The Quintessence of a Queen Chapter 38: Legacies, a Game of Thrones + Worm Crossover fanfic

A/N: Chap 37 review responses are in my forums.

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Legacies

Heaven smelled suspiciously like horseshit and wood smoke.

Taylor heard a snort nearby and blinked gummy eyes open to see Bran Stark and Shireen Baratheon sitting side by side in a very large chair right beside her bed. Shireen was sound asleep, her head resting adorably on Bran's fur-covered shoulder. A narrow window let in a shaft of sunlight.

Bran laughed at her unshielded thought, and it woke Shireen. She sat up, blinking, until she saw Taylor looking at her. "Your grace!" she cried in delight. Her eyes rimmed with tears as she rushed to the side of the bed where Taylor lay. "Oh, we thought you lost! Are you in pain? Can we do anything for you?"

Taylor took the sweet girl's hand. "Given the state of the injury, I think you already have. You're healing abilities must have come a long way," Taylor said.

"We had help," Bran said. "Zhan-Li and the surviving red priests lent their powers to my own. Artists are already sketching the scene, I'm told. The grace of R'hllor is said to have brought you back from death. I couldn't have done it without them. But…we didn't get it all. There's still a core of poison we couldn't get out."

He sounded worried. Taylor, directing her attention to her still sore stomach, could feel exactly what he was talking about. It felt like a tiny pin-prick of dark-side energy. "I'll enter a healing trance later," she assured the young man. I'm sure it'll be fine."

The door opened; Robb Stark stuck his head in and grinned. "Your Grace! I hoped I heard true!"

The northern governor opened a floodgate as more lords and ladies entered to share their happiness that she yet lived. They went by in a flurry of faces and words that Taylor had a difficult time parsing. It was Shireen who put her foot down. "My lords and ladies, Her Grace is still recovering. I beg your pardon and hope to set up appointments on the morrow. For now, could we have the room?"

Having the fourteen-year-old lecture them should have been embarrassing, until the great, broad-shouldered matriarch of Bear Island, Maege Mormont, stepped forward. "The lady speaks true. I know if I'd been skewered by the Night King I'd want some peace."

"More like you'd be dead," Smalljon Umber called.

The woman-who likely would not have survived the Frey treachery if not for Taylor's warning to Robb, turned dark eyes to regard Taylor. "Aye, true. But then again, I'm not blood of the dragon. Your grace, truly and with all my heart, I've never seen the like and shan't again. Gods bless you. House Mormont is yours."

Her words echoed through the various lords and ladies until, finally, the crowd thinned. Taylor felt a touch of surprise when, after the last noble left, Tyrion Lannister stepped into the room with a pitcher of wine.

"How long was I out?" she asked.

"Two weeks," Bran said. "That scene I spoke of? That was daily for five days."

"You were grievously injured," Shireen added.

The dwarf continued in until he poured warmed, weak wine diluted with apple juice into her cup and handed it to her. She could believe the extent of her injuries when her hand shook reaching for it. Still, the warmth of the cup felt like a little piece of heaven she could hold in her hands.

Tyrion pulled himself up on a chair facing her apprentices. "I honestly did not know what I was going to do if you died," he admitted. "Having gone most of my life serving terrible people, having finally find one worthy of my loyalty makes the idea of losing that person unbearable. I am truly grateful to your heirs that they and your priests were able to save you."

She eyed the man suspiciously. "You're drunk."

"Gods I hope so. That was a very expensive bottle of rum."

Across from the bed, Shireen snickered.

Tyrion waved it off. "That's never stopped me from working. The state of the kingdom, your grace?"

"Yes, please."

"We're alive," Tyrion said. "Because of you. Word of your battle with the Night King has reached every ear from Westeros to Volantis. Bards are singing hymns to your glory and beauty. You are called the maiden queen, champion of the Seven. At least here. Champion of R'hllor in Essos."

"How many did we lose?"

Tyrion poured himself a cup from the pitcher. "When battle was joined, you had roughly sixty thousand men. We have less than eight thousand left."

