untamed, just as a person was not a beast prowling the woods. Without the guidance of a firm hand, her garden would have choked its own growth as every rose fought for a breath of sunlight or a drop of water.
Instead every rose in her garden was hale and hearty such that not a weed could take root near them.
A hum from her caught on the air as she continued, as she knew her roses loved. Her garden was her solace from a world that seemed to turn madder with every day.
First it was the wildfire that devoured everything below Visenya’s Hill, and now the High Septon being torn apart and strung up high like a standard. Hundreds then perished under hoof or lance, and hundreds more under the swords of the gold cloaks. Margaery knew it was necessary, but it did not make it less mad.
That not a one of her birds turned flowers remained to her had also left a bitter taste on her tongue. That despite Solomon assuring her that she did all she could, that it was her kindness to them that had seen only seven of them there and not more.
A sigh replaced the hum as she stood, her eyes moving across the breadth of her garden. Perhaps it was time for her garden to take root in the godswood. Renly would not deny her, and with his brothers gone, that was all that mattered.
The sun slowly trailed west across the sky, until the sound of footsteps drew her eyes to a visitor. Solomon.
While he would only smile and soothe her with words, she knew that something had happened that night. He hid it masterfully, to the point that she doubted herself for noticing, but it had only seemed to worsen each time she saw him.
Now the sun-kissed tones to his skin had gone. Instead he seemed even paler than she remembered him being in Highgarden, the grace with which he walked much diminished.
“My lady,” he greeted, his voice still as rich as any bard’s. He seemed to see something in her eyes. “I must make for a poorer sight than I thought.”
Margaery turned away to stare at her garden. “Is there something I can do?” He had given her much and asked for naught but a few drops of blood for his mirror.
“It is already done. I will be gone from the city once the sun sets.” His smile pulled at his skin. “Yet you already know that I am never far from your dreams.”
She had oft wondered if he also visited Cersei in her dreams. With how often he visited her bed, it would not surprise her.
If the singers knew what she knew, the realm would see a thousand songs sprung from it. She could imagine it now with a bawdy tune. One, two, three for her smiling twin, one and one for the sorcerer swaddled in sin, and none yes none for the fat king whose horns would swallow the sun.
Her eyes caught on Solomon as he turned back to where Ser Morwyn stood.
For a moment she thought Cersei’s had jealously followed after him again, but instead she spied her daughter, the princess’s hand firmly holding another’s.
Princess Shireen was older by a year, but you wouldn’t know it with how easily she was led around. Margaery couldn't help her eyes being drawn to the patch of cracked and flaking grey skin that covered her left cheek and neck, though they didn’t linger.
“My lady.” Myrcella curtsied to her, and Shireen quickly followed her example. It was not proper as they were princesses and she was not, but it was also polite for a girl not yet flowered to meet a lady so.
Margaery gave a perfect curtsy in kind. “Princesses.” She peeked behind them to see two knights, Ser Arys Oakheart which she knew well, a white cloak around his shoulders, and Ser Richard Horpe, who she had only seen around Stannis and his Florent wife, his features scarred and pockmarred.
She wondered if the reason that such a knight was chosen to guard Princess Shireen was to distract from her own disfigurement. Though unlike the princess whose smile was nervously genuine, Ser Richard only met her eyes with a hard stare, the three death’s head moths of his House stitched into his surcoat staring back at her also.
The princesses curtsied to Solomon also, a lord in all but name. Or perhaps she had seen her mother defer to him more than once and was confused as how to approach him.
“Princess Shireen didn’t believe that you had roses many times as high as a man,” Myrcella continued as her green eyes sparkled with mischief. “I thought she should see it for herself.”
“I only said that roses normally didn’t grow so high,” Shireen protested softly.
There was another trailing behind the procession that Ser Morwyn turned a weary eye upon. Dressed in fool’s motley, the bells that dangled from his mock helm sounded with every queer step from him.
Patchface, if she remembered correctly, clearly named for the red-and-green squares that stretched from cheek to cheek and chin to forehead.
Margaery soon returned her eyes to the princesses. “I wouldn’t dare bar you. Indeed, I hear the roses I have gifted you have bloomed as well.”
Myrcella nodded her head with a bright smile. “They have the sweetest scent to them, my lady. I often find myself lingering.”
That she also knew, for the roses in the princess’s garden sprouted from the same rose that nestled in her belly. Sometimes it even moved as a babe might.
She stared as the fool suddenly leaped into the fray, balancing on his tiptoes as he beheld the roses with an empty smile. “Under the sea are roses that smile and sing to better draw near. I know, I know, oh, oh, oh.”
Solomon was staring at the fool with surprising intensity.
