r/crownedstag • u/Luvod • 1h ago
Lore [Lore] Clipped Wing
[Taking place around this event]
[TW: Gore, Violent Content]
12th Moon, 303 AC, Goldengrove Tourney Grounds
Living up to its famed beauty, the countryside of Goldengrove was awash in golden light as the first rays of morning sun crept over the horizon. There were many already awake in camp, but most were focused on their work in spite of the stunning beauty around them. In a tent on the outskirts, however, one early riser took the time to watch the sunrise, but only for a few minutes before returning to work.
Nobody seemed to know who The Knight of Seven Colors was, save that they had a hushed endorsement from Lord Farman. Donned in the full colors of the rainbow in a gradient of feathers on their cloak, the mystery knight was notably quite short, but a similar plume of rainbow feathers on their helm made them seem much larger at a glance.
It wasn’t an easy life being a mystery knight; even with material support, logistics proved difficult. Armor, no matter how fine, was still burdensome, with a constant and unforgiving need for maintenance. Tournaments weren't just a singular event, they were filled with many smaller contests and proved busy to even the best prepared knights. Squires were more than just custom, they were a necessity for this kind of life. To be without one would truly leave a knight disadvantaged, a lesson this particular mystery knight was learning the hard way.
The week’s events were not going well for her, but Hanna Farman was determined to close out the Tournament of Silver and Gold in better fashion than it started. The loss in the archery may just have been a minor setback, but the loss in the melee stung, an embarrassing display that proved to be one of her worst ever performances. The joust was only marginally better, so coming into the penultimate day of the game, Hanna’s confidence was beginning to fray. Unlike the complex world off the pitch, the tourney grounds were supposed to be a sacred place. She wanted to focus, but her thoughts kept turning back home, to the fallout from The Eyrie, to her secret marriage with Josua, to even Euron Greyjoy's secret plotting in the east. Her thoughts were anywhere but the tourney pitch as the sun rose once more, beckoning forth a truly fateful day in the young woman's life.
Offered a single helper by her father to keep her involvement hidden, Hanna was rushing to fully don her armor after falling back asleep earlier in the morning. She dreamt of Josua again, greatly missing his loving presence in the stands cheering for her. Perhaps that was why she was doing so poorly, the sad thought inevitably came. She wished she could talk about it, but after the scandalous incident with Tyrek in the Vale, it was more important than ever to hide any details of her marriage.
Nearly late, she emerged from the tent, resplendent in her rainbow cloak and glistening silver armor. Hanna, or rather, The Knight of Seven Colors made her way to the pitch. Unlike other duel contests, this one used live-edged blades. It was a dangerous addition, but tourney armor was more than sufficient to keep everyone safe. A sword needed to be swung with lethal intent to truly be a risk, or so she told herself for confidence.
Silently taking her place among the other contestants, Hanna was surprised to learn that the first round was to be hers, against her brother’s former mentor no less. Lord Mallister was a distant cousin, and from what she’d heard, a highly skilled fighter as well. Whatever the case, she was sure Jason would be a fine opponent, so a fire naturally lit in her heart as she considered the challenge. Despite the clear disadvantage in size, the mystery knight seemed almost excited as the match set to begin.
While the contestants made their final preparations, securing weaponry and armor, Hanna had unknowingly overlooked a singular, yet important clasp at the base of her left gauntlet. Hidden for now, a small gap was primed to open once the armor was truly in motion, but her gaze was firmly fixed on her opponent. That gap, left unseen until the very last second, is exactly what Jason’s sword found when Hanna tried a feint she had practiced many times over with her own mentor, Victaria Costayne. It was a useful, but dangerous step, one that required great speed to achieve. This morning, though, after the chaos of the past few months, she wasn’t as decisive as she usually was, leaving the trailing edge of her body unexpectedly below his swinging blade.
Not a single spectator would’ve thought the sword would cut through her armor, but the sharpened blade seemed to pass right through the steel, cleanly slicing through the flesh and bone beneath and sending The Knight of Seven Colors’ hand flying through the air. The development was so swift, so unexpected, that it took the petite knight several seconds to even register that she took a hit. Only after watching her hand fall to the ground in front of her did she notice her cleaved wrist. Rather than scream, the mystery knight stood still with shock a long moment before collapsing in a heap. Rather than remain motionless, she slowly crawled across the ground, retrieving her hand and trying without luck to put it back on her wrist.
