A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover

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When all is said and done, the tide turned with the words you'd chosen. The Merlin and his supporters still vote against the proposal, and between them gather a significant portion of the Council to their side. But it's only significant, not a majority, and insufficient to stop the motion from passing. On that day, the White Council of Wizards agrees to formally recognise the Paranet as a part of its wider organisation, and to respond to it in times of need. Which, fortunately enough, includes the requirement of a more involved Warden presence, to identify and redirect potential Warlocks before they step across the line, instead of executing them after the fact. The grander implications of the vote will come with time, but it is a solid victory, and the first step towards staunching the flow of self-inflicted bloodletting the Council has been suffering for decades.

The Captain of the Wardens does not, you are later told quite firmly, embrace one who is still a relative unknown to the Council and kiss them firmly on each cheek. Such action is beneath the dignity of the office. Anastasia Luccio, however, can apparently do what she likes. That she gave Harry the same treatment a moment after you did make you feel better, though. An illusion of the moment was an instant conversation starter when you met with Karrin, Harry and Lady Carpenter a few days later, though it led swiftly to a request for a full viewing of the speech, something you acceded to only after extracting the promise of a favour from the Fae-touched present. That got you a few looks, but there'd been a good reason for it. And it was a small enough favour not to be truly pressing when compared to their other obligations.

The reason? The talismans designed to protect the two from the warping power of their Mantles are finally complete. In the week between being granted your audience and speaking before the White Council, there was time to test the materials from your world. As you'd hoped, their metaphysical qualities carried over just as strongly as their physical ones, and the design of the talismans you've built reflects that. And yet it had been surprisingly easy to translate those designs into reality, easier than it should be, really. Enchantment has never been your strong suit, even after gaining access to power in many ways greater than Wishcraft. This, you are certain, should have taken longer.

Each talisman is a ring of dark adamantine, inlaid with a set of arcane symbols wrought from true-silver, that serve to hold the power invested into the rings in their proper shapes. When seeking to grant freedom, there are few better foundations than metaphysical purity, and few better groundings for that than unyielding adamant. Even before being invested with power, they're striking pieces of metalwork all on their own. You're fortunate that magic could serve here, where you lack skill, but with them complete it's a faint whisper at the back of your mind.

Your focus now lies on the road ahead, and a particular meeting, looming ahead of you as Harry steers his ancient, but in good health, vehicle down the streets of his city. A meeting that had required the small favour you'd levied as price for the illusory show you'd given of your speech before the White Council. From the Lady and the Knight both, a request for an audience upon neutral ground. For all that you yearn to simply grant the two the rings you've crafted for them, there's an order to things. And as your audience with the White Council has shown, you're rather more powerful when speaking words others will understand instead of those of power.

"Still sure you want to do this, Viserys?" Harry asks you as he pulls the massive vehicle off the main thoroughfare, nearing your destination. You turn your head to look at him calmly, prompting a bark of laughter, though there's real concern beneath it. "Yes, I know, you've faced worse." He still isn't sure if he believes that, but you can't exactly blame him. For all the time you've spent working together, there are limits to what he can believe. And this realm is different to your own, in many ways.

"It is better to seek a settlement before simply declaring war," you reply smoothly, touching a hand to the glamoured cloak at your shoulders. "I have not come this far through recklessness, Ser Harry." No matter how your companions might disagree. Still, if Ser Richard were here, you'd no doubt be testing the very limits of his patience with you in this latest endeavour.

"I've had reason to disagree with that, you know," Harry says dryly, with the air of one who knows, and you surprise him with a small chuckle of your own.

"I'm quite aware, Ser," you nod. "Still, this is necessary, and I must thank you and Lady Carpenter for the aid you have given me in preparing for it."

Your driver grunts noncommittally. "Thank me when we're out the other side." He doesn't quite say 'assuming we're all alive', but he thinks it very loudly. "And speaking of which," the car slows, "we're here." Then he turns the monster of a vehicle off the street into the parking lot that serves McAnally's and the building above it. A few moments later, the engine rumbles to a stop and cuts off.

Off to the side of the car park, a smaller, far more modern car painted in a spray pattern of glacial blues sits, Lady Carpenter's vehicle if you aren't mistaken. Present at your request, though neither she nor Harry will be part of the meeting itself. You'd initially meant for them to be, but explanations from them both had changed your mind.

You step out of the car, casting the veil around you aside, and stride across the gravel to the door of MacAnally's Pub. A small sign hangs from the door, reading: Closed for Private Party. Harry looks at it, and shudders very slightly.

