After Ra returned from his quiet talk with Lynesse, he actively chose not to enter the royal box.
Instead, the golden eyed warrior stood silently beside the spectating commoners.
He wished to be far away from the posturing nobles and the loud royals for a brief moment of peace.
He let out a low sigh and shook his head at the senseless brutality unfolding in the dusty arena below.
As much of a seasoned warrior as he was, the custodian still did not approve of unnecessary bloodshed purely for the sake of entertainment.
Although no one had died in the arena thus far, there were still a large number of severely injured men who might never be the same as they were before they had eagerly entered the bloody sands.
The brutal melee lasted for an entire half hour longer. Mortal men had their physical limits after all, and most of the combatants in the arena had reached theirs at that exact point.
The only two fighters left standing in the trampled dirt were a lithe Dornishman and a grizzled Northman.
They fought with significantly more skill than most of the others who had already been forced to exit the melee.
"By the old gods, you are a true warrior, boy. Though it seems we met twenty years too late," the Northman said with a bloody grin.
He swung his blunt greatsword recklessly, though his old, scarred arms still possessed great, sweeping strength.
The Dornishman grinned right back and smoothly parried a heavy blow from the greybeard. He quickly stepped inside the older man's guard and struck the Northman hard in the face with the heavy pommel of his own sword.
The Northman staggered backward and fell heavily onto the hard ground. It took the old veteran a full moment to orient himself, only to find the blunt edge of a steel sword resting firmly against his neck.
"Splendid!" Robert Baratheon boomed after a moment as he got up from his seat. "True warriors, both of you. And both shall be richly rewarded today," the king added loudly.
The defeated Northman was given five hundred gold dragons, while the victorious Dornishman received fifteen hundred.
Robert had happily added five hundred coins from his own royal pocket on top of the thousand Tywin Lannister had already pledged to pay the winner of the melee.
The king clenched his large fists as his heart beat wildly inside his chest, pumping faster than it had in a very long time.
He felt as if he could completely shatter mountains at this very moment. His very being wanted nothing more than to engage in a real battle.
A real battle against a real warrior, the king thought, as his sharp blue eyes turned directly toward the golden eyed demigod standing quietly among the smallfolk.
He had the ancient blood of the gods flowing through his veins, the sudden thought entered Robert's mind.
Durran Godsgrief was one of his most legendary ancestors after all, and the ancient Storm King had married the daughter of the gods of wind and sea.
Thoughts exactly like those induced more than enough courage within him to openly challenge Ra himself. Though everyone else might have called it madness.
By now, Ra had clearly sensed the king's thoughts. The custodian was actively praying to his father that the drunken fool would not make his sudden fears come true.
The custodian's silent prayers, however, were not answered.
The king stood up to his full, towering height before picking up his heavy warhammer and pointing the massive weapon directly toward Ra.
"Fetch his weapon and his armor. The sands do not have enough blood yet," Robert announced.
Several serving men scrambled frantically to carry out their king's order. The smallfolk roared in wild approval at the king's bold implication, while the seated nobles seemed incredibly intrigued by the sudden turn of events.
Ned Stark let out a sigh heavy enough to completely empty his lungs.
The Lord of Winterfell placed his face firmly into his hands, mourning the sheer foolishness his old friend and king had just publicly shown.
Ra looked up at the sky in pure resignation.
'Forgive me, son. How was I to fulfill your wish?' Luxarion's ancient voice resonated softly within the custodian's mind.
Any of the custodians needed only to pray, and their father would literally move the stars to make their wishes come true.
However, even the great dragon could not safely influence a mortal's thoughts and actions from such a vast distance and with so little time to prepare.
The gold dragon could have easily struck the king down with magic, but that would have been far too extreme and Ra absolutely did not wish for that outcome.
"Just my lot," Ra muttered in a incredibly low voice before following after Robert. The king was already entering his massive pavilion to don his heavy armor.
"Could I have a moment alone with the king, son?" Ra politely asked the young squire who was busy helping Robert buckle his armor.
The boy glanced quickly at his king for permission and received a brief nod from the monarch before he hurriedly left the tent.
"You treat simple thought as if you were scaling a high mountain," Ra said the very moment he was alone with the king.
"You know I am not so daft as to not recognize when I am being insulted," Robert countered. A deeply displeased expression settled upon his bearded face at the blatant insult.
"Do you honestly think you can defeat me?" Ra ignored the king's defensive words entirely and asked the question with dangerously narrowed eyes.
"If the gods favor me," Robert affirmed with a stubborn nod.
"And if they do not? And your own people watch you being easily defeated by someone who is not even of the Seven Kingdoms?" Ra urged, a clear hint of heat rising in his steady voice.
He was heavily implying that a proud man like Robert would not be able to handle such a public embarrassment.
"What of it? Do you think I will not be able to accept defeat if I lose?" Robert countered aggressively, placing a heavy emphasis on the word 'if'.
Ned Stark entered the royal tent at that exact moment.
"I tried. I lost," Ra said to Ned before exiting the tent, fully leaving the monumental task of talking some sense into Robert Baratheon squarely on the shoulders of the Lord of Winterfell.
The young squire entered the tent just as Ra stepped out, while another Lannister soldier approached Ra to tell him his armor was ready and waiting inside his own tent.
The custodian grumbled quietly in his own mind, but he still went into his tent to don his enchanted plate, though he was still desperately hoping Ned would be able to change the royal fool's mind.
However, his fading hopes were ultimately for naught. Ra soon found himself standing in the center of the dusty, bloody arena with Robert standing directly in front of him, while a deeply disappointed Ned Stark sat silently in the royal box.
Robert Baratheon would have been a genuinely intimidating sight with his massive antlered helm and his imposing warhammer if he were standing in front of absolutely anyone else but Ra.
The duel officially started with the sudden release of a white pigeon into the evening sky.
Robert roared like a wild beast and swung his heavy warhammer upward with all his formidable might.
Ra did not wish to completely humiliate the king in front of his subjects, so he made a deliberate show of stepping back, acting as if the clumsy blow could actually do any real damage to him even if it connected.
The custodian retaliated by swinging his long halberd in a swift downward motion, though he deliberately gave the king more than enough time to roll out of the way and evade the heavy blow.
The Baratheon king, however, could not evade when Ra smoothly swung his halberd to the side. He hit the king squarely with the flat, unbladed part of the polearm.
The blunt blow struck Robert exactly as if a massive thunderclap had hit his armored ribs. Robert took a desperate moment to get back up on his feet and spun his body to create brutal momentum behind his next strike.
That sweeping attack was easily evaded when Ra struck the iron head of the warhammer with his armoured fist. The strike carried enough raw force to completely rattle the king's bones and send a shockwave up his arms.
The custodian immediately followed up the block with a swift, powerful kick that sent Robert flying almost to the very edge of the arena walls. A loud groan escaped Robert as he crashed into the dirt, the breath entirely taken from his lungs.
The massive crowd and the seated nobles did not make a single sound as their bruised king slowly got back up, taking large, greedy gulps of air.
He staggered once, but he stubbornly used his heavy warhammer for support. He took a brief moment to steady his vision before blindly charging right at Ra once again.
He was struck down again. He got up again, only before being struck down to the dirt once more.
Ra felt a genuine sense of warrior's respect for the stubborn man. Deciding the point was made, he gracefully ended the match by placing the dangerously sharp edge of his halberd directly against the king's exposed neck.
"That was commendable. Rest now," Ra complimented. He spoke in a low voice, loud enough so only Robert Baratheon could hear the words.