- Location
- Wörms, the half continent
Wait, so does he have no training or training?
Damn, ninja'd.
Happened to me to. Probably Xon doing stuff.
So, if Neds 3, would that make Jamie and Selby 4&5, respectively?
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A Song of Ice and Glamour [ASOIAF/C:TL-nWoD]
Damn, ninja'd.
So, if Neds 3, would that make Jamie and Selby 4&5, respectively?
So have the Others been replaced by the Gentry of Arcadia, or do they still exist as kin to them?
Also, do you have any plans for Luwin? Because I can see the guy as a Thaumaturge, a practitioner of minor magics.
Since this is a WoD fusion with ASOIAF, the supernatural forces might be a little more active and present than in the books or tv series.
So currently, only the lesser sorceries can be used.
But when the Dragons hatch, I'm certain the Awakenings will start to happen at an extraordinary rate...
Also, do you have any plans for Luwin? Because I can see the guy as a Thaumaturge, a practitioner of minor magics.
Since this is a WoD fusion with ASOIAF, the supernatural forces might be a little more active and present than in the books or tv series.
So currently, only the lesser sorceries can be used.
But when the Dragons hatch, I'm certain the Awakenings will start to happen at an extraordinary rate...
- Location
- Wörms, the half continent
That might be all Maesters, actually. And they would think themselves Great, until an actual Mage teaches them otherwise.
Or at least every Maester who earned a Valyrian Steel link.
Marwyn the Mage, in my mind, would probably be one of the few Awakened of Westeros.
The Archmaester could also be one of ASOIAF's equivalents to the Eyes of Ain Soph!
That's an interesting thought - there are some thematic similarities between the Others and the Gentry, but the Others are a bit more omnicidal.
Speaking personally, I think the Maesters would be a Hunter conspiracy if they had to be rammed into a WoD slot. The ones with Valyrian steel links would be thaumaturges, but the overall organization is pretty anti-magic.
Edit:
Ninja-ed, ha ha. Or would that be Faceless Man-ed considering the setting?
- Pronouns
- They/Them
This is all very delicious speculation, though it's useful to also point out that at the very least, Waymar Royce feels he has reason to mock the superstition of others, so, well, take that as you will.
Though he does have that classic, "My religion is logical and makes sense, yours is just a bunch of old superstitions" sort of viewpoint, so take heed, he's not necessarily the most...objective guy. And then he becomes a dog.
*
*One of many goals with this fic is to try to have it so that not everyone is an atheist pretending to be pious, because in ASOIAF, the Seven are roundly mocked and you can count the pious viewpoint characters on one hand. Whereas in a medieval world, even the impious would at least entertain some notions or go to church to keep up appearances.
And yeah, Faceless Man-ed it is.
Though he does have that classic, "My religion is logical and makes sense, yours is just a bunch of old superstitions" sort of viewpoint, so take heed, he's not necessarily the most...objective guy. And then he becomes a dog.
**One of many goals with this fic is to try to have it so that not everyone is an atheist pretending to be pious, because in ASOIAF, the Seven are roundly mocked and you can count the pious viewpoint characters on one hand. Whereas in a medieval world, even the impious would at least entertain some notions or go to church to keep up appearances.
And yeah, Faceless Man-ed it is.
Let's be fair, you'd need one and a half hands to count all of the pious POVs.
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- Pronouns
- They/Them
Okay, just thought of a great reason to have character sheets. If/when characters appear who have unusual abilities of some kind, I need to be able to know what they can do since that affects their problem solving and the like.
Wouldn't want to write myself in a, "Oh no I'm trapped" situation, only to later realize that, wait, the character can just fly away.
Wouldn't want to write myself in a, "Oh no I'm trapped" situation, only to later realize that, wait, the character can just fly away.
Not to mention that since this is WoD, said deities/deity might actually exist, and are more real, wondrous, and more than absolutely TERRIFYING than anyone can imagine.
World of Darkness! Where even your loving, Patron God can be just as Eldritch as the rest of them!
- Location
- Wörms, the half continent
Hmm. Looking at The Laurent's idea thread, I'm now wondering if that the Crannogmen could be Talebound, given that they are supposedly the result of human/CotF breeding.
Ardion Prosili
An (im)Perfect Cell
Well, if this is a world of darkness, I'm siding with whoever wants to destroy it and the horrible god machine that exists only to make things shittier for everyone forever
Its time to DESTROY GEORGE RR MARTIN!
Its time to DESTROY GEORGE RR MARTIN!
pantherasapiens
you were always my best friend
- Location
- somewhere over your shoulder
I wonder if there'll be any Geniuses... or Prometheans.
I believe Qyburn fits the criteria as a Demiurge.
Though personally, the idea of Prometheans not having souls offends me. If a being possesses emotions, free will, and Awareness he/she most certainly IS a Soul!
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Geniuses ain't going to happen, just to tell you right now.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
So, good news! You can't know or see it, but I thought through a *lot* of the cosmology. Now, that doesn't mean I hadn't before, but I have it detailed enough that I could tell it as a really, really weird fairy-tale. With a lot of death and hubris.
That will help me with setting things up. As you all know, I want to keep up a good buffer so that I can keep ahead, so that's all good! Currently at a buffer of 9/8 (8 is minimum I need to have a buffer of 7 after a release).
