Celestial Hymn 25 (Patreon)

Celestial Hymn
Chapter 25

-VB-

Ignoring another failure of my Forge to connect to the greater constellations, I looked down at the two messages before me. The first had been expected while the second left me in surprise.

The first came from King’s Landing itself with the seal of the King himself. Robert, who still thought of me as a good friend despite months and years of lack of contact with the magic spell that made him feel that way, wrote a very candid letter.

Candid because “hurry the fuck up and get your ass in King’s Landing, so me, you, and Ed can get slammed!” couldn’t be described as anything else. Sure, it was a rough invitation, but it had been one sent by a man eager to meet his “friend.”

I also suspected that he was very happy to show off his friend who was the only blacksmith in the whole world who could make Valyrian steel. Certainly, there would be envoys from all of the Free Cities to join in on the celebrations of -. Hmm, no, King Robert doesn’t think along those lines. He probably really wanted to just get drunk with friends instead of just by himself, because getting drunk with friends was fun but getting drunk by oneself was lonely.

What concerned me was the second letter.

See, it came from Stannis.

To Lord Alan Marris of Brownspear

Greetings, I am Prince Stannis Baratheon, Lord of Dragonstone and Master of Ships. I have heard of your artistic prowess as well as your connection with the Seven, for who but a saint acknowledged by the Seven themselves create a connection between them and the people?

I have a simple request. As you should know, my brother has gone north to convince his childhood friend, Eddard Stark the Lord Paramount of the North, to become the Hand of the King. While I personally do not believe that Lord Stark is fit for this position, the king chooses the Hand, not his brother. What I know, however, is that my brother will host another tourney as he ought.

My request is this: when we meet in King’s Landing, I ask of you to use your power to heal my daughter, Shireen Baratheon, of Greyscale.

Should you accomplish this, House Baratheon of Dragonstone will owe you a debt.

Signed…

“‘Stannis Baratheon, Lord of Dragonstone.’”

I set the letter down and thought about it.

Helping Stannis?

If I healed Shireen here, then … what could I ask of the man? Ideas just kept popping into my head, and I wanted to try them! Could I use this as a chance to prevent the War of Five Kings from breaking out? Sure, it’ll still happen, but if I get Stannis to support the more amicable Renly instead of trying to claim the throne for himself…

But would Stannis even consider it? The man was stiffer than a petrified tree. Would he accept trading Shireen’s recovery for supporting Renly with what he suspected?

It would have to be something fantastical. There was even a chance that Mellisandre was already at Dragonstone, whispering into the -.

Oh.

I remembered. Stannis was pushed to pursue the throne in part by Mellisandre.

What if, just what if, I, as a Saint of the Seven, asked for the detention and transference of one Mellisandre of Asshai to me? She would certainly make for a wonderful, and guilt-less, test subject…

“Okay, I guess I have a plan,” I hummed as I tossed both of the letters into the fire.

Again, I needed to do something. It was the nature of politics. Sure, it wasn’t the Twitter, Youtube, or regular TV news media outlet for the masses, but my audience was not uneducated and uninformed people - this was factual because just how many people knew the nitty, gritty details of politics beyond “campaign, vote, win” or how many people knew about pathophysiological chain reactions immune response system? - but the seasoned veterans of local politics.

Of course, I would do my razzle-dazzle “show off the goodies” again, but it needed to be different if I wanted to keep the incentive edge of the knock-off Valyrian steel.

Knock knock.

I paused in my rumination. “Come in.”

The door to my solar opened, and Maester Wilhelm walked in.

As far as maesters went, he was a chill guy. Hell, he didn’t bat an eye when I started making technological progress, brought the servitors out, and started practicing magic in public. To him, being a maester was no different than a normal office drone working in their cubicle.

Oh, am I suddenly the saint that made the Voice of the Seven? It didn’t matter to him whatsoever. He just viewed the entire world with an air of an outsider, never mind the fact that septons and septa weren’t maesters.

Actually, now that I think about Wilhelm, he had more light in his eyes after I straight up told him that I didn’t care if a maester fucked around or not, literally. He seemed mildly more cheerful in the following days.

Wilhelm set his report on the upper left corner of my desk and then, after a glance and meeting my eyes, raised an eyebrow. “What devious plan do you have in mind, milord? You have that look.”

“I have a look for planning?”

“You had the same look as you do now when you ordered me to secretly package your, in your words, knock-off ‘Damascus steel’ swords. The one you named Agamemnon, I believe…” he nodded to himself. “And then you went and hooked the entirety of the Westeros, even though it was nothing compared to your greater works.”

I would have done something about him, but the matter of the fact was that my maester was an irreverent man who didn’t even care about the Citadel.

The only time he looked alive were the nights he went off to, I assume, to the brothels (except there were no brothels in my lands, so maybe he was seeing someone…?!).

I blinked as I got a warning sign from my power as it connected to Large Scale Magical constellation and -.

I yelped not-so-manly as the castle shook as if something landed on top.

I hurried out, followed lazily by my sleepy-eyed maester. I ran into a servant, who was looking up towards one of the towers, and I followed his gaze.

I gawked as I saw that one of my towers - one that I had built but not used yet - now looked like a garden, inside and out. There were even wooden planks and attachments I never designed that were jutting out of the tower with doors that I never installed!

I ran around the castle and up the stairs.

When I barged into the tower…

My shoulders drooped. “Oh. It’s a herb garden.”

Nothing fanciful.

Just herbs… that weren’t native to Westeros stared at my face.

Lots of herbs that weren’t from Earth, too.

… Was that a Peacebloom?

It took me a minute to realize it, but I now had the most impressive herb garden in all of Planetos and that was saying something. Better than that, my Herb Garden - and I was upper-casing the title there on purpose in my mind - grew non-Earth and non-Westeros herbs; magical herbs from the world of Azeroth grew there, too.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have access to any potioneering skills and knowledge, so if I wanted to make potions with those herbs - because they were magical herbs, what else did I use them for? - then I would need to manually experiment. I was more than okay with that.

I was just sad that now that I had something great to do, I had to go to King’s Landing. Ugh.

… But speaking of magic, I think I knew what to do for my latest visit to King’s Landing.

“Wilhelm?”

“Yes, milord?” my attentive maester drawled. “Your tone says you have a plan.”

“Oh, I do. I do. Can you call up Peter to my solar for after-lunch meeting?”

“Of course, sir. If I may, what do you intend to do?”

I turned around and grinned at him.

“Since I am already known for my, let’s just say, saintly reputation-”

Wilhelm stared at me with a deadpan, unimpressed, and disappointed stare that an Asian father would be proud of before he called me a “disappointment.”

“-I’m just gonna bring all of my acolytes and show them off.”

“You are showing your hands to potential enemies, milord.”

“I know, but it’ll also keep them occupied with my acolytes and not much more.”

“... Ah, you wish to use your acolytes as decoy.”

“More or less.”

“Peter will be sad.”

“The boy burned the enchanted wooden swords.”

“Milord, that’s over a month ago.”