Nerd In The North: 3-16
New
5 days ago
III-16: The Siege of Shadows
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
"Fuck!" The side of Greg's face twitched as another man fell, an arrow lodged deep in his throat. All around him, the battlefield was pure chaos - mud and blood and shit and screaming. The plan was simple enough; march through the night and hit the castle right before dawn, a long time before they probably expected them to reach the Dreadfort.
Then he was going to break down the gate, as best he could. How?
He wasn't exactly sure, but he figured a full-powered Smite would probably get him a good portion of the way there.
One thing, though.
They were ready.
And waiting.
With traps... and such.
Now, the Dreadfort's walls stretched up like teeth against the grey sky, Bolton men lining the battlements with bows drawn. At least one arrow from each volley found flesh with practiced precision, years of flaying people alive apparently great practice for killing them too.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Greg's hands clenched into fists at his sides, golden light flickering around his fingers as he fought the urge to just start blasting. The copper stench of blood filled his nostrils, mixing with smoke and fear-sweat and making his stomach do backflips. Not that he had time to be queasy. Another scream pierced the air as an arrow found its mark, the sound cutting off with a wet gurgle that made his jaw clench so hard it hurt.
A familiar roar split the air like thunder. Ash burst through a cluster of Bolton men, the dragon-bear's wings spread wide as hellfire poured from his jaws. Men scattered like leaves, their screams cut brutally short as claws and fangs went to work. Those who didn't run fast enough learned exactly why mixing dragon and bear DNA was probably a war crime somewhere in some universe. Smoke rose from freshly-cooked corpses as Ash bounded forward, scales glinting red in the firelight.
Right behind the dracoursa, Guts was painting his own masterpiece in blood and steel.
The Dragonslayer sang through the air, each swing leaving devastation in its wake that would make Lung jealous. Shields splintered like glass, chainmail burst apart like paper, and bodies... well, Greg tried not to look too hard at what happened to the bodies. The dark-armored massive-bodied warrior moved like a force of nature, each movement precise despite the sheer brutality of his strikes.
"Jesus fucking-" Greg's hand shot up in a claw, the teenager swiping it to the right as he spotted another wave of arrows, a familiar rune shifting in his mind and reworking itself before he could even finish cursing. "Aard Shield!"
The air crystallized into a wall of pure force as he altered the nigh-instictive Sign into a fully-formed spell in it's own right, arrows bouncing off like rubber balls. His men charged through without hesitation - morale at their peak as some of them seemed to glow with a subtle light, like a faint copy of his own healing spells. Their spears leveled at the now-backpedaling Bolton forces as Greg poured more power into the shield. More than a few defenders dropped their weapons at the sight of seemingly divine protection, while others broke into a run. Yeah, that's right. Run from the teenage wizard, you medieval fucks.
"Don't let up!" Greg's voice cracked slightly as he darted forward, another shield spell already forming. His hands moved in practiced motions as he wove protection around his advancing forces. "Push them back! Push!"
But despite everything - despite Ash's flames and Guts' blade and Greg's magic - those fucking gates still stood. Thick oak banded with iron refused to yield, threatening to turn this siege into the world's bloodiest staring contest.
Greg's teeth ground together as he watched another volley launch from the walls, his magic barely deflecting the arrows in time. The gates were the key. Everything else was just... just fucking around.
We need those gates down or this is just gonna be a really elaborate way to get a thousand people killed.
Blue eyes darted across the battlefield, searching for anything useful. They landed on an abandoned supply cart, its contents scattered across the blood-soaked mud like the world's most depressing yard sale. The frame was solid oak, reinforced with iron bands meant to keep it from falling apart on rough roads. Metal-rimmed wheels had carved deep ruts in the earth where it sat.
Greg's lips curled into a slight smile as the idea hit him. Sometimes the best solution was also the dumbest. "Clear a path!"
The command cracked across the battlefield like a whip. His men scrambled back without question, leaving a wide lane to the gates. Greg strode forward, each step deliberate as he approached the cart. His fingers sank into the dampened wood as he gripped the sides, muscles tensing as he pulled the entire thing in one movement.
The cart rose into the air like it was made of styrofoam, Greg's enhanced strength making the feat look almost casual. Around him, the fighting seemed to pause as both sides stared - his own men with a mix of awe and grim satisfaction, the Bolton forces with dawning horror as they realized what was coming.
"Step back," Greg called out, adjusting his grip on his improvised siege weapon. His voice carried an edge of anticipation as he lined up with the gates, already imagining the satisfying crunch of wood meeting wood at speeds wood really wasn't meant for. "Batter up!"
The cart spun through the air like death itself, wood and metal blurring into one as Greg's throw sent it hurtling toward the gates. The impact was thunder given form, gates buckling inward as wood splintered and iron screamed. For a heartbeat, the entire battlefield went dead silent.
The gates shuddered, creaked... and held.
"No..." Greg's eyes widened as his heart plummeted into his stomach. "No, no, no."
Above, the Bolton men found their voices again. Arrows rained down with renewed fury as crude laughter echoed from the walls. Clay pots arced through the air, flames bursting to life as it shattered near a group of his men. Their screams cut through him as fire caught their clothes, bodies thrashing in the mud as their comrades tried to help.
Blood roared in Greg's ears as his nails bit deep into his palms. Every death, every scream, every single person who fell charging these walls - it all pressed down on his chest like a mountain of ice. His breath came in sharp bursts that had nothing to do with exertion. The Dreadfort loomed above him, dark walls unchanged and unyielding despite everything they'd thrown at it.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
"Fall back!" The words tore from his throat raw and ragged. His men obeyed without question, dragging wounded comrades as they retreated from the kill zone. Greg's eyes burned as he watched them withdraw. "Get the fuck back! Now!"
Another volley of arrows peppered the ground, driving his men further back. Greg scanned the battlefield, desperate for something, anything that could turn this around. Guts was still going strong, that monster sword of his cleaving through Bolton men like they were made of paper. The black-clad warrior barely seemed to breathe as he moved, each swing ending a life with mechanical precision.
Ash wasn't far behind, the dracobear's flames painting the night in shades of orange and red. Men scrambled back from the hybrid beast in blind terror, many dropping weapons as they fled. But none of it mattered. Not while those gates still stood, mocking every attempt to breach them.
Sweat made Greg's palms slick despite the northern chill biting at his skin. He couldn't stop his hands from shaking as he stared up at the Dreadfort's walls. Rough stone stretched upward, jagged surfaces offering precarious handholds in the darkness. Guards paced the battlements above, eyes sharp and arrows ready. It wasn't an easy climb.
But the gates aren't falling. Not fast enough. Not without losing everyone.
A plan started forming in his head - the kind of plan that got people killed. Usually the person who came up with it. Greg sucked in a breath, forcing his voice steady. "Hold the line! Keep pressure on those gates!" His eyes darted to his dracobear companion. "Ash - make noise. Keep their eyes on you."
He turned toward the black swordsman, watching arterial spray arc from that massive blade. "Guts..."
The warrior's head tilted slightly, sword still raised and dripping red. Greg winced. "Try not to kill all of them?"
"Don't die, whelp." Guts' voice was gravel and steel, cutting through the chaos with raw force, probably a benefit of lungs just as fuck-huge as the rest of him. "Seriously, don't."
Greg managed a weak grin that didn't touch his eyes. "Not planning on it."
The sound hit first - Ash's roar shaking the very ground, a bestial sound that made Greg's teeth rattle in his skull. Orange-red light flooded the battlefield as dragon-fire spilled from the bear's maw, throwing wild shadows across blood-soaked mud and broken bodies. The heat was enough to make his skin prickle even from this distance, air wavering like water as flames turned night to day. Greg stumbled back a step, letting battle-chaos swallow any trace of his movement as he slipped toward the darker edges of hell itself.
Magic. Need magic. The thought came desperate as his hands trembled, fingers flexing as he reached for that familiar darkness inside. His stomach lurched - it always did, using magic still felt wrong somehow - but shadow-stuff answered like it always did, coiling around his arms and legs like living smoke. The weight of his own body seemed to fade as shadows pulled him deeper into their embrace, that wrongness fading into something almost comfortable. His palm met cold stone, rough under his fingers. Fuck, that's high.
One foot. Then hand. Then foot. Greg forced each movement to be slow, deliberate, even as his heart tried to pound out of his chest. The walls were treacherous - slick with ice here, crumbling there, and the wind kept trying to tear him away like nature itself knew he shouldn't be doing this. A chunk of stone broke away under his fingers, nearly sending him plummeting before shadow-tendrils caught him. His breath came in sharp gasps that fogged in the cold air. Below him, steel rang against steel, screams and shouts blending into white noise as he climbed higher. Magic thrummed under his skin, shadow-tendrils gripping stone while his fingers found another hold.
Somewhere below, a man's death-scream pierced the night. Greg's grip tightened as he fought not to look down. Focus. Just focus. Don't think about it.
A shout from above made his blood freeze. "There! On the wall!"
The whistle of arrows filled his ears. Greg slammed himself against stone on pure instinct, but not fast enough - burning pain exploded through his shoulder as steel bit flesh. He bit back a scream, pressing his forehead against icy rock as blood trickled down his back. The wound throbbed in time with his racing heart. Not deep. Just a graze. Fuck fuck fuck that hurts.
His arms shook as he forced himself to keep moving. The cold was seeping into his bones now, fingers going numb even with magic warming his blood. But he couldn't stop. Can't stop can't stop can't fucking stop. More arrows clattered against stone around him, chips of rock stinging his face. Flickering torchlight spilled from windows above, getting closer with each painful pull upward.
Greg's lungs burned by the time he found a ledge, barely wide enough for his boots. He flattened himself against the wall, chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath. Wind howled around him, drowning out the battle below. Every instinct screamed at him to move - sitting target, you're a sitting fucking target - but he forced himself still. Had to think. Had to plan. The arrow wound pulsed angrily, warm blood still trickling down his back.
His fingers clenched as shadows writhed around his arms, magic sensing his intent. It felt almost eager now, hungry for whatever came next. Almost. Almost there. Greg pulled hard on that well of power inside him, and sent shadow tentacles surging outwards to latch on to the wall above. Muscle and magic worked together as held tight and then pulled, launching himself up even higher.
The shutters exploded inward as he crashed through, wood splintering around him like a storm of daggers. He hit stone floor rolling, boots skidding as he came up ready to fight. The impact sent fresh waves of pain through his shoulder. Only a single lantern lit the room, flame dancing low on a massive oak desk that probably cost more than Greg had ever seen in his life.
Shadows played across stone walls, but he barely noticed them.
His whole world narrowed to the man standing at the far end of the room.
Roose Bolton didn't even twitch. Those eyes - Jesus, they look like ice - flicked up from whatever papers he was looking at — oh wow, trying to look cool and unbothered like there's not a fucking war outside — and landed on him, studying Greg with all the emotion of someone examining an insect they were pulling apart. Thin lips pressed together before curving up into something that might have been a smile on anyone else's face.
"So," Bolton's voice filled the room even though the man didn't even bother raising his voice, each word precise and measured. "The sorcerer boy graces us with his presence at last."
Greg stumbled upright, jaw clenched so tight it hurt as black smoke-stuff twisted around his hands like it had a mind of its own. His shoulder burned like hell where the arrow had caught him but he barely noticed, too busy staring at what hung on the wall to the left of him.
No fucking way. Blue eyes widened.
The sword.
My sword.
Just... hanging there.
Like a hunting trophy or something, mounted above all Bolton's fancy papers like it wasn't worth shit. Greg's chest went so tight he could barely breathe, relief and rage slamming into him at once. The shadows around his hands writhed faster, darker, hungrier.
"I must say, you've been quite industrious." Bolton's voice was still quiet, the man barely speaking above a murmur. "Setting fire to everything in your path. Making rather a spectacle of yourself." He tilted his head like one of those creepy porcelain dolls his mom liked. "Do tell - does all this theatrical destruction make you feel important?"
Greg's fingers curled into fists without him meaning to. The shadows pulsed and twisted as anger burned up his throat. "Oh my god, shut up," he choked out, voice cracking embarrassingly. "Do you practice being this much of an asshole?"
That creepy-ass smile got wider on Bolton's face. His eyes stayed dead though - like, actually dead-looking. "And you never think before you speak, do you?" he said, voice cold and precise as a scalpel. "Tell me something, boy - do you have the slightest comprehension of what you're doing? Or are you simply breaking things because you can?"
Greg took a jerky step forward before he could stop himself. His heart was going so fast he felt dizzy. Everything in the room felt wound up too tight, about to snap. "Like you don't know why I'm here." His eyes jumped to the sword on his left again - couldn't help it - then back to Bolton's face. Blood pounded in his ears. "You fucking stole it."
The smile dropped.
Something changed in those dead eyes - like he was doing math in his head or some shit. Then suddenly he was moving, way faster than Greg thought he could, knife appearing in his hand like a magic trick.
The shadows moved before Greg's brain could catch up. Black tendrils shot out from his raised hand, smacking the blade away mid-stab. Metal clattered on stone as Bolton stepped back, face blank but body all tensed up.
"God, you're so fucking obvious." Greg couldn't keep the disgust out of his voice. Another step forward, hand reaching past Bolton for the wall.
His fingers were shaking — anger flooding him the longer he stared at this evil lord — and he hated it. Hated being angry.
Bolton just... watched as he went for the sword.
Didn't move or anything, with the only exception being his eyes as they darted for the open door to Greg's side..
Just stared with those dead-fish eyes while Greg's hand closed around the sword grip. The second he touched it - fuck. His body relaxed and something inside him rung like a bell as his fingers closed around the hilt.
Like finding a piece of himself he didn't know was missing.
The weight felt perfect in his hand, right and real and his.
Greg lifted the blade, watching light run along the white steel. When he looked at Bolton again, his own eyes felt as cold as the lord's.
"You took my fucking sword," he said, steadier than he thought he could manage with all the anger churning in his gut. "I'm taking it back."
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
Wall Walker (50 GP)
Spell Innovator (100 GP)
ROLL: Where is Jumper? (200) [Ultimate Marvel] {Illusion} - You are hidden from most mystical detection methods. Sufficiently powerful beings, such as Dormammu, can still find you given enough time. Regardless, it is a very useful skill when facing magical threats from this world and beyond.
ROLL: Shield of Faith (100) [The Gods Are Bastards] {Benevolence} - The followers of Avei are, in the end, warriors, and each are clad as appropriate for their craft. You gain a set of light or heavy armor, along with a shield and an enchanted sword.
Grimoire Points: 400
Nerd In The North: 3-17
New
5 days ago
III-17: A Throne of Blood
God, what's that smell? Greg's nose wrinkled.
Paper and ink and... something else. Like when his mom forgot to air out the basement, but worse. Way worse. Like old clothes and dust and something dead maybe.
Men screamed outside, metal rang on metal, but in here everything felt weirdly muffled for some reason. His fingers wouldn't stop twitching, leftover shadow-stuff making his skin crawl. Hate that feeling. Like spiders but not.
Roose fucking Bolton stood behind his fancy-ass desk like this was just some normal Tuesday meeting. Look at me, I'm not bothered at all, I'm being so cool and so fancy with my stupid fancy room and my stupid fancy... everything. His hands hung loose but Greg wasn't buying that bullshit for a second.
The man looked like a
Those dead eyes watched him like - fuck, like when that creepy science teacher used to stare at the class fish tank. Calculating something behind that corpse-face. Greg had seen that look before.
Right before Ramsay-
No. Don't think about that shit right now.
Greg sucked in a breath, winced when his ribs protested. Stupid fucking arrows. Stupid fucking castle. Boot scraped stone as he stepped forward, nearly slipped on something wet - blood maybe? The sword felt right in his hands though. Like coming home, if home was sharp and metal and- focus, dumbass. Everything about this screamed trap.
His muscles burned to move, attack, something, but - no.
This wasn't like Ramsay. The memory made bile rise in his throat, copper taste flooding his mouth. Different kind of monster here. Patient monster. The kind that waited.
"I trust you're aware of who I am." Voice like ice but wrong ice. Each word just placed down like he was reading from a script he wrote himself.
No fear.
No nothing.
Not even when the remnants of the shadow-stuff still wisping around Greg's arms twitched in his direction like it wanted a taste.
Eat shit and die, you discount Dracula looking motherfucker. Greg kept that one inside though, despite how much he really wanted to call him out for cribbing off the fucking count with the pale skin and long black hair and general… vibe.
Instead he forced out a breath, tried for a smirk. Probably came out wrong - everything felt wrong in here. "Name's Killer. Bolton Killer."
Bolton's mouth twitched. Barely.
Like someone drew a line with a pencil and erased it quick.
Greg's hands tightened on the sword. Just fucking try something.
"Attempting wit now? How... quaint." Each word dropped precise as a knife, starting to circle the desk like some weird museum exhibit come to life. Every step measured like he was counting them out. "Though I suppose I shouldn't expect more, given your... previous displays of judgment."
Greg's head tilted, tracking him. Shoulder screaming where that arrow tagged him. Blood trickling warm down his back. Didn't matter. He knew this game - seen enough movies.
Read enough comics. Stalling stalling stalling.
Those corpse-eyes flicked to the door. Fast, but - gotcha, asshole. Greg's feet shifted wider, ready. "Waiting for friends?" He almost wished he didn't speak, flinching as the words left him, as the sentence came out all raw and wrong, rage mixing up his throat like acid.
