Playing with Dolls (Black☆Rock Shooter/A Song of Ice and Fire Crossover Fanfiction)

[Xavier Rall]

Playing With Dolls:

A Game of Thrones/Black Rock Shooter Crossover

On Dolls:

Regarding Their Arrival, Their Origins, Their Features, and Their Awakening​

It was in the Two-Hundred and Eighty-First Year since the Conquest, during the reign of the Targaryen King Aerys, the Second of His Name, that stars fell from the heavens, and in every place where they struck upon the world, a Doll was found.

In those early days of utter fascination and terror, every man and woman fancied themselves to be a mummer, maester, or even septon, as they told each other so many different stories about the strange women and girls that fell from the sky that even the Citadel, so committed its membership always is to the hoarding of the sum total of all human knowledge, has long given up the task of recording every possible theory as to their inscrutable origins.

The septons and true believers of the Faith once were of two minds regarding the Dolls.

A fair number, if not a great many, feared them to be spawned of every evil from across the world and beyond: Witches from Asshai. Monsters from Sothoryos. Even the dreaded Others from ages past. The ones who led mobs and soldiers to destroy the Dolls would then swiftly discover that they were capable of terrifying power in combat, using their monstrous blades, giant, nightmarish mounts, and impossible bolt-throwers to cut down great numbers of men with greater ease than farmers harvesting their grain.

This idea that they are monsters sent to destroy all humanity fell out of favor, however, when people stopped attacking the Dolls, and they in turn ceased to retaliate, seemingly content to no longer be assaulted. Thus, the septons teach that the Dolls came from the Gods, though they disagree as to whether they came from one of the Gods, some of them, or all of them. The most popular teaching preached by the septons is that the Dolls were a collaboration between the Maiden, the Smith, and the Warrior that was ordered or blessed by the Father so as to test the Faithful's adherence to their laws.

Among the maesters, discussion of where the Dolls came from was put aside in favor of the rigorous documentation of everything there was to be learned of what the Dolls looked like and how they functioned. Every Doll had these in common: They appeared alike as to women and girls on the cusp of womanhood; they had unblemished pale-white or ashen-grey skin; they had metal on their forms in the place of limbs, adorning their heads, and/or in their powerful weapons; they were faster and stronger than any man or creature, being made of some strange, durable materials that function alike to flesh, that heals itself far faster, but also does not appear to grow or change into something new – this applies also to their strange, often scandalous garb, always black or dark grey.

The stories the mummers give as to how the Dolls came to be were largely as swiftly forgotten as they were swiftly made, with only a small number becoming told widely enough that they were recorded.

• The Metalsmith in the Moon tells the story of a man on the Moon who worked as a metalsmith to make dolls to play with his lonely and beloved daughter. But eventually, both father and daughter would pass away, and the dolls would leave the Moon for the world below to find other children to play with.
• The Toybox of the Gods held the many games and toys that the gods used to entertain themselves and their Faithful in the Seven Heavens. One great collection of dolls used for games of mock battle and dress-up so enamored the Faithful that they asked the gods to share them with those still in the material world. The gods saw merit in the idea, and sent them down. This story, despite its popularity, is considered by large parts of the Faith as to be borderline heretical, if not outright blasphemous.
• The Daughters of the Stars spins a bard of how an ancient city of magic, because of the great hubris of its people, was doomed by the gods to destruction by subjecting them to disaster after disaster. The people pleaded with the gods for mercy, and they only conceded to allow the innocent virgins of the city to leave. Two ships were made, one for the boys and men, the other for the girls and women. The ships were set to leave, but then the final disaster of a horde of monsters befell the city. The men stayed to fight, and so they would die, and only the ship of the girls and women escaped destruction, but not without damage. They would repair themselves with their magic with forged metal to repair their bodies, and arm themselves so they would not be helpless, and would drift in the stars in search of safe harbor. And just as soon as they did, their vessel was assaulted, and they tumbled from the stars to the earth.

Whatever disagreements between the mummers, maesters, and septons the one truth of the Dolls to which all agree upon without question is that they are not of this world.

They have been given many different names over the years in the many places they fell, based on the various characteristics they shared. The Free City of Lys called them the Beauties, for although they all had various types and shapes of faces, no one would call any of them ugly, or even plain. The Dothraki called them the Sleepless Warriors, as they had no need to sleep. Indeed, they did not even have a need to eat, nor even to breathe. The cities of Slaver's Bay called them Trinkets, in acknowledgment of their impossibly-crafted metal limbs and weapons.

Here, in Westeros, we call them Dolls, for like the dolls we give our children, they are not human like we are, and are each the receptors of our feelings and imagination.

But most of all, it is because they are among the most important toys that are played with in the permanent contest of politics that many highborn call the Game of Thrones, ever since they began Awakening.

The debate as to precisely when the Dolls began Awakening, which one Awoke first or even why they Awaken at all unfortunately is more poetic or theological rather than rigorously academic, but by the time Robert's Rebellion had ended, all the Seven Kingdoms, and the world at large, became aware of what was happening to the Dolls.

Before, Dolls were divided between those that stayed in place wherever they landed, sometimes allowing themselves to be moved if approached with hostility, or those that wandered about with any discernable direction or purpose.

But then, their eyes, dull and grey, would alight with the brightness of a candle in any color of the rainbow in any shade, from the deepest red to the brightest purple. And they would then begin to speak, their face would express human emotion, and they would begin to act with the agency of a person, to fulfill whatever design they set upon themselves to do.

And as the first Awakened Dolls showed, there is little that can stop them, beyond the power of other Dolls.

The first Awakened Doll to be made known to Westeros was Strength, whose joining in common cause with Lord John Arryn has long since been taken as a sign of the Gods' favor turning from the Targaryens to the Baratheons, especially after her combat prowess forced the Trial at the Trident, wherein Robert and Rhaegar dueled to the death, and Robert won.

The second Awakened Doll made her presence known soon after, one Black Gold Saw, who, joined in confidence with Lord Tywin Lannister, would knock down King's Landing's gates, breach the Red Keep, easily overpower the Kingsguard, and slaughter the whole royal family there.

The third Awakened Doll appeared when Lord Eddard Stark and his party, in the course of fighting Ser Arthur Dayne to free his sister Lyanna from the Tower of Joy, were attacked by a Dead-Eyed Doll reacting to the fighting. This Doll, named Black Rock Shooter, fought and destroyed the Dead-Eyed Doll, saving Lord Stark and his compatriot Ser Howland Reed, but not Ser Arthur Dayne. They would also fail to save Lyanna Stark.

These Dolls were but the first. Of the thousands of Dolls whose appearances and locations have been documented by the Citadel and other centers of learning in Essos, hundreds of them have Awakened, each of them granting power and status to whoever they bond themselves to, whether they be kings or stable boys. And with each one that Awakens, the dangers of war, already great before, are magnified to such heights that haven't been seen since dragons last soared through the skies. A truth made plain with the failed Greyjoy Rebellion and the Destruction of Pyke.

But, even as the Awakened become further and further ingrained into the world, constantly reshaping the balance of power everywhere they appear, and making themselves known as individuals, the questions as to the truth of their origins, making, and purpose remain unknown, even to them.

- Work written and compiled by Archmaester Perestan of the Citadel​

Personal Note: Seventeen years have passed since the Arrival, and the Hand of the King, Lord John Arryn grows advanced in age. King Robert, First of His Name, goes North with his Royal Family, to personally invite Lord Stark to King's Landing, so that they may be at their adopted father's side before his passing, and so that Eddard Stark may take his place as Hand…

 

[michaell8000]

Oh wow arryn isn't dead from poison and of course BRS is at Eddard's side.

 

[Xavier Rall]

A/N: Forgot to add the disclaimer that I own neither Black Rock Shooter nor A Song of Ice and Fire.

Shooter for the Starks Pt. 1

Ned (283 AC)​

Eddard Stark's first mistake when he came upon the Tower of Joy in search of his sister was thinking that bringing six more men would be enough to take on Ser Arthur Dayne, especially while he was aided by Ser Oswell Whent.

Though Ned was able to make sufficiently short work of the lesser Kingsguard, that was not before Oswell had killed one of his men, and distracted Ned from focusing on Arthur earlier, whose two swords allowed him to easily keep pace with the five men attacking him, slashing Ser Howland Reed, spinning him aside.

But the graver mistake he made, one that was made of all the men there to fight for the fate of Lyanna Stark, was not taking sufficient notice of the Doll sitting by the wayside.

They had been too accustomed to treating the Dolls as simply hazardous parts of the landscape and the scenery. They had all failed to consider how Strength and Black Gold Saw joining the war portended to the possibility that the Dolls themselves were changing. And while all the men had consciously made sure not to approach the Doll in their fighting, Arthur had failed to watch where he knocked Ser Howland away, who tumbled and knocked over the Doll.

The only reason Ned knew that to be case was that just after he killed Sew Oswell, Howland slammed into him full force and sprawled the two of them several feet away.

As Ned recovered from the sudden assault, while Howland rolled himself off his Lord, a young woman's voice was heard, saying, "Quiet."

And all sound of violence ceased, as Ned's men held back from attacking Ser Arthur Dayne and he to them in turn.

Ned looked at the Doll, who was smaller and looked younger than Strength, who with her gray cloak, dark hair and brown eyes, would not have looked out of place among the other orphaned children in Flea Bottom. That is, she would have if her skin weren't as white as bone, and she didn't wield a spiked flail in one hand that the Mountain Who Rides would have struggled to lift with two.

She gazed at them, a look of curiosity in her eyes, as if she were seeing for the first time, and took in everything around her. She looked at each man, at the weapons in their hands, and the bodies on the ground. She then spoke again.

"Why are you fighting?"

The silence could have been forever, it could have been an instant, Ned did not remember this moment clearly, because neither he nor anyone there knew what she would do, whatever answer they gave.

Only Arthur was brave enough to answer, and he answered only with the unvarnished truth:

"We must, for we have left ourselves with no other recourse."

Once again, Ned was reminded of how much he respected the man hailed as the Sword of the Morning, and why, beyond his skill at arms, he hated having him as his enemy.

But for a brief while, his respect for the man died, because of the Doll's answer.

"Ah," the Doll responded, looking at her flail before turning back to the fighting men. "I don't know what I must do. So I shall do what I can do."

Without any more warning, she cocked her arm with the flail back, and flung it forward in the blink of an eye, the chain extending to launch it straight into Arthur Dayne to slam him against the rocky outcrop facing the Tower, crumpling his armor like parchment, and pulping his body like a ripe fruit.

All of Ned's men still standing dropped their swords and ran, something Ned himself would have done if he weren't still too sore from the Doll throwing Howland at him, or if Howland himself weren't seriously injured.

The Doll yanked the flail back to herself and swung it in an arc to her left. Two men died.

Ned crawled over to Howland, near whom his sword lay.

The Doll yanked the flail back to herself and swung it an arc to her right. Two men died.

The flail had passed mere inches over Ned's head on that pass, causing him to instinctually look back at the Doll.

The Doll yanked the flail back to herself-

And it was then, at the moment that Ned knew he was about to die, that his life was saved.

*CRACK-BOOM*

The sound was loud as thunder and cracked like a boulder fallen from a great height, followed by something snapping the chain on the flail, leaving the Doll with only a length of chain attached to a metal rod and a look of confusion and panic on her face.

*CRACK-BOOM* *CRACK-BOOM* *CRACK-BOOM*

Three more times that sound echoed in Ned's head as the Doll jumped back to the side as the ground burst twice at her feet and then she spun back as if struck with an invisible missile. The Doll skidded as she hid around the corner of the boulder Ned was near, a dark substance leaking from her side like blood, and kept herself stock still.

As time passed, and the sound stopped ringing in his ears, Ned heard someone approaching, their shoes marching across the dirt toward him. He reached and grasped for his sword, saw a strange pair of black and white shoes - made of something neither simple fabric nor leather – stop next to his blade, and turned his gaze up.

The Doll he saw now was taller than Strength, but dressed far more scantily with a strange wrap across her bosom, what appeared to be trousers cut just short of the top of her thighs circumvented with a white belt, and her only concession to modesty being a long, hooded coat so darkly blue that he would have thought it black if the sunlight didn't reveal its true shades on its edges. Her hair was the same shade as her coat, tied in two ratty tails, the left far longer than the right.

The two things that stood out the most, however, were the massive, metallic, intricately and precisely crafted glowing barrel on her right arm, and her bluer than blue skies eyes, the left one blazing with a blue fire.

The brown-eyed Doll seemed to find an opportunity to attack, as Ned saw the new figure lash out with her barrel(?) to intercept the enemy's length of chain that wrapped around it. The new arrival yanked the chain and carried her attacker through the air toward who swung her rod to cave in the arrival's head. The rod was intercepted with her free hand, and she aimed the barrel and it flashed with a great light and blasted a loud *CRACK-BOOM* and the attacker's shoulder simply evaporated, the arm holding the flail completely severed from the main body, her fluids spilling over her killer and victim as she was flung back again, screaming in pain.

The blue-eyed Doll lowered her weapon, and Ned rose to his feet, sword in hand, ready for whatever came next. She turned to him.

"Step aside, please," she addressed him.

While Ned still wasn't fully accustomed to being a Lord Paramount, he still did expect to be respected as one under normal circumstances. The current circumstances being as far from normal as they had ever been in his life, he obediently stepped aside for the strange Doll.

