They called it the winter fever, later when I woke.
I heard them scurrying about, around the...
I heard them scurrying about, around the...
For Lack of Honor (ASOIAF SI)
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Chapter 1
Odran
Curmudgeon
- Location
- The land of Nod
They called it the winter fever, later when I woke.
I heard them scurrying about, around the bed, but their words were as if spoken from a great distance, incoherent, mumbled.
And even if I had heard them clearly, I would have ignored them and focused on more pertinent matters.
Cruel of me, I know, what I set out to do.
Crueler still as I was a man four times his age when we met in the limbo of his existence.
I knew not how I found myself sharing that ethereal plane with him, while he hovered between life and death. The last time I closed my eyes, I was lying down in my own bed and the next time I opened them, albeit metaphysically so, I knew I was dying.
And that would simply not do.
I am a selfish man, filled with more flaws than virtues, and over the life of a stranger, even that of a small boy, I choose my own.
The boy was not dead yet, I knew with the same certainty that I knew of my own imminent demise; unless something changed.
He was all alone (vulnerable) in that lightless place, and his own light was all too precious, his soul's warmth all too tantalizing.
"Greetings," I spoke to him.
Surprised at first, even panicked perhaps, but he held silent, proving himself true to the monicker already given to him.
His eyes tried to pierce the darkness with which I obscured myself, but to no avail. It would not dissipate unless I let loose.
"Who are you?" he tried to ask in firm voice, but failed. No surprise there, he was so very young, especially in a place like this.
"A friend," I answered.
His brow furrowed. "I've never met you before. I don't know you."
"You have. You do."
Then he stood up, his eyes turning to stone. "Don't lie to me!"
"I'm not. We have met many, many times over and you've known me all your life."
"No, I haven't," he persisted. "I don't remember anyone with your voice and your face... I cannot see it. Show it to me!"
It was a gamble on my part, but one I had to take.
With my fingers, I pulled at the threads of darkness concealing me and showed him myself, such as I was.
The boy gasped, minutely, and stood there, disbelieving. He tried to take stock of me, as much as he could, but in vain.
It was all a lie. The clothes were not my own, nor was the body or the face I wore.
"I told you," I said to him, a gentle, friendly smile on my face, "you've known me all your life, for I am you."
"You're lying."
I resisted rolling my eyes, for the gesture was as alien to him as remorse to me and would only reveal the deceit.
"No, I'm not, and you know it. In your very heart, in your soul, you know I am you, not as you are, but as you will be."
Whether he believed me or not, it mattered not, he came closer and I remained rooted to the spot I appeared in.
"You're from the future?" A trickle of doubt in his voice was a point in my favor. I nodded to him. "Why are you here then?"
"Terrible things will befall us and our family if the past stays the same and I am here to insure it does not come to pass."
"What things?"
"Death. Winter. War, most of all."
Another step closer. "War with whom? Who would wage war wit—"
"Who would not, if it was beneficial to them? Even in our own lands, we find such men. Ancestral enemies, yet we pretend we are anything but, while we merely wait for each other to make the first move, and spark the enmity anew. Old blood. Bad blood. Dragon's blood."
I overreached, it seemed, in my eagerness to see the matter done and dealt with. The boy took a step back.
"They couldn't, the realm would rise up against them."
"Aye, it would, but will that be of any comfort when half of our family lies dead?"
His boyish face took on such a determined look, unfit for one so young. "Tell me how to avoid it then. Tell me everything."
I shook my head. "There is too much to be told, and I have little time to spare. I feel myself already fading from this place and soon enough I will be gone, my knowledge of the future lost with me and the past will remain unchanged."
"It won't! I've met you, that changes everything, and I know now to watch out for anything that might threaten our family."
"You're naive, foolish, to think it will suffice. No, lest you take in all of me within you, all will be lost, and we shall suffer for it."
His eyes narrowed down. "What do you mean? What would that do?"
"You must open your heart, mind and soul to me. Welcome me as an old friend, embrace me as if you would our brothers and sister. It matters not how you do it, but it must be done soon." Seeing him still wary, I added, "If I am to pass away without us two becoming one, warn father not to look to the south, their lies his doom. Our brother's and sister's too. Remember that."
Played against his own instinct to protect his kin, he fell for my deceit.
Step by step he came closer, until he took me by the hand and saw the illusion undone.
My hair no longer dark nor my eyes grey any longer.
He shut his eyes close and cursed himself for being tricked so easily.
"You lied," he spoke with a calm I could not have mustered were our places switched.
"Aye, I did. 'Tis a merging, but not the one I described."
Brave little boy, so brave in the face of death. "What happens now? To my family? Were those lies too?"
"They'll live. I'll protect them as if they were my own. In that, I had not lied. The threats I spoke of are real."
He could not let go of my hand, but that was not his intent. With his other arm, he encircled me around my legs.
"Promise me, then. Swear it by whatever gods you hold sacred, swear that you'll see them kept safe."
Where was the harm in giving assurance (and comfort) for what I would see done of my own free will?
"I swear. Now, close your eyes. Sleep and dream, Ned." With a burst of willpower, I gave him a fraction of my memories, good and happy things that would make any lay their head on pillow and smile in their dreams. Love that he would never know, I gave freely.
Hair as black as a night without stars and eyes of blue like precious jewels; this filled his soul when darkness engulfed us both.
My throat was parched, my lids as heavy as lead, but I woke, and that was all that mattered in the end.
Within me laid a seven years worth of memories, now all mine. Would that I could've dug deeper into them.
But that time was to be delayed, for I was attended upon by a number of people: three adults and three children.
The closest one to me had his head bowed low, lips in motion as he mumbled to himself. I saw that he wore grey robes (grey rat) and that he was a tall and thin man. Later, I would come to think him unfit for his station, or at least his placement here.
The second one was a much bigger man, with a broad chest and broader shoulders, thick dark hair and beard. He was dressed in clothes of fine making, albeit ones more fit for the colder climates, sans any elaborate pattern or design. His face was as rough as the rest of him.
The third was no man at all, but a woman. She had a fragile look about her, as if she was perpetually short of one wind-burst from being knocked down. Yet it seemed to be an infliction only of the body, for her grey eyes showed clarity and intelligence.
As for the three children, well... suffice to say they would prove more exhausting than the adults. The oldest one sported a wide grin on his face. The middle one, a girl, nibbled on her lips and looked worryingly at me. Whereas the smallest one looked utterly bored. From time to time, he'd look at me, smile briefly, and then his eyes would fleet back to the door, the unspoken thought 'Can I go back out and play?' clear on his face.
"Father," I managed to say with a raspy voice. The woman that stood so close to him could only be... "Mother."
While he might have been reserved about approaching me in so bold a fashion, she had no such concern as she went down to her knees quickly and embraced me in her arms, burying my face in the hollow of her neck.
I heard her utter, "Gods be praised," in a whisper, more to herself than anyone else there.
For a moment, I was confused, but no more than by her presence here. If my memory hadn't failed me, and the wretched thing was never in good form to start with, by all rights this woman that enveloped me in an embrace should be long dead.
As it would turn out, her presence would be the least of changes that I'd come to know.
Forced as I was to remain in bed, save for when relieving myself, I took to reading. Though he seemed somewhat disapproving of some of the titles, Maester Walys did as I asked him, and brought me the dozen of books that I requested. Naturally, I had not gotten through half of them by the time I was allowed to leave my chambers, but one in particular nearly gave me a fit.
It was several years out of date, yet no matter how long I looked at the ink inscribed upon its pages, the words would not change.
In the grand scale of things, the information it imparted was of no great importance to the people already living in the world. But to me, who had only just arrived in it, who had come to inhabit the body of one Lord Stark's sons... it was world shattering.
Three children, where there should have been but one. Three dragonspawn from the (not quite yet) Mad King and his sister-wife.
Rhaegar, Shaena and Daeron.
Gods be good, Rhaegar alone brought enough ruin and death for the whole of Westeros with his foolish actions.
What would the Seven Kingdoms be like with two additional Targaryen children? Could they even survive such a thing?
Once, when Maester Walys had come to check on my health, I decided to ask him a few questions, which hopefully wouldn't reveal the true extent of my ignorance, or would at least be passed off as just a side-effect of the winter fever.
"Maester Walys, I've a question or two to ask, if you'd answer."
The break in the daily routine of his visits seemed to improve his mood somewhat. "Of course, my lord. What is it you wish to know?"
"I've been rereading the Westeros: Kings of Old and New and at the end of it came across mention of King Aerys and his children. The Targaryens occasionally hold to the practice of marrying off their sons to their daughters, as was the case with the king himself. Has it been ever said why they do this and whether it will be continued in the future?"
"An odd question, my lord. Yes, it is true they do indeed follow such practices, even though they've converted to the Seven, back when Aegon the Conqueror and his sisters still lived, but the reason for it tends to differ. One Targaryen king said it was to keep the bloodline pure and strong. It was mentioned in the odd book or two that he did so because he feared they might lose their dominion over their dragons if they mingled with any of the Westerosfolk, be they Andal, First Men or Rhoynar. Another spoke that it was simply done in accordance with the traditions of Old Valyria, where such practices were common and wide-spread among the ruling families of the Freehold. As for His Grace, King Aerys II, it is said that on the day of his first daughter's birth she was betrothed to Prince Rhaegar."
"First daughter?" If my voice had faltered in the question, I didn't notice.
Rather than answer me, Maester Wylas brought up his wrinkled hand to my forehead and pressed his palm against it.
"Hmm, no heightened temperature," he mumbled to himself, before he addressed my inquiry. "Yes, my lord. His first daughter, Princess Shaena, was betrothed to her brother, the Crown Prince. Perhaps it was his wish to do so only for the heir, rather than every member of his dynasty, as neither Prince Daeron nor either of the Princesses, Daenerys and Rhaena, had been betrothed to anyone thus far."
I thought the world had gone mad when I knew Rhaegar had two siblings in a time where should have had none yet.
Now that I knew he had an additional two, and a Daenerys among them (I could only hope the coin had landed differently for her than the younger counterpart of whom I'd read about), I thought all my knowledge of possible future events was for naught.
Knowledge alone would not suffice. With grim determination, I realized I would have to do more than try to meddle in from the sides.
Shortly after my health improved Brandon was quick about trying to rouse me up for all manner of mischief. His visits to my chambers, when I was still bed-ridden, were few, but now that had changed. It was a distraction, one which I'd not needed, not now after what I'd found out.
He'd almost given up on me entirely until he saw me asking the master-at-arms for my weapons training to resume. The man had been quick to deny me, citing my health and lack of commitment from before, but Brandon overrode his opinion and said he wanted his little brother to join him in the morning exercises. I was given the impression this was not something that usually happened.
Brandon proved the better of us two, naturally. He'd already been practicing for two-three years, if not more, when I took up the wooden weapon and started learning the basics of sword-fighting. But I was nothing if not persistent. Or stubborn, depending on whom you asked. Time and time again wood would strike, clothed though I was in padded armor, and a bruise would form.
It did me little good, practice. I was just barely managing to be average at the best of times, and outright horrid at the worst.
As all brothers would, Brandon too took joy in teasing me. "Chin up, little brother, it can only get better." And then he had laughed, and his laughter was an infectious thing and I laughed alongside him. Despite the face I presented to Winterfell, to those that Eddard Stark would call kin and friends, I found myself missing my own family, my own siblings, even though they drove me to fits sometimes. It was a long road to fully accepting it, but I would never see any of them ever again. And so in the gaping hole of their absence, I embraced the family that was with me, here and now, rather than try and pointlessly long for that which could never be mine again.
So I laughed at Brandon's japes when they amused me and lied for him when I thought it necessary, as any brother would.