Bolton kept circling, ignoring him like brushing off a fly. "Do you imagine my death will craft you into some hero?" He sounded bored now, finger trailing the desk edge, stopping by some thick book and tapping it gently with that same long pointer finger. "These smallfolk you've roused - you believe they'll follow you? Such things never last. Especially for some upstart boy who thinks himself a liberator."
Greg's fingers trembled around the sword, regretting having pulled on so much of that weird Japanese-ish power. Shadow-magic made everything feel weird and buzzy and wrong and his shoulder hurt so bad he could barely-
His eyes narrowed as he realized something, a "son of a bitch" leaving his lips in a barely heard whisper. Did they fucking poison that arrow?
Meanwhile, Bolton kept talking.
"Led them to blood and fire, haven't you?" Voice like ice but worse somehow. Each word dropped into the room like- god his shoulder really fucking hurt -like something sharp and cold and- "What happens when winter comes? When the food runs dry?"
Not scared, huh? Not even a little, Greg realized as he took in the guy. At least with Ramsay, he had looked dead on his feet and bleeding from like every major visible orifice but Ramsay's dad didn't even have that to feel confident about his chances of survival. Just... standing there with those dead fish eyes like- wait, did he just move his hand?
No. Standing still again.
"When the other lords march North?"
Greg's stomach lurched at that line. Actual physical lurch like he was gonna puke.
Because that- that was-
Shit.
He'd been ready for threats, maybe. Or like an evil villain monologue, a cold calculated speech about politics, order, power, or whatever.
This was worse though. Way worse.
Because Bolton wasn't wrong.
Greg couldn't even blink. Something cold and heavy sat in his gut like- I am going to gut the bastard that poisoned that fucking arrow, fuck! -truth hurt worse than arrows. Food.
Yeah he hadn't figured that out yet.
Other lords weren't just gonna let this slide. And loyalty-
His mind skipped away from that one fast. Too fast.
But the thought chased him anyway - people turned on you.
They always did.
Always.
Fingers went white on the sword grip. Heart still pounding like it was trying to escape. He knew what Bolton was doing. Knew it. But-
"You kill the man who keeps order." Voice dripped fake concern that made Greg's skin crawl in a way different from the poison in his veins. Made him think of guidance counselors and their fake concern. "Who fills that void? You?"
Almost laughed. Not quite.
But Greg heard it anyway.
"Haven't the faintest notion what rule means, do you, child?"
Greg's teeth ground together so hard something popped in his jaw.
But Bolton kept moving. Little steps. Careful steps. Looking for weak spots like- god what was that smell? -like something hunting. And finding them.
Finding lots of them.
Because Greg really didn't know what he was doing. Really really didn't.
His chest felt tigh, the room spinning a little at the edges while people died outside. All those sounds he knew now - screaming and metal and that wet thump of bodies hitting frozen ground.
Used to make him sick.
He wished it still did a little.
Guts was out there somewhere. Probably having the time of his life. Ash's fire kept lighting up the windows like some fucked up strobe light.
Battle had to be over soon.
But Bolton was still here, breathing. Still talking with that voice.
Still talking.
Greg's hand cramped on the sword as his lip curled back.
Fuck that.
"You're nervous," Greg said, stepping forward like he had all the time in the world, but keeping his weight loose, shifting. ready. "I can tell."
A pale flicker crossed Roose Bolton's eyes, almost imperceptible.
Almost.
"Oh?" the high lord murmured, head tilting just slightly. Calculated, like every movement the Bolton made had been weighed, measured, and deemed just sufficient to do the job.
"It's okay, though. I get it." He gave the man a grin. "Dead men usually don't like being this close to the executioner.""
A crack in the mask. Gotcha.
Greg saw it—the near-invisible curl of tension in his fingers, the way his breath shifted almost imperceptibly in response to the sound outside. Ash, still tearing through the world beyond these walls.
Not as unaffected as he wanted to be.
"Hardly," Roose murmured, smoothing his expression, but not quite fast enough. His fingers twitched. "Though I admit, your beast is... unexpected."
Greg let his smirk sharpen at the edges. "Unexpected's a nice way to say 'I'm about to die and I don't like it.'"
Roose exhaled through his nose, slow and measured, like he was forced to entertain the musings of a particularly stupid child. "You are under the impression this will end in your favor."
Greg rolled his shoulders. Relaxed, but not. "Wouldn't be here if I didn't."
"Ah," Roose said softly, gaze heavy, "but you already know better, don't you?"
His voice never rose. Didn't need to. It slid through the air like a blade run along silk—low, deliberate, meant to slip past the skin unnoticed before it found the soft place between the ribs.
Greg felt the impact before he wanted to.
"You've seen the doubt in their faces," Roose continued, smooth as river-worn stone. "Heard the whispers." His eyes were pale voids, endless and empty. "They fear you as much as they feared me. Perhaps more."
Greg's jaw clenched before he could stop it.
Because fuck—he had seen it.
He wasn't blind or stupid.
The way some of them looked at him, like they were waiting for something, watching his edges, waiting to see if he'd tip over, if he'd turn into something worse than what they'd torn down.
The muscle in his jaw ticked. "You're stalling," he said flatly.
Roose's lips twitched. "Observant."
Then he moved.
Fast.
Greg's eyes widened as the man lunged, quicker than should've been possible. Faster than a man of his age, of his build, of his type had any right to be. His arm shot out and latched onto Greg's wrist, grip like iron.
And then—
Wrong.
Ice burrowed into his veins, sharp and unnatural, twisting through flesh and bone like something alive, like something hungry.
His muscles seized as his fingers spasmed open against his will, his sword nearly slipping from his grip. Fuck—
His breath hitched.
Veins writhed beneath his skin, blackened and thick like something infested. Like the thing burrowing through him had a shape, a will, a purpose.
Greg ripped his arm free, stumbling back, breath sharp and shuddering, his pulse hammering against his ribs. Vision blurred, just for a second.
He shoved up his sleeve, half on instinct.
And there—Jesus fuck—it was.
Darkness. Thick and seeping through the veins of his arm, spreading like a stain under his skin.
Evil.
Wrong.
Roose watched him, head still tilted in that quiet, predatory way. Sweat shone on his brow now, thin and gleaming in the dim light. The dark lord's fingers twitched at his side, the barest aftershock of whatever the fuck he'd just done.
But his voice? His voice was still the same.
"C-curious," Roose murmured, like a scholar appraising a specimen under glass. "It seems i've been gifted as well."
His pale eyes gleamed, cold and unnatural.
"Magic, is it?" A thin, razor's-edge smile. "The north is full of surprises."
Greg clenched his teeth, breath sharp, the ache in his wrist pulsing in time with his heartbeat. he could still feel it—whatever the fuck Roose had done, it had stuck. A ghost of cold seeping into his blood, threading through his veins like something that had no right to be there.
He forced his grip steady.
Then his head snapped up, and the rage hit.
"I hate surprises," Greg growled, voice rough.
Roose watched him, expression smooth, unreadable. his pale eyes, still bright with that eerie gleam, flickered down to the dark stain spreading beneath his tunic, then back up, unhurried. like he had all the time in the world.
"You think you know power because of magic," he murmured. The way he spoke, like he was just… stating a fact, the way someone might say the sky is grey today. "You are a child."
Greg's fingers twitched around the hilt of his sword.
The cold was still there, slithering through his veins like it belonged. His muscles tensed against it, every instinct screaming to shake it off, but it wouldn't leave.
But it didn't matter.
What mattered was Roose was still breathing, still talkin, still acting like Greg was something small, something to be tolerated.
Like he hadn't already lost. Like his words still meant anything.
It pissed him off more than it should have.
"Kill me," Roose continued, tone as steady as ever, "and you'll bring the entire north down on your head." A pause, deliberate. "The Starks—"
"Fuck. The. Starks."
Greg spat the words out like venom, meaning every word.
He was done.
With warnings. With threats. With people thinking they knew what he couldn't do.
"if they want to fight me," Greg said, voice low, shaking with something hot and raw, "they'll die too. just like you."
For the first time, Roose's expression dropped.
The man's lips parted.
Greg moved.
His sword arm snapped forward, the weight of the blade familiar, right, and before Roose could take another breath, the steel punched through his chest.
Roose staggered. His back hit the desk with a dull thud, breath leaving him in a quiet, wet gasp.
His pale eyes widened, unfocused.
His lips parted, but no words came out. Just a slow, bubbling trickle of blood.
Greg held the sword and pressed forward, just enough to make sure Roose felt it as he leaned in. "This," Greg said, voice steady, quiet, each word sharp as the sword in the dying man's chest, "is for every life you've ruined. every village you burned. every person you tortured, you sick fucking psycho."
Roose's mouth twitched. not quite a smile. not quite anything. His lips parted, teeth bared in a slow, shaking breath, the red staining them like rust.
"Fool," he rasped, voice thin and brittle. "You know… nothing… of what you have done."
Greg's jaw tightened. "True," he muttered, voice low as he smirked at the man. "but at least I'm gonna live to learn."
Then he twisted the blade.
Roose's body jerked once, sharp, like something had snapped inside him—then sagged, all at once, like the fight had drained from his bones in an instant. The light faded from his pale, corpse-thin eyes, and the tension that had coiled through him, that eerie, unnatural stillness he carried, died.
Greg let go.
Let Roose drop.
His body hit the floor with a dull, wet thud, the bloodied silk of his tunic dragging against the desk as he slid down, leaving a smear of red against the wood.
The room went silent.
Greg stood there, sword still clutched in his hand, breath coming sharp through his teeth, staring down at what was left of the man who had ruled over this place with a grip like iron.
Cold. Merciless. Methodical.
And that grip was gone.
He exhaled, slow, long, rolling his shoulders as the tension bled from them. Something loosened in his chest, something raw, but it didn't lift.
Not fully.
His nose wrinkled as he glanced around, eyes trailing over the heavy, joyless decor. Deep wood, dark stone, tapestries that looked older than they should. The smell of old parchment, stale air, something rotting.
"God, this place is shitty."
Then—
Pulling.
Deep, inside him.
His breath hitched and it wrenched free, all at once.
Greg stumbled, sharp, an instinctive jolt of his muscles to right himself, but his body wasn't responding right, wasn't keeping up.
His stomach dropped.
"The fuck—"
His words cut off as white flashed across his vision, searing, overwhelming, a noise that wasn't quite sound pressing in around him.
He blinked—
His head snapped down—
Not stone.
The floor rippled beneath him, shifting under his boots like something alive. It spread outward, smooth and seamless, swallowing the old darkness in its wake.
Bright.
Bright and right, shifting from something dead into something whole.
What the hell—
It moved. out, out, down the walls, through the door. Faster than he could track. Like ink in water, like a switch had been flipped, like the bones of the castle were remaking themselves beneath him.
His pulse hammered as his grip tightened on his sword, but his hand barely registered it.
Then from outside; loud, sudden, confusion laced with shock.
The fighting stopped. Instantly.
Not fading—stopped.
As if someone had just… hit pause.
Greg didn't need to see it to know.
It wasn't just this room.
It was everywhere. The whole castle. He wasn't sure how he knew that either. His heart slammed against his ribs and hiis throat felt uncomfortably dry.
"W-what…"
He swallowed, staring down at the bright, unfamiliar floor, at the walls that weren't the same anymore, that weren't what they were supposed to be. His fingers flexed around his sword hilt.
His tongue flicked over his teeth. "…would that work if I wanted a twinkie?"
Nothing.
Not even a single goddamn Ho-Ho.
"Damn."
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
Nobilicide (250 GP)
ROLL: Here, have a castle [Star vs the Forces of Evil] {Domain} (25) - There's more than a few castles, temples, and other ancient structures laying around the universe, and nobody should notice if one disappears. So spend your points and you can have one that matches your preferred aesthetics. You will have to plant it in the worlds as you go, however. There might be a spell for that. Adding sofas and other furniture will take manual labor. ( 75 points to fit the theme)
Grimoire Points: 550
Nerd In the North: 3-18
New
3 days ago
III-18: The Weight of Power
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
The hall was unrecognizable.
The Dreadfort was gone.
Where there had been damp, crushing dark, walls heavy with shadow and the weight of something watching, there was now something pristine.
White stone stretched high, too smooth, too perfect, gleaming like untouched snow in the thin winter light. The ceiling arched above like the ribs of some great beast, vast windows with clear glass where none had been before—glass or window. Sunlight poured through them, flooding the hall, washing away every inch of the gloom that had once clung to these stones like dried blood. No rot, no drafts crawling through the cracks, no lingering cold pressed into the bones of the walls.
It felt lighter, as if it had never known blood.
The body of Roose cooling in his office in a pool of dark red said otherwise.
Greg hadn't seen the outside yet, but he knew that it wasn't just the main hall and it wasn't just Bolton's office..
The whole place had changed.
Greg sat at the far end of the hall, slouched in the chair that had once belonged to roose bolton, one elbow propped on the armrest, chin resting in his palm.
Except it wasn't the same chair anymore.
No black wood. its edges were smooth, pale like the polished bone, reflecting the light instead of swallowing it, it's cushion a vivid blue like the new blank banners on the walls that once had been Roose's black and red ones.
His shoulder didn't ache anymore. The poison had been burnt away by a quick heal and the twisted wrongness and black evil Roose had left in his blood had faded with the dark lord's death, leaving Greg's body with the man's last breath.
But something else had settled in its place.
Eyes.
Too many of them.
The hall was packed, nearly two thousand people crammed into the space, their attention locked on him. Soldiers, smallfolk, Bolton's guests and remnants.
Not all of them knelt the same way.
His men had fallen first. some eager, some slower, but they had fought for this, bled for it, their friends dying for it. They had all watched him drag them back from the brink with hands that should have left them crippled, if not dead.
They didn't look at him like a boy, or even a man.
Hell, he might take a war hero or a lord, at this point. Any of those would be better than the starry-eyed gazes sent his way right now.
No, they looked at him like something else.
The smallfolk—the ones who had lived their lives under the Flayed Man, loyally and fearfully serving the Boltons for generations—stared his way cautiously, some averting their eyes entirely. They had all dropped to their knees in uneven but quick waves, some stiff, some hesitant, some as if expecting a blade at their throats. They were wary, bracing. not relieved, not reverent. Greg was pretty sure they couldn't really decide if one monster hadn't just simply killed another.
The last group knelt reluctantly. backs stiff, hands twitching at their sides. All of them were more well-dressed, at least well-fed, their faces pale and their eyes like pinpricks as if they had watched their own death sentence get carved into stone.
Greg let his gaze drift over them all, slow, deliberate.
He felt their eyes pressing in around him with the weight of what this meant.
He should be freezing. The doors were thrown open, the winter wind creeping in past the bodies packed into the hall. His clothes were still dark with blood, dried and flaking at the edges of his own blue sleeves.
But he wasn't cold.
The space was warm, unnaturaly so, as the main doors still remained wide open.
He exhaled.
The sound carried in the silence.
His men — still calling them my men, huh — stirred at the front, shifting at the motion as if expecting him to do or say something.
The ones who had followed him from the start—Daeric, Eren, Brennor—stood closest, heads held high. Behind them, the ones who had joined later, the ones who had heard his name in rumors, in songs that he couldn't deny were pretty much 99% true and even then that was just him being nitpicky.
They were waiting.
Greg wet his lips, jaw tight.
He had never wanted this.
Okay, he scoffed on the inside, Don't lie to yourself.
He'd always wanted it.
Respect. Power. All of it.
Back home, he would've given anything for it. Thrown himself off a building by his seventeenth birthday just for the chance at triggering superpowers, if he hadn't been such a pussy before.
His flat expression twisted into a frown.
Since when did not wanting to die make someone a pussy?
His arm lowered to the armrest, fingers curling, tightening around the polished wood. The grain felt strange beneath his touch, too smooth, too new, like it hadn't been there long enough to have history. His grip turned white-knuckled.
Yeah, he'd always wanted it.
Just not like this.
His eyes drifted across the hall. The bright stone. The pillars that gleamed under the flood of sunlight streaming through windows that shouldn't exist. The walls, once heavy with shadow and cruelty, were untouched now, unstained, unmarked by the weight of what had been.
The Dreadfort was gone.
This place—this thing—was his.
The name came to him unbidden. Unshaped, but whole and fully formed. Like it had been waiting this whole time for it to just drop in his mind. "The Brightfort."
He didn't realize he'd said it out loud until the words left his mouth, echoing in the almost eerie silence of a packed hall.
A ripple ran through the large room.
Quiet at first, mutters just beneath hearing, as smallfolk shifted, some blinking, some staring at the walls again like they were afraid they'd shift back, that the dark might bleed through the cracks.
His men nodded. Some with eagerness, some with pride.
The others—the ones who had belonged to the Dreadfort—were different.
The garrison, at least the ones who hadn't kneeled or run, were locked up for now. That left the rest. The servants. The stewards. The men and women who had been trapped inside these walls when the world turned on its head. And then those that were dressed better, looked cleaner, eyes on him at least a bit more defiant than the servants.
He pretty much assumed they were nobles, or maybe knights, for some of the men.
Regardless of their place or power or whatever, they all knelt in the hall, eyes flicking between him and the impossible stone, watching as if the whole place might shatter or melt back into the nightmare they had always known.
Their whispers slithered through the silence.
"The boy's got the power of the gods," someone muttered.
"Or the Others," came another, hushed but not hushed enough.
"Not natural, this. Not right."
"Maybe he's not a boy at all."
"A trick, then? Some sorcery?"
"Why's he sitting there like he belongs?"
"Maybe he does."
Greg didn't correct them.
Honestly, he didn't care. His brain was too busy with it's own shit at the moment as his fingers drummed against the armrest, in a slow, plodding rhythm.
