16 Chapter 16

"And, you are sure of that?" I asked to make sure as Valentina nodded.

"Yes, I have confirmed that there are three dragon eggs in Penthos." She confirmed and I groaned a bit.

Honestly, from all possible places for there to be dragon eggs it had to be in Essos and we had to find it now.

"Well, who do you all think should go there?" I ask for the girls.

"I would say that this is not the time for you to leave the Seven Kingdoms, Tigre, so I think I could go there." Elizavetta said. "Sophia is too close to her father and he would not let her go so easily without plenty of explanations, you and that-" Elizaveta pointed at Valentina. "Are too much on the highlight right now. As for others, they have too many connections locking them here. We can hatch the dragons in the Vale mountains after I bring back the eggs and if necessary we could send a raven to Eleonora to meet me there. It should help if we do that, even if I don't really want to deal with her."

I smile appreciatively at her and she nodded. It was simply a fact that Elizaveta and Eleonora are like fire and oil and don't match well together at all as the two are too headstrong for their own good.

But, both know how to not be impossible with each other so it should not be that large a problem.

"Okay, I understand. Valentina, we will find some way for you to go to Essos soon and we can talk to Rolland about him going as well. This way we can hatch the dragons and will not be too suspicious. We need to preserve our strength to the true fight we are here to do after all." I said and they all nodded.

"Tigre, one more thing." Valentina said as we were about to disband, we can't really do things in a way that would bring too much attention to us. "I received some information that the queen intends for you and Ser Jaime to have a sparing match tomorrow and that you would suffer an 'accident' during it. I wanted you to know just in case. I think we could do a double battle, to make things more even if nothing else. That should help in making sure nothing happens tomorrow."

"... That could work, but would it be fine for us to fight in a two on two battle?"

"I am sure it should be fine, leave it to me to arrange everything." Valentina said and smiled but her smile froze a bit at the next moment.

Olga, who was sitting close to me, moved herself to sit right beside me, held my arm between her chest, and spoke up in an impassive but direct fashion.

"... I will fight beside Tigre tomorrow."

And THAT just opened the floodgates for them to discuss who should take the position.

"I think we could well go with Olga, she did ask it first after all." I said and the discussion did not stop in the slightest.

In the end, a different idea was proposed, one that the king would likely enjoy much and would make it certain that it would work well enough for this situation.

///---///

3° Person's P.O.V.

It was the next morning, the king was in the great hall with a mug of beer in hand and a grin spread across it as he had a maid in his lap. His large belly was almost throwing her out but she managed to stand firm despite that.

A valiant effort for sure, one helped by the king using his oily hands to hold her in place while caressing her tighs.

Around him, it was visible that the Queen had excused herself together with the rest of the Royal Family to take their breakfast somewhere else. Myrcella and Tommen actually wanted to go and see Tigre who both liked quite a bit, but the Queen did not want anything to do with the boy which she hated (not that she did not hate just about 99,99% of everyone else, it is was not Lannister she probably hated it and even then it was likely she hated it all the same), the only one of the Royal family beside the king that remained was Joffrey.

Not because the prince wanted to be around the Starks, but to ogle at the companions of Tigre.

The Starks were quietly eating while making small talk and Ned was beside the King while he boasted about some whore he fucked back in the Vale. It was to this scene that young Tigre entered the hall.

"Oh, Tigre! It is good seeing you lad. Come, join me. I want to talk more with the young man who will soon be family!" The king said with a voice about as loud as thunder.

Tigre moved to see him, he was used to the king and his 'eccentricities' by now and was plenty capable of dealing with it. He, however, was admittedly embarrassed to be reminded of the impromptu engagement he was forced into.

The one beside him, however, had no such issue.

"Father, I am glad to see you this morning." Valentina said, moving forward. The king looked at her up and down and nodded his head twice, pride in his progeny and reminded again of his late mother from seeing her. "We actually wanted to talk to you about something."

"Oh, and what would that be?" The king asked, stopping for the moment at administrating his molestations to the maid in his arms.

