Dreams of Home
Twenty-First Day of the Eighth Month 293 AC
Things are unlikely to be as simple as to be solved using a sword or noose to end whatever raider first stole Elda away, but that is not something Mors Umber would be ready to hear. As you dismiss the image in the silvered glass the old warrior gives a pained huff as though someone had knocked the wind from him. "Where was that? It looked almost like Skagos, but they were carrying bronze not iron..." The words trail off as Mors struggles to make sense of what he has seen.
"That was a longhouse of the Thenns, the most northerly of any wildling clan, dwelling as they do in the valley Thenn of the Frostfangs. They work bronze, and herd and farm the land rather than hunting, gathering, and raiding from what I have heard," you recount some of what Bloodraven had told you, hoping that the news that his daughter has had at least a proper roof over her head will calm him slightly.
"My axe will cut through bronze discs as well as through iron chain," he rumbles. So much for that hope.
"Be that as it may, I think it is best to find out who you should be chopping before swinging," you caution, keeping your tone sympathetic but with the slightest edge to it.
"More sorcery?" the Northerner asks, obviously willing to deal in any sorcery you would care to use if it returned his daughter to him.
"My sister's magic," you confirm.
***
Dany of course is more than willing to help. In fact, you suspect her opinions of wife-stealing are much in line with Mors', though she does share your fears also you suspect. The human mind is an enormously flexible and resilient thing. Alas that also means it can all too easily tie itself into knots which are harder to slip than manacles of iron. Reminding yourself not to borrow trouble you slip into the dream, the experience at once familiar as breathing and a touch awkward, like feeling old floorboards flex and groan beneath your weight. When last you walked these paths you were not fully a dragon as much as a man... not to mention the power you gained in Valyria.
Still, nothing seems amiss, the ripples of your passage settling as you stand again among the dreams of Sorcerer's Deep. Grander they have grown and bewildering to the eye to see in their many forms, from bright banners waving to mages' towers wrought of ivory mist that seem to be at once the trunks of pale weirwood trees. The hopes of thousands upon thousands of souls dance like fireflies in the gentle wind of the Winged Serpent's passing.
The three of you do not seem to so much fly west and north as the world seems to
contract around you under Dany's power, launching you through a haze of blue and grey until mountains carved by rivers of ice rise on the horizon,
the Frostfangs.
You had expected to see some hint of malevolence as you pass between the icy peeks, but there is no darkness upon the wind. Summer rules here... perhaps more than it should.
"Look!" Dany points to one of the rough outcroppings of stone standing over a field of the dead... of
ashes. Old worn runes guard the dead and the land alike here, a watchful peace set long ago.
Had you been here on other business you would have paused to study it. Instead you make haste to the hall you had seen in your mirror towards which the silver thread of Dany's power draws her, into the dreams of Lady Elda Umber.
When you enter she is sitting on a bed, brushing her hair in what you suspect is a facsimile of her girlhood chambers. She looks up more wistful than surprised. "I thought those dreams had passed at last..."
Overcome with emotion Mors does not answer with words but reaches out to hug her, desperate to assure himself that she is real even in this ethereal realm.
"I... papa... this can't be real..." She makes no move to let him go. "If it were real you would hate me for what I've done, for being weak... Umbers are suppose to the strong and I let them... I let them..."
"To hell with that!" Mors calls. "If you are weak for that then what do you call me for losing an eye to a godsdamned
crow because I was drunk in a ditch?" No sooner had he mentioned it that the eye-patch reappears.
Something about the words jars her into awareness. "This is really happening? How?"
"That would be me," Dany waves cheerfully. "I can spin true dreams."
Once Elda has calmed down you discover much to your relief that not only is the man who first kidnapped her not among the Thenns, he is also not among the
living either. Over the years she had drifted northwards from band to band, at first only passed on from one 'husband' to the next, but later of her own volition seeking some manner of safety with a larger clan for herself and her son Donnell, a boy whose father she cannot even name. By the time Elda had gotten free she had feared bringing him south beyond even the danger of the journey for she had not wished upon him the scorn of bastardy.
In that sense the Thenns had been an exceptionally good fit for her, for the skills she had learned as a girl were of much higher value among them than most other free folk. She had married again of her own will though you get the sense that her husband, one of the Magnar's many cousins, is older than her, though the woman speaks of him with some fondness.
Mors looks bewildered and far from happy to have a wildling for a goodson, asking her to come back south with him.
"I..." Elda looks torn between her past and her present, not knowing what to choose and what to give up.
What do you so?
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OOC: There we go, a far happier story than you guys were imagining. She did roll an 86 after all, not a 61 which would have been 'just barely surviving'
