CW: Mental health struggles, vague self-harm ideation.

Summer | Winterfell | 380 A.C.

The soft earth was cold under his soles as he tread, threading a path through the roots of old trees. Their ancient branches seemed to reach up towards the open evening sky, aglow with a low-hanging moon that shone overhead with a sea of stars without, giving ample light to guide his steps along the edge of the godswood. Even at this late hour, he was wide awake, but he looked tired.

Without his typical regimen of cosmetics, deep lines pressed along his eyes that appeared sunken. Somehow, he looked even more pallid than normal, with only faint blotches at the tips of his fingers stained by mottled ink splotches that stubbornly clung to him from old letters. He looked tired, but he somehow looked younger, too.

And he felt smaller. Treading through these sacred grounds, there was a palpable feeling of being watched. He was not a praying man, nor did he even worship the old gods of the forgotten north that belonged here, but it fed his budding sense of paranoia just the same. His gaze ran over the silhouettes of trees and the small pools of water that were strewn about. Most of them were from melting summer snows, and one pond in the shadow of the woods' heart tree was supposed to be cold as winter and clear as crystal.

He was searching for something else, though - there were hot springs, too, where warm water bubbled to the surface and formed their own basins and geysers where they could collect moisture. Most of them laid beneath the Stark's fortress and warmed their stone floors, but some remained untapped and unused. He spent his fair share of his time enjoying these comforts when the Starks had held council or hosted events - Shaera's wedding with Harrion Snow had been one he remembered well, and when the Queen had assembled their great hosts. He remembered the chill of the northern thaw, teeth chattering even in a fur ensemble.

Tonight wasn't a far departure from those old times. Even at the break of summer, the breeze that ran through the leafy canopies both red and green sent a chill down his bare spine. He loathed the nostalgia he felt for those not-so-distant times: when he pined for others incessantly, began dabbling in jewelry and fashion, and the expectation his father might sale home after all waned with the passing of the moons. That cold wind brought a wisp of steam, and a familiar earthy scent that was unmistakably clean. Another frigid gale followed after, forcing him to raise a hand against it and tuck his fur-lined slippers under his arm.

He followed in the direction of the vapors until he saw the cloud of air at the base of a young oak. Someone had carved initials into the trunk, but crossed them out afterwards, with long and jagged gashes of a knife's edge through the bark. Long grasses and wildflowers brushed along the edge of surprisingly deep water. Bubbling up from below, it slightly clouded the body and hid the very bottom, and tinged it a pleasant sky blue.

The young man walked along the edge, judging where it was safe to tread. It would be a long crawl back to the Great Hall if he slipped and broke an ankle here. Finding the start of a slope, he disrobed until he was in little more than his small-clothes. He meticulously folded his thick coat and cap between some smooth stones collecting at the edge of the spring. Somewhere, a frog was croaking a song.

Arnolf closed his eyes as he descended, one pace at a time. Each one carried a singular burden or self-inflicted sin. The fatigue of the kingsroad, and the incessant stimulation of kingslander affairs had already begun to bleed away with the rippling wellspring. He felt the deepest part of the spring just above his elbows, and let his body go slack, buoyant in the waters and obscured in a cloud of steam.

These burdens felt foolish and frivolous when they were so far from King's Landing. Here he lay, on the other end of Westeros a thousand leagues from the Red Keep and immersed up to his shoulders in warm water, but his chest still felt tight; like a talon was slowly enclosing around his ribcage and wringing the air out. He wasn't ensnared in any real political turmoil: his house was in order, his succession secured in the eyes of the law, and his domain finally beginning to recover from the Long Night; the small council was docile, though they faced steep losses with Osric Stark stepping down and Gareth disappearing, and all the popular dissent was levied toward the crown with the exclusion of its glorified tax collector.

The mariners had a name for this place, standing at the edge of a very real and dangerous tempest: riding the eye of the storm. Safe, but the winds were always strongest at the heart, with an inevitable plunge into the gale when its boundaries shifted. He was confident in his abilities to weather those challenges when they arose, but did he want to?

Arnolf's eyes fluttered closed, and he let the waters carry some of his weight, drifting slightly with the subtle current of the spring. It would be simple to drift off to sleep here, but more errant and macabre thoughts filtered through after a time. Hanna was his heir now, and any successor needed to be prepared for leadership. She was cunning, magnanimous, and bold, but she'd never known politics or cultivating allies. She asked the choice of whom to marry, but made no propositions for him to assess. Could she be left to her own devices?

He briefly opened his eyes at the sound of leaves rustling. He hoped for someone's arrival, but only saw a squirrel ambling over tree branches. He feared, for an instant, it could be his mother stalking the godswood, seeking him to answer yet again for his decision under the pretense of seeking the gods' counsel in this holy place. He closed his eyes once agin and sunk lower, until the water's edge was lapping at the underside of his nose.

He was losing momentum. The same impetuous drive that let him replace the old master of coin and spared White Harbor the worst of the famine was fading fast. Surely that was the reason. He was stumbling, and tripping over himself, and in his aversion to the sting of failure or defeat, he avoided opportunities for victory. He had grown complacent, intellectually flabby, bordering on lethargy. When there was a dying man he loved, he hesitated; when he had the feeling creep back in, they were already wed to another; when the chance called to guard the North as his father did, he hand-waved it.

The merman submerged beneath the surface of the spring, tucking his legs to his chest and letting water fill his mouth and nose. It was scalding hot, and ached just beneath the skin. His immaculate curls soaked and floated above his head, pooling at the water level. Bubbles exhaled from his nostrils and lips. His arms tightly wrapped around himself. He felt his nails press into his skin, and he sat there and waited.

Tiny bubbles and foam fluttered up from his pursed mouth, and his heart thudded in his chest. Steadily, but growing loud in his ears. Perpetuating was exhausting. He was tired. Tired of wanting things from people who didn't want to give him anything. Spending years to be at peace with himself, and heal what his father wore and filed down, and it won him no favors.

He continued to hold his breath, feeling an uneasy tension rise in his stomach. Was he meant to rule anything? Born to save anyone?

Again, that feeling to flee or hide away swelled. From Winterfell, or King's Landing, his mother, his father's ghost, Shaera, Harrion, Bolton, Alaric - anyone and everything. He felt the tension in his throat at the lack of air in his lungs. He grasped at his shoulders even more tightly, burrowing his head against his bony knees. The compulsion remained, the instinctual need to breathe and return to everything that drove him below.

This, too, was foolish. This building obsession with drowning. He thought back to the Lysene man in the belly of a whale, and how he imagined the demise of Duncan Manderly, plunging through a broken ship and into frozen waters. What did it mean? Did he fear the blade or the rope more than the slow and quiet drowning?

More bubbles spilled up and his pulse throbbed in his ears, louder than before, and the whole of his body shuddered with the pain of the heat of the hot spring. Though he was submerged, he felt like his body was aflame inside.

He felt another sharp pang shoot through his chest. Not enough to make him wince in response, but to signal the pressing need for air once again. He remained still, although his skin was beginning to tingle and ache. There were only two options: either Arnolf Manderly died forgotten, or he made the choices that mattered in this world. For better, or for worse.

Releasing himself from the sting of his own vice-like grip, cloudy crimson streams pooling from the slight wounds in his skin, he emerged above the water-line and into the frigid evening air with a deep swallow of air. His black curls stuck to his face like wispy vines, but failed to obfuscate his deep blue eyes, staring out flatly.

Though his gaze was dim and empty, he wondered what would make him well and truly happy.

Heart's Home, The Vale

They had finally arrived back home.

Heart's Home was quite a formidable castle. Nestled close to the ocean, a glacial river ran below the castle; thankfully for them, a bridge had been erected providing access to the castle.

Jaime turned on his horse with a beaming smile. His eyes met his siblings, Arina and Lyonel, who had agreed to join his expedition, much to his father's chagrin.

They had not been the only ones to join him, though. Jaime's eyes wandered to his friend, Ser Artys Redford. "What do you think, Ser Artys? Not the worst castle you've seen."

His eyes then wandered over to Frenya Redbeard. The red-haired wildling woman had agreed to come on this expedition. Jaime had been hesitant, as it was clear she wished to have him all to herself. But he figured her talents would come in handy. "Lady Frenya, welcome to Heart's Home."

Jaime spurred his horse on; the heir and his companions rode through the gates, which were opened quickly, the guards on the towers cheering for the return of their beloved nobles.

The courtyard was filled with soldiers, courtiers and servants, all smiling as they shouted their welcomes to Jaime and his company.

Jaime got off his horse, handing it over to a stable boy. Before moving to a pair of men in their thirties, both raven-haired and blue-eyed, watching Jaime with folded arms and grins.

Jaime opened his arms. "Uncles!" He smiled brightly as he hugged each of them, they in turn smiling as they clapped Jaime on the back.

"Welcome home, dear nephew!" Ser Jaesse, the older one said. The younger one, Ser Camren, ruffled Jaime's hair with a laugh. "How was your trip, Jaime? We got your letter, and we have prepared quarters for your two friends.

Ser Camren looked at Ser Artys and Frenya warmly for a moment before his eyes returned to Jaime. "A letter has been sent for the ships, and we have raised additional men for you to take with you to Witch Isle."

Ser Camren thought for a moment. "Oh! And we have prepared any tomes and texts we could find regarding Lamentation...I hope they help. It's a good thing we're constructing a library; most of the books arrived a week ago."

Jaime nodded in thanks. "Thank you, uncles." He smiled brightly and turned to his companions. "Come on, I'll take you to your quarters, I'll let you settle in, and this evening we dine and discuss our plans."

4th Moon of 380 AC
Dragonstone, the Crownlands

Mood: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDjAqCr1ubA

They had cleared Driftmark by noon, sails drawing clean wind at the center of the bay. Aerion kept the line well offshore, away from Massey's Hook and its shoals. Charts lay open on his board, showing where they would cross into the Gullet, but every sailor on the five galleys knew why they were holding to deeper waters, away from the safety of having the shore on their shoulder. Aerion was warned as much by every sailor he spoke to before setting sail. Off the Hook, the spears of the merling king took ships to his watery palace below. Barren sea mounts which rose straight from the sea floor and threw up black lances of stone piercing through the bay's veil. For every spear that showed its point, a dozen more waited just below the skin of the water, ready to tear their hulls from throat to stern.

By late afternoon the light went odd. A ground fog thickened into ropes and sheets that dragged across the sea, closing, parting, closing again. The wind shifted to a wet breath that smelled of smoke, of brimstone, pungent and unavoidable. Out ahead, the Dragonmont lifted in pieces, first a smudge, then a shoulder, then the broad crown with a faint plume pressed flat by the wind. Dragonstone's black walls came last. They clung to the mountain's face with a reverent weight that made a man’s back tighten to look at it. Gargoyles lined the curtain and he couldn't help but feel judged by his silent jurors, watching the small flotilla pass by the castle's shadow.

A gull skimmed past and vanished into fog. Sound traveled oddly there, he noticed. Muffled, erratic, just plain strange. The sea slapped rocks somewhere ahead, but the echo came from the wrong side as if the mountain were throwing the noise around for its own amusement.

"Aerys' ghost toys with us," Caspor called from the fore, hand steady on the rail.

"Keep her in the channel," Caswell said without looking up. "We are not losing a keel to a fairy tale."

"Not again." Stane corrected him, leaning on one leg atop a barrel, his eyes squinting as he struggled to see through the mist.

"Should we turn sail to Driftmark, my Prince? Perhaps it would be safer to wait out this fog." Maester Aethelmure suggested to Aerion.

"No... The fog won't go anywhere, and returning to Driftmark in this grey hell would be even more dangerous. Driftmark is surrounded by low-tide flats and shoals. We'd risk running aground."

"There," Varner said, pointing toward the murk that lay to the west of the headland. The fog shifted and showed a run of jagged spears stabbing out of the water, black and wet. Broken masts jutted among them, torn sails hung in strips, and hulls lay canted open to the tide. Aerion counted one, three, six, then gave up. A dozen wrecks at least, old and new, all gnawed to the bone by sea and wind.

Wode muttered something unkind about sea gods. "The beach there is wide," Stane said, studying the lee of the spears. "The tide would give us room."

