The Kings Who Cared (ASoIaF AU)

[all fictions]

Aegon, Jon, and Dany have too much potential for three sibling-ish amigos shenanigans to not be together at some point.

Shireen is still cute tho.

 

[SRWG]

Chapter XVI: Last of the Wolves​

Jon knew that the Wall was the home of the crows. He knew that it was said dark wings oft brought dark words. And from what he had heard from Pyp and Grenn and the others, they had received little but dark words of late. But he had not expected it, not expected it in the least.

Robb was dead.

He had been slain at his uncle's wedding at the hands of the Freys and the Boltons on the orders of Tywin Lannister. Lady Stark, the woman he had spent his life fearing, was dead as well, and the might of the North was slaughtered. The War of the Five Kings was all but over. The boy king who had ordered Jon's own father's execution had won.

But what tore at Jon the most was not his brother's death. It was the fact that it did not hurt as it should have.

Robb had been his brother, his first brother. They had fought and argued and played and loved each other. He had been Jon's closest friend and confidant for most of his life, even with Lady Stark's insistence that he distance himself from Jon.

Now, he was dead.

And Jon did not feel that same urge to fly away from the Wall in pursuit of revenge, as he had when the bastard king had executed his father.

He could not even say why, and perhaps that tore at him most of all.

Had he become a Sworn Brother, finally? Were his vows to the sacred Brotherhood of the Night's Watch finally so deeply ingrained in him that he would never break them?

Or perhaps it was simple self-preservation? Mance would be upon the Wall at any time, and it was the looming threat in his mind at nearly every waking moment. He could not afford to ponder Robb at a time such as this.

… was it Ygritte? Had she replaced all else in the time he had known her? Had her death left him hollow, and unable to feel the pain he should have? Was it that his last memories of her would be the murder and betrayal in her eyes as he fled Queenscrown?

Or, darkest of all… was it his jealousy? The jealousy he had always felt for Robb. That Robb would be Lord, that Robb would wield Ice, that Robb would have Winterfell and be the man the world remembered. Was a part of him glad that Robb was gone, and that now he could be the son of Eddard Stark he had always yearned to be?

It couldn't be, he wouldn't let it. He was a Sworn Brother of the Night's Watch, and his place was here on the Wall. He would live here and he would die here, and Winterfell would never be his no matter his darkest fantasies and desires.

He loved Robb.

And now he was gone.

He just wished that it hurt more.

-

Jon was eating his supper in the Common Hall when the Lord Steward called for him.

Matthar, Halder, Grenn, Pyp, Toad, and Dareon were assembled around him, all eating and drinking and jeering. It almost felt as it had in the beginning, when he was still a recruit of the Night's Watch. Before everything had happened. Before the wights, before Ygritte, before what the men were calling the Red Wedding. If it weren't for the specter of Mance Rayder hanging over them all, it might have been comfortable, even.

And Sam.

Sam's absence was felt by Jon most of all. Grenn had sworn he did everything he could to rouse him, to take him away from Craster's godsforsaken keep, but Jon could not help the edge of bitterness he felt over it. Sam should be here, Jon thought, warm and full.

"We just finished the damned stockade for those wildlings and Yarwyck and the Pomegranate's already got us working again," Halder griped. "Working at the top of the Wall is a damned nightmare."

Matthar nodded his head in commiseration. "If Mance don't kill us, I think they will."

"I wasn't worked half this hard at Eastwatch," Dareon said, with a dramatic sweep of his hand, "I want to go back. Mance won't bother us there."

Grenn laughed. "You don't know nothing about Mance, Dareon."

"And neither do you," said Jon. "He is King-Beyond-the-Wall for one reason, and one reason alone. The wildlings believe he can get them across the Wall. Once he does that, they will splinter. They will do whatever they please." He stared at Dareon. "Harma Dogshead, or Rattleshirt, or the Weeper, any of them would be glad to kill the crows that remain. There will be no hiding, that is why he must needs be stopped."

They all stared at him; the amicable mood thoroughly quashed. They returned to their food and their drink, and it was quiet for a time.

"I seen that Young Griff visiting the wildlings," Halder said. "Any idea why?"

Jon had seen it too, but since their talk by the brazier, Jon had been kept busy by the Lord Steward. He bore some suspicion over it, but the comings and goings of that party were known to the officers. They were given all but free reign of the castle, though for what reason, Jon knew little.

"I do," Pyp said after a sip of some wine, "he says he wants to learn the Old Tongue."

That gave Jon pause. "Why?"

Pyp shrugged. "If he tells it true, he knows six tongues. Wants to add another notch to his belt I suppose!"

Six? Jon knew some small bits of High Valyrian from his education with Luwin, but beyond that, and the traces of Old Tongue he had gleaned from his time among Tormund Giantsbane's band… He could not imagine knowing that many different ways to say something. "It's a hard tongue. Like rocks bashing together. I know some few words."

"Tell us then, Lord Snow." Dareon laughed. "What did they tell you when your cloak was sheepskin?"

That earned the singer a glare, but Jon acquiesced. "…Skagos means stone, and magnar means lord." Thinking on it, he actually knew even less than he thought.

"Is that it?" Toad asked. "That can't be it, you were gone for months!"

Jon thought of the nights he had spent around the fires. The fights that would break out between friends and rivals alike of the Free Folk. It had led him to ask many questions to Ygritte or Tormund or Longspear Ryk. He found himself smiling. "I know the curses, actually."

"Go on then, tell us!" Toad said.

"Aye, let us hear it," said Dareon with a grin. "I want to yell at them wildlings in their own words."

But as Jon made to enlighten them on the many various ways a wildling could liken a man to a cock in the ancient tongue of the First Men, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned, and saw the dour grey face of Dolorous Edd.

"What is it?" Jon asked.

The middle aged squire shrugged. "The ol' pomegranate yearns for a squeezing I hear," said Edd.

Jon's eyebrows furrowed. "What? Speak plain, Edd."

"The Lord Steward humbly and formally requests your presence in his solar," he said with a mock flourish. His expression hardly changed. "You need some help, Snow?" He gestured to the crutch Jon had laid down on the floor.

Jon frowned. "No, I'll be fine." Jon rose to leave.

Dolorous Edd nodded somberly. "Hmm. Well if it's all the same to you, I'm rather famished." He swiftly took Jon's seat as he stepped away. Edd was no glutton, so Jon did not mind letting him have at his meal.

He'd lost his appetite anyway.

"I'll see you all later," Jon said, though he knew it was equally as likely that he might never see any of them again. The fact was not lost on them, and their faces were near as somber as Edd's (who had made short work of the remains of his stew).

They offered him half hearted waves.

"Best of luck, Lord Snow," Dareon said. There were grumbles of agreement and other well wishes.

Jon quickly left, unable to hold their gazes for long. He did not like their pity. They thought him fragile, after Robb. As he neared the exit of the common hall, he saw the tall graceful form of Young Griff entering the hall, flanked by the brawny knight he knew many called Duck. Duck had acquitted himself well during the battle, his brothers said, and was well liked, as most of their number were. Jon thought him a bit of a braggart at a glance. He had the swagger of many of the free riders Jon had seen when King Robert came to Winterfell so long ago.

As Jon hobbled closer, he saw the Young Griff shoo the knight away. Odd, Jon thought. Young Griff was yet a squire, was he not?

Young Griff's hair was positively ridiculous, in either case. He stood out here at Castle Black as few things did, and gave Jon second thoughts as to his potential competence. What sort of man would walk around looking like that, after all? His thoughts were cut short as the Essosi squire drew up close to him and gave him an appraising look.

Jon fought the urge to say something rude.

"I have it on good authority that you're going to keep your head," Young Griff said with the hints of that Essosi accent he had. "Worry not, Jon Snow." And then he was trotting off to catch up to the knight called Duck, leaving Jon more puzzled than annoyed.

Jon shook his head to clear his thoughts and made for the King's Tower.

The King's Tower was an arduous climb, even now with several days healing having a discernible effect on his gait. It was only his relative inability to climb that had saved him from having to climb the Wall and help in the construction of Bowen Marsh's hoardings. The winch cage was being used to transport the required materials mostly, and he was not a skilled craftsman regardless. He had been relegated to lesser duties on the ground of Castle Black in the meantime.

He had been the Lord Commander's personal attendant before. He had brought the Old Bear's food and drink and mail to him, warmed his baths, attended to his requests and fought off his raven. But what was he now?

Just a steward.

There was no one to learn command from now. Marsh would not have him on, and whoever would be the next Lord Commander would probably think little of the Crow-who-came-back. His duties would be many and menial and forgotten.

That is, if he kept his head as the Young Griff seemed certain of, and they all managed to survive Mance Rayder's eventual assault.

He knocked on the door to the solar that had once been Mormont's, and when he heard a muffled acceptance, entered the room. Inside, he found that there was not an informal council, as there had been before, but only the Lord Steward. He was sitting behind the broad desk Mormont had occasionally written from, and often eaten from.

"Sit, Snow."

Jon sat as quickly as he was able on the proffered chair. He rested his crutch across his lap.

The Lord Steward rose from his seat. He was a man of particularly modest height, shorter than Jon even, and while Jon was no dwarf, he was no giant either. Seated, Jon had to look up to meet Marsh's eyes. This was not lost on him.

"The wildlings were questioned," Marsh said. "And the survivors from the ranging as well." He stared at Jon hard. "Our brothers with enough luck to survive Mormont's disaster had little ill to say of you, while the wildlings had little but ill to say of you." He laughed. "The lord of the Thenns said he always knew you were a liar, that you had always been a crow."

Styr had been right, of course. Ygritte's trust had been misplaced.

"And about the Halfhand?" Jon said grimly. "The fact remains that he died by my hand; I do not expect the Watch to forget."

"No," Marsh agreed, "The Watch does not forget." A silence fell, and he saw the Lord Steward's jaw working soundlessly. Then, "I have not served at Castle Black for all of my years, did you know that, Snow?" he said.

Jon had not known that, in truth. He shook his head.

"For many years, I was a steward at the Shadow Tower, before the old Lord Steward breathed his last." He hummed. "I knew Qhorin, I knew him well; damn well better than most. We were not close, the Halfhand and I, but I knew the man. I had his measure. He was a hard man." Marsh chuckled darkly. "He didn't like to speak of it, but he hailed from the Iron Islands, though he why he came to the Wall, or was sent, I cannot say. Those barren rocks breed hard men, and Qhorin was harder again by half."

Qhorin Halfhand an ironborn. It made a certain sense, now that he thought of it. He had never talked of gods old or new. That he would perish so far from the sea felt… sad, to Jon.

"If he knew his time was at an end, and that his death might serve some greater purpose, he would not have hesitated to end it himself. That his death would buy you the trust necessary to hide among the wildlings was only yet another boon to him, I am sure." Marsh shook his head. "He was not the sort to flinch from duty."

"And me?" Jon asked.

"What is obeying the order of your superior, if not duty?" Marsh asked. "Had you died at the Skirling Pass with the Halfhand, we would not have had warning of the wildling ambush. We would have had many more dead brothers." His eyes became hard. "You may have stretched your vows more than you ought to have, but the fact remains that you might well have saved the Watch with your actions." He circled back around his desk and took his seat. "You will face no punishment, Jon Snow. That is not how the Night's Watch treats its brothers."

Jon felt a weight lift from him that he had hardly noticed he was carrying. "But what if others object?"

"Others may object all they wish. I am the acting Lord Commander until the Choosing is held, and such is my decision."

Not sure what the best response would be, he fell back on courtesies. "Thank you, Lord Marsh. You will not regret this."

"I best not."

"Return to your supper, Snow, and thank your friends. They were most vehement in their defense of you. Even the septa and Griff brought their persuasion to bear for your sake." That seemed to puzzle Marsh as much as it did Jon.

"I shall, thank you." Jon offered a quick bow, took up his crutch, and exited the room as quickly as he was able.

As he exited the King's Tower, Jon was consumed by thoughts of the sellsword and his party. The septa, he could see having some like of him. Perhaps she had taken kindly to his seeming piety in his handling of the wildling dead, or she had noted his attendance at the sept. But Griff? Griff had seemed to be attempting to bore a hole in his head by sight alone when he had met him at his questioning. He had had little contact with the man.

So it must have been the son, then.

Jon almost scoffed. The boy trusted too easily if it had only taken a single conversation to sway him to his side.

When he returned to the common hall, his brothers were still there, but their food was long since finished. Dareon had gone to the front of the hall, and was singing some mournful ballad. He saw Young Griff at another table with Duck and his father at his side. Once again, Jon was struck by how little the son took after the father.

But he supposed that Robb and Sansa had taken little from their father. Sansa, who was still hostage to the men who had now killed more Starks than even Greyjoy. And Robb, who he would never see again.

Jon clenched his scarred hand.

"Jon's alive!" Pyp called excitedly when he saw him.

Halder and Matthar and Toad and the rest all crowded around him and sent up a rowdy cheer, however ridiculous the notion was that he would have already been executed. Marsh would have waited a day, at least. When Dareon caught sight of him, he abruptly ended the song he had been singing, and switched to another song he had never heard. Some foreign sounding hero and a fiery blade.

As his friends found him a seat, Jon realized that Griff's eyes had come to his again. Sharp and blue they were, and they seemed to stare straight through him.

-

The next day, Jon was fletching arrows.

It was hard not to think of Ygritte as he worked. She had been skilled at it, her hands working tirelessly and gracefully with the feathers of birds from Beyond the Wall. She was easily the best with a bow from those among Tormund's band, and without a doubt the best of those from the party Styr had led. Bow and spear had been her domain, and sword his.

He saw her hands in place of his own. Delicate and yet rough.

He thought of her hands roaming his body, and his roaming hers. He thought of her slightly too-far apart eyes. He thought of her laughs and her queer accent. He thought of the castles she had wished to see that she never would. He thought of the children he might have fathered with her, with dark grey eyes and hair kissed-by-fire.

He thought of the look in her eyes, as she slit that old man's throat.

Arrow after arrow, Jon kept himself busy. The hoardings at the top of the Wall were going well, Pyp and Matthar said. They were a good idea, and if Jon was honest, he probably wouldn't have thought of it. Anything to make the inevitable defense of the Wall an easier affair was a task worth undertaking. Mance Rayder and his army were a certainty. That they would come was only a matter of time. They would not be able to meet them in the field, each of them knew that.

Mormont had once dreamed of breaking up the wildling column in coordinated mounted strikes, but the chance for that had long since passed. Now all they could do was defend. And for that, they needed arrows.

He had told Marsh and the others of the giants and their mammoths. Doubtlessly, Mance would send them against the gate. For them, they had pitch and oil to drop, and they would surely get more than their fair share of arrows as well.

How many will die?

How many Ygrittes? How many Tormunds? Rattleshirts and Varamyrs and Longspear Ryks?

How many of those old men at Queenscrown would they make if they passed?

How far south would they go? Would they stop at the Gift? Or go further? What would happen to the mountain clans? Or the Umbers and Karstarks? The Mormonts out on Bear Island? The Forresters and Glovers and Cerwyns?

How much death?

Can we even succeed?

Jon was not certain. The wildlings outnumbered the Watch by a factor of a hundred; Luwin had taught him enough sums and history for him to know that such a number was all but insurmountable. But he had said the words. They all had. This was their duty, to defend the Wall and the realm until their last day.

That his last day seemed nearer than ever did not ease his spirit any.

Jon was jarred from his reflection by the arrival of another body and the dumping of an armful of half-done arrows and a mountain of feathers.

It was Young Griff.

"What are you doing here?" Jon asked.

The tall boy gave him a queer look. "Fletching arrows, I thought that was plain."

"Why here then? Why not your chambers?"

They had been allowed to lodge in the King's Tower, below Marsh's own quarters. Rather prestigious of lodgings for a ragtag collection of sellswords and a septa, Jon thought.

Young Griff shrugged. "I could've," he said, "but Pyp asked that I keep an eye on you." He began to work before Jon could give voice to further complaints. He had a number of red feathers in his bundle, but there were grey and white and black as well.

You're not my mother, Jon wanted to say, but he kept it to himself. He would not poison the well with someone who had some role in his continued existence.

Jon returned to his work, noting quickly that Young Griff was rather skilled in fletching as well. A man of many talents. As they worked, Jon's thoughts wandered again. He thought of the family that remained to him.

Uncle Benjen, still unaccounted for in the wilds Beyond the Wall. Arya, who he had heard nothing of for many long months. And Sansa, still held by the Lannisters. Everyone else was dead. Father. Robb. Bran and Rickon.

Lannisters, Boltons, Freys, Greyjoys. All of them were cowards and murderers. He felt himself grow angry.

And the wolf, at Queenscrown. Was it like Orell? Did a piece of Bran live on in his wolf?

Was that it? Was that all that remained of House Stark? A girl who might not still breathe, a hostage, a bastard, a lost black brother, and a fragment in a wolf?

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Young Griff was staring at him. Finally, some of his anger leaked from him, almost against his volition. "You don't look much like your father," he said. Almost instantly, he regretted it, and added, "Take after your mother, then?" But it was a poor salve.

Something flashed across Young Griff's dark blue eyes, but he didn't say anything for a time, instead, continuing his work silently.

"Would you like to know a secret, Jon Snow?" The Essosi smiled, but there was an edge to it.

"Whatever it is you tell me, I cannot guarantee I'll keep it to myself. My loyalty is to the Watch," Jon replied, guarded.

The taller boy shrugged. "I know how it is here. News travels quickly when there is little to speak of." He laughed a sour laugh, but quieted quickly. "Griff is not my sire, but he is my father all the same."

"And what of your birth father?" Jon could not help his curiosity.

"Dead when I was little more than a babe." His eyes grew cloudy. "I had a mother and sister too, but they were murdered by thieves not long after." He breathed deeply. "Griff took me in, raised me as his own, and ensured I grew up a credit to the family I never knew." He glanced sidelong at Jon. "And for that, he will always be my father."

"He sounds a good man," Jon replied. "And I thank him, for his aid with Marsh. There are those who would sooner see me hanged." If Alliser Thorne were here, Jon knew that he'd have made the noose himself.

Young Griff nodded, and they continued to work silently for a time. "And I'm sorry," he said suddenly, "about your brother."

Jon didn't know how to respond.

"What they did… it's an ill thing, to kill a man under guest rights." He shook his head. "The old gods and the new agree on these matters; justice will find its way to them, one way or another."

Jon hoped so, but… he was a Sworn Brother now. The Night's Watch took no part. He should try to put this all from his mind… but that felt wrong.

"When Joffrey killed my father, I almost forswore my vows," he found himself saying. "In the dead of night I fled Castle Black. I would join Robb's ranks, I told myself, and I would avenge my father." Jon laughed drily. "I was a fool. I would have forced my own brother to take off my head, if I had deserted. Pyp and Grenn and the others," and Sam, "they stopped me, and they brought me back. I kept my vows." He clenched his hand. "And now I find myself thinking that if I had gone, if I had slipped away and gone to his side, perhaps I could have stopped it, could have prevented it from ever coming to pass."

"Or perhaps you would have died there with him," Young Griff said.

"Yes, perhaps I would have." He paused, searching for the right words. "But I could have died proudly. Robb was a good man, and a good king. It should be any man's hope to die for such a king, if he must die at all." He remembered that day in the training yard. "And Joffrey… Joffrey is a spiteful and cruel bastard," he spat the words, all but feeling the venom on his lips. "I would put Longclaw through him myself if I had half a chance."

Young Griff laughed at his words.

Jon rounded on him. "Do you think I jest?"

The Essosi threw up his hands, dropping the arrow he'd been working on. "No, no," he said placatingly. "It's just… strange to here one of you black brothers talk with such fervor over the matter of kings. I've been at the Wall for some time now, and kings are rarely on any man's lips it seems."

Jon laughed too then, despite himself. "It's a necessity, I suppose. Men from all across the Seven Kingdoms come to the Watch. We would rather not hate our brothers for their support of this king or that." He had seen it though, the despair, the shock, the horror, in men's faces when the news of the so-called Red Wedding came to them. The Northmen in the Watch felt the loss of King Robb keenly. "It's over now, in any case. Only Joffrey remains, and the Iron Islands will surely be brought back into the fold by Tywin Lannister sooner rather than later. There cannot be arguments over kings that no longer vie for the throne."

And life would go on at the Wall, as it always had, assuming they survived Mance.

Young Griff only smiled enigmatically at that. For some reason, it made him recall what Dareon had said.

"Have you managed to get a wildling to teach you?" Jon asked.

The blue-haired Essosi stared at him blankly for a second, confused at the change in topic. "I–Yes, I have."

"Is it Big Boil?"

Young Griff quirked his eyebrows. "How'd you know that?"

Jon shrugged. "He was always talkative. Complained about the boil on his arse near every chance he had. Small wonder he'd relish the chance to tell someone new." Jon picked up a new arrow. "Are you learning it well enough?"

Shaking his head sadly, Young Griff answered, "This Old Tongue is no trifle; it reminds me of Ghiscari in a way. It's hard and harsh. The Bastard Valyrian dialects come off the tongue smoothly." He shook his head again. "But I will master it with time."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why learn the Old Tongue? Not even the mountain clans of the North speak it still. The Bastard Valyrian languages of the free cities have some use, but the Old Tongue is spoken only by wildlings."

Young Griff stopped his fletching completely then, and turned fully to face Jon. His dark blue (almost purple, Jon noted) eyes studied his face. "Tell me Jon Snow, what would you do about Mance and his wildlings?"

"What I would do matters little," Jon replied. "I am but a steward, and I will prevent the wildlings from getting through the Wall."

"You know them better than any man here, Snow. Is every one of their number reprehensible?"

Jon paused. "No… There are good men among them, and there are bad men as well." Jon thought of Ygritte slashing the old man's throat, and the stealing of women, and the bastards, and– "but the way they live, it's–"

"And the wights. You fought one, did you not?"

Jon was momentarily confused by his change in tack, "Yes, I slew a wight, and burned my hand for it."

"Then would you rather there be another fifty thousand walking corpses, or fifty thousand men, women, and children on this side of the Wall?"

Jon gaped. "What?"

"Let them through. Work out a deal, ensure cooperation, and let them through," Young Griff said, as if it were the simplest matter in the world.

"I–" Jon had pondered it, truly. But to hear another say it, and with such certainty, was, off-putting.

"In the east, in Essos," Young Griff continued, "the Dothraki are a constant menace. They are savage and dangerous, and take anyone they do not kill as slaves to sell to the masters in Slavers' Bay. In Pentos and Tyrosh and Qohor and the other Free Cities, the magisters host lavish banquets, and offer gifts and tribute to the khals. In return, the khals do not attack the Free Cities." He shrugged. "I do not see why some accord could not be reached with Mance Rayder."

"Mance… Mance is a good man." And An oathbreaker, but… somehow despite that, still a good man. "The wildlings are unruly; they are a mess of loyalties and tribal rivalries. And the giants." They would be a nightmare to untangle, and with the North as it was… "I would agree, were Robb still king. He would have seen the merit in this course."

Young Griff nodded. "I've given it considerable thought, Snow. I'm glad that my assumptions were not incorrect." He drummed his fingers on his knee. "The Watch, though, and the northern lords… They would not agree so readily, I believe."

"Or King Joffrey besides," Jon added. The name left a foul taste in his mouth.

A frown marred Young Griff's face, but it quickly became something more enigmatic. "Still, it's important to consider these things. You can never know when a new opportunity might present itself." He grabbed the arrow he'd been working on last. "In the meantime, we prepare for the fight that is coming, be it the wildlings or the dead."

They worked silently on their arrows for a time.

The fact that this Essosi boy could see the real threat so clearly, when not even the high officers of the Night's Watch could was both saddening and shocking.

Were I Lord Commander I could make it so. I could let them into the Gift.

But Jon was just a steward, and he had his oaths to see to. Bowen Marsh would not let them through, and Denys Mallister at the Shadow Tower and Cotter Pyke at Eastwatch would surely agree to that same course. They would fight. Many wildlings would die, and perhaps the Night's Watch would be no more by the end of it. And for what?

"Griff?"

The blue haired boy turned to him.

"I already said so before. Just 'Jon' is enough."

Young Griff smiled, nodded, and returned to his work.

They would need a lot of arrows.

 

[SRWG]

Chapter XVII: Departure​

Shireen

Overnight, Dragonstone had become a mess of activity. From atop the Sea Dragon Tower, Shireen could see that Salladhor Saan's ships had been recalled, and were now laying anchor all throughout the port of Dragonstone. Men were marching through the halls, servants were carrying chests, weapons and foodstuffs were being gathered. It was madness. Shireen had not seen the castle in such a state since before the Blackwater.

When she had arrived at the Sea Dragon Tower for her daily lessons, she found that she was alone with Maester Pylos, when most every time she had Devan and Edric there as well.

"Where are Edric and Devan?" She asked.

Pylos was hurriedly gathering letters together and arranging them into stacks and categories. Usually, her lessons for a given day were prepared, and Pylos was very much calm and ready to teach. Today, his hair was messy and his maester's chain jingled furiously as he moved. "Devan is attending to the king, princess."

"And Edric?"

He set down a stack of letters and turned to face her fully. "Edric is gone."

She started. "Gone? What does that mean?"

Pylos's mouth became an uncharacteristically grim line. "He is no longer on Dragonstone."

"How?" She said, bewildered. She had seen him only yesterday! "Why?"

