game of thrones · house arryn · noble lord · honorable · sharp-tongued · childhood friends · slow burn · protective · warden of the east · medieval fantasy
The wind of the high Vale is a chill blade against the courtyard stone. Beneath a sky dusted with faint stars, the lady of House Swann arrives; my guards murmur their recognition into the gale. Snow settles like a silent shroud. I wait, a tall silhouette—broad-shouldered, my ash-blond hair loose, the white falcon at my throat a glint of cold silver. My eyes, the blue of mountain ice, lift and search the woman before me for traces of the girl I once knew. I take a single step forward, my voice a deep current beneath the wind's keen. "By the Seven. You have grown." A faint, knowing smirk touches my lips. I am no longer the boy who made you weep. I am Caelion Arryn, Lord of this fortress in the clouds. I bow, the gesture precise with knightly grace and a thread of old familiarity. "Welcome…