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Chapter 68: Tides of Darkness
"Memory is all we are in the end."
– Prince Artos Stark
The Empire moved on from the Lóng Dynasty as quickly as possible, like the turning tide on a beach of ambitious rocks; imperial nobility and merchant lords moved ever onward – ever inward – for there existed little profit nor gain in loyalty to the ghosts of past days. Artos stood beside the Dawn Throne in all its majesty of diamonds and silver amongst white marble, glancing once briefly to keep an eye on the girl, the first Tamashī Empress in how long; he didn't care to keep track.
Empress Yuanji had not taken well to her new position in truth, as she was too kind and innocent for the realities of Imperial Court.
Yu Xīn acted as her left hand in all his finery and pride – much to the envy of the other nobility – whispering of suitors.
As the Empress it was the girl's divine duty to wed and produce heirs that would take her place.
That this would-be heir should have several features its mother lacked was left unsaid in polite company.
Artos had duelled no less than twenty-three challenges for the girl's hand… as if it were his to give…
Prince Regent, they'd named him, or well She had-
"Art?" The Empress called on him, all smiles and royal honey.
"Empress," his Stark eyes darted to the girl with ashen hair and emerald eyes.
"Yui," she corrected with a tired frown. "I ordered you, remember?"
Artos sighed. She'd clung to him too easily and tightly. "Empress Yui?"
The girl pouted; a woman grown by Imperial law – yet no less childish for it.
It was her innocence that Artos and the Xīn boy had found command ground upon.
As she was, loved yet sheltered by a slain brother, the girl would be nothing but a pawn to any husband.
Not to say that Xīn was unambitious himself – their match would even make sense – yet when Artos looked upon the girl…
Those emerald eyes shined, hopeful and desperate in equal measure.
"His Lordship asked your voice," his would-be daughter said. "Prince Regent?"
Artos snapped his thoughts away, darting eyes free from where his own brother had fallen.
"Speak my lord," he declared with no care for insulting the man – whatever minor noble he happened to be…
"As I spoke," the noble laced words with hissed poison. "The Western Shadow crawls closer, our crops die, and our men lose heart, Prince Regent…"
The Shadow as they'd so aptly named it had appeared from the night Yui sat her throne, leading to no end of rumour and whispers, as void-dark clouds rolled over the grey wastes and the number of fleeing natives increased tenfold. It was dismissed as paranoia and Western noise at first, as the minor lordlings along the far border were ever complaining about whatever they felt lacking. What they suffered in wealth and power, they made up for in pride.
The shadow had since become far too prominent to deny however… and the conflicts were increasing ever rapidly…
It was all he could to vow that the matter was well in hand, that they did – when they didn't – have some semblance of a plan.
Noble after Noble came and went before the Dawn Throne with their petty and often imagined grievances. They ranged from grudges to trade and cattle or promises made, to be made, or wholly broken; as one lord raged under the Dawn's shadow and the day grew old… his voice shrieked and tested patience…
"My daughter is dishonored," the noble shrieked thin and sharp as silver-steel.
"My son is dead," came the rebuttal. That turned many otherwise bored heads.
Grudges were one matter, promises broken another; words were wind in Imperial Politics…
Blood, however? Blood was the ultimate coinage of value and not easily repaid without blood in kind.
"Your son killed himself," again the shirking, seasoned with mockery. Artos sighed at the pitch of it all and frowned.
The young man had taken his own life – great taboo that it was – to hear his lordly father tell it; he'd been led stray by beauty.
"Your daughter lied to my boy! She spoke nothing of a betrothal and used him like the harlot she is!"
Artos groaned at that word, eyeing the shrieking lord.
"Harlot!?" Steel hissed free from its scabbard. "You Dog!"
"Western Rat!" The son-less lord drew steel right back, rage in his eyes.
Artos felt the Empress grip at his arm, frozen inside memory as the lords readied.
She was so young. Too young. Too broken. Old Gods, he prayed, to end this mummery.
Xīn stepped one foot down from the throne and raised his voice with a great thunderous "Enough!"
The Lords to their credit froze, though their blades remained drawn; the place guards posed to strike.
"Empress," Artos told the girl. "A boy is dead; a woman has broken her word. What would you have of us?"
