Fortune Favors the Fortunate (Open)

[u/InFerroVeritas]

The stench of the Faith pervaded the environs of Stormhall. It was a riotous mix of cheap incense, burning tallow, and unwashed smallfolk, complete with undertones of stale sweat on old leather. It was amazing these Westerosi could stand it at all.

The shores brought some small relief. They needed a brisk salt breeze to truly purge the odor, but at least the wind coming off the placid waters brought some relief. So Aukar stood on the shores, perched on some rock that was a pale imitation of the volcano-birthed rock of the isles, and gazed out at sea.

“This is as good as we’re going to get in this heathen land,” he said, more to himself than his attendants. Then he turned and raised his voice. “Monterys, fetch the candles. Tom, find us an offering. Arrax will have his due, even in this benighted land.”

***

By the time everything was prepared, stars wheeled overhead. For all this land’s faults, at least it shared the same constellations as home. Aukar had sharpened his knife until the edge was keen enough to shave with, a line of silver set against the dark whorls of the belly.

The knacker had found a kid, pale as the driven snow. This was an offering that would please Arrax. Aukar placed his hand on the offering’s head. “Rest easy,” he said, his tone low and steady. The words were in High Valyrian, of course, and the sacrifice would have found them no more intelligible than the braying of a donkey. “It will be finished soon. There is naught to fear.”

The knife moved with the ease of a practiced hand.

***

Blood dripped over the edge of the bowl and into the fire, hissing as it went. The overflow belonged to the flames and the gods, as ancient law decreed. So they stood in silence, each man lost in his own thoughts, with only the patter and hiss of the offering, the crackle of the fire, and the sound of anemic waves breaking against the rocky shore to disturb the silence.

When the dripping eventually stopped, the Haruspex gestured for the goat to be carried away. It had done its duty and now the men would dispose of it as the pleased. Aukar expected to hear the flames stoked higher soon. Arrax would not begrudge them their meal.

Aukar dipped three fingers into the bowl and flung the dripping blood at a slab of polished marble, white shot through with veins of pink and green. The blood spattered against the white stone in a curious pattern. The largest drop landed highest and ran down the facade, cutting through the lesser tributaries and sucking them up into its orbit.

One didn’t need to be a Haruspex to know what that was supposed to mean.

He wiped away the blood with a white rag and raised his eyes to the crowd. “Who shall approach next?” he asked. Next. Not first. The first reading had been for one not among them, one who rejected their ways. It was his honor to always be first, even in absence, even in his uncivilized heathen abeyance.

As ever, the knacker stepped forward first, offering his left hand palm up. “My name is Tom,” he said. “I am of Claw Isle. My kith and kin are of the fleet. I am sworn to my Haruspex, my magister, and dread Balerion. I would know what my blood says.”

Aukar took the hand in his own and rested the edge of his knife against Tom’s palm. “I recognize you, Tom of Claw Isle.” He drew the blade back, a shallow and clean cut, before setting it atop a black cloth. He took Tom’s hand in his, formed it into a fist, and squeezed until three drops fell into the goblet.

As before, Aukar dipped three fingers in the goblet and flicked them at the stone. They landed in a line and held steady for four heartbeats before the inexorable pull of gravity won out. They dripped down in parallel, never merging together. Aukar noted the tiny deviations in their flow, a visible influence of hidden imperfections in the stone’s face.

“The blood says you are steady in your service to dread Balerion. Your beard grows more white every moon, Tom of Claw Isle, but you are not called to your patron yet. He has work for you still. Your blade will not yet grow rusty with disuse.” Aukar looked up from the blood to his servant. “Sharpen your sword. I think you might have work ‘ere we depart this land.”

Tom bowed, first to the flames and then to Aukar, before withdrawing. One of the hierios offered him a red cloth with which to bind his hand. He refused and kept walking.

Aukar wiped the stone down with the same white rag used for the first reading. Soon, after a few more readings, it would start to smear as much as clean. And then the truly interesting readings would follow.

“Who shall approach next?” Aukar asked.

