Another day had dawned. The Northern lords and ladies had left. Leaving the remaining ones to once to discuss the future of the broken city.

Gendry had not slept. He had not eaten. He had barely got his jacket on properly. But he was drunk on life and love. And he had a newfound sense of confidence. Confidence that he was just as good as any of them up there.

As he walked up the stairs to the podium in the Dragon Pit he looked right at the king. He knew now who the king was, and who he wasn't. He looked right into his eyes and saw just emptiness and darkness. Just like Meera had said. And Gendry had believed her.

The king looked back at him. There was something else in his eyes now. Anger, and confusion.

***

The king looked at Lord Baratheon and saw his whole carefully built plan fall apart. Because he shouldn't be there. He should have left with Arya. And now the king couldn't see him anymore. The man was standing right in front of him but he also wasn't there. The king couldn't see his faith, his future, his role.

Gendry Baratheon wasn't supposed to be important. He was just a bastard blacksmith pretending to be a lord. But now suddenly the king couldn't see what the man in front of him was anymore.

Something had changed. Something was out of place. Something would have to be done.

***

The council went on for a long time. Honestly, Gendry didn't understand a lot of what was said, and he was dozing off a bit. He wasn't accustomed to the vocabulary or phrasings used by the lords. And he had also barely slept for days.

But as one specific matter came up he began to listen. Because this he knew about. This he cared about.

"And now on to the matter of food," said Tyrion Lannister, the new hand of the king. "What should we do with all the hungry people fleeing the capital?"

"We can't feed them all," Lord Royce chimed in. "So better not to feed them at all."

"So you suggest we let them fend for themselves," Tyrion replied. "Let who survive, survive so to speak."

Lord Royce nodded.

"We can't feed all forever," the prince of Dorne chimed in. "So better not make them used to it."

"They will storm out castles when we stop feeding them," Edmure Tully said.

"Won't they storm your castle regardless though?" Howland Reed asked. "I mean they won't storm mine, because of the crocodiles... But if the people are hungry they will come to your castles anyway. Where else are they to go?"

"At least we haven't already let them in then," Edmure Tully replied. "If we start feeding them they are already in our castles, they will storm us from the inside."

"We can feed our own people, that's who we have an obligation towards." Paxter Redwyne said. "If we start feeding everyone we won't be able to feed our own soon."

"I*ve looked this up in some ledgers from the past," Samwell Tarly, who was apparently the appointed maester at this council, said. "And in previous times of disaster, the population has always declined afterward. It's just the way it goes. But the strong will survive and thrive. The kingdom will be better for it."

Several of the other lords nodded in agreement to this. This seemed to be an easy solution for them all. No need to deal with pesky commoners at their castle gates demanding more and more food.

"Very well," Tyrion Lannister said. "What do you say, King Bran? Do you agree with the lords' assessment?"

The king was quiet for a bit after the question, a little too long to not be weird. He stared into space as usual, at what no one knew. Then he spoke.

"People will live and people will die. Feeding them won't prevent that. It won't matter. Some will survive. The common people always find a way. They will find a way to get what they need."

At that point, Gendry couldn't hold his anger in anymore. What did these lords know of commoners? What gave them the right to chose who ate or not? To chose who lived and who died?

Without even realizing it himself he stood up. He didn't even notice Davos' hand on his leg trying to prevent him from doing so.

Gendry stood up and turned to all of them. Some of them seemed to share looks between them as he did. They had probably forgotten that he was there. They had forgotten that one among them was until recently one of those pesky commoners.

Maybe it was adrenaline that made him do it. Maybe it was endorphins. Maybe he was just foolish. Regardless of the reason he now stood there right in front of them all and spoke. In the middle of the half-moon podium of the Dragon Pit.

"Is that really what you think of commoners? That if you give them anything they will never keep taking." he started.

He spoke with the fury that came with being a Baratheon. He spoke with the knowledge of how it was like to have nothing in this world. He spoke with the passion of a man who had just fallen in love.