Here, have some excerpts from the cosmology.
*****
In the beginning, there was [Redacted]...a mirror to show [Redacted]...1001 Contracts that [Redacted]. And so in their folly [Redacted]...[Redacted]...[Redacted]...Bran the...[Redacted]
...[Lots of Redaction]
High towers, and yet [Redacted]...[Redacted]...Valyrian Steel...[Redacted]
In the beginning, there was [Redacted]...Yi-Ti [Redacted]...Andals [Redacted]...Wall [Redacted]
And then the Targaryens showed up.
*****
I hope this was helpful to everyone.
Also, I've managed to narrow down some ideas, or rather widen them up, for if I ever ran a Mage Quest.
Possible characters, now:
Tyrion
Brienne of Tarth
Dany
Tommen (Child Mage Quest!)
Davos
I've also thought up a complex cosmology for *this* as well.
That will help me with setting things up. As you all know, I want to keep up a good buffer so that I can keep ahead, so that's all good! Currently at a buffer of 9/8 (8 is minimum I need to have a buffer of 7 after a release).
Here, have some excerpts from the cosmology.
*****
In the beginning, there was [Redacted]...a mirror to show [Redacted]...1001 Contracts that [Redacted]. And so in their folly [Redacted]...[Redacted]...[Redacted]...Bran the...[Redacted]
...[Lots of Redaction]
High towers, and yet [Redacted]...[Redacted]...Valyrian Steel...[Redacted]
In the beginning, there was [Redacted]...Yi-Ti [Redacted]...Andals [Redacted]...Wall [Redacted]
And then the Targaryens showed up.
*****
I hope this was helpful to everyone.
Also, I've managed to narrow down some ideas, or rather widen them up, for if I ever ran a Mage Quest.
Possible characters, now:
Tyrion
Brienne of Tarth
Dany
Tommen (Child Mage Quest!)
Davos
I've also thought up a complex cosmology for *this* as well.
- Location
- Wörms, the half continent
Ooh. If I could choose, it would totes by Davos. Best seaman by far. Next Tyrion, then probably tommen, just to see the changes.Possible characters, now:
Tyrion
Brienne of Tarth
Dany
Tommen (Child Mage Quest!)
Davos
I've also thought up a complex cosmology for *this* as well.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
...I have plans for Davos in this fic as well. They're, uh, not happy plans, I admit.
Also, I've managed to narrow down some ideas, or rather widen them up, for if I ever ran a Mage Quest.
Possible characters, now:
Tyrion
Brienne of Tarth
Dany
Tommen (Child Mage Quest!)
Davos
I've also thought up a complex cosmology for *this* as well.
Tommen a Mage? He doesn't exactly strike me as "Master of the Mystic Arts" Material.
Dany, being of a lineage of Sorcerer-lords, would be more likely to Awaken, especially when she hatches her "children".
- Pronouns
- They/Them
It depends on whether magic is heriditary. Or what even was Valyria. Either in this fic, or in the Mage Quest.
And, remember, people can become Mages while having no idea what the fuck is going on. I wanted a child mage, but didn't want it to be a Stark because it's too easy to go with Stark...whatsiting then.
Stark rampent, triumphant, whatever else. And there aren't a lot of kids besides the Starks, really.
To note, this isn't for this Fic.
Hell, I'll even be very specific.
In "A Song of Ice and Glamour, Tommen is not and will not become a Mage."
I don't want to say other stuff, really, because I'm trying to keep it under my hat, but the list is entirely 'ideas I find interesting.' Child mage is interesting, and 'evil brother and you're a child-pawn King could be interesting.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Update tomorrow!
- Location
- Versailles
I must say that this story caught my attention
Chapter 1: Eddard 1
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Chapter 1: Eddard 1
Eddard Stark prayed at the godswood often. The sway of the Wyrdwood, the beauty of the place, it always struck him. He had even been blessed before, however rarely, with the sight. His line was sometimes so blessed, though never for long. A month once at the most, but it was more than most gained. And today, of all days, he needed it. For a deserter had been found, far beyond the wall. The third that year, but unlike the others, he was strange. Ragged and desperate, yes, that was common.
But he spoke in some foreign tongue, one that nobody even began to recognize, and when Eddard had gone to see him, unannounced, the half-dead, quiet and terrified man had gotten frantic in his babbling. Yet none of his words made any sense.
There were languages, languages of the old gods and the old ways, that no man could speak now except through their blessing. Things no man could see. The Old Gods' blessed rarely enough, almost not at all, and never to those who doubted their gifts. So he sat there, staring at the wyrdwood, meditating on it.
At some point, something changed. It was hard to place exactly what, but the darkness of early morning seemed a little less powerful, and he rose, stretching.
A deserter taken at a nearby holdfast, this far south. It seemed suddenly a portent, but of what? What, really, did portents mean?
He shook his head, pulling his furs closer to him, and turned.
When he walked through the halls, the torches seemed to be dancing in place, and he knew that he'd been given something. Given something wondrous as he had before.
*****
They rode out on horseback. Eddard Stark glanced around at the others, even Bran, who Catelyn had wanted to spare until 'the next one, Ned, please.' He liked her kindness, and the care she felt for Bran warmed him, but he needed to learn. Eddard glanced over at Bran.
He favored his mother, that much was clear, and his light blue eyes glanced back at his father curiously.
