Content Warning: There is a content warning for this chapter, which would have some significant spoilers for what happens. So, I've added the content warning at the end - if you want the summary before reading, scroll down to the end notes first. Otherwise, keep reading!
In the Eighteenth Year of the Reign of King Robert
Jocelyn could barely hold back her impatience as she traveled. She wanted to perform the skjoldmada—to ask for her blessing, to know her family was protected—now. But it did not do to rush the gods, nor to give them anything less than the proper respect and ceremony. Everything had to be right, and the power of returning to the clearing where she had first felt the touch of the gods' gifts was too strong to be denied.
So she walked, Elina ambling along beside her, day after day, even as a panicked part of Jocelyn's mind was sure she could feel the procession of King Robert getting closer. It took days just to get out of the Barrowlands. A day's walk out of Barrow Hall, through the endless fields of wheat and barley to get to Craggan, a hamlet built around a market square and a small inn. Another day's walk past that, through the gently rolling horse pastures, to Blacksboat, virtually identical to Craggan except that it also had a river dock from which small craft could travel up to Torren's Square. A day's walk past Craggan to Tormore, which was identical in essence to Craggan and Blacksboat but from which Jocelyn could finally see, far on the horizon, the hills that marked the end of the plains and the start of the Wolfwood.
The Barrowton preosthad had offered her use of a horse, but Jocelyn hadn't even needed to consider before turning the offer down. The Great Wolf, she knew in her marrow, could not possibly respect her request if she rode to him on a horse, even if she'd found one that could stand Elina.
Her only comfort was that the King could not be moving very quickly, either. They had little detail about the visit from the South, but surely the King would require a significant entourage, which would take time to gather and which would then move at a glacial pace. And Robert was not a King to travel often; his court would be out of practice.
It was scant comfort, and the days spent walking formed the longest sennight of Jocelyn's life.
The nights, though, were even worse. Jocelyn would have pushed on after sunset each day, but the moon was new, and low clouds came and went across the stars, plunging the land into utter darkness. Jocelyn knew better than to risk an injury hurrying on blind, and even if she hadn't she could not walk for days on end without sleep.
But at night, lying on her furs, too hot to stay close to her giant bear, the doubts that sun and purpose of movement had kept at bay returned to hound her. Am I making a storm out of a breeze? Jocelyn wondered. Father knows how to hold the North, much better than an acolyte of eight-and-ten namedays.
But Father doesn't talk to the people I do, argued another part of her mind. Father doesn't hear the smallfolk wonder how long the Great Wall will keep standing, he doesn't hear them call his wife "Lady Tully" nigh on two decades after she came to the North.
Jocelyn was willing to bet that The King's Lord wasn't sung near Winterfell; traveling singers could claim all they wanted that the song referred to nobody in particular, but one didn't last long as a bard without some sense of self-preservation. He doesn't know what people are saying about him.
The Starks have held Winterfell for eight thousand years, Jocelyn would tell herself. They can weather this.
Every dynasty ends someday, whispered back the other part of her mind, and winter is coming.
When Jocelyn did finally drift into sleep, she found no respite. Dreams haunted her, of mobs howling for blood, of executioners' axes providing it, of cruel, faceless men, tall as trees, casting her brothers and sisters out into the cold, where shadowcats and fouler creatures waited for them…
Then morning would come, and the dreams would fade, less than half-remembered, leaving only a constant sense of foreboding and a drive to walk faster.
It became both easier and harder when she finally stepped under the shade of the trees on the outskirts of the Wolfwood. Easier, because Jocelyn could finally, finally feel the forest around her again, and its embrace gave her strength. Harder, because she wanted to run, to become one with the elk and pass through the forest like a stream bubbling over rocks, and the need to stay in her own body to keep it moving felt like a prison.
On the eighth day after Jocelyn stormed out of Barrowton, she reached the hollow in the deep wood, three days' march from Winterfell, where she had first been introduced to the preosthad.
It felt more alive than ever, this place. Jocelyn had known, the first time she had come here, that this was a woods that had never been cleared by man. The giant trees held thousands of years in their trunks, season after season marking their cores. The woods itself held even more, a well of still water that descended endlessly, and the only limit to the depth you could draw from was how far you dared to go.
She had known it, but now she felt it. There was a presence here, something Jocelyn couldn't describe, but something that filled her, that rooted her in the woods, roots reaching down through millennia.
There was already a bonfire prepared, waiting for sunset to be lit.