"She's here," he says a moment later. It's all that need be said.

"Then lead on, Ser Knight." Harry mutters something anatomically improbable, before pulling himself up and giving you a small, formal bow.

"Of course," then he opens the door, and leads you down the stairs to announce you to the Queen of Air and Darkness.

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Some, so you've been told, would call Mab, the monarch of the Winter Court of the Sidhe, beautiful. Even after all you've seen in your life, you can't find it in yourself to disagree. The Queen of Air and Darkness is Winter incarnate, in all its forms, and the manner of her meeting you here, in the mortal world, and upon ground decreed by her power to be neutral, is that of its razor-edged beauty. Given your own experiences with the powers of dark and cold before entering this realm, a lesser man might have forgiven himself for a moment of instinctual aggression.

A lesser man could never have obtained an audience with Mab.

The woman who awaits you at one of the tables, sitting in the chair as if it's a throne instead of a simple piece of wood, is taller even than Harry. Her skin is almost deathly pale, and her white hair shifts through shades of opalescence that should be impossible in the subdued light of the tavern. She doesn't even move her head as you step off the stairs, and here Harry steps forward ahead of you. You let him. He is, after all, your introduction. For your part, you do nothing to react to the tangible aura of icy power that you can feel radiating from the Winter Queen's skin. Not that there is much of that on display, something that you are quite sure is fortunate.

Instead, she wears a business suit of grey silk, though according to Dresden it's most likely a glamour itself. A part of you wonders what the truth of her would be, but calling upon the power of your earing to cut through all glamours would be discourteous when you haven't even been introduced. Your most complex version of magesight, however, you feel to be quite reasonable. And that confirms at least part of what Dresden has told you. A veil of illusion and transformative magics covers her, woven so deftly that you almost missed it. Still, that garb, that of a businesswoman, at the least does not bode ill. She has come here prepared to talk, to bargain, even. That is good.

"My Queen," Dresden does not bow fully, but his words are respectful and courteous. "May I introduce Mr Targaryen, the dragon that you tasked me to find."

"I recall commanding you to eliminate this one, My Knight," her voice is a cool, almost gentle thing, but it is easy for you to remember that ice and snow can be gentle too, until the moment they betray you.

"Yet I have not defied you," Harry replies, without pause. "You commanded me to eliminate the threat he posed, my Queen. I believe that this audience will show that I have done so."

"I see," she steeples her fingers, nails flashing different glacial shades in the shifting light, none of them probable. Then her eyes turn to you. Green, but slit vertically. The barest hint of a smile touches her frozen lips, and then she nods once, the motion of a liege accepting the word of their vassal. And as her attention shifts squarely to you, you feel it even through the warding of Aegon's Crown. "Are you a threat to me, then, Mr Targaryen?"

You meet her expression with a micrometre smile of your own, with nothing behind it. "I would say that remains to be seen. After all, you did send your Knight to find me, with such a precise command."

Her smile widens, and she nods again, this time more firmly. "You may go, my Knight. Await me outside." Harry withdraws swiftly, sparing a look in your direction, a silent good luck meshed with what you were quite sure was a hope that you knew what you were doing. Mab raises her hand in a welcoming gesture, indicating the other chairs at the table she's seated at. Offering you your choice of them, even. "Come, Mr Targaryen, and be welcome upon this ground. I believe I would speak with you."

"My thanks for your hospitality," you reply, recognising and accepting the statement of safe passage in all but name in the same breath. You take the chair directly across from her, and seat yourself with grace enough that you can tell she notices. "I believe your vassals communicated the reason you were asked here," her smile turns cold, but you give her no opportunity for the no-doubt cutting reply she's about to unleash, "beyond the obvious."

She gives you a faintly disapproving stare, that tugs on something primal even through the Conqueror's Crown, but only lightly. Testing you. Of course. "They have. It was a curious enough request that I am even here." There's an edge in those words, and that you do respect. Hospitality or no, Neutral Ground or no, angering a Fae of this power now that you understood the strength of Faerie in this realm, was something you'd prefer to avoid.

"You wish to grant my Lady and my Knight talismans that you say will blunt the power of their Mantles to change them." She says, and her eyes flash with something very cold. "And you say you wish to do so…freely."

"Correct." You touch what would have been the hem of your cloak, had it been a garment of fabric, the simple gesture designed to draw Mab's attention to it. Those same cat-like eyes widen. She might not recognise the golden skin's provenance, but she can recognise the power in it. Few indeed that you've met have been able to do that. "I have one with me, if you would wish to see it."