The boy was eight, which was not so young as it seemed. If his ambitions of being a knight, ambitions that put him at some variance with the northern customs, were to go anywhere, he'd have to begin training in earnest soon. Even were he not to be, he'd still need training in arms, and Eddard allowed himself a moment to consider this. Robb had already received the best training he could, ongoing, but Bran had been deemed too young for much. The Master-at-arms was right to take things slow, but he knew that Bran would soon reach the age where the world opened up.
The time of childhood was passing, Eddard thought. He smiled softly and swept his eyes over the others.
Robb, auburn hair thick, build stocky and strong, sure to grow up in the next few years to be a great warrior and heir.
Theon Greyjoy, their ward, who was as quick on his feet as he was with his brain. A strange boy, but he'd grown up there, and Ned had tried all he could to raise the boy as if he were his own. Certainly, Theon had grown up strong and dark and clever, and had received training in every art the Maester could place before him. Eddard had done his duty, and far more than that. But there were sometimes moments when he looked at Theon and wondered whether even duty was enough. There was something wild, something bizarre, about the Iron Islands.
He should laugh at himself, he thought, since he knew people said the same about the North.
And then there was Jon, sitting confidently on his horse. Eddard had never seen a youth take so easily to horsemanship, and to half a dozen other things. Quick with a sword, he did rather well at his lessons, and in so many ways that Eddard could name, there were reasons to be proud of Jon Snow. And yet, just as with Theon, it felt like there was a barrier to understanding, some last…
It was not something he could allow himself to think on. It would come to no good end, and Eddard was nothing if not practical, shoving the thoughts from his head. His honor demanded little else. On the horses came, until at last, the prisoner was brought out.
Eddard had seen them once before, but this time they dismounted, staring closer at the old man, fingers and toes frostbit off. And...he looked different.
Twisted and gnarled, bonier than before, his face half-masked in shadows despite the light of the sun beating down. It was cold as ever in the North, but though the man shivered, Eddard had long since stopped noticing it. And so had the man. This, this was fear, fear so great it seemed to fill him until there was nothing.
But when the man saw him, he began to babble. It didn't make much sense, but it made some. With a single commanding gesture, Eddard said, "Bring him closer." He dismounted, waiting as the snarling, spitting man was guided closer.
"Gift. Naarrr. Uuhhh. Gift. You," the man muttered, "Strength. Baieadhfuad. Hahhhttee. Hot place. Present. Omen. Dire. Your...Stark." He tried to leap at Eddard, but before Eddard could even draw his blade, he'd been pulled back.
"That is enough," Eddard said, thinking of the words. Gift for him? A gift of strength? It seemed like nonsense, but that seemed like all he was going to get out of him, and the very fact that he hadn't been intelligible meant that something had changed.
He glanced over at Jory and then at Theon. Theon started, moving forward, delicately holding his sword in his hand. Ice, always at the ready. A blade of Valyria, a place still seeped in its own mysteries, mysteries quite different from the North's. The blade, though, was familiar, as he peeled off his gloves and handed them to Jory Cassel, a loyal and good man.
As this brother of the Night Watch should have been. Taking a breath, he drew Ice and waited until the deserter in black was placed on the stump. The words flowed as smoothly as they had the previous two times, "In the name of Robert of the House Baratheon, First of His Name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm," and here Eddard was careful to not say Robert's newest title, for fear of offense, "By the word of Eddard of the House Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, I do sentence you to die."
It was a single, smooth motion. He'd done it far too often lately, and the head bounced, as horses reared and blood spilled. It landed at Theon's feet, but against expectations the boy leapt back, and then started laughing. "Gods blood, I thought it grinned at me," Theon said, laughing rather more lightly than the seriousness of the situation required. A few men turned to glare at him, Robb included, but Eddard let it pass, his mind already moving past the death. He wished he could talk to the Maester about it, but signs and omens and the old faith were not topics liable to end well.
And Ned knew it was folly, had to be, at least a little.
*****
They rode back, and Eddard thought back to Bran. His second son had seen his first real death, the first person he'd seen to die. When Jon and Robb raced back, Jon quickly taking the lead, he noticed that his second youngest son didn't follow. It was strange, for though his pony couldn't keep up, on another day Bran would have tried. Eddard took a breath and rode forward, wondering if Catelyn had been right. She was, often enough. A smart woman, another thing he appreciated about his wife. "Are you well, Bran?" he asked carefully. The boy was adventuresome, and he didn't want to discourage that, but the realities of the world had to press in. One couldn't live in hearth stories forever.
Whether one wanted it or not.
"Yes father. Robb says the man died bravely, but Jon says he was afraid, and I heard things. Like, looking at him," Bran said, trying to sound calm, "It felt like he was different. Wrong somehow, and when he was babbling...it felt as if I could almost understand it if only I could listen."
Eddard thought for a moment, staring at his son, "Perhaps you should try praying at the Godswood, and see what you find. As well, I think in life you'll find that the only time you can be brave is when you're afraid. I hope," he said, "You can understand why I had to do it."
"He was a wildling. They carry off women to sell to the Others, and they have strange powers and do evil things," Bran said.