Veran approached Jocelyn, older than he had been that day she had first met him, but hale like a mature oak. He bowed his head. "Acolyte," he intoned, "I… saw your coming." The goði's eyes held a fervent light. Jocelyn, even through her panic to get started, shared his excitement. If even the sight was returning to them…
Veran gestured to the younger goði who had gathered behind him. "These five were here when I saw you approach, and have agreed to participate in the skjoldmada."
"Five?" asked Jocelyn incredulously.
Veran shrugged apologetically. "It is what I saw."
Then Jocelyn realized—one for each child she was asking to bless. She bowed her head. "It will be five, then, as you saw."
The remaining preparations were quickly discussed, and Jocelyn could see goði and weirwitches walking into the hollow from all directions. Soon more of the preosthad were here than she had ever seen gathered in one place.
"The gods are here," said Veran simply. "They can each of them feel it."
Of the five goði who would participate, three were of an age with her, Jocelyn saw. She knew them from trips with Osha, knew that each had only passed their own initiations—the mysterious ritual which no goði would speak of to a weirwitch—scant moons past.
Jocelyn wasn't sure if it was better or worse, to be familiar with them.
The other two goði were older, one mayhaps ten years older, the other another ten beyond that. Jocelyn swallowed her fear. "There is no shame in the forest," she repeated to herself.
Jocelyn sat, Elina next to her. Jocelyn stroked her fur as she breathed in and knew the forest. She stayed there, awareness extended, as she felt the sun roll below the horizon and the cold of night seep through the forest.
Jocelyn opened her eyes to see the preosthad surrounding her.
"It is time," Veran intoned.
The fire was lit already, rapidly gaining strength and casting light and shadow about the darkened hollow. Bronze dishes were hung from high branches, some containing fragrant oils that were smoking slowly, some holding their own fire. All around her bodies stood, some silently taking in the clearing and its presence, some dancing slowly around the hollow, some whispering entreaties to the gods.
Veran threw a bundle of soma onto the bonfire, which started emitting thick plumes of smoke, which did not disperse into the night, but wrapped around them. Soon the air around Jocelyn was hazy, and quickly she found it hard to see more than a few feet through the thick, dimly lit cloud enveloping her. Jocelyn breathed in deeply, letting the blessed smoke fill her lungs and her mind.
"Hear us, oh Wolf!" somebody screamed. "Know us!"
The cries were taken up by voices all around her, calls from unseen worshippers to the night, to the Wolf, to the Elk, the Horned Lord, even some to the Adder; to the gods of the forest.
Jocelyn shed her hides and stepped to the fire. She turned her back to it, letting the heat bathe her bare skin. Weirwitches approached, and she could feel fingers painting symbols on her, but she didn't look to see what they were. Her gaze was held by the hazy view of the dark forest in front of her. The smoke swirled around her into shapes just beyond her recognition.
Veran led Elina over to her. He handed her the athame. Jocelyn breathed in deeply again, dulling some feelings, but sharpening others. Jocelyn leaned into her companion's fur, feeling the warmth and comfort it provided.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
She pushed the athame into Elina's throat where the blood pounded thickest. She kept a small part of her awareness in the bear; she didn't know why, but she felt like it was the right thing to do to feel the pain she inflicted.
Hot blood cascaded down Jocelyn's head, drenching her hair and coating her skin. Jocelyn braced herself as the strength left Elina and the enormous weight of the bear started to fall. Jocelyn held her up, as more blood flowed out. Jocelyn could no longer feel the heat of the fire through the thick coating enveloping her and quickly cooling in the night air. She held the part of her awareness in Elina, feeling her pain and terror, for as long as she dared without risking the scarring of her gift from the bear's death.
Finally the flow slowed. Jocelyn lowered Elina, vaguely aware that the goði around her were helping lower the great bear to the ground.
"Accept my sacrifice," Jocelyn spoke, quietly. The preosthad around her screamed their own entreaties, but Jocelyn could feel the gods' presence inside her, and was confident they would hear her words, no matter how soft.
The bonfire behind her shifted, sending a flow of embers into the air. Several of them landed in Elina's fur. Quickly, far more quickly than should have been possible, the fur caught fire. Elina burned, the flames licking Jocelyn's skin without leaving any mark. The goði around Jocelyn cried out in alarm and worship.
Suddenly Veran was in front of Jocelyn. "Are you ready?" he asked.
Jocelyn simply nodded.
One of the goði—the youngest, Jocelyn thought—stepped up to her, and Jocelyn noticed, in a detached way, that his member was already hard.
