Chapter 1: “That Time I Died and My Body Did Not Decompose”
Summary:
Rearranged the timeline a bit… 🤷
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
P R O L O G U E - I
King’s Landing
It had only been but a handful of weeks since the heavy thud of Ice, a sound which, though swallowed by the manic, unruly clamor of the Sept of Baelor, now haunted the alleys of the capital. The execution of a Lord from an ancient House might have started as a mere sport- a spectacle for the populace- but now, it was regarded as a terrible, undeniable omen from both the Old Gods and the New. The capital was now gripped by its throat, suffocated by a malady far more contagious than any physical plague: the fever of dread, expounded by the sickness of gossip.
Dissidents of Flea Bottom would huddle in shadowed alleyways and dim lighted taverns; high of beer and wine, cup filled of ale to the brim, yet whispers laced with sober, acute dread.
Eddard Stark, they all nodded in hushed tones. The traitor. The usurper. Or was he?
The Lord’s head has remained on displayed on a spike high above the Keep, still endured by his daughter for a forced daily viewing. Yet according to the whores who were sneaked behind the gated stones, there was no sign of decay, no stench or rot to behold.
By the laws of the Gods, Old and New, by the truth of nature, his remains should have been swiftly rendered into foul spoilage: a testament to the newly crowned King’s brutal judgement.
Yet the corpse remained unnaturally incorruptible, and even the most unsuperstitious of the small folk whispered.
“It is evil, I tell ya,” the old baker, forehead wrinkled, muttered to his buddies. “I don’t know shit ‘bout them Old Gods, but I’ve heard ‘bout them Others and Winters to come an’ White Walkers. Northern demons aye. They should throw ‘em body away before we’re all made corpses here down South!”
There was a muted sound of agreement; after all, this was not a popular theory at all. White walkers were myth, everyone knew that. Old tales that the Northerners tell their kids at bed to force them to sleep were ill received down South.
Tobho Mott, a man who once boasted of the visits of two Hands of the King, felt compelled to defend the honor of the dead Lord. Of course, he knew the visits were for the kid (who he was still greatly fond of) but still, it boosted his reputation nonetheless. And so he felt inclined to protect Lord Stark’s reputation, if it even still existed.
“Nay, you old rascal,” he fiercely argued and waved a strong fist. “As if you aren’t using your brain! The Lord Hand isn’t rotting because a bastard sits on the Iron Throne! Lannister gold, from head to toe. Not one drop of Baratheon blood flowing in their veins,” he quietly followed in a hushed tone. Aye, he thought. Unlike his old ward who looked much more Baratheon than the false King on the Iron Throne.
Silent nods echoed around those within earshot. The primal Old Gods have refused the false King’s judgement; the Seven gave no blessing to the bastard King’s cruel punishment. What god would, when he slaughtered his fellow bastard brethren right beneath the shadows of the Keep and the great Sept.
Now there were four kings, and the talk of exiled royal siblings abroad.
A false lion bastard sitting on the coveted Iron throne, a, harbinger of war, a killer of bastards.
An overzealous lone stag, backed by a blasphemous religion of a blasphemous god.
A younger stag, who claimed the allegiance of the greatest wealth and banners in all the kingdoms.
A vengeful wolf of the blood of the First Men, seeking to avenge the wrongful death of his lord father.
And lastly, the exiled dragons, so far from home, desperate to reclaim the stolen birthright.
The players were set. The game was starting. But the spectators cared little about who ruled where. They only cared about who to blame for what, and the what in question being the famine manufactured by a needless war.
The imp, or rather, the acting Hand of the King pulled up his ragged hood, listening intently to the whispers and gossip mulling around in the tavern. Rather than his usual glass of wine, he opted for tea, which he drank slowly while darkly musing.
This early morning, he watched his fool of a nephew hold some sort of (name day) tourney, no doubt to quell his sadistic need for a sadistic entertainment while his capital was starving for literal food.
“My father was a traitor. My mother and brother were traitors, too. I am loyal to my beloved Joffrey,” Sansa Stark had responded to him- said with her dry lips, but not with her blue eyes. Tyrion may not know much but he knew people. And so he went to the most disgusting tavern and see where their sympathies lay.
Not to the crown, it seemed.
“I go away for a few months, get kidnapped, go to war, and the kingdom turns to shit,” he sarcastically declared, waving his tea cup to signal a refill. Had he worn his usual Lannister garb, he would have been recognizable, but, he was deliberately unadorned, and undeliberately as filthy as his sell-sword Bronn. He would take his well deserved bath later. He sighed internally. If only he can return to yesteryears before his father gave him any pressing responsibilities. But alas, he had pressing matters to attend to. Matters the Small Council were unable to give attention to.
There was work to be done.
Much to his chargin, Bronn downed an entire bottle of Dornish red wine, as he mocked the situation with a laugh. A tip on top of the debt Tyrion has yet to pay, or so he claimed.
“Sounds like y’er in deep shit. All two feet of ya,” he brutally declared. “And ye can’t drink and whore yerself out of it, it seems.”
And Tyrion agreed.
The Small Council
The chamber was seeped in an oppressive gloom. Queen Regent Cersei was at the center of the table. Before her husband’s passing, she was not allowed a seat at the Small Council. “A woman’s job is to be fucked and to bear children,” the late King Robert chortled once, and since then, she had not set foot into the Council’s chamber.
She was too proud to suffer such public indignity.
Now, she headed the four men that remained at the Council, as her son refused to do any politicking, and much preferred terrorizing Sansa Stark and those who fail to amuse him.
No amount of a mother’s love can relieve Cersei of the headaches her firstborn constantly gave her.
Grand Maester Pycelle, the old rag, clutched his chains and wheezed on an on about some irrelevant bullshit about the length of summer. Were all maesters this pathetic? She wanted to roll her eyes to the back of her head every time the disgusting old man spoke, but Cersei kept her face stoned. She needed these men to respect her as the new head of the Council.
Power is power.
They began to discuss the matter of long winters, peasants and refugees of war. Cersei found her opening and with a wave of her hand, regarded Lord Slyth of the City Watch. “And are you not a lord at my command?” she asked with quiet authority.
My command, she had explicitly said. Not the King’s, not the city, but mine.
The others in the Small Council internally noted the subtle declaration of power, before it was disrespectfully shattered by Tyrion’s whistling, announcing his entrance at the door.
“What are you doing here?” Cersei asked, eyebrows visibly furrowed.
The four men of the Council did the speak as the Lannister siblings played tug of war with their words to establish dominance.
Until, that was, Tyrion revealed himself as the acting Hand of the King, by virtue of their father, Lord Tyrion Lannister.
“Out! All of you, out!” Cersei said in a raised voice, her perfect mask of diplomacy slipping.
How dare Tyrion, this little monster.
While Cersei rambled on about how she’d done nothing, Tyrion countered. “Quite right, dearest sister. You have done nothing. And your Small Council also does nothing. Have you heard not the talk of the town?” he promoted.
Cersei poured herself a glass of wine. Of course she had heard it all. The Targaryean bitch across the sea; Stannis and his followers burning peasants alive; Renly and his massive hosts blocking the supplies to King’s Landing; the child Robb Stark winning his every battle, and Joffrey beating Sansa for every little win her brother achieved. But more than anything, it’s those ravens. Those damn ravens which refuse to disperse, hovering high above the Sept and the Keep, ever keeping a watchful eye on Eddard Stark’s still pristine severed head.
The head which haunted them all.
She had done nothing, and now everything was wrong.
“Get the body down. We cannot afford any more gossip of curses and witchcraft. Even the peasants might rise up against us at this point,” he sighed, closely watching his sister’s expression.
“Joffrey will not listen to me,” she slumped to her chair, running a finger on the mouth of her wine glass. She finally slipped off her facade- after all, it was only vile little Tyrion, who wouldn’t answer to her authority, or lack thereof. “He thinks the head is a prize from the Gods, so that he may perpetually bastardize Ned Stark’s corpse.”
They drank wine in silence. Joffrey was an untamable brat of a lion, but they needed a win, somewhere.
“Joffrey is king,” Cersei stated. “Joffrey is king,” Tyrion repeated.
“You are here to advise him,” she said. And he agreed, “I am only here to advise him. And if the king listens to what I say, the king might just get his Uncle Jaime back.”
And with that, they had a silent understanding.
Tyrion proposed a trade. Supposedly, they had three Starks to trade. Now they had a missing girl, a beaten lady, and a dead body with a detached head.
Later, at a private family dinner, they all sat together at to celebrate the King’s name day. Tyrion and Cersei, who tried to barter control through witty words; Little Tommen and Myrcella, who both willfully tried to ignore the tension in the room; Sansa Stark, held hostage like a bargaining chip, included by virtue of her sham engagement to the King.
“My King,” Sansa timidly said, “why not return the traitor’s corpse to the Northerners. Mayhaps they will see it, and some common sense be knocked into them, lest they would like to follow their lord traitor to the grave.”
Tyrion seized the chance, presenting Sansa's pathetic request as a strategic move. “The King’s mercy will prevail!” Tyrion announced, formalizing the order to reunite and transport the body north.
Joffrey’s ego was so easily stroked that he grinned like he won. “What a benevolent King I am,” he declared. Cersei finally felt a bit of weight lift from her chest as the ravens started to disperse one by one. Despicable creatures, she thought. But no matter. They have solved the superstitious gossip that formerly engulfed the capital, and locked it down in the dungeons, waiting for transport.
The Dungeons
Following the decree of the King, the body of the former Lord Eddard Stark was dug out the nameless grave it was unceremoniously dumped in. It was brought to the depths of the dungeons, in a secluded antechamber near the old Dragon’s pit, to prepare it for the grim journey back North. The head, neatly wrapped in clean linen, now rested in a simple casket beside the cloth-wrapped body.
The blood was still fresh, albeit in a stasis.
Pycelle was the first to visit. Rather than his usual political motives, he was spurred by sheer panic of whatever witchcraft was at work here. Ned Stark’s defiance of the natural law of the world shook Pycelle to the core. A direct challenge to the Citadel and everything it stood for. He approached the casket and breathed in, noting the lack of stench which usually accompanied rotting flesh.
Carefully, he lifted the covers and hesitantly probed the skin, looking for the telltale signs of putrefaction he knew should be rampant after so long a severance of the head. Yet, Ned Stark’s flesh remained unnaturally firm and warm as a living body.
“Unnatural! Unholy! Utter blasphemy!” the Maester shuddered. Impossible. This was not a corpse! It was a body in stasis, held hostage in time by a power that mocked the Seven.
Swiftly, he threw back the covers and scuffled away. Usually, the Maester lacked the virtue of being studious, but that night, he poured into books, hoping to find answers to this phenomenon. He would write to the Conclave of Archmaesters.
Later, the Lord of Coins, Lord Peytr Baelish, snaked his way down to the dungeons. He simply needed to see it, so he unwrapped the severed head from its covers.
“The face is too clean,” Baelish grimaced, a flicker of irritation glinting from his eyes. Even in death, Ned Stark was far more perfect than he’ll ever be. But no matter, he could spin this to his advantage. That was what he was best at. Caitlyn Stark, nee Tully, was still a grieving wife, and not even a preserved body can rise back and steal what was rightfully his.
Varys, the Master of Whispereres, arrived later, fueled with morbid curiosity. He had seen many things back in Essos, yet this sort of sorcery was, quite simply, unheard of. Whatever could this mean, he wondered, as he inspected the body for any signs of sigils and magic. Yet, he came out empty handed. It was interesting, but at the same time, worrying. Varys did not like not knowing. He did not like the unknown. And if they had asked him, he would have counseled that the body remain forever in the dungeons, to be guarded in perpetuity.
Much much later, the Hound dragged Sansa down the dungeons, during a shift of guards, when no one will spot her. He was installed as Sansa’s guard, a watchdog for the traitor’s daughter, but he acted more of a silent protector (exasperated at the political drama). She did not dare question the towering Hound, but simply thanked him with a nod before running to the body of her father.
“Do it fast, little bird,” he warned.
Sansa, trembling, stood over the casket. She did not weep; the tears were long since spent as she gazed at his head high perched above on a spike. She reached into the sleeve of her gown, pulling out a small, tightly folded piece of cloth: a letter smuggled, simply stating that Arya was not there. It was all she could afford to write, and one what would not condemn her head if found by the wrong hands.
With a swift, desperate movement, she slipped the linen deep into the pocket of the cloth that wrapped her father's thigh, and the Hound pretended to not see what she did.
Sansa did not thank him for his confidence.
That remained unspoken.
With one last look at her father, she muttered a prayer to the Old Gods. “Please, may father’s body safely return to the North.”
Halls of Mandos
the
back to
Eru Ilúvatar
The world of Eddard Stark, Lord of Wintertell, Warden of the North, ended not with silence, but with a blinding light. First, he was, shamed, standing before the Sept of Baelor, pleading guilty to crimes he did not commit, under the pretense of a false promise of life. Yet the malice of the false King, Joffrey, was unrelenting, and that marked the certainty of his doom. The Kingsguards forced him down to kneel and bend the knee.
He thought of when he made his most crucial mistake. Was it when he failed his arrest of Joffrey? Was it trusting that snake Baelish? When he didn’t tell the Robert the truth on his deathbed? When he confronted Cersei? Or perhaps when he agreed to be Robert’s Hand.
If he could do it all over again, he might end up in the same position all the same. He looked ahead and saw Arya gone from the Statue of Baelor. Yoren undoubtedly understood him and took his youngest daughter away. He wasn’t all too worried about her. She was a smart and capable girl. It was Sansa who worried him. Her pleading and begging rang above the shouts of the crowd. If the politics of King’s Landing would be the cause of his death, what hope would his dream filled, innocent daughter have?
Rickon and Bran would grow up without a father. Then there was Robb, who has yet to command the respect of the other Northern lords.
And what of Jon, nay, Aemon, who he promised to his sister he would keep safe?
What of his dearest wife, who would now lose a husband? She’d be devastated. He’d hate to think how her bright blue eyes would be full of sorrow. And her hair, her lovely hair like woven fire. He’d miss her.
The setting sun was blinding him; the crowd was a savage, angry sea. Then came the cold rush of air as the blade of Ice descended from Ser Ilyn Payne's hands: the ultimate betrayal of his own honor. The blade which he used to behead defectors, now beheaded him.
…
And then, there was light.
…
Boromir, son of Denathor, cried opened his eyes. It was too bright, and everything was too loud. He does not remember anything. Not of his past life, not of the pain of death.
Not when Eru Ilúvatar pulled his soul from the Halls of Mandos and gave him a new life in a world where the Valar’s light was threatened by an evil so dark and incomprehensible.
Boromir was raised to be a commander, to take charge while there is no king on the throne. He supposed it was natural, being the first born son of the Steward of Gondor, but the idea of stewardship came second nature to him. Lesser men would have been tempted by the throne, but he remained steadfast in his mission to safeguard the realm for once their king finally returned.
He was gifted in combat, which came easy to him, as if the weight of a sword was a natural extension of his body. The blood of Númenor flowed through him, multiplying his physical strength. Sometimes, he felt as if he was drawing from past experiences, and compounded by daily skirmishes and frequent wars, he became battle hardened: both in skills and in strategy.
His father called him a prodigy and declared him the favored son.
Then suddenly, there was that recurring dream that both he and his brother kept having. Denathor refused to give Faramir leave, so Boromir set out to go further west to Imladris, to seek counsel from the wise Lord Elrond.
That was where Boromir pledged his oath. Oaths were sacred. Oaths were not to be trifled with. At the back if his head, he recalled someone breaking their oath to stab their sworn king at the back.
Boromir shook his head. What was that dark thought of fire and ice and a king’s land full of men’s needless war?
In retrospect, it sounded all too petty and juvenile in comparison to facing the threat absolute evil. Manageable even. If he were in a game of thrones, he would not have lost.
What was he thinking about? The influence of the Ring was muddling his mind, forcing him to selfishness he never knew he had.
By the blood of Gondorians spilt to keep the westlands kept safe… It was the cost of peace. Of course the Ring needed to be returned home. For the North. North? No, that’s not right, Gondor was east. East? West? Not south. South was bad. They must make way to the Mark of Rohan. Snow everywhere. Winter is coming. The mountain was going down. They need to get to Rohan. Not under the mountain. This was no mine. This was a tomb. Did Gandalf die? But how? This cannot be. A balrog of Morgoth. Fire? Burning? Yes, when Númenor fell, it was Ar-Pharazôn’s fault.
.
He cannot let Gondor fall the same way. He needed the Ring now!
.
Wait. Ar-Pharazôn fell because of Sauron’s trickery.
.
He cannot fall the same way. Sauron was a trickster. The Ring was tricking him. He made a mistake. He made Frodo go away.
.
He broke his oath.
.
And for that, three arrows stabbed him.
.
His saving grace was that his king forgave him-
.
.
.
And then, there was light.
…
“Mhm… Good morning, Boromir,” a warm voice filled his head. White. there was blinding white light everywhere before he could refocus his eyes. It was strangely familiar, yet unfamiliar all the same.
“Welcome back.”
Notes:
Changed Aegon to Aemon upon suggestion 👐
Add: the prologue titles are so funny
Chapter 2: “That Time I Got Reincarnated Back to My First Life’s Body with the Skills from my Latest Life”
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
P R O L O G U E - II
Somewhere on the King’s Road
Light? Voices? The stars flickered above. They looked like the sky above Middle Earth, until they started moving in a circular path and faded fast. He lived an entire lifetime. And then another. And then he closed his eyes.
It was not the end.
The soul: the essence of Eddard Stark, now heavy with the lessons, blood, and experiences of Boromir of Gondor, was pulled out from the afterlife of where the favorite children of Eru Ilúvatar rested.
Agony was instantaneous, intense, and absolute. It was the simultaneous sensation of two distinct deaths fusing into a single mortal body. He felt the cold, crushing severance of the steel blade- his own sword Ice- even as he felt the three burning punctures of the orc arrows tearing through his chest. The soul screamed, stretched between the torture of the neck and the torment of the chest; a consciousness being violently rebuilt.
This was the price, his voice said in his head, neither the voice of Ned or Boromir, but instead that of both. The price of failure. The price of redemption.
The body, cold and dead, convulsed. The severed head rolled, recalled to its proper place. The bones of the spine at the neck began to grind and snap together, knitting the severed tissues under immense, painful pressure. He felt the knowledge of two lives, the shame of the political lie and the shame of the Ring’s temptation, welded into him as an unshakeable resolve.
He was no longer merely the disgraced Ned Stark, nor the tempted Boromir. He was something new: returned from the dead with a task far greater than any siege or battle, or even the fate of mankind.
The severed head wholly connected, leaving a jagged, permanent scar across his throat. The impossible, final act of reanimation forced his lungs to expand, pounding against the pain of where the arrows once struck. Boromir- no- Ned- drew a sudden, deep, rasping breath, a sound of life renewed.
He was awake. He was whole. He was the Captain-General of Minas Tirith, and the Lord of Winterfell. He was heir apparent to the Steward of Gondor, and the Warden of the North.
Boromir of Gondor and Eddard Stark of Winterfell.
I have been sent back, the unified soul realized, until my task is done.
To assess his current situation, he listened intently to the muffled voices of, one, two, three, four- he counted, foot soldiers- by the clang of their armor- outside the wooden casket which once held his corpse.
“They say the traitor liked to fuck midgets and horses! That his bastard’s mother was a Wildling! Savages, aye, them Northerners,” one of them said mockingly.
He did wonder which dead body he returned from the grave to, and the chatter of the soldiers confirmed it. So he really was back in his old Eddard Stark body. Ned grimaced in utter disgust. Not even the poorest of Middle Earth’s free people talked with such crass and uncivilized indignity. As Ned- he had also disproved of it, and tried to curb the tasteless vocabulary from his own ward, Theon Greyjoy.
His- Boromir’s- old tutors would reel at the vulgar manner of Westerosi speak.
Another sharp kick shook the casket- no doubt an act of disrespect from whoever was given the burden of transporting his carcass.
“Who the fock made the imp into the Hand of the King?! Sending us to this errand, when we should be marching with Lord Tywin to battle the wolf cub!”
“Why does ‘em crown need to send a peace offering, when we could just massacre those savages? Their false king is a boy, and he’d be lion’s food soon.”
Another kick landed, harder this time.
It’s as if honor was lost in these lands! No soldier of Gondor would dare be this audacious. Yet, he chose to endure the insulting rabble of these whiny fools. He did not know where they were: if there were other hosts accompanying his body, if there were innocents who might be caught in the crossfire.
He need not be hasty.
Ned observed his current prison. His body was bound in loose cloth, and underneath, he was wearing what he wore during his untimely beheading. Linen was loosely wrapped around his face. And his hands were bound. Quietly, he wiggled, using the wagon’s jerky motion to his advantage, until he snapped free of his post mortem constraints. He studied the casket, looking for signs of wear, tear, and poor craftsmanship. Breaking free was workable, and he’d make his escape under the cover of the night.
Finally, the soldiers stopped in a clearing to make camp for the night. They were exhausted and spent, setting up for a very crude and inefficient shifting schedule. Three were sleeping by the wagon, and the last was alone, sitting by the dying campfire.
Ned waited with the patience of a Gondorian scout, until it has been an hour of silence.
Now was the time to act.
He channeled the raw, revitalized strength of his Númenórean blood: a gift from the God who had sent him on this mission. With a single, explosive punch, Ned drove his sheer, unified strength against the casket lid.
The wood exploded, violently splintering into heavy shrapnel which bursted all around. Ned rose from the wreckage: a pale, scarred apparition clad in shredded linen. The force of the expulsion knocked the three nearest guards- Lannisters by the look of it- off their feet, scattering them like pathetic ragdolls.
“W- WIGHT!”
“WHITE WALKER!”
“GHOST!”
“MONSTER!”
The four stanced themselves clumsily, and they would obviously just rather flee. But Ned moved with such instantaneous and efficient speed, covering distance to the nearest guard in two long strides. Testing this body’s strength, he palmed the man’s shield and crushed it with his bare hands.
Were Westerosi weapons always this fragile?
The other guards, scrambling for their swords, were too slow. Ned seized the closest man's drawn longsword from his inefficient grasp, and, with the terrifying, ruthless efficiency of Boromir that Ned did not used to have, delivered precise cuts that dispatched the remaining men before they could raise a single cry of alarm.
Ten seconds was all it took for Ned to reduce the four Lannister guards into silent corpses.
Quickly he gathered provisions and raided the dead for their weapons and gold. He stripped usable armor and patted the them down for whatever they may have to offer him.
He was stowing the daggers on his thigh sheath when he felt a foreign folded piece stuffed deeply down a pocket. Ned pulled it out, unfolded and read- in a pretty handwriting he knew was Sansa’s- that Arya was not at the Red Keep.
Sansa and Arya! His beloved daughters!
As if cold water was splashed on his body, he went rigid. Forcing his mind to relieve the day of his death as Ned, he started to remember the finer details. Sansa, sweet and innocent, was left behind at King’s Landing. And Arya, courageous and wild, was entrusted to Yoren of the Night’s Watch.
He reevaluated his situation. The mission that he was sent here to do… He wasn’t even sure if it was real, and how he would even begin to counter it. But there he was, alive, reanimated, with a head reconnected. He was instructed to wait for the pieces to fall to their places, so he still had time.
Ned decided that he had time to deal with personal matters- he could move to retrieve Arya at least.
Yes, only Arya. It pained him to even not consider saving Sansa from the clutches of those cruel Lannister usurpers, but what point was a second chance if he were to waste it?
From the crown’s perspective, there was no strategic merit to killing Sansa, lest they were hell bent on angering the North. At the very least, he was sure she would remain alive, even as a hostage. And he needed to believe that she can overcome and prevail.
Ned walked up to the front of the cart which once carried him, and cut free the horse that had pulled it. North, he told himself as he mounted the steed. He allowed his instincts and familiarity to guide him.
Dragonstone
“Lord, cast your light upon us!” the people chanted.
Sir Davos Seaworth, the Onion Knight, reluctantly knelt. He only bent his knee for Stannis Baratheon, but if Stannis worshipped for a foreign god, then as his humble subject, should he not follow suit?
“For the night is dark, and full of terrors,” the red woman professed, which Stannis zealously repeated.
The red woman was a foreign priest called Melisandre. Davos, quite, did not like her at all. Acting as Stannis’ prophet, she had had them burn statues of the Seven and even stray wierwood trees. While she had been responsible about Stannis’ decision to spread the rumor of Joffrey’s bastardship, he didn’t know why this woman was seated on their war council. Not with the way Stannis followed her blindly, as if he had lost his own damn mind.
And so one day, Davos asked, “What exactly are the Lord of Light’s teachings? You keep telling us about how King Stannis is the chosen one, yet you never tell any stories or gospels of your fate.”
Melisandre smiled a rare genuine smile. “Why, Ser Davos, I appreciate your interest. You usually are a skeptic and a devil’s advocate.” She produced a tome and handed it to him.