As she walked up to the Doll she downed, Ned noticed that his strange savior's coat had a white, five-pointed star on the back. The barrel on her arm then shifted itself and broke apart like a moving puzzle, before compacting itself into impossible smallness and disappearing into her coat. She then drew a long, dark and thin sword from her side he'd failed to notice before, and grasped it in her hands as like a headsman.

And like a headsman, she swung the blade down and relieved the flail-bearing Doll of her head.

For a brief moment, all was still in the world once more, as Ned Stark witnessed the first time a Doll attack another one, and the first time a Doll is killed. The killer then turned to him, her blade stained with the mud-like remains of the dead brown-eyed Doll, the flame in her eye finally going out.

Certain now that she posed him no threat, he relaxed his stance, and held his sword at ease by his side, as Howland behind him finally returned to his feet.

"You have saved my life," he addressed her. "May I ask you your name?"

At first, it seemed the Doll wouldn't answer, as she closed her eyes and held back her head to catch a breeze ruffling her hair. After it passed, she opened her eyes and answered:

"Black Rock Shooter."

And after that, the sound of a woman's cries of pain rang forth from the Tower, and Ned turned and rushed in, with Black Rock Shooter coming in after him.

 

[Axiomatic]

This is weird, weird enough that I must know where it goes.

 

[Xavier Rall]

Shooter for the Starks: Part 2

Catelyn (283 AC)​

Catelyn was relieved when her Lord Husband returned from the war alive and unharmed, which meant she wouldn't have to be betrothed to yet another highborn Stark son. The horror she had at the sight of the nearly-naked girl that arrived with Eddard Stark turned to astonishment and intrigue upon learning that she was one of the Awakened Dolls that were turning the Seven Kingdoms on their heads. There was mournful understanding as he finally brought his beloved sister Lyanna home to Winterfell in linen wrapping and a box the size of a corner bed.

But these feelings were outweighed by the rage and scandal she felt when he revealed that he had brought into her new home a bastard son. The sheer cheek of the gesture, even as she greeted him in the courtyard with his trueborn son, who had been named Robert, in honor of Eddard's sworn brother and new sovereign. And to make it worse, he'd named the bastard Jon, in honor of Eddard's father, as if he were TRYING to cause a divide in his own House by confusing his sons with who he loved more.

Catelyn watched her son sleep in his cradle, her heart overflowing with love for him. But now dread crawled about her heart and stomach like a creeping centipede, its many legs prickling every part of her being as it regurgitated into her mind every story her septa had fed her on the havoc and chaos that bastard children wreak by their envy and greed. She needed only to remember what the Blackfyres did to the Seven Kingdoms for generations, and she could only beg the Gods that they would make her husband see sense and at least send the boy as far away from Winterfell as he possibly could.

But perhaps worst of all, Eddard refused her, point blank, to at least grant her the small courtesy of knowing which woman it was who had pilfered from her husband that which only belonged to her by right. This was the single most unfair crime of all, as she, the Lady-Wife of a Lord Paramount, at the very least had the right to know who had wronged her, and yet Eddard had denied her even this.

She was jarred from her fearful musings when there was a knock upon the nursery door. She turned and saw the new Doll standing in the doorway, coat thankfully closed to protect most of her modesty, her hand holding the door open.

"Yes, ah," Lady Stark searched her mind for a moment for the Doll's name, "Black Rock Shooter, was it?"

"Yes," Black Rock Shooter replied evenly, nodding her head in a shallow bow. "I was sent by Lord Stark."

"I see," Catelyn stood. "He has instructed you to give his Lady-Wife a message saying he desires that I join him in his bed?"

The Doll nodded. "He also instructed me to tell you that, and I quote, 'because of the wrong he has done to you earlier today, you may refuse him tonight without fear of rebuke or shame.'"

At least he has enough decency in him to feel shame, Catelyn thought. "Tell him that he may retire without me."

"Very well, Lady Stark," the Doll acknowledged, and turned to leave and close the door.

Catelyn was suddenly struck with a realization. "Wait!"

Black Rock Shooter paused, and reopened the door to properly look upon Catelyn.

"Please come in," she stated. "There is something I would speak to you about."

Black Rock Shooter stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. "What is it that you would speak to me about?"

"Do you know who Jon Snow's mother is?" she asked. "And how my lord husband came to bring him here?"

"Yes, and yes," the Doll answered, her tone of voice unchanged.

"Will you tell me?" she inquired.

"I am sworn by Lord Stark not to," Black Rock Shooter rebuffed.

"Hah!" Catelyn spat, and turned away. "I should have known that he wouldn't let the source of the truth of this stain on his honor be revealed."

And to protect this woman he loves as much as me from my righteous fury.

"But he has not sworn me against revealing why he has allowed his honor to be stained."

Catelyn spun about, stunned at this development. "Why, you say? Why he allowed his honor to be stained? When by doing so while being wed to me, any dishonor that falls on him falls on the whole of his House, and me? And for what? To protect another woman he loved instead of his wife?"

Black Rock Shooter was silent and still, as motionless as the dolls for which her kind had been named. She then took a breath, and said back, "Jon is a son from a prior relationship, one that ended with his mother expending her life to give him his. A mother whose identity Lord Stark cannot afford to allow anyone to learn, for fear of losing him."

For a moment, Catelyn was confused as to what exactly the Doll had just said. But within moments, the meaning behind Black Rock Shooter's words clicked together in her mind.

"Oh."

He was already secretly married! she realized.

I just thought he was unhappy with me because he was getting married to the woman chosen for his brother, but it was also because he was already married to another before he was engaged to me! And clearly, this woman must have been someone important, a highborn lady from somewhere, whose family would never have allowed their daughter to marry a Northerner, and someone his father would never have approved of! And now, because the mother is dead, the only safe place for Ned's son is to be raised as a Snow here in the North, where he will be beyond the reach and suspicion of his unknowing family somewhere in the South.

"Lady Stark?" Black Rock Shooter addressed, breaking the awkward silence Catelyn belatedly realized she'd allowed to manifest. "I am only recently fully conscious of myself and the world around me, and much of what I know comes from the time I have spent with Lord Stark. But I know that in all that time together, he refused to speak one word of ill will about you, and deeply regretted that his circumstances would compel him to force upon you the shame of cuckoldry, and sharing your family home with the son of a stranger. So know that he is sorry for what he has done, that he knows you may never forgive him for this slight, and all he asks of you in this regard is that you don't punish Jon for the sins of his parents."

Catelyn had no experience speaking with Dolls, or rather, those that had Awakened – she had shared a long, secret conversation with one that sat all alone under a tree just outside Riverrun mere days after the Arrival, before her Septa had warned her away from doing so again. That one hadn't returned any words to her, and this one before her, although she spoke clearly and with excellent command of her own words, spoke in a dulled voice that occasionally rose or fell, as if she were still learning how to properly use tones and emphasis in her speech.

All of which was to say that Catelyn had no idea if this girl was lying through her teeth, buttering her up with exaggerated sympathy, or telling the honest truth.

But Black Rock Shooter had held her gaze and never averted her eyes a single time while she spoke to her, and never showed her any disrespect in her words or manners, so she decided to take her at her word, for now.

"I see, and thank you," Catelyn said.

"You're welcome, Lady Stark," Black Rock Shooter replied. "Is there anything else you need me for?"

Catelyn thought for a moment, mulling over what she had just learned, and what it said about her husband. "Just to return to my Lord-Husband with a message from his Lady-Wife that she understands his concern for her feelings and appreciates the discretion he has granted her, but that she will honor his request tonight when she retires."

Black Rock Shooter bowed her head. "Understood, my Lady." She then turned and left the room, softly closing the door behind her.

Thus leaving Catelyn with her son and her thoughts, as she sought to take the time to fully digest them, and share more love with her infant son before she left him to see to her husband for the performance of her wifely duties.

 

[HellFire28]

So close but so far from the truth...

 

[Another Guy]

Watched, looks interesting, lets see where you take this.

 

[Xavier Rall]

Shooter for the Starks: Part 3

Robb (291 AC)​

Robb was both very excited and very nervous after his mother finished helping him get into some of his best clothes.

Because today, Robb got to sit with his father as he held court in the Great Hall, to hand out final judgment on the disputes and affairs of the North. A duty that Ned Stark was now beginning to let him perform as well. A duty that he would one day perform on his own.

A duty that would be his when Father was gone.

It was because of this that he was eager to do his father proud. And very afraid to disappoint him.

He entered the Great Hall at the head where Ned Stark stood, organizing papers in front of his seat on the table, Maester Luwin seated beside him, a leather-bound tome before him, with a white five-pointed star on its cover. He and Catelyn greeted each other with a kiss (EW!), and then he greeted Robb with a hand on his head to ruffle his curly hair. Luwin stood and greeted Catelyn with a bow and she thanked him in turn. They all then sat at the table, he at his father's right and his mother on his left, beyond Luwin.

One of the doors on the opposite end of the Hall then opened to admit Jory Cassel of the castle guard and then Black Rock Shooter, coat open to reveal the stitched-up scars on her right hip and just under her heart and holding her 'Shooter' in hand, who both came forward to a stop before them and bowed.

"The petitioners have arrived, my Lord," Cassel spoke. "They are ready to present their petitions and disputes and hear your judgment."

Ned nodded. "Let them in."

They bowed again, and Jory went to the door to bring in the petitioners, while Black Rock Shooter walked past Robb's side of the table to stand in the corner, her weapon standing beside her, and her impassive gaze fixated on the space before the table.

That space was soon filled by a wiry man dressed in rugged wool trousers and a deerskin coat with a felt cap on his head. Arriving right beside him was a Doll, dressed in a short-sleeved gray tunic with a ruffled white collar and a long, ruffled black skirt that reached just above floor, with an armored helm that was fitted snugly about her head that opened around her eyes and ears and covered each cheek, with a plume of metallic feathers sweeping down the middle of the crown of her head. Robb couldn't see what her arms were beside the pair of long handles that extended above each shoulder, but he was very capable of noting that her pair of shining dandelion yellow eyes weren't aimed at his father, but instead were meeting Black Rock Shooter's own blue eyes.

The man bowed. "Milord Stark, I'm Bryon, son of Brandon, a woodcutter for Lord Tallhart. And this," gesturing to the Doll beside him, "is Yellow Leaf Cutter. We thank you for havin' us here today." After a moment, he looked to Yellow Leaf Cutter and tapped her on the shoulder. She looked at him, who nodded and gestured at Lord Stark. She took the reminder of the proper custom properly, and turned to Lord Stark to bow.

"And you are welcome here, both of you." Lord Stark picked up a letter at the center of shuffle before him, and put it down to look back up at him. "Lord Tallhart sent me a raven telling me of your coming, that you desire to have the Doll calling herself Yellow Leaf Cutter to be recorded in the Registry as standing in good stead with you, and that she has come to say her oaths. Is this correct?"

"Yes, milord," Bryon affirmed. "She 'as been sittin' in the woods east o' Tarrhen's Square ever since she fell from the sky all those years ago. Only finally decided to wake up the month before last. Been a big help to me and ma family since then, and came up now 'cause things were good enough I could let ma boy take care of things back home while ah got this sorted out."

"Your account shows you are a diligent man," Lord Stark noted. He turned to Yellow Leaf Cutter. "And what of you. Yellow Leaf Cutter? Has he treated you well, or has he done you harm?"

"No harm, milord," Yellow Leaf Cutter answered. "But his wife keeps trying to steal my skirt."

Robb covered his mouth to silence a snort of laughter. Jory Cassel was less successful

Bryon shook his head in embarrassed exasperation. "I've 'ad to tell the missus to stop, but she 'as been wanting to make a nice dress for our girl, and Doll clothes are very nice, I'm sure you understand."

Lord Stark nodded, and looked to the Doll. "Maester Luwin will take your full account in the Registry, but I think we've waited long enough to begin Yellow Leaf Cutter's oath, don't you?"

She nodded her assent.

Lord Stark rose from his seat and walked behind Robb to go around to the front of the table, Black Rock Shooter following behind after he passed her. Bryon moved aside as Lord Stark stood before Yellow Leaf Cutter, and Black Rock Shooter stood behind her.

There was an instant where Robb thought Black Rock Shooter was looking right at him

Black Rock Shooter's left eye blazed with blue fire, and she banged her Shooter on the stone floor with a clang. "Disarm, and kneel," she commanded.

Yellow Leaf Cutter grabbed the handles over her shoulders and drew them out to reveal a pair of elaborate axe heads. She then fell to her knees with a thump, and laid the axes to either side of herself.

Lord Stark and Black Rock Shooter then reached for their swords and drew them simultaneously and held them in front of themselves.

Lord Stark spoke first, lowering Ice onto her right shoulder. "Yellow Leaf Cutter, do you swear, to all the Gods New and Old, before the eyes of all both young and old, to be fair and just with Bryon, son of Brandon, to serve your Lord with diligence and grace, and to uphold justice and goodness for your King and His Law, now and evermore?"

Robb recalled that the oaths made by knights didn't have those last words, now and evermore, in them.

Yellow Leaf Cutter made her oath. "I swear, to all Gods New and Old, in the presence of both man and woman, to be fair and just with Bryon, son of Brandon, to serve my Lord with diligence and grace, and to uphold justice and goodness for my King, now and evermore."

He wondered at first why that was, then remembered something.