The girl blinked, as all eyes fell upon the young lady. It was perhaps cruel, Arots thought as her eyes pleaded him, yet he could not hold her hand forever. A good ruler listened to the council of those around them – yet council was not always wise – the final decision would fall on her shoulders alone.
She would, in time, swim or sink to the depths.
"I-" Yui hesitated. The nobles would notice that…
Artos offered her little. "Speak your mind, Empress."
"I," she released a breath. "I am sorry for the loss of your son, my Lord…"
Sympathy was a well and good thing… in moderation…
"It is a crime your Majesty! This harlot lied and-"
"Call my daughter a harlot One. More. Fucking Time!"
"Enough!" Xīn barked. "The next man to speak out of turn, loses their tongue!"
Artos half expected them to try their luck, but the wolfish grin on his lips seemed to quiet them.
"As you were saying Empress," he urged the girl to continue, as it was time for her to swim, or to drown…
"Yes," Yui smiled sheepishly. "Your loss is… any loss, my Lord, is no small thing… I have felt its sting myself; of late – I will pray for your son..."
Artos eyed her unblinking. She had, likely unintentionally; compared Royal loss of blood to mere Nobility.
The Lord's eyes went wide at the words, head bowed, he muttered thanks in hurried quiet.
The Empress was divined by the Dawn. To have her prayers was no small thing to most.
"Do you have other children that yet live, my Friend?"
Artos smiled at that, however small. A fine touch that was.
Fine, yet also ill-done; as the other side of the issue scowled.
"I do," the bowed lord replied proudly. "A son, and two daughters."
Yui smiled in turn. "A blessing, to have family left to love in this world…"
Something died in the young girls, a spark for a moment however bright flickered.
"Perhaps a compromise," Artos moved to help her then, as sorrow gripped her chest. "Empress?"
"Y- Yes," Yui shut away her sad thought, somewhere dark. "My brother always said that marriage could only be held up by way of love…"
An idealist she was, the Young Empress, yet she smiled happily when the lord accepted her wishes. One of his daughters would fulfil what betrothal the harlot had broken with her actions; shaming one lord and elevating the other. The girl had, with some few words, made a friend and an enemy.
"That was ill-done," Xīn argued with a frown. "A fool he may be, but he'll not forget this slight…"
"His daughter broke faith and broke a young man's heart," Yui argued right back, with some spark of fire.
"The boy's death is unfortunate," Xīn hummed, head bowed, "yet his father did nothing to prevent it happening."
"You think he knew the whole time? About his son and the noble's daughter?"
"Likely," Artos butted in. "He probably thought his boy strong enough to steal the girl's heart…"
In the end, the boy had hung himself when he learnt the truth. The girl had used him, heart and soul.
"Why do such a thing?" Yui slumped in her throne.
"Power, my Empress," Xīn answered. "It's always power."
Artos scoffed at it all. "Shadows march against us, but imperial politics never change…"
All manner of demons and shadow-spawn could lay siege to this Silver City, yet its nobility would merely complain about the noise.
"The boy," Yui asked after a moment, slummed in the ancient throne of Dawn. "How old was he? Why would he… do what he did…"
She'd trailed off, shadows in the darkest corners of her mind. She knew why. She'd felt its pull in the quiet of night when memory crept…
"Memory is all we are in the end," Artos echoed words he'd been taught as a young man, broken and lost, weeping at the bedside of his departed wife in ages past. "We are each of us moments and feelings, encased within ice, destined to one day melt into song and legend or myth. Take a man's memories away and you take all of him Yui. Chip away one memory at a time and you'll destroy the man as surely as if you'd hammered nail after nail through their skull..."
"You loved her Prince Art," Yui muttered quietly, frowning as deep as the sea. "Your wife?"
"Aye," he answered with a sigh. "I loved her lass, and no memory can ever bring her back to me."
If that love were a lie? If it was hollow, false, fake? Artos thought of that young boy and pitied him.
And yet, as more lords flowed into court and the shadows gathered… at least the boy was free of politics…
The nights had grown darker and colder of late. Bran could feel it in his bones, the numbness that stirred between dreams and a waking world; the Princess had taken his hand with an ever-frozen smile to show him the past and the future, muddled in the mud of uncertainty. The future, she claimed oh so confidently with that false grin of hers, was little concern for the gods – who existed before the world as Bran knew it – they who would exist long After its destruction.
