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

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Out in the empty taproom, she had paced all the time. The healer kept trying to make her sit down and wait while the last patient of the day was treated in the adjacent room, but she couldn't. There was too much energy, too much wrath and too much defiance in her thoughts, her blood running through her veins as if boiling. She had not come as a supplicant, but as one who would make demands. A woman grown who was not to be trifled with, like some wildling lady of old, not a meek girl to be pushed around. When the door had opened, a man cradling a bandaged arm leaving, she barely could contain herself. But then she waited instead of storming in until the healer had left with the man, leaving the door to the next room slightly ajar. She entered slowly, the heat in her heart turning into a strange tension with every step.

Now that she finally stood in the presence of the monster, of the thing that could shape flesh as if it was clay, all her wrath and defiance had left her. The lady Marita stood in front of a table, carefully stacking knives, hooks and other things into holders made from steel wire, then putting those into a small cauldron of what smelled like boiling vinegar. The surgeon wore her mask perfectly, wearing a perfectly sensible dress of dark blue fabric that reached her ankles and covered her properly. Her hair was long and black, flowing over her shoulders, except for a few stray tresses that framed her hazel colored eyes. It was so perfect. So ordinary. So fake.

A tiny mote of anger sparked again in her visitors chest, trying to rekindle the flames that drove her here, but being smothered out as quickly as it had come. She was Neira of Wheatridge again. An unassuming peasant girl that knew the woman before her to be above her in station. She was Vonilda Ambrose again. A noble lady who had been taught since she could think that it was a virtue to be seen, not heard. She was bereft of her power again. Just a girl, standing there and waiting to be acknowledged by someone. And she didn't. The lady Elaheh Marita, in all her doll-like beauty, was busy to see her workplace cleaned, ignoring her completely in favor of her work.

Her heart was lead. Cold and heavy. And it grew heavier with every beat that passed in silence, just as her throat became tighter and tighter. So she turned slowly away, her mouth opening to excuse herself for interrupting, but she didn't get so far. "You don't need to leave. I can finish this later if you don't want to talk with me while I clean up." The voice of lady Marita made her freeze. And indeed she had stopped her work and now looked at straight at her.

She tried to stammer out something, anything, but her throat was so tight that no sound came forth. The other woman just frowned at her, lowly stepping around her table, past the contraception she tied her patients to, and ever closer to the now furiously blushing girl. "If you have an issue with my work, don't be afraid to speak up. We were a bit vague while planning it out and I didn't have much chance to get your opinion while I worked." And the she already was upon her, the distance having shrunken to nothing and the lady Marita running a hand over Neiras face as if to find a flaw. "Just say something and I will gladly touch it up a bit. I think a slightly slimmer face would suit you well too, unless..."

But the girl had enough, taking a few quick steps back from the fleshcrafter. She was only dimly aware that his brought her further away from the door and now the lady Marita was blocking her only escape. All she wanted right now as to flee. Away from the monster and away from the questions that would come. She should have just went back home like the harmless little peasant she was supposed to be. Instead she had to run here like an idiot and now the older woman was staring at her with those hazel colored lies. "I take it that was too forward of me. I'm sorry if I offended you Neira." She even managed to sound sincere, bowing her head in apology.

She just shook her head. Not because the lady Marita hadn't startled her, for she most definitely had, but because it was pointless. All she wanted was to go back to her room and try to forget all of this. She didn't even remember what answer she expected to find here in the lair of the monster. All she could do was admire how easy and natural her mask came to the fleshcrafter. How convincing her concern was and how effortless she could hide herself behind what magic she was using. "Will it ever get easier?"

Her heart began to race when her mind caught up to the fact that she had whispered this instead of merely thinking it. Quickly her eyes darted back to the still half open door, but the other woman was still in her way and looking puzzled at her. "What do you mean Neira?"

Now her cheeks began to burn and she couldn't even name the burning mess of emotion threatening to suffocate her. A moment passed in silence, then another and finally the pressure won, forcing her to speak. "To wear a different face." She vaguely motioned to the face that she had been given. "To pretend to be someone else." She paused awkwardly, her hand still waving around aimlessly. "I thought you would know."

The fleshcrafter just stared thoughtfully for a moment, then ran her fingers through hair she likely didn't truly have. "Who do you think I am?" The question was stated plainly and without challenge, but the girl couldn't help to feel as if something terrible would happen if she answered it wrong. When the silence stretched, the lady Marita made a step forward, running a finger along her jaw and then down over her chest. "Is this who I am?" But then she changed.

