A Game of Dragons
Chapter 2: Intruders
~~~Pain, it was all around him...pain and darkness...Pain and Darkness!
No! Let me out! -Rand cried out, remembering the 'box' he had been stuffed into for a time, before Dumai Wells and...
Min! Aviendha! -Rand yelled out loud, his memory slowly returning through the thick blanket of pain and darkness.
"Be quiet in there, intruder!" -a muffled voice yelled back, shocking Rand.
'Wait a minute...intruder? Then that must mean that i'm likely in a...!' Where is Min and Aviendha! -Rand, once more, yelled out loud.
A loud noise is heard, just before blinding light filled the space and he was forced to close his eyes again before a new pain blossomed inside his head and darkness claimed him again...
~~~"My lord, intruders were found within the lower levels of the Keep, I'd not have bothered you but...the man and two women found have odd but finely-cut clothes! They seem like nobles...and they were found unconscious..."
With a heavy sigh, a very tired Hand of the King stood up from his desk.
"Very well...lead the way and we can begin the interrogation"
"Which of the three, first, my lord?"
"Whichever is closest, I am too tired to visit all three tonight so the other two will have to wait till the morrow"
"As you wish, me lord"
Ned Stark barely heard as he was so wrapped up in how to tell his friend, the king, that the only children he really had were all bastards.
Jon Arryn...his death jest hadn't sat well with him, under the circumstances.
Then, following in his footsteps, discovered the blacksmith boy, looking exactly as his 15 year-old friend and King...Robert Baratheon.
After that he'd gone through that book from Pycelle's collection...and finding no Baratheon in their entire history as having 'fair of hair' anywhere in their line...
"We're here, me lord"
Ned looked around in surprise, having been lost in his own thoughts.
"Very well, open the cell"
With that, the door creaked open on hinges that would likely have rusted shut in a few more years of dis-use.
~~~Rand awoke, even more groggily than the last time. However, strangely enough, he did remember enough to keep calm and...quiet.
Instead of a repeat of earlier, he simply focused inward, sensing Min and Aviendha through the Warder bond.
He could sense a soreness, likely from being handled ruffly when they were imprisoned, but other-wise fine...if somewhat further away than he expected.
'I need to escape from here and rescue them' -Rand thought, growing ever more alert.
His instant attempt to grab a hold of Saiden proved to be an effort in futility however, as it would seem that he still could not grasp it.
With a snort for not getting the easy way out of his current surroundings, he decided to wait.
Sooner or later the will open that door...and when they do...
He didn't have to wait very long, as the door started to creak open...
~~~"Forgive me, my lord, but he may not be able to speak well at the moment"
"And why is that?" -Ned asks the guard.
Well, he awoke a while ago and started yelling, so I hit him in the head to shut him up...
"How are they to be interrogated if their beaten senseless?" -Ned asked the man sternly, getting irritated at having wasted his time coming here if the intruder in question had been...
That was as far as Ned got, as the door was now fully open and the man launched himself at them.
Then chaos ensued, the intruder fought with a primal ferocity that beggared belief!
The guard that opened the cell door, had his throat crushed for his trouble.
The guard that was talking to Ned was shoved forward so hard the Ned thought he heard the poor man's spine crack from the force of it, as he tried dodging the man.
Ned was no longer the spry, young, warrior he was during the rebellion against the Mad King and wasn't quite quick enough.
Ned let out a grunt as his back hit the hard, cold, stone floor and the guard fell on top of him.
"Where are they? Take me to them!" -The red-haired man demanded of him in a strange accent.
"I do not know...who are you? Where are you from?" -Ned started questioning the strange man while trying to maneuver his hand around a weapon, as well as free himself the burden of what felt like a corpse on top of him.
~~~Rand stared at the man on the floor...he seemed like some sort of noble compared to the other two. Making the hasty decision, against his better judgment, to answer the man in hopes that he would like-wise answer his own questions, replied.
"I am Rand Al'Thor, The Dragon Reborn"
The 'noble' on the floor merely made a confused face...Rand thought that giving him his most well-known title would have sparked something, anything...but confusion like this man had never heard of such a thing.
"Now, tell me...where are they?" -Rand said with cold eyes and the tone of voice to match.
~~~Ned Stark, Hand of the King, still had no clue as to what to make of this dangerous man...The Dragon Reborn? What was that even supposed to mean?
"Like I said before...i really don't know, though I may be able to help you find them if you can promise me that you will do no more harm..."
"Deal...but if you plan treachery..."
The strange man let the threat hang in the air, un-said.
Ned dared not let this man loose in the Keep, unsupervised after what he'd just seen him do within such a short time of the cell door opening.
Though this man had been detained in the Black Cells in level 3, Ned assumed that the girls' would be kept in level 2 of the dungeons.
He was proved wrong in this assumption as the man stopped and said "No, this way".
A short time later they encountered the guard posted outside the cell who was clearly confused as to why the Hand was leading the male intruder here for a few seconds as realization dawned on him and left to presumably alert others.