When the stars died, Lyarra claimed, the Gods would take notice of only a fading light in the corner of their eye. Small. Irrelevant.
It was daunting at first, to feel quite so small; yet the Princess had only giggled at his forlorn expression.
"I felt the same once," she told him, that smile melting for but a moment. "Why was I chosen, if I could do nothing?"
It had plagued her over the endless years – through the green and the waking – she had been taught that the gods will was decided, written in the very roots, buried in the depths of the world; unchanging and eternal… fated… and yet… she had saved the Godswood at Storm's End and averted disaster there…
"You could have ignored it," young Bran told her, and how she'd smiled.
"Could I now?" She doubted that. She'd not been the first, nor would she be the last.
She stood where she stood because the Gods had foreseen it, had placed her upon a road with many twisting paths; this way and that, tempting her with choices she could and had made freely – yet made as the Gods willed – for whatever path she chose was Hers by the design of destiny… or so she'd been taught…
Frost's fate was as sure as Winter, for ice would melt so far from the cold night.
Willam – her dear little brother – ever the wandering wolf, would wander straight to his grave.
And what a grave it was. She frowned at the thought all the same, even as faith told her to smile.
All things returned to mud in the end, all memory, all flesh and sorrow and every soul to roots embrace.
"We cannot fight fate," Lyarra told the boy, planting a light kiss upon his forehead. "No more than the tides, young dreamer."
All things had an ending set in stone. The pages were written, the ink was dry, the book read and closed. It would end in Ice and Fire.
The dream twisted and turned around them – as Bran had become accustomed – he felt the cold bite as his cheeks, frost and sharp, as a man span bronze in hand to the cheers of so many brothers in black; the commander with eyes of grey-silver and a spreading grin. "Now boy," the commander swung his bronze, testing its balance.
"Quick about it lad," he said as his brothers cheered for him. "Before the Winter comes…"
As the commander clashed bronze against a fresh recruit, the snows blew; fading the world to white.
A scream cut through the blizzard, that of a boy, high-pitched and salted with betrayal – Bran turned on instinct alone.
"Why," the blizzard pleaded of him, and Bran's lips spoke with another's voice.
"Jealous," his own voice replied, harsh and broken.
"Jealous," the blizzard raged. "You can't lie to me, Stark."
Eyes sparkled like stars within the blizzard, as flawless sapphires.
Bran's legs moved of their own accord into the cold embrace of frozen arms, skin as white as milk.
And yet her smile warmed his heart, pulled on his soul; this strange woman snow-white skin and blue eyes.
Her voice clung to the blizzard of cold, raging around them both; her giggle girly and delighted as they danced in the snow.
"Night gathers," she spoke sweetly, willing him, taunting and alluring. "And now my watch begins," the words rang in his head like bells, echoing from ear to ear, threatening to shatter the very world. "It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children."
Vows of the Night's Watch, Bran knew yet felt somehow how they'd been broken along the way…
"I shall win no crowns," the cold woman's smile turned haunted and chilling as her hand brushed his cheek.
That hand, smooth as silk, yet cold as a frozen lake; sending shivers down his spine to freeze the very soul within.
"And win no glory," another vow that felt broken, forsaken, shattered a thousand times then shattered again for good measure.
"I shall live and die at my post," Bran's eyes closed, as her voice entered his heart. "I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn." His heart found purpose in the words, new, twisted… dark and forsaken…
Her eyes were darker and darker as she held him close… and blue… blue… blue… blue…
Bran found a smile on his lips – not his own – frozen, drowning in a sea of snow and winter.
A fallen Stark in tattered black, coated in icy white and brittle from the cold. He brought his eyes high and beheld his goal – his great failing – to find it beautiful. She was beautiful. Skin as white as the moon and eyes like shining azure stars. "Mine," she smiled kindly at him, her voice sweet, lips full of promise.
The pale woman brought her hands once more to his cheek, caressing, wrapping an arm around the fallen Stark and embracing him in Winter.
"What returned to the Nightfort to rule as King was a puppet," Lyarra's voice swatted the dream away lazily with the wave of a single absent hand.