Black Rock Shooter then lowered her Black Blade on Yellow Leaf Cutter's left shoulder, its single edge pointed at her throat. "Do you swear, by your waking eyes, before the eyes of all both old and young, to never destroy any works that do no wrong and to never harm any One that commits no evil, on pain of being returned to Sleep forever?"

The Dolls did not age.

Yellow Leaf Cutter swore again. "I swear, by my waking eyes, before the eyes of all both old and young, to never destroy and works that do no wrong and to never harm any One that commits no evil, on pain of being returned to Sleep forever."

Many believed that if they avoided getting killed, they could live forever.

Black Rock Shooter's eye stopped burning.

Lord Stark and Black Rock Shooter raised their swords before themselves, and then sheathed them.

"Arm yourself, and rise," Lord Stark commanded.

Yellow Leaf Cutter picked up her axes and stood up.

"As of this moment today," Lord Stark declared, "you, Yellow Leaf Cutter, are recognized as a Doll standing in the stead of Bryon, son of Brandon, under the banner of the Lord of House Tallhart of the North. May the Gods New and Old aid you on your path."

Yellow Leaf Cutter bowed. "Thank you, milord." She put away her axes behind her.

Lord Stark and Black Rock Shooter moved to return to their previous places, but not before Ned gave Robb a look that he knew was meant to convey the gravity of what had just occurred, and Black Rock Shooter clapped a hand on his right shoulder, and despite the differences in gender, age, and even natures, she gave him the exact same look his father had.

Robb already understood that, one day, he was going to perform his father's duties without his father there for him.

But now he knew that Black Rock Shooter would be there with him.

And she would be there when he too was gone.

 

[011207Lr]

I am so interested in this concept.

 

[Xavier Rall]

Shooter for the Starks: Part 4

Sansa (293 AC)​

Sansa loved the stories of fair maidens and knights in shining armor that her mother and septa told her so much that she wished she would grow up right now so that she could find her knight as fast as possible. But for now, she was glad to just play with her best friend Jeyne Poole.

"'My fair maiden, I have returned home at last!'" the knight in Jeyne's hand proclaimed, as he was walked through the imaginary gate of his invisible castle.

"'My love, my shining knight, you have come back to me!'" the lady doll in Sansa's hand exclaimed as she was rushed forward to press against the knight in a facsimile of a loving embrace.

"'Yes my lady,'" the knight was rotated so that the doll could be fit between his arms bearing sword and shield. "'Harder than slaying the demon bear was being so far from your arms and lips, so that we may love each other forever!'"

"'No more talking! Kiss me!'" the maiden exclaimed, and the faces of lady and knight were pressed together and the exaggerated sounds of kissing were heard, until the girls both broke down in giggles.

Then a knock was heard on the door to Sansa's room, grabbing her attention. "Yes?"

The door cracked open and head of white hair with blazing violet eyes poked through. "I have them," came a conspiratorial voice.

Jeyne clapped in glee as Sansa immediately dropped her doll and rushed for the door to open it all the way to allow their agent inside with a kitchen cloth wrapped around something clutched to her chest.

After checking the hallway outside and then closing the door behind her, Sansa joined her two friends to enjoy what had been brought to them.

"Come on, come on! I've been waiting hours for this!" Jeyne harried.

"Yeah, it's not good to keep your ladies waiting!" Sansa concurred.

"Not to worry, miladies," their friend assured, as she showed off the tied sack before the two girls. "For the mighty and crafty Doll, Violet Strings, has evaded the watchful eye of Black Rock Shooter herself to brave the perilous depths of the castle kitchen to present to you, a fresh, piping hot batch of-"

Jeyne and Sansa mouths salivated as Violet pulled the bad open-

"TATERS!!!"

And promptly dried up at the sight of the steamed potatoes.

"Pfff-HAHAHAHAHAHA!!" Violet Strings burst out. "You two should have seen the looks on your faces!"

"Th- That's not funny!" Sansa scoffed.

"Yeah," Jeyne agreed, "and I don't want us all to get in trouble over potatoes of all things!"

"Hey, hey, calm down," Violet put the potatoes to the side on Sansa's drawers and held out her long, needle-like metal hands in placation as she walked to Sansa's bed. "It was just a joke, and a decoy."

The girls followed and hopped on Sansa's bed.

Then six, long spiderlike appendages unfolded themselves from behind her to reveal another tied sack that was then laid between the two girls. Violet then very satisfyingly untied the knot to reveal five fresh lemon cakes.

"Yes! Thank you!" Sansa cried, as she and Jeyne each snatched up a lemon cake and took a bite.

"Mmm," Jeyne moaned in delight at the sour-sweet citrus taste of the treat. "Now this is worth getting into trouble for."

"Speak for yourselves," Violet said as she picked up a lemon cake, "I still don't get the big deal with enjoying the taste of food." She put it back down.

"You don't- but I've seen you eat before," Sansa noted.

"Yes," Violet conceded. She then walked over where she had placed the potatoes and lifted up one of them. "And I can taste food, I just don't find enjoyment in it." She bit the steamed potato and chewed on her bite.

"So why eat, if you don't like to or need to?" Jeyne asked, picking up another lemon cake.

Violet swallowed. "Well, for one, it's because Black Rock Shooter told me to do it occasionally, said something about how it makes you feel more comfortable around us. Another is that it's part of the castle Dolls' training to tell if any or drink has been poisoned."

Sansa coughed as she swallowed her bite. "You mean, they fed you poison?" Sansa was very familiar with the idea of poison, the tool of treacherous cowards and lowly assassins to fell greater men than they, and it horrified her that her friend had been forcibly subjected to it.

"Of course they did," Violet said nonchalantly after a bite of lemon cake. "After all, poisons can't hurt us Dolls like it can you."

"Oh… right," Sansa was embarrassed to not realize that. She had always thought that there had to be a very good reason as to why she always saw Black Rock Shooter or some other Doll sample the food at mealtimes but never eat a full plate themselves.

"And the last thing is that I've come to like is the feeling of the eating itself, especially with how different foods feel when I eat them. This potato has a nice thin skin with just enough give to nice and chewy, and the insides are fluffy and warm. And I like apples, because they are crisp, cool, and crunchy."

Violet Strings then had a strange look suddenly overcome her. "Sansa, Jeyne, shouldn't it unusual to like two different foods for their opposite qualities?"

Sansa and Jeyne shared a quick look, then Sansa answered: "No. After all, if we only ate the things we liked, we'd get bored of it eventually, and then there would be nothing left to like."

Violet Strings and Jeyne nodded sagely at Sansa's words.

Then they all jumped when there was a knock at the door.

"Sansa," came the voice of Black Rock Shooter. "I have a message for you. Please open up."

Sansa glanced at Jeyne. There was only one cake left, which she promptly wrapped back in its cloth and stuffed down her dress and brushed off the leftovers from it and her face. She looked at Violet, who had wrapped back up her potatoes and stood breathlessly still on the side of the door opened against, one potato stuffed in her mouth like a gag.

Sansa did the same as Jeyne, stood from the bed, straightened her dress and hair, and walked to the door and opened it.

"Hello, Black Rock Shooter," she curtly curtsied. "What is it?" She hoped the message didn't take long or involved anything troublesome, because she didn't like being in trouble, nor did she like Black Rock Shooter. The Doll sometimes called the Executioner of the North was cold like Father, but almost never showed his warmth, and never played the games she wanted to. And Sansa, like her mother and her septa, wished she would just actually dress in something decent, even if it were like her friend Violet in her mannish trousers and long-sleeved vest.

"Your mother wants you to know that Septa Mordane is unwell and won't be able to teach your next sewing lesson, so she will be taking over an hour later than your usual time after she takes care of other duties."

Oh good, Sansa thought. "Thank y-"

"Also, tell Violet Strings hiding behind the door here that if she doesn't return the potatoes to the kitchen she will be serving a double shift on top of the tower tonight instead of just the one for stealing the lemon cakes for you two. Your mother will decide an appropriate punishment for you and Jeyne."

There was a thud and the sound of something rolling on the floor behind her. Sansa looked. It was a potato with a fresh bite mark.

Oh Seven Hells, Sansa swallowed, and turned back to look up at the Doll's very flat look. "U- Understood, Black Rock Shooter."

Black Rock Shooter nodded her head, and walked away to perform other duties. Sansa then closed the door, leaving the two girls and one Doll to stew in their collective misfortune.

Sansa looked at Violet Strings. "Sorry for getting you in trouble."

"Me too," Jeyne added.

Violet nodded. "Don't worry, I forgive you." She hefted the potatoes she was holding. "I may as well bring these back. See you later." She walked to the door and opened it.

"Wait," Sansa ordered.

Violet turned at that.

Sansa picked up the bitten potato from the floor and handed it to Violet. "The kitchens won't keep a bitten potato, so you may as well finish it."

Violet smiled, and accepted it. "Thanks, Sansa."

Sansa returned the smile. "You're welcome, Violet Strings."

 

[Xavier Rall]

Warning: Suggestiveness, slight gore, and trauma.

Shooter for the Starks: Part 5

Theon (297 AC)​

Theon always felt so much better after a good bedding with a whore, especially when he and the whore relaxed in the bed after they'd had their fun, allowing him to pretend for a short while that she loved him, though he'd never admit it. She was warm, soft, and fit against his body like a perfectly placed puzzle piece. It certainly didn't hurt, as he reminded himself when she turned to look at him, her face wasn't bad to look at. At all.

"Marta, has anyone told you that you are the most beautiful whore in all the North?" Theon told her.

"The other men call me the most beautiful woman in the world," she replied with a smirk. "Have you met women more beautiful than me?"

"Of course," Theon cheekily retorted. "But they're all married or they're highborn ladies who would turn up their noses at a fuck with me. But of all the whores I've ever met, you're the most beautiful of them all."

"I've heard that you've said that before, from Jenny and Sophie," she said.

"And it was true every time," he greedily insisted, pushing himself above her, trapping her between his hands. "As I found each of them to be a greater beauty than the one before."

"So, I am the most beautiful whore in the North until your next fuck?" came her barbed retort.

Theon leaned in very close to let his slowly quickening breath spill over her lower face. "Are you trying to get me worked up?"

She gave a toothy smile that could have been given by a tricky fox. "Is it working?"

He smiled ferociously, intending to get very rough with this whore beneath him. "Oh y-"

*BAM*

Theon leaped off the girl like a doe, grabbing at the blanket to cover his shame and stumbled onto the floor like a flopping fish before getting on his feet to gape like one at the only person in all the North who would so brazenly burst in on him when he was fucking.

"Blackie!" he uttered. "What a surprise! I was just-"

"Theon," Black Rock Shooter barked.

He shut up.

Black Rock Shooter glanced at Marta, who was already grabbing her clothes from beside the bed to wear again, and looked back at Theon. "Give her the money for your time if you haven't already, get dressed, and then follow me back to the keep. Lord Stark is hosting the Ser Goldaxe and Yellow Leaf Cutter for supper very soon, and you're the only one unaccounted for."

"Of course," Theon groused, slipping back into his trousers and grabbing his shirt and vest. "Yet another jumped-up Toy Knight scraping at Lord Stark's feet to keep him from remembering that they're the cause of at least half of his problems."

"Ser Goldaxe and Yellow Leaf Cutter," Black Rock Shooter reminded, "are being rewarded for breaking up Rouge Runner's bandits that had been harrying Tarrhen's Square, with land and a knighthood. Good service should be rewarded appropriately."

Theon scoffed in anger as he shucked on his shirt. "Lord Stark would do better to have you all hunted down and killed like the monsters you are, if you weren't always holding a knife to his throat."

"That is unfair to him and you know it," Black Rock Shooter stated.

"Right, it is," he buttoned up his shirt, the whore and his previous relief all forgotten at this point. "It's not a knife at his throat, it's a Shooter to his head."

"That's not-"

"You must really get off on it, don't you," he growled, stomping up to the smaller Doll, his finger thrust into her face. "Holding his life in his hands, pretending to be his dutiful servant when it's the other way around! You're the one making all the real decisions here! You may have everyone else fooled, but you and I know who the real Lady of the North is, don't we, you blue-eyed bitch?"

Her left eye sparked in blue fire.

Theon's heart leapt into his throat, his feet scrambled him away from her, his knees lost all strength, and his mind flashed back to that day.

Pyke was burning, island and castle both. The greenlanders were unleashing centuries of grief-born rage and hate upon the Iron Islands in a grand act of pillaging and destruction that would have made the Reaver Kings of old proud, had it not been their own people and home being completely ruined.

"Father! Father! Get up!"

And which was making sure not to spare their bloodline from their wrath.

Balon coughed up blood onto his son's hands as he looked at him weakly, a table leg lodged in his gut from the force of the greenlander Doll's monstrous weapon.

"I've failed. Oh gods I've failed. Rodrick, Maron, Euron, I've killed you all."

"Father!" he cried, grabbing his father's face to get him to look at him. "It's going to be alright! We'll find a healer, get you fixed up, and-"

"Yara," Balon uttered. "My daughter, you were the last hope of House Grejoy. Theon is too weak…"

Theon stilled in shock.

The light faded from his father's eyes.

Theon's heart broke, and he wailed.

The door to the hall crashed on the floor, drawing Theon's attention, as tears streamed from his eyes.

There was no King there, no lords, knights, or even common soldiers.

Just the form of a girl, wrapped around a monster, that carried a massive Shooter, and whose left eye burned with blue fire.

A monster they had thought dead at the hands of Hook Grappler, but had come back from death carrying the scars of their battle.