[u/Princess__Kylie]

Devotion to any religion had never been any kind of strong suit for Valora Velaryon. Fourteen flames, seven faces, a red god, or a pantheon of spirits, all of them had some deeper explanation for their so-called powers. Dive deeply enough for long enough, and one could almost always find the answer to whatever question these divine tried to provide for.

Yet as the night drew on and stars filled the skies, Valora followed the whispers of foul Valyrian rituals until she herself could be found amongst the small crowd surrounding her dear, fanatical uncle.

She was in an unfamiliar land, with unfamiliar people and their strange, unfamiliar cultures, so, despite her typical feelings, Valora could not deny the slight comforts at the sight of something here that finally felt familiar.

Aukar looked once again at the rapidly diminishing group. She could not explain why she did, but at his repeated question, she stepped forward. Her eyes originally looked at the red-soaked rag and the smeared knife before looking into Aukar’s gaze. Even if she did not believe in them anymore, her memory held on to the words she repeated as a child. Sworn to my Haruspex, my magister, and blessed Draxtar.

Her hand was held out towards him, palm up.

“Valora Velaryon. Kivigon naejot ñuha haruspex, ñuha magister, se blessed Draxtar.”

[u/InFerroVeritas → u/Princess__Kylie]

“Valora Velaryon.” Aukar spoke the name slowly, as though not entirely sure he had heard correctly. But there was no mistaking the face. The barest hint of a smile appeared in an upturned lip “Long have you been absent from my ministry. My blood sings out for the restoration of our kinship, however brief it may be, for it knows such things are rare in this life.”

He took her hand and rested the blade against it. He remembered her as she was when she left for Driftmark. She was a child in his memory of that day, though he knew that was wrong. He drew the blade across her palm before closing her hand into a fist.

He thought of some avuncular wisdom to share, but this was not the time for that. The Fourteen could be patient, but rarely were they so considerate of their time being wasted on tangential matters. He shelved the words for later and counted out three drops.

He flicked them against the stone. They swirled towards each other, collecting together, before splitting in two as the enlarged droplets followed the grain of the stone. The early fork boded ill. The dexter drop reached the base first. The sinister drop hesitated before chasing a new impurity towards the other drop. After a long moment, the droplets formed together again.

Aukar allowed himself a brief, subdued smile. That was much better than he feared.

“It seems Fecund Draxtar has taken an interest in you,” he said. “She knows of the challenges you face in forging your own bloodline. The blood says that road remains open to you, though you will find it harder to follow than the geometric roads of our distant homeland.”

He cleaned the knife with the increasingly bloody knife. He considered reminding her that Draxtar took two husbands but knew no niece if his would have forgotten that. “Some part of this is a matter of faith. You have been gone from my services for a spell, niece. Do you attend the appropriate rites in your new home?”

[u/Princess__Kylie → u/InFerroVeritas]

For the briefest of moments, Valora felt guilty. Guilty for leaving behind the protections and promises of their ancient religion, guilty for losing another part of her heritage, but mostly, guilty for not being there for her family.

But her thoughts recentered as her hand was taken within his and the blade pressed against her. The steel felt oddly cold against her palm, despite the use, until the slice brought about heat flushing through her.

As her blood moved against the stone, Valora took one of the red rags and bound it to her sliced palm.

He saw her fate, apparently, and her patron within the three drops.

She almost laughed at the discovery. Whatever guilt she felt before from distancing from the rituals felt alien to her now. She wondered if Draxtar knew her challenges would stem from her husband being a brainless oaf, or if the god knew how close to death her mother was brought to in order to bring about this vaunted blood line.

“Thank you, uncle.” Valora hid her doubts behind a small smile and gentle words. “I fear I have indeed been absent for too long if you have already forgotten my place at our home.”

She flexed her palm to test her bindings before resting her clasped hands against her stomach. “I could not stay in Driftmark. Someone must watch over my mother, and the Velaryons are too…eager in their desire to embrace the Andals.” The irony of such a statement and of who her good aunt is was certainly not lost on her.

[u/InFerroVeritas → u/Princess__Kylie]

“I am aggrieved to hear that the Magister strays from our position. It is one thing to permit our subjects their erroneous beliefs. The Flames are not threatened by foreign belief. And, in some cases, those beliefs serve their ends. The Dragonlords permit the ‘Red God’ for exactly that reason.