His face was filled with wonder and affection, after he had seen me spin a bold-faced lie to our lord father about whether I knew who might have taken a pitcher of wine from the pantry one morn when I'd gone in for a munch or two. Brandon was quite surprised by it.
Well, that and the incident with the Whitehill boy that followed soon after.
Racks of weapons lined the walls and long oak-wood tables were crowded with all manner of iron and steel, man-wrought for the purpose of wounding, maiming and killing. There was something serene about the sight. A purity of sorts that could not be denied.
When I left the armory behind I bid the men standing guard outside it goodbye and crossed the covered bridge, back to the Great Keep. My next destination were the kitchens, as I knew they'd be sparsely populated at such an early hour of the day.
Or not.
"— piss-poor sight, isn't he? The little lordling."
"Thinks he can swing a sword a few times for a few turns of the moon, as if that'll make him the Dragonknight."
"Brandon does the same, and his swordsmanship keeps improving."
I'd barely just entered the kitchens and found them to be nearly empty when I heard a pair of voices. Given that they were nowhere in plain sight, it was fair to assume they'd gone into the pantry and sat on some barrels. Were something else the topic of their discussion, I wouldn't have paid heed to them whatsoever. But fate, it seemed, had other things in mind.
"I'll give you that, but don't you think it strange how where one brother excels, the other stumbles around in mediocrity? I suppose that's the risk one takes with his children when marrying a close cousin. And that's not even the worst that could've happened. Imagine if he was born deformed or a lackwit. Come to think of it, one outta four 's not such a bad deal, so long as that one is the heir, eh?"
"Idiot!" his friend hissed at him. "If one of the Starks, or their men, heard you spewing shite like that, you'd get a thrashing. Or worse."
"Or worse," I agreed.
I was on the other boy before he even had a chance to turn around and face me. Older, taller and stronger, had he not been surprised by me appearing behind them, he could have prevented me from doing him any significant harm. But I was quicker, and full of wroth, my knee hitting his leather-padded groin while my thumbs went straight for his eyes. Fool that he was, he tried grabbing me by the wrists and pulling my hands down, but it availed him nothing, even as pain flared in my bones from the pressure.
Only when his friend struck me across the face, thrice, did I start to relent. There was blood in my eyes.
It couldn't have lasted more than a few brief moments, but the damage was done. By the time someone had appeared to separate us, the boy who so carelessly spoke his words of offense was wailing from the pain, writhing on the floor.
I was smiling, blood and all.
The action did little to endear me to Rickard.
"It was an ill done thing, no matter what the boy said. Control yourself better in the future, you're not a mindless beast."
"I'm not. And I've done no wrong."
I've not done enough, I wished to say, but knew better and stayed silent.
He looked at me, as if I was the opposite of reason, and then sighed.
"The boy was drunk. Even the best of men lose hold of common sense when plied with enough wine. Had you come to me and told me of it, I would have made my displeasure more than clear, and by sending him back to his home, his family would've known they were out of favor. Now? Now I must send the boy, crippled in one eye, back to his uncle and father, and my son's reasoning for doing so will seem like paltry excuse to justify his rabid nature. We are fortunate that he is but a nephew, rather than one of Lord Whitehill's own sons."
Remorse for what I'd done was absent, but I felt a shame, of sorts. "Father, I —"
"Leave, Eddard" he waved me off, "I've letters to write. Go to your mother, she has a few choice words of her own to say."
I bowed my head and left the Lord of Winterfell's solar.
The first thing that greeted me upon entering Lyarra's chambers was her hand. She did not strike me with great force and in the next moment, before I could even utter a single word, she embraced me. What followed was a feverish expression of concern for my well-being. She was less concerned about what I'd done to the other boy, than what could have happened to me in our short brawl.
"Lyam Whitehill is a fool, who seems to have raised an even greater fool for a son. He presumes much, using his brother's status to try and assert his position, feeble though it may be. You've won yourself no friend with the Whitehills and their allies. I doubt the Boltons will care much for what has happened, even though they're their liege lords, but they might yet use the incident for their own ends."
She had much insight to share in matters of the North, as I would come to find out in the coming months and years.
"Tell me, why did you attack the boy?"
"He insulted Benjen and Lyanna. You and father, too. He spoke badly of our family. Said we were akin to the Targaryens."
Lyarra placed a finger beneath my chin and bid me look up at her. "That is not what I asked, Ned."
I wanted to bow my head low, I wanted not to be facing those stormy eyes, but she wouldn't let me look away. "I don't know."
It was a lie and we both knew it.
Before the incident, I had been steadily working on bettering my relationship with Lyanna. She was not someone I could ignore, not if Rhaegar showed any interest in her come the tourney at Harrenhal, sister-wife or not at his side. It was so strange to look upon a girl so young, so small, and think she might be the spark that lights the fire that would consume the Seven Kingdoms.
I worshiped no gods, but I prayed all the same that Rhaegar Targaryen never came across any mention of prophecies in his life.
And so I watched over my little sister, keenly aware how important our relationship might be in the future. Yet I still could not shake the feeling of dread when I looked upon her, for she was yet another discrepancy in this world. Born only a year after Ned, rather than four.
We'd read books together, with Lyanna oft accompanying me to the great library of Winterfell. But she'd never stay for too long, and I'd follow after her, as she was ever drawn to the outside. The wild blood was in her, as it was written.
She craved the excitement, the rush of horses racing, the yelps and joyous screams.
More than once, we'd both been reprimanded and punished, in small measure, by our father and mother for riding in the rain or riding too far ahead from the Winterfell guards that were our escorts. The shared duties in the kitchen only served to make us bond quicker.
But Lyanna Stark was not all wilfulness and wildness. In her, I recognized a kind spirit, one that would lament the injustices suffered by others and herself, and would then try to right them. Many times did I hear her say "It's not fair!" whether it was when she brought up that Brandon and I practiced with weapons while she was to be denied, or whether it was one of the local smallfolk asking for help that was to be refused simply for the scarcity of resources up there in the North. It was a harsh life for any born to common men and women.
Lyanna seemed ever set on trying to change the world, without ever realizing what folly it would be to attempt such a thing on her own.
Yet I could not refuse her, no more than I could have refused the sisters of my first family. She would never have the strength of a full-grown man, nor perhaps the skill of sword-masters, but she had speed on her side and I could at least give her a chance.
In the mornings, my time was spent with Brandon, but my evenings were split between Lyarra and Lyanna. With one I learned ever more of the North and its lords, its ways and history. With the other, I taught. Though I was never that good at taking to lessons with a sword myself, Lyanna seemed a natural. She learned swiftly, and was better at evading the wooden blade.
Perhaps it was all just because she wished to avoid hiding the bruises on her thin frame, as they'd linger for a while.
Instead of the yard, we practiced in the First Keep. Abandoned and rarely ventured in, it was perfect for staying out of sight.
Once, I'd bopped her by accident across the shoulder a tad too strong and she cried out. Naturally that attracted a passing guard to take a peek inside and look about for any that might have been there. One hand across her mouth, to stifle any further cry of pain, we kept to the shadows of one the upper floors and waited for him to leave. When he did, Lyanna bit me on the hand and then laughed in a way all too hauntingly similar to Brandon. Wolf blood. What was I to do with the both of them? Protect and care for them, as promised.
However, our relationship changed for the worse, and looking back on it, I should have expected as much.
I'd evaded the notice of the guards and servants of Winterfell and under the cover of night snuck into the fortress. Not long after I'd settled on one of the few covered surfaces (a rug in very poor state) Lyanna came. Whereas I was keen to start with our practice and smiled at the sight of her, she seemed almost hesitant and wary. No smile to greet me back with.
"Is it true?" asked Lyanna, without preamble, staring into my eyes.
Her approach confused me. "Is what true?"
"That you attacked some boy, simply because he spoke poorly of you?"
That blasted affair, why did it hound me so? A few days had passed from since, and I'd already put it out of my mind.
"What? Lyanna, that's not it at all. Who told you that?"
"But you maimed him, didn't you?"
I refused to grit my teeth, but came close to it. "Yes, I did. What of it? Why care for a boy that insulted us all with such glee?"
"It was not just of you."
Just? She would speak to me of what was just when she was still a child in heart and mind?
"Should I have waited for him to spew more filth, wait until he spoke of our mother and father in far baser tongue? Mayhaps I only ought to have voiced my protest and he'd have ceased? His kind doesn't learn when reproved with words alone, they know and understand no lessons but ones taught with violence and fear." I could have gone further, but I stopped myself and sighed. "Enough, Lyanna. I would speak no more of him when we have far better things to do."
She stepped back "Not now. Not tonight."
Lyanna turned away and left, leaving me alone in the decrepit fortress.
There was no practice that night, nor the ones that followed after it. I went and waited many days, but Lyanna never showed up. A chasm had spawned between the two of us and I knew not of how to mend us back to how we were before.
The loss of a sister... I did not take it well.
Rickard and Lyanna might have disapproved, but Brandon was proud of me when he heard about it.
"The wolf blood," he'd said that very same day, when we sat next to each other at the table for dinner, "you're like me."
If he sounded relieved at that, that he was no longer the only wild Stark with a violent temper in the family, I paid it little heed.
In the practice yard, I had all but given up on trying to better my sword-play (it mattered not whether I wielded a bastard, a short one or a two-hander, I failed to improve), and had started looking to master one of the other weapons available from the armory.
After a number of times I tried my hand at several types of weaponry (the less said about axes, the better), I'd settled for a mace.
The Winterfell blacksmith was not pleased when I came to him and asked for one. Instead, he directed me to one of the carpenters who'd undertaken the task he set out, for a few coins, and presented me with my very first wooden mace.
Brandon thought me mad for choosing a weapon with a shorter range, but after a few times we'd fought each other, he changed his opinion and his preferred approach when fighting me. No longer could he try to dance around me as he used to, for fear of the mace's head smashing him with blunt force. After that, more often than not, Brandon would end up the one more bruised of the two of us.
Lyarra remained protective of me, though not to the point of smothering. Watchful, but always from a distance.
Even when I practiced in the yard with Brandon.
Twice she came to watch us have a go at it in person, but afterwards her presence wasn't quite so obvious.
I'd still spy her, looking down on the yard from one of the windows of the keep. Every time Brandon scored a hit on me, she would frown worryingly or clench her hands in the furs she wore across her dress. Every time I would go to her later in the evening and comfort her, assure her all was well and Brandon did no more harm to me than I would have to him if I'd the chance.
"Boys and their swords," she'd cluck her tongue, "foolish." Then she'd bring me close for another embrace, which had become a common thing whenever we met in private. We'd plenty of that, private meetings, as I hungered for knowledge and she was a veritable walking and talking library who volunteered all she knew without second thought to her second-born son, which was more than Maester Walys ever did, as he always seemed displeased whenever I inquired about certain matters.
The grey rat was oft put off when I asked about the North from times past (before the Targaryens came, before the Andals ever invaded) and the old ways, the old gods, the old tongue, runes, the children of the forest, grumkins and snarks.
"The past is the past, young lord Stark. We must ever strive to learn from it, but not seek to repeat it and its many mistakes."
No surprise there, that a Reachman would disapprove of the North.
Lyarra preferred to give her lessons on the North in the expanse of the godswood, most oft in front of the heart tree.
It was beyond words, the peace I felt in that place, before the carved face of the old gods, before that pool of black water. A haunting beauty, one to stalk my dreams in years and years to come. A place so ancient, what was my life compared to a mere tenth of its existence?
Much have I sought out the place for solitude and calmness, even more so after that night with Lyanna.
"Never worship blindly. Never follow a man's words on what the gods might wish of us. We are of the North. Our gods are of the earth and tree and stone. They were here before we ever set foot in these lands, and here they will remain, long past either of us."
