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He had been a lad of sixteen when his father had taken him to the Riverlands. Like every logical father of a rambunctious youth, Lord Baratheon had spoken to Lyonel in half truths. Lord Tully was hosting a tourney for his daughter's fourteenth nameday. Lyonel was going to participate. Many young lord heirs would be there to do the same and it would be wise for Lyonel to meet them. Tourneys were the fastest way to make friends—that is what his father always said. As long as no one died, of course. Dying always puts a damper on things.
However, Lyonel's father had not spoken the whole truth of why they were journeying to Riverrun. He did not impart this truth when they had left Storm's End. He did not speak of it when they passed through King's Landing. He did not say a word until after their party had combined with that of House Tyrell and Lyonel had already begun to make friends. Lyonel had to commend his father for that genius. He had not wished to overreact and sulk, as was his want, in front of the slightly older Tyrell knight.
"What do you mean I am to marry her?" Lyonel asked petulantly as they rode beside each other. There was a light rain they were to ride through. They were Stormlords and the Tyrells were people with golden flowers on their sigil, they would not stop for rain, especially when they were within seeing distance of Riverrun.
"It is exactly as I said," his father replied. "It has been agreed that you and the Lady Celia shall marry. Not now, of course, she is still young yet. Next year, perhaps, or the year after depending on the circumstances."
"What circumstances could possibly determine that?"
"If the maester believes her mother is longer for this world or not."
Lyonel felt his ears turn red in slight embarrassment. He had heard that Lady Tully was rather sickly, suffering from a lung illness that had persisted since the previous year's wet season. The tourney was, in part, a gift to her for her long years of service to the Riverlands as its lady to its liege lord.
"But why must I marry her?" Lyonel asked. "And, begging your pardon, why does it matter if her mother is there to see her wed or not?"
"She is the youngest daughter of Lord and Lady Tully," his father replied. "It would be a kindness to allow her the chance to see her youngest daughter wed."
"I doubt I was high on the list of who Lord Tully wished for his daughter to marry. We would be taking her away to Storm's End and would not see her mother in the end."
"Alyssa… Lady Tully," his father amended. "She was to marry your uncle, had he not passed."
Lyonel's uncle had died during the rebellion. Killed by Daemon Blackfyre himself. Had his uncle lived, it was he that would have inherited Storm's End after Lyonel's grandsire died. "I had not known Uncle was to be married."
"I never spoke of it," his father replied, not looking at him. "Lady Tully wrote to me, wishing for her daughter to marry into our house as she might have."
"Why did she not marry you?"
"Too painful."
"For her?"
"For the both of us," his father replied. He spoke in such a way that brokered no continuance of the subject. The matter was settled.
Whether Lyonel liked it or not, he was to marry the Tully girl.
—
"Ser Lyonel," Lady Celia's voice was clear and gentle. She curtsied to him upon their introduction. Her red hair was carefully braided from her face, highlighting her rounded and speckled cheeks. She was out in the sun based on how often it had seemed to kiss her face. Her eyes were a deep blue, like a babbling brook. It was clear by the way she assessed him that she had been appraised of their future union.
"Lady Celia." He bowed a little awkwardly. He had come into his height recently and he was never quite sure how much he should bow anymore without it being awkward.
"Why don't you show him the tourney grounds, dearest?" Lady Tully said. Lady Celia looked every inch her mother aside her coloring. Lyonel imagined his uncle had loved the woman very much.
"We were to go walking in the godswood," Lady Celia said, her cheeks flushing a little in embarassment—either from speaking against her mother in public or because she truly rather not escort Lyonel anywhere. If it were the latter, Lyonel decided to be very pissed about it.
"Come along, sweet fish," Lord Tully's heir, Ser Medgar, said. "Let the grown ups speak of matters of the heart while we shall speak of what songs shall be written on the morrow in the fields."
Lady Celia rolled her eyes before turning to look at her brother. "You are three-and-twenty, do you not include yourself amongst the adults?"
Her brother laughed. "Never." He set his arm around Lyonel's shoulders. "If you will not show your betrothed around, then I shall be telling stories."
"I have nothing embarrassing for you to tell," the lady replied.
"Children," their mother said with a sigh, holding onto her husband's arm. She was pale, paler than she had been a second ago.
"Oh, I have plenty of smelly stories of smelly fish," Ser Medgar said, grinning like a cat.
"You. Would. Not." She glowered
Lyonel's interest piqued.
"See. Ser Lyonel wishes to know."