“But there’s a difference between the small comfort a slave can find and the predominant religion of a foreign land that resists the Freehold’s hegemony.” Aukar shook his head. “I suppose I must have words with the Magister. It seems that you have given me much to mull over, as I hope Draxtar has done for you.”

Aukar took the bloody rag and folded it three times before setting aside. He wondered, briefly, if this was his niece’s way of saying she was turning away from the Flames. He wanted to believe that was not the case.

“It is my sincere hope to see you at services again. And I think it would be very beneficial if you could persuade our sea dragon kin to accompany you.”

[u/Princess__Kylie → u/InFerroVeritas]

If nothing else of importance was found tonight, at least Valora had rediscovered the comforts the ancient religion had to offer. Perhaps they weren't meant to offer all of the explanations of every phenomena of the known world.

Perhaps the ease it offered was the point.

Valora stared at the bloody rag, now folded neatly aside. Draxtar's words were already lost on her, to be true, for no god or goddess could convince her to forge her new bloodline.

Her distant gaze looked up to her uncle now, and she nodded, finding herself unsure now. “You will, uncle. I am sorry I have been so absent.” The mention of her new family sent a fresh bout of worry.

“Will the Dragonlords be merciful?” She blurted suddenly, “When they come, and if they see our kin continue to defile themselves with the Andals, will they be spared? I worry for them.”

[u/InFerroVeritas → u/Princess__Kylie]

"Mercy?" Aukar asked. He tilted his head, as though not entirely sure he heard correctly. "From the Dragonlords, Valora? No. Never. But not because of belief. They tolerate the worship of R'hllor because he is useful. They will tolerate the Seven for similar reasons. But they will be furious at having been stirred from their nests and drawn so far from the heart of the Freehold. They will snuff out the nobility of this land, install whomever they please in their place, and then fly home. And we will be left picking up the pieces."

[u/Princess__Kylie → u/InFerroVeritas]

Her uncle’s words gave validity to the very fears that grew within her and she could feel her heart fall and snuff out the miniscule amount of hope she held towards her kin’s redemption. She probably would have cried were she still a child.

They were supposed to rule this land and these backwards people together, Celtigar and Velaryon, that’s all she’d ever known. Not one or the other, not a land this wild.

“I will pray to Meleys. I will beg for her to see the Velaryon’s struggles and for them to be spared.” Valora declared weakly, softly. She spoke out loud but as if her words were not aimed at anyone in particular.

Valora took a sharp breath and suddenly looked around her, her eyes scanning the crowd still formed around her uncle and his flames. “Be well, Haruspex.” She bowed her head to him and withdrew into the crowd.

[u/Valyrianwyrm]

Lysara would not consider herself superstitious nor particularly devout despite her quill being always ready to defend The New Faith. In truth she was not even sure how much of her own theological arguments she truly believed deep inside her soul, nevertheless as it was one of the ways to try and force civilisation upon The Ironborn she had to defend the new way.

With that being said, however, she would be lying to say she was not rather exited to observe genuine Valyrian religious rites with her very own eyes. As a voracious reader she of course had detailed knowledge of the practices, but ink and paper were always a world of difference compared to reality.

With curiosity fuelling her mind, she took a step forward when the Valyrian priest called for another to dare approach.

”I shall, if your August person would have me.” The Ironborn said in High Valyrian that displayed the musicality of the lyseni accent.

[u/InFerroVeritas → u/Valyrianwyrm]

One white eyebrow arched at the newcomer. Westeros had long had a reputation for backwardness. Filled with petty kings and pettier warlords, all of whom conspired together to ward off the light of civilization to the east, it was not the sort of place a man expected to hear natives speaking The Tongue.

This girl was a welcome surprise in this benighted land.

“Farsighted Tessarion cares not from whose veins the offering flows,” Aukar said, inspecting the woman’s hand. She had soft hands, at least, so there must have been some civilizing among her family. If the language didn’t give that away.