Not strong, not omnipotent nor omniscient, but they were there, in every rustle of the blood-red leaves, in every creak of a branch.
Still, I did not worship.
"Why do you visit the godswood so often, mother?"
"To pay my respects. To pray, sometimes." She smiled. "To listen."
This was not merely tradition for her. This was not about merely emulating those that came before. This was belief.
Unshakeable faith. Were she of the South, I might have thought her a zealot, but the nature of Northern ways didn't allow for it.
Yet she believed, though at the time I knew not the cause of it, nor the source of her belief's strength.
Benjen I could not get rid of, no matter whether I was pouring through dusty texts in the Library Tower, if I roamed through the ancient castle and its towers and crypts and hallways, always in search of its secrets (in vain), or even at meal-times. He was like a tick, attached to me, intent on distracting me, stealing what little remaining time I had before I was to be shipped off south; but such is the bane of all older brothers, to be hounded by their younger siblings. I knew that well.
When Lyanna and I raced, he cheered us on. When Brandon and I fought each other, he whooped for whoever scored a hit on the other. Quick to make a jape, to make all around him laugh, to tease and to taunt... even as a four year old boy, Benjen was a trickster, waiting for the world to notice the japes it played on it. How could such a boy ever choose for himself a life with the brothers in black?
I could say that I merely tolerated it all, that all of them were a means to some vague end, but it would have been a lie.
And then it came, so suddenly. The day I was to depart from Winterfell was set, the arrangements made and my few belongings packed.
Lyarra and Rickard had spoken to me about it many moons ago. In a way, I both anticipated it eagerly and dreaded it. I was to be shorn from what had become a new home for me, yet if I were to remain in Winterfell, how much misfortune might befall the Starks?
Even if it had been a choice to be offered and contemplated, it was no choice at all, in truth. Not for me.
I'd given my farewells to Brandon and Benjen before I'd left the Great Hall. Benjen had not understood fully what a fostering meant, but he knew I was leaving and he was saddened by it. My own departure coupled with Brandon's, who would leave the next day early in the morn for his fostering with the Dustins, had dampened Benjen's otherwise cheerful mood and made him sullen.
Outside, a light autumn snow was falling, just enough to muddy the ground.
Rickard Stark had given me few words before I was to mount my horse, mostly about restraint and behaving myself properly.
Lyarra was the more affectionate of the two and did not shy from expressing it openly, by lowering herself and scooping me up in her arms and pressing me hard to her bosom. Her affection was returned when I wrapped my arms around her and promised to write.
When we separated, I had thought all partings and goodbyes had been done and dealt with, and I was set to leave.
It was not so.
Faster than I could see, or turn around to properly greet her, I had been suddenly enveloped in a firm hug from Lyanna.
I can't say I've forgotten about her in all the months of silence since our last meeting in the First Keep, but I tried not to dwell too much on her, knowing it would do me no good to try and force her to reconcile with me. I only wish it had happened sooner.
Not dressed appropriately for the weather, her smaller form hung off mine and her voice trembled in the cold air when she spoke.
"Come back safely, come back home to us, Ned."
Spoken in a different tongue, addressed by a different name.
I could almost forget that this sister of mine had dark hair and grey eyes.
"I will, and in the meantime, I'll write."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
Tongue-tied, I gave a feeble smile to my kin from the saddle and on we went.
Winterfell was soon left behind and with it a part of my heart.
I had found out one unpleasant fact once we boarded a ship at White Harbor - where we'd been warmly welcomed by Lord Wyman Manderly in the Merman's Court - and set sail across the open sea: I hadn't the stomach for it. Whether it was because their method of crossing the distance over water was so antiquated in comparison to the world I was born in or whether I was just plainly seasick no matter what kind of ship I was on, it didn't matter, the fish were well fed either way.
What mattered, however, was the length of the journey to Gulltown. It was... more than I expected. More than I hoped, certainly. Two-three weeks in ideal conditions, so I'd been told, but the ones we encountered were anything but ideal. The first week had been fine, for while the sky was cloudy and the wind occasionally blew too hard, it was smooth sailing.
But on the tenth day, things started getting worse.
The ship was being beset by heavy wind and strong waves, and a storm was fast approaching from the south-east.
Many of the sailors still manned the ship atop, but the few passengers that there were, myself included, retreated below deck to the cabin we shared, under the captain's orders; not that I had any wish to expose myself to the elements to begin with, mind you.
As I was being occupied by the occasional dry-heaving into a bucket before me, I failed to notice when the captain had come down below as well. Only when he passed near one of my personal guards and was addressed by him did I pay any heed.
"We must find a place to set down anchor, soon, else we'll be smashed to pieces."
When I turned my eyes aside to look at the Winterfell guard that spoke, Wallace I think his name was, I saw that he'd grabbed the captain by the arm. A bad move, given that the captain was by no small measure the bigger of the two and could easily overpower him if he wished to do so. But he didn't, and instead the captain only gave a dark, meaningful look to the guard, who realized that he'd overstepped and released him promptly.
"It's just a storm," the captain's gruff voice boomed, "you needn't fret for your safety, greenlander."
The guard's face darkened at the monicker, but said nothing of it. That the captain was Ironborn came as no small surprise, but given that he was being employed by the Manderlys for my conduct to the Vale, I doubt he was ever a reaver, else his head would have been parted from his shoulders long ago. Of all the realms in Westeros, the North had the least tolerance for pirate scum.
"Bugger yourself, you salt-struck fool, it's not myself I worry about." The guard took one glance at me, and the captain followed the look with one of his own. "It's Lord Stark's son we have with us. An autumn storm is not to be taken lightly."
The captain viewed the guard somewhat less hostile than before. "Sailed before, have you?"
"Some, not much. Bear Island and the occasional trip to the Three Sisters."
"The Sisters, hmm. They spit in your stew?"
"And how do you tell the difference between the two?"
At that, both of them cracked a grin. There was no love lost where the Sistermen were concerned.
"Is there a port near?"
The captain stayed silent for a moment and then replied with, "Aye, there is."
"And? Why not press on there? Why risk the ship in a storm when we're already almost past the Fingers?"
"It's no place I'd choose to sail, if I could avoid it, if there were other ports close to us..."
"And are there any?"
"The Paps," the captain grumbled, "if we turn back now on and try to outrun the storm. Unlikely we'd succeed. Or we could try and navigate between the Fingers for some shelter from the weather, but we'd as likely find ourselves breaching the lower deck on some rocks. If this weren't in front of us, I'd set forth for Longbow Hall - they maintain a small harbor on their shores along with a small village - and stay there for a day or two, until the storm passed us."
"So there isn't really any choice to this?"
"No," the captain finally agreed.
"What's the name of this place that we'll be sailing to?"
"Witch Isle."
It was a quaint place, if anything. Neither large nor small, it seemed just the right size for the castle that was built atop it and the small copse of pinewood that surrounded it. Didn't seem as if it warranted any of its ominous reputation among the sailors. I could understand, to a point, that the captain had no wish to dock here in the first place, for there were few, if any, opportunities for trade and profit, but we were about to face a storm; not exactly a position where one gets to cherry-pick at leisure.
Once we had started to approach the island, the storm had seemed to ease up a bit, though the rain still fell as hard as it did on open sea, and the crackle of lightning was heard anew after each flash that tore through the night-sky. But we were safe now.
The Lord of Witch Isle was nothing if not courteous, even before he learned of my presence on the ship.
I was up on the deck when some men arrived, shortly after the ship had been secured, asking if there were any who needed the care of a Maester, if the ship was short on provisions and such. After taking a few moments to look at them, I saw they wore fine steel and iron, and all of them had the resident lord's coat of arms decorating their front: a field of black, with a cresting sea-green wave across it.
Men from the castle atop the isle's hill.
I might have pondered a bit more about their lord had Irritation not flared in me as the Ironborn captain turned to look my way when the Maester had been brought up. I may have been a boy of eight in the flesh, but I was a man grown in soul and mind, with pride and ego to match. I shook my head curtly enough and the matter was dropped as the captain resumed his talks with the other men.
But the guards had noticed our brief exchange and they looked upon me with more than a cursory glance.
Once the direwolf's engraving was spotted on my chest and the men that accompanied me, an invitation to the keep followed.
Harras Upcliff was a man much like any other, but a rare breed of a lord, as I would come to find out.
Bald and clean shaven, with pale green eyes, he was not particularly tall, but tall enough to a boy barely eight years old. I couldn't guess accurately at Lord Upcliff's age; at the very least he had to have been in the fourth decade of his life, if not the fifth. The crow's feet around his eyes and laugh lines around his mouth told as much. A widower and a lord that kept to his own domain, lest his liege called upon him (a rare event indeed), he greeted me when I arrived to his forefathers' halls.
"Hail, Eddard Stark, and be welcome. Bread and salt are yours, as is wine and water. Come, sit."
A place was made for me at Lord Upcliff's table, next to his son and heir, Ulwyck, who wore his hair long and loose, but his beard short and trimmed. One of the ships we'd seen in harbor was his own, The Sea Green, gifted to him by his father upon reaching majority, which was now six years behind him. He had the curse of wanderlust in him, from what I could tell.
Ulwyck wished to sail forth towards distant waters and explore little-known and unknown lands.
"Qarth, Yi Ti, Leng... even now, so much remains unknown about them. The books speak scarcely about them, and whether that is because the Maesters have little knowledge about them, or something else entirely, is unknown. It is a shame though."
"Would you then sail east, as Corlys Velaryon once did, and visit fabled Nefer?"
At that, Ulwyck scoffed. "I've no fleet to follow after me, as he did, nor the funds to hire new ships along the way. And though the Sea Snake had sailed much of the world, he limited himself on purpose. His purpose might have been two-fold - to explore and bring back riches - but it didn't take long until he turned back with his holds full. Explorer by happenstance rather than design."
Of the three daughters Lord Upcliff had, the eldest, Rhea, was a gracious host, albeit she was interested in me solely due to my ancestry and thus our conversation at her father's table was kept strictly non-personal. I didn't blame her for a lack of interest, given that she was my senior by seven years in this world. She was a fine conversationalist and easily roped me into discussing the odd bit of history or two regarding my family, while the others dined and talked amongst themselves.
"But what if the Pact had been upheld?" she posed a question, one of many, to me. "What if Cregan Stark had taken a Targaryen for his bride, rather than a Blackwood? Strange, was it not, how he settled for less than what was promised and owed."
I shrugged. "Who knows? It was for the better perhaps, safer even, to wed a woman of the First Men, than one of Valyrian blood, especially so soon after the Dance. And in truth?" I leaned closer to Rhea, as if to conspire of fell deeds; a comical sight for one so young as myself. "I'm not fond of the Targaryen coloring. Would look quite unseemly on a face as plain and long as my own."
She snorted and wine almost came running from her nose. That attracted the attention of Lord Upcliff's second daughter.
Arabelle tested my patience. It would be people like her that would often make me forget my apparent young age in this world. She did not like me, I think, or rather she considered me not at at all, but kept her feelings veiled behind her southron courtesies. Always so proper, always so polite, even when her eyes betrayed boredom while she sought to entertain me. Her father's bidding, I suppose.
But where her sisters were women grown, the youngest one, Ursula, was a skinny little thing with her father's eyes, and though all her siblings had black hair, Ursula's was that of young wheat; fair when bathed in the rays of sun and light of fire, dark when shadows fell upon her or storm-clouds obscured the sky as they did now. Whether she emulated her siblings consciously or not, she resembled them in the most innocuous of ways. Like Ulwyck, she too had a curious nature, if aimed in a different direction, but was less blunt, more sly.
"Lord Stark," she'd addressed me, "would you mind if I were to ask a few questions of your home?"
What a strange feeling, to be referred to as such, when Rickard and my brother still lived. "Not at all, ask all you like."
