The frozen wind of the land that lay beyond the wall of ice was as cold as ever. That was to say it howled and bit into the flesh worse than an enraged direwolf. Thankfully however, Naic had never minded extreme weather conditions when he had been alive.
He minded even less now that he could most accurately be called a spirit inhabiting a shell of dead flesh. Whenever he was feeling unusually philosophical he wondered if he could qualify himself as living since aside from the beating heart and functioning lungs that description could apply to most anyone who still resided in the closed world instead of the open. It was just a matter of whether the spirit was strong enough to animate the flesh even in the face of a supposed natural death. He'd had plenty of time to ponder such things after all ever since Valyria had fallen and his own unchecked power had overrun the now dissipated spirit that had once been known simply as Winter in this forsaken place.
A shadow inadvertently crossed the dead shell's eyes while one of its rotting teeth fell out of its jaw as his power churned in response to his agitation rising to meet that train of thought. He missed having command of his full power ever since his petulant grandson had thrown that temper tantrum so long ago. Drega may have had her irritation blunted or her pity raised by the voices of the Fiery Heart, but he had only himself and his propensity toward grudges to contend with. Which meant he still itched to place his borrowed fingers around that little shit's now non-existent throat and squeeze until his eyes popped. For while how much of herself his daughter may have lost in the collective inferno that called itself R'hllor was a matter of contention, he was and would always be himself alone. Always remember who he had been even when he had become accustomed to being the Other. He supposed that was the greatest difference between the two roles no matter who inherited the mantle.
R'hllor had always been a being built and indeed reliant upon collective strength with vague impressions the only thing left after the spirit's power burned away most of what they were in life. The other voices may have been somewhat sentient and aware yes, but they appeared to possess no more power than the inner voice of one's conscience: easily silenced when one had sufficiently stubborn willpower. Whereas the Other was a being whose accumulated memories and powers were centered upon one individual: each inheritor was the Other. A single person who was expected to bear the weight of centuries that came from being intimately aware of every dark experience and every scrap of forbidden knowledge as though it had been their own with nothing but hindsight and regret for memories and mistakes they had not made before they became this. It took a very specific kind of person to retain who they were instead of choosing to numb themselves to humanity as the Other he found. Whether that was a good or bad thing was entirely up for debate even if it came from a place of good: of genuinely wishing to ease the burden of someone they loved when they became R'hllor.
But that too took its toll. R'hllor's light could cast away the cobwebs and film that lay over the mortal eyes to illuminate the pathways. But inevitably, where there were depths even R'hllor's light could not penetrate, it fell to they who called themselves Other to be aware always of what lay within those blackest of pits. The wells of absolute despair and depravity that was as much a part of humanity's savage nature as breathing.
It was all well and good for R'hllor to dream of men becoming more and seeing themselves clearly. The Other had to contend with what all humans were in the dark when they believed none to be watching: whether they were aware of what monsters they were or not.
In some ways it was something of a relief to have not had to deal so much with that aspect of his divine nature.
But it wasn't much better now that he was back to what amounted to mystical patrol duty in order to buy his daughter time to make another grandchild aware of their responsibility to stop their brother. When he'd been alive, he'd never understood why the girl's mother seemed so forward with his Little Fang and yet could have so many of her own followers not understand what she wanted. Even now that his daughter had taken up her mother's mantle, he sometimes he wished his daughter would be more straightforward with her followers across the sea. But then he would always forcibly remember that her very nature prevented her from directly making people do what she felt they needed to. For R'hllor was a spirit of fire and illumination. They could shine their light upon all possible paths it was true. But that wouldn't matter any if the follower they spoke to had already fixed their gaze upon one path in particular to follow. Especially not when the path she wanted them to take required sacrifice in order to help their deity in a way that might not necessarily help themselves. For a fire always required something to fuel it, something to be sacrificed so that it could continue to burn.
A dark view of looking at people who worshiped his Little Fang perhaps. But proven accurate by the years and lifetimes they had both spent looking after humanity as well the accumulated memories that stretched back to the first time the inferno and the shadow it cast became aware of themselves.
A lonely caw echoed through the angry air as one of his dark strings tingled in a familiar manner. He traced the tendril of his power back to one of the recently deceased birds he had following him. As he saw through its unseeing eyes, he witnessed a scouting party of the former Winter's creations come upon a small camp of free folk. The free folk's ragged furs and rusting weapons had barely protected them from the animals that had once inhabited the wild when they abandoned the army that followed their self-proclaimed king: Mance Rayder. They stood no chance against the merciless Icelings.
He watched with his dispassionate bird's eye view as the humans were systematically herded back to the camp whenever they tried to escape into the woods. Those who tried to fight were made into Shamblers without exception until the free folk were primarily fighting their own dead rather than the scouts. Not that the shamblers the scouts had made were exceptionally adaptable or skilled. But they didn't truly need to be when seeing the bloody and eerily blue gaze of a former loved one look at you with no more recognition than a dragon might give its next meal. Though that was a bit unfair to Drega's scaled relatives. They could in fact recognize and care for others. As well as play with their food before they devoured it. The shamblers were no more aware or capable of humanity than his own rotting menagerie.
Soon enough the screaming stopped. There was no true silence after. The snow crunched beneath the scouts as wisps of cold swirled off their white bodies in the midst of the carnage. There was minor crackling of ice both upon the trees and within the rapidly cooling blood on the ground. The wind still howled and the trees still sighed. Though it was quieter now, as though the dissipated spirit of Winter recognized the solemnity of the moment.
While maintaining his crow's gaze upon the scouts, Naic moved toward them, sure that he would be able to catch them and be able to eliminate more of these moving servants of his own feral power. If his rotting shell's face wasn't more skeleton than flesh at this point, it would've been grinning in anticipation. It had been so long since he'd had a good fight from the days when he marched in the Valyrian Army and helped to raze Ghis to the ground.