"Old Nan has been telling you stories," Eddard said, smiling, "Perhaps some of them have a little truth, but more importantly is the fact that the man is an pledgebreaker, a deserter from the Night's Watch. No man is more dangerous, for he knows his life is forfeit, and that there are none who will shelter him. He will not flinch from any crime, no matter what. But what I asked is why I was the one to execute him. King Robert may have a headsmen, and so too did the Targaryens before them, but ours is the blood of the First Men, and we hold to the belief that the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would kill a man, you owe it to him to look him in the eyes, record his last words."
He thought about those last words. Who would wish to record those? They meant something, unless they didn't. He took a breath, "If you are unwilling to do that, perhaps the man should not die."
"But what if there are too many people," Bran said, "Is that why Robert uses a headsman?" Bran asked.
"That may be it," Eddard said, smiling. Was it? He doubted it, "But that does not change our ways, and when the time comes, you will be Robb's bannerman, you will hold a keep for your brother and the King. When that time comes, you must not hesitate even one moment to bring justice, and yet you should take no pleasure in it. You cannot forget what death is, not without crippling yourself as a ruler." He thought of the old tales, of people brought into the Godswood, to places strange and and mystic. The Godswood was a gift, albeit one Catelyn disapproved of. "Perhaps you should go to the Godswood with me and pray, after all of this is done."
Bran nodded, eyes wide, though Eddard gave it good odds he'd forget. It was at that exact moment that Jon popped up at the crest of the hill. "Father, Bran, see what Robb has found!"
Eddard felt and dismissed a slight moment of hesitation. He didn't understand where it had come from, but he couldn't trust his instincts, not outside of battle. Not these instincts.
"Trouble my lord?" Jory asked.
"Perhaps. Come, let us see what mischief my sons have rooted out now," Eddard said, spurring his horse along. Everyone followed in his wake as he leaned forward, though soon Jory and Jon outpaced them. The horses were skittish, and Jory was a skilled rider, while Jon was a natural.
Robb was on the riverbank north of the bridge, kneeling in the snow, hood pulled back, cradling something. The boys babbled excitedly, and Ned's mind briefly seemed to jump, like someone who has heard the hearth story before and knows the end. His grip tightened on the reins, and next to him Theon seemed to share his opinion. "Gods!" he exclaimed, and reached for his sword.
But Jory had already drawn, "Robb, get away from it!"
Present. Dire.
Robb grinned, his whole face lightening with the emotion, teasing, "She can't hurt you, she's dead, Jory."
Eddard dismounted, and with a gesture the others did as well. He trudged slowly towards the form.
"What in the Seven Hells is that?" Theon asked.
"A wolf," Eddard said to himself, at the same time as Robb said the same, but louder. It felt as if the world had come undone at the edges, and Eddard knew that this must be how the high priests had felt, the people who, if there were secrets in this world, knew them all. The Old Faith had power, and he could almost feel, in some odd way, Theon's next words.
"A freak. Look at the size of that thing!"
It was larger even than they said direwolfs gotten, and it was majestic, even in death, something vast and ancient and profane.
No.
Ned shook his head. It was a wolf, nothing more, yet a wolf that had not been seen south of the wall in two hundred years. In death, it was slumped, ice clinging to it, and he could smell the death, the decay. It was pungent in the air, as with the deserter. Blood, blood on ice. Its eyes crawling with maggots, its mouth lolling open and--
Eddard stared for a moment, baffled and suddenly feeling a terror out of some old hearth story. In the wolf's mouth was a human hand, half-curled, the smallest of the fingers bit off. But when he blinked, the hand was gone. He saw things like that, sometimes, when he'd prayed at the godswood. Things that were there and then weren't. The beast was huge, larger than a pony. No man could have ridden it, even if it had consented, but a boy could. He pictured Bran on its back, he pictured the hand.
There were so many things it could mean, but he remembered his brother. Always superstitious, his brother had believed in omens, but most of all himself. His boldness, his wolf blood. "The blood of the wolf and the ice isn't so easily thwarted," he'd written, "We shall bring the Targaryen to heel. The omens are good." And then he'd died, horribly, miserably. Father murdered before his eyes, strangling himself to death.
That, to omens.
And yet.
He'd missed a little of what they had been saying, but he saw what they were looking at. Direwolf pups. Small blind balls of fur, but when one of them whined, it sounded like a human infant. His face was composed, but inside he was thinking faster than he had in some time.
The boys were hugging the puts, stroking them. Accepting them.
"Direwolves loose in the realm, after so many years," Hullen said, ever cautious. "I like it not."
"It is a sign," Jory said.
Eddard paused. Now someone had said what he hadn't wanted to even think, but he shook his head, "It is nothing more than a dead animal. Do we know what killed it? Her?"
Robb leaned forward over the dead beast and pointed to the throat, "There's something in the throat, there, just under the jaw."
Ned stepped forward, wondering just what he would find. He yanked the throat up, and a foot of broken antler, covered in blood and gore, was revealed. He reached out, picking it up, and for a moment he thought to keep it. But it was nothing more than superstition, and he tossed the bloody bit of antler aside. "Surprised she lived long enough to whelp." He tried to sound casual, but Jory dispelled it with his own dire words.
"Maybe she didn't. I've heard tales...maybe the bitch was already dead when the pups came."
"Born with the dead, worse luck," one of the huntsmen said, "We should kill the beasts in the godswood, to appease any bad signs. Least, that's what I'd do, my lord."
