The drums' beat thundered through the dark, shaking through the white bark and shivering the red leaves of the south's last weirwoods. As the captive was dragged before him, the green men, their faces daubed so dark he could only see the whites of their eyes in the darkness, prostrated themselves, shaking and chanting in exaltation. The greatest of the weirwoods hung over them, it's branches closing on them like a mother's embracing arms. The drums beat louder faster, faster and stopped. The prisoner whimpered before them. Who had he been? It was a man, but that was all Tristan could see, a sack was pulled over his head, rough and course, and his head twisted from side to side, desperate for something, anything.
"Oh great gods who watch over us. Look upon this offering we present to you. Let his blood slake your thirst, let his flesh satiate your hunger, and in return, offer us your visions, grant us a glimpse of your vision for the world, that we may enact your wills!"
"Great gods! Great gods! Great gods!" The green men chanted.
Cregan stepped forward. Unlike the other Green Men, he was draped in white cotton, the robes falling about his feet, his dark skin hard and strong and his grey eyes staring at the captive. In his hands he held a soft pillow, on which rested a bronze sickle.
"Blood, blood. Flesh, flesh!"
"It is time," Cregan said, holding out the pillow.
"Time!"
"Your new servant will pay the price!"
"The price!"
"Will take the life of this offering, in your unknown names!"
"Praise be!"
Cregan spoke to him now. "Take the sickle."
He reached out with trembling fingers, taking up the tool. The darkness gathered, the wind silenced, the chanting remained.
"Approach, the captive."
He walked slowly towards the bound, hooded man. A cold mist gathered, swirling around their feet, swallowing his shadow, whispering of death.
"This one will make the cut!"
"Make the cut!"
"Do it! Make the sacrifice!"
He raised the sickle. No, this was wrong, he shouldn't just kill this man. I owe it to hear his last words, don't I. "I can't," he said. The sickle started to lower. .
Cregan strode forward and seized the hood. "Do it!" He ripped the hood off.
"Yes, do it Stark!"
The sickle flashed. Blood spurted from Joffrey Baratheon's neck, steaming down his front. His mouth opened in a vile grin, showing bloody teeth, his emerald eyes turned to wildfire and a wet cackle sputtered from his throat.
The crowd silenced, the wind stopped, the mist faded. "Fool!"
Something seized his collar and pulled him back.
He fell to the damp mossy ground with a grunt of pain. He blinked away the sudden light that pierced the grove through the gaps in the heavy red leaves.
"Get up." Tristan pushed himself to his feet and turned to Cregan. The green man sat among the roots, coiling around him like great white snakes, his head resting against the bark. "You fell again."
"So you say," Tristan replied. "I killed the bastard who murdered my father, I say I won."
Cregan let out a rough, exasperated sigh. "Like I said. You fell, and in your fall you learned nothing, so you truly failed." He stood up. "How many visions have we given you, how many must we give you before you even begin to understand what ails your mind."
"Why don't you just tell me?" Tristan snarled. Why were they like this? Why couldn't they just tell him what he was doing wrong with him, what Robb wanted him to change? How he could correct himself, and return to his side, to kill everyone who would harm him.
"What would that achieve? Your ailment is in your mind, not your brain. It is not so easily fixed, you must understand, and to understand, you must see it for yourself."
"So you don't even know?"
"Of course I know," Cregan replied, getting to his feet. "Even without the gifts the gods have given me, a simple story of your life was enough for me to see."
If he had his sword right now…
"We'll try again tomorrow, we have no more time tonight."
"We don't?" The sky was still bright.
"No, it's your turn to serve tonight."
Tristan groaned. Everyone took turns performing every task here, there were no lords and were no masters. Cregan was old among the green men, and that carried respect, they turned to him and the other elders for direction, but he still worked his time. Now it was his turn.
"Don't complain, get up and get to work. And use the time to think."
"Think about what?"
"About why you see what you see in the visions. The gods gave them to you for a reason."
