Chapter 3: The Unseen Strategist's Survey

Author's Note: Hey everyone!

Thanks for sticking with Ragnar on his journey. This chapter dives deeper into his unique perspective and introduces some key figures from the Stormlands. Let me know what you think about how he's adapting! If you're enjoying the story, please consider leaving a review and adding it to your library!

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Storm's End, 281 AC

The departure from Storm's End was a maelstrom of orchestrated chaos, a symphony of sounds and sights meant to impress.

At the very front, Robert Baratheon and Lyanna Stark sat astride their warhorses, greeting the throngs of subjects who had gathered to bid us farewell. Robert, a thunderous stag of a man, boomed with laughter, waving to the cheering crowds, reveling in their adoration. The Stark woman, beside him, offered a more restrained, yet equally captivating smile, acknowledging the shouts of "Lady Lyanna! The Storm's Wolf!" Their combined presence was magnetic, a testament to the powerful hold they had over their people.

Soon enough, the formality of the castle gates gave way to the open road. This stretch of highway, known as the King's Way within the Stormlands, saw the procession change formation. Robert and Lyanna, under normal circumstances, would have remained at the very head, leading the charge. But today was different.

The formation shifted. Scouts galloped far in advance, their figures diminishing against the horizon, ensuring our path was clear. Knights, a gleaming wall of steel, encircled the heart of our vast company. And within that protected core, the Lord of Storm's End and his Lady chose to ride.

This was for me. Their son.

The number of scouts increased, and the knights in their immediate vicinity multiplied, forming an even tighter ring of steel around the trio, a silent testament to the precious cargo they carried in the open.

I, Ragnar Baratheon, at two years old but large as a boy of four, was secured in a small, custom-made saddle fitted directly in front of Lyanna. The rhythmic sway of her mount, the scent of horse and leather and her own familiar perfume, were my constant companions. From this vantage point, nestled against her, I observed everything.

Robert, often riding alongside us, would lean over, his booming laugh rumbling through Lyanna, as he recounted a jest or pointed out a distant landmark.

"Look, Ragnar, the King's Way! This is how we travel, eh, my boy!" he'd bellow, his pride evident.

"Indeed, Dad! It goes on and on!" I'd reply, my voice carrying the childish cadence of a six-year-old, a careful facade for the analytical mind that churned within. How easily they confuse a keen eye for simple curiosity.

This 'King's Way' is merely a major artery, its strategic value obvious, its maintenance deplorable. Lyanna would often rest her chin on my head, her fingers idly toying with my dark hair.

Most of the time, it was just Lyanna and me talking. She would tell me stories of the North, of direwolves and ancient kings, her voice soft against my ear. Or she would speak of the people we passed, of the land, sometimes of her own hopes and frustrations, always assuming my understanding was limited to a child's simple awe.

And I, in turn, would respond with innocent questions or observations, carefully calculated to sound precocious but not unnatural. This constant, intimate contact was invaluable. I learned her tells, her quiet sighs, the way her eyes would darken when her thoughts turned to constraint. Lyanna Stark was a vibrant storm in human form, beautiful and fierce.

I was Ragnar Baratheon, but inside, I was Lelouche vi Britannia far older, far more burdened than any child's should be.

They saw a curious toddler, the heir, the "little lord." My face was a perfect mask of childish innocence, but my eyes, I knew, held too much. They held the memories of another life, another world, where I had once tried to change everything.

This world, Westeros, a feudal realm of inherited power and archaic rules, felt ripe for reconstruction.

My mother's personal ladies rode close by, forming a small, familiar circle.

Lady Sarya Mormont sat her horse with the formidable ease of a veteran warrior, her blunt words and protective gaze a constant comfort to Lyanna.

Lady Alys Cerwyn, quiet and observant, was another Northern fixture, fiercely loyal and ever watchful.

From the Stormlands came Lady Ellyn Swann, graceful and clever, her courtly demeanor a stark contrast to Lyanna's wilder edge, and Lady Cassana Morrigen, bookish and devout, yet possessed of a surprisingly insightful mind.

One afternoon, as we rode beneath the banners snapping in the wind, I leaned back against Lyanna's chest and pointed ahead.

"You always know all the banners! You're amazing!" I said brightly, my finger pointing at a sigil.

"What about that one-the one with the big yellow pile? Is it a castle? Or a mountain?"

Simple. Flattering. Disarming. A child admiring his mother's knowledge-nothing suspicious about that.

She chuckled, her breath warm against my hair.

"Why, thank you, my little stag," she said fondly. "That one belongs to House Errol of Haystack Hall, from the Stormlands like us. They're an old house, loyal to the Baratheons."

"Are they strong? Like our house?", I asked turned slightly to look up at her, tilting my head in mock wonder. .

"Oh, none are as strong as House Baratheon, sweetling," she replied eyes gleamed with pride.

Then she glanced to her side.

"Lady Ellyn, tell Ragnar about the Errols! You know their strength well."