What a mistake that turned out to be. Her charm she used to full extent, until I found myself telling her all that I knew of Winterfell. In truth, I wanted to speak of it too. For while I may have had the boy's memories of the place, experiencing it was something entirely else. Exploring the castle, wandering across its walls, going up its towers, wandering through the vast and dark godswood... I was filled with much awe.
Even as I told of it, I saw part of that awe reflected in Ursula's eyes.
"I should very much like to visit Winterfell's godswood. It sounds beautiful."
"It indeed is, Lady Ursula," I replied, not noticing a small stiffness in her posture at being addressed so.
Before I could continue our conversation, Rhea once more started throwing questions at me and before I knew it supper was over and it was time to retire to our respective chambers. Just as I was about to lie in bed for the night, someone knocked on the door.
"Enter," I called out, somewhat surprised at this late hour visit from whomever it was.
'Whomever' turned out to be Ulwyck, looking oddly serious.
"Eddard Stark, my apologies for keeping you from sleep. I'll be short."
"And yet, you're still quite tall, Ulwyck Upcliff," I japed nonsensically, to bleed off some of the tension that came out of nowhere.
It worked somewhat, as his mouth didn't seem quite so sternly leaning towards a grimace anymore.
"I come to offer my apologies."
Now that was surprising. "I wasn't aware there was anything to apologize for. Your father hosted us most graciously, welcomed us to his halls when the ship's cabin would have sufficed. If anyone should apologize, it is me, for not thanking you properly."
Ulwyck just shook his head. "It is the least we could do for a guest of your esteemed rank."
"Then I suppose we should thank the storm for arranging this meeting between us." His mouth turned to a soft, brief smile. Well, I suppose I could repeat myself. "So please, if you would, tell me what you think you ought to apologize for."
"Ursula," said Ulwyck, frowning. "She overstepped, but meant no insult. Her eagerness overcame her manners."
Blinking confusedly, I asked, "Overstepped? She but asked a few questions of my home and I answered. No insult to be had."
"She ought not to have been so bold with a lord, even one so young as yourself."
I felt like I was missing some piece in the puzzle that was our conversation. "Why not?"
"Because she's a bastard and she ought to have known better."
Ah, there we go. "I suppose this has something with me calling her a lady then, yes? I assure you, no offense was taken. Nor do I mind her having been seated at the same table as me. Given that you all were sitting there before we'd even arrived, I'd interrupted a family dinner, and so I should be the one to offer apologies. Natural born or not, no one should be forced to sit apart from their kin."
Seeing me so easily accept that there was a bastard girl seated at a table for highborn, that she dined at the same table as I, that she conversed freely and boldly, and that I took no offense at all, made all tension dissipate from Ulwyck almost instantly.
"Not many in Westeros possess such attitude. Not in the Vale, for certain. Bastards may be acknowledged, but they are rarely brought to their parent's home. If you don't find me intruding too much, might I ask if this is the behavior one could find common in the North?"
"In truth, I could not say. As far as I know, I have no half-siblings, and I've not traveled to the keeps and holds of other lords. For myself, I hold nothing against any bastard, save if they prove hostile, as no child ever chose what side of the bed they were born on."
Having said that, I felt all too pompous, like a peacock, and invited Ulwyck to sit down and talk with me some more about his half-sister. From what little and his sisters knew, the girl was conceived while Lord Harras was traveling abroad, in Pentos. Their mother having died years and years before that, they had little issue with accepting the newest arrival as it slighted not the late Melyssa Moore (a raven haired beauty from whom the three of them inherited their hair), and Rhea and Arabelle took to her keenly, glad for yet another sister. At times, it lead him to despair, to be surrounded by sisters from all sides, but Ulwyck gave off the impression he wouldn't have it any other way.
Much like myself, then.
We stayed up for another hour or so before realizing how late it was and then bid goodnight.
We didn't wait two days for the storm to pass us by. We waited four. The wind and hale grew so harsh outside that even the men that previously slept on the ships docked in the harbor left them behind and settled in the modest inn for a short time, while satiating some of their baser urges in the local brothel. By the end of my stay on Witch Isle, I learned quite a bit about the Upcliffs.
Like the Royces, the Redforts, the Hunters and several other families of the Vale, they too were descendants of First Men.
A bit of a grim and bloody past, rumors of witchcraft and sorcery, but then again that sort of thing was present even in the Stark family history. Tended to happen with any longer-lasting families, it seemed. Some bits of their history made me curious, I admit. A notable member of their bloodline was actually married to a ruling Arryn of the Vale to bring them into the fold. One had to wonder why that was necessary, why the Arryns didn't try military subjugation rather than vassalization through marriage. Rhea had no answer to that.
Arabelle was... well, Arabelle. Our relationship didn't change by much, she wasn't any more interested in me than she was before.
Ursula had a wide grin on her face whenever she saw me, hounding after me, asking me all manner of things. Why she thought I knew the exact number of trees in the godswood, which spanned three acres, I have no idea. She asked the oddest of questions.
"Would I be welcome up North?" she asked one day as we sat in the castle's library.
Shrugging, I replied, "I couldn't say. Depends where you might wish to go."
"What about Winterfell? Would you show me to the godswood, if you could?"
"If I were there, and not in the Vale, I would." It is not as if she asked for much, and no one likes to shatter little children's hopes and dreams. Yet they ought to be tempered with a measure of reality. "I cannot guarantee anything if I am not there."
"Then, when you go back North, for a visit or otherwise, I might come and visit too and you'll show me the heart tree."
Her interest struck me as odd. I didn't inquire on matters of faith with the rest of the Upcliffs, but I assumed they worshiped the Seven, like the other First Men descendants that intermarried with the Andals that invaded and conquered the Vale.
"Do you pray to the old gods or the Seven, Ursula?"
She laughed at that, a small tinkling sound echoing in the silence of the library. "How could I, without a godswood? There's a septry here, but it's not used much. Besides, from all sides we're surrounded by the sea. Would be odd to pray to either of them."
"Do you worship any of the gods then?"
Ursula bit her lip and looked unsure of herself for a moment. "I don't worship or pray. But I like talking to the Lady."
Besides the broad specifics of some of the faiths in Westeros, I knew nothing about them. "The Lady?"
She rose from her chair and took me by the arm, pulling me up. Having nothing better to do, I followed. We didn't go far, just barely past the library, to one of the nearby windows, from where we could see the open sea, in rage, waves rising and falling.
"The Lady of the Waves. It's said that storms are the result of her bedding the Lord of the Skies."
A bit of teasing was in order. "What must their children be like then?"
For that I received a light slap on the arm and a giggle from Ursula as we turned back towards the library.
We were seen off by Lord Upcliff when the storm finally passed. Along with his children, he came down to the harbor. Ulwyck had this expression of pure longing on his face, watching The White Gray, our ship, prepare itself for departure. Not longing for a ship like it, I think, but rather the chance to set out. In the few days I spent in his home, he expressed some discontent with being forced more and more often to remain at Witch Isle, learning ever more of his lordly duties, when he'd rather be out sailing. Rhea and Arabelle were perfect ladies, whereas Ursula had discarded her courtesies ever since she came to know I cared not whit about her being a bastard.
Harras Upcliff had to gently clear his throat before his youngest tore herself away from me.
To show I was not bothered, I smiled and returned the hug, albeit less enthusiastic than Ursula's.
"Remember what you promised," said Ursula.
"I promised nothing," I corrected her, and when she frowned I grinned. "But I'll see what I can do."
Satisfied, she nodded. "Good!" And then she moved back to stand with her siblings, while her father gave his farewells.
"You shall always be welcome to the Depths, Eddard Stark. Whether I still rule, or my son has succeeded me, know you have made yourself a friend with House Upcliff. It has been some time since any of the North came to visit, but we shall remember you."
"Thank you for your kind words, Lord Upcliff. For what it's worth, you have a friend in me as well. I can promise little, for I know not what future awaits me, but if I should ever hold lands and a keep of my own, you and yours shall always be a glad sight to see in them."
They were no kin of mine, but that didn't make them any less fond to me. The little tyke, most of all. She reminded me of Lyanna.
I told Wallace as much, who shook his head and replied, "For your sake, let us hope otherwise."
I heard them scurrying about, around the bed, but their words were as if spoken from a great distance, incoherent, mumbled.
And even if I had heard them clearly, I would have ignored them and focused on more pertinent matters.
Cruel of me, I know, what I set out to do.
Crueler still as I was a man four times his age when we met in the limbo of his existence.
I knew not how I found myself sharing that ethereal plane with him, while he hovered between life and death. The last time I closed my eyes, I was lying down in my own bed and the next time I opened them, albeit metaphysically so, I knew I was dying.
And that would simply not do.
I am a selfish man, filled with more flaws than virtues, and over the life of a stranger, even that of a small boy, I choose my own.
The boy was not dead yet, I knew with the same certainty that I knew of my own imminent demise; unless something changed.
He was all alone (vulnerable) in that lightless place, and his own light was all too precious, his soul's warmth all too tantalizing.
"Greetings," I spoke to him.
Surprised at first, even panicked perhaps, but he held silent, proving himself true to the monicker already given to him.
His eyes tried to pierce the darkness with which I obscured myself, but to no avail. It would not dissipate unless I let loose.
"Who are you?" he tried to ask in firm voice, but failed. No surprise there, he was so very young, especially in a place like this.
"A friend," I answered.
His brow furrowed. "I've never met you before. I don't know you."
"You have. You do."
Then he stood up, his eyes turning to stone. "Don't lie to me!"
"I'm not. We have met many, many times over and you've known me all your life."
"No, I haven't," he persisted. "I don't remember anyone with your voice and your face... I cannot see it. Show it to me!"
It was a gamble on my part, but one I had to take.
With my fingers, I pulled at the threads of darkness concealing me and showed him myself, such as I was.
The boy gasped, minutely, and stood there, disbelieving. He tried to take stock of me, as much as he could, but in vain.
It was all a lie. The clothes were not my own, nor was the body or the face I wore.
"I told you," I said to him, a gentle, friendly smile on my face, "you've known me all your life, for I am you."
"You're lying."
I resisted rolling my eyes, for the gesture was as alien to him as remorse to me and would only reveal the deceit.
"No, I'm not, and you know it. In your very heart, in your soul, you know I am you, not as you are, but as you will be."
Whether he believed me or not, it mattered not, he came closer and I remained rooted to the spot I appeared in.
"You're from the future?" A trickle of doubt in his voice was a point in my favor. I nodded to him. "Why are you here then?"
"Terrible things will befall us and our family if the past stays the same and I am here to insure it does not come to pass."
"What things?"
"Death. Winter. War, most of all."
Another step closer. "War with whom? Who would wage war wit—"
"Who would not, if it was beneficial to them? Even in our own lands, we find such men. Ancestral enemies, yet we pretend we are anything but, while we merely wait for each other to make the first move, and spark the enmity anew. Old blood. Bad blood. Dragon's blood."
I overreached, it seemed, in my eagerness to see the matter done and dealt with. The boy took a step back.
"They couldn't, the realm would rise up against them."
"Aye, it would, but will that be of any comfort when half of our family lies dead?"
His boyish face took on such a determined look, unfit for one so young. "Tell me how to avoid it then. Tell me everything."
I shook my head. "There is too much to be told, and I have little time to spare. I feel myself already fading from this place and soon enough I will be gone, my knowledge of the future lost with me and the past will remain unchanged."
"It won't! I've met you, that changes everything, and I know now to watch out for anything that might threaten our family."
"You're naive, foolish, to think it will suffice. No, lest you take in all of me within you, all will be lost, and we shall suffer for it."
His eyes narrowed down. "What do you mean? What would that do?"