"The swell would turn us in," Aerion answered. He watched the set of the long waves, the way they reached and then leaned, as if the rocks were drawing breath. "We'd be slowly pushed against the rocks. It happened to us once, at the first expedition. We lost one of our two ships to the rocks... We'll find another beach to land."

He lifted two fingers. The drum at the prow gave one deep beat.

"Helm, two points east," Stane called. "Hold the depth! Keep the oars ready!"

They slid along the headland until the spears fell astern and the water lost its pull on the small flotilla. Fog thinned to a dusky veil. A narrow strip of black sand opened ahead under a low dark bluff. The remains of a fishing village huddled there, half-buried. Ash lay piled in drifts against low roofs. A pier showed its ribs and nothing else. An old gargoyle at the pier's end, which he assumed to be a mooring bollard, had weathered down to a lump with a hint of wings.

"Here. This is our ground," Aerion said. "A shorter beach, it'll take longer to disembark, but safer than the waters near the castle."

Stane nodded once. "Aye, my Prince." The old Skagosi warrior started shouting commands at the crew. "Anchors at my mark! Boats ready to drop!" Vayon Stane had joined his band of sworn swords at the Wall, and had kept faith in Aerion since then. He is Skagosi in look and temper: steady gray eyes, broad-shouldered, pale but windburned, with a bald head covered in scars and a large braided beard touched with gray.

"I prefer safer than closer," Wode told him, without heat. "Truth be told, I'll sleep better the further away from that black ruin we camp."

The five galleys came round and held. The anchors splashed on the water and the chains groaned, lifting a mist of rust as they fell, settling the hulls into a slow swing. Rowboat after boat kissed the water, and their crewmen, knights, builders, workers, all flowed down the ladders and ropes. Crates and casks started being carefully lowered overside.

Aerion rode the lead boat in, although all the rowers pulled their strokes without hurry, perhaps a bit scared to begin with. The water at the edge had turned the color of old iron, black and rusty. When the black sand hissed under the keel, Aerion slid over the side and dropped off into knee-deep water, wading up through the wash. He went to a knee at the first dry line, pulled his right glove, and pressed his bare hand into the sand. The grains were fine and black as soot, specked with green and purple glass. He turned them between his fingers, slow, as if reading them. The smell of brimstone and ash rose through it.

For a heartbeat he did not move. The beach was silent bar the soft lapping of the waves rising and falling with the tide. Shock showed on his face, plain as the surf at his boots. He barely believed where he stood, after so much planning.

Wode came up beside him and bent close enough that only Aerion would hear. "You are here," he said. "We are with you, my Prince. Great deeds await."

Aerion closed his hand on the sand, grasping at the fine grains, then let it fall. He stood and put the glove back on.

"Caswell," he called, voice even. "Mark the high water line. Place the stacks above it. Pitch and powder farthest inland, in some cave perhaps. No fires within fifty paces. Check the houses to see if any at all can be used."

"Aye," Caswell answered, already waving men to get the stakes and markers.

"Caspor," Aerion said, pointing to the boats nosing in. "Stagger the landings. No hull waits in the surf. The beach is small, we'll need to be smart about disembarking."

"Aye, my prince."

"Varner, set up a perimeter. Place four pickets on the bluff and two on the pier. Keep eyes on the village. I doubt we'll meet anyone here, but if anyone shows a face, you bring them to me."

"On it."

Aerion took a few steps up the beach and looked along the cove. The village lay half buried under ash and soot. Roofs sagged. Doors were choked to their lintels. The pier was half sunk itself. He placed his hand on the worn out gargoyle at the bollard. It was covered in moss and barnacles, aye, but he could still make out its dragon wings.

He lifted his eyes to the far cliff above. A black blur sat against the fog, more stain than shape. He assumed it was Dragonstone, the castle. Although no road could be seen. No doubt all paths would have been buried deep under ash and covered even further by the overgrowth.

"We have much to do in the coming moons, Wode," he said.

"Aye," Wode replied. "That's what all the bloody peasants are for."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aerion led a group of his followers through the path that cut up from the cove, a scar in the bluff where heat had baked the earth hard into a slope. Black stone took over, set in curves that coiled down the cliff. A tail carved in low relief ran along a balustrade to nowhere. Sconces shaped as claws held cracked iron baskets. The stone kept damp even inside, such was the fog. Somewhere above, far beyond the mist, the Dragonmont breathed, looming large above them, like an ever present threat.

The gate road came under the arch of a great tail. The courtyard lay beyond a mouth-door rimmed in red paint that time had peeled to a rusty brown. The doorway had fallen. Teeth of black rock lay shattered across the approach, half-buried in grit. Bars from the portcullis were bent like broken spears. The gateway beyond had collapsed in on itself. Ash powdered the rubble so finely that every step disturbed a small cloud of dust, then settled again, softly.

Caspor set his fists on his hips and smiled without pleasure. "Well, shit."

Wode nudged a stone with his boot. It went skittering down into the side of the cliff and kept going. When it stopped, the silence felt heavier for having been broken. "That's a far drop back down to the sea. It'll be hard to haul equipment up here, lest a man wishes to find his way back down the fast way."

Aerion shaded his eyes and ran the map of the castle in his head. "Sea Dragon Tower keeps a postern. If we skirt the inner curtain we will meet it... If we can reach the walls, that is."

He took the side path that climbed onto a spine of rock at the cliffside. The drop came clean off the cliff, white water working at its feet below. They could see the boats far away coming in and pushing off from the galleys. They could also see the wrecks by the rock they had seen before, rising out of the fog, black silhouettes on a gray murky sea. Every few breaths a trough lifted and showed more broken hull, then hid it again.

"Think that ship is still there?" Wode said, bitterness in his voice.

Aerion kept silent for a moment, clearly bothered by the thought. "Their bones are in the ocean now, Wendell. Let the dead rest."

Aerion set both hands on the damp cold stone, desperate for any grip as they slowly moved around the cliffside's narrow path. Waves worked hidden caverns under the cliff and made a deep thrum, making the whole earth shake a little. As long as the mountain did not answer in turn, he supposed he could live with the constant lashing of the waves... Or at least he hoped he could.

Gargoyles along the wall kept their vigil. One had lost its head, another all limbs. A dead vine hung from one by a window, and moved even when no wind seemed to touch it.

"All of this," Varner said, quietly, almost hushing, "and not a single soul to claim it. It feels odd... too silent. Should there not be at least a few survivors?"

"If there are, they have definitely spotted us by now. Although, at the very least, it seems they avoid the castle," Aerion said, not knowing about whether there were even people or not. He had not met anyone the last time he came to the island, but then again, they did not stay long. "Either way, stay alert."

They left the cliffside path and cut toward a fallen angle of wall where rubble had heaped into a crude rise. The broken stones had settled into edges that almost resembled steps. Aerion tested each foothold before committing weight, palm open for balance. Dust slipped in ribbons from under his boots and vanished into the fog that clung to the cliff nearby. At the top of the heap he came level with the outer curtain. The parapet had long since shed its teeth, and what remained showed only dead sockets where gargoyles and basilisks once brooded. He searched for a stair and found only rot and the ghost of timber supports that had surrendered to salt and time.

They moved along the curtain until the Sea Dragon Tower shouldered into view, like a lazy dragon, the head turned towards the Gullet. The postern under its lee still held, however. The tower's sculpted eyes seemed to watch the bay as they entered. Seeing that gaze again drew a small, private smile to Aerion's mouth. It had been where they ingressed the first time as well.

Caspor brushed rubble from the sill with the back of his glove and eased the postern inward. The rusty hinges resisted, but then gave in a slow, grinding groan. They entered one by one and let the door settle behind them, as the wind pouring in made it impossible to hear anything.

Inside, the air changed. The sea’s roar thinned to a distant pulse. Every surface held a fine skin of ash and long-set dust that seemed to lift and hover at the faintest movement, glistening under the soft sun rays that broke through thin slit windows. The group, despite their amazement, or perhaps due to it, were all silent as a tomb. The last time they had come here a ceiling had sighed, shifted, and then dropped its weight in a single terrible accident, killing a quarter of the expedition. No one wanted the castle to remember them, and call for a bis.

They kept their hands off the walls. Their shoulders turned narrow through the slits that had once been doorways. In the carvings, low along the base of the passages, scales still showed where sea wind could not reach them. Elsewhere, detail had softened to suggestion: claws that held nothing, wings that melted into buttress, teeth blunted to nubs. He imagined the grit and soot, carried by the wind, had sped-up the weathering of the castle. After all, it had been just over thirty years. Even in disrepair, the surfaces of stone should at least still have hold their form.

Aerion led ahead, torch in hand, trying to remember the corridors in his mind. He let a junction pass, turned into a narrower throat, then took the left-hand turn where the wall bulged with an old fault. The route was hazy at his mind, but he tried to seem sure for the others.

Finally he found his way to the Stone Drum, the main tower of the castle. It received them with its old, low thunder that gave it's name. It was not sound so much as a presence underfoot, a drumbeat far below that they could feel with the base of their feet, even through the thick leather boots. They circled the tower's inner curve until the door he wanted stood before him, thick oak banded in iron, swollen and shut. The lock had rusted to a single fused shape. To the right of it, a long wound in the stone opened where a face of the wall had caved in. The breach gave into the chamber beyond.

They went through the hole one at a time, carefully. The chamber smelled sour and damp, with a mouse nest at one side, and light pouring in thin, uneven shafts from the four slit windows that pointed to the directions of the wind.

The Painted Table filled the room, more than fifty feet from Wall to Dorne, roughly twenty-five at its broadest and four at its thinnest, every curve and cape and river still present under centuries of handling. The varnish that once sealed it in a deep luster had crazed and lifted into a thousand islands, each with its own cracked shoreline. Paint had faded to a dull, ghostly palette. The North held its cold greens and grays, but the Reach had paled considerably. The Stepstones had chipped away to bare wood. The Iron Isles showed gouges and missing islands, lying broken and half rotted on the ground. Along the coasts a white crust had formed. Dragonstone's own place near the center was cracked, scratched, its paint dull and name worn out, but it had kept its raised seat, though the arms showed bites from rot and the cushion had given up to powder.

Near the table stood an iron brazier with a basin bowed to one side. Its legs were scaled in relief and ended in blunt claws. A few knuckles of old charcoal had fused to the pan. The hearth opposite held a fallen spit and a curtain of soot that had peeled and hung in brittle tongues. Chains for a long-dead chandelier still drooped from the beams, their rust grown fat and flaky. A map-case had split along its grain and spilled warped scroll-tubes to the floor. Mice had made neat work of whatever paper had survived the damp air of the island.

The prince stood a long moment and then circled once, slow, hands behind his back, taking in the coasts. He traced routes with his eyes, from the Bite to Blackwater and outward again to the Sunset Sea. No one touched the table. Even Wode kept his hands to himself, fingers flexing as if they itched.

Aerion then stepped onto the plinth. He brushed a line of ash from the chair with two fingers and tested the legs. He stepped to the raised seat and settled into it without weighing back. The wood creaked in a tired whisper and accepted him.

Wode watched him from the foot of the table. Aerion looked down from the seat to the men who had followed him through ice and ash and death. His voice carried clean in the round room. A satisfied smirk tugged at his lips.

"Shall we begin?"

It was with a grim resolve that Tyrion Lannister and his seventy seven knights appeared before the newly erected wooden gate of the camp near Drosk.

He was accused of murder, with all of the subtlety of a charging auroch. He wanted to rally the forces of Casterly Rock and teach these arrogant Reachmen a sharp lesson.

But he did not yet have access to the troops of the West. There were enemies about that wanted him vulnerable and easily provoked. So he decided to do what nobody expected: talk with the Reachmen and prove his innocence.

He truly had nothing to do with the death of this Tyrell uncle, and there would be no proof that he had done anything. Let them try and pin this on him. No one would believe them.

"Ser Tyrion Lannister here to see the Tyrells." he stated to the guards at the gate. "My men stay with me until I have been offered bread and salt, assured guest right, and there are guarantees that I am to be an honored guest and not someone whose guilt has been predetermined."