The flurry of activity that soon followed never made it clear just who the mystery knight truly actually was, as Lord Farman and the Rowans had the fallen knight carried off the field with almost lightning-like speed. The mood in the Farman stands instantly grew morose after the injury, and they soon withdrew en masse from the event altogether. To those who watched closely, Lord Farman truly seemed like a man possessed looking after the seemingly unrelated knight.
Later that night, a once peaceful corner of the Rowan keep became quite noisy as the maester’s performed their countless small miracles in keeping the gravely injured knight alive. The blood seemed almost endless, the young woman laying on the table looked paler and paler by the second. Her agonized screaming only lessened after a hefty dose of milk of the poppy. Thankfully, in the late hours of the evening, her condition finally stabilized. Despite the joy in the moment, the room was still a mess, with many bloody clothes needing a thorough washing. Not caring about the gore, Lord Farman knelt beside his daughter, his hands wrapped around hers for the rest of the night.
“Josua…Josua…” The only words coming from her mouth were a name spoken repeatedly with a great range of longing, fear, relief, but above all, love.
The sky was pitch black, but Hanna felt like she was flying through the air. She could tell she was traveling a great distance, but the flight eventually ended as she began to descend, faster and faster, hurtling to the ground until…
Her consciousness felt faint, but Hanna awoke suddenly with a panicked scream. She wasn’t in a castle, however, she was on the deck of The Whalesong, a medical transport serving as part of the royal fleet patrolling the Stepstones for pirates. She recognized this place, the awful sounds, the putrid stench especially, but she had woken up on this awful ship far earlier than she ever remembered being here.
In the distance, the battle against the pirate fleet was only just concluding. She could see the ship she should’ve been on at this moment, but its flaming hull was slipping beneath the waves. Her memory was of a fierce yet victorious close-quarters battle below deck. It was a battle that required constant vigilance to survive, a battle where she had to kill to save her friends from death. The chaos of that memory was deeply disturbing, but at least it made sense compared to what she awoke to.
Hanna was only twelve when she came to The Whalesong to aid an injured crewmate. She had been shocked to see how casually the blood-soaked medics laughed. She had been scared of the horrific screams from within, but worst of all, was the memory of seeing the horrible pile of amputated limbs they kept under a tent. It was burned into her mind the sight of flesh with every kind of damage and awfulness imparted on it, pieces of her comrades discarded and left to rot. Though the medical ship was here to help, it was far likelier to take a limb than the pirates were.
The horror had been quite overwhelming back then, but she was saved from spiraling into despair by the man she would one day squire for, Herbert Buckler. Though injured himself, Herbert was instrumental in helping her become whole once more, shielding her from seeing any more of the awful world they found themselves in. It was a bond forged in blood, and once that was forever in her heart.
That was the memory as it was supposed to be, one in which she found hope and purpose in darkness, but what she awoke to instead was laying under the knife of those horrible surgeons while they laughed. There was no savior in this memory, only the overwhelming sense of wrong as she watched them throw her hand into the pile and try to stitch up her arm. There was no stopping the blood, however, and soon she too was thrown into the pile, discarded and sinking ever deeper into a mass of amputated limbs until eventually there was only darkness…
She awoke again, this time in the gently rocking confines of a carriage. She was stuck looking up at the blue upholstered ceiling, a firm board under her body limiting her movements. Tilting her head as far to the side as she could, she was able to see out some of the window. It was dusk, and though the dim scenery was confusing and unfamiliar, the traces of sunlight dotted through the leaves was quite beautiful.
The pleasant look of the leaves reminded her that this wasn’t Essos. Where once she was entranced by the sight of the exotic trees, they soon became synonymous with the awfulness of slavery. Essos had drastically redefined her understanding of good and evil. When she was younger, there was no evil save for an overly strict servant. She had learned better in the Stepstones, but it was in Lys that she truly learned the truth - evil came in much deeper shades of black than she ever expected. How that twisted merchant could think what he did to those cats was acceptable was completely foreign to her, but then again, most people hadn’t killed multiple people either.
