A/N:

thought i was gonna ease into writing fanfic by starting with an OC story but i accidentally came up with a whole ass PLOT for it so now im posting it bc no one is here to stop me! the OC does some witch-y magic-y things so be prepared for that. i wasn't just gonna let some random girl loose in westeros without some help ya know?

any (if any) pairings will be happening much later im still debating that

also cross posted on AO3, same account apolotos.

Whatever is happening to Talya, it feels like apparating but botched and painful. It feels like she's being turned inside out, folding on herself, squeezed by a too-small undulating tube that explodes from pressure. It feels like a portkey, like something hooking onto her spine and pulling her but deeper, like it has latched onto her soul to grab and picked up her body as an afterthought.

It kind of feels like her mistress, like the Moon during her moon, drudging up the darkness beneath her soul and unearthing monstrous debris with it. It is deeply painful and wholly familiar except it is not the night of the full moon. The moon is recently new. It is a waxing sliver on the sky and her mistress has taken leave of her, for now.

Something is wrong.

Talya stumbles over heavy feet and stops suddenly. Her older brother, Augustin, immediately notices her falter and turns on her, grey eyes wide.

"Talya?" he asks and she clutches her chest, staring at him with wide, fearful eyes. "Talya—"

She coughs and it does nothing to clear the feeling away, only leaves her breathless and weak. She gasps and curls on herself again. She feels that powerful tug again and digs her heels into the ground as it pulls her back. Her body is being crushed tighter, the hook sinking deeper. She reaches for Augustin and he holds onto her forearms with a bruising grip.

"What's happening?"

She is being summoned, is what's happening. She knows it. Something is pulling her. She doesn't know why.

"Dontletgo." She growls. Her voice is grating and rips through her clenched jaw as she tries to anchor herself to this ground and her brother in front of her. They are the only words she can get out.

God bless her brother who loves her too much to ask questions when something is clearly wrong. He doesn't hesitate to wrap his arms under her arms and around her body, clutching him close to his broad chest. Her own hold is weakening and quickly. Quicker than she will ever admit.

She feels a great lurch and has to stop herself from throwing up as she's yanked away in every which direction. Augustin gasps as he feels her body move not of her accord. She feels the lurch and another compression. Her head is pounding, her bones creaking, that hook tearing into her soul and the darkness underneath.

She hears herself growl and snap and goes weak in her brother's arms. She does not want to let go but she cannot hold herself up when her bones are breaking. The pain makes her vision go in and out, flashing bright white and fading dark.

It hurts and Augustin does not let go. He holds her tighter.

Who could ask for a better brother?

Talya closes her eyes and embraces the agony.

This place is nothing. It feels like fog on her skin. She is flying through it, flipping, twisting, and free falling endlessly and not moving at all. Untethered. It feels free.

And then she blinks and comes upon the moon. It is larger than the sky, larger than anything she has ever seen or felt, grey and luminous and ancient. Her mistress. She braces herself for the pain and when it doesn't come she tentatively opens her eyes to it.

The voice is not a voice but a feeling.

You are needed, her mistress says. Talya can feel her will settling deep in her bones. It could be magic but it is greater and wilder and brings her to her knees instead of flowing through her. Talya has no chance of resistance, as per usual. Her mistress is too powerful.

Why is something so beautiful so cursed? Sometimes she thinks that if she were not so aware of her own insignificance, if she did not know her mistress's infinite power she would love it more. Is that love not more valuable than her hate? Not that she is allowed to hate it. The moon is a cruel mistress and her devotion is unwilling and forever eternal. She will die loving this pain.

A mortal dares call upon us.

Not me, not me, not me, Talya thinks with every cell in her being. She would never. But who is 'us'?

They dare summon us and call for a warrior. So we summon you.

Oh. A cosmic joke.

Yes, our boundless humour.

Talya will not ask what the joke is.

We give you a gift, they say, and the moon becomes a blade falling in front of her, drifting slowly like a piece of paper in a breeze, glittering a thousand different rainbows from a light she cannot see. It's long enough to be a sword only it is missing the hilt. It comes down only inches away from her face, twisting slowly like it's on display. She can see her reflection in the flat of the blade, her grey eyes reflecting the shifting colors of the blade, the scars slashing across her left cheek, narrowly missing the very outer corner of her eye, down to the side of her mouth.

Unbidden, she catches the blade and it slices the skin of her palm like a hot knife in butter. Hissing, she switches to her other hand and grips the blade by her fingertips. Her cut palm is burning, blood spilling into the mist and falling endlessly until out of sight.

A speck is rising up from underneath. It grows larger and larger, the color revealing itself to be blood red. It ripples and undulates. It is blood. A pillared fountain of steaming blood whooshing up in this nothingness. It rises above her like a tower and bursts into flame and evaporates into a woman.

She is beautiful, and very, very red. Red-haired, red-eyed, red-gowned. She wears a ruby choker that gleams unnaturally. She tastes like fire and smoke, like brimstone.

The red woman smiles serenely and Talya scowls. She stinks of magic. It clings to her like a rot. Her smile is too—she is too alert. This is not a vision or whatever is happening. This woman is real. The woman opens her mouth to speak but ice begins to creep up the bottom of her flowing red gown, stiffening the fabric with frost until she is totally frozen and shatters.

The ice shards fall like snow and a great tree grows from the mist. The bark is white as bone and the leaves are blood red and in the middle of it's wide trunk is a face weeping blood.

Behind the tree emerges a massive grey beast.

The wolf—it is a wolf of course, a true one, not the snarling mongrel beast that she knows herself to be—is stunning. She has never seen fur so endless perfectly grey. It feels…familiar and yet not. Peaceful; a feeling she does not come by often. Not for years since her turning.

The giant wolf settles on its haunches at the roots of the tree underneath the twisted face. They stare at each other.

Now you have the tools, the voice echoes in her head.

What? What is your will? What do I do? None of these gifts seem like anything at all. I don't understand.

You will know.

How will I know?

We will tell you.

Then she is falling, for real this time and the world becomes only wind and flame.