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

Fifteenth Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC

Two watched in silence and tasted the air, the heat of the cat-woman's breath steaming in soft plumes, the deep beats of her heart and the sweat glistening on her brow in the frigid air. Almost time for the leap, One coiled eagerly. Patience, the Other reasoned and patient was Two, for the hunter knew stealth and forager lore, but the wizard knew patience as the stone did the rain, wearing grooves though the ages.

"A man washed up on shore, half-frozen and shivering, wrapped in a cloak of red, he was strange..." The heart beat too swiftly, the breath too shallow. "Limbs too long, eyes too black, and he had—" The soul struggled mightily against flesh and will against curse. "No... that wasn't supposed to... curse." Pale hands grasped at her throat. Fortunate was she not to have claws in this from, thought One as the Other wove a spell of against curses that had foiled many an elder ward, or surge of wild magic.

The spell's roots went deep, old, stubborn and strong, Two thought in frustration as the Fleshweaver called on her own lore to undo the strangling grasp. Alas, she fared no better and the Wyrm did nothing.

No, not nothing, One thought. Watching the door, suspecting ambush.

"Do something!" the man-called-king said, voice needlessly loud as the woman's face began to turn red then dark with blood bursting from within.

Did he think they had all grown distant or unwilling to act, or was this mere instinct like unhinging one's jaw wider than the throat would allow to pass? Two wondered briefly, as again the power flowed from tongue into the frigid air... and this time from will into being. For a moment even eyes of flesh could see the band of shadow wrapped around the skin-changer's throat, then it broke neatly in two.

"You trespassed against a curse, but the curse is now no more," One said without speaking. "Speak now in silence if you would not do so aloud and know that your foes shall be broken even as the curse was," the Other added, knowing that this Yara was a creature of secrets.

"No need," she replied, the light of gratitude upon her thoughts and smothering the fading echoes of pain. Rising to her feet shakily she added aloud: "The stranger died of the the chills, no potion could ease him, no fire could warm him. He asked that a pyre be made for him but one would not light, but Drokha said that he knew a way to make one as he clutched a box he had taken from the stranger. Only Grom the Wolf and me stayed then, the others were scared of witch work. But Grom was a great warrior and did not wish to show fear... and I, I was curious as a cat." Broken laughter passed parched lips.

"Is that where you got the red silk, the one you patched Mance's cloak with?" the Thunder-Caller asked. The man so named almost jumped out of his seat wanting to ask something, but he wisely held his tongue.

"Yes, but that's... for later," the woman Yara continued. "Drokha spoke spells of opening over the box in the Old Tongue that few now speak save the Giants and the Thenns. Fire without form came out... came out and it spoke to us, asked us our heart's desire. I asked for freedom from the frailties of flesh and from age, to be free as a shadowcat, coming and going as I pleased. That's what it made me. Grom was not shy about saying what he asked for as the stranger's pyre was lit at last, to be a great magnar, a wolf stronger than the Starks of the south and bring all these realms under him and his sons after him. I don't know what Drokha asked for, his eyes looked bright and feverish, like he was seeing something the rest of us weren't and he said something in a voice that wasn't wholly his..."

"Prophecy makes a valued servant, but a poor master," the Wyrm spoke clearly and truthfully, though not perhaps the words the moment called.

"Drokha said the pale tree would not live through winter, only the black, and then he sort of went quiet and he looked at Grom, and he laughed," Yara took a beep calming breath. "I thought the Wolf would kill him then and there, he raised his ax as though to strike off his head, but then he froze there like a bird under the gaze of er... a snake." Two wondered why she would flush and look towards him. That was shame and shame required fault.

"Speak on," One encouraged while the Other pondered the strange manner.

"While they weren't watching I took the red cloak and slipped from the room," the skin-changer moistened her lips with her tongue, almost like she too could taste the air sensing peril. "Three days later I heard Grom died, killed by the other chiefs, some said for boasting too hard, but I talked to Old Elda who taught me to heal and he said the Wolf died of no mortal blade, but something fouler. I knew then, I knew that t'was Drokha that did it and I ran. I did not run away far enough not to see the fire behind me. I think Drokha opened the box again to get another wish."

Silence fell heavy as the darkness of the deep earth. "I thought he'd died at least, but the bastard came to me in a dream, said I'd been clever to take the cloak, but he'd cursed me to never be able to work against him. I never dared test the edge of that promise until today and it almost killed me... almost." Her smile flashed white as the beasts of the jungle before they pounced in the night. "Now I'm free, now he'll pay."

OOC: And here we are Riz'Neth, not quite two beings but as close as they come. Just to be clear the heads do not have names. The first one to think something is always One, and the head that answers or echoes is always the Other and it changes back and forth, while thoughts had in concert are always the province of Two.