The Unyielding Stag (Game of Thrones AU/Invincible)
Chapter 49: Burn

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A/N: I'm sure you all want to see how Axel is doing after how last chapter ended. So anyways, here's a Baelish POV!

-x-X-x-

King's Landing is far enough in the distance by now that Petyr can barely see it on the horizon. Standing on the deck of the ship taking him, Lysa, and the future Lord of the Eyrie to Gulltown, he stares out anyways, keeping it in view for as long as possible. Still, if all has gone to plan (and he's quite sure that it did) it should be done by this point. It's just too bad he won't have confirmation for some time yet.

"Petyr? Do you think it's happened by now?"

Lysa comes up beside him and Petyr looks around for a moment to make sure there's nobody nearby before giving her a sharp look and speaking in a quiet tone.

"Hush. Keep your voice down, my lady."

To her credit, Lysa looks appropriately chagrined, also sneaking furtive glances around for a brief second. Of course, that only makes her look even more guilty so Petyr sighs and surreptitiously takes one of her hands in his own. This has the 'benefit' of making her immediately focus back on him to the exception of everything else.

"… Yes. It will have happened by now. It's done. But do remember that we can't know anything until the time is right. It's possible we'll hear the news in Gulltown, but it's also possible we won't be told until we reach the Eyrie. Until then, we must seem oblivious to any tragedy that might have taken place back in King's Landing."

Lysa nods, wide eyed and hanging off of Petyr's every word just like always. Still…

"You should go back below deck. Be with your son, make sure he's not being too fussy, alright?"

That draws a certain... look from the woman. Sometimes Petyr wonders if Lysa Arryn even loves her only child. She'd had such a hard time finally producing an heir for her husband, only for Robert Arryn, otherwise known as Robin or Sweet Robin, to turn out to be a sickly, small boy, barely worth anything.

Now to be fair, maybe he would grow out of it… but not with how much Lysa insisted on coddling and mothering the boy. She smothered young Robert, plain and simple. But then… Petyr gained nothing from telling her she should stop, so he hadn't ever bothered pointing out the issue.

Even still, despite her obvious love for the brat, there were times when her son was mentioned that Lysa almost looked like she hated him. Like she despised the child that had come from her old, decrepit lord husband. This was one of those times, but Petyr doesn't let that stop him from nodding towards the doors that lead below deck.

"Go. We shouldn't be seen together too much."

Finally, Lysa goes. Finally, he's free of her. Admittedly, Petyr could have worst company to be fair. For instance, if he'd stayed in King's Landing much longer, he would have almost certainly wound up in the Black Cells under the Red Keep. There was simply no doubt in his mind that they were onto him and would have been coming for him shortly.

In fact, when word had reached him about today's meeting and the only thing on the docket being the King choosing his Queen, Petyr hadn't bought it for one second. He fully believed if he'd shown up to the Small Council Chambers today, he would have been arrested and thrown into a cell for his crimes.

That's why he didn't show up, instead having some of the wildfire that he'd stolen during the cleanup process planted in the room and arranged for it to only go off once Grandmaester Pycelle finally arrived at the meeting. After all, if there was one thing that Pycelle could be counted on for, it was showing up late. Everyone else would be in attendance by the time he finally arrived, making sure that Petyr would get all of them in one fell swoop.

Well, all of them except for Stannis and Davos. If he thought he had more time, if he believed that he could afford to wait, then Petyr might have held off until the other two men were back in the city as well. But he was so sure that they were coming after him today… he'd had to act.

So act he did. He was officially a Kingslayer with this act. Axel Baratheon, Jon Arryn, Varys the Spider, Pycelle, and even Arys Oakheart… all of them were dead by his hand at this point. It left him feeling a little powerful, if he was being honest.

Thanks to his antics in the training yard and his successful battles during the Trial by the Seven, people had taken to calling Axel Baratheon the Demon of the Trident come again. They said he was just like his father at his age, but you know what Petyr saw when he looked at the young King?

He saw Brandon Stark standing over him, sword dripping red with blood. And the only thing keeping the young lord from finishing him off were Catelyn Tully's hands on his arm, holding him back as she pleaded for Petyr's life.