"I might know nothing about being a lord, but I don't pretend to either," he continued. "But I do know about being a commoner. None of you do. And I know that I probably would have rather died than taking any kind of charity. Because being a commoner doesn't make you less proud. But I was a single man with no one dependant on me. Many of the people out there have children, they have elderly parents, they have people they need to feed. I beg you to help them do that. I know I will regardless of what we decide here today. And I promise you that they won't take more than they absolutely need because their pride will prevent them from doing so. They will rise on their own as soon as they can if you just help them a little bit."

At that moment he was truly the son of Robert Baratheon. But he was also his mother's son. The barmaid with blonde hair whose name her son didn't even know. She who had been forced to give up her only child because she couldn't feed him.

Gendry saw some of the lords and ladies nod in agreement with him. He saw Davos smiling at him with pride.

Then he looked at the king. And he saw only hatred.

"You're right, Lord Baratheon. You know nothing about being a lord. You can't save everyone," the king, who was definitely not Bran Stark, said.

"I can try at least. I  can give them a chance."

"Do you even know if your castle has the resources to feed anyone, Lord Baratheon?" Tyrion Lannister asked. "You've barely been there."

"It does," his cousin Tyrek Lannister replied. "We were prepared to hold that siege for a long time. The tunnels of Storm's End are stocked with stores of potatoes, onions, and grains. He can feed a lot of people."

Gendry did not know this, so he was thankful Tyrek had answered for him. Marya Seaworth was the one who was responsible for the food at Storm's End.

"Then Lord Baratheon can do that." the king replied." You can all do that. But the crown won't. We will rebuild the city but we won't feed the people. Because they will rise up against us when we can't feed them anymore. Which I'm sure Lord Baratheon will become aware of soon enough."

"You're wrong," Gendry said. "I'm not afraid of them. I believe they will rise on their own. Why care about buildings instead of people? It's just bricks... these are living breathing people, and they might not be for much longer if we don't feed them. Feed them and they can help you rebuild."

"That's enough, Lord Baratheon," the king said in a menacing tone. "You can do what you want in your own castle but the crown won't feed anyone. And now would be a good time for you to sit down."

Gendry didn't sit down. Instead, he walked up to the king. He stared right at him.

Now he was just being foolish. Even he knew that.

"You might be the king," he said, "but you don't decide what I do."

There was a glint in the king's eye. A ruthlessness and darkness that shouldn't be there. Gendry saw it clearly when he stared at him. Like the king knew he was making the wrong choice, and he was reveling in it. The king knew he should feed the people, but he refused to do so.

With that Gendry turned around. He walked off the stage. He walked away from the Dragon Pit.

"Let him go," he heard the king say to his hand. "He doesn't matter anyway."

He heard some of the lords snickering behind him as he left.

"He certainly has the temper of a commoner," Lord Royce said behind him.

***

Gendry kept walking after he left the Dragon Pit. He didn't know where to go.

He wanted to find Meera but he knew that was a bad idea. She had to be in the tent she shared with her father and he didn't want to be found there. He had already made enough of a fool of himself in front of the other lords. Being found courting one of their daughters probably wouldn't endear them to him.

So he kept walking instead. Until he knew where he was going. Until he found the one place where he could find himself again.

That's why he found himself eventually sitting on top of the ruins of the workshop where he had once worked. The workshop where he would have been if it wasn't for everything. It was only rubble left of it now, piles of rocks and dust with some metal bars sticking up. Under the dust, some tools and weapons from the workshop could be seen.

This was where Davos Seaworth found him. After the council had ended for the day he had decided to try to find the runaway lord and check on him.

Gendry was sitting with his arms around his curled up legs on a turned over wall. Davos had expected him to be upset but he didn't seem to be. Gendry looked determined and calm. Like he had found some kind of truth about himself.

"I thought I might find you here, Lord Baratheon."

"You've found me here before. But don't call me that Davos, you know what my name is."