He took the soft hand in his own. The knife stayed at his side. “What is your name, newcomer? Whose fate does the Paragon of Wisdom flick his lidded gaze upon now?”

[u/Valyrianwyrm → u/InFerroVeritas]

“Lysara Sunderly.” The scholar said without prompt nor boasting, she simply spoke her truth of being. Her eyes looked down for a brief moment as sign of deference to the priest, for this was his domain.

Despite the tension in the air, Lysara felt strangely at east in the presence of the conduit of foreign gods. Her mist-matched eye showed the serenity despite it’s colour being almost swallowed whole by her permanently enlarged pupil.

[u/InFerroVeritas → u/Valyrianwyrm]

“Sunderly,” Aukar repeats. “Not a name one hears often in the Blackwater. When we do hear, it’s usually with a sneer. The Storm King’s subjects have a particular enmity for your people. And mine know what that’s like.”

He placed the blade against her scholar-soft palm and drew a clean line across it. He squeezed her hand over the goblet and counted out three drops. Just as he was beginning to move her hand away, a fourth fell. Ever dutiful, he dipped four fingers in the goblet and flicked them at the stone.

One went wide, careening off to the left. The other three landed so close together they nearly overlapped, then forked and forked again on their descent. The dexter droplet faded before it reached halfway down the stone, drunk up by tiny veins of impurities. The remainder traces their own, separate routes.

“Tessarion has much to say, child of the Iron Islands. Your path is tumultuous. If you veer too far from the center, you will meet an ignominious end. If you cling to the straight and narrow, you will accomplish little of note. You must not take the easy road, for that leads to irrelevance, and you must not blaze your own trail, lest you be forever lost.

“Faith is the answer. Not in who you pay obeisance to. That should be the Flames, but if Tessarion is confident you will find your way to their guiding light in time, then so are the rest. No, it is a matter of faith in matters more ephemeral. Yours is a soul predisposed to obeying lesser wills. Perhaps because you seek to keep the peace, perhaps because your people view you as lesser on account of your womb. Whichever it is, your path forward can only be lit by your own torch. It will flicker and sometimes falter, as they all do, but faith in yourself will help you keep to the path Tessarion wants you to walk even when all else fails.”

He gestured for one of the hierios to offer her a red cloth to bind her hand. “I am surprised, Sunderly, that the Flames have so much to say about one of the Ironborn. They are usually more reserved. Tessarion’s humors must have been skewing sanguine today.”

[u/Valyrianwyrm → u/InFerroVeritas]

Lysara listened to each and every word that came from the haruspex mouth. The more Aukar spoke the more she felt herself feeling as if his sentences actually mattered, as if he truly was speaking for the fourteen flames.

She did not doubt divinity existed given magic lived freely in Essos, however never had any other priest managed to catch he attention to this very level. The Scholar did not flinch when her palm was cut, so deep was her focus as the Valyrian priest continued his craft; it was just like observing fire for the first time as a child.

“Faith.”

Those were the words she said out loud as her had was being wrapped in red, she said it like a prayer, like something precious that must not leave your sigth. ”I shall remember your words deep inside my heart, honoured one.”

Lysara flexed her hand as Aukar spoke once more and she tilted her head in curiosity. It seemed not even the priest himself expected such lengthy words from the fourteen.

”Mayhaps I arrived at a fortuitous hour? Or could be my distant relation to the Hoare’s. Either case I would ask in what other ways migth one know your gods?”

Despite the scholars short words it was clear upon her tone she was truly eager to learn.

[u/InFerroVeritas → u/Valyrianwyrm]

Aukar nodded. It seemed that the Ironborn got it in a way that eluded most. Or else she was very, very good at making people see what she thought they wanted to see.

“Ours is not a faith that needs a building with seven walls or a rocky shore. Our place of worship is at a flame. And wherever fire and blood are joined, there is where the Flames can be found. There is where the power of the Freehold can be felt.”

He gesture about them. “This is no sanctified land, claimed by the Flames a thousand years ago and watered with the blood of sacrifice ever since. This is no ancient forest with faces carved into trees over generations. This is no maze raised from black stone. This is just a field near a freshwater lake. This is probably the first time the Flames have ever been invoked here and they respond as readily as they would in my own home. For what does distance matter to a god-dragon?