Upon opening the cell, a red-haired woman with blonde highlights and blue-green eyes calmly walked out and the two shared a long look between them...
"Let's go get Min"-The man said, to which the woman nodded.
Turning around, the man started down the dimly lit corridor once more.
It was if he knew the general direction of where the prisoner was located...
~~~Rand was unsure as to what he'd do with the man that was with them once they found Min.
The man, from what he'd seen so far, didn't seem like a bad guy, however...
"Who are you, exactly anyway?"-Rand asked the dark-haired man.
"I am Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell, and Hand of the King"-Ned replied calmly.
"What nation are we in right now?"-Rand asked, growing somewhat uncomfortable with the possibility that they were actually in an unknown land...possibly in another world entirely considering how they ended up here.
The man's brow scrunched in confusion.
"We are in Westeros, in King's Landing of the Seven Kingdom's...why would you ask?"
"Because we have no idea where we are...neither are we sure of just how we got here to begin with"-Rand said almost casually.
"Here"-Rand said stopping in front of a door as a guard near it blurted; "So they are noble's then?"
"Yes, i am. One of my many titles is King of Illian, though i doubt that really matters anymore..."-Rand said before Ned could do more than open his mouth.
~~~Ned looked at the man who just off-handedly called himself a king...and of a place he'd never heard of before as well.
'DragonReborn? King? This is becoming more interesting by the minute, although their arrival may complicate my plans to tell Robert the truth about his so-called children'-Ned thought to himself as the door opened.
The two red-heads helped a pretty, brown-haired woman, dressed in...rather un-lady-like clothes. It was scandalous!
'She's wearing skin-tight clothes!'-Ned thought, never having seen a woman dressed so...
"Okay, let's get out of here"-Red-head man said.
"Eddard, er, Lord Eddard, if you'd be so kind...please show us the way out of here"-The red-headed man said to him.
"Letting...apparent noble's...out of cells may be one thing. But letting those said noble's, with apparent amnesia go out into the city? No, I'm sorry, but i'm afraid that i can't do that in good conscience..."-Ned said, shaking his head.
After-all, what he'd already done so far was bordering treason...to actually help known intruders escape the Red Keep? That would be treason.
Still shaking his head, Ned explained-"My honor will not allow me to commit treason, you are known intruders and if i were to help you escape...i cannot. Letting apparent nobles with apparent amnesia out of their cells is one thing...but..."
"It is fine, we'll make our own way then."
"Please...uh, sir Rand Al'Thor, let us sit down and talk..."
The red-heads and brown-head shared looks between one-another.
"On two conditions"-Rand Al'Thor said suddenly.
"One, we are never separated again"
"Two, No one may bare steel in our presence"
Eddard didn't like that at all...it was very close to saying that no armed men were allowed near them, which was going to be impossible...
~~~Rand saw the conflict in the man's eyes as he thought about the two conditions and decided to clarify:
"Condition two, it mostly means that you will not harm us...if we attack you, then of course, you are allowed to defend yourself."
Things seemed to click in the man's eyes and he nodded, -"very well, i accept these two conditions".
"So...what now?"-Rand asked Eddard.
A/N: (LONG)
So, a few things i want to make clear...
As far as writing style, i tend to put a - after(or sometimes before) what someone says
"xxxxxxx"-xxxx for speech
thoughts are 'xxxxxxxx'-xxxx
This is purely for my benefit, it simply makes it easier for me to read/edit later.
(xxxxxx) will usually mean that i'm saying something directly to you readers.
Since i can't seem to be able to indent when pov changes, i'm going to use ~~~
I am not well-versed in GOT...i never read the books and my memory of the show is fuzzy.
As a personal rule in writing a fanfic, i basically never write of what happens in canon...although i may use quotes, if it fits.
The large, glaring difference that will become apparent is that this is NOT going to follow cannon. I liked the idea posted on some forums i came across the other day about "What would happen if Ned lived?" I then found a short little fic on where the Lannisters were neatly taken out of the picture.
Cersi/Jaimie beheaded, Joffrey/Tommen sent to the Wall and Mycelle sent to...idk, the Silent Sisters or something to care for the dead.
Joffrey at the Wall was the main thing in that fic, and it was rather funny, but i'm sure i'm going to start running into issues sooner or later.
I would very much appreciate some help with the development of this story as far as how each House will react/what they'll do. The first 2 reviews i got...idk why the reasoning for them being there as they had nothing to do with what was posted so far... but i'm of a mind right now to use that to help shape the House's actions in the future.
All that said, i'm unsure about this chapter; as at about halfway through i realized that it may be too unrealistic. But hey, alt-universe/timeline, i should have some leeway right?
The start to any story i write is...usually less than satisfactory, to myself at least, and i do tend to rush toward the 'middle-ground' of them rather quickly to write about what i actually want to.
PLOT-For the time being, i'm going to try and push the WOT characters to be like an unheard of noble house from some forgotten corner of the world, who were sent here by some kind of Magic by accident...or otherwise malicious intent...not sure yet, whatever'll fit their cover-story best when i get there...which will likely be next chapter?
