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

First Day of the Fourth Month 294 AC

Robert Baratheon, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, was not, as his enemies would have it told, a stupid man. He did not ride in the hunt because he had no care for the storm gathering over his kingdom. He did it because he could see it all too well. Oh, he had been blind in the beginning, he had cursed himself in his cups more than once for not believing Stannis when he fought those damned pirates, for not asking to see those conjurors of Tywin's before he dressed them up in gold. He was not blind.

"'Ware, Your Grace!" Ser Mandon Moore called from behind him. Something pale darted through the branches ahead. An owl hooted.

"For fuck's sake, Moore, did you leave your balls in the keep where it's warm?" Robert snapped back. His Kingsguard had been worrying at some omen or another for almost a month, something about cold and dead things. Selmy had even tried to keep him from riding out today because it was cold for a summer day.

Wouldn't that be something, Robert thought in disgust as he returned his horse along the path. All the bloody dragonspawn would have to do would be to make the weather chill and he'd lock him in his own keep. He reached for the wine, always had it on him these days, then stopped at the sound of twigs breaking off the path, another flash of white, probably a bloody rabbit the way his luck was going today.

The king urged his horse farther and looked back at his knights. "Well, what are you waiting for, a personal invitation?"

"Your Grace, it is getting un-n-seasonably c-cold," Lancel whined. "Probably the work of some spirit or fey, we should..."

"Scurry back with our tails between our legs and warm our wilting cocks by the fire?" Robert bit out, drawing a flush of shame from his squire's cheeks. As he turned back towards the path, he felt the smallest sting of remorse, not from saying the words, but from saying them to the wrong person. They should really have been said to the small council.

Just ride out and have done with the whole bloody war, man to whatever the fuck the Dragonspawn had turned himself into, Robert thought not for the first time. These days it looked like half his lords could hardly wait to unfurl the dragon's banner once more, and the enemy had half of Essos at his beck and call, never mind some Valyrian monster maker where you could pour in corpses and spit out armies.

It was getting colder, the sounds of his companions fading into the distance behind him. Was it snowing? Some small part of the king started at the strange moment, but most of his attention was on the road and the thoughts that had all but come to consume him these past months. If he did attack with no hope of winning, with no plan to even hurt the bastard since the Lannisters were long on promises and short on weapons, then he would be proving him right. That would not be what a king should be doing.

Robert took a drink from his flask. It tasted bitter on the tongue. "I never wanted to be the fucking king," he spat, knowing the wind would cover the sound of his voice. When had it gotten this bad? For some reason the path in front of him was still clear of snow. Almost like it was leading him somewhere...

Abruptly the king pulled on the reigns, his horse stopping with an almost pained whinny. Something was strange here, he should turn back. His own words from moments ago echoed cruelly back from the frozen air. Slowly, he got off his horse and checked to see if he still had all the amulets and talismans, the one that made him stronger and the one that made him hardier, and the one that kept things from stealing his mind. Then he slapped his horse on the rump and sent it back along the path. Someone would find it, or it would find people eventually, then he turned back to the open path and whatever was waiting for him at the other end.


There was no snow in the clearing, just ice. It seemed to have frozen over perfectly, every fern, every leaf, every tiny wild flower. Robeer froze when he saw the blue roses, and when he heard her voice it was like the first thaw of spring. "You don't have to be king if you don't want to be. You can stay here with me, my love."

He knew that voice... he had never heard it speak those words. Lyanna...

There among the ceder trees frozen in bloom walked a woman with hair as black as raven's feather and eyes grey as steel. Robert recognized the delicate arches of her eyebrows, the flash of her smile. He had seen them in dreams more times than he could count. "Well, aren't you going to welcome me back?" the she-wolf asked with that challenging tone that had set his blood afire.

Her skin was corpse pale and the snow moved with her.

"You... you aren't her," Robert barely managed to force the words past his lips. He would never know how he did it.


The woman kept waking towards him until she was close enough to embrace. He could not feel her breath on his cheek. She looked him up and down slowly before answering. "I'm as real as your dreams. What has real gotten you, Robert, save heartbreak and pain?" She reached out to touch him and the king did not stop her. "Stay with me..."

"Stay with me forever." With every touch of corpse cold skin he could feel the life flowing from him. At the end Robert found he did not care.

Robert Baratheon was found naked and frozen to death in a clearing by his knights with a smile on his face.

OOC: So, that happened... Robert made all his rolls except the one against diplomacy (and depression), and the Void-corrupted Winter fey showed more sympathy than Cersei, because she could understand his despair at the end even as it used it to kill him. Cersei may actually spit blood at seeing that Robert died with a content expression on his face.