For a long moment, Taylor couldn't absorb that number. "That's more than eighty percent of our forces lost."

"Yes," Tyrion said. "Against an army of undead monsters, giants, mammoths and devils. Every man who died in that battle was a hero."

Over fifty thousand dead.

"Shireen?"

"Yes, your grace?"

"Spread the word to the lords. I want the names of the fallen. Northmen, Free Folk, Valemen. I don't care, I want the names of everyone who died defending the kingdom."

"For what purpose, your grace?" Tyrion asked.

"Things like this are the stuff of legends," Taylor said tiredly. "It happened before, and it could happen again. I don't want this fight to pass into myth. I want it captured for all your heirs to remember. We're going to build a monument in stone. A description of the battle in the Common Tongue, Valyrian and the Trade Language, and then the names of all those who perished. A thousand years from now, when your descendants come to this place, I want them to know precisely what happened."

Tyrion stared at her with a slight gap in his jaw and bleary eyes. "And you do it again," he said in a trembling voice. "Damn and Seven forgive me." He hopped down, sniffing, and walked quickly from the room. The moment the door closed, she heard him shout, "Someone get me a quill, ink and parchment! We have work to do!"

"I do believe you made him cry," Shireen said in wonder.

"I'm sure the rum had nothing to do with it," Bran said.

"Shush, you," Taylor said. Her eyes felt very heavy-she sipped her cooling wine before placing it on the table beside her. With a soft moan she slid back under her covers; she was asleep in moments.

~~Quintessence~~

Je'daii.

Taylor opened her eyes. Outside, a blizzard blew so fiercely it whistled between cracks in the walls, and made shudders bounce. Sitting up painfully, she saw the glow of dying coals in a fireplace in her room. A mild expression of the Force lifted a large log from the nearby stack into the fireplace, and soon the flame began its battle against the cold of the room.

Quaith lay beside her, dark eyes studying Taylor intently in the dim light of her Winterfell apartment.

"When did you get here?"

"Last night," the shadow binder said. "I took the next ship after Tyrion. Bran and Shireen have done you proud, my friend. They are so young, but they sit together on the Iron Throne and speak with your voice. Not even Prince Oberyn has had cause to doubt them."

It took Taylor a moment to remember that she bade Bran and Shireen to fly their dragons back to King's Landing. Despite just being teenagers, Bran was the crown prince and was providing much-needed leadership while Taylor healed. He'd come so far from the socially awkward magical peeping tom he once was.

"I've never taken this long to heal from a wound," the queen admitted.

"That is why I am here. Show me, my sister."

Winterfell sleeping attire consisted of a heavy woolen robe. It was easier to unbutton from the top than to pull it open. As she did so, Quaithe went to the fireplace and lit a rush, which she in turn used to light two scribe's lamps. She set one on a hook and chain near the bed, and the other held in her hand as Taylor painfully removed the blood-soaked bandage just over her navel.

Quaithe sucked in a breath when she saw it. "Aeksiae, my dearest. This cannot be. Both Prince Bran and Zhan-Li told me the wound had been closed and had only an angry scar."

"They couldn't get all the poison out," Taylor admitted.

The scar was certainly angry, and weeping. In the Force, it felt like a small pit of black in the middle of her Force presence. She placed her hand over it; the Force came but not as strongly as she was accustomed too. Quaithe placed her own hand on Taylor's and opened herself in a way only Bran could.

Even drawing on Quaithe's magic, all Taylor could do was heal the very edges of the wound. The black pit of hate remained untouched as it burned at her life force.

"This is demonic," Quaithe hissed as she reared back, exhausted from Taylor's pull of her magic. "Not even in the pits of Asshai have I felt something so dark!"

"Well, that sucks."

She stopped trying to sit up and laid back tiredly. "Huh. I should have died on the battlefield. Just the paintings. Can you imagine it? The sun was rising, and everyone was gathered around me. I just won the wore and killed the bad guy. What a way to go."

"This is not funny, Aeksiae."