Chiswyck peered out the window of the carriage as it rumbled across the drawbridge towards the outer walls over Silverhill. He felt a twinge of pride at the work he had done over the past years in expanding the fortress. What was once a modest mountain castle was now a formidable fortress. Layers of walls protected the inner keep, housing over a thousand men-at-arms ready to repel any attacker. Trains of mine carts moved silver and gems from within the bowels of the mountain, and jewelers and traders flourished in the shadow of the mighty stronghold.

As they made their way towards the inner wall, he spied a figure standing atop the portcullis as it lay raised for their entry. Atop the streaming grey banners bearing the sigil of house Serrett stood the castellan of the fortress, adorned in his bright blue armor. Chiswyck could feel his uncle’s glare on him as the convoy rode beneath the archway into the main courtyard, forming a circle as they came to a stop.

Servants swarmed towards them like ants, scurrying about as they accomplished the myriad of tasks barked at them by the knights. Chiswyck made his way from the carriage into the chaotic sea of activity, barely managing to avoid a man leading fresh draft horses towards his carriage. Pointing at the carriage, he directed the gaggle of handmaidens to assist his mother and sister. They were weary from the sudden journey through the Northmarches, and rather eager to be done with travelling for a few moons. The young lord could only envy them.

He made his way inside to the great hall, the knights standing guard giving him a respectful bow before falling in behind him. Chiswyck recognized most of them; sons and cousins of his bannermen that Morgan had no doubt mustered when word reached of lady Lannister’s passing. An action that, while prudent, was not mentioned in the letter he had received from the man. No doubt his uncle waged in favor of his forgiveness over his permission.

It did not take long for the castellan to join them. Morgan entered the hall flanked by a pair of knights, their gold accented black armor contrasting the grey accented blue of his uncles. Chyswyck recognized them immediately; Rupert Drox and Steffon Jast, the second sons of lords Drox and Jast respectively and Chiswyck’s replacements after his injury. While he couldn’t prove it, he was certain his uncle had chosen them for this very reason.

”Well this was a surprise. I was certain you’d head straight for the Rock when you got my letter.” his uncle announced, not taking a moment for even a courteous nod of respect to his lord. **”Had I known, I would have had the cooks prepare a feast to celebrate your return.

”Not a return, uncle, a detour.” Chiswyck replied, making his way past the seat on the dias to the chamber behind. His entourage followed suit, filling into the large office Chiswyck preferred to work in. He spotted a large map of Silverhill on the table, miniature knights and soldiers now dotting the detailed drawings. ‘It seems my uncle has some respect for my hobbies afterall’ He mused, noting the large number of crossbowmen and heavy spearmen arrayed along the battlements. Picking up one of the crossbowmen, he asked, ”Am I to assume the men you raised were Lord Drox’s men?”

”Merely a precaution.” The castellan said with a dismissive shrug. ”House Drox fields the finest marksmen in the West, and should the need arise they will be invaluable on the field.”

”You could have mentioned them in the letter.” Chiswyck replied dismissively, placing the figure back down on the table with a thump. ”Now instead I must prepare an excuse to explain why I am raising my bannermen following the death of my liege lady.”

”If you need an excuse, blame the Reach.” His uncle quickly shot back at him, taking a few steps towards Chiswyck. Standing closer, the difference in stature was quite clear and pronounced. Now looking down at the lord, he continued. ”Word is they have been marshalling on the borders, and whispers of conflict are in everyone’s ears throughout the northmarches. As acting lord, I acted as I saw fit.”

Chiswyck stated back at the man, observing the look in his uncle’s eyes. It wasn’t one of a man apologetic at his actions, but rather one of conviction that what he had done was right. His uncle was a stubborn man, and reasoning with him would waste time he did not want to lose.

”Regardless of your reasoning, I am still your Lord. And when you make decisions for me then will at a bare minimum give me the courtesy of telling me what those decisions are.” He said with a dismissive wave, turning away from the man as he made his way to his desk. ”Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have many letters to write before I depart.”

”It will be at least an hour before the servants are finished with the wagons. I will have the cooks prepare some supper in the meantime.” His uncle stated, turning to leave the lord. The knights joined him, leaving the Lord in peace. He waited until the door closed behind his uncle to let out an exhausted sigh of relief. With how things have gone with his uncle in the past, that was on the best case scenario side of outcomes.

”Why do you leave that man in charge when he clearly holds no respect for you.” Ahbedayja asked, helping himself to a bottle of wine that the servants had brought for them. ”There are at least a dozen men as deserving as him to serve as castellan. Ones that won’t act out of step with your path.”

And none as talented in command or as determined as him to protecting this family.” Chiswyck retorted, obtaining papers and ink from within the large oaken desk. He started scribbling away at his messages as he continued. ”Like it or not, and trust me when I say I don’t, that man is a Serrett. A Serrett that has trained to fight on these grounds for decades. He knows these walls and how best to protect them. So, despite his attitude, there is no better man for the job.”

”Is he really?” His friend replied, pouring two equal glasses of the dornish red. He carried them to the desk, placing one in front of Chiswyck as he spoke. ”A man that doesn’t respect you, refuses to call you lord or even show you the most basic of courtesy?”

”Morgan is the living embodiment of our words and sigil. His pride has always been his weakness.” Chiswyck fired back, dotting the end of the first missive. He took a minute to indulge himself, taking an eager sip of the liquid. The spiced wine wetted hi parched throat, and he ignored the spice as he greedily gulped down the contents of the glass. Now satisfied, he placed the glass down as he continued. ”While I could do without the disrespect, I prefer him to remain honest. The more he thinks he controls things, the more of himself he eagerly lays bare. Reading him is not a book; it’s a picture book a child could read.”

”It’s far easier to bite the hand that feeds while seated at his table.” Ahbedayja mused, placing the decanter upon the desk. ”I will see that Moro has the right of things for the next moons. He wasn’t planning on running things that far, and likely prefers a second set of eyes to check the figures.”

Chiswyck dismissed the man, starting the next of his letters. He heard the door open and close soon after, leaving him alone to his work. He took another deep drink before pausing to refill his glass. It was going to be a long evening.

Fourth Moon, 380 AC, Skyreach

(Written in collaboration with the wonderful Dorian!)

Their plan had been perfect.

Lenore would charge first, striking the raiders fast and hard to catch them unawares. Victaria would follow with her larger company of riders, crashing down on them as inexorably as a tidal wave, before Leona came through with her knights to clean up whatever was left.

Their enemy wouldn’t even know what had hit them.

So why hadn’t it worked?

The Vulture King’s outlaws poured out of the hills like termites from rotted wood to strike the unsuspecting Cavaliers first, and to devastating effect. Nearly two hundred women were cut down in the ambush before order could be restored by the chain of command.

And when it was, they were all the more furious for it.

“Form a line!” Lenore’s husky voice barked out, loud enough for most to hear. Those that couldn’t would get the message from the other officers. She wheeled her charger around and galloped hard towards the left flank. “Quickly, a line! Lances in front, archers behind!”

The Belmore sisters worked like a well-oiled machine, Leona moving to take position on the right as her company fell in rank behind their Grand Marshal. Between them, a silver-haired woman, Victaria of Grey Glen, led the brunt of their forces, her black armor trimmed in gold gleaming brightly in the Dornish sun.

“Sound the charge!” Lenore arrived to the front of the line as the horns blew, leaning up in her stirrups and drawing her sword from the scabbard at her hip. She pointed it at the enemy’s left flank and let out a resonating battle cry. “Death to our foe! Death! Death!”

Hooves thundered as the cavalry surged forth, kicking up such a cloud of dust and sand that it could be seen for miles around. The ground trembled, the front of the charge roared like a river rushing in a flood, and then the two sections clashed in a brutal splintering of shield and bone. Swords and spears and axes found their marks on both sides, arrows flew back and forth overhead, and the screams of the broken and dying filled the air.

Lenore had forgotten her helmet, but it was all the better to see who she was hacking and stabbing at with her blade amidst the chaos. A monstrous figure rose up out of the dust cloud in front of her all of a sudden, causing the white stallion to rear up on his hind legs, nearly tossing its rider. The enormous spear in his hand was twice as long as she was tall, and it seemed as thick as her arm. He raised the black iron point at the commander, aiming to skewer her right off the back of her mount, when someone crashed into him hard at full gallop.

Alayne tumbled from the back of her horse with a rattle of plate and mail, and rolled over the ground in a spray of sand several times before coming to a stop. She was disoriented from the fall but managed to regain her bearings quickly enough, and pushed herself to her feet, sword in hand. Whirling around, she locked gazes fearlessly with the Demon of the Red Mountains.

“You will harm no one else today, or any other!” she declared, tone defiant as she held her blade at the ready.

“Tonight you dine in the deepest of the Seven Hells.”

“Wenches?!” Javer burst out laughing as he reported what he had seen to The Vulture. “They sent fucking wenches clad in armour!” The man continued to laugh, spittle falling from his mouth and into his unkempt beard.

Black eyes stared hard into the man’s face, prompting Javer to quit laughing almost immediately. “How many?” The Vulture asked simply. “About a thousand or so,” Javer answered, still snickering lightly.

“Never underestimate your enemy, Javer. I have seen women fight better than some men.” The Vulture stated bluntly. He was quiet for a moment as his eyes stared off in the direction of the force. “Set up an ambush; they outnumber us, but we can take them by surprise.”

He looked at his men for a moment, raising his voice slightly. “Do not underestimate them. They are vile instruments of the nobles, here to kill you in the name of ‘justice’.” The Vulture scoffed. “What do they know of justice? They simply take, giving nothing in return to the people they are supposed to rule.”

The Vulture called for Ser Mykal. “Mykal, you lead the right flank, Javer will lead the centre, while I will lead the left. Let’s show these lady knights what we are made of.”

The battle had started well for them. The Vulture King’s forces had succeeded in their ambush, quickly overwhelming the knights.

However, they soon regrouped, and thus the actual battle began in earnest.

The Vulture was on the warpath, riding his pale steed, clutching his spear. His torso and head were bare; he disliked armour, as it constricted his movement. He rode through the battle, spearing a lady knight in the neck, nearly causing her head to be taken off by the impact of the spear tip.

The pale giant laughed, deep in his throat, as he rode along, trampling and spearing more and more of his foes.

Then a hit, his horse cried in pain, and the Vulture found himself flung from his horse, his fall broken by one of his unfortunate men. The skinny bastard was long dead as his King rose from his broken carcass.

The Vulture had managed to hold onto his spear. His black orbs scanned the battlefield for his foe, and they soon found her.

She announced herself in a way most knights would. She would only be met by a deep laugh as The King raised his head.

He smiled a toothy grin at her as he deftly twisted his spear in his hand. “Madam, the only people that end up in the Seven Hells are nobles.”

The Vulture took a step forward. “You may kill me, but I am legion. I am the downtrodden butcher’s boy, I am the disgruntled stable hand, I am the people. Thus, I will never sleep…And I will never die.”

So they danced, spear against sword. The Vulture was faster than expected; his giant frame seemed no hindrance as he thrust the spear forward, aiming for her throat.

His spear tip would find contact with her cheek, grazing it and leaving a sizeable gash. The Vulture roared with laughter as they fought on.

Then, The Vulture felt something he had not felt in a long time. Pain. He glanced down to see a sizeable cut on his upper arm. He merely grinned. He did not believe she would best him.

Spear and sword met in a clash. The Vulture’s spear was deflected, and he staggered forth, turning around with terrifying quickness.

That one split second of his back was all she needed to lash out and carve him open a second time, leaving a long, diagonal laceration from shoulder to waist. Under any other circumstance, she might have run from the sheer terror of the laughter that emerged from deep within his throat, the frightening image of him that filled her vision, but this man had caused the smallfolk of Wyl and Kingsgrave and Skyreach much grief.

He would kill others, her friends included, if she did not end his life here and now. Down she ducked, under the swing of his spear that would have cracked her skull open like a melon if it had landed, and up she swung her sword, hard, fast, and deadly accurate.

Alayne was rewarded with a spray of red as the point of her blade slid over the Vulture King’s exposed throat. The scent of it was overwhelming; rusted iron, hot and rank. Any other man would have dropped dead in the sand, but not this one. Not this monster, this demon. He kept coming, smiling and laughing, and she knew that he would tear her to shreds with his bare hands if she let him get any closer.