"We should be faster at it than that," Theon said, drawing his sword, "We shouldn't treat them with any superstition, just kill them."
Bran hugged a direwolf pup close, "No, it's mine!"
"We shall raise them," Robb said, glancing over at Eddard. But he didn't allow either disapproval or approval to show on his face. It was potentially, if omens and signs were to be believed, a 'gift.' But who accepted gifts as cursed as these? Yet, if there was something to it, no. No.
"You cannot do that, boy," Hullen's son Harwin said.
"Killing them would be a mercy," Hullen added.
"Hullen...he may speak true. Better a swift death than a hard one from cold and starvation," Eddard concluded. There was no wisdom in heeding vague intuitions, yet the Old Faith was strong in his blood.
"Ser Rodrik's red bitch whelped again last week. It was a small litter, only two live pups--" Robb began.
"And she will rip them apart when they try to nurse," Eddard said.
Strangely, it was Jon who saw something that Eddard had not even thought of, who spoke with a sort of authority. Who knew how the stories went. Jon was a young man who knew symbols, and yet would that he have not spoken. "There are five pups. Three male, two female, and you have five trueborn children. Three sons and two daughters, and the direwolf is your house's sigil. Your children were meant to have these pups, my lord." There was a sound in the distance, hard to define, like the first hard blow of winter, and Eddard glanced away from Jon.
"That count, is only right if--" Eddard began, though he felt deep in his bones that he would fail.
"The count is right," Jon said.
"You want no pup for yourself, Jon?" Eddard asked, carefully. He'd raised Jon just as much as he'd raised his trueborn sons. He even thought for a moment to bring up Theon, who as a ward--but no, what would that solve.
"The direwolf, it graces the banner of the starks. Yet I am no stark, father," Jon said.
Eddard looked at the boy for a long moment hearing the almost-human whine of the pups. Far more like infants than any pup he'd ever heard. "I will nurse him myself father. I will soak a towel with warm milk, and give him suck from that."
"Me too!" Bran chimed afterwards.
Eddard held up a hand, looking around.
"My lord, I still think this bodes ill," Jory said.
I do too, Eddard didn't say. But if it was a gift, if he was going to believe in omens, then these were for his sons. Not anyone else. And more importantly, if this was folly, it should stay a Stark folly. "I won't have you wasting the servants time. You will feed them and care for them, and you will train them yourself. Not the kennelmaster, who will have nothing to do with those monsters. You must have them able to not savage anyone around. And the old gods help you if you brutalize them or neglect them. A direwolf will rip a man's arm off as easily as a dog might take down a rat. They will grow to be large, and the beasts will not be easily bound. For all that, if you are willing to do it, I consent."
"I am willing, father," Robb said.
"Me too," Bran said.
Eddard called together the group, and they began to make their way back. He was troubled, and he needed to go to the godswood. It had been many years since his faith had shaken him so.
Halfway across the bridge, Jon pulled up, and Eddard felt as if he were again some mummer in a play. "What is it Jon?"
"Can't you hear it?" Jon asked, and he couldn't.
But Jon moved with a sort of unerring certainty towards the direwolf, back in that direction, and it was not long before he returned with an albino pup in his arms. The sixth stark.
"He must have crawled away from the others," Jon said.
Eddard felt the cold enter his bones even further. He needed a warm fire, but he also needed to go to the godswood. "Or been driven away," he said. He peered closer at the beast. It had red eyes, blood red, wide open, and the vague intelligence behind it. It was looking back at him and seeing something. Judging.
No, that was nonsense.
"An albino," Theon said with a chuckle, "It will die even faster than the others."
"No," Jon said, and Eddard muttered his words under his breath, in time with the boy. "I think not, Greyjoy. This one belongs to me."
*****
A/N: And so we face the stations of the canon...sorta. But with some definite changes. Parts of this are all but lifted (or basically copied) from what happened in canon, which makes me feel uneasy, but I have to show both similarities and differences, and as one might guess, things have already started to turn off their path. Next update is Catelyn, which is similar in some ways, again, to the original, but with a slightly different flavor. Then Jeanette, where things hopefully begin a slow turn.
Eddard Stark prayed at the godswood often. The sway of the Wyrdwood, the beauty of the place, it always struck him. He had even been blessed before, however rarely, with the sight. His line was sometimes so blessed, though never for long. A month once at the most, but it was more than most gained. And today, of all days, he needed it. For a deserter had been found, far beyond the wall. The third that year, but unlike the others, he was strange. Ragged and desperate, yes, that was common.
But he spoke in some foreign tongue, one that nobody even began to recognize, and when Eddard had gone to see him, unannounced, the half-dead, quiet and terrified man had gotten frantic in his babbling. Yet none of his words made any sense.
There were languages, languages of the old gods and the old ways, that no man could speak now except through their blessing. Things no man could see. The Old Gods' blessed rarely enough, almost not at all, and never to those who doubted their gifts. So he sat there, staring at the wyrdwood, meditating on it.
At some point, something changed. It was hard to place exactly what, but the darkness of early morning seemed a little less powerful, and he rose, stretching.
A deserter taken at a nearby holdfast, this far south. It seemed suddenly a portent, but of what? What, really, did portents mean?
He shook his head, pulling his furs closer to him, and turned.
When he walked through the halls, the torches seemed to be dancing in place, and he knew that he'd been given something. Given something wondrous as he had before.
