Skin Game
Fifteenth Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC
The house was not as Mance remembered it, from those long summers talking by the fire as he mended from the shadowcat's mauling, still less for what came after he had recovered his strength but not his desire to leave the sweet-smelling bed. The healer's longhouse hidden under the eves of the Haunted Forest was where he had truly became Mance Rayder, though his so-called brothers of the Watch had called him that as long as he could remember, an unwanted brat taken in reluctantly in the hopes he would fill an empty pair of boots, the fruit of a broken oath.
Now here he was after seven years and more, returned to a place where the sunlight no longer hanged between green leaves but spilled out around twisted naked branches. No sparrows chirped, no beasts moved through the underbrush. He would have even taken another shadowcat.
"There's no one here, looks like there hasn't been in who knows how long," he said aloud, careful to not let the sinking of his heart show in his tone. The girl had eyes like a wolf, the red-robed maegi passed his gaze over everything that did not have to do with sorcery, and the snake-man was a snake-man. About the only one who might give a shit about Mance grieving Yara's passing was the boy knight, and young knights full of vim and vinegar were even more likely than those carved of old dry oak to care for a woman he'd bedded breaking his vows, not that he'd told them about that part.
"We must press on," one of the snake-man's heads hissed softly, steam puffing from its nostrils. Mance had seen enough snakes and lizards to suspect he wouldn't be able to walk around here as he pleased without magic to keep him warm. "The cursed jade reacted to nothing besides your cloak," added the other head in what might have been a hint of anger.
"It grew back once it had been smashed to pieces and the pieces were tossed in the sea," the warrior replied. "I'd not call that nothing."
"I would," the other sorcerer said and this one was proper fuming. "It was preserving curse, no more. It tells us nothing the scuttling corpses did not, that there is a power arrayed against us with dominion over death, one likely connected with the fate of Hardhome. Unless you wish for your people to share that fate you had best pray to your tree gods that we find answers here..."
"Mayhap I should do the praying," the little witch said. From the Weirwood staff she bore Mance did not think she was jesting.
"If we find no answers here," the knight replied as he approached the door of the longhouse next to Mance. "No matter the fact that he has a thousand eyes, there's always a thousand more things to look upon and to do."
The bronze gauntlet knocked mournfully upon old and half-rotted wood.
She was gone, Mance knew with the cold certainty of a man turning the corpse of a friend over to see his face.
Gone... gone...
The snake-man suddenly froze and before Mance could react he motioned with one scaled hand, like tearing off an unseen veil in front of him. Then the hissing voice came inside his head.
"Beware, something was trying to enchant you, mortal."
Shaking his head against the last tatters of the spell the King Beyond the Wall cursed under his breath and reached beneath his black chain coat to snap one of the rune-bones he'd found among the Frostfangs, the one for clear sight. Yet there was nothing about to see but the mist and the shadows of the trees and the old longhouse where once wandering tribes had come from all around the Haunted Forest for healing and advice. Then the door creaked open under the boy's surprisingly strong push.
The room beyond was cold and lifeless. It had not been the dwelling place of men in a long time, though there was a strange musty smell to it, something far larger than a rat had made its nest here. The girl looked around the room, eyes widening, then turned around and called out. "Come out and talk, I know what you are!"
Nothing answered her.
Again she shouted into the woods. "If you're thinking of running and covering your tracks, don't! I can find you with magic!"
Mance was surprised when the same shadowcat that had led them to the cursed stone showed up, lopping between the trees. He was speechless when its form shimmered and it turned into Yara.
OOC: Vee's wisdom strikes again.