I should leave.
The thought crawled up his spine like an itch. Get up. Walk out. You're done here, right?
Being real, he was done. He had his sword. He'd killed the bad guy. Burned the fucking house down—not literally, but close enough.
This was the part where the hero rode off into the sunset. If I could ride.
But Roose's words stuck in his head. "Kill me… and you'll bring the entire north down on your head."
That was bad enough, but if he left, he was pretty sure that he'd be fine. Hell, as long as he kept doing heroic things and completing quests or whatever, he was pretty sure he'd get more magic or whatever.
But the big fucking issue was that it wouldn't just be his head…
His eyes flicked to them.
The men who had followed him. Bled for him. Fought for him. Believed in him.
Their faces were bright with something he didn't like seeing.
Devotion.
His stomach twisted. No. Not on them. Not on anyone.
"What's he waiting for?"
"Shouldn't he say something?"
"Doesn't feel real. None of it. Doesn't smell right."
"Lord Bolton—"
"Lord Bolton's dead, you fucking dolt."
"Aye, but what if the boy's worse?"
Greg's jaw twitched, not at the whispers, but at the thought of staying here and actually trying to be a lord. He knew what actually being in charge was, all the responsibility. It was probably a lot like being a dad but for thousands of people. Hell, his own had skipped out on his mom the first chance he got because he didn't want to deal with all that. What… what if I just leave, though?
The thought was shot out of his mind as another one decided to stand tall and rap on his skull from the inside with metaphorical knuckles. What happens in peasant revolts, Greg?
The answer was there before he could shove it away. He already knew. You watched the History Channel, idiot. The peasants get slaughtered. If not by knights, then by the lord. If not by the lord, then by the king.
His jaw clenched. If he left, they were fucked.
If he stayed…
He slumped deeper into the too-bright throne, hands tightening on the carved wood to the point he could hear the brand-new wood strain.
Goddamn it.
Responsibility sucked.
It wasn't that he couldn't handle it. He could. He just didn't want to.
Being in charge meant their problems became his problems. Their survival, his survival. And it wasn't like he could just half-ass it. Either he protected them, or he left them to be torn apart.
He barely kept from groaning.
Ash shifted beside him, tail flicking over the polished floor, claws clicking against the stone. His glowing red eyes swept over the crowd, slow and unblinking. More than a few of them flinched. Greg didn't know if they were more afraid of the bear-dragon or him.
Guts wasn't helping.
The man stood like a fucking executioner off to the side, arms crossed, shoulders squared, face set in that unreadable way of his. He didn't look at Greg, just at the crowd, scanning them like he was weighing the worth of every kneeling body in front of him.
Greg sighed through his nose.
This was going to be a problem.
"This is weird," Greg muttered under his breath.
Ash huffed beside him, a low, rolling sound that sent a curl of heat through the air. His breath always smelled faintly of burning meat, and Greg focused on that instead of the hundred or so people kneeling in front of him, their faces a mix of fear, uncertainty, and something worse.
Reverence.
Guts exhaled sharply. "Is it now?"
Greg shot him a look. "Yeah, no shit."
He cleared his throat, ignoring the way his own voice felt thin in his chest, like he'd swallowed dust. He raised it anyway.
"You don't have to kneel if you don't want to."
The words dropped into the silence like a stone into a still pond.
No one moved. No one even twitched.
A few of the former Dreadfort men—servants, stewards, guards who hadn't tried to stab him yet—stole wary glances at each other, like they were waiting for someone else to be the first idiot to test the boy sorcerer's patience.
Someone coughed.
His gaze darted to the side. Brennor.
The peasant turned soldier stood there. Tall, lanky, scarred, always smirking even when his face made it look like a bad idea.
"You're not helping, m'lord," Brennor said, grinning just enough to be annoying.
Greg shot him a look. "Yeah, thanks for the tip, Brennor."
A few people in the crowd shifted uneasily, glancing at the exchange. Greg didn't miss it.
He turned back to them, sucking in a deep breath. His chest still ached a little from where Roose had—whatever the hell that was—but it wasn't the kind of pain that would stop him. Just another thing to push past.
"Look, I get it," Greg started, his voice steadying. "Some of you are here because you want to be, and some of you are here because you don't have a choice. I'm not gonna stand here and pretend like I didn't kill your old boss."
He scoffed.
"I did. And honestly?"
He let the pause stretch, let it sink in.
A few of the kneeling men glanced up, barely. The tension in the air pressed down, thick as the quiet before a storm.
"He deserved it."
A murmur ran through the crowd, low and uncertain. No one argued.
Greg kept going.
"But here's the thing—you don't work for Roose Bolton anymore. You don't work for anyone who's gonna treat you like you're disposable."
He let that settle, watching as the words worked their way through the crowd. Some of them looked skeptical. Others looked lost. A few seemed like they wanted to believe it.
"This place, this castle, it's not the Dreadfort anymore."
His eyes flicked up to the high, gleaming walls, still too bright, still too new. The weight of what he'd done sat in his chest like a stone.
A few of the kneeling men exchanged glances.
"Not natural," someone muttered.
"What's it supposed to be, then?" another asked, voice barely above a whisper.
Greg turned his head in that direction, unsure who spoke.
"It's the Brightfort," he said, and the name tasted strange in his mouth, like something unfinished. "The Brightfort."
He ran a hand through his hair, exhaling sharply as the pull on his soul flared again, familiar now, less foreign but no less intrusive. He caught himself before his expression could shift, masking the moment by letting the exhale roll into a sigh. He straightened slightly, adjusting his stance without thinking, then spoke.
"And it's not gonna be a place for flayed skins and torture chambers." His voice carried, steady and even, the natural cadence of command threading through it without effort. "It's gonna be a real place, a place where people can actually live without looking over their shoulder every damn second."
Greg let the words settle, his gaze sweeping over the gathered faces.
The fear hadn't gone anywhere, not really. It had just… shifted. Bent into something more complicated. Curiosity. Doubt. Wariness.
Not trust. Not yet.
The former Bolton men—the ones who hadn't already thrown themselves at his feet out of fear or cold pragmatism—still looked like they were waiting for the catch. Like they were waiting for him to snap, to prove them right. The moment where he revealed himself as just another monster wearing a different mask.
Greg rolled his shoulders, feeling the weight settle there.
Whatever.
He wasn't doing this for them.
The chair beneath him was more solid than comfortable, more real than it had any right to be. A throne, technically, though he still wasn't sure if he should be sitting in it. He wasn't built for this. The speeches, the judgment, the weight of every eye in the hall on him, waiting for him to slip.
The Brightfort might have shed its past. Its people hadn't.
Not yet.
Ash shifted beside him, the massive dracoursa lounging at the base of the throne like a living shadow. His molten eyes glowed in the dim light, half-lidded, his tail lazily curling across the polished stone. Occasionally, someone—usually a servant, sometimes a soldier—would glance at him, their fear flickering back to the surface.
Greg's eye twitched at the latest flinch.
Okay.
He dragged a hand down his face, exhaling loudly, letting the sound fill the too-still air. "Alright. That's enough of this."
The tension in the room tightened.
Greg pushed himself up, stepping off the raised platform with measured ease. He adjusted the sleeves of his tunic as he moved, brushing off dust, dried blood, the lingering filth of a week's march and too many fights. He could feel the grime stiffening the fabric, the weight of it sitting wrong on his skin.
I guess I have maids whose job that is now, huh.
He shoved the thought aside and kept walking.
"If you're expecting some grand speech, you're gonna be disappointed."
The hall seemed to hold its breath as he moved forward, the silence pressing in, thick and waiting.
He stepped slowly, deliberately, letting his presence settle over the gathered crowd. The movement sent a ripple through them, the kneeling men shifting, tense, uncertain.
Greg let his hands rest loosely at his sides, fingers flexing slightly as he stopped in the center of the hall. His voice came quieter now, but no less firm.
"You want a lord?"
He laughed, short and sharp, the sound catching on something almost bitter.
His gaze swept over them, taking in the doubt, the hesitation, the ones who wanted to believe him but were too afraid to. The ones who would never believe him.
He clenched his fists briefly, then relaxed his hands, letting the words fall like an iron weight into the room.
"You're looking in the wrong fucking place."
A few of them were probably waiting for an excuse to kill him.
Fair.
Greg exhaled sharply, rubbing the back of his neck. He let his gaze sweep across the hall, taking in the faces—some wary, some resigned, a handful unreadable. He could feel the weight of expectation pressing in from all sides.
"I'm not gonna stand here and beg you to follow me," he said, voice steady. "You're grown-ass men…" His eyes landed on a particularly confused-looking servant woman on her knees. "And women. You know the score. Lord Bolton is dead. You all saw it. I took his life. I took his castle. And I'm keeping it."
He met Brennor's gaze for a half-second before shifting back to the rest of the room.
"And I don't have the patience to waste time convincing you."
Silence.
Then, a voice—quiet but clear, cutting through the heavy air.
"So what now?"
Greg turned his head toward the speaker. A younger man, barely in his twenties, still wearing the remnants of a Bolton uniform. His knuckles were white where they rested on his thighs, but his eyes weren't afraid. Not entirely.
Greg let the words hang there for a moment, rolling them over in his mind. What now?
He shifted forward, stepping closer to the edge of the dais, closer to the people kneeling before him.
"Now, we move forward," he said.
He let the words settle, measuring the way they landed, the way the air shifted just slightly.
"I don't care where you came from. I don't care who you served before. What I care about is what you do next. You want to leave? Fine. Walk out those gates, and you won't be stopped."
A few heads lifted at that, uncertainty flickering across faces that had been locked in place since he first spoke.
"But if you stay," Greg continued, "you work. You fight. You make sure this place doesn't fall before it's even had a chance to stand."
His voice carried, not raised but strong enough that there was no mistaking his meaning.
"I've no use for dead weight. No patience for cowards. But I won't rule like the man who came before me. I won't hold a blade to your throat and call it loyalty. If you fight for this place, it's because you choose to. Not because someone else chose for you."
A murmur rippled through the hall.
Greg could see it, the way the weight of his words pressed into them. Some were already shaking their heads, prepared to walk. Others stayed silent, considering.
One of the men near the front shifted first, rising slowly from his knees.
Then another.
And another.
Not all of them. Not even half. But enough.
Greg felt his shoulders loosen, just slightly.
But enough.
"Alright," he muttered under his breath. "That's a start."
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
10k Words (100 GP)
ROLL: Lore Mastery [The Witcher Novels] {Lore} (FREE) - You possess an adaptive understanding of most customs, with only the most obscure or alternative eluding your grasp without sufficient knowledge. While it's not a big loss if you don't take this, it would be all too sad for you to lose your head only because you forgot to bow to a king, or being burned at stake for asking a priest for a buff, or being beaten by local dryads for dirty jokes. Thankfully you now have a little bit of local common sense: knowledge of customs and traditions, an overview of history, and an understanding of how to act without provoking the locals.
Grimoire Points: 650
Nerd In the North: 3-19
New
3 days ago
III-19: The Spider's Web
The chamber was dimly lit, the glow of flickering candlelight casting long, wavering shadows against the cold stone walls. The air carried the weight of age—old parchment and dust, spiced wine left to breathe too long, the faintest trace of medicinal herbs clinging to the heavy tapestries.
The scent of sickness.
Grand Maester Pycelle sat hunched over the heavy oak table, fingers curled loosely around a goblet of wine. The candlelight did him no favors, its unsteady glow deepening the furrows of his brow, sharpening the sagging lines of his jowls, making his watery eyes seem more sunken than they already were.
Eyes that saw more than he pretended to, less than he wished they could.
His robes, thick and embroidered with the sigils of his order, draped heavy over his shoulders, the weight of age pressing down upon him.
He brooded in silence, rolling words over in his mind, weighing each one as though they were gold dragons slipping through his fingers.
The door whispered open.
Soft footsteps.
Pycelle did not look up at first, merely exhaled through his nose. There was no need. He knew that tread, as silent as it was.
Varys moved like a shadow, his silk robes whispering against the floor, soundless but for the faintest shift in the air, as if the candlelight itself bent toward him in quiet deference. He paused just beyond the table, hands clasped before him, his ever-present smile playing at the edges of his lips—soft, knowing, unreadable.
"Lord Varys," Pycelle intoned at last, lifting his gaze, his voice a slow drawl, polite but lined with a deep and weary patience. "To what, I wonder, do I owe the… pleasure of this visit, at such an hour?"
Varys tilted his head slightly, an affectation more than a movement, like a cat watching a bird twitch in the grass. "Oh, Grand Maester," he murmured, his voice light, smooth, effortless, "I merely wished to inquire after our beloved king's condition. News of his health—or lack thereof—seems to be on every tongue."
Pycelle's bushy brows lifted a fraction, just a fraction, though his expression remained otherwise impassive. His fingers did not loosen from the goblet's stem. "His Grace remains…" he chose the words with great deliberation, "…stable."
A pause.
"The wound heals well," he continued, measured, firm, "as I have assured Her Grace. The gods have been kind in that regard."
Varys inclined his head, as though in agreement, though his eyes gleamed in the dim light with something softer. "And yet," he said, ever so lightly, "he does not wake."
A breath passed between them.
Pycelle's grip on the goblet tightened ever so slightly, but his voice remained as steady as ever. "Such injuries take time," he said, tone rich with the wisdom of years. "His Grace was gravely wounded. It is no wonder his body requires deep rest to mend."
Varys hummed, nodding as though satisfied, though the slight press of his lips suggested anything but. "Of course," he murmured. "And yet, it does strike me as… peculiar."
Pycelle regarded him carefully.
"A man as robust as Robert Baratheon, felled by a boar." Varys' tone was lilting, neither questioning nor confirming. "No matter how fierce. Some might find it… difficult to believe."
The words curled into the air between them, as light as silk, yet barbed all the same. Pycelle's fingers curled more tightly around his goblet, but his face remained still.
"You imply poison," he said at length, voice slow, deliberate. "Or some other foul play?"
A beat of silence.
Varys' smile did not falter.
"Mmm… not to say such," the portly eunuch mused, his voice softer than a whisper, "but would it be out of the realm of possibility?"
"Nonsense," Pycelle continued, before the Spider could weave his web further. "The boar's tusks pierced deep, Lord Varys. Such wounds are often mortal."
"And yet, the king's heart beats, albeit slowly," Varys murmured. Stones groaned overhead as shadows crept across worn flagstones. "Most curious, wouldn't you say?"
"If you've come to question my treatments again, I really must—"
"Question?" A soft sound, almost a laugh. "I merely observe. The wound heals, you say, yet His Grace does not wake. Even the mightiest warriors cannot sleep through destiny forever."
Pycelle's chains clinked as he shifted. Started to speak. Stopped. Started again. "A maester deals in facts, my lord. In truth. Not destiny and..." His hand waved vaguely.
"Truth?" Varys let the word hang. "Do tell me more of this... truth you've discovered in your examinations."
"The mortal frame has—"
"—its limits. Yes, you've mentioned." Varys moved, making Pycelle track him across the chamber. "Three times today, in fact. Once to the Queen, once to the Small Council, and now to me."
"If you would let me finish—"
"By all means. Though I wonder if Her Grace appreciates your... thoroughness in these matters."
Pycelle's mouth worked soundlessly for a moment. "The Queen has every confidence in—"
"In your ability to keep His Grace exactly as he is?"
"I do not take your meaning," Pycelle muttered, though his eyes darted to the door.
"No?" Varys circled the old man's chair. "Curious how His Grace fell ill so suddenly. More curious still how he remains... suspended."
Robert Baratheon lay dying. That much was clear enough. But why wasn't he dead?
The queen's hand had guided his downfall—that had never been in doubt. The wine, the boar, the whispered reassurances that her husband was too strong to fall so easily—it had all been woven into a careful pattern, a net that tightened with each passing day. Yet Cersei had left him breathing, lingering between life and death, neither king nor corpse.
Varys had never known her to hesitate before.
And that, Varys thought, was troubling indeed.
Pycelle's voice crept back into his awareness, thick with the careful weight of a man who had spent a lifetime convincing others of his wisdom.
"Her Grace maintains absolute faith in the king's recovery," Pycelle wheezed, fingers worrying his chains.
"Does she?" Varys circled closer. "Tell me, how often does she visit?"
"Daily, to ensure—"
"To ensure what, exactly?"
"To... to pray for his recovery," Pycelle finished weakly. "She barely sleeps, barely eats—"
"Ah yes. Her prayers." Varys's voice dropped lower. "One wonders what she truly prays for. His recovery? Or his continued... repose?"
"You dare to suggest—" Color flooded Pycelle's face. Spittle gathered at the corners of his mouth. "Her Grace would never—"
The walls shuddered.
A deep, muffled boom rolled through the chamber, shaking the floor beneath them. The stones groaned, a deep and eerie sound, as though the very foundation of the Red Keep resented its burden.
Dust sifted from the rafters, catching the candlelight as it fell.
Pycelle lurched forward in his chair, his gnarled hands clamping onto the armrests as if he feared he might be thrown from his seat. His goblet tipped, spilling wine across the table, the scent of spiced grapes thick in the air.
The torches along the walls wavered.
Then came another tremor, sharper this time.
The goblet clattered to the floor.
Varys turned toward the door, his silk robes rustling with the movement.
Then came the scream.
High and shrill, the young voice tore through the corridor beyond, cutting through the heavy stillness of the night.
"TOMMEN!"
The word hung in the air, raw and desperate.