*****
They rode out on horseback. Eddard Stark glanced around at the others, even Bran, who Catelyn had wanted to spare until 'the next one, Ned, please.' He liked her kindness, and the care she felt for Bran warmed him, but he needed to learn. Eddard glanced over at Bran.
He favored his mother, that much was clear, and his light blue eyes glanced back at his father curiously.
The boy was eight, which was not so young as it seemed. If his ambitions of being a knight, ambitions that put him at some variance with the northern customs, were to go anywhere, he'd have to begin training in earnest soon. Even were he not to be, he'd still need training in arms, and Eddard allowed himself a moment to consider this. Robb had already received the best training he could, ongoing, but Bran had been deemed too young for much. The Master-at-arms was right to take things slow, but he knew that Bran would soon reach the age where the world opened up.
The time of childhood was passing, Eddard thought. He smiled softly and swept his eyes over the others.
Robb, auburn hair thick, build stocky and strong, sure to grow up in the next few years to be a great warrior and heir.
Theon Greyjoy, their ward, who was as quick on his feet as he was with his brain. A strange boy, but he'd grown up there, and Ned had tried all he could to raise the boy as if he were his own. Certainly, Theon had grown up strong and dark and clever, and had received training in every art the Maester could place before him. Eddard had done his duty, and far more than that. But there were sometimes moments when he looked at Theon and wondered whether even duty was enough. There was something wild, something bizarre, about the Iron Islands.
He should laugh at himself, he thought, since he knew people said the same about the North.
And then there was Jon, sitting confidently on his horse. Eddard had never seen a youth take so easily to horsemanship, and to half a dozen other things. Quick with a sword, he did rather well at his lessons, and in so many ways that Eddard could name, there were reasons to be proud of Jon Snow. And yet, just as with Theon, it felt like there was a barrier to understanding, some last…
It was not something he could allow himself to think on. It would come to no good end, and Eddard was nothing if not practical, shoving the thoughts from his head. His honor demanded little else. On the horses came, until at last, the prisoner was brought out.
Eddard had seen them once before, but this time they dismounted, staring closer at the old man, fingers and toes frostbit off. And...he looked different.
Twisted and gnarled, bonier than before, his face half-masked in shadows despite the light of the sun beating down. It was cold as ever in the North, but though the man shivered, Eddard had long since stopped noticing it. And so had the man. This, this was fear, fear so great it seemed to fill him until there was nothing.
But when the man saw him, he began to babble. It didn't make much sense, but it made some. With a single commanding gesture, Eddard said, "Bring him closer." He dismounted, waiting as the snarling, spitting man was guided closer.
"Gift. Naarrr. Uuhhh. Gift. You," the man muttered, "Strength. Baieadhfuad. Hahhhttee. Hot place. Present. Omen. Dire. Your...Stark." He tried to leap at Eddard, but before Eddard could even draw his blade, he'd been pulled back.
"That is enough," Eddard said, thinking of the words. Gift for him? A gift of strength? It seemed like nonsense, but that seemed like all he was going to get out of him, and the very fact that he hadn't been intelligible meant that something had changed.
He glanced over at Jory and then at Theon. Theon started, moving forward, delicately holding his sword in his hand. Ice, always at the ready. A blade of Valyria, a place still seeped in its own mysteries, mysteries quite different from the North's. The blade, though, was familiar, as he peeled off his gloves and handed them to Jory Cassel, a loyal and good man.
As this brother of the Night Watch should have been. Taking a breath, he drew Ice and waited until the deserter in black was placed on the stump. The words flowed as smoothly as they had the previous two times, "In the name of Robert of the House Baratheon, First of His Name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm," and here Eddard was careful to not say Robert's newest title, for fear of offense, "By the word of Eddard of the House Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, I do sentence you to die."
It was a single, smooth motion. He'd done it far too often lately, and the head bounced, as horses reared and blood spilled. It landed at Theon's feet, but against expectations the boy leapt back, and then started laughing. "Gods blood, I thought it grinned at me," Theon said, laughing rather more lightly than the seriousness of the situation required. A few men turned to glare at him, Robb included, but Eddard let it pass, his mind already moving past the death. He wished he could talk to the Maester about it, but signs and omens and the old faith were not topics liable to end well.
And Ned knew it was folly, had to be, at least a little.
*****
They rode back, and Eddard thought back to Bran. His second son had seen his first real death, the first person he'd seen to die. When Jon and Robb raced back, Jon quickly taking the lead, he noticed that his second youngest son didn't follow. It was strange, for though his pony couldn't keep up, on another day Bran would have tried. Eddard took a breath and rode forward, wondering if Catelyn had been right. She was, often enough. A smart woman, another thing he appreciated about his wife. "Are you well, Bran?" he asked carefully. The boy was adventuresome, and he didn't want to discourage that, but the realities of the world had to press in. One couldn't live in hearth stories forever.
Whether one wanted it or not.
"Yes father. Robb says the man died bravely, but Jon says he was afraid, and I heard things. Like, looking at him," Bran said, trying to sound calm, "It felt like he was different. Wrong somehow, and when he was babbling...it felt as if I could almost understand it if only I could listen."
Eddard thought for a moment, staring at his son, "Perhaps you should try praying at the Godswood, and see what you find. As well, I think in life you'll find that the only time you can be brave is when you're afraid. I hope," he said, "You can understand why I had to do it."