Taylor blinked back tears—not for the pit of black demon-spite in her stomach, but because of the tears in her friend's eyes. She took the woman's hands in hers. "When I was fifteen years old, an alien god from another planet put a seed of a lost galaxy in my head, and put me on a path that should have killed me half a dozen times over. I never thought I would see adulthood, Quaithe. I never thought I would love anyone, or have friends or family again. I was going to die alone. But I didn't. I found friends. I found new family. I found a reason to go on living."

"Then go on living!"

"I'm not ready to lay down and die, Quaithe! I'm just…I've already seen and done more than most people ever do. I'm going to fight this—you know me better than that. I just…don't want you to mourn me. I mean, maybe a little. I am pretty awesome, after all. But I think I've lived a good life, and helped a lot of people."

"You're feeling sorry for yourself."

Taylor couldn't laugh, but she shrugged. "You know, I think I've earned it a little. My ship is a year or two away from flying, and then this happens."

"Yes, yes. You saved the world. What will you do for me tomorrow?"

"Wake up?"

"Precisely! I will stay here, and we will exhaust every means of healing," Quaithe said.

"What about your son?"

"He is not injured. Shireen cares for him, as do others. For now, my sister needs me."

"That's always been true," Taylor said.

She ran out of energy shortly after.

~~Quintessence~~

"Je'daii."

She stood in a sheltered spot, surrounded by obelisks of black stone and a massive pyramid that seemed to reach to heaven itself, since it was made of stars. A line of desperate people walked out onto a small island surrounded by unending water.

The people stumbled onto the platform in a strange assortment of robes and wear. They bore swords that shimmered in the Force almost like lightsabers, except they were made of shaped metal. Many also carried huge, bulky-looking laser weapons or projectile guns.

Everyone looked scarred and war-torn.

"We will remember!" A woman stood before them, her shimmering sword held above her head. "We will remember, and someday, we will have our revenge!"

"Revenge!" The stragglers cried out their hate into the air. The Dark Side swirled coldly around them, forming frost on the obelisks.

~~Quintessence~~

"The potion did nothing," Quaithe said softly as she examined the wound.

Taylor remained silent. She wasn't really in pain, she simply felt tired. "It's pure, Dark Side energy," she said. "I've meditated on it, and I think I understand why I've not been able to fight it."

"Tell me."

"Bran wields the Force because he carries the seeds of power that permit it," Taylor explained. "You could too, if you hadn't been inducted in magic so young. I don't have those seeds. Instead, my power was given to me wholesale."

"By the alien god."

"Exactly. A god shaped by a race of Force-wielders who were trying to save the galaxy against extinction. My power came with the life experiences of a powerful master from a time so long ago humans weren't even walking this world yet. The knowledge I have to build things wasn't learned, it was gifted to me. And my power in the Force is not natural. I could never fall to the Dark Side of the Force, but I also can't ever truly be purely of the light. I'm stuck in between."

Looking down at her slowly expanding, black wound over her navel, Taylor frowned intently. "It would take an expression of pure ashla, the pure light side of the Force, to heal this. Not just an expression of it, but a powerful source of it."

"Bran?"

"I wish. He'll be powerful one day, I think. But his will never be the kind of brute-force light I would need."

She met her friend's pained gaze. "I'm going to keep fighting, Quaithe. For you. For Adjorah and Bran and Shireen. But I understand what's happening, now. And if nothing else, we can start taking steps."

"What do you mean?"

"I need parchment and ink. And lots of quills. I need to draw up a will, and give Bran the suggestions I had for Parliament, if we can ever get it moving."

"Aeksiae…Taylor…"

"This is me fighting, Quaithe. This is my caring for all those I love. Go get some parchment. Please."

~~Quintessence~~

Winterfell slept. Draped in heavy wool and furs, Taylor made her way through the halls of the castle. For the first time she appreciated the heavy, lithic construction of the ancient castle. Though it was bitterly cold outside, within the castle itself the hypocaust system took heat from natural hot springs and sent it through the castle itself.

In the devastating aftermath of the war, no guards stood watch within the castle. Robb Stark lost more than half his bannermen in the battle, and three quarters of his personal guard. It was easy to send Quaithe deep into sleep back in her chambers. That's why she could walk unchallenged through the castle until she reached an outer door.

