A Wayward Wizard in Westeros

by Zenith Starwalker

What happens when you take a dimensionally displaced Wizard Prince and shunt him into the world of Ice and Fire? Bloodshed, Magic, and a liberal amount of Explosions. A crossover/sequel from my main story... because I can.

3. A Wayward Wizard heads South

A Wayward Wizard heads South

'What was that saying about butterflies and hurricanes?' I idly mused to myself, though my mind was awhirl with thoughts. It would take a big frakkin' butterfly to bring about the game changing event I had presently witnessed.

The history of this world as I knew it from memory had just been sundered in one fell swoop. It was… a deviation with an abundance of negative and positive connotations that eminently stood out. What could have triggered this change?

Then it came to me like a bolt out of the blue. I was the butterfly! My very arrival here had inevitably caused some serious ripples in the timeline, and my actions even more so. Jorgan Mormont would have been slated for death (and likely the Warg girl that I had taken as a ward too) were it not for my intervention, and who knows how many other Bear Islanders were spared a similar fate because of me. It hadn't been the first time something like this had occurred, and if prior experience proved true, it wouldn't be the last. In worlds that were subject to a stringent system of fate, even minor changes could herald one of two typical results: either a string of divergences would follow that sent the world's set 'narrative script' spiraling out of control like a yoyo slipping from the finger of a particularly energetic kid in the middle of an around the world… or an adverse reaction would manifest itself as the fate system attempts to 'restore balance', usually by eliminating the culprit responsible, irrespective of their relative innocence.

Guess which one I was betting on, given the chosen world that I now found myself an unwilling participant in.

I would have to adjust for this drastic change in circumstances, even should I decide to keep my 'well-intentioned meddling' to a minimum. If the would be Conqueror's fateful crossing had not met with disaster, he would have eventually founded a city where he landed, dominated the vast majority of the continent with the fiery help of his dragons, and placed it under his rule, thus establishing a dynasty that would endure for centuries. As things were now, it was likelier that Westeros would remain divided and hostile to itself, like the warring states of China. It was a status quo that was broken only by the dragons, and their culturally sequestered Valyrian riders. The ancient rivalries broiling between the petty kingdoms ran contrary to the process of unification. If they did not unify themselves after centuries upon centuries of internecine warfare and winter, then they sure were not going to clasp hands now of all times. This was especially detrimental if the threat that might or might not be dormant to the far north was about to make a comeback tour of the world.

To quote a famous American President: 'A house divided against itself cannot stand'. Conversely, this continent did not have a serious slavery issue, which was one of the few progressive features it had going for it. Essos, on the other hand, well… the less said anent their libertarian backwardness, the better.

'At least I got a decent cueing to work with' I thought sardonically to myself. Though it might be prudent for me to double check the facts.

I reviewed the event in my mind's eye with eidetic clarity, taking care to search for any details that could have slipped my notice. It had been a chaotic scene at sea, rife with fear, despair, and death. Stormy winds so stiff and unrelenting in their fury that ship mainmasts had snapped like twigs and were felled like timbers, their sails mid-reefed and acting as funeral shrouds for the unfortunate sailors that were felled with them. Boats were slammed into each other by the churning waters like they were errant bumper cars; splintering oars, shattering handrails, and catapulting anguished men into the malevolent depths to drown. The waves were so high that they engulfed the smaller galleys in a single sweep, leaving nothing but flotsam and carnage in their wake. A great black winged beast, its lordly rider pelted with freezing rain, sampling lightning and finding it not to its taste. The collateral damage from the strike inflicting keraunoparalysis and sending an ill-fated passenger plummeting from the saddle to be swallowed up by the sea. The infamous Black Dread fled into the clouds, retreating northeast if my arcane reckoning of the sun's position and landmass were correct. A woman's scream of despair so high pitched and primal that it may as well have been emanating from her draconic mount. A foolhardy dive borne out of love and desperation, only to be rewarded with unforgiving water, both rider and mount devoured by the roiling waves. Solely one dragonrider was left physically unscathed, leading a badly mauled fleet towards the coastline, alone and forlorn.

There would be consequences to this calamity, the ramifications of which would give even seasoned farseers back home considerable headaches to comprehend if they knew the context like I did.

But where others would see merely disaster and despair, I saw… an opportunity. As one oleaginous mockingbird would have put it in another iteration of this world's story, 'Chaos is a ladder'. Fortunately for the people of this biosphere, I was not an entirely self-serving prick like littledick.

I had to salvage this kludging of the timeline somehow. This continent needed unity and a strong guiding hand, not these squabbling factions fighting over what were essentially long-established scraps of land like rabid dogs at the dinner table. For all the arrogance and hotheadedness that would have plagued their line, the Targaryens proved that a Westeros even loosely banded together into a single kingdom proved greater than the sum of its parts. To say nothing of the enemy of life lurking in the frigid reaches of the Lands of Always Winter. That's what made the War of Five Kings in the books such an infuriating event to me. Here was a veritable army of the undead marching on the Wall aiming to cull everybody and their neighbor and the Westerosi were happily killing each other for them over an ugly ass highchair… all for the sake of power, for power's sake.

United they might have stood a chance of prevailing, however slim it could have been against so mysterious and half forgotten a foe. Divided, they were all but guaranteed to fall… and allow unending night to descend upon the world.

And they chose the latter.

It struck too damn close to home for me. Sempiternal cold and darkness would be the death of this world, just as surely as it would have been for mine.

'And here I was hoping that my reason for being stolen away to this backasswards place was going to be something subtle or simple to solve. How silly of me' I groused… only the easiest assignments for me.

I detached my blank, brooding stare from the still bleeding, stern visage of the Weirwood's face and returned to the magically obscured crook that I made my ward's hideyhole from hostile eyes. I immediately dispersed the incanted spell with a carefree ease that only the truly adept spellcasters could aspire to, but was second nature to me. The young woman that was 'Kissed by fire', if I recalled, was in the same state as I had left her in, breathing steadily in the throes of thaumaturgically enforced sleep. No surprise there. If I was to do anything about the situation that would be brewing in the south, I could afford no burdens weighing me down now. The question here was whether to cut this especial 'burden' loose or take it with me. Her life might seem paltry compared to millions of others, but all life mattered to me.

I certainly could not leave her here. The Bear Islanders were obligated to kill her on basic principle, my veneer of protection be damned, never mind that she nearly gored their Lord and Master. The problem was that I did not have a clue where her home was. The Frozen Shore where those raiders most likely casted off from was a wide stretch of gelid coastline that hosted two notable tribes with queer naming traditions that warred with the other as often as they warred with the Bear Islanders, and there was nothing forbidding the existence of smaller factions that would be as un-neighborly. I suppose I could wake the lass up and ask her, but I was skeptical that she would be in a talkative mood after both losing her mount and being taken virtually prisoner by those her kind perceived as kneelers. Were I anybody else, I would be lacking for convenient solutions to this issue.

Thankfully, I was myself, and with all that being me entailed.

I gave a casual glance to my surroundings, figuring that I had plenty of time before Lord Mormont's future Captain of the Household Guard, Engrom, decided to check in on me. It would be hours before I had to attend the celebratory feast in the Mormont's Keep, and I still had to figure out where I was going to keep my ward during that time. Mormont had been adamant on forbidding someone who had almost killed him a spot in his home, let alone at his dinner table, and I could not begrudge him the sentiment. Bet he thought he was being sly by doing that and making me the guest of honor in his home. Shaggy bugger probably craved to see how I dealt with the slight conundrum he had created for me. Would I figuratively prostrate myself to him and ask a favor? Or would I risk an accident befalling my ward and dismiss it as bad luck? Surely the man had the presence of mind to realize that I was a bigger danger than I appeared, my earlier actions notwithstanding. Why gamble on displeasing me?

A problem for later. I had curiosities to satisfy, and a discreet way of accomplishing it.

I approached the sleeping Free Folk girl, brushing free some detached pieces of foliage from the breeze out of her eye-catching locks before crouching to my knees in front of her. Face to face, I had time to study her countenance. She was of dainty features, high cheekbones, a round chin, a cute button nose, and with a fair, if freckled complexion. Plus, she was a redheaded warg; therefore it was safe to declare that this girl lucked out in the genetic lottery. I laid an index finger on her forehead (for a solid, efficient, and isolated connection) and closed my eyes in the physical world… before opening them again in a metaphysical one, dark as the stellar void and just as infinite, if not more so.

Dreamwalking was a rare ability back home. I could count the number of people who were capable of doing so on one hand, and none of them came remotely in the vicinity of matching Luna's skill (who conducted it routinely while awake), as was inherent to her domain as the Princess of the Night and Lunar Regent. I myself obtained this ability under her careful tutelage, and excelled only due to a natural talent in all things arcane and a desire to learn. In retrospect, it was ironic in a way, as lucid dreaming eluded me in my birthworld, and the dreams that I did have regularly were nonsensical upon reflection. Dreams in general manifested themselves in this place that was not a place in a myriad of shapes, colors, and even flavors. The one ahead of me resembled a violet, cannonball jellyfish, floating and bobbing in an invisible stream. I doubted that the girl had ever seen a jellyfish before, but possessing prior knowledge of a thing meant little in the metaphorical world of Somnium, as I had taken to naming it.

In order to enter a person's dream-realm, one had to knock. This was not only a polite gesture, but also a necessity, as entering the dream sans permission (or by using a backdoor, as Luna showed me how to do) was liable to collapse the dream automatically, shattering it like so much glass. Additionally, making contact with the 'fabric' of the dream relayed information to me about its contents, and in my case and Luna's, conferring a degree of influence and the means of asserting and building upon that influence. It was like having to lockpick your way through a series of doors, each granting access to higher 'administrative privileges' for want of a better description. In Arcania, Luna would be the one that had a skeleton key, whereas I had a fine set of lockpicks and the knowhow to infiltrate expeditiously. It was mildly inconvenient in that fashion, but it served a necessary purpose, for Fell creatures that prowled Somnium and would otherwise prey upon unsuspecting dreamers where they were particularly vulnerable would be rebuffed, if not by the natural defenses that were in place, then by a vengeful Night Princess when she unfailingly noticed attempted intrusions and swiftly inflicted retribution upon them.

Hardly anybody was aware of the service being performed for them in their sleep, and hardly anybody ever thanked her for it. It was a grave injustice in my eyes, and I often reminded my people that they were truly watched over and protected by their benevolent rulers, in all aspects.

I tapped on the jellyfish's bell, as was my habit for these procedures.

I didn't even encounter the telltale resistance that pushing against the textile-like walls of a dream-realm would engender, which did not speak well of the protections of this world's humans (or unseasoned wargs) against some of the creatures that figuratively went bump in the night. The structure of the girl's dream parted for me like air through a wire screen, effortlessly. Information came to me wholesale, with no resistance anywhere… and no doors either. The change was so unusual for me as to be almost jarring, but I powered through, absorbing and interpreting the stream of data like a living supercomputer. From what I was reading here, the girl was reliving pivotal, formative memories in her life, which was rather convenient for me, as deliberately manipulating a person's dreams so that they would have to experience negative moments they would sooner forget just for my sake left a bad taste in my mouth. If she was already doing so, then I got to keep my hands clean, in some partial sense.

I delved markedly deeper, surreptitiously weaving myself into the quilting of the dream, if I was in keeping with the textile metaphors. Involving one's self in a dream that was also a memory carried with it some risks, least of all was standing out and getting deemed as an intruder. Death in a dream for the dreamer was like a hard reset, either disrupting the flow of the dream or altogether waking the sleeper completely. Death for an interloper in another's dream was annoying, usually locking them out the person's dream for the duration of it, not to mention the fact that it stung like a motherfraker. Luckily for me, I had full administrative access, which allowed me to 'write' myself in without trouble, and the best part was that I didn't have to put in any elbow grease. The silver lining of a world where people where not only physically squishy, but metaphysically to boot.

I was amidst a village that made the habitation outside the gates in the waking world seem sophisticated by comparison. The houses reminded me of yurts, though a good deal cruder in construction, with their structure consisting of branches tied together with wood fibers that formed a teepee that jutted out of the dried sealskins patched together that made up the walls of these primitive huts. Still, it was shelter against the harsh elements with what materials were on hand; as the carpet of blue on the horizon told that these people did not exist separate from the ocean and its bounty. To further demonstrate this, the smell of cooking fish permeated the air (strong scents were a prevalent feature in memories), along with smoke as fierce looking women dressed in sealskin preserved strips of some type of red meat over an open flame. Men sharpened rough spears of stone and bone as they leaned on sleds built of wood and whalebone that were pulled by dogs not dissimilar to overlarge Siberian huskies and Greenlander dogs. I was struck by how closely these people resembled the Inuit of my birthworld, except mostly Caucasian (although that term did not technically apply here) in ethnicity.

