Shifting Perspectives
Twenty-Ninth Day of the Eighth Month 293 AC
Oddly enough most of your information on your most recent, and in some ways strangest, Northern guests does not come from an inquisitor's report. Mors Umber had heard of Jorah Mormont's disgrace before he took ship from White Harbor, and he had heard that the secondborn daughter of the new Lady of Bear Island had headed south ahead of him alongside four companions, a month or more before there had been any talk of festivals or free journeys across the Narrow Sea. They must have knocked around quite a few ports before finding their way to Sorcerer's Deep, more likely than not because they had trouble finding a captain that would take them on.
Hard enough to persuade most merchant captains that a shadowcat is tame and won't decide mid-journey that sailors make better eating than hardtack and salted fish, but when two of the passengers are mages and one of them is not even
human... Well, it is little wonder they had to sail aboard a Silver Serpent ship on the last leg of the journey.
And that is where the second piece of this particular puzzle presents itself regarding this company of travelers. "How
exactly do mortals become fey, Glyra? I know some of your troupe used to be mortal children, but I cannot imagine redcaps making more like them in quite the same manner."
In fact, everything you know about that particular kindred fey paints them as violently misanthropic at best and outright murderous at worst, yet this 'Wyl' has been so little trouble that no one had thought to bring him to your attention until he had signed up to fight in the Circle of Battle and had to declare the powers and provenance of his cap. Blood magic is always a matter for the Inquisition even when, as in the case of Wyl dipping his cap in the blood of his foes, it had not taken place within the borders of your realm.
"Maybe someone tried to bring him back on blood-soaked earth,
hungry earth," Glyra replies. "There's a Tree Tender with them, maybe he asked for a bigger boon than he knew what to do with."
"And now the poor man has to wear the blood of his enemies to stay sane," you sigh.
Glyra shrugs. "The cap's magic. It doesn't smell or draw flies."
You shake your head and smile.
Some things never change. Then again, you would probably miss them if they did.
***
Trying to get a report out of a Lotus Leshy is an exercise in patience, fortunately it is one you are more than a match for. The petals open and serene eyes like dewdrops look up at you: "Odric Knott is a man who hears the voice of the Gods, but he hears it best in quiet lonely places. He finds what you have wrought here strange and is uneasy at the mingling of magics." The spirit stops, not trailing off as another might do but simply dropping the thread of conversation to pursue the flight of a thrush through the branches as intently as though it held some great secret.
The stone you are sitting on is quite comfortable, the sky blue and the mingled sounds of visitors and nature quite soothing, and so you wait again...
"He feels guilty for his companion's transformation, as though he has failed him, failed the gods. That is why he is ill at ease in this place of great magic, though he does not admit it even to himself," the spirit explains.
"What does Wyl think?" you ask.
This time the answer comes in only a hundred heartbeats: "He has found a sort of peace in his state, a purpose to the dance of red ruin. For one who has tasted mortality in full, the promise of life everlasting is sweet indeed. So he is spared even the aches and pains in the battle's wake, so he can better protect his lady as he was bid."
"He still holds to the oaths of his first life?" you only half-ask. His presence at Alysane Mormont's side bespeaks as much.
"Oaths endure and so does friendship in battle forged," the Leshy nods, then slowly submerges beneath the surface of the pond, having obviously given as many answers as it could yet still not all that you need.
***
A brief discussion with Leto, who had drawn the proverbial short straw and had been assigned to library duty over the past few days, confirms that Walter Mormont is a mage of some kind, or at least deeply interested and somewhat knowledgeable in matters arcane to have picked out the books he did, and in your experience such a person will find some way to awaken magic in themselves one way or another. It certainly would have taken no small amount of determination to learn to read
Valyrian script among the Northern Mountain Clans, where even having one's letters in Common would be odd for one with no aspirations of becoming a maester.
The topics of his studies are both ones you had expected, relating to life, death, and the transcendence of the soul, and others less so, about the transformation and mutability of flesh. Something Mors had said in passing comes to mind. "Maege Mormont claims she lays with a bear in the woods to have her daughters.... mighty lucky bear if you ask me."
In this time of reawakening magic, might not old sayings be made true?
"Did you ever catch sight of Walter's wife?" you ask Leto.
"No, she is not one for books but very clever otherwise, or so he
told me." From the faintly exasperated tone you guess Walter might have tried to chat with and charm Leto a bit too much.
It takes but a moment to will yourself outside the inn the Northerners are staying in and peer in through the window to see Alysane Mormont with eyes sharpened by sorcery. Imposed over the figure of a woman is that of a auburn-furred bear, yet neither one is anymore true than the other. She is both.
How do you approach the Northerners
[] Seek out Alysande, offer to help in her hunt for Jorah
[] Seek out Odric, try to set his fears and his guilt to rest
[] Speak to Walter about his thirst for knowledge and all he has to gain by joining the Scholarum
[] Approach Wyl to see how he truly feels about his transformation and offer advice
[] Write in
OOC: The votes above are just suggestions. I fully expect a write in. Also, @Mormont if something feels off about the way I described the characters reactions and backgrounds do not hesitate to speak up there is plenty of room to change things.
