"My father is not prone to exaggeration," Seraphina replied with a thin smile, but there was fondness behind it.
Setting down the quill on the drip plate to drain, she capped the inkpot. "The reason I was at the auction in Dorne," she began, glancing at the doorway of the tent and the silhouettes of the guardsmen standing watch. Then she seemed to reconsider her approach to beginning the conversation by that angle.
"I'm sure you've noticed," she started again, "that the soldiers here do not wear the insignia of House Pitchiner. They are, in fact, all sellswords. We've never had a large holding, and my father took the loyal of Greencross men with him to fight the Pentoshi, but did not want our land undefended. This troupe of sellswords call themselves 'Fearlings', and in many ways, that name is accurate. I trust the hold of coin over them, but coin doesn't buy loyalty... and it doesn't train the younger generation in a way that I would want them trained."
She lets that sink in for a moment, and then returns to her original statement. "So the reason I was at the auction, was to try and find someone with proper, reputable training, perhaps a disgraced Knight, or a displaced fosterling bastard, I don't care about their circumstance. As long as they can teach, and teach well. Not just about swinging a sword or firing a bow, but about how to be loyal. How to be someone who can be relied upon, not simply because they are being paid to do so."
no subject
Setting down the quill on the drip plate to drain, she capped the inkpot. "The reason I was at the auction in Dorne," she began, glancing at the doorway of the tent and the silhouettes of the guardsmen standing watch. Then she seemed to reconsider her approach to beginning the conversation by that angle.
"I'm sure you've noticed," she started again, "that the soldiers here do not wear the insignia of House Pitchiner. They are, in fact, all sellswords. We've never had a large holding, and my father took the loyal of Greencross men with him to fight the Pentoshi, but did not want our land undefended. This troupe of sellswords call themselves 'Fearlings', and in many ways, that name is accurate. I trust the hold of coin over them, but coin doesn't buy loyalty... and it doesn't train the younger generation in a way that I would want them trained."
She lets that sink in for a moment, and then returns to her original statement. "So the reason I was at the auction, was to try and find someone with proper, reputable training, perhaps a disgraced Knight, or a displaced fosterling bastard, I don't care about their circumstance. As long as they can teach, and teach well. Not just about swinging a sword or firing a bow, but about how to be loyal. How to be someone who can be relied upon, not simply because they are being paid to do so."