Torwin had a northman's face, in his dead eyes, Belgrave could still see the smiling boy who had asked "Where'd you go?" every time Belgrave left to be with his mistresses. Where was he when Torwin fought? Where was he to save his firstborn? His son and heir? Torwin's black hair and bearded face was lit a pale grey by the entering sunlight, the stones that rested over his eyes trying and failing to resemble actual eyes, but barely so, almost coming close to looking like his son's full blue eyes that had stared him down during their training sessions. Torwin was his son, and he died alone. Talia needed a brother, and her children needed an uncle.

"Father? Are you able to receive me?" Falwell's voice, youthfully respectful, near afraid, not the voice he spoke to "the lads" with for sure. Torwin never spoke to him like that, Belgrave and Torwin were equals, and Torwin let him know it. Belgrave hated his own mourning, Torwin would have been sad for a moment and then gone off to drink, he was a better man, a lord, what was Belgrave? A failed archer who liked to shoot innocent animals, oh, if father could see him now. "Come in, Flowers." Belgrave realized his mistake as he said it, he had legitimized Falwell a few years ago, yet he still called him Flowers from time to time, he assumed that now it was because of his emotions, though it very well could have been his age. Whatever the case, Falwell was his last son left, or at least that he knew of, he had seen a girl once or twice around Highgarden that had his brown curls, though it may have been a coincidence.

Falwell pushed the door open a little too fast, grabbing for it futily and cringing as it slammed into the stone. Belgrave sighed and looked at his dead little boy, unable to look away, it was as if there was something wrong, that his son would just sit up and slap him for daring to think he was dead. Torwin liked to hit him, it was his way of showing affection, he yelled alot too, but never to Belgrave directly, only to his wife, though she never gave him any children, so Belgrave thought it justified, if he had been the victim maybe it would have been less so, but he hadn't been, so he cared not. "Sorry... sorry-uh... father." Belgrave could take this no longer, he snapped at his younger son, his emotions already aflame due to the death of his heir. "Get in the bloody room or leave, I don't care which!" He had no intentions to take it back. Falwell cringed, the growl that lied under his hawk-nose and high cheek-boned frown replaced with fear of his father, odd, considering Falwell was widely considered the scariest man at court, Belgrave was dreaded outside his fief, but his vassals never feared him like they did Falwell, who was an exceptional swordsman and a frightening presence. Falwell moved to apologize, odd seeing a man so... utterly man-like begging for forgiveness. Belgrave frowned, looked one more time at Torwin before turning to speak to his new heir. "You need not fear me Falwell, Torwin never did, I'm not a scary man, I swear to the seven above and the other gods below, I am simply a man, your trainer, your guardian." His attempt at reassurance seemed hollow in his own mind, but then he did tend to undersell himself. Falwell relaxed noticeably, still cringing, but upon seeing his father wasn't going to act, he stooped lower, slowly crawl-walking over to his half-brother's resting form. He looked upon him, frowning almost exactly like Belgrave imagined his own frowns to look. "He was your heir, your favorite?" Belgrave knew the correct answer was "no", but he was out to tell the truth, not to be nice. "Aye, he was, the only one to come close was my daughter." Falwell seemed displeased with this answer, his lips pursing for a moment. "Am I not your son? Am I not worthy of your respect?" Belgrave chuckled at this, but the memory of his son's corpse being in the same room led to the chuckle fading quickly. "I am pleased that you are my son, but I am not proud of you, I am not respectful, my pride and respect are earned, I am the best bowman in the Seven Kingdoms, you are a boy." Falwell sputtered. "How can you make such an outrageous claim?" Belgrave had wanted him to say that. He walked up to his son's face, frowning all the way. 

"Prove me wrong." Falwell's eyes rolled as his mind raced, but Belgrave knew that there was nothing he could say. Falwell seemed to know it too, and he backed away, his posture straightening and his face becoming more mouse-like. He had lost his confidence. Belgrave would have been disappointed, but Falwell had said the wrong things, Belgrave had no intention of apologizing. [i]My son is dead, and my bastard is afraid of me, where are my wits? Probably left with my brother.[/i]

"Father... I only wished to mourn Torwin-"
"Then mourn, and say no more." Falwell stared for a moment, his fury written in his eyes.
"What? You mean to fight your father? I'll kick your arse, boy, you watch me." Falwell's fists closed and he stared for a moment, but eventually he just turned to Torwin and wwas silent.