Lady Ellyn, with a graceful nod, leaned in. "House Errol, little Lord, are strong and loyal. Their castle, Haystack Hall, stands firm, and they have good knights who fight bravely for Papa." A minor house, but strategically relevant for their military contribution. Notes taken.

A little while later, seeing a banner displaying forked lightning on a purple field.

"Mama, look! What's that purple one? It looks like a scratch on the sky!"

"That, my clever boy, is the sigil of House Dondarrion. They are Lords of a castle called Blackhaven, and they have very fast riders and brave knights who ride in the Kingswood.", Lyanna replied indulging me.

Lady Cassana Morrigen, always keen to share knowledge, added, "Their words are 'Hear Me Roar,' though some say they should be 'Fear the Thunder!' ", Another Stormlands house, their position on the edge of the Kingswood is notable.

"And what about our flags, Mom?" I asked, my tone shifting to an almost conspiratorial whisper, feigning a child's fascination.

"The wolf, and the stag? What do they say?" Now for the direct assets. My heritage.

Lyanna's gaze softened, a flicker of something deeply personal in her eyes.

"The direwolf, my love, is fierce and silent, loyal and strong even in the deepest snows. They say 'Winter Is Coming,' to remind us that we must always be ready." Then she looked at the banner with the stag on it.

"And the crowned Baratheon stag... is mighty, and strikes down its foes with fury. Our words are 'Ours Is the Fury.'" She pressed a kiss to my hair.

"Together, Ragnar, they mean we are strong, and we are ready for anything." And I knew, beneath the surface of that simple explanation, she was speaking to me, truly, of the future. Strength and readiness. Qualities I will need in abundance.

My earliest vivid memory in this world wasn't of awakening or realization - I had those from the moment I drew breath. No, what stands out most clearly is my nameday celebration, one year ago.

Robert, in his typical fashion, declared it a proper tourney, seven days of jousting, melees, and feasting. It was not Harrenhal's scale, no, but it attracted a formidable gathering of Southern lords: the formidable bulk of Lord Estermont, the dour Lord Fell, the sly Lord Grandison, and other prominent Stormlords. My uncles, Stannis and Renly.

I remember the vibrant banners, the thunder of hooves, the shouts from the lists. Lyanna had been incandescent with excitement. She had whispered to me, her voice fierce and soft, that she would ride for me, for my honor.

I remember her telling Robert in her chambers.

"I will be participating in the nameday tourney tomorrow.", she told him, not asking, her conviction absolute.

Robert had worried, spoken of danger, but Lyanna, with a simple, confident rebuttal – "You know how good I am" – had assuaged him, appealing directly to his pride. He had agreed, a proud, booming laugh filling the room. It was a beautiful, terrifying dynamic: her raw, untamed will against his simple, almost childish, desire to be pleased and to boast.

A weakness to exploit, for both of them. His pride, her passion.

The next morning, at breakfast, the Great Hall had buzzed with the expectation of the tourney.

"My Lyanna and I will both ride in the lists for our son's nameday! We'll show them what Baratheons and Starks can do!" Robert, flushed with ale and pride, had risen and declared to all present.

Then, the silence fell, thick and suffocating. The air in the Great Hall, moments before filled with Robert's booming pride, turned frigid with unspoken censure. My perception, honed beyond my years, cut through the sudden quiet like a knife.

I saw the faces of the Stormlords tighten, their expressions a stark tapestry of disapproval.

My father mentor Jon Arryn was the first to voice his objections.

Then Lord Estermont, my uncle Stannis and others followed, their pronouncements laden with concerns for House Baratheon's honor and a lady's proper place.

Robert, so easily swayed by the collective weight of their opinions, so quick to abandon a promise when faced with public pressure, visibly buckled.

I watched the fury rise in Lyanna's eyes, saw her jaw set into a mask of pure defiance. Her spirit, so free moments before, had been caged by a single, crushing word: forbidden.

I observed that in westeros, power was not always in the hands of the strong, but often in the subtle manipulation of social custom, twisting rules to shackle those who dared to defy them.

A system designed to crush dissent and waste capability, especially from within its own ranks. It must be broken.

The months after that were a study in silent defiance. Lyanna still rode, still practiced in the yard, but the carefree joy was gone.A deeper, more resolute fire burned within her.

She yearned for freedom, not just for herself, but for the very idea of it, for the right to choose. It was a yearning I understood intimately.

This world, with its grand tournaments and its petty squabbles, its kings and its beggars, was built on an illusion of order that hid a vast, chaotic injustice.

Just like my previous life, it was a system begging for a new master, a new order.

These parents were far from perfect-but at least they loved me, protected me.

They were human.

Unlike the calculating monsters who created me before, they had the decency to act like parents... not puppet masters.

In my previous life, my biological father, Charles zi Britannia, was a man of grand, terrifying ideals, who preached of equality while building an empire on deceit and the suppression of truth. He valued strength, but only his own, and saw his children as tools, means to an end. My mother, Marianne, was a phantom of affection, her love a facade for deeper, colder ambitions. Their world was built on lies, their warmth a carefully constructed illusion.