The Onion Knight only grunted. The woman damn knew that he couldn’t read. Still, he mustered a polite thank you and looked at the book’s spine. On it was a peculiar engraving of a crown with three stones.
“I thought the Lord of Light’s symbol was a fiery heart?”
Melisandre hummed, before turning to answer. “That tome is ancient. More ancient than the inception of this version of the world. It is from a time long gone, that no records of it will be found on any Citadel of this world.”
King’s Landing
Letters from the various false kings were brought before the Small Council. Stannis’ bold declaration, Renley’s compromise, and Robb’s announcement. And to add, Balon’s proclamation of the Iron Isle’s independence. Four kings became five. Tyrion found himself more tired than ever.
However, where they lingered was Lord Commander Mormont’s letter from the Wall.
“Cold winds are rising, and the dead rise with them…” Tyrion read, his voice ringing across the silent hall. He knew what everyone was thinking: the pristine dead body of Eddard Stark of Winterfell.
“The Northerners are a superstitious people,” Pycelle quietly supplied, hoping to quell the growing tension.
Cersei bit her lip and stood up. She refused to hear anymore. Ned Stark’s dead face occupied enough of her nightmares, and she was rather not fond of thinking about his severed head during the day.
Tyrion continued, “According to the Commander, one of these dead men attacked him in his chambers.”
The rest of the Small Council stopped in their tracks.
“Mornont doesn’t lie,” he said.
He didn’t need to. They’ve all seen the magic of the North at work even down here at the South.
“How do you kill a dead man?” Varys prompted. Of course, the spider knew the answer. He had been looking for the answer since they let go of Ned Stark’s not so dead body.
Tyrion breathed deeply, “Apparently you burn him.” And we didn’t because we did not want to believe in superstitions.
Cersei refused all of it. As if to convince herself, she said, “Even if they are real, and I am sure they are not, then at least we have sent it beyond our castle and walls. We do not need walking dead men here among us in King’s Landing.”
The King’s Road
Ned Stark, clad in the heavy and unfamiliar gear pillaged from his fallen Lannister escorts, rode north east via the King’s Road. He does not know how much time had past since his death, but it had been three days since his resurrection. He did not rest, but otherwise pushed his mount to its limit.
He ignored the burning sensation that occasionally flared around his scarred throat and the phantom wounds that sometimes seared his chest. Such were the pains he’d need to live with from now on.
While his keen eyes were the well practiced skill of a seasoned huntsman from the North, his skill was far lacking in comparison to a Dúnedain Ranger’s. If he even had a fraction of Aragorn’s tracking skill, he would have already caught up to Arya…
He let his thoughts momentarily wander to his other life. Surely his king would have saved Merry and Pippin; where he failed, Aragorn would have most definitely succeeded.
Ned continued to press forward. He was not privy to the reasoning of an omnipotent God. Sauron was defeated, that was for sure, or else, why would Eru Ilúvatar return him to the realm of the Old Gods and the New.
Once again, his scars seared of pain.
He sped on after finding traces of a company that were neither that of foot soldiers nor a caravan of merchants. He recognized the subtle signature of Yoren's party: the slight drag mark of the heavy wagon, the specific density of the boot prints, and the hurried pace of men trying to outrun war. The tracks also littered of light feet; probably of that of tweens, despaired and lacking a future, cornered into the choice of taking the Black.
What a grim destiny for mere children.
He finally reached the area he knew Yoren would have chosen for a major encampment: a hollow ringed by ancient willows near the God’s Eye in the Riverlands. He dismounted, the strength in his body now exhausted, replaced by the weight of paternal dread.
There was a holdfast but it was no sanctuary, but an end of a brutal and chaotic scene. From a quick overview, he could tell that an ambush had occurred the night prior.
Ned knelt, his eyes sweeping over the evidences of a skirmish. Heavy boots from armored men- Lannister from the imprint, coming from the direction of Harrenhal. The ground told a terrible story: a sizable organized party, random fires, and death. A handful of men and tweens barely older than children lay dead. And then he saw him.
Yoren was dead, felled by an arrow and blades. Around him were multiple broken arrows, and patches of bloodstain.
Frantically, he searched the nearby bodies; his discipline and soldier’s focus waning behind a father’s worst fears. But Arya wasn’t there, her body was not counted among the dead. Was she able to escape?
No. His eyebrows furrowed as he observed the collective tracks of Lannister boots, horses, and children, move towards Harrenhal.
She was captured.
Alive, but not safe.
It’s like his life- lives- were compounded by failure after failure. He failed to protect two hobbits, and now he failed to retrieve not even one of his daughters.
He heaved a hollow laugh on the irony. His existence might have been brought back for the greater good, all in the grand schemes of powers he cannot fathom, and yet he cannot even get small wins on his side.
Ned could pursue Arya or he could turn to where Robb’s host was taking camp.
And he grieved his choice. He grieved the fact that he was not able to shield his girls from the cruel world. But he needed to believe that he brought them up to be strong Northern ladies, of the blood of the First Men.
Ned turned his horse West, abandoning the faint trail to Harrenhal. The road to Riverrun was heavily contested, but the direction was clear. He rode in the guise of his enemy, the stolen red cloak and lion-crested armor providing a necessary, if loathsome, disguise, through the Lannister occupied territory.
Another two days of riding, and Ned beheld the periphery of war. It wasn’t an impressive epic of men versus orcs, but it was grim in its display of the treachery of men towards other men. Lannister patrols were no longer mere nuisances, but agents of destruction clad in blood red. Villages once under the protection of the Tullys were ransacked and raided; burned and overturned. They weren’t that different from the Ironborn during times of warfare. He remembered the children of Elya Martell and the brutality the suffered under the literal hands of the Mountain.
One of his many regrets during Robert’s Rebellion.
Through these villages he went, and they looked at him with wary wrath. When he asked where the lion’s nearest encampment was, they only glared as they pointed to the direction of Oxcross.
“And what of the host of the young wolf?” he followed up. They did not know. Or did not wish to share this to a soldier in Lannister colors. They simply shrugged and went about their insignificant lives.
As of the moment, this was his only lead. He only needed to watch from afar and see where they were attacking next. From there, he could regroup with Robb.
However, to his surprise, and subsequent delight, by the time he arrived at the encampment at Oxcross, a battle already was being waged. Black cloaks and red cloaks were wet under the torrent of rain, but still he could hear the clashing of swords. Ned ripped out his borrowed red cloak and armor as he watched from behind the trees. He surveyed them with the critical assessment of a seasoned war leader.
And Ned approved.
He recognized the deft hand of a commander who had used terrain and surprise to negate the enemy’s numerical advantage. The Lannisters were caught unaware in their own camp. Their supply wagons were destroyed, their tents shattered, and the bodies lay thickest where the Northern cavalry had charged through the encampment.
Then there, he saw him. Winterfell’s finest, his heir and firstborn son.
The boy has an eye for terrain and the boldness of charge, Ned conceded, his chest swelling with a bitter, proud ache. He left Robb a boy, and now, he was older. Taller. A hardened general in his own right.
Young wolf, they called him.
The King of the North, they hailed him.
And he was winning. They were nearing victory. Of course Robb would be successful in his conquest. He was all his father’s greatness, and hopefully, none of his folly and weakness.
The Oxcross
Robb Stark was in control. The winds of this battle were swaying to the North’s favor. Even as he was mud splattered and exhausted, he embodied regal command that was expected of him.
Grey Wind, Robb’s direwolf, circled his master protectively, until he suddenly raised his nose in the air. “What is it, Grey Wind?” Robb asked.
Suddenly, the direwolf walked off. He was usually a good follower, always behind Robb, unlike Arya’s wild Nymeria, or Jon’s proactive Ghost. The battle was almost won, and since his wolf never failed him, he followed for once.
Grey Wind stopped at the edge of the forest, where a figure lurked behind the trees.
“Step out of the shadows and show yourself before your king,” he said in commanding confidence.
Robb’s gaze fell upon the figure. A tall, scarred man who looked both utterly familiar and not. The face, thin and lined, was undeniably Ned Stark’s, but the terrible, jagged scar across the throat was the mark a power beyond that of mere mortals.
Lord Eddard Stark. Beheaded before the great Sept of Baelor, now stood before him, alive, and breathing.
“Robb.”
The voice was deeper, resonating with a strange, new timber, yet possessing the familiar, Northern rasp. The voice should have been from someone who he can only see in dreams of memories past. The voice was of his lord father’s.
Robb’s face went white. He did not draw his sword, but only stared. Was this an apparition? A hallucination? Did he die in battle? Was this reality? Or was it just fantasy?
Silence rang through his ears, and in the next second, cheering boomed from behind.
All the loyalty of the entire Northern host, but faced with the sight of his father, he was once again, a boy. Really, he was only a boy of seven and ten.
His composure fell, and he stepped forward. Carefully and slowly. Until Ned’s familiar warmth enveloped him.
“I have returned, my son.”
And the wolf cub cried.
Notes:
I did not realize that I had an unfinished GOT fic from 2019 💀
(WOT STATUES OF THE SEVEN MENTIONED?! Is this actually Genshin Impact?!)
Bro woke up with the power of an OP isekai protagonist 💀
i think i was supposed to finish the crack idea here but the story just went on 😩🥲 made some minor edits to align to the lore i’ve built
Chapter Text
O N E
D I V E R G E N C E
The Oxcross
The sounds of the victorious Northern host, their distant cheers, the rattle of collected armor… Those all seem muffled and far away, drowned out by the drumming rain that was now subsiding. The Northerners have won the battle, yet their King was not basking in the triumph of victory. Robb stood on the edge of the muddy field, exhaustion and adrenaline warring in his heart, when he threw himself at his father.
The contact was real, the warmth shocking. It had been about a year since he had last seen the face of his lord father. When Lord Eddard Stark answered the (late) King Robert’s command to be his Hand, Robb had not known that it would have been the last time he saw his father alive.
“Your Grace!” a shrill voice rang somewhere from the crowd, jolting Robb back to his senses. By all accounts, it was impossible for father to be standing before him.
The young wolf’s initial tears of joy was replaced by a sudden mistrust. He took one instinctive step back, his sword half-drawn, as his entire being was caught between love and terrifying dread. “What manner of sorcery is this?” he calmly asked. “My father is dead.”
Robb made a point to speak lowly, and he moved into the shadows of the trees to avoid unnecessary attention. Northerners were infamously superstitious, and seeing the late Lord Eddard Stark walking among them would garner a panicked, intense reaction that would shatter his army's discipline. And scatter them shitless all the way back to the North.
The apparition- wraith, or whatever it was- stepped forward with a heavy, purposeful stride.
“Stay where you are, Father,” Robb commanded, his voice barely above a rasp. “I don’t know what you are. I don’t know who you are.” And he hoped that he was not just losing his sanity.
Him who wore Ned’s face nodded solemnly. “Of course,” he replied; the voice deep, more self assured and confident than the burdened baritone Robb remembered. It’s eyes, dark and assessing, scanned the concluding battle. “However, we cannot talk here for others to witness. Where is the camp located?”
“Northern of Westerlands, Lord Stark,” he instinctively replied, straightening his stance. He berated himself for being weak in the face of his ‘father’. He was king of the North! Yet his body couldn’t help but pay respect to the sheer authority the ghost of his father commanded. Robb swallowed hard, the shift in focus momentarily grounding him. "My tent... it is on the highest ground. Behind the command center. Lord Karstark’s men guard the perimeter."
He who claimed to be Eddard Stark nodded, melding back to the dark. “I shall be waiting for your swift return.” The figure stopped and in an urgent voice, asked, “Your mother. Is she there?”
Robb shook his head. “I have sent her on a mission to barter peace with the Baratheons.”
The young wolf watched the face of his father soften; the granite of his authority suddenly cracked by a pure, profound ache. “I see,” he replied, the disappointment obvious. And that was the first true evidence Robb had that this was, beyond reasonable doubt, his Father.
Grey Wind nuzzled at his feet and whined a little, urging Robb to follow Ned.
“Don’t be hasty, Grey Wind. We have responsibilities, and Father understands that.”
After a visual sweep to make sure no one was watching towards his direction, Robb quickly turned back to the field. There were still many things to do. Thank his bannermen, who were proactively trying to outdo each other to win places in his immediate council. So after giving out instructions, he spent some time to mull at the impossibility, nay, possibly of the return of his father.
Old Nan used to tell of those haunted icy corpses which walked beyond the wall. Ridiculous, he used to say; fairy tales spun to scare bad children who refused to sleep. He used to laugh at Bran when he would climb the Broken Tower to, apparently, chase the warg’s ravens away. Wargs and skinchangers and the Others.
White walkers.
He shuddered at the very idea.
No, that couldn’t be it. When Father embraced him, he felt a warmth no dead body would be able to imitate.
A miracle of the old gods? He had heard about the origins of his fellow Northerners. Greenseers, skinchangers, maybe, but dying and rising? Unheard of.
“Your Grace, we have finished securing the provisions from the lion’s camp. We will have the full inventory by sunrise,” Lord Jon Umber of the Last Hearth said.
“Mhm. Good. See it is done.” Robb looked towards the rising sun. There was still the matter of confronting his father. Now that he had time to compose himself, he found that he was absolutely feeling ill prepared for his meeting later. He had spent a lot of time and effort into battles after battles, that he realized that he was never truly able to process his feelings about the entire matter.
It was his mother’s job to be emotional for the both of them.
Robb saw Lord Rickard Karstark of Karhold and briskly walked over.
“Your Grace! Congratulations on our victory. Your strategy was flawless. Your father would be so proud.”
Robb coughed almost too dramatically, but covered it up with a heavy clearing of his throat. “Thank you, Lord Karstark. It was the combined effort of the North that secured us Oxcross.” He cleared his throat. “I need you to clear your men fifty paces from my tent, and to inform all that I am not to be disturbed during my rest. If there is something urgent, announce your arrival, and I shall come.”
Thankfully Lord Karstark was only battlesharp. He bowed and barked orders at his nearby troops.
Robb continued his rounds, until Lord Roose Bolton of the Dreadfort joined him. “Your Grace, we have the battalion leader held captive over there. We’ve secured relevant documents. We can have it brought over to your tent so that we may review them-“
“No-“ Robb immediately cut him off. “We will discuss in the command center instead.“
Roose gave him an interesting look, before saying, “Five Lannisters dead for every one of ours. We have nowhere to keep all these prisoners. And barely enough food to feed our own.”
Ah, another one of those today. His other lords were graceful enough to not pester him after this victory, but Roose was relentless.
“We’re not executing prisoners, Lord Bolton,” Robb strictly said.
“Well, of course, Your Grace. The officers will be useful. Some of them may be privy to Tywin Lannister’s plans.”
“I doubt it,” he flatly replied.
Robb hated dealing with Roose.
“In my family, we say a naked man has few secrets. A flayed man, none.”
And hated the insinuations. It was as if Roose was undermining his (not very dead, and in actuality, very much alive) father’s authority. “My father outlawed flaying in the North.”
And Roose only responded, “We’re not in the North.”
Robb stopped in his tracks. Roose was not always this forward with his agendas, but with his mother and Theon gone, the other lords were all obvious with their efforts to win the seat of the Hand. “We’re not torturing them,” he replied with finality, but the Lord of the Dreadfort refused to back down.
“The high road is very pretty, but you’ll have a hard time marching your army down it.”
King in the North, they called him. But his lords trip over each other to try to influence him. If his lord father was here commanding, no one would dare speak out.
“The Lannisters hold prisoners of their own. I won’t give them any excuse to abuse my sisters.”
He held Roose’s eyes before turning away. It was time to meet his father anyway.
⚔️⚔️⚔️
Ned slipped past the hastily dismissed guards and entered the large, campaign tent. He moved directly to the map table to inspect the deployment markers of the Northern host, a sprawling red line driven deep into the Riverlands.
His eyes, sharpened by his skills as Boromir, immediately found the flaws. The front was thin, the supply routes stretched taut, the focus entirely on the next conquest rather than the necessary defense of the North.
He ran a scarred finger along the northern boundary of the host. While it was a winning strategy now, against time, this was folly; this was vengeance fueled by the rush of victory.
He was slightly only older than Robb’s current age when he was given his first command. The death of his father and brother; the kidnapping of his sister...
What a shame that his children would not know a lifetime of peace. Robb was facing a predicament too similar to his own, once. Yet it was not the same. Robert Baratheon had the backing of the other kingdoms when his assault began. Robb only had the support of the North.
The Lannisters may use time and allow the North to bleed itself out here, hundreds of leagues from King’s Landing. He saw the echoes of Gondor's long, exhausting siege mentality- fighting skirmishes daily, while the true enemy gathered silently in the shadows of Mordor. Not out of choice, but out of mere fact. Sauron was evil incarnate, and nigh impossible to kill without the One Ring being cast into the fire. Robb instead was treating with fellow men who could still be reasoned with.
He took time to go over the many letters scattered on the table. And then Ned’s eyebrow shot up as he read one crucial detail: the Kingslayer was held captive here.
Robb arrived later, just after sunrise, breathless and alone, his face frantic.
“Father,” he breathed. “You really are alive.”
“Robb, my son,” Ned began, “It is good to see you again.”
Robb stared- in a manner unbecoming of a king- but usual for a of lad his age. “You feel different. Younger. Vigorous. Stronger even. From a letter, it was reported that you were stabbed by an arrow on your leg. And your neck…”
Ned noticed how Robb’s eyes focused on the terrible scar etched across his throat.
It must look unsightly. Again, he felt the pain of death, but shoved the sensation away.
“These are the gifts of my revival. Gifts carried over from a different lifetime,” he cryptically replied. “Where is the rest of our house? What of Bran? Of Rickon?” he demanded, forcing the change of topics.
Robb tensed a bit, and Ned can see his hesitation. “They are at Winterfell, managing as my proxy. I have left them under the guidance of Maester Luwin and Sir Rodrik.”
Ned moved his attention towards the map. “And where exactly is Cat?” Robb pointed to the Stormlands. “With Renley’s camp, here.”
“Renly? Not Stannis?”
“Renly had also declared himself king.”
“… Both Baratheons are claiming the Iron Throne?”
“And your mother, what exactly did you ask of her?”
“To combine forces to destroy the Lannisters once and for all.”
Ned grimaced. Stannis would not like that. And Renly, who may have his heart in the right place, was equally as stubborn. Stags, the lot of them, but they were better than lions.
He took smaller unmarked markers and put one on the Wall, two at Winterfell, two near Riverrun, one by Storm’s End, another by Harrenhal, and a final one at King’s Landing; each marker a representative of his family.
He frowned, his wrinkles deepening on his brow.
“The pack survives, but is divided,” he muttered to himself, the words settling like heavy stones. With his mind’s eye, he simulated strategies, but the scattered locations of his children- Arya and Sansa lost, Bran and Rickon exposed, Jon inaccessible, Catelyn away- made the task seem impossible. He had not expected the miracle of life to deliver him back to such vulnerability.
He needed them all safe and secure, before fighting the ancient evil he was sent to destroy.
He forced his mind back to the immediate crisis instead.
“I know that you have a lot of questions about my resurrection. And I shall tell you, in due time. But for now, tell me about your counsel you hold, and the status of your court.”
He needed the full picture to find the best way forward.
“While mother and Theon are abroad,” Robb began, and Ned’s eyebrows furrowed at the declaration that Pyke’s heir was also away. That was a poor choice. The Ironborn will not accept him the way he was right now. From their perspective, Theon had not paid the iron price.
Robb was better off releasing the lad.
Ned sat as he listened to Robb. The young wolf did not have a Hand, but a war council made up of his bannermen. Robb showed him the records of their meetings, and noted the dialogues of the lords.
He could smell the telltale signs of trouble brewing. Robb was a good commander, and a genius strategist even, but his authority lacked the absolute weight needed to control mighty men more than half his age.
The lords were underestimating him, undermining his authority, even if they did not openly show it. After all, even if king, Robb was only just ten and seven. Fatherless and malleable in their eyes.
Ned stood up and gestured to the map with a single, sweeping motion. “You have won many battles, Robb. That is a King’s victory. A victory bought with courage, speed, and genuine tactical brilliance I never knew you possessed. You have broken the Lannisters' strength in the field and earned the crown you wear. I am proud of what you have become.”
Robb puffed out his chest as he acknowledged the praise. “Thank you, father.”
Ned paused, the praise heavy with sincerity, before hardening his gaze, shifting from father to strategist. “But now you must look beyond the victory. You are fighting a war that is needless drawn out. Your strength is here, but your heart and your vital points are exposed.”
He stabbed a finger at the far north. "Winterfell is bare. Bran and Rickon are children, protected by little to no security. You have pursued vengeance hundreds of leagues from home, and the farther South you draw your host, the thinner your protection becomes.”
Ned then picked up the marker for the Northern host. “Your lords are growing restless. Everyday you delay, the more they lose sight of the point of this war. They fear for their lands and their holdings, and their loyalty is taxed by this long, grinding campaign. Do not look at Robert Baratheon’s rebellion for inspiration. You do not have the luxury of time because you do not have the support of the southern kingdoms.”
He fixed his gaze on his son, his voice dropping to a dangerous low. “You chase the tail, Robb, when the enemy is in King’s Landing, not Casterly Rock. Every Lannister soldier you kill, every supply wagon you burn, only weakens you. Tell me, son, what is the purpose of these battles? They feel aimless.”
He notice Robb flinch at his words, so he softened his tone; not to retract the critique, but to ensure it was heard.
“To capture Casterly Rock! Cut off the Lannisters from King’s Landing!” Robb said in a defensive tone.
“And then? Even if you secure the ancestral seat of the Lannisters, they still have a host in the south of the Trident. And you will be cut off from the Riverlands they invade from Harennhal.”
”Theon has gone to get us some ships from Pyke to sail to King’s Landing.”
”Did he now? Have you received a raven confirming you of such?”
Ned was right. Theon has not sent anything yet. Robb clicked his tongue as he leaned at the table, reassessing his strategy. Was his trust misplaced? Theon abandoning him was bad, but it could go terrible, and fast, if the Greyjoy heir became a turn cloak.
”You cannot wait for what ifs, and only move according to what you have. If the purpose of your war is to rescue your sister at King’s Landing, then you are severely undermanned. If its purpose is to destroy the Lannisters, raiding Casterly Rock would be pointless since Joffrey and Cersei are not there. If the purpose is to secure independence for the North, then why are you riding South and bleeding your levies on foreign soil? Why are you not leveraging the Kingslayer you hold prisoner here? You fight the Lannisters now, but what of the Baratheons also vying for the Southern crown? Or did you leave that to your mother’s talent for politics and diplomacy?”
He did not mean to chastise Robb, but it had to be said. The North may be winning battles now, but they were driving themselves to an inescapable corner so far detached from Winterfell. Robb was taught the art of warfare and siege, but he has yet to learn the art of foresight beyond the immediate battle.
As Boromir, he had lived a life when an entire age of a singular war was waged every waking day. Drawn out battles were inefficient and ineffective against the greater evil, so every skirmish must be purposeful to an end.
Ned leaned forward, his terrible scar seeming to pulse in the lamplight. "The war you are fighting is an illusion. It is a political trap that forces you to bleed out your strength here, distracting you from the true strategic priority: the security and stability of the North.”
Robb grinned his teeth. He just had this conversation with his mother. “The lords refuse to back down, pestering me everyday to hasten the advancement. They also refused the idea to trade Sansa and Arya for Jamie Lannister. They look down on me,” he finally said aloud, deflated. ”I do not have whatever you had to keep the North in check,” the young wolf admitted.
Then suddenly, Robb began pacing, as if an idea dawned onto him. “You should be King of the North, father. Yes, of course. The lords, they will respect your decisions in earnest. Your resurrection is a gift! Now that you’re back, through the blessing of the Old Gods-“
Ned put a strong hand on the young wolf’s shoulder.
“I appreciate the sentiment of you waging a war to avenge my death. But they have crowned you king, and it is not mine to take. Be confident. You have been chosen to carry this weight, even if they have not given you their full confidence yet. All I can do is to guide you through it.”
Robb opened his mouth to protest.
“But Father-“
And Ned shook his head. “I did not return to steal your crown, Robb. That is not the mission of my return. My role is to fight the war that truly matters, and your role is to wield the political power that keeps the North united. As of now, you may think of me as your Steward-“ He caught himself, the title from Gondor slipping out, before correcting himself with a grim smile. “No. My son, you shall think of me as your Hand.”
Somewhere South in the Stormlands
“My Lady, a raven has come for you,” a voice came from outside the tent.
Catelyn Stark slowly lowered her dagger, the steel quivering faintly in her hand. Her eyes were raw, still filled with the fresh, icy grief Petyr Baelish’s words had inflicted. Sansa and Arya- her beautiful girls-were puppets in the capital, their fate hanging on the cruel whims of Cersei Lannister.
It felt like her heart was crushed.
Everyday, she was in mourning, a prisoner of this dreadful war. The Lannisters had crippled her young son, murdered her husband, and now held her daughters captive. Now, she was mother to a king more interested in squandering his strength on petty battles of conquest instead of devoting every resource to saving his sisters. And there she was- alone, with no hosts nor a bannermen of his- under his instructions, trying to appeal to other declared kings, in an attempt to hasten the rescue of her daughters.