"He was a wildling. They carry off women to sell to the Others, and they have strange powers and do evil things," Bran said.
"Old Nan has been telling you stories," Eddard said, smiling, "Perhaps some of them have a little truth, but more importantly is the fact that the man is an pledgebreaker, a deserter from the Night's Watch. No man is more dangerous, for he knows his life is forfeit, and that there are none who will shelter him. He will not flinch from any crime, no matter what. But what I asked is why I was the one to execute him. King Robert may have a headsmen, and so too did the Targaryens before them, but ours is the blood of the First Men, and we hold to the belief that the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would kill a man, you owe it to him to look him in the eyes, record his last words."
He thought about those last words. Who would wish to record those? They meant something, unless they didn't. He took a breath, "If you are unwilling to do that, perhaps the man should not die."
"But what if there are too many people," Bran said, "Is that why Robert uses a headsman?" Bran asked.
"That may be it," Eddard said, smiling. Was it? He doubted it, "But that does not change our ways, and when the time comes, you will be Robb's bannerman, you will hold a keep for your brother and the King. When that time comes, you must not hesitate even one moment to bring justice, and yet you should take no pleasure in it. You cannot forget what death is, not without crippling yourself as a ruler." He thought of the old tales, of people brought into the Godswood, to places strange and and mystic. The Godswood was a gift, albeit one Catelyn disapproved of. "Perhaps you should go to the Godswood with me and pray, after all of this is done."
Bran nodded, eyes wide, though Eddard gave it good odds he'd forget. It was at that exact moment that Jon popped up at the crest of the hill. "Father, Bran, see what Robb has found!"
Eddard felt and dismissed a slight moment of hesitation. He didn't understand where it had come from, but he couldn't trust his instincts, not outside of battle. Not these instincts.
"Trouble my lord?" Jory asked.
"Perhaps. Come, let us see what mischief my sons have rooted out now," Eddard said, spurring his horse along. Everyone followed in his wake as he leaned forward, though soon Jory and Jon outpaced them. The horses were skittish, and Jory was a skilled rider, while Jon was a natural.
Robb was on the riverbank north of the bridge, kneeling in the snow, hood pulled back, cradling something. The boys babbled excitedly, and Ned's mind briefly seemed to jump, like someone who has heard the hearth story before and knows the end. His grip tightened on the reins, and next to him Theon seemed to share his opinion. "Gods!" he exclaimed, and reached for his sword.
But Jory had already drawn, "Robb, get away from it!"
Present. Dire.
Robb grinned, his whole face lightening with the emotion, teasing, "She can't hurt you, she's dead, Jory."
Eddard dismounted, and with a gesture the others did as well. He trudged slowly towards the form.
"What in the Seven Hells is that?" Theon asked.
"A wolf," Eddard said to himself, at the same time as Robb said the same, but louder. It felt as if the world had come undone at the edges, and Eddard knew that this must be how the high priests had felt, the people who, if there were secrets in this world, knew them all. The Old Faith had power, and he could almost feel, in some odd way, Theon's next words.
"A freak. Look at the size of that thing!"
It was larger even than they said direwolfs gotten, and it was majestic, even in death, something vast and ancient and profane.
No.
Ned shook his head. It was a wolf, nothing more, yet a wolf that had not been seen south of the wall in two hundred years. In death, it was slumped, ice clinging to it, and he could smell the death, the decay. It was pungent in the air, as with the deserter. Blood, blood on ice. Its eyes crawling with maggots, its mouth lolling open and--
Eddard stared for a moment, baffled and suddenly feeling a terror out of some old hearth story. In the wolf's mouth was a human hand, half-curled, the smallest of the fingers bit off. But when he blinked, the hand was gone. He saw things like that, sometimes, when he'd prayed at the godswood. Things that were there and then weren't. The beast was huge, larger than a pony. No man could have ridden it, even if it had consented, but a boy could. He pictured Bran on its back, he pictured the hand.
There were so many things it could mean, but he remembered his brother. Always superstitious, his brother had believed in omens, but most of all himself. His boldness, his wolf blood. "The blood of the wolf and the ice isn't so easily thwarted," he'd written, "We shall bring the Targaryen to heel. The omens are good." And then he'd died, horribly, miserably. Father murdered before his eyes, strangling himself to death.
That, to omens.
And yet.
He'd missed a little of what they had been saying, but he saw what they were looking at. Direwolf pups. Small blind balls of fur, but when one of them whined, it sounded like a human infant. His face was composed, but inside he was thinking faster than he had in some time.
The boys were hugging the puts, stroking them. Accepting them.
"Direwolves loose in the realm, after so many years," Hullen said, ever cautious. "I like it not."
"It is a sign," Jory said.
Eddard paused. Now someone had said what he hadn't wanted to even think, but he shook his head, "It is nothing more than a dead animal. Do we know what killed it? Her?"
Robb leaned forward over the dead beast and pointed to the throat, "There's something in the throat, there, just under the jaw."
Ned stepped forward, wondering just what he would find. He yanked the throat up, and a foot of broken antler, covered in blood and gore, was revealed. He reached out, picking it up, and for a moment he thought to keep it. But it was nothing more than superstition, and he tossed the bloody bit of antler aside. "Surprised she lived long enough to whelp." He tried to sound casual, but Jory dispelled it with his own dire words.