Belgrave looked into his son's eyes and tears stung at the edge of his eyes.[i]Oh Torwin, where have you gone? You with your headaches and dry wit, you with your flying fists and hot head, why have you left me? You had the wits I lack, an arrow straighter than my own. Why did you have to leave me, Pylos? I'm no leader, I'm just a lad who grew in body but never in mind. 'Quiver the queer, thick as a tree.'[/i] Falwell had moved, he had been further away from his father, but now he was right up near him. The lad cleared his throat, his protruding chin and nose fitting neatly around his fist as he moved it to his mouth. "Father, I simply ask the chance to prove myself." [i]A fool, just like his father.[/i] Belgrave coughed, sloshed a strong-tasting glob of phlegm around in his cheeks and then spat it. "You are a fool, you have already proven yourself worthy as my heir, prove yourself worthy to stay that way and leave me." Falwell gritted his teeth behind a smooth-faced scowl. His bowl-cut hair rotating about his head as he stepped away. His footsteps stopped before he reached the door, a new, heavier set meandered it's way into the room as Falwell left.

"Cousin." Belgrave felt soothed by the sound of Bryce's old voice. A competent man had finally entered the room. Belgrave looked over at his older cousin. The son of his ancestor's own cousin, Bryce Tarly was over seventy namedays that he had counted, though the maester stated he was over a century old. He wore a set of wooden teeth that clacked as he talked, always complaining of splinters in his tongue. Age had not diminished his large and bulky frame. Bryce was lord of Youthbrook, a small keep that the Tarlys had built to serve as Lord Randyll's tomb, old bastard was too proud to simply rest in the crypt. The name was ironic, as Youthbrook had served as the home for old men who had no more use for years, and no lord had held it for over five years since Lord Willam "The Wise", who had died childless after holding the bloody thing for twenty of his own namedays. It was a surprise when the young bachelor, Bryce, was given the castle, though Belgrave suggested that it was because Bryce's cousins couldn't stand the man that he was, a drunk with a fondness for whores and wine that got stronger with every turn of the moon. Bryce pissed in his brother's feasts as well by finding a valryian steel sword, taking it off of some mercenary from Qohor after singing "The Bear and the Maiden Fair" loud enough to get himself and the mercenary ejected from Highgarden. The thing looked no bloody different from any other sword, how Bryce had managed to tell it was valyrian steel was still a mystery, and he refused to have it reforged, consistently losing and re-finding it. He refused to name it as well, calling it "The sword" over any pretentious name, calling any named swords "Useless weapons in the hands of useless men." Eventually he did lose it, for good, he didn't miss it. Bryce's son Qarl grew continuously more and more perplexed with his father's refusal to die, until he himself decided to die of a failing heart at the age of eighty. Bryce continued drinking despite the maester's warnings of "Horrible liver damage", outliving all his sons, two daughters, three grandsons, and a stillborn great-great grandchild. His branch of the family was so large, it forced the expansion of Youthbrook itself, what, with Bryce's fifteen living grandchildren, and many more great-grandchildren. Quite a few had moved to Belgrave's court, including his squire "Big" Bryce Tarly, a great-grandchild of Lord Bryce's, and Bryce's former squire "Hairy" Bryce Tarly, a great-great grandchild from his first son's line, who was twenty, and yet further down the family tree than the nine year old "Big" Bryce. The ladies at court had begun to refer to the Youthbrook branch as "House TarlyFrey" due to the sheer size, Bryce himself preferred the men call him "Old Lord Tarly" and the ladies call him "Often", a joke that had managed to bring the humorless Lord Pylos to a snicker. Bryce's sheer age was a result of his already hefty constitution, combined with the peace of the realm, added by the assortment of Arbor grapes he ate, along with the apples from Cider Hall, aye, Lord Bryce was often too impatient to wait for the cider to be made and simply ate the apples, leaving his family crying loudly and often, a sound so loud it could be heard in Horn Hill. Bryce had not entered old age unscathed however, his eyesight was failing and he was much slower with a blade, though it still took much effort for Belgrave to defeat him in a spar, he could only imagine the man in his prime. Bryce had served as Castellan of Horn Hill on and off for decades, though he currently rested as the keep's master-at-arms, arriving every seven days to tutor the youths, eat all the food in the castle, and leave, it was a horrible system, though Bryce was so respected that he simply did what he wanted with no argument from anyone. He was possibly the last living man to have lived during the Second Conquest, he was a babe then, but it still counted, and that earned him a modicum of respect by itself, his legendary skill and achievements notwithstanding, though most knew not to take Bryce's stories too seriously when he had been drinking, which was always.