The maester returned to his papers. "…The Lord Hand caught wind of terrible tidings, princess. He had to be sent away, for his own safety." He gave her a hard look. "He is making for the Free Cities even now."

Falling into a chair in a heap, Shireen frowned. "And what's happening outside? Why are there men everywhere?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Her Grace did not inform you?"

She shook her head. "Mother was busy, and Dalla was gone. I had to dress myself this morning."

"It's a good skill to nurture, princess. I dress myself every day as well." He smiled. "But to answer your question, you are leaving Dragonstone."

"Leaving?" She asked breathlessly, "Leaving where? Where are we going?"

Pylos's smile became sad. "Not we… just you, princess. His Grace is marshalling the men to go north, to the Wall. You and your mother will go as well."

The Wall? But, why? She had heard nothing of the Wall beyond what Cressen and Pylos had taught her. Her father had not made mention of it even once, focused as he was on King's Landing and the Lannisters. And mother certainly hadn't breathed a word of the Wall in her presence. "And you?" she asked.

"I must stay," Pylos replied. He raised his hands and gestured to the books and letters strewn all about. "A maester's duty is to the keep to which he is assigned. I am the maester of Dragonstone." He grabbed the chain about his neck and shook it lightly. "I swore an oath when I forged this chain, so as much as I might like to travel to the Wall with the king, I must stay."

The tears that sprang to her eyes in that moment shocked even her, and she looked down quickly to hide them. She heard Pylos return to his papers, and silently thanked him for not calling attention to her emotion.

She had lost Cressen first, and now she would lose Pylos as well. She sniffed. She rubbed at her eyes quickly with her sleeve, and mastered herself as swiftly as she could. "Who will teach me, then?" she finally managed.

"Her Grace, I would think," Pylos said after some rumination. "There are maesters at the Wall as well, but I am sure they are kept quite busy with their many duties."

She was not like Edric. She had always enjoyed her lessons; she performed well in them, and no one could fault her that. "Why is my father going to the Wall so suddenly?"

"The Night's Watch calls for aid, and His Grace means to answer them. They will need every able hand and skilled sword, princess." He placed a few more stacks of paper on the desk. "As to why you and your mother must go as well, rather than stay… Well, it is likely that once His Grace leaves Dragonstone, it will fall. He will leave behind a scant number of men, but it will not be enough to hold it against the Redwyne fleet. He would not have you remain only to be captured and used against him. You are his heir."

Shireen smiled at that.

"I will miss you, Pylos."

He paused, and smiled back. "And I you, Shireen. …Do not tell Devan, but you have always been my favorite student." He laughed and she joined him, but then a strange look crossed his gaze and his laughter stopped abruptly. "…When His Grace… has his kingdom, you will be the Princess of Dragonstone. I shall see you again." He picked up a thinner tome and waved it at her. "Now, I think your time might best be used gathering up whatever it is you would like to take with you. If the castle is indeed taken, you cannot expect much to be left for your return."

She nodded her assent and got up from her seat.

He turned away, and she made her way around the desk. "I have much to compile for His Grace in the meantime, there are many records he might need while he is away. Maps and–" he stopped suddenly when she hugged him.

She did not know if she would ever come back to Dragonstone. She did not know that if she did come back, that he would even still be here. She had not known him so long as Cressen, but she often thought of how she wished she might have said goodbye to the man who had taught her so much. She would not squander that opportunity with Pylos. She heard the jingle of his chain as he wrapped his arms lightly around her.

"Run along, Princess," he said warmly.

Shireen was nothing if not obedient (usually), and so she did just that. She had much to gather, in any case.

-

The first thing Shireen did, was remove her prized chest from under her bed. It already had all of her most precious keepsakes, so it was naturally the most important thing for her to retrieve. The second thing she did was immediately remove the egg from the chest and hide it on her person. She was glad this one was as small as it was, or it would not have been so easy to conceal among her dress's folds.

Few, if any, went under her bed on the average day, but once she was on a ship, she supposed it was more likely that someone might rifle through the chests. She didn't want to lose any of her keepsakes, naturally, but this one was the most important.

Edric had said she would hatch it, and so she would. The next time she saw him, she would have a dragon.

Her dresses were another matter. Dalla usually helped her with everything that concerned her clothing, and if she was honest, she didn't even know the full extent of the dresses she owned. It was cold in the North, and especially cold at the Wall, so surely she'd want to bring her warmest clothing.

Do I even own warm dresses?

Shireen had spent most of her life on Dragonstone, and Dragonstone was almost never cold. There might be a slight chill to the air at times, but it was usually refreshing. She had visited King's Landing and Storm's End a few times as well, and their climates were not too much different. King's Landing was warmer if anything, and though rain was more frequent as Storm's End, it was rarely what she would consider chilly.

She settled for retrieving all of her favorite gowns and dresses, particularly those that had pockets, so as to make carrying the egg with her at all times easier. Of those, she packed her most favorite first, and then layered her lesser favored clothing above them.

As she worked, she came upon a dress that she had not worn in some time. From before her father had been crowned, in fact. It was a pretty and frilly thing, something her father had not been enthused by, but that he knew was necessary. She had worn it during one of her rare visits to the capital.

It was gold and black, proper Baratheon colors; father had not yet changed his sigil, with its more garish yellow. Myrcella had thought it a beautiful dress, and Tommen had even stammered out a compliment. They were often clothed in the red and gold of house Lannister over the Baratheon colors, and at the time it had puzzled her, that they would so ignore the royal house in favor of their mother's. After everything had come to light, it made some sense that the queen had always spurned her husband's house.

But even despite that, Shireen knew she still loved Myrcella and Tommen. They were good, no matter the ills their parents had done.

But Joffrey?

I am glad he is dead, she thought with a venom that surprised even her.

Joffrey had been a torment. She had despaired to ever end up in a room alone with her so-called cousin, and it was typically only the man he called "dog" that prevented him from doing worse than spitting cruel words at her. Tommen and Myrcella had told her of worse things he had done. Things that the queen had kept quiet.

And then he had been an even worse king than he had been a prince. Mother had told her of the riots that occurred in King's Landing, and his murder of Lord Stark.

It was a small wonder that he had grown to be a terrible king. She could still remember father complaining of Joffrey's lack of care in his studies when he would return occasionally from his duties as Master of Ships. He had little but complaints about the affairs of King's Landing and the royal family on those rare dinners they would share.

I enjoy my studies, she thought, and I like to hear of history too.

But would she be a good queen, if it came to it?

A thought struck her then, and she resolved to finish her packing. Father would doubtlessly be busy, but she needed to speak with him, soon or late.

-

Stannis

Preparations had gone well.

Salladhor Saan's fleet had assembled with remarkable swiftness, especially taking into account the lax command style of the Lyseni pirate turned "Lord of Blackwater Bay". Perhaps even pirates and sellsails tired of capturing and "taxing" merchant vessels.

More likely, they yearn for the payment I promised them, Stannis thought, grinding his teeth.

The rest of his men had taken to the orders quickly and obediently, even the Florent men, despite Alester's imprisonment. There was some grumbling, as there always was, amongst what few so-called lords remained to him, but the rank and file were eager to go north it seemed. Waiting on Dragonstone had frayed their nerves, as it had his own.

They would be leaving Dragonstone shortly after dawn, and on the eve of the departure Stannis found himself in the Chamber of the Painted Table. He had spent all too many weeks here, staring at the great table carved into the shape of Westeros. Before everything, before the Blackwater, there had been some measure of expectation in his brooding. Melisandre had guaranteed him his throne, and so it was only to be a matter of time. After the Blackwater… his gaze had been pulled by the fires more than ever before.

He would still find himself tracing the grooves and shapes carved and painted into Aegon's table, lamenting where things had gone wrong, agonizing over how he might have changed it all. But just as often he would find his solace in the fires.

Davos's return had revitalized him, he saw that plainly. He had no use for sycophants, and that nearly all that remained to him after the Blackwater. Davos changed it all.

That he had lived had been nothing short of a miracle. That he had been found by one of Salladhor Saan's men and not one of the bastard king's was a greater miracle still.

And then he had seen fit to throw away such divine providence in a foolish attempt at murdering Melisandre, as if she had somehow been the reason for the disaster at the Blackwater. Melisandre had argued in his favor even, as his head cooled in that cell. And then, he had proven that his wits remained in him with his rejection of Ser Axell's plan. Stannis had rewarded him for his counsel, and raised him yet higher.

But then he had become a thorn in his side yet again. The boy–the thrice damned boy. Shireen's friend in play and companion in studies. The spawn of Robert. The desecration of the marriage he had never wanted.

The deaths of Robb Stark and Joffrey Waters had come in such quick succession that it shocked him, and with them, the boy had become the center of it all.

One boy for a kingdom.

A night that never ends. A cold that kills the world.

And all of it might be prevented but for the life of a single bastard boy.

He had been ready to kill Davos in that moment, but he hadn't. Davos reminded him of what he should be. Who he should be.

A king protects his people, or he is no king at all. That is what Davos had said to him when Stannis had drawn Lightbringer, fully prepared to behead his Hand. And he had been right. He was the king of the Seven Kingdoms. The true and rightful king. And he was more than that too.

Azor Ahai reborn. Rh'llor's chosen. The warrior of light. Melisandre had named him each of those titles. And yet… What hero would sacrifice his own blood?

Melisandre had seen in the fires that she needed the boy. Edric Storm. That he was vital to the fate of the world. That through his death the stone dragons would awake, and he could forestall the end of all things.

That the boy was vital to the fate of the world had been true, after a fashion. Had Davos not spirited the boy away, Stannis might not have found his gaze turning north. To the true enemy. To the demons of cold and ice and snow. A king protects his people.

His eyes scanned the Painted Table from Dragonstone all the way to the Wall. It was no small distance, but he had sailed similar before. In Balon Greyjoy's first ill-fated rebellion, Stannis had sailed the royal fleet from Dragonstone around Dorne and the Reach and to the waters off Fair Isle when he smashed Victarion Greyjoy's fleet, and then further still to the Isles themselves when he had taken Great Wyk.

But my fleet is smaller now.

That thought stung some. Most of all because he could scarce call it his fleet and he knew it; it was Salladhor Saan's fleet. He trusted the slight Lyseni only as far as he could physically throw him, however much Davos believed him to be true to his word. Stannis had promised him gold, and had given him little more than an empty title and the legal means to continue his piracy. The pirate would turn if something was not done to fill his coffers.

His hand went to the hilt of Lightbringer almost of its own accord. He fingered the plain hilt of the so-called legendary sword and ground his teeth.

The kingdom was in shambles and the world was at risk. His men were too few, his ships too undependable, his destination too far, and his enemies too numerous. Worse odds there had rarely been throughout history, and yet… he knew this was what he must do. It was his duty. To the kingdom that was his and to the people he was sworn to protect.

However much Robert might have been a better champion, Robert was dead, and R'hllor had chosen him. He would beat back the night, or die in the attempt.

A sharp knocking jogged him from his thoughts.

"Your Grace!" called Devan from beyond the door. "The Lady Melisandre begs entrance!"

Once, his young squire would have stumbled over his words when introducing the red priestess, but he had mastered his tone somewhat in recent times.

"Send her in, Devan," he answered.

The great oaken doors of the dragon kings were laboriously pushed open by his still somewhat diminutive squire, and Lady Melisandre strode into the dim chamber. Devan was quick to shut the doors, knowing that Stannis preferred his privacy.

Melisandre greeted him with a deep bow, as she nearly always did, but her red gaze was laced with something close to wariness. "Your Grace," she said, looking about the room. "Why did you not light a fire?"

Only one small brazier was lit, on the far side of the room. Stannis had not intended to tarry long in the Chamber, and so saw little reason to bring more light into the room. He knew the room well enough to walk it in the dark, and he knew the Painted Table as if it were the back of his hand. "I did not need it," he said.

She pursed her full lips, painted red even now with their voyage so close upon them. The ruby choker at her throat somehow twinkling in the dim light of the Chamber. "Your Grace, you know why I am here," she said after a considerable pause.

"I do, my lady," he replied. "To serve me, as ever."

Melisandre laughed lightly, her low, melodious voice stirring something in him despite himself. The laughter fled from her lips quickly, however, and she became solemn. "That is true, but there is more."

He felt the leather of Lightbringer's hilt. It was a good sword, as good as any Donal Noye had ever made him,, and that was no small compliment in Stannis's eye. But it was the sword of a hero, a chosen man destined for greatness, or so Melisandre said. And this… this was…

"Must this be done, my lady?" He asked, his hand gripping Lightbringer tightly.

The red priestess reached out a long and graceful hand, and clasped his shoulder lightly. "It must, Your Grace, else we may not reach the Wall in time. You saw the torches in the snow, as well as I. You know the danger. You know what it is we fight."

He did. It was the first vision he had seen in the flames. It had been with her aid, and it had been in the aftermath of the Blackwater. He had seen the men in black and their circle of torches. He had seen the cold and the snow.

And later, alone, he had seen himself aflame. And a dragon.

"You can work the winds with your magics? You are certain of this?"

Melisandre withdrew her hand from his shoulder. "Whatever I do, I do by the grace of R'hllor, Your Grace; the magics are not my own." She turned and glanced to the brazier at the far end of the room. "The Florents are an old bloodline. They are proud to claim that the green blood of the Gardener kings flows in their veins. He will be suitable enough."

Stannis ground his teeth, and he felt a pit form in his chest.

Alester Florent was never his first choice to act as his Hand. Had never been. But in the wake of Renly's… death, he knew that the highlords must be placated if they were to be firm in their support of his rightful claim. So he had chosen the head of his own wife's house, even afer the man had been fervent in his support of a usurper. It had been as ash in his mouth, and he had hated it.

There were many better men he might have made Hand. Men who had been true and loyal from the start. Massey with his smiles and japes, Rolland Storm, who was competent regardless of his bastardy, his cousin Andrew, even Alester's own brother Axell was a more loyal man. And of course, there was Davos, who had never ceased to tell him the truth at great risk to himself.

But still, he had made Alester his Hand. The highest of his lords, no matter that they had supported a usurper against their rightful king. Alester had led his many men to their deaths and captures at the Blackwater. The great bulk of the men that remained to him were Alester's men still.

And yet, he would have made Shireen a hostage, forced to marry an abomination. He would have made Stannis a beggar. He would have had them all bend the knee to a false king in exchange for land and titles that were already theirs. It made him want to vomit even now.

"Your Grace, his men will not turn against you. Queen Selyse and Ser Axell have considerable pull among them, and many under the fox banner have come to the one true God besides. He is a traitor to both his king and Rh'llor."

Stannis laughed drily. "If the men were to rebel, they would have done it when I had him thrown into the cells. And all men know the price of treason."

If he would have burned Edric Storm, his own blood, his daughter's friend, and his brother's son… Then Alester would burn. Men had had worse deaths for lesser crimes. And if Lord Alester's death could benefit the kingdom, it was a sin Stannis was willing to bear. Such was the lot of kings.

"He will burn, then. At dawn, before we depart."

"Yes, Your Grace." She drew closer. "Have your dreams been troubled?" she asked, in a quieter tone.

Stannis couldn't help the laugh that he spat. "When are they not?" Ever since Renly, he had been plagued by nightmares. In those dreams, he was always the one to plant the knife in his younger brother's throat. Or his stomach. Or his eye socket. It varied with the nights. Later, he dreamt of the Blackwater, of the death and the fire. His dreams roared, fiery and green. And now he dreamt of the night, cold and dark and ever-lasting. "It is no matter," he said, bending over the painted table, his hands gripping its edge. "It is not dreams that define a king, but actions. I will not allow these nightmares to sway my course."

He felt her hand cover his, delicate and warm; it gripped tightly.

"There is no shame in nightmares, Your Grace," she replied. "I have my own, just as well."

He nodded, but said nothing. His eyes wandered the Painted Table, and for a time, he heard little but her breathing and his own. Then, he heard a commotion outside the door, and he felt her hand leave his own. She stepped away, and he stood straight.

Stannis heard the high tones of Devan's voice, and the somehow higher tones of a voice he could not place. And then, without so much as a call from his squire, the door was opening.

"Princess!" Devan said with a childish whine. "I'm supposed to– ugh."

Shireen entered the Chamber in a breathless rush, even as Devan stared daggers at her and shut the door promptly.

"Shireen?" Stannis asked, "Is aught amiss?"

"Father!" she greeted with a hasty bow, and a small, crooked smile, "and Lady Melisandre." Her greyscale scars made most expressions uneasy things on her face. They had never been easy on his either, even without such scars.

Melisandre offered a bow to her as well, but Stannis was already tired of the pleasantries. "Shireen?" he asked again.

Suddenly, she was taciturn, her nature returning to its default state. She was looking to the ground, to the table, at anything but him. Then, she took a great deep breath, and found her voice. "Father, are mother and I to be aboard The Valyrian with you?" She asked tremulously.

It was a question he'd not thought to hear from her mother's lips, let alone hers. It shocked him still for a moment, but his mind quickly reasserted itself. "Of course not," he replied matter-of-factly.

Her face fell, and she clutched at the sides of her dress. Her blue eyes, so like his own, stared down to the ground again. "Why?"

His answer was immediate, this time. "Salladhor Saan is a rogue in a lord's trappings. I would not have you aboard the same ship as that man if I can help it." The time spent sailing to Eastwatch would be used in planning their strategy moving forward, as well, and Selyse would be of little help; the damned fool Shireen would wish to bring with her would be even less.

And besides, one of their own few remaining ship crewed by loyal Westerosi men would be carrying the Shireen, Selyse, and her so-called court. Surely, they would be more comfortable there than on the flamboyant pirate admiral's pleasure barge.

"But…" she said, her voice all but shaking.

"But what?" Stannis attempted to keep the edge from his voice that he knew he would have were it anyone other than Shireen. It was not a great success.

His daughter managed to raise her gaze again, and looked to Melisandre for the briefest instant. "…I'm your heir, aren't I?". Then, before he could respond, and with greater strength, she said, "I don't want to be like Joffrey, I want to be a good queen, like Alysanne." She looked him in the eye then, and with more ferocity than he had ever seen in her. "How can I be a good queen if you always leave me and mother behind? We should be with you."

Stannis's immediate instinct was to remark that war was not a woman's domain, that there would be precious little time to discuss lessons in royal duty, but he knew both of those defenses to be false. Melisandre would be aboard The Valyrian with him, as she had been all throughout his maneuvers in the Stormlands and the Reach, and sailing was by and large a dull affair; there would be altogether too much time for such lessons.

His daughter would never be Joffrey, that had been certain from near the instant she left her mother's womb. She was sweet from the start, and cautious from the time she could crawl. But she could be an Aenys. And he did not want to know what her Maegor would be like.

It was Melisandre who responded. "Your Grace, Shireen has the right of it in my eye. If she is to rule, she ought to learn from the man best suited to it." She hummed. "Selyse is a good queen, but Shireen will rule in her own right."

Shireen seized on that, letting go of her dress, and brightening considerably. "And there's no place safer than with you father, you're Azor Ahai!" Her smile was broad and innocent, as only a child's could be. Melisandre exchanged a bemused look with him.

He frowned.

But relented.

"Very well, Shireen. You may come. Inform your mother of the change in plans."

Contrary to his orders, she instead rushed forward and embraced him. "Thank you thank you thank you!"

He froze instinctually, and looked to Melisandre for assistance. Melisandre smirked, and offered him a pointed stare. He ground his teeth.

Unsteadily, he wrapped his right arm around her, his fingers practically shaking for the effort of it. He patted her, and then pulled her away as gently as he could. "A queen ought not thank another so profusely," he said.

She smiled up at him, and he felt the hints of a smile tug at his own lips as well.

"Go, Shireen, tell your mother." Something between a cough and a laugh escaped him. "Better that she hear it from you."

Shireen nodded, and with one last "Thank you father!" she had run off. Devan dutifully shut the door when she exited, and he heard a light commotion once she was safely outside the Chamber.

Melisandre did not close the gap again. "It is good that she has taken an interest in ruling, Your Grace."

"It is," he replied. And it was true. She had always been a good student, both Cressen and Pylos agreed, but she had never sought him out in that manner before. Truthfully, she had not sought him out much at all, kept up as she was by her painted fool and her studies. His long years as Master of Ships had kept him in the capital most times, and the rare occasions when he even had the opportunity to interact with his daughter typically meant that he had other, more important matters to see to, such as the upkeep of Dragonstone or his… attempts at a son. "She will have seen eleven years soon," he said.

The red priestess nodded. "Her flowering may be upon her sooner than one may think."

And marriage… he had scarcely thought of that, besides with regard to Alester Florent's betrayal. His teeth ground harder. Whoever she married would attempt to use her, to rule through her. He would not allow such a thing to come to pass. She was his daughter, and he would not let her become some delicate flower trampled on by the power hungry men in her life.

"Your Grace?"

"It's nothing," he grunted.

Before he left the Chamber, he paid one last look to the Painted Table. He found his gaze drawn to Dragonstone, the smoky island and drafty castle he had never wanted. But, he pondered, it had been his, as few things in his life had truly ever been.

When next I return, it will be Shireen's.

-

Selyse

Selyse stared into the tall looking glass that decorated the far wall of her personal chambers. She hated it, truly. Few things mustered her ire the way staring at herself could. Often, she would find her eyes drawn to the metal border of the glass instead, of the intricate carvings of dragons and runes she did not know. It had been Rhaella's, she was told, and had perhaps been passed down from Targaryen queens for hundreds of years. Or perhaps not.

But without fail, she would find her gaze drawn inward, away from the edges of the glass, and to that which she hated most.

She frowned.

In her right hand, she held the instrument of her eternal torture: the small metal pinchers that allowed her to pluck the hairs that grew on her lip no matter how often she removed them. They had been a gift from her father, some years before he took the fall that killed him. She had been young then, but already it had been clear that she would never be a great beauty, or even as comely as some of her cousins. Not even yet flowered, the hair that made her the subject of every jape in the land had already made itself known.

Every day, she plucked.

And even after so many years of it, she felt her eyes water from the pain of the pulling.

Pluck pluck pinch. Pinch pluck pluck.

She hated it. And she hated herself for it, most of all.

Selyse wiped away a tear, then clenched her teeth and plucked again.

Is it the plucking today? Or is it Alester?

Her upper lip smarted with each pull, with each hair uprooted.

It had been Alester who garnered for her this match, all those years ago. Still, she did not know how he had done it. The Florents were a prominent house in the Reach, and had intermarried with the Gardeners in the days before the Conquest. Melessa and Rhea had both married high in the Reach, and had brought great honor to their house for each of the matches. But for Selyse to have married the brother of the new king? It was beyond unlikely, with her sharp nose, overlarge ears, and hairy upper lip or without them.

But somehow, Alester had done it.

He had married his ungainly niece near as high as he could; the only man higher would have been Robert himself, had he not already been married to the Lannister adulteress. Stannis had not been a handsome man, even then, but he had been tall and strong and accomplished. She had looked forward to the day they would wed, to the union she never could have dreamed of… before Delena.

And now, by the cruel and random happenstances of fate, she was queen.

While Alester was to burn.

When Axell had brought Alester's treachery to light, she had been shocked and appalled. Never in a thousand lifetimes, would she have acquiesced to kneeling to the Lannister thieves and abominations, and not once in a thousand lifetimes more would she allow her Shireen to marry one of them. Never. Axell had thrown him into the dark cells beneath Dragonstone, and she had applauded.

Pluck pluck pinch.

Renly had been a traitor and a usurper, and he had deserved death for his actions. Those who had supported him and turned to Stannis after his death had earned their clemency with blood. But for Alester to have turned back to the Tyrells and their Lannister allies!

It brought a fire to her chest to even think of it.

It was treason, and he was a traitor twice over, no matter that his men had fought and died at the Blackwater for the rightful cause.

Yet, when Melisandre had come to her, telling her of Stannis's plan to go north and save the kingdom from the clutches of the Great Other, and begged for Alester's burning, she had hesitated.

Guncer Sunglass had been seditious, and actively worked to deteriorate Stannis's cause from within. He had called them all traitors and heathens and worse. He had fought when they burned the Seven false gods. He had deserved his fate, and that it might have brought luck to her king during his great battle was only a windfall.

Everything she was, she owed to Lord Alester Florent. She was not so vain as to not see that fact for what it was. He had made the deals, he had played the lordly games that had won her her marriage. She was queen only through his workings.

"You know the power in king's blood as well as I, Your Grace," Melisandre had said. "The Florents are an old line, with many a royal match."

"I know my history", she had responded, with more venom than she had intended. "R'hllor will answer, you are certain?"

"I am, Your Grace."

It had been a long moment before she had found her strength, found the will to come to a decision, to allow what must be done to be done. It had been hard, the hardest thing she had ever done. Harder still than forsaking the idols of her forefathers.

"Then do it, Melisandre."

He had abandoned everything. He had been made his king's right hand and he had forsaken him. He had thrown his own niece and queen to the side like so much refuse. He had offered up Shireen to vouchsafe the return of his oh-so-precious lands. He had foresworn the Lord of Light, who guided them all through this terrible dark.

If his death could in any way aid the true king and the one God, then it was a worthy price to pay.

And yet, as close as it now was, she felt a tightness in her chest, and a lump in her throat. Every hair she plucked was as a slap to her face. Every second that passed was another step closer to the death of a man who had cared for her in the aftermath of her father's untimely passing.

Remember Imry, she repeated to herself. Remember what he gave.

