Celestial Hymn 27 (Patreon)

Celestial Hymn
Chapter 27

-VB-

The world shat on everything and everyone.

‘Well, that’s not true,’ Robert Baratheon, the King of the Anda-. Fuck it. Just Robert. Not the fucking king, not the first of his name, not the first of anything. Just Robert. ‘The world is shit because the people who make it are shit.’

He wasn’t completely a brute that his foster father and sworn brother as well as everyone else thought him to be. It’s just that when he got down to it, he preferred to do rather than think. Oh, he could think. He thought a lot, actually.

He thought a lot about his lot in life was both the best and the worst someone could have it, because if he wasn’t the king, then he might not have had to marry the Bitch Lannister. He might not have to deal with the Bitch-Lord Lannister. He didn’t have to deal with the Small Council.

He could just wallow in his own fucking sorrow of losing Lyanna on his own, let Renly take over because Stannis was going to fuck everything up if he ever became the Stormlands, and just go to an early grave.

Aside from Ned, who he had just convinced to come down south, there really wasn’t anyone he trusted or cared for. Was he fucking asshole father for not loving all three of his trueborns? Yeah, but Tommen was a coward, Myrcella looked too much like her mother if a little softer, and Joffrey was …

How the fuck did he get a spawn like Joffrey? What kind of a child except a mad one splits the guts of a pregnant cat and thinks it proud?

Fuck, he’s met enough of his bastards to know that every single one of them was better than all of his trueborn! What was it? Was it the lack of hardship? Oh, he could try something about that, but his bitch wife would never let him. No, it would devolve into a shrieking and shouting fest, he would lash out and then feel guilty afterward.

Was it any wonder his life sucked?

Well, there was one recently great thing.

Lord Alan Marris, or just Al when they were drinking in private, was a new friend. Yes, he was calling a lesser lord his friend, because the guy was just likable like that. He was also very free with his outright magical gifts. The cloak he got from him wasn’t magical, just new and awesome, but the point was that Alan was a trustworthy guy. Never asked him for anything. Never did stupid shit like the Lannisters or his brothers. Never acted out beyond what he had to do.

Robert opened his eyes when someone knocked on his door.

“What?” he growled out grouchily.

“It’s Barristan, Your Majesty. You asked me to alert you to Lord Marris’s approach. He is now nearly at the gate. And I think you should be out for his procession.”

“Are you-?”

“He is using magic, Your Majesty.”

Robert felt the few drops of ale in his stomach evaporate.

“...What?!”

---

Robert gawked in awe at what he saw.

As his friend marched into the city from the south gate at the head of a procession… And they were using magic.

Even though it was mid-day, they carried with them light brighter than the sun above the heads of each robe and hood-dressed acolyte-wannabes. The unusually uniformly well armored and armed men-at-arms were nothing but a hindrance to the light show. The acolytes of magic (what else would they be?) each carried a hanging lamp that swung gently from side to side with colored fires, sometimes even multiple colors at once.

The smallfolk and the Gold Cloak all scrambled out of their way. Cowards.

“ALAN!” he boomed with a laugh as he saw Lord Alan Marris no more than a hundred steps away.

The man wore the weird purple robe Robert first saw him in with an “ultramarine blue” cloak of his own. He carried the same gem-embedded staff of his. The interesting part was the … floating crystals. Giant floating crystals that were each the size of Robert’s belly, and there were two of them floating, one on each side of Alan, as he stepped up.

And then Alan knelt.

“It is wonderful to see you hale and healthy, Your Majesty.”

Okay, now this felt wrong.

“Okay, okay, no kneeling!” he growled out as he grabbed the man by his shoulders and pulled him. “The ‘Voice of the Seven’ should not be kneeling to me!” It was just an excuse to not have both of his friends kneeling to him.

Alan smiled. “If you say so, Your Majesty.” He then turned sideways. “As you can see, Your Majesty, I have decided to stop hiding. I present to you the Crystalline Guard, my personal company of magicians and enchanted weapon-wielding warriors of the Stormlands! Call upon us whenever and wherever you want, Your Majesty. We shall answer your call to arms with glee!”

Robert stared at him for a moment before laughter bubbled out of his belly.

Alan never ceased to amaze and amuse him.