"You must open your heart, mind and soul to me. Welcome me as an old friend, embrace me as if you would our brothers and sister. It matters not how you do it, but it must be done soon." Seeing him still wary, I added, "If I am to pass away without us two becoming one, warn father not to look to the south, their lies his doom. Our brother's and sister's too. Remember that."
Played against his own instinct to protect his kin, he fell for my deceit.
Step by step he came closer, until he took me by the hand and saw the illusion undone.
My hair no longer dark nor my eyes grey any longer.
He shut his eyes close and cursed himself for being tricked so easily.
"You lied," he spoke with a calm I could not have mustered were our places switched.
"Aye, I did. 'Tis a merging, but not the one I described."
Brave little boy, so brave in the face of death. "What happens now? To my family? Were those lies too?"
"They'll live. I'll protect them as if they were my own. In that, I had not lied. The threats I spoke of are real."
He could not let go of my hand, but that was not his intent. With his other arm, he encircled me around my legs.
"Promise me, then. Swear it by whatever gods you hold sacred, swear that you'll see them kept safe."
Where was the harm in giving assurance (and comfort) for what I would see done of my own free will?
"I swear. Now, close your eyes. Sleep and dream, Ned." With a burst of willpower, I gave him a fraction of my memories, good and happy things that would make any lay their head on pillow and smile in their dreams. Love that he would never know, I gave freely.
Hair as black as a night without stars and eyes of blue like precious jewels; this filled his soul when darkness engulfed us both.
My throat was parched, my lids as heavy as lead, but I woke, and that was all that mattered in the end.
Within me laid a seven years worth of memories, now all mine. Would that I could've dug deeper into them.
But that time was to be delayed, for I was attended upon by a number of people: three adults and three children.
The closest one to me had his head bowed low, lips in motion as he mumbled to himself. I saw that he wore grey robes (grey rat) and that he was a tall and thin man. Later, I would come to think him unfit for his station, or at least his placement here.
The second one was a much bigger man, with a broad chest and broader shoulders, thick dark hair and beard. He was dressed in clothes of fine making, albeit ones more fit for the colder climates, sans any elaborate pattern or design. His face was as rough as the rest of him.
The third was no man at all, but a woman. She had a fragile look about her, as if she was perpetually short of one wind-burst from being knocked down. Yet it seemed to be an infliction only of the body, for her grey eyes showed clarity and intelligence.
As for the three children, well... suffice to say they would prove more exhausting than the adults. The oldest one sported a wide grin on his face. The middle one, a girl, nibbled on her lips and looked worryingly at me. Whereas the smallest one looked utterly bored. From time to time, he'd look at me, smile briefly, and then his eyes would fleet back to the door, the unspoken thought 'Can I go back out and play?' clear on his face.
"Father," I managed to say with a raspy voice. The woman that stood so close to him could only be... "Mother."
While he might have been reserved about approaching me in so bold a fashion, she had no such concern as she went down to her knees quickly and embraced me in her arms, burying my face in the hollow of her neck.
I heard her utter, "Gods be praised," in a whisper, more to herself than anyone else there.
For a moment, I was confused, but no more than by her presence here. If my memory hadn't failed me, and the wretched thing was never in good form to start with, by all rights this woman that enveloped me in an embrace should be long dead.
As it would turn out, her presence would be the least of changes that I'd come to know.
Forced as I was to remain in bed, save for when relieving myself, I took to reading. Though he seemed somewhat disapproving of some of the titles, Maester Walys did as I asked him, and brought me the dozen of books that I requested. Naturally, I had not gotten through half of them by the time I was allowed to leave my chambers, but one in particular nearly gave me a fit.
It was several years out of date, yet no matter how long I looked at the ink inscribed upon its pages, the words would not change.
In the grand scale of things, the information it imparted was of no great importance to the people already living in the world. But to me, who had only just arrived in it, who had come to inhabit the body of one Lord Stark's sons... it was world shattering.
Three children, where there should have been but one. Three dragonspawn from the (not quite yet) Mad King and his sister-wife.
Rhaegar, Shaena and Daeron.
Gods be good, Rhaegar alone brought enough ruin and death for the whole of Westeros with his foolish actions.
What would the Seven Kingdoms be like with two additional Targaryen children? Could they even survive such a thing?
Once, when Maester Walys had come to check on my health, I decided to ask him a few questions, which hopefully wouldn't reveal the true extent of my ignorance, or would at least be passed off as just a side-effect of the winter fever.
"Maester Walys, I've a question or two to ask, if you'd answer."
The break in the daily routine of his visits seemed to improve his mood somewhat. "Of course, my lord. What is it you wish to know?"
"I've been rereading the Westeros: Kings of Old and New and at the end of it came across mention of King Aerys and his children. The Targaryens occasionally hold to the practice of marrying off their sons to their daughters, as was the case with the king himself. Has it been ever said why they do this and whether it will be continued in the future?"
"An odd question, my lord. Yes, it is true they do indeed follow such practices, even though they've converted to the Seven, back when Aegon the Conqueror and his sisters still lived, but the reason for it tends to differ. One Targaryen king said it was to keep the bloodline pure and strong. It was mentioned in the odd book or two that he did so because he feared they might lose their dominion over their dragons if they mingled with any of the Westerosfolk, be they Andal, First Men or Rhoynar. Another spoke that it was simply done in accordance with the traditions of Old Valyria, where such practices were common and wide-spread among the ruling families of the Freehold. As for His Grace, King Aerys II, it is said that on the day of his first daughter's birth she was betrothed to Prince Rhaegar."
"First daughter?" If my voice had faltered in the question, I didn't notice.
Rather than answer me, Maester Wylas brought up his wrinkled hand to my forehead and pressed his palm against it.
"Hmm, no heightened temperature," he mumbled to himself, before he addressed my inquiry. "Yes, my lord. His first daughter, Princess Shaena, was betrothed to her brother, the Crown Prince. Perhaps it was his wish to do so only for the heir, rather than every member of his dynasty, as neither Prince Daeron nor either of the Princesses, Daenerys and Rhaena, had been betrothed to anyone thus far."
I thought the world had gone mad when I knew Rhaegar had two siblings in a time where should have had none yet.
Now that I knew he had an additional two, and a Daenerys among them (I could only hope the coin had landed differently for her than the younger counterpart of whom I'd read about), I thought all my knowledge of possible future events was for naught.
Knowledge alone would not suffice. With grim determination, I realized I would have to do more than try to meddle in from the sides.
Shortly after my health improved Brandon was quick about trying to rouse me up for all manner of mischief. His visits to my chambers, when I was still bed-ridden, were few, but now that had changed. It was a distraction, one which I'd not needed, not now after what I'd found out.
He'd almost given up on me entirely until he saw me asking the master-at-arms for my weapons training to resume. The man had been quick to deny me, citing my health and lack of commitment from before, but Brandon overrode his opinion and said he wanted his little brother to join him in the morning exercises. I was given the impression this was not something that usually happened.
Brandon proved the better of us two, naturally. He'd already been practicing for two-three years, if not more, when I took up the wooden weapon and started learning the basics of sword-fighting. But I was nothing if not persistent. Or stubborn, depending on whom you asked. Time and time again wood would strike, clothed though I was in padded armor, and a bruise would form.
It did me little good, practice. I was just barely managing to be average at the best of times, and outright horrid at the worst.
As all brothers would, Brandon too took joy in teasing me. "Chin up, little brother, it can only get better." And then he had laughed, and his laughter was an infectious thing and I laughed alongside him. Despite the face I presented to Winterfell, to those that Eddard Stark would call kin and friends, I found myself missing my own family, my own siblings, even though they drove me to fits sometimes. It was a long road to fully accepting it, but I would never see any of them ever again. And so in the gaping hole of their absence, I embraced the family that was with me, here and now, rather than try and pointlessly long for that which could never be mine again.
So I laughed at Brandon's japes when they amused me and lied for him when I thought it necessary, as any brother would.
His face was filled with wonder and affection, after he had seen me spin a bold-faced lie to our lord father about whether I knew who might have taken a pitcher of wine from the pantry one morn when I'd gone in for a munch or two. Brandon was quite surprised by it.
Well, that and the incident with the Whitehill boy that followed soon after.
Racks of weapons lined the walls and long oak-wood tables were crowded with all manner of iron and steel, man-wrought for the purpose of wounding, maiming and killing. There was something serene about the sight. A purity of sorts that could not be denied.
When I left the armory behind I bid the men standing guard outside it goodbye and crossed the covered bridge, back to the Great Keep. My next destination were the kitchens, as I knew they'd be sparsely populated at such an early hour of the day.
Or not.
"— piss-poor sight, isn't he? The little lordling."
"Thinks he can swing a sword a few times for a few turns of the moon, as if that'll make him the Dragonknight."
"Brandon does the same, and his swordsmanship keeps improving."
I'd barely just entered the kitchens and found them to be nearly empty when I heard a pair of voices. Given that they were nowhere in plain sight, it was fair to assume they'd gone into the pantry and sat on some barrels. Were something else the topic of their discussion, I wouldn't have paid heed to them whatsoever. But fate, it seemed, had other things in mind.
"I'll give you that, but don't you think it strange how where one brother excels, the other stumbles around in mediocrity? I suppose that's the risk one takes with his children when marrying a close cousin. And that's not even the worst that could've happened. Imagine if he was born deformed or a lackwit. Come to think of it, one outta four 's not such a bad deal, so long as that one is the heir, eh?"
"Idiot!" his friend hissed at him. "If one of the Starks, or their men, heard you spewing shite like that, you'd get a thrashing. Or worse."
"Or worse," I agreed.
I was on the other boy before he even had a chance to turn around and face me. Older, taller and stronger, had he not been surprised by me appearing behind them, he could have prevented me from doing him any significant harm. But I was quicker, and full of wroth, my knee hitting his leather-padded groin while my thumbs went straight for his eyes. Fool that he was, he tried grabbing me by the wrists and pulling my hands down, but it availed him nothing, even as pain flared in my bones from the pressure.
Only when his friend struck me across the face, thrice, did I start to relent. There was blood in my eyes.
It couldn't have lasted more than a few brief moments, but the damage was done. By the time someone had appeared to separate us, the boy who so carelessly spoke his words of offense was wailing from the pain, writhing on the floor.
I was smiling, blood and all.
The action did little to endear me to Rickard.
"It was an ill done thing, no matter what the boy said. Control yourself better in the future, you're not a mindless beast."
"I'm not. And I've done no wrong."
I've not done enough, I wished to say, but knew better and stayed silent.
He looked at me, as if I was the opposite of reason, and then sighed.
"The boy was drunk. Even the best of men lose hold of common sense when plied with enough wine. Had you come to me and told me of it, I would have made my displeasure more than clear, and by sending him back to his home, his family would've known they were out of favor. Now? Now I must send the boy, crippled in one eye, back to his uncle and father, and my son's reasoning for doing so will seem like paltry excuse to justify his rabid nature. We are fortunate that he is but a nephew, rather than one of Lord Whitehill's own sons."
Remorse for what I'd done was absent, but I felt a shame, of sorts. "Father, I —"
"Leave, Eddard" he waved me off, "I've letters to write. Go to your mother, she has a few choice words of her own to say."
I bowed my head and left the Lord of Winterfell's solar.
The first thing that greeted me upon entering Lyarra's chambers was her hand. She did not strike me with great force and in the next moment, before I could even utter a single word, she embraced me. What followed was a feverish expression of concern for my well-being. She was less concerned about what I'd done to the other boy, than what could have happened to me in our short brawl.
"Lyam Whitehill is a fool, who seems to have raised an even greater fool for a son. He presumes much, using his brother's status to try and assert his position, feeble though it may be. You've won yourself no friend with the Whitehills and their allies. I doubt the Boltons will care much for what has happened, even though they're their liege lords, but they might yet use the incident for their own ends."
