(Near Port Yhos: 10/30/298 AC) Ivory I

After consuming the fish she had found the night before, Ivory had set about cleaning what parts of the ship that she could. Tossing out the clothing of her captor and his crewmen, while sparing smaller sizes for herself, she scrubbed the floors and gathered anything of value that she could find strewn about the ship. Small stashes of coin and unkempt swords, were the majority of her discoveries, as she ventured deep into the bowels of the ship. Several of the men had flasks, and other foul smelling swill, hidden beneath their equally pungent smelling cots. Ivory gagged at the odor, which left a sour taste in her throat. 'Bad memories,' she had told herself, remembering back to the times when she had been heavily plied with drink to prevent resistance. Ivory had shuddered at those dark thoughts, before she had tossed the drinks overboard. Having taken up most of her night, she had not fallen asleep until early morning when the sun had just begun peeking over the horizon. Satisfied with her work, she had stuffed a crate with the cleanest cushions she could find, and nestled herself within, not wanting to spend another minute within the room that had been her prison for nearly her entire life. Cupped within her hands, was the strange black stone that she had discovered the night before, hidden amongst the cache of fish. Looking at it, she sat up in the darkness, and caught the sight of glowing strands faintly swirling within. "How beautiful," she muttered, momentarily mesmerized by the unearthly radiance, before suddenly finding herself falling asleep within its glimmering resonance.

Her eyes shot open and she found herself staring up at the grimy ceiling of the cargo hold, the small stone still grasped tightly within her hand. Feeling a tugging at her senses, she brought the shimmering rock up to her eyes. A faint sensation washed upon her and she saw an image begin to take form in the stone's undulating sparkle. Ivory saw herself, as she had been, a scant six name days old, dressed in torn and frayed rags as she ran across the cargo hold with tears in her eyes. Huddled within the crate, she felt a wetness forming at her cheeks and the irresistible urge to pull away from the tragedy once again unfolding before her very eyes. "No," she pleaded to no-one, as she spied her younger self trapped between scraggly, familiar looking men.

"Varg," she snarled, and felt her face grow hot as she clenched her remaining teeth. 'There's monsters more frightening than you, you coward,' Ivory smiled, tasting iron, at the thought of the Demoness capturing her tormentor.

"Don't worry, girl, we'll be gentle…" the image of Vargyros chuckled, his thin face and bulging eyes making him appear more lizard than man.

"No!" she shouted, tossing away the stone into the darkness of the hold. In the shadows, she saw it twinkle, as it remained hovering in the gloom like an obsidian eye. The strange lights continued swirling within, undisturbed by her throw.

She fell back upon her bottom, staring at the thing in utter hate, until it sprang forward and placed itself barely a nose away from her eyes.

"Mgr'luh…" it whispered into her mind, bearing a strange tongue and an even stranger tone. The words held no similarity to the voice she had heard the night before, and were vocalized in a darker and far more guttural tenor to the one she had heard against the hull of the ship. Ivory found a strange chill running up her spine at the word which seemingly held no meaning. The language had sounded ancient to her, even though she had never heard it before, nor anything even vaguely similar upon which to draw her conclusion.

"See," her subconscious translated. Ivory could somehow sense the primordial nature of the eerie dialect probing into her memories and finding purchase within the darkest, most primal, parts of her mind. She shook her head, as unintelligible whispers lingered within her ears.

The moment the word came unto her mind, the stone flared and revealed to her another ship. 'Another place in time and space,' her mind realized, as the intruding presence within her skull, expanded her understanding of the world. A woman with long, silvery-white hair, and black dress with blood-red fringe, faced away from her, staring out onto the sea. The largest fleet Ivory had ever seen, was sailing alongside the woman's majestic ship, and overhead she heard a roar, louder than any she had ever heard before. Three black shapes descended from the bright sky, and spread their wings, revealing something she had never thought she would see.

"Fm'latghor gof'nnn," the stone murmured.

