Robin Flint remained in King’s Landing for seven days after the contest in the Great Hall, though he avoided the gossiping court nobles like a outbreak of greyscale. Whenever an ambitious lord or flustered lady tried to corner him in the corridors to talk of poetry, marriage, or silk, Robin simply vanished into the sea gates or retreated to the quiet high gardens of the Red Keep.
Yet there were two places in the royal castle where the young Lord of Flint’s Finger could always be found: the high stone terrace overlooking Blackwater Bay, and the knight’s training yard below the Maidenvault.
High above the stench of the capital, on the sun-drenched marble terrace of the royal nursery, Robin sat cross-legged on a stone bench, holding his dark cherrywood lute.
Sitting on a soft velvet cushion directly in front of him was two-year-old Princess Myrcella. Her bright golden curls bounced as she clapped her tiny hands, her big emerald eyes fixed on Robin with absolute, adoration-filled wonder. Beside her, resting in an ivory-and-gold cradle wrapped in silk blankets, was newborn Prince Tommen. The little infant, who usually cried through the muggy summer afternoons, lay completely silent, his soft blue eyes wide as he listened to the gentle resonance of the strings.
A few paces away stood five-year-old Prince Joffrey. The young prince had his small arms crossed tightly over his padded velvet tunic, his nose turned up in a forced, stubborn scoff.
"Minstrels are for girls," Joffrey muttered loudly, kicking a pebble across the marble floor. "When I am King, I am going to ban lutes and make everyone practice with real steel swords!"
Robin didn't get angry. He simply offered the young prince a calm, knowing smile, plucking a fast, sharp martial rhythm on his silver strings that sounded like the galloping of war-horses.
"A king who knows only steel is easily tricked by men who know numbers and song, Prince Joffrey," Robin said smoothly, his voice quiet and even. "A true commander understands every weapon—including the ones that don't spill blood."
Joffrey grunted, trying hard to look unimpressed, but his eyes secretly darted back to Robin's fingers, fascinated despite himself by the speed of his picking.
Robin shifted his tuning, leaning back against the warm stone railing as a soft sea breeze blew up from the harbor. He began to sing a slow, sweeping acoustic melody—a song of long journeys, ancient heartaches, and deep waters (Rivers).
His voice carried effortlessly over the high crenellations of the Red Keep. Swept by the afternoon updrafts, the clear, beautiful melody drifted down the cliffs of Aegon’s High Hill, echoing over the slate roofs of the lower city and into the narrow alleys of Flea Bottom. Far below, fishmongers, harbor laborers, and blacksmiths paused in their work, looking up toward the sky in quiet wonder as the young Northern lord's song filled the warm summer air.
Standing in the shadow of the terrace doorway, draped in his long white cloak, was Ser Barristan Selmy.
The old Lord Commander of the Kingsguard stood motionless, his gauntleted hand resting on the pommel of his sword. As he watched Robin softly hum a verse to keep newborn Tommen from crying, Barristan felt an old, familiar ache tighten in his chest.
By the Gods... the old knight thought, his eyes growing misty with memories of a lost era. I have not heard a voice ring across these stones like that since Prince Rhaegar sat upon these very terraces with his silver harp.
Yet Barristan knew Robin Flint was no tragic, doomed prince of dragon-fire. Beneath the melodic beauty of his songs lay the hard, practical iron of the North—a young man who built glasshouses, calculated warship displacements, and commanded troops with total, unyielding clarity.
Myrcella scrambled up from her cushion, waddling over to bury her face into Robin’s slate-grey doublet, grabbing his leather sleeve with her small fingers.
"Sing it again, Robin!" she pleaded softly. "Don't go back to the sea!"
Robin gently patted the little princess's golden hair, offering a warm, rare smile. "I must go back soon, sweet princess. But I will send you dried rose petals and sweet apple jam from my glasshouses every moon."
While his mornings were spent on the terrace, Robin’s afternoons were divided between the two most pragmatic minds in the capital.
In the royal naval office, Robin spent four hours with Lord Stannis Baratheon. They spread massive rolls of parchment across a long oak table, weighted down by brass calipers and iron compasses. Robin handed Stannis the complete structural schematics for The Blade of Winter’s copper hull-sheathing, along with diagrams for his double-counterweighted rudder systems and high-tension scorpion swivels.
Stannis leaned over the blueprints, his sharp eyes scanning every line of Robin’s precise handwriting. He traced the mathematical ratios for copper rivet spacing with a long, pale finger.
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"This is exceptional work, Robin," Stannis said, his tone carrying the ultimate mark of his cold, rare approval. "No shipwright in King's Landing or Oldtown has ever conceptualized a fluid-drag reduction ratio like this. I am ordering the royal shipyards to begin cladding six of our heavy war-galleys immediately."
"It will double your fleet's operational longevity, Lord Stannis," Robin nodded respectfully. "And prevent timber rot during winter dockings."
Later that evening, Robin retired to the cool, shaded alcoves of the castle gardens with Tyrion Lannister.
The two sat over a jug of dark arbor gold and a plate of dried figs, talking for hours on end. They debated the hydraulic mechanics of ancient Valyrian aqueducts, the economic impact of Free City trade tariffs, the structural logistics of the Wall, and the philosophy of pre-conquest Northern kings.