Bryce's personal arms had become that of his family branch, but he still used them for every of his own actions. They were a reversal of the usual Tarly arms, the orange huntsman turned to the left and changed from orange to blue, the bow in his hand replaced with a cup of wine, the arms were feared even more than the normal Tarly ones, mostly because Bryce Tarly trained his men better in combat than the main branch, but not in discipline, so "Blue Hunters" often burned their way through rebel territory when the peasants dared rebel. A selection of these "Blue Hunters" had retired to Horn Hill, where Belgrave quickly recruited them for his personal use as his last resort troops, sent to burn and salt what the army couldn't take. The most brutal of these was the captain of the Tarly household guard, a thug who went by the name Ser Osmund. It was an open secret that "Ser" Osmund was not a proper knight, though the last man who dared mention it had to pick his own gold tooth from his ruined right eye. Osmund was very loyal, bitterly so, and he respected two men and two men only; Belgrave and Bryce Tarly. Osmund had been the one to escort Lord Redwyne's children and Belgrave's daughter back to Horn Hill, and he was soon betrothed to the Lord's eldest daughter, Harra Redwyne, thus entering both the Redwyne and Tarly families, taking the name "Rutland" as his house name, a red dog's head on a white field as his arms, and "Our bite is worse" as his words, the one problem Belgrave saw in the man was his arbitrary nature... and the fact that he was ugly as sin, a huge nose on a thin face, covered in bulbs that looked like pimples but were not, unable to grow a beard and with a balding head that left a veritable field of vine-like hair curling in the middle of his very visible scalp, whatever the case, there were few in the Tarly household more trusted than Osmund Rutland, who was an unskilled but strong and pragmatic fighter, lifting a lot despite his thin frame, and serving as the newly styled "Lord Protector", giving him a hereditary title for his future children without forcing Belgrave to give up land.

Bryce Tarly crossed his thick and veiny arms, the plain pommel of his valyrian steel blade visible over his right shoulder. His pure white hair was long and unruly, a strand sticking in his mouth and being caught against one of his wooden teeth. "You lost a son?" Belgrave nodded. Bryce grabbed the offending tooth, pulled it out, freeing the hair, before placing it back into his mouth. "Say 'aye' when I's speaking to you."  Belgrave sputtered before frowning and replying with a cacaphonic "Aye." Bryce smiled, showing his wooden teeth. "Better, good job lad. Now then, you going to go fight the Crakehalls like I said you would?" Belgrave ayed again. "Good, lad, good." He pulled a large flask of something from behind his back, pouring it not so much in his mouth as all over himself. [i]This man is mad, and he loves every moment of it.[/i] The flask went out the closest window. [i]I wish I shared the feeling.[/i] "Enough of that, let's go drill the troops, maybe talk to Rutland and try to outdrink 'im, he's good, I still got 'em on the drinking front though." Belgrave agreed near-silently, his voice sounding wrong as he spoke. [i]'Quiver the queer' indeed.[/i]

[hr]

"... And that's how I outdrank Lord Garland, he'll tell you I'm lying, but we know how that goes." Bryce's smile was harsh and mad-looking, his eyes opened too much, and his face already looked like the Blackwater at night. The sunlight pushed Belgrave's head up towards the many soldiers gathered and drilling under the command of a middle aged man with red beard and firey mane, a sun-burned red face that made him look constantly pissed beyond all belief. "Grandson! Lord Tarly's joined us, show him what you've done." Bryce Tarly's 8th grandson, Ser Harys Tarly, named after the kingsguard knight, raised a pale arm, and the movement among the men stopped, a quick turn of his body, and the men all followed. [i]He did this all in a few moments? This one's like his father moreso than any of the other oafs I've seen.[/i] "Like what I've done with 'em? Grandfather thinks all my discipline training is a bunch of shit, looks pretty clear of shit from where I'm standing." He was standing on a raised platform from which he could overlook the men, he rested his body on the railing, one leg drifting up onto the rung that crossed the middle of the railing. Bryce snorted. "Bullshit, these men won't do shit on a battlefield unless they can fight." [i]Foul mouthed as well? Oh, Bryce, you're full of surprises.[/i] Harys Tarly was not known as a fighting man, quite the opposite in fact, he was called a coward, despite his existing skill at arms, he was known to shy away from sparring, though as Belgrave could clearly see, this was not the full truth. Belgrave frowned at the older Tarly man, crossing his arms and nodding at the younger one, attempting to maintain a facade of control over the situation. 