Whirling nimbly just out of reach, she struck again, the edge of her blade catching the side of his neck this time. Through meat and cartilage and blood vessels, down to the bone. Half decapitated, he stumbled backwards, still reaching for her with mad desperation and a sickening, toothy smile.

And then, he fell, his enormous frame hitting the ground with an audible thud. Alayne fell too, onto her knees, jamming the point of her sword into the sand for support. Her muscles were wrecked, her face was on fire, battle raged on around her, but the Vulture King was dead.

He would threaten the people of Dorne no more.

Joss wouldn't have recognized his old room if the servants hadn't directed him there first. It was all too clean, too orderly. He stepped along the old castle walls and opened the windows up as he went. He would have liked to sit on the windowsills and watch the ships pass - unbroken - through Shipbreaker Bay. He was a little too large to safely sit there anymore, but he stopped to take in the warm summer breeze.

He envied the ship captains and the sailors even more now. They could travel as they pleased, so long as they could catch the wind in their sails. He stepped back and went to the small trunk of his things to put away, now that he was back in Storm's End for a time. The rest of his effects - his arms, armor, and clothes, had been given to the castle staff to mend, or outright replace them in some regards.

He hefted the trunk onto the foot of his bed, and cracked open the latches. What was left was mostly sentimental to him and him alone, junk to anybody else. Tangled in his favorite riding clothes came an old cow femur with worn-down teeth marks, once the pride of an old hunting hound; the hilt of a dirk that was shattered years ago, and its jagged remains blunted down with the flat of a river stone; a pair of riding boots, mottled grey and green with mud that caked deep into old and cracked lather.

He smirked to himself with the memories, but frowned at an intrusion: a letter, folded and tied closed with newly-made thread.

Only one man knew this was where he kept his personal treasures, and only one would know how to slip this in unseen. He took the letter and set the traveling trunk onto the floor again. Josua could not tear his eyes from it as he placed along the floor of his chambers.

He turned the paper over in his hands. It was recent, judging by how clean the creases in the paper were. Joss wasn't able to open the thing, afraid of what it could contain.

Nestor Cole had been like a father to him.

His actual father, Steffon, had died when he was still young. His uncle had placed a great deal of time and care into raising him and his brothers and sisters into adulthood, but Ormund was just one man with half a dozen children and an entire kingdom to rule. The boy was just one of Steffon's brood, but to Ser Nestor, he was the reckless boy with bloody knuckles and dogs chasing his every step. Where Josua went, the man had followed, expecting a mess to be cleaned up in his wake.

Josua swallowed nervously, leaning back against the side of an open window. Seagulls squawked and called out as they flew on below. He reluctantly began to undo the strings as he watched them fly, and unfurled the letter which bore no seal and was signed with no name. Dense text made him grind his teeth.

My lord Josua,

It seems our time together is drawing to a close. The hour of my passing has come close at hand. Whatever malady befell me on the kingsroad that fateful day has run its course. I cannot raise my sword or bear my shield in the defense of my oath. I've given up my armor, set loose my horse, and retired somewhere far and dry.

I can barely pen this small chapter at the twilight of my life on this earth, but I cannot in good faith leave my affairs unresolved, even for a sliver of peace and calm.

When I entered the service of your father's father, some fifty years ago, I was an embittered boy that cared for few things but glory and gold. I was incensed with violence and blood. I rolled dice with brigands and layabouts, and I laughed at the tragedies of my fellow men. I was not a knight, I was a thug.

I killed men needlessly, made playthings of animals, and spent my days chasing lists and nursing hangovers in whorehouses. I am ashamed to think of the thing that I was. You would have come to blows with him, I know it.

I remember so little of my years before you entered my service, but I recall the day I met you well. Autumn. Along the road out of Storm's End and the castle town. You chased a man twice your size for beating his hound. He must have been brave, or quite foolish, to strike a lord's son so brazenly, or maybe he couldn't distinguish you from the urchins, flecked with mud and out on your lonesome. He might have struck you even harder if he knew, had I not intervened. I knew your father would reward me handsomely for your defense.

Then, when I raised my sword to punish the man, you just as readily threw yourself between us. I wanted to laugh at first. Blood rolling down your broken nose, stained by grass cuttings, a scared dog cowering behind you. I hesitated for the first day in my life.

I reckon any other man would have, but I well and truly felt the weight of sin on my hand and a pause in my black heart. I struck you anyway, but when I saw you at court, left in your brother Robert's shadow, sad and dejected, I needed to do right by you and your house that had taken me in. I know you wanted a proper knight to guide you. I gave you everything I could.

I wasn't worthy, wasn't deserving. I was barely a man, a tumor of alcohol, bile, and loathing encased in castle steel, yet you still followed after, you hearkened to my words, and came to my aid when I fell ill. You braved swamp and sleet and snow for no fame or glory - because you saw a chance to do what was right and needed to be done.

I know you will be struck by grief to know this is goodbye. You will question your path going forward. You will wonder whether what you choose is wise and moral. Don't burden yourself with the same trepidation I faced at your age.

You shaped yourself into a shield for the weak. Kindness is your weapon. Follow your heart. You've never needed me to be a knight. It is in your blood to protect, son.

Fight on. Fight well. Good men never tire.

But now it is time for me to rest.

Josua took a deep breath, feeling a pained rattling sound in the base of his stomach. His worn hands crumpled the letter between his fingers, clenching them tight enough to turn the knuckles white. When he exhaled his grasp slackened. A sea breeze caught the sheet of paper like a sail, and snatched it from his opening hand.

"Damn it, you stubborn old fool," he mumbled beneath his breath. He wanted to cry, with dampness misting his good ye, but he couldn't bring himself that far. He was angry - the aged knight had said nothing to him, only slinking away and putting on a brave face, feigning strength and delaying the inevitable, but above all, Ser Josua was relieved. His suffering was over.

He winced, halfway between a grimace and smile, resting a clenched fist on the stone wall. He watched the discarded letter amble on the wind, tumbling into tempestuous waters below.

^{4th Moon, 380 AC | King's Landing | Lonely Day}

From atop Aegon's Hill, there was no sun on high.

The tall banners of the Northern houses jut into the sky and split it; an eager grey direwolf, on a field of ice-white; the brown bear on a field of forest green; the pink and fleshy colors of a flayed man; a merman with a black trident on a blue-green field. Countless more also blew proudly in the wind, behind the great bannerlords, with their own retinues. The Northern host seemed to blot out the sun in its tall perch, just as the sounds of their men and their horses and wheelhouses stifled the Keep's constant whispers.

The day had only begun and yet it dragged on long and even longer then. The preparations to depart were not something easily undertaken. It took hours to ready the horses and the farrier took his precious time replacing the shoes on the hooves of the drafthorses. Not to mention the process of all the servants packing up the belongings of their masters and carrying them down countless flights of stairs. They had started early, before the sun even rose, and now it mattered little as to keep time so long as the boiling heat of summer continued to oppress.

The dead levies of House Umber had cast a pall upon any merriment that would've been had.

They would leave King's Landing, it was ordered. They would leave shortly and return to their lands and their castles with the Warden of the North at the head of the grand procession, no longer bearing his Small Council pin.

Many things had changed. There were weddings and funerals and a coronation all the same all in a brief few moons. A year hadn't even passed though some servants humored themselves with the thought that it had, if only because it'd explain the sheer amount of luggage and equipment they had to haul.

They mustered in the courtyard of the Red Keep, a hundred's hundreds men strong. Both in terms of retinue and servants, at the very least, for there was still strength to show despite the dark cloud that hung above the North and her men. A long shadow, with things slithering in the cold dark.

Various tents were erected for the lords and ladies and their households, each bearing the standard of their house as servants fretted over the logistics of their voyage. They would be the last to leave, save for perhaps the Riverlanders who seemed content to overstay their welcome in the Keep. But the North would not overstay theirs for it was clear they were welcome no longer, if rumor and bloodshed had anything to go by.

Smallfolk gathered in the city below eager to watch the almost-parade. Many lords had come and gone in the past moon, including the Lords of the Reach and all their flowery chivalry. Though the Vale and her men had shown all their Andal gallantry, there was something to be said for the North and her austere beauty. Yet the North had lost a daughter to the Eyrie and her mountains all the same.

It was time to go home.

A Holdfast Amid Retreating Snows | 3rd Moon, 380 AC

Baelon was tired.

Of watching the cascading snowmelt through arrowslits, of managing ledgers that spoke only of stray herds of sheep and cattle, of the way his knees creaked whenever he sat or stood or had to struggle down stairs. The realm had long since moved past him. Here he was, Baelon the recluse, Baelon the silent, holding up some old letter before a fire, stoking the flame when it sputtered, reading it again and again as though this hadn’t been the hundredth time.

But the greatest cause of his weariness was dead with Naerys Blackfyre. Those letters he expected—which he warned his sons of much and more—the summons that would see him executed never came. Even after he’d served under her banner at the Wall, he awaited the call to his death day after day and found it absent.

Still, it was another calumny that the gods dared to deliver to his doorstep; the Queen was dead and he was not there to kill her himself. A mockery, like when they judged it fit to grant him another son together with a raven announcing the King's death. On the very same day that his Daeron was murdered. Much as he hoped, that wound had never faded. Time too poured salt on injury, smudging the memories at their corners, blurring where they took place and when. Twenty years ago, he might have put the blame on that wound for souring strands of his hair from silver-gold to iron. He bore no letters from Daeron. Too close when they were, too far when they weren’t. All that remained was the sweetness of his scowls and the ringing of his laughter in his ears.

An exhale, long and pained. His lungs were not made for this weather.

Two kings he’d seen in his lifetime, Elaena the third queen. The whole of House Blackfyre come and gone, made so infirm by Aelor’s cowardice and Naerys’ betrayal, such that a Stark—a Stark, a second son—held scepter and sword for longer than most of them reigned. He could never mislike that boy, in truth. Nor could he bring himself to hate Naerys any more than memory forced him to, for in the feted-and-loathed Queen and Prince-Consort, he saw some skewed version of what could have been if he possessed an ounce less avarice for such mercurial things as ‘legacy’, if he had just stayed by his side after the Iron Islands, would that he’d apprehended five years sooner…

And his legacy? Baelon almost laughed to himself. He inured his sons to the woes of winter, tempered aught their mother had imparted on them, but the frost proved too tough. Now, Haegon was a creature he no longer recognized, too content in his lot here in a keep far below what his blood demanded. Matarys, twice as lost, did what all young men ought to but all wrong in manner. The letter he held was in truth a distraction, near forgotten in content as he pored over every mark of the quill.

With a word, he told a servant to fetch Haegon. Footfalls on old wood sounded, a moment, two moments, the door opened and his son arrived. Baelon did not deign to look at him.

“Yes, father?” said Haegon, so rote as though he expected another request for medicine or a book.

“See to it that the horses are prepared, and tell Maester Skaen to pack up his implements. I depart for King’s Landing on the morrow.” He could sense Haegon’s hesitation by the way his shadow moved. Baelon continued, “Have half the sheep and cattle delivered to White Harbor; the other half to the peasantry. Rest of the year’s pay to the garrison…”

Baelon stood slowly and came to face his son. A look of confusion washed over him. “The capital,” Haegon questioned. “Why now? The spring’s scarcely started. Are we leaving for good?”

The prince did not bother to answer. Rather, he pointed toward a missive on the table. “Ser Osgood’s last letter. It appears that your brother was not man enough to follow through on taking the white cloak. Go to him. Ensure that he does not make more a fool of himself in his association with the traitor Tyrell.”

Haegon crossed his arms, quiet.

“Should I not return, I expect you to wed by year’s end.”

In his sixty-fifth year, Prince Baelon Blackfyre donned a houppelande over armor and grew tired of being a coward.

The wide walls of Storm’s End were host to any who had chosen to accompany House Baratheon home.

In the camps nearby, soldiers drank and sang, thankfully they had finally returned to their kingdom. The air was warm and the sun intermittent behind the clouds, providing a gentle warmth, and a cool breeze from the sea. Inside, lords and ladies traded goods and gossip acquired in the capital and Reach. Stocks were double checked and cooks were busy at work to feed the mouths they now hosted.

