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[mansuetus]

Tranquility.

[ Lucrezia Borgia's hair is braided and her silks are pink as her cheeks. ]

The fireflies had returned to us. To them and to those who had been asleep, Ben Tornati! as you all have been so direly missed. I would hear that you are well from your lips or through the firefly.

To all others, I offer a trade.

I would hear of your name. I heard so many names since my arrival here and yet I never asked for their meaning in your respective languages. I would listen and tell you of my own, if you care to hear it.

[ but then she seems a bit bothered by something, as if she had realized something is missing. ]

I have no words of poetry to offer today, what a shame.

[ give her a moment before she'll smile and, lifting her chin with mischief in her eyes, speak the next words in Latin before shutting down her firefly. ]

quae bello est habilis, Veneri quoque convenit aetas.

( The age which is apt for war, is also suitable for Love. )

Comments

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[mansuetus]

Short, indeed and sometimes shorter than ever that. How many seeds of pomegranate would she have eaten in your realm, Robb Stark?

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[northerner]

An unfathomable amount. It's impossible to say how long a winter may be until it has finished.

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[mansuetus]

Does the same stand for summer?

[ what an odd thing, not knowing. ]

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[northerner]

Aye. But Old Nan said always that a long summer meant a longer winter.

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[mansuetus]

The longer Proserpine stays above, the more her regal husband misses her and so he keeps her in his Underworld the longer. The heart is a traitorous thing. It can change the very seasons.

[ Cesare used to say hearts made wars and murders and brawls and Lucrezia would push at his shoulder, said he was far too solemn, that hearts make beautiful things like love poems and letters and happy marriages. A child then, she was. She can see Cesare's point more clearly now. ]

[northerner]

And what happens if he finds he cannot let her leave him? Is winter eternal?

[mansuetus]

No, my Lord. If he is selfish enough to keep her, the king of Gods, Jupiter, who rules them all, would force him to let her out so the people would not cry in their hunger. Jupiter would not allow for an eternal winter because one of his Gods is selfish in their love.

[northerner]

[ this isn't a story meant to caution him, but robb hesitates regardless. ]

Then it seems they are destined to part. A sad state of affairs, my lady.

[mansuetus]

Part and come together again, yes.

[ there is a lazy smile on her lips, once she insisted that he will call her by her name; now 'my lady' pleases her and she is not sure why. ]

Such fate for a god who kidnaps himself a wife. One who would have come willingly would have also stayed. No wife wishes to leave a husband of her choice.

[ and perhaps the lesson here is meant for a man of Sforza. ]

[northerner]

A pity you were not there to give such wise counsel to him. Or perhaps fortunate, for then we'd not have the harshness of winter to offset the warmth of our summers.

[mansuetus]

I cannot imagine it. Winter needs summer and summer needs winter in return, I do believe they are two pieces of a puzzles. One completes the other.

[ and perhaps that is all summer could care quite a lot for a man of winter. There is a poem there and if Lucrezia was an artist, she'd write it and be content. ]

[northerner]

And to lose one would be to render the other without purpose, don't you think?

[mansuetus]

Quite so. Without purpose and lonely, seeking that which once made it complete.