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

Twenty Fourth Day of the Twelfth Month 293 AC

As you walk across the green of Ashford, ears filled with the din of merchants calling out their wares, knights and squires arguing about their chances in the joust or the melee, and coin clinking as it changes hands you are struck again by the fact that the only tourney you have ever participated in was that which you organized yourself and the 'Traitor's Tourney' was anything but ordinary. It was grand and magical, a display of feats undreamt of your realm could achieve. It was also a great deal of work to keep the wheels spinning as they should, but here... here you are not King Viserys, only Buttercup the bard and teller of fanciful tales. You can afford to linger by a smith's stand and watch as he forges a copper rose with petals that seem fine enough to pluck in moments, you can buy a piece of flatbread and some of the local cheese, sharp flavored and crumbly, to eat as you go.

Granted not everything goes smoothly. You almost earn the eternal ire of a pair of local shepherds when their flock nearly panics at the sight of you, or more likely the smell. Something in their woolly heads must have told the beasts not trust your human guise. Thankfully music makes for an excellent means to soothe the flock, or at least an excellent cover for the sorcery you actually use to calm them. One can now add 'sheep whisperer' to the many skills of Buttercup the bard you suppose. As your feat begins to draw a crowd you wonder if this is the right place to sing of 'Ser Geralt and the Landsharks' or if you aught to hurry to enlist yourself in the melee first, but before you can decide you hear the sound of someone shouting in anger nearby and another shouting cruses followed by the dull thud of flesh on flesh.

No lawmen here, you think grimacing at the sight of the red-haired knight from the tavern, currently red-faced also, standing over a boy he had obviously just struck. "The hells do you think you are doing, Wenyld, prancing around here dressed like that, with a green apple on your shield too?!"

It's only when you hear this that you realize the child currently scrambling to get up among the roots of the linden tree is a girl, though obviously intentionally disguised as a boy, a squire to be exact, bearing the green apple of the House Fossoway of New Barrel rather than the red of Cider Hall, though you gather from the unpleasant fellow whose name you still do not know that the girl is his niece.

"It's a green apple 'cause I'm not ripe yet like in the story," she finally manages to get a word in edgewise. It takes you a moment to remember which story. It had been here on Ashford Meadow that Duncan the Tall had faced Prince Aerion Brightflame in a Trial of the Seven to ultimately triumph, though costing the life of Prince Baelor Targaryen who had taken the hedge knight's side over his brother. For House Fossoway that day had marked an even more important moment. Raymun Fossoway, still a squire, had sided against his cousin Ser Steffon after the latter had betrayed Ser Duncan and from that day taken for his seal the green apple over the red.

"I know you're not ripe or I would have seen to it your father would've married you off by now!" the knight shouts. You begin to wonder what beast would best suit him to be cursed into.

"Lord Owen said ladies can shoot in the archery competition so I'll go do that then," Wenyld says, the set of her jaw making it clear she was far from cowed. Before her uncle can react she darts away and into the crowd.

"I'll not have you behave like a Dornish whore!" the fool and soon to be jest of half the town calls after her. The only way it could be anymore humiliating for him would be if the girl actually won the contest. Perhaps with a bit of magic that can be arranged.

For now, however, you you sing one more song for all to hear and marvel at. The notion of sharks that swim in earth not water draws quite the crowd, and whether they believed in the beasts or not you have certainly carried 'Ser Geralt's' fame further. After that getting yourself signed up for the melee is as easy as a wink and a nudge to the herald handling the lists. Lord Owen had clearly told him to help you on your way to 'making a good story'.

Do you interfere in the archery competition?

[] Yes
-[] Write in how

[] No, move on straight to the melee

OOC: My encounter table really wants you to hate that knight it seems.