The cold hit her face like a slap. The vaper of her breath frosted her brows as she pulled her scarf up.

Hastily erected, she saw an open barn rising in the middle of one of the castle's many courtyards. Framed by braziers, she saw Temeraire curled up in a nest of still steaming dirt in his effort to hold off the cold. Some kind soul had pressed a path in the snow that allowed her to step into the barn that appeared to have been built around her dragon.

The great creature opened golden eyes—eyes that were a perfect match for her own. "Hello, love," she whispered. Her arms trembled as she leaned up under the curve of his jaw and hugged his neck. His deep, rumbling purr sent shards of emotion into her mind. He could smell the corruption of her injury, and sense her weakness.

"It's going to be dawn soon," Taylor whispered. "I want to see it in the air. Is it too cold for you? Could you take me flying one more time?"

His long tail bent around to push her toward his front leg. She stepped onto it, only for her knee to fold. She tried again, using the Force to steady herself just past his massive wing muscles. Temeraire crawled out from the barn into the bitterly cold but perfectly still air. Under the silvery light of a setting moon, Taylor saw nothing but white snow and starlight.

"It's beautiful," she whispered.

With a roar that shattered the silence and woke every soul in Winterfell, Temeraire flapped his wings and launched them into the air. With her hands wrapped in wool, Taylor gripped his neck ridges and held on as they flew into the night.

There was not a single cloud in the sky. The cold wind of their passage forced Taylor to duck her head and hug herself tightly against the supernatural warmth of the dragon. She didn't have to speak for him to know her will. He turned north, and they flew. Below, she could see the thin scar of the rails that were helping keep the people of the north fed in the grip of winter.

Further north, after an hour of flight, she saw the fissure where the Night King shattered the Wall.

Quaithe told her that Night's Watch and Wardens had found an enchanted horn on the northern side of the wall—the fabled Horn of Winter.

They burned it.

Though she couldn't look ahead, Taylor laid against Temeraire's back and turned her head sidewise as the western sea began to glow pink with the approaching sun. Sorry I never made it back to you, Lisa.

Day's just getting started, Taylor.

The thought of her oldest friend brought a teary smile to her face. That's exactly what Lisa would say.

They continued flying north across the cloudless sky. The forest below that housed the Free Folk for generations gave way to mountainous tundra, and then to low flat ice. Still Temeraire flew. And in the distance, Taylor felt a strange tug of dark side energy that she now realized had been pulling at her since she was wounded. She'd never have been able to feel it if not for the small source of Dark Side corruption within her.

The Source.

She must have slept, but when Temeraire began to drop, she felt the sudden change in elevation and opened her eyes. Below was nothing but ice, but when she risked the cold wind for a look forward, she saw a spire of stone rising from the sea ice. That was where her friend was taking her, as if he too could feel it.

At the last moment, the massive dragon banked his wings and brought himself to a gentle landing on the edge of the small outthrust of stone. He lowered his neck and moved his wing to aid Taylor in dismounting. Despite it, she fell painfully to the frozen ground.

A surge of agony stole her breath, and she could feel blood seeping through her woolen robes. Five long breaths helped her get the pain under control, and the Force helped her back to her feet. Slowly, with her friend beside her, Taylor stepped forward until she stood surrounded by the icy walls of her vision.

The ice began to crack and then shattered. She ducked her head, and Temeraire roared his disapproval, as little shards of ice covered them.

What lay under… "Oh my God."

The newly exposed obelisks were covered in symbols that seemed almost to move about the slick black stone. Between them was an open pyramidal fame that held the universe. It was the only way she could describe the wash of stars and planets and even galaxies she saw within the boiling center of the frame.

On either side, the text on the obelisks began to crawl, almost like symbols on a computer, and abruptly she was not alone.

A female figure stood before the pyramid. Translucent and blue, Taylor couldn't tell if the woman was a Force ghost, a hologram, or something in between. "You are Jed'aii?"