"I would," she purrs, after a moment's pause, and watches you intently as you reach into the cloak and call one of the talismans to your hand. You let it drop onto the table, and the faint clink of adamant on the wood is almost deafening in the silence of the pub. Not even Mac is present for this.

"If you would wish to examine it," you say, and push the ring across the table, until it sits squarely between you. The ring all but crackles with power, the result of more than just one casting of the strongest magic of which you are capable. A sliver of what had once been you has been poured into those creations, built upon the same arcane foundation as the first amulets Lya crafted to protect you and yours from compulsion and control.

"I see," Mab looks at the ring, a device bearing a working of the Ninth Circle, as if it is a vaguely intriguing curiosity. And yet, you catch the slight pause in her breath as she stares at it, and how she very subtly refuses to properly touch it. "I do not believe I have ever seen such metals before, Mr Targaryen. You must have travelled far indeed, and to do so much for those so small."

You do not reply, simply waiting. Two could play her game, and you were not a vassal, nor beholden. Finally, she sighs, the sound a whisper. "Ah, very well. These are powerful creations, Mr Targaryen. Seeing them, I can believe that your offer to my vassals is indeed true. Though I must wonder," she leans forward, and a flick of one perfect finger sends the ring spinning back to your side of the table, "why would I allow them to bear such a thing?" There is a fierce possessiveness there, one you can tell even without previously given advice that you cannot fight directly.

But you never came into this planning to. "You would wish your vassals to become that which they were? Truly?" You ask instead, and the air goes very, very still. You shake your head. "They did not tell me, Winter Queen. Once I understood what had been done to them, it was simple enough to unravel the greater effects of the Mantles upon their selves."

"To allow anything else would be to weaken them," Mab replies, in a gentle tone that screams danger. "Winter does not suffer weakness."

"And yet, Winter changes," you say in return, not as softly, but just as steady. "The Mantles have changed before, that is what they do. As the world shifts, so too do they. And yet, it is less than the point. Would you truly wish another Knight as you had before? Another Lady?" The air around you does more than still this time, it condenses into miniature crystals of ice, and the eyes of the Faerie Queen across from you burn in the faint light around her. Less and less of it is of mortal make, you can tell.

"You would attempt to sunder them from me," her voice is still soft, still gentle, but the menace in it is palpable.

"I would attempt to give you them to you, as they are," the rejoinder drops easily into the pause of a breath, and the myriad blessings of power that you wore into your meeting with the White Council dance and sing upon and around you as you lean forward, power fit to wound gods chained to your voice in that moment. "I am offering you what you most desire. Vassals who will not wish to run from you, and who you know will not break their given word, as they never did before entering your service. If a touch of freedom in their actions is an unfair price to pay for that," you let the implication trail away, but do not speak it. It's louder that way.

"You are a strange one," the interest in her eyes shifts, and when she leans forward this time it's with a very different type of movement. Even with your past experiences with beings of power and beauty, the sheer presence of the Queen of Air and Darkness presses against your mind like an immovable glacier. You're ready for it, and cast it aside without the need to reach for the strength Syrax revealed to you, but it's still there even after you're done.

"Tell me, Mr Targaryen," the words are like a crooning song on her lips. "You have walked this world for bare months, and already changed it by your power. Yet all you have done has been to help those unlike you and I. You are not nearly so bound, by power or obligation. Why would you waste such strength on these mortals, when you could taste the offerings of your fellows?"

The question echoes in the vaults of your mind, turning time and again in the air as promise and possibility spill out from the words, and the Queen of every wicked fae of this realm watches you through lazy, half-lidded eyes as you grapple with it. For a moment, it's almost enough for you to consider her words. But then you remember your sister, your wife, your friends. Though dreaming and soul-spun power might remove the limitations of lifespan, alchemy and ancient magic proving the solution for others, they'd still begun their lives as mortals. Just as you had.

"Why?" You ask, straightening in your chair, to meet Mab's eyes in a motion that brings her back to full attention. "I have seen mortals unravel secrets of magic and power that have eluded ageless scholars for millennia. I have watched as they bring life into the world, not in their image, but in a myriad of forms to protect, and teach, and learn and so much more." You lean in, touching your cloak again, remembering the strikes that felled an aspect of Master of the Third, and you wonder if Mab can see it. "I have seen mortal courage and strength stand against the supposedly unfathomable, and endless, and prevail."

"Why would I give to them?" You ask again, and though the words come slowly, they fall with all the inexorable weight of a falling mountain. "I have tasted the power of gods and immortals, Queen of Air and Darkness. I found it…beneath me."