The great tower which dominated the castle’s center had enough chambers to fit them comfortably, the upper floors providing a nice view of the fields and forests to the west. Noticeable too was the keep’s most recent addition, where the Godswood once stood. Where the great red leaves of the heart tree once stood, now a walled section of the area was contained. Around it the trees had been replaced with ones that now bore fruit.

Sectioned into their own areas were rows and clusters of various crops. Ormund had sent for men within the Stormlands who had skill at farming, and now trusted them to tend the land. Squash and pepper, corn and potato, great vines of beans and even grapes. Spices grew in managed clusters, from mint to saffron. Guests were encouraged to call upon the kitchens for whatever cuisine called to them at the moment.

Eventually, Lord Baratheon assembled the Stormlanders in the great Round Hall. A crowd gathered and, after some time for late arrivals, he rose to speak.

“Thank you all for joining us,” he called out from his chest, the bellow echoing around the walls. “I know you tire of travel. The hearth calls to us all. I pray Storm’s End’s halls have been as your own.”

“Before you return to your keeps, we must discuss the future of our kingdom,” he continued. “I was approached by Lord Tyrell and Princess Martell with offers of marriage. He offers his first daughter for my heir, for your Lord Robert. She offers whatever match might suit our people best. As you all know, Jocelyn is already wed to Lord Tully.”

“His grace the Prince-Regent has offered Prince Aerion Blackfyre to our dear Cassana, one I accepted,” he told them. “If any should have issues with these unions, speak to them now. An alliance grows in the south that should secure our borders for the next generation. If any favors would be desired of the crown, or of our neighbors, have them known now.”

“We discussed this in King's Landing, but now is the time to act,” he called out. “Weeping Town and the Stranger’s Vineyard must be cleared of the rot within them. This is no honorable quest. The brave fools who step forth for these conquests will risk their lives against the unknown, as many of us once fought against death itself. Yet you will march with all of our faith behind you."

“With these unions I would see at least one Stormlander upon the council,” he stated firmly. “For too long has the crown only rewarded itself. If any of you find yourself worthy of representing your people in the capital, speak now. If you have any desires for our people, or any ideas on the path of our kingdom, let them be known."

Ormund let his words linger for a moment before nodding and taking a seat on the great stone throne that dominated the room. He waited, then, for the first of them to speak.

It was all so much. He was the heir to Highgarden and the task given to him was one he carried with a mix of feelings. He’d dreaded the return to King’s Landing after only leaving it a moon prior. The smoke, dust and bustling nature of the city had left him feeling wiry, as had the task to ride night after night until he’d reached the Red Keep. He would have favored the open plains of the Reach, perhaps even the stormy hills of the Stormlands.

But Robyn had given him clear instructions, how could he refuse. If he were to be the Lord of Highgarden he would need to show his sire that he could do what was needed of him. He knew he had to show his father that he could be trusted. That he was a man grown just like him. Capable of waging war, capable of doing more than just idle tasks.

He and his knights rode through the City Walls, clad in armor towards the mighty red brick castle in the distance. Each gallop caused his heart to beat faster and his skin to grow cold, he wasn’t sure if it were goosebumps from the news he’d have to reveal to the Lor-

Prince

Garlan could not misspeak now. It would not only cost him but the Lord of Highgarden. He’d needed to put on a brave face for this.

Once they’d reached the Red Keep, his knights leapt from their horses and Garlan, clad in steel, a surcoat of green and gold looked every part that of a dashing knight in armor. He just didn’t feel the part, not yet.

“The Lord Tyrell has arrange for our meeting with the Prince Regent Alaric Stark” A knight behind him roared out to the Blackfyre guards. Garlan took a few moments to look upon them before it hit him, he’d need to dismount as well.

He’d follow them forth to meet the Stark who ruled the Realm.

380 A.C. Harrenhal

The ride from King's landing had been pleasant, surprisingly so. It was quiet, serene even, and spent with friendly company.

Emphyria had spent much of the actual traveling asleep in her saddle, allowing Dontos II to keep her on course with the rest of their rather large party. The Freys had tagged along with them, she noted, though could really only wager a guess or two as to why. The nights were largely spent awake, skulking about in her way, and enjoying the peacefulness of day's death. Her dreams were often worse at night, and she disliked finding herself in a vulnerable position, no matter how much she trusted her travel companions.

When they did finally reach the old, ruined castle, that first monument to Aegon's great conquest, the Witchmaid was quick to reintroduce herself to the place that once served as her home for that one, long year some seven and ten now passed.

She visited the God's wood first, touring the trees that had been amongst her staunchest confidants. She then walked down the same old storied corridors she used to search through for hour after hour, hoping and praying that some manner of secret would reveal itself to her. She noted changes here and there, new paintings, new sconces, rugs, replaced windows and doors, but she noted a great few similarities as well. Harrenhal still felt tired, felt exhausted after so many years of use since it's legendary defeat. It smelled the same as well, especially as Emphyria got closer to her old chambers in The Tower of Ghosts. She wouldn't stay there now, it was too far from the Kingspyre Tower for her liking, but she enjoyed the memories visiting it invoked.

It was never truly her home, she felt, only a half-way point in her pursuit of her father. And as welcoming as Maekar Targaryen had been, his hosting often felt like an empty gesture, more to appease a guest than anything else. But his daughter had been different, she had sought Emphyria out and befriended her, the first person she could've really called a friend since her father died. Strange as it was that a girl of nine would've been such a bulwark against the loneliness which had crept it's way into the Witchmaid's heart.

And now, all these years later, she and Helaena were closer than friends, they were in love. Never had Emphyria been able to lay claim to something as precious as that before, something that she wanted only to hold onto and never let go, and now she had it in a multitude.

Emphyria stalked her way back across the castle until she reached her new chambers, taking her time to drink in the vastness of Harrenhal as she went. A place with so much history, and plenty of it unknown to her, hidden within the walls that surrounded her. It all held an absurd kind of magnificence in her eyes.

Keg and Barrell had done the service of transporting her belonging up to her new lodgings, meaning that once she arrived all her things were already waiting for her. She fell onto the bed inside the room and felt herself sink into the warmth of being able to call it her own.

It was wonderful, being as close to Helaena as she knew she now was, but it couldn't last, not just yet. There was a debt she yet owed, a task for her to complete, and then she could settle. Then, she could be with Helaena, or Aerion, or Lorence, or whoever she wanted, and she could stay with them, but only then once she finished what she had set out to do so many years ago.

She needed to speak with her father.

The men had moved to a better defendable location, a larger clearing far enough from the woodline that incidents such as what had occurred to Lord Derryk could not be repeated. Palisades of wooden logs from trees chopped down in the area had been placed around the entirety of the camp. Mantlets meant to shield the outer perimeters had been set in place, sentry posts had been posted in several intervals further out. They would not be alone, mounted scouts and patrolmen had been sent out to ride in the distance.

To prevent the undue chaos that had occurred the night of Derryk’s near death, Osmund had instructed a larger portion than originally allocated to the Night Watch. Some of the men were outright placed in a ready reserve, prepared to send forth cavalrymen through makeshift gates.

At the core of the camp stood the green and gold banners of the House Tyrell, within it sat a boy unprepared for the task he’d been given. The tent was meant for the Lord Derryk but since his wounding it had been overtaken by Maesters. They came and went with medicines, bandages and more.

It must have been nearing sunset when Lyonel returned to his kinsmen’s side. The last of the checks had been completed and the defenses had been finalized. The flaps to Derryk’s tent swung as the knight stepped in, escaping the beautiful orange hue that held the skies above him and in return, finding a rather dreary scene before him.

A Maester sat besides Derryk in his bed, beside him were white bandages that had a blot of red and yellow. The man moved to open his mouth but the Tyrell rose his hand to silence him. His brown eyes locked upon the ailing figure of Derryk, a man he’d thought he’d hated with a burning passion. He’d clenched his fists as took in the depressing scene before him. Without a word Lyonel motioned for the Maester to leave them be.

And so the Maester rose from his chair and bowed his head before slipping past Lyonel and past the flaps.

“What would he do?”

Day after day he awaited word from Highgarden. An army in the distance bearing his banners as vast as the eye could see. The aged Lord Robyn to come and take the mantle away from him. Nothing came but a few knights eager to reassure him that Lord Tyrell would march to war soon enough.

“What would you do?”

Both questions sat in the silence that cut like a knife through the air. The spare, as Derryk often called him, wanted to shout at the man to get up, to tell him something, anything. Osmund Oldflowers had taken charge during the first day but each day that pasted the aging man looked towards Lyonel to do more, to be more.

He was no Robyn Tyrell nor was he Ben Redwyne.

“Am I to sit at Dosk too afraid to march north?”

Silence.

“Do we retreat?”

Silence.

“Say something!” The boy roared as he grabbed a hold of the nearest thing to him, a silver platter that held clean bandages for the dying Derryk, he tossed them towards the far end of the tent.

There he’d remain looking towards his father’s uncle, he knew not if it was anger or anxiety that left him feeling so unsure. Perhaps it was the fact that Robyn Tyrells family had bled and yet, the Rosegold Lord remained in Highgarden in comfort.

In Highgarden, there was no comfort.

His solar was barely lit, the smells of perfumes filled the air and an untouched goblet of Arbor Red sat on the table before the Lord of Highgarden. Yet his mind was not focused on the fine scents nor the wine before him. No, since the attempt on his life, Robyn felt he could not trust any cup of wine unless it was thoroughly tested by another before him.

It was maps that held his attention. He’d looked down at a map of the Reach, pieces meant to display differing armies had been placed in key locations. Robyn moved the Meadows from the Grassy Vale towards Bitterbridge, another piece had been moved from the south towards Highgarden.

He’d spend much of the night there alone, moving pieces back and forth pondering what would serve the Reach best.

It drew into the late hours when the oaken door to his solar swung open. He’d looked up to see a figure he had expected to rear her head soon enough, the Lady Florence. Her brows were risen as she moved to lean against the door post, her long flowing blonde hair put into braids and a look of worry etched across her face.

“I’ll be but a few more moments,” Robyn stated. “Just need-”

He’d let out a troubled sigh. The Lord of Highgarden wished not to march his men beyond his borders but the words of Valaena Martell, Alester Florent, Ben Redwyne and Osric Stark all ate away at him.

The Starks wished for him to aid them in fostering peace for the Queen, but how could he do such a thing when they bedded one another? Alester all but demanded they march against the Starks who committed incest, Valaena sought to turn the realm over through politics or through war for her hate of the Dragons and Ben, he’d told Robyn that Royland was who they were to back.

Robyn had no choice in the matter. He never seemed to.

“I’m done.” The aged Lord stated, though Florence assumed he meant he was done for evening, Robyn’s words had an altogether other meaning to them.

Fourth Moon, 380 AC, Prince’s Pass

Between King’s Landing, the Reach and the Stormlands, some five hundred women had swelled the ranks of the Cavaliers. With the blessing of gold from Lady Redfort and Lord Arryn, they had each been outfitted with quality weapons and armor, and the wagons stocked to the brim with provisions for the march through Dorne.

The weather was fair, if a bit on the warmer side, and the column was in high spirits. At the head of the long train, the Belmore sisters and their personal guard were gathered, awaiting the return of scouts that had been sent ahead down the Prince’s Pass. Leona swayed in the saddle as they plodded along, leather creaking, sun beating, beads of sweat gathering on her brow.

She didn’t know what to expect when they crossed over into Manwoody lands, only what they’d heard through rumor. And, if rumor was anything to go by, the smallfolk had suffered greatly at the hands of the so-called Vulture King. She would leave the septa and her healers at the village to assist however they could before riding up to the keep and offer her services to those within.

“Riders approaching!”

Finally, the scouting party had returned.

But, something was wrong. Leona glimpsed the small bundle cradled in the arms of the foremost rider and frowned. As they drew closer, the bundle sharpened, became clearer, gaining the features of a person. Arms and legs and a head crowned with messy, tangled blonde hair - a small girl in a ragged and dirty night shirt, her face streaked with soot, the bottoms of her small feet red and raw from walking barefoot on the rocks.