The goði laid down on the ground, naked, and Jocelyn stepped over him. The blood that coated her skin dripped off of her, onto the goði, and as she stepped over him she paused, letting more of Elina's blood drip until it started to pool in the dip between his belly and manhood.
Finally, Jocelyn lowered herself onto the goði. Practiced hands of two older weirwitches guided the process.
"Accept my sacrifice," she whispered again.
She moved as Osha had described to her, long ago now. The chanting, screaming, dancing around her continued, and someone threw more soma on the fire, thickening the smoke even further.
After what seemed like only a few moments, the goði beneath her shouted, and arched his back, and Jocelyn could feel him spend himself inside her. "Bless my family. Show your blessing to Robb," Jocelyn whispered.
She could feel something else, as well, some power that moved through her entire body, like she was a bell that had been tolled, deep and ringing. It staggered her as she got to her feet, and the next goði walked up to her. The first one, beneath her, seemed to have exhausted himself, and needed help to crawl out of the ritual circle.
The second was easier. Jocelyn was already slick from the first goði's release, and her motions became smoother with practice.
This one took even less time before he finished with a grunt and a convulsion, and a second toll rang through Jocelyn. "Show your favor on Sansa," Jocelyn said, louder now.
As the third goði took his place beneath her, Jocelyn's awareness of where she ended and the rest of the woods began blurred, and she looked down at herself, straddling the man beneath her, with a thousand eyes of bird and, and
The dancers were now flinging themselves about, heedless of the fires burning or the other bodies. Collisions turned to coupling as goði and weirwitches fell to each other, until it seemed each person was in the embrace of the person next to them, and whether that was man or woman was no matter.
The third goði screamed his release as if in pain.
"Bless Arya. Show your favor," the girl in the hollow screamed over him.
The fourth goði moved beneath Jocelyn. Someone put fingers in her mouth, placing slivers of mushroom onto her tongue, and with a gasp Jocelyn's consciousness contracted back into her body. She was aware of herself again, aware of every smell and taste and sensation across the skin still dripping with blood.
The next release thundered inside Jocelyn, and she closed her eyes and called down her blessing for Bran.
She kept her eyes closed, the sensation of it all too overwhelming to do else. She leaned forward as the last goði entered her, and felt hot breath on her neck and rough fur against her back.
It was too much. Not painful, not anything she would have called pleasure in her right mind, just overwhelming sensation. Jocelyn began to panic even through the presence that filled her mind, she couldn't take any more of this, it was too much, until, until,
With a last explosion, Jocelyn screamed her entreaty, inarticulate, hoping the gods would know her intent, would hear her wordless cry for a blessing for Rickon, for all the Stark children, and suddenly the explosion inside her manifested in the hollow. A gale blew out from Jocelyn, ripping leaves off of ancient trees, scattering embers and incense, and knocking over the dancing weirwitches and goði. The bonfire rose, and rose, until it formed a pillar of flame so bright that Jocelyn could see it through her closed eyelids, and so tall that she could not tell where it ended.
And then, darkness, and the silence of an entire forest shocked into stillness.
Jocelyn drifted in and out of consciousness, after. People moved around her in the night, but she did not recognize them. She laid out on the ground, heedless of the cool night or the hot fire, and stared, unseeing, at the canopy of the forest above her.
She dreamed she was a wolf, chasing a herd of deer at the head of a great pack. They made one kill after another, and Jocelyn realized she was ravenous. She ate, and ate, and ate, the raw meat and offal sliding down her throat, bones crunching under her teeth, blood running down her mouth. No matter how much she ate she wanted more, and so she kept filling her mouth, even as her stomach distended and bulged out beneath her.
She only stopped eating when she felt the pain.
It started with cramping, lightly enough at first that she kept eating through it. But the pain grew, and grew, until she felt as if her insides were being split open.
Jocelyn screamed, then, unsure if she was still dreaming. It did not matter; the pain was on both sides of waking and sleeping. It built to a crescendo, then ebbed.
The pain increased again, before fading.
And again, worse than the last.
And again it rose, and again it fell.
And then the pain increased, worse than ever, and Jocelyn was sure she was dying. It felt as though someone had strapped hot iron around her stomach and back, and Jocelyn wanted it to stop, she would do anything to make it stop.
Just as she thought, for the second time that night, that she could not take any more, the pain passed with a great heave. Jocelyn, relieved, lay back and let exhaustion claim her.
She did not dream again.
Jocelyn opened her eyes the instant the sun appeared above the horizon, a glowing orb that somehow found the exact position needed to cut through the thick tree cover. She groggily pushed herself to a sitting position and looked around her. She was uncomfortable, somehow, in a way she had never been before and did not recognize.