Tristan followed Cregan back through the South Grove, one of three groves of sacred weirwood trees on the Isle of Faces. The other two were the North Grove and the First Grove. The north and south groves were on their respective sides of the island, the First Grove was right at the heart of it, and larger than the other two combined, a veritable forest of white bark, red leaves and weeping faces. The Green Men told him it was the First Grove ever planted after the Pact, where First Men and Children of the Forest agreed to end their war and live in peace. "We were formed to protect these trees, and the memory of those halcyon days," Cregan had told him with a tear in his eye. "They were supposed to last forever, now naught but memory and ash, and the blood of the forgotten." They spoke of those days often, around the fire pits in the evening. He'd been amazed at how many stories he hadn't heard. He'd have thought that Winterfell, the heart of the last realm of the First Men would have remembered. But here they told stories that he'd never known of. Of Redden and the Black Knife, who took the lives of three Andal warlords who plotted to invade the Isle of Faces; of the final feast, where the Children of the Forest sung their last songs before departing the isle forever. These and a dozen more were new to his ears, and all were told with the heart and soul of the Green Men.
The meals were held communally. No one departed to eat alone with their thoughts, they sat in a great ring around the largest fire pit on the west of the island, just off from their sleeping hutts. Twenty of them would serve the food, those who had made it ate first, no matter their age or prestige, and then the rest would come, bringing their wooden bowls and plates to be laden with food before taking a seat around the fire. Some sat in the same groups, others cared naught for who they ate with, only for laughter, story and song and whoever could provide it.
"Tristan. Come on, we need you."
Malissa was waving at him. Swirls of blue and green were drawn down the side of her thin face, framed by dirty blond locks. Her small mouth smiled at him as she beckoned him over to the long stone table, laden with a half a dozen heavy bowls, the spread out offerings of two butchered deer and many supporting dishes.
"What am I doing?" He grumbled.
She pointed at a marinading mushroom sauce right next to her. "You can have that one.
Of course, the one next to her, so she could continue to badger him about the outside world. She's been seeking him out almost from the moment he'd arrived to ask him anything and everything, had he seen the Red Keep, had he seen the Wall? Had he ridden a Dragon? He guessed she was ten, eleven at a pinch, but had the inquisitive mind of someone far younger. She'd been unafraid of Shield, running over to him and staring at him closely, until the wolf licked her face when she'd fallen over, laughing with joy. Having grown up on the Isle,everything new was a wonder to her, be that a direwolf or a warrior.
But while she had grown up on the Isle, she hadn't been born here. Very few of them had, and it used to be that none of them had. As their name suggested, in the older times, before the Andals and the gradual supplanting of the Old Gods with the Faith of the Seven, the order had comprised wholly of men. Volunteers for the order came from across the continent to serve these groves. But now, they took what they could. First they let women in the order. Then started raising the children born on the Isle to become Green Men. But still the numbers dwindled and fell. And so they reached out, taking the lost and abandoned of the riverlands and bringing them here to safety, and in return, they would serve. Malissa had been one of them, one of too many in a winter too cold. Now she was here, and it was all she had ever known.
As the Green Men made their way down the line, Malissa bombarded him with question after question.
"Have you ever tried eaten this before?"
"Yes."
"How many times?"
"I don't know."
"Where did you eat it?"
"Winterfell."
"What was the best thing you ever ate in Winterfell?"
He ground his teeth together as he ladelled the sauce out to anyone who wanted it. Gods this child was irritating, but in that annoying way that innocent children do, he already wanted to protect her. Not that she was in any danger here. It didn't take long to feed the order, there were barely two hundred of them now, and at last, Tristan could take some food for himself. He found a stump away from the others and sat down on it, facing away from the others.
"Can I sit with you?"
He nodded. "If you like, Malissa."
She tucked her legs under herself just in front of him, her own plate overflowing with food. "You look sad," she said. Again. She said it every day. "Is it your brother?"
His fist curled around his spoon. It was always his brother. "It's a lot of things." He said, not wanting to talk about it, but not wanting to send her away. "My brother… the rest of my family. My friends…"
"Which friend? Domeric, Darys?"
"Daryn," he corrected her. "All of them."
"Why are your friends and family making you sad. They shouldn't be."