"Not truly," Taylor said softly. "I'm a ghost, like you. I carry the memories and learning of a Bendu Master. The galaxy that gave birth to the Jed'aii died eons ago. There's nothing left but my memories. And yours, it seems."

The glowing figure lifted her head to the stars. "We left Ossus to seek the truth of the Force. To seek the knowledge the old, staid fools in the Order refused. And I went for him. For my love. There is no greater threat to tyranny than knowledge, and so they came after us. With ships and mass drivers and Force-blades, they came. They took my love from me, and almost killed me. But I survived, and the last of us fled back to Tython and the last working Gree Hypergate there. We're all that remained of the Legions of Lettow. And now you tell me even that is gone."

The implications washed over Taylor. The humans of this world—all of them—were the descendants of exiled Force-users.

"This place is a nexus of the dark side of the Force," Taylor said. "It would corrupt anyone it comes in contact with. I'm only safe because of the nature of my power. Why is the Dark Side so strong here?"

The figure's ghostly eyes looked down into the ice, directing Taylor with her gaze.

Each step was agony, but Taylor made her way to where the gaze pointed. Knowing she could not kneel and get up again, she used the Force to crack the ice. Below, she saw a prism-shaped rock, roughly four by seven inches. To her eyes, it looked like quartz. To her Force vision, it looked like a shimmering ball of pure rage and hate.

It was the same darkness that infected her stomach.

"It was my beloved's. A talisman from his lost world. It saved me when it could not save him. But salvation came with a price."

"And tens of thousands of years of corruption and death," Taylor realized. "If a human came here, and touched that, they'd been completely consumed by the Darkside."

The glowing figure gave no answer.

With a slash of her silver ligthsabers, Taylor destroyed the talisman. There was no massive release of energy; no explosion of the dark side. It simply died, fading back into ordinary stone as its darkness faded.

"Let the world be free," Taylor said. "Let the people here find their own future."

"They'll betray themselves in time, and die just like all others."

"Maybe. But it'll be by their own will, not yours. Or that…things."

The runes on the obelisks began to slow. The glow of the holographic ghost faded. "Very well, Bendu. If all I knew is lost, let me be lost as well. It is a shame that you die soon. Death comes to all."

"It's a good death," Taylor said.

"There's no such thing," the woman said, before the magic and power of the obelisks faded and went still. Her figure disappeared.

Beside her, Temeraire growled an inquiry. Taylor weakly reached up and touched his snout, but she couldn't look away from the glowing pocket of universe that shown in front of her. She could see alien stars and galaxies; she could feel Force power pouring out of it. She struggled to breath against the restrictive pain in her stomach.

"I need to go there," she whispered. It wasn't until she spoke the words that she understood the overwhelming urge she felt. "I need to go there, Temeraire."

His low growl conveyed regret and loss. He didn't want to leave her. Taylor leaned against his snout. "I'm dying, Tem," she whispered. "I can't fight this dark side curse on my own, and no one on this world can help me. But I can feel the Force through that portal. I don't know where; I don't know how. But I can feel hope through there."

A claw snagged the back of her furred cloak. She didn't have time to gasp as the dragon lifted her onto his own neck. "Temeraire, no! We don't know what's on the other side! It could be wrong. I'm dying anyway, so what's the risk? But you need to stay here. This is your world."

He turned and stared at her with one beautiful gold eye, and in that moment she understood. He was not just her dragon; she was his human. Her eyes stung with tears as the sheer breadth and power of his bond with her flooded her mind.

She couldn't breathe for the power of it. She couldn't talk. All she could do was lay down forward across his neck and hold him. "I love you too, Tem," she whispered.

The dragon lifted his head and unleashed a triumphant cry to the sky. His flapped his wings, and with a flip of his tail flew into the roiling cloud of Universe that hung within the pyramidal frame.

His passage strained something; some ancient mechanism that had sustained itself for eons but now found itself overwhelmed by the surge of energy necessary to pass a dragon.

The mushroom cloud that rose high into the sky was seen by none; no one on the world would realize that history had just ended; that the future had just begun.

A/N: The epilogue is already posted, with final notes.