Pycelle's mouth worked soundlessly, his breath rattling in his throat. He turned toward Varys, his eyes wide, searching for something—explanation, reassurance.
Varys did not move.
Somewhere distant, a door slammed. The hurried scrape of boots against stone echoed through the halls.
Pycelle licked his lips.
"It seems," Varys murmured, his voice as smooth as ever, "we may have more pressing concerns."
Nerd In the North: 3-20
New
2 days ago
III-20: The Prince II
Tommen's fingers traced the stone as he walked, the tips dragging just enough to catch on uneven patches, letting him feel them, count them. One, two, three—skip the cold wet bit—four, five, six—there.
Solid again. Good.
His lantern swung beside him, sending shadows flicking across the walls. Quick, sharp, like little dark figures darting between the stones. His own shadow stretched ahead, too long, wobbling whenever the lantern jostled. Sometimes, if he moved too fast, it almost looked like it was running away.
He didn't like that thought.
But there was no one here.
No one anywhere, really.
The Red Keep had been so quiet lately. It used to be filled with sounds—clattering dishes, laughing courtiers, Ser Mandon clanking past in all his armor, so stiff-backed he hardly bent when he walked. Now, even the halls felt… thinner.
Stretched.
Like something big had been pulled out, leaving only a hollow space behind.
He didn't know what, exactly.
He'd asked once. Just once.
Ser Boros had sniffed and said, Her Grace did what was right, Your Highness, in that thick, stuffy way of his, like the words tasted bad.
Right.
Tommen didn't know what right meant, not this time. He liked Lord Stark. He had a kind face, a heavy hand on the shoulder, a voice like the deep roll of a drum. But all everyone did was whisper now. When he passed by, servants would hush themselves mid-sentence.
He knew Joffrey was happy. Mother too.
But Myrcella had only looked at him, lips pressed together, before saying, It's better not to ask, Tommen in that careful way she did when she didn't want to upset him.
So he didn't.
But that didn't stop the quiet.
He curled his fingers against his chest, pressing the small red stone beneath his doublet. Warm. It was always warm. Even when the tunnels weren't. Even when his hands were cold.
He liked that.
The tunnel bent sharply ahead. The air changed. Thicker. Damper. Wrong.
Tommen's nose scrunched. It smelled bad. Not bad bad, not like the kennels when it rained, or Joffrey's hunting clothes when he came back all sweaty and grinning, but… off. Like when you got too close to a torch and your nose felt funny.
He kept walking.
The tunnel opened, widening into a tiny alcove.
Something sat on the ledge.
Tommen stopped.
A jar.
Green. Deep, rich, not dull like the old glass in Mother's solar, but smooth, perfect, polished, like Myrcella's eyes when she smiled.
His lips parted slightly.
What was that doing here?
He stepped closer, tilting his head.
It looked strange in the lantern light—almost like it glowed, just a little, a whisper of a shine.
His boots scraped stone as he peered up at it. Too high. Just a little.
He set the lantern down, carefully, like he was tucking in a kitten. Stretched onto his toes.
His fingers brushed the jar's surface. Smooth. Odd. Warm.
Just like his stone.
His lips curled, triumphant.
"I've got you," he whispered.
His heel slipped.
His stomach lurched.
His hand jerked, knocking the jar—
His foot swung—
His lantern tipped—
Glass cracked.
Green liquid hit the stone.
His breath stopped.
Oh no.
Myrcella walked quickly through the shadowed halls of the Red Keep, her steps light but urgent, skirts whispering against the cold stone floor. The torches flickered in their sconces, casting long shadows that stretched and trembled with her movement.
Ser Arys walked a step behind her, his armor softly clinking. A presence. Steady. Reassuring.
Tommen was getting better at this.
Her fingers curled slightly, gripping the fabric of her skirts. He had always been playful, prone to slipping away when he wasn't meant to, but this was different. He had changed. Slipping away was no longer mischief—it was purposeful.
And no one else seemed to notice.
"He can't have gone far," she murmured, more to herself than Ser Arys.
"The prince is clever," Ser Arys said, voice even. "Yet the Keep is vast, Princess. He could be anywhere."
Anywhere. Or somewhere he shouldn't be.
The thought was unwelcome. Myrcella's lips pressed together as she turned another corner, her steps quickening.
She hated how empty the castle felt. The Red Keep had always been full of noise—laughter, footsteps, the distant ring of steel in the yard—but lately, there was a hush in the halls.
Father lay still in his chambers, unmoving, the great stag felled. The maesters said he was healing, but kings did not take to bed. Not Father. He was Robert Baratheon. He was supposed to be too strong to fall.
But he had.
And Lord Stark—Sansa's father—had been locked away.
For treason.
The word felt heavy. Stiff. She had liked Lord Stark. He had looked at her and Tommen with steady, quiet eyes, as if seeing something no one else did. He had never been unkind. She didn't understand.
Joffrey had said he was a traitor. Mother had smiled more, too much, when he was taken away.
Sansa had stopped looking anyone in the eye and her sister had vanished, lost in the chaos of that horrible day.
Myrcella didn't ask questions.
She didn't like the answers she was given.
She shook her head ever so slightly, as if to clear it, golden curls bouncing with each and every movement. They'll both be fine. They had to be.
Then—
A sound.
Deep. Low. A distant rumble that pressed through the stone beneath her feet.
She halted mid-step, breath catching.
"Did you hear that?" she asked, voice barely above a whisper.
Ser Arys slowed beside her, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. "Hear what, Princess?"
She turned her head slightly, listening.
Then it came again.
Louder.
A deep, muffled boom that rolled through the walls, the ground beneath her vibrating with the force of it.
Her heart quickened.
Then—
Light.
Blinding, brilliant green.
The wall behind her exploded.
The force sent her stumbling backward, the impact slamming into her like a solid wave. Heat seared across her skin, thick and suffocating.
Ser Arys caught her, barely, his grip firm around her arms as the acrid stench of burning stone filled the air.
For a moment, all she could see was fire.
Wildfire.
Green and wrong, twisting and curling with a hunger that didn't make sense, that wasn't natural.
The roar filled her ears. The heat pressed against her, clawed at her skin.
And beneath it, barely audible—
A scream.
Her stomach twisted. Her fingers locked around Ser Arys's arm.
She knew that voice.
Her breath caught, her heartbeat a violent thrum in her chest.
Her lips parted—
And this time, when her voice came, it was raw, breaking—
"TOMMEN!"
Nerd In the North: 3-21
New
2 days ago
III-21: A New Dawn
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
The hall was filled, but not bustling.
Knights and retainers sat stiffly, their armor gleaming but their hands gripping goblets a little too tightly. Servants moved quickly, heads down, as if expecting a blow to fall at any moment. And then there were the opportunists…
Eren had advised on the feast, the smallfolk farmer-turned-commander calling it a way to "let the coals ease off."
Greg assumed he was talking about calming tensions, but either way, he wasn't convinced. The Brightfort's newly gleaming walls might have shed the Dreadfort's shadow, but inside, the tension was thicker than the smoke curling from the hearths.
Outside, he'd taken a look earlier, and something about it had been… familiar. Not quite in a hey, I know this place way, but in a haven't I seen this before? way. It didn't sit right. Nothing about this place did.
Now, though, at the high table, Greg sat flanked by Guts, whose sheer presence seemed to intimidate everyone in the hall, and Eren, whose nervous energy was barely hidden beneath his thin veneer of professionalism. Ash lay sprawled at Greg's feet, his crimson eyes glowing faintly in the dim light. Every time the dragon-bear shifted, his claws scraped the floor, drawing flinches from the audience.
Greg raised his goblet, and the room fell silent. The clatter of cutlery stopped, replaced by the crackle of fire in the hearths. Every pair of eyes turned toward him, a mix of fear, curiosity, and reluctant respect.
"Welcome," Greg began, his voice steady, though the words felt awkward in his mouth. Act like you're in charge, he reminded himself, even though he actually was in charge. "I know this isn't what any of you expected. Not when you served the Boltons, and probably not when you woke up this morning."
A few chuckles, uneasy and scattered. Mostly from the ones already angling for favor. The knights and retainers stayed quiet, unreadable.
Greg leaned forward slightly, setting the goblet down with a soft clink. "Like I said a couple days ago, things are different now," he said, his tone even. His blue eyes swept across the room, meeting gazes where he could, though most looked away quickly. "The Boltons are gone. Their rule—their way of doing things—it's over. The Brightfort isn't going to be a place of fear anymore."
A pause. Silence stretched, cold and brittle.
Greg exhaled through his nose. "You don't have to like me," he said bluntly. "Hell, you don't even have to trust me. But you're here now, and you know I'm not even half as evil as Lord Bolton. You're willin to work with me. That means something. You're part of this. Part of what's next."
Somewhere further down the hall, a voice murmured, thick with Northern grit, "Part o' what, then?"
Another, sharper: "You're not a Bolton, nor a Stark. What's next, then?"
Greg's fingers curled against the armrest. What's next?
Eren shifted beside him, ready to whisper in his ear, but Greg spoke first. "I'll tell you," he said, voice carrying. "What's next is a North that doesn't live under the knife. No flayed skins. No pointless cruelty. I'm not here to be another Bolton, and I'm sure as shit not here to kneel to anyone who'd want me to be." He let that hang, let them sit with it. "You don't owe me anything. But you do owe yourselves something better than what you had."
He let his words settle. Somewhere in the back of the hall, a chair scraped softly against the floor. No one stood. Not yet.
"A little softer, my lord," Eren murmured at his side. "They're already a bit uneasy... what with the magics and all."
Greg ignored him, setting his goblet down with a soft thunk. "Look, I'm not Roose Bolton," he said, his voice firm but not unkind. "I know what happened a few days ago was a little... odd... a little wild, right?"
He let out a long laugh, the kind he'd heard his dad and Uncle Max pull off before—something that wasn't really all that funny but invited a laugh anyway. A handful of men chuckled, more out of obligation than amusement.
"You lot have spent years keeping your heads down, waiting on orders, hoping you don't end up the next example. That's over." Greg leaned forward slightly, resting his forearms against the table. "Not going to flay you if you step out of line. Not going to make you live in fear every damn day. But I will ask this—do your part. Work with me, and I'll make sure you and your families are safe, fed, and taken care of."
At that, a murmur ran through the hall. Some nodded cautiously, others kept their faces blank, the weight of old habits too heavy to shake in one night. One older knight, his graying beard streaked with ash, raised his goblet in a grudging toast. "To the Brightfort, then."
Greg inclined his head, accepting the gesture. It wasn't much, but it was a start.
Ash chose that moment to rise, stretching his massive frame and letting out a low rumble. The room stilled again, every eye darting to the creature as its claws clicked against the stone. A servant carrying a tray of bread fumbled, the silver clattering to the floor, the sound ricocheting off the high ceilings like a bell. The girl, pale as milk, froze where she stood.
Greg waved a hand. "Ash, easy," he said, his tone casual but commanding. The dracoursa snorted, giving an almost irritated huff before laying back down, curling around Greg's chair like an oversized guard dog. The tension in the hall didn't disappear, but it loosened, just a little. Enough for the servant girl to grab the fallen tray with trembling hands and scurry off.
Guts leaned over, voice low and rough. "Not sure if this is going to make them like you or piss themselves more."
Greg smirked faintly, glancing at the swordsman. "Probably both."
As the evening dragged on, he took Eren's advice and moved among the tables, letting the men see him up close, hear his voice without the weight of a high table between them. He stopped beside a group of retainers, their expressions cautious but not hostile.
"You've been here a while," Greg said, addressing the oldest of the group, a grizzled man with a deep scar running across his jaw. "What do you think? Does the Brightfort feel different?"
The man hesitated, his eyes darting toward his companions before answering. "It's... warmer," he admitted gruffly. "Not just the walls. The air's different. Doesn't feel like... the cold's biting ye all the time."
Greg nodded, his lips quirking into a faint smile. "That's the idea. Let's keep it that way."
The man grunted, something like respect flickering in his gaze before he dipped his head and returned to his meal. Small victories.
Meanwhile, at another table, the smiling suck-ups were already at work. One of them, a younger man with a polished breastplate that had seen more buffing than battle, pushed himself up the moment Greg passed.
"Lord Veder," the man said, his tone a little too eager. "A fine feast you've arranged. Truly, the Brightfort shines brighter under your rule."
Greg raised an eyebrow. "It's been a couple days, man," he said, tone dry as he tilted his head at the guy. "Appreciate the words, but it's not even a week"
The man blinked, unsure if he'd just been complimented or dismissed. Greg clapped him on the shoulder, his tone light but pointed. "Save the flattery. I've got enough people for that."
He moved on before the man could recover, winding through the hall, his goblet in one hand, exchanging words with a few of the retainers and knights. The suckups nodded at everything he said, eager to please, while the Bolton loyalists kept their voices low and their words clipped.
Not openly hostile, not yet, but they weren't interested in losing their heads either.
Something itched at the edge of his awareness.
His instincts had been sharp since the moment he stepped into this world, honed by every fight, every near miss, every time he'd walked into a room and felt eyes watching him like wolves sizing up a wounded deer.
Right now, they screamed at him.
A flicker of motion caught his eye—Bolton men.
A few of the garrisoned soldiers he'd spared after they'd knelt to him swearing oaths that he was pretty sure sounded right.
Their faces remained carefully blank, but their eyes? Their eyes darted, glancing toward others in the hall—knights and retainers whose banners tied them to houses with grudges and ambitions both from what he knew from reading some of Bolton's library.
There. A group of Bolton knights shared a glance, their expressions too neutral, too measured.
The prickle at the back of his neck tightened.
Greg's steps slowed, his gaze sweeping the room. Too quiet. Too many hands resting near weapons. Too many bodies shifting, weight poised to move.
His mouth opened, intending to speak, when the first bolt struck his chest from behind
He didn't have time to react before the second bolt slammed into his shoulder, followed by a third, fourth, fifth. Pain ripped through him, sharp and cold, like fire and ice had met beneath his skin. His goblet hit the floor with a dull clatter, wine spilling in a dark stain across the stone. "Son of a—"
The hall erupted into chaos. Screams, the scrape of chairs, the thud of boots on stone; all of that filled his ears as Greg dropped to one knee.
His breath hitched as blood poured down his doublet, staining it and his trousers both. One bolt had nearly pierced his heart. He could feel the life draining out of him, slow but steady.
Motherf-! With several hard pained grunts, he ripped each and every bolt out of his body.
One after another after another, each one coming free with a tearing of cloth and flesh both and accompanied by shrieks and shouts from the audience, Ash's sudden roar silencing them all rather quickly before Greg could do the same. Good boy.
But he wasn't done.
Clutching his chest, Greg pressed his trembling hand to the wound and began to chant, his voice hoarse but unwavering.
"Holy light, cleanse my soul, mend the broken vessel, and banish the darkness of this mortal wound. Let the sun's grace pour into me, washing away the pain, the fear, the end."
Golden light burst from Greg's palm, spilling across his body in radiant waves as a warm heat pooled through his insides and filled him from the inside out. The remainders of the bolts lodged in his flesh from his rough removals seared with white-hot fire before clattering to the floor, leaving behind nothing at all but holes in his doublet. His wounds knitted themselves shut, the torn skin weaving back together in a shimmer of power that barely hurt at all. The pain sank away, fading into a steady, unnatural warmth, and when he inhaled, the breath came easy, whole.
When Greg stood, the hall did not move.
Every man, every woman, every servant frozen in place. The only sound was the quiet drip of blood onto stone—his own, soaking his ruined clothes, though the skin beneath it was untouched. The golden glow around him flickered, faded, but they kept looking at him like it still hadn't left.
His gaze swept across them all, calm, considering. Guts stepped forward, one hand on Dragonslayer, but as Greg met his gaze, the black knight paused and nodded.
Then his eyes landed on the man who had led the attack.
The master-at-arms of the Dreadfort. A man of House Dustin.
The same man who had begged on hands and knees to serve Greg with loyalty and honor both, swearing it on his life. Tall, broad-shouldered, a lifetime of fighting written in the stress lines of his face—but now, that face was pale, his fingers locked tight around the crossbow still half-raised.
His eyes met Greg's, and in them, Greg saw it.
Fear.
Not the fear of a man facing death. That was different. That was resignation, the slow acceptance of the inevitable. This was the fear of a man who had just realized he had no idea what he had been fighting.
Greg didn't look away. He reached back, pulling his sword free in a single smooth motion, the blade gleaming white, unmarred.
Then, without a word, he threw it.
The air hummed with the force of it. The sword cut through the hall in a perfect straight line, and the Dustin man barely had time to flinch before steel punched through his chest, pinning him to the stone wall behind him with a wet, sickening thunk.
The hall flinched with him. Men jerked back as if the impact had struck them all at once, a ripple of collective, visceral reaction.
Guts moved next, stepping forward before the room could shake itself free of its shock. He didn't even draw his sword. He didn't need to.
His fist drove into the chest of the nearest attacker, a sharp, brutal motion that sent the man flying back with a sickening crunch. Another man rushed him, but Guts turned, pivoted, and his second punch cracked through ribs like dry twigs.
A heartbeat later, the rest of the traitors were on the ground. Six men, groaning, some unconscious, their weapons discarded, their rebellion snuffed out before it had a chance to truly begin.
Greg wiped the blood from his chin, barely sparing them a glance. His voice was calm, almost bored. "Throw them in the dungeon."
His men hesitated.
Then, as if realizing he wasn't finished, they paused as Greg took a step forward, his boots echoing in the heavy silence.