"Where's Lord Dox uh?" A higher voice now, Lord Rutland's odd nasal voice that somehow sounded more man than boy even as his voice drifted closer to that of Belgrave's ex-wife. Belgrave smirked at the man. [i]Ah, just who I had hoped for.[/i] "Lord Dox is ruling his lands, he may be castellan, but he's still a lord." Bryce growled at this statement, his distaste of his time as castellan was well known. Rutland's large eyes ruined any chance of a frown, but the rest of his face attempted admirably. He spat and played with his shoulder. "Mmm, 'course he is, too bad too uh? Smart one, that one, old too, whatever, we're having our little... *Spit* our little meet up uh? Good deal, you got something to say uh? My lord I mean."
"Aye, i do, the Old Lord Tarly has distracted me, but I was looking for you, Lord Rutland."
"I's not hard to find uh? How come it took ye' all morning? Busy crying over the dead bloody tosspot your son was uh? I mean, with all due respect, he was an arse, know you think well of 'im, but you're wrong to. You want 'tell me something uh? Hurry up with it... my lord I mean." Belgrave would be insulted if anyone else had said this, but he ignored it coming from Rutland, he was lowborn, it was just his way.
"I mourned my son, you would too..." Bryce cut in, exactly what Belgrave didn't want "Speaking of sons, how's Florian?"
"*Spit* Florian uh? He's annoying, bloody babe never shuts up, my lady wife says it's 'cause I keep yelling at 'im, *Spit* my son's a bloody coward then ah?" Belgrave just wanted to end this bloody conversation and get on to the war plans.
"Good for you Osmund, good for you."
"M'lord *Spit* I think you happen to be ignoring me ah?"
"Aye, but only because I want to be able to fucking speak."
"Ah shut your bloody cock tunnel, I'm not done ah?" [i]Loyal, aye, but very, very, belligerent.[/i] Belgrave bemoaned to himself, Osmund and Bryce began speaking about the uselessness of children and their transition to useless adults, they seemed to think very highly of themselves, like the only sane Targaryen in a group of lunatics.
"...fucking things don't learn to ride until they're squires ah? *Spit* Can't they start younger?"
"I tried that, they're too bloody fragile, Gorrister never talked right again after I took him riding." [i]These are my most trusted retainers? Oh Quiver, your brilliance is unending.[/i] "How'd that happen ah? He fall?"
"No, he avoided that, when I tried to get him jousting he got knocked of and didn't land right, hit his head, his kids are much smarter, though he spent most his time in the gardens trying to collect all the bees for some plan that nobody could understand. He only stopped when his wife came in to do her duty, then it was back to the bees, my third son was a fucking beekeeper."
"*Spit* Aw gods that's horrible! Dumb bastard probably killed most of the flowers ah? Stupid bloody children."
"Aye, Lord Tyrell tried to get the daft fucker out to get some bloody interaction, came in and Gorrister was naked as his name-day, thought Lord Tyrell was his wife come to give him a suck, needless to say, Lord Tyrell avoided the gardens whenever he came to visit, seeing a naked old man kinda ruins your appetite, Garland never had the same problem, probably because I told 'im... told 'im about the naked old beekeeper that would climb into his bed at night and stick his cock in his face!" Osmund laughed louder and louder with each word, and Bryce's words became less and less controlled with every one until they both simply broke down into hysterical laughter.

"Lord Rutland!" [i]There goes the lord's voice, that's always fun on the throat.[/i] The laughter began to slow until it was a chuckle, Rutland wiped his eyes, his now wet fingers a testament to the laughter that he had just gone through. "Aye? *Spit* I mean aye m'lord?" Belgrave milked the invisible cow angrily with his fists, unable to get a comfortable position to display his bubbling frustration. "I was asking to call a war council, as one of my top generals, I beseech you to go get the others and rejoin me in the castle, we're riding to Highgarden shortly." Rutland blinked before nodding half-assedly and stumble-walking off to find the other generals, Bryce Tarly not far behind him.

Belgrave screamed internally.