"Maybe she didn't. I've heard tales...maybe the bitch was already dead when the pups came."
"Born with the dead, worse luck," one of the huntsmen said, "We should kill the beasts in the godswood, to appease any bad signs. Least, that's what I'd do, my lord."
"We should be faster at it than that," Theon said, drawing his sword, "We shouldn't treat them with any superstition, just kill them."
Bran hugged a direwolf pup close, "No, it's mine!"
"We shall raise them," Robb said, glancing over at Eddard. But he didn't allow either disapproval or approval to show on his face. It was potentially, if omens and signs were to be believed, a 'gift.' But who accepted gifts as cursed as these? Yet, if there was something to it, no. No.
"You cannot do that, boy," Hullen's son Harwin said.
"Killing them would be a mercy," Hullen added.
"Hullen...he may speak true. Better a swift death than a hard one from cold and starvation," Eddard concluded. There was no wisdom in heeding vague intuitions, yet the Old Faith was strong in his blood.
"Ser Rodrik's red bitch whelped again last week. It was a small litter, only two live pups--" Robb began.
"And she will rip them apart when they try to nurse," Eddard said.
Strangely, it was Jon who saw something that Eddard had not even thought of, who spoke with a sort of authority. Who knew how the stories went. Jon was a young man who knew symbols, and yet would that he have not spoken. "There are five pups. Three male, two female, and you have five trueborn children. Three sons and two daughters, and the direwolf is your house's sigil. Your children were meant to have these pups, my lord." There was a sound in the distance, hard to define, like the first hard blow of winter, and Eddard glanced away from Jon.
"That count, is only right if--" Eddard began, though he felt deep in his bones that he would fail.
"The count is right," Jon said.
"You want no pup for yourself, Jon?" Eddard asked, carefully. He'd raised Jon just as much as he'd raised his trueborn sons. He even thought for a moment to bring up Theon, who as a ward--but no, what would that solve.
"The direwolf, it graces the banner of the starks. Yet I am no stark, father," Jon said.
Eddard looked at the boy for a long moment hearing the almost-human whine of the pups. Far more like infants than any pup he'd ever heard. "I will nurse him myself father. I will soak a towel with warm milk, and give him suck from that."
"Me too!" Bran chimed afterwards.
Eddard held up a hand, looking around.
"My lord, I still think this bodes ill," Jory said.
I do too, Eddard didn't say. But if it was a gift, if he was going to believe in omens, then these were for his sons. Not anyone else. And more importantly, if this was folly, it should stay a Stark folly. "I won't have you wasting the servants time. You will feed them and care for them, and you will train them yourself. Not the kennelmaster, who will have nothing to do with those monsters. You must have them able to not savage anyone around. And the old gods help you if you brutalize them or neglect them. A direwolf will rip a man's arm off as easily as a dog might take down a rat. They will grow to be large, and the beasts will not be easily bound. For all that, if you are willing to do it, I consent."
"I am willing, father," Robb said.
"Me too," Bran said.
Eddard called together the group, and they began to make their way back. He was troubled, and he needed to go to the godswood. It had been many years since his faith had shaken him so.
Halfway across the bridge, Jon pulled up, and Eddard felt as if he were again some mummer in a play. "What is it Jon?"
"Can't you hear it?" Jon asked, and he couldn't.
But Jon moved with a sort of unerring certainty towards the direwolf, back in that direction, and it was not long before he returned with an albino pup in his arms. The sixth stark.
"He must have crawled away from the others," Jon said.
Eddard felt the cold enter his bones even further. He needed a warm fire, but he also needed to go to the godswood. "Or been driven away," he said. He peered closer at the beast. It had red eyes, blood red, wide open, and the vague intelligence behind it. It was looking back at him and seeing something. Judging.
No, that was nonsense.
"An albino," Theon said with a chuckle, "It will die even faster than the others."
"No," Jon said, and Eddard muttered his words under his breath, in time with the boy. "I think not, Greyjoy. This one belongs to me."
*****
A/N: And so we face the stations of the canon...sorta. But with some definite changes. Parts of this are all but lifted (or basically copied) from what happened in canon, which makes me feel uneasy, but I have to show both similarities and differences, and as one might guess, things have already started to turn off their path. Next update is Catelyn, which is similar in some ways, again, to the original, but with a slightly different flavor. Then Jeanette, where things hopefully begin a slow turn.
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- Location
- Wörms, the half continent
What title is this, I wonder?
Otherwise excellently done. I noticed that Eddard called the Godswood the Wyrdwood at one point, which hints at things. Perhaps they are natural entrances to the hedge? Perhaps not.
Minor nitpick - if I remember correctly, canon Ned remained at a distance from Theon because of the latter's status as a hostage, though he never treated Theon badly. This is supported by how Ned asked Cat to keep a close eye on Theon so that they could use him to convince Balon to press the Lannisters from the sea, which suggests a level of cold pragmatism that he has never shown when it came to his own children.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
This Theon might, you know, be a little different. And there is certainly nothing in Ned's uncertainty in connecting to Theon that precludes him from using Theon pragmatically. He wants to connect to Theon because part of the whole point of a hostage thing is that you BEFRIEND the hostage child, then they go back and become the new ruler or whatever else!