Axel Baratheon and Brandon Stark had the same exact mentality in the end. The mentality that physical might makes right. So long as you were born with the right bloodline and were a deft hand with a sword, you could do anything you wanted and live however you liked. That was how men like those two thought.

Well, the Mad King had proved Brandon quite wrong when he'd killed him and his father at the onset of the Rebellion. And wouldn't you know, Petyr had just used a type of fire to prove Axel wrong in a similar fashion.

Petyr allows a small smile to worm its way across his face, even as King's Landing continues to vanish into a smaller and smaller speck off in the distance. In a few more minutes, it would be completely gone and they would be well on their way to Gulltown already.

From Gulltown, Petyr and Lysa would travel with the young Robert Arryn and their complement of House Arryn Guards up to the Eyrie. There, once news of the deaths in King's Landing reached them, Lysa would take charge of the Vale as Lady Regent. After a bit more time for everything else to truly kick off, she would then name Petyr as her son's Regent until he came of age… if he ever came of age, that is.

Meanwhile, back in King's Landing, those who would no doubt investigate the incident would find exactly what Petyr intended them to find. They would find documentation detailing Jon Arryn releasing his wife and heir into Petyr's custody and giving Petyr leave to escort them back to the Eyrie.

A couple of half-written rough drafts in Jon's office and the final letter in Petyr's. Said document bore Jon's seal and forged signature and without the older man around to refute it, they were ironclad. Especially since Lysa would, of course, back Petyr to the hilt.

Furthermore, those left in King's Landing would be caught off guard in the coming days as the Ironborn declared war on the Seven Kingdoms and began reaving all up and down the west coast of Westeros without reservation under their new Lord Reaper… Euron Greyjoy.

If all had gone according to plan on his end, than Euron would have killed Balon by now and declared himself ruler of the Ironborn. In this case, it would have been natural for a Kingsmoot would then take place in order to decide the Ironborn's next leader.

After all, Balon's natural 'heir' was a prisoner in Winterfell and his only daughter was on the other side of Westeros, stuck in King's Landing. But Euron had reluctantly agreed via letter that there simply wasn't enough time and claimed he could take control without bothering with the ancient Ironborn tradition.

There was a world where the hounds might not have nipped at Petyr's heels quite so fast. If Axel were just a bit less fiscally minded, then maybe Petyr and Euron would have had all the time in the world to enact their original plans, even. They'd involved Petyr poisoning Jon and sticking around King's Landing for a little while longer, even while Euron was winning a proper Kingsmoot before taking leadership of his people and declaring independence.

But alas, it was not to be. They'd forced his hand and with Petyr moving things up and escalating his plans, Euron had been forced to do the same. Petyr didn't quite know how Euron intended to completely bypass the need for a Kingsmoot. But the other man was absolutely certain that even without one, he would have control of the Ironborn almost immediately somehow.

Not knowing the details vexed Petyr quite a bit, but at least the Vale was about as far away from the Ironborn's many targets as possible, so in the end he wasn't too worried.

No, in fact… he was feeling rather comfortable at this point. Sure, he regretted that he couldn't get the entire Small Council, but in a way, it was better that Stannis and Davos of all people had survived. In fact, their survival allowed Petyr to have his last remaining operatives in King's Landing plant rumors saying that Stannis had arranged the explosion.

Admittedly, the Lords of Westeros weren't likely to buy it… but if they did, well, that would be quite hilarious. It might throw the entire Realm into war again right as Euron was starting his attacks.

But even if it didn't, even if Stannis managed to avoid being accused of the crime of Kingslaying, Petyr's own alibi remained airtight and honestly, Stannis Baratheon becoming King of the Seven Kingdoms was also quite good for Petyr's purposes.

Sure, the man would probably dismiss Petyr as Master of Coin once Lysa named him Regent, but that would be just fine by him since he'd more than made sure to clean up after himself on his way out of King's Landing. Meanwhile, Stannis' moral inflexibility, general disposition, and complete lack of a Small Council would leave him thinking that he had to bring the hammer down on even the smallest indiscretions in his new court.