Lady Celia's cheeks flushed with embarrassment this time, and possibly a hint at annoyance. She slipped her arm around Lyonel's and nearly dragged him away from her brother and toward where he supposed the tourney grounds would be.
Lyonel was fairly certain he heard the word arsehole being muttered under Lady Celia's breath, but he would never admit to it if asked. Lord Tully's heir was laughing as they set out to tour the fields. Lyonel kept pace with Lady Celia and decided he would hear the story of the smelly fish one day or another. Perhaps not this day and perhaps not from his future wife, but he would have answers.
—
He found her crying at a brook in one of the back gardens of Riverrun. She was wearing a velvet red dress, her hair loose again with blue ribbons barely doing their jobs at holding her hair from her face. "It isn't fair," she sniffed as he politely handed her a handkerchief. He followed her to a small white bench and sat down beside her. "I do not want to leave."
"You will not have to leave yet," he told her. "Father seems to think we will marry in two years rather than one."
"But I will still have to leave. I do not wish to leave home and travel to stupid Storm's End."
Lyonel looked up to the sky for a moment so as not to show his absolute annoyance at the discredit of his home. "It is not stupid," he said lightly. "It is rather magical, I think."
"Of course you would think that."
Lyonel tried rather hard to not take that as an insult. "I did not ask for this marriage either, but my father has decided. As has yours."
"I wish to remain with mother until the very end."
"She might not wish for you to," Lyonel replied plainly. "My mother had not wished me to see, and I was a year older than you are now when she died."
When the hour of her death had drawn near, Lyonel's mother had asked him to ride as far as he possibly could and then turn around when he had reached that point. She had wanted the Silent Sisters to have her taken care of before he got back. Wanted him to see her at peace, not coughing up her lungs when she went.
"I am sorry," Lady Celia said.
Lyonel shrugged. "Your mother might not want your memories of home to be tainted by her death. We can visit on occasion," he continued. "And your brother looks to be the sort that likes a good tourney. I have no doubt he will come to any we host at Storm's End and I will go to many tourneys myself."
"I don't care about stupid tourneys," she said.
This time, Lyonel did roll his eyes. "Well, you are to marry a knight, you will be expected to join me."
"No I won't."
"I will expect you to come with me. Who am I supposed to crown my queen of love and beauty if my wife is not there."
Lady Celia sniffed. "You would crown me your queen of love and beauty?"
"Of course."
"Not some other lady?"
"No?" Lyonel said in confusion. "Why would I?" He felt like he would barely be able to handle her. Why would he want to add another lady to the mix.
She sniffed again. "You would be loyal?"
"Yes? Baratheons are known for it."
"No they aren't."
He laughed then. "No, we aren't."
She smiled slightly at his laugh. "I will try to be a good wife."
"As long as you don't put a smelly fish in my bed when I inevitably piss you off, we should be fine."
Lady Celia gasped. She grabbed hold of his arm and began to shake him. "Medgar told you!" she nearly whined. "You should have defended my honor!"
Lyonel continued to laugh.
—
Lyonel decided he wouldn't mind marrying Lady Celia when he saw how tenderly she treated her lady mother. It was clear his betrothed loved her mother very much and cared for her deeply. She was almost always at her mother's side and was always ready to offer her mother her arm in a way the other Tully children did not. He soon began to realize, in part, the reason Lord and Lady Tully might wish to have their daughter sent away before the end was so she might not lose purpose after her mother's death.
Well, Lyonel decided he would try to help her find some sort of purpose.
She would be more than his wife. She would be his friend.
When they rode out after the tourney, Lyonel promised he would come back for her within the year, after she turned five and ten, to marry her. She had smiled up at him, more tentative than the ones previously given to him, but he would carry that image with him as he and his father rode back to Storm's End.
—
"I will not have Cassandra running about in this mess," Celia said as he helped her from the carriage. He had a firm hand on the top of their daughter's head to keep her in place. The girl was only seven, but tall for her age and of the opinion that she should be allowed to do whatever it was a boy could.
The night before they had departed from Storm's End, Lyonel had heard the most horrible scream and found his wife mourning their daughter's black curls. Cassandra had decided on a whim to cut them all off so she might be his squire. Lyonel had laughed at such antics, which had earned him an hour of standing in and facing a corner, in which his daughter was forced to join him. The two had giggled together rather gleefully until Celia had decided no lemon cakes for the entire journey to Ashford Meadow.
"My love, I will tie her to me at all times if it will bring you comfort."