A monster who had just murdered his family and destroyed his home.

A monster that he had no choice but to live with.

Black Rock Shooter allowed her eye to extinguish. "I have promised myself to stand in protection of that which Lord Stark holds dear to him. My Shooter is held only to the heads of those who would threaten that. And I only pull the trigger when I am certain that they would take the chance to do it again should it arise."

She walked up and leaned forward to look him in the eyes, terrified as he was to have her this close. "Are you a threat, Theon Greyjoy?"

He shook his head immediately. "No. Never."

Black Rock Shooter stood up. "Then put your boots on, and come with me to the Great Hall. You have a duty to Lord Stark as his Ward, and you should do your best to fulfill it."

"Yes, Black Rock Shooter." Theon groped on the floor for his boots.

 

[Xavier Rall]

Shooter for the Starks: Part 6

Arya (297 AC)
​

Arya woke up to find her arms and legs were still the same shade of off-white pink as yesterday, with no metal wheels for feet, no black iron dragon's horns on her head, and as the mirror in her room showed, her eyes were still the same as a Dead-Eyed's shade of dull gray as before. Once again, her prayers to the Old and New Gods alike to be reborn a Doll were met with rejection.

She mechanically walked herself toward the Great Hall to break her fast, so that she would have the energy needed to endure yet another day of boring and pointless lessons on needlecraft, proper manners, letters and numbers (which she already knew, a to z and 0 to 9, what was the point in studying them even further), and history only had the benefit of teaching stories of war and dragons, especially about the ancient warrior-queen Nymeria, and the sister-wives of Aegon, Visenya and Rhaenys, who aided him in his Conquest. The only thing she hoped to do was get in some practice with archery.

Black Rock Shooter turned the corner from the hall in front of her on her intended path and spotted her. "Arya, I was just looking for you."

"Shooter!" Arya's eyes lit up and her pace quickened as she came up to the Doll and threw her arms around her. "Good morning!"

Black Rock Shooter, finally accustomed to Arya's displays of affection, returned the gesture (it wasn't until weeks after Arya first started doing it that she realized she wanted her to do that) and gave a small smile (a very rare treat for the eyes!). "Good morning, Arya."

The two let go of each other. "Shall we head to morning meal together, then?"

"Yes!" Arya enthused as they headed for the Hall. "There's no one else I'd rather be with."

Black Rock Shooter judged it an appropriate moment to let her smile fade. "No one else? Why not your father, or your mother?"

Arya's certainty wavered. "Okay, maybe Father, 'cause he understands I'm not like Sansa, but not Mother, she wants me to be just like her."

"Like who? Sansa, or your mother?" Black Rock Shooter asked.

"Both," Arya emphasized. "They want me to be a proper Southern lady, always wearing dresses, but never wearing armor, always getting trained to be married off to some stranger, and never learn how to fight because it isn't ladylike."

"I will admit not to knowing or understanding all of the customs of Southern ladies, but that is simply because I have never needed to know more than just enough not to accidentally offend your mother and make my job harder," Black Rock Shooter noted.

"I wish that I didn't have to learn all these stuffy customs," Arya whined, then puffed her chest. "I'd rather be a warrior, and fight the North's enemies in their hiding places."

Black Rock Shooter replied, "I can understand going out to defeat your enemies, Arya, but unlike Dolls, girls and women like you rarely grow in strength or stature like men, meaning a greater likelihood of your getting killed in open battle, and the carrying of children can weaken even the strongest of women to being vulnerable to even the weakest of men."

"If I were a Doll, I wouldn't ever have to worry about being weak ever again," Arya retorted.

Black Rock Shooter raised an eyebrow at that remark. "You wish to become a Doll?"

Arya turned from her and blushed, embarrassed. "I know, it's stupid and childish and it's never going to happen-"

"Why?"

Arya did a double take at Black Rock Shooter's question. "Wait. What?"

"Not what. Why?" Black Rock Shooter asked.

"Why, what?" Arya repeated.

"Why do you wish to become a Doll?" Black Rock Shooter asked again.

"Oh," Arya realized. "Well, it's like I said: If I were a Doll, then I wouldn't have to learn all these stupid lessons about stupid things and I could just go and do the things I like."

"I see," Black Rock Shooter understood what she meant. Highborn customs and ceremonies could get tiresome very quickly, she saw no point in changing her clothes (they were a part of her in a loose way, which meant they could repair and clean themselves given enough time), and she was under no threat of starvation or dehydration, with only the absolute worst of the elements posing any real danger to her.

"But," Black Rock Shooter added, "are you sure you want to deal with the downsides of being a Doll as well?"

It was Arya's turn to raise an eyebrow. "There are downsides? Like what?"

Black Rock Shooter hummed a moment. "After you all go to bed, the only people left awake are guards trying to keep from falling asleep, criminals taking advantage of people's sleep, and us Dolls. We can't sleep, no matter how hard we try, except when we're very badly injured. Although we've bonded ourselves to you all, that time spent while you're asleep can be very lonely, and tests those bonds daily."

Arya knew they didn't need to sleep, but she hadn't considered how that felt for them to have to live with people who needed it every night.

Then Black Rock Shooter stepped in front of Arya, turned and stopped, forcing Arya to halt as well. She then lowered herself to look her in the eye, her own eyes filled with an unusual intensity. "As for being a warrior, I assure you that war is nothing like the show battles I and the other Dolls perform during festivals, or the tournament fights we engage in. In real combat, most fights are a lot shorter, and they're so much more brutal, because there is no arbiter to step in and stop the fight when rules are broken, as there are no rules to break. It's fight until you are dead or a killer."

Then Black Rock Shooter gently grasped her cheeks, something else had never done before. "I understand that you aren't like your sister or mother, and you like a lot of the same things as your brothers. You like sword-fighting and archery and that's fine. But your father would smelt Ice to be reforged as a cooking pot if it meant no more war, especially if it meant you and your siblings never had to see it."

Arya swallowed a stone. No one in her family aside from her father knew the stories told of Black Rock Shooter's exploits better than she did:

The Greyjoy Rebellion.

The Bolton Bastard Hunt.

The Storming of the Eyrie.

The Torment of the Tullys.

In each one, she had at least one epic duel with an enemy Doll, which were her favorite parts of every Shooter Story.

But now she also remembered that, before the ballads of duels were the tales of the horrors the villains wrought upon the hapless and weak. Farms, villages, even castles were torn apart and burned. Unspeakable crimes were committed.

Every time Black Rock Shooter was deployed away from Winterfell and from Lord Stark, it meant people had died, that a Doll had Awoken to evil, and she was needed to prevent more cruelty and death from being heaped upon the world.

"Do you understand what I'm saying, Arya?" Black Rock Shooter pleaded.

Arya nodded, too choked-up to answer with words.

"Good." Black Rock Shooter stood up and walked away. "Now let's hurry, or else your meal will get cold."

Arya rushed to catch up.

 

[Xavier Rall]

Shooter for the Starks: Part 7

Bran (297 AC)​

Bran wished that he could fly, soar with the birds above the trees and among the clouds, but as everyone reminded him, he had no wings, and so he could not fly. So he did the closest thing to flying that a boy like him could: He climbed.

Handhold two heads up, left hand.

From the rain wearing away at stone and mortar to vines growing the more overlooked sections of wall and tower, his small, young hands and feet had as much choice variety of holds as his mouth did for his nameday, and despite the worries and admonishments of his mother, he felt almost as safe climbing the many buildings and walls of Winterfell as he did tucked into bed for a good night's sleep.

Line of ivy curving above me to the right. Must go left.

Today, though, he had set himself a challenge: to sneak up behind Black Rock Shooter at her post without her being aware until he reached the top.

This was a difficult enough quest against even regular guards, as anything from errant winds ruffling his clothes to crackling leaves underneath his fingers to dislodged pebbles from the shifting of his feet could give away his position. But Black Rock Shooter was sometimes thought to be able to see through walls or have the ears of a wolf with how preternaturally vigilant she was.

No footholds that way. Must reach further.

That meant being very deliberate and careful with where he placed his hands and feet. That also meant, in his young mind, to sneaking out of bed behind the household's backs in the dead of night to clamber down the wall, sneak across the keep grounds past the watchful eyes of the night shift guards – both man and Doll – and reach the foot of the Shooter's Turret, so named as it was where Black Rock Shooter had made her perch so often when she was on watch.

The Shooter's Turret had no shortage of handholds (there was a reason it used to be called the Broken Tower, Bran had heard), so climbing it was no issue at all. The issue was the many different ways Black Rock Shooter could be alerted to his ascent. Fortunately, he had learned the importance of scouting from Father's lessons and stories, and so had spent at least an hour that afternoon scrutinizing the Tower's exterior and mentally mapping out his intended route based on what he could see.

Window is just ten more heads away.

And thus, up to now, Black Rock Shooter had not stopped him as he escaped his room. She hadn't called him out as he crossed the courtyard. She hadn't appeared when he reached the foot of her Turret. She hadn't swooped in from nowhere to snatch him from the wall of the Turret. And now, he was closing in toward the top, and so close to surprising her-

"- finally go-…-ply back from Bla-…-w. Fru-…-ust be what they me-…-ike pulling teeth-"

And now, he was close enough to hear her talking about… something, the flapping wind, nowhere near as strong as it could be, still snatched words away from his ears.

"Most of her messa-…-sed up in flowery language, but her line about 'The Daugh-… -ving merit' means she agr-…-retation of the visio-…-ine years ago-"

Spurred on by curiosity and triumph, Bran pressed up to the ledge of Black Rock Shooter's room at the top.

"-y did I feel failure? If that is the case, then- WHO'S THERE?!"

Having Black Rock Shooter suddenly shout at him and rush at the ledge he had just gripped startled him into letting go of it and his footholds.

For an instant, Bran felt as though he was flying.

"BRAN!"

The next, he understood he was falling to his death.

*SHNG* *WHUMP* *SCHRRRCCKKCKCKKCKT*

The one after that, Black Rock Shooter had dived after him, drawn her sword, grabbed him, and sheathed her blade in the Turret itself to slow their shared momentum to a halt just over halfway down the Turret.

Bran had let out a sound that was almost a yelp during his brief time in open air, and now was hyperventilating at nearing plunging to his death, just as his mother feared.

"Hold on," Black Rock Shooter warned.

Bran threw his arms around her neck so tightly it would have choked her if she had needed to breathe.

She shifted her sword, and it slid out of the Turret to let them fall the rest of the way to the ground with a loud *THUD*.

Bran let go of Black Rock Shooter and flopped on his back. He stood back and up and started to apologize "I'm so sorry, Black R-"

She whipped around to face him so fast he nearly fell over again, her blue eyes shining bright in the darkness, the blue fire of her left eye blazing like a lantern.

Her voice was as harsh as ice. "What. Were. You. Thinking?"

It was in moments like this, when Bran remembered what Old Nan had once said of Black Rock Shooter: "She has the eyes of the Others." When she became the very personification of winter's wrath, and showed why she was feared across the whole of Westeros. A visage she unveiled only to her enemies to foretell their doom – and only ever to his family when she was furious.

"I- I only-" he stammered. "I just wanted to-"

"You wanted to what?" she loomed over him. "To surprise me? Catch me off guard? While I was on night watch?!"

Only now grasping the enormity of his mistake, did Bran hang his head in shame. "Please don't tell Mother I was climbing at night," he pled.

"She will be told," Black Rock Shooter dictated. "As will your father, and your siblings, so as to be made an example of as to exactly why you don't make such stupid mistakes or flights of fancy to begin with."

Bran felt tears come to his eyes, and he sniffled as he wiped them away. "I'm sorry, Black Rock Shooter. I'm sorry for scaring you."

A few moments later, he felt Black Rock Shooter wrap her arms around his shaking body to hug him close. He looked up to see her fire extinguished and softness returned to her face.

"I know," she brushed his hair in mimicry of his mother's method. "And I know you didn't mean to scare me. But I am still angry at you for that."

"Why?" he asked.

She gave him a sad smile. "Because I love you," she said. "We all do, and we're not ready to lose you so soon after we just met you."

Bran knew that he was not going to enjoy whatever punishment his parents prescribed. Probably no climbing for at least a month.

But at least he had the comfort of knowing that they would always love him, no matter what.

 

[Xavier Rall]

A/N: This is the end of my backlog. No new post until a new backlog is made.​

Shooter for the Starks: Part 8

Jon (298 AC)
​

Jon cut at the leather-wrapped wooden facsimile of an enemy combatant with his blade, looking for a way to transfer the anxieties and demons of his mind into the innocent target of the post before him, bereft of all other company but his direwolf Ghost.

He has been told by people how good he has it for a lord's bastard, from living quarters in the main keep and meals alongside the family at the Great Hall, to having genuinely good relationships with most of his siblings and the Lady-Wife of his father not hating him. But the only thing those words of intended comfort ever did was rub in the fact that he is a bastard even further.

He kept his guard up as he continued to slice away at it, no fancy spins or witty banter, just practical thrusts and muted grunts.

Furthermore, those words neglect to account for how said Lady-Wife, while perhaps treating him with civility, certainly didn't treat him with affection, and though the rest of the castle was told not to debase him for it, he could always notice a subtle difference in how they treated him compared to his half-siblings, whether it was a lower or higher tone of voice, a shift of the eyes, a nervous smirk, something, but he always noticed.