… Yes, Stannis was very much a hammer. And all he knew how to be was a hammer. And something that a hammer like him didn't know was this; the harder a hammer tries to hammer, the more everyone else will go to ground. Even the most honorable men have vices. Even the purest of women have needs.

Not everyone could be as emotionless and dutiful as Stannis Baratheon. And not everyone was Davos Seaworth, willing to lose fingers for the plain and simple act of saving a starving garrison.

No, even if Stannis managed to avoid accusations of Kingslaying, he would still find himself dealing with Euron Greyjoy's rebellion, and without nearly the support that Robert had during the last Ironborn Rebellion. More than that, his inflexibility would force more and more people to turn to illicit services and that… that was where Petyr Baelish thrived.

It was a shame, really. It wasn't even that personal for Petyr. Jon Arryn had been good to him throughout his life, but Petyr Baelish had learned long ago that he didn't owe anything to anyone but himself. If Axel had been more like his father and Jon had continued to be blind to Petyr's activities, then perhaps neither man would have had to die quite this early.

Varys though… by the Seven, Petyr wishes he could have seen the look on the Spider's face when the wildfire went off. Keeping the whole scheme a secret from the Master of Whispers had taken up quite a lot of Petyr's resources and energy over the past few weeks.

Even as he and Euron had both moved their pieces into place and prepared to enact their plans, separate from one another but also simultaneously, he'd been making sure Varys didn't find out. Fortunately, the Spider had been distracted by something else.

What that something was, Petyr didn't rightly know… nor did he care either. After all, it wasn't like it mattered anymore. The man was dead and the games they'd played with one another were officially over. They were all dead… while Petyr still lived.

Where they all had fallen, he remained standing. Because unlike everyone else, Petyr understood that life could be boiled down to just opportunities and costs. More than that, life was chaos. Unstructured, disorganized, endless chaos.

And chaos… chaos was a ladder. Petyr understood that better than most because he'd started at the bottom of that ladder. Those who started at the top, they could never understand the climb. Someone like Axel Baratheon couldn't begin to comprehend what Petyr had gone through.

It didn't matter anymore though. Axel Baratheon was dead, burnt to a crisp by the wildfire. Petyr would just have to take advantage of the chaos his death left in its wake.

-x-X-x-

Fire.

Green flames, followed by darkness, followed by green flames, followed by darkness. Axel Baratheon burns… but he does not die. He burns, but he still draws breath. Every last inhale and exhale is agony, yet still he lives.

The flames become his entire existence. They cover him from head to toe, clinging to him and drinking of his flesh, his blood, his body quite… greedily. All Axel knows is the sensation of burning, of fire biting at his form again and again as any healing is undone by more flames.

The last thing he remembers from before the fire is Jon Arryn's face. The man who had kept him safe in the Vale throughout his childhood. The man who had brought him to King's Landing, seen him coronated as King, and mentored him in all the things he needed to know.

Jon had been saying something… something about how he knew Axel would make the right call, how he trusted him. He'd been smiling at Axel, reaching out and grasping his shoulder.

And then the flames had come, both too slow and too fast. There wasn't anything Axel could do. Caught off guard as he was, he hadn't been able to react in time. Maybe if he'd been facing the source of the explosion rather than Jon… but he hadn't been.

And yet, he'd still had to watch. He'd had to watch as Jon's face had burned away inch by inch. Axel watched as the closest thing he'd ever had to a father turned into an unrecognizable, charred husk right before his eyes in what must have been a mere instant but wound up feeling like an eternity.

That was the last thing Axel saw before the green flames filled his vision and then took that vision away from him. Darkness and burning became his only two constants.

… He's not sure how long it lasts. Only that when he finally comes back to himself, the green flames finally dying out, Axel is no longer in the Small Council Chambers. Instead, he finds himself in the Great Sept of all places, kneeling in front of the statue of the Father, naked and trembling. Not from the cold draft moving through the space… but from deep emotion.

Staring up at the Father's statue, Axel Baratheon shakes… with pure and utter rage.

-x-X-x-

A/N: Yeah so I did originally consider ending this chapter on just Baelish's POV, but then I figured you might all try to kill me if I did that so here you go. One more chapter left in Arc 3 and then we get to Arc 4… and shit really starts to go wild~

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