These details were informative, but not explicitly accurate, as they did not occur within direct sight of the dreamer. An interesting tidbit about dreams was that they tended to fill in gaps that would otherwise be blank. The girl knew that this was normal routine for these people, if they were her people that is, so this was all filler. From what I was seeing, this was not a terribly populated tribe, with maybe a hundred or so members from what I could see in the vicinity. The only distinctive features about them were that the males wore what had to be bits of reindeer antler sewn onto their furry caps. The land they lived on was fittingly named, with a rocky meandering shoreline, and small woods of pine trees whose branches were shingled with snow. It was the middle of winter, and everything was covered in a thick blanket of white, with the occasional spots of brown and grey. The air itself was cold enough to sting as it inflated one's lungs. Say what one would about the Free Folk, but they survived in some inhospitable conditions that stretched the limits of what human beings could tolerate, and that alone was worthy of a modicum of respect.

In the center of this nomadic camp was a hut just like all the others, but the man that emerged from the flap was an atypical member as far as appearances went. He was sporting a headpiece with a pair of antlers sewn into the back of it, giving him the impression of a position of leadership. This was confirmed when he gruffly barked orders (in a coarse, clangy language that the dream supplied as being that of the Old Tongue) to a pair of hunters minding one of the sleds. While the men of this tribal-like group were hard and wiry from a lean existence, this man had some meat and muscles on his bones. Wide at the shoulders and powerfully built, he had no qualms with throwing it about, as exhibited when he clouted one of the men on the noggin, a sulky faced teen actually, for backtalk. Muttering to himself as the other man of the two chuckled at his expense, the teen mounted the sled, shouted to the dogs, and skidded off into the white expanse.

The other man murmured low to the redheaded man and he responded in kind, a dark mood shared betwixt them as they watched the sulky teen disappear under the horizon. After a minute or so of quiet contemplation, the broad redheaded man idly commented in a tone that was ostensibly cautiously hopeful, and the man beside him clutched tightly to the shaft of the bone tipped spear he was holding, before he nodded and stalked away.

Intrigued as I was, I wondered what this commanding man had to do with the girl. A call from the voice of a woman to his rear would clarify for me, as the man returned to the entrance of his tent with a smile on his face as he beheld the (equally red haired) woman. She had to be the Free Folk equivalent to his wife, for shyly attached to her thigh and blending in with her brown speckled sealskin boots was a girl in a parka that was no older than eight, and who had to be the originator of this dream. The man, who I decided to designate as Chieftain, kissed his partner before he stooped to scoop up his daughter (for what else could she be at this point?) and toss her into the air, earning a giggling laugh as he caught her and nuzzled his nose to hers, doing little to dissuade me from comparing them to the eskimo. The woman drew him in for another kiss and informed him in the common tongue that he had yet to break his fast. The Chieftain's stomach agreed with that sentiment as it commenced to grumble, to his red faced embarrassment and his wife's amusement.

I floated after them as they settled down in their hut for a meal consisting of fire-cooked fish, strips of charred reindeer meat, and a handful of withered wintergreen berries for desert. Given how they were the prominent family in this village, this basic fare was no doubt considered luxurious. I observed the interplay between the members of the family with mild curiosity. The father was stoic and curt in manner and speech, but the mother and he traded glances that indicated that they loved each other. The mother acted in a way that indicated that she wore the pants in the relationship, though she acted reasonable with her power as the family matriarch. The daughter was sweet and gentle, kindly and covertly donating her berries to her father when she noticed that he was not as thrilled as she was with the allotment that the mother authorized as the head of the household. The father grinned at her and ruffled her hair in thanks, while the mother rolled her eyes as she deciphered the meaning behind the gesture and let it slide.

After breakfast, the girl's father left to administrate things while mother and daughter spent the next couple of hours affixing bits of bone and sharpened stone to suitably straight wooden limbs by using a celt shaped like an L to haft the thicker end before inserting the intended spear tip and tying it securely with wood fibers sourced from tree bark or strings of hemp. As they worked, the mother began to tell her daughter of a story she favored; with how excited the lass was to hear it. It was about the earliest of days, when men first crossed over into Westeros from Essos (or the Old Realm, as she referred to it), of how magic was alive in those days and that the greatest example of this were the mythical Children of the Forest. Such was their magical might that in their war with their distant ancestors, their Greenseers gathered in mass and invoked their potent powers to shatter the land bridge that connected Westeros to Essos in order to curb the detrimental flow of tool wielding, Weirwood felling men into their lands, and again to split the continent in twain. I myself knew from what Lore that I remembered that these events were what led to the islands known as the Stepstones and the swamplands termed The Neck.

It did not escape me that the mother carefully did not mention that a horrific number of blood sacrifices were needed to arouse this 'Hammer'.

While this did nothing to stop the men that had already gained a foothold, it did play a part in their peaceful agreement with the Children during the Pact. It was during this period of peace that a select few of their ancestors gained the ability to commune with animals and see the world through their eyes, taste it with their tongues, and understand it with their minds. Those who received this ability thought of it as a blessing of the nameless Gods that they adopted from the Children of the Forest, although those who didn't did not see it as such. Ostracized for being different, a good deal of them moved northwards, away from those who would persecute them along with those who disdained the system of hereditary kings; for while the Free Folk would follow men of strength, they were not obligated to follow his son if he was not the same. The mother then recounted that an ancestor of hers aided Joramun, the legendary First King-Beyond-the-Wall, against the Night's King by being his eyes in the sky, and that the power in his blood that let him do this was the same blood that flowed in their veins.

The sounds of a rising commotion from without the tent drew their attention and the lass accompanied her mother outside to see what the hubbub was about. A crowd was gathered about a familiar dogsled, though it clearly was not in the wholesome condition that it had left the village in. Two dogs with feathered arrows sticking out of their hides left a crimson trail behind them while the surviving canines sniffed at the corpses and whined sadly. Slumped over the sled with no less than three arrows pin cushioning him was the sulky teen that was sent out by the girl's father on some errand earlier. Amazingly, the youth was still alive, though with both feet on death's doorstep. The girl's father was kneeling by him and insistently and repeatedly asked who had done this to him. The dying boy whispered something into her father's ear before he expired that made the blood drain from his cheeks. He got up shakily, before facing the people he was responsible for and declaring 'Alk renon' which roughly translated to 'man eaters' in common and adding that they were close. This announcement was met poorly, with the men vociferating for action and the non-spearwives advocating that they pack up and run in the face of this dreaded adversity.

Before her father could bring order to the nigh hysterical mass of people, a screeching war cry emanated from the horizon and a shower of iron tipped arrows landed all around them, dropping several and inducing a frenzied panic. The girl's mother reacted immediately, snatching up her daughter in one arm and grabbing a quality spear from a recently deceased hunter and running for the forest, her daughter screaming for her father as he tried to coordinate a defense versus a veritable horde of enemies enclosing on the village from the east in the dozens and hundreds. These man eaters were on average better equipped than the usual wildlings, and these men were deserving of the epithet if they were what I thought they were; bearing swords, axes, and arrows of iron make that outclassed what the tribes-people had to defend themselves with. Faced with a foe that had numbers, superior equipment, and ferocity on their side, the tribe's doom was spelt as plain as day. The girl and her mother fortunately managed to break through the cordon before it formed, though their escape did not go unnoticed.

Fleeing into the woods, they were pursued by a trio of men, a rabid glint in their eyes that was so uncannily detailed as to be something that perfectly imprinted on the girl's memory. They shouted vile obscenities and taunts about what they were going to do to them before they killed and ate them, and my heart went out to the girl in sympathy. I suspected where this was going as I drifted alongside. They pursued them relentlessly for miles, and while the mother displayed impressive stamina, her flagging speed and wheezy breathing told of her burgeoning exhaustion. The perfunctory hunters played with their quarry, always keeping just within sight to their rear. The mother seemed to know that they couldn't hope to lose them, and so she chose a spot by a steep mound of snow to put their back to an area that prevented an easy flank. She bent earthward and presented her daughter with a fine dagger of short steel and a polished handle of some lightly shaded sentinel wood with an emblem of a sword within a barren tree engraved on the pommel.

This lordly weapon's presence I intuited by abusing my administrator privileges as being one of the perks to being the Chieftain's wife, which for them meant having first dibs on the best loot. This particular dagger belonged to some kneeler's son who had been one of the reviled crows that had harassed and slew the Free Folk indiscriminately for untold generations on their rangings, earning them a local reputation as being boogiemen. The children of the tribe were often told that if they didn't behave themselves, a crow would manifest out of the darkness itself to snatch them up and gobble them whole. In her mind, the only things scarier than the hated crows were the dreaded White Walkers of legend, who were rarely spoken of, and only in soft tones, as though invoking their names would attract their attention. Unlike those in the south, the Free Folk forbid their descendants from forgetting that the icy enemy of life was not wholly destroyed.

The event that explained what the dagger was doing in her mother's possession happened well before the girl was born, but her father had told the story of the dagger so often that it was hard for her to misremember. The particular dagger was claimed as a prize from one of those rare foiled rangings that their group and three other groups of Free Folk had coordinated together to ambush before they could be ambushed in turn. Shockingly, the discipline of this bunch of crows had been unusually poor, and they had been slain in good number before the Free Folk were beaten off. The girl's father had been the one to slay the crow that had the dagger on his person in single combat, and so took his lordly sidearm for himself as a memento. The girl's mother had 'convinced' him to part with it after he had clandestinely stolen her from the Chief's tent of one of the tribes they had worked with on that venture before going separate ways. The girl herself privately suspected that the event in question was what led to her being born nine moons later, though she would never broach the topic with her parents.

The girl beheld the dagger that was practically a family heirloom with awe that was then superseded by fear, as she knew that they would likely die that day. An unspoken understanding came between mother and daughter as they stood their ground. The three cannibal wildlings laughed and hooted as they caught up with them, their savage grins hiding rotting teeth that stunk of the detritus of their previous 'meals'. Smells that I could vicariously experience just hinted at how imprinted this memory was on the dreamer. The three wildlings, like those that were assaulting the girl's village, were armed with crude iron weapons. They were also wearing morbid chest pieces of human bones that were probably suitable for psychological warfare rather than as legitimate armor. On top of this, they displayed sickening trophies such as necklaces of necrotizing fingers, toes, ears, and other sundry parts that made the girl want to lose her bile. That one detail severely tested my sense of control, as I had faced foes that did the same to their victims in a war that devastated much of my adopted home.

The girl shivered as she clutched her mother's dagger, and not from the outdoor chill.

As one, the wildling men charged at the girl's mother, disregarding her daughter as a representing a threat to them. Quick as lightning, the mother lunged with the spear and caught the closest of the men in the thigh, making him drop to the snow with a blood curdling screech as he pawed at his wound to stem the blood loss. The cannibals snarled and rallied, trying to split the mother's attention amid them as they probed at her defenses with newfound caution. Even exhausted as she was, the mother was clearly skilled with the hunting spear, fending them off using the entirety of the armament other than just the tip, parrying and countering beautifully. The wounded wildling had spitefully attempted to hamstring the woman when his fellows had corralled her towards him, but the daughter had swallowed her fear and jammed the dagger into his eye socket and through his grey matter before he could do so, stilling him permanently. One of the two active wildlings with a crooked nose saw this and cursed at her, breaking off to deal with the troublesome child.

Her mother cried out in dismay and pivoted to sweep the wildling off his feet with the spear, knocking him on his ass. However, in valiantly doing so, she had exposed her six to the other wildling, who had no issues with stabbing a woman in the back. The mother's grip on her spear failed her and she coughed as a thin rivulet of blood began to leak from her mouth. The wildling grunted in triumph, tauntingly licking the mother's cheek before he withdrew his blade to finish the job, seizing her by her fiery hair and slitting her throat. The girl screamed, the shrill sound ripping through the air and eerily echoing as I discerned that there was a change. An earth rumbling growl emanated from the mound, and something big, yellowish white, and angry crested it. The wildling men murmured in alarm at the sight of it and started to backpedal. The dying mother smiled grimly, a satisfied mien to her paling features as she collapsed bonelessly and was motionless. Oddly, despite the turbulent emotions coursing through her at the mortal wounding of her mother, the perturbed bear roused memories of the how grumpy the girl's father sometimes acted when his sleep had been indecently interrupted.