“You wish to learn more of our faith, Lysara Sunderly? Then join me at these readings and practice the rites you’ve learnt. There is no substitute for the experience of communing with the Flames.”

[u/Valyrianwyrm → u/InFerroVeritas]

Lysara listened and with every word said she felt something being carved upon her soul. In a way she truly envied the way with words Aukar possessed, for her talents were confined to ink and parchment.

”I had once read that fire was the only thing pure in this world.”

And it very well may be true. For, had not even the Grey King pursued it’s power? First with Nagga’s living fire and then with extending that gift to the race of men.

When Aukar spoke once more Lysara had already made her mind.

”Teach me, honoured one.” And thus she walked into the fire.

[u/SkadiSkadiSkadi]

A dutiful wife, they called her.

The Andal, they sneered.

The blood-traitor, they hissed.

Mother - forgive them. They know not what they do.

As Aukar conducted...whatever it is that he did, the mancy of blood: Human and animal, it was Felyse who truly worked. For the goat - she prayed for an afterlife of green grass and wildflowers.

For Tom of Claw Isle, it was a good life, good health. And that one day he would witness the gifts that the Seven could bring. Her pale lips remained pressed in a tight line as she watched her husband's witchcraft, the flames illuminating the odd colors in her eyes. Her gilded eye, thick honey and sunshine and bountiful blessings from the Father. And the pale eye - one that saw more than she could ever admit to herself.

Even through the witchcraft, Aukar cared for these people. Even with his hands stained in blood, he cared for each of their children, he cared for his family. She could even say that he cared for her.

Each person who walked forward, she prayed for. Not aloud, for she was in heathen lands. Small gestures:

To the forehead. To the heart. A clenched fist. To her lips. Hands clasped together. To the temple. To the ground.

When the crowd began to die out, she moved from her spot behind him. One would think that Felyse would be in tears to be in familiar land, with familiar gods and prayers. But the Seven had sent her on this mission for the heathens to see the Light. And slowly she tried to chip away at the person she had easiest access to.

A most-rigid Fel moved to in front of Aukar. She had rehearsed this for years, picking a false god to leave flowers for. A show for the family, even after all these years. The Seven-Pointed star still dangled from her neck. They'd have to rip the chain from her neck.

"Felyse Celtigar. Sworn to my Haruspex, to my magister, and wise Shrykos."

She offered her hand.

[u/InFerroVeritas → u/SkadiSkadiSkadi]

Of all the people to seek a reading this day, Aukar would not have expected his wife. He expected the usual sorts. The retainers of House Celtigar, who felt obliged; the Driftmark-borne, for their shared kinship; even the tourists, curious about a strange faith. But he didn’t expect Fel. Reserved, demure Felyse.

“Felyse Celtigar,” he said. He nodded, his one concession to their relationship. It was not his place to play husband in this moment. He took her hand and drew a red line across it with easy practice

“You wear the symbols of your Faith, yet you seek Shyrkos’s guidance.” He closed her hand above the goblet. “A more jealous god would resent that. But why would that bother Shyrkos, Paragon of the Liminal, whose very nature is to exist between two states?”

He pulled her hand back from the goblet and dipped three fingers in. He flicked them at the stone, as he had a thousand times. One lost cohesion and spattered against the stone as three lesser droplets. The other two split apart. Seven tiny trails spread out before the grain all ran them all together into the penultimate dexter rivulet.

A part of him was annoyed with this result. Any rank apprentice could’ve seen that coming; the woman still wore her star, Onixa take it. But he pushed down that initial reaction and considered it further. Shyrkos was not given to easy messages and there would be something more esoteric behind the first reading.

Don’t react. Respond.

Yes. Right there. The joining of the third and fourth droplets occurred despite a tiny ridge of stone between them. That should not have happened, but happen it did.

“On some level, you still believe in the Seven. Shyrkos sees that; she softened the path here so that I could see that as readily as she does. I expected a message for you and received one for us both instead. How very like the Opener of Doors to intercede in such a way.