Daughters she felt like no one was giving enough effort to save. Ned rallied the North to save Lyanna Stark. Robb couldn’t even muster half the effort with more time, and she hated how she felt bitter about it.
She breathed heavily, and closed her eyes to collect herself. Petyr may be a childhood friend, but she will not let him control this situation to his advantage. He betrayed her husband’s trust. She would not let him make her betray her son’s. Catelyn turned around to signal the end of their conversation.
“Good evening, Lord Baelish,” she said, pointing outside her tent, her voice strained but even amidst her sorrow.
The dismissal was absolute.
Petyr, already poised to push his advantage, tried to reach out a reassuring hand. His smile was calculated, and she could sense his scheming. “Cat-“
“I need to attend to my letters,” she said with a tone of icy finality. She knew he understood the subtle threat: leave now, or be treated as a conspirator.
Petyr only offered a slight, oily expression that did not quite reach his eyes. “My offer still stands,” he said with false sympathy. “It was lovely to see you again, Cat. Good evening.”
He relented and slipped out.
When the tent flap dropped, she received the letter, its seal bearing the unbroken direwolf sigil of Winterfell. Already aggravated by Petyr’s audacity, she tore the wax open, expecting political instructions, but finding only a summons in Robb’s familiar, hurried hand:
Mother, please come back as soon as you can. Winter is coming.
A cold wave of panic swept over her. Had he been defeated? Were Bran and Rickon alright? Did he receive news of Sansa and Arya? Had her mission failed catastrophically? The walls of the tent seemed to close in, her breathing suddenly shallow and ragged. Desperately she looked for more: a sign, a clue, mayhaps a reason- anything at all. But she found none.
Catelyn stifled a cry, the paper fluttering from her numb fingers.
Had Robb given up on this chance to save his sisters? Which lord advised him against peace with the Baratheons? How were they going to storm King’s Landing without Stannis and Renly? Her fist clenched around the letter. One day, she just needed one day, and she could force Robb’s hand if she managed to secure both Baratheons into a truce. Seven hells be damned if she returned with no fruitful results.
Pyke
Theon Greyjoy contemplated. He stood at the edge of the jagged coastline, the salt spray cold on his face, a hundred yards from the grim, sea-pocked towers of Pyke. It had been days since he made the ultimate decision: he was no longer Winterfell’s hostage.
And yet he never felt more trapped.
Hostage was too harsh a term. The Starks had never treated him as such. Lord Eddard made it a point to treat him- captive, heir apparent of Pyke- and the bastard, as equal members of his ancient household. Lord Eddard was that kind of man, and he raised his children as such. Robb, heir apparent to Winterfell, made it a point to make best friends with him (and no, to this day, Theon refused the idea that Jon was also best friends with Robb).
Excluding Lady Catelyn, who, within her rights, hated his guts, the rest of the Starks were like family. He enjoyed teasing Arya, playing pretend with Rickon, showing off before Bran, and flexing his skills in front of Sansa (and even had a slight hope he’d be married off to her, before Lady Catelyn squashed the sentiment away). He frequently sparred with Robb and Jon, and always bested them in archery. Back then, he always daydreamed about the day he would be released, and victoriously return to Pyke with a welcome worthy of a a paramount lord’s son.
Unfortunately, the utter lack of such a welcome was what forced him toward a decision he knew he might one day regret. He didn’t want to break his oath to Robb. But how else was he going to earn bis place at Pyke?
We do not sow, his father’s words echoed through his head.
Theon stood up. A stroll on the beach and the fresh smell of the sea did nothing to clear his troubled mind. His hands were shaking with the weight of the two futures before him: the comfort of the Winterfell hearth, or the wet, bloody authority of the Pyke’s seat.
As he watched the churning, gray-green waves crash against the rocks, he noticed an old man near the tide line. He was ancient, cloaked in robes the color of sea-foam, clutching a staff that looked like it had been carved from white driftwood. His beard was long and white, his eyes piercing through the salt heavy air.
Was he a maester? No, the old man lacked the required chains.
He moved with a speed that defied his age, even against the slippery rocks beneath his feet.
The old man smiled as he walked over to Theon.
“A jolly good morning to you, old man,” Theon felt compelled to greet. And he meant it. Since he had set foot on Pyke, not one of these confounded fools ever afforded him even the slightest of courtesy.
The old man’s eyes twinkled. He seemingly assessed Theon, regarding him from under his bushy eyebrows that grew until his beard.
“I would have asked you what you meant: if you wish to wish me a good morning, if you mean that it is a good morning, if you feel good this morning, or if it is a morning to be good on. But alas, I am afraid that I had already used that little bit once, long long ago, I believe. And so I bid thee, a good morning to you as well, young kraken.”
Theon was stunned. What an odd old man. “Well, it is a good morning, but I suppose I do not particularly feel fucking good this fucking morning, and it is most definitely not a morning to be good on, but morning are always good for fucking.” He sat abruptly on a boulder, hoping the old man would make himself scarce.
Nay, for the old man hovered in front of him, blocking his view of the sea.
The fool.
Now, Theon was pissed.
“Look, I do not have the patience to suffer the ramblings of a confused coot. So why don’t you fuck off. Town is that way,” he snapped, his voice tight.
All he wanted was to be left alone in his rumination.
Uninvited, the old man sat down to his right, much to Theon’s annoyance. “Youngsters these days! Were you not taught to treat your elders with respect? And the language! I did not think the world of men would fall to such crass lows.”
Theon found himself standing, his dignity insulted. “Are you fucking insane, old man! You are speaking to the heir apparent to the Salt Throne! Pray that I don’t gut your ass and feed it to the hungry fish beneath the waves!”
A small chuckle wheezed out behind the old man’s m beard. “Are you that unsure of your position that you need to announce it, Theon Greyjoy?” He then pulled out a pipe, and to Theon’s surprise, started to smoke it. He had never seen leaves be used that way.
A foreigner, it seemed. But if this old man truly was a foreigner, how did he know his name? Still, he cannot deny that there was something intriguingly strange about this old man, and Theon decided he had time to spare.
“Right, if you insist on staying, then entertain me with your stories, that I may relieve myself from overthinking. Where did you come from?”
The old man released thick, oddly sweet rings of smoke that smelled of woodsmoke.
“West,” he simply replied, eyes glazing over the sea. And from the west he did sail from. It had only been a fortnight since he’d arrived via the tiniest swanship ever sailed from Valinor. Swanboat maybe, he huffed indignantly as he boarded. And when the Lady Galadriel handed him two paddles, he repressed a groan, respectfully. And paddle he did, all the way to Westeros.
“Are you mad? West? There is nothing in the west. That’s why this continent is called Westeros, you senile old bag. You must be confused. Or lost. Or both! There is nothing across the Sunset Sea, no voyage nor expedition that yielded new lands to reap.”
Of course they knew nothing, it had been a million years, give or take.
“Throughout my lifetime, I have been called many names. Described as many things. But never a senile old bag! If you must address me, at the barest, use the name Gandalf. Yes. That was what they used to call me.”
Gandalf tapped his staff lightly on the stone they sat on. “And if you should know, young kraken, there is a great deal of things in the West. Not only is there a shore for your ships, but there are dancing stars, and a way back to the One. That is, if you were given the gift to sail back to the original home. Which you have not been granted.”
“The Ironborn are the best sailors of the land, if you didn’t know. Maybe the sailors from your home are utter shit.”
“Perhaps. They do not sail anymore, as they have nowhere else to go to.“
Theon frowned. “That’s not right at all. If you have a ship, you can go anywhere. Take any path. The sea offers that freedom.”
Gandalf blew another whiff of smoke, amazingly, in the shape of a boat. Theon was genuinely impressed.
“Yes, indeed. You simply need to navigate to your destination through the best of the innumerable diverging paths. What about your destination, Theon Greyjoy? And have you chosen your best path?” Gandalf knowingly prodded.
Theon leaned back to look at the dreary skies. “You speak in strange riddles, old man Gandalf. Unfortunately for you, I’m quite terrible at them.”
Gandalf ignored the statement and pointed his staff not at Pyke’s towers, but north, toward the mainland. “Tell me, are you an oath breaker, young princeling?”
Theon blinked and sighed before closing his eyes. “I… I do not wish to be.”
A smile curled on Gandalf’s lips. “Good. Very good. There is hope for you yet.” He prodded Theon’s leg with his staff. “Get up. There is much work to be done.”
Notes:
Stopping these idiots from doing the worst mistakes of their lives-
Yes, yes, yes. Gandalf paddled like he was Jack Sparrow.
—- Lore went boom —-
Chapter Text
T W O
M A G I C
Somewhere in the Stormlands
Catelyn Stark paced the confines of her tent, her shadow stretching long and warped in the lamplight. The meeting with Stannis Baratheon, hours before, replayed in her mind like a poorly choreographed tragedy. She saw his flint-hard eyes, his unyielding pride, and most damningly, the silent, hypnotic presence of the foreign red priestess.
He will break before he bends to any king.
She held Robb’s letter in her hand, its parchment crumpled from her relentless, anxious fiddling. Stannis and Renly... this was supposed to be the fastest way to get her daughters back to her side.
“My Lady Stark,” Lord Wyman Manderly of White Harbor interjected, his voice heavy with urgency. He stood near the tent flap, his large frame shifting nervously, his face slick with sweat despite the cool night air. Catelyn, usually a pinnacle of proper decorum, ignored him instead, continuing her relentless circuit, her face a mask of cold worry.
“My Lady Stark, please, King Robb has sent another raven ordering us back,” Wyman pleaded in an urgent, deep whisper. “The Baratheon brothers will be at war within the day. We cannot afford to delay your journey to safety. We were sent to protect you, not to be caught in a war of kings we do not serve!”
“My safety? My safety?!” she said, her voice rising to a dangerous pitch. Catelyn stopped, spun on her heel, and threw her hands up in a rare, raw display of anger that would have made her mother proud and her father terrified. “I was supposed to be on the way to Winterfell, with my sons, when his Grace commanded me to ride south! He stops me- me, his mother- from returning to his brothers- and sends me to the Stormlands with only ten swords as escort, to barter peace with two warring kings, as if this were a meaningless distraction not worthy of his attention!”
She fought to keep the tremor from her voice. “I think only of the daughters I must save. Because no one else thinks of them! Do you have daughters, my lord? No! You have sons, who can take up arms and defend themselves. Have you not heard the rumours? The little devil Joffrey hits my Sansa, sweet Sansa, in front of the whole court! And there is not a word nor whisper about Arya! I know you Northern lords have little regard for my counsel now that Ned is gone and his authority with him. But I swear by the Old Gods and the New, Lord Manderly, I will not go back to Robb empty handed.”
She faced Wyman, and through clenched teeth, said, “You and your meager company of nine are welcome to leave me here at Lord Renly’s camp if you feel so compelled to go back before we get the results we came for! Go! Tell the King his mother defied him for the lives of her daughters!”
Wyman recoiled as if struck. He was one of the most powerful lords of the North, yet Catelyn’s sudden burst of anger put the fear of gods and King into him.
Catelyn forced herself to sit, the rare loss of control leaving her trembling. Disciplining the Northern lords had always been Ned’s job. And now that he was dead, they forget their place and try to push Robb towards their agendas.
After a minute of regulated breathing, she stood up to face the now schoked Wyman. “I am the king’s mother, Lord Manderly,” she calmly reiterated, though her voice was still steel. “And we are abroad. You will respect my decisions and cede to my authority for as long as we are in the Stormlands.”
Wyman pursued his lips, defeat heavy in his eyes. “My Lady,” he begged, "I did not mean to offend you. I only implore that we delay no more. If Lord Stannis already refused an alliance, then a battle between the Baratheon brothers is imminent. If anything happens to you, my Lady, the King will devour us whole."
“Yes, Lord Stannis refused,” Catelyn conceded, her mind racing. “But perhaps Lord Renly can still be treated with. His host is vast, Lord Manderly. A hundred thousand men is a hundred thousand men more than what we currently possess. Perhaps, he could even appeal to Stannis if they could just find common ground. But we need Renly’s support. That much is the minimum we should accept.”
She continued. “Lord Renly must see the logic in a combined assault. I need one last audience with him. We must try to secure this army, no matter the cost.”
Wyman sighed, the sound like the rush of wind through a broken tower. “One day, my Lady,” he managed, his voice barely a squeak. “Just until the sun rises tomorrow, and then we depart, with or without a promise of a treaty.”
“Thank you, my Lord.”
Catelyn watched Wyman retreat from the tent. She had to make this work. She hated the desperation, but what she hated even more was the fact that she was starting to entertain Petyr’s suggestion; the whispered way he had offered her daughters back, if only to get her girls home.
The thought sickened her, but necessity was a harsh master.
⚔️⚔️⚔️
When Catelyn got her audience with Renly just before dawn, the mood in his pavilion was tense, the atmosphere thick with the smell of expensive wine and the foreboding of the rising winds outside.
“My son has no interest in the Iron Throne,” Catelyn said with desperate fidelity. “His Grace seeks independence for the North and vengeance for his father. If you can help us with the latter, the former should not be an impediment to your crown.”
“You swear it?” Renly asked once more.
“By the Mother,” Catelyn responded. “My son has no interest in the Iron Throne.”
Renly took a sip from his wine glass, holding Catelyn’s gaze, his confidence bordering on arrogance. So far, Robb had only been pressing Lannister territories. Well, they all were: him, Stannis, and the young wolf. While none of them were in an any sort of agreement, there was conscious effort to only assault Lannister troops. If the King in the North was only really interested in the North, then an alliance would be acceptable.
He smiled, settling down his drink. “Then I see no reason for hostility between us, he declared. “Your son can go on calling himself King in the North.” He watched as Catelyn’s eyes placate. “The Starks will have dominion over all lands north of Moat Cailin, provided-“ he emphasized, “he swears me an oath of fealty.”
Catelyn’s spine stiffened. “The wording of this oath?”
“The same Ned Stark swore to Robert eighteen years ago.”
Catelyn looked away to consider. It made Renly wonder how much authority Catelyn actually had, if she could decide on these things by herself, outside the counsel of the Northern lords and their king.
He continued on, to seize initiative. “Cat, their friendship held the kingdoms together.”
Catelyn looked away to consider the impossible choice. Betray the Northern cause for her daughters' safety? Or return empty-handed.
Before sending her here, Robb said that she was the only one he trusted. So in her decision, he must trust.
“And in return for my son’s loyalty?”
“In the morning, I’ll destroy my brother’s army,” he grinned. “When that’s done, Baratheon and Stark will fight their common enemy, together. As they have done many times before.”
He stopped by a polished sheet of steel, and his kingsguard, Lady Brienne of Tarth stepped up to help him with his armor.
“Our two houses have always been close. Which is why I am begging you to reconsider this battle. Negotiate a peace with your brother-“ Catelyn passionately began, but Renly cut her off.
“Negotiate with Stannis?” he scoffed. He stopped Brienne from removing his chest plate, just show Catelyn that he would not be backing down.
He flashed back to Robert’s deathbed, when he once offered Ned Stark a hundred swords to secure Joffrey from Cersei’s hands. And yet, the honorable fool insisted on crowning Stannis instead. His opinions of his brother haven’t changed. In fact, it worsened. What was best for the kingdoms? What was best for the people they rule? Stannis inspired no love or loyalty.
All for the whispers of that foreign red whore he probably kept in his bed.
“You heard him out there. I’d have better luck debating the wind. Please bring my terms to your son.” He turned around as he put on a charming smile. “I believe we are natural allies. I hope he feels the same. Together, we could end this war in a fortnight,” he declared.
Suddenly, the heavy tent flap billowed inward, though the breeze was opposite outside. A wisp of wind entered the tent, its entire being made only out of shadow and smoke. It was a crude, silent, faceless manifestation, armed with a dagger of solidified night.
Renly gasped.
🗡️ STAB 🗡️
It tried to pierce him through his chestplate. Catelyn was transfixed. Brienne swung her sword at the shadow in a desperate, panicked reflex.
The creature, frustrated, settled on sinking its blade into his left collarbone. Renly let out a strangled gasp, his eyes instantly glazing over. He did not bleed heavily, but he collapsed silently, instantly plunged into a deep, non-lethal, but magically induced coma- paralyzed and unresponsive, but still breathing.
“No!” Brienne screamed, the sound torn from her lungs. She had sworn to guard his life, and she was too slow. The pain of her failure was a physical blow, a raw, immediate grief. She tried to tackle the formless smoke away from Renly, but the creature shrieked- a silent, furious sound- and fled, vanishing into the night sky as abruptly as it had arrived.
From the outside, the other kingsguard charged in, weapons drawn. At the sight of Brienne hovered over King Renly’s seemingly dead body, they attacked. “You’ll die for this!” the first one roared, as Catelyn tried to stop them, claiming it was not the lady’s doing.
Brienne wasn't thinking. Instinct and training took over, focused entirely on protecting the king she had failed. She parried and dealt killing blows. And they laid dead on the floor.
⚔️⚔️⚔️
Lord Manderly and Hallis Mollen, Captain of the Winterfell guards, were at the edge of the camp, utterly horrified. Like wildfire, news of King Renly’s assassination spread fast. Reports claimed Brienne of Tarth murdered him and took Lady Catelyn Stark hostage before escaping.
Wyman’s men had joined to search the scene of the carnage. Renly’s body was gone, but the shreds of Catelyn's dress was found near the back of the tent. The lord sank heavily onto a rotting log, his eyes wide with dread.
Hal was sitting across from him, scratching nervously at his neck.
“Well, Lord Manderly,” Hal muttered, his voice ragged. “Are we going to be beheaded for this, or just drawn and quartered? The King will not forgive this.”
Wyman rubbed his massive face, the dread cold and sharp in his gut. “Beheaded, Hal. And we’d deserve it. We were sent to protect her, to assist her, and instead we let her stay, and now she is gone- dragged off by that Tarth woman, alive or dead. What will our King say?”
“Off with our heads?” Hal answered the rhetorical question.
Wynan looked at him grimly. They were dead men.
“He will say we failed him,” Hal whispered, looking at the distant chaos in Renly’s camp. “He will say we let his mother get stolen.”
Wyman clutched the scraps of Catelyn's dress- his proof of her violent abduction. “The moment we return, we would be beheaded. That is why we need to chase this Tarth woman. Bring her to justice. Throw her in the cells with Jamie Lannister. After all, both of them are kingslayers.”
Oxcross
Robb Stark slammed a fist on the table, silencing the sudden uproar that followed the messenger's final word. He was seething. Two ravens had come through: one from Lord Manderly, and the other from Lady Margaery Tyrell, both carrying the same, impossible truth.
His mother, Lady Catelyn Stark, was lost- abducted by a disgraced kingsguard after the sudden, bloody murder of King Renly Baratheon. The reports were vague, conflicting, and utterly damning.
He felt the weight of the crown crushing him. He had sent her away, believing he was acting like a king, delegating a delicate task to his mother whom he trusted and loved.
What would father say?
The whispers of the war council, the clink of steel, the muffled shouts outside- it was all intolerable. He stood abruptly. “I need a moment,” he muttered, pulling on a heavy cloak, seeking solitude. “I do not want to be followed. Stay and await for my return.”
How was he going to break the news to his father?
Robb stood up and started his somber walk to his own tent. The lords can squabble all they like, but in his heart, Robb knew they would still counsel him to move deeper into the Westerlands, and to not waste precious resources to find and locate the king’s own mother.
“Father,” he announced himself as he came in. “I… I’ve failed you.” Robb confessed the calamity, his voice thick with guilt. "Mother is gone, Father. Abducted. She was-“
Ned cut him off, not with a roar, but with a whisper that vibrated deep in Robb’s bones. “I see.”
His father's gaze moved on the sprawling map of Westeros. The eyes weren't looking at lines or armies; they were fixed on the vast, empty distance where Catelyn was now lost. Ned’s hands, calloused and weathered from years of swordsmanship, grasped the table's edge. In that devastating stillness, Robb saw the pain of a heartbroken man whose soul had been tethered to a single woman for almost two decades.
His father’s truly did love his mother.
“You were fueled by the needs of your crown, Robb,” Ned heavily said, the words echoing with the wisdom of the grave. “Do not blame yourself, or let it control you. I will ride out and find my lady wife instead.”
The light in Ned’s eyes faded just as quickly as it had come, his expression softening back to the mask of peaceful exhaustion Robb was used to seeing. Robb then began to explain the circumstances that led to his mother’s abduction.
“Arya is in Harenhall. Do what you will with that information. In a week and a half, I shall be back with your mother. You will have Arya saved by then.”
Ned Stark’s body then moved. With stiff, deliberate motions, he sat up, ignoring Robb entirely, and began strapping on field boots he hadn't worn since the last war. He picked up an infantry shield, circular and branded with the direwolf sigil, and hoisted it onto his back. He did not speak a word aloud. The entire focus of his body was on leaving the tent: a silent, powerful dedication, which he had just imprinted upon his son's mind.
Robb watched his father go, stunned and in awe. Ned Stark, Lord of Winterfell, Warden of the North, was riding out alone, with no armies to command nor hosts to lead, to save Lady Catelyn Stark, the mother of his children; his beloved wife.
⚔️⚔️⚔️
The young wolf walked back to the command center, with Grey Wind right at his heels. The expectation of his father was absolute, but the his war council would never yield.
Robb felt cornered.
The council of lords was waiting, their faces reflecting impatience and exhaustion.
"The reports are confirmed," Robb began, his voice strained. "My mother, Lady Catelyn, has been taken by Renly’s kingslayer. And my sister, Arya, is confirmed to be held at Harrenhal."
A low murmur rippled through the assembled lords, quickly suppressed by a collective need for pragmatic leadership.
Roose Bolton spoke first, his voice a low, dry rasp devoid of sympathy. "Your Grace, what happened to Lady Catelyn is a tragedy, but if she is taken, she is a valuable asset, not a target. A demand for ransom or exchange will follow shortly. We must not let her capture deter us from the campaign."
"Indeed, Your Grace," added Rickard Karstark, leaning heavily on his sword hilt. "Lord Manderly is working on getting the lady back. The Blackfish's scouts confirms that a huge prize is within our grasp. Casterly Rock is not far, and the enemy is scattered. We cannot waste this chance on a secondary, nay, third objective."
Robb’s jaw tightened. He wanted to scream at them, to remind them that his sister and mother were not mere objectives on a map. They were always part of the end goal.
The pack must survive, as his lord father had said.
"Harrenhal is an empty shell, Your Grace," continued Lord Galbart Glover. "It is a cursed ruin in the Riverlands. Its seizure gains us nothing but a distraction. Every day we spend riding east is a day Tywin Lannister spends regrouping his strength. And to send a party to comb the Stormlands to find the Lady Stark? That is even further away. We must press the advantage in the Westerlands, where we can truly bleed the lion."
"We did not cross the Neck to chase ghosts," Karstark growled, his gaze hard. "We came to bleed the lion, King! And that means the West! West! Wait for the demands for Lady Stark, and wait for a clear chance to get Arya. We must march inland, seize Ashemark, and not turn back!"
Robb closed his eyes for a brief moment. He was their king, yet they treat him as a boy. He needed their loyalty, yet every lord here was united against him. He was losing the room, and he knew he could not shatter his alliances over this.
Father would get mother, but what of Arya who was within his grasp?
He looked at the map, then at his fiercely loyal Grey Wind, who stood menacingly beside him. Robb fought down the urge to yield entirely.
"Very well," Robb said, his voice quiet but heavy. "We press south-west. We will strike for the Ashemark and the Crag, seize the wealth of the Westerlands, and force Tywin Lannister's hand."
The lords nodded in approval.
"But hear me now, my Lords," he continued, the words coming out as a strained threat, fueled by his despair. "If the sister of your King is harmed in that cursed castle because you demanded this delay, or if the mother of your King is forever lost because you refuse to send a party, I will remember. The North remembers.”
Grey Wind, sensing the sudden, cold rage in his master, let out a deep, rumbling growl and took two slow, deliberate steps forward, circling the lords. The wolf's teeth flashed white in the lamplight. The threat was not just the King's word, but the immediate, terrifying reality of the wolf's fangs.
The lords swallowed, bowing quickly in a chorus of terrified assent. "As you command, Your Grace."
Robb turned and walked out, his authority secured through sheer intimidation, but at a terrible price.
⚔️⚔️⚔️
Roose Bolton watched the young king depart, his pale eyes narrowed to slits. He felt no fear of the wolf- only cold assessment of the boy who wielded it. The King had yielded on strategy but clung to sentiment, issuing a threat against all his vassal lords over the life of a few women.
Emotion, not calculation, Bolton thought, his lips barely twitching. He has the rage of a war leader, but the foolish heart of a boy. Bolton had seen enough. This was no king. A leader who valued sentiment over strategy was a leader destined to be broken. The North needed a survivor, a colder mind, not a furious youth bound by family ties. His decision was made. He would prepare his own movements and distance himself from the doomed, sentimental King in the North.