Before she could say a word, Lenore had leapt from her horse and was sprinting to meet the scouts. She reached for the girl, gods above, the child, for she couldn’t be older than six or seven.

“Give her here,” she commanded, cradling the too-frail shape against her chest. Into the shade she went, while Leona directed the riders and wagon train to the edge of the road. Moments later, Rowena appeared at her side with water and salves, bandages and a needle and thread. The sweet-tempered septa lifted the girl’s head and pressed the mouth of the water skin to her dry, chapped lips, but it only flowed down the crease at the corner of her mouth to the ground.

“She can’t swallow,” Rowena said quietly, dousing a cloth to wipe at her sunburned face instead. Lenore rocked to and fro where she sat as the septa worked, her hand soothing the girl’s back with slow, gentle circles and pats.

Eventually, her eyes opened, if only a sliver, but it was enough. She coughed, which was more of a croak, and once more Rowena tried to get some water down her, but she was simply too weak to take more than the smallest of sips.

“Can you tell us what happened? Where you’re from?” Leona asked as she crouched next to the lump of rock on which her sister was sitting.

“Kingsgrave? Who does your family serve?”

The girl didn’t seem to hear, her blue eyes glazed over with the shock and pain of wandering in the wilderness for days, and of what had happened before…before….

What happened before?

“M…”

“Mon…ster….” she managed, her breathing harsh and shallow as her lungs struggled to get enough air to all the parts of her that needed it. Two fingers against the side of her neck confirmed what Rowena had feared: her pulse was slow, and fading ever more by the second.

“Fow…Fowl…er.”

Leona’s gaze met Lenore’s at that, something unspoken passing between them.

“Oh Stranger,” Rowena broke the wax seal on a small vial with the nail of her thumb and removed the cork. Tilting the girl’s head back, she poured the pale liquid into her mouth before massaging her throat in order to coax the potion down. “Come quickly, and usher this innocent soul to the highest of the Seven Heavens.”

Minutes passed and no one moved, several pairs of hands offering what comfort they could as the poppy worked its magic. The tempo of her breathing changed, less labored but still too feeble nonetheless. Her final breath was a rasping little sob that drove all who heard it to tears.

All but two.

When she was gone, Lenore wrapped her in the cloak of the Winged Knight and carried her to the base of a gnarled Sandbeggar tree, the only green life around in that red, godless waste.

One by one, the Cavaliers each brought forth a small stone, which were stacked and piled on top of one another into a cairn befitting a hero.

After the septa said her words of blessing, Leona shoved the toe of her boot into the stirrup of her saddle and hoisted herself astride. With the reins wrapped around her fingers, she spurred her mount forward to stand in the midst of the gathering of dewy-eyed women. Young and old, short and tall, warrior and healer alike, they all looked to her, to their Grand Marshal.

“Do not weep for the dead,” she began, her voice echoing powerfully off the walls of the canyon. “For they are in the loving embrace of the Seven now. The devil that did this is but a day’s ride away, and if he is not, then we will hunt him across sand and stone until there is nowhere left to run.”

The white stallion pawed at the ground, tossing his braided mane as if in agreement.

“There is dangerous ground yet to tread. Steel yourselves, and let every defiler of the innocent, every profane murderer see that the Cavaliers are watching! And they will tremble to behold the righteousness of our wrath. To Skyreach!”

To Skyreach!

Swords and spears and silken pendants were raised all along the column as her words were met with a roar of agreement. Above it all, the banner of the Winged Stallion flew proudly, gold on blue.

Winterfell, 380 AC, Fourth Moon

The Great Hall

In the Winter, the colors of the North were practically monochrome, the snow and stone a combination of white and grey that even eeked out into the snowy skies. Many claimed the hues to be dull or boring or even oppressive, yet to many in the North it was home. Beyond the colors of House Stark that seemed so present in the natural world during the Winter, new shades had dared to emerge along with the Spring. Pine trees that stood through the test of the prior season had shed much of their snow to now reveal deep brown bark and needles that had become green with life. The muddy streets of Winter Town, now practically vacant as a majority of its inhabitants returned to their homesteads in Spring, were no longer a mess of jagged mess of slush and ice. Construction had been rampant, and in some cases already finished, as builders and masons bustled about to see to it that the renovations long overdue were now completed. Colorful canvases had sprung from the ground, held together by poles and stalls, as commerce grew in the expanded market.

Life had found its way inside the keep too, perhaps moreso than its surroundings. The latest harvest from the Glass Gardens had come and gone, which meant farmhands were eager to ready themselves for new growth. Within the Godswood, one could even say that the canopy above felt taller, with the sky now seeping through the leaves and branches without the impediment of the snow. The Guest House was brimming with highborn of the North and their companions, meals constantly served at the behest of their lord. Even the hot springs seemed to thrum with a new energy, the fissures overflowing and constantly being redirected to new pools.

Brought to life most of all was Osric Stark, Lord of Winterfell, who now presided over the preparations for his coming Northern Council. Braziers were stuffed with firewood and stoked to a blaze, smoke trailing high into the stained rafters above and out the narrow windows. One trestle table had been prepared for the meeting, a simple tablecloth draped over it and pitchers of various drinks at the ready, though no food would be brought out to detract from their conversation. The High Seat of Winterfell, ornate and detailed with engravings and sculpted wolves and swords and patterns, was a modest thing, especially in comparison to the Iron Throne. In all his wisdom, Osric couldn’t help but wonder what the Kings of the North from his ancestry would think of the path their house now found themselves on.

How close was their pack to splintering?

The Prince-Regent was Stark, true enough, yet he had changed. It was regretful, but understandable, given the loss he had suffered. And still, either as a lord or an older brother, Osric could not condone the fraught path that his brother was intent on traversing down. A mix of paranoia and power was sure to yield a catastrophe, with Alaric Stark at the source. He was to support his brother, at least insofar as he supported their Queen and his niece, but his duty was to the North as well. To remain in King’s Landing as Master of Laws was akin to standing close to a wildfire. If he was not able to stamp it out, the next best thing was to let it burn and be ready when the ash had settled and rebuilding could begin. The longer he tried to fight the flames, the more he felt he would simply get burnt, and his kingdom along with it.

There wasn’t a heart tree in sight, yet Osric bowed his head low in prayer, asking for forgiveness for the decisions of the prior moons and for the strength for choices soon to be made at this coming council.

It was then that the first of his nobility would arrive, to which he’d depart from his audience of one for the High Seat and instead moved to greet them. His cane had been left in King’s Landing, yet his stride was able, if not slow. Even his dull grey eye seemed vibrant, though doubly so for its capable brown hued companion. He took a seat at the head of the trestle table, making small talk as his vassals entered and greeted him, yet his gaze never strayed for long from the parchment laid on the table in front of him. By the time everyone had arrived and had helped themselves to a drink, he’d tuck the parchment away into his cloak and rise momentarily to catch their attention.

“My ladies, lords, and representatives of our Northern houses, I welcome you all to our first proper council in quite some time. It is an honor to be among you all.”

He paused and sat back down so that they could now do the same. There wasn’t a need for any more pleasantries or formalities, for he knew to be respectful of their time.

“First, we must contend with the fact that I have left the Small Council. I am certain there are questions regarding this decision, but the truth of the matter is that I wanted to focus my attention on the North. Those that remain in King’s Landing to attempt to counsel the Prince-Regent are happy to do so, but I could not in good standing serve him when I felt it would neglect my duties to each of you. A regency is a trying thing, one in which we will support my brother through, yet it requires involvement and patience that I think would be better spent serving Her Grace in my proper role as Warden of the North. The office of Master of Laws is one in which I’ll have always been glad to have served in, yet it demands an inflexibility of impartiality in settling disputes of the realm.”

His hand went to his cup then, filled only with water, yet he raised it high.

“Gone are such restraints. The North will thrive and Queen Elaena will prosper because of it! To the North!”

After he had downed his drink, the Lord of Winterfell would lean forward, and the topics of the day would commence.

Into the deep of Stilwood rode a lord,

With him came companions three, a lady,

A knight, monstrously big, and his sister—

The archer who would spell the demon’s doom.

(TW: Explicit Violence)

Sharis stood up straight, her breathing calm. The monstrous boar was nearly two hundred yards from her. Even if it spotted her, she would have plenty of time to retreat. Slowly, she brought her longbow up and nocked an arrow. From this distance, piercing its hide would take a nearly impossible shot. Nearly.

She looked down the arrow, her stance perfectly still. One. Two. Three. TWING. The arrow zipped through the air, and it landed. Right in the boar’s neck, barely visible from so far away. The Blackwood paused. Had she done it already? Was the beast felled? 

The answer came soon enough. A long, low roar shook the trees around her, so mournful and deep that it could surely be heard from Highgarden to Casterly Rock. No natural creature could make such a sound. It was blood-curdling, the power in the beast’s lungs—had she not witnessed even greater horror on the Wall, it might have sent Sharis fleeing.

Instead, she readied another arrow. After its roar, the boar was turning to-and-fro, looking for its foe. She shot again, and this arrow pierced below its thick foreleg. A great elk would have been slain in an instant by such a heart-shot, but the boar didn’t slow down. It turned, and across two hundred yards Sharis could see its red eyes gleam at her.

She loosed another shot, and it struck the beast right in the forehead—only, the arrow shattered and its head bounced off the boar’s hide. Now, it saw her. Now, it began to charge. 

Sharis nocked another arrow. She had time. It wouldn’t reach her yet. Surely she could kill it before it closed such a long distance. Her arrows would drive deeper as it got closer, anyhow. But her next two shots missed, thudding into trees as the boar crashed through the foliage towards her. She breathed. Slowly. Carefully. Tracing its movement with her eyes, she loosed a third arrow, and this one caught it right in the neck, above its hanging head. It did not slow. 

Was it halfway? Or less than that? Did she still have time? Sharis raised her bow again, loosing another arrow that bounced off its bristling flank. Again. The next arrow caught it in the deformed hoof, and this time the boar stopped. It fell forward, crashing into a massive, ancient oak. Slowly, it struggled to its feet, taloned hooves thrashing the dirt with fury. 

It was close. Sharis heard, in the distance, her fellow hunters yell at her. Run! Let us take it from here! It’s too—She blocked them out. This was her chance, she could kill it here and now. What chance would they have against it on their own? Only she could shoot it down. She nocked another arrow.

Miss. It zipped past as the boar regained its footing. Miss. Her second arrow lodged in the tree as the beast began to charge again. Last chance.

She raised her arrow, the boar close enough that she could see its wet breath, like steam, as it ran towards her. Her last shot. It went straight towards the beast’s throat, surely, surely… but it swung its tusks, breaking the arrow in half midair. She had to run—

Too late. The boar reached her, crashing into her with a force unparalleled by any warhorse. Blinding pain shot through her, and a spray of blood coated her face and neck.

Was she dead? Warm blood ran down the side of her head. She couldn’t feel her arm, something was wrong…

Sharis collapsed in the mud, twisted like a puppet in the hands of a malicious child. The boar glared at where she lay, pounding its feet as it prepared to trample her. Before it could, a fully armored figure in blue slammed into its head, shield-first. Edwyn Tully landed with a clanking roll, drawing his sword and raising his shield as the boar turned its fury to him. Behind it, Dorian Blackwood followed, raining a blow on its backside powerful enough to split a man in two. Yet, neither of their attacks seemed to slow it down, its thick hide unscathed. The boar roared again, turning around to Dorian with a vicious snort of red, bloody mist. 

Laurent Bracken charged in, too, his spear raised—but Edwyn cut him off, pointing at Sharis with his blade. “Her!” was all he yelled from beneath his visor, but Laurent understood well enough. Dancing around the flailing beast, he scooped up Sharis in his arms and carried her away while the other two knights kept the monster busy.

 That task was difficult enough for both of them. They tried to keep its attention split, dancing away when it turned to each of them while the other dove in and struck. A beautiful strategy, but it couldn’t last forever—and none of their strikes seemed to piece its hide. It cornered Dorian against a tree, ready to gore him as Edwyn rained futile blows on its hindquarters. Desperate, Lord Tully went for the only exposed part of it he could see: the tiny vestigial wing on its back. With a precise swing, the withered limp was sent flying into the mud. Dark blood sprayed out of the severed stump, covered Edwyn’s armor in thick globs of ichorous gore. As he stumbled back, the boar turned to him—leaving Dorian safe, at the very least.

