Pledge to the Oathsworn
Twenty-Third Day of the Twelfth Month 292 AC
After settling most of the Children of the Forest and your mother in the chambers you had been granted with Ser Richard set to guard them, you ascend to the solar at the highest level of the King's Tower, just below its crenelated crown. Beside you are Dany and Soft Strider, small enough to move comfortably side by side on the narrow stairway.
The chamber you enter has clearly seen even less use and less hurried cleaning than those below. Cobwebs still hang on the corners, and one of the window shutters creaks alarmingly as it sways in the brisk wind. Again three men greet you: the Lord Commander, a slim dark-haired man with the bearing of a knight, and a man in worn black robes aged and wrinkled though with eyes that are kin to yours and Dany's.
"Greetings, Maester," you offer with a smile whose warmth says more than your words. "My apologies for calling a meeting here. I did not know how high a roost this was."
"No matter, your grace," the old man replies, his voice barely more than a whisper. "Tis not much higher than the rookery, and a poor maester I would be if I could not ascend those stairs."
Before you can speak further the knight draws your attention away with an oddly fervent greeting, not the simple formality of the Lord Commander. You learn that he is Ser Alister Thorne, master-at-arms of the Watch, and from his Crownlander accent little worn by his time in the North you guess he might have been one of the men who served your House in the Usurper's War and then chose the Black over execution.
Truth be told it feels
odd to be the guest of a Westerosi lord and have the air be so free of suspicion and instead bear a hopeful expectation. Once the round of greetings is done, somewhat awkwardly in the case of Soft Strider as she explains once more that her true name cannot be uttered in the name of men, the Singer speaks first, "I bring greetings from my kin few and scattered as we are, and a warning also. You have felt but the first stray gusts of Winter-to-Come. The time for your order to fulfill its most ancient purpose is at hand. The enemy of all life stirs in their frozen barrows."
"What the fuck's that supposed to mean?" Ser Thorne explodes. From the fear you can hear beneath the anger you suspect he knows the answer, but does not wish to admit it to himself.
The Lord Commander scowls ferociously, but before he can reprimand his subordinate you interject, "It means that more than sorcery returns to the Lands Beyond the Wall. The Others come, not this year nor the next, but when the coming winter's storms truly rage."
Your proclamation is met with a moment's utter silence, then the Lord Commander sighs and slams a fist on the desk in front of him. "Never in my life did I more wish I could name an honest man a liar," he admits. "But even if I was such a coward to do so, men are not the only messengers here..."
"I had feared something akin to this in the long cold nights," Maester Aemon says. "Yet it seemed folly to speak of such suspicions without proof, for fear my brothers might think my wits had gone wandering. In truth I too might have preferred that."
"Apologies for my outburst, your grace, highness," Ser Thorne grinds out, bowing first to you then to Dany, the latter with some confusion.
"I've heard worse," she says dryly. Something about her look makes the master-at-arms shift his gaze quickly.
Lord Commander Mormont meanwhile had been paying little attention to the byplay. "You said we have years, I'm inclined to believe you on that too, if only because it makes the situation the Watch finds itself in dire, not hopeless. What can be done to fight these things?"
"Fire is your friend against the lesser servitors and the dead. Against the cold masters themselves dragonsteel and dragonglass will serve," you explain.
"Well I left Longclaw back on Bear Island, so that's not going to be of any help," Mormont jests grimly. "The bloody skagosi dig for dragonstone, but they will want steel in return. Too damn close to giving steel to wildlings that."
"I could provide dragonglass in large quantities, even weapons worked of it," you offer. "The defense of the Wall is the business of all men and I would do my part. Aid against a concerted attack and supplies such as you need to better guard the bulwark that is meant to guard all living men, these I offer freely."
"Freely from your hands into our armories perhaps, but it will not be without a price in the south, without questions asked and ill favor gained." The Lord Commander speaks the words with a sort of weary disdain, as a man who would much rather dispense with such games altogether, but too old to think he can ever do so. "I will need a pledge before men and gods that you will not use any deal we might reach to the detriment of the realms I guard."
You have to struggle to keep to keep the surprise off your face that there is in all of Westeros a keep and a lord who will take your word alone as guarantee. You look to Aemon...
Had the old man been whispering kindly words of you into Mormont's ear?
"I too have a duty to the realms you guard, Lord Commander," you answer. "Though others may deny it to me, some in good faith and others with malice, matters little. At the Wall the lines are clearly drawn: here is the realm of men, its last bastion set down in days of yore. There..." you motion to the northern window, "are the wild lands where horrors older then mankind stir and the dead lie uneasily in their graves. Thus I pledge to work no trickery or unclean dealings into our agreements. While I stand here my eyes will be looking north even as yours are and never southwards."
The old lord nods once firmly. "That is enough for me. May the gods help you keep your oath, or strike you down if you are false in it."
Dany comes forward then bearing a map copied from the one Bloodraven scribed with the more esoteric elements missing. "A first token of our agreement, then," she says.
The Lord Commander glances at the map curiously, his eyes widen. "
How did you make this?"
What do you reply?
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OOC: This is your chance to reveal something of your connection with the Old Gods, if you want. Or you can just bush the matter aside as quite literally 'a wizard did it.'