I studied the Great big bear dispassionately. The beast was huge, even by polar bear standards. If it stood on its hind legs, it would have towered over everyone at a whopping thirteen feet. It was no stranger to conflict, bearing the telltale scars from dozens of fights, in all probability versus men, as no other creatures this far north could dare to challenge such a mighty animal on equal footing. If its luxuriant pelt were used as a rug, it would sell for a small fortune, in this world and in mine. This was a top predator, and not above throwing its weight around when its nap was rudely disturbed. What really piqued my interest though, was that this was not the same bear that I slew earlier. This polar bear made the one that the dreamer had ridden during the failed raid seem tiny in comparison. Were they related, somehow?

There was a secondhand jolt as the girl's eyes met the bear's and a connection was made. A veritable flood of information that wasn't processed by human senses became known to the girl. Smells had become crisper; such that the girl could detect the scent of terror in the form of piss stained goatskin trousers, hearing was heightened; such that the girl could determine the creaking of branches struggling with their frozen load, and sight was sharpened; such that the girl could see the minute twitches in the faces of the men gaping in dismay at their doom looming over them. She could see her own self from the bear's eyes, hunched on the floor by her first kill and with clouded irises. The girl was now an unwitting passenger in the beast's mind… but that was all she was. Her rising panic at her inability to do anything only served to further agitate the bear.

The Snow Bear glared at the intruders that dared make a racket outside its burrowed den. These two legged pests would not threaten its young! It opened its jaws and let out a roar that shook the snow off nearby tree branches and sent the two wildlings scurrying like rats. This was a mistake, and prompted the bear into a sprint. A literal ton of muscle, fur, and fury came thundering downwards on the slope. The two wildlings never stood a chance, getting run down and bowled over before they could so much as make it twenty paces out. The bear leapt and bit at the chest of one, shaking it violently like a child with a doll, before it mauled its throat with its claws; the rents in the man's flesh poured out a river of blood that steamed in the cold. The other wildling was muttering incoherent prayers before the bear stomped a paw on his spine to stop him from moving and almost serenely lowered its mouth to the nape of his neck. A sickening crunch of bone signaled the death of the final wildling.

Victorious, the polar bear undertook to feast on its kills, biting off bloody chunks and pieces to take to its young. It was winter, and while manflesh was lacking in fullness and flavor, its young would need all the food that it could provide. The seals and walruses it had taught its cubs to hunt were sparse along the shoreline these days, and the local groups of two legs causing competition did not help. The bear spared a moment to consider the two-leg girl that was as unmoving as a mountain, before dismissing it as a waste of its time. Not enough meat, and if given time to grow, would make a better meal if it came across it again. One of its cubs had poked its head out of the snowdrift that it had dug its den with to see what the commotion was. As they made eye contact, the girl perceived her mind 'jump' to the cub's body, like a man would hop between fishing canoes. The cub's mind accepted her presence with ease, unlike its mother's, who wobbled unsurely, disorientated as it noticed a mental absence where there wasn't one before. The girl felt that she was still in danger and instinctively, she urged herself to return to her idle body.

She snapped back like a rubber band and scrambled to her feet, something possessing her to take her mother's dagger with her. Tears freezing on her cheeks as she was forced to leave her mother's body behind to be consumed by that monster in white. The bear granted no attention to her, only snorting derisively at her exit. She ran and ran until her legs could support her no longer and she curled up by a tree, sobbing in grief as all she had in her life was cruelly torn from her. Snowfall and a falling sun forced her to delay her mourning period, and she sought shelter in a rocky overhang recessed into a hill, protecting her from wind-chill and giving her a semblance of a roof. Putting her parents' numerous teachings to work, she set herself to gathering whatever flammable material she could that wasn't too saturated with snow. She flattened an area in her shelter to expose the soil underneath the snow and put a rock in the middle to act as a platform for the sticks and branches that was to be her firewood.

As night fell and the temperatures steadily plummeted, the industrious girl had everything that she required. She had tinder by way of driest tree bark, twigs, dead peat moss, and finely shredded mushroom caps; kindling in stripped sticks and pinecones; and fuel in a pile of broken up branches she had expertly chopped up. She had crafted a celt axe using a keen stone, a hardwood limb as thick as a baby's arm, and wood fibers and her locks of hair for fastening. It was a simple tool that she had not appreciated the true importance of, until then. She stacked the hardwood branches together in a square atop the stone platform, as her elders had found that doing so allowed the fire to bounce heat on itself and created hot, lasting embers that were conducive to continuous combustion of added material. With a windbreaker shielding her and with the campfire set, all she had to do was ignite it.

The girl dug into her outfit to retrieve a crucial well-worn, C shaped fire-steel with a bronze-iron hump that many of the Free Folk would gladly kill each other over in a situation like this. Thanking her nameless gods of nature that she was a Chieftain's daughter, she struck the fire-steel with a flint several times to produce the sparks that would safeguard her life. The tinder caught these sparks and glowed in a way that warmed the girl's heart and would hopefully warm her body too. She gently blew on the glowing spots to encourage them to build and catch the kindling, which would then ignite the firewood. It was difficult to do, and the girl had blown herself nearly breathless by the time she had a small flame going that grew into a blaze. It was overly smoky, indicating that despite all her efforts, there was still moisture in the materials that was counteracting the fire. She counted herself fortunate that the fearsome snowstorms that occasionally whipped through the land had littered the ground with sufficient resources to defeat the deficit. Within an hour, rocks she had deposited by the fireside had retained the right amount of warmth for her to pocket and keep her core body temperature high.

Satisfied that she could hold off death via freezing for now, she fed and stoked the fire before letting the emotional and physical exhaustion of the day's tumultuous events pull her to a tearful sleep, thus ending the narrative of the dream in a manner that resembled the deactivation of an old television screen. The only reason I was not ejected forthwith was because she was magically induced to stay under.

(Theme Music: Destiny by Erik Wollo)

Dissatisfied with this, I utilized administrator privileges to dig deeper into her memories and set them to replay. I disliked making the girl relive such horrible memories, but I needed to understand her motivations and what drove her before I could issue judgment on what to do with her in the waking world. I adjusted it so that the memories were fast-forwarded and a bullet note summary of her life until I had made her my ward could be taken. The girl survived the next three days in the wilderness on half frozen, leftover carrion carcasses that were picked at by birds, mushrooms and moss clumps that her mother had shown her were safe to cook and consume, melted snow and dripping icicles for water, and even mild tasting cambium wood from spruce or pine trees that she would dig out of the trunk with her knife and roast over her secluded campfire. She never ventured far from her makeshift shelter, which she had improved with what little she had in hand, although she desperately wished to see if her village had somehow beaten the odds and survived as she did. Most of all, she wanted to see if her father yet lived.

On the fourth night, she had an unexpected visitor in the form of the bear cub she had now realized with some mixed anxiousness and excitement that she had warged with; half frightening her out of her skin. She attempted to scare it off at first, but the cub was undeterred by her posturing. When the cub brought back a winter fox by the scruff of its neck for them to share in the morning, the girl comprehended that her odds of living had drastically increased. She spent another week refining her awakened warging ability, and the bear cub was unusually receptive to her presence in its mind. She used its predator's instincts and senses to help track quarry that would keep them fed, striking it big when they discovered a lamed elk that was wounded from an encounter with the wolves, one of which it had gored on its horns. Utilizing a disposable crude spear with a fire hardened but brittle tip that she had sharpened with her trusty dagger, she drove the point into its heart and harvested its corpse, allowing her newfound animal companion (which she had uncreatively named Snowy in the Old Tongue) to gorge herself on the rest. Soon, the girl resolved to head west and find a sympathetic clan of Free Folk to explain her plight to and seek aid from.

Sometimes, before she slept, the girl would stare at the fire and wonder why her gods would send her an ally like the cub of that Snow Bear that indirectly saved her from the wildling cannibals, but was glad that the cub's mother had not hunted them down regardless. The adult Snow Bear's mind was hard, cold, and unyielding as ice, whereas its cub's was malleable and pleasant to work with as the snow she was christened after. Her dreams had been odd lately as well, involving hunting seals with her mother and siblings… that she did not have? The girl was confused, but was thankful that she was no longer alone, or without hope.

The girl had not paid much attention to her father's inter-clan dealings, but her mother had often told her that her father made sure that their clan was on good terms with its neighbors, save for those insular clans who were hostile against any not their own. The problem was that the killers of her mother and village were to the east, and that the Great Walrus tribes who disdained outsiders were in the direction of the setting sun by the coast. Faced with a rock and a hard place type of decision, the girl chose the people that were not as likely to eat her on sight. Preserving what meat she could carry as best as she could, she set out in search of a sympathetic ear, her furry companion in tow. The weather was favorable to her journey, as the sun was rarely obscured by cloud cover during the daytime. At night, the girl and the girl-cub would dig a shelter in the snow and curl up together, the polar bear's fur and body heat keeping them both warm. When their supplies were depleted, the duo would pause their trip to hunt, and would repeat this pattern for the next three weeks.

They made first contact with other clansmen when one of their hunting parties stumbled across her. The now lean and haggard girl in their midst, they thought next to nothing of, but the Snow Bear trailing behind her like a personal pet got their attention. Vexingly, they spoke only a few words of the common speech, but their Old Tongue was so traditional that the girl believed that even the northeastern giants of folklore would think them mockingly accented. These had to be the people she was looking for, as they adorned their garb with walrus bones, and bore queer monikers like whitewhisker or swiftdeer. The girl was glad that her parents were not traditionalists like many others in their roving village. The girl dredged up the closest words she could for asking them for assistance, but it seemed that the men were eager to take her with them straightaway, keeping a wary eye on her animal companion. They conveyed her to a squalid village not too divorced from the shore that was perhaps five times as large as her had been, and was surprised when one of the men had informed her that this was a smaller settlement for those of the Great Walrus clans.

They took her to the chieftain's tent in the center of the village. Along the way the girl received suspicious stares from men and women that morphed into shock when they beheld the Snow Bear that she had developed a working relationship with. They hissed in the Old Tongue that she was one of the 'Fol tokra' or flesh-jumpers, and the girl became quite self conscious during those several minutes before they reached the chieftain. Her mother (and the thought of her still pained the girl) had relayed to her during the stories that those blessed with the ability to shift skins were distrusted and frowned upon by those who did not know better, but she did not anticipate the harsh words and barely concealed hostility to gnaw so deeply at her. She was likewise distrusting of the Great Walrus clans, as they held to odd customs and believed that the animals that could be found on the Frozen Shore were the children of the winter gods themselves. It was silly, the girl thought, how did they think wearing the flesh and bones of their gods' children would appease them? At least her people, of the Antlered Men, wore the parts of their prey to showcase their dominance over them and to ward off the elements.

One of the men had gone ahead to speak to the Chieftain to notify him of her arrival, as well as her special talents, the girl wagered cynically. But if that was what she would have to levy in order to avenge her mother's murder and the deaths of her village people, then so be it.

She met the Chieftain of the settlement beside a sizable pit meant for a bonfire. He was conversing with a gathering of men who were ready for battle, decked out in bits of scavenged armor and bearing circular wooden shields with the fading paint of kneeler sigils or cheaper wicker shields with animal skin stretched over them. Clad in copper ring mail overlaid with a sort of bronze disk bandolier etched with runes and sewn sealskin furs, the Chieftain himself cut an imposing figure, the upper skull of a walrus was on his head, its tusks stained red with coatings of dried blood. Idly, the girl noted that he was also kissed by fire, like her and her parents, though his eyes were sickly green like washed-up seaweed in contrast to her own light green orbs; like spring grass, her mother had told her. The man of the group escorting the girl who had left to announce her to him was pointing in her direction, and the Chieftain's eyes followed before narrowing on her. It was not a friendly gaze, and rather unnerved the girl. He dismissed the gaggle of warriors and advanced on his tent, waving for the escorts to bring the girl with him.