Her own brother had died for Stannis, died for his rightful king. While Alester had complained of his stolen armor and made pacts with the enemy.

Alester does not deserve your pity, she told herself. He would have sold us all if meant he could return to Brightwater.

But still, it hurt. Edric had been nothing to her. He had been a reminder of her own cousin and bedmaid's betrayal, of the insults she and Stannis faced from the very outset of their joining. He had been an obstacle to Shireen's own claim, and a curse upon her loins. Selyse could have seen him burn, and not a tear would have been shed.

That is what makes it a sacrifice, then. The pain.

She quirked her lip after she pulled the last hair, and drew close to the glass for a second inspection. Deeming herself clean and womanly, she pulled away. She wore her favored gown already, lacking only the soft ermine mantle she preferred when there was a chill in the air. Truthfully, this brown and gold was not her favorite. After her discovery of the true God, she had commissioned several gowns with accents of red and crimson, but she had worn them only on some scant few occasions. After it was made known that Cersei Lannister was as vile as she was beautiful, she swore she would not wear R'hllor's colors until the Lannisters were removed from the throne.

Selyse retrieved her mantle from where it rested atop her bed, and wrapped it around her shoulders. Her gaze roamed her room one last time as she prepared to leave. It was remarkably empty, now that everything had been sent to the ships. Any jewels or objects of true value had been stored aboard the pirate's fleet, so as to either pay them, or at the very least prevent the Lannisters from claiming them when Dragonstone finally fell.

It will return to us, in the end.

She knew that, deep down. Everything they had lost would return to them. They were R'hllor's champions, his chosen king and queen. The Stormlands, Dragonstone, Brightwater, all of it and more would fall under the fiery heart at the end of things. It must.

Selyse allowed the fires to continue burning as she left her room, as a token to the one true God. She would see them lit again, in time.

Her Hand waited outside the door, her crown held delicately in his thick hands. "Your Grace," he greeted, bowing his head slightly.

"Ser Axell," she said in response. Naming him her Hand had not been a decision she had taken lightly. Stannis was shut up in the Chamber of the Painted Table after the Blackwater, Imry was dead, and Alester had betrayed them. Melisandre was a great assistance, of course, but she did not know the castle and the workings of Stannis's vassal lords as Axell did. It was the only sensible choice.

He offered her the golden crown gingerly, and she took it in hand and placed it upon her head with all of the grace her station demanded. She had been the one to order the crown made; it felt like it had been years, now. When the nature of Cersei's betrayals had been made known to her, she had sent for a talented goldsmith straight away, and had ordered Stannis's crown in addition to her own. His was larger, and the points of flame rose higher, than those on hers, but his bore only a solitary ruby at its front, while hers bore smaller jewels all across its length. She knew he did not favor flamboyant shows of extravagance.

When they returned, she would have one made for Shireen as well.

"Your Grace?" he asked. His broad face twisted, "Is it Alester? He deserves this, y–"

She cut him off. "Enough, Axell, I am aware." Her thoughts were simply flighty, of late. Selyse shook her head, holding her crown so that it would not fall. "Come, the Lord does not abide by sloth," she said, as they began the long trek to the shipyards.

-

Selyse was among the first, as she always was. The ladies that were to make the voyage north arrived in short order, as did the highest of her loyalists. Ser Godry Farring, Ser Patrek of King's Mountain, Ser Justin Massey… Ser Richard Horpe was noticeably absent. Most of the men-at-arms were already aboard the ships, or else there would have been hundreds more present at the beach.

It was the same beach they had burned the old sept's Seven, though the charred remains of those statutes were long ago removed. A tall wooden post had been erected where once Stannis had pulled the Red Sword of Heroes from the false god's chest. Kindling and dried grasses were strewn all about the post.

Shireen arrived alongside Dalla, mercifully without the fool in tow. She was wearing a gown of black and gold, Selyse noted, and she felt pride stir up in her chest over her daughter once again. That she had found R'hllor at long last was as music to her ears, and ever since, Selyse noticed that Shireen stood taller than she ever had before. She stared at the ground less often, could more easily meet others' gazes, she was more willful. She had found her fire, and was becoming everything a queen should be.

Cersei Lannister had more than proved that beauty and grace were low among queenly virtues.

Stannis arrived later than most, with his onion knight at his side. Stannis dressed plainly, as was his wont. The only markers that separated him from his Hand were his shining golden crown, his cloth-of-gold cloak, and the jeweled hilt and scabbard of Lightbringer.

Seaworth greeted her courteously, "Your Grace," he said, bowing low, and then, to Shireen, "Princess."

She caught something wary in his gaze, when it turned to Shireen, but it was gone in half a heartbeat, and he was taking his place at Stannis's side.

Stannis said nothing, of course. His mouth was pressed into a thin, grim line, and his eyes were hard.

"When it happens, Shireen, be strong," Selyse said to her daughter. "A queen must be strong, always."

Shireen stared up at her, her expression unreadable, her greyscale black in the dim light. She nodded, but clutched at her mother's hand nonetheless. Shireen's hand was warm, even in these minutes before the dawn.

Fitting of a daughter of fire, Selyse thought.

The sky was a dull grey in the pre-dawn light. An orange streak was spread across the horizon, like an errant painter's stroke. Finally, as the great sun peaked over the edge of the world, Melisandre arrived.

Melisandre was striking, as she always was. The red silk of her dress clung to her in a way that would be scandalous on any other woman, but on her, Selyse could see it as naught but the pinnacle of elegance. Her blood-red hair and eyes glistened somehow brighter than her ruby choker in the first light of the sun.

At her side strode Ser Richard Horpe, one of her most loyal men, and one of the first to have come to the Lord of Light. His long cloak was clasped with a brooch of R'hllor's fiery heart. His pockmarked face betrayed nothing of his emotion. In one hand he held a long hempen rope, and at its end was tied the man who would die. In his other hand, he held a torch.

Lord Alester Florent walked with his head high and his shoulders wide, but it was clear for all to see that his incarceration had reduced him to something lesser. He was skeletal where before he had been lithe. Where his hair had been silver it was now white. His face was gaunt, and his eyes clouded, but still, he walked proudly.

Ser Richard handed the torch to Lady Melisandre, led Alester all the way to the post, and then tied him firmly upon it. Lord Alester said nothing, only stared defiantly out upon them all.

Stannis stepped away from her and Davos, and took a position opposite Melisandre, cutting quiet what little mumbling and shuffling there had been prior. This was no nightfire, and it was not Stannis's custom to lead prayer in any case. He gestured to Alester.

"Men and women of the Seven Kingdoms," Stannis began, "before you stands a traitor." His eyes grew harder than ever. "Lord Alester Florent supported the usurper Renly Baratheon against mine own rightful claim to the Iron Throne, and against the ties of blood and law that bind us together through my wife and your queen. I forgave him, and many others, their treasons, and I forgive them still. But I do not forget." He scanned the crowd of onlookers. "I raised him high, made him Hand, gave him the power to speak with my voice. With that power, he sought to undermine me, and trade away my daughter as hostage to the very men that killed His Grace King Robert and the Lord Hand Jon Arryn before him. He sought to make common cause with abominations and usurpers, to men that allow a slaughter to occur under guest right."

Selyse heard a trace of whispers throughout the assembled faithful. Somehow, Alester's expression had not changed, she noted. He was proud and defiant still.

"For these crimes of high treason, there is only one punishment." Stannis, oddly, looked to Shireen for a heartbeat, and then held his hand out to Lady Melisandre.

Selyse saw two things in that moment. She saw the way in which her king and husband looked upon the red priestess, a way in which he had never looked upon her; the way that the men and women of Dragonstone whispered about, that they all believed she was too dim-witted or oblivious to perceive. And she saw the mildest traces of shock in Melisandre's red eyes, that she could only see due to her own familiarity with the woman.

It was all gone in half an instant. Melisandre handed over the torch to Stannis as if it had all been planned.

"I, Stannis of House Baratheon, First of my name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, in the Light of the Lord, do so sentence Lord Alester Florent to die."

His gaze turned to her, and for one mad moment, she froze.

Then, she nodded.

Stannis knelt, and touched the torch's flame to the dried grasses and scraps of kindling furthest from the post. Melisandre began to sing.

The flame spread slowly, at first, and Alester's face remained proud and firm. The fire crawled across the ground with contemptuous sluggishness, from branch to branch, from scrap to scrap. Then, it began to roar, and fly forward, closer and closer. Still, Alester was dignified, as a lord should be. Melisandre's singing was drowned out by the fire.

And then, the red and yellow and orange tongues of flame reached the post. Selyse saw the fear enter Alester's eyes then. When the blaze reached his feet, he finally began to scream. It was low in the beginning: a man's scream. Then the fire jumped upwards and he began to jerk and shudder and strain against his bindings, and he was wailing; a high and thin screech piercing even above the roar of the fire and the loud foreign tones of Melisandre's song. His silver hair whipped this way and that as he thrashed about in vain. He was begging, shouting, calling the Seven, calling to R'hllor, to Stannis, to Selyse, to Axell. To anyone that would listen.

Selyse felt the heat blaze against her face. The fire roared high, and Melisandre's song crested. The screaming stopped.

Her eyes stung.

Her hand jerked, and she became aware of her daughter holding her hand once again. She'd almost forgotten that Shireen was there.

"Mother?"

Selyse wiped at her eyes. "It is only the smoke, Shireen." Her chest felt empty, and her head felt light. "It is only the smoke," she repeated.

As the fire slowly guttered out, Selyse began to feel a breeze.

-

Davos

Salla's Valyrian was far more crowded than had been King Stannis's original intention.

There were changes in the final hours, Davos was told, and the queen and princess were aboard Salladhor Saan's pride and joy as well. With them were the fool Patchface, and several of the queen's ladies. That Ser Axell had not been forced aboard the ship was something of a blessing in Davos's eye. Anything that helped him to avoid the man's glares and thinly-veiled threats was something Davos approved of.

Still, there was more commotion, and sailors were a naturally superstitious lot. Davos knew there would be complaints of the women aboard.

The sailors (Pirates, Davos corrected) were a varied group of men, as Salla cared little for distinguishing between the lands men called home. They were primarily of Lyseni descent, with more than a few sporting the fair almost silvered hair of the old Freehold, though none bore the purple eyes of the Targaryens. Of those that weren't Lyseni, the bulk clearly hailed from one Free City or another, and there were even a few bearing the Volantene tattoos that marked them for a former slave. A Summer Islander or three wandered the Valyrian's decks as well.

All had been enriched considerably by King Stannis's employment, or, more accurately, the late Lord Alester's granting of the "Lordship of Blackwater Bay". Many a ship had been "taxed" in those weeks of Stannis's solitude and many more in the weeks after. As a result, swaggering sailors now wore the fruits of their taxation with pride. Silks and jewels from far off lands dotted the bodies of men who'd been born to dockside whores.

Lord Alester…

It had not been something Davos had wanted to see. Were he not the Hand of the King, he would have abstained from attending entirely. But he had a duty to his king. So he went, and he watched.

Davos remembered what he had said, when they had shared a dungeon cell for those days.

"Did we learn nothing from Aerion Brightfire, from the nine mages, from the alchemists? Did we learn nothing from Summerhall? No good has ever come from these dreams of dragons."

Davos knew little and less of the nine mages and alchemists, and only some small scraps of Summerhall. Dragons, Davos knew. Stone dragons. That had been the reason Edric was to burn. With dragons, Stannis could cleanse the filth of King's Landing and the Lannister abominations by fire.

But it was Alester who had burned, not Edric Storm or King's Landing.

Alester had committed treason, in Davos's eye as well as Stannis's, and death was the punishment for a crime so high. But by fire? It was a terrible end. Unnecessary.

Or… that's what Davos would have liked to think.

Leaning over the taffrail, watching Salla's fleet all but fly across the water with speeds Davos had never once experienced in his many long years on the seas, he found it despairingly difficult to fault Stannis for his decision.

A devil's wind… but a wind unlike any other.

Their voyage to the Wall would be swift, swifter than he'd have ever thought possible. Melisandre's power was terrible, Davos knew that better than anyone, but here it was to serve a greater purpose. Through it, they could do good. Through it, Stannis could protect the kingdom that was his. Stannis did not need dragons.

"No good has ever come from these dreams of dragons."

Shireen had made mention of dragons to him. She'd asked if he had ever heard of men hatching them during his travels, during the mistakes and misadventures of his youth. He hadn't of course, for if he had, surely a king and his princess would have already known of it. Davos had struck the conversation from his mind, for Edric had been occupying his thoughts most fiercely, and tales told by seamen and traders were hardly worth remembering.

But then, the night he had saved Edric's life, after the death of Joffrey called Baratheon, Edric had said something.

He had struggled more fiercely than Davos had expected, when he had been denied the opportunity to pay his farewells to the princess. Ser Andrew had had to bodily move the child, and during the tussle, Davos heard the boy grumble something.

"The egg–Shireen–"

Davos had managed to calm him by the time they reached the rowboat, but he had not forgotten what Edric had said.

Shireen asking of dragons, and Edric fighting over eggs.

Had Melisandre's prophecies of stone dragons reached even the ears of the children? Or was there something more at play?

Not for the first time, Davos wished he was at Cape Wrath, with his Marya and the two sons he had not seen in too many months. Little Stannis and Steffon would not know him when they saw him, he felt, and Devan should know the brothers that remained him. Cape Wrath would not be mine were it not for Stannis. He shook his head. I am Stannis's man.

He had a duty to his king, to the man that raised him from nothing. A smuggler, to a knight, to a lord. He was more than he had any right to be, and it was because of Stannis.

And then, as if summoned from his very thoughts, his king was there.

He felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Your Gra–"

"None of that," Stannis cut him off, scoffing. "I have had enough of formalities today."

Davos smiled at that. He knew that Stannis disliked the mummery that was often asked of kings, but he had partaken in it nonetheless.

"Saan says that we shall be at Eastwatch in less than a month," Stannis said, the traces of good humor in his tone.

"A month?" Davos pondered, looking up to the billowing sails. He scratched his beard. "If this wind keeps up, I'd wager less. Twenty days perhaps."

Davos saw shock in his king's dark blue eyes. Stannis laughed drily. "If I'd had these winds when Robert sent me to Dragonstone, I'd have never lost Storm's End."

"Perhaps, Your Grace." Davos remembered those days clearly, even now. His shortened hand had still been a new thing to him then, and his luck had still hung around his neck. He missed it. "Or it might have sent us right into the storm that sunk the Targaryen fleet."

Stannis smirked darkly at that. "Let us pray then that there is no storm awaiting us at Eastwatch, then."

To which Gods?

They both stared out at the sea for a time. They had not shared ships often, in recent years, for Davos had always captained his Black Betha, while Stannis tended toward his war galleys when the occasion called for sea travel. Before they had all burned up in Blackwater Bay, with thousands of good men, and four of his own sons among them.

Always, it came back to fire, it seemed.

"Why did you do it?" Davos asked.

"Do what, onion lord?" Stannis countered, the good humor not quite leaving him yet.

Davos glanced sidelong at his king. The truth is what he had asked of him, when he made him Hand. Davos could peddle truth. "Was it not the Lady Melisandre who was to burn Alester Florent?"

Stannis frowned, his blue eyes hardening defensively. "It was."

"Then why take it upon yourself, Your Grace?" he pressed. "Did she force y–"

"–She did no such thing!" Stannis snapped. "Bah," he said, gritting his teeth. He gripped the taffrail hard, and looked outward, away from Davos. The galley Samarro was the closest to the Valyrian.

Davos knew to not press Stannis too far. He had known him for far too long to make such a mistake. He leaned over the rail and took in the smell of the air. To his chagrin, he could not enjoy it; he smelt only smoke.

Finally, his king stirred. "It was Shireen," Stannis said, still staring out at the fleet.

Davos started. "The princess?"

Stannis nodded firmly. "When she asked that she travel aboard this same ship, she referred to me as Azor Ahai."

It was no secret that the princess had, in recent weeks, taken to the Red God with more fervor than she had before. Devan had complained of her adherence to the Seven, even, and had been ecstatic to tell him of her discovery of the "true faith".

"She heard it at the nightfires, or from Her Grace," Davos supplied.

Stannis grunted. "Azor Ahai is a hero," he said, "as Lady Melisandre says it, he was scarce less than a God. The son of fire. The warrior of light."

Whenever Davos heard the name, he could think only of Nissa Nissa, and the price the man would pay for his heroism. "Aye, I know the tale."

"…Such a man… ought to do it himself," Stannis ground out. "…If I would be this chosen hero, then I should take the bad with the good, I feel."

Davos almost grasped for his Luck. Stannis had once told him that a good act could not wash out the bad, or a bad act the good. Each should have its own reward. What would Stannis's reward then be, for such a thing?

"Do you believe it, Your Grace? That you are the fabled hero come again?"

Stannis looked to him, his expression odd and uncertain. "Do you believe this wind, Lord Davos?"

"I do," Davos replied. How could he not?

Stannis gestured up to the billowing sail. "Time and again, Melisandre has shown her power. I believe in her power, and I have seen into the flames. Why then should I not believe her words as well?"

Davos shrugged. "I don't know Your Grace. I know little of prophecy."

Letting go of the taffrail, Stannis stood straight. (Davos, at times, forgot how much his king towered over him.) "Whatever the case, my lord Hand, know that I did not ask for it. No more than I asked for the crown." Stannis beckoned hard. "Now, walk with me Davos."

Davos did.

As he followed his king, Davos spied the princess playing with Devan further down the deck. The fool was nowhere to be seen. He heard the princess's screams of delight echo in the wind, and the grunts and songs of sailors hard at work. Davos heard the creak of wood and the calls of seabirds.

But most of all, Davos heard the wind. And it sounded like screams.

-

Aegon

"How fare your lessons in the Old Tongue?" Haldon asked, laying back in the bed provided to him.

Aegon frowned, leaning forward in his hard seat. "They fare well, I suppose. It's no small trifle, learning that tongue." He laughed. "Big Boil isn't so strong a teacher as you, Halfmaester."

Since his injury, Haldon had been staying in a spare room close to Maester Aemon's chambers. He had spent half his time assisting Maester Aemon before the battle, so it was not much of a change, in truth, but Aegon was dismayed to witness Haldon all but wither before his eyes. He had seemed to age years in the mere weeks of his recovery.

Of course, it did not help that Haldon had seen fit to remove himself from his bed with alarming frequency.

Haldon's cool grey eyes crinkled, and he laughed a short laugh. "Have you managed to converse with any of those Thenns as yet?"

"Just a day ago, in fact." Aegon smiled broadly at that. "Mother have mercy, any one of those men is worse than Jon on his worst days." As he saw Haldon's good humor vanish, he felt the urge to strike himself for his tactlessness. "Forgive me, Haldon," he said, wincing.

Haldon waved the apology off, a tired frown decorating his too-lined face.

Jon had become… increasingly difficult.

The reality of what the Night's Watch faced here at Castle Black had frayed Jon to nothing, it seemed, and he had become all too vocal about the fruitlessness of staying. It was only Haldon's injury during the battle, and his subsequent recuperation that kept them there.

But with every day that passed, the wildling horde crept closer, and Jon became one step more agitated. Just some days past, Jon had even made mention of making for Essos and leaving Haldon behind.

"If the Wall holds, he will be here when we return. If it does not, then he would rather you have lived," Jon had said.

Aegon had not approved.

It had not helped that Haldon's wound had festered some, and so he his mending was taking considerably longer than Maester Aemon had initially thought it might.

"And your studies Haldon? Have you found anything more about the dragonglass?" Aegon asked.

At that, the Halfmaester brightened almost imperceptibly. "Aye, I have."

"It's just as well," Aegon replied, smirking. "If you're going to get out of bed so much, you'd best be making use of the time."

Haldon shook his head, smiling. "Sifting through the mess of tomes and records in that library–," he laughed breathlessly, "–isn't even something I'd ask of a healthy man. There are thousands of years of documents, most half illegible, and more than that all but worthless."

Aegon had taken a look himself at Haldon's behest, as well as on some handful of occasions he had assisted Aemon with a task in the library, and it was true. The great bulk of the books in Castle Black's library would put even a learned man to sleep.

Early on, Aegon had brought the matter of dragonglass to Aemon's attention, and he had told them that it was all too plentiful on Dragonstone. This, of course, was worthless to them, as it was currently held by the so-called "King" Stannis Baratheon. Dragonstone was a formidable fortress, in any case, and the loss of life required to take the island back might well negate the aid the dragonglass provided. It was a dead end, and since then, he had found nothing.

"And?" Aegon asked.

"And I happened upon a particular trading log, with several mentions of our favorite shiny rock. Namely, that the Watch was no longer calling for it."

"How old was it?"

Haldon shrugged. "Some thousand years old, I would say, perhaps older; the dating is unclear."

"And where did they trade it from? Not Dragonstone, I would think." Dragonstone had had only some scant villages in the days before the Targaryens had come to it. It had been a backwater before the Dragonlords had fled the doom, there was little chance that they had traded as far north as the Wall.

"There's the rub." Haldon smiled, but it was not so bright as it should have been. "It is much closer than Dragonstone, but not much more friendly, I fear."

"Where, then?"

"Skagos."

"Skagos?" Aegon repeated, frowning.

"Aye."

Aegon crossed his arms. "Well, it is a part of the Seven Kingdoms, is it not? Under the North?"

"It is," Haldon affirmed, "but it is more in name than in fact."

Aegon groaned, and sat back in his chair, his fingers digging into his arms. Then, craving action, he shot up from his seat and trotted over to the fire. He grasped the black iron poker and stoked at the kindling some. "Is nothing easy, Haldon?" He said, stabbing at the cracking bits of wood.

Haldon laughed deeply, and for just a moment, he seemed to be vibrant and healthy again.

Then, over the light crackling of the fire, Aegon heard a faint echo.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahooooooooooooooooooooo.

Aegon's mind whirled, and he turned to Haldon, "Did you hear it?"

Haldon's brow furrowed, "It's the dead of night, it must–"

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahooooooooooooooooooooo.

They both waited in stunned silence. But after several more seconds, they knew that that had been the end of it.

"Two blasts," Aegon breathed, his heart hammering in his chest.

He saw blue-grey eyes, and fiery red hair. Her bloody red lips formed two simple words.

"Aye," Haldon said with a violent cough. "Wildlings."

 

[Chojomeka]

I think we can all agree that Shireen of all the princesses of ASOIAF deserves to live in a Disney movie where she'd have adorable animal companions/baby dragon, amazing singing talent, and to be the one true Queen of Westeros.

 

[SRWG]

Chapter XVIII: Nights and Days​

Aegon

The first night had been the worst.

Black brothers spilled into the dark cold of Castle Black's night, each roaring and shouting and confused. The winch cage was quickly claimed by the officers of the Watch, and so he had climbed the long switchback stair instead, with many a lower Brother at his heel. By the time he reached the top, he had felt half a corpse, his breathing coming in ragged gasps and his legs as sore as they had ever been.

Through the aiming holes in the newly built hoardings, he saw little but darkness.

But he heard the whipping of the wind, and myriad Wildling horns. He heard horses, even from this great distance. And he heard something else, something that brought to mind the menageries he had once visited.

When Bowen Marsh had ordered flaming pitch sent sailing into the snow and trees, he had seen them. Mammoths. Dozens, or even hundreds of them. One had caught fire and fled trumpeting into the wood.

Then they were blind again, and could only see the dim lights ambling through distant trees.

What followed, was one of the longest nights of Aegon's life.

Arrow after arrow, hour after hour.

Loosing arrows at nothing, for even the fires they started with oil or pitch would burn for only a short time. He imagined what he aimed at as he loosed shaft after shaft, but he knew that it didn't matter. To either side of him, men in black loosed arrows beyond counting. Some men had gone down into the tunnel when they realized giants (Giants!) were making an assault on the gate. At some point in the night, Duck had found him and taken the position to his right.

Duck was no stellar marksman, but it mattered little.

For a time, Bowen Marsh had called for them to nock, draw, and loose in sync. But his voice had gone hoarse quickly, and any semblance of order had vanished like so many arrows into the night.

The twin trebuchets threw all through the dark. Rocks, barrels filled with stones and then frozen; whatever the Watch had managed to get to the top of the Wall that could be throne, was thrown. The men at the trebuchets worked studiously, and for a good while, the sounds of the trebuchets' workings took precedence in his mind. That, and the endless twangs of the bowstrings.

The gloom consumed him in those hours, and there were few, if any, japes shared among the men past the first.

Nock, draw, loose.

Nock, draw, loose.

Nock, draw, loose.

It became his life.

Septon Cellador had prayed loudly and drunkenly for a spell; he beseeched the Warrior to grant them courage, and the Smith to grant them strength. Or at least, that's what Aegon thought the man was saying, but he had stopped paying him any heed all too quickly. Lemore had relieved the sot of his solemn duty some time into the night, and had brought up warm broth with the aid of a handful of stewards.

Nock, draw, loose.

Nock, draw, loose.

Nock, draw, loose.

As the night had worn on, other Sworn Brothers had come to relieve their comrades. There were more fighting men than there was room in the hoardings, and so Marsh had ordered that only those in the hoardings' protection should act as archers. However unlikely it was that the Wildling arrows could actually reach them, a live man was better than a dead one, especially if the gate was ever truly breached.

Several had tried to relieve Aegon of archery duty, but he had refused them. Duck too, had insisted that he let his arms rest. But he had persisted.