"I know," he replied, "but could always rely on them, my friends if not my family and my family if not my friends. But when Robb sent me here… Dom told me to go."
"Domeric, he's the one who likes horses isn't he?"
"Oh yes, he definitely likes horses." His mind was drawn back, to the year in the Dreadfort, to all the times he and Dom had gone riding in the wild fields and rivers of House Bolton's lands, nothing but the horses beneath them, the sky above them and the wind around them. Back before it had all gone wrong. Or was it before.
"Why were you staying with him?"
"What?"
Malissa wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Why were you living with your friend, not your family?" She said through a mouthful.
"Because… I did something that father thought I shouldn't have done. So he sent me to make it right." He put his plate on the ground, any hunger suddenly gone. A raven that had been nesting on a nearby tree flapped down and started poking at the remnants. He looked around, seeing Cregan lying back against a tree with the other elders. The rest seemed to be finishing up their meals as well. Maybe he could get out of this line of questioning.
"What did you do?"
"Someone tried to kill my friend. So I killed him."
The bird at his plate halted, refusing to move for a moment, then it twitched and took flight.
"But why is that bad, he tried to kill your friend?"
"And I would do it again."
Malissa nodded slowly. "But your father must have thought something went wrong. He wouldn't have sent you away otherwise."
"Clearly he thought so." All I did was protect my friend.
"Malissa." They turned to see Cregan walking over to them. "If you're done, Elevyn needs your help."
"Okay." She jumped to her feet. "See you soon Tristan," she called as she hopped away.
"You shouldn't talk to her of such things," Cregan said when she was out of earshot. "She's still a child."
Tristan started to protest. "I saw my first execution when I was-"
"You are the son of a great lord, one day destined to ride in war, fight in battle and dispense just death to criminals," Cregan interrupted him. "Malissa will grow up to tend the groves of this isle. She can wait a little before being exposed to such stories."
"Well I'm here now."
"Not forever," Cregan said. "If you would only focus your mind, you would be gone sooner."
"What if I wanted to stay?"
"You don't. Now stop making pointless deflecting comments." Cregan sat down on the ground facing him. "Now then, why does that memory bring you such pain?"
"What memory?"
"When you killed someone who tried to kill your friend?"
"How did you-"
"No deflection, answer!"
He thought. "I don't know."
"Yes you do, think."
He did think. He thought back to the moment that smirking bastard's head had flown off his shoulders, of Lord Bolton's passive and unmoving face as he told Domeric he never should have gone to find his brother. He remembered Arya grinning as he told the story, Robb's pained defence of what he had done. His father's pained disappointment. "I don't know."
"Yes you do know," he wasn't pressuring. He spoke like an encouraging parent, which only made Tristan want to punch him even more. "Why are you angry if the only person you hurt deserved what happened to them?"
He wasn't the only one. "My father," he said. "My father was hurt. So was my brother. They expected better, they always expect better of me."
Cregan nodded, getting to his feet and picking up Tristan's plate. "You think on this, I'll clean up for you."
Why did he need to think about the fact that his family was constantly disappointed in him? All he did was punish someone who tried to kill his friend. They hadn't reacted that way to the Tyrell melee. But of course, he hadn't told them about that, about what he'd done in his own defence. He didn't want to disappoint them again. So what, no one wanted to disappoint their family, and he was angry when he did. And what did that have to do with killing Joffrey? Robb himself had sworn to do it if he got the chance. What did that have todo with it. He'd killed Joffrey in his dreams and visions, and the Kingslayer, and Cersei, and the dwarf as well. Not always in front of the Weirwoods, sometimes on the executioner's block, sometimes in battle, sometimes in the dead of night in dark alleys, or beneath the boughs of dead trees to the calling of wolves.
Shield slunk up beside him and he reached out absently to stroke his ears. "What am I doing boy?" He asked. Gods his dreams were getting to him, he half expected Shield to reply. He thought of those dreams. Every night it seemed, whenever he went to sleep he dreamed he was a wolf, prowling through the undergrowth of the Isle, among the sleeping Green Men and the white roots reflecting starlight. He would sniff the fallen leaves, and always end up in the centre of one of the groves, staring into the faces of the weirwoods there.