The interior of the Chieftain's tent was spacious, thrice as big as her parents' had been, and not half as plain. Ovular sealskin rugs richly carpeted the floor, a Weirwood hunting bow and some quivered arrows rested on a stand, and strange beaded trinkets hung from the tent's structure supports throughout. Clay cookware bubbled and frothed over a blazing fire, emitting a hearty scent of meat and vegetable stew that made her stomach grumble painfully. The food was being tended by the Chieftain's dour faced woman, if the girl had to guess. The Chieftain set aside his macabre headwear and sat by the fire. He did not relax though, and his attention did not split from his guest. He motioned for her to remove her hood and she complied, revealing messily trimmed hair from where she had sheared herself to make fastening string for her celt. Other than a flash of recognition passing through him, the man betrayed nothing as he hummed to himself in contemplation and he considered her, absently stroking at his goatee.

He began with a line of rigid words in the Old Tongue that she missed the meaning of. She reluctantly requested clarification using what scant words she knew. It was not her primary language, to her father's dismay and her mother's delight, but it was hurting her now.

He clicked his tongue disapprovingly, "Your grasp of our ancestors' tongue is poor" His chided in uncannily smooth common as his austere eyes bore into hers, "What clan are you from, girl?"

She met his piercing gaze evenly, "I am of the Antlered Men. We lived about a moon's journey from here. My father is a Chieft-"

"I know who your father was" He interrupted her midsentence.

That caught her off guard, "You do?"

He bobbed his head, "Aye, I do. He was my brother after all"

She was momentarily flabbergasted. Her father rarely spoke of his family, and he would always change the subject, even when mother expressed her own curiosity.

"You are my… uncle?" The girl hazarded slowly, "He made no mention of you"

He barked a humorless laugh, "No, I do not imagine he would have. He and I did not see eye to eye, for all that we fought together"

"How can it be that you are with the Great Walrus clans and my father with the Antlered Men?" She pondered aloud.

Her supposed uncle shrugged, "I saw the strength in their people, now they are mine, as are their women, as are their gods. Now I am Redtusk… and that name carries the weight of a glacier" He was distinctly pleased with himself for that.

He grabbed a bowl of clay and scooped a serving of the stew into it with a crude ladle. The woman minding it protested immediately, but was silenced by a stony glimpse from him. She pursed her lips in a pout and glared at the girl and her cub companion both. The Chieftain then handed it to the girl, who gratefully accepted both the sustenance and the invoking of the Guest Right. Though the stew had the consistency of watery gruel and the flavors of seal fat and fish clashed on her tongue, the girl could have sworn by all the gods that it was one of the best meals she had ever partaken of after a month of living off the land. She gobbled and slurped the stew down her gullet, moaning happily as it warmed her innards. The man seemed amused by her appetite, and snorted to himself. Perhaps her 'uncle' was a nice man?

He continued with his tale, "Before that though, your father and I traveled with a band of raiders that lived on the banks of the Milkwater near the Skirling Pass when we were boys. We were not numerous… but we were strong, and cunning too. We would sneak into the camps of our quarry, steal their supplies, slay their men, and take their women with us… though your father did not approve of how we did not keep them unspoiled… or alive"

The girl tensed at that. Stealing a woman to start a family with was a time honored tradition, albeit one that she personally thought was stupid and would violently resist if it happened to her, but there were those who took it too far and rightfully earned the despicable title of Wildling that the southerners so casually branded them with.

"I see you share your father's distaste for the ways of the strong" The Chieftain noted, "Allow me to educate you, my vagrant niece. The strong rule, and the weak serve unless they become strong themselves. Even the Free Folk acknowledge this, though they do not openly admit it as such. I learned this when I was younger than you. How it never got through to your father's thick skull is beyond me. We separated when our group had the misfortune of encountering bloodthirsty crows. We each fled south to the Frozen Shore, though he went over to the Antlered Men and used the skills we had learned under ol' Gremdal the Grave to become Chieftain of his own tribe. But his inability to do what must be done and be the mighty predator instead of the bleating prey is the reason why he is dead, and his village with him"

That struck the girl like a hammer blow, "My father is… i-is dead?"

"Afraid so, girl" He did not appear mournful in the slightest, "One of my scouts came upon the ruins of your village some weeks ago. It had been razed, and the corpses of the slain had been defiled afterwards. Fuckin' Ice-river savages had gotten to them" He fished an item out of his belongings and presented it to her, "This was found on your father's… remains"

There was a tinge of regret there, but he masked it expertly to the grief stricken girl. I was not fooled, however. The recovered item itself was a silver pendant and hemp cord of a symbol that represented an upside-down Valknut. It was of exceptional craftsmanship, given the primitive metalworking technology of this world and the fact that they were Beyond-the-Wall, where professional forges were as rare of hen's teeth I would wager.

"T-this… this is my father's luck charm" She observed, her eyes glassy, "My father had ever claimed that he would not have been able to steal my mother without it granting him the favor of the gods"

Her uncle scoffed, "It is more than a mere luck charm, girl. That was worn by Norolf the Red himself, once. He was one of the four great Chieftains to rule Hardhome, before it was laid waste to. We have his blood coursing through us"

The girl could not care less about that tidbit, "I'll kill them" She hissed through gritted teeth as she clutched the pendant in her hands so hard that it dug into her flesh, "I'll kill them all"

"Good" Her Uncle grunted with an approving tone, "There is fire in you. You will need it to take your vengeance" He paused to take in the cub that was sitting on its rump, "Though I reckon that creature will contribute about as much, once it matures"

The girl stifled a sniffle and wiped at her face as she stashed the pendant in a pocket. She glanced at the woman that was eavesdropping on their private conversation with zero comprehension. The girl wanted to ask anent her warging abilities in case her uncle could input whatever wisdom he had on the matter.

"She does not understand a word of what we are saying, girl" He uncle chuckled at her nervousness, "And neither will you understand a word of what my people say unless you learn"

"Do you know anything about wargs, uncle?" The familial word was like a raft for her to cling to, now that she was an orphan.

"Only that my people despise them, though I am one of the exceedingly few that can see their utility" He replied, enjoying some of the stew himself, "My people are averse to those who can possess the children of the Winter Gods themselves. You will not be making any friends here, excluding me" He noisily sucked in a chunk of seal blubber and chewed on it, "I cannot recall any of my ancestors being skinchangers"

"My mother's ancestors" The girl whispered morosely.

He interpreted the pain in her voice for what it was, "My condolences, child. What the men of the Ice-rivers did to your people is nature, but that does not mean we have to accept it. You survived them and wandered the wilderness on your own for weeks, and at your age that is no small feat. You are strong, are you not, niece?"

Not trusting herself to speak, she nodded solemnly.

"I may be Chieftain of this village, but my people do not adopt outsiders easily, be they flesh of my flesh or not. There are certain customs that must be adhered to" He took off his left hand sealskin glove and unsheathed a wicked iron knife with a handle of deer jawbone, "We are not kneelers, and bow to no man… but oaths sworn in blood are binding in the eyes of gods and men" He held out his exposed left hand, "I swear to protect and watch over my brother's daughter, for as long as she requires it, and for as long as she dedicates herself to me and my people until she is free to choose otherwise" He stipulated as he sliced into his palm, dripping the blood into the fire, which crackled and popped, "She shall have a home by my side. This, Redtusk swears, by blood and by fire"

The girl, seeing no alternative, chose to follow his example, drawing her mother's knife that had served her so well already, "I swear to uphold my end of the oath, to support my uncle and his people" She hissed as the dagger's edge bit into her palm. She clenched her hand above the fire and drops of her lifeblood dribbled onto it, causing it to crepitate and sizzle, "This I swear, by blood and by fire" She vowed. There was another change in the atmosphere, though I do not think the girl or anyone else truly perceived it. I did though… it was magic, and magic held oaths that were sworn using its power very seriously.

The woman bore witness to this act, and though the words eluded her, its significance did not, and so her stare became less outright hostile, though no less mistrusting of the warg that her people had gained.

Her uncle gave her a bandage composed of disinfecting beard lichen to wrap the cut with, "I welcome you, niece. Now you are one of us" He smiled at her, although it was not a smile that I would describe as being affectionate, only pleased.

I fast-forwarded the chain of memories again.

The girl had a difficult time adjusting to her new people. The boys and girls her age and older would pick on her, throwing pebbles of ice at her, cursing her, or pushing her about until her uncle literally knocked some sense into them. For her own wellbeing, her uncle had her live on the isolated outskirts of the village, which did nothing to assuage her loneliness. Their hunting parties regularly made use of her warging abilities, and while the girl and animal duo significantly increased the odds of a successful hunt, it did not endear them to the clansmen and women, who stubbornly clung to their beliefs that she was not natural. The Ice-river clans that her adopted people had warred with since time immemorial had gotten bolder as the moons went by. The group that had slaughtered her kith and kin did so with superior weapons that they had gotten from somewhere. Her uncle Redtusk was obsessed with discovering where they did, as the crows that had typically 'supplied' them with prime weapons were nowhere close to be 'donating' them to the westerly located Ice-river people.

Her uncle was a rather puissant warrior, slaughtering dozens of men of the Ice-river clans in various skirmishes and proving that the moniker of Redtusk was no misnomer. However, it was only the Walrus clans' loosely united numbers that kept the comparatively divided cannibal tribes at bay. Compensating for this shortcoming, the cannibals fought ferociously and with weapons that outclassed the majority of theirs. Winter ceased and was followed by a fleeting year of summer, but during that summer her uncle had his scouts scour the lands around the Ice-rivers to unearth the secret that their people's welfare depended on. Those that did return to him reported that there were a dozen and a half ships from the south bearing the sigils of pine trees on yellow and a pattern of green and black on their gunwale shields that were scattered and beached all along the river's banks for miles. When Redtusk heard this, he swore a storm of words in the Old Tongue that the girl was gradually getting the hang of.

He later explained to her in private that those ships were from reavers that called themselves Ironborn, who were every bit as fearsome as Free Folk raiders, but additionally they were excellently armed. They must have tried their luck sailing up the ice rivers and gotten swamped for their trouble by the locals who had superior knowledge of the land. Ironborn had no shortage of iron weapons, armor, and tools to wage war with, and rumors of their black-hearted king's cruelty reached even them. That their warriors had sailed so far north was uncommon, as they preferred to bother the kneelers' territories, but it was not unheard of either. This news boded ill for the people of the Great Walrus. The Ice-river clans were their eternal enemy, and now their enemy had the advantage and the desperation to kidnap their people's women along the border to replace their dead kinsmen. They were even sneaking east to harass the other tribes that lived on the Frozen Shore, as his niece no doubt knew.

The girl wanted to join the war parties that were to put pressure on the Ice-river men but her uncle forbade it, stating that neither she nor her mount were ready for raiding. He did permit her to support the spearwives in expropriating supplies from their camps while their warriors distracted them, which the girl begrudgingly agreed to. Clad in hand-me-down, patchy boiled leather armor and armed with a bone spear, she and the spearwives snuck into Ice-river villages and set fire to their tents, pillaged their smoked fish stores, and slew anybody that resisted them. It came as a shock to her then when a gangly boy no older than her endeavored to skewer her, forcing her to kill him in turn. The taste of the girl's vengeance soured in her mouth after that, and she participated in fewer raids after that. This pattern went on through a two year winter and a summer year. Her uncle's manifold victories against the Great Walrus clans' enemy were attracting followers to their clan, and many whispered that he was to be the successor to the aging Great Walrus himself.

Snowy was mature by then, and the girl rode her into battle to great effect, cowing the weaker of her clan's foes and swiftly dealing with the braver ones with tooth and claw. Her achievements netted her little though, except scorn for commandeering one of the winter gods' children for her own ends. She attempted to explain that none of their accusations were true, and that she did not choose to be born with her abilities, but no one would listen, so entrenched in their beliefs were they. Her uncle did not aid her in this, telling her to either assert her dominance or be dominated in his own harsh wisdom. The girl's soft heart could not stomach becoming domineering like the village bullies, and so she endured their abuses instead. Her uncle did not know what to make of her fierceness in the field and her demureness at home, and so he distanced himself from her in his indecision. The girl became bitterer as the cycle of perpetual aggrievementsans a sympathetic shoulder to lean on persisted.