She had much insight to share in matters of the North, as I would come to find out in the coming months and years.
"Tell me, why did you attack the boy?"
"He insulted Benjen and Lyanna. You and father, too. He spoke badly of our family. Said we were akin to the Targaryens."
Lyarra placed a finger beneath my chin and bid me look up at her. "That is not what I asked, Ned."
I wanted to bow my head low, I wanted not to be facing those stormy eyes, but she wouldn't let me look away. "I don't know."
It was a lie and we both knew it.
Before the incident, I had been steadily working on bettering my relationship with Lyanna. She was not someone I could ignore, not if Rhaegar showed any interest in her come the tourney at Harrenhal, sister-wife or not at his side. It was so strange to look upon a girl so young, so small, and think she might be the spark that lights the fire that would consume the Seven Kingdoms.
I worshiped no gods, but I prayed all the same that Rhaegar Targaryen never came across any mention of prophecies in his life.
And so I watched over my little sister, keenly aware how important our relationship might be in the future. Yet I still could not shake the feeling of dread when I looked upon her, for she was yet another discrepancy in this world. Born only a year after Ned, rather than four.
We'd read books together, with Lyanna oft accompanying me to the great library of Winterfell. But she'd never stay for too long, and I'd follow after her, as she was ever drawn to the outside. The wild blood was in her, as it was written.
She craved the excitement, the rush of horses racing, the yelps and joyous screams.
More than once, we'd both been reprimanded and punished, in small measure, by our father and mother for riding in the rain or riding too far ahead from the Winterfell guards that were our escorts. The shared duties in the kitchen only served to make us bond quicker.
But Lyanna Stark was not all wilfulness and wildness. In her, I recognized a kind spirit, one that would lament the injustices suffered by others and herself, and would then try to right them. Many times did I hear her say "It's not fair!" whether it was when she brought up that Brandon and I practiced with weapons while she was to be denied, or whether it was one of the local smallfolk asking for help that was to be refused simply for the scarcity of resources up there in the North. It was a harsh life for any born to common men and women.
Lyanna seemed ever set on trying to change the world, without ever realizing what folly it would be to attempt such a thing on her own.
Yet I could not refuse her, no more than I could have refused the sisters of my first family. She would never have the strength of a full-grown man, nor perhaps the skill of sword-masters, but she had speed on her side and I could at least give her a chance.
In the mornings, my time was spent with Brandon, but my evenings were split between Lyarra and Lyanna. With one I learned ever more of the North and its lords, its ways and history. With the other, I taught. Though I was never that good at taking to lessons with a sword myself, Lyanna seemed a natural. She learned swiftly, and was better at evading the wooden blade.
Perhaps it was all just because she wished to avoid hiding the bruises on her thin frame, as they'd linger for a while.
Instead of the yard, we practiced in the First Keep. Abandoned and rarely ventured in, it was perfect for staying out of sight.
Once, I'd bopped her by accident across the shoulder a tad too strong and she cried out. Naturally that attracted a passing guard to take a peek inside and look about for any that might have been there. One hand across her mouth, to stifle any further cry of pain, we kept to the shadows of one the upper floors and waited for him to leave. When he did, Lyanna bit me on the hand and then laughed in a way all too hauntingly similar to Brandon. Wolf blood. What was I to do with the both of them? Protect and care for them, as promised.
However, our relationship changed for the worse, and looking back on it, I should have expected as much.
I'd evaded the notice of the guards and servants of Winterfell and under the cover of night snuck into the fortress. Not long after I'd settled on one of the few covered surfaces (a rug in very poor state) Lyanna came. Whereas I was keen to start with our practice and smiled at the sight of her, she seemed almost hesitant and wary. No smile to greet me back with.
"Is it true?" asked Lyanna, without preamble, staring into my eyes.
Her approach confused me. "Is what true?"
"That you attacked some boy, simply because he spoke poorly of you?"
That blasted affair, why did it hound me so? A few days had passed from since, and I'd already put it out of my mind.
"What? Lyanna, that's not it at all. Who told you that?"
"But you maimed him, didn't you?"
I refused to grit my teeth, but came close to it. "Yes, I did. What of it? Why care for a boy that insulted us all with such glee?"
"It was not just of you."
Just? She would speak to me of what was just when she was still a child in heart and mind?
"Should I have waited for him to spew more filth, wait until he spoke of our mother and father in far baser tongue? Mayhaps I only ought to have voiced my protest and he'd have ceased? His kind doesn't learn when reproved with words alone, they know and understand no lessons but ones taught with violence and fear." I could have gone further, but I stopped myself and sighed. "Enough, Lyanna. I would speak no more of him when we have far better things to do."
She stepped back "Not now. Not tonight."
Lyanna turned away and left, leaving me alone in the decrepit fortress.
There was no practice that night, nor the ones that followed after it. I went and waited many days, but Lyanna never showed up. A chasm had spawned between the two of us and I knew not of how to mend us back to how we were before.
The loss of a sister... I did not take it well.
Rickard and Lyanna might have disapproved, but Brandon was proud of me when he heard about it.
"The wolf blood," he'd said that very same day, when we sat next to each other at the table for dinner, "you're like me."
If he sounded relieved at that, that he was no longer the only wild Stark with a violent temper in the family, I paid it little heed.
In the practice yard, I had all but given up on trying to better my sword-play (it mattered not whether I wielded a bastard, a short one or a two-hander, I failed to improve), and had started looking to master one of the other weapons available from the armory.
After a number of times I tried my hand at several types of weaponry (the less said about axes, the better), I'd settled for a mace.
The Winterfell blacksmith was not pleased when I came to him and asked for one. Instead, he directed me to one of the carpenters who'd undertaken the task he set out, for a few coins, and presented me with my very first wooden mace.
Brandon thought me mad for choosing a weapon with a shorter range, but after a few times we'd fought each other, he changed his opinion and his preferred approach when fighting me. No longer could he try to dance around me as he used to, for fear of the mace's head smashing him with blunt force. After that, more often than not, Brandon would end up the one more bruised of the two of us.
Lyarra remained protective of me, though not to the point of smothering. Watchful, but always from a distance.
Even when I practiced in the yard with Brandon.
Twice she came to watch us have a go at it in person, but afterwards her presence wasn't quite so obvious.
I'd still spy her, looking down on the yard from one of the windows of the keep. Every time Brandon scored a hit on me, she would frown worryingly or clench her hands in the furs she wore across her dress. Every time I would go to her later in the evening and comfort her, assure her all was well and Brandon did no more harm to me than I would have to him if I'd the chance.
"Boys and their swords," she'd cluck her tongue, "foolish." Then she'd bring me close for another embrace, which had become a common thing whenever we met in private. We'd plenty of that, private meetings, as I hungered for knowledge and she was a veritable walking and talking library who volunteered all she knew without second thought to her second-born son, which was more than Maester Walys ever did, as he always seemed displeased whenever I inquired about certain matters.
The grey rat was oft put off when I asked about the North from times past (before the Targaryens came, before the Andals ever invaded) and the old ways, the old gods, the old tongue, runes, the children of the forest, grumkins and snarks.
"The past is the past, young lord Stark. We must ever strive to learn from it, but not seek to repeat it and its many mistakes."
No surprise there, that a Reachman would disapprove of the North.
Lyarra preferred to give her lessons on the North in the expanse of the godswood, most oft in front of the heart tree.
It was beyond words, the peace I felt in that place, before the carved face of the old gods, before that pool of black water. A haunting beauty, one to stalk my dreams in years and years to come. A place so ancient, what was my life compared to a mere tenth of its existence?
Much have I sought out the place for solitude and calmness, even more so after that night with Lyanna.
"Never worship blindly. Never follow a man's words on what the gods might wish of us. We are of the North. Our gods are of the earth and tree and stone. They were here before we ever set foot in these lands, and here they will remain, long past either of us."
Not strong, not omnipotent nor omniscient, but they were there, in every rustle of the blood-red leaves, in every creak of a branch.
Still, I did not worship.
"Why do you visit the godswood so often, mother?"
"To pay my respects. To pray, sometimes." She smiled. "To listen."
This was not merely tradition for her. This was not about merely emulating those that came before. This was belief.
Unshakeable faith. Were she of the South, I might have thought her a zealot, but the nature of Northern ways didn't allow for it.
Yet she believed, though at the time I knew not the cause of it, nor the source of her belief's strength.
Benjen I could not get rid of, no matter whether I was pouring through dusty texts in the Library Tower, if I roamed through the ancient castle and its towers and crypts and hallways, always in search of its secrets (in vain), or even at meal-times. He was like a tick, attached to me, intent on distracting me, stealing what little remaining time I had before I was to be shipped off south; but such is the bane of all older brothers, to be hounded by their younger siblings. I knew that well.
When Lyanna and I raced, he cheered us on. When Brandon and I fought each other, he whooped for whoever scored a hit on the other. Quick to make a jape, to make all around him laugh, to tease and to taunt... even as a four year old boy, Benjen was a trickster, waiting for the world to notice the japes it played on it. How could such a boy ever choose for himself a life with the brothers in black?
I could say that I merely tolerated it all, that all of them were a means to some vague end, but it would have been a lie.
And then it came, so suddenly. The day I was to depart from Winterfell was set, the arrangements made and my few belongings packed.
Lyarra and Rickard had spoken to me about it many moons ago. In a way, I both anticipated it eagerly and dreaded it. I was to be shorn from what had become a new home for me, yet if I were to remain in Winterfell, how much misfortune might befall the Starks?
Even if it had been a choice to be offered and contemplated, it was no choice at all, in truth. Not for me.
I'd given my farewells to Brandon and Benjen before I'd left the Great Hall. Benjen had not understood fully what a fostering meant, but he knew I was leaving and he was saddened by it. My own departure coupled with Brandon's, who would leave the next day early in the morn for his fostering with the Dustins, had dampened Benjen's otherwise cheerful mood and made him sullen.
Outside, a light autumn snow was falling, just enough to muddy the ground.
Rickard Stark had given me few words before I was to mount my horse, mostly about restraint and behaving myself properly.
Lyarra was the more affectionate of the two and did not shy from expressing it openly, by lowering herself and scooping me up in her arms and pressing me hard to her bosom. Her affection was returned when I wrapped my arms around her and promised to write.
When we separated, I had thought all partings and goodbyes had been done and dealt with, and I was set to leave.
It was not so.
Faster than I could see, or turn around to properly greet her, I had been suddenly enveloped in a firm hug from Lyanna.
I can't say I've forgotten about her in all the months of silence since our last meeting in the First Keep, but I tried not to dwell too much on her, knowing it would do me no good to try and force her to reconcile with me. I only wish it had happened sooner.
Not dressed appropriately for the weather, her smaller form hung off mine and her voice trembled in the cold air when she spoke.
"Come back safely, come back home to us, Ned."
Spoken in a different tongue, addressed by a different name.
I could almost forget that this sister of mine had dark hair and grey eyes.
"I will, and in the meantime, I'll write."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
Tongue-tied, I gave a feeble smile to my kin from the saddle and on we went.
Winterfell was soon left behind and with it a part of my heart.
I had found out one unpleasant fact once we boarded a ship at White Harbor - where we'd been warmly welcomed by Lord Wyman Manderly in the Merman's Court - and set sail across the open sea: I hadn't the stomach for it. Whether it was because their method of crossing the distance over water was so antiquated in comparison to the world I was born in or whether I was just plainly seasick no matter what kind of ship I was on, it didn't matter, the fish were well fed either way.