“What kind of breed are these, my lady?” Shireen asked curiously, drawing her eyes. “Maester Cressen has mentioned a few, but none so yellow or that grew so tall.”
“There isn’t a name for them. Not yet.”
“They smell so sweet,” Myrcella thoughtfully said. “Sweetyellows, perhaps?”
“It’s yellow under the sea, oh, oh, oh…”
“That might just work,” she told her with a smile, ignoring the fool.
The princesses lingered for some time longer until they departed, the fool trailing after them as he tittered at nothing she could hear.
Solomon still seemed deep in thought when her garden quieted again. He soon gave a sigh as he unceremoniously laid back on the soft black dirt. Margaery joined him after a moment.
“You needn’t dirty your fine dress, my lady.”
She snorted softly. “Have you seen my nails? Mother would have a fit if she knew.”
“Nothing remembered was ever accomplished without sacrifice. I find your nails fairer to look at than a thousand painted ladies.”
A smile true found her lips as she had closed her eyes as well. Until she remembered a question she had.
“Where had you learned the Old Tongue?”
Margaery shivered as something slimy touched her, and the next she saw a man with a crown of leaves and eyes like honey singing in dulcet tones. He seemed familiar to her in a way that tugged at her.
There was a weirwood she saw as well, as small as a babe as it poked out from the dirt.
She watched as men and even women were brought and made to kneel in the dirt, some screaming for mercy and benevolence and some so quiet that she wondered if they already had one foot in the grave. None was given, and one after another all their lifeblood fed into the ground beneath them.
When it was done, the earth had turned wet and red from how much was spilt, and as the singing continued, she watched as the weirwood grew in leaps and bounds. Three in truth, for there were two more saplings that she hadn’t seen.
“The First Men kept few prisons,” she heard Solomon whisper again.
She might have gasped if she could at the sight that followed. Standing not much taller than a child was a queer figure smothered in a cloak of weirwood leaves. There were others as well, their skin nut-brown and dappled like a deer’s. Though where their large eyes gleamed like gold, the one with the cloak of leaves had eyes red as blood.
They sang as well, but not in the Old Tongue. Their song sounded like the breath of the wind and the rush of a stream.
Some of them soon stepped forward and began to carve faces into the three weirwoods.
This was Highgarden. She had watched the Three Singers be born into the world, a birth more bloody than any babe’s.
Her eyes opened to find the blue sky and white clouds again. Turning on her side, she saw Solomon’s eyes still closed, his black hair sprawled over the earth similarly black.
Braver than she felt, she brought herself to her knees and stole a kiss that opened his eyes. They were not as she remembered, a vivid green staring back at her instead. Her nerve faltered at the queer sight, though he put a finger to her lips when they parted to beg pardon.
“There is nothing to forgive.”
She knew what Grandmother would say was she here, that she is not a mare to complain if she is not mounted.
Instead some of her courage returned as the green slowly faded from his eyes. “Is it not your babe that has nestled in my belly?” White or green, a seed was still a seed. “It certainly is not my lord husband’s.”
“I suppose you can look at it that way,” he seemed to tease. Her eyes watched him as he took her hand. “How much has Renly told you, my lady?”
Her mind went to the few words they shared in the morning. “That I would soon bear a crown upon my brow.”
“I am not surprised he said nothing more.” He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear again. “You have shown me which dreams you hold close to your heart. Now you need only bring them into this world for all to see.”
Margaery wanted to steal another kiss or ten, but there were limits even to impropriety. “I would hear you sing again,” she said instead. “You can consider it a queen’s command.”
He eyed her a moment as she tried not to laugh and give the game away, still looming over him. “As you wish, Your Grace. Though I am afraid I only know a few songs in that tongue.”
As he started to sing in that voice that her garden loved as much as her ears, she found herself watching the sky again.
Margaery had always wondered what it would be like to touch a cloud, and one day, whether it took ten moons or a hundred, she swore that she would know.
Asha
To sail the narrow sea in autumn was a fool’s gambit, it was said. But then none of those that did had a gull that never led them false.
The queer thing had only grown more vocal as they neared King’s Landing, as if it knew its master was near, but none of her crew complained. A few of them had begun to leave offerings of meat and fish to it, which amused her greatly.
They would have been wiser to approach the sorcerer that commanded it with blood they could part with. The same sorcerer that she now waited on.
He had donned more yellow than she remembered, not only a half-cloak draped over one shoulder. All of it drank in the sunset as he whispered into the ear of a lady that towered over him.
That she still pined for him amused her also. Asha could not help but wonder what manner of indignities she allowed the sorcerer to have him indulge her with kisses.
The shadow of the wildfire still stretched over the harbor, she saw. It would have been a hassle if it was not a longship under her feet.