After he passed in his sleep, her uncle 'popularly' succeeded the deceased Great Walrus as overall Chieftain of the clans, only having to slay two naysayers from other villages. He left her for the main settlement without so much as a farewell. The man who replaced him, christened by the apt appellation of Snagglefang, was one of the hardliners that despised her, forcing her to take part in riskier and riskier skirmishes and clashes versus the Ice-river clans. Given a choice between abandoning the village that had resentfully accepted her into their ranks and tolerating the new chieftain's bearshit policies towards her, she chose the latter. In defiance, she lived through every expedition; to spite the sallow faced man that refused to call her by the name her mother gave her. The raids were an outlet for her indignant rage, and a way to hone her skills as a prospective spearwife. Her actions during those three merciless years of winter transformed a goodly portion of the exclusion aimed at her into fear.

Fretful that the pariah in their midst was upstaging him, Snagglefang 'summoned' her to his tent one evening and publicly beat her, trying to provoke her into hollering for her mount and providing him an excuse to kill her. The girl resisted, screaming to the smirking faces of those gathered that she could recite every words of their tongue, every custom, every person who had died to safeguard the Great Walrus clans… to no avail. Dissatisfied that she had not broken, Snagglefang made the public beatings a routine, even inviting others to participate, which they did with fervor. The girl felt like a trapped rat in those days. Her uncle led the clans as a whole, and yet she could not send him a message about her treatment, and furthermore suspected that he would mock her for weakness. More than once he had remarked that she was her father's child, and not kindly.

What could the girl do? She had nowhere else to go.

Snagglefang's dark eyes eventually swiveled south. The three years of winter had stretched them to the brink of disbanding as a minor clan. Raiders from the Frozen Shore had gone south to steal necessary weapons, tools, and women in the past, some even had done so successfully. The closest and juiciest target had ever been the island of bears. Though they were the poorest of kneeler Houses, the Mormonts were still the wealthier people by far than they were. Snagglefang was not alone in this opinion, and winter had generated suffering for many. Joining his strength to that of another coastal clan that was building vessels to carry them over the Bay of Ice for a spot of reaving, Snagglefang aspired to make his mark. Free Folk were not organic sailors or shipwrights, so this process took time. It was dozens of miles to the island, even at the closest sallying point, but the partnering Chieftains judged that it was worth the risk.

The breakout of summer encouraged this plan. The girl had caught wind of this though, and seeing a means of ditching a people that would never truly accept her, she went over to this shipbuilding clan to offer her unique talents, sustaining herself on the choicest of provisions from her village to thank them for their years of hospitality. The Chieftain of the shipbuilders, a burly man that went by Harvos, was not as averse to skinchangers as her own adopted clan was, though Snowy's intimidating growl sealed the deal for him. The purported 'ships' were hardly better than logs tied together to make rafts. So crude were they that the Free Folk were practically felling trees, hacking off the branches, and dragging the lumber back to toss on the water. That they even floated was half a miracle to the girl, who had once seen the southern ships breaking apart on the Ice River on her deepest raiding trip. She would sooner take her chances with those derelict vessels. It was not for her to decide though, and so she stayed silent.

The completion of the Free Folk 'fleet' had arrived, and the girl discerned Snowy's excitement through their intrinsic link. The Snow Bear enjoyed swimming and hunting seals in the frigid waters when left to her own devices, her fur and fat insulating her and making the girl patently envious. Sometimes the girl imagined that the others were jealous of her abilities because she could exit her weaker, duller flesh on a whim, whereas they were stuck with what the gods had dictated would be their forms. One of the arrogant youths that were unaccustomed to spearwives her age had foolishly questioned her worth, confronting her when she trudged off into the woods to make water. The girl disabused him of that erroneous notion when she stopped midstream, bent his nose in with her fist, and vindictively stooped atop him to finish her business as he pawed at his ugly, bleeding face. News spread, earning her some peace and quiet to herself before they cast off into the treacherous waters of the bay. At times like these, her boneheaded uncle's dispassionate wisdom had a sliver of merit to it.

The embarking procedure at predawn on the sundry rafts, coracles, and skiffs was disorganized and caused some disputes when people of differing clans refused to share a vessel together for petty reasons that made the girl roll her eyes at the hopelessness of her people. Launching their glorified, improvised flotsam saw no improvement, the poor coordination and nearly absent teamwork of the Free Folk hindering them yet again. The girl was mystified that her people as a whole were able to trouble those in the south if this is what they had to contest with. The formation of vessels was so widely dispersed that she lost sight of some boats on the horizon. Others unfortunately tipped and spilled their passengers into the freezing waters to thrash and drown. Those that voiced turning tail were rewarded with an amusing thwop on the head. They had set out in earnest, and cowardice now would be punished by being tossed overboard to swim home in shame. The girl approved of this, if only so that the mewling of the overgrown green boys with dreams of proving themselves blooded warriors would cease. Ahead of her, Harvos navigated with what I figured was dead reckoning, due to the absence of landmarks at sea. They had departed from the southernmost tip of the Frozen Shores, and Harvos assured everybody that doubted him that they would find the island soon.

The Free Folk 'fleet' floated mind numbingly slow over the ice floe filled waters. The girl spent her free time seated atop a napping Snowy and mentally preparing herself for the mortal struggle that was battle. If she prevailed here and brought a praiseworthy token or feat with her to her uncle, she could perhaps prove herself his niece in valor, as well as blood. If she died… well, then she would die. The girl had trouble caring lately. A day of that cheerful contemplation at sea passed, and morphed into the next morning. The rafts that hoisted rudimentary, patchwork sails of animal skins were speedier when the wind favored them, leaving the majority of the lesser crafts behind. Eager as the shipbuilder's Chieftain and her own Chieftain's second leading the raid were, neither of them were in the mood to hit the beaches of Bear Island with anything less than their combined might. Torches jammed into the 'mast' were signal beacons that lost effectiveness as the sun rose in the east, and the girl estimated that a full third of their boats were lost, temporarily or permanently.

Their lips dry from dehydration and their stomachs mollified with rations of smoked fish and seal blubber, one of the rafts finally spotted land. Chieftain Harvos ordered the signal torches to be extinguished so that they could keep a low silhouette, though her Chieftain's second, a man she never bothered to learn the name of, argued that they should wait for their fellows. Harvos scoffed, declaring that he had committed the balance of his clan's warriors to this raid and that they were as united as they were going to get, before ordering everyone to make landfall. They sailed to the rightmost half of the island. Men and women stroked at their weapons impatiently, their troubles at home forgotten as they divined a possibility of 'nest feathering', as I termed the feeling that often preceded destruction of property, violent thievery, and rape. Albeit the girl saw this raid as a foolproof method of returning to her uncle's good graces, heedless to the fact that he neglected his end of the deal, particularly in his ultimate stipulation 'She shall have a home by my side', which he conveniently forgot.

The slipshod Free Folk armada approached the shore, and the girl grabbed her spear as she slipped into a battle trance, with mount and rider becoming one fighting being as their feet hit the sandy beach.

Win or lose, the girl would have satisfaction this day.

'Right, I know how that venture went' I mused as I terminated the replay and egressed from Somnium.

In the waking world, a negligible amount of time had elapsed. My dream delving could have lasted for a perceived number of weeks, and only minutes would have evaporated externally. It was an exploit that I happily took advantage of for my own ends repeatedly in the past. If anyone had been observing me (and they did not, I checked thoroughly), they would have seen me tap the girl's forehead, and that's it. Now that I knowledgeable about the girl's background, upbringing, and goals in life, we could have a chat that would determine the course of that life. But a foundation for that chat would have to be prepared first.

Like the Weirwood currently weeping in the Godswood, the girl had wet streaks on her cheeks from reliving those foul memories, and my heart twinged in sympathy for her. My hand reached into her outfit to divest her of her mother's dagger, housed in a sewn sealskin sheath. The blade, while of acceptable quality by local standards, had nicks, chips, and a dulling edge from recurring hard usage. The girl had been denied access to whetstones by order of her second Chieftain, showcasing how desperate he was to get her killed that he would resort to such pettiness. To make up for my well-intentioned transgressions rummaging about in her head, I transmuted atmospheric elements to replace the lost bits of the dagger and then transformed the restored edge into high-carbon steel, while keeping the core a flexible low-carbon steel that it was originally. A blade with both a durable cutting edge and a tough internal core was a valuable tool, especially for baseline folk. I also repaired the torn leather gripping on the wooden handle, because I did not half-ass things when I could help it.

I then laid down some temporary charms that made it exceedingly difficult for an affected person to act on aggressive urges. Pacification charms were the technical equivalent of a synaptic dampener, curbing tendencies or behaviors deemed undesirable. It's not mind control in the strictest sense, but it falls into a morally grey category for sure. Since these people's minds are virtually unprotected, these charms would be super effective before I commenced modifying them, which I was wont to do. If I so wished it, I could do this to all of the inhabitants of Bear Island and supplant the 'Old Gods' as the ultimate symbol of indigenous authority. It would make life a lot easier for me, but I was not in the habit of social engineering where it was not required. Plus, easy street magic was a slippery slope that I disciplined myself against, and I wanted to leave an untraceable signature for now; hence why they were set to dissipate on command once I resolved my business with the girl whose name I still did not know out of politeness.

Gratified with these measures, I conjured a stool for me to sit on and broke the spell keeping her asleep before giving her brain a wakeup jolt. The teenaged girl's face knit its brow as she stirred from her period of snoozing. She stretched her arms to the sky and arched her spine like a feline as she gave a yawn that was surprisingly ladylike in its demure softness. She wiped at her brow with a forearm and blinked incoherently, intermittently exposing her pretty pale green eyes. Her abrupt and agonizing disconnection to her furry mount must have muddled the events of that morning, or I doubted she would be as relaxed as she was. I let her have a minute or so for her brain to finish rebooting out of courtesy.

"The gods are cruel, to hang the events of my life over me like that" She murmured under her breath, though I heard every word.

"T'is no accident" I initiated our dialogue, shaking her well and truly awake with my voice.

Her eyes widened, "W-wh" She shivered as the charms subtly influenced the rapid influx of certain chemicals in her brain, "Where am I?"

"You are in the Godswood of the Mormont Keep. The home of the High Chieftain of this land" I gestured to the Weirwood, "See that tree there? The people on this Island keep to the worship of the same nameless gods that you do, and that there is an essential component of it"

She gasped as she saw the leaky face of the Weirwood, instantly averting her eyes and bowing her head, "The gods see me! I am not worthy to be under their gaze! To hear their judgment!" She exclaimed in the Old Tongue.

Was this not the girl who termed the gods cruel seconds prior? Some people, I swear.

I shook my head, "I would concern myself with the judgment of the Lord of this island. It is his people that yours attacked, after all"

"They were not all my people" She corrected heatlessly, "I have been captured then" The girl realized, before she came to a greater realization, "And Snowy is dead" She calmly stated.

"I am afraid so" I tentatively tendered. I did not have the heart to reveal that I was the one who slew her faithful companion of seven years.

"You speak the Old Tongue?" She seemed surprised by that.

"Indeed I do" I inclined my head to her, "Though I only recently learned it" I reported truthfully.

"Your accent is without flaw" She complimented hesitantly, "You sound like one of the men from my village, in fact"

"Well, for me, it is like German in that regard. If the person you are speaking to is not covered in your spit, then you are not doing it properly" I jested, pleased when it elicited a sad giggle from her.

There was a silence between us for a tense moment.

"I am going to die, am I not?" She emotionlessly posited.

I grinned, "All people eventually die, dear child. But first, you must live" I waxed philosophically, "And it just so happens that Lord Mormont has graciously permitted me to take you into my custody, overlooking your… earlier trespasses"

The flesh on her forehead creased in confusion, "Why would he do that? Why would you do that?"

"I have a soft spot for orphans" I told her, 'And many other things besides, but that's not the point'

She frowned further, "How did you know that?"

"A special kind of intuition" I answered, "The kind that informed me that your parents have been gone for the better part of a decade, that your life had been saved by Bears thrice over, and that your adopted people are sanctimonious ingrates if they still do not acknowledge all of the service that you and Snowy have performed for them"

She snorted bitterly, "I did not do all of it for them"

"For your Uncle, yes?" Her eyes snapped towards mine and narrowed, "The one who swore an oath that you would have a home by his side?"

She gaped and sputtered, "Who are you? To know these things?" She demanded.

"I am Zenith" I introduced myself sans the ceremony of titles that Nobility everywhere ate up like catnip, "And I know a multitude of things, and whatever I do not know, I can always bone up on for myself" I verbally downplayed my information gathering capabilities.