His gaze flicked to a sealed scroll tucked into his doublet- a reply from Tywin Lannister outlining potential terms for a future peace. For weeks, the two men had been exchanging carefully worded overtures, a dance of knives disguised as diplomacy.
The Lord of the Dreadfort had been promised significant reward for crippling the Northern war effort at a critical juncture.
But now, a knot of deep suspicion tightened in his chest. Robb had just announced that Arya Stark was at Harrenhal. Harrenhal, the very castle Tywin Lannister was using as his headquarters.
The Lion does not share all his secrets, Roose mused, his eyes unblinking. Why would the Tywin fail to mention the young wolf’s sister, a piece of such immense value, was resting right under his roof? Was it oversight, or a measure of the trust he places in my loyalty?
He realized he was not trusted, a clear sign that Tywin was maneuvering him like a pawn, keeping the true jewels of the game close. Roose Bolton would not play the fool.
His decision was made. He would prepare his own movements and distance himself from the doomed, sentimental King in the North, but he would not give Tywin Lannister his full confidence yet. He needed leverage.
He walked swiftly to his tent and secured a fresh piece of parchment. He prepared a raven to be sent not to Tywin, but North. His network of spies within Winterfell needed to be activated.
The cripple Stark boy and the youngest were all alone and unattended.
The Dreadfort needed a winter project.
⚔️⚔️⚔️
Robb fled the council. He walked quickly to the godswood, shedding his cloak, seeking the quiet truth of the ancient weirwood.
He knelt before the heart tree, his fingers digging into the cold, damp earth near the carved face. He had yielded the army's movement to his lords, but he would not yield his sister to the Lannisters. He closed his eyes and stared blankly at the carved mouth, the bloody sap weeping like tears.
Grey Wind padded silently to his side and pressed his shoulder to Robb's.
Father, guide me. Give me the strength to choose.
He reached for the wolf. He did not ask, he did not command; he merely felt the presence of the animal as if it were an extension of his own skin. He poured every measure of his desperate, frustrated will into the silent, fierce creature.
In an instant, the world dissolved into scent and impulse.
Robb was no longer kneeling. He was low to the earth, smelling the rich musk of pine needles and decaying leaves. The human language and the heavy boots of the camp faded into an insignificant background hum. His sight was keener, focused on the shifting shadows of the moonlit woods. He felt the rhythmic, powerful pulse of a wolf's heart against his ribs.
He was Grey Wind.
The shift was complete, a perfect, terrifying merging of consciousness. The direwolf's body was obeying the King's frantic, desperate will. It turned its head, and the human mind within it knew the direction: East.
The direwolf exploded into motion, a silver shadow running low and fast, his lungs burning with the joy of the run. Every tree was a flash of green and brown, every whisper of the wind a new scent to analyze. The scent of Robb, the boy, was behind them, but the King's will was now ahead, driving the four powerful legs with a focused purpose: Harrenhal.
Notes:
i wanted ned to go full boromir but its not yet time
ugh, I had to cut out theon’s entire section (non ramsey way) 😩
✅ Catelyn’s descent to madness
✅ Setting Brienne and Jamie
✅ Setting Bolton
✅ Keeping Renly “Alive”
✅ Setting up Arya
✅ WARG ROBB STARK
✅ A chance for Ned Stark, Lord of Winterfell, to show his true quality (BAMF BoroNed = the very highest)
Chapter Text
T H R E E
D E S T I N Y
On Gandalf’s Swanboat
Theon was restless, the movement of the river the only thing he respected. They were near Lordstown, but far enough downriver to find a deserted stretch of old, splintered pier.
He sat on the deck, a flagon of Riverlands ale in hand, while Gandalf, cloaked in grey, watched the running waters.
The vessel was a marvel. It was a long, graceful swanship (as Gandalf called it), made of pale, luminous wood that seemed to shimmer even in the pre-dawn gloom; as on its prow was carved the likeness of a proud swan's head.
It was clearly Elvish (if one was familiar with Elves); one of the smallest made by the Teleri- no bigger than a fisherman’s boat. Theon knew nothing of the elves from the first, second, third, and fourth ages; they dwindled, sailed west, or simply faded.
They were lost to a different time.
“It’s beautiful,” Theon admitted, running a finger along the smooth hull from where he sat. “But why so small, old man? It’s not fit for raiding, and any passing pirate could steal this fine piece of jewel in the night. It looks expensive. You didn’t tell me you were rich. This would fetch ye a mighty high price.”
Gandalf smiled faintly, taking a sip from his own tankard. “It was built for passage, not for pillaging, young prince Theon. It is meant to glide the waters, not to break them. These are the ways of the Teleri, the sea-elves of the West, who loved the waters, before any men built their coarse, clumsy vessels.”
Gandalf began a long, meandering account of the first ship-builders, of their King Olwë, and of how the light of the Trees was reflected in the water, which gave rise to the ships' swan-like forms.
The stories sounded as fantastical as Old Nan’s but told with the precision of a learned maester.
Gandalf continued his accounts, telling stories of massive battles against a great evil.
“Robb’s army is going to shatter the Lannister host, old man,” Theon boasted, cutting across the history lesson. “Vengeance is all that matters now. His Grace is going to make them pay for Lord Stark’s death.”
“Vengeance is the shadow of justice, Theon, and a poor foundation for a crown. Your king is brave, fierce, and focused on the immediate wrong. But that focus blinds him to the greater wrong looming over all of Westeros.”
“Robb is a king, Gandalf. And kings fight wars for power and dominion. What’s the difference? You speak of magic and endless shadows. I believe in steel, sails, and the sight of a neck meeting a sword.”
“The difference is the purpose of the crown. A true king, like the first great kings of men, does not rule for vengeance or even for independence, but to be the light against the night,” Gandalf replied. “The young wolf sees the gold lion as his enemy, but he does not yet see the ice gathering behind the Wall, nor the evil whisper of fires from the east. He has the morality of a great war-leader, like Lord Boromir, son of Denethor, focused only on the immediate fight, driven by the purpose of securing his own people but ultimately succumbed after… Well, in any case, young King Robb has the makings of a great king. He simply needs proper guidance. As do you, young prince. The Salt Throne! Bah! The ways of your people, dare I say, most lacking of honor.”
Theon listened, inwardly rolling his eyes, yet he stayed, absorbed and amused. He might not be scribe, but Lord Eddard had made sure his history lessons were thorough. Elven kings of old, magic rings, talking dragons! How horrifying would that be if Balerion could speak.
His mind, however, kept drifting to the politics of his own family. He should be at Pyke, talking sense into Balon. And although he had been rejected thrice, Theon could try again.
Robb needed the Iron Fleet, not these riddles and strange boats, he reminded himself. He stretched his back, standing up to prepare to leave. “Methinks I should leave now. I admit, your stories are amusing and all, but it’s fiction. Won’t help win the war. The dragons are dead, and those flying reptiles were probably the last magical shits on this part of the world.”
Gandalf pulled out his pipe weed, and snapped his fingers to make a fire.
Theon spat out his drink. “How the fuck is that even possible-“ he began but Gandalf silenced him as he looked towards the southern east. “It’s coming. Get ready, Theon Greyjoy.”
“Show me the might of the men of this age.”
⚔️⚔️⚔️
A furious shadow was now upon them. It materialized above the water line, a swirling mass of blackness and smoke, drawn to the power that Gandalf released.
Gandalf raised his staff, its tip blazing with white fire. “Back! To the void, where your master was banished!”
The light struck the creature, pinning it against the murky backdrop of the night sky, but the shadow was fueled by rage, and it pressed itself firmly against the light.
“Theon! My sword! Use it to banish this wicked creature back to the shadows from whence it came!”
Theon scrambled and snatched the hilt of the long, light, magnificent blade, from its scabbard. The blade, catching the white light of the staff, began to shine a brilliant blue.
Theon rushed forward, driven by pure instinct, and drove the magical sword into the shadow, until jt gave a final, silent shriek, and shattered into dust that vanished on the sea wind.
“What the fuck was that?!” Theon screeched into the night. He looked at the blade, then at Gandalf. “What is this?” Theon demanded, lowering the sword. “Is this Valyrian steel? I’ve never seen metal this fine. It cut through that… thing like air. Who are you? What are you?”
“Just a wise old man,” Gandalf replied with a smile playing on his lips.
Theon stood and watched the magical sword and cooling in his hand, the blue light extinguished after extinguishing its foe.
He had been raised on the brutal, simple truths of the Iron Islands- ‘We do not sow’, pay the iron price, and that what is dead may never die; but this shadowy foe had neither bled nor offered gold. In that fleeting moment of incandescent blue, he felt he had been less a prince of Pyke (counting captured salt wives and stolen ships), and more like the heroes of the old ballads his mother used to sing.
The desire to prove himself was replaced by a sudden, consuming need to become something greater: a true hero, an honorable hero, one beyond the need for Balon Greyjoy’s validation.
Renly’s Camp in the Stormlands
The shadow was gone, dissolved, but its wake was a stench of wet ash and impossible cold that made the back of Catelyn’s throat seize up. It was the scent of a breach in the natural order: a demonic violation of natural law.
Renly Baratheon lay not dead, but gasping for life. He was on his back, his body twitching in a spasm of pain. Brienne, the last of his (rainbow) kingsguard, had dropped her sword and stood frozen for a single, agonizing moment, staring down at the king she had failed to shield.
Her failure was incomplete, but her shame was absolute.
The shadow had fled, but Catelyn was convinced it would return. She lunged forward, pressing a frantic hand to Renly’s high chest. There was a wound near the collarbone: the flesh was blackened and collapsed inward, a bruised, sightless hole where muscle and bone should have been, but it was not deep. Yet, it was the source of his shallow, rattling breaths.
“We have to move!” Catelyn hissed, grabbing Brienne’s arm and dragging her upward. “He’s breathing, but the shadow came for him once. It will come again! Do you understand? You will be accused! Do you want your final service to Renly’s memory to be your execution as a kingslayer while he lies bleeding here?”
Brienne’s paralyzed grief shattered into action. She moved with a knight’s discipline, scooping the heavy, groaning man into her arms. Driven by a raw instinct to guard the life she had failed to save, she followed Catelyn as they plunged into the night, running blindly toward the dense pines.
They ran until the sheer, unbearable exertion of carrying a fully-grown man forced Brienne to stagger to a halt. Renly was heavier now, a dead weight slumped against her armor, and his labored breathing was a constant, terrifying reminder of how close death was. Gently, they lowered him against the roots of an ancient tree.
Catelyn sank to her knees, tearing a strip of silk from her dress to press against Renly's wound. “It is lost, Brienne. If he dies here, or in our hands, they will not believe a shadow did this. They will say I am a liar, or worse, that I was a coconspirator for the North, eliminating our greatest rival.”
“I should not have fled,” Brienne replied.
“Renly’s attack was no fault of yours. You served him bravely. Still are serving him bravely.”
“I am his sworn shield,” Brienne choked out, pulling a plain steel longsword and positioning herself between Catelyn, Renly, and the dark woods. “I failed him once, but he is still alive. I swore to Renly to guard him. Please, help me save him, and I will keep that vow. No one touches him, no one touches you, while I still stand.”
Catelyn knelt and started to remove the rest of Renly’s armor to tend to Renly’s wound, when the ordinary sounds of the forest were shattered by the deliberate approach of men. Soon, a company of outlaws encircled them.
“Well, well, well, what do we have here, gentlemen? A couple of highborns, all dressed in silks, tending to a severely wounded king? Did you two dainty doves stab him yourselves?” the bandit group’s leader said, the foreign lilt heavy in his voice.
Catelyn stood up, her face a mask of cold fury. "Who are you, to accost us? I demand you state your names and your lord's banner."
The leader scoffed. "A lord's banner? We follow no banners. We are the Brotherhood Without Banners, m’lady."
"A name which means nothing to us!” Catelyn snapped, pulling Brienne closer.
“I demand to know who you are." Brienne roared, stepping forward and drawing her plain steel longsword. “I am sworn to Renly Baratheon! I am his shield, and she is his guest. Stand back! No one touches him, no one touches her!”
But before the thugs could draw blades, the leader man stepped into the weak light. He stank of booze, his head shaved, his skin stained by the firelight. He ignored the women entirely, his eyes fixed only on Renly’s critical, shallow breathing.
He slowly looked up from the wound to Catelyn. "You need a name? Thoros of Myr, at your service, m’ladies,” he said. He immediately returned his attention to the wound, examining the blackened flesh with a pained frown.
“My sight isn’t good enough to know the name of this evil, but I know its source. They know what happened,” he finished, gesturing vaguely at the two women. “Take them. Gently. I’m interested in what happened. And get a poultice on that king, he is in the hands of the Lord of Light now.”
Brienne yielded only when a bowman aimed an arrow directly at Catelyn. Her sword clattered to the ground, and rough hands immediately tied strips of cloth over their eyes, blindfolding them.
The world went instantly black. The scent of pine and smoke was replaced by the close smell of cheap, rough linen across Catelyn’s face, hot against her skin.
Thieves and rapers. That was all they are.
The silence of the forest was now overthrew by the sound of her own frantic, shallow breathing and the heavy tramp of boots surrounding her. She stumbled, forced to rely on the rough hand gripping her arm. I will never see Bran or Rickon again. Sansa and Arya, lost in the south. I had failed Robb's cause.
The thought was a stone sinking in her belly. She had lost them all. The certainty of violence was her final reward for her failures. Gods, if only Ned were here. If only he could save me, just once more. The desperate, useless wish choked her. She feared for her life, yes, but she feared her inability to help her children more. She was utterly alone.
⚔️⚔️⚔️
When the hoods were finally yanked away, Catelyn’s eyes blinked against the dim, smoky light of a flickering campfire. The man standing before her was familiar, though worn and weathered.
“I remember when your husband, Lord Eddard Stark, gave me my quest,” the man began, his voice surprisingly gentle and formal; utterly out of place for a fugitive. “He sent me here to bring justice to the Mountain. He meant to stop a war before it started, to uphold the King’s law.”
He paused, gesturing to the men around the fire. “I found no justice, my Lady. Only death, and then… resurrection. But the path he sent me on led me here, to this new purpose. The Brotherhood Without Banners is an extension of that initial charge: seeking justice for the smallfolk when kings and lords fail them.”
He then gave Catelyn a formal nod. "Lady Catelyn Stark, I am Beric Dondarrion, Lord of Blackhaven."
Catelyn’s entire body tensed at the use of her proper name and title. She was among outlaws; this man knew her, which meant he knew her worth, her children, and her vulnerability. She stared at him, her defenses instantly raised.
Beric looked down at the earth, then back at Catelyn. “I saw Lord Eddard as an honorable man, a man of truth. He believed in the law, and he sent me to do the King’s work. I have since found myself doing the Lord of Light’s work instead. And for that. feel obliged to keep you and your companions safe. We may be outlaws, but we are not murderers. We do not hurt women.”
Catelyn let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, a sound halfway between a sigh and a choked sob. Ned. Even in death, his honor still stretched out to protect her. The small, fierce knot of dread loosened in her chest. She still feared the outlaws, but she no longer feared immediate violation or murder. The influence of an honorable man, even a dead one, was still a currency here.
She gripped her hands tightly in front of her. “And Renly? What of him?”
Beric’s expression hardened slightly, the shadow of a thousand battles crossing his face. “We have laid him on a clean bed of furs. Our priest, Thoros, tends to him now. That wound is no ordinary wound; it is sorcery, and only sorcery may defeat it. I give you my word, Lady Catelyn, that Thoros will do all he can to bring him back.”
Harrenhal
Arya sat huddled on her cold cot, her back to the flickering rushlight. The damp chill of Harrenhal was everywhere, sinking into her bones, yet she was deep in contemplation. She had the power of three deaths, and she had already spent one.
Cersei.
Joffrey.
Meryn Trant.
Illyn Payne.
The Hound.
Now, she had to choose between the two remaining names she was owed by Jaqen H'ghar. Who deserved to die more? She tasted the names like poison on her tongue, shuffling them like stones.
The Tickler, who had tortured men to death for sport, asking them riddles only fire could answer. He was the first of ther three names. In hindsight, he was a low hanging target; not much in the grand scheme of the war. But if the Tickler does die by Jaqen’s hand, well…
Two names left. Two lives for two words. She repeated the names like a prayer of vengeance, a counter-curse against the darkness, seeking out which one felt the most just to sacrifice.
She looked toward the high, narrow window. It was late, and the moon was a sliver above the ruin of the Wailing Tower. Arya hated the darkness, but she hated the men in the castle more.
As her gaze drifted across the thick forest below, her breath hitched. A shadow, larger and quicker than any man or dog, slipped from one patch of gloom to another. It was gone almost instantly, but its movement was too fluid, too purposeful for a stray. She pressed her face to the cold stone of the window frame, her heart thumping against her ribs.
It was nothing, she tried to tell herself. Just a trick of the low moonlight, or maybe one of the few wild hounds that scavenged the massive ruins.
But the memory of the shape- long, low, and terrifyingly familiar- clung to her. It was a wolf, she thought. A big one. Not just any wolf. She knew the size of a direwolf, knew the precise coat and the subtle arrogance in the way it moved.
That must be Nymeria.
The certainty made her skin prickle with desperate, overwhelming hope. She remembered me. She came back for me.
She stayed fixed at the window for another hour, but the shadow did not return. She finally fell asleep after reciting another round of her list; the mystery of the wolf- and its sudden appearance- weaving into her dreams.
The Godswood at Behind Oxcross
Robb woke with a start, coughing up dirt and pine needles. He was lying in the cold, damp mud of the Godswood, the sacred heart tree's pale face staring down at him. He didn’t remember collapsing; only the shock of the forced return.
His body was trembling violently, not from the cold, but from the raw, terrifying feeling of being cut free.
For hours, he had been somewhere else. He had been Grey Wind, stalking the shadows of a massive, broken castle, smelling the fear, and finding the familiar scent of his sister. The connection hadn't been severed cleanly; it felt like a taut wire had been released, leaving a phantom bond. He knew, instinctively, that Grey Wind was still roaming the perimeter of Harrenhal, now restless and confused by the abrupt loss of his guiding mind.
Robb struggled to his feet, his thoughts a chaotic swirl of mud, stone, and the distant clang of iron. The sun was rising. He wanted to sleep away this terrible headache, but he needed to act like a king. He pulled out his waterskin, splashed cold water on his face, and walked with strained purpose toward the command tent.
⚔️⚔️⚔️
"My Lords," Robb said, his voice carrying the unusual, sharp clarity. "We assault Ashemark immediately. We hit the west gate at night, but not with the ram. Lord Umber, I need your heavy infantry to draw their fire on the bridge."
He tapped a precise location on the map, his hand steady. "Lord Karstark, your horse archers will circle wide and use the woods on the northern ridge. When the bridge assault begins, you fire on the battlements overlooking the gate. The objective is not to take the castle yet, but to draw out their reserves. We'll peel away their defenses, layer by layer, until they surrender."
"Your Grace, will you lead the charge?" Greatjon asked, eager for blood. Robb, who usually plunged headlong into battle, did not immediately answer. The lords exchanged confused glances.
"No," Robb said, rubbing his temples, his gaze distant. "I'll be sitting this one out." He snapped his focus back to his commanders, a sharp, challenging edge entering his voice. "My lords, you have the command. Execute it perfectly. And impress me. I want a full report by sunset, before the charge."
Robb left the command tent and began his rounds, forcing his pace to be slow and deliberate, matching the calm rhythm of a king who had merely pulled an all-night strategy session. He checked the supply wagons, his mind ticking off numbers and weights. He inspected the sick bay, speaking briefly to the maester about fever and wounds, his responses formal and brief. Every interaction was a mask, every movement an effort to conceal the wolf-mind fighting to resurface: Arya was in Harrenhal.
His last stop was the heavily guarded cart where Jaime Lannister was held in chains.
Jaime looked up, a familiar, predatory smile playing on his lips, despite the dirt and weariness marring his face. "The King in the North. I’ve been wondering why you haven’t visited. I was missing our late night talks. Did to come ask for advice on how to keep your own mother out of trouble?"
"Word travels, even to a cell," Jaime continued, his eyes gleaming with malicious amusement. "You try to barter a deal with Renly, then he dies. And your mother has supposedly been kidnapped by a new kingslayer. Or did she flee with the killer? Was this premeditated? My my, I thought Starks are honorable.”
Robb's eyes, already strained from his night's ordeal, seemed to focus with unnerving clarity, a flash of gold rather than blue. The effort to remain human was failing. He took a single, slow step closer to the cart, before turning away.
“You look dirty, kingslayer.”
Robb gave a sharp nod to the guards and turned, walking swiftly out of the prisoners’ area.
"What of your fearsome companion?" Jaime called to Robb's retreating back, his voice rising, venomous. "Where's the wolf, Stark? Left him at home? I was hoping to pet your mangy dog."
"I don't need Grey Wind to intimidate a chained prisoner, Lannister," Robb replied, his voice a quiet, dangerous growl that lacked human warmth. "He saves his fangs for those who still pretend to be free. And you," he added, his lip curling in a momentary snarl, "you are merely a piece of silver awaiting barter. Nothing more."
Robb was already gone, leaving Jaime's final taunt to echo uselessly among the rows of cages.
⚔️⚔️⚔️
He stumbled inside his tent, collapsing onto the cot just as Ser Brynden Tully, the Blackfish, entered. Brynden's armor was mud-splattered, having ridden hard through the night after receiving the devastating news of Catelyn's abduction.
"Your Grace, I rode ahead," the Blackfish said, his face etched with exhaustion and worry. "We must coordinate the immediate search. As the king’s mother, she would be-“
Robb cut him off, his voice flat, his eyes wide and unfocused. "It's handled, Uncle. I've sent someone trustworthy to collect her and bring her back."
The Blackfish stilled, confusion warring with relief. "Sent someone? Lord Manderly, then? I trust his men."
Brynden assumed Robb was referring to the escorts his mother brought when she went to treat with Renly.
Robb didn't respond. He simply stared past Brynden, his pupils fogging. Robb’s head tilted, listening not to the sounds of the camp, but to something only he could hear- the whisper of wind through broken walls, the scent of stale ash, the feel of four paws crunching dead leaves. He was gone again, watching the world through Grey Wind's golden eyes.
The Blackfish backed away slowly, his hand hovering near his sword, sweat beading on his brow. He spun, stumbling toward the tent flap.
"Guards!" Brynden barked at the two men standing outside, his voice tight and low. "No one is to enter this tent! The King and I are having a private discussion. No one." He sealed the flap and turned back to face his young king, who was now utterly silent, a wild, grey awareness flickering deep within his human eyes.
Winterfell
Brandon Stark, Lord of Winterfell, woke with a sharp gasp, startling Hodor, who was dozing nearby. He was resting in the Godswood, having asked to be carried there for his afternoon nap, and the rough, damp earth beneath him felt strange, heavy with the memory of the dream.
It had been vivid, too vivid. He wasn't the wolf this time. He was a disembodied form in the high towers of a castle he didn't know, a ghost that saw and heard all. He had seen Robb, pale and distraught, talking not to his lords, but to father. Jon was also there, sitting down, face in utter shock. They spoke in short, frantic sentences about the Wall, about magic, something about religions, and the end of the world.
"You are well, young Lord?" Maester Luwin's voice was soft but sharp, cutting through the remnants of the dream.
"I am," Bran lied, pushing the vision away. He looked around.
Rickon, youngest of the Stark children, was nearby; not napping, but running in a tight, frantic circle around the massive, bleeding Weirwood. He was on all fours, his little hands digging into the mud, his face hidden behind a shaggy curtain of dark hair, mimicking Shaggydog's low, guttural growls.
Maester Luwin sighed, his disappointment palpable.
Bran knew what the Maester thought. He was pitying them. It need not be said.
"I had a dream," Bran said quietly, as Hodor gently lifted him. "About Father. He was talking to Robb and Jon.”
"Lord Bran," the Maester replied, adjusting his chain. "You merely miss your family, and your mind is restless. It is natural. But the work of the Lord must still be attended to. The accounts from the holdfasts need review."
Bran groaned internally, hating the dull, endless cycle of lord duties. How did father do this every single day? Being a lord is boring.
Unknown to them, atop the crumbling battlements of the Wolfswood tower, two men watched the scene in the Godswood. They were silent, their eyes hard and calculating, noting the boy lord’s depressed demeanor and the younger brother’s unchecked chaos.
Notes:
Lore is pinned down, finally.
I think this will be a long ass project 💀
Wow, setting up stuff is taking longer than expected—-
Chapter Text
F O U R
R E B I R T H
Brotherhood Without Banners
The worship of R'hllor, the Lord of Light, was a faith born in the ancient cities of Essos and never took firm root in the Seven Kingdoms. Hence, a priest was sent to the Westerosi court: Thoros of Myr, who arrived at King's Landing with a mission to convert the Iron Throne. Instead, the decadence of King Robert Baratheon's rule quickly corroded his zeal; Thoros was reduced to a drunken, fiery showman, entertaining the court with fire stunts and winning tourneys with his flaming sword. He grew disillusioned, his sermons a hollow theater, and his faith was mostly abandoned, used only for drink and spectacle.