"We understand that you declared that I and Tigre are to be wed, such a declaration should be celebrated surely. And, what best way to do so than a small tourney?" She said and the king frowned.

"I was actually planning on having one such tourney when we get back to kingslanding." He said but Valentina shook her head.

"We would obviously enjoy such an action but we know you plan for, at the end of this trip, to have a new hand." She said, not saying who the Hand the king intended would be, despite it being quite obvious that he wishes for Eddard to be his hand. She did, after all, have one of her many, many spies tell her of the king and Queen's discussion about the possibility of Tigre to become Hand, an intriguing possibility for sure and one that could either help or trouble her immensely. "As such, we assume you would have your own tourney in honor of the Hand when getting back, too many tourneys one after the other would not help anyone, especially if it was all in the same place. Thus, we thought of making one right here on the North before our return to Kingslanding.

"The tourney would not include the riding part, but the mele and the archery competition would remain the same. We could perhaps even propose something different in a simulated battle with the Lannister, Arryn, and Stark forces in a pseudo war.

"I believe this should prove a good option, we could even have my fiance, the heir of Winterfell, and the crown prince as the leaders of each group of no more than 30 people." As Valentina finished explaining their desire the king clapped excitedly at the chance of seeing 'war' for once and asked himself why no one thought of doing that before.

Meanwhile, Valentina had to hold back a small scowl, originally she wanted for the spar to happen and make it so that Jaime Lannister and Joffrey would face her and Tigre. This way the king would open an even bigger rift between himself and the Lannisters when he mocks Joffrey for his obvious incompetence and would also make the Queen even more heretic in her anger and more prone to do something that Valentina could use to further worsen the situation of the Lannister twins

She long since decided to ruin them both and make Tyrion rise as the next Lord Lannister as, if nothing else, he would certainly be a more productive force for the war to come. That, and Sofya would become the de facto Lady of the Rock which would certainly further their power.

There was also a small part of her that wanted nothing more than to fight beside Tigre and make the prince eat his teeth and also put Jaime down a few pegs. He did make her job immensely troublesome in having to find out the cashes of Wildfire and remove it all without anyone noticing.

She had stashed the substance in a safe manner long ago, for the most part at least. Some she put in somewhere else just for a small surprise in the future.

Anyway, the king was ecstatic at the chance to see blood and he had an idea of his own.

"Good, I want in." He said and everyone looked at him in utter doubt.

"My king, what exactly do you mean by that?" Ned asked, dreading the answer to that particular question."

"That I will participate as well! I want my own team, and you will come with me Ned. We will show these youngsters what the might of those who defeated those silver fuckers is like! It will be glorious." Robbert said, forgetting the woman in his lap at once.

Ned, being able to see how this was almost certainly a terrible, terrible idea, wanted to object but Valentina would have none of that.

"Excellent, my king. As this is a game drawing blood is not a good thing, as such, I was thinking that we could make it so that we all get blunted weapons covered in paint of our respective houses, the paint would be very wet and easy to smear. We would have a period of 3 hours, during this time one can fight as much as they desire in there and we would calculate points in the end based on how many of the others in other teams have the paint of your house. If the paint is in a non-lethal area it is worth 1 point, if it is lethal it would instead be worth 3 points. If the commander is hit then the team that hit gets 10 points and the team that was hit lose 10 points. I think that this way it would be quite safe overall and we all could enjoy it."

"'We'? You mean you intend to join too?" Joffrey asked, noticing the words of Valentina.

"Personally no, but some of my female companions will. Is there any problem with that?" Valentina asked while smiling brightly.

"Humph, then the Vale may as well have one less player. Women can't hope to match their betters." Joffrey said with a sneer.

"Well, that is interesting. Would you like to try out this theory by facing one of us in a little spar?" Valentina asked, knowing that either answer would work positively for her. If he says no he would be considered a coward, weakening his claim as a warrior, if he says yes then he will be defeated and he still will have his claim to be a warrior weakened.