She began to tremor, "A-re… are you o-one of the g-gods?"

"Aren't your gods nameless?" I countered, "I mean… I am flattered that you think such of me, but nothing about me is particularly divine" Even if there were those that begged to differ.

Her quivering lessened, "Then what are you?"

"I am like you, human… only a lot more able" I summed up my Trifect status.

"I don't believe that" She whispered, her eyes meeting mine searchingly.

"What kind of god lies about their godliness?" I rhetorically posed to her, "Whether you believe me on that or not, you can be assured that you are my responsibility now"

She had no response for that, "What happens to me now?"

"A good question" I granted her, "In a few hours, Lord Mormont will be hosting a victory feast in his hall, a celebration that I would be remiss to skip out on. ('No matter how badly I do not desire to go')" I shifted on my stool, "Needless to say, you have not been invited to dine at his table, and are only barely tolerated within the confines of his Keep. You will wait here for the duration of that feast. Once it is concluded, I will fetch you and tote you off this island before you wear out your nonexistent welcome"

I leaned forward, "Where we go afterwards, however, is up to you" At her clueless expression I resumed, "It is within my power to return you to your fishing village by the coast, though I imagine that your Chieftain will not be thrilled by your decision to abandon your people"

"I did not abandon my people!" She raised her voice in a quiet shout, "I sought to prove myself of worth of them!"

"You have been doing that for the past seven years," I retorted languidly, "and you and I both know that is not how he will interpret it"

She winced, unable to gainsay me on that account, "What other choice do I have?"

"You can come with me to the south" I proffered, "You can start your life afresh, away from the superstitious prejudices of your adopted people, and see a world beyond anything you have witnessed in your wildest dreams"

"There are kneelers to the south" She sniffed with disdain, as if that explained everything for her.

"I guarantee that you will never have to kneel to anything or anyone that you do not wish to kneel to, should you elect to accompany me south" I promised her with an amused tone.

"How can you guarantee something like that?" She was skeptical, "Are you not a man? Subject to the whims of the gods like the rest?"

I smiled enigmatically at her, "Stick with me, and perhaps you will find out for yourself"

She stared at the leaf strewn ground, lost in rumination for a quarter of an hour. I patiently waited for her verdict, not fully caring whichever way it went. I was a champion for Free Will, albeit mostly in the spirit of the concept, if not the letter.

Her gaze gradually centered on the sheath in my lap, "Will you give that back to me if I agree?"

"I will" I agreed readily, "On one condition," I added, dimming the hopeful light in those green orbs as I drew the blade, "that you will only use it in the defense of life, whether it is your own, or the lives of others" I flipped the dagger in the air and caught it by the flat between my fingers, before handing it to her, "Do you understand?"

This girl looked cute when she was flabbergasted.

"You are a strange man, Zenith" She finally concluded, taking the dagger and sheath, "But I understand" She made to cut at her palm before I stopped her, "You do not need to spill blood for this. That would be counterintuitive. Your word of honor is sufficient"

She scoffed, but obeyed, putting the dagger away, "Honor is a pretty word kneelers use to feel less bad about themselves for doing monstrous things"

"There is some truth to that" I conceded, "But it is also present in the actions born out of a state of mind. It is there when you are regretful for killing a child about your age during a raid, and that it was not how you envisioned obtaining justice for your parents' murders. It is there when you endure unjust beatings and do not call upon your familiar to punish those responsible" I listed as she flinched, "It was there when you came to this island in pursuit of a way to earn favor in the eyes of an uncle who should count himself blessed to have a wonderful niece such as you"

'Oof! Straight in the abandonment issues' I chastised myself when the girl's tear glands went into overdrive. I might have overdone it with the charms (in both meanings of the word), if she was this suggestible already.

"What do you want from me?" She hiccupped, lowering her face to fruitlessly avoid showing weakness.

"The same obligations that are expected of me" I figuratively went for the throat as my ribs 'ached' in protest, "To learn, to love, and to live…" I paused for a moment, "Though I would not object to learning your name, either"

She chortled airily before clearing her runny nose, "Of all the things that you already know of me, how does my name elude you?"

I shrugged, "I figured it would be rude to deprive you of the right to personally share the name your parents blessed you with"

"Ylisse" She relented once she had recomposed herself, "My name is Ylisse"

"Ylisse" I sampled the name on my tongue like it was a fine vintage of cherry wine, "A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Ylisse" I elegantly nodded my head to her.

"Mainly yours, I'm sure" She dismissed my courtly antics, "So how does this arrangement work? Do you own me? Am I your property?"

I shook my head, "No, I don't own you, and I find the very idea of owning another human being repulsing. However, as I have said, you are my responsibility for the remainder of your stay on this island. Think of yourself as a guest, only one who has not been offered bread and salt, has already killed some of the local residents, and to top it all off, is a warg"

"Do you take issue with my kind?" She asked neutrally.

"I do not see why I should. After all…" A flurry of leaves of every color whirled and danced around her and only her, "…I have gifts of my own"

Her eyes went as wide as dinner plates, "Magic! But that means you are-"

'May as well milk this for all that I can' I mentally guffawed.

"Just your friendly neighborhood wizard man" I completed for her.

"But the stories always say that magic is a sword lacking a hilt! There is no safe way to wield it!" She protested fearfully.

"For those who lack the means of properly harnessing its power, mayhaps" I allowed, "For me, it's closer to an armory or a tool shed" And that was putting it lightly!

"For all of their wisdom, even the longest lived of elders cannot claim to know all that there is to know" I continued when she seemed unconvinced, "The Free Folk are correct to be wary of magic given that the principal methods for people accessing its power here are through blood and fire, but that is because those people are missing the capacity to channel it through their own body" Even their very soul, but that was a lecture for another occasion.

To demonstrate, I held out my palm and generated a simple pulsating orb of supernal light above it. The girl watched; entranced by what I believed to be parlor tricks that any mage worth their academy certification could replicate. I was glad for my foresight in setting up a sound and light baffle perimeter beforehand, because this would attract attention for sure. Hesitantly, as if it might burn her, the girl reached out to touch the glowing ball, gasping as her fingers phased through it like it was not there. It was simply a flashy construct. Low-Tier, Magnitude Two at best. It was one of the many channeling exercises that students of magic would repeat, ad infinitum, until they could do it in their sleep. It also functioned as a handy source of light in a jam.

"What wonders you must be capable of" She breathed in awe, "Are there limits?"

"Only those that you impose upon yourself" I dispersed the construct, which dissipated into tiny, dazzling streamers.

"Can you… teach me to use magic, as you do?" She requested suddenly, stars in her eyes as childish fantasies flared across them.

"What? Take you on as an apprentice?" I jested, and she nodded vigorously, "I shall consider it. Though before we get ahead of ourselves, can you do something for me?" She nodded again, "You see that owl with the white and grey speckled plumage hiding in that pine tree behind me? Try warging into it"

Was it a bit thoughtless of me to have her warging less than a day after I had killed her mount? Definitely. Was I doing it in the name of Thaumaturgical Science? Yes.

Twilight would be proud.

The thick-skinned girl, eager for a chance to learn magic, did not openly ponder how I knew that the owl was there sans looking at it and instead acquiesced, focusing on it as her eyes went milky white. Meanwhile, I was collecting all sorts of fascinating information thanks to a layer of passive observational spells. To put it frankly, the girl had nodules in her noggin that were not baseline standard. These nodes, when activated, situated her brain in some kind of wacky macroscopic quantum superposition of multiple states of the entire brain, while the corresponding cerebellums were kept in some sort of forced entanglement. It allowed for thought and sensory streams to be split, but for the overall consciousness to be unified. Essentially, a warg that was warging was duplicating, trimming and or enlarging their neural pathways, then projecting it to take control of the animal, or several animals with sufficient skill. That the nodes could harmonize completely recalcitrant biological systems was damn impressive. That milky film over their eyes was an adaptation to reduce visual sensory input while warging. It was sloppily executed in my opinion though, as her main body and brain were virtually immobilized to allow for maximum emphasis of the 'animal mind'. She had a ways to go before she had her own circus menagerie.

Not to mention that I recalled that there was a feedback between warg and animal. The person receives some animal nuances, while the animal received some person nuances. Snowy must have been well behaved for a polar bear, because the girl conducted herself normally to me. She had fought well atop her polar bear mount, but she had practiced on that one for years to retain that degree of motor control. When stimulated on the regular, the nodes grew until they were the diameter of a dime, and not all of them were used at once from what I could tell. Like any muscle, it would require constant work to improve upon its capabilities. Ylisse was visibly struggling, as the wild, frantic flapping of wings to my six could attest to. She grit her teeth and came down on that owl with all that she had. There was a shrill squawk as the animal's will was made subservient to hers and the warged owl glided from its branch and onto my shoulder. The girl grinned and squinted playfully as she made the snowy owl defecate on my robes.

Jokes on her. My robes are stain proofed, as evidenced by the visibly disappearing owl crap.

"Now that's just rude" I remarked with faked annoyance as I flicked her on the forehead, dispelling her control over the owl. The bamboozled, stunning creature was about to bolt when I mollified it with a spell and a few tricks that Fluttershy had taught me. A bribe of 'pocketed' lemming usually helped.

"How did you do that?" Ylisse questioned, espying the placated owl happily gulp an unfortunate, sacrificial lemming, "Are you a warg too?"

I smirked, "No. Animal Whisperer. Just as good, and not as invasive"

Ylisse pouted at that, "Can I learn some magic now?"

I stroked at the feathers of the owl, "All in due time, Ylisse. There are things that must be done before I endeavor to instruct you in the ways of magic, the most pressing of which is that victory celebration that Lord Mormont practically insisted that I join"

"But you do promise to teach me?" She fished for an assurance.

I sighed, before extracting a plain silver ring crowned with an Asscher cut ruby the size of a ladybug, "Alright. This is a traditional Cervidian Apprenticeship ring" I tossed it to her, and she caught it deftly, "Try putting it on"

She tried, but when the ring got within a centimeter of her index finger, it repelled like two magnets of the same pole, only stronger. Perplexed, she tried harder, only for the ring to still defy her efforts.

She looked dismayed, "Why can I not fit it on? Am I unworthy of being an apprentice?"

"No, young Ylisse" I reassured her, "You cannot wear it because you have not taken the vows of an apprentice yet"

"Vows?" She scowled.

"It would not be very responsible of me to teach you magic and not establish boundaries for you to operate in, now would it?" I rhetorically posed, "The vows are elementary and as follows: I do solemnly and sincerely pledge on my life, my light, and my magic to treat the Fundamental Arcane Forces with the utmost of respect and due diligence, to obey my instructor lest I walk astray of the path set before me, and to never maliciously abuse this incredibly sacred privilege on pain of permanent severance from the bonds of fellowship and freedom" There was a pertinent reason that rogue Cervidian mages were practically unheard of, and it was because they were not frivolous in hammering it into their adepts that magic was not a toy to be played with on a whim.

Ylisse swore the vows before the Heart Tree with the same reverence that one Jon Snow would aver before another Weirwood when he was inducted into the lackluster ranks of the once proud and noble Night's Watch. It was a sobering thought for me that I probably butterflied him out of existence. Once the girl had spoken the words, the ruby on the band pulsed thrice in acceptance and the otherwise ordinary appearing, votive ring slid on without a fuss. The teenager was giddy with excitement and bouncing on her feet as she formally became my apprentice. I was not the best of teachers, and I had only ever shared my sundry tidbits of expertise in academy lecture halls before a starry-eyed audience that were often too starstruck by Arcania's 'Peerless Prince' to take notes, so this would prove to be a novel experience for the two of us. It came with some notable perks as well, as Ylisse would indubitably discover for herself.

"Ooh I cannot wait to start!" She squealed, my charms having utterly eroded her internal reservations about the abrupt twists her life had taken.

"You won't have to" I uttered, "I expect you to practice straightaway"

I bestowed to her a transparent glass orb. Inside the orb was a circular maze that went from top to bottom in three rows. At the nadir of the orb was a black sphere the size of a bead of sand that was totally stationary. If you tipped the orb upside-down or vibrated it in hand, that bead would remain rooted in place. Only magic could convince that bead to become mobile. The purpose of the orb was twofold, to teach the student patience, and to hone their fine thaumaturgical telekinetic control. I explained this to the girl that she was to spend the evening 'convincing' that bead to climb to the northern hemisphere of the orb. The apprentice ring on her finger was to be both training wheels and conduit for increments of magic that her body was deficient for, save for those fascinating nodes on her brain. Only one part in ten would be her own inherent pool of mana that was naturally integrated into her body from the leylines. No bloodletting required there, no sir. It was my goal to increase her body's output of mana before I proceeded into phase two of my Grand Master Plan… of turning her into a mage.