It was evening, there were no responsibilities left for the day, and so the Green Men scattered across the isle. Some sought further solitude before a weirwood, others went away with friends and lovers, some got very drunk, but eventually most found their way back to the huts. Not all of them, but they would be found tomorrow on the beaches or under the trees. It was an isle, a safe isle, it didn't matter where they went to sleep, they would come back the next morning, ready to perform their duties to the order.
He looked south, to where Robb was no doubt fighting and winning the war without him there, perhaps because he wasn't there. Robb seemed to think so, and if it was true, maybe he should be here.
And with that thought, the darkness came again, and he stalked off to find a hut for him to sleep in. There was no designated bedding here, when you wanted to sleep you found a bed. Tristan had learned to go to bed before everyone else so that he could get the same bed every night.
He lay down on the straw mattress and stuffed pillow, pulling the pelt cover over him against the night chill that was to pour off the God's Eye. He lay his head back down on the pillow, and, as expected, he dreamt of wolves.
He bounded through the roots of the groves, leaping over them neatly, his claws slicing into the leaves on the other side, the red slices fluttering away on the lightest breeze. Something was ahead. He felt it this time, stronger. He had to get there, it called to him, needed him, would nourish all he was missing. He bounded forward, saliva slobbering from his fangs as he panted. He ran into the shade, into the dark.
Man flesh! He held fast, crouching low on his haunches, ears pricked, nostrils flaring, waiting for the scent of flesh, a scent he hadn't felt in weeks, away from the time when he fed and killed for his master in the land of war. Birds, insects, wind, water, leaves. No threat. Slowly he moved on. There was man flesh, warm, hot and alert, but no threat. Why? The dark blanket covered the sky, they should be asleep, who was awake, who waited? Who barred the way? He could smell the cavern, the darkness and power of ancient gods and times forgotten, it was so close, this time, this time he would enter. He was sure of it, his master didn't need him back tonight, he would see what lay within. Next he saw it. The trunk and roots of the weirwood forming a pale doorway around an entrance of swirling darkness. The ancient power drew him here, he only had to leap through, but his claws remained rooted in place.
A cracking twig and he found them again, he spun, fangs bared and snarling. The old man, the oldest here, not in body, but in mind, the one who had called to him and spoke to his master often. But even this one did not have the true white in his bones or the sap in his veins.
The man stepped between him and the cavern and all that lay within, planted a pale white staff on the ground and stared him in the eye. "You are not ready," he said. "You may not yet enter."
He snarled, and darted to the side, trying to bypass him. The man didn't move except to turn his head. "The cave will not let you enter, not like this." He growled. "If you wish to know why, then come, I will be here."
What did he mean? He was here. What did man thing mean?
"That's right, I'm talking to you, Stark, come!" He lashed out with his staff.
Tristan yelled, clutching his head as he sat bolt upright. The others in his hut grumbled, one called for him to shut up. He rubbed at the spot on the left side of his forehead, just along his hairline, where the pain stuck. Just where he'd been struck in his dream. It had seemed so real. So real.
He snatched up his cloak and pulled on his boots, staggering out into the star lit night.
He followed the path he had dreamt. It couldn't be true, could it? He followed every root, every torn leaf and scuffed root, every shimmering finger of moonlight and shadow clouded path. He followed the dream to the centre of the island and the heart of the greatest weirwood and the cave entrance beneath it.
"I wondered if you would come." Cregan stood, just where he had been in Tristan's dream.
"How?" He whispered, walking slowly forward. "How are you...how did I know…"
"Because of what you are. What made me know we could help you before we ever met you."
Tristan felt cold, he wanted to step away, but Cregan's gaze fixed him in place. "And… what am I?"
"A skinchanger. One who wears the skins of the beasts of this world, blessed by the Old Gods. You are one of them, and it is that which will allow us to heal your mind."
"What?"
Cregan smiled, lowering his staff of weirwood. "Do not fear, come, sit, and I will tell you of this new path you walk, and how it will be your salvation."
