Narmen’s feet hurt. The thick layer of leatherlike callus on his feet didn’t have much in the way of sensation left and he didn’t feel the cuts that stone and friction had gifted him with over the course of his journey to Oldtown, but his muscles were sore and exhausted from all the walking. He took a deep breath in, slowly released it through his nose, and kept walking as he made his way from the city gates to the Starry Sept.

The sept was quiet when he walked in. A few people were knelt in silent prayer at the various altars, and an acolyte moved quietly through the hall, refilling the oil at each altar. The same acolyte came to meet the travel-haggard septon as he trudged through the door, his robes swishing quietly across the smooth marble floor.

“Brother, welcome to the Starry Sept. Come, have a seat.”

“I am Septon Narmen of the Most Devout, Legate to Highgarden, and I need to speak to Septon Horace immediately.”

The acolyte was relieved, instead of caring for this older septon(as he so often had to), he could simply drop him off at Horace’s office and get back to refilling the oil. Refilling the oil was his favourite task, and he liked to relish it undistracted. He guided Narmen to the office of the lead septon, and disappeared back into his duty.

Narmen was surprised to see that Septa Anne was also sitting in the lead septon’s office. She had briefly been a member of the Most Devout alongside him, before being removed for her lack of age. Rightly so too, he thought, given her radicalist tendencies. Seeing her with Horace was a bad sign, as he had been traditionally been a reformist as well, and Narmen instantly lost hope that this conversation would go how he wanted it to. Still, he didn’t waste a second declaring the news to his peers,

“Peake is king.”

Horace’s reacted with a small nod in acknowledgement, while Anne made no attempt to hide the grin on her face.

The resulting discussion was a little over fifteen hours long, and featured an additional four Septons and Septas being drawn into the room, five retrievals of ancient theological texts, and two dull thuds against the walls that the nearby Acolytes hoped weren’t violent. At the end, the Septons and Septas emerged all looking significantly worse for wear. Septon Horace looked like he was about to faint, Narmen had dried blood poured from his nose all the way down his lips and robes, Septa Anne had a light red burn all down her forearm, and the rest simply looked to be in dire need of a nap.

The next morning, Septon Horace spoke in front of the congregation at the Starry Sept,

“The following we claim as holy truth, as understood from all the godly texts and traditions as they have been passed down to us,

Firstly, that the Doctrine of Exceptionalism is false. The Seven Pointed Star reveals to us that The Seven created all men, and the code of law they dictated to Hugor of The Hill applies to all men. The Targaryens and the demon-worshipping Valyrians before them existed in open defiance of the proper acts of nature, through sorcery, incest and polygamy. There is a reason The Seven saw fit to smite them down.

And secondly, that the ‘revelation’ that the high septon claimed to have witnessed four sevens less one septannums ago, came of no godly powers. He either declared falsehood for political gain, or in the weakness of the flesh succumbed to madness. In either case, the gods never gave sign that the faith should welcome Aegon Targaryen.

It is this that we declare to all followers of The Faith, from the High Septon himself to the lowliest commoner, know that what has been spoken here is Truth. And it is also with such that we welcome King Titus Peake, and invite him to be coronated in full view of gods and men here at the Starry Sept.”

The words themselves were Anne’s, but the others had chosen Horace to read them in the hopes that it would have them taken more seriously. After he finished reading the declaration, the aging septon launched into a more standard sermon on the importance of holy law and droned on for a few hours more.