The evidence of her skjoldmada still littered the hollow in the morning light. Beside her Jocelyn could see a giant pile of ash, and cinders, and partially burnt logs. The bronze dishes that had hung from the trees the night before were strewn about, along with fallen branches. A number of weirwitches and goði, more than Jocelyn's fuzzy mind could count, laid on the ground, dead to the world. She could hear the breeze on the leaves, soft birdsong, the rustle of an animal searching for breakfast; and after the previous night the ordinary song of the forest sounded strange.
By Jocelyn's side, five wolf cubs curled, eyes closed, and as they woke up they mewled weakly to be fed. As the sound hit her, she realized the source of her discomfort. Jocelyn lay down next to the wolf cubs, arms open, and gathered them to her to nurse. Not wolf cubs, Jocelyn realized as they suckled. Direwolf cubs.
She let each of them drink their fill from her, before she got unsteadily to her feet, and, putting one foot in front of the other, left the hollow, the cubs in her arms.
She knew she had to get to Winterfell. As Jocelyn walked, that was the only thought she held on to. She had to get to Winterfell, and she had to protect the direwolf cubs she carried. Other considerations—food, shelter, clothing—all seemed inconsequential as she carried her precious burdens, one step after another, the cubs each nursing in turn from the milk that now flowed freely from her, dripping down her belly and making paths in the dried blood and semen and dirt that coated her skin.
One step after another. The wolves grew quickly, even over the course of a day. By nightfall they could already pad along beside Jocelyn for short stretches. Jocelyn could see her siblings in them. The largest had a gray coat, and was the one most eager to test his young legs, but never ran too far ahead, always keeping an eye on his smaller packmates. The smallest was russet, streaked through with darker brown and brighter red, and she would nip her siblings if any tried to nurse out of their turn.
The light brown direwolf kept trying to climb up Jocelyn, and for some time managed to balance on top of her head, looking eagerly at the forest around him from his elevated perch.
The remaining two pups, a charcoal bitch and her jet black brother, were both full of energy, and kept leaping out of Jocelyn's arms whenever she failed to move fast enough for them, before falling to the ground, snapping at each other's tails.
Jocelyn did not stop even after the sun set, putting one foot in front of another as she wound through the forest, retracing the steps she walked the first time she left Winterfell. The moon was still dark, but that did not bother Jocelyn anymore. Her eyes picked out the trail easily, and the smell of others of the preosthad who had walked this path before her was so clear she could have followed it with her eyes closed.
By morning the direwolf cubs had grown too big for her to carry them all at once. She held on to two at a time, still nursing, while the others ambled around her, now learning to play fight and chasing the small game they could smell in the forest around them. Occasionally this took them out of sight, but this did not worry Jocelyn; they knew the forest, and always returned when it was their time to nurse.
As she walked through the afternoon, she began to notice her own body. Had her arms always been so thin? She kept walking, but it grew harder. She was supposed to eat, she thought, each day perhaps? She couldn't remember when she'd eaten last, and it didn't seem important, so long as the pups were fed and she kept putting one foot in front of the other. She looked at the ribs visible under her skin. She could get home, she decided. She had enough for that. Feed the direwolf pups. One foot in front of the other.
She approached the gates of Winterfell as the sun set on the second day. Jocelyn barely noticed the guards, and the fear in their eyes, as she walked, wolves around her, naked as her nameday, through the town to the tall walls of the castle. Only now that her destination was in reach did Jocelyn realize how unsteady she was, and suddenly she worried she would not make it to the gate.
She kept putting one foot in front of the other, while the direwolves padded ahead of her like an honor guard.
Finally she stood on the ramp to the city gate, suddenly aware of the crowd that had gathered. She saw her Lord Father, his eyes wide with worry, rush through the Winterfell guards to approach her.
"The gods," she started, and then wet her lips and gathered her breath, her voice hoarse from disuse.
"The gods bless the Starks," Jocelyne cried as loud as she could. She bowed to Lord Stark.
"For your children, Lord Stark. A blessing from the Great Wolf, for your children."
Jocelyn threw her arms out, and the direwolves bounded forward, each unerringly seeking out and finding their new companions.
As if they were all that had been keeping Jocelyn standing, as soon as they left her presence, she collapsed, and let the darkness take her.
Content Warning: Sex - a female character has ritual sex with a number of men in public as part of a religious initiation
Content Warning: Blood - lots of blood in this chapter; a character is covered in blood
Content Warning: Animal Death - a character kills her animal companion
Content Warning: Drug use