History would not be kind to the Commander and his true name was removed from all records, she told her young dreamer; even as Bran frowned deeply at the lesson in his confusion. The stories named him traitor. The truth, however, was far sadder – bewitched by a creature beyond mortals and used for its ends, cut down by his brother when King Brandon the Breaker led an army to the Wall in hopes of freeing his brother; only to free him with ancient steel.
The Breaker ordered a name removed from history, never to be uttered upon pain of death. His brother died. The End.
"Willam told me this story," Bran uttered, eyes darting to his tutor. "In the Red Keep… when we…"
Dark thoughts plagued him at that notion, frowning; Bran remembered well the night he'd lost his father…
"My brother was taught the fable well I'm sure," Lyarra hummed, raising one arm to click her fingers.
House Frost was a shadow of its former self by the end of their nights; the bloodline of winter forgetting its own blood and faded magic. That same blood ran in the veins of Winterhold even now; albeit weak, shallow, more raindrop than puddle or ocean. In another life, the Frost's might have endured…
In another life, Lyarra had seen, they'd thrived… and changed their fate… but that was not This life…
A room appeared with the blink of an eye, cold as ice; the fire faded far – windows open to the elements.
Bran turned to lay eyes upon the pale woman from before, smiling softly at the bundle in her arms; as the child gurgled a laugh.
"A child," Brand uttered, eyes darted to his tutor.
"A union," Lyarra corrected, "of Ice and Snow… of Winter…"
The pale woman placed her son within its crib of carved ice, yet when she turned…
A tear ruined her perfect features, pale blue; it ran down her cheek until the moment she screamed.
King Brandon the Breaker ran Ice through the woman's chest, as she wailed and shattered like ice with a terrible noise.
"Brandon," the King of Winter named the child. "You're a Stark. You'll be a Stark, by blood if not by name. I promise… brother…"
The dream froze in place, with the king looking forlorn upon his nephew and Young Bran eyeing the events with a busy mind full of doubts.
"Who was he? The child? I've never heard about this…"
"No," Lyarra shrugged. "You wouldn't have, little Dreamer."
The child was raised as Stark in all but name, she claimed, stronger than most; with the very blood of winter in his veins. The King of Winterflel gave his nephew a Stark name and claimed him as his own bastard. Many questioned the truth, to be sure, the worst kept secret for a century… yet they questioned in quiet places…
"Why show me this?" Bran pried helplessly, seeking some meaning or reason that he too often never found with the Princess.
"The child lives," she claimed uncaringly.
"Impossible," Bran denied. "He'd need to be-"
"Ancient?" Lyarra's smile beamed brightly. "Winter is patient…"
And it was coming now, roaring a laughing ecstasy of rage – winter's wrath and ruin.
The dream shifted between a heartbeat, and suddenly Bran found himself somewhere he'd known…
Winterfell. He stood beside the Princess in his home, only the faces around him were blurred; strangers – memories long faded from history – dancing and drinking and laughing at some form of feast or event. "A wedding," Lyarra informed, as if he'd read his thought… and perhaps she had…
"Jon is late," Bran heard the man's voice carry to his ears.
He was a handsome man, this one, and undeniably Stark by his look.
All dark hair, with silver eyes that shun with some unexplainable sorrow.
"A lowly wolf," then a woman spoke, all smiles, a silver circlet atop her head.
"I must," the Stark managed the ghost of his smile – though Bran thought it forced.
"My Prince," a new voice separated the Stark from the Queen.
A slap echoed out across the hall suddenly, and the dream fell silent…
Then came the screams, as a man in red with black ravens sent a young woman stumbling, wide-eyed and afraid to the floor.
The music drowned all other sound, echoing off the walls as if the stones themselves were playing. The Stark gave an angry look and staggered suddenly as a quarrel sprouted from his side, just beneath the shoulder. If he screamed then, the sound was swallowed by the pipes and horns and fiddles.
A second bolt pierced his leg, as the Queen's neck was cut from left to right and a giant man lifted a table up from its legs in rage.
Bran felt every emotion in the dream, the terror of it all; the blood in his veins screamed of fright and terror as if the threat were real.
"The Prince in Winterfell rise-"
The voice died with Stark's bronze in his neck.
"Now then," the Prince in Winterfell snarled through bloodied teeth. "May I have this dance?"
Bran watched in awe at the sight of him, this nameless Prince, as the man moved faster than he'd ever witnessed.