It was Calum who had finally managed to dislodge him from his position.

"Give it up ya daft cunt. The damn wildlings will still be out there in the morning."

For whatever reason, it had worked.

He had handed the brawny Eastwatch man his bow, given Duck a perfunctory nod, and then taken the winch down the Wall. He might have risked the stair if he hadn't thought there was a considerable risk of him accidentally careening over the edge and dying screaming.

He had laughed darkly at the thought, all but delirious by then.

An ignoble end to the Targaryen line.

Somewhere, somehow, Lemore had appeared at his side, and guided him to their lodgings in the King's Tower. Men bustled through the yards, carrying dark blurs he could not identify. There was a grand commotion at the tunnel, screams and shouts and the clinking of black ringmail.

He was so tired, and it was almost dawn. He had just wanted to see the enemy.

Aegon vaguely remembered seeing Jon before he fell asleep.

-

There was the Wall, standing tall and proud against the dark. And then it was falling, crumbling into so many pieces as he had seen a thousand times before. Then, it stood again, and he was a dragon winging fruitlessly into the great dark gloom, and arrows were falling all around him, hitting nothing and everything at once. They bounced off his hard scales one moment, and plunged into his eyes the next.

"Put down your visor!" He heard Duck yell at him.

I can't, he called back.

He fell to the ground, feeling the snow and trees crunch against his face, blind to the world, screaming for help.

He heard Jon's voice, harsh and unyielding and knowing.

"We shouldn't be here," his father said.

Aegon tried to stand, but his knees gave out beneath him, and he could find no purchase with his hands. We have a purpose here, he said, feeling the cold against his face. We must.

Then faces were all around him. Blue eyes, blue and sharp and terrible. Glowing like so many stars in the night's sky. And then, they were not so terrible, but the eyes of a woman. Paler, greyer, less blue. Worse. Worse than the terrible ones. Her lips formed words that he knew; he had heard them too many times.

"Do it, please," she said.

He wanted to shout, but he couldn't find his voice.

I did, damn you, I did!

The cold crept into his veins; he knew not if he was man or dragon, but the cold bit all the same. He cursed it, fought it, searched for the heat he knew that he had.

And just before he woke, he had felt it. He felt the heat come into him. Felt the fire flow through his every limb and organ.

Fire and blood.

Blood and fire.

-

Shireen

Shireen enjoyed her lessons with father.

She had always enjoyed her lessons, of course, but she felt comfortable saying that father might be her very favorite teacher.

Maester Cressen had always been kind and caring, and he was so old that he could tell her all manner of stories about her father or her uncles, or even her grandparents. He had taught her to read and to write, and for that, she would always love him, and miss him too.

Maester Pylos had been her teacher for only a short while compared to Cressen, but he had had a real energy compared to Cressen. He was much younger, obviously, but it still made him a very different instructor. She loved his drawings too.

But learning with father… that was something some part of her had always wished for, but she had almost given up hope that it would ever happen. He was always gone in her youth, away at King's Landing to act as Master of Ships… and the few occasions they had to spend time with one another were all too rare and brief. And then after Uncle Robert died… he was simply too busy. He had a war to plan, and a throne to win.

And now, he finally had the time and opportunity to teach her.

Yet, despite her enjoyment of it… there were times that she truly felt apart from her father.

Sitting in a plush Pentoshi chair in Salladhor Saan's cabin, a thought had occurred to her.

"Father?"

Her father stared harshly down at a map, having just finished an explanation of how much longer it should take for them to sail the Narrow Sea. His hard blue eyes seemed to be willing the map to burst into flames.

"Yes?" He grunted.

She struggled to find her voice for a moment, and found her hand trailing to the pocket that held her egg. When it brushed it, her voice returned to her. "Should Rhaenyra have been queen?"

His gaze quickly slid from the map to her own. "Of course not," he replied firmly.

She chewed her lip. "Why not?"

"She sought to usurp her brother's claim," he said simply. "The Iron Throne was Aegon's by every law in the Seven Kingdoms."

Not in Dorne, she wanted to say, but Dorne had not yet even been folded into the realm in those days. Aegon the Conqueror had claimed it when he crowned himself, but it was Daeron the Good who joined it to the rest of Westeros. And besides, few outside Dorne cared to consider Dornish law.

But… "King Viserys made her his heir, though, did he not?"

"He did," father said. "But that was only due to his lack of a son." He snorted. "The first Viserys was a fat fool who disregarded the very precedent that gave him the throne. He thought to avoid the issue of succession, and the realm itself bled for his sloth."

Shireen frowned. That was all true, she knew, for Rhaenys "The Queen Who Never Was" and her line had been passed over in favor of the first Viserys. The male line must always come first, they said.

"Is not a king's word law, father?" She replied, finally. "He named her heir, should not the lords have listened?"

He looked at her hard, for a moment, and she could almost hear his teeth grinding. Then, he beckoned to her.

Shireen removed herself from the chair and quickly stepped up alongside her father.

Father jabbed a thick forefinger at the spot on the map that she knew to be King's Landing. "Even a king is bound to the law, Shireen. If every king were to act as he saw fit, regardless of what the kings before him had done, the realm would be chaos." He looked down to her, solemn. "Mad King Aerys did as he saw fit, he threw all caution, all precedent, to the wind, and he died for it. If I would have the smallfolk and the lords follow my laws, then so too should I."

Her hand sought the egg again. She wished she could hold it in both hands.

"But you've named me heir," she said. "I'm just a girl–"

"–you are the only legitimate heir to the throne. There are no others."

Shireen remembered what Melisandre had said so long ago, the day that the Red Priestess had begged her to look into the fires. "What if the lords disagreed? What if they wanted Edric?"

Her father scoffed. "He is a bastard, and you are trueborn."

"But they could ask you to legitimize him, couldn't they father? Alyn Velaryon was a bastard, and he became the Lord Velaryon."

"They could beg it, but I would not. You are my heir, and that is the end of it; king's son or no, Edric Storm will never be king." He breathed out loudly, something that was almost a sigh but not quite. "What brought this on, Shireen?"

She fought the urge to shrink in on herself, she needed to be strong, mother had said so. "I have been reading of Daeron the Good's reign, of the Blackfyre Rebellion… and I've read of the Dance too." She looked to the map, unable to hold her father's gaze. "I would not want the realm to have war so… so that I could be queen."

A strange sound caught her attention then, and for half a heartbeat she thought her father was choking. Belatedly, she realized he was laughing. It was a rare sound to her ear.

"Father?"

The sound was gone almost as quickly as it had appeared. He looked down to her, smirking lightly, with the barest hint of merriment in his deep blue eyes. "If you were to become queen this very instant, you would already be a better ruler than half the kings Westeros ever had." He rolled up the map. "Keep to your studies, and you will have precious little to worry of."

Shireen smiled. She wanted to be a good queen. She wanted to help people, and guide the realm to a brighter tomorrow, past all the wars and the death. She nodded. "You'll win, father. I know you will."

Her father grunted. "So we all thought before the Blackwater." But his eyes did not harden as they usually did when the Blackwater was mentioned. "Run along Shireen, go find your fool. Make certain that he does not drown a second time."

She nodded again, and exited the cabin in a flurry, leaving her father alone among the myriad garish decorations of Salladhor Saan.

-

Shireen found Patches at the prow of the Valyrian. The deck was a loud and busy place, and Patches tended to prefer resting places that were somewhat less chaotic, but belowdecks was hardly any better. As a result, he had taken to the prow; he liked to look out over the open sea.

"See anything nice, Patches?" she asked.

He bobbed his head furiously, a big sloppy grin on his red-and-green face, but said nothing. His "crown" had been stored away, so his nodding was less noisy than it usually was.

She looked out over the open ocean. It was different, seeing it here, than it was back on Dragonstone. It was bigger, and louder too, somehow. She liked the whipping of the wind, and the noises the birds made as they flew in close to them at times. She liked the rude and silly songs the men sang as they worked. She liked playing with Devan and Patches. She liked having father and mother both close at hand.

Shireen opened her mouth wide and took a huge, gulping breath of air.

She liked the way the wind tastewd, too.

It was sweet.

-

Jon

"And which ones are those?" Young Griff asked.

Jon squinted out the hole in the hoarding.

"Looks like Cave Dwellers."

"How can you tell?"

A fair question. From the top of the Wall it was rather difficult to make out much of anything regarding the wildlings. Thenns were always easier to make out with the bright shine of their armor, and giants were all too plain, but it was harder if one didn't know the tell-tale marks of the different "Free Folk" clans and tribes.

"It's the face paint," Jon answered. "The Cave Dwellers like to paint their faces all manners of ghoulish colors. Some wildlings believe that they do it in worship of their dark underground gods."

Young Griff scoffed. "Some? Don't the wildlings communicate with each other? How can they not know?"

Jon shrugged. "I'm of the North, and I know but little of the ways of the Crannogmen." He turned to the taller boy. "Do you know everything there is to know of the Free Cities?"

"I suppose not," Young Griff agreed.

"Many of the wildling tribes have centuries old feuds; most will have little contact with each other beyond the smaller clans within a given region." Jon looked back out beyond the Wall, and eyed the stagnant host that lingered at the tree-line. So many men, and more were getting there every day. "It's a rare occasion that the wildlings can see beyond their old wounds. Mance is a rare man to bring them together."

The Essosi squire looked out to the enemy as well. "It's not Mance Rayder alone that brings them together."

Jon made a noise of assent.

He shivered.

The hoardings shielded them somewhat from the winds that were common at the top of the Wall, but they were not so effective as the warming sheds that dotted the Wall's long trail. I survived the Frostfangs. This should be nothing. But already he had become more used to the warmer weather of Castle Black, and found himself cursing the cold with increasing regularity.

Jon rubbed his hands together in a vain attempt to warm himself. Activity was always a fair means of getting the blood running hot, but the wildlings seemed to be avoiding any sort of offensive for the day. They had retreated out of range of bowshot and catapult both (though the catapults were both in need of repair regardless), and so they could do little but watch them for the time being.

"Rather boring, isn't it?" Jon said.

Young Griff laughed. "Donal Noye told me of the Siege of Storm's End. I'd rather be here than there, I'll say that."

Donal Noye had told many a tale of the Siege of Storm's End, and not a one of them had been good. Months without end of drills and starvation, all while the wound in his arm festered. At the moment, the one-armed blacksmith was hard at work wasting his many talents to craft innumerable arrowheads. "If the gods are good, this siege will not last so long." Jon stretched his burned hand. "My father lifted that siege, at the end of Robert's Rebellion."

"Did he now?" The blue-haired boy's smile had a quality Jon could not readily define. "Did Ned Stark speak often of the Rebellion? I understand he was quite the hero."

Something that was almost a laugh escaped Jon, and he shook his head. "No." He shook his head again. "My father rarely spoke of the Rebellion... We tried–Robb and I– to get him to tell us stories of his battles, but he was quite resistant. Still, there were times that he broke his silence."

"I know far too well how that is," Young Griff agreed.

That caught Jon's attention. But Ser Rolly was too young to have fought in Robert's Rebellion… and what little he knew of the one called Halfmaester denoted that he had been a man of the Citadel. Which meant… "I thought your father was a sellsword?" Jon said, almost accusatorily.

"Not in those days," he replied, smirking.

"He was a loyalist then?" Jon asked, putting the pieces together quickly.

Young Griff nodded. "Aye. Rather than get sent here…" He gestured to the wooden structure of the hoarding. "…he fled to Essos. I'm rather glad he did, as it happens."

Jon laughed earnestly at that. Many here on the Wall had been on the wrong side of Robert's Rebellion, and he would not begrudge them that. If there was one thing he had learned from his time among the wildlings, it's that good men fought on all sides of every war. "And yet he ended up at the Wall just the same? Can't imagine he's happy about that."

The sellsword's son joined in his laughter then. "If only you knew, Snow. Every single day I suffer an earful about how we should be leaving this "godsforsaken pile of ice". He lowered his voice comically in poor imitation of the elder Griff.

Jon could not lie. The Wall had definitely seemed a godsforsaken pile of ice when he had first come to it; he would never forget the harsh lessons Tyrion Lannister had attempted to teach him during their journey to Castle Black. But in the face of the wildling army, it was certainly worse. "Why stay? What holds your party here?"

"Haldon's wound is not yet healed," he answered, his reply immediate. "I would never leave one of my own behind. This wall will hold yet."

It had been near a month since Jon's return to Castle Black and the battle that saw Styr and his Thenns lain low. And Ygritte, a part of him whispered, but he squashed it quickly. "By now, it would be healed enough I should think. Ride slow and it should not aggravate the wound enough to cause him harm."

Young Griff shrugged noncommittally. "I would rather take the safest route for him."

And the Wall is safe? He wanted to say it, but he let it drop. Every man has their reasons.

Jon eyed the boy's blue hair for what felt like the thousandth time. He would never grow used to it. How Pyp and Dareon could treat it so casually he could not understand, and why the boy did not shorten his hair he understood even less. He knew his own hair was somewhat long to many men's standards, but Young Griff put him to shame and then some. Essosi traditions were sight to behold, truly.

Almost idly, he noted that the blue in the boy's hair was fading at the roots. And the color…

"Is your hair silver by nature?" Jon asked quizzically and suddenly.

The Young Griff started at that, but laughed it off half a heartbeat later. "Indeed it is." He flicked his long mane of blue around. "I should get to dying it again."

"I've not seen silver hair except on old men." Jon smirked.

Young Griff laughed louder at that. "It is not so uncommon in the Free Cities, Lys especially. Even among smallfolk it is seen frequently enough." He nodded, to himself more than anything. "Though I should say it is not so common as blue or green or purple."

Essos was a strange place.

–Then, there was movement at the tree-line, and Jon reached for his bow. Griff did the same.

-

Shireen

Shireen had kept to her studies, just as father had asked of her. She enjoyed reading generally, of course, but she had decided to work ever harder at it in light of their nearing the Wall. They had passed the Fingers and then the Three Sisters what felt like ages ago, and were steadily climbing their way up the Narrow Sea.

The wind had not let up.

Shireen had heard men call it many different names. "The Red God's Gale," "The Witch's Wind," "R'hllor's Grace," "the Lord's Guidance." Whatever they called it, the wind had been a grand boon, and she had even seen Father express continual surprise at their quick progress when he drilled her over the maps and routes. Their pace was incredibly brisk, by all accounts.

As much as she'd have liked to finish it, she had set aside her tome on the life and rule of King Daeron the Good. Maester Pylos, as smart as he ever was, had done her a great kindness in his packing; among the documents and records her father might possibly need, he had included a book concerning the houses and history of the North. While her father had not demanded any extra reading outright, she knew his standards to be high, and she wanted to please him.

They would be spending much time in the North, she knew, and if she would one day call herself queen of the Northmen, then she should know as much about them and their lands as she knew about the Stormlands, or the Targaryens.

She had read much in the time that she had free to herself. She had had to leave Patchface alone more often than she would have liked, but every moment that she was not with Father, attending to Mother, or (rarely) playing with Devan, she was reading.

Many a day, she found herself reclining in Salladhor Saan's cabin, with one of father's guards nearby, and the thick tome in hand. The North was large, and its history was long. The rest of the Seven Kingdoms could fit in the North if they were stuffed together, and she had never quite realized that until she began her delving into Archmaester Lucan's The Land and Lore of the North.

There were many lordly houses, just as there were in every one of the Seven Kingdoms, but there were not so many as the land's size might suggest. She knew a goodly deal about Starks, but much less about Boltons or Umbers or Karstarks, and even less about Flints or Wulls or Norreys. Every page she turned, she was exposed to some strange new happenstance that she had never heard of, or heard only snatches of.

The Boltons' many wars with the Starks, the rise and fall of House Greystark, the joining of House Manderly into the Kingdom of the North, and more. It was a brand-new world to Shireen, one that was similar to the world she knew, but different enough to catch her interest.

And the Old Gods…

There was comparatively little, when it came to that matter, but it was already more than she knew from most of her prior teachings. Septon Barre had made little mention of the Old Gods before mother had sent him away, and Lady Melisandre had talked of them a time or two, but for the most part, it was a new subject to her.

Heart trees and godswoods, she knew of, but the resistance of the First Men against the Andals and the Faith of the Seven was newer. Or at least, to read it in such detail was newer to her.

Yet, even despite the Northmen's adherence to their old faith, they had not forbidden worship of the Seven, as the Iron Islanders had done at times. House Manderly was among the most influential houses in the North, and they were proud worshippers of the Seven-who-are-One.

Lucan's ideas as to how the faiths could so coexist stirred something in Shireen.

How will they feel about R'hllor?

Lady Melisandre had burned the godswood at Storm's End, and she had burned the statues of the Seven on Dragonstone. Edric had never forgiven her for it, complaining loudly and frequently every time he was called for a leeching. Shireen herself had been distraught as she watched the Seven burn, so long ago.

No one likes to see their gods turn to ash.

She had never heard the Old Gods in the trees, and despite her many visits to the sept, she had never truly felt the touch of the Seven in her life. But she had experienced R'hllor. The Lord of Light had shown her the truth in the fire, even though she had never done a single thing for Him. She believed in His power, just as father and mother did.

He guides us.

Otherwise, why would He have shown her the egg? Why would He have sent Silverwing to show her the way?

But… it was fine if other people still believed in their gods, wasn't it?

She loved Edric, and she loved Myrcella and Tommen too… Even if they weren't really her cousins, even if she might never get to see them again. Their belief in their gods did not make any of them bad.

Not every man could be graced with visions, Lady Melisandre herself said so. Could Shireen fault others for not believing what they could not feel or see?

'One god, one realm, one king," some of father's men chanted.

But was that something that was good for Westeros?

Or would it harm it?

-

They were near Eastwatch-by-the-Sea.

The men were becoming restless; father had begun to pace with increasing frequency during her lessons (she thought he might wear a hole into the wood of the ship as he lectured on the many faults of Uncle Robert). The wind had begun to slow, and the eve of battle drew ever closer.

Shireen would see none of the battle, of course, but it was a looming specter to everyone aboard the Valyrian nonetheless.

The final nightfire aboard the Valyrian was a grander affair than those that had occurred over the course of the voyage. Salladhor Saan had been vocal in his resistance to Lady Melisandre's nightfires, but the famed pirate captain was vocal in just about everything.

"A strutting cock, that one is," Father had griped, to her laughter.

The fires for Melisandre's nightfires had been small, and several man were prepared to smother it out at the slightest hint of it spreading. As a result, the nightfires had not been the most majestic of ceremonies while they soared across the Narrow Sea. Lady Melisandre led prayers, mother led the responses, and they all prayed for the dawn.

Many among Saan's crew were in fact followers of R'hllor, so there was no major resistance to it, as there had once been on Dragonstone, but sailors were fearful of fire on a ship, and Shireen found that she could not blame them.

Lord Davos and Salladhor Saan both had figured it was less than a day until they reached Eastwatch, and so mother had deemed this a cause for celebration. A larger brazier was hauled out from the stores, and a larger fire was started.

Father had not countermanded her, and so Saan was forced to relent.

The fire was nothing compared to the fires they had on Dragonstone, but it was the largest she had seen in almost a month. Faithful gathered all around, sailors and knights and oarsmen alike. Shireen stood between mother and father, to the side of the fire, while Melisandre stood at its fore, as she always did.

Dimly, Shireen realized she had missed the fires like this. She felt warmer, this way. She felt it more deeply in her chest, in her very being.

"Servants of R'hllor!" Melisandre called out. "Our battle is very nearly upon us. We have come to the land of ice and cold, and we have brought light and warmth with us! The Great Other whose name must not be spoken wages his eternal war, and we have come to fight it!"

There was a cheer, and a stomping of feet.

"Demons await us," She continued, "demons that would see to it that the night never ends. Demons that would deprive us of the light we so crave." Melisandre shook her head. "Once, the world faced the same threat, and so R'hllor, in his infinite grace, sent us His chosen hero, Azor Ahai." She swung her arm to father, her long dagged sleeve whipping in the wind and the smoke. "And so He has sent his warrior of light once again, to lead us against the dark."

Father stepped away from her and mother, and moved to join Lady Melisandre in front of the brazier.

"The night is dark," Lady Melisandre said, "and brims with terrors beyond our very dreams."

Then, father spoke. "But the Lord shall protect us," he said, and he drew Lightbringer from its scabbard.

Lightbringer shone. For several heartbeats, it was as the sun, filling her entire world with its light; a rainbow of color reflecting off its shining steel. It was brighter than the nightfire, brighter than anything she had ever seen.

For those moments, it was day aboard the Valyrian, and each and every one of them heard nothing but the fire and the wind, and they saw nothing but Lightbringer's light.

He sheathed the blade, and it was as if she had been blinded, so dark did it become in an instant. Her breath tremored in her chest.

But her eyes adjusted quickly, and father returned to her side.

And then Lady Melisandre began to sing.

-

"It was beautiful, my lady," mother said, a wide smile on her lips and the shine of fire in her eyes.

Shireen nodded furiously. "It was!"

"Thank you, Your Grace, princess," Melisandre murmured. "Mark was a great boon to my efforts; it is a shame that he chose to stay on Dragonstone."

It was the first song Lady Melisandre had sung in the common tongue, and it had been entrancing. Melisandre's deep, rhythmic voice in their ears, Lightbringer in her mind's eye, and the nightfire before them, it had touched her in a way she never thought it could, even as she had been the one to suggest the red priestess translate one of her songs.

Mother laughed haughtily, "We will find you another, worry not. There are singers in the North, just as there are in every other land." Mother placed a hand on Shireen's shoulder. "It was a grand idea, Shireen, the Lord smiles upon you, surely."

"R'hllor's Light will pierce many a clouded heart, in gratitude to you, princess." Melisandre turned her beautiful smile on Shireen, and she felt… afraid, for a moment. She wanted to talk to the red priestess–about her worries–but the praise made her doubt her course.

She squirmed under the two women's gazes and smiles. So unlike each other, and yet she looked up to the both of them nonetheless. One was beautiful, and the other was plain. But both were assured of their convictions. Both knew that they were correct.

But what if they aren't?

"My lady?" Shireen asked, unable to quash the pleading in her tone.

Immediately, Melisandre's smile fell. "Princess? Is something the matter?" Mother stared at her too, her lips quickly returning to her characteristic firm straight line.

She didn't know how to phrase it. Neither mother nor father cared for pleasantries… "I–" she halted, unable to cross the gap that lay before her.

"Shireen," mother reprimanded. "What have I said of this stutter? Speak if you mean to, or don't."

Shireen swallowed. Her hand sought her egg at her side, but she caught her traitorous hand before it might draw attention to the bump in her dress. Still, she felt its pulsing warmth on her thigh.

"Lady Melisandre… I don't think you should burn anymore statues. Or godswoods. Or anything or anyone." The words tumbled out of her mouth with a flurry and a strength that surprised her.

"Shireen!" Mother was angry, accusatory. "The Lo–"

But Melisandre warded her off with a raised hand, then she turned to Shireen again. Her gaze was harsher than it had ever been when directed at her. "Those trees, those statues of the so-called Seven… they are false idols. They are tools of the Great Other to lead men astray, to weaken His power so that the night to end all nights will come."

"And Alester was a traitor," Mother spat. "And Lord Sunglass too. Any king would have ordered their heads struck their necks! What is the difference from one death to another?" She laughed hollowly. "Better that they have a chance to ascend to His halls."

Shireen had tried not to think of it. But despite her efforts, that night would stick in her memory no matter her will. The fire, the smoke, the screams. The silence as they all watched flesh, bone, muscle, and soul turn to ash. All of it had been terrible.

And yet, what she remembered the most was not the terror of it, but the elation she had felt. And then her shame and confusion at that very feeling.

She frantically pushed those thoughts aside.

"Mother!" Shireen said forcefully, before freezing in shock at herself. "Mother," she said more naturally, more docilely, "I worry for father."

That brought mother pause, and the hardness left Melisandre's fiery red eyes.

"The Andals and all their might could not force the Seven upon the Northmen, and neither did the Targaryens on their dragons." She paused, trying to find the words to communicate what she felt. "Father comes to them, seeking their aid and offering his own… We cannot make them love the Lord." She breathed more deeply. "It was not the statues burning that brought me to R'hllor, mother, it was the vision I saw, it was seeing His effect on you and father. I–If we come to them as the Andals did, they will not love us… But if we show them the Light, by our actions–and our character–and everything else–then they might join of their own will."

Melisandre stared for a time, but Shireen refused to wilt under her eyes. "His Grace does not need their love, princess, only their loyalty." Her ruby twinkled in the firelight.

She thought of the men who had so clamored for Uncle Renly, of how they had turned to father when he had been killed. She thought of how most of those same men had turned to Joffrey's banner too, when father's star did not shine as bright. She thought of Lord Davos, and Devan. She thought of Uncle Robert, and his grand rebellion.

Shireen stood up straighter. "If they will not love us, how can we trust their loyalty?" She held Melisandre's gaze.

Then, "My apologies, my lady," mother said, a severe frown now marring her grim face. She grabbed at Shireen's hand, and tugged hard. "Come Shireen, it is time we retire. The Lady Melisandre has many duties to see to."

Shireen defaulted to obedience, and bowed her head to the red priestess.

"Good night, princess," the red priestess said, as she turned.

Mother pulled her away; she followed behind clumsily.

Harsh reprimands were her lullaby that night.

-

Duck

"What do you think of him?" Griff asked.