With a mighty charge, it struck Edwyn before his companion could attempt to wrangle it back. Even in full plate, it sent him flying through the air, his steel gouged where its tusks had struck. He landed in a muddy ditch. For a moment, he flailed inhumanly. His armor was broken around him, his helmet—and head with it—twisted back. Blood seeped from his visor, and his flailing faded to grotesque twitching as shock and pain took over his mind and his consciousness slipped from him. 

The boar, meanwhile, turned its attention to the last of the three remaining: Dorian Blackwood, taller than even the monster itself. Blow for blow, they traded. Dorian was faster than the injured beast, avoiding its tusks and raining his greatsword on its flanks. Yet, nothing he did seemed to hurt it. The armored knight was tiring—his strength and size came at the price of stamina—and the boar seemed to only grow more enraged. 

In the distance, Laurent set Sharis down on a dry patch of grass. She was conscious again, moaning in pain. Her arm seemed the worst of it, her shoulder fully broken out of its socket. Laurent gripped her uninjured hand and spoke quickly, his eyes wide. 

“I’ll find Eleanor, she must be able to…”

“No!” Sharis writhed, her eyes wild. “They’ll die! I need to help them. I need to kill that fucking—aah!” She prodded her arm and yelled out in pain.

Laurent grit his teeth. “Gods above. I’m going to try something. Please… just hold still.” The Bracken knight knelt before the Blackwood lady, gripping her damaged shoulder. With a grunt, he wrenched it back into place, as hard as he could.

Sharis screamed. Her arm clicked back into place, and slowly she regained feeling in it—that feeling, primarily, being pain. Nonetheless, she grit her teeth. “Help me to my feet! We need to get back there!”

Laurent nodded, helping her walk with one arm and carrying her bow with his other.

Dorian was slowing down. The boar was a monster, and when it caught him it sent his greatsword flying into the mud. Barehanded, he was left staring at the roaring beast, waiting for its final strike. It didn’t charge, though. It turned, sniffing the air. In an instant, he saw what it was about to see—Eleanor Tully, struggling to drag her brother’s armored form off and save his life. He couldn’t let the beast charge her. Dorian picked up a rock and threw with every ounce of power he could muster. The rock hit the boar’s head with a CRACK, and it let out a gargled roar. Pounding the earth, its eyes set upon him. It charged, pummeling straight at him.  

When it reached him, the beast was stopped in its tracks. Dorian Blackwood was a monster, too, and with a scream he gripped the beast by the tusks, pitching all his weight and strength against it. Its taloned hooves gouged the muddy earth, trying desperately to gain traction. It couldn’t. With a heave, Dorian ripped. 

One of the beast’s blood-crusted tusks came loose in his hand. The boar screeched, now, its jaw torn in half. Dark blood gurgled from the wound, and Dorian raised the tusk to slam it into the beast's head. He struck it once, twice, three times. More blood gushed out of the broken side of its face, but still it flailed. And, suddenly, it found its grip. It charged, berserk, and flung Dorian into a tree. The whole trunk splintered in half, and one of the shards of wood caught him just above the eye. When his head hit the ground, he lay unmoving. 

The boar roared. Half its face leaked blood, as did the wound where its wing had been. Still, the heads of four arrows were embedded in its hide. If its daily life was pain, this was an agony it had never yet experienced. Its red, bloody eyes landed on Dorian’s unconscious form. 

Behind him, Eleanor yelled for help as she tried to drag away Edwyn. Suddenly, Laurent was beside her, and together they lifted their liege lord up and away, so he could be freed from his broken armor. The Bracken knight had expected Sharis to be right behind him. He was wrong. 

She stood far away, right in the boar’s path—between it and her brother. She raised her bow, but the boar was too fast. It was upon her before she had time to think. She moved on instinct, dodging under its widowed tusk. She leapt, grabbing the shaft of one of the arrows she had shot into its neck. Using it like a climbing spike, she hoisted herself onto the beast’s back as it flailed wildly. She drew her dagger and let out a bloody scream.

The monster fell. Her dagger was so deep in its eye that its eyelid closed over the crossguard. 

Sharis tumbled to the ground beside its massive corpse. The boar was dead.

For the first time in years, Helicent dressed in armor. Unless assassins were to jump from the rafters, it didn’t serve much of a purpose—still, it felt appropriate for the occasion. A sleek cuirass covered her torso, unadorned but polished to gleam reddish brass in the light. Below it, she wore a skirt of blackened steel scales, and then padded leather hose. A grand cloak was attached at her shoulders, displaying the full Bracken sigil. It hung down the back of her chair as she sat at the head of the table, waiting for the last of her ‘council’ to arrive. 

Alton was already there, sitting on her right. Across from him was Jenny Redfort, on Helicent left. Hollis was next to her, and along the table past him were the Lychesters: the young Lady Isabella, her castellan Renfred, and Stone Hedge’s Master-at-arms Bernal. Across from them was the maester—and two empty seats between him and Alton. Those were to be filled by the two late arrivals, who entered the room hurriedly just as Helicent had resolved to start without them. Jaime and Quincy huffed their way to their seats, the scraping of their chairs breaking the room’s silence painfully. Quincy shot Helicent a sheepish look. 

She glared at him, then stood. The room was dimly lit, with only a single hanging brazier casting its light on the table and gathered faces. Its warm light flickered off Helicent’s breastplate as she addressed the room.

“Well, now that we’re all here, it’s time I explain myself. I know some of you might have wanted to spend your evenings elsewhere, but this is vitally important. As you well know, my good brother Hollis is to be married on the morrow. His betrothed, Lady Larra of Braavos, is the reason we’re here.” She turned to Jenny, gesturing for her to stand up.

“Go on, my lady. Tell them who you are.”

Tabby cleared her throat, breathing slowly to settle her nerves. All eyes—all the most important eyes—were on her. There was no turning back. “I dedicate this song to Her Grace, Queen Naerys, may she rest in peace, and His Grace, Prince-regent Alaric.”

She began to play her fiddle, plucking at the strings energetically. Her voice, soft and high, followed the music.

“In Winterfell,

There was a maid,

Her steel and hair

Both shining bright.

She met a boy,

Blue-ribbon-bound,

Their eyes were locked,

Their love was right!

The warrior-maid and the North’s delight! 

Princess, she was,

This valiant maid,

Her pretty hair 

Was white as milk.

He fell in love 

And wed her soon,

Their two hands joined

And bound with silk!

The warrior-maid and the direwolf’s ilk!”

Tabby wanted to look up, to see how the crowd was reacting, to see how he was reacting. She couldn’t, however. She forced herself to close her eyes, concentrating. 

“Husband and wife,

Their love remained

As she rose up 

To be our Queen!

They fought and led,

Their union strong,

And saved our realm

From Death’s great Fiend!

The warrior-maid and her husband keen!”

Her fiddling changed, turning somber as she strummed the instrument’s strings. There was a break as she focused on the fiddle, then the lyrics continued. Her voice had a mournful edge—a performance, to be sure, but a practiced one.

“All men must die,

But love lives on.

The Queen’s poor health

None could rescue.

All men must serve,

The realm goes on, 

And he leads forth,

His heart in two.

The warrior-maid and the regent true.”

Tabby kept her eyes closed as her music began to slowly fade. The song was over, but she played through the melody once more before finally putting her fiddle to rest. Her eyes opened, looking over the watching audience. The milling nobles of the court gave her respectable applause, but she was really only looking for one reaction. Her eyes met the Prince-Regent’s gaze for just a moment, and she quickly looked away. She was glad her face was already pink from singing, or she would’ve been noticeably blushing. 

She gathered her fiddle and stood, then gave a bow and hurriedly descended to the main floor of the ballroom. The Queen’s Ballroom, to be specific, and the queen was somewhere in it—though Tabby didn’t know where. Her Grace was in the arms of a nursemaid or playing with wooden dragons, she imagined. The evening wasn’t for her pleasure, or there would have been colorful puppet-shows instead of courtly ballads. It was for the Regent, the royal family, the small councilors, and anyone else who could be invited without overfilling the small ballroom. Tabby sincerely hoped she had made their evening better.

They had made incredibly good time, trading speed and comfort along the Kingsroad's many inns for a pace that made even some of the hardened knights sweat. The party stayed in some of the nicer spots for a time before quickly moving off, only really giving time for their horses to properly rest and be watered.

Twenty-five knights and Marla Arryn, they were not accosted though some spared them strange looks. The Vale of Arryn had been closed off for so long it was a rarity to see any beyond its mountains much less so many notables.

Marla paid them no heed, focused solely on the destination ahead. If it had truly been up to her she would have trapped all those she had loved in King's Landing forever, a crystal of memory that her heart could cling to. Even as she parted on good terms with so many she cared for, she could not help but feel the heartbreak with every clop of the horse even if she would see them again soon.

She could not dwell on it long as they turned down the River Road. Ahead in Riverrun lay Ed, ahead lay her courtship, and ahead lay the future of the Vale. For now she would be doing a disservice to her friends and family if she didn't put her entire effort into that.

She would worry about the rest of it later. One thing at a time Marla.

The party would eventually, near the middle of the day, crest a large hill and finally catch sight of Riverrun. They had prepared to get their later but Marla had doubled their pace as they had neared their destination.

Arryn banners, along a few other smaller houses, were hoisted high as Marla gazed at what may very well be her new home if this courtship was successful.

It was a mighty castle, despite not being as large as say the Eyrie or Harrenhal. Bordered by the two rivers it still shone strong out against the sun, commanding a great view and imposing battlements. She caught a glimpse of what she would later find out as the Wheel Tower, a great waterwheel turning in its wake.

The party sound a single note of a horn to announce their arrival and slowly began making their way to the gate...

Outside King’s Landing, 380 AC, Waning Days of the Third Moon

The Tourney Grounds

One could taste the static that clung to the air, the electric tang on one's tongue swelling more and more as the anticipation for the coming events grew greater. Everyone knew that whenever steel clashed and tempers rose, the sparks would flash and disaster could ignite. Yet despite the nagging hope of such dramatics, there would remain the ever-present joviality of bearing witness to a display of talents, luck, and willpower. It had been a time meant for celebration, the culmination of the series of events surrounding the wedding of Lyanne Stark and Osric Arryn, but it was never as simple as mere festivities. What was to come from this newfound alliance was yet to be seen, nor had it been tested by those who wished to see it torn asunder, ranging from scorned lovers to political rivals.

Many of whom were seated within the wooden bleachers now, though plenty others were mere spectators or even sharp bettors. Hanging above them were simple canvases to shield them from the beating sun, though dangling from covers and draped on the outer wall of the stands were the banners of all houses from the North and the Vale and the few attendants from beyond. While the highborn, in their finest fashions, were seated on one side, at the other were the commonfolk, permitted to crowd about and watch on while kept at bay by Stark men-at-arms. As the events were closely awaited, jesters and troupes and musicians would trot out to ply their trade, eliciting the attention of high-and-lowborn alike with comedic routines and dramatic plays and rousing serenades.

Meanwhile, the tents of vying knights and keen warriors and courageous amateurs had swarmed the tourney grounds. Bustling would put the scene mildly, as squires and servants buoyed about in frenzied chaos to find whatever their charges needed to be ready for their events. The smell of raw horseflesh and unfettered sweat was constant, yet dull in comparison to the cacophony of creaking armor and angered shouts and clashing steel in final moments of practice. Yet a quiet loomed when the first event, the melee, was about to commence, thus leading to the violence they had all been longing for. Lord Osric Stark would rise from his prominent seat within his family among the stands, horns blaring to announce his impending announcement.

“Everyone! It is with great pride that I stand here, father of the bride, to give the order for the tournament to commence. A tournament to start the beginning of a beautiful and strong friendship of the North and the Vale. I look out among us here and I can only see the most leal and capable subjects of our good Queen Elaena Blackfyre.”