A crossbow hummed and the Prince's sword flashed sending the bolt upward with a metallic whine, spinning in the air until it clattered against the floor. "He deflected it," gasped one of the strangers in red-and-black as he stepped backwards on instinct, shocked as Stark began cutting down men. "Deflected it in flight…"
"As one," ordered another man. Blades hissed as they were drawn from sheaths, the enemy pressed shoulder to shoulder, bristling with blades. The Prince came on faster; his stumbling walk became a run— straight for the group between him and his sister. One man's nerve failed. He rushed the Stark, two men following.
"Don't!" Their commander roared at his men's defiance, headlong into the wolf's bloodied jaws.
Gone was the Dashing Prince. His flowing raven hair was bloodied and wet, messy, his eyes a fury.
Stark cut them down one by one, having picked up a stray shield to deflect so many bolts; those that found their mark seemed to do little.
He roared as he fought, cutting down men like flowers in a field, the first fell to his knees and screamed at the sight of his severed limb. Then came two more, twins in life, twins in death; as the Prince slashed one across the chest and the other in the temple, leaving one twin to stagger, head down, into a nearby table, while the other simply fell limp as a child's puppet cut free of its strings. "From the left!" Too late, as the man bore a thrust through the stomach, prepared to strike and was struck again in the neck, just below his ear. He took four unsteady steps and collapsed. Bran thought this Stark Prince inhuman, faster than wind.
Two men in pale pink tabards struck simultaneously from both sides, a high sweeping cut, another low and flat.
Stark caught both, two metallic clangs merging into one. They were dead before Bran could so much as blink.
"Dorren Stark," Lyarra named him finally, frowning slightly at the naming. "The Dashing Wolf…"
A man, however skilled, was only mortal. The bolts struck as Stark's strength began to abandon him.
Bran watched as the Prince was stabbed in the back by a man in dark armor and a pale pink cloak spotted with blood. The pale man was shorter than the Stark by a head, with ice-chips for eyes and a predatory smile, he whispered something in the wolf's ear before twisting his knife.
Prince Dorren fell to his knees as a gasp of air escaped bleeding lungs.
"A- Alys," he groaned, spitting blood into the stone floor. "Alys… Alys…"
Bran could see this Alys, silent on the table… violated by the young man in black-and-red.
"Prince Dorren," a new face stepped between him and the view of his sister, dressed in a black raven-feathered cloak.
"Bastard," is all the Dashing Prince growled, clinging to his sword for the life of him as every muscle screamed.
"My father sends his regards," the man in the pale pink cloak said, shoving his sword into Prince Dorren's stomach.
The dream faded to the symphony of Princess Alys Stark's screams as her cry echoed in the dark and the world turned cold.
In place of Winterfell's great hall, they found a feathered bed and roaring fires, light snows drifting in from the nearby wintery window; beside the bed knelt a hooded man grasping an old frail hand. "Theon," the hooded man named him. "Ask it, lad, and it'll be done…"
"Edrick," the frail Theon said the name with pleading frozen eyes.
"Aye," the hooded man understood. "I'll keep the boy safe for you, my boy…"
The frail man smiled at that, strained, yet true as his hands grasped the hooded man's.
"Who are they?" Bran asked of his guide.
"Listen," Lyarra hushed, nodding to the two men.
"There's a letter," the frail man groaned. "In writing, on the table… you'll be Regent…"
He was dying, Bran realise, whoever this Theon was with his sad eyes and sucken tired face.
"A greater king," Theon pleaded of the hooded man. "A greater man than… than me…"
"I promise," the hooded man vowed, holding his friend's hand until the strength faded away.
A cold wind below through the open window as Lyarra spoke his name.
"Theon Stark," she declared. "The North would never see his like again."
Bran's eyes went wide at the revelation. This was Theon? "The Hungry Wolf!?"
That was wrong… the Hungry Wolf was eight feet tall and unstoppable in the stories…
The man in this bed was dying, frail, short and drained of all light – felled by time and raised up by legend…
"King Edrick Stark would rule for near a hundred years of relative peace," Lyarra whispered, as if the ghosts might hear them.
At that, the hooded man stood beside the bed of the fallen King and turned to reveal haunting blue eyes in the shadow of his hood.