"I'll remove their heads tomorrow," he added, tone as casual as if he were discussing the weather.
The silence deepened, thick enough to choke on. Faces paled. Hands trembled where they gripped goblets, knives, tankards. The smell of spilled wine and blood mixed in the air, cloying.
Greg kept walking.
He stopped in front of the dead Dustin knight, one hand resting easily on the hilt of his sword, though he didn't need it. He studied the body, the way the blood seeped slowly from the wound, pooling beneath the man's boots. Then, with a sharp tug, he wrenched his blade free, the wet sound of steel sliding from flesh breaking whatever trance Ash's roar had put them in.
A murmur. Shifting feet. Someone whispered a prayer.
Greg turned the blade over in his hands, frowning. He felt it again—that pull, deep inside him, as something more than magic clicked. An understanding, a shift in the way his soul knew his own weapon.
Narrowing his eyes, he focused.
His sword vanished in a flurry of blue light.
The gasps were immediate. Shouts, murmurs, the scrape of chairs against stone as men recoiled.
Greg barely heard them anymore. His eyes were still on his empty hands, fingers curling around nothing. That… would've been soooo useful weeks ago.
Brennor stepped forward, his own shock well-hidden beneath a mask of discipline that made Greg wonder where he was pulling it from. His voice, when he spoke as the blond boy finally looked up, was even, careful. "And what of the Dustin man, m'lord?"
Greg's gaze flicked to the body slumped lifeless against the wall, a smear of red trailing down the bright white stone. The man's eyes were still open, vacant, mouth slack in an expression frozen somewhere between pain and acceptance.
Well, fuck. The blond teenager could only sigh. Now the maids gotta do more work.
Shaking his head, Greg turned to Brennor, his tone as even as if he were giving orders for a supply run. "Leave him," he said. "I'll deal with the rest tomorrow."
The soldiers nodded, moving like men suddenly aware of their own mortality. They dragged the stunned attackers across the hall, their armor scraping against the floor and the beaten ones groaning loudly as their broken bones were jostled by the rough hands of Greg's loyal men.
No one spoke. The only sounds were the distant crackle of the overly large fireplace and the quiet shuffle of boots against stone.
Greg, still covered in his own blood, adjusted his doublet, brushing down the fabric like he was just fixing a wrinkle, as if he hadn't just been shot about five times in the fucking chest. Those things honestly didn't go that deep.
The lord of the Brightfort held his hand out to the side and, within seconds, a servant rushed to him with a fresh one, the watered-down wine inside of it still tasting like badly-made grape juice as he lifted it to his lips.
He lifted it high, grinning. "What happened to the music?"
No one answered.
Greg tilted his head, as the silence dragged just a little too long. "Come on. Play, drink, dance," he said, his grin widening. "Go on, don't stop 'cause of me. I'm fine."
The musicians hesitated.
He looked over at them specifically this time. "Fine."
Hands hovered over strings, sticks trembled against drums as blue eyes met each of theirs in turn. Then, one by one, the notes resumed—uneasy at first, faltering, before settling into something resembling a proper tune.
The feast carried on.
But the air had changed. Whispers curled through the hall like smoke, quiet but fast, passing from table to table. Eyes flickered toward Greg and away just as quickly, as if afraid to meet his gaze for too long.
The Bolton loyalists would never trust him. Even the opportunists, the ones who had been so eager to swear their loyalty, were reassessing what exactly they'd aligned themselves with.
How the fuck do I know that anyway?
He held back a sigh as he moved through the hall, goblet in hand, returning every wary glance with a patient smile. Slow steps, deliberate movements. Nothing sudden, nothing aggressive. Let them sit with their thoughts a little longer. Let them wonder.
By the time he reached the high table again, the music had settled into a more natural rhythm, though the tension in the room remained. He lowered himself into his chair with the ease of a man who hadn't just been nearly assassinated, raising his goblet in an almost lazy toast to the crowd. His smile didn't waver, despite the visible holes in his bloodstained doublet.
Eren leaned in, his voice low. "That went... better than expected, my lord."
Greg let out a slow breath, settling into his seat as Ash snuffled contentedly at his feet.
"Eren," he muttered, taking another sip from his goblet. "Don't piss me off."
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
Swift Justice (100 GP)
10k Words (100 GP)
ROLL: Weapon Materialisation [Genshin Impact] {Destruction} (FREE) - One ability that is not talked about much, yet is worth taking note of, is the ability for those with Visions to store their weapons away in a flash of light. With a simple flick of their wrist, they are able to materialise and dematerialise their chosen weapon away in the blink of an eye. This is not something that all Vision users are proficient in though, a certain red ranger occasionally leaving her bow at home. As a wielder of a Vision yourself, this is an ability that you too share. You can summon and de-summon your 'main' weapon away at your leisure. Should you wish, you can change which weapon that you are able to summon.
ROLL: Friend of Fairies [Hyrule Warriors] {Control} (600 GP) - "Fairies, magical nature spirits that favor the light, though fickle and unorganized beings with no shared culture or civilization. The threat of their magic potentially supporting Zelda's armies was enough to have Cia begin hunting them at the dawn of the war.
In this world, fairies can be roughly divided into two groups of beings. Normal fairies like Link's speaker Proxi resemble small girls that could fit in the palm of your hand, each with insect wings and a magnificent glow that makes them appear as balls of light to those not close enough.
The other kind are Great Fairies, resembling giant red headed women with bizarre, revealing clothing and aquiline noses. Normal fairies live in the woods, while Great Fairies reside within fairy fountains and appear when prayed too.
Now, they and any other nature spirit you may find just loves you. Outside of just not being tricked by the more mischievous ones, you'll often find them coming to see you and generally being friendly unless you go out of your way to upset them. This is great, since both types have powerful magic, with Great Fairies turning the tides of numerous battles in the war.
Grimoire Points: 150
Nerd In the North: 3-22
New
Yesterday
III-22: Promise
Myrcella stood at the far end of the hallway, her hands clenched into fists, shaking.
The air burned.
Smoke curled through the shattered corridor, thick and stinging, the acrid green haze burning her eyes, her throat. Each breath tasted sharp, laced with something worse than fire, something clinging and wrong. The heat still licked at the stone, at the walls—at her skin. It crawled beneath the surface, pressing into her bones.
Her ears rang, muffling the voices, the movement, the grief.
The explosion had rattled through the Red Keep like a living thing, shaking the very bones of the castle even as the damage itself remained limited to one hall..
She could still feel it.
Dust and smoke swirled together, thick and choking, and somewhere beneath the rubble—
No. No, she would not think it.
Yet she could not deny it all the same. Her brother was gone.
Tommen was gone.
The thought scraped against the walls of her mind, clawing to be let in. Her little brother—the boy she had promised to protect, to keep safe from Joffrey's sharp words and sharper cruelties—was gone.
Her chest locked.
The hallway smelled of death.
She stared at the wreckage. At the jagged stones, the blackened beams, the green fire flickering against the ruined tunnel entrance, unnatural and unyielding. The heat still pressed against her skin, even as the flames dulled.
Mother will hate me. She could already hear the words, sharp and cold, slipping through clenched teeth. You were supposed to watch him. A slap, hard enough to leave bruises no one was allowed to see. You were supposed to be his sister.
She had failed.
"Mandon Moore!"
Her head jerked up at the sound of her mother's voice, raw with fury and grief, the sound of a woman unraveling.
Ser Mandon stood down the hall, stiff-backed, his white cloak stained with soot. His armor was dented, his face streaked with ash, but he was otherwise untouched. The kingsguard looked somehow both solemn and passive all the same, his head turned down in silence as he made no defense of his lapse regarding his charge.
That was not enough.
"You failed him!" Cersei shrieked, voice like a blade's edge. "You failed your queen!"
Uncle Jaime held her back, arms locked around her middle as she fought. Her golden hair hung loose, tangled, streaked with soot and sweat, her face terrible to behold. She thrashed, clawing at the air in Ser Mandon's direction, nails curling like she could tear him apart with her hands alone. "You let my son die! I'll have your head! I'll have your family's heads! I'll—"
"Enough!" Jaime snapped, his own voice hoarse. He was struggling—her mother was not weak, never weak, and she was volcanic now, grief and rage bursting without end.
Her nails dug into his arm, leaving red welts, but he held her back.
"He's gone, Cersei!"
The words were a blade to the heart.
For a moment, the golden queen stilled.
Just a moment.
Then she twisted in his grip, her breath coming in ragged gasps. "No, he's not! He's my son, my little boy—he can't be gone!"
A sob tore from her throat, raw and unrestrained, and her body sagged against Jaime, all fight draining away. Her fingers curled weakly into his tunic as if holding on for dear life.
He murmured something Myrcella couldn't hear, his jaw tight, his hand trembling as he held his sister together.
The air was thick, heavy, poisoned with grief and smoke.
The wildfire's glow painted the walls an unnatural green, its flickering light turning the shadows wrong. Myrcella could feel it pressing against her chest, tight and unrelenting, making it hard to breathe as the flames seemed to jump and flicker in time with her frantic breaths.
She wanted to move. To do something. To scream.
But her feet would not listen.
She had never felt so small.
Behind her, the guards whispered, shifting uneasily, unsure whether they should step forward, offer comfort, or simply wait for their queen's next order. The few nobles nearest had fled the moment the explosion had rung through the halls.
Their lives were worth more than loyalty.
Only Myrcella remained.
She had been told to run.
She hadn't.
Her feet had stayed planted as Mother wailed.
As Uncle whispered.
As Mandon Moore stood silent, head still down, as the scant remaining flames crackled, green and hungry.
"..."
Her green eyes blinked.
The sound came faintly at first, swallowed by the heavy silence that followed her mother's cries. Myrcella almost thought she had imagined it—a trick of the ear, a desperate hope given false form by grief.
Then it came again.
Soft. Muffled beneath the weight of stone and smoke.
"Mama?"
Her breath caught.
She turned too fast, vision blurring, feet nearly slipping on the soot-streaked marble. A sharp, strangled noise pressed against her throat, caught somewhere between a gasp and a sob.
Uncle Jaime heard it too. His head snapped toward the wreckage, body going rigid, one hand instinctively reaching for the sword at his hip. Even Mother—wild-eyed, barely restrained in Uncle's grip—froze, the fury and grief halting upon her face like a sculptor's unfinished work.
Then, louder now, clear and unmistakable—
"Mama!"
The ruins shifted.
Myrcella's heart lurched into her throat.
A pile of scorched stone trembled, dust and soot cascading down in soft clouds. Then—beneath it—a small, chubby hand thrust free, fingers flexing weakly against the debris.
A hand she knew.
The air rushed from her lungs as a tangle of golden curls surfaced next, streaked with ash, and then, with a determined push, Tommen pulled himself into view, blinking through the haze of dust.
He was disheveled, cheeks smudged with soot, tunic torn at the shoulder—but he was whole.
And smiling.
"Mama!" His voice rang out, bright and clear, as if he had simply wandered in from rolling in the grass, as if he were still that same carefree boy who laughed at beetles and begged to see the kittens in the kennels.
He shouldn't be smiling.
He shouldn't be—
The wildfire licked at the edges of his boots. The green flames flickered, curling near his ankles, creeping along the broken stone—and yet, they did not touch him.
The fire should have devoured him.
It should have left behind blackened flesh, curling skin, the raw scent of burnt meat—
Instead, it dimmed.
As if bending to some unseen will.
Her knees buckled.
The relief was too sudden, too crushing, her vision swimming, her breath coming in sharp, desperate gasps. She clutched at the wall beside her, fingers digging into the stone, as tears spilled freely down her cheeks.
Mother let out another scream.
Not grief this time.
Something else.
Something raw, something desperate, something too powerful for words.
"Tommen!" Mother gasped, voice cracking as his name left her lips, her hands trembling, reaching.
But Tommen was not alone.
Something bright slithered from the wreckage behind him, winding over his shoulder with a slow, fluid grace.
At first, Myrcella thought it was a shadow—a trick of the flickering green light.
Then, she saw the glint of crimson against soot.
The gleam of scales catching the fire's glow.
A creature clambered onto Tommen's head, perching there with the casual ease of a cat.
It was small, no longer than her forearm, with smooth, polished scales that shimmered like freshly-spilled rubies. Its wings—wings—were tucked tight against its sides, the delicate membranes fluttering faintly as it surveyed the ruined hallway with keen, intelligent eyes.
A long, whip-thin tail curled snugly around Tommen's neck, draping over his shoulder like a lazy scarf.
Then it hissed.
A small, high-pitched sound—nothing like the deep, terrible roars that filled stories of old.
A dragon.
A dragon.
Myrcella's breath came in short, stuttering gasps, her vision swimming as her mind fought to reconcile what she was seeing. She knew of dragons, of course.
She had heard the old tales whispered in court, scribbled in the histories, spoken in reverence and fear.
But that was all they were now. Stories.
Dragons had died with House Targaryen, their last embers snuffed out long before she was born. And yet…
There it was.
Draped over Tommen like a cloak, unbothered by the flames, its bright, gleaming eyes filled with something ancient, something knowing.
Mother had gone silent. Her face—
Her face was wrong.
The anger, the grief, the wild desperation had collapsed into something else, something unsteady, something fragile.
Shock.
Fear.
Relief so sharp it threatened to break under its own weight.
Uncle Jaime had stilled too, his usual composure shattered as his green eyes refused to shift from their current fixed onto the thing atop Tommen's head.
The silence was suffocating.
Then Tommen beamed.
Bright, boundless, oblivious.
His entire body thrummed with triumph, radiating pride from every soot-streaked inch of his small frame. He pointed one chubby finger at the creature nestled against his golden curls, his grin stretching wide enough to show the gap where he had lost a tooth just weeks before.
"Mama!" he declared, voice bright, utterly delighted. "This is Ser Pounce, Second of His Name!"
Silence.
The ruined hall lay still, save for the faint crackle of dying wildfire and her little brother's cheerful voice. Neither guard nor kingsguard nor servant deigned to so much as utter a word.
Jaime made a noise.
Something caught between a laugh and a cough, something uncertain, bewildered, as if his tongue had forgotten how to produce words.
The name alone sent Myrcella's thoughts scattering. Ser Pounce.
Ser Pounce was dead.
Joffrey had kicked him weeks ago.
He had claimed it was an accident as he walked, his eyes too high off the ground to have seen it as he passed by. That Tommen was too soft, that it was just a cat.
Tommen had cried himself sick that night.
But now—
Now he stood atop the dying embers of wildfire, his tunic torn, his cheeks streaked with ash, but his joy untouched.
The dragon—Ser Pounce?—tilted its head, studying them, its long red tail flicking lazily against Tommen's half-burnt tunic.
Mother took a shuddering breath.
She lifted a trembling hand, as if to touch him, to pull him close, to assure herself that he was real.
Uncle had let her go. There was nothing holding her back now but her own will.
"T~Tommen…"
Her mother's voice wavered.
She never wavered.
Her little brother blinked up at her, still grinning, his eyes bright—Purple.
Her breath caught.
Her stomach twisted.
Purple. A color neither Baratheon nor Lannister had ever worn.
Her vision swam.
The hall tilted.
She tried to take a step forward, tried to find her balance, but the floor was gone, the world spinning out from beneath her as the heat of the wildfire overwhelmed her, the green all she could see now..
Something cracked against her skull.
And just before darkness claimed her, she heard her mother scream.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
The night passed. Morning came.
Jaime Lannister leaned against a gilded pillar in the Small Council chamber, his fingers tapping idly against the pommel of his sword. The chamber was half-empty, but the air was thick—parchment, ink, and the cloying perfume Cersei had taken to wearing in heavier doses since the explosion.
She stood before the council now, back straight as a blade, her emerald eyes flashing with the heat of wildfire.
"Tommen's protection is now the highest priority," she declared, her voice slicing through the uneasy silence. "Double the guards. Triple them if you must. I won't risk another lapse in judgment like Ser Mandon's."
The tension in the room tightened like a drawn bowstring.
Varys, seated nearest to the king's empty chair, shifted ever so slightly, his silken sleeves rustling as he folded his hands atop his stomach. The others—Grand Maester Pycelle, Ser Axell Florent, and even Littlefinger—watched Cersei with the wary attention one might give a caged lioness.
She had been a storm since the explosion, tearing through the Red Keep like a force of nature.
Queen Cersei's fire burns hotter than wildfire, the smallfolk whispered. Jaime believed them now.
Her paranoia was not without reason.
Tommen's survival had been nothing short of miraculous. Any other child would have been crushed beneath the rubble—cracked ribs, shattered skull, reduced to ash before the fire even had its fill. But Tommen had walked out of the smoke untouched, a crimson-scaled creature curled around his shoulders, and eyes as purple as the dragonlord he apparently now was.
It had caused an uproar, to say the least.
Septons muttered of omens. Maesters whispered in hushed corners. Courtiers tiptoed around the subject with all the grace of a man crossing thin ice.
Jaime did not care for omens.
He had seen his nephew—his son—alive and well, and that was all that mattered to , however, was clinging too tightly.
He could hear it in the way she spoke now, her words snapping like a whip, an iron band tightening around the court.
She is walling us off, brick by brick.
Her gaze turned to Ser Axell Florent.
"The Baratheon guards are to be relocated immediately. I want only Lannister men at Tommen's side."
Ser Axell bristled. Wisely, he did not object outright.
The Florents have not fled yet, Jaime thought, watching the man's mouth tighten into a thin line. But they will soon enough if this continues.
The Baratheons were already splintering.