"How do I move the bead?" She queried when her initial unaided attempts were met with failure.

"Firstly, you have to center yourself" I advised, "Never mind the orb for now. Clear your mind of any distractions as well as you can. You understand?" I waited for her verbal confirmation, "Focus. Breathe deeply in through your mouth and exhale through your nostrils. Listen to the world around you, the rustling of the branches in the breeze, the crawling of insects on the soil and on the roots, and the rushing of lifeblood in your veins. Discern a steady thrumming at the edge of your hearing. Heed your own heartbeat, and match it to heartbeat of the Earth. You are a part of it… and it is a part of you. You are subject to its ebbs and flows, and likewise, it is subject to yours. Push out with the wholeness of your being once you are ready to take that step into the ineffable unknown"

Once she had achieved that vital fugue state, instinct took over. She exhaled and all loose materials: leaves, rocks, and twigs quaked. She shivered as though she had been hurled into ice water as she felt the leylines respond to her actions. There was always something especially profound about facilitating someone's inner awakening. I have been informed by reliable sources that it is one of the few facets that made the arduous and emotionally exhausting process merit the cost. Magic was a blessing to be carefully distributed, not jealously hoarded like a Gryphondrian robber baron and his ill gotten gold.

"That was amazing!" Ylisse exclaimed breathlessly, "I could swear to all the gods that I was one with everything for a brief instant"

"It's different for everyone" I articulated conversationally, "But all of those people can agree that there is not a thing like it"

"How can my people have been blind to this for all these eons?" She was rife with disbelief, "How could anyone have been so blind!?"

"They have shut themselves to the immaterial, and associate anything resembling it with negativity, suspicion, and fear" In other words, they have buried their heads into the sand, "It is their loss, really…"

"I wish I could communicate this knowledge to them, but I know they would not believe me" She lamented, "Eh… they never liked me anyway, so fuck 'em"

Her brusqueness elicited a rare laugh out of me, "That's the spirit! Now the key to moving the bead is to put yourself in that state of tranquil being yet again. This time, when you push out, do so in a manner that is concentrated on that bead"

She complied, managing to shift it a millimeter on her first go. She had potential, that I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt. Her minor accomplishment merely propelled her to strive further, perpetuating itself in a positive feedback loop, her scrunched face of concentration marred only by a childlike smile. I could tell that it was going to be a pleasure to train this one.

"Keep at it. This is for when you get hungry or thirsty later" I presented her with a red honeycrisp apple as I transferred the recently tamed owl to her shoulders to keep her company.

"Only an apple?" She whined as she simultaneously exerted herself with the orb, "That won't be very filling"

"That is a bonafide product of Sweet Apple Acres. It will be like nothing you have ever had in your life" I chuckled, my heart aching as memories of blonde hair swirling in the breeze, a jovial country demeanor, and the sweat of a hard day's labor flashed in my mind, "Now you stay here and work on that exercise. Do not forget to grant yourself time to rest when you feel an invisible pressure begin to build in your psyche. If you manage to get that bead to the middle level by the time I come to fetch you, there will be a prize" I affirmed in parting as I eased off the charms now that I had her convinced and firmly onboard.

As a precaution, I warded the purlieu of the Godswood to discourage anyone seeking to pray or otherwise be there. A person desiring to confess all of their sins to the Heart Tree would make contact with the tree line, undergo a rapid change of heart, and put any ideas of entering the Godswood as far from their plans as they could.

Engrom was awaiting me by the marvelously carved gates, as he said he would. Lord Mormont was admirably busying himself in the village speaking with the families of the deceased, maybe even inviting them to his hall to memorialize and honor their sacrifice if he preferred to go the extra mile. With his Lord occupied, he graciously gave me a tour of the Mormont's demesne. Servants of the Mormont Household were already toiling to prepare the foodstuffs stocked in the larders for the feast to be held at the hour of the Fox, which was close to midnight. Deer was roasted on spits as freshly caught fish from the bay were scaled, had their innards removed, and were then roasted over open flames. Great clay cauldrons of stew bubbled and frothed as their minders chopped and diced a variety of vegetables painstakingly grown on what scarce arable soil there was on the island. Innumerable kegs of ale were tapped and tankards were topped to the foamy brim. Guards lit additional, rudimentary torches that were essentially sticks with pinecones drizzled in pine resin, set alight, and socketed them in sconces along the palisade wall as they patrolled the perimeter, professionally alert in their vigil.

The people of this island may have lacked the wealth, but they did not lack the Will to make the most of what they had available.

"Inclined for a bout, milord?" Engrom inquired of me, when he espied me watching men sparring with each other in the yard.

"If you do not resent suffering a few bruises, I'm game" I replied, which made him chortle good-naturedly.

It was a makeshift training ground, with wooden dummies covered in stuffed straw to simulate flesh for men to strike at if they were warriors or feather with arrows if they were archers. The dueling square was fenced off into four corners with pylons of tree boughs, and the muddy earth was trampled and compacted from the repeated stamping of feet. Four men were currently engaging their respective opponents in it, dancing around the other and trading blows with purposefully blunted weapons of iron. By the look of it, it was a tag team battle. The weapons being used were hand axes, arming swords, and round wooden shields with strips of iron banding them. They all fought well, until a man made a misstep and got shield bashed into the mud with a follow-up axe to his neck signaling his 'death'. With his partner out, the last man was pressed on two fronts, bravely managing to take an opponent with him for the cost of a bloody nose. The losers genially congratulated the winners as japes and laughs were had in the spirit of northern camaraderie.

We chose our weapons once the four men had vacated the dueling square. Engrom stuck with an arming sword like the one sheathed at his waist, while I went with a blocky hammer that weighed less than it normally would have if it were a legitimate weapon. Engrom blinked at my unconventional choice of armament while we stood to opposite positions in the square. We then studied each other for a minute. Engrom kept his posture combat ready and flexible to go at a moment's notice, while I betrayed nothing with my deceptively lazy stance. I retained no fallacies that he witnessed me make mincemeat out of the wildling raiders that morning, and was wisely wary of me.

"Let us make this match interesting" I proposed a wager, "If I win, you will call me by name only"

He snorted, "And if I should win?"

I shrugged carefreely, "Then you can call me milord to your heart's content"

He smirked, but otherwise did not deign to initiate a rejoinder to that. Instead he bulled ahead with a jab to my midsection, which I batted aside with the haft of the hammer. He poked and prodded at my defenses and was rebuffed every time. Meanwhile I had yet to move from my location, acting like an unmovable monolith to his aggressive surges. He jabbed and feinted with the expertise of a veteran of thirty years, while I remained unmoved by his gestures. His frustration had started to express itself as a crowd slowly formed by the sidelines, cheering for Engrom and urging him to show me what a man of Bear Island was made of. He caved, increasing the speed of his assault, moving at a speed that ordinary, trained men would be hard-pressed to match. He would thrust and slash, aiming low, middle, and high in a pattern that did not reprise itself; circling about me in a fervent search of a weak point. I continued to deflect, parry, and halt his attacks without going into a counter offensive. I wanted to savor this, after all.

We kept at this song and dance for seven minutes; with each subsequent minute causing the jaws of the onlookers to drop lower as I all but publicly humiliated their future Captain of the Guard while only pivoting in place and fighting defensively. If there were savvy observers in the crowd, they would see that I was utilizing a modified version of Form III Soresu, also aptly known as the Resilience Form. My strategy here was to let my opponent crash against my defense and disperse his strength like ocean waves on a cliff, a strategy that paid in dividends for the patient and swift. Engrom's desperation grew and reached fever pitch as he attempted to forgo conventional tactics and tackle me… only for me to finally sidestep, outstretch a leg, and gently slam the hammer down on his spine as he passed. Unable to keep his footing and overcommitting to his Hail Mary of a gambit, he collapsed into the mud and slid to a stop. It was dead silent in the yard as I reveled in the opportunity to rehearse my Form III on Über-casual mode.

I walked over to him as he flipped himself onto his posterior, staring at me like I was inhuman as I towered above him. He flinched at my sudden movement, before comprehending that I was offering him a friendly hand up.

"By the Gods" Engrom wheezed, wiping a bit of mud clinging to his awesome mustache as he accepted the hand that pulled him onto his feet, "Did that even sap you of stamina, mil-… Zenith?" He remembered the conditions of the wager and honored it, to my satisfaction.

"That was warm-up practice for me" I favored him with a shark's grin, "Want to go another round?"

He visibly paled at the idea, red-faced from exertion and still catching his breath, "Mayhaps another evening. Pardon me, Zenith, but I ought to oversee the preparations for the feast" He excused himself from the yard with evident haste, salvaging what little self-esteem he had left to his person. There were sniggers and hoots among the crowd as they beheld him in retreat.

I directed my attention to that jeering crowd of men and women, "Anyone else fancy a go?"

I was pleased to note that at least one person in ten took me up on the challenge.

⁂

Men and women gradually filtered in from the village as the hour of the Fox inched nearer, some families of the deceased had chosen to attend the feast, while others had declined the invitation as respectfully as could be expected of them. By then, I had exhausted the number of willing opponents to spar with and was thoroughly bored. To add some variety to the sparring matches, I had them come at me in multiple numbers versus myself, not that it made that much of a difference in the end as I doled out bruises to both body, pride, and ego like candy corn on Halloween. I was as mobile and intense as a whirlwind in the ring, and just as untouchable as I sowed vexation and exasperation among my opponents. I had to credit these warriors though; the ones that had lingered were persistent to scratch out a win for pride's sake. When it was all well and done, I was yet regarded with fear, but now there was healthier smattering of respect and flatteringly… if not somewhat worryingly, poorly disguised lust from the single warrior women.

Lord Mormont had returned by then, and was directing the placement of dining tables, utensils, and the all important seating arrangement of guests, coordinating with his staff with a degree of familiarity that suggested that the Mormont Household was a close-knit unit, to absolutely no surprise on my part. To my chagrin, he had saved me a spot by his side as a guest of honor and would not be convinced otherwise. Thankfully, he had officially okayed me keeping my ward ensconced in the Godswood, though he was quietly skeptical of my claims that she would cause no trouble now that she was awake and posted guards at the Godswood to concurrently keep an eye on her and warn off potentially vengeful Bear Islanders if any went hunting for her. Moreover, as soon as the 'Wildling Waif' was off the island, it was no longer his issue to deal with. He had suggested that I ought to spare myself the trouble and shorten her by a head, but I would likewise not hear it. We made to acknowledge the other's rigid stubbornness and let the matter dissolve.

The servants had exploited the space available on the trestle tables to maximum effect, occupying their surfaces with platters of brown barley breads served with thin cuts of smoked venison, trenchers of smoked fish, cod cakes, root vegetable soups, oat breads, buttered neep stews of goat or fish, and Pease Porridge that was closer to humus than porridge in consistency. Horns and wooden tankards of ale (and regrettably no cups of water or tea) lined the tabletops. The fare smelled delicious, in spite of its Northern blandness, and the scent of food permeated the longhouse alongside the smokiness of the hearth that was kept constantly fed and stoked to fend off the chill. The Sigil of the Mormonts could be found everywhere. It was carved into the support columns, sculpted over the mantelpiece, or embossed onto the flatware. The Mormont's symbol might not have been widely known outside of their island, but here in their home, the hirsute nobles were not afraid to flaunt it to any of their guests. It was a thematic device that I likely had to get used to when visiting a Noble's residence.

Lord Mormont had wisely planned the organization of seats. Warriors that had fought that morning were at the end of the hall, within hearing range for their Lord's powerful lungs, whereas the families of those who had lost a member in battle were in the middle, afforded accolades for their sacrifice. At the head of the rows the household guard that accompanied their Lord was seated adjacent with his family, and myself, as a valued guest of honor. Outside I was pleasantries and inane banalities of gratitude, but inwardly I was disguising a fidgety mood. I yearned to be on the move while the going was prime. A catastrophe had occurred in the south, and I knew in my marrow that I needed to rectify it while there was still something to be rectified. Destiny had declared that the Aegon Targaryen of this world's back-lore would not be the one to mostly forge Westeros into one Kingdom with Dragonfire. But nor could it be forsaken to languish in its self destructive warlike habits. The Game of Survival took precedence over the Game of Thrones.