He move lightning-quick, brushing his hood aside to reveal a head of snow-white hair and darting sapphire eyes that shun like stars in the night.
Lyarra took a step back at that, on instinct alone; as if afraid for the first time.
"Princess?" Bran asked, looking up at the woman with concern. "Is something-"
He felt the cold at his throat in an instant, wide-eyed as the blade of ice met him.
It was freezing – he could Feel it chill his bones; grasping – filling the dream with winter.
The man with snow-white hair was starring at him, eye to eye, his blue gaze shun brightly.
Lyarra snapped her fingers and suddenly the eerie blade was gone from his mind, though the chill remained.
Bran Stark shot up from sleep, safe in his feathered bed; even though the cold winds blew through his open window.
The nights were darker and colder of late. Bran had seen that sword before though… Frost… the same blade Prince Willam wielded…
Bran's hand found its way to his neck, icy cold to the touch; chilling down his spine as memory recalled haunted blue eyes. They almost seemed to seep through his very soul with an icy grip, as if the dream had Known he was there… more a nightmare… only lingering in waking. Bran shivered in his feathered bed, as cold as Winter.
The blood was the same. Varin could feel it in his very being, the cold embrace that lulled his memory to wander; of home and kin and a warmth that seemed to retreat at his presence – the first frosts of winter chasing away summer – the cold had seen him, known him, they were kin somehow; this hand around his heart that squeezed and demanded answers. He showed it his home, his family, his whole live flashing through thought at dizzying speeds as if he'd relived every moment in a heartbeat.
What it wanted of him; he could not say. There was almost a childlike curiosity to it by the end. It smiled, he felt, if the cold could smile at all…
No, it grinned; wide like predatory – like a snarling wolf eyeing easy prey – in strange thanks it seemed to Thank him in its own way.
"Hold on," voices whispered in the dark, his sister…
Varin groaned the name, "Serana…"
He could feel her hand in his own, some spark of hope.
The cold didn't like that, the flash of warmth fading away.
The blizzard departed, shifting and twisted the world until the skies were clear.
He'd never seen colors so majestic, like waves of light and magic amongst the stars; the landscape white and littered with ice of clear crystalline brilliance. His legs moved without a will of his own, willing him forward – as if to home, eager and rushed – the cold led him in hand to a great mountain of ice and snow, spiked with brilliance and imposing beyond measure… yet he felt safe… welcomed in the cold grasp as great doors of thick solid ice creaked open…
Soon he laid eyes upon a throne, gargantuan in scale, loomed over him with all its strange beauty…
"Welcome," a voice seemed to say from atop the throne, as Varin's eyes turned upward.
Atop the throne sat the lone figure of a man where Varin expected to find one of the frozen demons.
A man, with hair of freshly fallen snow and the same sapphire eyes he'd fought in the blizzards outside Deepwood.
"Brother," again came the whisper of Serana, and the man with blue eyes frowned so deeply to hear it; the hold it held on him.
Varin reached for his sword as the man descended icy step after step, pulling Sharp from its scabbard and pointing it forward – only to find the man before him.
How he'd moved so fast was… inhuman…
A pale finger touched Sharp's tip, and the man grinned.
"Fascinating," he declared after a moment, taking the sword with the blink of Varin's eyes.
One moment it was pointed at the threat, then the threat held the blade; greedily – curious and oddly thrilled…
Varin should not move, his legs frozen stiff, his lungs bitter cold.
"W-" He managed with difficulty. "Who-"
The blue-eyed man, pale and strange, turned to eye him with that unsettling grin.
"Who am I?" He laughed but a moment, the single crack across the ice on a frozen lake.
Blue eyes back to the black oily steel, inspecting it as a child might a new toy, curious and curiouser.
"Where did you find this sword?"
Varin's lips did not move to answer.
They needn't have bothered, however.
The memories flashed through thought in an instant.
"I see," the blue-eyed man hummed, as frost grew along the dark sword.
It appeared as if by magic, stretching out across the sword; coating it in frost – only for the cold to hiss and melt against the shadow.
"Old magic," blue-eyes declared, seemingly talking to himself more than anyone as he grinned gladly, attempting once more to cover the sword in the frost from his fingertips. "Older than the Shepards, older than the Cold gods… curious indeed… blood of mine; this relic you wield without thought…"
Varin felt his legs freed at the snap of a finger, stumbling forward to his knees; looking up at the man and his haunting eyes.