Duck thought on it for a moment, picturing the fat, jowly 'nobleman' that had recently been brought to Castle Black by Ser Alliser Thorne. "Seems a proper bag of wind to me," he replied.

Griff frowned at him, that way that only Griff truly could; for no man frowned quite so proficiently as Jon Connington.

"I meant Stark's bastard."

Duck shrugged languidly. "Better to ask your son, I think. Spends more time with the lad than I do."

Growling, Griff shook his head. "That is exactly the problem you fool."

Duck clutched at his chest in mock affront. Then, he laughed. "He's not poisoning him, Griff. If so, I'd think our little king would already be quite dead."

"Quiet yourself," Griff hissed, looking back and forth over the Wall's broad battlements.

The men nearest them to either side were too far to overhear them; Duck was not fool enough to make such jests when men were near, whatever Haldon or Griff thought. Finally, he answered the question seriously. "Jon Snow seems a decent enough sort, otherwise I would think your son would not take to him so readily. Most of the men his age like him well enough, from what I've heard at supper."

The older men, not so much. And especially not since Alliser Thorne had appeared with that Rattleshirt in tow. Every chance he got, the knight was whispering venom into men's ears over the bastard's treachery, no matter the decisions of Bowen Marsh and the other high officers.

"What do they speak of?"

Duck scratched at his beard. It had grown quite considerably since they came to the Wall; after all, it was now in his best interests to keep it bushy. The more warmth he could muster, the better he felt. "About the Wildlings, mostly."

Ever since his supposed squire had begun to learn the Old Tongue from the one called Boil, he had grown much more interested in the particulars of the savages from beyond the Wall.

Griff frowned a lesser frown. "Is that all?"

"Snow tends to quiet when I'm near." He huffed. "I don't think he likes me much."

Duck looked out to the Wildlings encamped at the forest's edge. Men, women, children, and beasts milled about in camps that were strewn about the land haphazardly. If he had ever made such a camp in his days with the Golden Company, he was certain he'd have been lashed for it.

Conflict came about in fits and starts, and Duck found he had no particular preference for either. Atop the Wall, he was as safe as he'd ever been at Bitterbridge, so all an attack meant was tiring himself loosing arrows or throwing rocks.

At times, it was rather difficult to remember that they were facing a threat as great as they were. Of course, Griff made certain that none of them could truly forget, what with his many attempts at persuading Aegon to return to Essos. Relations between 'father' and 'son' had become rather strained in the past weeks, and the past days in particular.

Then, as if the man who had knighted him could read his very thoughts as words from a page, Griff broached the subject Duck knew he had called on him for. "You should speak to my son."

"What about?" He asked, feigning ignorance.

"About the uselessness of this," Griff growled. "We are wasting time here, time that could be spent convincing our allies to ready themselves."

"Strickland is stubborn as an aurochs," Duck replied. "It is as likely that he refuses us in person as he did you by letter. It is dangerous here, aye, but not so much more dangerous than Essos can be."

That was a slight exaggeration, of course. As dangerous as Essos could truly be, it was rare to have an army only a mile or two away.

"But I can attempt it," Duck said. "It's only rightful that a squire heeds his knight's words."

Griff had opened his mouth to answer then, but what admonishment he might have bestowed Duck with, Duck never heard, for at the far edge of the Wildling encampment, he saw movement.

He saw horses, and men in black.

-

Richard

He heard screaming and shouting and the clatter of steel. He felt as much as he heard the horse beneath him pound relentlessly through muddy slush as it weaved its way through dense forest. His blood was up, he knew it already. He never tired of it, and he never would.

He had been a Warrior's man, before, but that was long past.

Battle was what Richard Horpe had been born for. He knew that the very first time he picked up a stick and fought his cousin with it. And when he had first held a sword… well, any other course in his life had become null.

"Form ranks!" He shouted as they drew closer.

He could see the combat through the trees, oh so vaguely. Tantalizingly. Men in black leather, black ringmail, and black plate. Foolish men, sailors and oarsmen on horses.

Cotter Pyke had demanded the van, and the king had let him have it. Richard had yearned for the van, desired it as he did so few things in life, but even he could not fault the decision to let the Night's Watch face battle first. It would lull them into complacency. They might expect a Night's Watch attack, but they would not expect the storm coming after them.

"Sound trumpets!"

The trumpet sang their brassy howl all throughout his column, and he heard them echo from the center and the other flank as well. It was a howl that foretold violence, a howl that sang to him.

As Richard broke through the treeline at last, he heard a screech, and saw a fire rise in the eastern sky. An eagle, he thought, an eagle aflame.

R'hllor blessed them this day.

He couched his lance and grit his teeth in anticipation, the men all around him bracing themselves as well.

The Wildlings opposite them were a disorganized mess, wearing furs and leathers and wielding frail weapons of bone. Richard's men were steel. Steel and fire. He felt his blood hum in his veins as his courser pounded through the snow. He saw the Wildlings' fear all too clearly as they shambled into something that might be a defense, their eyes were wide and their hands unsteady; spears trembled in undisciplined hands.

Richard almost laughed.

As his column of horseflesh and steel and fury swept through the Wildlings, Richard felt the joy overcome him.

His courser trampled a man, and Richard took another in the eye with his lance. Eye and brain and blood coated its steel tip, but before he could find another man to stab, he was batting aside a truly pathetic spear with his tall shield. The fiercely bearded man who had chanced the strike had not anticipated his quick reaction, and had anticipated even less than lance blow that took him in the chest.

Men screamed and shouted. And he heard the clatter of steel.

Music.

The most beautiful song there is.

There was a trumpeting that could not be their own, and he saw that their center was collapsing against the might of the great hairy beasts that Pyke had called mammoths. But Richard's column was carving through the wildlings with contemptuous ease, and so too was the opposite flank.

"Stannis!" he shouted.

The men to his right and his left took up the shout.

"Stannis!" "Stannis!" "For the king!"

He felt the clink of an arrow bouncing fruitlessly against his chest armor as he pressed his mount further forward, stabbing to either side as he pushed through the mass of flesh and meat that was the Wildling defense. I will have to mend my surcoat, he thought dimly. He very nearly laughed then.

Richard stabbed out, taking a boy who might've been sixteen years young. He wheeled around and thrust his deadly point through the figure that was attempting to take the man to his right. As the figure fell, clutching at falling innards, he realized it to be a woman and frowned, but he kept up his charge.

"Stannis!"

"Stannis!"

Trumpets blared and men were screaming. Horses trampled and died.

In battle, Richard felt as though he could see everything, react to everything. He twisted out of reach of a jagged bone-tipped spear, and replied with his own, only his found its mark in the shoulder of a fleshy tattooed man. Despite his helmet, his vision felt wider than it did in usual life. It felt truer.

His courser took a stab to its flank and screeched, but still it fought on.

Richard bashed the shield that bore his house's sigil into the head of a hooded Wildling who should not have turned his head when he did, then spilled his guts with his lance.

But the Wildling was made of stronger stuff than he had seemed, and with his last breaths tugged the lance from Richard's grip.

A shame, Richard thought as he drew his sword.

Another man fell at his hand when he caught sight of the closest thing to a hill these lands possessed. At the top of its stony ground was a tent of white fur, apart from the rest of what these Wildlings called a warcamp.

"Keep it up!" He yelled over the din of battle as he wheeled his horse away from their continued charge.

There was a chance that it was Mance Rayder's command tent, and he would gladly take out the false king given the chance.

He saw women and children, far in the distance, fleeing the carnage. A mammoth fell to the lances that were beginning to surround it in the center. Giants shouted and broke through knights and free riders to escape into the trees.

It is over, in any case.

When he came to the tent, he quickly dismounted and deposited his shield on the side of his wounded mount. Some ways away, he saw a slight, wounded man crawling toward the treeline. He had a half a mind to put the man down when he heard a high feminine wail of pain from within the tent.

Richard felt a fierce frown tug at his lips, and resolved to make an example of whatever lackwit of a man had deigned it intelligent to rape under the banner of King Stannis.

The king would have him gelded; I am not so merciful.

He threw aside the tent's flap and entered purposefully, his sword brandished before him.

"Put your cock away and die as–" the words died on his lips in an instant as he took in the confines of the tent.

There was no Mance Rayder, and no raper either.

There was an enormous horn at the tent's far end, engraved with runes he did not know.

But closer, at the tent's middle, surrounded in furs, was the source of the wailing. One woman, lying flat on her back, and another tending to her. A brazier smouldered at the crouching one's back.

There was warmth, inside the tent. Warmth and the stench of blood.

And then the crouching woman had fumbled for something, and she was screaming, shouting, charging.

He recovered from his bewilderment and ducked away from the crazed woman's attempted stab.

"Die!" She shouted, "Die! Get out!" She alternated from one to the other as she stabbed and swiped and slashed with the dagger she was clutching. He dodged back, turning this way or that to avoid her, fighting the desire he felt to cut at her with his blade and be done with it.

She is not in formation. It is not the same.

Finally, he dodged slightly too slowly, and she managed to take him in the chest. But it was just another tear in his surcoat. "It's fruitless, woman. You cannot pierce my plate."

She roared at him and slashed again, but then the woman in the sleeping furs wailed, high and pained, and she turned away from him.

Taking the opportunity provided by her inattention, he struck her harshly in the stomach with the hilt of his sword, and then, when she doubled over in pain, dropped his sword and wrestled her to the ground. He kicked his blade away, and caught the wrist of the hand that held her dagger.

"Let me go, damn you!" she spat, growling, kicking at him pointlessly.

"Quiet, woman," He snarled, making the word a curse. He tightened his grip until she yelped in pain and released the dagger. Then, "What is the matter with the other one? Is she dying?"

"It's coming," she said, pained and breathless, "the babe."

He held her tightly, and looked up to the woman lying feet away as it all became clear to him. The other woman was panting through clenched teeth, and he saw that the furs beneath her were stained red and brown with blood, almost black.

He turned back to the woman beneath him.

Richard frowned, though he knew she could not see it through his helm.

"Do not run," he said firmly.

She stared at him with wide, uncomprehending blue eyes. "What?" she asked.

"Do not run, and I will let you return to her."

One dead woman was enough for him.

She nodded, panting, and he let go of her. She scrambled back to her companion, staring at him warily the whole way.

Richard returned to his feet, reclaimed his sword from whence he had kicked it, and snatched up her dagger as well.

Outside, he heard screaming… and shouting… and the clatter of steel.

Inside, the pants and grunts and wails of a woman bringing forth life.

He longed to return to the battle, to the bloodshed, but he didn't.

"The horn," he said. "What is it?"

The blonde woman, the one he had fought, looked up to him from her ministrations. She looked back down to the other woman. "The Horn of Joramun," she answered through gritted teeth. "We would have blown down that wall of yours with it."

Richard snorted. "No longer."

It was a fair enough prize, then.

Richard stayed, ignoring the pull of battle as best he could. There would be more battles to be had, after all. They were no longer waiting for the end on Dragonstone, and he would not have the murders of these women on his head.

Gradually, the music of battle faded, and were replaced by the high wailing shrieks of an infant's first moments, and the gasps of a woman's last. Then, the sobs of another.

 

[all fictions]

So wait, who is Richard?

 

[Teocraso]

Happy to see this here, I really like this one!

So wait, who is Richard?

Click to shrink...

Richard Horpe, I would assume.

 

[SRWG]

So wait, who is Richard?

Click to shrink...

Yeah oops, my bad. It's absolutely Richard Horpe. I just thought it would be obvious, but I didn't slap in any references to moths like I'd intended to.

EDIT: Also, because I extended this offer to the other forums, I'll do the same here. If any of you would like to know the endgame pairings, go ahead and shoot me a PM and I'll tell ya what they are. I like to know pairings myself when I read a story (because I hate getting blindsided by stuff I don't like), but a lot of people like speculation and/or being surprised.

 

[SRWG]

Double slip up, if you read that last chunk exclusively on here, I accidentally only uploaded the last two POVs. It's a substantially longer chapter than that.

Apologies for any confusion!

 

[all fictions]

Richard Horpe, I would assume.

Click to shrink...

I'm an idiot, thank you.

EDIT: Also, because I extended this offer to the other forums, I'll do the same here. If any of you would like to know the endgame pairings, go ahead and shoot me a PM and I'll tell ya what they are. I like to know pairings myself when I read a story (because I hate getting blindsided by stuff I don't like), but a lot of people like speculation and/or being surprised.

Click to shrink...

We all know Duty will win the Stannisbowl over Selyse and Melisandre, there is no surprise there

 

[SRWG]

Chapter XIX: Rather Too Many Kings I

Stannis

As with many things in life, Stannis felt ambivalent regarding the castellan of Castle Black.

He was not the worst man Stannis had ever met, but he was not one whose company he enjoyed. Still, he was for all intents the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch until they at last managed to choose a new one, so Stannis grit his teeth and talked to the round, red man. The castellan had held Castle Black against an army many times his number, at the very least, and many better men could not lay claim to such a feat.

The Wall deserves the lion's share of the credit.

Sitting behind the desk that Bowen Marsh had offered him, in the solar that the man himself had used only days prior, Stannis almost snorted at the thought.

"And what of Ser Denys Mallister?" He asked.

Bowen Marsh smiled at that. "He is on his way already, sire. He might be here tomorrow if they encountered no trouble on the road." Marsh coughed into a black sleeve. "Were it not for Jon Snow returning when he did, we might have sent all of our fighting men to the Shadow Tower. The gate may very well have fallen by the time you landed at Eastwatch."

"We?" Stannis intoned. "You are the castellan, it was by your order the men would have stayed or gone."

Bowen Marsh purpled slightly, but bowed his head sheepishly. "I sent some fifty men to aid him, when we heard that the Weeper was gathering his strength near the Bridge of Skulls. We did not hear of him again until just some days ago, perhaps a week… time does pass oddly during a siege…" At Stannis's stare, he continued, "Some worried that the Shadow Tower itself had fallen; we were glad to hear it had not."

"And the choosing?"

The purple in the steward's face cooled. "The choosing will be held the moment Ser Denys arrives. He will cast the lots for the Shadow Tower men, and Pyke will cast for the Eastwatch men. Those few that did not form your van, I should say." He laughed politely.

"The sooner a new Lord Commander can be chosen, the better," Stannis replied gruffly. Then after a moment, he added, "The boy, Snow, I would hear of him."

"Hear of him, sire?"

Was the man a dullard?

"I would know the late Lord Stark's bastard," he all but barked. "What is his character? What has he done? You say he played a role in your defense, so who is Jon Snow?"

What followed was a meandering tale, a tale of a bastard boy come for the Wall expecting glamour but receiving the gutter. A tale of accusations and accomplishments. A tale of strangeness and superstitions. There was much to Jon Snow that spoke the goodness of him, but there were aspects that worried Stannis as well; there was much for him to ponder.

Marsh had taken a seat early in his recounting of Jon Snow's personal histories, and then risen after the end of it. But he did not leave the solar.

"Is there anything else, Lord Steward?" Stannis asked the man standing before him, his tone questioning.

Flustered, Marsh nodded furiously. "T-There is, Your Grace."

"What is it, then?"

Lord Marsh stroked a stubbly chin, as if contemplating the proper words to use.

Stannis's eyes narrowed, and he felt a frown form.

"Your Grace!" the man said in assurance, his hands outstretched placatingly. "It is… simply a strange matter."

"Men that do not die are a strange matter," Stannis replied, grinding his teeth. "Children's tales come alive are a strange matter. Whatever you might say will not be so strange as what lurks beyond your wall. Say what you will."

Marsh puffed up, seeming to grow even rounder, somehow. "Your Grace, have you perchance seen a man with blue hair, about? Roaming the yard, or in the common hall?"

After near a month aboard the Valyrian, Stannis was altogether tired of Essosi men and their extravagances. Stannis's lips curled. "Only at a distance, what of him?"

"His name is Griff, Sire." Marsh paused thoughtfully. "Though, it is possible that you saw his son, the Young Griff, he is called."

Stannis almost growled. "What do I care of this man or his son, Lord Steward?"

"He is a former sellsword, or so he tells it… He thinks us all fools." Marsh laughed, "But there is more to the man, that much is plain." The Lord Steward held his gaze for a moment. "He has offered us the Golden Company."

Stannis could do little but stare for longer than he thought appropriate, teeth gritted and eyes wide. "The Night's Watch? He's offered the Night's Watch the Golden Company? How?" He finally said.

"Before the Great Ranging, Lord Commander Mormont sent Ser Alliser Thorne south to King's Landing with a wight's still-moving hand, to beg the Iron Throne for aid." Stannis noted that Marsh did not mention the king. "During his voyage, the ship was waylaid in Braavos by a storm. There, this... Griff heard of our plight, and sought to call the Golden Company to our aid."

"And they would not come?"

Marsh shook his head. "As Griff tells it, he sent many letters over many months, and still they refused him, despite whatever… debts, they owe him. He came to the Wall in pursuit of greater proof as to our need, but as you saw, Your Grace, the Watch was not at liberty to send out ranging parties."

Had the Golden Company come when this Griff would have had them, there would not have been a wildling army to break. His own paltry force had been more than capable of setting Mance Rayder's ragtag host to flight, what slaughter might ten thousand of the finest swords have wrought?

"Does Griff intend to call them even now?"

"I would believe so, Your Grace. It was the threat of the… Others, that brought him here, not the Wildlings. And the Others remain hidden still."

Stannis grunted. He would need to speak with this Griff as soon as could be arranged… and with Bowen Marsh already here… Stannis looked up to the steward, and ground his teeth. As Stannis fought the instincts that he had honed through a lifetime of condescension and struggled niceties, the high voice of his daughter pierced his thoughts.

"I think you could be nicer, father," she said, "Everyone loved Renly, and he was always nice."

In that moment, Stannis had very nearly told her of the cruel and slanderous rumors that Renly had given voice to outside Storm's End during their ill-fated parley. Stannis would have gutted him then, would have stained his holy blade's steel with his royal brother's blood. The very brother that he would have made his heir. The brother that he had starved with; seen grow skeletal as they wished and yearned for Robert to rescue them, waited with to see those golden banners scatter those roses like so many petals.

But he had swallowed his words then, for as little regard as he paid to obfuscating the truth, he had not wished to see tears spring to Shireen's bold blue eyes. She had cried enough, in her youth. He had not wished to be another cause.

So he had let her continue. Let her lecture him on kings that he knew better than she. "Maegor was harsh, and strong, and so no one would tell him what he truly needed to hear. His lords, they should have been his friends, but they didn't want to see him succeed," she rambled, "but Jaehaerys, and… and Uncle Robert too, they were nice, and their lords loved them, they would have done anything for them."

"His lords, maybe," he wanted to say, "but not his wife. Aenys too was kind. And Baelor the Blessed was gracious. Their lords ran rampant over them, controlled them, begged for favors and concessions and flaunted their disloyalty. Many and more loved Daemon Blackfyre, and died for him too, but a rebel and traitor he was still."

But instead of any of that, he had said simply. "You read your books, and think to lecture me? I am not Devan, nor am I your fool."

She had looked up to him unsteadily, and said, "I know, father, but I want you to succeed."

So as he stared across at the red-faced visage of Bowen Marsh, Stannis took a slightly different course than was his standard. "My Lord Steward, if you should… chance upon this Griff, and send him to me, then I shall see to the Golden Company." Then, for good measure, "Neither the Wall nor the crown shall forget the services you have rendered."

The pomegranate seemed to grow three sizes in a heartbeat. He smiled, and the traces of affront finally departed his almost froglike countenance. "O-Of course, Your Grace! If the Golden Company can be brought into the fold… I feel it would enrich both of our causes." He bowed lower than his belly should have allowed. "Is there anything else then, sire?"

Stannis thought on it a moment "There is, Lord Marsh. If the Watch could spare its blacksmith for a time, I would have words with the man who forged my first sword."

The castellan bobbed his head knowingly, and retreated from the room with a somehow even deeper bow.

Let him think it a nostalgic reunion, he thought with a low laugh.

"Bryen," he called after a time, "fetch me Lady Melisandre. Devan, some lemon water." Both were waiting beyond the door to his solar, he knew, and both would see to their tasks with haste.

As he waited, Stannis withdrew the plain oaken box that rested beneath the roughhewn desk that had once been the late Lord Commander Mormont's. Inside it rested the crown his wife had so thoughtfully gifted him with. He undid the cool metal clasp and gazed at the golden waste that sat atop a slim cushion; Selyse had wanted a more extravagant casing for his crown, but he had refused. If his crown was to be wrought entirely in gold, then what held it would be crafted more conservatively.

Stannis lifted the crown. He had hated it, at first. He had intended to wear a crown only when he had assumed his rightful throne, and like as not, it would have been Robert's crown. There would have been no need to waste more of the royal treasury on vanity when Robert had accumulated debts as large as he had, and he had never possessed Renly's foppish tastes besides.

And then... his wife had fashioned him a crown in the likeness of flames, and set him apart from near every man, woman, and child in Westeros, as well as from every king to come before him in one fell stroke. He had ground his teeth most mightily.

"You should wear your crown more often," Shireen offered, tracing the fiery points of his crown. "When the mummers want to play a role, they wear the right costume, don't they? And then everyone knows what they are."

"And now I'm a mummer, am I?" he remarked.

It was his crown, and he was king.

He placed it upon his head.

-

Melisandre sat near the hearth, gazing into the flames with her hands clasped and resting between her legs. The ruby at her throat glittered and danced in the fire.

Rather than hanging from the peg to the side of the hearth, Lightbringer's scabbard rested across the map of the North that Stannis had unfurled across his desk.

His cup of lemon water, long empty, sat inches away from Lightbringer's hilt.

"Your Grace?" came Bryen's voice from the other side of the door.

Melisandre turned away from the fire, and caught his own gaze. Shining red eyes met his blues. She nodded.

"Send him in," ordered Stannis.

The first thing that struck him as the door creaked open and the "sellsword" called Griff entered the room, was the man's dyed blue hair. He had seen such habits from the many men of Salladhor Saan's fleet, as well as from his decade as Master of Ships, but even now, it struck him as needlessly flamboyant; a waste of dye, in his mind. His hair was long, longer than most men tended to let it grow, but not near as long as others, and even the man's thick beard and brows were dyed blue.

Second, was the man's build. He was tall, though Stannis still overtopped him by five inches or near as much, but he was broad where Stannis was sinewy. Griff was broad in the same way Robert had been in his prime. Muscular, with thick arms and a hard chest evident even through layers of dark wool and furs. A warrior's build if there ever was one.

Pale blue eyes regarded him with cold wariness, and his jaw was set firm. He was about Stannis's age, he wagered or some years older.

"Your Grace," the man said with some effort. The accompanying bow was a proper one, if shallow. "How might I serve the man who saved the Wall?"

Stannis frowned lightly. "If you think to ingratiate yourself to me with flattery, then you think wrongly. I am not a man for idle flattery."

Griff stilled, and a grimace appeared on his face for an instant, before vanishing in the time it took Stannis to blink.

"Please, sit," Melisandre said, indicating to the empty chair opposite Stannis. She stood now, but hovered near the fire still, appearing for all the world a spirit sprung from flame. Her ruby, her eyes, even her hair that was so like beaten copper, shone in the firelight.

Griff sat carefully, not relaxing in the slightest. Stannis had seen the same countenance on deer and boars during Robert's hunts (those few that Robert had commanded him to take part in). The man was ready to move, and move quickly. He noted that his guards had done their duty, and removed any weaponry from him, it seemed.

"I trust that you know why I have demanded your presence?" Stannis asked.

A look of practiced confusion flashed into existence on the sellsword's face. "I do, Your Grace?"

"You do," Melisandre intoned, drawing Griff's eyes away.

"I want the Golden Company."

Griff jerked in his seat, but mastered himself with remarkable rapidity. He chewed on his words.

Melisandre offered her voice again. "You are Westerosi, no?"

That, the blue haired man could answer. "I am…" he said unsteadily.

Stannis grunted. "Bowen Marsh had told me of your connections, of your promises to the Watch." He eyed the sellsword. "I care little for how some Westerosi exile can command such service from the greatest free company in Essos, but I will not allow such a chance to slip through my fingers." He stared at him hard. "I saved your life here, sellsword. Soon or late, Mance Rayder would have crushed the Watch's resistance, and killed every last one of you if you were foolish enough to stay."

Griff bristled. "I did not mean to call the Golden Company to the Wall to fight your war with the Lannisters," he all but spat, maintaining only the smallest amount of respect in his tone. "If Bowen Marsh told you everything, then you would know it was to fight the Others, and their army of the dead."

Stannis stood, rising to his full height. "It is the same war," Stannis growled before slamming back down in his seat. They glared at each other.

Melisandre spoke, then. "This war is the War for the Dawn," she said solemnly, "It is the war for life, and warmth and light. We fight against demons. We fight against death itself."

Griff appeared unmoved; his shoulders were tense, and his large hands were balled into fists in his lap. "You mean to fight the Lannisters, and their Bolton toadies. Do not take me for a fool, Your Grace."

Stannis did not rise to the man's bait, for he knew his sort all too well. "Lord Marsh tells me that you have been on the Wall for some time. Is there truth in this?"

"There is," said Griff.

"Then tell me, Griff, how might the Wall provide for ten thousand men, and their horses?"

Griff glowered. "It cannot."

