A Game of Tempers

Posted on Fri Mar 5th, 2021 @ 1:35am by Lord Jonah Tully
Edited on on Thu Mar 18th, 2021 @ 3:22pm

Mission: What Came Before...
Location: The Twins
Timeline: 15 Years Ago

As he dashed the ornate pieces of the one chair in his room off the stone walls of someone else's castle, the nine year old howled in white hot rage. It didn't matter that he'd heard fond stories of Lord Tully of the Twins from his mother. He didn't care that his father had instructed him to behave, and instilled upon him a need to learn from this trusted friend of the family. Jevan hated everything right now, he wanted the opposite of what every adult was telling him he needed.

The sound of glass breaking as he hurled a candlestick holder through the window hid the sound of boots on the stone steps leading up to outside his door.

Jon lifted the handle of the door and pushed it open. He stepped a half-step in and put his hands behind his back to observe the young boy raging. On some level Jon understood Jevan's anger, and his fear. He wasn't much younger than Jevan when he was sent to Riverrun to foster. He didn't understand why either, only that suddenly he was sent away from his friends in the castle. "That is quite enough." Jon said calmly as he foresaw a second candle stick heading through a window.

That second candlestick, candle and all, yeeted towards the window at a rakish angle as Jevan startled at the unexpected sound of a voice behind him. It bounced back off the angled stone and rolled across the floor, abandoned as the boy stamped his foot. His expression mixed rage with surprise as he glanced backwards then picked it back up again. "No!" Jevan barked, as he hurled it towards Jonah.

Jon stepped half aside as the heavy candlestick flew through the door opening. The older man looked at Jevan, and a scowl formed. "This is my house, and now yours too. And you will treat it with respect." Jon approached the young boy slowly. When he was only two feet away he stopped and studied the angry boy before kneeling down to come at aproximately eyelevel. "Jevan, I understand you are not happy to be here. I was much the same when I was sent to foster by my father. But destroying your room will not change the fact that you are here to stay."

Fists clenched tight, heart racing, Jevan flinched as Jon drew closer, turning his head away in bracing expectation of the back of a raised hand that never came. When he opened his eyes, they went wide to see the lord of the house on his knees before him. It took a moment before he risked saying anything at all, mind leaping to a variety of conclusions. "I want to go home," he stated, voice a little wobbly, but fierce eye contact directly meeting Jon's own.

"I understand that you want to go home." Jon nodded in simple agreement. "Except, your father has decided you need to stay here. Thus you cannot go home, not for a while." He met the boy's gaze with a calmness. "For the time being, the Twins are your home. Now look around the room."

Slowly, but surely, little by little, that steady tone and lack of violent retaliation eroded Jevan's fury. He pouted, arms crossed at his chest as Jon named his father and laid down the law, pure and simple. A boot tapped on the stone floor as he tried to deny the lord's request, but the boy broke that visual lock first, casting a moody glower of a look about the place.

"You will go down to the kitchens and ask for large bag, and you will clean this all up. I will not stand for the state of your room. When you are done, you can find me and we will have dinner. Understood?" Jon asked sternly.

Eyes to the ground now, Jevan nodded, but didn't look up until the man stopped speaking. That gaze was furtive and risked from beneath a lowered brow, but his voice was clear. "I don't where are the kitchens are," he said, quietly now.

Jon rose from his knee and stood up. "I'll have to show you where they are." and he gestured for Jevan to go ahead.

Violence was something Jevan had learned to expect from his older brother and his father in the last few years, to toughen him up and help him be a man, and all those other helpful reasons. He didn't know quite what to do with respectful admonition yet, and in that ignorance he chose compliance, at least for the moment. His mood calmer, he picked up the candlestick and led the way down the corridor to the first flight of stairs. Kitchens were downstairs, he knew that at least, but it would take a while longer than a day to learn the lay of this new land. Both geographically and emotionally.