And so there I was, patiently spooning at Pease Porridge while politely partaking of my full-bodied tasting horn of ale so as to not spurn my host's hospitality, though it did not prevent me from declining rather forceful advances for refills by the winking serving wenches. The heterogeneous sounds of talking, carousing, loud laughter, and general merrymaking buzzed throughout the Mormont's Hall like an oversized tavern. Men recounted tales of battle and bravery, bedding women, and other noteworthy feats while the women either copied the raucous behavior, or, in the case of the younger or unblooded gals, gossiped and pointed in my direction when they thought me unaware. The Household Guardsmen and women attempted to engage me in conversation, and while I indulged them, my everlasting unwillingness to be a social butterfly seemed to have warned the majority of them off. The exception to this was the youthful Joran, who needled me with an unending deluge of questions about my home, as the youthful were wont to do. While I reacted to his inquiries as seriously as I could, it did not escape me that Lord Jorgan paid especial attention to my responses. He was a wily one, this Jorgan Mormont, sending his own son to sniff out information that I would normally be tightlipped with. To me it was proof that anybody who adjudged these Northmen incapable of low cunning was a fool.

'Good luck finding Arcania on a local map, pal' I mentally eye-rolled and wished the man the best when he mouthed the designation of my homeland.

As it turned out, Jorgan and Joran were not the only Mormonts in the Hall. They had cousins living with them in the form of the squat, chunky Jocey Mormont, the rail thin Jinna Mormont, the vaguely alluring Jadith Mormont, and their stout, matronly mother; the greying Joranna Mormont. While others in my position might have had indigestion from the naming conventions, the alliteration reminded me of home… and all of its endearing wackiness. The sum totality of the Mormont women were clad in furs and boiled leather, and I had no doubts that they were trained to split a man's skull in twain if the situation demanded it. They were not ladylike in their conduct, belching impressively after an extensive quaff of alcohol or pounding the table with their fists as they relayed a ribald jest. If I did not know better, I would say that they were trying to get a rise out of the 'Southron' with their antics. The joke was on them, since Rainbow could thrash them any day in a contest of unadulterated uncouthness, and I was well accustomed to her unrepentant coarseness.

I empathetically and regularly checked in on Ylisse through my vicarious connection to her via the apprenticeship ring, content with her slow but steady progress in impelling the bead towards the middle level of the training orb. If this feast endured into the early morning hours, as I suspected it would, she might even make it. Of course, the 'prize' that I had in mind was another teaching aid for her to master until the motions came to her automatically. She would receive it regardless of the results of her practicing. Yeah, I was one of those instructors, but it had proven effective in motivating students who had an unquenchable thirst for magic in the past, and so I would stick to what worked. Though I would have to invent some regimen for Ylisse that transcended mere training exercises and rote thaumaturgical gymnastics. I made a note to myself to get on that later as Lord Mormont rose from his seat at the head of the main table and bellowed for a moment of silence that was quickly heeded by his armed houseguests (In case of pesky Ironborn).

"Men and women of Bear Island, I hope the lot of you have not found my hospitality wanting!" He hiccupped as he lifted his cup in a toast, and was answered with positive roars of fulfillment. The man had three horns of ale by now, and was on his fourth, so he was decently soused, "We are gathered here to celebrate the honored dead, those who gave their lives so that others could live! May their memory live on through their kinsmen!"

There were shouts and thumping feet in the hall as agreement was had, the noisiest coming from the middle, where the families of the deceased commiserated with drink in hand.

"But Here We Stand!" He recited his family creed, "As our ancestors have stood before us, and as our descendants shall stand after us!" There was a cacophony of consonance as heads nodded all around.

"But even the doughtiest of warriors cannot stand forever on their own!" Mormont continued his speech, "We stand stronger when we stand together! Many of you know this, as I do, but today it was substantiated in a way none of us could predict…"

'Oh… boy, I am not one for having speeches foisted on me right now' I groused moodily.

Lord Mormont, ignorant of my misgivings with speeches, bulled on, "… were it not for a man whose skill in arms is without peer, as many of you here have personally seen for yourself, our grief would have been all the greater, and indeed… even I would be among those mourned by the living; were it not for this man, Zenith…" He gestured to me, smirking as he perceived my displeasure, "… is a champion of House Mormont!"

I grumbled a few choice words that were thankfully lost in the din of a convivial longhouse packed with uproarious Northmen as I stood erect from the bench. All eyes were upon me as my gaze swept to the ends of the Hall, and not an unfriendly face was among them. Their expressions ranged from enlivened, to delighted, to exhilarated. Mormont's hackneyed speech had them all convinced that I was the Hero for them to aspire to, however temporarily so. I hadn't the heart to tell them to seek elsewhere for their flawless example of valor and virtue. I merely utilized the abilities I had been given to protect those that I cared about, and when acting on my principles, as jaded and forlorn as they were.

I bore with it, "Men and women of Bear Island. I did not come to be on this land by deliberation, in fact my arrival here was brought on by the fickle winds of fate. When I happened by that fishing village by the sea, I saw that the people living here were being attacked. This man, this bold leader of men," I nodded to Lord Mormont, "faced down an enemy that outnumbered him and his two to one and was as ferocious and untamed as the lands they hailed from… and he did not yield an inch of ground!"

Cue the whistles and rumble of feet, "The battle was fierce, and your foes fought savagely. But the men and women that were defending the beaches vehemently refused to give into despair, refused to break to the swords and spears of the stinking horde! They knew that they were the only obstacle standing between the enemy… and everything that they cared about, everything that they cherished. How can a fellow warrior witness such zeal and not be moved to action?" I laid a hand on my heart, "You honor me with these accolades, men and women of Bear Island… but I am not the true champion of House Mormont… it is you… each and every single one of you… that are the champions" I raised my horn of ale (which had mysteriously refilled itself), "So drink up, Champions! Drink deep of the cup of life!" And with that I chugged the horn of ale dry.

The Hall erupted into cheers that were downright explosive as practically everybody imitated my actions, guzzling their refreshments and slamming the cups onto the surfaces on the tables as they chanted my name. Lord Mormont himself was impressed, and he applauded me with an approving glint to his eyes. The cousin Mormonts joined the other warrior maidens in 'visually undressing me' pastimes, and young Joran beamed at me in a way that suggested that my listing was bumped up on his roster of role models. The night's festivities progressed as tables were redistributed and space was tidied for people to caper and cavort. Unsurprisingly, these Northmen preferred folksy music with a lively beat to dance a jig to. The instruments were cringey in their build quality though, consisting of crudely made two stringed pieces accompanied by flutes and a percussion box similar to a cajón, except that one did not sit on it to play and it was tapped with a drumstick. The resulting music was… traditional sounding, to put it lightly. It took a significant amount of effort not to let my discomfort manifest on my face.

Inspiration struck me then, and I politely requested for Lord Mormont to interrupt the revelry while I ambled out of sight to ostensibly 'fetch' my instrument. I returned with an invaluable guitar in my arms that had been a gift from one of my musically inclined wives, my precious Octavia. Seeing that their guest of honor was going to serenade them, the houseguests happily obliged me as I sat myself on an elevated position on a tabletop so that all could see and hear me. I picked at the strings and tuned them by ear as my audience whispered amongst themselves about how they had never seen an instrument like mine before. I smirked, if they were intrigued by its looks, they were going to love how it sounded. Even the Mormonts were avid spectators. The cousins in particular were especially interested in the warrior-bard. Once everything had checked out, my fingers started to pluck at the strings in the same pattern before I strummed and my audience leaned inwards as I began to sing.

(Theme Music: Scotland For Ever by John McDermott)

"Let Free Cities boast of their gay gilded waters,

Their vines and their bowers and their soft, sunny skies,

Their sons drinking love from the eyes of their daughters,

Where freedom expires amid softness and sighs,"

My strumming intensified as I launched into the song's chorus.

"Northern blue mountains wild where hoary cliffs are piled,

Towering in grandeur are dearer tae me,

Land of the misty cloud,

Land of the tempest loud,

Land of the Brave and Proud,

Land of the Free,"

I switched back and forth from strumming to finger plucking with ease.

"Enthroned on the peak of her own highland mountains,

The spirits of Old Gods reign fearless and free,

Her grey direwolf bounding oe'r white ice and field,

And proudly she sings looking over the sea,"

People clapped along to the chorus.

"Here among my mountains wild, I have serenely smiled,

When armies and empires, against me were hurled,

Firm as my native rock, I have withstood the shock,

Of Southron, of Ironborn, of Andal, and the world,"

I winked at the starstruck ladies present in the crowd, because I was a shameless tease.

"But see how proudly her war steeds are prancing,

Deep groves of steel trodden down in their path,

The eyes of their sons like their bright swords are glancing,

Triumphantly riding through ruin and death,"

And one final repeating chorus.

"Bold hearts and nodding plumes wave o'er their bloody tombs,

Deepeyed in gore is the direwolf's wave,

Shivering are the ranks of steel, dire is the horseman's wheel,

Victorious in battlefield, Northmen the Brave,

Bold hearts and nodding plumes wave o'er their bloody tombs,

Deepeyed in gore is the direwolf's wave,

Shivering are the ranks of steel, dire is the horseman's wheel,

Victorious in battlefield, Northmen the Brave,

Victorious in battlefiIEEELD! Northmen the BraAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAve!"

With the conclusion of the song came the most thunderous ovations yet. I bobbed my head to them in an imitation of a bow before I grinned and kicked off into my acoustic version of Life in a Northern Town by The Dream Academy, which was a great song for drunken sing-alongs.

Good times were had all around.

⁂

It was the hour of the Wolf by the time a swaying Lord Mormont ordered people to go home and sleep off their hangovers. I had used the distraction of people clearing out to 'pocket' my guitar and beat a retreat to the Godswood before anyone got wise, dismissing the wards and dispersing residual magic as was prudent. Was it inconsiderate of me to leave sans saying goodbye? Yes. But I did not feel like explaining to Lord Mormont once he had sobered up where I had gotten my guitar from when I did not have it on my person when he met me. Ylisse, bless her heart, was struggling with physical and metaphysical fatigue as she was scant millimeters away from achieving the goal that I had set for her. Shaking my head, I hit her with a snoozer, which was what I informally titled my knockout spells. I then levitated an ordinary pebble to face height and inscribed upon it a series of runic patterns that would transform it into a telestone, which acted as beacons (and then some) for mages to latch onto when they teleported. To put it in video game terms, I had turned the Mormont's Godswood into a fast travel point for me to bounce to whenever I wished it and spare me the hassle of divining a spot myself.

With my wizard eyes, I examined the leyline network outline of the world and harnessed the details it provided me as a map that would put comprehensive satellite imagery to shame. With tweaks and adjustments here and there, I could highlight living beings such as humans and discern where they were concentrated. Thirty million results may have seemed like an overwhelming number, but I was very much capable of processing it minus any difficulties. If I believed that I had the time to burn, I could even refine the results to locate a person based on traits that I inputted into a search, like a police cruiser's database. But there was a way to obtain the data that I desired and not waste time. I 'zoomed in' on the Blackwater Bay purlieu and scanned for draconic lifeforms that fit the information that I recalled of Balerion, Meraxes, and Vhagar. Shockingly, it churned up three results, although the third was iffy, based on its weakening signature. The first was on Dragonstone, the second one was nearby the mouth of the Blackwater River, and the flickering indicator of the third was on the coast, north of what would have been the Crownlands Kingswood under the Targaryens, unless that forest was always called that.

If the third dragon was clinging to life, did that mean its rider did as well?

All the more reason for me to investigate. Those dragons and their riders were pivotal to the formation of Westeros as an integrated polity. Plus, the condition of the world's leyline network was bad enough without removing one of the creatures keeping it active from the equation. Gathering up my apprentice and our owl friend, I channeled my immense magic and we both promptly vanished from the Godswood as if we were never there, save for a paper note adhered to the 'forehead' of the Heart Tree apologizing to the Mormonts for my abrupt departure in a manner that was behooving for a Prince of Arcania. That is to say, it was short, sweet, and succinct.

I had an objective, and woe betide anything that got in my way.