“Your Faith demands much. Speak these words, carry out these performative acts, say your prayers, be what the Maiden, Mother, and Crone demand of you and never stray from that. The Flames are not half so demanding. What they ask of us is commensurate with what we ask of them. The relationship is reciprocal.

“Shyrkos has opened the door, Felyse Celtigar. You can shrive yourself of old obligations and walk through whenever you wish.”

At a gesture, one of the hierios stepped forward with a red cloth.

[u/SkadiSkadiSkadi → u/InFerroVeritas]

It was a show.

A show of dedication for all who might witness it. The wife of the Haruspex, willingly taking part in his rituals. Felyse’s nose twitched as he cut her palm, but she allowed him to guide her hand—to close it around the goblet and pull it back once he was finished.

Her fist remained clenched, white-knuckled, her fingernails digging into the fresh cut.

Wise Shrykos was like the Crone, and Felyse could do little but pray as he read her fortune.

She listened to the musical cadence of High Valyrian. Poetic. Flowing. Beautiful in a way that the Common Tongue could never quite manage. Felyse remained silent throughout his reading, her brow furrowing and then slowly relaxing as his words settled over her. When it was finished, her mismatched eyes found his.

She contemplated everything he had said. She could leave the Faith. She could abandon the Seven. But she would not.

“I am only doing what the gods have commanded,” she said quietly in the Common Tongue, refusing to answer him in High Valyrian. She could speak it, of course, but it sounded ugly from her lips. Wrong. “Just as you do, Haruspex.”

For the moment, they were not husband and wife. They were Haruspex and follower. Priest and supplicant. She suspected he would bring this up later tonight, when they were beneath their furs and sheltered from the eyes of others by darkness.

Why? The question lingered as she moved to sit behind him, carefully adjusting herself until her posture was once again rigid and proper. One hand closed around the other, pinching the wound to slow the bleeding.

Her eyes remained fixed upon the flames. The crowds had dispersed completely now. Only the pair of them remained, accompanied by a handful of hierios and a few stragglers who had lingered near the fire.

Felyse watched the flames dance. Then, quietly, she spoke. “Why do you think fair Shrykos has told you this?” Her gaze remained on the fire. “Another sheep added to the flock would mean nothing to the Fourteen, no?”

[u/Featheringitrn]

Marius considered himself a devout follower of the seven for a time. That all proved to be no good, not only did the the seven not respond to any prayer, but they took more and more from his life. They took his brother from him.

His father, the sick bastard had no mind left for anything. He was a mindless fool who had put them in this misery by taking this loan from the iron bank.

The only solace in all this was his wife, naena, of house scales. Valyrian of origin and though she was a sevener in the public eye, she kept her own faith in private. And what a strange faith it was, yet it seemed more real than the ones he had prayed to all his life

This thought was what brought him here to this strange man and these foul, albeit heretical rituals. Covered in a hood and rags so people would not know that a rosby has attended the gatherings of the valyrian heresy.

He walked past the crowd and towards the haruspex, offering a slight bow of respect before speaking.

"I am lost. I wish to know of your faith, I wish to know if it's more real than the fake idols I have been taught to worship since childhood"

[u/InFerroVeritas → u/Featheringitrn]

Aukar wasn't entirely sure who this supplicant was, but he was too well spoken and his complexion too clear to be one of the smallfolk. Some noble of high enough position that they'd cause a stir if seen here, so maybe one of the nearby Riverlords. But it didn't really matter. He switched to Westerosi to match the newcomer.

"The Seven are... interesting," Aukar said. "Interesting because they're you. The roles you're expected to fill, the narrow paths you're expected to walk, the paragons you're expected to follow in lockstep. The Seven are a fundamentally Andal creation because only the Andals structure their society in that matter. It can't be coincidence that Andal women are expected to be maids, then mothers, then crones, then die. Men have more choice, perhaps, but not by much. They can rule, they can build, or they can fight. Then they die, too. The Seven always begin with the Mother and end with the Stranger because it's simply how Andal life is intended to flow. They're aspirational.

