Snippet #1497408

"Shuddap. The Great Me can do whatever I like whenever I desire. Like burning down King's Landing, even when blind drunk," Maryn said cheerfully. He made a drunken mental note to ride into (sail into?) battle at the king's palace drunker than a boned fish.

---
"Stop that! What the hell are you doing to the shrouds?" Quin exclaimed. He had been chasing around drunken Mummers for what seemed like the whole night. If Lionel thought catching them in the streets was bad, trying to prevent them from turning the ships into floating piles of flotsam was an even worse task. Quin wondered where the heck Lionel was was. The ex-prince was much overdue for another righteous Ser Quincel glare. Quincel dragged the flailing man off the ropes and set him down safely on his feet, where the Mummer promptly thanked him by puking all over the deck. Quin jumped back to avoid getting spew chunks on his shoes.

"Clean that up," he said in a strained voice to no one in particular.

"No way!" Maryn replied happily. "Why the long face, long face? Maybe a drink or two or three will help!" He had (surprisingly) listened to Jans, but was still feeling very good, thanks to the general aura of drunkeness (and maybe a few other worldly delights).

Quincel stared at him coldly. "No thank you." Someone had to keep a level head in this madness.

"Killjoy," Maryn said pleasantly. He trotted off to go find somewhere to sleep.

Quincel stared at him hard as he walked away. Then with a sigh, he went over to the railing and leaned on it, looking out to sea. Although he knew that it was the tactically logical thing to do, he was certain that Lionel had picked Winterfell as his first target just to spite him. He had disapproved of every plan Lionel had laid out, but of course, no one else had, so they had completely ignored him. Quincel felt like a shadow of his former self. Once shipmaster of the Greyhardt fleet, now he had degraded to a renegade pirate sailing around with these... these... ARGH. He was a reserved person, so he liked to believe, but at that moment, Quincel wanted to kick something (or someone) overboard and laugh at it and make fun of its ancestors and gods. He took a calming breath to maintain his stoic face.

And that wasn't even the worst part. He had had millions of chances to just simply leave, but no. He had to keep following his neice (and consequentially, Lionel). And now they were sailing out to war with his own family. He wondered sadly what was going to happen then. He hoped that Nathanial and Birgitte could be spared, hoped without a shred of reason that the war wasn't going to happen. He'd wake up, realize this was all an insane, liquor-induced dream, and lock Leliana in an iron cage forever so this would never, never happen.

Quincel pressed his fingers to his temples. "Nathanial, I have failed so miserably. What am I going to do?" He wished (not for the first time) that Nathanial was here and could tell him what to do. Nathanial was the lord, he was the one who knew how to deal with critical situations like this.

"See, you're talking to yourself. You're just as crazy as the rest of us," Maryn said creepily from Quincel's side. So he had decided to come back and bother Long Face again after all.

Quin nearly threw himself overboard with shock, but recovered quickly. He sighed. Yes. I am as crazy as the rest of them. He'd written his own order for execution, there was nothing to it but to go through with it now.