"Dragons," she mouthed the words. The woman stared up, then turned, revealing a mirror image of herself, albeit full-bodied and whole, with long flowing hair. A sharpness was in the woman's eyes, and for a moment Ivory wished to cry, before the image shattered like glass. She fell back and collapsed into her crate in complete paralysis, as her head rested up against the wall of her makeshift 'bed.' All she could see, from her helplessly prone position, were the edges of her wooden coffin and the deck above. The soiled ceiling of the hold slowly faded into shadow before a suffocating black fog came to encircle the container in which she resided. Unable to speak, Ivory could only stare as a bubbling black fluid oozed over and down the confines of her box, puddling at the bottom before drawing closer to her feet. After a moment, gurgling sounds arose from everywhere around her, and she looked up to see formless figures emerge out from beyond the box and the infinite void above her.

"Mgepna'ah'ehye ehye ahnythor ah'lw'nafh," she heard the words resonate within her mind, causing tremors to run throughout the entirety of her body.

"Freed one, must live…" Ivory recited on instinct.

Deep, yawning, indentions where she assumed a face would be, were present upon all of the frighteningly bizarre tar-like beings. They hovered silently, staring at her, and before long she felt the warm wetness of piss forming under her. Lights, similar to the ones that swirled within the stone, started to appear within the gnawing emptiness of the faceless things.

"Lw'nafh!" the unnatural shriek nearly deafened her, as the lights from the unknown creatures overwhelmed her vision and flashed images directly into her mind.

"Life." An inferno raged all around her, buffeting hair, and boiling flesh, before a lone sentinel emerged from the crimson flames. An antlered woman, tall and muscular, came to the fore wearing a crown of a churning black flame. Long dark hair came to the woman's waist, appearing more as smoke with its undulating and suffocating presence. As she stood amongst the firestorm, the flames rose and fell with each heavy breath of the demon before her. Wielding a sword of ethereal light, the woman took a step forward, her golden pitiless eyes blazing with an indecipherable purpose. The antlered woman roared, spouting forth a pillar of flame from her hideous black maw. A peculiar howl, within the inferno, followed the inhuman growl, pushing her ever further into the tesseract of nauseous light.

"N'gha!" the disembodied scream rang out for a second time, threatening to make her ears bleed.

"Death." Crystalline teeth gnashed where light had once been. Veiled by the darkness, Ivory beheld another feminine figure. However, unlike the other, she had noted that this one was short and lithe, with icy white skin. Her teeth chattered, and she saw her own misty breath drift along the dead wind. Gradually, all feeling fled from her extremities, and she had naught the energy to move. Staring at the woman, Ivory could not help but feel a certain, strange familiarity with her. Bits of frost began to form upon her skin as eight spidery eyes, pale and blue, twinkled within the shadows obscuring the woman's face. Mimicking the loneliest of starry nights, they focused their terrible gaze upon her, granting her visions of a world covered in ice with throngs of the dead scouring the land. Atop them, she spotted a shimmering crown of jagged ice.

"Ulnah!" the malevolent voice rang out again in increased agitation.

"Order." A maiden of light, pure and untainted, stood in silent observation. The four elements whirled about her, like a shield, sword, and crown in equal measure. Behind her, Ivory spied numerous other beings of light, some male, others not, but they all held a soft welcoming warmth that the other two entities had lacked. Whereas the two beings before had assaulted her physical senses, this one had been mental, spiritual even. Out of the gathering of light-people, a small form came forth and held her hand, revealing a small boy with a blue arrow tattooed upon his head. When their hands touched, a calmness overcame her, and the horror of her past had seemed to melt away. She cried.

Mg'ulnah!" her mindscape shook at the sudden declaration.

