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

It was just as loud as the first time she had come here. There was not all that much shouting even, only the traders who were trying to make themselves heard over the din, but it was still deafening. There were so many people, speaking so many tongues and all of them were doing so at the same time. It was hard to say where one person ended and the next begun, so thick was the crowd, and they were not walking, but flowing. Like the waves, they moved in swept lines instead of straight ahead, flowing around stalls and wagons as if they were stones on the beach. It was so easy to get lost in between them. To just become part of the ebb and flow, of the teeming masses. If one were to look from above, such as the bird which she knew were not birds, would they even see people at all or just a tapestry of little dots?

There were just so many of them and who would truly recognize another brown-haired woman among it all? There were Bullmen that stood head and shoulders above all others, yet even they garnered not a second glance except by those who hoped to get to their destination faster if they followed in the gap the giants left behind them. Snakemen kept their tails tucked close to themselves to spare themselves to have them stepped on. Clothed monkey and bird-like creatures flew from building to building, launching themselves over the crowd without a moment's hesitation. Nothing was worth a second look in these streets, no matter how strange it should have been.

When she entered the labyrinth of stands that made up the bazaar it became easier, though. Here, in between the stalls, the pressing and shoving lessened as people instead began to slow down and took their tame to look over the wares offered. Her gaze fell over fruits she couldn't name, clothes as she never imagined, and arcane wonders never dreamt of in her youth, yet it all was peddled for coppers like fish. Her nose smelled spices like none she had ever smelled before and perfumes that seemed to seep straight into her chest and mind, spreading a lingering warmth. She had been to the market before, but never one such as this. Never one where everything was so wrong and alien to every sense.

Next to a stall with metal goods, she paused. It was not the proprietor who made her stop, even though he bore horns and a red tint to his skin that dredged up memories of the stories her Septa scared her with when she was younger. Neither was it the craftsmanship, even though she could freely admit it stunning how well every single leaf of the silver wreath was formed. No, she stopped because of what was within the wreath. A plate of silver, shined so brightly and thoroughly that she could see the face that reflected itself within just as clearly as she could see the person next to her.

The face of Neira of Wheatridge stared back at her. Her face was plain and rather round, brown eyes and hair rounding out an appearance that was so very forgettable. She was a peasant girl, having come to the Deep from the Reach to make her fortune with her meager skills at sorcery. It was not even that she was ugly, just a bit plain and average as if someone had cracked open a book on Westerosi smallfolk and brought one of the illuminations to life. The only problem was that Neira's face was not hers and it never would be. Her face was just as strange and alien as everything else about this place, even if it stared at her every morning from the small bronze mirror she used to do her hair.

Her face was a different one. Her name was a different one. Vonilda Ambrose, firstborn daughter of Lord Arthur Ambrose and Lady Alysanne Ambrose ne Hightower. Her face should have been greeting her in the morning, but it did not and it likely never would again. For Vonilda Ambrose was dead and gone. She was dead and gone. Nobody even had bothered to inform her about how her life had ended. Was it painful? Had she suffered? Did the Lord and Lady Ambrose grieve the passing of her daughter? She didn't know. Nobody had told her any of this and neither had she asked. She didn't dare to.

Vonilda would disappear and die, so that Neira could be born in her stead. That was the bargain she had struck and there was no turning back now. The stranger would keep starring at her from the mirror until she would no longer be a stranger, however long that would take. If that meant that Vonilda had to become Neira, or that Neira would become the new Vonilda, the young woman who bore both names could not say. She had not lightly cast aside her old name, for with all the worries and sour memories, there also came fond ones. Though it was sometimes hard to remember how much of the latter had been real. It had been so easy to give a push here and a tug there. A little bit of helping to make them nicer to her, more agreeable and attentive. Maybe it was not her parents that she remembered fondly, but the puppets dancing on her strings.

She was feeling cold, despite the warm, southern breeze and the shining sun. Part of her wanted to ask herself why she had come here in the first place, but that way lay only the short and damning answer she had known the moment she agreed to the bargain. She had no choice. Back in the Reach, she had tried to make a nice and pleasant life for Vonilda. Instead she had made a lie. A play. She had used the stage and the actors provided to her, but their movements had been her choice alone at the end. But in doing so, she had made herself the director and thus Vonilda became just another role in a play that had to end at some point.

Maybe that was why she felt the mask of Neira so keenly. How it's edges were pressing down on her, the role demanding things that the person playing it wanted no part of. Just like Vonilda before it, but now that she had the knowledge and words to express her pain, it was so much harder to ignore it. Her hand rose without a conscious thought and in her mind she could feel the slow rising of her power. Like honey, warm and sweet, it washed over her and rand towards her hand. Towards the finger that would fling it all at the hated face in that mirror.

And then she froze as if dunked into ice cold water. The warmth fled her hand, the gestures and words forgotten in the same instant they had taken to form in the first place. He was here again. Just as she wanted to shatter the thrice damned mirror, his face could be seen in it, smiling and winking at her like thrice before. She still didn't know who that man was or how he kept appearing whenever the mask of Neira began to slip, just to disappear an instant later like a figment. What she knew was that he was with her. Always it seemed. Her minder and her shadow, as the bargain dictated.

With a cold glance, she gave Neira of Wheatridge one last look, trying to impress her features into her mind. She hated that woman. She hated her just as much if not more then she hated Vonilda Ambrose. Those two women who were her and yet not. Who were masks and chains pressed onto her by others. Then she turned away, rejoining the endless masses of man- and otherkind. Her steps were soft and measured, just as those of Neira should have been, but within, there was something else. Something that was only hers. Something that was neither Vonilda, nor Neira. And it was something that she would not ever give them.

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AN: One day I will write a happy, well-adjusted and nice character who is at peace with themselves and the world. This day is not today.