Prologue

Willas Tyrell

The foals gaze was fixed on him. Slowly, oh so slowly he began to turn his body so he could face it fully and start to move towards it.

The skittish dapple grey snorted affronted and threw its head back - he stilled, shoulders tense.
His leg hadn't fully rotated to fit his earlier movements, but he didn't dare fix that now. Not with the horse watching him so intently, ears pinned back against its head.

The next neigh was a warning. Willas sighed.

Not today, then.

Relaxing his tight muscles, he lifted the pressure that came from balancing his weight on the wrong leg. His injured leg.

The young steed proved itself to become a real challenge.
He took a last calculating look at his newest protégé. There was too much fear in the air now. Too much mistrust to continue dancing around and hoping for a breakthrough.
Weary, never letting him out of its sight, the horse began distancing itself from him in nervous prancing.
His lips curved into a shy smile "Tomorrow then."
He turned around and walked towards the fence leaving the paddock.

The earth was sludgy and slippery, each step accompanied with a heavy sucking sound as he lifted his feet up the ground, one more secure than the other.
It had been heavily raining for the past few days, transforming soil into tough and sticky mud. He cursed the days he wasn't able to use his cane outside. Then again he cursed his cane as well.

Closing the paddock gate behind him he turned to the stable-lad.

"Leave her be for another hour before you bring her in."

The man nodded.

"Make sure to wipe the sweat of its fur."

It was going to be clammy tonight.

He could feel the weather changing through the sharp sting in his knee and sucked in a fierce breath through his teeth. Sometimes it still hurt like a hot needle rammed through.

"Will my Lord need assistance on his way back to the estate?" he heard the lad beside him ask.

"There will be no need." he answered with an accusing look. It irritated him when people thought of him as dependent.

"My Lord."

A short nod and he left the boy behind, striding towards his horse with measured steps, biting the insides of his cheek refusing to show another sign of weakness.

He mounted the brown Gelding as sure as any man who could make use of both his legs and buckled the straps keeping his leg in tight position while he sat in the saddle.
As far as injuries go, he wasn't that bad off. Sure his right leg was pretty much useless. There was a constant limp in his steps. But there was still feeling left in the appendage and that made up for the rare biting stabs that showed up like ghosts of the past tearing hurt that cursed through the same nerves years ago.

The paddocks weren't far from the east entrance, a narrow gravel walk leading all the way up to a side entrance of Highgarden. Willas tightened the strings and released a soft clicking sound. His horse Harlan especially trained to react to his subtle commands.

It was the first thing he had practised after the incident. Before being able to handle the stairs by himself, before relearning dressing himself, lifting himself in and out of a bathtub.
As soon as he was able to walk the first unsure steps with help of a cane, this, being able to dash through the Reach, feeling the air around him as he commanded his horse to gallop faster, jump higher, this was his freedom.
He called himself lucky, that despite an incident bad enough to crush his leg this freedom wasn't taken from him.

He remembered the worried gaze of his mother, back, when the shock of his fall had been fresh.
How much she protested as he pressed on that he needed to ride, needed to know that he could still mount a horse without hesitance.
He remembered how his uncle Baelor had laughed at their ongoing fights.
Him bristling, and his mother stubborn and adamant.
"A man needs his passions." his uncle interjected, and after struggling for days, Lady Alerie Tyrell of Highgarden finally gave in and the walls of the estate stopped suffocating him.

It had been such a long time ago.

He had long since come to terms with being what he was. A cripple.
It had taken a while. Grandma Olenna once said he could be as stubborn as his oaf of a father sometimes, but he had learned to realize that being a cripple made him no less worthy, had not taken his ancestry, nor intelligence, nor charm nor his wit. Just his mobility.

He was heir to Highgarden. After his fathers death one day he would become executing Lord, Defender of the Marches, High Marshal of the Reach and Warden of the South.

Reaching the gate,Willas guided Harlan to a gentle trot.

As a Lord he would be required to have an heir himself. He was six and twenty now, still prime, wasn't it? His mother assured him he was quite handsome, which most likely wasn't worth much because she was his mother and he had yet to meet a mother not praising her sons in highest delights.

Two sharp clicks of his tongue and Harlan stopped, having reached his goal.

Gods.. - remembering with shocking clarity - he was going to get married.

His stomach tightened in an unsettling way and he dismounted the horse with unsteady legs that had nothing to do with the old injury, and everything to do with Grandma Olenna having arranged his match.

A servant hurried over and accepted the reigns from him, guiding his horse to the stables and out of his sight. Another served him his cane and Willas entered the castle with heavy steps.
He was way past the age of elderly matchmaking. Feeling like a breeding steed being settled with a selected mare. The fact that his future wife was apparently a maiden blossomed of age four and ten, left a bile taste in his throat.

When he had read Olennas announcement he sat in his study, frozen from shock and not a thought left in him. It was after he reread the flowery penmanship of his grandma, that he crumpled the letter in rage and threw it into the open fire of his studies to burn it to ashes.
His protesting scream had alarmed his attendant as had his wiping of the study desk in anger. But flying papers and broken pottery could not quench the utter betrayal he had felt when he watched the thick carped soaking up ink. Apparently his grandma didn't see him fit to successfully court a lady of his own choosing. After all he was just a cripple.

It was the first time in years that thought had knocked old insecurities into his stomach again, and had Olenna been residing at Highgarden at the time, he would have been out for blood. Not literally of course, she was family after all.
An old, shrivelled up, manipulating, dictatorial, scheming witch, but still his grandmother.

And he would never risk her ghost haunting Highgarden after her demise, gods beware. He would tear the whole estate down if that ever was the case.

So it was a blessing and a curse Olenna was far away in Kingslanding, as was Garlan and Leonette and Loras and Margaery all having met his darling little bride.

As Willas opened the door to his study he wondered if it would be too impulsive to ride to Oldtown and take the oath in front of a Septon. A life devoted to the seven gods, turning his back on his family, Highgarden and all the liabilities.

He could never do it.

A Smirk. Although Grandma Olennas face could be worth it.

He settled behind his desk with a sigh, carefully manoeuvring his injured leg as not to bump into one of the sturdy table-legs (sadly he knew exactly how much that would hurt).

At least Garlan and Leonette would be returning to Highgarden, escorting his young bride all the way from Kingslanding.

He already didn't know how he was supposed to deal with her, supposed to deal with someone quite so young, someone he was supposed to marry.
He hoped his brother and good-sister had spent enough time with her already to be of some form of support.
They sure would be a welcome support to him. He snorted. Garlan knew him well enough to try to avoid him for the first few days though. Not that he would let him.

He suddenly felt so very much tired.

Tomorrow. They would arrive at Highgarden tomorrow. He had come to terms with accepting Olennas demands four days after reading that cursed parchment. The truth was, despite all his protests, he could see reason in this match, and it was a good and sensible offer. In the end he agreed and had prepared for their arrival after. Everything was settled.

Now, he still had this evening by himself, all for himself and he planned not to waste even an ounce of thought on these things any more before dawn. He would enjoy his last evening of solitude.

With a deep breath, Willas hunched above the parchments and dipped a feathers end into an ink pot to note down the process (or lack thereof) he had made with the dapple grey foal.

There would be much work ahead of him.