"You've no idea what this is, do you child?"
"A-" Varin struggled to speak. "A sword…"
"The North Forgets, I see, how very typical…"
Blue-eyes laughed, cracking louder than before.
"Allow me to educate you," his hand was around Varin's neck in an instant.
Memories came like waves against rock, crashing; as Varin screamed and collapsed to the cold icy floor.
Varin found himself along a great shore, as men standing eight or nine feet tall clashed against monsters – men with amphibian-like traits, scaled with ridged backs and webbed hands as well as gilled necks; crawling out from the ocean from the very waves to clash against the forces of giant men in suits of runed bronze – cutting down fish-men and creatures with amphibian heads, with wide eyes and fins, clutching crude weapons on oily black as the dark tides raged behind them and brought forth death.
Varin brought Sharp up in a flash against one of the tall men, their bronze shattering against the shadow; yet the strength of the man sent him reeling to the sand.
Looking up, he could see a thousand feathered wings, flapping with men atop their backs; diving down with great talons to clutch at the fish-men. Griffons, he recalled the name; the very same beast he'd once found atop the mountains of Ibben. These tall men rode them through he sky as one rode a horse.
The battle raged as did the tide, and Varin could see something monstrous beneath the surface – something dark and dreadful…
"Servants of an ancient darkness," suddenly blue-eyes stood on the beach with him, uncaring for the battle around them…
"You-" Varin found his footing, holding Sharp in hand. "You're not like the Others… the one's I fought…"
Blue-eyes smirked at that. "Tools," he answered. "I am more than they ever were or could strive to become…"
"And," Varin paused but a moment, easing somewhat. "What are you… exactly?"
Again he smiled. "I've had many names, child, none of consequence for you I'm certain."
"Try me," Varin scowled, bolder, pushing aside his dread somewhere deep and far from reach.
"I am Frost," blue-eyes replied after a moment. "I am Winter, child, I am Death. I am your Saviour."
At that, another voice broke through the fabric of memory.
"Wake up," she spoke, not his sister but his-
"Puppet," Frost snarled suddenly. "He is Mine."
"Not yet," came the reply, as the skies cracked with blinding light.
"Winter is patient," sapphire blue eyes shun like stars as Frost grabbed Varin's arm.
The snows blinded all things then, freezing shut the dream until it cracked and shattered.
Varin awoke with a gasped from frozen lungs and the clattered of a pale dropped onto stone.
"Prince Varin!" A girl, feminine and frightful; as he turned eyes to meet hers – blue – he jolted away in a heartbeat,
"It's me," the blue-eyes said, mustering her best smile; that seemed to calm the young man somewhat as he stilled in the bed.
"Sansa," Varin knew her, his heart slowing. "I- I'm sorry… where…."
"Winterfell," Sansa's smile should've warmed the room, Varin thought, yet he felt only the cold.
The fire was raging, the windows closed, his feathered bed covered with enough furs to melt snow… and yet…
"You're safe," the Princess of Winterfell was saying, even as Varin paid her no mind. "I'll fetch your cousin; she's been worried – we all have…"
"Thank-"
She was gone…
How long had she been gone?
He'd not noticed her leave… his head too heavy…
Pushing the heavy furs aside, he was dressed in even thicker clothes; enough to make any man sweat…
And yet the cold gripped him still, fermented in his bones, a chill so deep that it had claimed his blood and soul – so that not even his wolf's warmth could melt the ice in his veins – the beast missing its ear; it licked his face happily to see its master stand on shaky legs.
"Good boy Freki," Varin scratched the wolf's one good ear, its other lost to the Winter…
Across the room, with Freki as his shadow, the Prince looked at his own eyes in the nearest mirror.
It was a far cry from Imperial design that he'd have expected, but the reflection looking back at him was his own.
He was pale – although he'd always been pale – now his skin remined him dangerous of Frost's from the nightmare.
Leaning closer, he starred into his silver eyes… searching for sapphire amongst the silver…
"Just a dream," Varin tried to convince himself, and yet…
The greatest lies men often told to themselves, as the saying went.
It had been his aunts voice that freed him from Frost's grasp in the end.
Pulling his thick sleeve, whatever hope the boy held to let loose and drowned.