Renly had vanished south. Stannis brooded on his dreary rock, gathering what few loyalists remained. And Robert—
Robert remained in his great bed, lost to the waking world. His body stubbornly clung to life while the rest of the realm held its breath.
"Your Grace," Varys began, voice smooth as silk, "a delicate hand may serve us better than a heavy one. With Stannis gone and Renly absent, what remains of House Baratheon's support grows thin. Perhaps it would be wise to—"
"Robert will understand," Cersei cut in, chin lifting. "He is my husband, and I speak with his authority while he recovers."
Jaime arched a brow.
Do you?
Across the table, Littlefinger smirked, his fingers idly toying with the hem of his doublet.
"And if anyone objects," Cersei continued, voice cold, "they can join Stannis in his grim little hole on Dragonstone."
Jaime exhaled through his nose.
And here I thought isolation was a Stark specialty. Silly me.
The chamber fell into uneasy quiet.
Pycelle muttered something about the king's health, about the need for rest and patience, but Cersei did not hear him.
Or rather—
She did not care to listen.
Whenever Cersei had truly made up her mind, the amount of people that could truly stop her or turn her aside could be counted by a smallfolk on one dirty hand.
"You have your orders," she said, casting one final glance around the room before turning her gaze on Pycelle. "Pycelle, you are to accompany me. We must speak about my daughter."
The council dispersed soon after.
Littlefinger lingered, offering Jaime a sly nod before slipping away. Varys drifted into the shadows, a specter of silk and whispers, and Ser Axell left in silence, his jaw tight, his pride stung.
Jaime did not move at first.
He watched his sister sweep from the room, golden hair catching in the torchlight, her presence filling the space even as she left it. Pycelle shuffled after her, his robes whispering against the stone.
His fingers flexed idly against the hilt of his sword.
I should speak to Tommen.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
It took some time, but Jaime found the boy exactly where he had expected—tucked away in the gardens, crouched beneath the shade of a tree.
The Red Keep's courtyards were empty this time of day, many not interested in braving the outside where dozens of guards stood posted around the young prince, their red and gold livery worn proudly. The air hung thick, heavy with the scent of sun-warmed roses and damp earth, the distant trickle of a fountain the only sound aside from the occasional chirp of sparrows hidden in the hedges.
Tommen was oblivious to all of it.
The boy held his red-scaled pet in both hands, giggling as the creature nipped playfully at his fingers. It was curled in his palms like a lazy cat, its long tail winding around his wrist, wings flickering as it chittered in some secret language of its own.
The scene might have been charming—a boy and his pet, tucked away in his own world of innocence—but Jaime knew better.
His nephew—his son—had walked out of a wildfire explosion without so much as a singed hair. He had stood atop burning rubble, untouched by the green flames that had devoured stronger men whole.
And now he sat here, laughing, as if none of it had ever happened.
"Careful, lad," Jaime said, his voice warmer than usual as he stepped closer. "If that thing grows any bigger, it might start gnawing on more than your fingers."
Tommen looked up—
And Jaime stilled.
His eyes. Gods above, his eyes.
They gave him pause even now, even after having seen them a few times since the past noon of the dragon's birth. Not Lannister green. Not even the bright blue of his supposed Baratheon blood.
Violet.
Deep, rich, impossible—like crushed amethysts, like polished glass catching the first light of a bright summer's day. It had been unmistakable before, but here, in the soft dappled shade of the garden, they stood out in a way that made something cold coil in Jaime's stomach.
They were Targaryen eyes.
And yet—
The boy's face was open, untroubled.
Unburdened by the weight of his own strangeness, while bearing a soft roundness to his cheeks that Jaime had never seen in his own reflection, nor in Cersei's. Tommen smiled at him, bright, unshaken, filled with that same easy trust he had always given Jaime.
Completely unaware of what he was.
"Ser Pounce wouldn't do that," Tommen said firmly. He held up the creature, beaming. "He's a knight, aren't you, Ser Pounce?"
The beast—if it could even be called that—let out a shrill, almost laughing hiss, its forked tongue flicking between needle-sharp teeth.
Jaime chuckled despite himself.
"A knight, eh?" He crouched beside the boy, resting his arms on his knees. "Should I expect him to take my place in the Kingsguard?"
Tommen giggled but clutched the creature closer as it hissed again, the sound almost gentle as small fingers curled protectively around the red scales. "He's brave, like you, Uncle Jaime." His voice was softer now, like a secret. "I want to be brave too."
Jaime felt something tighten in his chest. "You are brave, Tommen. You proved that when you survived."
It was the truth.
The boy had faced something that should have killed him. Yet he had not only lived—he had thrived.
Jaime had seen grown knights crumble at the mere sight of wildfire. He had smelled the charred flesh of men who had screamed until their lungs melted from the heat.
And yet, his son had walked away from it, laughing.
Bravery, Jaime thought.
Or something else entirely?
Tommen smiled, but the light in his face dimmed at the edges. His little fingers stroked absently over the creature's crimson scales.
"Mama says I have to be brave for her. And for Joffrey."
Jaime kept his face still, though something twisted low in his gut at the words.
He could see it too clearly—Cersei at Tommen's bedside, whispering in that honey-sweet voice of hers, smoothing back his curls as she poured every ounce of her fear into him.
You must be strong for me, my love. For your brother. For the realm.
She had always been good at that.
Shaping things. Molding them. Pressing her will onto soft places until they could not help but bend beneath her hands.
And now, she was shaping Tommen.
Jaime exhaled through his nose, slow and steady.
"And what do you think of that?" he asked carefully.
Tommen bit his lip, hesitated, then spoke with quiet honesty, the kind only children possessed.
"I don't want to give Joffrey my bravery."
Jaime stilled.
It was a small thing, a simple confession, but something about it sent a shiver of unease curling down his spine.
Joffrey was their king—or so the world believed. He was heir to Robert's throne, to all the might of House Baratheon and House Lannister combined. And yet, here was Tommen, barely ten years old, already sensing something wrong, something unworthy in the brother he was expected to follow.
Jaime had known it for years.
Gods know, I've seen what Joffrey is.
But Tommen—sweet, kind, trusting Tommen—was beginning to see it too.
And those words of his… they bore far more weight with a dragon backing them.
"Then keep it for yourself," Jaime murmured, giving the boy's shoulder a squeeze. "Bravery isn't something you can give away, lad. It belongs to you. No one else."
Tommen looked up at him, violet eyes searching, as if weighing his words.
Jaime let him.
The boy was still so young, still soft-cheeked and wide-eyed, yet something about his face felt off. A shape to his jaw, a roundness to his features that did not quite fit.
Something that—
No. Jaime brushed past the thought before it could settle.
Tommen nodded, slow and solemn, then curled his arms around his strange little beast, pressing it to his chest as if it could keep his bravery safe.
Jaime forced himself to smile.
"Come," he said, rising to his feet. "The cooks will have honeycakes by now, and I've heard a rumor that knights—especially dragon-knights—eat at least three before supper."
Tommen laughed, scrambling to his feet.
"Ser Pounce too?"
"If he doesn't eat me first."
The boy grinned, cradling the creature close as they started back toward the castle.
Jaime walked beside him, letting the warmth of the midday sun push away the cold lingering in his chest.
It was a simple thing, really.
A child and his pet. A walk through the gardens. A conversation between uncle and nephew.
And yet—
He glanced at Tommen once more.
His nephew.
His son.
His little prince.
And a growing question in his heart that he dared not give voice to.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
The king's chamber was silent, save for the slow, rattling drag of Robert's breath.
The great stag of House Baratheon lay sunken into his grand bed, his mighty frame diminished, swallowed whole by weeks of stillness. Even in the dim candlelight, Jaime could see the pallor of his skin, the slackness of his jaw, the way his beard had grown wild in his slumber, creeping down his throat like ivy overtaking a ruined keep.
Jaime stood at the foot of the bed, one hand resting idly on the carved bedpost.
And studied him.
This was the man who had once crushed Rhaegar Targaryen with a single swing of his warhammer. The man who had roared his fury to the sky as he drowned the Rebellion in rivers of blood.
And now here he was.
Beaten, not by a war, not by a blade—but by a pig.
Jaime scoffed.
"The mighty stag brought low by a boar," he murmured, the words sitting strangely in his mouth. "Ironic, isn't it? You always liked irony, didn't you, Robert?"
Robert, of course, did not answer.
He lay as still as the dead, his chest barely rising beneath the silk sheets, his lips parted slightly as though he might, at any moment, stir and bellow for more wine.
Jaime's eyes flicked toward the bedside table. A flagon of wine sat untouched beside a goblet, the deep red liquid catching the candlelight.
The one thing you loved most in this world, and now you can't even drink it.
"If you woke now, would it even matter?" Jaime asked, more to himself than to the king. His voice was quiet, thoughtful in a way that unsettled him. "Eddard Stark rots in your dungeons. His men bled out on these very stones. Your brothers have fled, and your wife—"
He stopped.
His jaw tightened.
"Your wife is more queen than you ever were king," he finished, his voice touched with something bitter, something raw.
It wasn't meant as praise for Cersei, a damning statement more than anything.
Robert had never been a king, not truly. He had worn the crown, carried the title, but the kingdom had always been someone else's to manage, someone else's burden to bear.
Jon Arryn.
Stannis.
Even Ned Stark, for all the good it had done him.
And now, Cersei.
Jaime exhaled through his nose, the thought sitting uneasily in his chest.
Once, he might have cared.
Once, he might have even wished for Robert to wake, to rise from his sickbed and shake the castle with his laughter, to pull him aside with a drunken grin and clap him hard on the back with an overly strong blow that had some level of simmering rage to it, and even his bellow of "Kingslayer", as much as Jaime despised the title.
But that had been a long time ago.
Jaime let out a slow breath and looked down at the sleeping king, at the way his broad chest barely seemed to rise, at the wine-stained sheets, the unshaven jaw, the swollen fingers curled loosely against the coverlet.
The kingdom had already moved past him.
If he ever woke from this slumber, it would be to a world that no longer had need of him.
Jaime Lannister turned, his white cloak trailing behind him as he strode to the door.
He did not look back.
Nerd In the North: 3-23
New
21 hours ago
III-23: Robb Stark
The wind howled beyond the walls of Winterfell, a restless beast prowling the night. Inside his solar, Robb Stark paced, the rhythm of his boots striking the stone floor echoing softly in the chamber. The cold crept in through the thick walls, biting at his skin despite the fire roaring in the hearth. He barely noticed. His thoughts churned like the storm outside, relentless and unyielding.
Half a fortnight had passed since the raven first arrived bearing Roose Bolton's words. Its message lingered in Robb's mind, bitter and sharp as a blade. A boy wielding magic and slaughtering smallfolk. The claim sounded wild, the kind of tale southern bards wove for lords who believed them fools. But even as doubt gnawed at him, Robb couldn't dismiss it outright. The Leech Lord has never been one for baseless fear.
Rumors of this so-called sorcerer had already reached Winterfell over the past moons—stories of a boy with strange strength, of fire and shadow, and a bear cub at his side. Some tales claimed he was a demon summoned from beyond the Wall; others said he was a savior, a wandering lord who healed the wounded and shielded the helpless.
Roose Bolton asking for assistance at all was odd enough.
For an uprising of smallfolk, even led by a supposed sorcerer, was even more confusing.
Robb had delayed, first sending his father a raven to request his guidance before even considering moving forward. A matter such as this, he would be foolish not to.
By this time, his father would have just received it. That would have calmed his nerves, knowing guidance would soon be on the way, if it had not been for the fact that a second raven came only two days after. Its words chilled him more than the first. Roose Bolton was dead. The Dreadfort had fallen. And not to an army, not to treachery from within. Gregory Veder, the letter read, 'in charge' of the… Brightfort.
He hadn't called himself a lord, simply those odd words.
'In charge.' Robb shook his head. A boy with magic, a dragon, and a name I've only ever heard in songs.
"You'll wear yourself thin, Robb," Theon Greyjoy drawled, his voice breaking through Robb's thoughts. He lounged by the hearth, one booted foot resting on the edge of a small table. A smirk tugged at the corners of his lips, infuriating as ever. "All this pacing… for what? Roose Bolton's dead. Good riddance, I say. The man flayed people for sport. If anything, this boy did us all a favor."
Robb stopped mid-step, his jaw tightening as he bit down his regrets at not simply charging forward at his vassal's first request. "That's enough, Theon. Bolton was still my bannerman, sworn to House Stark, and those are simply old tales of his long-dead kin. His death isn't something I can ignore."
"Sworn, was he?" Theon countered, tipping his cup of wine to his lips. "The same Roose Bolton who we're now hearing let his bastard roam the North like a wolf in a sheepfold?"
Robb tasted copper. He'd bitten down too hard again. He only noticed when the pain flared, sharp against his tongue. It didn't matter. Not with Theon sitting there, smirking like this was some jest over dice instead of a dead bannerman.
"Come now, Robb. Let's not pretend either of them were worth mourning."
Robb's breath came in tight. Theon had always been this way—flippant, needling—but today it scraped against his skin worse than usual. He forced himself to hold still, jaw locked, but his hands curled into fists at his sides.
Then Ser Rodrik spoke, and the room stilled.
"That's enough."
His voice cut through the space like steel sliding free of a sheath. No need to raise it. The weight of it did the work. Theon's smirk twitched, a crack in the mask, but he recovered quick, shifting in his seat as if adjusting for comfort.
"Lord Bolton's death is no simple matter," Rodrik went on, arms crossed over his broad chest. "His banners will demand justice, and Winterfell's honor is at stake."
Theon leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, amusement flashing like a whetted edge. "Justice, is it? Honor?" He exhaled a short, sharp laugh, shaking his head. "Honor doesn't keep the wolves fed, Rodrik. You know that better than most."
A beat. Theon let the words settle, then shrugged, easy as ever. "If Robb moves quickly, he could turn this whole mess in his favor."
Something in Robb snapped.
"By seizing Bolton lands?" His voice came out harder than he meant, but he didn't pull it back. He was too tired of this, of Theon's constant jabs, his endless testing. "We don't steal what isn't ours. We don't betray our bannermen, no matter their faults."
Theon met his gaze, unreadable for a moment. Then—too casual, too smooth—he lifted his cup, swirling the wine before taking a slow sip. "Sometimes a little betrayal is what it takes to win, my friend." His smirk was there, but his eyes had gone distant, unfocused. "You're Lord Stark now. Act like it."
"I said, enough, Greyjoy." Rodrik's voice carried a growl, the kind that made men hesitate before taking another step closer to the ledge. "Your words do nothing but sow discord, like your kin. Lord Stark will decide his course with wisdom, not recklessness."
Theon scoffed, but his shoulders had stiffened.
Robb forced himself to steady his breathing, to push aside the rising frustration before it clouded his judgment. He turned to Maester Luwin, who had been silent all this time. The old man stood near the window, hands folded before him, face unreadable.
Listening. Waiting.
That alone made Robb's stomach twist. \
Luwin only waited like that when something weighed heavy.
"My lord," Luwin said at last, finally stepping forward. His boots made little sound against the stone. "There is wisdom in caution. The name 'Veder' is no mere invention, nor is it one to dismiss lightly."
Robb frowned. The way he said it. Like a man pulling a blade an inch from its sheath but no further. "What do you mean, Maester?"
Luwin clasped his hands behind his back. His gaze didn't waver, but Robb felt the weight behind it. "It is an old name, my lord. Very old. From a time before the Boltons knelt to House Stark. There are tales, scattered and faded with time, of a House Veder—lords of the White Knife, an era beyond the Manderlys, from the Age of Heroes, rulers of a castle long since fallen to ruin."
Theon, who had been quiet longer than Robb had ever seen, tilted his head. "Well, don't keep us in suspense, old man," he said, though there was something off in his voice now. "If you're going to tell a tale, best tell it now."
Luwin's fingers brushed over the links of his chain. The sound—soft, metal on metal—felt too loud in the room.
"As I said," Luwin continued, voice calm, deliberate, each word placed like a stone on a board, "the Veders were kings once. Not in living memory, no, but long ago, when the North was a fractured land of war and blood. They ruled lands along the White Knife, where it bends southward. Their seat, White Castle, was said to be a place of peace and prosperity."
Theon scoffed, tipping his chair back onto two legs, hands folded behind his head like this was some fireside tale he could sit back and enjoy. "And now it's in ruins," he said. "Spare us the tale, maester. The north has more old bones than men alive."
Robb ignored him, jaw tight. Grey Wind would have bristled at that tone, ears back, hackles raised, a warning growl in his throat.
Luwin, unshaken as ever, merely adjusted his sleeves. "Perhaps," he said evenly. "but the Veders were not simply forgotten. Not truly. Their downfall was no simple story of decay. They were slaughtered, to the last man and woman, by the Red Kings—the Boltons of old. Their halls burned, their banners torn, their name reduced to whispers."
Robb took a step forward, drawn to Luwin's voice despite not truly wanting to know where this led. Something in his gut twisted. "Why?"
The pause was long enough to weigh something heavy in the air.
"Ambition," Luwin said at last. "Or perhaps fear. The Boltons claimed the Veders had grown too powerful, too beloved. They salted the earth where White Castle once stood, a warning to any who might rise against them. Their tale became one of caution and another reason to fear the Boltons—a memory of the North's darker days."
Theon gave a low chuckle, the squid shaking his head with a smile. "Sounds like something Bolton would do, doesn't it? Though his bastard seems to prefer flaying for sport."
Robb's patience snapped. "Enough." The word came out sharper than he meant, but gods, he was tired of having to be more mature than his friend four years his senior.