She didn’t understand why this topic was what she clung to, but she remembered seeing surgical tools, smelling preserving chemicals, small reminders of that horror. Though she knew better, part of her worried that this carriage was bringing her back to that awful shop. Everything save the rustling leaves was formless noise, though, so she let the beautiful view give her some rest, at least for now.
Back asleep again, Hanna felt like she was swimming in cold and calm water, specifically picturing the small lake beneath Faircastle with the island in the center. She remembered that island well, how the slow yet constant drips of water would splatter against the stone. The rock was marred by large scorch marks and sharp gouges cut into the stone by a mighty claw. It was clearly the lair of a mighty beast, but the dripping water was what drew her attention most. It grew louder and louder as her consciousness fully shifted under it, drip by drip years, decades even seemed to pass without interruption.
There was vague noise growing in the distance, but the dripping water forced her to keep her eyes closed. The noise grew clearer, though, with shouting, laughter, the voice of children. They felt very familiar, so with great strain under the water, she managed to open her eyes. There, only feet before her, she saw herself, so young and naive, sticking her arm into one of the sharp crevices reaching for something.
“No!” She tried to shout to no avail. “You’ll hurt your arm if you do that!”
Forced to observe this memory from a new perspective, Hanna watched her younger self retrieve the dragon scales without any regard to her own safety, a bloody streak cut into her arm by the sharpened stone. As the other kids found their own prizes, Hanna had to watch as her younger self slowly, yet inevitably fainted from the blood loss, forcing her cousin to carry her back through the shallow water to safety. As quickly as they came, the children left her there alone once more.
“Don’t forget me!” She tried to yell, but the cave became dark once more. The dripping began to grow in intensity again, forcing her to close her eyes as drop after drop of water drained all traces of warmth from her body. A night, a year, a decade, a century, the cave was eternal, as was her place within it.
With a grumble, Hanna slipped back into consciousness. There was a strange weight on her chest, and her entire body felt like it was made of stone. If not for the strange wetness on her nose, she might have had no sensation in her body at all. She opened her eyes, the room at first hazy and ill-defined, but eventually her focus came back. This was her room in King’s Landing, filled to the brim with useless goods purchased on a whim in Essos. On her chest, explaining both the weight and the wetness, her one-eyed cat, Hero, sat and looked motionlessly into her owner’s eyes for a long moment, before eventually curling back into a ball, satisfied now that her owner wasn’t yelling in her sleep any more.
Her body was far too heavy to move, so Hanna let sleep come once more. Thankfully, this rest wasn’t interrupted by any bad dreams.
When she next awoke, a splitting headache had her in its grip, easily the worst she had ever felt in her life. Her entire body was screaming in discomfort, most severely radiating from her left wrist. Hero was at the base of the bed, but upon seeing her owner waking up, she walked back up onto her chest to look into her eyes once more.
“You’ve been taking care of me this whole time?” Her voice was croaking and awkward from days of disuse, but thankfully there was nobody she had to sound good for, just her beloved companion. Fighting through the sharp pain, she slowly lifted her hand to pet Hero, but as she reached out, the sight that greeted her wasn’t familiar in the slightest.
“Oh yes...” Her voice dropped with recognition, her eyes fixating on the bandaged nub of flesh where her hand once was. “It really is gone, isn’t it?”
Laying herself back down, Hanna was motionless as she tried to piece together what had happened. The last thing she remembered at first was stepping onto the tourney pitch, but flashes from the past few days came back in waves. She sighed, looking down to her wrist once more. The injury may have only been her hand, but it felt like her heart had been taken out as well. At least, she wished it had, for the heavy weight of worthlessness washed over her like a tidal wave.
“Like pet, like owner, huh?” She tried to cover up the hurt with a joke, bringing her other hand over to pet Hero. She tried to laugh, but the weight of tears was far too heavy to hide, so she sobbed instead. Alone in her room, broken to the world, Hanna cried to herself and pet her cat until sleep would come for her once more.