Thoros's path to true power was stumbled upon by chance during a drunken expedition. Years before, while hunting in the mountainous regions near the western coast, he fell into a deep sinkhole. After crawling through miles of darkness, he discovered a vast, ancient network of caves that led to the foundation of a collapsed, unmapped structure: stone ruins buried deep beneath the mountain. Here, hidden in the chilling, undisturbed dark, he found the pale tome.
This book, bound in salt-stained leather, was not the same fire-and-blood scripture. While also written in the same language, dealt with the ancient grace of the ‘All Men’. At least, from what Thoros could translate, from high Valerian.
Thoros kept the book secret, its power too subtle for King Robert's court, only realizing its true potential years later, when he finally found use for it when he accidentally resurrected Lord Beric Dondarion at the Battle of the Mummer’s Ford.
⚔️⚔️⚔️
The small cave offered meager sanctuary. It was dark, the air heavy and thick with the smell of wet earth, moss, and ancient, unmoving stone. The atmosphere was cold, claustrophobic, and damp.
Renly Baratheon lay stretched on a pile of furs, concerningly pale. The black void that marred his collarbone was not a simple wound, but an absence- a patch of chilling, unnatural stillness that seemed to absorb the weak, tallow-candle light held by a silent man of the Brotherhood.
Thoros, for all his drunken stupor, was knelt beside the fallen king, looking drawn and haggard in the gloom. He was cold, shivering slightly from the cave’s persistent chill, his inner fire banked not from heat exhaustion, but from the spiritual expenditure that the ritual demanded. His hands, however, were steady as he reached into his tattered robes and withdrew not one, but two small books.
The first was bound in red leather, cracked and smelling faintly of sulfur- the prayer book of the aggressive, consuming fire. The second was different: the pale, salt-stained relic he found.
Thoros looked deeply from one book to the other, his inner conflict heavy and immediate. He had long abandoned the path of a scholar, but this situation put a new flame in him.
“The red book speaks of binding," Thoros muttered, his voice barely a breath. "Of shadows, of blood prices, of the fire that consumes to create.“
He shoved the red book away. "But this one... this pale tome. It speaks the same tongue, but the prayers are for mending. For the knitting of flesh and the calling of the breath. It does not demand a death to pay for a life.“
Beric, Catelyn, and Brienne watched, the ritual filling the tight confines of the cave. Thoros held the pale tome open with one hand, his eyes scanning the impossible script, and placed his other hand directly over Renly's blackened wound.
He began to chant. The words were strange to Catelyn's ears, ancient, otherworldly, and strangely beautiful, utterly unlike the harsh, aggressive sound of R'hllor's usual prayers. As he spoke, a soft, steady golden glow began to emanate from Thoros’s palm. It wasn't fire; it was pure, cold light, akin to starlight- a resonant energy that seemed to push the damp darkness out of the cave, humming faintly as if the stone itself resisted the intrusion. The power flowed out of Thoros and into Renly.
The black bruise on Renly’s neck began to break apart like ink in water, receding from the skin with agonizing slowness. Renly drew a sudden, deep, rattling breath, his chest heaving. The golden light faded. Thoros slumped back against the cave wall, utterly depleted, his skin clammy. The drain was spiritual, an exhaustion that went deeper than physical weariness.
"It is done. The shadow is purged," Thoros whispered, his voice hoarse, his arms too weak to hold the pale tome, which slid to the damp ground. "But he will never truly heal. The mark remains. It was too great to be wiped away entirely, only driven back. He is whole, but he is marked."
“But will he be alright? Will he live?” Brienne pressed, her massive hand hovering over Renly’s chest.
“Yes, I suppose,” Thoros replied, accepting a cup of ale from a member of the Brotherhood. “His life is his again. He will wake soon.” He took a swing of alcohol and looked at Beric. “That was much harder than when I resurrected you.”
“What do you mean by resurrected?” Catelyn asked, the question confused. Seeing a wound heal the way Thoros did was already a feat that shook her, but resurrection was an entirely different field.
“After I was struck down and killed by the Mountain, Thoros here accidentally brought me back with through the grace of ‘all men’, or so he says. He does not explain the nature of the rituals,” Beric said offhandedly, his one good eye steady.
He sat down beside the small, miserable fire, using his charred sword to push a stray log into the flames. “I have died many a times now, Lady Catelyn. Actual, real deaths, where I knew I passed to somewhere, but I do not remember anymore from where.”
Beric leaned forward, the firelight illuminating the deep, hollow shadows under his eye. His skin was pale and waxy, and the jagged scar around his neck seemed to itch perpetually.
"The things I become confused about grow greater," he began, his voice soft, almost a lullaby of loss. "Sometimes I remember the smell of the grass where I grew up: at Blackhaven. But sometimes, it’s the permeating smell of smoke rising from the east. I can look at my squire, my friends, and know their names, but… They seem to intersect with sometime else entirely. Memories of a distant life I do not even remember living. I remember the charge Lord Stark had given me, and I live through it, because I also remember the commands I have been given by a man who looks like Lord Stark. Bring justice to the Mountain, he had said from the Iron Throne, but sometimes… we would be riding from the City of the White Tower. Where is that? It is not in Westeros. No, I do not think so. We do not have cities as beautiful as that. No, we have King’s Landing: full of shit and horse shit, and also smelt of shit.”
The others around merely sat in contemplative silence.
“Or so I think. Perhaps I am just getting older,” he laughed sardonically. “Perhaps it was all a dream.”
Catelyn's earlier, foolish hope for Ned was crushed beneath the weight of Beric’s chilling confession. The man before her was a ghost, a devoted corpse, held together by a sacred, yet ruinous, magic.
"If... if the grace of ‘all men’ can return a man from death," she whispered, her voice cracking, her throat tight with tears. "Could he return my husband? Ned was a good man. A better man than any of us. If we found his body..."
"The power which brought Beric back can rekindle a life that has gone out," Thoros said, rising slowly, his frame shaking from exhaustion. "But only if it has been allowed. And only if there is a body to return to. Beric returns because his body is whole enough to hold the spirit. The head, the seat of the soul, must be attached, Lady Stark. For Ned Stark, his peace is absolute. Do not wish this life upon him. It is a mission full of struggle, not a gift."
Catelyn bowed her head, accepting the finality. The crushing grief returned, sharper for the moment of insane, impossible hope.
⚔️⚔️⚔️
Renly’s eyes fluttered open. He struggled to sit up, leaning heavily against the damp cave wall. He was breathing, but his eyes held the haunted look of a man who has stared into true darkness. "I feel... hollow," he whispered, looking at his hands, which trembled with aftershocks. He looked up at Brienne, whose face was a mask of tear-streaked relief.
"I am so sure it was Stannis," Renly said, shame and confusion warring on his face. "But the shadow… the evil… it felt like something far older and colder than my brother." He looked at Beric and Thoros. "What are you two doing here? It has been many moons since I’ve last seen you two?”
Thoros tossed a waterskin at Renly. “So good to see you alive, Renly. Oh, and by the way, I was the one who healed you," the priest smirked, his eyes tired but his voice carrying the expected, slightly self-important edge.
Renly caught the waterskin with a lazy swipe and took a long drink. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, allowing himself a moment to study the Red Priest. "Healed me with your party tricks, eh, Thoros? The things we must endure for spectacle, even in death."
Renly sighed dramatically. "I suppose one must give credit where it's due. You always were a better drunk than a priest, but tonight, you have proven yourself a useful idiot. I am, begrudgingly, in your debt."
Beric then took up the story of how they found Renly after his attempted assassination, to explaining the origins of the Brotherhood Without Banners, speaking with a fierce conviction that had been absent during his tenure at Robert’s court. "So we fight for the smallfolk now. For those who have no banner to protect them."
Renly raised a perfect, skeptical eyebrow. "The Brotherhood Without Banners? Now, that's a charming name, if a bit dramatic. But forgive me, Lord Beric, are you not still Lord of Blackhaven? And don't you fly the purple and black lightning?" He gestured vaguely at the damp cave ceiling. "Wouldn't that make you, technically, the Brotherhood Under the Dondarrion Banner? We mustn't mislead the smallfolk with poor branding, after all."
Thoros snorted.
Beric shook his head, the movement tired. "That banner is folded, Renly. We only follow the last directive of Lord Eddard Stark, before his death. We do not fight for the North's King, nor for the Iron Throne, nor for any other claimant." He looked Renly straight in the eye, without fear. "We fight for justice. For the right of the common man to walk his road in safety. We fight for no king, but for all things right."
Renly paused. He had mocked the title, but the dedication in Beric’s one good eye was unsettling. This was not the foppish lord who had tilted in tourneys.
Renly felt a grim relief settle in his gut. The world thought him dead. That meant he was safe. His brother Robert was a brute of a man, backed by the might of his warhammer. Stannis was steadfast, unmoving, and cold as steel. Renly knew he was different. He hid behind bravado, wealth, and a well-practiced smile. He was a king of fashion and feasts, not war and duty. He had looked death in the face and blinked.
"The Lannisters can go fuck themselves, but Stannis," Renly spat the name, "Stannis can go fucking die." He looked around the cave. Thoros and Beric, former courtiers like himself, had found a way to survive out here. If they could do it, who was to say he couldn't? He would hide here until the time was right.
He looked up as Catelyn approached him. "Lady Stark," he said quietly.
Catelyn regarded him with pity and a flicker of anger. "King Renly. Or is it just Renly now? I will keep your secret, of course. My word is my bond, and the realm thinks you dead, which is safer for us all." She sighed.
"But know that I lament the failure of our proposition. We could have joined forces. Robb could have used your strength."
Renly offered a genuine, shaky smile, the bravado gone, replaced by a momentary, painful honesty. "Lady Catelyn, for that, I am truly sorry. I am a coward, afraid of death. I always have been. Not like my brothers. Robert loved the fight, and Stannis loves the principle of it. I only loved the winning. But not the risking. I am far too different. I apologize for what my failure cost you."
He turned to Brienne. He reached out, taking her gauntleted hand in his. "Brienne, my lady. You are released. I am no longer a king, and a dead man has no need of a kingsguard. Go home to Tarth."
"No!" Brienne cried, pulling her hand back, her fierce loyalty shining through her grief. "I swore a vow! I will not leave you!"
"Then serve someone who can still be served," Renly commanded, his voice gaining a sudden, regal strength, his eyes fixed on Catelyn. "As thanks for your help, Lady Stark, I command you to take her sword. Brienne, your debt to me is paid in full. I charge you now to transfer your loyalty. Serve Lady Catelyn. She needs a sworn sword to get back to her son. Protect her."
Brienne looked from Renly's defeated face to Catelyn’s weary determination. She drew her steel sword and knelt in the dirt before Catelyn Stark.
"As my king commands. I pledge my sword to you, Lady Catelyn," Brienne said, her voice thick with grief and resolve. "I will shield your back and keep your counsel and give my life for yours if need be. I swear it by the old gods and the new."
"And I vow that you shall always have a place by my hearth," Catelyn responded, accepting the strange, sacred gift. She looked at Renly one last time. "Now that this ordeal is done, I must return to Robb's side."
Thoros rose, wiping the ale from his beard. "The Reach is full of bandits while the Riverlands are crawling with Lannister dogs. They know the river roads better than you. I will escort you, Lady Stark, and your new champion. Beric and the others will stay here and keep the shadows away from the little stag. And I'll take you until an inn a few miles from Tumbleton.”
On an Unmarked Forest Path
Ned Stark rode south and east, away from Oxcross.
He traveled light, shedding the heavy trappings of a high lord to pursue the only path that mattered: speed. He wore dark, boiled leather armor beneath a weathered cloak and carried only what was essential for rapid travel: a broad one-handed steel sword at his hip, a circular shield emblazoned with the direwolf of Stark strapped to his back, a serviceable dagger sheathed in his boot, and the ancient, weirwood-repaired battle horn, secured to his side with heavy leather straps.
His pace was unyielding, guided by the sun, the stars, and an intuition sharpened by decades of war across two lifetimes.
This solitude was a familiar strangeness. In both his lives, he had rarely ventured without a company of guards, a retinue of squires, or the trusted brotherhood of his house. As Lord of Winterfell, he was bound by honor; as Captain of the White Tower, he was surrounded by duty. This single, silent ride, where every decision was his own and every shadow held a potential threat, was unnervingly reminiscent of his desperate, lonely journey from Gondor to Imladris, chasing a cryptic dream and a desperate hope.
Ned’s immediate mission was singular: to find Catelyn. For a man bound by the necessity of nobility, the sheer intensity of his longing was a force that surpassed all duty. He had loved her in one life, a mature, ten and seven years of devotion built not on courtly requirements but on shared responsibility, mutual respect, and the quiet, enduring comfort found only between true partners.
Every mile of road was a weight of anxiety; every day that passed was another opportunity for harm to come to her. He rode in constant prayer, the words mixing strange, desperate names: he invoked the silent counsel of the Old Gods in the heart trees and beseeched the distant, lofty attention of the Valar of Middle Earth. He prayed not for victory, but simply to find her alive.
Seep into the twilight, he located a squat, dark inn by the heavy scent of spilled ale and fear. He dismounted, tying his horse in the shadowed woodline. The sounds emanating from the common room were not those of merriment, but of bullying and cruelty.
He heard the drunken threats and the splintering of wood. His mind, rational and driven, screamed a single command: Ride on. Catelyn is the only priority. Every hour lost is a chance she falls into enemy hands.
But the sound of cruelty was a siren call to the warrior in his breast. Ned Stark and Boromir were both men of uncompromising honor (at least, until before death). The urge to save Catelyn was frantic, but the honor that defined him was absolute. Time was of the essence, but honor was the essence of him.
Inside, six armed men wearing the patchy red and gold of a Lannister skirmisher troop were systematically destroying the common room, laughing as they bullied the elderly innkeeper, his young daughter, and terrified the smallfolk huddled in the corners.
“Now, old man,” their leader snarled, kicking over a table laden with food. “Where do you hide the silver? Or do we take your daughter instead?”
Ned stepped through the doorway. He did not announce himself. The air in the room seemed to go cold as the six men turned, drawn by the newcomer's silent, unmoving presence.
Ned let his eyes sweep slowly over the men- an unspoken, utterly dismissive judgment. The Lannister leader felt his throat constrict under the weight of that gaze, like a petty thief caught by a lord’s justice. A slight, cold smile touched Ned's lips, a gesture of absolute challenge that invited them to try and prove they were worthy opponents.
“Your pathetic sport is concluded. You soil the armor you wear by preying upon the defenseless,” Ned's voice was low, resonating with a commanding, gravelly scorn that belonged to the walls of a besieged city, not a tavern.
The leader spat on the floor. “And who in the seven bloody hells are you? A beggar looking for a quick death?”
Ned did not answer. He simply drew his broadsword.
The fight was over almost instantly. Ned used his unnatural speed, which to others was a blinding flash of movement. He noted, with slight disappointment and contemptuous boredom, how readily their clumsy, rage-fueled attacks followed the most predictable patterns.
These terrible excuses for soldiers would not last an hour against even the rawest Orc patrol. They lack the discipline, the technique, the necessary strength, and the drive to live for anything beyond their next sack of gold.
He did not engage in flourishes. He moved straight for the leader. When the man swung, Ned parried with such focused strength that the impact shattered the man's own steel guard and drove the broken hilt into his face. Ned did not pause for a breath. His broadsword, in the same fluid motion, sliced diagonally across the man's neck, ending his life before he could even register the loss of his weapon.
The others hesitated- a fatal error.
Ned moved through them, not like a whirlwind, but like an executioner, precise and quick. The aches and weariness of his old life were gone, replaced by a deep, unsettling well of physical power. He could fight without tiring, his strength making the men around him seem slow and heavy-handed. The broad, one-handed steel sword he carried felt negligible in his grasp; he wielded it with the speed and dexterity of a light rapier.
This new but familiar strength felt less like a gift and more like a tool-a weapon in itself, honed to a terrible edge. The ease with which he handled it was profoundly disturbing; it was his capability as Boromir but married to his body as Ned, and the combination unnerved him.
This is not Ned's way. Ned fought with honor and restraint. But he had just fought with an efficiency that left no room for mercy. He was a force of controlled violence, the strength of his Númenorean and faint Elvish roots applied to the softer metal and softer flesh of Westeros.
He blocked a spear thrust with his gauntleted hand, ignoring the bruising, and used the length of his sword to stab the man's throat before the soldier could adjust his grip. He sidestepped another swing, letting the momentum of the Lannister soldier carry him forward, and then Ned used the pommel of his broadsword to strike the man’s knee, dropping him instantly before delivering the final, swift blow.
Within thirty seconds, four of the six were dead. The last two, seeing the carnage, dropped their weapons and scrambled for the doorway in blind panic. Ned would not permit them to carry this tale of a solitary, deadly warrior to the next Lannister camp. In a smooth motion that spoke of long training, he drew the dagger from his boot and threw it. The blade spun once and buried itself with lethal precision between the shoulder blades of the foremost fleeing man. As the second man stumbled over his comrade's dying form, Ned was already upon him, his broadsword flashing in a final, swift diagonal slash that ended the man's life before he cleared the threshold.
The inn fell silent, the only sound the slow drip of spilled ale and blood.
The innkeeper, a thin man, slowly emerged from behind the bar. He stared at the carnage, then at Ned, who was calmly wiping the steel blade on a discarded Lannister tunic.
“You... you saved us, ser,” the innkeeper whispered, his eyes wide.
“They deserved no less,” Ned replied, ignoring the wrong title, sheathing his sword. He retrieved his dagger from the body outside, before unconsciously touching the pain on his neck after a bout of lingering pain.
“The way you fight... the speed,” the innkeeper said, placing a shaky hand over his heart. “Are you... are you with the Brotherhood Without Banners?”
Ned turned, his face shadowed by the firelight, the deep lines of a life of duty etched into his expression. “I am not. I fight for my own conscience. Nothing more.”
The innkeeper bowed deeply. “A free meal, good ser. For saving the inn, and my daughter. Please, sit. Eat. Rest. We will tend to the... cleaning.”
⚔️⚔️⚔️
Soon, after a few hours of rest, Ned rode hard, driven by a growing, frantic certainty. The air felt heavy, charged with conflict. He was moving through a thickly wooded gorge, the path twisting narrowly between the river and a high ridge, when he heard the shouts. Not the drunken calls of brigands, but the disciplined, brutal cries of a large military force hunting prey.
He dismounted, leaving his horse tied deeply in the thicket. He moved to the ridge’s crest, lying flat against the earth, his grey eyes scanning the scene below with the cold, predatory precision of a ranger of Ithilien.
Below, the narrow gorge was choked with men. Forty Lannister heavy infantry and crossbowmen, led by a captain in gleaming steel. They had three figures cornered against a wall of sheer rock.
Ned’s caught his breath, a sharp pain in his chest that had nothing to do with battle.
Catelyn.
She was there. Alive. Standing tall despite the dust on her cloak and the terror in the air. Seeing her was like taking a breath after drowning. The memory of her face had been his anchor in the black cells. He felt a surge of protectiveness so violent it almost made him dizzy; a primal, possessive roar in his blood that demanded he tear the world apart to reach her. He remembered the last time they parted in King's Landing, the taste of regret. I failed you then, he thought, his grip tightening on the dirt. I lleft you to this madness. I let them take my head, and I left you alone in the dark. Never again. By the Old Gods and the New, by the grace of the Valar, never again.
He forced the emotion down, locking it behind the steel door of his discipline. He could not afford to be a husband now; he had to be a warrior.
He shifted his gaze to her defenders.
One he knew. Thoros of Myr. The Red Priest was unmistakable, even with his robes tattered. Ned remembered him from the Siege of Pyke- a madman with a flaming sword who had been the first through the breach. A drunkard, yes, but a fearless one. After all, he volunteered to capture the Mountain.
The second defender was a stranger. A massive figure in gold armor, hulking and broad-shouldered. Who is this giant? Ned wondered, his eyes narrowing. The figure moved with a clumsy but undeniable power, wielding a sword with defensive desperation. A hedge knight? A mercenary? No matter. They fight for her, so they are my blood today.
Ned pulled back slightly, his mind shifting into a cold, tactical calculus.
Forty men. Eight crossbows in the rear rank. Thirty-two infantry closing the distance. A captain commanding from the center.
He could not simply charge. A berserker rush might kill ten, perhaps fifteen, but the crossbows would find their mark, or the sheer weight of numbers would overwhelm him before he reached Catelyn. And if he failed, she dies.
No survivors. If one escapes, Tywin Lannister learns she is here. If one escapes, the hunt begins anew. They must all die. Here. Now.
He mapped the slaughter in his mind.
The gorge was narrow. The Lannisters were bottlenecked, their attention fixed entirely on the three figures against the rock. Their backs were to the ridge.
The crossbowmen. They were loading for a volley. If they loosed, the giant in gold or Catelyn would fall. They had to die first, silently if possible, violently if not.
The infantry was packed tight. If attacked from the rear, they would have no room to turn their spears. Confusion would be his ally. He needed to drive them forward, crushing them against their own front lines, turning their formation into a chaotic crush of bodies where their numbers meant nothing.
Strike the rear. Silence the bows. Drive the herd into the wall. Leave no one to run back to the camp.
These are not Uruk-hai, he thought, watching the glint of sunlight on mediocre steel. They were, for the lack of better term, lesser men of Westeros: slow, and governed by fear. And this was not Amon Hen. He was not dying to protect two defenseless hobbits against a tide of peak orc strength. Down there, fighting with desperate fury, were two true swords to help him. He was not alone in his agenda.
I will not fail this time. I will get Catelyn.
Ned rose to a crouch. He drew his broadsword, the metal sliding silent as a whisper from the sheath. He checked the dagger in his boot. He adjusted his shield.
He vaulted from the ridge, dropping twelve feet into the soft mud behind the rear guard. He landed in a crouch, absorbing the impact, and was moving before the two rearmost crossbowmen realized death had fallen among them.
One. He rose, driving his sword through the back of the first man’s neck.
Two. A backhand slash with the shield edge crushed the windpipe of the second.
The men directly in front of them began to turn, sensing the disturbance. Now. Ned pulled the war horn, placed it to his lips, and unleashed a single, blow.
The Lannister men- already turning- jerked their heads, momentarily confused by the blast emerging from their secure rear flank and the sudden loss of situational awareness. This momentary gap in their discipline was all Thoros of Myr needed: he gave a battle cry which engulfed his sword in flame, and immediately surged forward, while the massive knight found her courage renewed, turning the defensive line into a ferocious counter-attack.
"Ambush! Rear guard!" the Lannister captain screamed, but the order was swallowed by chaos.
Ned became a blur of violence. He stepped into the turning soldiers, denying them the space to lower their spears. He wasn't fighting a duel; he was culling. He hooked a man's shield with his own, ripping the defense away, and thrust his blade into the exposed armpit. He spun, using the momentum to drive his elbow into a faceplate, then severed a hamstring with a low, vicious cut.
The crossbowmen panicked. They couldn't shoot into the melee without hitting their own, and the man in their midst was moving too fast to track. Ned prioritized them. He cut the string of a loaded bow, the snap whipping across the archer's face, followed instantly by a thrust to the gut.
Ned was herding them. Every blow he struck was designed to push the survivors forward, deeper into the crush, closer to Thoros and the unknown giant knight. He wanted them squeezed, terrified, unable to breathe, let alone fight.
A spearman thrust at him. Ned caught the spear shaft on his crossguard, twisted it from the man's grip, and drove the pommel into his temple. Five down. Six. Keep moving. Don't let them set their feet.
The Lannisters were breaking. The psychological shock of a single warrior decimating their rear flank- combined with the flaming sword of Thoros in front- shattered their morale. They were fighting a ghost behind them and a magician in front.
Ned carved a path toward the center, his eyes scanning for deserters- men trying to break for the gorge walls to escape. He saw one, a squire trying to scramble up the slope. Ned didn't hesitate. He snatched a fallen crossbow from the mud, leveled it, and loosed the bolt. The squire fell, pinned to the earth.
None shall live.
The captain of the Lannister men turned, seeing his formation disintegrating. He realized too late that the trap had snapped shut. Ned was upon him.
The captain raised his sword, shouting a challenge. Ned ignored it. He parried a desperate swing with his shield, the wood splintering but holding, and stepped inside the guard. He didn't stab; he slammed his forehead into the captain's nose- a brutal, stunning head butt- and as the man reeled, Ned drove his sword through the gap in the armor at the neck.
The captain fell. The remaining soldiers, leaderless and terrified, threw down their weapons.
"Mercy!" one cried. "We yield!"
Ned looked at the man. Then he looked at the terrified Catelyn, huddled in fright behind the giant knight. He thought of the road, of the spies, of the risk.
Mercy is a luxury for the victorious. We are not victorious. We are surviving.