He hacked at where its metaphorical shoulders lay and stabbed it in the face, burying up to half a foot of castle-forged steel into and through the head of the dummy.

He bore no hatred for anyone, and loved the Starks like the family his blood said he was part of (by half). In all honesty, given what he knew of himself, they had given him just about everything he could have ever wanted.

After a quick twist confirmed he had it stuck, he planted his foot against the post, and pulled back, yanking his sword out and making him stumble back a couple steps.

He only wished that he weren't treated so delicately or pitifully, as if he were made of Myrish glass. Indeed, he felt that if he were treated the same as any other bastard, he would have borne it better. Because then, everyone would have been honest with him.

Ghost suddenly turned and barked.

"How is your practicing going?" a voice behind him asked.

Jon pivoted backwards to see Black Rock Shooter coming to a stop less than ten paces from him, Ghost rushing forward to receive scratching behind his ears.

He gestured at the post behind him. "I think he's dead."

She nodded at that. "Would you like me to take his place as your sparring partner?"

After a quick moment of thought, he agreed. "Just so long as you don't go too easy on me. You don't want me to make your hair even on both sides." He gestured for Ghost to move away, who immediately obeyed, despite the loss of scritches.

Black Rock Shooter smirked as she drew her strange, single-edged blade. "Only so long as you do the same. You don't want me cutting your hair."

The two took their stances him, Jon holding his blade in both hands as he faced her directly, ready to deliver a brutal slash or come between himself and Black Rock Shooter's sword, which she held easily in one hand as she stood with her side facing him.

The simple fact that she wasn't facing him with her Shooter in the other hand was sign enough that she wasn't taking him as seriously as she did his father, whom she has been sparring with apparently for the last fifteen years since the man returned to Winterfell with her. Though she never did spar with Lord Stark with her full strength, he was still a good enough swordsman that he was able to teach her a thing or two about sword-fighting, and that in turn has been a great boon in helping Jon improve his own skills, though not without the cost of painful and often embarrassing bumps and bruises.

Stark gray eyes gazed at otherworldly blue, searching for some sign of her intent just as the other measured him in turn. A slow step to his right was answered with hers to his left, keeping the distance unchanged. He stepped again that way and she repeated her earlier movement. He motioned his right foot slowly to go that way again, and Black Rock Shooter was slower to follow suit. He shot his left foot forward and stepped up to narrow the distance a full pace. Black Rock Shooter did not change her position, and only remained facing him.

No matter what I do, I can't force her to strike first, Jon observed. So I'll just have to make the best first move I can.

With that in mind, he strode to his left, and then his right, slowly getting closer, making sure to keep his eyes fixed on Black Rock Shooter's eyes, and thus keeping hers on his, as he subtly twisted his stance either way to keep her guessing on how he was going to move. Pace by pace, he closed the distance, his stance ever-so-slightly tweaked while Black Rock Shooter remained in the same stance as she had at the start.

Then, when Jon was within two paces, he lunged forward with an overhead thrust, that Black Rock Shooter stepped into with a parry to smack his sword aside. He hadn't anticipated the forward step, but he saw the parry, and moved with it to step out of her range to her side and continued circling her as he carried the blade's momentum over and around to strike at her back.

She brought her sword back to intercept the blade on the side, and Jon stepped in himself to take advantage of the awkward position to slide the blade up her sword toward her arm. She twisted her sword up and ducked to allow Jon's blade to pass overhead. Jon brought his sword up in time to block her blade as he was forced back.

He stepped back and sprung back forward to cut at her other side, her sword returning to clash against it, and retracted his blade to stop hers as it snapped toward his chest. Her sword was flicked back, up, and down to his head, and he parried to strike at her head, forcing her to duck and step back to avoid it.

A lock of long raven hair fluttered in the air between them to the ground.

Jon's heart soared.

Black Rock Shooter stepped back and put her other hand to her sword.

Jon's heart plunged.

She had already been striking him with the same strength as his father, whose blows at full strength could rattle his bones.

Her first strike came too quick for him to react in time, as her blade came toward his side before he could get into proper position for a block, nearly knocking him off his feet and making him stumble back.

Her second came from below and slapped his sword up, putting his position wide open.

Her third came down in an executioner's swing.
Ghost barked.

A few locks of curly midnight hair fluttered toward the ground.

Jon heaved air into lungs as he fell onto his backside, his blade weakly held in his trembling fingers.

Black Rock Shooter simply stood above him, looking at him with an indecipherable look of forced impassiveness on her face.

"You're not as good as Lord Stark," she sheathed her sword. "But you will be. Probably better even." She reached a hand out.

Jon took it and stood up, Ghost coming forward to his master's side to reassure himself as to Jon's wellness. "Is that all you came out here for? To test whether I will be as good as Father?"

"Not the only one," she said. "I came to you for the same reason you came out here."

Jon sheathed his sword. "The Night Watch."

Jon had overheard from his father that his Uncle Benjen was on his way to Winterfell, to discuss strange happenings beyond the Wall, as well as to collect new members for the Night Watch. And Jon wanted to join them.

"Are you going to try to convince me not to go, like he has?" Jon asked.

Black Rock Shooter shook her head, and bit her lip, before she responded. "It's not just about Lord Stark. It's also about your mother."

Jon was caught more off guard than any sword swing.

"As most people have guessed, I was there with Lord Stark when your mother died after giving birth to you," Black Rock Shooter enunciated. "Before she passed, she made us promise her to watch over you so that you could become the man she wanted you to be. Strong, free, and always driven to make something more of himself than he was before.

"Lord Stark and I may not like you leaving for the Wall, but it is the path you have decided for yourself, and because we love you and your mother dearly, and have always sought to honor our promise to her, we will honor your wish to join the Night Watch."

Jon felt… something. Relief? Trepidation? Sorrow? A strange mix of contradicting emotions from his whole life just washing up in one moment, choking him up. He took deep breaths, and calmed himself down, as he brought his eyes back to hers.

She smiled at him, and reached her arms out for a hug. He stepped in and closed his around her.

"Thank you," he said.

"You're welcome," she replied.

A few seconds later, the two separated.

"Alright. Time for you to get some sleep Jon," Black Rock Shooter told him. "The King's Party will be here tomorrow, and you need to get some sleep before they arrive.

Jon smiled at her. "Yes, Black Rock Shooter."

The two headed back to the Keep, Ghost right behind them, with Jon unaware that Ned Stark had been watching from afar, pride swelling in his chest, as well as the pain of knowing that the young man he had raised was soon going to be leaving him.​

 

[Xavier Rall]

"Playing with Dolls" is back, and this time it's Black Gold Saw's turn to shine!

First up is Tywin Lannister!

A note, however, is that, I wrote one version of this snippet, then thought of a different idea and wrote that version as well that I liked more and personally consider official, but after sharing both versions with a confidant who liked the first version more, I have decided to share both versions and let you, the readers, each individually decide which one is better.

 

[Xavier Rall]

Gold Saw Dyed in Lannister Red Tywin (283 AC) - Version 1​

Tywin sat in silence as his commanders entered his tent and seated themselves. Kevan and Tygett on his right, Gerion and Stafford on his left. Each and every one a Lannister, for good or ill, and it was thus of paramount importance that they be present to discuss perhaps the family's most transformational moment since King Loren Lannister bent the knee to the Conqueror, Aegon Targaryen.

The four men seated themselves, fully armed and armored in equal preparation for a military parade or a battle. All of them were silent, and looked to Tywin to speak. They all knew what news had brought them here at this time, but all of them waited for their Lord to take the lead on this, as he was wont to do in all things.

"Prince Rhaegar is dead," he pronounced. "And a Doll is serving Jon Arryn."

The men's reactions would have been more intense if they hadn't already known, but they were still grasping at the enormity of the situation.

"How in the Seven Hells did Jon Arryn of all people get one of those monsters to serve him?" Stafford uselessly asked.

"How he did it doesn't matter," Tygett answered. "The only thing that does is that he now gets to decide who sits on the Iron Throne. And since Robert was his foster son and has Targaryen blood, the Baratheon lord will be king."

"Robert Baratheon as king over Westeros?" Stafford guffawed. "The gods really have turned their backs on the Targaryens."

"Must have finally grown tired of flipping coins for them," Gerion replied.

Stafford snorted at that.

"Let's stop talking about the fate of the Targaryens," Kevan interjected. "What matters is that we must decide what to do in response to these events."

"We are putting Robert on the Iron Throne," Tywin declared.

Everyone's attention returned to their Lord.

"The Prince is dead, the King is weak, and this time it is the enemies of the Targaryens who have the dragons. The war will soon be over, and we will end it, leveraging our position to wed Cersei to Robert, and House Lannister to the Iron Throne."

The silence swiftly returned with an awkward air of disbelief, and the expression of said disbelief swiftly dispelled it.

"My Lord," Kevan started. "I don't like to question your decisions, but how can we do what you have said?"

"We could double-time march the army," Gerion said. "That will let us get to King's Landing before Robert's forces-"

"But our army still needs to sleep," Tygett stepped in. "Jon's Doll doesn't. She'll beat us there by days."

"Unless our Lord has a Doll of his own, there's nothing that we can do to affect the war at this point," Stafford bemoaned.

"Funny that you should say that."

The womanly voice emanated from beyond the internal dividers of Tywin's tent behind Stafford's seat. He and Gerion turned around, while Tygett and Kevan looked up to see five sharp blades fashioned like fingers slither between them and pull one of them aside. The four men couldn't help but gasp when they saw who – and what – strutted through.

One might have thought that the red-eyed figure with a sultry smile who had revealed herself was some manner of very expensive whore, with the very small coat she wore that only covered her arms and the top of her back, and the very small coverings that served only to accentuate her immodestly unveiled immaculate snow-white form.

But Tywin and his men knew better than that, from the sight of her ironclad legs and armored hands to the blazing red horns on her head and the black sword in her other hand, gilded with gold, edged on the back with saw teeth, and large enough for the Imp to use it for a steel bed.

"I am a Doll," she strode around the table, followed by ten eyes, came to where their Lord sat, lifted her large blade (some of the lords wondered if their eyes weren't tricking them into seeing her sword change size) and stabbed it into the earth next to his chair.

"And I am sworn to serve House Lannister," she declared on bent knee.

Ten eyes drew up their gazes toward their Lord as he rose above the Doll, his eyes only meeting hers. "Black Gold Saw," he ordered, "You will go to King's Landing as swiftly as you can, and storm the Red Keep. You will kill each and every member of the Royal Family, from the King to his infant grandchildren. If someone tries to stop you, you may kill them."

The Doll, now possessed of the strange name of Black Gold Saw, dipped her head in a quick bow. "Your will be done, my Lord. Their lives are now forfeit."

She stood and unsheathed her blade from the earth, then marched to the tent's exit.

"One more thing," Tywin recalled.

Black Gold Saw halted like a hound on the end of a leash, and then turned to meet Tywin's unfazed eyes with a smaller smile.

Tywin continued. "The only person you are not to kill under any circumstances is my son Jaime, who is still serving as a Kingsguard in the Red Keep. That is all."

Black Gold Saw nodded her head. "Understood, Lord Tywin."

With that, she left the tent for King's Landing.

The other men in the tent could only watch in terrified astonishment at what they'd just witnessed.

"A Doll," Stafford muttered, "Our House has a Doll."

Tywin could already see the strange thoughts they had never before taken seriously swirling through their heads.

"That means Aerys will die," Tygett turned to Tywin. "And Cersei will be Queen."

He knew because those same thoughts had swirled through his head the moment that Black Gold Saw entered his service.

"The power of the dragons has been taken from the Targaryens," Gerion noted, "And handed to us."

But there was another reality he discerned after he had time to dwell on what had happened.

"Not just us," Kevan interrupted. "One Doll may serve Jon Arryn, and one now serves Tywin, but what about the next Doll? And the one after that, and the next hundred after them?"

The Game was about to change in a way the world hadn't seen since before the Doom of Valyria.

"Kevan is right," Tywin leaned forward upon the table. "The Dolls may have the power of dragons, but their Arrival distributed them across the Seven Kingdoms more liberally than Valyrian steel. And it's only now that they seem to finally be waking up from whatever stupor they landed in."

Aegon had rigged the Game when he brought dragons to the board.

"We will march on King's Landing immediately," Tywin rose to full height again. "We will beat Robert's army to the capital and occupy it to turn it over to him, forcing him to grant a favorable position once he ascends the Iron Throne. But as soon as that is over, we return home, we track down each and every Doll in the Westerlands and beyond whenever possible, and we do everything we can to bring them under our banners."

But now, anyone anywhere could play the Game, from the highest Lord to the lowest beggar, so long as they were playing with Dolls.

 

[Xavier Rall]

Gold Saw Dyed in Lannister Red: Tywin (283 AC) - Version 2​

Tywin read the message, his face as impassive as the messenger's was paled and sweaty. Considering that, the paper's contents, and the shoddy attempt to cover up the seal's original breaking, Tywin wondered how the man would look trussed up like a chicken in a butcher's shop, a few feathers poking out to allow his viewers to discern his nature. Unfortunately, the message required his immediate and full attention, so Tywin would not be able to see to the man's rope himself.

Thankfully, there were several men he trusted to do it for him.

"Send word to all generals to see me in my tent in one half hour, and whichever of them you see last, tell him that I've prepared a roast pheasant for him. Got it?"

"Yes, milord," the man replied, and he hurried off to deliver Tywin's orders.