"You know, Robin," Tyrion chuckled, swirling his wine glass and looking up at the broad-shouldered teenager with genuine delight, "talking to you is a deeply alarming experience. Half the time I forget I am speaking to a boy who hasn't even reached his sixteenth name-day, and the other half I am convinced you secretly read the entire library of Oldtown while sleeping."
"Knowledge is merely applied observation, Tyrion," Robin replied smoothly, sipping his cool spring water. "Most men simply fail to observe."
"A heavy burden to carry in a realm full of blind men," Tyrion grinned warmly, raising his glass in a quiet toast.
On the fifth day, King Robert dragged Robin out into the dark, tangled woods of the Kingswood for a royal boar hunt.
The King had grown noticeably heavier over the past year—his broad belly stretching the leather straps of his hunting doublet, his red beard stained with ale—but in the wild forest, Robert Baratheon was still a force of nature. When a massive, eight-hundred-pound wild boar charged through the thick briars, Robert didn't back away. With a wild, booming laugh that shook the pine needles from the trees, the King stepped forward and plunged his heavy hunting spear straight through the beast's chest with mountain-like, terrifying strength!
"LOOK AT THAT, ROBIN!" Robert roared, wiping sweat and mud from his brow as the boar collapsed. "THAT'S A HUNT! None of that southern falcon-hawking nonsense! Raw steel and muscle!"
Robin, holding his own ironwood short-bow, offered a respectful nod. "A clean strike, Your Grace. The force vector was absolute."
Robert laughed, throwing a heavy arm around Robin's shoulders and nearly knocking the teenager into the dirt. "Force vectors! Hark at the boy! Come, let's roast the monster and drink until the sun dies!"
While Robin spent his mornings with the children and his afternoons hunting or debating, he systematically rejected every invitation from the court's ambitious lords. He ignored the Tyrell cousins, turned down dinner with the Redwynes, and brushed past the Florents.
However, there was one invitation Robin never refused: Queen Cersei’s daily tea gatherings.
Every afternoon at four, Robin attended the Queen’s private solar. Cersei, normally icy, paranoid, and condescending to southern courtiers, was surprisingly warm and gracious toward the young Northern lord.
She loved how quiet and polite he was. She loved that he didn't join her husband's loud, vulgar drinking bouts. Most of all, she watched with deep, maternal softness as Robin patiently sat on her silk carpets, letting sweet little Myrcella braid ribbons into his dark hair while he sang quiet lullabies to keep baby Tommen asleep.
"You have a gentle soul, Lord Robin," Cersei said softly one afternoon, sipping her tea from a thin porcelain cup as she watched him hold Tommen. "It is a rare thing in a land full of brute beasts."
"Gentleness is a choice, Your Grace," Robin replied calmly, meeting her green eyes with steady, polite warmth. "Strength without control is merely chaos."
Cersei offered a faint, genuine smile—a real one, free of court poison—and poured him another cup of sweet plum tea.
Yet the most grueling hours of Robin's week were spent in the dusty cobblestone training yard below the White Sword Tower.
Here, stripped down to his linen shirt, leather boots, and light arm-guards, Robin faced Ser Jaime Lannister.
The Kingsguard knight was a golden terror with a blunted steel longsword. Jaime moved with a fluid, blinding speed that bordered on supernatural grace, his blade a whistling arc of polished steel that struck from impossible angles.
CLANG! SLASH! THUD!
Robin blocked a heavy, flashing high guard, parried a lightning-fast riposte toward his ribs, and spun backward to absorb the momentum of Jaime’s sweeping thrust.
Robin’s M22 spatial awareness operated at absolute maximum capacity. He calculated Jaime’s balance shifts, measured the micro-extensions of his shoulder muscles, and tracked the exact arc of his blade. Yet Jaime’s sheer, instinctual genius with a sword was so terrifyingly refined that logic alone could not entirely bridge the gap.
Jaime feinted low, flipped his wrist, and caught Robin with a sharp, blunted tap across his left shoulder-plate.
"Point!" Jaime laughed, stepping back and wiping sweat from his golden hair with the back of his leather glove. "That makes six bouts to four today, young wolf! You're losing!"
Robin leaned against his sword, breathing heavily, his chest heaving, sweat dripping from his chin onto the dust. But his dark eyes carried no frustration—only a fierce, burning focus.
"Last week it was eight bouts to two, Ser Jaime," Robin noted smoothly, straightening his posture and raising his guard once more. "The gap is closing."
Jaime’s bright blue eyes flashed with genuine excitement and deep, professional respect. He raised his own sword, his athletic frame coiled like a springing panther.
"By the Gods, Robin, you truly are a monster," Jaime grinned, his white cloak fluttering in the afternoon wind. "You don't fight like a knight. You fight like an engineer building an iron wall, block by block, until there's no room left for me to swing!"
"Then let us see if the wall holds this time," Robin said quietly.
For another hour, the dark steel of the North clashed against the golden blade of the Kingsguard, two masters pushing each other to their absolute physical limits beneath the afternoon sun.
When the week finally came to an end, and The Blade of Winter prepared to unmoor from the harbor quays, half the royal family stood at the stone pier to see Robin off. Little Myrcella wept softly into her mother's silk gown, while King Robert waved a massive leather tankard from the battlements.
Robin stood on the quarterdeck of his flagship as the grey sails caught the wind, looking back at the towering red castle. He had come to King's Landing to sing a song, but he left behind a capital whose heart, children, and sword-masters would never look at the North the same way again.