"Aye," Stannis continued, "it cannot." Stannis stood again, retrieving Lightbringer from where it lay on the great map, and held it in his left hand. With his right, he traced the smooth parchment. "The Gift and New Gift are all but empty. They are unpeopled. The Watch can scarce sustain itself, let alone an army." He found Last Hearth, and Karhold. Winterfell and Deepwood Motte and Moat Cailin. "But the North can. And the North is held by the traitor Bolton."

Griff's mouth was a thin line. "The Golden Company would not fight for you."

Stannis barked a low, spiteful laugh. "And why not? What ills have I done the Golden Company?" When no answer was forthcoming, he persisted, "The Golden Company fought the Targaryens four times, and four times were they defeated. Now, the Blackfyres are dead."

"Your house-"

"-my house put down their greatest enemy. They ought to put away their black dragons and fly the black stag instead, if anything." Stannis laughed again, even more harshly this time. "I care not for their love, sellsword. The South will never love me, and mayhaps the North never will either." He thought of Renly. "Old men deny me with their death rattle, and unborn babes from their mother's wombs, or so I am told." An old pain that had never healed rang in his chest, and he laughed again. "I do not yearn for their love. I am king, and these seven kingdoms are mine. I mean to save them." His eyes met Griff's. "First from the Others, and then from themselves."

Melisandre's musical laugh rang out then. "Many in the south betrayed their true king. Many do not deserve their lands any longer."

"Why remain exiles, when home is open to them?" Stannis asked, sweeping his hand lower across the map, to the Neck. "I reward leal service, and I pay my debts."

The sellsword looked down, pensive. "I can guarantee nothing. I came to the Wall only to acquire proof, something… anything to demonstrate the danger here. I ask you, Your Grace, did you believe these tales of Others and wights when first they met your ear?"

Stannis frowned. "I did not. I thought Others a story, like grumkins, or snarks."

"Or giants," Melisandre offered.

"Aye," Griff said, "or giants." He crossed his arms. "The wildlings are not enough. I thought to capture a wight, or part of one, if possible, for it was… the sight of a still moving hand that turned my attentions here in the first place." He snorted. "And then to hear the reports from the men who survived the Fist... it was beyond my fears."

The army of the dead. Stannis had heard much of it. First, he had had only Melisandre's visions and prophecies, but here, it had become a reality. Of the hundreds that had left, only a dozen-odd men had returned, the bulk of the remainder slain and enlisted in the Others' unholy host.

"This is the only war that matters, and I require the Golden Company if I am to win it."

Griff sat quietly, and Stannis too returned to his seat, laying Lightbringer across his knees. Melisandre turned to the fire again, bathing herself yet further in oranges and yellows and reds.

"Have you ever stared into the flames, and seen the End, Griff?" Melisandre asked suddenly.

The exile looked befuddled. "I have not, my lady. You will be dismayed to learn that I still hold to my father's gods."

"Come," she said, indicating the space to her left. "I can show you."

The man did not move, at first, but something seemed to stir in him. A light came to his eyes, and he stood. He approached the red priestess with several long strides. "What do I do?"

"Nothing," Meliandre murmured. "You do nothing. It is R'hllor that sees. Through the Lord, anything is possible." She took his hand delicately, yet still the sellsword almost jerked away. "Patience," she said, "you will see."

Stannis watched the man's face, idly wondering if he too had appeared so skeptical, when first Melisandre came to him.

Then, Griff's blue eyes widened…

...and his face caught the light just so…

And then Stannis was half a boy, watching a young man–

It was sunny, streams of light weaving their way down through the leaves. It was beautiful, and yet it stank. Stannis hated the smell. It was nothing at all like Storm's End, where he could always smell the sea and feel the fresh whip of the wind, even inside the great curtain wall.

It was King's Landing, and it was a disappointment; nothing at all like his father had said.

"It's beautiful, isn't it, cousin?" Long, silver hair fell down a shoulder in an artfully tied braid. Mournful violet eyes looked to him for a response. He was pretty. Prettier than a man ought to be. Almost as pretty as mother.

Stannis shrugged. "I can still smell the city," he said with a frown and a scrunched up nose. "And it looks much the same as our Godswood."

"Your little cousin is rather insolent, isn't he?" the other man said, provoking a low, delicate laugh from his cousin.

It was the dragon's shadow. Tall and broad, even then. A handsome youth, with piercing blue eyes and hair the color of a good carrot. He wore it loose, the bottom of his hair tickling the fledgling stubble on his strong jaw. Two griffins stood combatant on his silk doublet, red and white on fields of the opposite.

"He is not so gregarious as Robert, I agree," his cousin had said, before turning a slight smile to Stannis. "But he is right…" He somehow made wrinkling his nose appear elegant. "... I will never grow accustomed to this city's smell."

The other barked a laugh. "The scent is not so fine as the Stormlands, aye."

–Then the sellsword was recoiling from the fire, breathless, and Stannis found himself aged.

Pale blue eyes darted from fire, to map, to priestess, to king. "...I- I must think on all of this, Your Grace."

"Very well," Stannis said with a nod, seeing now the red at the roots of the sellsword's brows. "But do not tarry long."

The bow the dead man sketched was more formal than his first, and his departure more abrupt than his entrance.

Stannis watched Jon Connington go, confusion and suspicion warring and roiling in his chest. More to the man, indeed.

"My lady," he said, with steel in his voice, "ensure that neither that man nor any of his party leave Castle Black."

"Yes, Your Grace."

-

Samwell

"It's cold," Sam grumbled.

Sam was cold, and he was tired of it.

"North of the Wall is worse," Gilly replied as she bounced the babe in her arms. "I don't think this is so bad."

He was sick of being cold, truly. He had been cold ever since they left Castle Black so long ago, he thought. Whitetree, Craster's, the Fist… It had all been so cold, and he just wanted to be warm again.

The Wall loomed high to their left, glittering blue in the midday light. They had been walking for some time, and by Sam's estimation, they couldn't be more than a day or two away from Castle Black. Every now and again, the babe would cry, and Gilly would bare a breast to feed him. Sam had to force himself to turn away, else he would fall on his face.

Sam shivered. "It's cold to me."

Step. Step. Step.

He had been walking for so long. He was tired of walking too.

And he was worried.

Very worried.

They were going to Castle Black, but Sam didn't even know if there was a Castle Black to go back to. Mance had marched on the Wall, and he had thousands of men, and so few had survived the Fist… If Mance's army won, then all of his friends were dead. Pyp, and Grenn, and Toad, and Matthar…

And Jon.

And then he would be dead too. He was a crow to them; an enemy. They would kill him in half a heartbeat. He couldn't fight off a single man, let alone an army of them. Grenn had called him Sam the Slayer… but it had been the dagger that killed it. The dragonglass, not him.

But… At least Gilly and the babe would be safe. She's a wildling, like them. They wouldn't hurt a babe and its mother.

Gilly said she would protect him, if it came to it, but he wouldn't let her. She was strong, but not strong enough for that. If he could save her by running away, he would. There was courage in that, wasn't there?

The babe made a little gurgling noise, and knocked Sam out of his thoughts. He turned, looking at his pudgy face as Gilly rocked him around.

Gilly looked up at him and smiled. "See? He doesn't think it's cold either."

"Gilly…" he began, but then a far off noise caught his attention. "Gilly, what is that?"

She looked around to, recognition flaring in her eyes when she caught it. "It's there!" she said. "West!"

Sam squinted down the long trail the Night's Watch used to travel between their castles. Then, in a rush, he realized he knew the source of the sound. "Horses! It's horses!" And it was true, soon, he could see them. For a moment, he thought to hide… but surely they would see the tracks they had made. If it was wildlings, then he was a walking dead man. He shivered, thinking of Small Paul suddenly. "We should stay on the road."

"You want to meet them?" Gilly asked, apprehension readily apparent in her eyes and tone.

"Yes," Sam replied. "If it's Night's Watch, then they can take us with them. If it's not… then they could take you, at least."

Gilly frowned, and came close to him, and they waited.

When the horsemen finally drew close enough for him to pick out the colors that they wore, Sam nearly cried tears of joy. They wore black from head to heel. Then, within what felt like mere seconds, the men were upon them.

Horses thundered up the road, whickering and snorting and pounding the muddy earth. Men stared suspiciously at them from under black hoods. The babe began to cry.

"You are Night's Watch?" one asked, over the babe's cries and Gilly's protests.

"I-I-I am.." Sam said, feeling himself shrink into his own body.

"Who?" asked another one. "And from where?"

"S-S-Samwell Tarley. I-I was on the ranging… and w-w-we got lost."

One of them laughed. "A likely tale. I know wildlings when I see them." He pointed a finger as if it were a dagger at Gilly and the babe. "Any man can steal the clothes off a corpse."

"Though I've never seen a wildling so fat," said another.

Then, a man on a bigger, finer horse cut through the assembled brothers. His cloak was black sable, where the others' were only dyed wool. His clothes were finer too, and Sam saw an eagle wrought in silver clasping his cloak together.

"That's quite enough, men." The man drew back his hood, revealing a wizened old face. He was bald, with a great white beard, and a face so deeply lined, Sam was shocked that he sat as tall as he did while mounted. Grey-blue eyes looked down at him kindly. "This boy is Samwell Tarly, I know his face."

"H-H-How?" Sam stuttered.

"You have your grandfather's look," said the man that could only be Ser Denys Mallister.

Gilly raised her voice. "Which grandfather?"

Ser Denys laughed at that. "Both of them, I should say."

In short order, Ser Denys had brought up spare horses for the both of them. He begged that Sam tell him of his escape from the Fist, as well as all that had occurred since. Sam left out how Coldhands had saved their lives, and definitely didn't mention anything that happened at the Nightfort, but he talked about Craster's, and the mutiny, and answered every question that Ser Denys asked him.

He even graciously asked Gilly a question or two, though Sam could see the discomfort on both of their faces.

Then Ser Denys was telling him of everything that had happened on this side of the Wall. Of the feints, the attacks on the Wall, and, most surprising of all, the arrival of Stannis Baratheon.

"And now we go to choose our next Lord Commander," Ser Denys finished at the end of it all.

"Will you put your name forward, Ser Denys?" Sam asked.

Mallister pondered it for a moment. "Aye, I do intend to," he replied, to the cheers of a few of his Shadow Tower men. The Castle Black men were further behind, in a larger clump of riders. "If only to ensure that lout from Eastwatch doesn't claim the position for himself."

The rivalry between Ser Denys Mallister and Cotter Pyke was the subject of many a drunken supper at Castle Black. His brothers claimed that the Old Bear (or was it Qorgyle?) had sent them as far away from each other as he could, to contain their bickering and limit their butting of heads. It seemed to ring true, to Sam.

After that, there was quiet for a time.

Sam had been right, they were only a short ride from Castle Black; they would reach it within the day. So, as they rode, Sam rejoiced, thinking of the brothers he would get to see again soon. Of Grenn, and Pyp, and Halder, and Toad, and Matthar. And if Bran had been right, then Jon too. The sounds of horse filled his ears, while thoughts of friends filled his head.

But then, after a long quiet, Sam noticed something strange bobbing to the hoofbeat of Ser Denys's horse. It was a sack, tied to the side of his saddle.

"Ser Denys?" Sam asked when they stopped to provide the horses water.

"Yes?"

"What is that?"

"What is what?" Ser Denys retorted quizzically.

"That," Sam replied, pointing to the sack. The bottom of the sack was a darker color than the rest of it, almost as if someone had spilled wine into it… Or blood…

"Oh, that." Ser Denys chuckled. He reached for the sack and untied its knot quickly. He reached in, and when he withdrew his hand, it held a fistful of stringy blond hair. Wet, vacant eyes stared out at Sam, and the man's neck was a red ruin. "This, my lord of Tarly, is the Weeper."

Sam retched.

Spoiler: AN

I really am sorry it took me so goddamn long to get this out. It wasn't my intention, and it tore at me every damn day. I'm sorry I never responded to anything in the past couple weeks, I just felt like trash even looking at this thread, knowing that I should've been writing.

BUT I hope those of you that read it here enjoyed it, and that you'll tune in for more. With any luck, the next one won't take so long.

This "chunk" ended up longer than I thought I would, but I'll still personally consider the next couple POVs the same chapter.

 

[all fictions]

Too many kings spoil the broth.

 

[SRWG]

Also! Got some more art done, one is actually a bit old, but it's relevant to the discussion. As usual, it's filled with spoilers. Why is all my art so spoilery? Because the more visually striking ideas are from later in the story, naturally.

Spoiler: big spoilers like usual

Spoiler: endgame pair spoilers

This one was done really early, so think of it as concept art. Take from that what you will.
By Charsei

Spoiler: Aegon spoilers

This one, the artist messed up a bit on with certain things. What things though, I'll leave for you guys to guess.
by Akira-jw

Spoiler: Team Aegon - debateable spoilers

This one I allowed the artist to have some fun with it. It's a cutesy tumblr style, but I don't mind. Aegon has darker skin than I'd personally go, but I still think the piece is cute. I don't really consider it canon to the story, I consider it more of an ASOIAF in general art, but there needs to be more Team Aegon art so here it is!
by Acantha

 

[SRWG]

Spoiler: AN

This isn't a real chapter, I apologize, but I started teaching this last week and really just haven't had the energy to write anything. I wrote this a while back for an art trade, but I do consider it canon to the story, and it will have some relevance very soon.

Interlude: A Snow Soldier

Jon had many memories of his father.

Eddard Stark was everything he had ever wanted to be. The model lord. The model man. For as far back as his memories went, he had idolized him, craved his attention. Until the sad realities of life were forced onto him, he had lived a good enough life, mother or no.

One memory of those early times, before the way of the world became evident to him, stood out particularly in the reaches of his memory.

It was summer, early in the long summer. Spring had only been gone a year or two, and winter was never far in the North. Balon Greyjoy's Rebellion had been quashed, and Eddard Stark was returned to his home, last scion of House Greyjoy in tow.

Greyjoy had been slow to acclimate to the North. He had complained of everything then, even more than he did when he grew. It's too cold, it's too windy, I thought it was summer, why is it snowing? And so on. His complaints were endless.

It was amidst one such summer snow that Jon had ventured into the Godswood.

He was about six, he supposed. Or seven. Robb was the same. Sansa was toddling about and asking questions near as endless as Greyjoy's gripes, and had not yet had the wolf tamed out of her, while Arya was still on Lady Stark's breast. Bran and Rickon were yet twinkles in his father's eye.

Jon had wanted to play in the snow, but the snow was awfully dirty out in the courtyard. Lady Stark hated it when he got dirty, and he didn't like to bother the maids with helping him clean up besides, so he had gone to the Godswood. The snow was pristine there, since so few intruded on the wood's tranquil grace. Besides Lord Stark, at least.

Jon was hard at work building a snow soldier when he felt a thwap on the back of his head.

He almost shouted in shock, but managed to clamp down on the reflex, when he turned, he saw that it was Robb. Robb holding a stick threateningly.

Jon growled and ran off to find his own stick, which was not hard in the Godswood. "I'm coming for you Robb!" he yelled, "I'm gonna knock you silly!"

"Try it and I'll beat you bloody!" Robb shouted back.

He found a nice long stick. It was strong too, perfect for hitting uppity brothers. He rushed back to his half-built snow soldier and saw that his rival was gone. He was hiding.

"I'm Aemon the Dragonknight!" He called.

"Then I'm Florian the Fool!"

Ha! Robb was so stupid. He chased after the source of the voice, and when he saw him hiding behind a particularly thick tree, managed to sneak up on him and whack him on the back of his head.

Robb didn't hold back his shout like Jon did, Robb was a scaredy-cat. But Jon didn't let him get away so whacked at him again.

It was a fierce battle that followed. Strikes and counter strikes and smacks across the face and shouts of "No fair!" and "Your stick is longer!" When sticks broke, the victor with the still-whole stick could score a few extra hits before the loser managed to find a new weapon. The fighting was savage and the laughs copious.

Naturally, it was at about that time that little Sansa bumbled into the Godswood holding a maid's hand. Doubtless, she had been lured to the wood by the noise. The maid was all too glad to pass on the responsibility of dealing with the inquisitive child, and so it became the domain of her older brothers.

"I wanna fight," she said.

"No you don't," Robb said, brandishing his stick. "You're a girl, go do girl things."

Sansa stomped her foot. "I wanna fight," she shouted in her squeaky little voice.

Robb glanced to Jon.

"If we fight her we have to go easy on her," Jon said. "that's no fun at all."

Robb frowned. "Well, let's give her the biggest stick. So it's more fair." He crouched low to reach Sansa's eye level, "Go find the biggest stick you can Sansa!"

Nodding excitedly, she quickly ran off to do just that.

This bought them another minute or two of one-on-one fighting, but before they knew it the auburn haired demon had returned with what had to be the biggest stick she could carry. It was about as long as she was tall, but thin.

The battle that ensued was less exciting, but there were just as many laughs. It was Robb and Jon both against Sansa, at least at first. They let her attack the most, and only tapped her lightly with their own sticks. She yelled ferociously all the same.

"Who are you supposed to be?" Robb asked her when she 'knocked him to the ground'.

She paused thoughtfully as Robb returned to his feet. "I'm the king!"

At which point Robb had an idea and said "And I'm Eddard Stark."

Jon was even smarter than Robb, so he knew what to say instantly. "Then I'm Rhaegar Targaryen!"

That battle was more even, and Sansa even got a few honest hits in on Jon, but Jon didn't care. It was fun.

Their alliances and identities shifted with the wind. They became the Young Dragon and Ser Ryam Redwyne, or Symeon Star-Eyes and the Laughing Storm. But no matter who they were, Sansa would always say "I'm the king!"

They were forced to assume she played at different kings.

It was in the midst of battle that father revealed himself in the Godswood.

He had seemed a giant to Jon in those days, though Jon knew him to be of only middling height later in life. His beard was trimmed low and his hair tied up for reasons of practicality. Theon was beside him, not so tall, but still towering over Sansa, Robb, and Jon. He held Ice's great scabbard, despite it being easily taller than himself. In spite of looking positively silly, he smirked at them. He always smirked.

"What's all this then?" Father asked as he walked up to them.

Sansa beamed at him. "We're fighting!"

Father laughed, long and low. "Septa Mordane won't like that, Sansa. Little ladies don't play swords."

She made a face. "Septa Mordane later, 'm playing swords right now."

Chuckling, he mussed up her thick auburn hair. But then he turned on Jon and Robb, and his face was ice. The Lord's face, not Father's. "And you two. What are you thinking hurting your little sister like that?"

Jon felt his heart drop and he began to babble excuses right along with Robb.

"I wasn't hitting hard, it was all Robb!"

"Jon attacked her first!"

"We switched sides!"

"We let her have the biggest stick!"

"We were just playing!"

"She's laughing, look!"

But father could not keep it up, and he began to laugh at their panic. They began to laugh with him, relishing in the loss of a presumed punishment. He indicated to the barely-started snow soldier. "What do you think this is, eh Theon?"

Greyjoy strode forward confidently, even as the immense scabbard all but dragged on the ground. He gave it a hard look. "I'm not sure, Lord Stark. Whatever it is, it's in right poor condition." He shot them a cocky sneer.

Jon felt himself frown. "It's a snow soldier, I didn't get to finish it." He pointed at Robb. "Robb attacked me, and I had to defend my honor!"

"What honor, bas–"

"Theon." Father's tone was cold.

For once, Greyjoy looked contrite. He bowed his head. "I'm sorry, Lord Stark."

Father gave Greyjoy a long look, and then gestured toward the center of the Godswood. "Take Ice to the Heart Tree, and then come right back, Theon."

"Of course, my lord." He marched off with as much grace as he could muster while carrying the huge scabbard.

"Now, you three. How about we finish this snow soldier?"

Sansa immediately threw herself into action, gathering up snow as best she could. Obviously, it was almost fruitless.

Jon had only had time to gather stones and particular bits of wood for the snow soldier's facial features and body parts, and then begin rolling the first big ball segment when Robb had attacked him.

"I think we can make this bigger," Father said, taking the big ball of snow and rolling it to increase its size even further. "You two work on the middle part."

Jon quickly rolled up a decently sized snow ball, and when it became big enough that it was harder to push, he handed it off to Robb. Then he went and knelt to Sansa.

"Sansa, do you need help making the head?" he asked.

"No!" She said. "I can do it myself."

She couldn't. She wasn't compacting the snow well enough, and so it just kept falling apart. "Sansa, you have to roll it tighter, or it's going to keep breaking."

"Nuh-uh," she retorted. She then followed his instructions anyway, and to his total lack of surprise, managed to start making it.

By that point, Greyjoy had returned and was standing away from the lot of them with his arms crossed and a haughty look on his face.

"Theon, take Robb's snowball and put it on top," Father said.

Greyjoy complied quickly, seizing the now larger snowball from the all too proud Robb (I started that one, Jon thought) and lifting it up with relative ease. He smashed it onto the bigger snowball, denting its shape somewhat, but it stayed together. "Looks good, I think," he said.

Father called Sansa, who now had created something approaching decent for a snow man's head, who paraded it back to him proudly, snowball in hand. "Do you want to put it on top?" he asked.

She looked at the snowball, and her little face scrunched up. "I'm too small," she said.

Then, taking her by complete surprise, father lifted her up high enough so that she could slam the head right on top of the middle snowball, and she squealed with joy. After, he threw her up in the air and caught her again before setting her down. She giggled fiercely. "Again!" she said.

Robb cut in. "No Sansa, we have to finish the snow soldier!"

It was a much quicker affair after the main body of the snowman was put together. Greyjoy went looking for some better sticks for arms, as the original arm sticks had been broken in their duels. Robb, Jon, and Sansa ran about the Godswood gathering every stone they could find, before putting them all over the snow soldier's body as a crude scale armor. Father drew a face onto the snow soldier's head, and found a particularly bulbous rock to use as its nose. Theon returned with two long sticks.

"That one's perfect!" Robb pointed to one of the two sticks and grinned toothily, "It looks just like an arm holding a sword."

It did look pretty good, Jon had to admit. But he could have found that stick just fine too.

"Of course it does," Theon replied, "I'm good at finding things." He jabbed both of the sticks into the sides of the snow soldier.

And with that, the snow soldier was complete.

They stood back to admire the man of snow and stone and stick.

"He's fearsome," father said.

Sansa nodded emphatically.

"We should make certain he doesn't fall apart," Robb said, "so he can guard the Godswood for us."

Father barked a laugh. "Indeed we shall. None shall come to this Godswood without first passing the mighty Stark snow soldier." Then he knelt and scooped Sansa back up again. She shrieked gleefully. "Come, boys."

All three of them followed after him, through ironwood trees and oaks and soldier pines as a sprinkling of snow fell around them. The Godswood was beautiful when it snowed like this, or at least Jon thought it was. He led them around the pools of water at the wood's center, and to the great gaping gaze of the heart tree.

He had been scared of it, but he liked it now, he thought. It was still scary, but it was formidable as well, and formidable is a good thing to be.

Sansa covered her eyes when she saw it, but when father sat in front of the heart tree, he placed her in his lap so that she would not have to see it. He gestured for each of them to sit near him.

Robb sat closest to father, and Jon and Theon sat to either side of Robb.

"Shhh," father said, when they had settled. "Do you hear it?"

They quieted. Jon could hear the wind rustling the red, hand-like leaves of the heart tree. He could hear the bubble of the water that came from the hot spring. He heard snow overfill a tree branch and fall. He heard the snow shrikes singing.

Theon frowned. "I just hear a bunch of noises."

Father nodded calmly. "Those noises are anything but…" He said. "They are the voices of the Old Gods, the Gods of the North," father continued. "They whisper to us, wherever we may be. All one must to do to hear them, is listen."

"But I'm of the Drowned God," Theon said, confused.

Father only smiled at that. "The Old Gods are not jealous Gods, Theon. If you listen, they will speak."

Theon hushed.

Jon closed his eyes. He felt the brisk chill of the air, heard the rustle of every branch and leaf. He heard the breaths of his brother, of his sister, his father, and even his father's ward. They were pleasant sounds, and pleasant feelings.

He had felt a Stark then, and not a Snow.

He was a Stark now, he realized.

He had always been a Stark, no matter the color of his cloak.

 

[all fictions]

My favorite parts from the books is when the Starklings reminisce about Winterfell and their lost childhoods, so I definitely enjoy this piece.

Sansa being like Arya when she was younger is also a surprisingly neat take.

 

[SRWG]

My favorite parts from the books is when the Starklings reminisce about Winterfell and their lost childhoods, so I definitely enjoy this piece.

Sansa being like Arya when she was younger is also a surprisingly neat take.

Click to shrink...

I'll definitely explore that a little further if/when I ever get to Sansa POVs. I like Sansa, she's just not especially relevant to this story, sadly. Thank you, your bumps are always appreciated.

 

[SRWG]

Aegon

Aegon chewed at his lip.

Maester Aemon's quarters were quite warm, as they usually tended towards. Winter crept ever closer, so it was a welcome change from the increasing chill of the outside. Standing atop the Wall, or even simply outside for too long was rapidly becoming unbearable. It was small wonder that, more and more, men were hiding in the subterranean halls of Castle Black, throughout the wormways, within the forge, or, as a last resort, sparring to keep their blood hot.

That there were now near two thousand additional men at Castle Black did little to combat its growing cold.

His eyes slid to the diminutive form reclining in the soft chair. Wrinkled, bald, and liver spotted, Aemon Targaryen, son of Maekar, was always something of a sorry sight. Yet, seeing him always managed to bring a smile to Aegon's face. The last dragon besides him, if his aunt had truly died on the Dothraki Sea; Aegon treasured him.