Here, with Robert and Lyanna, there was a rawness that shocked me. Robert, boisterous and prone to fits of temper or joviality, was undeniably genuine. His pride was transparent, his love, however flawed by his nature, undeniably real. He lacked the calculating malice of Charles; he couldn't hide his emotions even if he tried.

And Lyanna… Lyanna was simply there. Her fire was real, her passion for freedom palpable, and her love for me, a constant, unwavering warmth that permeated my every day. There was no hidden agenda behind her caresses, no cold ambition masked by a smile.

They were flawed, fiercely human, and begrudgingly, I had to admit, utterly unlike the parents I had known. My wariness, a constant companion from my past life, found little purchase against their unvarnished reality.

There was no intricate web of deception to unravel, just the straightforward, if sometimes chaotic, expressions of their true selves. This raw authenticity was a new variable, one I hadn't accounted for, and it... complicated things, in a way that was almost unsettling in its lack of predictable artifice.

Our journey to Harrenhal, was long, and included an obligatory detour. Our path first led us not directly north towards the Trident's general direction, but west along the King's Way towards King's Landing.

The sheer size of our procession, a moving city of knights, retainers, and supplies, meant we were practically forced to use this major artery, the most direct, albeit circuitous, route to Harrenhal.

Robert grumbled privately about the unnecessary detour to the capital, seeing it as a tedious formality.

"A waste of good time," I overheard him mutter to Lyanna one morning.

The capital, when we reached it, was a city of jarring contrasts. It bustled, yes, but beneath the veneer of activity lay a festering decay. The air hung heavy, choked not just with the scent of too many unwashed bodies, but with the ever-present, sickening stench of refuse and waste.

This was the heart of the realm? The supposed jewel of Westeros? I curled my lip, a genuine, unforced expression of repulsion. How could the capital of a kingdom spanning a vast continent look, and smell, like this? It was a symbol, not of grandeur, but of inherent rot.

King Aerys's paranoia, inflamed by the events of Duskendale, had turned the Red Keep into a fortress of fear. He granted no audience, not even to a Lord Paramount. Instead, a new face emerged to greet us: Jon Connington, the King's freshly appointed Hand, replacing the dismissed Tywin Lannister. He was a lean, intense man, with eyes that seemed to hold a desperate ambition. He offered polite, if strained, welcomes.

My father, ever direct, chafed at the lack of a royal audience, but understood the King's reclusive madness.

"Aerys is too ill, too consumed by his fires," Robert grumbled to Lyanna and me, leaning close to our horse as we waited in the Red Keep's courtyard.

It was a perfunctory visit, a brief nod to a dying authority. We left King's Landing swiftly, its true nature, a festering heart of a failing kingdom, more evident to me than ever.

From the capital, our procession turned north, finally heading into the fertile expanse of the Riverlands.

The road known as the King's Road, stretching endlessly before us. The landscape softened, the air grew more humid, and the banners fluttering alongside the road began to change, signalling the different lordships we now passed through.

I observed these new sigils, analyzing their strengths and weaknesses, the subtle pecking order of nobility, knowing the Riverlands lords themselves would mostly be awaiting us at Harrenhal. My conversations with Lyanna continued, our quiet world against the backdrop of the moving masses.

The journey here, too, wasquite lively. I watched, my young face impassive, as drunken knights stumbled into brawls over imagined slights, as arguments over hunting rights escalated into shouts.

One afternoon, a particularly spirited fracas erupted between two minor Stormlander lords' retainers, a dispute over a shared hunting kill that quickly devolved into punches and kicks.

Robert, leaning back in his saddle, his eyes alight with amusement, merely watched the spectacle. 'Let them have their sport!' he boomed, a grin on his face, clearly enjoying the display of raw, if undisciplined, vigor among his men.

Lyanna, however, straightened in her saddle, a frown touching her lips as the sounds grew harsher, the blows more deliberate. She cast a sharp glance at her husband. 'Robert,' she said, her voice low but firm, 'they're drawing steel.' Indeed, amidst the flailing limbs, a glint of drawn daggers and swords appeared.

Robert's amusement faded, replaced by a sigh. 'Fine, fine,' he conceded with a wave of his hand. Only then did his guards, a mix of Baratheon men-at-arms and Lyanna's Northern retinue, move swiftly to quell the chaos.

And as we journeyed deeper into the Riverlands, the anticipation became palpable, a tangible tremor in the air. Harrenhal lay before us, a vast, looming shadow on the horizon, drawing us in. The whispers were of the greatest tourney of the century.

Robert sat taller in the saddle, his voice booming with anticipation as he pointed to the spires, already bragging about the lords he would drink under the table and the knights he'd unseat in the lists.

Lyanna said little. Her eyes were fixed ahead, her posture rigid, her silence taut like a bowstring drawn too far. The wind played in her hair, but her thoughts were somewhere else.

Everyone around us seemed giddy with spectacle, caught in the pageantry and promise of a great tourney.

But i didn't come for the games.

I came to take measure of the players.

And soon enough, I'd know who among them was worth keeping... and who was already playing a game they didn't understand.