What mattered, however, was the length of the journey to Gulltown. It was... more than I expected. More than I hoped, certainly. Two-three weeks in ideal conditions, so I'd been told, but the ones we encountered were anything but ideal. The first week had been fine, for while the sky was cloudy and the wind occasionally blew too hard, it was smooth sailing.
But on the tenth day, things started getting worse.
The ship was being beset by heavy wind and strong waves, and a storm was fast approaching from the south-east.
Many of the sailors still manned the ship atop, but the few passengers that there were, myself included, retreated below deck to the cabin we shared, under the captain's orders; not that I had any wish to expose myself to the elements to begin with, mind you.
As I was being occupied by the occasional dry-heaving into a bucket before me, I failed to notice when the captain had come down below as well. Only when he passed near one of my personal guards and was addressed by him did I pay any heed.
"We must find a place to set down anchor, soon, else we'll be smashed to pieces."
When I turned my eyes aside to look at the Winterfell guard that spoke, Wallace I think his name was, I saw that he'd grabbed the captain by the arm. A bad move, given that the captain was by no small measure the bigger of the two and could easily overpower him if he wished to do so. But he didn't, and instead the captain only gave a dark, meaningful look to the guard, who realized that he'd overstepped and released him promptly.
"It's just a storm," the captain's gruff voice boomed, "you needn't fret for your safety, greenlander."
The guard's face darkened at the monicker, but said nothing of it. That the captain was Ironborn came as no small surprise, but given that he was being employed by the Manderlys for my conduct to the Vale, I doubt he was ever a reaver, else his head would have been parted from his shoulders long ago. Of all the realms in Westeros, the North had the least tolerance for pirate scum.
"Bugger yourself, you salt-struck fool, it's not myself I worry about." The guard took one glance at me, and the captain followed the look with one of his own. "It's Lord Stark's son we have with us. An autumn storm is not to be taken lightly."
The captain viewed the guard somewhat less hostile than before. "Sailed before, have you?"
"Some, not much. Bear Island and the occasional trip to the Three Sisters."
"The Sisters, hmm. They spit in your stew?"
"And how do you tell the difference between the two?"
At that, both of them cracked a grin. There was no love lost where the Sistermen were concerned.
"Is there a port near?"
The captain stayed silent for a moment and then replied with, "Aye, there is."
"And? Why not press on there? Why risk the ship in a storm when we're already almost past the Fingers?"
"It's no place I'd choose to sail, if I could avoid it, if there were other ports close to us..."
"And are there any?"
"The Paps," the captain grumbled, "if we turn back now on and try to outrun the storm. Unlikely we'd succeed. Or we could try and navigate between the Fingers for some shelter from the weather, but we'd as likely find ourselves breaching the lower deck on some rocks. If this weren't in front of us, I'd set forth for Longbow Hall - they maintain a small harbor on their shores along with a small village - and stay there for a day or two, until the storm passed us."
"So there isn't really any choice to this?"
"No," the captain finally agreed.
"What's the name of this place that we'll be sailing to?"
"Witch Isle."
It was a quaint place, if anything. Neither large nor small, it seemed just the right size for the castle that was built atop it and the small copse of pinewood that surrounded it. Didn't seem as if it warranted any of its ominous reputation among the sailors. I could understand, to a point, that the captain had no wish to dock here in the first place, for there were few, if any, opportunities for trade and profit, but we were about to face a storm; not exactly a position where one gets to cherry-pick at leisure.
Once we had started to approach the island, the storm had seemed to ease up a bit, though the rain still fell as hard as it did on open sea, and the crackle of lightning was heard anew after each flash that tore through the night-sky. But we were safe now.
The Lord of Witch Isle was nothing if not courteous, even before he learned of my presence on the ship.
I was up on the deck when some men arrived, shortly after the ship had been secured, asking if there were any who needed the care of a Maester, if the ship was short on provisions and such. After taking a few moments to look at them, I saw they wore fine steel and iron, and all of them had the resident lord's coat of arms decorating their front: a field of black, with a cresting sea-green wave across it.
Men from the castle atop the isle's hill.
I might have pondered a bit more about their lord had Irritation not flared in me as the Ironborn captain turned to look my way when the Maester had been brought up. I may have been a boy of eight in the flesh, but I was a man grown in soul and mind, with pride and ego to match. I shook my head curtly enough and the matter was dropped as the captain resumed his talks with the other men.
But the guards had noticed our brief exchange and they looked upon me with more than a cursory glance.
Once the direwolf's engraving was spotted on my chest and the men that accompanied me, an invitation to the keep followed.
Harras Upcliff was a man much like any other, but a rare breed of a lord, as I would come to find out.
Bald and clean shaven, with pale green eyes, he was not particularly tall, but tall enough to a boy barely eight years old. I couldn't guess accurately at Lord Upcliff's age; at the very least he had to have been in the fourth decade of his life, if not the fifth. The crow's feet around his eyes and laugh lines around his mouth told as much. A widower and a lord that kept to his own domain, lest his liege called upon him (a rare event indeed), he greeted me when I arrived to his forefathers' halls.
"Hail, Eddard Stark, and be welcome. Bread and salt are yours, as is wine and water. Come, sit."
A place was made for me at Lord Upcliff's table, next to his son and heir, Ulwyck, who wore his hair long and loose, but his beard short and trimmed. One of the ships we'd seen in harbor was his own, The Sea Green, gifted to him by his father upon reaching majority, which was now six years behind him. He had the curse of wanderlust in him, from what I could tell.
Ulwyck wished to sail forth towards distant waters and explore little-known and unknown lands.
"Qarth, Yi Ti, Leng... even now, so much remains unknown about them. The books speak scarcely about them, and whether that is because the Maesters have little knowledge about them, or something else entirely, is unknown. It is a shame though."
"Would you then sail east, as Corlys Velaryon once did, and visit fabled Nefer?"
At that, Ulwyck scoffed. "I've no fleet to follow after me, as he did, nor the funds to hire new ships along the way. And though the Sea Snake had sailed much of the world, he limited himself on purpose. His purpose might have been two-fold - to explore and bring back riches - but it didn't take long until he turned back with his holds full. Explorer by happenstance rather than design."
Of the three daughters Lord Upcliff had, the eldest, Rhea, was a gracious host, albeit she was interested in me solely due to my ancestry and thus our conversation at her father's table was kept strictly non-personal. I didn't blame her for a lack of interest, given that she was my senior by seven years in this world. She was a fine conversationalist and easily roped me into discussing the odd bit of history or two regarding my family, while the others dined and talked amongst themselves.
"But what if the Pact had been upheld?" she posed a question, one of many, to me. "What if Cregan Stark had taken a Targaryen for his bride, rather than a Blackwood? Strange, was it not, how he settled for less than what was promised and owed."
I shrugged. "Who knows? It was for the better perhaps, safer even, to wed a woman of the First Men, than one of Valyrian blood, especially so soon after the Dance. And in truth?" I leaned closer to Rhea, as if to conspire of fell deeds; a comical sight for one so young as myself. "I'm not fond of the Targaryen coloring. Would look quite unseemly on a face as plain and long as my own."
She snorted and wine almost came running from her nose. That attracted the attention of Lord Upcliff's second daughter.
Arabelle tested my patience. It would be people like her that would often make me forget my apparent young age in this world. She did not like me, I think, or rather she considered me not at at all, but kept her feelings veiled behind her southron courtesies. Always so proper, always so polite, even when her eyes betrayed boredom while she sought to entertain me. Her father's bidding, I suppose.
But where her sisters were women grown, the youngest one, Ursula, was a skinny little thing with her father's eyes, and though all her siblings had black hair, Ursula's was that of young wheat; fair when bathed in the rays of sun and light of fire, dark when shadows fell upon her or storm-clouds obscured the sky as they did now. Whether she emulated her siblings consciously or not, she resembled them in the most innocuous of ways. Like Ulwyck, she too had a curious nature, if aimed in a different direction, but was less blunt, more sly.
"Lord Stark," she'd addressed me, "would you mind if I were to ask a few questions of your home?"
What a strange feeling, to be referred to as such, when Rickard and my brother still lived. "Not at all, ask all you like."
What a mistake that turned out to be. Her charm she used to full extent, until I found myself telling her all that I knew of Winterfell. In truth, I wanted to speak of it too. For while I may have had the boy's memories of the place, experiencing it was something entirely else. Exploring the castle, wandering across its walls, going up its towers, wandering through the vast and dark godswood... I was filled with much awe.
Even as I told of it, I saw part of that awe reflected in Ursula's eyes.
"I should very much like to visit Winterfell's godswood. It sounds beautiful."
"It indeed is, Lady Ursula," I replied, not noticing a small stiffness in her posture at being addressed so.
Before I could continue our conversation, Rhea once more started throwing questions at me and before I knew it supper was over and it was time to retire to our respective chambers. Just as I was about to lie in bed for the night, someone knocked on the door.
"Enter," I called out, somewhat surprised at this late hour visit from whomever it was.
'Whomever' turned out to be Ulwyck, looking oddly serious.
"Eddard Stark, my apologies for keeping you from sleep. I'll be short."
"And yet, you're still quite tall, Ulwyck Upcliff," I japed nonsensically, to bleed off some of the tension that came out of nowhere.
It worked somewhat, as his mouth didn't seem quite so sternly leaning towards a grimace anymore.
"I come to offer my apologies."
Now that was surprising. "I wasn't aware there was anything to apologize for. Your father hosted us most graciously, welcomed us to his halls when the ship's cabin would have sufficed. If anyone should apologize, it is me, for not thanking you properly."
Ulwyck just shook his head. "It is the least we could do for a guest of your esteemed rank."
"Then I suppose we should thank the storm for arranging this meeting between us." His mouth turned to a soft, brief smile. Well, I suppose I could repeat myself. "So please, if you would, tell me what you think you ought to apologize for."
"Ursula," said Ulwyck, frowning. "She overstepped, but meant no insult. Her eagerness overcame her manners."
Blinking confusedly, I asked, "Overstepped? She but asked a few questions of my home and I answered. No insult to be had."
"She ought not to have been so bold with a lord, even one so young as yourself."
I felt like I was missing some piece in the puzzle that was our conversation. "Why not?"
"Because she's a bastard and she ought to have known better."
Ah, there we go. "I suppose this has something with me calling her a lady then, yes? I assure you, no offense was taken. Nor do I mind her having been seated at the same table as me. Given that you all were sitting there before we'd even arrived, I'd interrupted a family dinner, and so I should be the one to offer apologies. Natural born or not, no one should be forced to sit apart from their kin."
Seeing me so easily accept that there was a bastard girl seated at a table for highborn, that she dined at the same table as I, that she conversed freely and boldly, and that I took no offense at all, made all tension dissipate from Ulwyck almost instantly.
"Not many in Westeros possess such attitude. Not in the Vale, for certain. Bastards may be acknowledged, but they are rarely brought to their parent's home. If you don't find me intruding too much, might I ask if this is the behavior one could find common in the North?"
"In truth, I could not say. As far as I know, I have no half-siblings, and I've not traveled to the keeps and holds of other lords. For myself, I hold nothing against any bastard, save if they prove hostile, as no child ever chose what side of the bed they were born on."
Having said that, I felt all too pompous, like a peacock, and invited Ulwyck to sit down and talk with me some more about his half-sister. From what little and his sisters knew, the girl was conceived while Lord Harras was traveling abroad, in Pentos. Their mother having died years and years before that, they had little issue with accepting the newest arrival as it slighted not the late Melyssa Moore (a raven haired beauty from whom the three of them inherited their hair), and Rhea and Arabelle took to her keenly, glad for yet another sister. At times, it lead him to despair, to be surrounded by sisters from all sides, but Ulwyck gave off the impression he wouldn't have it any other way.
Much like myself, then.
We stayed up for another hour or so before realizing how late it was and then bid goodnight.