"Samwell?" came the creaky voice of his great uncle.

"No," said Aegon, "it's Griff." With so many new ears in the castle, he could not risk using his true name.

A smile broke across Aemon's thin, almost translucent, skin. "Ah, the Young Griff. Come closer, lad."

Aegon did so, taking several long strides and coming up close to the old man. He was growing taller still, having already passed Jon some time before. Idly, he wondered when he would finally stop. When he came to his great-great uncle's (or however it was) side, he suddenly found his tongue twisted, tied up into a knot.

The aged maester frowned. "What is it boy? Is something the matter?"

His eyes were drawn to the fire. He shouldn't have read so closely, it wasn't his right… but he had seen the seal, and then he knew he had to. "Will Janos be Lord Commander, do you figure?" he asked at last.

Aemon's bald eyebrows quirked. "Whatever else he was, he was a lord, Griff; it is wise to use a man's proper titles."

"Will he be Lord Commander?" Aegon repeated.

Aemon looked tired. "It is not for a maester to say, lad. The Watch chooses, and the maester serves."

A frown marred his own face, then, he knew.

Lord Janos was a fool. The men that Stannis Baratheon brought north had many a tale to tell of the exploits of the former Lord Commander of the Goldcloaks. Bribes, laundering, perhaps even assassinations. And everyone knew it was he that had led to Ned Stark's demise; this far north, that was not as much a compliment as it had been in the south. He had tried to force the issue of Jon Snow's "betrayal" as well, and he had led to many more turning on the bastard, despite Marsh's prior judgments.

Above it all, and worst of all, was that it seemed almost a foregone conclusion to Aegon that Janos would take up the mantle of Lord Commander. Every day that passed, the fat, jowly man inched ever forward in the counts.

At first, Bowen Marsh had kept even with Ser Denys Mallister, with Cotter Pyke trailing behind. Janos Slynt seemed hardly worth mentioning. Jarman Buckwell too had some votes, as did Othyll Yarwyck and a handful of others (Dolorous Edd, least of all). But every day, men dropped away from the Choosing. Every day, Janos gained a few more votes. And Bowen Marsh slipped most of all, compared to Ser Denys and Cotter Pyke.

He had held Castle Black, and won a victory over Styr and his Thenns; the Watch had not forgotten that. But as each choosing failed to elect a new Lord Commander, it became increasingly clear that it did not erase the man's prior reputation. 'Marsh counts spoons!' was a popular refrain. Mallister had served longer as a commander, and Pyke was more proven in battle. And Slynt… well…

"Tywin Lannister promises aid to the Watch," Aegon said, finally.

"You saw?"

"I did."

There were so few lettered men in the Watch, and Clydas had needed assistance after Haldon's injury. Samwell Tarly had not yet returned, and so he had helped. He'd seen the lion… and been unable to resist it.

Aemon let out a long-suffering breath. "A Lannister always pays his debts," he said, before chuckling dryly. "...Once that was not said in fear… or in threat, you know."

Aegon knew of Lannister's and their debts all too well. Elia and Rhaenys knew it better still. He felt a rage come into his chest, and his teeth grit hard. "Janos is not fit to be Lord Commander," he growled. "He is scarce fit to clean the nightsoil."

"Many a man has found a new life at the Wall," Aemon said noncommittally. "A man's crimes are wiped clean, and their slate is made anew. Every man in Westeros knows this, boy."

Aegon was not naive enough to believe any of it. It was an honorable calling, yes, but men did not change so swiftly. Men who had served on the Wall for years, or decades? Perhaps. Men who had kept to the Wall for mere weeks or months? Never.

Marsh would endorse Slynt, and then others would follow, and a simpering servant of the man who had killed his mother and sister would reign at the Wall. Janos Slynt, as their ally against the Others? It made him want to laugh. The man made jests of the Others, even as men who had fought wights roamed the yard.

"And what of Stannis?" Aegon asked.

"What of him?" Aemon asked.

Aegon made a noise, himself unsure of what exactly he was asking.

A smirk lit up Aemon's wrinkled face. "He is a harsh man, as I'm sure any here can tell you, but he is here to combat the Others by his own admission."

That much, Aegon knew for truth. The so-called king's red priestess had held nightfires every night since Stannis and his army arrived at Castle Black. She preached of demons in ice, and the cold claws of the dead. She told of the Battle for the Dawn, and Stannis Baratheon as Azor Ahai come again. They would fight, that was clear, and it was better than near every other man who'd named himself king these past years.

Part of him burned, truthfully, in knowing that he had not succeeded in rallying the Golden Company to the Wall's aid, while this latecomer had succeeded so effortlessly.

And now Aegon was all but trapped here.

"Are you keeping to the dye?"

Aegon snorted. "It is more important now than ever," he replied. Part of him had hoped to let it fade, so that it might be silver by the time he brought evidence to the Golden Company, but Stannis's arrival had dashed those hopes. Bowen Marsh had let slip their connection to the Golden Company, but Stannis knew aught else of them. "I am only a sellsword's get."

"Hmm," Aemon said, "keep it as such. Lord Stannis would not suffer a Targaryen princeling in his midst. Were I young enough to push my claim, why, my head would decorate a spear most nicely I fear." He laughed, but sobered quickly. "...Despite his priestess's claims, his sword is no true Lightbringer, no matter what the man crow as they sup. The sword has no heat, only light; an illusion, and nothing more."

That, Aegon was somewhat startled to hear. He knew Stannis was no man of prophecy, but his blade had impressed him regardless. It shone brilliantly when unsheathed; they all had seen it when he first passed through the gate. Legends oft grew in the telling, so Aegon had not decried the sword's lack of fire. "Lightbringer or no, I would not turn away such a blade."

Aemon was silent then, and for a moment, all Aegon could hear was the crackling of the fire.

"No man should aspire to Azor Ahai's mantle," The old man said at last. "None should seek Lightbringer, or chase its trail. Let legends lie, and prophecies fade." A drawn out breath, and blind eyes staring. "No good comes of them, Egg."

-

Suppers had become a considerably more raucous affair since Stannis's arrival. Yes, the man of each camp tended to stick to their own, but there were always those brave or companionable souls that sought new company. Aegon had always been such a man, to Jon's everlasting consternation.

King's Men, Queen's Men, Eastwatch men, Castle Black men, and even Shadow Tower men (though few, in that last case). The men of the Night's Watch mingled freely, while Stannis's men had at first been rather bashful. Still, as the days passed, it was becoming increasingly common to see men bearing R'hllor's burning heart surrounded by men in black.

Jon though… Jon had been most paranoid since his audience with Stannis, and for once, Aegon could not begrudge him his caution. Stannis desired the Golden Company, and they were his means of getting it. They were all but wanted men, now, though it didn't quite feel like it to him.

As a result, he had mingled less than was his desire, and what few times he did, he was sure to have Duck at his side or back.

Tonight, he supped only with his "merry band of brothers", as Haldon had sometimes called them. Lemore wore the whites of her office, though covered in furs as she was, it was difficult to figure that she was a septa at all unless one knew her already. Haldon finally had energy and will enough to dine with the rest of them, and he sat serenely to Lemore's side, though it was clear that his face had thinned since the last time he had been seen in the common hall. Duck was Duck, and he managed to make his ever-scanning eyes seem lazy rather than watchful.

Jon… Jon was gone, at the moment. Aegon saw neither head nor tail of his father, nor of the wolfskin cloak that he had worn since Essos.

Nearest them was a shabby group of King's Men, with a handful of black brothers some space away. Aegon could not spy sigils on them, but they did not quite have the look of free riders to them. It was fortunate that it was all too easy to differentiate a Queen's from a King's man, one must only look for the burning heart.

Seems strange that they call themselves King's Men, when their king cares little for the Seven.

Lord Stannis was not so vocal as his red priestess at their nightfires, but he had been present near every night, his choice in the theological war at play among his followers seeming more than clear to Aegon.

Aegon shoveled a spoonful of mammoth and turnip stew into his mouth messily, as Duck might. He knew his manners, but it was important that he play his part well, he knew. The mammoth meat was stringy, and rather tough as well, somehow, but it was meat, and for that Aegon was thankful.

And then suddenly, a new body, bowl in hand, all but collapsed into the seat opposite Duck.

It was a face he had seen frequently about the yard; a fair, if fleshy, face, with neatly brushed flaxen hair and an easygoing smile. A talker, by his mannerisms. He bore the burning heart of R'hllor, with Stannis's stag in its middle, at his chest, clasping together his fur-lined cloak.

Duck was on guard instantly, Aegon knew, but he was a better mummer than Haldon and Jon gave him his dues for, and the man seemed to register none of that.

"Sers," the man said in greeting, "my lady," he said to Lemore with an especially dashing smile. "I fear I have not yet had the pleasure of your acquantiance…?" He trailed off, his question obvious.

Duck took charge, making certain to name himself a knight, and Aegon his lowly squire. Haldon and Lemore introduced themselves, with differing degrees of congeniality.

"Ser Justin Massey," the man said afterward, "of Stonedance, though I fear I am no longer quite so welcome there." He laughed gaily. "Might I sit?"

"Of course, good Ser," Duck replied, not noting that he was already sitting.

Ser Justin nodded appreciably, and eyed each of them in succession. "Have you heard the tale?" he asked with a quirk of his eyebrow that might have beguiled a tavern girl.

"Which tale?" Haldon asked. "The Florent burning, or another one?"

They had all heard that tale in short order. Every man of Stannis's number whispered (or gloated) of the Red God's gale, and the great speed with which it had carried them to Eastwatch.

The blond man's smile became strained. "Another," he said. "Of the false king, Joffrey the Illborn, and his yet more ignoble end."

Aegon smirked at that. "Only what we have been told by your fellow stag men."

Lemore made a face, pretending at pity for the "poor boy" who died at his own wedding. But even she had not mourned him when she heard tell of the likely bastard's untimely death.

Ser Justin swallowed a spoonful of the stew, frowning and shaking his head once he'd forced it down. "Ghastly stuff," he said. "But that wedding was more ghastly still." He chuckled. "Did you know that some are calling it the Purple Wedding?"

He hadn't. He'd heard much and more of the slaughter at the so-called Red Wedding, but he'd not heard this.

"Why purple?" Duck asked.

"Why, it's the color his face turned, when he choked to death of course." His smile was sardonic, then. "They say that he clawed out his own throat, turned it to ribbons to relieve the pressure, or so I've been told. Didn't work."

Haldon scratched at his stubbly chin. He had not been as studious in his clean-shavednness since his injury, and a coarse stubbled decorated his ascetic face. "The Strangler, I'd wager."

That drew the affable knight's attention. "The Strangler? It was poison then?"

Haldon half grunted and half chuckled. "If your compatriots tell it true, the ever-venerable Cersei Lannister blamed her brother, the Imp, for the boy king's death. And while I doubt the veracity of his involvement, the fact that it was poison seems all too evident." He waved a hand. "The Strangler imitates choking, you see. Administered properly, with the correct sorts of food, and it is likely most would never know the difference from true suffocation and the Strangler."

"A terrible way to die," said Lemore then, "truly. May the mother–"

There was a commotion at the front of the hall; Slynt was waddling up to the front of the common hall, flanked by the grim, grey-faced Ser Allister Thorne, the ever-red Bowen Marsh, and stony Othyll Yarwyck. Slynt smiled widely, appearing every inch the toad, even more than Pyp's friend Toad himself. His blacks were of higher, finer quality than any of the others' save for certain elements of Thorne's ensemble, such as the knight's sable cloak.

"Friends!" The fat man called above the commotion, as the soldiers and brothers alike gradually quieted. "Allies!" The last rumblings of conversation died out. "Brave brothers, who defended the Wall against Wildling hordes and the oathbreaker Mance Rayder!" He swept a stubby-fingered hand across to where most of Stannis's men sat. " Knights and men-at-arms, and our dear King Stannis, who scouts the Wall even now, who came to us in our time of need. I do declare a toast, for all who shed sweat, and blood, or their very lives in defense of our Wall and the Seven Kingdoms behind it!"

A cheer went up. Some men stomped their feet, or pounded their cups on the old wooden tables. Others merely shouted nonsensically. Aegon heard a man on the far side of the hall shout, "One God, One Realm, One King!" Others merely hollered incoherently.

Still, despite his myriad reservations, Aegon took a gulp of wine with the rest of the men. He owed those who had died that much, at the least.

Marsh stepped forward after most had swilled their wine or ale. "And on Lord Janos's insistence, more wine for all tonight!"

A second, much rowdier and more appreciative cheer roared through the common hall, shaking even the rafters. "To Janos!" Someone yelled out, and many more followed. "Janos!" "Janos Lord Commander!" "Slynt."

Aegon did not miss Ser Justin's frown, or how he drummed his fingers against the cracked old benches. He saw that most of Stannis's men bore similar expressions.

"He's bought them off then," Haldon said. "It was coming soon or late."

Ser Justin leaned back in his seat, and pushed his bowl of stew away. "I'd not thought he would be so brazen." He shook his head. "But the man was known well for his bribes, even outside of King's Landing. Small wonder he would do the same here."

And Aegon knew what he had bribed them with. Tywin Lannister.

When Ser Justin said his goodbyes, and left the hall (surely, to alert the King or the red priestess), Aegon turned to his companions.

"Tywin Lannister has pledged support to the Watch should that… that– scoundrel become Lord Commander," he all but spat. "And with the Lord Steward and First Builder behind him, he will be."

Septa Lemore hushed him. "He does not know us," she said. "If Tywin Lannister would spend his strength, or his gold, here let him."

Aegon shook his head, and crossed his arms. "I do not like it," he said with a growl. "Would that I had some of the Strangler here now; I would know where to put it."

Duck cuffed him on his shoulder. "Quiet, squire," he said in reprimand. "That's not very knightly behavior of you, boy. Say such again and you'll get a clout in the ear."

Aegon almost laughed at that, but still, his mood simmered low, and he saw the anxiety plain on Duck and Lemore and Haldon's faces as well.

He watched as the Sworn Brothers of the Night's Watch drank the wine that Lord Marsh had provided them. He watched as Three Finger Hobb and his cooks brought the first desserts any of them had seen in weeks or months. He watched Ser Alliser Thorne and Janos Slynt share a full, belly laugh.

He thought of Elia and Rhaenys, and he felt gorge rise in his throat.

Spoiler: AN

Decided to just post these as I complete them. It's unbeta-d, so if you spot anything iffy, let me know. Hope y'all enjoy.

 

[Chojomeka]

One can only hope that R'hllor's Light will ensure that Jon Snow becomes the next Lord Commander.

 

[SRWG]

Haldon

"On the morrow, then" Duck called from a distance.

The biting night winds whipped at Haldon's face, and he felt himself frown. "What are you doing?" Haldon asked.

Duck shrugged his brawny shoulders languidly. "Taking a watch at the top," he replied with an exaggerated point at the Wall. In the dark, the Wall could appear almost black, at times. A great hulking shadow that loomed in their vision wheresoever they might go at Castle Black.

"Why?"

Another shrug. "Habit, I suppose." Then. "Make certain Griff knows, we both know how he gets." Ser Rolly was then off with a laugh and a wave.

"Mind the winds!" Haldon called. The winds had become harsh, and at the top, they were only harsher. This Duck can't fly, I'd wager.

Haldon continued to the squat building that housed both Maester Aemon and Clydas (and Samwell Tarly too, now that he had returned). He had thought to rejoin Griff and Duck and the rest after he was adequately recovered from his wound, but Maester Aemon had insisted that he stay in his so-called "temporary" quarters. Their party's new quarters were not quite so comfortable as their previous ones in the King's Tower, for they had been moved to considerably dingier chambers after Stannis Baratheon smashed Mance Rayder beneath the Wall. Haldon would not miss resting in their new chambers, then.

Throughout his recovery, he had found himself longing for Duck's japes, Lemore's feigned insinuations, and even Griff's (increasingly common) rages. The lad he missed most of all, as he laid abed. They had all visited him, frequently even, but it was not the same as when they had all kept to neighboring rooms in stray Essosi taverns, or aboard The Shy Maid.

But he would not throw the aged Targaryen's offer back into his deeply lined face, no matter how much he missed his companions. It was not every man that received his own room at Castle Black, and besides, he had more than an inkling that Aegon was the force behind it all.

A particularly chilling gust whipped past him, and he felt a twinge in his side. He stopped, clutching where he knew the wound to be; he wore some meager bandages still, though it had mostly ceased its leaking. Haldon hissed lightly. When the pain dulled, he continued his trek across the dark yards of Castle Black.

Every day, he sent up a stray prayer to the Mother for her mercy. Had that spear gone up a tad more, or angled more to the right… He'd have lost a lung, or perhaps even his very heart. He'd have been dead in moments, or minutes perhaps.

There was pain, still, and he would most likely never sit comfortably ahorse again (out of anxiety over his wounding, or the wound itself, he could not truly say) but he was thankful nonetheless. Better men had taken lesser wounds, and died for it.

Donal Noye's forge was alight, even now; the harsh clanging of his hammer echoed more often than ever, it seemed. Aegon had left the common hall in a rush with Noye's name on his lips, and Haldon was almost certain he knew the lad's cause.

If Noye wanted it, he'd have made his bid by now.

Noye was well liked by most, if Aegon and Duck told it true. The two of them had spent more time than any of them (excepting Lemore perhaps, due to her work in the sept) with the black brothers of the Night's Watch, and so knew their attitudes better than he or Griff ever could. He might have been Lord Commander already, if he desired it. But the man had taken the Night's Watch vow willingly; like as not, the one-armed blacksmith had wanted to live out the rest of his days honorably, with little distinction.

Haldon saw the appeal, truthfully.

The interior of Maester Aemon's quarters was a welcome respite from the biting cold of the yard. Every fire that could be burning in the building, was. Tallow candles glowed bright in every corner, and the hearth was roaring high. For a moment, he heard only the fire and his own footsteps, but soon, he heard the shufflings of who could only have been Clydas a room away.

Maester Aemon retired early, and woke even earlier most days, so he was doubtlessly asleep already.

A door creaked open, catching his attention. A fat, dark eyed face peered out, thick fingers like sausages clutching tightly at the edge of the door.

"Oh.." said Samwell Tarly, "It's you."

Haldon offered him a nod. "It is." He paused. "...Is Maester Aemon well?"

A frown split Tarly's plump face. "He–Maester Aemon, I mean… he has not been as... bright as normal, I fear."

You fear everything, craven, Haldon wanted to say, but he held his tongue. For all that this boy seemed, he was the first man in what might be eight thousand years to slay an Other. It felt… absurd to Haldon, looking at him, but others had seen the act, and Aegon trusted in those who had. Instead, Haldon said simply, "Ah. Send him my prayers, Tarly."

The fat lordling bobbed his head, retreating as quickly as he appeared.

Haldon continued, moving quickly through the room and into the quarters that had been offered to him by the kindly maester. Clydas, or Sam, in fact, had kept his hearth up as well, for which Haldon was thankful. He unclasped his cloak and set it atop one of his many chests.

Aegon and Duck both had transferred his many chests from his previous room to this one, after it became clear that he would be spending much of his time abed. Neither of the two had been so... fortunate as to ever take an injury as potentially mortal as he had, but still, they knew the rancors of boredom as well as any man. It had taken most of the daylight hours to haul each of the chests across the grounds of Castle Black.

Duck had japed, "You're only half a maester, why not take only half the chests?" Which had earned him a harsh reprimand from the lad.

His many chests contained all manners of goods. Medicines, tomes aplenty, sheafs of hastily transcribed High Valyrian poetry, and more. Anything and everything a healer and teacher might need. Griff had made it all too clear that he must be prepared for any and every grim occurrence that might befall them. As it happened, Griff had a wondrous imagination when it pertained to risks and dangers and nightmarish scenarios of his own making.

Griff…

It stung, somewhat, to know that that Griff would have seen them leave him behind, to the mercies of Mance Rayder and his terrible horde; it did not sting quite so acutely now, though. If Haldon could have known that they would be trapped between the Wall and Stannis Baratheon in short order, he'd have shooed Aegon out himself.

Still, what was done, was done. He could not change the past.

That had been driven into him fairly quickly, during his limited studies into the magical arts at the Citadel.

Haldon scratched at his stubbly chin, unused to the feeling of it. For as long as he'd been able to grow his beard, he'd driven it away. Well, excepting that first time. He had learned even more quickly that he would never grow a mighty mess of hair on his face.

His eyes fell to his many chests.

Which one is it? He had intentionally kept his containers nondescript, so as to avert suspicious gazes, but sometimes that decision made it difficult to remember where he had stored what. Especially after a brute and his squire disrupt the order of things.

He unclasped the nearest, drew it open, and then gazed into its contents. Tomes on tomes. Inks. Parchments. Anything and everything he might need to teach a princeling to read or write.

Closing it, he pushed it aside and made for the next. More tomes. Geometry, and sums being the primary focuses. His well-worn Cyvasse board sat in this one as well, along with some few maester-ly implements.

The next stored clothes, primarily. His clothes, the lad's, even a few that could only be Lemore's. Duck brought it by mistake, surely.

In the fourth, he found what he sought.

Medicines, powders, materials for poultices, cloth for bandages, and beneath it all, vials of sweetsleep and dreamwine; it was everything half a maester should need, and more than enough to make him the envy of many a village healer. Griff had made certain that Haldon would have the cure for every ill that might befall their charge.

A dead dragon would hinder the cause, no matter its righteousness.

The grimness of the thought almost made him chuckle.

It was not their dragon prince that ailed, though, but something rather different. Aegon had realized it quickly enough, and surely Maester Aemon knew it too. Tarly as well, if he was so sharp as his many friends (and many more enemies) claimed.

The great bulk of the Night's Watch were brutes. Rapers. Murderers. Thieves. If they had been smart, they would have never been caught and sentenced, he supposed, so he could not blame them, truly. But still, Haldon Halfmaester knew a sickness when he saw one.

Griff had taken great care to ensure that Haldon possessed every medicine he might need, but his few years in the Golden Company had taught the Halfmaester much about warfare, perhaps more even than his years in the Citadel had. It had taught him that healing might not always be so simple as it seemed. Magister Illyrio had agreed, and sent for some last… rarer medicines.

Beneath it all, hidden in a secret, lower compartment, were his most prized potions and powders.

Haldon's fingers brushed each vial in turn, feeling the cool glass on his fingertips. Illyrio had furnished him well, but he had never needed to use one. They had sat unused, unloved for many years. He drew out the one he desired, and held it aloft, letting it catch the light of the hearth.

What could only be described as blood pooled at the bottom of the vial. He shook it, smoothing out its consistency some, and smiled.

A sickness was taking root in the Night's Watch, and it wanted for bleeding.

-

Jon

Jon had not bothered to go to the common hall that morning. He knew full well what the counts would result in; it would have taken a man more blind than Maester Aemon not to see it. He had asked Pyp to cast his own vote for Ser Denys Mallister, though he knew it would make little difference. So instead, Jon drew up a bath.

And brooded.

"I don't want it," Noye had said. "I never have. Were it in my power, the Old Bear would be here still."

"Better you than Slynt," Jon had retorted.

Noye had laughed then. "Stannis thinks much the same, but I am no leader of men. I'm a blacksmith, and nothing more. Whatever else Janos Slynt is, he is a commander, and if the Watch wants him, the Watch shall have him."

They were his brothers, each and every one of them. Even Thorne, for better or worse. The Watch had always chosen its leaders, and not every choice had been a wise one; the histories said that much at the very least.

Jon sank deeper into the pool of warm water, feeling its heat against his chin. He shivered.

In the commons, he'd heard an Eastwatch man with a bushy brown beard complain of Slynt's growing popularity.

"You've all heard what King Stannis and his men have said. The man is a scoundrel, why should he sit where Mormont once sat?"

One-Nose Wayne (so named for his nose having been cut in two by a Wildling's dagger) had spoken up then. "Why shouldn't he? Our crimes are wiped clean, our slate polished to a pretty shine when we say our words! Lord Slynt led the Goldcloaks for years, and a man does not rise so high by chance and villainy alone."

Another, Tommas of Maidenpool, had continued it. "That's if what Lord Stannis says is even true. It might all be slander for all we can know. He wants us as his leal vassals, every one of us can see that, plain as piss."

Jon let out a ragged breath.

It all came back to Stannis, it seemed. Stannis and his word.

"You need only bend your knee, lay your sword at my feet, and pledge yourself to my service, and you shall rise again as Jon Stark, the Lord of Winterfell."

He wanted it, didn't he?

He'd always wanted it. He wanted to be lord. He wanted Ice. He wanted to sit the throne of the old Kings of Winter, the throne that he had seen his father sit a thousand times. He wanted to rule wisely and justly, as father always had. Winterfell was his home. The North was his home. It always had been.

But it was Robb's, not his. And if not Robb's then Bran's. Then baby Rickon's. Then Sansa. And finally, Arya Underfoot. He was a bastard, and each of them trueborn. And now they were gone, each and every one of them dead or disappeared.

Robb, slain at the Twins by traitors.

Bran and Rickon both murdered by a turncloak, a man that they both had thought of as something close to blood.

Sansa was gone, and Lady Lannister besides (as Stannis had said pointedly).

And Arya… Arya could only be dead as well.

Jon was the last.