Tywin immediately strode toward his tent after that, his eyes fixed forward, but his ears open to the conversations of the men around him. He overheard bets being made on whether they were going to fight for or against Aerys, orders by sergeants for their subordinates to get off their lazy butts, even crude humor.

But none dared voice that pernicious rumor where he was keeping a whore in his tent within earshot. That was good, as it meant that they had learned well from his whipped and beaten slanderers. It certainly helped that those men who were too curious for their own good were simply never heard from again, thankfully without him needing to exert such effort on his own.

Upon entrance to the main space of his tent, Tywin called out for the source of both the rumors and the disappearances: "Black Gold Saw."

A pair of comically-large, gauntleted hands with shears for fingers slithered through the pair of curtains that sectioned off the portion of the tent that was reserved for their owner. They then pulled apart to clear the entrance for a figure whose bared midriff and exposed thighs and cleavage spoke at first of an expensive whore, but the sight of the hands, horns and glowing blood-red eyes would have marked her as some demon of lust a mere three years ago.

She was a Doll, who upon Awakening, had named herself by the sign that Tywin Lannister now summoned her with.

She strutted forward until she stood directly in front of Tywin, her face split with a dangerous grin that could seduce or cower lesser men, her confident, smiling eyes directly meeting his that any observer would have interpreted as a challenge.

"I am at your service," Black Gold Saw intoned on bending knee. Upon it kissing the earth, she said, "My Lord."

He held out to her the message he had received. "Read this to me."

Rising to her feet, and with greater gentleness and dexterity than her monstrous digits should have been capable of, Black Gold Saw grasped the small parchment and spread bare its contents while Tywin strode to his chair at the head of the table that dominated the room they occupied.

"Is this a test or a jest, my Lord?" she looked to him. "Because I know well enough that your eyes have yet to fail you."

"It is an order," Tywin rebutted, relaxing himself in his seat.

She nodded at that, and turned back to the matter at hand. "'Lord Jon Arryn has won the service of a Doll. The Doll is named Strength, and she has defeated Prince Rhaegar's army, and delivered them to Lord Robert Baratheon. Robert has dueled and killed Prince Rhaegar. His armies march on King's Landing.'"

She let the paper curl back up on itself, and placed it before Tywin. "It seems I am no longer the only one in the world."

"Do you know her?" Tywin asked.

"Perhaps before we came here," she answered. "But I can't tell you anything more about her than that message did."

"Then I can only pray for your sake that the memory of this Strength is similarly afflicted," Tywin said.

A smirk curled the Doll's lips. "I thought you didn't pray to them for anything," she prodded, "because of how they mocked and wounded you."

"Nothing more than a turn of phrase, Black Gold Saw," Tywin said. "One so pervasive that even the unfaithful may speak it out of habit."

"To compel words and actions from those who wouldn't otherwise," Black Gold Saw mused. "Truly, the power of gods, and great men."

"No, that's just power" Tywin corrected. "Any thug with a knife can force a man without one to empty his purse. That is power at its meanest and most direct."

"So if the lowest form of power is to directly force a man to change his words and actions," Black Gold Saw reasoned. "Then the highest would be to indirectly cause a man to change how he thinks, allowing you to dictate his words and actions without having to use force."

"Much like what you have been attempting to do just now," Tywin revealed.

The smile disappeared from the Doll's face, caught in her own words at her clumsy attempt at manipulation.

"I apologize, my Lord," she bowed her head and placed her hand over where her heart would have been if she were human. "I have been a very eager and attentive student to your lessons, and this isolation has left me with sparse choices of persons to put them to practice with."

"You have learned much, I will give you that," Tywin rose from his seat, and stood before her. "But now it is time for your first true test."

Black Gold Saw straightened up and looked her Lord in the eye. "Are you crowning the Stag, or the Dragon?"

"Robert Baratheon," Tywin declared. "Aerys has no dragons, no Valyrian steel, and no Prince Rhaegar. Robert has Rhaegar's head, and more importantly, the first Doll in the world to swear fealty. Aerys's days are over, and if House Lannister is to have any say on what will become of Westeros after he's dead, it must be at the hands of House Lannister that he is killed, along with the rest of the Royal Family."

Black Gold Saw understood Tywin's orders perfectly. "Is there anything else you want me to do in King's Landing while I'm making the case to wed Cersei to Robert?"

"Don't kill the Grand Maester Pycelle, he's been of great use to me," Tywin elaborated.

"And what of your son, Jaime, if he tries to stop me?" she asked.

"You will not provoke me again with a rhetorical question," Tywin declared.

She nodded. "Then I shall make for King's Landing with all speed."

Tywin gestured to the tent entrance. "Immediately."

Black Gold Saw did a slight double-take at that, as she had clearly been expecting to have to sneak out again, in order to keep the secret for as long as until she reached King's Landing. But Tywin had decided that there was no more point in such secrecy at this point. So she bared her teeth in a grin that the lions that once roamed the Westerlands, and marched to the tent's portal, and threw it open as she strode out.

Immediately, Tywin heard his guards get into a panic and the camp around him erupt into a commotion. He reached for the pitcher of wine that was sitting on the table and poured some into a goblet that he'd left at his seat, and then into the other cups he'd placed at the seats of his commanders.

He knew for a fact they would be needing it.

 

[Cancelled For A]

I quit reading after one of the dolls killed off the targ kids.

Way too dark for me.

 

[Xavier Rall]

Gold Saw Dyed in Lannister Red: Jaime (283 AC)​

Jaime was standing by the main entrance of the Great Hall while King Aerys and his Hand Rossart were plotting when he heard the shouts and screams. After them, the sound of rattling armor and armored feet flooding the hallways beyond. Then, the doors slammed open and castle guards led by Ser Jonothor Darry swarmed inside.

"What is the meaning of this outrage?!" Aerys roared out furiously.

"Close the doors! Bar and block them with anything we can find!" Ser Jonothor frantically ordered, as the guards scrambled to obey.

"How dare you ignore your king?!?" Aerys railed.

"Jonothor," Jaime addressed, while stepping outside the way of the guards dragging the braziers and benches to the doors. "What's happening?"

"We're under attack!" the knight cried, his eyes filled with fear that Jaime had never seen in them before. But he had seen that fear before: in the eyes of those men that were about to be burned to death at Aerys's order.

"Attack?" Rossart balked. "Robert and Tywin's armies are both days away, and nothing and no one could-"

Everyone turned at the sound of a *Crash.* It came from the hallway beyond the doors to the Great Hall. Some of the guards rushed to hold the debris to the doors while others just started running away, some of them dropping their weapons along the way.

"Oh gods, she's here already," Ser Jonothor murmured, and then rushed to the King. "Your Grace, we must get you out of here, now!"

"NO!" the King roared. "Not until you explain what is going on!"

*SLICE!* "AAAAAUUUUGGHHhhhh…"

Jaime snapped back again to see the doors, benches, brazier and a guard impaled on a gigantic, saw-backed sword that looked big enough for Gregor Clegane to walk into it and be split from crown to groin. The blade then twisted, splitting wood, twisting black iron and rending flesh, before it violently slashed into the right doorpost in a flash, exploding out splinters of wood, shards of metal and chunks of meat. The blade then snapped to the other doorpost with equal ferocity, creating another explosion of pure kinetic energy that showered the floor and wall of the Hall with debris and viscera from men too slow to escape the demonic blade.

Jaime was stunned, horrified, and immediately despairing. He had seen violence before, but such instant destruction and brutal butchery was something he had last seen two years ago, when a village in the Westerlands tried to lynch its most recent stellar-born visitor. He knew that the only reason he got to live to tell what happened is that he saw it happen from afar, while on bandit patrol, as the Doll hacked and slashed without regard for whether its blade cut through tree, stone or house, so long as it cleaved its attackers.

"Protect your King!" Aerys cried in panic, as he hastened himself off the Iron Throne, and Rossart bolted for one of the doors at the opposite end of the Great Hall.

Jaime was frozen with indecision as he saw the Doll grab one of the doors-

*CRRRRRAAAAACK*

-rip it off its hinges, heave back-

"DOWN!" Ser Jonothor dropped to the floor.

-and throw the door at the escape path Rossart had taken, pasting his head, killing more guards, and narrowly missing Ser Jonothor as it sped into the passage and wedged itself between the walls.

"No more running."

The last few guards halted in their tracks, and Aerys collapsed onto the steps of the Throne, and Jaime was now left alone standing so close to the Doll, who strode into the Great Hall.

"Chasing you all has been fun, but even that can wear on one's patience," she said.

The Doll spoke with the sultriness of an experienced seductress, but with the deadly surety of a hardened killer. Jaime looked at her, and the only thing he could focus on was the red. The blood splattering her horns and hands, the viscera on her pale torso, and the smiling scarlet eyes of a demon.

"Ser Jaime Lannister!" boomed the voice of King Aerys Targaryen the Second, "KILL HER!"

Jaime looked at the Doll, and saw nothing but certain death. He could only imagine what his family thought of him dying at the hands of a Doll-

"You are Jaime Lannister?" the Doll suddenly asked.

Caught off by the sudden question, Jaime took a second to answer. "Y-yes. I am."

"Ah, good," the Doll nodded. "I was ordered not to kill you, and it would have been so inconvenient if I had accidentally had."

Jaime couldn't believe what he was hearing. This… Doll, had been ordered not to kill him?

"And what," Ser Jonothor stood back up, "do Arryn and Robert want with Ser Jaime, Strength?" The courageous knight brought himself to Jaime's side, unsheathing his sword to defend his King. It bolstered Jaime's courage enough to follow suit.

"Hehe," the Doll chortled, and switched her blade to her left hand. "I'm afraid you're mistaken. My name is Black Gold Saw."

Then she sped forward too quickly for the elder knight and hilted her enormous sword into Ser Jonothor's gut. Jaime swung his blade true, but he was stopped by the Doll swallowing his hands in her gigantic grip. Then Black Gold Saw fixed her eyes on his.

"And I answer only to your father, Lord Tywin Lannister."

For some reason, beyond Aerys and Rossart's plotting to destroy King's Landing, the nightmarish violence he had just witnessed, and the murder of a sworn brother right beside him, the revelation that this monster answered to his father was the thing that finally disarmed him.

"JAIME!"

He and Black Gold Saw looked to the ragged and mad man cowering back on his prickly high chair.

"KILL HER! YOU HAVE HER! KILL HER NOW!" he screamed.

"Excuse me, Kingsguard," Black Gold Saw said, before promptly thrusting him away with her inhuman strength, sending him sprawling and rolling almost into the wall of the Great Hall.

Jaime got to his feet in time to see Black Gold Saw reach the steps of the Iron Throne.

"No. NO! STAY BACK DEMON!! I AM YOUR KING!!!" Aerys retched impotently.

"I'm so sorry, Aerys," Black Gold Saw marched up the steps to loom over the pathetic monarch. "Your former friend Tywin had no words to spare for you. But don't worry, I do."

"PLEASE! SPARE ME!" Aerys held up his hands in cowardly surrender as she raised her sword over him.

"We choose our own kings," Black Gold Saw dictated. "And we choose Robert."

She stabbed down, feeding the starving Throne new blood, and giving it a new back for the next king to sit back against.

Jaime witnessed the death of his king, and he felt nothing.

Black Gold Saw turned and sat down on the Throne atop the lap of Aerys's corpse. "Jaime, come here."

Resignedly, Jaime carried himself forward until he stood at the base of the steps leading to the Throne. He looked up at her relaxing on the highest seat in the land, with the smile of a truly satisfied woman.

"Tell me, Ser Jaime Lannister of the Kingsguard," Black Gold Saw inquired. "How does it feel to fail your oaths?"

This time, it took him barely a moment to respond: "I don't feel anything. Except, perhaps, for relief, that I don't have to obey him anymore."

Black Gold Saw leaned her head on her hand and chuckled at his response. "Is it just me, or do I sense that you would rather have killed this pathetic thing yourself?"

"I think I would have," Jaime affirmed. "Especially if he and Rossart had gone through with their plan to destroy King's Landing."

A look of perked-up surprise took over Black Gold Saw's face. "Destroy King's Landing? Why? And how?"

"Aerys had his alchemists make enough wildfire to reduce the city to a smoking crater so that he could deny Robert the city," Jaime revealed.

The Doll went quiet as she absorbed this information. Then her smile returned in full force. "Wonderful."

It was now Jaime's turn to look surprised. "Wonderful? Why?"

"You don't see?" Black Gold Saw stood, and proceeded down the steps, leaving behind bloody footprints. "The king is dead, with his family about to follow, at the hands of the only other sworn Doll in the Seven Kingdoms, and on top of that, a plot to destroy King's Landing has been exposed and nipped at the bud. All thanks to House Lannister."

"Oh," Jaime breathlessly realized. "That's what Father's planning."

"I suppose congratulations are in order for your sister, then," Black Gold Saw rested a heavy hand on his shoulder. "She's going to be Queen."

Jaime didn't know much about Robert, only what his reputation was, and he knew Cersei would not be very happy with him.

At least, nowhere near as happy as she is with me, he thought.

"But first, I would like you to break your oaths this time," Black Gold Saw stated.

"Wait, why- oh," Jaime understood.

"I will appreciate it if you showed me the quickest way to the Queen and the Royal Family," Black Gold Saw said. "I'm rather sure I could find them without your help, but you would make things a lot faster, and you and I both know your father favors fast results."