'Those pyramids were an eyesore anyway.' He thought dismissively to himself as he came closer, dismounting the dead elk that served as his mount. As he began moving into the trees the Icelings snapped their eyes in his direction. He stopped moving while having the crow caw to try and get their full attention off of him.
One looked to the crow while the other kept its sight trained in his general direction. Naic was good at moving through the shadows, but he wasn't functioning with his full power quite yet. That meant he'd have to take this slow and throw the simpletons off somehow. Fortunately, he had time as the three of them appeared to be the only ones here aside from the shamblers who were quickly coming to a halt when the scouts began withdrawing his borrowed power from their bodies in order to be better prepared for his inevitable attack.
Their game of cat and mouse barely moved forward and back, his puppets doing their level best at distracting them whilst the Icelings concentrated on ignoring their attempts to get them off track. These scouts were unusually focused he noticed. Probably a good thing he got them out of the way now before they could potentially gain enough awareness to call themselves warrior. They still wouldn't be as much of a threat to him as a channeler but they'd be a serious pain in his rotting arse anyway. They always were after all.
Closer and closer they crept to each other over the course of what might've been two days or more, always watching to see if they were going to encounter each other. But an unexpected wrinkle occurred in the form of men in black cloaks.
The scouts retreated into the woods, allowing themselves to become one with the ice and snow adorning the trees nearby. Naic knew he had to take this chance to get closer. Swiftly he moved from shadow to shadow, his dead crow still acting as his eyes as the black clad men inspected the scene of the Iceling attack.
He sensed the scouts use their powers to reanimate the shamblers again, likely because they had decided they couldn't take a chance even against such a small group of possessing blackfire weapons and so preventing them from returning to their new master. Naic knew that he would have to intervene at some point, if only so that the black clad men could be warned by someone who could actually travel through the gates of the wall. What they did with that warning was not his concern as he still had to remain here and wait for his Little Fang to tell their descendant that he was expecting their help.
There went one, a bite to the neck from one of the shamblers. The other two had very different reactions. One bolted into the forest trees, trying to make for the safety of the path they had come but instead getting turned around while the other attacked the shambler. One of the scouts came for him. The living man's blade, whether it was iron or steel, shattered against the scout's ice weapon. The scout drove it into his chest, borrowed magic working its way through him as swiftly as a turncloak fleeing from battle.
Naic had a choice to make. Save the sole living one and risk a fight with both scouts, or pick off one now while it was distracted and somewhat exerted from all this. A large part of him would've liked to attack the one in the clearing now while dealing with cleaning up the other later. But he also knew that taking out the fresh one so that there wouldn't be a lone shamble left somewhere nearby here was also something he would have to contend with. Powerful former god he may have been, he had always hated leaving any loose ends. They often found a way of riding the wind in order to wrap themselves around one's neck later if they weren't severed before they became a problem.
He went after the running man while keeping the crow in the clearing to alert him when the other inevitably moved towards him. It wasn't hard to find the frightened man. His trail was practically alive with the scent of his fear and desperation even as he left signs obvious enough for a blind man to follow. He caught up with him at the same time the scout did. The scout, focused as it was on the escaping man in black didn't notice Naic there. A grin that could only speak to a hunger for blood came to the mouth of Naic's shell. It was too perfect.
Naic stuck his hand in the snow drift nearby before making his hand into the claw shape required by the martial style he'd learned from Little Fang's mother. As he abruptly flung his hand forward and up, a gale of icy wind blasted through the clearing, powerful enough to blind even the Iceling scout. In an instant he had slipped into the shadow behind the scout and brought his clawed hand forward: punching through the center of its chest as though it were a crumbling tent flap.
The Iceling shattered without ever being aware of Naic's presence.
He concentrated as the remnants of his own magic and the magic of Winter attempted to dissipate on the air. With an audible inhale, he brought it to settle on his still outstretched right arm. As the magic further concentrated into the palm of his hand and the tips of his fingers he drove the dead shell's hand into its chest so that the physical act would symbolically restore the magic to his somewhat tired reserves.
Instantly he was refreshed and itching to bring the fight back to the clearing. But he still had to let the runner know that he needed to tell others.
The man in black finally opened his terriefied brown eyes to behold the Iceling was gone and to see Naic standing there: a figure cloaked in black and ice. Like the spectre of the death that awaited all his kind.
"Warn…them." The dead shell rasped, disintegrated vocal chords unable to carry the sound and forcing Naic to project what he wanted to say on the wind itself.
"Winter…is…coming." He said before pivoting his right foot to kick up the wind and blind the man again. He vanished into the shadows of the trees as he made his way back to the clearing.
Now there was only the shamblers and the remaining scout to deal with. Joy.
As he came forth to find them waiting for him, Naic couldn't help but feel like a child receiving a long awaited present from a distant aquaintence.
'Let us see what gift of death you have to give.' He thought gleefully to himself as a dagger of ice formed in the palm of his shell's right hand. He snapped the corpse's bony jaws together, clicking them audibly like the snapping of a wolf's mouth at enemies.
The tree huggers may never have been able to compete even with the student of his Little Fang's mother, but they certainly know how to embrace the wildness of nature. He charged toward the shamblers at the same time the Iceling raised its blade to direct them to their target.
The howling of the wind grew fiercer.
A/N: Never thought I'd ever write a fic that included both a perspective from R'hllor and the Other before. Find out something new about yourself everyday I suppose. And in case it isn't clear to some, yes: this is the canon scene with the black brothers first encountering the white walkers from the show/books. I just happened to write it from the perspective of the Great Other. :) As always, please review and let me know what you guys think. I always look forward to hearing just what people think of the ongoing story! :D