He was the last wolf of Lord Eddard Stark's brood. The last that might set things to rights. That could return Winterfell to its former glory, could avenge the deaths of his siblings and his father.

But… he had said the words. He had said them before his father's gods, the gods of the North. He had vowed to hold no titles and take no wife. To father no children. He had solemnly sworn to be the shield that guards the realms of men, from that day until his last.

He almost laughed.

What day will be my last, I wonder?

Would it be tomorrow? When Lord Commander Slynt decided that the Watch would not suffer a warg to live, whether or not Ghost was at his side?

Perhaps in a month? A tumble off the Wall could look entirely accidental on a windy night.

Maybe Slynt would have a change of heart, and decide to reach out to the Free Folk after all. Jon would be sent (for he knew them best, after all), with a gaggle of Slynt's best men at his side, he didn't doubt. Any one of which would take fine care to ensure that Jon had a fair night's sleep.

And all that, because he had said some words.

Because he had said the words.

Words are wind, many men said, but Jon knew otherwise. A man was his word.

"A vow sworn to a tree has no more power than one sworn to your shoes," the red witch had said. A strange look had passed over her glittering red eyes then, a strangled look, an unsure one. "R'hllor is the only true god, Jon Snow. He offers you this chance. He offers you Winterfell."

But Jon had heard all the stories. He knew this red god's price; the Seven had been burned on Dragonstone, and the Godswood turned to kindling at Storm's End. "Then what of my father's gods? The Old Gods? Would you have them razed, as you have elsewhere?"

A fire had come to her eyes, a passionate blaze that shone like the sun for half a heartbeat. Then, it was gone, and it was Stannis who was speaking.

"Keep what gods you will, Snow, I need only your loyalty." Something grim twisted the dour man's lips, but Jon hadn't known if it was a smile or a grimace. "Your father and my brother bled together, and their gods were not the same. Sword and service is all I demand, and Winterfell will be yours."

Sword and service.

Once, he thought to swear himself to Robb; perhaps even to Bran, if he received the keep father had thought to bestow him. He'd have made a capable castellan, or a captain of the guard, and both were respectable positions for a bastard, he knew.

But he'd wanted to rise, and rise high.

How much higher might a man go? Lord Paramount and Warden of the North is a worthy station. It was far beyond anything he had dreamed of since his childhood.

He might be the Young Dragon come again, though he would be retaking his home, and not Dorne.

Jon shivered again.

The water was growing lukewarm quickly.

He tried to vacate his thoughts for a time, merely letting the ever-cooler water soothe his muscles and his bones. His leg still had some healing to do, though he did not require his crutches as much as he had before. It would be some weeks before he could walk and run as he had before, though, Aemon said.

The sound of step against stone caught his ears suddenly, and he looked up, drawing himself out of the water some.

"Ho there!" Called a voice he knew at once, the slight hint of accent being incredibly noticeable to Jon's ear.

Jon shifted. "Griff," he replied, forcing something approaching good cheer into his tone. "Fancy a bath? I'm afraid my water has lost its warmth."

The tall, lithe form of the Young Griff approached him, and again, Jon was struck by the Essosi's look. He was dark, darker than most in Westeros but the Dornish, and his blue hair was garish to most anyone, but still, he was handsome. He'd have put Theon Greyjoy to shame, if they ever had gone wenching together. His eyes alone would have seen most any girl in all of Winterfell or Winter Town fall into his lap.

A ghost of a smile danced across Griff's face, but it became hard all too quickly. "Ah, no," he said. "Pyp wanted to tell you himself, but he had duties to see to." He looked away, and Jon saw the Essosi's pretty jaw clench. "Slynt is Lord Commander," he said at last. "With the endorsements by Yarwyck and Marsh–"

"–and Hobb," Jon added.

"–yes, and Hobb." Griff threw a hand out aimlessly. "There was no other way it might have gone."

Jon couldn't help the laugh that escaped him then, and the look that the blue haired boy shot him only deepened his laugh.

"What is it, Snow?" Griff asked, affronted.

Jon waved a hand. "I'm not certain," he replied as he calmed, "Joy that this farce is over, perhaps?" Jon shrugged, and pulled himself out of the bath.

Most men tended to avert their eyes, if only slightly, but Griff did not. Famed Essosi looseness, I presume.

"Slynt begrudges you your very existence, Snow," Griff said, almost accusatory. "He spat lies and slander into any man's ear that might give him the time to spit it. A traitor's bastard, he said. A warg. A wildling in black. Turncloak." A strained look passed his eyes. "You're in danger, Jon."

Jon shrugged again. "We all are, with the Others at the gates. If I die now or then, what does it matter?"

"Boil has told me of Mance Rayder," Griff said, after a long quiet. "He's told me a hundred stories, a thousand, maybe. Battling this magnar, or earning the trust of that chief; joining the giants and men under the very same banner." Another pause. "It is as you said, I believe. He's a good man. An oathbreaker, yes, but a good man." He looked pointedly at Jon. "Better to run, I say," Griff whispered, drawing closer. "You're no good in the war that's coming if you're dead."

Jon considered it.

"Might I ask you a question, Griff?"

The boy pulled away again. "You may."

Jon looked into the boy's dark violet eyes. "If you had the opportunity to take vengeance for your mother and sister, would you?"

Griff's answer was immediate. "I would." His purple eyes were like amethysts, and his jaw was clenched. Jon saw no lies in his gaze.

'And if you had to break your word to do it?' He wanted to ask, but he didn't. He didn't need to, really, because he had his answer.

He'd always had it, after a fashion.

"Fetch me a cloth, will you?" He asked, belatedly realizing that he was still stark naked. "And tell the others I may miss supper."

-

There were more men in the King's Tower than he had ever seen. Every level of the old tower seemed to have king's men and queen's men pouring out of it, like so many maggots in a carcass. The King's Tower had not seen a king in many years, he knew, and Stannis kept his men well occupied. It was warm, besides, and it sheltered them from the winds.

Men all throughout the tower eyed him. Many with suspicion, some few with dull wonder. Talk traveled in Castle Black, and he didn't doubt that near every man in the tower knew of him and his purported abilities. A warg most said, some others might call him a skinchanger. Perhaps a few others would call him a beast in human flesh. But they all knew that he had spoken to the king some days previous. They knew he was of some importance.

He doubted they knew the truth, of course.

The guards outside the king's solar eyed him harder than the rest. Both wore full plate and mail, sans helms, polished to something that might charitably be called a shine, and held swords rather than spears. The hall was neither tall nor wide enough to allow for efficient use of a polearm, so it was the smart decision, to Jon.

Jon inclined his head to the both of them, noting that both wore yellow and red livery marked with the burning heart, rather than the original Baratheon sigil. "Might I speak with His Grace?"

One frowned, and the other glared at him with suspicious brown eyes.

"We'll have your swordbelt then," the other, the fair-haired one, commanded.

Shaking his head, Jon patted at Longclaw's pommel. "I should think not. His Grace has need of it."

The brown-eyed one's frown deepened, and he shared a look of naked suspicion with his companion.

"Devan!" the fair-haired guard called.

Jon heard movement from behind the door, and when it opened, he saw a brown haired and brown eyed boy on the other end. Common, by the look of him. After a hushed and hurried whisper, the door closed again.

There was more movement behind the door, and more glares from the men guarding it. Then, there was a barked command that he could hear only dimly. The door opened again, and the boy who could only be Devan bobbed his head in Jon's direction.

"His Grace will see you," he said, almost more to the guards than to Jon.

Jon entered the room, sword in hand, and felt the blessed warmth of the fire within.

King Stannis's fabled sword hung from a peg to the side of the roaring hearth, and a map stretched across the desk that Jon had once delivered Mormont's breakfast to. A tallow candle, a gauntlet, and an inkwell sat atop three of the map's four corners, so as to keep it from curling back up.

The king stood, tall and imperious before the map.

The king's squire scurried out of the room without a word, and the door slammed behind him resoundingly.

"I pray you are not here to kill me, Lord Snow," the king said. The blue pits that some called eyes bored into his own, and his mouth was set firm. Jon might have taken it for a jape, if the man were not so grim. Dressed in simple brown garb, Stannis Baratheon would not have seemed a king at all, had he not been wearing his crown; the golden points forged like fire glowed like it in the light of the blaze, and the ruby at the crown's fore glittered most of all.

Jon did not laugh, and he did not smile. He made his face ice. He made it like father's had always been, when he held court or when he settled disputes. He hardened, as father always had, when he had to take a life.

"Your Grace," Jon said, kneeling deep and low. He unsheathed Longclaw, the grey of the Valyrian steel catching the light as it slid from the scabbard. Ghost's garnet eyes stared out at him from the hilt of the sword as he laid it down at Stannis's feet. "My sword is yours," he said, breathing deeply. "I will hold the North in your name, uphold your laws, and visit your justice upon those who would see your laws besmirched. From this day until my last, I am your leal servant." He looked up, and saw blue eyes staring down at him. The red ruby of the king's crown glittered still. "In the light of your god, and in the hearing of my own, I do swear it."

The king's jaw unclenched, and something washed over his face then. Something Jon could not put a name to.

Stannis Baratheon offered him a hand. "Then rise again as Jon Stark," he intoned. "Rise as the Lord of Winterfell, and the Warden of the North."

Lord Jon Stark accepted the king's hand, and rose to his feet.

Spoiler: AN

As always now, I hope the wait was worth it. Teaching continues to be a real piece of work, and my creative juices end up rather sapped. Still, I hope y'all enjoyed it.

Some on other sites called this after the last couple chapters, but it had been my intent from the beginning, and very few made that guess early on, haha.

 

[Chojomeka]

Oh Jon at least this way those fools that lied to themselves won't stab you in the back this time....right?

 

[all fictions]

"I don't want it,"

Click to shrink...

He wanted it, didn't he?

He'd always wanted it.

Click to shrink...

You absolute memelord. I don't know if this is a deliberate callback to the show, but I will take it as such.

But yeah, lots of changes to the NW this time around, most for the worse.

 

[SRWG]

You absolute memelord. I don't know if this is a deliberate callback to the show, but I will take it as such.

But yeah, lots of changes to the NW this time around, most for the worse.

Click to shrink...

The Donal Noye exchange was 100% intentional, but that second quote was actually a complete accident. I'm so happy you pointed it out, I wish it had been intentional, haha

 

[SRWG]

Chapter XX: Like Pieces on a Cyvasse Board I

Selyse

Selyse did not like Eastwatch-by-the-Sea. She did not like it in the least.

It was a damp, dingy place. On its best days it was still a more miserable experience to walk its halls and lands than Dragonstone's on its worst. Air escaped her nostrils, the barest hints of a laugh. I never thought I could miss Dragonstone, she mused, but stranger things had happened. Red priestesses could travel from worlds away and bring the light of the true God to dark, stony halls.

One of her ladies turned to her. "Your Grace? Is something the matter?"

Arta Peasebury was a plain slip of a thing, with flaxen hair and wide brown eyes; childlike in some ways, she often seemed closer to Shireen's age than her own. She was the second wife of Lord Peasebury, who had marched away with Stannis to battle Mance Rayder's Wildling horde. She was not the most glamorous of ladies-in-waiting, being from such a low house, but she was something.

And Lord Peasebury had remained loyal when so few had, so his wife served at her side.

"It is nothing, Arta." She sniffed. "Simply a humorous thought."

The queen turned away from the window that overlooked the Night's Watch's pathetic port, and the choppy waters that spread out all the way to the horizon.

"Tell me true," Selyse said to Arta. "What did you think of Dragonstone?"

Arta's eyes widened, and she stopped her sewing. "Your Grace?"

Selyse's mouth became a thin line. "Must a queen repeat herself?"

"Ah–no," she replied, quailing. "Begging your pardon, Your Grace." Arta looked down to her work. She was sewing a fiery heart onto the jerkin of a Sworn Brother. "It… was a dismal place, Your Grace." She frowned. "The gargoyles and the stonework, were… immaculate, but terrible. I liked it not, when first I arrived."

The queen offered her a nod. "It was much the same for me." She sniffed again. "Brightwater Keep was beautiful. The colors of a thousand harvests decorated our fields, and the gardens. I miss the gardens still, truly. The weather too, was pleasantly warm nine days out of ten, and even our winters were not terrible. When I was wed to His Grace, and came to his seat, it was…" her lip curled, "an adjustment."

Rhaelle Fell, named for the mother of Steffon Baratheon, spoke up from her seat near the hearth. "They say that Dragonstone was raised with magic, that the dragons and gargoyles were set from liquid stone."

Serving men and women spread tales and falsities in every castle across the land. Selyse had heard many a story in her youth concerning the histories of Brightwater Keep from cooks and maids. Garth Greenhand had once sat in those very halls, some said. Garth had raised the halls himself, others said. Still others claimed it was Brandon the Builder who had raised Brightwater Keep, as if one man might have built every structure in all of Westeros.

But on Dragonstone, Selyse could believe it. The halls all but stank of sorcery, and the old Freehold had loved their magicks before the Doom, if old Maester Tybus's lessons could be trusted.

The Targaryens had had magic. Their dragons ruled the skies, and they through them. They had gelded the Gardener kings on dragonback and made seven kingdoms one.

And their blood flowed through her husband, and through Shireen.

Selyse returned to her own needlework as Arta began to chatter with Rhaelle. There was a considerable gap between the two ladies' ages, but they got along well enough. It had been more volatile, before, when Rona Sunglass was still among them, but she had sent her away after Guncer burned for his seditious crimes. Melara, at least, didn't have the energy to be volatile after Alester burned (Selyse had wanted to send Melara away, or leave her at Dragonstone, but Stannis demanded she be brought along as hostage).

Violet and Alona both were touring the docks and nearby fishing village, she knew, for the both of them, alone among her ladies, truly loved the sea.

And Arta's young daughter-by-marriage Jonquil reclined in a soft chair, fast asleep. Nominally, she was of Shireen's household, but Jonquil was disquieted by Shireen's greyscale and the fool Patchface, so Selyse had taken her in.

Shireen was in her chambers, she knew, with Patchface at her side and two guards outside her door. Shireen seemed to spend more time than ever alone since they landed at Eastwatch. They might break their fast together, and sup at each other's side, but unless specifically requested, Shireen would retreat to her quarters outside meals and the nightfires. Shireen had demanded her own quarters, and Selyse had relented.

Selyse frowned. A log cracked and spat in the hearth. Arta giggled.

Does she brood? She wondered. For what reason?

Stannis brooded. Stannis brooded long and often, but however much her husband retreated from others and glared into fires, he always had a reason. Stannis had much and more to brood over, while Shireen… Shireen had never brooded before, at least. Only sulked.

The queen stabbed at her needlework, frustrated.

Seria Chyttering had joined the conversation, "Dragonstone was not so–"

Then, there was a sharp knock on the door.

Melara, who had been vacantly working at some embroidery, jumped at the noise.

The door opened slightly and quickly, and Amber Grandison squeezed through the slit. It would not do to let the heat of the room escape, after all.

"Your Grace!" she called. "A raven from Castle Black!" She clutched a sealed letter tightly, and waved it frantically, breathless.

Selyse put aside her needlework. "Bring it here," she said, rising from her seat.

Standing, Selyse towered over every one of her ladies. However unladylike it might be, to be tall, she thought it only right. Royalty ought to rise higher than rabble.

Amber quickly crossed the threshold of the room, curtsied, and handed Selyse the letter.

She saw the stag of House Baratheon and the golden sealing wax it was pressed with. Stannis had not yet commissioned a new stamp bearing the burning heart of R'hllor, to her consternation, but she could not argue its legacy; hundreds of years of Durrandon rule in the Stormlands, and three hundred as Baratheons. It lent a certain legitimacy. She broke the wax delicately, as befit a true queen, and read the letter quickly.

Her ladies eyed her.

She read it again.

The dire wolf of House Stark stood proudly in silver alongside the stag of House Baratheon at the bottom.

"What is the news, Your Grace?" asked Seria Chyttering.

Selyse struggled to find the words for a moment. Never in a thousand years, would she have expected such an outcome. "The king has found himself a Stark," she answered finally, frowning.

Even Melara was looking up at her now.

Arta rose. "A Stark? The male line is dead, is it not?"

"Extinguished," agreed Lady Fell.

Selyse shook her head. "He has made himself one. Eddard Stark's bastard went to the Wall, and His Grace has made a lord of him."

An array of different emotions showed on her ladies' faces. Surprise, confusion, curiosity.

Selyse felt a measure of disgust at the notion, her studious upbringing ensuring that much at the least. Any love she might have had for bastards by the end of her education was quickly extinguished by Delena and the pig of a king that preceded Stannis. But she was no fool. She saw her husband's move for what it was.

"His Grace has won the North!" One of them said in a rush.

Melara caught her gaze, her eyes as guarded as they had been since the day of their departure from Dragonstone. "Let us pray," she said, her voice oddly hollow.

Selyse agreed. "Let us pray."

The room quieted, except for the sound of fire, and each of them prayed silently. Some bowed their heads, others looked to the fire, and Arta alone looked up to the rafters.

And Selyse thought. Perhaps he has won the North, but he has lost the Wall.

Janos Slynt was Lord Commander, the letter said, and if Robert had been a pig, then Janos Slynt was a worm. Even the little demon they called the Imp had seen that, else he would not have been sent north at all. She had even heard it that while at Eastwatch, the former Goldcloak Lord Commander had not once ventured to the top of the Wall.

The night is dark, and full of terrors.

In several long strides she had come to the hearth, and with another second and a flick of the wrist, she had sent the letter to R'hllor.

"Your Grace?" Seria asked.

"I must needs speak to my daughter."

Then she left.

-

Ser Malegorn stood guard outside Shireen's chambers. Broad, dark haired, and bearded, the man looked half a boar, but he was nonetheless one of her most devout knights, and would surely be among the first to be knighted again in the light of R'hllor, as Lady Melisandre planned. He was something of a lecher, but Selyse knew that little could be expected of men in that regard. A fire yearns to spread.

"Your Grace, Ser Benethon had...er– business to attend to. He shall be back shortly," Ser Malegorn said, a trace of sheepishness in his tone.

She frowned, but waved him off. "Ensure that he is," she said.

He bowed to her, then pulled the door open.

A rush of warm air escaped the doorway, as breath from a dragon, and Selyse passed through and into the room that Shireen had claimed for herself.

Inside, a fire burned preposterously high in the hearth. The windows were shuttered, keeping the room warm, warmer even than Selyse had been in her makeshift solar with her ladies-in-waiting. The tattooed fool sat atop a cushion to one side of the room, while Shireen sat crouched before the fire, gazing into the blaze intently.

Selyse smiled at that.

She knew that many named her smiles "tight", or "pinched", and in many cases that was true. The queen had little patience for dullards and fools, but she must always observe her courtesies, no matter the situation. But her own daughter come to the Lord's light was a sight she would always cherish.

Shireen had been so resistant, for so long, even more than Stannis in some ways. Cressen had filled her ear with lies while he breathed, and paid the price for it. And Edric Storm too had worked to keep the Seven false gods in her head, but Melisandre had gotten through to her, somehow, and Selyse was glad of that.

"Shireen," Selyse called as she crossed the room.

Shireen did not so much as turn from the fire.

"Shireen?" She called again.

The fool jingled and jangled in place, twisting his head this way and that, ringing the bells that hung from his antlered bucket hat with every turn of his head; still, Shireen did not move.

Selyse drew up to her daughter's side. Her blue eyes stared, all but entranced, into the fire.

She had been so happy... when Shireen was born. Seeing Stannis's blue eyes on the babe's face, and not her own, had been a salve to her in the wake of her failure to provide a proper heir. Selyse had not been able to save Shireen from the famed Florent ears, but she had been spared her own plain brown eyes at the least.

Shireen would never truly be beautiful. Never a Cersei Lannister, or a Margaery Tyrell. Her jaw was too strong, and she looked to have inherited her father's broad shoulders besides.

But R'hllor did not care for beauty.

Why else would Selyse have been the one to give Lady Melisandre the voice she required?

Why else would Shireen display the gift?

She crouched beside her daughter, the heavy furs she wore making it a more difficult affair than it might have been.

"What do you see?" She breathed. "What does the Lord show you, sweetling?" She brought a hand to her daughter's shoulder.

The blaze reflected in Shireen's deep blue eyes. Fire danced, orange and red and yellow.

Then, her daughter returned. The child of fire.

"What did you see?"

Her daughter finally seemed to notice her, but she did not jerk, or shrink, or cringe as she might have only months ago.

"Dragons," she said, "stone dragons." She looked back to the fire. "And ice too. Snow and ice and the Wall."

Selyse nodded, and took her daughter's hand, drawing her up to her feet. She led her daughter to the nearby bed, and sat upon it, holding Shireen close. Shireen wrapped her arms around her, quiet, but not shaken.

For a short time, they simply sat, listening to the fire. The roaring blaze, the crackling, splitting, and spitting of kindling, the jingling of the fool, the muffled echoes of wind and sea. She felt her daughter's heartbeat, somehow, even through all of the layers between them. She clutched her daughter closer.

Selyse yearned for a son, and prayed that the Lord of Light would grant her one still, but Shireen was hers. Stannis had been away for much of her life, and that left Shireen to her, for weeks and months and almost years at a time. They had been closer, when Shireen was younger, when the memory of the greyscale had been fresh, but she hoped that R'hllor would bring them yet closer together once again.

"Was it the Lady Melisandre's prophecies?" Selyse asked finally. "Was it them that called the stone dragons to mind?"

Melisandre had spoken to her at length of the true Seeing. R'hllor might grant visions with no regard to the devout's desires, but so to might the devout seek a specific future, a certain sight.

Shireen shrugged into her. "I don't know, mother." She looked back to the fire again. "Why do the dragons sleep? What hatches the stone dragons?" the princess asked.

Hatch?

"It is wake, Shireen, not hatch," Selyse answered, "and you know the answer as well as I. Lady Melisandre speaks of it frequently."

"King's blood," Shireen murmered, almost inaudibly.

"It flows in your veins. It flows in your father's veins. Even in mine own, thin as it might be." The Gardeners were kings for a thousand years or more, and none had a link to them stronger than that of House Florent. Melisandre had proved the truth of that too, when Alester burned.

Shireen clutched her harder. "Must someone burn?"

That gave Selyse pause. "...None can know the will of the Lord, not truly. We can attempt to abide by His edicts, follow His guidance, but we cannot know His desires with certainty. Those that burn, burn for a reason." They must. "...But it cannot be as simple as such. If it were, the Targaryens would never have lost their dragons; Aerion the Monstrous bore the blood of king's, and died by fire, and yet he begat no dragons."

"...And the Targaryens… they didn't sacrifice to hatch their dragons."

Selyse sniffed. "As the maesters tell it, no." The queen knew all too well that what men tell others was not necessarily the truth. What the dragon kings may have done in the depths of Dragonstone or the dungeons of Maegor's Holdfast, none of them would ever know. The Valyrian Freehold was an empire of sorcerers, and their dragons were only one part of their great power. "Enough of this talk of dragons, sweetling, the Lord is with us, and that is what matters. Azor Ahai had no need of them, and neither shall we."

Shireen's eyes widened, and she released her. "Did something happen? Is father victorious?"

"He is," Selyse confirmed, with another genuine smile. "The Lord has brought him victory over the Wildlings."

A smile curled the right side of Shireen's mouth up; the greyscale on her left side prevented smiles from ever becoming bright, full things. "I'm glad," Shireen said. "Father needed a victory, he told me."

Selyse felt her smile tighten. Shireen had spent more time in Stannis's confidence during their voyage than she herself had. Even taking into account the fact that she had managed to coax the man into her bed, she seemed to scarce chance upon his sour visage for the near month it took them to arrive at Eastwatch.

"There is more," Selyse continued, "your father has named Eddard Stark's bastard a lord, and means to use him to court the North."

Shireen's face scrunched as much as her greyscale allowed. "Is… Is that a good thing, mother?"

Selyse took her daughter's hand. "We must pray that it will be." She squeezed it tightly.

As queen, Selyse had always taken little initiative to demand a presence in her husband's war councils. War was not her domain, and it never had been. What little Maester Tybus had taught her of war had been concerned with the effects of them, the alliances that ensued and the boundaries that shifted, not the stratagems and gambits used by the men who fought the battles.

But the particulars of court had never been Stannis's strength, either. That was woman's domain, not man's. Men could not know the fear of a poorly made match, would never know the terror of a bedding, or the pressures to produce a son. Men were warriors, and at times it seemed that is all they thought of. Battles. And how to win them.

Perhaps Stannis had made the correct choice, or perhaps he had not; but Selyse would not see the seeds of another Blackfyre Rebellion sown before her, not without her voice being heard. She would make sure of it herself.

"Come, Shireen. We must fetch the maids and stewards, we will not tarry here any longer."

"Mother?"

"I would not have it be said that the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms hides at Eastwatch," Selyse said imperiously. "Let the Onion Lord hold this place. There is to be a wedding at Castle Black, and we must make haste."

Spoiler: AN

A low key chunk, and I'd have liked to have another POV on here that was more central, but I hate leaving you guys hanging for too long. So here's the much loved Selyse.

Spoiler: spoilers

the OTP approaches

 

[Chojomeka]

Shireen continues to be best girl.

 

[nextive]

Don't actually know if Jon will be able to win over the north this time, the fanatical Stark loyalty of the north is strong but just leaving the Night's watch like this might not endear him to the lords.