Jaime didn't muster the will to protest his Father's orders from Black Gold Saw's mouth. They're going to be dead anyway, he mused. And I may as well get used to this. I have a feeling she'll be giving out a lot more of Father's orders for a long time to come.

"The Queen and her children are not here," Jaime informed her, as he turned his head away. "But I can tell you that Princess Elia and her family are in Maegor's Holdfast."

Then his heart jumped when he felt a steel blade on his cheek, nudging him back toward Black Gold Saw.

She kissed him on the cheek.

"Thank you," she cooed, and let him go as she walked away.

He touched his fingers to the wet spot on his cheek where the Doll had kissed him, and pulled them away.

They were stained with blotches of blood.

 

[Xavier Rall]

Gold Saw Dyed in Lannister Red: Cersei (286 AC)​

Cersei lavished her infant son, Joffrey, with all the love in the world that was his birthright as she cooed at him. Her emerald green eyes gazed lovingly into his eyes of jade, as she took in the perfect picture of his visage. He had wispy hair the color of straw, that would grow golden with age, much like the long hair he was impudently swinging his little hands to grab onto.

"Why don't you hold my finger instead," Cersei suggested, finagling her index finger between the infant Prince's tiny digits to lay claim to his palm.

Her son's fingers clasped hers in a familiar grip, and once again she allowed herself to put aside her fears for the future and frustrations with the present. Now that she had given Robert an heir, she could get her father to back off on the subject of children for at least another year. She could put off having to sleep with that man for just as long, and focus on giving her love exclusively to her love.

She just sat in her chair beside the window overlooking the world, and basked in the shine of the sun and the love of her son, and all was right in creation.

*Knock* *knock* *knock* *knock* came the sound of knuckles on the wood of the door, and the voice of her maid Bernadette calling out, "Your Grace, you have a visitor."

And because the gods decreed that she couldn't have anything good in this life without paying a price, Cersei had to divert a modicum of her attention from her golden lion. "Tell them I am not receiving visitors now."

Then came the sound of the door being opened and crashing against the wall and heavy footsteps crossing the threshold.

Her rage began roaring up as she turned to address her trespasser. "I said I wasn't receiving any-"

Her voice died with a whimper as her gaze was taken prisoner by eyes as red as the Lannister lion. Eyes belonging to Black Gold Saw.

"I'm sorry, your Grace," Bernadette huffed out as she barged in behind the intruder. "I tried to stop her, tell her you were-"

"And she thanks you for your service," the Doll's oversized right hand pushed her back through the doorway with the equivalent effort of a clerk pushing paper and used her left to close the door into her face.

Joffrey whimpered and reached out, trying to monopolize his mother's attention.

"You have no right to order around my maids and abuse them like that," Cersei rose from her chair, her baby boy cradled in her arms.

Of all days for Strength to be gone, Cersei bemoaned.

Black Gold Saw tilted her head to the side like a curious child observing a ladybug they found in the grass. She stalked toward Cersei, the sound of her heavy boots mixing with the increasingly distressed moaning of the baby in the Queen's ears. The Doll verged on invasion of her person, still wearing that damnably easy grin, backing her into the very chair she had risen from.

"Is this where you finally stand in rebellion," Black Gold Saw mocked. "What makes this maid so different from the ones before?"

Cersei flinched when she felt one of the Doll's bloody hands curl around her back and shoulders and the other support Joffrey and her arms across her front. Her son indignantly squawked for his mother to look at him.

"Take your hands off me," Cersei hissed. "I am your Queen."

"My Queen is tired," Black Gold Saw slowly lowered Cersei back into her chair. "And she would be aggrieved if she were to drop her Prince."

Cersei remained stiff after Black Gold Saw let go, only reacting when Joffrey began crying out, turning to him to kiss and shush him. "It's okay, Joffrey. Mother will make the scary monster go away."

*Thunk*

She nearly jumped when Black Gold Saw plunked another chair right beside hers. The Doll then plopped herself into its seat.

"I believe we got off on the wrong foot, as the turn of phrase goes," Black Gold Saw said, laying her arm over the back of Cersei's chair, and her hand over the opposite side of Cersei's body from her, just behind Joffrey's head. "I offer you my congratulations for birthing a healthy prince."

"Spare me your patronizing words," Cersei spat. "Father already sent a raven with his congratulations, there's no reason for you to be here."

"You wound me with your vicious barbs," Black Gold Saw clutched at her chest with her other hand. "Just because I'm Lord Tywin's favorite tool doesn't mean I have no will of my own, or the freedom to act on it."

Cersei wanted to scream in rage at Black Gold Saw, cause a scene, create a scandal, anything to get this blasted Doll away from her forever. But she didn't want any harm to come to Joffrey, so she had to dam up the overwhelming majority of it, and let only some of leak out, lest she burst from the pressure of holding it all back.

"So you will to make yourself an enemy of your Bonded's only daughter?" Cersei rumbled. "Who happens to also be the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, and the mother of its next King?" She turned and kissed Joffrey, mollifying the infant once more with her love and affections.

"What have I done to make an enemy of you, Your Grace?" Black Gold Saw smiled. "There's no need to mask your envy with hostility."

Cersei snapped toward her. "Save your venom for someone else's ears." Cersei smiled back at her. "After all, why should I be envious of someone expendable."

"Oh?" Black Gold Saw raised an eyebrow.

"There are thousands of Dolls in the world," Cersei said. "At least a few hundred in the Westerlands alone. And Father is offering marriages to House Lannister for anyone Bonded to a Doll. I heard at least a few have taken up the offer. Any one of them could do your job as well as you.

"But me? I'm his only daughter, the only chance he has at continuing his precious legacy," she preened. "There is nothing he won't do for the sake of the members of House Lannister. For us. And you are not one of us."

Cersei radiated smugness at the conclusion of what she said, confident that she had put Black Gold Saw in her place.

But the Doll's smile never wavered, and the sight of that caused Cersei's to do so.

"Have you ever heard of Matthas, son of Willem?" the Doll randomly asked.

Cersei was confused. "I have not," she admitted, wondering where this Doll was going with this.

"He wasn't anyone important before he took up Lord Tywin's offer," Black Gold Saw stood from her seat, slipping her hand from Cersei's body and scraping it across the back of her chair as she did. "And he wasn't anything really remarkable afterwards either. But, like you, he serves Lord Tywin to expand House Lannister, and his lady-wife gave birth to their first child only five months ago. A son."

Cersei felt her chest tighten, as Black Gold Saw leaned over her and laid her right hand upon her left shoulder, her thumb crossing her collar and her fingers setting upon her back.

"And I learned something from that baby," Black Gold Saw noted. "Children take after their parents – both of them. Matthas's son looked to inherit his mother's green eyes, but he definitely had his father's brown hair."

Black Gold Saw then looked down at Joffrey, and Cersei's heart leaped to her throat.

"No," she whispered in horror.

The Doll reached one of the monstrous talons on her left hand toward her son.

"No, don't," Cersei whimpered in protest as the Doll's demonic strength easily held her in place.

Joffrey cried as the claw hung over him like a sword suspended on string, moving back and forth over his fragile body to tap and poke at him and cause no end of distress to his mother.

"No, please, stop!" Cersei begged.

Black Gold Saw withdrew her finger, but Joffrey continued wailing, and it was all Cersei could do to clutch him even tighter to herself and murmur sweet nothings to bring him back to calmness from his terror. Such was her distress that she didn't notice Black Gold saw leaning in close to her again until she heard her whisper into her ear:

"The next one better have black hair."

Black Gold Saw let go of her, and left her room. Left her with her titles, her dresses, her gold, her son, and her tears.

 

[B_omega]

Tywin.. is as ever a guy who radiate Mob Boss vibe.

It stands to reason his Doll also radiates the same arm twisting aura as him.

Poor Jof, the guy might or might ends up a jerk, but it is indeed a traumatic thing.

 

[Xavier Rall]

Gold Saw Dyed in Lannister Red: Gregor (288 AC)​

Gregor was just finishing another draught of milk of the poppy to nurse yet another blasted headache when one of his guards entered the main hall and bowed to him.

"What is it, you dog?" he grated.

"Pardon the interruption, my Lord," the man shook a little. "But Black Gold Saw has arrived."

Now that was very uncharacteristically good news to start the day for Ser Gregor Clegane.

Usually, he had to deal with some blasted pettiness of some seven hells-damned lowborn piece of shit getting underfoot and pissing him off. Barring that, it was just looking forward to another day of headaches, milk of the poppy, and seeing to his armor and sword. The monotony of his life was only ever broken when Tywin sent him a raven with orders to go murder someone.

"Ah!" Gregor rose with his mood. "Then let her in already, you idiot!"

But to have Black Gold Saw, Tywin's personal Doll herself, coming to Clegane's Keep was a sure sign to him that Tywin had some reward to grant him for his years of loyal service.

The guard then continued. "A- actually, she wants you to go see her, in the courtyard."

Gregor paused at that, and then strode toward him until he was standing right above him, the man's head barely level with his chest. "Did she say why?" he asked dangerously.

The guard swallowed nervously. "S-she didn't say. But I think it's because of all the smallfolk she brought with her."

Gregor was really tempted to have another drink, if only he hadn't already drunk up his entire morning's portion already. But at the moment, the ensuing headache was more metaphorical than physical, so he simply knocked the guard aside in his natural stride out of the hall and toward the courtyard.

As he headed out, he thought on what exactly Black Gold Saw was planning. He knew himself to be a very blunt and simple man, who had little need to understand the labyrinthine plots and schemes of the other lords in their Game of Thrones. He only needed and wanted to know where he would lead his men and who they were to be tasked with killing. He also didn't mind Black Gold Saw all that much, she was but another servant to Lord Tywin after all, despite how little time the two had spent together in the last five years.

But he had worked and spoken with both her and Lord Tywin enough to know that there was a world of difference between the two.

His Lord could be very spiteful and vicious, but it was balanced out by his dedication to his House and his methodical sense of pragmatism. And when it came to dealing with the other lords of the Seven Kingdoms, he did it as a necessary part of his duty.

But Black Gold Saw, she treated the Game of Thrones like the game it was called. Although she aligned with Lord Tywin in his goals and plans, she participated in the game for the simple fact that she enjoyed it. He could tell, because the look she got in her eyes whenever she laid out the latest scheme to better House Lannister was very similar to those of some of his wilder men whenever they got hiked up on anticipation for a slaughter.

The same look that he saw in her eyes when he entered the courtyard, where a ring of smallfolk stood behind her.

"Good morning, Ser Gregor Clegane," Black Gold Saw greeted him. "I come with an audience, for the presentation of these gifts I have for you."

It was then he noticed that, clutched in her two large hands, was a pair of figures, covered up in baggy cloaks, faces blindfolded, bloody and muddied. And very eminently female.

His previous misgivings began dissipating with the rising of his lust.

"How generous!" he exclaimed. "And just who might these whelps be?"

Black Gold Saw chuckled as her sharp fingers stroked her two captives. "There was a pair of girls who lived simple lives in their simple village. Such close friends they may as well have been sisters. When one lost her mother to an unfortunate accident, the other grieved as if hers had been taken. And then the other's disappeared too, under the most unfortunate of circumstances imaginable, and their tears ran hot once more."

"So a couple girls got pissy their mothers got killed." Gregor callously remarked. "What do I care?"

There was a quiet rumble of murmuring from the crowd behind Black Gold Saw, which she silenced simply by turning to look at them, before returning her gaze to Gregor.

"Despite the mystery of their mothers' deaths, the two blamed their liege lord, but never said so openly, powerless and weak they were like all young women. Unable to bear the pain of living so close to where their mothers died, they left, taking what little possessions and food they could carry, and set out in search of someplace else to call home."

Then she knelt down so that she was level with her prisoners.

"During their travels, they came across a pair of Dolls, sitting uselessly by the wayside under a copse of trees, surrounded by offerings of rotten food, dead flowers, and even abandoned coins. The two girls at any other time might have hoped that the Dolls would Awaken for them, but hope was gone, but they took pity on the poor things covered in mud and filth, so they cleaned away the useless food and plants, collected the coins, and wiped the dirt off their faces."

Gregor was getting really annoyed. There was no one he knew who loved the sound of their own voice than Black Gold Saw, and he was really itching to have a go at the offerings before him. But he had already dared to interrupt her once, and he knew that she hated being interrupted whenever she got going like this.

Black Gold Saw then pitched the faces of the two girls. "But then, the Dolls Awoke! The girls burst into laughter and joy at the new friends they had just made, and realized something: they could return to their home, march up to their lord in his Keep, and finally get justice. Not just for their mothers, but for every mother, father, son and daughter who had been slaughtered by the monster in Clegane's Keep known as the Mountain That Rides!

"And this is the part where I come in," her smile reached a new level of evil cruelty as she nuzzled the shaking girls, cheek to cheek. "I met this motley quartet, learned their plans, and put the Dolls in their place before they could run off to commit murderous rebellion. And you know how Lord Tywin is with smallfolk who rise up against any facet of his rule, don't you Ser Gregor Clegane?"

"Oh, yes," Gregor was practically licking his lips now, and the struggling of the girls in Black Gold Saw's hands increased.

"But then, a thought occurred to me."

Gregor blinked.

Black Gold Saw continued: "Even if I kill these would-be rebels and their Dolls, what's to stop the next vengeful smallfolk who lucks into bonding with a Doll from coming here and killing you, forcing Tywin to plunge all the Westerlands into chaos to hunt them down to avenge the most unlikable man in the Seven Kingdoms? And in the end, would it even be worth the trouble?"