Theon raised his hands in mock surrender. "Only saying."
Rodrik cut in, his voice a blade. "Lord Stark said to watch your tongue, Greyjoy."
Theon muttered something under his breath, but he sat back down, adjusting his coat, playing at indifference.
Robb turned back to Luwin. "So this boy claims to be one of them? A Veder?"
Luwin clasped his hands behind his back, his eyes steady. "Perhaps," he said. "or perhaps he is a clever charlatan, using a forgotten name to rally those discontent with their lot. The letter penned by Maester Tybald claimed no title, but the words of the smallfolk speak for him despite any claims he might make. Either way, his presence poses a threat—not just to the Bolton lands, but to Winterfell itself."
Robb felt it then—that flicker of unease curling in his stomach, heavy as stone. Knowing Lord Bolton, Robb had good reason to doubt the man's words regarding "What do you mean?"
Luwin's tone didn't change, but something in it made the fire feel colder. "The smallfolk are already singing songs of this... 'White Blade of the North.' They speak of his justice, his power, his defiance of the boltons. Such tales spread quickly, my lord, and with them, a sense of hope—or rebellion."
Rodrik stiffened, hand resting lightly on the hilt of his sword. "Rebellion?" The word landed hard, like a drawn bowstring creaking under tension.
"If this boy inspires loyalty among the smallfolk, and sympathy among discontented lords, Winterfell could face more than a single rogue," Luwin said. "The North remembers, my lord, but not always what you would wish it to. The Veders were slaughtered in the dead of night by the Boltons, and the Starks of old accepted them under their banner immediately after. Their memory lingers as a symbol of lost honor. Should this boy embody those virtues, you risk appearing not as a protector of justice, but as the hand of tyranny."
Theon's smirk had slipped. In its place, something else. "And what about the dragon?" he asked, quieter now. "Magic, dragons... Gods, Robb, this isn't something you can just ignore. Even the ironborn fear what they don't understand."
Robb's jaw clenched. Theon was right, but he wasn't about to say it.
Dragons. Magic. Gods, his head ached just thinking about it. He should be out hunting with Grey Wind, or training in the yard, not sitting here debating whether some half-forgotten bloodline had returned from the dead with fire at its heels.
He thought of Jon. His brother would have loved this. would have poured over old books, hungry for every scrap of history, would have seen something grand in it, some lost honor restored. In many ways, Jon always did favor the old songs, nearly as much as Sansa did, despite his claims.
But this wasn't a song. This was his North.
His responsibility.
His father should have written by now. If ravens flew faster, if King's Landing weren't so far, if he could just hear his father's voice telling him what to do—
Robb turned to Luwin, forcing his voice steady. "I shall wait for word from my father to return first. Regardless, I intend to summon him to Winterfell once I have gathered the lords of the north here. We shall see what kind of man this... 'White Blade' truly is."
Nerd In the North: 3-24
New
2 hours ago
III-24: The Fall of the House of Veder
The newly designated meeting chamber wasn't as large as Greg's new office—apparently those were called solars—or particularly well-lit, but it served its purpose: giving Greg a headache every time he sat down to listen to people talk in circles. The thick wooden table in the center bore fresh scratches, and the flickering torches cast long, shifting shadows across the worn stone walls. A new map had been unfurled across the tabletop, its edges curling slightly as Maester Tybald smoothed it out with careful hands, his fingers long and bony like a corpse's.
Greg leaned back in his chair, resisting the urge to rub his temples. Five months ago, he'd been in a world where meetings meant sitting at a desk, watching a PowerPoint, maybe bullshitting a group project if he had to. Now, he was here, leading war councils with men who looked like they'd walked out of a grimdark novel.
If Guts were here, it'd look even more like that, but the big guy was probably off somewhere drinking something as hard as he could find.
The air in the room had that same heavy weight it always did when something he was about to dislike was going down. Not quite suffocating, but thick enough to settle in his bones. Ivar, the former castellan's assistant, sat across from him, his hands twitching against the hem of his tunic like he was debating whether or not he should even be speaking. He was an odd one—had pledged loyalty after his master got himself killed, though Greg didn't think that meant much.
Loyalty was a funny thing in Westeros.
He knew that well.
Ivar cleared his throat and finally forced the words out. "The Northern lords won't tolerate this."
Greg watched him, saying nothing, waiting. He knew how to play this game by now. If you let them talk, they'd either tell you exactly what they thought, or they'd panic and say something stupid.
Ivar fidgeted. "House Bolton was a cornerstone of the North, however much we might despise them. What you've done—"
Greg cut him off before he could get any further. "What I've done," he said flatly, locking his gaze onto Ivar's, "is end the fucking Boltons. Unless you think skinning people alive was worth preserving."
Ivar flinched, looking away quickly, fingers curling into fists against his lap. Greg didn't press the issue. He didn't need to. The Boltons were gone. Whatever fear their name once carried was just a whisper now, soon to be lost to history like all the other monsters that had gotten too comfortable at the top.
Across the table, Eren shifted in his seat, his hands clasped tightly in front of him. He was younger than the others, barely twenty, with the rough hands of a man who'd spent most of his life in the fields before luck and bloodlines pulled him into something greater. He wasn't highborn, not really—just the grandson of some lord's bastard on his mother's side, but that was enough to make him useful. Guy knows how to read and write, least I can do is give him a better job than farmer or soldier.
Eren spoke up, his voice slow but firm. "The North don't forget, m'lord. They don't forget names, nor deeds. Aye, the Boltons were monsters, but they were our monsters, an' men don't much like seeing their own fall to an outsider. They might not have liked 'em, but they knew what to expect."
Greg tilted his head, considering. "What they expected was a lifetime of watching their backs. I'd call this an improvement."
Eren held his gaze. "Aye, maybe it is. But ye don't get to tell 'em that. Not yet."
A rasping breath came from Greg's right, and Maester Tybald shifted where he sat, his thick fingers laced over his stomach. The man was sweating despite the cold draft slipping through the stone walls. "Lord Gregor," he wheezed, his voice scratchy with age, "if I may... House Stark has long governed the North's traditions. They will wish to address this in their own manner."
Greg exhaled through his nose, eyes flicking toward the maester. "Meaning?"
Tybald hesitated. "Meaning, my lord, that they will see this as... overreach. That it is not your place to decide the fate of a Great House, no matter how—" He coughed, his fingers twitching against the edge of the map. "—reviled."
Greg let that sit for a moment. Then, voice dry, he said, "So, what, should I have sent a raven first? Asked nicely?"
Silence. Ivar shifted again, looking like he was chewing on his tongue.
"The North won't like this," Ivar said finally. "They'll talk. They'll meet. They'll find cause for offense, and once they do, they'll demand Stark justice."
Greg shrugged. "Then let them."
Ivar stared at him. "You don't care?"
Greg leaned forward, his voice steady, quiet, but sharp as steel. "I care about the people here. I care about the ones who spent their lives afraid to step out of line because the Boltons might decide they were in the mood for some decoration. If that offends the high lords sitting in their halls, they can come and tell me that themselves."
Another stretch of silence. Ivar's lips pressed into a thin line, but he gave a short nod.
Eren ran a hand over his jaw, glancing toward the maester before settling his gaze back on Greg. "The North don't forget," he repeated, softer this time. "They won't see this as justice, Lord Gregor. They'll see it as an insult."
Lord Gregor.
Greg resisted the urge to rub at his temples, settling instead for stretching his fingers against the wood of the chair. Not even my name. You forgot the -y, His name was Greg. It was short for Gregory, but it had always been Greg. He was still getting used to the 'Lord' bit but Westerosi formality didn't make room for a guy just being Greg, and at this point, correcting them wasn't worth the breath. He sighed through his nose, tilting his chair back slightly as he drummed his fingers against the armrest.
"Yeah?" he said, leveling a flat look across the table. "Well, if the North's got a problem, they can dig up Roose Bolton and complain to him directly." His fingers tapped once against the armrest. "Oh, right. They can't."
Silence.
Eren coughed, poorly smothering something that might've been a laugh. Brennor's mouth twitched, but he was already looking back toward the map, scratching at his jaw like he was weighing something. Maester Tybald, though, barely blinked.
"You may have stripped the name from the North," the old man rasped, his voice thin and wheezing, "but a house is more than its Lord. A name is more than just blood." He adjusted the heavy chain around his neck with thick fingers, the metal links clicking dully together. "And the North does not let such names vanish without consequence."
Greg exhaled, slow. Course it doesn't.
Brennor leaned forward, arms braced against the table. "Tybald's right." The deep-set lines of his face made him look even grimmer than usual. "Doesn't matter how much folk hated 'em. Their bannermen won't just sit on their hands, and neither will the ones that owed them favors." His fingers curled against the wood. "One way or another, there'll be blood over it."
Greg's gaze flicked to the crude map spread across the table, its edges curling where Tybald had weighed it down. It wasn't much—barely better than something scribbled in a notebook—but it did its job. Symbols and rough lines marked holdfasts, villages, and keeps, a messy sprawl of land and names he was still getting used to.
Names he now apparently had to manage.
"Then we'll give them something else to focus on," Greg said, voice even.
Tybald inhaled, slow and deliberate, before shaking his head. "There is no—" A cough rattled out of him, and he took a moment to compose himself. "—there is no simple distraction, my Lord. There is only debt and memory, and the North carries both on its back."
Greg flicked him a glance. "Then maybe it ought to lighten the load."
Eren shifted slightly in his seat. "Don't work like that," he murmured.
Greg exhaled sharply through his nose, looking up again. "And why not?"
Brennor scoffed, shaking his head. "Ye're thinkin' like a Southerner."
Greg arched a brow, but let him go on.
"Down there, ye kill a man, take 'is land, an' that's that." Brennor gave a humorless chuckle. "Up here, land carries more weight than its worth. Houses don't die 'cos their lords do. A name holds longer than a man's bones. I hear Castamere's still empty, ain't it?" He leaned back, crossing his arms. "Ye killed the last Bolton. But ye didn't kill the last o' his banners. That's the fuckin' difference, m'lord."
Greg's jaw ticked. "Then maybe I should."
Tybald exhaled sharply, shifting in his seat, but it was Ivar who finally spoke up, his voice somehow even raspier than the maester's all of a sudden. "I-if ye did that, m'lord, there'd b-b-be no turnin' back. No bargaining, no truces. The North would close ranks, an' no matter how strong ye think we are, we can't hold against all of it."
Greg glanced at him, then at the map again, at the carved wooden pieces scattered across its surface.
Eren exhaled slowly. "Aye, we're standin'. But if the North thinks this is an insult?" His fingers tapped idly against the table. "Then we best be ready for how they'll answer."
Greg's gaze stayed on the map a moment longer before flicking up, meeting each of theirs in turn. "M- our strength is why we'll keep standing."
Tybald's breath scraped in his throat, the sound dry and rattling as he adjusted the weight of his chain. "Strength an' survival ain't the same thing, my lord," he murmured, each word measured, like he had to think them through before he dared speak them. "Ye've stepped bold, aye, but the North is a knot o' feuds an' debts. Different from the South but not where it matters. Ye pull one string too hard, an' it all tightens round our throats."
Ivar latched onto that immediately, fingers drumming against the table too fast, like he couldn't sit still. "Aye," he cut in, voice sharp with the edge of nerves. "Ye think just 'cause the Boltons were hated, that means folk'll cheer? I'm sorry, m'lord, but they won't. Umbers, Karstarks, Ryswells, Dustins—they've all got reckonings t' make, an' none of 'em'll be pleased t' see ye decidin' what's what. They might've hated the Flayed Man, but they knew him." His throat bobbed. "Ye ain't them. An' that makes ye worse."
Greg let the silence settle. slow. heavy. the weight of the room pressing in as he watched Ivar—just watched him—until the man looked down, fingers curling against the edge of the table.
Good.
Near the hearth, Ash stretched out, the slow, deliberate movement drawing flickering shadows over his dark fur. His ears flicked once as Greg exhaled through his nose. "Let them come."
Eren tensed across from him.
Brennor let out a low breath, rubbing his knuckles over his jaw. "Bold words, m'lord." He didn't sound doubtful.
Greg leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. "Then we won't wait," he said. "We make sure they know what coming here costs."
Ivar swallowed hard and the man's voice dipped lower. "This ain't just one house ye're speakin' of, m'lord," he said. "Ye press 'em too hard, the North'll close ranks, an' once they do—"
Greg tilted his head, eyes still locked on Ivar's.
"—no words'll open 'em again," Ivar finished, voice faltering.
There it is.
Greg let the quiet stretch again, the slow rise and fall of his breath the only movement. Then, with the same even weight, he asked, "So what?"
Ivar blinked.
"They'll send assassins?" Greg asked, voice flat. "Already dealt with that."
He held up a hand and ticked off the next point. "Burn villages? They already have. Sit around talking about what should be done while their people die?" He let his hand drop, slow, deliberate. "I've seen what these lords think of their own people. They'd rather slit throats and use them to appease other, more powerful lords, than help them."
Greg sat back in his chair. "If they come, they come. But I won't sit here waiting for them to decide whether we live or die." He raised a hand lazily and pointed it towards the hearth. A silent and small Igni — barely more than sparks — shot from his fingers and the hearth crackled again, burning brighter.
Ivar swallowed again, Tybald's eyes widening in time with the sound.
Eren shifted in his seat, mouth pressing into a thin line. Not disagreement. Not quite agreement, either.
But Brennor—
Brennor was smiling. Just a little.
It wasn't humor. Greg didn't doubt that if he knew what a salute was, the man would probably be snapping one off right now.
Tybald coughed, shifting, the motion slow, heavy. "Boldness has its place, m'lord," the maester murmured. "But so does caution. The north is not forgiving."
Greg tapped his fingers once against the table.
His grip tightened.
He didn't look at them when he spoke.
"Neither am I," he said.
His voice was quiet. "Neither am I."
The Brightfort's walls shone clean in the northern sun, sharp as a blade's edge, but the air in the guard hall was thick—sweat, iron, leather, the old bite of blood worked so deep into stone that no scrubbing would ever quite pull it free.
Greg stepped through the heavy wooden door, boots striking hard against the floor in an unhurried rhythm. Ash padded at his side, a hulking shadow with mismatched eyes that swept the gathered men like a silent judge. Shiro followed close behind, flitting from the rafters to Greg's shoulder in a blur of white feathers.
The room changed the moment he entered.
Voices died mid-sentence. The scrape of a whetstone against steel paused, half-done. More than three hundred men packed this hall alone—some barely past sixteen, drowning in armor too big for them; others lined and grizzled, their bodies cut with the memory of battles too old to be worth telling. Some were veterans of the Dreadfort's fall, their faces set like old war banners, unmoved by blood. Stll, these were the first ones to join up with him.
All of them looked at him like he was something more than what he was.
Greg hated it.
But he stepped forward anyway.
"I'm not good at speeches."
A few chuckles, quiet but real. The tension cracked, just a little.
"But I owe you one."
Greg let his eyes settle on them, not just scanning, but seeing—the hollow-eyed soldier with a scar that cut too deep into his temple, the boy who had wept when they pulled his father from the Dreadfort's rubble, the ones who still looked at him like they were waiting for something worse to come.
"You fought harder than any man had a right to ask of you," he said, voice steady. "Harder than I thought was even possible. Some of you—" He swallowed, barely a pause. "Some of you, I pulled back from the brink. Others, we lost."
The silence in the hall thickened as a few heads bowed. No one spoke.
"But you stayed," Greg went on, voice sharper now, cutting through the quiet. "You bled. You made this place ours." His jaw tightened. "The Boltons are done. The Dreadfort is ours."
The murmur that rose was low at first building until Greg raised a hand, cutting it off before it could break.
"I swore you'd have food. Homes. Coin in your hand." His eyes swept the room, steady. "That wasn't just war talk."
"Aye, but words are wind," a man called from near the hearth.
A blue-eyed gaze flicked to him. He didn't know his name but Greg knew that he was one of the older men—a former Bolton levy who had no love for them..
"Then you'll have your proof," Greg said, even. "The stores in the keep have already been counted. Every man who fought gets a share. No one who stood with me will go hungry." He let the words settle before he spoke again. "The Brightfort's town is yours to live in."
He let that settle, watching them as they all stared with wide eyes. The weight in the room wasn't silence, not really—it was waiting. Holding. The kind of quiet that came before the first crack of thunder.
"But I need to ask one more thing."
No one moved. No one spoke.
Greg exhaled, slow. "Will you fight with me again?"
It wasn't an order.
He didn't need to raise his voice as he let the words drop.
"Because this isn't over. Not by a long shot." His hands curled at his sides, but his voice stayed steady. "The lords fear men like us—men who won't kneel. They'll protect the likes of Roose Bolton, let his bastard son ride down your kin and call it justice, so long as it keeps their tables full and their sons safe." His eyes swept the room, meeting theirs. "But they don't fear him anymore. They fear us."
The hearth crackled. Someone shifted. Leather creaked.
Greg took a breath. "Will you fight for what's right?"
For a moment, nothing. Just the firelight playing over worn faces, over scars and rough hands curled into fists.
Then—movement.
A chair scraped against stone. A man stood. Grizzled, shoulders squared, hands steady even as his jaw worked. His voice was iron. "We're with ye, Lord Veder."
Greg barely had time to take it in before another stood.
"Aye, with ye."
Then another. And another.
The noise grew, swelling like a tide, rolling through the hall until it rattled the walls, until it was felt more than heard, thick as smoke, solid as steel.
Greg nodded once, short. No flourish, no ceremony.
