The morning dawned clear and cold with a crispness that hinted at the end of summer as the Griffin family set forth at daybreak to see a man beheaded.
The man was a deserter from the Night's Watch, the group of men that protected the land of Westeros from wildlings and White Walkers and other nasty-o peoples. The Griffin family were the Wardens of the North, so it was their job to punish him.
Lord Peter Griffin sat solemnly on his horse, brown hair stirring in the wind. He had a grim cast to his eyes this day, and he seemed not at all the man who would sit before the fire in the evening and talk softly of the age of heroes and the Children of the Forest. His three children, Meg, Chris, and Stewie, and their pet direwolf Brian, stood nearby. Another boy named Theon Greyjoy who lived with them was also there, along with some soldiers.
Peter got down off his horse with difficulty, since he was very fat. Two of the soldiers dragged the deserter to an ironwood stump and forced his head down onto the hard, black wood. Peter got his sword, Ice, which was as tall as he was, and as wide as his hand. He held it over the man and said, "In the name of Robert of the House Baratheon, the first of his name, king of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and protector of the realm, by the word of Peter of the House Griffin, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, I sentence you to die. Do ya have anything ya wanna say before I cut your head off?"
The man began, "I saw the White…"
"That's enough," Peter interrupted. "If ya can't put what ya hafta say into less than four words, it's not worth sayin'." He brought the sword down on the man's neck. Unfortunately, his head didn't come off all the way the first time, and Peter took several strokes to completely sever it. Finally, the head dropped off and rolled to the ground. Peter stood there for a while, puffing and panting from the exertion of less than a minute of very light exercise. Theon Greyjoy walked up to the head and kicked it away into the trees as though it had been a soccer ball. He found the whole thing amusing.
Brian spoke up. "Peter, I think that guy was about to say that he saw the White Walkers!"
"The White Walkers are just made up garbage, Brian," Peter said. "People just made up those stories to scare their kids into behavin'. I tell ya what, though, we've had a real problem with those deserters lately. There's gettin' to be more an' more of 'em all the time. An' my brother Thaddeus who's a Ranger says that a lot of Night's Watch guys are just disappearing. They go out on missions and never come back. If this goes on much longer, they're gonna be really shorthanded."
"Well, maybe I could join up with the Night's Watch," Brian said.
Peter, Meg, Chris, and Stewie all laughed at him. Brian got mad. "What? I'm serious!"
"Brian, you never see anything through," said Stewie. "If you joined the Night's Watch, you wouldn't last a week. You'd get fed up and leave, and then Peter would have to cut your head off!"
"No, I wouldn't," said Brian indignantly. "I've finished lots of things."
"Like what?" said Stewie. "What about that novel you've been workin' on?"
"Hey, creative genius can't be rushed," Brian said.
"How would you know? You don't have any!" said Chris. Everyone laughed again.
And then they all went home to their castle, Winterfell. Peter went to his room, where he found his wife Lois waiting for him. "Pee-tah, I've just had a letter from the king," she said. "Adam West has died!"
Adam West was Peter's best friend, and he served as the Hand to King Robert Baratheon. He was also married to Lois's sister Carol. "Adam West is dead? How did that happen?" Peter exclaimed.
"Nobody knows. All of a sudden he just got sick an' died. And that's not all. The king says he's coming here."
A smile broke over Peter's face. "I can't wait to see Robert again! He's the only man in the seven kingdoms who's fatter than I am! Next to him, I look skinny."
"But his wife, Cersei Lannister, is coming too," Lois warned.
Peter made a face. "Not lookin' forward to entertaining her. I suppose her brothers, the kingslayer and the imp, are coming too?"
"Probably," Lois agreed. "But ya gotta be careful what ya say about the Lannisters. Queen Cersei's pride is said to grow with every passing year."
Peter squeezed her hand. "There must be a feast, of course, with singers, and Robert will wanna hunt. I'll send the captain of our guard, Ser Joe Swanson, to meet them on the kingsroad and escort them back here."