The Gift of Sight
Twenty-First Day of the Eighth Month 293 AC
If there is one thing one cannot accused Mors 'Crowfood' Umber of being it is hard to find. According to one inquisitorial report he fights hard, drinks harder, and seems most comfortable speaking at just below a dull roar once he has settled down with a tankard of ale. Surprisingly, however, he hasn't gotten into any fights off of the sands or the training field, instead finding companions in the most unlikely of places, from a stone giant working on the road crews to Ser Bonifer Hasty with whom he drew dramatically with in the melee.
On the other hand you cannot be certain how much of that goodwill he will show you, seeing as he had lost two sons in the bloody waters of the Trident fighting your brother's men. The fact that he is here would seem to show that he does not carry too heavy a grudge, but that is no reason not to stack the scales a touch more in your favor with the company you bring.
"It is good to be back in sight of the gods, away from the lands where men hunt other men like boars in the woods," Soft Strider says as the two of you walk under the dappled leaves of the great godswood near the Shadow Tower.
Here one might pass from a clearing where children laugh and play to a mock-duel between spirits shrouded in growing green to pilgrims sitting in quiet contemplation of the divine. You would have never taken Mors Umber for one of the latter group, but the report had been clear that he usually spent his mornings here in the company of the leshys more often than not.
The sound of faint snoring draws you on along the winding path, until under the shadow of a large oak tree you find the one you seek. Rolled up in a heavy snow bear cloak with the bear's head still serving as a hood, Mors Umber is sleeping peacefully, making some surprisingly ursine sounds besides.
Hopefully he will not be as ill-disposed upon being woken from his slumber.
As you approach you make no attempt to hide the sound of your footsteps on the graveled path and leaf-litter, and sure enough his single good eye snaps open. The old man's eye passes over you quickly, fixing upon Soft Strider. "Been looking for you... it figures you'd find me first."
"What can I help you with," the Singer asks softly, her deep green eyes searching the Northerner's scarred one-eyed face.
"Just wanted to see if you were really around like they said. Wouldn't really be half so hard to imagine as when I left White Harbor, but you never really know until you've seen it with your own eyes."
Gently amused Soft Strider replies: "Hopefully I am not
too disappointing."
"Not hardly," he snorts, rising to his feet and offering simply: "Mors Umber of Last Hearth."
"Viserys Targaryen," you introduce yourself just as plainly after Soft Strider had offered the name she uses among men.
The old man looks you up and down slowly. "I thought you'd be taller," he challenges gruffly.
By way of reply you take on a half form between man and dragon about a foot-and-a-half taller than he. "Ask and you shall receive."
After a moment of shock the Northerner starts laughing. "That will be a hell of a trick to show the Stag King when the time comes."
With that the ice is broken. You discover that the reason Mors had not bothered to hide his presence is simply because he saw no point in hiding since as far as he is concerned he owes Robert Baratheon nothing and should he choose to make trouble in Winterfell that's 'the Stark's business', of which he is somewhat to your surprise not overly concerned with either. As far as Mors is concerned strengthening the Wall, which no king on the Iron Throne has done in generations, is worth more than 'being deep in cups with the Starks'.
He even bluntly addresses the matter of his dead sons even though you were perfectly content to let the matter lie. "My boys carried axes onto the field of crows and died for it. It's not them I've come looking for here."
"Who are you searching for, then?" Soft Strider asks softly, sensing just as you do that the answer will be painful to speak of.
The old man's face darkened: "My girl, m-my daughter, E-Elda," his voice shakes as it had not done even when faced with your transformation. "She got taken by fucking wildlings. I need to know where she is, even if it's just where her bones lie."
Though you still have questions, many of them in fact, about the North and Last Hearth, about the Starks and the rise of magic in those cold and lonely lands, you know better than to ask them now. "Of course, could you describe her to me while I set this up?" you ask, drawing a mirror from the folds of your cloak.
Another man might have shown surprise at your offer. However, Mors Umber says only: "If you help me get her back I'm your man, but if you're playing me for a fool..."
"I would never be such a
fool myself as to toy with such things," you cut him off firmly.
Satisfied at your answer Mors begins haltingly describing his daughter as she was when last he saw her some three-and-twenty years ago just as last winter's snows were highest, 'when beasts hunt men for food' and 'wildlings jump the Wall knowing there's nothing but death behind them if they fail,' as he puts it. The insight from a man who clearly hates the free folk with a passion.
Turning to the mirror, you utter familiar words, letting the magic flow like water over it, seeking that which is closest to the image in your mind's eye... to reveal a scene you had not expected. A hall of large logs lit by a great fire pit at its heart, men, women, and children sitting on long benches or on mats of pine if they were less lucky. None seemed to be going particularly hungry or ragged. Indeed, by the measure of the free folk you had seen before, they appeared very wealthy indeed. Some of the warriors wore coats of burnished bronze disks, and they bore axes of bronze also.
Thenns... you realize. You are looking into the halls of the Magnar of Thenn, though the man himself seems to be absent.
"There she is!" Mors almost disbelievingly points out the woman in the center of the image, tall with a dark braid running down the side of her back and wearing a simple woolen dress, no better and no worse than most of the others present, is the woman Mors had described to you. As you watch a boy of perhaps eight rushes to her to show off a dead rabbit, presumably one he had hunted himself. The resemblance between the two is unmistakable.
"I'll kill the bastard!" the Northerner rages at the reminder of what his daughter's lot must have been among her captors.
"She seems quite fond of the boy," Soft Strider says gently.
"Not him, the son of a bitch who put him in her belly," Mors explains, hot rage boiling away into an icy purpose.
What do you do?
[] Offer him help getting to the valley of the Thenns and recovering his daughter so long as he swears to follow the lead of whatever negotiator you appoint
[] Dismiss the vision and ask him more questions about Last Hearth and the North
-[] Write in
[] Write in
OOC: Elda turned out to very lucky since I rolled a 1d100 do establish her fate and she got an 86. By comparison 31-60 would have been dead and 1-30 would have been 'dead and reanimated as a wight'.