"Chaos." She stared in horror as a creature of darkness towered above her. Crimson light trailed along its body in strange patterns, before blazing red eyes beheld her cowering form. Black tendrils formed along the creature's long horrid face, and she withdrew as it grew closer, revealing the sheer disparity in size between them. A face stared at her, a face far taller than the tallest mast on her ship, and far more gruesome than any she had ever seen. Featureless and black-as-night, despair took hold of her, and she came to remember her past with crystal clarity. The cries, the pain, the horror, the chaos. She sobbed.

"Gof'nnn gn'th'bthnk gof'nnn," the words pulled her away from the nightmare. In-between her shallow breaths, she was shown something different. A gathering of forty-three, silver-haired, men and women were seated within a circular chamber that had a raised dais at its center. The structure appeared to take on an organic, even artistic form, and the walls were blood-red. A woman in a white and crimson gown, took to the platform and before she could speak, the image faded from her sight.

"Spawn blood children," she recited, confused at the words, knowing herself unable to bear children of her own. Before her thoughts had time to linger in reflection, a final statement, this one barely above a whisper, slithered into her ear.

"N'ghftog yogfm'll nafl'fhtagn, ph'nglui mgepr'luh Krc'sa."

"Black stars rise, in lost Carcosa…"

(Near Port Yhos: 11/20/298 AC) Ivory I

Ivory rose in a start, darting her head to and fro as she assessed her surroundings. Her skin and clothing were warm and dry, as the sun blazed in the sky. To her confusion, she found herself sitting atop the red-painted deck of a ship not her own, with her back resting against the center mast. Staring out with one eye, she felt the other to be far too swollen to peer through. Crewmen, she had never seen, skittered around her like mice, eying her warily before disappearing below. Having no memory of her trek from her ship, she touched her head, struggling to remember. Trickles of blood ran down her nose, and her head pulsated in her attempted recollections, which came up short. As she moved to rise, her lower back began to throb, hobbling her as she rose from her seated position along the deck. She rubbed at the discomfort, watching as the mast's wide shadow protected her from the light of the midday sun. The burning orb hung in the middle of the sky.

"A lone torch in the blackness, full of the Lord's life-giving fury," a voice stated from behind her.

She turned, coming face-to-face with a beautiful woman clad in a red dress, and a ruby choker.

"I am pleased that R'hllor has brought you to us, my child," the woman soothed, running her velvety finger through her short hair. "I have searched for you for many moons, ever since the false one came to the world, spewing lies as fact. But we are together now, and none shall hurt you, so long as I draw breath."

"You? You were the one chasing us?" Ivory wished to withdraw from the red-woman, having heard these tales of 'protection' and 'safety' enough to no longer believe them, but something within the woman's unsettling red eyes, told her this was no deception. "Who are you? Where's my ship?" she finally asked.

The woman paused, then smiled, "Melisandre." She held her hand, then cupped her swollen left cheek. "A red priestess in service to R'hllor and the one true princess of prophecy. As for your ship? We found you floating amongst driftwood. There was no ship."

"Are you the captain of this one?" she questioned, ignoring the news of her destroyed vessel, and shaking off the palm at her cheek.

The woman's mood seemed to darken a moment. "I am not. He is away, with his fishes."

"What's his name?" Ivory pressed, releasing the woman's hand.

"Euron Greyjoy," the priestess scowled at the name.

"The fucking Crow's Eye?!" she laughed at her luck, remembering hearing the voice utter 'Greyjoy' but not expecting the Crow's Eye himself. "If you don't mind, I'd rather take my chances swimming for shore, wherever that is."

"He will not harm you, I swear it by R'hllor!" the woman's face was stone, her eyes resolute. "These men also serve the Lord of Light," she turned her gaze to the crewmen tending to the ship. "They will protect you just as much as I. Now come, you must eat. I will have a bath drawn for you, and I will tend to your eye," Melisandre reached out her hand.

"Lead the way," she sighed, waving off the proffered hand. 'Might as well get food in me before I start my swim. And where's the bloody stone?' Ivory rubbed at her swollen face.