We didn't wait two days for the storm to pass us by. We waited four. The wind and hale grew so harsh outside that even the men that previously slept on the ships docked in the harbor left them behind and settled in the modest inn for a short time, while satiating some of their baser urges in the local brothel. By the end of my stay on Witch Isle, I learned quite a bit about the Upcliffs.
Like the Royces, the Redforts, the Hunters and several other families of the Vale, they too were descendants of First Men.
A bit of a grim and bloody past, rumors of witchcraft and sorcery, but then again that sort of thing was present even in the Stark family history. Tended to happen with any longer-lasting families, it seemed. Some bits of their history made me curious, I admit. A notable member of their bloodline was actually married to a ruling Arryn of the Vale to bring them into the fold. One had to wonder why that was necessary, why the Arryns didn't try military subjugation rather than vassalization through marriage. Rhea had no answer to that.
Arabelle was... well, Arabelle. Our relationship didn't change by much, she wasn't any more interested in me than she was before.
Ursula had a wide grin on her face whenever she saw me, hounding after me, asking me all manner of things. Why she thought I knew the exact number of trees in the godswood, which spanned three acres, I have no idea. She asked the oddest of questions.
"Would I be welcome up North?" she asked one day as we sat in the castle's library.
Shrugging, I replied, "I couldn't say. Depends where you might wish to go."
"What about Winterfell? Would you show me to the godswood, if you could?"
"If I were there, and not in the Vale, I would." It is not as if she asked for much, and no one likes to shatter little children's hopes and dreams. Yet they ought to be tempered with a measure of reality. "I cannot guarantee anything if I am not there."
"Then, when you go back North, for a visit or otherwise, I might come and visit too and you'll show me the heart tree."
Her interest struck me as odd. I didn't inquire on matters of faith with the rest of the Upcliffs, but I assumed they worshiped the Seven, like the other First Men descendants that intermarried with the Andals that invaded and conquered the Vale.
"Do you pray to the old gods or the Seven, Ursula?"
She laughed at that, a small tinkling sound echoing in the silence of the library. "How could I, without a godswood? There's a septry here, but it's not used much. Besides, from all sides we're surrounded by the sea. Would be odd to pray to either of them."
"Do you worship any of the gods then?"
Ursula bit her lip and looked unsure of herself for a moment. "I don't worship or pray. But I like talking to the Lady."
Besides the broad specifics of some of the faiths in Westeros, I knew nothing about them. "The Lady?"
She rose from her chair and took me by the arm, pulling me up. Having nothing better to do, I followed. We didn't go far, just barely past the library, to one of the nearby windows, from where we could see the open sea, in rage, waves rising and falling.
"The Lady of the Waves. It's said that storms are the result of her bedding the Lord of the Skies."
A bit of teasing was in order. "What must their children be like then?"
For that I received a light slap on the arm and a giggle from Ursula as we turned back towards the library.
We were seen off by Lord Upcliff when the storm finally passed. Along with his children, he came down to the harbor. Ulwyck had this expression of pure longing on his face, watching The White Gray, our ship, prepare itself for departure. Not longing for a ship like it, I think, but rather the chance to set out. In the few days I spent in his home, he expressed some discontent with being forced more and more often to remain at Witch Isle, learning ever more of his lordly duties, when he'd rather be out sailing. Rhea and Arabelle were perfect ladies, whereas Ursula had discarded her courtesies ever since she came to know I cared not whit about her being a bastard.
Harras Upcliff had to gently clear his throat before his youngest tore herself away from me.
To show I was not bothered, I smiled and returned the hug, albeit less enthusiastic than Ursula's.
"Remember what you promised," said Ursula.
"I promised nothing," I corrected her, and when she frowned I grinned. "But I'll see what I can do."
Satisfied, she nodded. "Good!" And then she moved back to stand with her siblings, while her father gave his farewells.
"You shall always be welcome to the Depths, Eddard Stark. Whether I still rule, or my son has succeeded me, know you have made yourself a friend with House Upcliff. It has been some time since any of the North came to visit, but we shall remember you."
"Thank you for your kind words, Lord Upcliff. For what it's worth, you have a friend in me as well. I can promise little, for I know not what future awaits me, but if I should ever hold lands and a keep of my own, you and yours shall always be a glad sight to see in them."
They were no kin of mine, but that didn't make them any less fond to me. The little tyke, most of all. She reminded me of Lyanna.
I told Wallace as much, who shook his head and replied, "For your sake, let us hope otherwise."
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- Location
- United Kingdom
I've said this before but I think you've got a really good start here and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes.
Odran
Curmudgeon
- Location
- The land of Nod
I've still got miles to improve in writing, but thanks nonetheless, Hasty.
Right, for the folks seeing this for the first time (mostly discussed in a rolz room for a quest run here on SV), it's a Ned Stark SI fanfic that starts roughly about a year before he is sent to foster in the Vale alongside Robert Baratheon with Jon Arryn.
However, all the knowledge that SI has isn't quite as good as anymore, because there have been butterfly wings fluttering around, messing up things, changing some and letting others pass untouched. Some are fairly obvious, some are not. You'll see.
The plan here is to put out one chapter per week, ideally, with every chapter varying in size, but no less than 7-10k words per chapter. Naturally, I can't guarantee a steady influx of new chapters, besides the current 4 I have finished, so that's at least four weeks before a completely new one pops out.
Naturally, RL and other stuff may interfere, so there's no guarantee of a 5th chapter in the fifth week.
Hope you folks enjoy it, but really, I'm doing this just to mess around in ASOIAF world.
Right, for the folks seeing this for the first time (mostly discussed in a rolz room for a quest run here on SV), it's a Ned Stark SI fanfic that starts roughly about a year before he is sent to foster in the Vale alongside Robert Baratheon with Jon Arryn.
However, all the knowledge that SI has isn't quite as good as anymore, because there have been butterfly wings fluttering around, messing up things, changing some and letting others pass untouched. Some are fairly obvious, some are not. You'll see.
The plan here is to put out one chapter per week, ideally, with every chapter varying in size, but no less than 7-10k words per chapter. Naturally, I can't guarantee a steady influx of new chapters, besides the current 4 I have finished, so that's at least four weeks before a completely new one pops out.
Naturally, RL and other stuff may interfere, so there's no guarantee of a 5th chapter in the fifth week.
Hope you folks enjoy it, but really, I'm doing this just to mess around in ASOIAF world.
Glad to see this posted. Looking forward to the next chapter.
Edit:
Also noticed this:
Edit:
Also noticed this:
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Odran
Curmudgeon
- Location
- The land of Nod
Thanks. English not being my mother tongue, I'm prone to making mistakes when writing.
Bastard sword? I can't recall reading about Ned Stark wielding one. Ice is a greatsword, a two-hander if you will.
And yes, big changes indeed, even when you push aside the different fighting techniques, but not immediately noticeable.
Odran
Curmudgeon
- Location
- The land of Nod
Why make a SI in an AU?
And quite the hassle I would imagine....
Because while I do have some extensive knowledge of the world that no 7 year old would ever possess in Westeros, having exact knowledge of the future events would be just plain boring. Where's the challenge? Where's the fun?
Not everything goes according to canon here. So many things got changed around. Family trees aren't what they used to be, for starters. Even Lyarra Stark, who ought to be dead at this point, is a big enough game changer for the Stark family alone.
And it's not a complete overhaul of the ASOIAF world. It's more like a many-forked road and paths trodden or not, or if you will the roll of the dice cast, that altered the world state, rather than just me shaping it to suit my narrative for whatever the end-goal may be.
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- Location
- Brazil
Excellent start Odran. I'm really liking this, even if I felt you lost too much time with the Upcliffs, specially when compared to the amount of time spent on the Starks.
You mistook head for heard once, and you should correct the wait/waiting two days part.
You mistook head for heard once, and you should correct the wait/waiting two days part.
Odran is writing this? Prepare for Tully!Bashing.
Otherwise not that interesting to be honest, why would I follow the adventures of an asshole who thinks nothing about killing the spirit of a seven year old boy? Thanks, but no thanks.
EDIT: Just to expand a bit on this, I stopped reading when the SI squeezed out the eyes of some drunken boy because he had "insulted" the Stark clan. Really? Aren't there already enough sociopaths in ASOIAF?
Otherwise not that interesting to be honest, why would I follow the adventures of an asshole who thinks nothing about killing the spirit of a seven year old boy? Thanks, but no thanks.
EDIT: Just to expand a bit on this, I stopped reading when the SI squeezed out the eyes of some drunken boy because he had "insulted" the Stark clan. Really? Aren't there already enough sociopaths in ASOIAF?
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Odran
Curmudgeon
- Location
- The land of Nod
You're an odd one, not being interested in a thread, yet posting in it.
That's like coming over to someone's house and telling them you don't like them, despite them having never met you before.
Appreciate the feedback though, you reminded me to add something I forgot to in this version.
Cheers.
That's like coming over to someone's house and telling them you don't like them, despite them having never met you before.
Appreciate the feedback though, you reminded me to add something I forgot to in this version.
Cheers.
- Location
- Brazil
While Odran on rollz and real life is Fell creature from the deepest and darkest pit of Mordor, he is proving himself to be an excellent writer, and I trust him to not fall on that cheap and lazy device that is bashing. While the Tully's (Except Blackfish) deserve a lambasting for acting retarded (Edmure less so, Rob also went retarded not telling him his plans and expecting him to guess them, as far as I can remember), they had many good points and Catelyn gave Robb good advices too.
So, as much as Odran might despise some characters, and hate is something that he seems to have in spades, he is more than intelligent and talented enough to not let it affect his story should he wish so, and I trust that he won't do that.
So, as much as Odran might despise some characters, and hate is something that he seems to have in spades, he is more than intelligent and talented enough to not let it affect his story should he wish so, and I trust that he won't do that.
This is well written and the SI feels like a real person with both virtues and flaws rather than a dressed up white knight complex.
Odran
Curmudgeon
- Location
- The land of Nod
Oh you have no idea.
By white knight complex, I presume you mean jumping in various assortment of situations to save female characters simply because they happen to be female? Or did you mean something entirely else? Either way, chances are low for that happening.
Oh and just to forewarn anyone taking a peek at this thread: this is not a fix-it fic.
I have neither the inclination nor the knowledge for modernizing Westeros. There will be no modern sewer systems implemented. There will be no gunpowder or steam engines of any sort. There will be no advanced medicine. No tips on how to better preserve their food reserves for winter time. No championing causes that anyone would deem foolish in such a setting.
- Location
- US
The aspect of him that's an asshole is really the main reason I like this story. People tend to write SI's while idealizing themselves to an extent (not always, but it's a trend). But he's just a selfish character that wants to survive and do whatever, barely caring about the people around him, it's more realistic.
Tachikoma's Aunt
Priestess of Yog-Sothoth
- Location
- Variable
Agreed. Most SIs just aren't believable because most people in that situation wouldn't give two shits about saving their favorite characters or preventing a war. They'd just want to survive and try to come to terms with and move on from the fact that they've been permanently cut off from everything and everyone they've ever known.
Honestly, in order for an SI to both interesting and believable they pretty much have to be a bit of bastard. They have to be more ruthless and have fewer ties to others than the average human being in order to function at all in their new world without being a boring, emo little bitch--let alone interact with the plot in any kind of meaningful way.
Student of Zelretch
Give me back ice on my lake.
- Location
- Wisconsin Public Radio
So... Pre-existing minor sociopathy for the win?
- Location
- US
Isn't it always?
Excellent work. I'm looking forward to more.
He's going to fit right in then.
White knighting in Westeros isn't realistic. It isn't good. It is just dumb.
He's going to fit right in then.
White knighting in Westeros isn't realistic. It isn't good. It is just dumb.
