[Day 10] Like a Horse & Carriage [Balon]

Shiera turns from Delia and looks at Balon as if he were a five year old, then she simply asks "Why her?". She had always wanted her children to be think for themselves, put the reasoning before the conclusions. If you can't properly explain why the decision is a good one, she likes to say, then it is probably not. She had time and time again complained that the only one in the entire family that had learnt that lesson was Delia. The one time a lady in waiting had quipped that Erena could do it, too, she had been shut up with a fierce gaze establishing that Erena does not count as family.

Shiera gives him a puzzled look, then turns er gaze to Delia wanting to hear her thoughts. "Sounds like the fairy tales with happy endings father insisted that Wart and I be told because he didn't want us to hear about the real world." Their mother is taken aback with just how direct she is. "Everything you would have ever wished for in a wife in one pretty package, lordship included. Like, listen to yourself." Delia seems innocent from a distance, if she would just keep her mouth shut just about every young knight in the realms would volunteer to be around to protect her, just in case. "Here is how this story is more likely to end, she will make it seem as if you are edging ever closer to winning her affections, she will give you a look down her neckline, a touch on the hand, a touch on the thigh, deep look in your eyes, admiration of the firmness of your arms" for demonstration, she gives his upper arm a good squeeze, and then runs two fingers alongside it in a way that Lady Rhonda certainly not would have thought her how to do just right. "Maybe she might lean in and whisper and then, ahem, accidentally, her breasts will brush across your arm. And she certainly is not virginal, she might desire some pleasure for pleasure's sake. The end of it is that you will do whatever it is she wants you to, and then throw you away like a sword so ruined that it's better to just melt it down." She seems to take a particular pleasure in being mean, riling up her brothers, or at least attempting to had always been an activity she enjoyed, Titus and Balon might have been old enough not to burst into anger which she only fueled by acting triumphant, Vortimer? Not at all. "See, the thing about Great Bastards is that they always gets things their way, whether through, force, charm, intrigue or simply by defying convention and do as they please, when it comes down to it, they are sons and daughters of the dragon, and if you had read your histories you would know that most who sought to bond with a dragon instead found that the dragon viewed them as dinner, so see, maybe what she wants is what you want, maybe she makes you want what she wants, but if you think she does not already have a preference for whom should sit on that ugly and uncomfortable chair, you will either think you have won a big victory, riding your dragon in the war for Ser Daemon's birthright, or you will learn too late that you just look delectable and she was merely hungry."

Quick to recover from the shock, and not wanting Balon to have the chance to snap back, Shiera breaks this line of conversation. "Lady Rhonda commended your good manners, where did you learn these bad ones?" Delia just shrugs and smirks. "You and I are going to have a very long conversation, young lady" Delia seems not to like the sound of that, but just then her face lights up as she asks with her most innocent hopeful face. "Will there be lemoncake?" At that comment, Shiera almost melts. Almost. She shrugs off her smile as quickly as it appeared before turning to Balon with the strict seriousness she usually has. "As for you, only a fool would trust Lady Laena, your sister may have a vivid imagination, a naughty mind and a pent up need to tease family, but she is not entirely wrong. A great bastard warrants extreme caution, and one that is half Starkwood will grant us no end of trouble."

"Titus only acts like a fool when women are involved, or someone else acts dishonorably" Delia cocks her head to the side impishly. "You need no such prompting."

"I worry about all my children" Shiera shoots in, with a telling look at Delia when she puts emphasis on all, however clever and precocious the vicious little lady might be, she is still a child in her mother's eyes, though the same appears to apply for Balon and Titus as well and Donnel for that matter. "Titus wants to right all the world's wrongs, I worry that your father has done the same damage to Vortimer's young mind and you are blinded to everything that could go wrong with your plans, you should have expected that someone better than you would be on the alert when you tried to pick a fight with Ser Jasper, to expect that it would be *him* is a stretch, but you would not have much of a chance against Redtusk either. And with Lady Laena, there are so many things that could go wrong that enough of them will to give us trouble, if you can be prepared for that, if you can anticipate that, if you can deal with it when it happens...." She sighs, obviously not believing Balon capable of those things. "If I only I had a son with Delia's wits, Titus' heart and courage and your determination to do whatever it takes to put this family on top..."

"Instead I have a noble fool of a son, a reckless fool of a son, a son that might be saved from the fate of being a fool and a foul mouthed daughter that needs to learn that the games at court are not played for fun, what if your cousin wants to bind Lord Eldon to him without giving up his own daughter, hmm? His options then would be Joanna..and you." That comment makes Delia stiffen like a three year old threatened with the grump coming to take them away, that sounds much more possible than she likes.

"He will ask a great many other lords for the hands of their daughters before even considering the niece of Lord Blackbriar, true." Shiera agrees. "But Joanna would just warm his bed and give him heirs until she dies in childbirth" Joanna was good looking, but slim of frame like her mother Myrielle and could use more meat on her bones, Balon remembers that the maester was very worried when she became pregnant again, given how difficult it had been to carry forth Joanna, and his fears became reality as she gave birth to a stillborn boy too early and only half the size that he should have been and expired from the ordeal. Lord Eldon did not strike Balon as a man that would care about the health of his wife where Ser Clarent had been considerate, but it was said that Lady Myrielle had insisted on taking the risk. Shiera had given birth to four children without any difficulty and Delia seemed healthy. "My daughter would rule Longtable by his side." she claims as the grimace on Delia's face suggests that she would sooner join the silent sisters.

"If I treated her like I treat you, she would hate me" Shiera comments dryly. "So let's hear it, then, what could go wrong?"

"It would be seen as an effort to bring about peace." Shiera shakes her head. "You think I could possibly agitate our knights against godless Starkwoods if you marry one? Animosity against their heathen ways is what keeps this house out of King Daeron's camp" Shiera insisted on calling him king, because the way she saw it, the king was whoever who commanded the power to sit upon that damned chair. As demonstrated by Maegor the Cruel and the Dance of Dragons, birthright matters less than steel and flame. "It's the main reason why I don't agree with Erena about expelling Abelar, he is insufferable, but he keeps the smallfolk and most of the knights scared out of their wits that they might let the impure into their midst, they think they will end up in the eternal torture of the seven hells if they allow sin and heresy and worse to go unnoticed and fail to purge it." Shiera knows the scripture well enough to confidently call that nonsense, an opinion she finds it wisest not to share beyond the three of them.

"Marry her and this house will start sliding into the king's camp. Maybe you and her might ensure that the Florents stay true to their new course, but I have no doubt that she is fully capable of ruining all the efforts you and Gormy went through to make it so without you ever noticing."

"Your judgement is about as trustworthy as Lord Durwell is predictable" Delia almost sticks her tongue out. "I can twirl you around like a fool, and your cock doesn't want a say when it comes to me, now does it?"

"If only" Delia repeats with a smirk. "Then I would rule and you would simply think that my wants were your wants all along."

"Your actions here have hardly earned you anything but scorn." Shiera protests. "You are my son, I trust you with my life and that of the rest of this family, but I do not trust Lady Laena at all, and I do not trust your judgement in matters such as these."