"You would have shown her none," Ned said, his voice aggrieved.
The work that followed was grim. It was not battle; it was execution. Ned moved with efficient, necessary cruelty, ensuring that not a single man would carry the tale of where Catelyn Stark had been found.
When silence finally reclaimed the gorge, Ned stood amidst the corpses. He was breathing heavily, not from exhaustion, but from the adrenaline dumping from his system. He wiped his blade, the red steel turning silver again.
He turned slowly.
Catelyn stood frozen. She stared past the blazing figure of Thoros, past the shell-shocked giant in gold armor- who had removed a helm to reveal a woman’s face, broad and fierce- and straight at the blood-soaked warrior.
The light caught his face- the familiar, beloved lines of her husband, the rugged brow, the honest grey eyes- but the strength and the inhuman, calculated violence were new. The cold, duty-bound Lord Stark who sat in judgment was not here. In his place was a warrior who had just slaughtered forty men with the precision of a butcher.
Ned and Catelyn locked eyes.
In that instant, the machinations of his mind vanished. The tactical map in his mind dissolved into white noise. The warrior took leave, and the husband returned.
She did not whisper his name. She did not weep. She simply ran.
She ran the last few yards over the muddy earth, past the steaming, smoking sword of Thoros, and past the open-mouthed, astonished knight. She threw herself against him, her arms wrapping around his neck with desperate, shocking force, afraid that if she let go, he would leave her again.
Ned dropped his broadsword- allowing the weapon to clatter uselessly to the ground- as his arms closed around her, lifting her clear off the ground. He buried his face in her hair, how he missed her hair, inhaling the familiar scent of river and lavender, a scent he had thought lost to the grave.
"Cat," he whispered, the name a ragged sound pulled from the deepest part of his soul. He held her tight, his hand cradling the back of her head, shielding her from the sight of the dead.
He pulled back just enough to look into her tear-streaked face, his eyes shining with a fierce, absolute love. He lowered his head and kissed her: kissing the tears from her cheeks, kissing her lips with all the long-lost passion and relief that he could muster.
"I found you, Cat," he murmured, breath hot against her mouth. "I finally found you."
Notes:
👁️👄👁️ this was so tiring to make
anyway the lore-
is so hard to weave-
but its starting to make sense-
and yes, we are keeping Renly inside the (closet) cave, until he’s ready to come out—-
✅ BAMF Nedomir/Boroned
—- yo Sansa is my fave Stark, but I can’t even get to her yet 😂
—- ik people don’t like Catelyn, I didn’t think much or her too before this- BUT THIS IS NECESSARY 😩
—- why do i get the feeling this would reach 1M words because wtf we are at 25k and shit hasn’t even started yet
Chapter Text
F I V E
G A R D E N
On an Unmarked Forest Path
The noise was an intolerable. The sounds of men dying- gurgling, screaming, praying- were culled by the rhythmic, cold shing and thud of the sword. Catelyn stood paralyzed, pressed into the earth, desperate to disappear.
She was not alone. She was pressed into the space behind the two people fighting for her safety. To her right, the massive, reliable frame of Brienne of Tarth, newly pledged, shielded her. And to her left, and closer than she cared for, was Thoros of Myr, the infamous drunken Red Priest.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Thoros said, miraculously sober and alert, as he watched the carnage unfold before them. “I’d say this was nigh impossible, but I’ve revived Beric enough times to know that it is actually possible. Miracles are walking in Westeros.”
Catelyn dared to peer past the priest's shoulder. Only a handful of the Lannister soldiers remain, but what she saw filled her with a horror that replaced the initial dread of being captured.
Catelyn was by no means ignorant to the truth of the violence of warfare. She was the Tully’s firstborn young lady, the matriarch of the Stark House, and the mother of the King in the North. Yet it was those lofty titles that had shielded her from experiencing it first hand.
The last man, a scarred brute, dropped his weapon and fell to his knees, begging.
“Mercy,” the man choked.
Catelyn clamped a hand over her mouth, muffling a sick sound that wanted to escape. This was beyond the pale. This was not the necessary defense of war. This ‘man’, this engine of pure, unfeeling destruction, was a marvel, yes- but it was a monster.
And she was terrified of ‘him’.
She watched as the final death was dealt. ‘He’ did not hesitate. The sword arced down in a clean, swift movement that was more like chopping wood than killing a man.
More than three dozens of men.
This was a flawless slaughter no doubt, and her and the two with her were the next lambs for slaughter. The silence that followed was suffocating, punctuated only by the cries of distant birds.
Then ‘he’ looked at her. Their eyes met.
And to Catelyn, the monster was suddenly no more.
It was Ned. Her Ned. Her husband. Who was beheaded and dead. Who had no business walking about and around to save his damsel lady wife.
Not slowly, not hesitantly, she moved. She ran. She ran through the mud, past the dead men, past the slick red puddles, until she crashed into him. His body was real and warm, the muscle beneath solid and living. He smelled of leather, wood, and pine- a scent she had thought lost to the grave.
She could feel his hit breath hot against her ear, and the soft tingle of his finger, which delicately caressed her hair. “Cat,” he whispered, his voice sounding to her like how it did in her dreams. She basked in the essence of him, etching every feeling into memory- that she did not realize that she was crying.
She felt him pull back, a mere fraction, and the sudden, aching loss made her heart seize in her chest. Though every instinct screamed to anchor herself to his warmth, she slowly, reluctantly, released the fierce grip her fingers had on his shirt. Her own heartbeat hammered a frantic rhythm against her ribs, growing deafeningly loud as she met his gaze. His eyes- those familiar, storm-cloud grey eyes she had slowly adored through every passing year- were molten now, devouring her as if she were the single, priceless treasure in his entire world.
She didn't wait, couldn't wait; she simply closed her eyes and tilted her head back, offering herself to his touch. He didn't speak, just lowered his head, his warm, deliberate lips first tracing the wet, salty paths of her tears, brushing them away with exquisite care.
Then, with a low, ragged sound that vibrated deep in his chest, he claimed her mouth. This was no gentle sweep, but a deep, consuming kiss- a desperate reunion. His jaw angled to deepen the connection, his tongue immediately engaging hers in a hungry, urgent rhythm. His arms crushed her against his hard body, a possessive, breathtaking embrace that stole the air from her lungs and replaced it with a blinding, electric need. It was a kiss that spoke of years of devotion and the fierce, unyielding passion that had never once dimmed.
The world dissolved into the confines of that kiss. The sharp, sweet taste of him overwhelmed Catelyn’s senses, and all logic, all rational thought, simply evaporated. So what if he was supposed to be dead? All that mattered to her was that he was here. She wasn't thinking; there was no processing, no calculation- only pure, unadulterated sensation. Her mind went blissfully blank, a silent space filled only by the fierce, demanding pressure of his mouth and the solid heat of his body against hers.
"I found you, Cat," he murmured, breath hot against her mouth. "I finally found you."
A loud, deliberate cough pulled Catelyn back to reality.
She didn’t want to let go, oh no, never, but they were in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by the bodies of dead Lannister soldiers, and being waited upon by her sworn knight and a drunk priest. “Ned, these are-“
⚔️⚔️⚔️
The intimate moment shattered by the rhythmic pounding of many horses and the shouted commands of riders.
Ned pulled back abruptly, his head snapping up, his eyes already narrowed and scanning the embankment. He moved instantly, placing his body squarely between Catelyn and the sound's source, the shield he carried now held infront of him. His hand darted to the muddy ground, snatching up the sword that had fallen moments before, the steel ringing sharply as it was brought to guard.
Before he could even draw his sword fully to attention, a single familiar rider, Hallis Mollen- peaked above the rise, his eyes wide and jaw agape at the field of slaughter below as he waved his hands frantically. He did not dismount, but spun his horse instantly, kicking it into a frantic gallop back toward the approaching host.
“Halt! Halt your horses! M’lord, Don’t charge! He might think we’re enemies!” he screamed, his voice breaking in a terrified, high-pitched plea. “Forty men, all cut down!”
A few breaths later, a column of riders crested the embankment.
Ned stood at the ready to greet the Northern host.
Wyman Manderly, however, was already off his horse, his heavy frame surprisingly agile in his fury. He had seen enough: his liege’s lady, pressed against a blood-drenched man in with a face he refused to acknowledge as alive, beside a priest of a foreign religion and Renly Baratheon’s kingslayer. He ignored the carnage of Lannister corpses, focused only on the perceived threat to Catelyn.
“Unhand my liege Lady, you wright!” Wyman bellowed, drawing his own sword- a heavy, respectable piece of steel that had likely not seen true combat in decades. “No corpse, no ghost, no pretender of my liege lord takes Lord Eddard Stark’s Lady while a Northman still stands!”
Ned was admittedly impressed. Wynan didn’t have much reputation these days beyond being far too fat for his own horse and far too massive for his own clothes, and was the last person Ned expected to outright point a sword at anyone. He watched, half amused, at the sight of the Lord of White Harbor charging. Not even Robert waddled like this during the last of his days.
He did not tighten his grip on Catelyn, nor did he shift his weight. When Wynan was barely a sword's length away, Ned moved.
It was a single, lightning-fast step, a near-imperceptible twist of the wrist that deflected Wynan’s wild, overhand swing. The deflection was not a clumsy parry, but a calculated displacement of force. Ned's sword, caught the blade not on the edge, but on the flat, forcing the heavier man's momentum to carry his weapon wide. Before Wynan could recover, Ned’s pommel smashed into the side of the Lord’s chin with a dull thud.
Wyman crumpled instantly, dropping his sword and falling face-first into the muddy ground. The sudden shock of the blow, combined with the impossible sight of 'Ned Stark' standing there, made the world spin. As his vision blurred, a memory, sharp and bitter, punched through the disbelief. The Trident. He saw the river running red, not mud, but blood. He saw his own son, Wylis, his horse downed, a Targaryen brute raising a mace for the killing blow. And then, like a white-hot comet, came Lord Eddard Stark. Ned, his face grim with the fury of his brother's death, killed the man instantly, then reached down, pulling Wylis up and making sure the younger Manderly was fit to continue battle.
“Good to see you getting a bit of exercise, Lord Manderly,” Ned said with jest, nodding at the fallen fat lord.
The Northmen immediately moved, hauling the dazed Lord Manderly to his feet. Wyman, spitting mud, stared at Ned, not with gratitude or respect, but with utter bewilderment.
“You may have the face of my liege lord,” Manderly wheezed, catching his breath, his eyes wide and struggling to reconcile the impossible sight with cold fact, “but we all know how the Lannisters killed him! Beheaded and put on a spike for all King’s Landing to see!“
Ned met the hysterical challenge with a ghost of a wry smile, the expression not reaching his grey eyes.
“Aye, they certainly made a thorough attempt, Lord Manderly,” he raised his chin to show the very visible scar on his neck, making Catelyn squeak as she glanced. “But alas, it is a fact that I still stand, whether you choose to believe it or not. Now, are you going to renew your oath of fealty to your resurrected liege lord, or continue arguing the logistics of my death with your chin bleeding?”
It was Hallis Mollen, tears now streaming down his face, who finally broke. “M’lord, it must be because you did not witness Lord Stark’s slaughter of the Lannisters! The way he fought to save our Lady Catelyn!” he gestured around.
It was only during this moment that the sight of the dead Lannister host, scattered across the embankment like broken dolls, truly registered with the riders. Hal’s eyes, red-rimmed with shock and joy, darted between the bodies and Ned. “I’ve lived at the service of Lord Stark in Winterfell for more than half my life. It is him!” he cried, his voice breaking. “No glamour, no wright- it is our Lord returned! By the Old Gods!”
Wyman looked around in stunned disbelief. Ned was always a talented swordsman and an even greater commander, but forty men? Not even the famed Ser Arthur Dayne and his great sword Dawn could possibly square up with a company of fully armed soldiers.
“By the Old Gods,” he repeated to himself, as this was the only explanation he could think of. The Old Gods have blessed the Starks. He knelt down, and the rest of the Northmen followed suit.
“To Winterfell I pledge the faith of White Harbor,” he began. “Hearth and heart and harvest we yield up to you, my lord. Our swords and spears and arrows are yours to command. Grant mercy to our weak, help to our helpless, and justice to all, and we shall never fail you. I swear it by earth and water. I swear it by bronze and iron. I swear it by ice and fire,” he said. “To you my Lord Stark, I vow that House Manderly shall not only swear fealty to the King in the North, but to the crest of the wolf crown. Only Starks shall be our kings, now and forever.”
⚔️⚔️⚔️
Catelyn had to explain to Wynan that Brienne of Tarth was no kingslayer, and was in fact, her newly sworn knight. “It was a shadow that killed Renly,” Cat claimed as they moved away from the evidence of battle, and Brienne corroborated. Ned thought deeply as he guided his wife through the thicket, listening at the chilling description of the shapeless assailant.
Black shadows killing men did not seem like they belong to Westeros. Then recalled the scared words of the last deserter he had executed. Whispers about the Others, and now black shadows? Ancient magic was stirring. Something far fouler and sinister was at play here.
They walked for a few miles through thick, wet woodland until they spotted a clearing backed by a shallow, rocky stream- an area defensible enough to offer temporary respite and privacy.
He felt the collective gaze of the Northmen upon him, a constant, heavy weight. They did not look at his face. They looked lower.
They looked at the scar.
The scar. He knew it was there. He showed it to them. And he lived with the phantom ache of the severance. The skin was healed, fused back into place by the very fire that had returned him to life. It was a thick, angry red seam, barely hidden by the collar of his tunic, running like a brand across the back of his neck where the blade of Ice should have ended him forever.
No one spoke of it. No one dared. It was the unasked question that weighed down the air heavier than the humidity of the woods. How can a dead man walk?
Still, he needed to live with it.
Ned finally released Catelyn near the stream's edge, but kept one hand on her shoulder, his touch remaining possessive and absolute. She immediately leaned back into his warmth, drawing strength from his unwavering presence.
“We shall rest here, then we move in three hours.”
He drew Catelyn deeper into the clearing, the sound of the Manderly men now a distant echo. He turned, placing both hands on her shoulders. His eyes, intense and molten, swept over her face- the hollows beneath her cheekbones were deeper, the usually vibrant blue of her eyes were ringed with exhaustion and grief. She looked thinner, more sullen, as if the joy of life had been sucked from her entirely.
He tilted her face up, his thumb slowly tracing the familiar line of her jaw and the curve of her cheekbone, a fierce, protective gesture. “Talk to me, Cat,” Ned murmured, his voice dropping to a low, intimate murmur, for her ears alone. “How are you truly? Are you sleeping? Have you been ill? I need to know you are whole.”
Catelyn swallowed, the simple kindness, the concern for her person after so much death, cracking the composure she had fought so hard to maintain. “I was well enough, Ned,” she whispered, resting her forehead against the cool leather of his armor. “I was always working. Always moving. It kept the grief and the dread at bay. But I am exhausted.”
He kept his fingers tracing her features- her lips, her brow, the pulse point at her throat- a constant, tactile confirmation of her presence. “And the boys? Bran and Rickon? What news of them, Cat?”
A fragile smile touched her lips. “They are safe, Ned. At Winterfell, under the watch of Maester Luwin and Ser Rodrik. Bran is a lord in his own right, and Rickon is fine, if not becoming more unruly. Truly, they need their mother.”
Ned nodded, the mention of his sons solidifying his resolve. “And Robb? King in the North. It suits him, this command.”
Catelyn’s expression turned fiercely proud. “He is every inch a King, Ned. He leads from the front, and his lords follow him Though I wish they show more respect. He has captured the kingslayer, and he has shattered Tywin’s host.” But then the pride fractured, replaced by a hollow ache. “But what good is capturing lions when my wolves are in their den? There has been no concerted effort to secure their safety, Ned. Sansa, beaten by that awful Joffrey!”
He had heard of the boy’s sadistic tendencies. From skinning his own brother’s cat to mutilating horses… But beating his daughter?! Ned felt anger rise inside him, but he quelled it down. Joffrey was always a monster of a child and he’d always known that. It was his regret to have had match him with his sweet Sansa.
“And Arya! Not even a whisper of-“
“I was able to send Arya away from King’s Landing, although not to complete safety. I was able to track her to Harrenhal.”
Catelyn stared at him, bewildered. “How can you know that? I’ve been personally informed that-“
“They lie,” Ned said confidently, absolute authority in his voice. “I made sure that Yoren of the Night’s Watch sheltered her. Whoever told you otherwise is a liar.”
“While we were in Renly’s camp, Petyr said-“
“Littlefinger?!” Ned spat the name out like poison. “Now what exactly did he tell you?”
His fury, momentarily banked by the relief of seeing Catelyn, flared bright and terrible. He remembered how much he loathed the man. Across two lifetimes and not a single other person has incurred his wrath this much. “He is a viper, Cat. I trusted his false words and his claimed loyalty, and he turned on me at the most critical moment. He made a vow to me that held less value than spit in the dirt. His honor is dust, and his words are poison designed to move others toward his own twisted ends.”
Catelyn gritted her teeth, shaking. “So the reports were actually true? Him, my childhood friend, whom I had asked to support you? He betrayed you? I should have sliced his neck then when he offered me the proposition of the girls’ release!” She sighed. “Jaime for the girls, he had said.”
They deliberately danced around the topic of his resurrection.
In hushed tones, they spoke more in detail of the state of war, the status of the Northern rebellion, and the general state of things in Westeros. “And what news from the Wall?” he prodded, inclined to get information about strange tidings further North.
His lady wife visibly frowned and huffed, and Ned saw his mistake. He had only meant to ask if there were any concerning reports from beyond the Wall.
“Ah, my love, please, that is not why I am asking-“
Catelyn indignantly turned in full wrath, her red hair gleaming in the sun as marched back to their camp. Ned grimaced and followed, thinking how he’d make it up to her.
But also, he made a mental note to write to Jon and Benjen once he found time much later.
Beyond the Wall, much much much further north
The silence was the truest measure of distance.
It was the silence of a dead world, a crushing, crystalline quiet broken only by the crunch of Benjen Stark's own boots on the hard-packed, blue ice. He had traveled further north than any man of the Night's Watch in a hundred years, following something he could not explain, pushing past the peaks of the Frostfangs, and into the raw, unforgiving cradle of the perpetual winter.
For weeks, the landscape had been nothing but the grim geometry of jagged mountains and endless glaciers: a palette of grey rock and dead blue ice. The sun, when it appeared, was a cold, indifferent orb, offering light without warmth. Benjen felt the temperature not just on his skin, but in his bones, a creeping apathy that threatened to slow his heart to a halt. He was no longer battling Wildlings or beasts; he was battling the sheer, overwhelming emptiness of the world's edge.
He knew he was far beyond any living Wildling camp, far past the reach of the any ranging expedition, and deeper still than the rumored holdouts of the free folk. He was alone, and had been for weeks. His purpose, initially clear- to track a missing patrol group- had long since dissolved into an instinctual, almost spiritual pilgrimage toward the heart of the cold.
And it was this vast, unrelenting emptiness that made the anomaly so shocking.
He was navigating a fissure in the sheer cliff face of ancient ice, a passage barely wide enough for his horse. The air here was sharp, bitter with the scent of deep cold. Suddenly, he felt it- a shift in the air, a breath of warmth where none should exist. It was the scent of life, clashing violently with the scent of barren nothingness. The horse, shivering despite its thick, shaggy coat, whinnied low and nervous, its breath steaming violently as it pulled Benjen’s attention to a heavy curtain of animal hides draped across a dark mouth in the ice wall.
Benjen dismounted, sword hand twitching, but the immediate threat was overcome by sheer disbelief.
The air coming from behind the hides smelled of damp earth and growing things, a rich, green scent utterly impossible this far north. It was the smell of summer, held captive in the teeth of winter. Not ever in his memory had Winterfell ever smelled this full of life before.
Benjen pushed the hides aside and blinked his eyes thrice.
He stood on the threshold of a small cavern, completely enclosed by blue-white ice, yet protected from the world outside by geothermal heat: a pocket of spring in the middle of everlasting winter. A clear, warm pool steamed gently in the center, fed by a trickling spring. Around the pool, lush, dark green moss covered the stone, and small, tough ferns and tiny flowering plants clung to the warm, wet banks. The entire cavern was bathed in a strange, soft, slightly green light, filtered through a seam in the ice above.
His eyes, accustomed to the monochrome glare of the ice, drank in the colors greedily, before he remembered to run to pool to cup his hands in water and drink. Benjen, First Ranger of the Night’s Watch, felt his cold, hardened disbelief crumble. This was real water.
In the middle of this oasis, built from smooth, river-worn stones and patched with dark, cured leather, stood a simple, smoke-stained woodland hut. The structure looked as if it had been built by hands that understood only wood and earth, not ice and stone.
He approached the hut and raised a gloved fist. He knocked, the sound dead and heavy against the thick door.
A moment later, the door creaked inward.
“Pardon the intrusion,” he said to announce himself.
Sitting within, tending to a small, smoky fire and sorting through a basket of roots and dried herbs, was an ancient man clothed entirely in faded browns and vibrant greens, as if moss and earth had simply grown into his robes. His beard was a wild, tangled mass of grey and moss, with small twigs and pieces of fern woven into it, and a tiny, startled field mouse darted up his sleeve. His wide, bright eyes, framed by kind wrinkles, were startled, darting instantly to Benjen's face.
“Oh! A guest! We haven’t one in ages! Yes, not since Bran the Builder eh? Yes, of course, sit, sit!” the ancient man cheerily said, his voice thin but warm, like aged honey. He paused his work to gently shoo the mouse back into his basket. He gestured vaguely at the empty space around the hut. "It has been many, many years since I had need to draw the curtain. None but stray animals travel this road anymore. Least of all from the South. You look frightfully cold, ranger! Are your horse's flanks well-tended? She smells of good oats, but her ears are too flat with worry."
Benjen, unused to such open and eccentric concern, hesitated as he looked around. He knew Wildlings, and it was clear that this old man was not one. “The horse... she is fine. She is now eating your grass outside, if that is fine. But I need to know. Who are you? And how... how do you survive out here, so far north of the Wall, alone?”
The ancient man smiled, a slow, gentle crinkle of his eyes. He stopped sorting roots to scoop up a small, chirping raven that had flown down from the rafters and was pecking inquisitively at Benjen's shoulder. He rubbed his thumb over the bird's head.
"There are no more boats to take me west, so here I stay. And that is fine. I tend to all things growing with life, as it was the charge I had been originally given. I survive because I must battle the raging winter here, with my little pocket of sunshine, every day, every hour. Life is fragile on the edge, ranger, and if I did not tend to it, the ice would snuff it out entirely. The cold has its own will, you see? And it must be held in check. I am the check, at least in here.”
He gently nudged the bird skyward again. "You must come in fully. The heat cannot be wasted on the threshold."
Benjen stepped inside, blinking as his eyes adjusted. The hut was warm, surprisingly dry, and filled with the musky, clean smell of pine needles and rich soil. It was impossibly cluttered- hanging baskets of herbs, shelves of petrified wood, and a large, carved stump serving as a workbench, all sharing space with several small, nesting rodents and a badger that lay sleeping contentedly by the fire. Benjen, feeling the sudden, complete exhaustion of his journey, slid his bulk onto a nearby stool fashioned from a birch log.
"The cold outside," Benjen pressed, shedding his heavy cloak and feeling the immediate relief of warmth. "Held in check from what? What is in the North that demands such a vigil?"
The old mossy man picked up a pale, dried root and dusted the soil from it gently, his large hands surprisingly dexterous. "An old mistake," he said, sighing. “The blue wizard should have never tried to bring back the great dragons, and thank the Valar he did not fully succeed. Imagine if he rode one all to Aman! But he had managed to breed lesser dragons, and in the process, create that hideous dragon glass! Dragon glass! Terrible, awful. I’m no Gandalf, no, but the Children should have heeded my warning. Tried to magic their way to a solution. So here we are.”
Benjen stared, his mind wrestling with the myth told by the man before him. This was beyond the tales of Winterfell, beyond even the wild stories beyond the Wall. "I... I do not understand this tale. Magic? Wizards? There is only ice and dead things here."
The old man poured him a cup of warm water.
"Now, tell me if you have seen any signs of the Great Squirrel lately. He carries the best winter nuts. They are necessary for the winter stores, you know, and he is dreadfully late this year." The old man waved his hand dismissively toward the entrance, already turning back to his roots, the world's ancient drama momentarily replaced by the mundane anxiety of nut shortages.
Benjen found himself strangely moved by the sudden shift, a moment of profound cosmic dread giving way to the gentle worry of an ancient gardener trapped all alone in ice.
Notes:
I took time to reorganize the lore.
A few things to note:
> will be following the GOT timeline
> will be getting additional characters and plot devices from ASOIAF
> will be using Tolkien Lore
> and if you haven’t noticed, in this fanfic, Westeros is Middle Earth millennia after the last elves sailed westIn any case I want to thank [tmv77] and [LordReader] for their discussions under that one chapter 📝📝📝
sigh, in my very first first draft, the first thing Ned did after resurrecting (in front of Baelor’s) was to skewer Baelish with a spear.
