As Black As Fate: A Mormegil Quest (ASOIAF/LOTR)

It only takes you a moment to learn where the Lord Stark has been held. The tired soldiers in the streets owe you their lives and more, and you get the feeling that a word from your lips holds as much sway with them as those of the Lord Hand--at least here and now, with the ash of battle in their hair and the sting of death upon their lips. A soldier recommends you to a friend who knows a friend who knows where the lord is being kept, in the great church on the hill above the town, a towering slab of stone and granite that gives the townhold below it's name--the eponymous Stoney Sept.

As you make your way through the clogged, tight streets, you briefly wonder if you will have trouble gaining access to the Sept--but your worries are washed away as you climb up the hill. Men throng around you, bloody and disheveled from the battle. Some are wounded men seeking treatment, others men praying to see their families one more time. You spot more than one group of men trying to carry a badly-wounded soldier to the sept that he might die under the eyes of his gods. As you look around at the faces in the crowd, you spot more boys than men--far more. One, a lad of fourteen at the greatest, howls as a septon perhaps two years older than him tries to stitch together the ruin of his arm.

You became used to gore and violence long ago, but this...children dying and bleeding on battlefields? Even in the darkest days of your life, you only ever fought alongside men grown, and only warriors fully-blooded marched to war against the Enemy. Not for the first time, you wonder at this world to which you have been sent.

After twenty or so minutes of slowly making your way through the thronging crowd, you make your way into the Sept. The first thing that hits you is the vastness of it--even your father's Hall at Dor-Lomin was only half the size of this place, and it was thing of wood and nails. The entrance of the sept opens into a vast room with a great, painted, seven-pointed star stretching across the stone floor. Each of the stars points ends at a towering statue which glowers down at the bleeding, sobbing masses below with impassionate eyes. You catch snippets of their names as you push your way into the sept--

"Oh, Mother have merc--"

"Maiden, watch over my daughter Ly--"

"Damn the Strange--"

"Warrior, look upon your favored son--"

"May the Father bless the King and grant victory to the Dragon--"

You understand what they are doing, but it is beyond strange. In Arda, there was no need to pray--the Valar were watching, always. Varda, the Star-Kindler, heard and still hears every voice and sound from east to west, and her husband Manwe saw and still sees beyond the furthest horizon. Wherever the seas rolled, there too dwelled Ulmo of the Waters, and wherever the growing things grew, there too grew Yavanna Kementari, the Earth-Mother. They acted only when they willed, but they watched always. Only in the darkest hour, when blood touched your tongue and steel touched your heart, might you cry aloud their names, in defiance to the Enemy in his Mountain.

Words, unbidden, flash across your mind, from your earliest childhood--

"Aure! Aure Entuluva!"

Day shall come again.

With monumental effort, you shrug off ghosts long dead, tighten your cloak further around you, and stride deeper into the sept. A few pointed questions lead you to an old cellar door that leads to an even older dungeon. The guard at the door merely gives you a respectful nod before stepping aside, and you push your way into a musty room that smells of cloying paper and ancient dust. Straw has been loosely piled in one corner, like some sort of impromptu bedding, and a cold bowl of murky soup lies, untouched, in the center of the room. In the corner is huddled a dark figure in a cloak of rich wolfskin, one who regards you with piercing grey eyes.

"Lord...Stark?" You inquire.

"The sellsword comes. You can return to your master, lapdog. I have already told him all that I will say. The North does not bow." His words are strong, but his voice is reedy--he is barely a man grown, and you can see boyhood fresh and clear behind the icy gaze.

"I have not come to see you bow. I am not a sellsword, and owe allegiance to no man."

"You slaughtered my men for what, then? A whim? I have never seen one who fights as you do. I do not know what black circle of hell Rhaegar pulled you from, but by the Old Gods and the New, I hope you return soon."

You grit your teeth before speaking again. "I have come from far, far away. I have come here seeking someone...someone I was told to find. I do not know this land, and I do not know it's people. I fought against you because I believed it was the best way to find the answers I seek."

The lordling is quiet for a moment, then speaks, his voice merely chill instead of icy. "And what answers would those be?"

"I know...little of this war, or why it is fought. I believe that if I asked Lord Connington, the answer I received would not be kind to you and yours. Who better to tell the truth than he who has no reason to hide it? Who is this Rhaegar? Why do you hate him so?"