His face got purple and he spoke slowly.

"No, as a righteous person I won't stop so low as to do such a thing." He said, taking a step back in this.

This time, it was none other than Elizaveta who spoke.

"It is funny that you consider yourself righteous, the talks about you hardly paint you in such a light." She said, hating the prince for a while now based on what little she knows of him, especially his actions against cats. She likes cats. "It is well known that you are the type to abuse your power to make others suffer and what you did to Tommen's kittens before, they remind me less of your father and more of the cruelties of the scum that came before."

"ENOUGH!" Robbert bellowed at the comparison, especially as he could see the parallels more clearly now that they were pointed out. Especially when he remembered now the eyes that Joffrey has shown in the past whenever he was inflicting pain in others and how the eyes of the Mad King were like in Harrenhall.

They were similar, the colors may be different and the face be different as well, but they were plenty similar anyway.

Too much so for Robbert's liking.

"We will have the competition and Joffrey will show me something to be proud of in there. I will not have my heir be a second mad king, either you impress me boy or I will make Tommen my heir and you can go to Casterly Rock to inherit the rock for all I care." He spoke much to the shock of, well, everyone really.

It was to be known that Cersei would never, ever, allow such a thing but she was powerless while in the North.

She would, however, plot her little schemes not realizing the web that she was falling as Valentina made her dance to her tune without fail. After all, Valentina is someone that at one point had made most of the world dance to her tune and even a demonic invasion that could potentially destroy the world was being used by her just the same.

Cersei cannot hope to compare. They are just not on the same level field when it comes to the game of politics.

As for Tigre, he could only hope this competition would go well enough, he honestly would rather just not face Jaime in the training yard if that is what it takes, no big deal really as he now is Lord Paramount and if he doesn't want to face someone in a battle when there is nothing to gain there wouldn't really be much to be said, but he accepted the suggestion made for him.

This is how Tigre is, he is the type of person that is not afraid to listen to advice and ideas of others nor is he afraid to do what he himself thinks must be done.

Later, after breakfast and the decision been set, there were excited muttering in the whole of Winterfell and two golden twins waiting alone in the training yard, no one had remembered to go warn either of them about the new arrangement. That, actually, was partially just that there were only a few Lannister guards present when the announcement and decision happened and they had all need to stay with Joffrey as he moved about in search of something or someone to torment.

Thus, the two Lannisters would stay there for over an hour in the snow, only an hour later they would go look for what was going on and the fact that not only were the two golden twins ignored on the decision making (something that made Cersei furious) but there was also that Joffrey, their Golden Prince and defacto child born of incest, was to command the army representing the Lannisters.

Cersei was at once furious her child, her perfect baby boy, would be in harm's way no matter in what form, but she was also proud of the fact her child would show everyone the brilliance he surely had.

Jaime, by his part, feared that this 'brilliance' would make them the laughing stock of the realm.

Scratch that, Jaime feared more what his father would do when the boy screw things up and tarnish the Lannister name.

'I have to protect him, help him win, and hope not to get too many of those damn arrows in me.' Jaime thought.

It was at this moment that he had a small thought.

'Will Sofya work with us or the Arryn house in this game?' She was the one person, the very one person, that no matter what Jaime would never be able to truly oppose. He owed her far too much for that, a part of him wanted her on the Lannister side, a hope that this way he could protect her, but at the same time he knew what was the biggest danger all of those in their family suffered from.

Themselves.

///---///

AN:

Shorter than I wanted, but that will have to do.

Well, here is an explanation for my 'disappearing' these last few weeks. I have been busy writing properly a fic I wanted for a while now. It is an Against the Gods fic with elements of some other works mixed in, I am already posting it and it is called Chain of Heavens and I hope it is good.

Anyway, if anyone would like to Beta for me in this fic or would like to send suggestions and ideas for then please send me a message so we can talk.

Next chapter, the competition in itself and how this action makes things a whole lot more complex in the great game as a whole.