Chapter Text
I D E N T I T Y
S I X
On the Way Back Home (?)
The biting wind was the only constant sound on the rocks of Pyke, a tireless keening that echoed the chaos of the Sunset Sea below. Theon paced beside Gandalf the Old Man (which Theon internally questioned); the two figures starkly defined against the twilight and the grey, ancient stone of the castle. Theon was restless, a coiled spring of anxiety and ambition. Gandalf, conversely, was a monument of stillness, his wide-brimmed hat pulled low, his staff resting on the stone as if rooted there.
“The sea chants a dirge of ancient grief, Theon,” Gandalf began, his voice calm, yet resonating with an uncanny, low power. “It speaks of the belief that wealth and glory can only be purchased with the lives and suffering of others. But you have perceived something deeper than mere greed, have you not? After all, you swung against the felt the cold touch of the ‘Discord’.”
Theon looked sharply at the old man, his breath clouding in the chill air. “The ‘Discord’ you speak of… It is that shadow, then? I am not one to believe fantastical tales, so to see one…”
Gandalf’s gaze swept over the jagged, forbidding silhouette of Pyke. “That shadow is only a note in the great and terrible symphony of the ‘Discord’. To understand it, you must first comprehend the original, objective law it sought to destroy. In the timeless Void, there was Eru Illúvatar, the One. He set forth the great Music of the Ainur, the blueprint for all that is and all that will be. Every note was infused with justice, loyalty, preservation, and light. That was the eternal, true word of the world.”
He paused, allowing the gravity of his words to settle. “But in that great Song, one of the greatest of the Ainur, whom we call Morgoth, introduced the ‘Discord’. He sought to turn the harmony into a clamour, twisting the good intentions of the other spirits, injecting his own cold pride and desire for singular dominion. That ‘Discord’ is the ancient, spiritual malice that seeks to pervert the natural desire for good. It is the principle of consumption over creation. It finds its hold in the things men value most: the love of kin, the need for security, the thirst for justice, honor. And it twists them until loyalty becomes fanaticism, ambition becomes cruelty, and duty becomes the blind, cold adherence to the most convenient lie.”
Theon shivered, a sense of awe mingling with dread. He wanted to ask Gandalf how old of an old man he actually was, but it hardly seemed the right time.
“But the great powers, they have receded by the end of the third age. I do not even know what age it is right now, for much is lost to history, that there are not even myths of it. None who live here remember the light of the two trees. In any case, with them, they took the wisdom, granting Men the terrible, magnificent gift of moral sovereignty. This is the Age of Men. And the rule of men shall dictate if ‘Discord’ is watered, or if ‘Discord’ shall consume them. If the law is no longer upheld by a sword of inevitable justice, how does a man, trapped between conflicting duties and codes, fight a great evil that he cannot even see?”
Gandalf sighed, looking towards the west. “The law is still etched upon the fabric of creation, Theon. It is in the peace that follows mercy, and the hollowness that follows cruelty. But now, it must be defended by the free will of Men alone. And it is defeated, precisely as all great evils are, in all ages, in all worlds: by being a hero.”
“A hero?” Theon repeated, his tone laced with disbelief, and just a little tinge of excitement. “The age of Heroes is long past now. And could I even be a hero? I was a hostage, then a pampered ward, and now I am a prince who no one loves. Heroes are those who win, who wear crowns, who fight dragons. They are not men like me, who does not even have a place I truly belong to.”
Gandalf laughed. “You mistake the nature of heroism, young prince. It is not the outcome that defines it, but the choice made in the darkness,” Gandalf countered, his voice swelling. “The hero of renown is one whose deeds are sung. But the hero of the heart is the one who chooses the light when the entire world, and his own nature, compels him toward the dark. The true fight against the Shadow is not fought on a field of battle, but in the quiet chambers of the soul. The choice is a simple, yet impossibly difficult one: the choice to preserve the light, however small the flicker, against the encroaching dark.“
“But one must know what guides their spirit, Theon. Tell me, if not for glory or fear, who are the men you truly wish to impress with your deeds? Who holds the yardstick against which you measure your own worth?”
Theon stared out at the sea, the question settling deep into his bones. In his six and ten years of living, he had never been asked to define himself by aspiration, only by external allegiance. The remembered the feeling he felt upon entering Pyke after yeas and years of absence. It was the shame of not meeting his father’s impossible standard, yet finding himself incapable of abandoning the good man he had been raised to be.
“I… I have no heroes, not truly,” he admitted, his voice rough. “Those I respect are complex men who have made terrible choices, or good men who died for their simplicity.” He swallowed, the lie of his life suddenly suffocating. “I suppose… I look to impress my father, Balon Greyjoy. Because he is my father. He is my blood. I yearn for his respect, his acceptance. I need to prove that the soft boy of Winterfell can be the fierce son of Pyke.”
Gandalf inclined his head slowly. “A natural desire, Theon. One of the deepest desire of Men is to be accepted by their fathers. From what I hear pf your Kingly father, Balon, he possesses a hard, crystalline stubbornness to his beliefs, a fierce ambition, and an iron pride. These traits, if directed to justice, would make a great King indeed. But tell me, do you know why your father possesses this stubbornness, this consuming pride that demands war?”
The old man’s eyes seemed to hold a fleeting, ancient light, like starlight trapped in ice. “It is because he refused to follow the footsteps of his father, Lord Quellon Greyjoy, who sought to restrain the savage ways, abolish the reaving traditions, and forge peace with the mainland. Balon chose the ancient, violent path, believing it to be the stronger. He is a man defined by reactionary rebellion disguised as tradition. His strength is brittle, for it is rooted in anger at his own inheritance and a fear of being thought weak by history. A strong man looks forward; Balon looks only backward into the darkest customs of his people. He is a man who knows the code of his tribe, but is utterly divorced from the moral law that transcends all.”
“And yet, he is not your only example,” Gandalf pressed gently. “Who else holds the anchor of your respect, though your new life demands you deny it?”
Theon thought for a long time, the wind tugging at him. The answer, when it came, was painful but true. “Ned Stark. Lord Eddard. I loved him, and I respected him. He was a man of utter constancy, of unflinching duty. He taught me that honor was not a shield to hide behind, but a heavy cloak to wear even in the storm. He taught me about dignity, that it was the quiet knowing that you did the right thing, even when no one was watching, and even if it cost you everything.”
A look of deep sorrow crossed Theon’s face. “But whatever traits he had- his loyalty, his honor- they sent him to an early grave, beheaded in the dirt for a lie. He was too good for this world, too simple, too trusting. He tried to follow a code that no one else respected, and the world devoured him whole.”
“Ah, the tragic tale of the Hand of the King,” Gandalf muttered. “A noble man, betrayed by the inherent chaos of the rules of today’s men. Theon, what did Ned Stark teach you that was so fundamentally different from the laws of your father’s house? Be precise in this contrast, for the contrast is the crucible of your soul.”
Theon looked at his hands, then up at the bleak sky, recalling the cold lessons of the north. “Ned Stark taught me that morality is the willingness to sacrifice your self-interest for the well-being of the realm, to judge justly, and to extend mercy. Balon teaches that morality is self-preservation, and that mercy is weakness. Ned taught that an oath is a sacred promise to another’s soul, a covenant consecrated by trust. Balon teaches that an oath is a chain that binds others, a weakness if it binds you. Ned was always looking to the duties he owed to the North, to the vulnerable. Balon only looks to what the Iron Islands can plunder from the weak. But Ned also taught me the value of family, and Balon is family.”
“I don’t know what I am supposed to be,” Theon confessed, desperation finally entering his voice. “I am tired of being defined by the expectations of others.“
Gandalf’s expression softened. “To wish to be true is the first step out of the ‘Discord’, Theon. But you must understand the terrible cost of truth. The cost is often ruin, as it was for Lord Eddard. ‘Discord’ is adept at making the moral path appear useless, leading only to defeat. It tells you: Ned Stark was a fool. Be smart. Be cruel. Be victorious. But the lie of the ‘Discord’ is that victory at the cost of your soul is not victory at all; it is a permanent defeat.”
“To illustrate this path of self-ruin, I will tell you a tale from the lost histories of Men, a tale of one whom the Elves called Turambar- the Master of Fate- though he was truly mastered by it. Hear now the full tragedy of Túrin, Son of Húrin.”
Gandalf began the tale, his voice weaving a tapestry of ancient sorrow and pride, stretching the narrative across the ages.
“Túrin was a prince of Men in the First Age, a man of immense courage, terrible pride, and cursed by the malice of Morgoth. When his father was captured, Túrin was sent away to be fostered, much like yourself, in a great, noble kingdom- Doriath, under the wise King Thingol. He grew up as a ward, feeling the constant weight of his true identity, yet he was loved and raised with honor. But the shame of his exiled status festered. He felt that the affection shown him was pity, and this pride became the Shadow’s opening.”
“He left Doriath, believing he was wrongly accused of a crime, refusing to wait for the King’s judgment. He went into the wild and masked his identity, calling himself many names, donning many identities. Like you, he sought to escape the crushing burden of his birth and forge a new, glorious identity where he was master of his own destiny. He would not be the son of a captive; he would be a hero who answered to no one.”
“His life became a chain of good intentions that led only to disaster because of this refusal to listen. He believed his own strength and will were sufficient against the tides of fate. Every time wisdom came to him through a friend or an advisor, he cast it aside, believing the counselor sought to diminish his glory or his power. He clung desperately to the mask, refusing to reveal his true name and history.”
“And by ignoring good counsel, by refusing to trust the truth of his loyalty to his foster-home, he sealed the ultimate, familial doom. In the end, Túrin found no way out but self-slaughter, falling upon his sword.”
Theon threw his hands in the air. “Well what kind of fucked up hero’s ending is that! You cannot start a story by drawing parallels with me and this so called great hero, then end said story with his death by his own sword?! What lesson was that supposed to teach me?!”
Gandalf shrugged and continued. “He won great battles. He was known for incredible acts of valor and strength. He defeated the dragon. He was a hero in the eyes of the common folk- Turambar, the Master of Fate. Yet, every single victory was purchased by a greater, personal, catastrophic failure of trust and judgment. He was never judged by his enemies, but by the relentless, cruel logic of his own choices. He died by his own sword, having brought utter ruin upon every single person he ever loved because he could not bear the shame of his true self.”
Gandalf paused, the silence stretching long and thin, filled only by the whisper of the sea. “Do you see the mirror, Theon? Túrin was a man whose overwhelming pride and refusal to trust good counsel led him to believe that he could escape fate by deceiving the world, wearing masks, and forging a new identities. He was so determined to be a hero, that he forgot that true heroism lies in humility and the keeping of the unrewarding promise. He kept breaking the small, vital covenants of trust, until there were no bonds left to hold him to reality.”
“You are here, on Pyke, standing at the very intersection of his doom. You have the oath of kinship and loyalty to Robb Stark- your true bond of trust. You have the blood-bond to Balon Greyjoy- a bond that demands your pride. You wish to wear the mask of the Ironborn, to follow the Old Way in body, but keep the Stark way in spirit.“
Gandalf stepped closer, his shadow falling over Theon. “The truth of morality is objective, Theon. It exists independent of the acceptance of men. The objective good is the principle of preservation over consumption, of justice over greed, of loyalty over betrayal.“
“So, I ask you now, standing at the crossroad of your destiny, where the sea and the light meet: What is your plan, Theon Greyjoy? Will you be a blood traitor to Balon and the Iron Islands, or an oathbreaker to Robb Stark and the North? You have confessed to me that you must choose.”
Theon looked out at the ocean, the turmoil inside him finally settling into a cold, hard clarity. His face was no longer that of the posturing ward, but of a man who has looked into the abyss and accepted its price.
“Túrin failed because he refused to trust the people who loved him. He chose the lie of his own making over the hard truth told by others. Would you think me mad if I choose the road of a tragic herp?”
He took a slow, deep breath of the cold air. “The oathbreaker is the vile one who betrays a good friend. The blood traitor is the honest man who defies a kin. Maybe I need to be both, to not be both,” Theon finally said, his voice quiet but resonating with newfound resolve. “To save my oath to Robb, I must betray my father’s ambition. But I cannot do right by Robb by simply dying or running; I must stay and become useful, however repugnant the means. I would still do what my father requires of me, and seek penance by hiding Robb’s brothers. Asha would be sailing to raid the North. So there, I will try to find my opening.”
“I cannot control my situation, but I can control how I handle it, the purpose to which I direct my acts, even if I cannot control how it would look to others. Father will see a dutiful son; Robb will see a turncloak. The world will call me an oathbreaker. And so be it.”
Finally, just as the sun began to rise, they reached the massive gates of Pyke. Gandalf looked at the young man. The light in his eyes seemed to grow stronger, reflecting approval.
“A lonely path you choose, Theon. Try to stay alive until we meet again, for it is when the great war of this age shall be waged. You are, after all, one of my champions, so I expect you to be there to meet me.”
“Remember these words, Theon,: All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost. Your true honor, your lasting dignity, will not be found in the praise of kings or the cheers of men, but in the knowledge that when the path demanded a terrible choice, you chose the preservation of the objective good.“
Theon nodded then furrowed his eyebrows. “Hang on, where will you be going? When is this great battle? How do I find you? Will I slay more shadows?”
The old man spun and started to trek back down. “Wherever I need to go. Whenever it happens. However it goes. And of course you shall, and more, in due time. We shall see each other again. Continue life as it was. And for now, good morning!”
⚔️⚔️⚔️
Theon moved quickly through the damp, narrow corridors of the Bloody Keep towards his father’s solar, the silence of his internal resolve a stark contrast to the noisy, desperate anxiety that had plagued him for weeks.
King Balon Greyjoy of the Seastone Chair sat in his austere solar, the map of the North spread out before him. The man looked like the very granite of Pyke-hard, unforgiving, and ancient. Beside him stood Dagmer Cleftjaw, his brutal, loyal captain, and Maester Wendamyr, who looked small and miserable amid the Greyjoy ambition.
“Well, boy,” Balon said, without preamble, looking up at Theon with eyes that judged every line of his son’s expensive Stark leather. “The sun is up, and my decision is made. I will not waste the better part of my fleet on a frontal assault on Seagard, as your pathetic letters suggested. I will not allow my strongest warriors to be bogged down in petty sieges.”
Theon dropped to one knee, a gesture he had refused before. The mask was on. “Whatever the King commands is the Iron Way, Your Grace.”
Balon raised a thick, suspicious eyebrow at the sudden, absolute obedience. “Good. Because you will take your single longship, Sea Bitch, and seven other tubs, and strike the Stony Shore. Dagmer Cleftjaw will command your raid.”
Theon looked at the map. The Stony Shore was the narrow, bleak northern coast of the North- a cold, rocky strip of land known for nothing but poor fishing villages and sparse garrisons. It was the mission for a pawn, the least glorious assignment, a distraction to draw attention away from the real targets.
Theon thought. The furthest north, the least guarded, and the least crucial. It gave him freedom and distance.
“The Stony Shore is poorly defended and offers access to the smaller holdfasts along the coast, Your Grace,” Theon recited, using the tactical language he had learned from his Northern tutors. “We can burn the villages, seize the meager stores, and force the Northern Lords to detach men from the main army to protect their coastal roads. It is an effective diversion.”
“Exactly,” Balon sneered. “A diversion for children. That is your purpose, Theon. To make enough noise that the true wolves can hunt in peace. You will take every man, every cow, and every scrap of grain you find, and you will leave behind only salt and ashes. And a good thing you did not send a bloody raven to Robb Stark. You will prove to me that you have the stomach to pay the Iron Price. Fail me, and I will hang you from the highest tower of Pyke myself.”
Theon swallowed a shudder.
“I understand the mission, Your Grace,” Theon said, rising. He met his father’s cold gaze without blinking, displaying a chilling, emotionless resolve that finally seemed to satisfy Balon. The King dismissed him with a nod.
As Theon left, Dagmer Cleftjaw followed him out, his face etched with suspicion. “You take this easily, boy. Too easily. You were raging a day ago.”
“I am done raging, Dagmer,” Theon replied, the quiet sincerity of his voice sounding utterly ruthless. “The Starks are weak, they are sentimental, and they broke my father’s kingdom. I was blind, but I see now. Robb Stark has my loyalty no more. I will do whatever is required to prove that.”
Dagmer grunted, unconvinced but mollified by the display of Greyjoy ruthlessness. “See that you do. The Ironborn do not tolerate softness.”
Theon nodded, the mask already beginning to fuse to his skin.
Theon knew his time was limited. He needed to find his "opening" and confirm the tactical dispositions of the other fleets before he sailed. He headed immediately for the docks where his sister, Asha, was overseeing the loading of her flagship, the Black Wind, along with the rest of her thirty ships.
Asha was not merely a captain; she was, Theon knew, the only person on the Iron Islands whose strategic mind approached the level of Robb and the Blackfish, but with a unique, ruthless edge honed by the sea and the Old Way. He found her not shouting orders, but in a quiet, intense discussion with her sailing masters, pointing out features on a large, detailed chart of the Westerlands coast.
“You came to whine, little brother?” Asha asked, not looking up. She pointed a sharp finger at a deep fjord near the Bay of Ice. “The Black Wind will go in here. The depth readings suggest a stable anchorage that avoids the tide-rip, allowing us to offload the main raiding party two leagues closer to Deepwood Motte than anticipated.”
“I came to understand the true plan, Sister,” Theon replied, abandoning the boastful rivalry he usually employed. He spoke to her now as an equal, a fellow officer, displaying the chilling new maturity Gandalf had unlocked. “My orders are to run a diversion on the Stony Shore. Your orders are for the main assault on the North’s heartland. Father speaks of war, but I sense a design far more insidious than simple reaving.”
Asha finally looked at him, her dark eyes narrowed. Theon’s cold, tactical focus- devoid of his usual petulance- surprised her. “The Stony Shore. Father gives you the task of burning fishing shacks. He still treats you as a child, Theon. But you are right. We are not interested in capturing the North piece by piece. The North is not a kingdom of castles; it is a sprawling, empty continent united by loyalty to a single family and three crucial choke points.”
“The best way to defeat the North is not through siege, but through coordinated, logistical paralysis and psychological warfare,” Asha declared, tracing lines on the map that made Theon’s blood run cold.
“Victarion takes the heaviest ships and the most men to seize Moat Cailin at the Neck. That is the hammer. It doesn’t matter how well the Young Wolf is fighting the Lannisters; if we hold Moat Cailin, the King in the North cannot return home. He is trapped, cut off, and his armies will desert him.”
“I lead the fleet to the west coast not to hold territory, but to ensure chaos and division. We will hit Deepwood Motte and Torrhen’s Square simultaneously. These are not major strongholds, but they are the two most vital landing zones on the West Coast, giving us secure supply for inland raids. We will secure them, then immediately dispatch fast-moving land groups to raid the villages and holdfasts throughout the northern heartland, drawing away forces that might otherwise reinforce Winterfell or Moat Cailin.”
“The North is protected by its size and its loyalty. We destroy the size advantage by creating three simultaneous, wildly separated fronts that demand immediate, impossible attention. We destroy the loyalty advantage by making the population feel utterly abandoned by the ‘King who rode south.’ We bleed their resources, burn their crops, and force them to turn against their absent lord.”
Theon felt a chill. So this was his sister. It was a strategy worthy of the Blackfish, but applied with the cruel efficiency of the Ironborn. “You are not trying to conquer, but to fracture the North from the inside out.”
“Precisely,” Asha confirmed, a grim smile touching her lips. “Father may talk of the Old Way, but he is a brilliant military thinker. He is using the Iron Islands as a giant strategic disruption unit. While Robb Stark is fighting for the crown, we are destroying the land the crown sits on. Revenge for what they did to us, on the day they took you from us. And for that, we must be fast, unpredictable, and entirely focused on non-engagement with any strong, centralized Northern force.”
“And you, little brother,” Asha concluded, tapping the Stony Shore location with her finger, “are meant to be the most offensive scent of fire and blood to turn the Northern peasantry against their absent King. The Stony Shore is distant enough that the lords won’t care, but close enough to the smallfolk that the terror will spread like wildfire.”
“A fine plan, sister,” Theon said, his voice flat. He offered a curt nod. “May the Drowned God grant you success in your purpose.”
As Theon walked away from Asha's efficient, glorious preparations, the cold clarity he had achieved with Gandalf began to twist, warped by the acid of his own desperate need to secure his oath.
Something Asha had said jolted him back to the brutalities of the world. Revenge for what they did to us, on the day they took you from us.
He knew Balon would demand the two children be killed. For his two blood brothers, the two Stark boys. So he had to seize them swiftly, and the castle, first. He would use the greatest lie- the betrayal of Winterfell- to hide the smaller, more vital truth of his oath.
Theon found Dagmer Cleftjaw near the Sea Bitch, a man whose scarred face and brutal history made him a perfect accomplice for reckless ambition. Cleftjaw was inspecting the longship’s prow, his posture radiating suspicion of his new, soft commander.
“Dagmer,” Theon called out, his voice sharp and low, infused with the artificial authority of a man certain of his plan. “You are the best sailor and the fiercest fighter in this company. I have a mission from the King, but I think the King has underestimated the measure of the man he has given the task to.”
Cleftjaw merely grunted, folding his massive arms. “I follow the King’s command, Prince. The Stony Shore is our quarry.”
“Aye, and a pathetic quarry it is,” Theon scoffed, approaching him intimately. “Do you truly wish your great deeds to be sung as 'Dagmer Cleftjaw, the man who burned five fishing hamlets'? My father thinks you a good dog who follows a leash. He gives the real prize to my sister and my uncle.”
He pointed his finger past the Stony Shore, toward the heart of the North. “Think about it, Dagmer. Asha will seize Deepwood Motte. Victarion takes Moat Cailin. They are taking castles. We are burning shacks. Does that sound like a mission worthy of the man who is rumored to be nigh unkillable?”
Theon lowered his voice further, the intensity of his gaze demanding Cleftjaw’s attention. “We have eight ships. The Stony Shore is undefended. We can land, raid it in a few hours, and leave it on fire. But then, we turn south. We take advantage of the chaos Asha and Victarion create. We raid for Winterfell.”
Dagmer’s eyes, usually dull, sharpened instantly. “Winterfell. The heart of the North. Defended by what? A few guards, a crippled boy, and an old Maester?”
“Exactly,” Theon whispered, practically vibrating with excitement. “The entire Northern army is south, following Robb Stark. The castle of Winterfell- the ancient seat of their power- is a pear ripe for the picking. If Asha takes Deepwood Motte, she gets a small castle and a good name. If we take Winterfell, we take the King’s own seat and hold the most famous castle in the North. My father will forgive any disobedience for that glory. You will be named Lord of Winterfell, Cleftjaw. Not Lord of five burned fishing shacks.”
He tapped Dagmer’s chest, sealing the bargain. “A diversion is meant to distract the enemy. Seizing their capital is the ultimate distraction, and the greatest act of obedience in spirit, even if we disobey the letter of the King’s command. It is the Old Way, Dagmer. Glory over safety. What say you? Do you follow the letter of a boy’s command, or the spirit of a King’s ambition?”
Dagmer Cleftjaw grinned, the wide gash that defined his name stretching into a terrible, eager scar. He had been offered a prize beyond his wildest dreams, and the excuse of disobeying the King.
“Winterfell it is, Prince,” Cleftjaw rasped, the words thick with the taste of coming blood. “Let us earn the price of iron, and take the King’s seat.”
Theon nodded, a cold triumph filling him. He had found his path: the path of the glorious liar, the monster who would earn his salvation through a spectacular betrayal. He mounted the Sea Bitch, the vessel feeling less like a ship and more like a necessary coffin for his former identity.
He gripped the hilt of his sword, remembering Gandalf’s final, lonely wisdom: Dignity is the quiet knowing that you did the right thing, even when no one was watching. He had twisted the meaning, but the intent was still there: he would commit the ultimate sin of ambition to hide the ultimate act of loyalty.
“We sail on the tide,” Theon commanded, his voice loud and clear, ringing with the cold, hard authority of a man who has mastered his own fear and replaced it with catastrophic pride. “To the Stony Shore first, and then, to the heart of the North! Let us pay the iron price.”
The longship cut through the churning grey waters, carrying Theon Greyjoy into the North, a man despised by his family, about to be hated by his friend, but desperately trying to keep his hidden vow. The price of iron would be paid in the coin of his own soul.
Notes:
I already said I’m a Theon enjoyer 😩. The way I had to revisit Children of Hurin and Silmarillion chapter 1 💀💀💀
Gandalf the Yapper-
Chapter Text
S E V E N
P A S T
In a Dream
Bran Stark dreamt a dream.
He was standing, and the feeling was the most disorienting of all: the familiar strength of two legs beneath him. The usual cold bite of a mountain morning was replaced by the brilliant, high air above a sea of white. He stood on a massive, curved wall of enduring, pale stone, and ahead of him rose the tiered marvel of a white city.