Celia glared at him with annoyance as she picked their daughter up and placed Cassandra on her hip. "No, you will not. You need to win and you cannot win games or tilts when you have your daughter tied to you by a string."
Lyonel grinned and kissed her cheek. "Shall I name you my queen this year, my babbling brook?"
She rolled her eyes and Lyonel took it as a challenge, wrapping his arm around her and Cassandra, causing their daughter to giggle, and pulled them to him. He pressed his lips against her neck and rubbed his beard against her delicate skin, causing his wife to laugh. "You're utterly ridiculous," she said.
"For you? Of course."
"And shall you dance with me tonight or shall you be peacocking?"
"Peacocking, of course," he grinned. "I have to suss out those I might challenge."
"As long as you recall the only battle that matters this day is the one in our bed tonight."
"Believe me, wife," he growled. "I will work myself into quite the appetite for you."
—
Lyonel rather liked the tall knight that had wandered into his house's tent. Rather liked the man's earnest nature. It was rather refreshing on a night of drink and promise. Celia had even danced with the knight briefly before laughing when the stomping had begun. Stags had to be heavy on their feet if they wanted to survive the storm. He heard his wife's laughter and cheer when the knight had stomped Lyonel's foot with perfect firmness.
Dunk was a ridiculous name, of course, but he could tell the lad was trying to figure that out for himself. Lyonel would like to think he had helped him figure out how to assert himself amongst the landed and more noble knights there in the tourney. If he lost a tilt to Lyonel, he wouldn't ransom him. Whatever wonderful advice he almost added to his already great advice slipped his head when saw his wife standing at the flap of the great tent. He knew their daughter had been set to sleep with a septa watching over her. Even through the haze of drink, Lyonel knew the exact gaze Celia had in her eye.
"My wife is calling, Ser Dunk the Tall," he said, taking the antlers from Dunk's head. "You best excuse me. She is something I would rather like to agonize over." He got onto his chair and then stepped over the table to make his way to Celia, setting the antlers back onto his head. Celia rather liked it when he wore them. Well, he might like wearing them a little more than she did, but she rather liked the side of him that came out when he was drunk, wearing the antlers, and very happy to please her desire.
Celia pulled him into their tent, the taste of honey wine on her tongue. Lyonel laughed against the sloppy kiss. With practiced fingers—practiced enough that he could do so ridiculously drunk—he undid the laces of her dress. She began to undo his clothes too until they were in nothing but her shift, his small cloth, and his antlers.
"I think I shall put another child in you," he growled.
"Will you?" she teased.
"I rather think I will," he replied, carrying her to their bed and laying her down before discarding his smallcloth.
"Will he be tall like the boy you teased?" She sat up to pull her shift over her head. "I feel bad for his poor mother if he was always like that."
"I think I stretch you well enough," Lyonel said following his wife as she pushed herself further into the middle of their bed.
Celia bit her lip and smiled. She set her ankle on his shoulder. "I think you need to prepare me then."
Lyonel grinned. "I think I shall have to remove my antlers, my babbling brook."
"If you wish for me to babble, perhaps."
Lyonel tossed the antlers off the bed and began to kiss his wife's ankle, then her calf, then her thigh. That is where she began to moan. He rubbed the coarse hair of his beard against the delicate skin. It wasn't pale. He had made certain the sun had kissed her there when it could. When the storms had rolled away from the sky and he could take her beneath the gods. But the skin was skill delicate.
Celia's head fell back as he kissed her delicate lower lips and began to prepare her for his cock. Her fingers tangled in his hair and guided him to where she needed him. He planned to keep her awake all night. There was nothing like fucking your wife into the freshly made tourney mattress to set the whole week to rights.
—
"I believe I overdrank," Lyonel grumbled, resting his head on his wife's thigh. Not even a minute. "I didn't even last a minute."
Celia laughed, running her fingers through his hair. She was sitting up, leaning slightly over him as he pressed the ghost of kisses to her hipbone. "Yes you did," she said.
"Sorry."
She laughed. "You will simply need to crown me your queen of love and beauty to make up for it."
Lyonel looked up at her as she looked down at him. Her red hair was loose, cascading down her back and partially over her shoulder. He took a lock of it and began to twirl it gently around his finger. A rope of her hair was braided into the headpiece of his antlers.
"I swear it, my babbling brook."
Celia bent down her head and kissed his chin before nuzzling him gently. "I shall wait with baited breath, my laughing storm."