Her hair began to clump together, strands turning into pitch black tendrils of pure shadow growing from her head and swaying in an unseen breeze. The eyes slunk back into her skull until they disappeared, leaving only the familiar empty pits that slowly weeping blood. Even the dress that looked so plain and sensible a moment ago was twisting, fabric braiding itself with skin and muscle and sinew until all but disappeared. Her flesh was flowing like water and her ribs turning aside, revealing a beating, cradled in a mess of barbed wires.

Worst of all though were the talon like claws that her fingers had become. Not because they were more fearsome then all the other changes, and in fact the girl was not feeling much fear at all, the terror of the sudden transformation numbing her to the sensation, but because of where one of them was placed. Elaheh had used the moment to take another step forward and now her talon was gently gliding over Neiras lips while she spoke in a husky voice, directly into the girls ear. "Or is this who I am?"

For a moment that seemed to her like eternity, they stood like that and not a single thought passed through the girls head. Still as a statue she stood as Neira's face was slowly turned towards that of Elaheh, which bore a grind that was far too wide and revealing far too many needle like teeth. "Come back to me when you have an answer to that question." And then she was gone, two steps all it took for her to leave the girls sight and disappear seemingly into thing air. Said girl though didn't stay and look around for the fleshcrafter and instead, in the very moment her legs were obeying her again, she ran for the door.

---

AN: There will be a slightly longer break, since Neira / Vonilda will need a bit of time to... digest things.

Fifth Day of the First Month 294 AC

Whatever might later be said of his thoughts that day Ser Waymar Royce considered stepping back, letting the Red Priestess work her exorcisms and then helping the others pick through the ruins of the long dead magnar's mad ambition. But in the end he could not bring himself to do it, not because he recalled the words of his oath echoing in his ear, not even because it was a lady asking him, though Tyene would doubtless tease him about it he knew, but simply because it was the right thing to do just as on that day almost four years ago it had been right to stand against the Howlers with sword and spell.

As the young knight stepped forward Lady Drekelis looked on in bemusement and perhaps a touch of frustration in her black gaze. By contrast Lady Melisandre's face was as unreadable as ever, though he thought her words were sincere when she said: "R'hllor's light be thy shield." It was Mereth however who surprised him most, offering a deep nod, almost a bow: "Know that if you are struck down by trickery you shall have aid and if you fall in honest battle you shall be avenged."

After only a second's hesitation he bowed back, feeling his cheeks warm in spite of the deathly chill of the chamber at having earned the respect of one so ancient in the ways of war, not only for his skills which he had proved against her once-lord's avatar, but for his choices also.

Catching the gaze of the specter he once more felt a chill down his spine, not from any look of malice or treachery on her luminous features, but from the desperate hope in them. This would be her last chance of freedom, Waymar knew without a doubt. Winter would soon be upon these lands and with its coming whatever ephemeral barriers she had raised against its power, whatever use she had once been to the Others would be no more. He wanted to promise that he would win, but he had seen enough of war to know that was not certain and Waymar Royce was still a terrible liar, that much had not changed in four years.

Reluctantly he sheathed Purity and took his hand from its still warm grip to grasp the sword of ancient bronze, fingers brushing across frozen light.

Runes burned bright upon he edge of the sword and within his mind, Mournblade, runes that should not have been placed together but were, at once master-work and blasphemy of a runesmith's art. A cold spike drove though his hand, up his arm and into his heart... beyond it into the place were his magic dwelt, where the lightning danced, now locked away behind a frozen wall.

Waymar is Cursed: Cannot use spells or SLAs with the Electricity Descriptor until the duel is complete

"Did you truly think the power to strike one of us down would come without a price?" The darkness all around him spoke like knives of ice in his mind, mocking but somehow empty as though even cruelty were nothing more than another brittle shell over some unknowable horror.

The being that stepped forth from the wall of ice as one might step though a curtain of silk was as familiar as the oldest dream his magic had given him, black as shadow, white as new-fallen snow, graceful and terrible. There were no trees here to make it dappled green, some small stray thought noted. This was not a dream.


"You tricked him, the magnar," Waymar accused meeting the poison-blue gaze unflinchingly. The sword would do more than seal way magic he now knew, it would take away whatever one counted their greatest strength in exchange for whatever fel magic burned within it. He almost wished he could blame the specter, but she was no sorceress and would not have seen the curse at work.

The Other did not answer, merely raised a sword blue as a glacier's heart, sharp as the bite of the winter wind.

What does Waymar reply?

[] "Dance with me then" (continues the duel)
-[] Write in tactics

[] "Kill it" (Calls on his companions to attack, forfeits the duel, ???)
-[] Write in tactics

OOC: It would not be much of a dance if Waymar could just blast enough lightning to kill a mature dragon out in the first six seconds now would it? On a less meta level the Others are fey, but they are also the Void and the Void does not play by the rules (unless R'hllor manages to force it to in his end game).