This was a city of impossible grandeur, sculpted from white marble and granite, rising in seven magnificent, ascending tiers. Nothing of such scale he had ever seen, nor heard before, even as a child of a paramount lord. The sound that struck him was not the roar of a crowd, but a symphony of quiet, dignified life: the distant clanging of a smithy, the dry flutter of pennants bearing the symbol of a White Tree, and the faint, haunting echo of a military horn. Every tier, every house, every cobbled street spoke of ancient pride and a defiance carved into the very stone. It felt impossibly clean, vast, and steeped in a melancholy atmosphere of enduring tragedy. Bran began to walk, upward toward the highest tier, toward the Citadel whose white pinnacle pierced the vast, clear blue sky.
He found himself drawn into a vaulted, echoing chamber high within the greatest tier. The air was heavy, thick with the scent of old parchment, wax, and the faint, coppery tang of human exertion and pain. A man stood rigid beside a great bed, his posture as severe and unforgiving as the white stone of his city.
Bran peered to look at the man. He was tall, clad in garments of deep sable velvet embroidered with a white, stylised tree. His pride was visible in his very structure: his face, though not yet old, was etched with the harsh lines of perpetual burden and authority. His hair, dark and already streaked with iron grey, was thick and swept back from a commanding brow, and his nose was high and hawk-like, giving him an aspect of nobility. He spoke little, his commands clipped, his presence a pressure on the air, an icy, terrible isolation. He looked not at the woman on the bed, but past her, toward the window where the pennants of his house snapped stiffly in the wind.
She smiled at him. Her beauty was fragile and already bruised by an unnamed sorrow. She was slender, almost ethereal, with long hair the colour of dark trees that lay damp against the linen. Her other hand, delicate and fine, clenched the embroidered sheets, and her face held the weary pain of a deep sadness that had nothing to do with the physical labour gripping her. She whispered a single name, a sound like a broken lute string: “Denathor, I will be fine.”
The chamber was filled with the frantic competence of women in attendance, their faces blurred by the dream’s strange focus. They brought warm cloths and quiet reassurances, but Denathor did not move, and his wife’s suffering deepened, until at last, with a cry of exhaustion and relief, the air was rent by the sound of a babe.
Bran looked over curiously. A son.
The wet nurse wrapped the child in white linen. As she brought him forward, the tension finally broke. Denathor, who had sat rigid with worry, moved swiftly, his harsh mask dissolving. He went first to his wife, lowering himself carefully to the bedside. He gripped his wife’s delicate, exhausted hand, pressing his lips to her pale brow. "Finduilas," he murmured, his voice thick with tenderness, "Rest easy, you have done well."
He then turned to the child, and as he took the tiny, powerful form into his arms, his stern face was lit by an unreserved, pure joy Bran hadn't thought him capable of. The newborn was sturdy, heavy-limbed, already possessing a proud set to his tiny mouth. The dream provided Bran the name, whispered on the echoing air of the vaulted room: Boromir.
Bran's gaze shifted from the newborn to the man, Denethor, and then to the pale, beautiful woman Finduilas resting against the pillows. The fierce, concentrated delight on the man’s face, usually so stern, was a mirror of his own father, Ned, when Rickon was born- a deep, quiet awe that softened every sharp line in his face and made his eyes crinkle at the corners.
And the mother, Finduilas, watched them both, her face a mask of exhaustion and sublime relief. It was the look Bran remembered etched onto his own mother, after she had given birth to her youngest son.
Bran remembered the exact moment Catelyn had been given Rickon. She’d been pale, damp with sweat, but the instant the midwife placed the squalling infant in her arms, her whole body had seemed to tighten around him, creating an immediate, impenetrable boundary between her baby and the harsh world. The way her hands, usually so busy and capable, became impossibly gentle, supporting the fragile neck and rocking him against her breast.
Watching these strangers- Denethor, the guarded Lord, and Finduilas, the fragile mother- sharing that universal, unreserved moment of pure, blinding parental love, Bran realized that he missed his parents. He wondered, briefly and clearly, if all fathers were like Ned at their core, and if all mothers wore the same expression of weary, fierce triumph when they finally held their child. Did the arrival of a new life strip away the titles and the feuds and the pride, leaving behind only the simple, joyful fact of a parent?
The thought was sweet, a warm comfort in the cold darkness of the dream, but it was shattered by a sound so loud and wrong it felt like a physical blow: the deafening roar of a monumental, incoming wave, a sound of stone grinding against water.
The golden light of the White Tower vanished, replaced by the choking smell of salt and black brine. There was only freezing, roaring darkness, and the blinding pressure of the world shifting.
Bran was suddenly plunged into an endless, cold blue. He could not breathe, could not cry out. He was watching Winterfell, but not from above. He was under it.
The familiar stone battlements and towers of his home were submerged, drowned in churning seawater. The ancient, gray walls were streaked with slimy green seaweed, and the great wolf-head gargoyles above the main gate were now silent, weeping masses of barnacles. The courtyard was a swirling maelstrom of dark sand and debris, unrecognizable, the entire place consumed by the cold, deep salt.
Just as the crushing weight of the water was about to force the breath from his lungs, a hand, familiar and protective, clamped onto his shoulder. Bran was hauled upward, faster than a surging wave, pulled from the drowning depth.
He broke the surface, gasping for a breath he didn't need, and the world seemed to tilt violently. The immense volume of water, which had drowned the castle only moments before, was now retreating with unnatural speed, draining back through the shattered gates and down into the ground, leaving behind a devastation of muck and wreckage.
Bran hovered in the space above the ruined courtyard, the perspective shifting back to the familiar, unmoving gaze of the weirwood. What he saw was worse than the sea’s violence. In the muddy churn below, where people coughed and struggled to rise from the brine, figures in the colors of the North put on kraken masks and drew steel. They were not helping. They were executing the survivors, plunging daggers and short swords into the coughing, half-drowned bodies with swift thrusts. The salt had not killed them, but the treachery of their own kin would.
Bran opened his mouth to scream, to warn someone, to tell his father, tell Robb, tell Jon, tell anyone, but no sound came out. His cry was a whisper of trapped air in his throat, a silent, terrible pressure.
And then he woke up.
⚔️⚔️⚔️
He woke with a gasp that tore at his chest, the scent of salt and brine clinging to him, though he knew he lay in the warm comfort of his own bed. His heart hammered a wild beat against his ribs.
“Hodor!”
Hodor’s huge, gentle face was inches from his, concern plain in his brown eyes. His massive hand, which had been gently rocking Bran, paused.
“Hodor?” the gentle giant asked, a soft, questioning sound.
Bran tried again, forcing the words out, but his voice was a thin, reedy squeak, barely audible. "The... the water. Hodor, the water! It drowned Winterfell! And the men... they were killing them..."
He clutched Hodor's tunic, his small hands shaking. Hodor, bewildered by the boy's panic and the incomprehensible words, simply repeated his name, a deep, resonant rumble of confusion and comfort. "Hodor, hodor. Hodor!”
Bran let out a long, shaky sigh, the air whistling between his teeth. Of course. Hodor was dim witted. Hodor could not understand the dream, the word, or the terror. He was loving and strong, a pillar of comfort, but his mind was simple and his tongue knew only his own name.
It was the sound of the door latch clicking, followed by the familiar, neat shuffle of soft boots, that finally pulled Bran back from the edge of the nightmare.
Maester Luwin entered the room, the morning light catching the silver links of his chain and illuminating the worried lines around his eyes. He carried a small, sealed scroll and a leather-bound ledger. He paused, looking at Bran, still gasping, and Hodor, whose massive frame filled the space beside the bed.
"Lord Bran, are you well?" Luwin asked, his voice calm and gentle, the very sound an antidote to panic. "I trust Hodor has not been too rough on settling you? I hear the shouting of a nightmare."
Bran struggled to sit up, leaning heavily against the pillows. The nightmare felt monstrously real, a betrayal, but how could he tell the Maester that he had seen Winterfell submerged beneath the water and of men murdering their own? He looked at Hodor, then at the Maester, and swallowed the truth.
"It was only... water, Maester," Bran managed, wiping a sudden cold sweat from his forehead. "A great wave."
Maester Luwin nodded sympathetically. "Ah, the ill effects of too much supper, perhaps. Or the changing season. Well, we have matters now which require your waking attention, my lord. Matters of cheer, thankfully." He laid the ledger on Bran's bedside table.
Bran watched the Maester. He was too sensible, too concerned with physics and anatomy, herbs and astronomy. Luwin would call the vision a fever or a bad dream, a physiological response to stress, nothing more. He would dismiss the sea, the drowned fortress, and the back stabbers as superstitious nonsense, perhaps offering a soothing drink of milk of the poppy. There was no magic in Maester Luwin’s world, and no place for a lord seeing visions.
Not the Maester, Bran thought with certainty. But maybe... Osha. The wildling woman believed in the Old Gods and spoke of things beyond the Wall that defied all logic. He would try her later.
The Maester’s focus shifted instantly to the mundane logistics, anchoring Bran to the here and now. "The Harvest Festival is upon us, and as your Grace, King Robb, is at war, and your lady mother with him, the duties of hosting and welcoming fall to you."
He opened the scroll. "I have prepared a brief address for you, simple and appropriate for a boy of your years, yet carrying the necessary weight of your title as Lord Stark. It must convey thanks to the Old Gods for the yield, acknowledge the absence of your family, and project the strength of Winterfell." Luwin peered over the parchment at Bran with an earnest, professional eye. "It is important, my lord. The North watches us. Even in times of harvest, they look for leadership."
Bran nodded slowly, the terror of the vision still a cold knot in his stomach, utterly incompatible with the talk of feasts and speeches. He was meant to be the master of ceremonies for a celebration, while his sleep had just shown him the wholesale destruction and betrayal of his home.
"I will study it, Maester Luwin,” Bran said, taking the scroll. The crisp, clean parchment felt real, solid, unlike the choking brine of his dreams. "What of the guests? Who would be coming?"
Luwin smiled, pleased by Bran's prompt return to duty. "A long list, my lord, full of hungry mouths and many small gifts of tribute for the harvest stores. I have marked the notables- old Lord Cassel's cousin will be present, the Umber representatives, and, surprisingly, the young lord and lady Reed from Greywater Watch."
Bran's brow raised. The Reeds? The Crannogmen of the Neck seldom left their swampy castle, and Lord Howland Reed was infamous for guarding his hearth and never leaving. He knew that his own father had sent many a letter to Lord Howland, and they have all been met with obstinate silence.
Bran’s mind, already raw from the dream-sight, seized on the name. Howland Reed. He remembered a conversation with his father, brief and rare, held in the quiet solitude of the Godswood one late afternoon. Ned Stark, usually so reserved, had been contemplative, staring at the weirwood face.
"There are moments in a man's life, Bran," his father had murmured, his hand resting on the boy’s shoulder, "Where a man's honor is not enough. You need the courage of others. I only survived the Tower of Joy because of one man. One small man from the swamps. He saved my life." Ned had paused, his eyes turning to the vast, lonely sky of the North. "He is the truest friend a man could have. Howland Reed, though I doubt you would meet him. Still, if you are plagued by something otherworldly in the future, seek him."
The memory, so vivid and weighted with his father’s unusual gravity, made the Maester's news impossible to ignore. "No, my lord. The message was explicit: Lord Howland sends his compliments and his children, the young Lord Jojen and his sister, the Lady Meera, as representatives. He is apparently called away on other, urgent business. A strange turn, given his usual lack of response, but it speaks to the loyalty of the Neck that he sends his only heirs to attend you." Luwin consulted his ledger again. "We must ensure their accommodations are comfortable. They are not accustomed to stone castles, I hear, preferring the damp warmth of their own unique halls."
"Now, if you would only eat a sensible breakfast, we can begin the preparations," Luwin continued, oblivious to Bran's surprise. "The festival is a distraction from the war, Lord Bran, and a necessary show of prosperity."
Greywater Watch
In a hole in the ground, there lived the Crannogmen.
It was not a foul, damp, narrow hole, full of the ends of worms and an oozy smell; nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat. It was a comfortable hole, though always somewhat damp, smelling richly of moss, wet earth, and the sweet, clinging odour of woodsmoke mixed with the sharp scent of bog-myrtle and wild mint.
Greywater Watch was an architecture of necessity and illusion. It was not a castle of heavy, immovable stone, but a vast, sprawling, dry tunnel system dug deep into the highest ground of the Neck- the only ground solid enough to sustain it. The surface entrances were numerous, hidden beneath grassy mounds and roots, camouflaged by creeping vines and the dense, humid foliage of the swamp. From a distance, only the sight of smoke curling from dozens of earth-chimneys, or the sudden, silent appearance of a Crannogman emerging from what looked like bog water, gave the illusion that the entire stronghold was shifting, sinking, or moving through the water.
The main living chamber, the deepest layer of the Greywater, was a marvel of Crannogman engineering. It was vaulted high, the ceiling held by massive, petrified cypress trunks polished smooth by age and effort. The walls were lined with panels of woven mats of reeds and dry grasses, trapping the cool, earthy air and keeping the swamp’s eternal dampness at bay. Phosphorescent moss, cultivated and tended by the lord’s daughter, cast a soft, greenish-yellow light that made shadows long and slow, giving the room a timeless, submarine feel.
In this chamber, Lord Howland Reed sat with his children, Jojen and Meera, at a low, wide table carved from a single piece of dark bog oak. They ate a simple meal: thick turtle stew, swamp cabbage sweetened with wild honey, and coarse bread baked on heated stones.
Howland Reed was a small man, deceptively slight in stature, but his eyes were ancient and watchful, holding the memory of battles only he and one other man truly remembered. He wore simple, dark, and practical garments- fine leather and tightly woven wool; against other Northern lords, he looked plain.
Jojen, ten and pale, his hair dark, sat across from him. The boy’s green eyes were currently milky and unfocused, his chewing slow. He was deep in the grips of the greensight, lost to the present. Meera, older, practical, and fiercely muscled from a lifetime spent in the swamp, was running a piece of sharp flint along the shaft of a frog-spear, her concentration intense.
The silence was broken only by the crackle of the embers in the hearth and the muffled, eternal drip of water echoing from the deeper passages.
Suddenly, a disturbance. The small, hidden door near the hearth was pushed aside by a scout with mud up to his eyebrows. He carried a small, sodden leather pouch sealed with the imposing Direwolf sigil of Winterfell. He laid it before his Lord, then retreated back to his post with the speed of a startled lizard.
Howland broke the seal with the quick snap of his thumb. He unrolled the letter, the paper inside miraculously dry due to a thin wax coating the messenger had applied. He read the hurried, desperate appeal penned by King Robb Stark, its contents unexpected.
He looked up, his tired eyes focused on the dark passage leading down. "I must consult with him."
Jojen’s head snapped up, his green eyes instantly sharp, displacing the milky film of the dream. “He might not speak to you. Not yet. I sought his guidance before we left the weirwood heart this morning, but he is not willing even speak. He is singing still for Goldberry, and no counsel will escape him while he is not finished with his song.”
Howland pursed his lips and threw the letter into the fire. “His song could take years, and there were even records of it going past lifetimes.”
The lord’s eyes settled on Meera, whose gaze was already fixed on Jojen with a ferocious, protective intensity. She did not argue or question. She merely waited for the command. “Are you ready?” Howland asked, his question encompassing not just the journey, but the destiny it foretold.
Meera stood up, the sharp flint of her spear catching the moss-light. “My hunting spear is sharpened, my clothes are dried, and my feet remember every root and stone of the North. We are ready, Father. The young Lord of Winterfell is our charge.”
“I am ready to fly, Father,” Jojen added, standing beside his sister, his small frame trembling with cold excitement.
Howland nodded slowly, the deep lines around his mouth relaxing slightly in a grim acceptance. He knew the cost of defying the dreams. He knew the cost of pursuing the truth. He remembered the Tower of Joy and his visions that led them to it; to where they were now.
“Very well,” he conceded. “You, Jojen, and you, Meera, will take the boat that runs on the deeper channels, not the open river. Tell Lord Bran nothing of the dreams unless he speaks of them first. Be simple, be friendly, be quiet. Do not let anyone see the depth of your knowledge, lest they were already familiar of it.”
⚔️⚔️⚔️
He slipped into the passage. The light of the tunnels was replaced instantly by near-absolute darkness, broken only by a small, hidden glass lantern, which Howland lit with flint and tinder. He descended sharply; the air grew colder, saturated with the smell of wet clay and mineral deposits. The sound of running water became a low, persistent roar.
After a long walk, the tunnel opened into a vast, echoing chamber- a natural, submerged cathedral of limestone and rock, the deepest foundation of Greywater Watch. The only light here was the faint, blue-green shimmer of a subterranean pool that collected the swamp's purest, deepest water.
O, the Shadow descends, and the Sun sleeps in grey,
And the world is made hard in the breaking of day!
Where is Goldberry gone, O, where is her sheen,
Who walked in the rushes, and left the reeds clean
The River-Daughter fades, where no water replies,
And the cold of the Iron now glazes my eyes.
A soft song echoed in the darkness as Howland walked deeper down.
I sought her in morning, where mists softly creep,
But the willows are silent, the waters asleep.
I sang her the music of rushes and sand,
The oldest of rhymes in this sorrowful land;
But the song finds no echo, the words turn to dust,
And the reeds have grown brittle with silence and rust.
At the center of this cavern, sitting on a huge, smooth piece of river-stone, was a guardian. He was a man of impossible antiquity and size, clad in tattered, brightly coloured blue rags and muddy, high boots that peaked yellow at the top. The joy that once burst from him like spring thunder was now a quiet, agonizing ache. He was weeping silently, his shoulders trembling, the grief of a lost epoch too heavy for even his ancient frame. He was singing a sad, low song in the Common tongue, though at times he would sing in languages that made the stone itself feel impossibly old and tired.
Hark! The wind in the caverns, it whispers and groans,
As the bright folk desert us, and leave us the stones.
The high towers rise, where no music can play,
And Tom is left singing the end of the day.
O, the shadow descends, and the sun sleeps in grey,
And the world is made hard in the breaking of day!
The final, mournful note hung in the air, a long, shivering decay of sound that spoke of epochs of loss. His song was a lament, heavy and mournful, echoing through the hollows of the stone. The ancient man opened his eyes, which were filled with a deep, endless, golden sorrow, and looked directly at Howland, recognizing him instantly without asking his name.
“Lord Howland,” he murmured, his voice thick, devoid of its former booming cheer. “The light fails. The joy leaves with the song.”
Howland stepped forward, his small lantern casting dancing shadows. He felt the crushing weight of the older man's grief, a grief that was the weight of a dying age.
“Lord Tom,” Howland said softly. “You refused Jojen counsel. May I ask why? The deep paths- the water-roads that lead out to the wide world- are they safe for them to travel?”
The ancient man was an enigma that had lived in the Neck before anything. Before anyone. Before history was written. Tom Bombadil, his name was, shifted on the stone, the motion causing a faint, sweet smell of river-mint to briefly fill the cavern.
“The paths are safe for those who know the music, Lord of the Marsh. They are safe for the true-hearted, and your children are true. But the world is becoming steel, stone, and silence. The discord is almost complete, the remnants of the song can no longer keep it at bay.“ He paused for a bit, and Howland almost dreaded the start of another song.
“I cannot help Jojen. I only shared the art of greenseeing to you people so I may find my sweet Goldberry, but it is all for naught. She will not return. And I am no longer as merry as I should be. I can only see her in my eyes from the past, so that is where I will stay. A vision will come to him. North of the Wall. There, they will find guidance from someone more willing.“
He started to sing again, and Howland tried to interject, to no avail. Mayhaps he could wait another day, but the King in the North had urgently asked to meet him in Gods Eye.
Winterfell
Later that morning, while Bran was being dressed and fed, Osha found Maester Luwin in the rookery, examining a pigeon's leg for signs of disease. She approached him without preamble, her face grim.
"The boy," Osha said, leaning against the cold stone of the window ledge, her eyes tracking the flight of a raven. "The little one. Rickon. He's losing his tongue."
Osha’s affection for Rickon was a blunt, unsentimental thing. She didn't coddle him like a servant might; she handled him like one would a half-tamed beast of the forest. When he would not eat at the table, she would tear the meat off the bone with her fingers, snarl a low sound, and hold the food out. Rickon, wide-eyed and responsive, would take it with a deep, wolfish wuff of thanks that sounded more like Shaggydog than the boy. She’d learned that scolding only drove him further into the wolf's shadow, but mirroring the animalistic communication brought the boy back, even if only for the brief moment of a shared bite. She taught him to sharpen sticks into hunting spears and to sit silently in the forest where the wind ran cold. They were often found in the Godswood, the three of them- Osha, Rickon, and Shaggydog, just beside Bran, Summer, and Hodor: a wild, inseparable pack.
Luwin adjusted his spectacles, sighing with professional impatience. "Osha, we have discussed this. Young Lord Rickon has suffered a great deal of trauma, losing both parents to war and separation from his siblings. His attachment to his direwolf is a coping mechanism. I have diagnosed it as a form of prolonged childhood distress- a refusal to communicate human speech. It is a slow withdrawal, but with routine and affection, it will pass."
"Routine and affection won't stop the wolf from swallowing him," Osha countered, her voice low and fierce. "It's the wildness. Day by day, he speaks less, but his eyes... his eyes are becoming closer to Shaggydog's. He's not withdrawn, Maester. He's warging awake."
Luwin huffed, a thin sound of annoyance. "Warging, as you call it, is a piece of savage folklore, a children's story from beyond the Wall, Osha. It is not a medical diagnosis. The mind is a machine, and machines can be repaired with knowledge and reason. I suspect a severe case of developmental regression due to the absence of key parental figures, coupled with the stress of the war. He only wants to speak in the simple sounds he hears from his animal companion."
"He's running with the wolf, body and soul," Osha insisted, her gaze unwavering. "He is spending too long inside the skin, and he can't find his way back completely. The wolf is winning."
Luwin pulled the velvet cord for a servant. "I cannot treat a patient for being 'swallowed by a beast,' Osha. I can only treat what I see. He is functioning, he is eating, he is active, he simply refuses to talk. It is depression."
However, Osha’s certainty, coupled with the persistent strangeness of the Stark children, left a flicker of unease in the Maester. He was sworn to reason, but the world was currently defying all his theorems.
"Very well," Luwin conceded, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I will not dismiss your concerns entirely, as you are close to the boy. I will write to the Citadel. I will omit the young lord’s name, of course, and phrase the condition as a hypothetical, asking for any historical records regarding 'deep sensory-induced speech deprivation in children.'”
There is no magic in Maester Luwin's world, but if there is a treatment known to the world, the Citadel will have it. “But do not speak to the boy of being 'swallowed,' Osha. You will only scare him further into his silence."
Osha popped her lips and nodded. “Alright I will keep watching him. On both of them. The little lord and the little boy.“
She turned to leave, but paused.
"The little lord," she clarified, her voice rough, "He's like the heart of a weirwood that's been split by lightning. Half of him is stone and the other half is light, and he doesn't know which way to grow. But the little boy..." A faint, almost imperceptible softening crossed her face, a look as fleeting as summer snow. "The little boy is becoming all wolf. All wild. He needs to be guarded."
Luwin merely adjusted his sleeve, unable to categorize such sentiment in his ledger. "A curious attachment, Osha, for a woman who was forced to bend the knee.”
Without another word, she was gone, her quiet boots disappearing down the stone stairs, leaving Luwin alone with his dilemma: a crippled young lord plagued by dreams and nightmares, and his regressing younger brother who turned more feral by the days.
What would the King in the North say when he returns to this?
Maester Luwin returned to his chamber, the silver links of his chain feeling heavy and cold against his neck. He dipped his quill into the inkwell, pulling out a fresh sheet of parchment.
Greetings to the Citadel.
The following is a theoretical query in the field of non-conventional pediatric psychology: In the event of extreme, prolonged psychological distress in a pre-adolescent male, has the Citadel ever recorded cases of elective speech deprivation? Specifically, a refusal to utilize Common Tongue, coupled with a notable shift towards zoological mimicry and profound attachment to a canine companion, seemingly indicating a regression to an instinctual, non-verbal state. Is there any historical precedent for a curative regimen involving specific herbals or, conversely, a structured acceptance of the non-verbal state?
I emphasize, this is purely for the purpose of theoretical knowledge and the expansion of the Maester’s understanding of the more obscure corners of trauma response.
Your swift reply is eagerly anticipated.
He sanded the paper and sealed it. Luwin knew it was a lie, a carefully constructed piece of academic dishonesty. He could not bring himself to admit the concept of 'warging' to the Citadel- they would merely recall him as unfit. He was a man of intellect, and yet every day in Winterfell required him to bend his reality. Bran’s dreams, which he suspected grew increasingly detailed and prophetic, and Rickon's descent into wildness, were both phenomena that defied the entirety of his training, the meaning of his chains.
He walked to the window, watching the Winterfell activity. The courtyard was buzzing with preparations for the Harvest Festival, yet it felt more somber than ever.
Notes:
i am not equipped to write Tom Bombadil this way
