Blood, charred flesh, and fear.
Robert Baratheon stood in the center of this bloody scene.
His luxurious golden gown was already soaked with blood, turning dark red and sticky.
Petyr Baelish's blood and flesh fragments clung to his face, his beard, and even his eyelashes.
But he didn't care.
He even stuck out his tongue and licked a bit of blood from his lips.
In his eyes, clouded by alcohol and slaughter, a terrifying excitement burned.
He liked this feeling.
This power over life and death, this feeling of everyone looking at him with fear.
This is what a King is!
He surveyed the high platform, looking at the pale-faced nobles who were silent with fear.
His gaze swept over Cersei's face, full of disgust, and over Jaime's complex expression.
Finally, his eyes fell upon Ned Stark.
His best brother, Ned.
The man who always constrained him with integrity and honor.
He had just dared to try and stop him from killing Petyr?
And before that, he seemed to have also stopped him from hunting down those two remnants of House Targaryen?
At this moment, Ned was supporting his two daughters, his face extremely grim.
The last thread in Robert's mind snapped completely under the combined effects of alcohol, poison, and blood.
The Eyrie... Lysa Arryn... Lysa is Catelyn's sister.
Catelyn is Ned's wife.
A terrible thought emerged from the depths of his chaotic mind, quickly coiling around his heart.
"Ned."
Robert spoke.
Ned looked up, gazing blankly at Robert.
"Your wife's sister, that madwoman from The Eyrie."
Robert walked down the high platform, step by step.
His blood-stained boots left bloody footprints on the stone steps.
"She dared to threaten me."
"Threaten me with thirty-five thousand men of the Vale!"
Robert walked up to Ned, his massive figure casting a shadow that completely enveloped Ned and his two daughters.
"Where did she get such audacity?"
Robert's face leaned in, the strong smell of alcohol and blood making Arya feel nauseous.
"Speak, Ned."
Robert's voice suddenly rose, filled with undeniable suspicion and brutality.
"Your wife, Catelyn Tully!"
"Was she involved in this?!"
"Did she know all along that her mad sister was going to rebel?!"
What?
Ned's mind went blank instantly.
What did this have to do with Catelyn?
He stared blankly at Robert, at his friend with whom he had grown up, at the King to whom he had sworn his life's loyalty.
He couldn't believe his ears.
Robert... what was he saying?
He was suspecting Catelyn?
Suspecting House Stark?
Everyone else could distrust him, but Robert could not!
This was the deep friendship they had built growing up together.
Robert's suspicion, to Ned, was no less than betrayal!
"Robert! You're mad!"
Ned instinctively retorted.
"How could Catelyn..."
"How could she not?!"
Robert brutally interrupted him, spitting saliva all over Ned's face.
"They are sisters!
"Tully's treacherous and cunning blood flows in their veins!"
"Jon Arryn just died, and his wife ran back to The Eyrie!"
"Now, she dares to threaten the King for a brothel owner!"
"Is this normal, damn it?!"
"If there's no trickery behind this, I'll twist off my own head and let you kick it like a ball!"
Ned's heart sank little by little.
He looked at Robert's bloodshot eyes, filled with madness and paranoia.
He knew that no matter what he said now, Robert wouldn't believe him.
Robert was no longer the Robert who would drink and hunt with him, who would clap him on the shoulder and call him "brother."
He was a beast driven mad by fear and suspicion.
He was a rabid dog that would bite anyone he perceived as a threat!!
Above the high platform, Lynn calmly watched the scene unfold.
He raised his wine glass and took a small sip.
What a show.
Robert's self-destruction was happening even faster and more violently than he had anticipated.
He didn't even need to do anything now; he just needed to watch quietly.
Watching these former brothers in life and death, how they would gradually head towards a complete break.
Tywin's poison was more effective than imagined.
It was not only corroding Robert's body but also burning away his sanity.
Robert was slowly losing his most loyal ally.
"Prove it to me, Ned!"
Robert's roar sounded again.
He pointed at Ned's nose, looking as if he were judging a heinous criminal.
"Prove that you and your House Stark are still loyal to me!"
Ned's lips moved, but he couldn't utter a single word.
How could he prove it?
Should he cut open his chest and show him his loyal heart?
"I don't care how you do it!"
"I want your wife, Catelyn Stark, immediately! Right now! To get out of your icy Winterfell!"
"I want her to come to King's Landing! Before me!"
"Kneel!"
"Show me, show the iron throne, the loyalty of your Tully and your House Stark!"
The entire tourney grounds were silent.
Everyone was stunned by the King's mad and extremely humiliating words.
To make the Warden of the North's wife leave her castle, travel thousands of miles to King's Landing, just to kneel before the King and prove her innocence?
This was an unbearable humiliation for House Stark, for the entire North!
Ned's body swayed violently.
He felt a rush of blood to his head.
That pride and dignity belonging to the King of the North were, at this moment, brutally trampled underfoot by Robert.
He wanted to draw his sword.
He wanted to punch that face, once so familiar, now so utterly strange.
He wanted to loudly question him.
Was their twenty-year friendship really so cheap?!
But he couldn't.
He was the hand of the king.
He was the Prime Minister of the Seven Kingdoms.
He could not let the kingdom plunge into war because of his impulsiveness.
Ned slowly closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, all the anger, humiliation, and heartache in his grey eyes had turned into a dead calm.
Ned gently pushed away Arya, who was still holding Sansa.
Then, under everyone's astonished gaze.
In Robert's eyes, filled with madness and scrutiny.
Ned Stark, the Warden of the North, the Duke of Winterfell, slowly bent his knee.
"Thud."
His knee collided with the blood-stained flagstone, emitting a dull sound.
The sound wasn't loud, but it seemed to strike heavily at the heart of everyone present.
"Your Majesty."
Ned lowered his head, his voice so calm that no ripple could be detected.
"The loyalty of House Stark is beyond doubt."
"The North will always be your strongest shield."
"I will immediately write to Catelyn, asking her to come to King's Landing to prove the innocence of House Stark to you."
He knelt.
This Northerner, who would rather die than bow his proud head, had truly submitted for the greater good.
Robert looked at Ned kneeling before him, at this brother he had once trusted most.
He felt neither satisfaction nor relief.
He only felt a strange irritation and disappointment.
It turned out that Ned was no different from those spineless people on the high platform.
The last trace of warmth in Robert's eyes completely extinguished.
"Very well."
Robert squeezed out two words through gritted teeth.
He didn't even reach out to help Ned up.
He simply turned around, presenting his back, stained with blood and flesh, to this "brother" kneeling on the ground.
"Keep an eye on your people."
"Don't cause me any more trouble."
With that, Robert strode towards the The Red Keep without looking back.
His figure was resolute and unfamiliar.
The people on the tourney grounds left without a word.
Ned Stark remained in his kneeling posture.
He kept his head down; no one could see the expression on his face.
Arya looked at her father's slightly trembling back, at the King's indifferent departing figure.
Her small hands clenched tightly into fists.
She didn't understand politics, nor did she understand the greater good.
She only knew that her father was in great pain right now.
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