Maegon Laessaryon had already climbed aboard, and Halmar as well. Her reaver seemed much the same, if dressed more like a highborn lord than the grandson of a thrall.
Finally, Solomon had left the lady to stare at his back like a woman bereaved. All the yellow he bore now made him unpleasant to look upon, but she imagined that issue would only last as long as she allowed him to remain clothed.
Not long by her count. She was not shy to admit that the damnable man had left her with an itch hard to scratch, and Nym had certainly tried.
The snake had also made her promise to lure the sorcerer into their bed despite her warnings. Solomon was not a man easily led anywhere, and she was just as likely to end up screaming obscenities into a pillow as win his ear.
Her Black Wind soon set sail, Solomon’s eyes on the sea. “Dorne. Then Volantis.”
There was a queer urgency about him that she had never seen. He was a man that loved to chew his words, as it were.
That he then sequestered himself in her cabin with a hundred scrolls was also queer, though not as much. It was after a few days of him scratching a script she had never seen into parchment that it had grown rather dull.
Asha had gone to the trouble of bedecking herself in jewels and trinkets she had stolen from the ladies of the Free Cities and he had not even noticed. Tsk.
What could she do then but badger him until he did? Which meant seating her arse right on top of his parchment kingdom. “There’s a new toll. You might not have heard.”
His dark eyes watched her. “I think I’d have already paid it many times over. How many ships have you taken now?”
She took a gander at her painted black nails in the candlelight. “It is hard to keep track after a certain number.”
Her own eyes caught on some queer sketches of eyes and other uncanny things strewn across all the parchment under her.
He leaned back, a smile dancing on his lips. “If I remember correctly, my lady, you must have cursed the name of every power from here to Asshai by the time I was finished.”
Asha gave an idle sniff at the words. “Any man would have been happy I had let them take such liberties at all. Not offer me cheek for the pleasure.”
“I am not any man.”
“You are still a man.” She pulled on some of the laces in her tunic, seeing his eyes catch on her assets. “See.”
Something playful showed in his dark eyes now. “I am surprised you haven’t brought your shadow.”
Asha shrugged her shoulders carelessly. Qarl had become moody as soon as they were to make for King’s Landing. Sometimes she wondered if he were a man or a cat.
“I think he did not much like watching you stick your sword in me again and again,” she innocently admitted.
“I believe it was more the suggestion that I stick my sword in him.”
She shrugged her shoulders more daintily, a quirk to her lips. The thought of her kitten huffing and puffing beneath her sorcerer still amused her, as it should.
She was about to say something more when she tumbled to the floor instead. It was as if something had just struck them on the open sea.
Solomon stood and left her cabin with nary a word, and she followed after a huff at his not helping her, a candle in her hand.
It was black as pitch outside, the new moon meaning a darker night. The squawk of a gull sounded, and she spied a frown on the sorcerer’s lips as she neared him, the candlelight barely illuminating him with all the yellow draped over him stealing it.
More of her men stumbled from the deck as well.
They all stared in horror as much as wonder as something broke the surface of the water. It slithered across the length of her ship like a grotesque tongue, blacker than even the water.
It stopped opposite the sorcerer as a crack of thunder from above them had brought with it a downpour that quickly soaked her hair. Solomon had meanwhile turned to look at the starless sky above, his eyes closed as the rain danced across his skin.
If Nuncle Damphair were here, he might have thrown himself into the sea to meet his god. Instead not a one of them dared to utter a sound as the strange scene continued, and they only dared to breathe again when the inky tendril dragged itself back under the water. Asha dug her nails into a yellow sleeve in question, but he just laughed.
Her men whispered so lowly one might have thought they were mice as he returned to her cabin. Annoyed still, she followed after him again. At least he did not protest overmuch when she soon pushed him on the bed and had her wicked way with him.
As she laid back on her bed with a contented sigh after, she could say the itch had been nicely scratched. Though she could have still done without the theatrics from the Drowned God, or how he left the bed after to pour over his parchment kingdom again.
The scratch of a quill followed her into her dreams, each of them nauseatingly yellow.
Comments
Paradosi
That is what he is trying to figure out. A tithe of blood from him and Cersei was able to temporarily pause the deterioration, but not reverse. It's his abuse of skinchanging that led him here. He has developed it to a point where can he match or even surpass a greenseer(at least in skinchanging, he doesn't have the greensight), but it means his body is no longer able to contain his mind/soul/spirit/whatever you want to call it.
Doleful
Is there any way to fix his deteriorating condition? I know shadow binding is said to drain vitality, and his skin changing is also having a negative effect on him. The constant bloodletting surely isn’t helping things either. He’ll probably look to be a twin to Bloodraven in 3-5 years at this rate lol