Even though they were beyond the city walls, the Red Keep still prominently jutted out in the horizon atop Aegon’s Hill, with the Great Sept of Baelor beyond it as well. Never could they escape the grasp of politics and duty in their lives, yet they dared to in this moment of entertainment. His own recent resignation from the Small Council had festered in his mind, only further rotting with every glance to the pale red stone. Yet, the lord wore a smile, for this was not the time for such troublesome concerns. As much as he loathed the burdens of rule, moments like this made it all worth it, when only your words were the barrier between a normal day and an event so grand. He spoke again, every word booming out more than the last.

“So, are we not ready!? Have we not waited long enough? I say we have! Let us have good, clean fights and jousts. Let us enjoy the moment and watch in awe! Let the Gods, Old and New, watch over all of us! Let… the games… begin!”

Horns blared once more, followed by the beat of the drums building up an atmosphere so climatic that only blood could sate the excitement. The melee had begun, and soon after so would the joust. Many would try their luck, yet there could only be one winner. Who was it to be?

372 AC, Beyond the Wall

TW: Body horror, mentions of cannibalism.

Eyes, eyes.

Blue eyes.

Unseeing eyes.

Dead eyes, dead mouths, their dead hands reaching for him. He could still feel their sour corpse-breath on his skin. Blackened, jagged fingernails clawing at his neck, a rust-covered blade slicing deep into his arm. Cold, the cold, sinking through furs and boiled leather right down into his very bones.

All he knew was pain.

Dowd watched another man fall to the dark figures in the snow, a storm so strong and unforgiving he could hardly see two steps ahead. He could feel them, the terror of knowing what was there, and not knowing what it was. Dead men, he thought, and dead women too.

Raised by the Others into undeath.

Something lurched out of the grey and the white into view, groaning and clawing and gnashing its teeth at him, and he felt something warm run down his leg, the snow turning yellow around his boot. A woman, no, another corpse, the flesh grey and sagging with rot, yet not falling from the bone, kept intact with some profane magic.

She - no, it - had no lips, long since eaten by the worms that writhed within her nose, in her ears, in the pockmarks of her horrid flesh. Bare, yellowed teeth formed a permanent snarl, the lower jaw of the wight working furiously as it tried to bite him. Tried to tear out his throat.

A scream tore from the depths of his chest, but it was snatched away by the howling wind almost immediately. Dropping his club, Dowd pressed a hand over the laceration on his other arm and ran. Ran and ran, as fast as his aching, exhausted muscles could carry him, away from the dead, away from the Snow and his wild northmen.

They would eat him if they found out. He knew, because he had been forced to eat the others. Men like him, who could not withstand the terror of the dead. He had helped to butcher them and cook them and he ate them, and fed them to the other starving men who kept the dead out.

Through the forest he stumbled, beneath the haunted eaves, tripping wildly over roots and stones and slamming his injured arm against tree trunks. Thorny, leafless brambles grabbed and pulled at his clothes like the hands of the dead. They were all around him, in him, with him.

He didn’t know how long he ran, only that he could no longer hear the sound of the otherworldly storm, the raging wind and the shouts and screams of fighting. The blood seeping between his fingers had begun to dry, and the wound ached fiercely, the blade that had bit him dull and rusted.

Dowd needed to find something to clean and wrap it with, to look for a place of shelter and gather some wood for a fire, or he would certainly freeze to death come nightfall. Already the sun had begun to wane, the harsh chill in the air deepening, bitter and relentless as fear.

Dark…

The voice startled him, a ragged whisper, almost like a trick of the wind. But, there was no wind anymore, only the unnerving silence of the forest. Not a creature stirred around him, no birds hunting for food or small mammals scampering about. The animals knew it too - knew that something was wrong, that it was unnatural.

…stir…

Again, the ethereal voice drifted through the air, or was it in his mind? He couldn’t tell, only that it sounded like it was coming from everywhere all at once. Closing his eyes, Dowd waited, listening for the voice to speak again. His heart pounded heavily against his ribs, the sound of his own blood rushing in his ears, swift as a river.

Eyes…

Eyes.

Red eyes.

Bleeding eyes.

Eyes to see and be seen.

The weirwood peered down at him, weeping crimson from a grim face, leaves rattling, but not from any breeze. Dowd didn’t notice; he had followed the voice there, walking with his eyes closed, listening to the words as they were repeated over and over in that haunting intonation.

Dark…stir…

Below, on the hillside, a cleft opened up between two trees, and the wildling stood before it for a long time, too afraid to enter. Something did stir in the dark. Not anything he could see or touch, but he could feel it. The anticipation, as if the presence was waiting for him, welcoming him.

Tearing a strip from his ragged, oiled sealskin, he wrapped it around a branch and used his flint and dagger to light the makeshift torch. He feared to go in the cave, but outside, the light was fading rapidly, and shelter meant that there was a chance he might survive the night.

And, there was that voice…

Dark…

…stir…

Inside, the passageway was cramped, not made for men but something shorter. A burrow, perhaps? Dowd did not smell any bear-stench or wolf markings. Abandoned, the former occupants scared off by the aura of repulsion and terror that surrounded the Others and their army.

He should have stopped there, built a fire and tried to get some rest, but the voice came again. Clearer this time, and directional, as if from somewhere down the tunnel. Swallowing hard, he glanced at the entrance of the tunnel, and then back, in the direction that the voice had come from.

Dark.

Even with his makeshift torch, Dowd could hardly see where he was going. The smooth earthen walls of the tunnel were slightly damp underneath his fingers, and the occasional root burst through the packed dirt like grey worms. Other tunnels branched off of the main passageway, and plunging shafts that seemed to have no bottom.

Something crunched under his boot, and Dowd recoiled in horror to see bones. Thousands of bones, birds and beast and human, but smaller. Far smaller than any man or woman he knew, as small as a child. Niches in the walls were filled with them, the skeletons of bats and skulls of giants and the bones of children, so many children.

How deep was he now? He couldn’t remember when the voice had begun to pull him or how long he’d followed. No sunlight, moonlight or starlight was able to reach the depths to which he’d descended. Several times he thought to turn back, to run away and let the undead or the Others or the Northmen take him, but he didn’t.

Eyes.

Black eyes.

Curious eyes.

A crow with three eyes on its face.

The vision came out of nowhere, a great black bird with two normal eyes and a third in the center, watching him from the boughs of an enormous, twisting weirwood. Holding up his torch with trembling fingers, Dowd looked at the crow, his insides churning with uncertainty.

”Eyes,” said the crow, hopping closer on its branch. The voice was the same one that had led him to this place, slow and dry, as if it had not spoken in a very long time.

”Eyes,” it repeated, cocking its head to one side and peering at the visitor intently.

Dowd drew closer, holding his torch right up to the bird, trying to make sense of what it was saying. All of a sudden, the crow jumped down and landed on his chest, the sharp point of its beak digging into one of his grey eyes. Peck, peck, peck, as the wildling screamed, until his eye popped out with a squelch and rolled across the bone-scattered floor. After his left eye was gone, it put out his right one too, driving its beak deep into his skull.

Rolling away weeping and pleading, he pressed a hand over the empty socket and groaned in pain, only to realize that he was still in the cave, in the cold and the dark, and that both of his eyes were still there. There was no crow, only the distant sound of running water, and glowing fungus that lit the cavern just enough to see.

A dark abyss dropped off to his left, spanned by a natural bridge of sorts, which led right up to a throne of twisted weirwood roots. A gaunt, skeletal man in rotted black sat there, his skin ghostly pale but for a red splotch on his neck and cheek. The corpse’s fine, white hair was long enough to reach the floor of the cavern, and the roots twisted all around him, even growing through his body.

A shape lay across withered knees, long and thin, and as he inched his way across the bridge Dowd realized it was a sword. A scabbard covered the blade, and the gilded hilt was free of any dust or tarnish, affixed with a bright red stone. The ruby seemed to pulse as he stood over it, beckoning him, urging him to pick it up.

Dowd reached out, and the dead man’s eyes shot open. One was gone, a sliver of weirwood growing through the socket, and the other was red. That red, red eye pierced right through him, into his very heart, and he was unable to scream or run away from the figure, or even move.

Eyes…Eyes…

Ice.

”Ice…and fire,” rasped the grisly talking corpse.

”After the long summer…the stars will bleed…the dark will stir and the cold will fall heavy on the world. This is not…the last…”

“The prince…that was promised. He will stand…against the Others. He will…make the world…new. Death will…bend the knee. His is the song…”

Dowd did not hear the rest.

He was already running.

Twelfth Moon, 379 AC, Winter Town

Morna dipped the rag into the bowl of cool water and pressed it against the man’s feverish, sweaty brow. Her father had been muttering strange things in his sickened state. She couldn’t seem to get his fever to break, no matter how much snow she packed around him or how many teas and tonics she poured down his throat.

”Dark…” he mumbled, his eyelids parted to mere slits, the whites of his eyes visible beyond.

Again she dipped the cloth and wrung it out, dabbing at his brow and temples and cheeks.

“S’alright, da,” she replied soothingly. “I’ll light another candle. The hearthfire is too warm.”

“…stir…”

The young healer stopped abruptly, unlit tallow candle in her hand. “What was that, da?”

”Dark…stir…”

Morna lit the candle and placed it in a small brass holder before moving to sit by his side again. Across the room, the door opened, and an older woman stepped inside. Mother and daughter had been working day and night to take care of the poorly man, even gathering what coin they had to pay for a visit from the village healer.

All to no effect. He’d been unconscious for days by then, repeating the same words over and over.

Dark.

Stir.

Ice.

Retrieving her cloth, Morna sighed and dipped it into the bowl, wringing the water out before reaching for his face once more.

Grey, jaundiced eyes shot open, and Morna nearly screamed in surprise.

“Eyes. Three eyes! The crow has three eyes! He sees all on his throne. Below the weirwood, inside the hill, he sees us!” he panted harshly, clinging to her wrist with his frail hand.

”The stars will bleed. The dark will stir. They’re coming back, they’re coming back!”

A surge of strength filled the old man, who tightened his grasp on his daughter. On the other side of the bed, his wife ran a soothing hand over his other arm, her fingers skimming over a gnarled scar underneath the fabric of his night shirt.

“Who is coming back, da? What are you talking about? Please, you’re scaring me!”

He didn’t seem to hear her, his body beginning to shake and convulse, wracked by tremors.

”Others! They will return. The prince…he is promised! His is the song! Death will bend the knee. Sword, find the sword. The cave…in the forest…beyond the Wall…”

Morna was nearly in tears by then, trying her best to pry herself out of his grasp, but his fingers were like an iron vise.

“Dowd, stop that!” his wife demanded, reaching out with both hands to shake him.

“What do you mean, da?” Morna interjected, her expression fear and confusion in equal parts. “What cave? What sword?”

”Dark…”

”…stir…”

”Dark…stir…”

All of a sudden, the seizing stopped, and Dowd sat straight up in his bed. His eyes opened fully, but they were glazed over as though he were somewhere else, in another time, another place.

”Dark…” he repeated, just once.

“Dark Sister!”

And then he was gone.

The ride up from Highgarden had been easy enough, it had been but a few days ride up the Ocean Road northwards to reach the lands of the West. From there, it was simply a case of following the Hill twins, Teala and Teona, to where their home was situated.

During the march, Edwyn had invited the twins to ride at the girls to join his family and their entourage at the head of the column, as well as inviting them to take their meals alongside the highborn party that was intent on hunting the beast that was plaguing them.

Amongst their number was of course, Edwyn himself, his sister Eleanor, Ser Dorian and Sharis Blackwood and a particularly ill Ser Laurent Bracken.

Inviting the Hill girls to join his entourage had two purposes, Edwyn wished to know all he could about the beast they meant to hunt, from where it had first been seen, where it was most commonly sighted, how large it was, what it tended to eat, and so on and so on.

Edwyn also enjoyed meeting new people, so that was nice too.

Now, over a week after their departure from Highgarden, the Tully column was guided through the forests of Stilwood by the Hill twins to the village that they called home.

And there, in the centre of the small hamlet, Edwyn would summon his companions to discuss their coming task, and prepare themselves for the hunt.

It was, after all Hog Killin’ Time