[hr]

Later that night, Belgrave awoke to the sound of rummaging in the halls, just behind his door, which was the hallway, and across from that... [i]Gods no![/i] Belgrave leapt from the bed, throwing his blanket off his bed. He had no wife to awake, so he cared not about the thrown blanket. The children should have been asleep, there was no way they were still awake, if they were he would have to punish them severely for the heart attack they would give him. Smashing through his door, he proceeded to go right through the door across the hall, knocking it out of it's hinges despite the immense pain it caused his shoulder. The door slammed right into a man clad in black, knocking him to the floor. [i]Move Quiver, move![/i] Belgrave's grandchildren awoke with a scream, all three running to the other side of the room, near leaping up the walls. Belgrave grabbed the man from off the floor and looked into his eyes, he was a bear, the man was a weasel, a weasel in nice garb he had to admit, but a weasel none the less. He threw the would-be assassin out the door and into the hall. The man tried to move to his feet, to which Belgrave responded to with a punch to the man's jaw, sending him sprawling. Belgrave was beyond mad, his head a pounding mess of bloody thoughts and sweat, his breaths came quicker and quicker with ever moment. The assassin stumbled to his feet entertainingly. [i]How dangerous is he now, eh Quiver? What a pitiful excuse for a man.[/i] Belgrave grappled with the man, eventually securing his bony arms under Belgrave's own. "Who sent you?" He growled with all the rage he could summon. 
"You wasn't supposed to wake up!" [i]Oh bugger me, Quiver, He's just as dull as he is skilled[/i]. Belgrave rolled his eyes, pulling his elbows closer and closer together, squeezing tightly at the man's weak arms. The assassin cried out piteously, and Belgrave almost felt for him, before continuing to push.
"You wasn't! You was supposed to die quietly." Belgrave smiled deviously
"You honestly expected Belgrave the Bear to just die without fighting back?"
"Lord North said you was weak, said you hadn't been out of your castle in years." 

[i]Lord North, now that's a dangerous bugger, smarter than I could ever imagine to be, but stupid enough to believe that the Tarlys would just keel over and die. Break him Quiver, break him for me.[/i] His brother had spoken, Belgrave threw his head back, and then forwards into the man's nose. It was like a hole had just been drilled into his head, but it was fixed by the swiftly cooling blood that now resided on his face. The assassin fell back, sliding on his twisted feet and spindly legs, the air smelled less like the usual sawdust of Horn Hill, and more like the soft rotten smell of a used battlefield. The man's eyes were the color of a dandelion field, his mouth caked with cracking dirt and grime. Belgrave strode over and slapped his left mitt over the assassin's slim face. A few inches and he would have been able to touch his pinkie to his thumb. He pulled the disgusting man close. "Tell your Lord North to spit on his bloody assassins, tell him that the Bear has been awakened, and tell him of how hard it is to stop a charging bear." He roared, his spittle beginning to collect in between the cracks of the man's dirty face.
"Tell him that no-one who faces Lord Belgrave Tarly lives unless he wills it, and tell him that no man dares challenge he who has nothing left to lose. Tell him that and perhaps I will spare your pitiful life, lest I chop your manhood off and feed it to my hounds." The cutpurse's eyes had turned a dirtier shade of yellow just as Belgrave yelled, and what Belgrave thought was tears had begun turning red, the man's face twisted into a smile as he convulsed violently against the Lord, he began to smell of rot and metal. Quickly his ears also began to bleed, and he turned a deathly pale. Belgrave noticed one of the man's teeth had suddenly gone missing. [i]Poison? Seven Hells Lord North wishes you dead. Chop his bloody head from his shoulders Quiver, burn his corpse like a bloody wight.[/i] Belgrave threw the dying man off of him before he could bleed upon him. The man's eyes turned jet-black, and his blood twisted from red to a disgusting yellow that spread across his face faster than Belgrave could even imagine.

Belgrave drew his valyrian steel, shining with all it's jewels and gold, carved upon the blade with drawings of battle and Tyrell roses, a soft gold color, exaggerated with the many jewels pushed into the guard. Belgrave pushed the pommel over his left shoulder, gripping it tightly, the grip felt soft on his calloused hands. The man's face had begun to peel, purple skin caked in yellowed blood, his black eyes unmoving, he shook like nothing that Belgrave had ever seen in his entire life. With one step and a swing of his sword, The man's head curved through the air, spilling orange-yellow blood over Belgrave's face, it was already deathly cold when it landed. The mow headless body flopped to the ground, the momentum propelling up its feet for a moment before all rested. Belgrave rested a moment, his sword still in the same position as it had been after he had swung it. Belgrave the bear he had been called, he had been referred to as a bear more than Bryce was referred to as old, but for what? Killing old men and some innocent Dornishmen doing their duty. He had never felt truly like a bear, more like a hyena, feeding on other's kills.

[i]You're never truly a bear until you protect your cubs.[/i]