Stark's eyes fix on yours for a moment, flicking with emotions you cannot read. After a long moment, he lets out a hoarse chuckle. "Gods. You really don't know. You butchered thirty men, and you had no idea why."

"Fine. I'll tell you. I'll tell you why we're fighting this war, and then--then--if you are any man at all, you will reconsider the side you've chosen to serve."

He takes a long, heavy breath, and shuts his eyes before speaking, like the words themselves are pain.

"My name is Eddard Stark, of the House Stark. The man who leads this rebellion is Robert Baratheon, the Lord of the Stormlands. My sister, Lyanna, was pledged to marry Robert. They were happy together. Good together. But the Mad King's son, the prince....Rhaegar."

Just the name seems to bring him unnatural rage, and you see his body tighten with anger as he speaks it.

"Rhaegar...lusted after her. He wanted her. Everyone knew it. He read his books and spoke of destiny and fate, but he would run his eyes over her like an animal. But it all came to a head at Harrenhal. He let Robert, my father, his father, everyone in the damn Seven Kingdoms know that he wanted her. He spurned his own wife and children for her. That was the moment when all the smiles died, when he gave her his favor instead of the mother of his children. But Rhaegar Targaryen wanted my sister." Stark's voice grew even colder and more bitter, and you hear the hatred on his tongue. "And what the Dragon wants, the Dragon gets."

"He took her, sellsword. We thought he might challenge Robert for her hand--gods, Robert wanted it, maybe more than he wanted her--but he didn't have the spine or the honor. He took her, without word or warning, like his blood gave him every right in the land. And my brother, Brandon. Stupid, brave Brandon. He rode to King's Landing to face Aerys and win back my sister, and my father, Rickard, came with him. He loved her most, you know. Since we were children. He would have died a thousand times before he let Rhaegar pluck a single strand of hair from her head. They demanded trial by combat--more than that kidnapper ever deserved. The King would hear our grievances, my father reasoned, no matter how mad he was."

"He murdered them."

You stir.

"What?"

"He tied a noose around my brother's neck and put a sword in front of him. If he could cut himself free, he and his father would be released, Lyanna would be returned, all would be forgiven. And then he lit my father on fire in front of him. My brother killed himself trying to reach that sword. They say when his fingers had almost grasped the hilt, the Mad King kicked it away."

Eddard looks up, and the icy man is gone. A boy stares at you, his eyes alive with hate to melt all the snows of all the North of Arda and Westeros alike.

"That is why we fight him, sellsword. Not for land or coin. They call it Robert's Rebellion, but is our Rebellion, mine as much as his. They murdered my father. They murdered my brother. They stole my sister. I will never bow while a Targaryen lives. I swear it, on the Old Gods, on the New Gods, on every god that ever was. "

"And if we fail. If you and yours win..." He locks eyes with you. "...then I hope I die as they did. I would rather burn as a wolf than live a dog."

He slumps back from the sitting position he has risen into over the course of his speech, and the rage in his eyes dims.

"Well? Know enough yet?"

You are, for lack of a better word, overcome. The pettiness, the cruelty, the base lusts and violence you have just heard described to you--this is beyond anything you have ever seen. It is the worst savageries of the orcs blended with the cruelest tortures of the Feanorians, the worst, most base parts of men. For the first time in what seems like a dozen lifetimes, your stomach turns. Murder, torture, kidnapping--without purpose, without need? What is this land of Westeros?

You look at the boy before you, who has seen and felt more than you ever did at his age, who has already lost what it took you a lifetime to lose.

[] Cut him free. Toss your cloak over him and sneak him out through the throng. You will not ally yourself with him, but neither can you leave him to the predations of House Targaryen. You will return to Connington's camp afterwards.

[] Do nothing. He has told you all he knows, and it is obviously the truth he believes, but you will not free a prisoner of war on a simple impassioned speech from his own point of view. You are best served now by returning to Connington and attempting to figure out the identity of the Little Lion.

[] Free him, and sneak out of the Stoney Sept with him. It will be difficult for him and his to accept you after you turned Gurthang against them short hours ago, but your conscience weighs too heavily to stand alongside these men.

[] Abandon them all. Leave Stark to his prison and Connington to his plans. This war and this King do not concern you. You know enough to navigate this war-torn land, and that is all you need.

[] Return to Connington and argue leniency on Stark's behalf. Connington is a reasonable man, and should see sense.

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