Just a step back, turning toward the doors as the roar of his men carried behind him. It wasn't pride sitting in his chest. Not really. It was heavier than that, thicker, like something had been set on his shoulders, and now he had to carry it.
Trust.
He could feel it pressing at his ribs, more solid than any armor he'd ever worn.
And that was the problem.
Trust meant expectations. Expectations meant responsibility.
And responsibility? That's where shit got messy.
He exhaled through his nose, rolling his shoulders as he stepped into the courtyard. There was something he could do, at least—Still got that gear. His power had dropped three things into his lap: a set of armor, a kite shield, and a longsword. He had no real use for any of them—his own armor and sword were already enchanted to hell and back, and he didn't need a shield when he could just make one whenever he wanted.
Daeric and Brennor can each take one, he thought, filing it away in the mental list of shit he needed to deal with. But Eren's gonna be stuck with office work, so… who's number three?
The morning air was sharp, edged with winter even as the sun fought to burn through the cold. Men moved in every direction—some hauling the last of the bodies out past the gates, some scrubbing blood from the stones. The clang of hammers rang out from the smithy. Someone barked orders near the stables.
Greg leaned against the Brightfort's outer wall, arms crossing over his chest as his gaze swept the yard.
A few feet away, Guts stood like a damn statue, his massive sword slung over his shoulder like it weighed nothing. The man barely looked like he belonged in the North, with his dark armor, and the sheer size of him — seriously, most of the people he'd seen in Westeros were barely up to his chin — but then again, he had heard stories of some giant guy called the Mountain who was even taller than Guts apparently and some old paladin called Barristan and even a knight called Duncan, who was also really fucking tall. Guess all the adventurers are down South. He wiped a finger below his nose. Even the king was apparently some fuck-huge guy with a giant warhammer or something.
Greg exhaled, watching the way the men still looked at him.
The way their gazes lingered. "They look at me like I'm a demigod or something," he spoke out loud, rubbing a hand over his face. It made his skin itch. "Like I'm not even human anymore."
Guts shifted, rolling his shoulder like something in it ached. The smirk tugging at his mouth was more knowing than amused. "You're surprised, are you?" His voice was rough, words dragging like a whetstone on steel. "You fight like a mad bastard, run like you've got wings on your feet, drag men back from deaths door, and there's a dragon thing followin' you around like a trained hound. What'd you think they'd see?"
Greg let out a slow breath, shaking his head. "Not what I want." His fingers curled into his sleeves, nails pressing into the cloth. "I want them to trust me. Not… worship me."
Guts didn't answer right away. He just studied him, eyes dark and steady in a way Greg had learned meant he was thinking, really thinking, like he was weighing something out in his head.
Then, quieter—almost absentmindedly, like he wasn't sure he meant to say it—"Trust comes with time. Respect, though…"
Greg glanced at him. "What?"
Guts's smirk had faded. He was looking past Greg now, like he was seeing something else. "Had a friend once. Or thought I did. Griffith." The name sat heavy in the air, like an axe driven into wood. "Prettiest fucker you've ever seen, wouldn't doubt at least one noble lady tried to have him killed out of jealousy."
The blond blinked as he craned his head to look up at Guts, eyes narrowed and mouth half-open. "...oookay?"
Guts didn't seem to notice, though. "Followed him for years. Thought he was worth it. Thought we were the same." His jaw tightened for half a second, then loosened again. "But he didn't see me as a friend. Just a sword he could point."
Greg frowned. "And you left."
"Aye." Guts huffed, gaze flicking back to him. "Those men of yours, they know you respect 'em. Even if they can't hold a fuckin' candle to me or you."
Greg's mouth twitched, some of the weight in his chest shifting. "Respect?" He parroted the word, tilting his head like he was rolling it over in his skull. "That's earned in blood." His lip curled, wry. "And I've got plenty of that to spare."
Guts snorted. "You don't say."
Greg shook his head, some of the tension in his shoulders easing. "You think they don't do the same to you?" He gestured vaguely at the slab of steel slung over Guts's back. The thing looked like it had been meant to kill castles, not people. "Walkin' around with that like it's a damn battering ram?"
The smirk widened. "Fair point," Guts admitted. "Dragon Slayer tends to leave an impression."
Greg let out a sudden laugh, raw and unfiltered. It cut through something tight in his ribs, left him feeling lighter, at least for a moment. "Yeah, I bet."
A soft huff of breath near his hip made him glance down just in time to see Ash padding up to them, claws clicking against the stone. The not-quite-bear sat heavily beside him, his massive frame settling like a stone pillar. But his red eyes weren't on Greg. They were locked on Guts's sword, head tilting, ears flicking forward, his muscles shifting like he was—
Greg raised an eyebrow. "No way."
Ash made a noise in his direction — like an insulting yawn — followed by a chuffing sound that was clearly some sort of, Man, I can't have any fun.
Greg snorted and reached out, scratching behind one of Ash's ears—only to pause.
His fingers brushed against something new.
Huh.
Two small nubs of black scales, just barely pushing up from the top of Ash's skull.
Horns.
Greg's lips pressed together. That was new. A half second later, he shook his head. Something for later.
"Don't even think about it," he muttered, giving Ash a firm pat on the head. The little beast huffed but didn't look away from the absurdly massive blade.
Guts chuckled, deep in his chest. "If he wants a swing, he's welcome to try."
The gates of the Brightfort groaned as they swung open, heavy iron and oak moving with the slow, grinding reluctance of something long at rest. The wind swept in sharp and cutting, sending loose snow swirling across the stones, biting at exposed skin.
But the people of Frostfall pushed forward, hunched against the cold, their footsteps steady.
Greg stood at the entrance, watching as they trickled in. Less than two hundred.
They had packed what they could onto carts, dragging what was left of their lives behind weary horses, moving like ghosts through the pass. Their faces were drawn, hollowed by exhaustion, but their eyes—when they met his—held something else.
This wasn't the way soldiers looked at him. It wasn't the awe, the reverence, the unease that came with watching a man do the impossible. These people had made a choice.
Even still, they stepped through the gates hesitantly, mouths open and eyes wide as they stared at the massive white stone walls surrounding them and each and every one of the Brightfort's tall spires.
Greg exhaled slowly, rolling his shoulders as he watched them enter the main courtyard of the keep.
Ash sat at his feet, tail curled over his paws, his glowing red eyes tracking the newcomers, unblinking. Gwenna stood at the front of the group, arms crossed, her breath curling white in the air, saying nothing as she stared.
He let them pass, let the moment stretch as they walked forward to meet him. Then, when the last cart had rolled over the threshold, his voice cut through the cold.
"Eren."
The younger man was already there, lingering near the gate. He straightened at the call, stiff-backed.
"Aye, m'lord?"
Greg let his gaze sweep over the crowd again before he spoke. "See they have what they need. Food. Warmth. Space of their own. They're my people." His voice didn't rise, but the words carried.
Eren didn't hesitate. "Aye. I'll see to it."
Greg barely acknowledged the answer, already scanning the faces again. The old men leaning on canes, the women clutching children bundled in too-thin furs, the boys carrying more than their weight in supplies. They had made it.
But Frostfall was half what it had been.
He exhaled, barely aware he'd spoken aloud when the words left him. "They're my people."
The Brightfort loomed behind him, its white stone clean and bright even under the dull northern sky, the blue of its rooftops standing stark against the gray. It didn't feel like the Dreadfort. There were no shadows lurking in its halls, no ghosts clinging to its walls. But it was a place won with and by blood, and that weight settled deep in his chest as he watched the villagers step cautiously through the gates, their shoulders tensed like they were waiting for something to go wrong.
They had spent too many years knowing places like this weren't meant for people like them.
This was different. But that was something they would have to see for themselves.
The murmurs rose, hushed words passing between them as they took in the towering walls. He caught flashes of them—low voices, uncertain tones. The old stories still lingered. The Dreadfort's name had stretched long and far, and even with its stones scrubbed clean, even with its halls filled with new voices, some ghosts wouldn't be so easily buried.
Then Gwenna spoke, finally stepping closer, her red hair catching in the wind as she smiled in his face, her cheeks pink from the cold.
"It's beautiful," she said simply, her gaze sweeping over the spires.
Greg glanced at her as the corners of his mouth rose.
"It's home now," he said. He let the air stretch between them before he spoke again.
"Your home."
Gerda wasn't far behind her daughter, the busty woman moving through the courtyard with the same sharp-eyed wariness she always carried.
But there was something different about her today.
She was smiling.
Greg barely kept his expression from twisting in confusion. Gerda was kind, sure, but she was still a Northern woman, and that came with a certain bluntness, a kind of hard-edged pragmatism that had nothing to do with cruelty and everything to do with surviving in a place that spent a hundred percent of the time with temperatures below freezing. Even before her husband had died, she'd carried herself like someone who expected to be screwed over eventually. And after?
Well. Trust hadn't come easy for her.
So she had never been openly hostile to him, but she had never been warm, either.
Not like this.
And then—
She curtsied.
Greg blinked. Okay. That's new.
"Milord," she said, dipping her head, and for half a second, she looked exactly like Gwenna. Same striking green eyes, same high cheekbones, though hers were more lined, her auburn hair streaked with silver where Gwenna's was still bright.
Greg barely caught himself from frowning. His fingers flexed at his sides, shoulders rolling back as he let out a slow breath. "Didn't expect you this early," he said, words measured. The question he didn't ask was clear enough. How?
Gerda's smile dimmed, something heavier settling in its place. Her fingers curled into the edges of her cloak as she exhaled.
"We had the thought they might come for us again if we stayed," she said. "So we packed up and followed after. Village to village, slow, but steady. If ye won, we'd be at your side. If ye lost…" Her mouth tightened. "Weren't long for this world, simple as."
Gwenna nodded beside her, arms crossed tight over her chest.
Greg let that settle.
"Okay," he said, after a second. "Huh."
Gerda's lips pressed together.
Her eyes flicked to Gwenna for a moment, then back to him. "Was good that we did," she admitted, voice lower now, like speaking it too loud might make it worse. "We heard the village—Frostfall—was burnt not long after we left. Likely to hide the bodies."
Greg's stomach clenched.
Of course Roose Bolton had made sure there was nothing left. The bastard had always been too smart to leave loose ends.
His jaw tightened, fingers twitching toward the hilt of his sword before he forced himself to still. He could feel Gwenna watching him, waiting.
"Of course," he muttered. "Of course they did."
—
The Brightfort had several kitchens, apparently, though Greg hadn't bothered to figure out where all of them were. This one, at least, was empty—quiet in the way that only thick stone walls could make a place feel, the air still even with the faint glow of a dying hearth in the corner. He leaned against a long wooden table, arms crossed, watching Gwenna with the kind of focus that was half-intentional, half-something he didn't really want to think too hard about.
The castle at night barely made a sound. It didn't sit right with him. A place this big, with this many people, shouldn't feel this empty when the sun went down. Maybe it was the walls, maybe it was just him. Didn't matter.
Right now, the person he was focused on stood a few feet away, brow furrowed, lips pressed together, the tip of her tongue just barely visible between her teeth.
In front of her, a wooden cup sat untouched.
A shimmer flickered in the air between them.
A translucent blue hand formed—thin, unsteady, its fingers curling awkwardly around the handle. The thing wobbled in place, jerking slightly before lifting, hovering in the air with all the grace of a half-drunk chicken. A few drops of water sloshed over the rim as it drifted toward him.
Greg caught it before she could accidentally chuck it at his head.
"Thanks," he said, taking a sip, trying not to smirk. "See? Way more useful than setting things on fire."
Gwenna flushed immediately, her eyes darting away as she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. The dragon-shaped ring on her finger caught the light, brushing her cheek. "I'm still learnin', m'lord," she muttered.
Greg's fingers tightened around the cup.
There it was again. That fucking hesitation.
She didn't say his name that often anymore. He wasn't sure exactly why. She occasionally did but sometimes... sometimes she pulled back.
To be fair, he pulled back too.
It was hard for him not to.
After all...
His hand flicked down to the silver dragon ring on her finger and exhaled through his nose, forcing himself to keep his tone light. "You don't have to call me that when it's just us."
Her mouth pressed into a thin line, like she was thinking about it, but she didn't say anything.
Greg rolled his shoulders, tipping the cup toward her in a silent toast and decided to ignore that. "Seriously, you're doin' great, though. From what I've heard, most people can't even lift a feather, let alone a cup."
Her blush deepened, but this time, she didn't look away.
"Well… ye did give me a magic ring," she said, tilting her chin slightly, voice almost teasing. "That helps, don't it?"
Greg huffed, half a laugh, half something else. "Sure. But that's just a tool. You're the one actually doin' it."
His gaze flicked to the ring on her finger—his ring.
Still there.
The dragon's head gleamed in the dim firelight, metal bright and solid against her skin.
Just like the weirwood necklace she had given him was still sitting against his collarbone, warm where it rested under his shirt.
Neither of them had taken them off.
Gwenna shifted, weight moving from one foot to the other. She was looking at him now, really looking at him, like she was trying to read something in his face.
Greg swallowed, fingers tapping absently against the side of the cup. He could still remember what her hands felt like, gripping his wrist, pressing something small and carved into his palm the day he left Frostfall. She hadn't let go until the last second.
Two months.
That was how long her marriage had lasted before her husband died.
It wasn't long, not really, but it was still something.
It was something Greg had never really let himself think about. Not when he was fighting, not when he was running, not even when he was trying to sleep in his castle.
He didn't want to think about it much. After all, it's not like he hadn't done anything. But the thing with Hyla... that wasn't... He had liked it but that was basically prostitution and...
It wasn't anything compared to marriage.
And he had only done it onc-
Greg frowned. Okay. He had only done it a few times... that he could remember.
Two months, though. He couldn't imagine how many times... he refused to.
But now—
Now she was standing in front of him again, close enough that he could see the way her pulse jumped at the base of her throat. Close enough that he could see the faintest hitch in her breathing when he didn't look away.
Close enough that if he wanted to do something, he could.
If he wasn't so fucking aware of the fact that she had been someone else's wife.
Gwenna licked her lips, and for half a second, he thought she was going to say something.
She didn't.
Instead, she just held his gaze, fingers curling slightly at her sides, and Greg—Greg wasn't sure what the hell he was supposed to do with that.
So he just lifted the cup again, like the conversation was normal, like this was normal, and took another slow sip.
Her mouth twitched.
She didn't look away.
—
The maester's study smelled.
Greg didn't know what of—mold, dust, damp parchment, maybe something worse—but he knew it was clinging to his clothes already. The air was thick, still, stale in a way that made it feel like the room hadn't been aired out in a hundred years.
Even with the magical makeover, Tybald still reeked.
Greg stood across from him, arms crossed, watching as the fat man turned the thick, yellowed pages of a book so ancient it looked like it would crumble if he breathed on it too hard. The candlelight flickered against the stone walls, casting long shadows over the heavy wooden desk between them. Tybald's hands trembled as he smoothed the parchment flat, his breath rasping in his throat.
"House Veder." Ivar had asked him about House Veder, if he intended to place his house's sigil and words on the new banners. That had stopped him short. Since when did I actually have a house?
Greg's voice was steady, even. Not a question. A statement.
"You've heard of it."
The maester hesitated. His fingers stilled on the page. Then, slowly, he adjusted his chains, movements careful, deliberate, like a man handling something sharp.
"Rumors, m-my lord," he admitted, voice thin, wheezing. "Nothing c-concrete." He swallowed, eyes flicking toward Greg like he expected him to lash out. "It is said they were an old Northern house, their seat once near the White Knife. But they were wiped out long ago—over a thousand years, if the stories hold any truth."
Greg frowned, shifting his weight slightly. "Why?"
Tybald licked his lips, gaze flicking down to the page. "Their ideals, perhaps," the man said finally. "Honor, justice and fairness were not… valued in the North of that time. They were a house out of place."
Greg exhaled through his nose, studying him. "How'd they end up…?"
The maester turned another page, fingers moving slowly over brittle parchment. "Some say their last few members fled beyond the Wall," he murmured. "Seeking refuge from their enemies. But such tales are difficult to verify, especially when they stretch back so far."
Greg's jaw tightened.
A house that valued honor, fairness—exterminated. He bit back a scoff. Sounds about right for this fucking hellhole.
"Keep looking," he said.
Tybald flinched slightly. "O-of course, my lord," he stammered.
Greg didn't respond. He just turned on his heel and walked out.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
The snow fell softly, covering the Brightfort in white.
Greg stood atop the battlements, cloak pulled tight around his shoulders, the cold biting at the edges of his exposed skin. The air was sharp, clean, the kind of cold that settled deep in the lungs. Below him, the keep stretched out in quiet stillness—unnaturally so. Even with a thousand people moving through its halls, the Brightfort barely felt alive at night.
Beside him, Ash padded silently, the massive beast's glowing red eyes scanning the horizon. Shiro perched on Greg's shoulder, the small white bird chirping softly as he nestled against his neck. He was bigger now. He hadn't been small before, but now he was the size of a full-grown rooster, his talons digging into Greg's cloak for balance.
Greg lifted a hand absently, brushing his fingers over the bird's feathers, but his thoughts were elsewhere.
The North was preparing for war.
He could feel it in the air, in the whispers that moved through the halls, in the tension tightening in his men's shoulders. War wasn't just coming—it was already here.
Greg's fingers curled slightly around the hilt of his sword. The steel was cool beneath his palm, familiar, steady.
He didn't feel fear.
His lips parted slightly, breath curling in the cold night air as his voice came low. Steady.
"Let them come."
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