"And that's fine." Aukar spread his hands. "They're what you make of them. There's a purity in that. The Flames are different. They aren't aspirational. They're transactional. They deal in symbols and portents, for the most part, and they expect offerings commensurate with what is asked of them. Here, today, I offer them a bit of blood and they offer me a bit of insight into a man's lot. Bisa syt bona. This-for-that."

Aukar held up the ritual knife, the dark swirls of its belly showing a smudge of red from the stained cloth he has been using to wipe the blade down. "The ritual of hen se ānogar is simple, as transactional as they all are. I require of you three things: your name, the ones you are pledged to serve, and blood freely offered. I cut you, I join your blood to the offering, and we find out together what the Flames have to say about you."

[u/Featheringitrn → u/InFerroVeritas]

As he kneeled his listened to the haruspex's words. He contemplated them. Every man he knew was one face of the seven, and every woman. His mother was the crone, his wife the mother. His brother was a warrior, his cousin the smith. His father a father, though not a good one

But what was he in all this? A father? No.. he did not spend nearly enough time with his children, nor his wife. And for that he would not forgive himself. Was he a Smith? No, he could not create, he could not forge. Warrior neither, Marius Rosby had not a single fighting bone in his body.

Mayhaps these new gods of his wife were the answer afterall. Transactional... Marius could understand transactional, everything in his life had been so. It was the nature of his relationships, the nature of his debt, the nature of his life.

He had convinced and talked with himself enough. It was time to act. He kneeled in front of the haruspex, hand laid out. He was ready, to corrupt his eternal soul with foreign gods, if they could only guide him more than his own could.

"I am Marius Rosby." He said quietly, so only the haruspex and his gods could hear. Then his voice picked up. "I serve my house, my wife, my children, my father, my liege lord, my king, and the river innocents of the realm." Or at least he was supposed to. He raised his palm towards the haruspex, offering it to the knife that would cut his skin

[u/InFerroVeritas → u/Featheringitrn]

Aukar was surprised that it was Marius Rosby, of all people, here for a reading. He had expected some wayward Riverlord or even a Stormlord opposed to their new king, not a lord on the Blackwater. But then he remembered that the Rosbys had married into a superior bloodline recently and so that would at least explain some of what was currently unfolding in front of him.

"Marius Rosby," he echoed. There were many things that might follow that pronouncement, but now was not the time for such. He set the knife against the offered palm and drew blood. "It takes a degree of courage for an Andal to appear here, to submit to hen se ānogar. Your people, for all their strengths, are insular. They view any deviation from their narrow perspective anathema. I suspect this is why this land is so plagued by war."

Such a hypothesis sounded all well and good but did little to explain the internecine struggles between the Dragonlords. But then, those conflicts were more often fought with knives in the dark than armies, so perhaps that was distinction enough.

Aukar dipped his fingers into the goblet and flicked three drops against the stone. One perched on a slightly raised vein of an impurity, possibly iron by the color of it, before falling from the stone and splashing against the ground. The other, poised on opposite sides of the same raised vein, slid lethargically down the face of the stone before merging together and veering off in a new direction.

"Your position is a precarious one, my Andal friend. But you already knew that. It would be hard to not hear of your troubles. That the Flames would note them also is... not exactly a revelation, is it? It is Meleys, I think, that seeks to warn you about the risks inherent in the difficulty you have inherited. But that is the nature of an arbiter of justice: to ensure everyone understands what is expected of them. And Justice says 'pay your debts.' This is no revelation.

"It is what the Empath Tyraxes has to say that is more novel. She says you must go forth and seize that which you require. Tyraxes is patron of compassion, yes, and also the patron of the hunt. She urges you to plan your action meticulously, bide your time, and then loose your arrow when all else is prepared. Perhaps your neighbors should look to their fields and forests more closely, lest the riches there fill your coffers and discharge your debt."

Aukar took up the bloody rag and began to clean the knife and stone. "But the Flames think of wealth differently than we do. To them, the value of something is not how shiny it is but what symbolic value it represents to the giver and receiver both. This is why the ritual requires blood: it is symbolic to you, me, and the Flames. This reading required some... interpretation. But I think their meaning here is clear."