Davos sat down next to him, among the rubble of the fallen city where he once too had grown up. He put his hand on Gendry's shoulder as he did.

"Your name is Gendry Baratheon. That's who you are. Lord Paramount of Storm's End."

"I know who I am. And I know I'm not like them, like all the other lords. And I don't want to be. Because they don't care. They don't care about the people. They would have let me die too. I could just as well have been one of them. I could have been among the people fleeing the capital. And I'm not ashamed of that. I'm not ashamed that my mother was a barmaid. I'm not ashamed that I never knew my father. I'm not ashamed that I've had to work since I was old enough to hold a hammer."

"And you shouldn't be ashamed. You should be proud."

"But I don't deserve it. I didn't do anything to deserve what I got. I didn't choose my father. But yet I'm here. I'm the only one who's ever made it. From Fleabottom to being a lord. And it weighs on me because I have to do it for all of them. Everyone who didn't make it. Because I'm still just like them. I'm not better, I'm not more deserving, I'm not special."

"That's not what I saw when you stood on that stage today. I would say you were pretty darn special. And the other lords might say that your temper comes from you being a commoner. But I would say it comes from your father. Because you've never looked more like your father than you did today. You just need to reign it in a bit, you need to know when to back down."

"I made a fool of myself, didn't I?"

"No, you didn't. You showed them who you are, and that you won't back down."

"I stood up to the king... I could probably be beheaded for that."

"It would take a lot more than that to earn yourself a beheading. He knows the Stormlands would be in uproar if he took you out. I don't think he wants to start off his reign with that."

"I know I can trust you Davos, and I need to tell you that I don't think he'll be a good king... I don't think it was the right choice."

"You voted for him. So why this change of heart now?"

Gendry sighed. He couldn't tell Davos what Meera had told him. About who the king really was. He had promised her and he would never betray her trust.

But now he had seen with his own eyes who the king really was, and he could tell Davos that.

"He's not compassionate. He doesn't care about the people. He sees them as ants, an inconvenience that has to be dealt with. And who cares if some of them die?"

"Give him a chance, it's only his first day."

"And he's already doomed thousands of people to starve..."

"I could have nominated you, you know. Your father was the king, you've got the right heritage."

Somehow this had not occurred to Gendry until now. That he wasn't just a lord. He also had a claim to the throne. It was a ridiculous thought to him.

"I couldn't be king. I can't even read. And they would never have voted for me anyway, all the other lords and ladies. I'm just a commoner with a bad temper, remember" he said and smiled.

"You can learn how to read, I did. And you know you are more than that."

"I'm not. I'm neither more nor less than that. I'm a commoner with a bad temper, a castle, and an army. They might call me Lord Baratheon. I might call myself that. But really I'm still Gendry. It's the name my mother gave me and it's all I have left of her. Everything else I have is from my father. My title, my castle, even my face. But my name is from her. I'm her son too."

"She would have been proud of you. The way you spoke up there today."

"I never knew her. I wish I at least knew her name. She left me at the orphanage, and then she died. I only remember seeing her once. But maybe if things had been just a little bit better, if someone had cared just a little bit more, I could have known her. And that's why I said what I said. I did it for her. Because no one should have to make the decision to leave their child like that."

Once she had walked those streets. The streets of the capital that were now so broken. She had lived there, she had laughed there, she had danced there. And she had died there.

She had been so young, so beautiful, so full of life. She hadn't been anyone, yet she had been everything. A barmaid with long blonde hair and a pretty smile who looked a bit like Lyanna Stark. A girl from the Riverlands who came to the capital to make money for her family. Who found herself ostracized when they found out she was carrying a bastard child. Which left her with no other option than to give him up. She promised to come back for him one day. But that day never came, because when the flu ravaged the capital it took her with it.

She had loved her son. She had wanted to give him everything, but she had nothing to give. She had named him after her own father, who she hoped one day would let her come back home.

She had been his mother, and her name had been Annara. And one day her son would know that.