In the Mother's Woods
Twenty-Ninth Day of the Tenth Month 293 AC
As you walk through the starlit woods you find yourself faintly melancholy thinking of how many times you had asked to hunt or ride through the Kingswood as a boy, but each time you asked your mother she had refused, more likely than not due to your father's budding paranoia. You have seen stranger and more wondrous places since then, but the irony remains that you can never quite see the woods as you would have as a boy. The shadows do not hide anything from your sight and the tremble of every blade of grass marks the passage of every rabbit or other small burrowing thing through the underbrush clear and unmistakable against your sharpened senses. A wolf howls somewhere in the distance, far enough that it could almost be mistaken for the voice of the wind through the trees.
Is that what Lord Mallery is hunting? you wonder.
Or is he merely hunting for that most illusory of beasts, the world as it once was, a son not touched by whatever horror he had found in these woods? There is only one way to find out. You pass the sentries around the trio of fires unseen, hardly slowing in your pace, then you lean down and briefly touch the blond-haired boy wrapped in his cloak, shifting uneasily in slumber, weaving a spell of mind-speaking into being.
"Pardon the intrusion, Edric, but I really must speak with you. It's about your brother," you send, ready to stop him from waking the camp should he react with fear.
"Umh... What?" The muddled thought rises to the surface of his mind. "Who's there?" He asks more urgently, shifting on the hard mossy ground.
"No need to speak, think the words." There is really no way to dance around the question.
"I am Viserys Targaryen..."
"I... Your Gr—I mean..." Titles and forms of address tumble through his sleep-addled mind like leaves in autumn.
"Whether you call me king, lord, or nothing at all is up to you, Edric. I did not come here looking for courtesies," you cut him off before he can tangle himself any further.
"Where are you?" he asks after a moment, a note of suspicion entering his words.
"Beside you, veiled by magic." After a quick look at the guard to ensure he was not looking this way, you drop the glamour momentarily before taking it up again.
He takes a moment to absorb the strangeness of the situation, glances then over to where his father is sleeping heavily, gathering his courage he asks:
"What did you mean about Denys? Are you going to get him back from the Lannisters?" Though he does not ask as much you can practically see scenes of daring rescues reflected in his gaze.
"Ideally I am going to persuade your father to ask for him back, but to do that I need to know why he was so keen to send him away." You pause a moment and add,
"I have spoken to your lady mother on the matter, but she does not know much about what happened that day."
"It won't matter, he'll twist it and make Denys out to be a monster whatever I say!" Anger burns slow and steady behind the thought. Varys had thought it a childish outburst, but you are not so sure she judged him right. Lord Mallery had managed to earn the ire of his heir as much as his wife.
"It matters to me, quite a lot actually, and it matters to the realm," you answer simply.
Edric's spine straightens in response, his thoughts more steady.
"There was a storm, we got lost, we shouldn't have been out but we were. We found this hideout, Denys called it a cave but it was more like an overgrown rabbit warren, to hide in, only it was deeper than we thought... We went in and... we found them." He falters for a moment before gathering his courage again.
"Dead men... long dead they were, bleached bones and hollow skulls, but they didn't stay still for long. They caught me and they held me... How could they be so strong with only bone and no flesh?"
"The Living Dead can be a terror even without anything left of their bodies. You were lucky to survive at all," you interject gently.
"It wasn't luck, it was Denys, I couldn't do anything but he talked to them, asked them what they wanted. The one with the broken neck said they were the bones of the Kingswood Brotherhood and that he was Simon Toyne himself, that he felt our blood... that it was his blood, too..." Disgust and shame marks his features.
"The Toynes were a noble family of the Crownlands in good standing for many years before the House fell into royal displeasure," you note. If memory serves it was more the fault of Aegon the Unworthy than Ser Terrence Toyne, but that is not a point to make in present company.
"I would wager all the families bordering the Kingswood and many beyond have Toyne blood," you add instead.
"What did the dead ask your brother to do?"
"Lay them to rest like men, not the gnawed bones of beasts they said," Edric takes up his story again.
"We didn't know where we would find a septon... but then animals started showing up, wild animals like deer and boar. They helped dig the grave and Denys got this far-away look in his eyes and he said he didn't need a septon anymore. He told the dead to lay down in the hole and spoke a bunch of old words... really old he said."
For a long moment it looks like the boy isn't going to finish his tale, like he does not dare to. Hardly daring to think the words Edric adds
"He said that they should rest easy in the name of Mother Earth.... and they did. If apostasy is wrong then why did the dead rest easy?" The question has an air of desperation.
What do you reply?
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OOC: I hope all the italics do not make this hard to read. I considered getting rid of them, but it's actually pretty relevant that this conversation is taking place mentally and I did not want to cause any confusion as to how you are saying all this aloud a few feet from Lord Mallery.