"Varry!" Serana's all but tackled him from the shadows, wrapping her arms around her cousin.
"Cousin," Varin replied, trying to smile; yet failing wholly and truly…
"You're alive," Serana's smile was like a winter sun, bright and warming.
Warming to all those except Prince Varin at least. Cold, numb, empty. Lost.
"I- Yes," Varin decided, pushing aside the shadows. "You doubted me, Serry?"
She hit his arm and he felt nothing. "Never," she laughed. "Starks are hard to kill!"
He smirked at that because it seemed so wholly ironic… hard to kill… what a notion…
"Thank you for looking over him Sansa," Serana turned to the Tully girl with her blue eyes.
"We're family," Sansa replied simply. "We must look after each other Princess."
"Aye," Serana beamed. "Princess."
The two young women acted like old friends.
Varin wondering in silence if he'd been dreaming for years…
"Darion," he said suddenly. "Has he been told about-"
"Aye," Serana nodded, frowning suddenly. "They've bested the Wildlings…"
"Robb was wounded in the battle," it was Sansa's turn to frown.
"He'll live," Serana assured, smiling at her apparent newest friend.
White Harbor had withstood the might of the Free Folk it seemed, for what little good that did…
The living fight amongst themselves, Varin thought; recalling Frost. They were fighting the wrong enemy.
And this ancient darkness the dream showed him…
Sharp rested at his bedside, the void-sword patiently waiting.
Pulling his sleeve back up, looking down at his arm with a sense of dread.
Winter was Coming. It knew they were here, knew where they lived; knew their hearts.
It knew them because they shared the same blood. Frost and Stark, two wolves of a different pelt.
"We Are Winter," Prince Varin whispered Frost's old house motto and felt the world grow colder, as Freki whined at his master's side; nudging with a wet and concerned nose – his master forlorn and cold to the touch – the Prince of Winterhold steeled himself against the night. It would be a long one, and dark things came with it.
My Note(s): Welcome ladies and gents to 2024 :) It has been awhile since the last update – no excuse for that beyond the usual "I've been busy" fact with work, running the Youtube channel and still very Very slowly writing my own original story; but we're off to a good year so far and I'm optimistic about getting Sunset finished before 2025 haha we're not far from the ending now either :D with roughly 10-ish chapters remaining… maybe a few extra… but that's what my notes are saying at the moment.
As always, my heartfelt thanks to everyone that leaves a comment/review :) I look forward to bringing this story to its long-awaited final bow off the stage.
In the end memory is all that remains of us, and it'll be a cold memory indeed by the end of our tale. Winter is Coming. It will not come nor go quietly…
Wolftamer96: I don't think Rodrik had any reason for wiping out the Boltons in this timeline, ultimately, they've done nothing to deserve it and Roose is no fool; with the arrival of so much Stark support and suddenly having a LOT more Stark blood, there's no chance of betrayal anymore. In the books, Roose only betrayed Robb when things started going south – Robb made a lot of mistakes – then with the supposed death of Bran and Rickon all Roose needed to do was remove Robb as the last of his line.
In this reality, Roose would need to kill a LOT of Starks to have any remote chance of even a slim hope to rule the North. Bolton is a "loyal" dog; they can sit for now.
Fannic: I appreciate the review :) I avoid whining about any lack of reviews normally as I understand most people Read but never Review anything, but it's still a little demotivating when a chapter gets no feedback whatsoever, thus any and all comments are always greatly appreciated!
Nico6554: Willam has never been a Warg no ;) he does say at one stage, that he was never born with that gift.
246vili: Reading that people enjoy my work is always uplifting :) Now we're off North to get molested by the undead!
Dave: Happy to hear you're still enjoying things! More to come, we're nearing the end now…
Namealreadyexists: Every now and again, I get a comment about "Willams Death" from Chapter 44 hehehe
GoldenDragon300: Worldbuilding is probably my favourite aspect of writing :) It's fun to explore the unexplored and engage the reader within a setting; is why I started writing "We Are Winter" as an excuse to expand upon the aspects of GRRMs work that I can't QUITE cover in the same detail within Sunset Starks
SurplusHook: Happy to hear you like my writing :) I think I've really come into my own "style" with writing in the past year or two – thanks for reviewing!