No, Gregor thought.

The menace in her voice grew. "And then I thought, what use is Ser Gregor Clegane anyway? Against even the smallest and weakest Doll, the only thing he's good for is target practice."

Her fingers slit the blindfolds, which fall to the ground.

"No," Gregor whispered, shaking his head.

"'But he's been such a good dog,' Lord Tywin might say," Black Gold Saw cooed mockingly. "To which I would reply, 'He might be the best, most loyal dog in all the world, my Lord, but there's only one thing to do with him when he goes rabid.'"

The pair's eyes open, green and gold shine like fire.

"NO!" Gregor backed away in horror.

"'You put him down.'"

Black Gold Saw opened her hands, and the two Dolls she gripped speeded forward at Gregor.

"NOOOOOOO!!!!!" Gregor screamed as the Dolls lunged at him, one leaping at him with fistfuls of knives, and the other coming low with a polearm that folded out a gigantic hammerhead.

He had wasted too much time to draw his sword, and the waving of his arms was utterly useless.

The Doll that jumped landed on his chest and stabbed him in both shoulders, while the lower swung her hammer into his knees, shattering every bone in his legs, the two combining to knock him flat on his back.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

Gregor flailed and flopped like a fish out of water and wailed like a helpless maiden.

"I am sure, my ladies, that you understand the consequences of what will happen if you tell anyone the truth of what transpired here?"

He couldn't tell whose voice was whose, the pain was so great.

"The truth? Why should we be afraid to say he was killed by a pack of wolves?"

He could feel nothing but the pain, as it penetrated and burned every part of his being.

"'Twas a truly tragic hunting accident. But that's all was. An accident."

For an instant, he felt that there was some kind of irony to all of this he wasn't grasping.

And then Black Gold Saw split him in half.

 

[B_omega]

Tywin beware.

This one learns the meaning of Bravura.

 

[Xavier Rall]

Gold Saw Dyed in Lannister Red: Tyrion (289 AC)​

Tyrion huffed as he closed the lid on the last trunk of his possessions to be brought with him to King's Landing.

He mentally checked off the various items on his list of effects to bring:

All manner of dress suits, trousers, underclothing, extra shoes and boots to keep up appearances.

Various scents and perfumes to be given to fetching women and to bar the stench of open sewage that the capital's air was infused with.

And books, books, and more books to occupy his mind and time while on the incredibly dull trip there.

All of it was there.

With the packing done, it was time for the easy part: ordering someone else to carry his luggage to the carriage for him. Now, he could have luxuriated in having someone else do all the packing for him, but he didn't want to risk them pulling some trick at his father's behest, so that part he had done himself. But he was far more comfortable with letting other people carry the things he packed.

Perhaps the least perk of the short list of benefits of being a dwarf, Tyrion thought to himself, being the only person he knew who could make dwarf jokes funny.

Tyrion then went to the door of his room to perform the act of enlisting another person to act upon his request and opened it-

"Oh, fortuitous timing, Lord Tyrion."

-to find Black Gold Saw caught in the act of failing to open the door before he did.

"Black Gold Saw, could you find it within yourself to come to the aid of a helpless dwarf?" Tyrion asked.

"I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage, Lord Tyrion," Black Gold Saw walked past him into his room and seated herself on his bed. "For I know of so very few helpless dwarves, and they are all so very far away."

"Black Gold Saw, if this were any other time, I would love to play word games with you," Tyrion rounded on her. "But, as soon as possible today, I will be leaving for King's Landing where I will while away my days with all the books and whores I could ever want."

"A shame, word games are always so much fun when played with you," Black Gold Saw clasped her hands together. "And you are probably the only person who enjoys playing them."

"True, quite true," Tyrion conceded. "As skilled as Father wields his words, he doesn't enjoy playing with them."

"He often gives the impression that he doesn't enjoy anything," Black Gold Saw unfolded her hands and laid herself out across Tyrion's bed on her side.

"Oh, I disagree," Tyrion walked back to the open doorway.

Tyrion would normally be very aroused at the sight of a very beautiful woman displaying herself so extensively, and on his bed no less. But he knew from the moment he met her that trying to initiate any sort of bedroom activity with Black Gold Saw was a very bad idea, and so he had spent a long time convincing his body that he had no desire for it whatsoever.

"Mmm, I suppose the son would know his father better than his father's Doll," Black Gold Saw watched as Tyrion looked down both sides of the hallway outside his room. "But I still don't see where he shows this enjoyment that you seem familiar with."

"You're almost never around whenever he and I are talking together as father and son," Tyrion returned his attention to her. "So I can't fault you too much for not seeing it."

"I don't need to be to get his opinion of you," Black Gold Saw sat up and folded her hands in her lap. "He calls you an ungrateful, spiteful, whoring little stump whose very existence is a blot on the Lannister family's proud name."

"I doubt those were his exact words," Tyrion noted.

"But they convey his exact feelings for you," Black Gold Saw pointed out.

"And it is right there that you miss the mark on my father," Tyrion countered. "My father may not enjoy having me for a son, but he sure does love having me as a convenient whipping boy for when things go wrong or just for when he's struck by the mood."

"I suppose there may be some merit to your argument," Black Gold Saw said. "I don't see why a man so dedicated to maintaining his family's legacy and reputation would keep someone like you around otherwise."

"Don't sell yourself short, Black Gold Saw," Tyrion chided. "I am sure you understand that way of thinking perfectly."

She tilted her head in curiosity. "You think so? Then how do I understand so?"

"Because it's the same way you were thinking just a few minutes ago," Tyrion exposited, "when you emptied out the hallway outside my bedroom of all the guards and servants, so that you could have me all to yourself one last time for another word game before I left you behind in this gigantic castle to engage with far duller conversationalists."

At that, Black Gold Saw stood up from Tyrion's bed, and flowed her arms out in a showy shrug. "You have me read, my Lord."

"And I have you," Tyrion declared.

Black Gold Saw leaned in with a puzzled look on her face.

Tyrion "I am still a helpless dwarf, in need of someone larger and stronger to carry my trunks for me so that Father, much as he enjoys tormenting me, can enjoy not having me around his castle any longer. And right now, thanks to you shooing away everyone else who would and could help me for the sake of your little game, my only option is you. And Father would be so disappointed if he were to learn that you were the reason for delaying my departure."

Black Gold Saw straightened herself, looking down at him with a strange, blank look, as if she were calculating how to respond to Tyrion's words. Then she turned to Tyrion's trunks, and stacked the smaller ones atop the larger before lifting the whole pile with ease.

"Is this everything you're taking to King's Landing, my Lord?" she asked.

"Yes," Tyrion replied. "That would be everything." He walked to the door and held it open for Black Gold Saw to walk through.

"There is one thought I wanted to share with you before you left, Lord Tyrion," Black Gold Saw said as she paused in the middle of the doorway.

"I should like to hear it," Tyrion granted.

"Unlike your father, I don't hate you," Black Gold Saw shared.

Tyrion nodded. "I always hoped as much."

"And about what you said, with your father and I thinking alike," Black Gold Saw mused. "I believe I know now why he still keeps you around."

"Oh?" Tyrion's curiosity was piqued. "And what might that be?"

Black Gold Saw explains: "If his firstborn, Jaime, is never released from the Kingsguard or gets killed, he will need you to step up."

"Step up?" Tyrion was confused. "To do what?"

"Be Lord of Casterly Rock." Black Gold Saw stepped into the hallway.

And Tyrion, digesting the horrifying thought that Black Gold Saw just put in his head, closed the door to his room.

 

[Xavier Rall]

Gold Saw Dyed in Lannister Red: Qyburn (291 AC)​

Qyburn looked over his shoulder at the burning pyre that was his latest laboratory, and consoled himself that at least he had fooled his would-be lynch mob into thinking he was perishing in the flames. And as he pushed through the brush into a small clearing he was glad that he had had thought ahead to have a stable maintained a short distance into the woods from his home, where a donkey was hitched. It was no horse, but it would more than suffice for a small old man like him.

He unhitched the dull creature from its mooring, climbed atop its sturdy back, and urged it onwards, away from village and minor keep, and through the woods. There was little enough light at the dimly-lit hours just proceeding from dawn, but there was neither wolf nor bear nor any sort of large predator to be found in this little forest, thus his steed pressed on quickly but steadily and fearlessly. On toward Qyburn's safety and freedom.

Much as another man in his position would have bemoaned the small-mindedness of the smallfolk and their lowly lord he lived so close to, he knew that it was his own fault he was in his present predicament. After all, it was his own fault he had left his notes someplace where someone breaking into his house could find them to share with his lord.

He had been satisfied with using the knowledge he had acquired in his experiments in the Citadel to cure and treat the people about him of their various ailments and injuries. It was good work, and made for him a good living.

But, ever since the Dolls fell from the stars and began Awakening, questions and ideas took command of his mind whenever his hands became idle and his attention wandered.

Men moved by the spark of the brain and their nerves and held up by the blood pumped through vessels by the heart, but what of the Dolls? What strange energy moved the Dolls, and what composed the eldritch fluids that served as their blood?

Men were made of flesh, blood, and bone, but the Dolls were made of something that could very cleverly mimic these at a glancing look or touch, but open up that alien material and it became clear that it was far more than a mere facsimile.

Men for their weapons had to gather the raw material, refine it, shape it, and then carry it with them where they needed, but always could lose it to rust, breakage, or simple misplacement. But how was it that Dolls seemed to conjure them whole from thin air, at any time or place of their choosing? They could not say, much as a child could with how breath sustained them but could nevertheless utilize them.

But as he reached the nearest clearing amidst the trees, another question came to his mind, mundane but urgent:

'Where is Ram?'

The Doll was at first not but a passing curiosity to him, with the modest ram's horns that she bore on her head, and the whiteness of her coat, which sharply contrasted that of many of her sisters. But then she Awoke to him, making his curiosity turn to childlike wonder, as he began to ask her many questions regarding her nature and abilities. The Doll, naming herself Ram for her horns, did all she could to aid him in answering his questions.

'She was supposed to be here.' Qyburn stepped off the donkey and cautiously inspected his surroundings.

She had quickly grown to be his closest confidant, and such was the trust between them that he confided to her his wish to perform certain experiments on Dolls similar to those he had conducted in the Citadel to ascertain as to their deeper natures. Ram, understanding as she was to his desire for knowledge and equal to him in his curiosity, sought out and found the Dead-Eyed who sat in place or wandered without purpose, delivering them to his laboratory, wherein they did indeed learn more of the nature of Dolls than any other soul.

Something happened to her, here. Qyburn saw that many of the trees about were damaged, destroyed or fallen, and furrows had recently been plowed in the earth.

However, as they answered questions regarding Dolls, another arose: why did they resemble human beings, girls and women particularly? Perhaps they were fashioned in the like for the sake of aesthetics, or perhaps they had been girls and women themselves? Whatever the case, the two of them had discerned that experimentation was required. Bold experimentation.

"Ram, where are you?" Qyburn called out, fearing that he was calling out in vain.

"Here," called out the female voice of a stranger.

*WHUMP*

Qyburn, startled, turned at the sound of a large object landing in an apparent heap behind him. The heap was humanoid in shape, with teal stains upon its striped trousers and white coat. Each leg and arm were twisted in fashions that her body had not been designed to perform. The right horn was broken off, leaving only a hole in her head.

"Ram!" Qyburn cried.

Then he was startled back again when two halves of a large ring clattered beside and upon the Doll's broken, bleeding, and barely-moving form.

"So, her name was Ram?" came the unknown woman's voice again.

Qyburn looked up to see, as he thought, another Doll. From her giant clawed hands to her devilish horns, she was gilded in red, and an easy smile was set beneath her bloody orbs.

"Black Gold Saw," for she could be no one else by Qyburn's reckoning, her appearance and mannerisms truly distinct among all Dolls. She had the easy arrogance that only a Lannister could bear, as well as the savage power that the Lannisters have ever had at their disposal since Tywin's rise.

"And you must be Qyburn," she acknowledged in turn. "The first man to be expelled from the Citadel, in who knows how long, for necromancy of all things."

"It seems we are both well-acquainted with one another's work," Qyburn discerned. "But I do not know why you are here, Black Gold Saw. Your master is Lord Paramount of the Westerlands, not the Riverlands."

"Yes, but that hasn't stopped me looking into you," Black Gold Saw replied, as she approached him. "You see, I have designs and purposes that extend beyond my duties and responsibilities to House Lannister. And I have devised plans that involve you, former Maester Qyburn."

"Plans for me?" Qyburn wondered. He then looked back toward the rising smoke, and turned back to her. "You're the one who broke into my home. You exposed my work to them."

"Yes, I did," she confessed remorselessly.

"Because you want my work for yourself," Qyburn deduced.

"Because I want you to work for me," Black Gold Saw approached him, stepping over the moaning Ram. "Because, just like you, just like Ram here, I want to know everything there is to know about Dolls. At whatever cost is necessary."

Black Gold Saw stopped a pace away from Qyburn. "Come with me, Qyburn, and I will give you everything you need to finish your work."

She reached out a hand to him. "Do we have a deal?"

Qyburn looked at the hand, and immediately the phrase "deal with a devil" came to mind. But, figuratively speaking, he had already made that deal long ago in the Citadel, once he began opening the flesh of the living.

"We do." He grasped her index finger, and she shook his hand.