Breakfast
"Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different than it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing into a heavenly creature or a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other"-CS Lewis
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Four figures stood in the darkness. The Hero, the Damsel, the Corpse Woman and the Golden Man. The former of the two on the edge, the border. The latter of the two well within the Outer Darkness. The only light being the glowing shine of the Hero's sword, and barely visible hue of dimming fires. The fires seemed miles away for the Hero and Damsel. Yet for the corpses, they were ever close, ever near, never going out and never glowing. No, instead they were black. Dark flames.
For that was the nature of this place. The fires never went out, and they constantly burned. Yet it was cold, dark, empty. Draw too near to the fire and the scorching sting would consume you completely. Go too far and the cold would take you too. Sometimes the flames would burn its victims with frostbite. Sometimes the empty would bake its occupants like an oven. For that was the nature of this place.
The Hero could feel a slight warming sensation in his gloved hand. A slight cut upon his temple. Old wounds reopening. Every time he heard the word 'bastard'. Every time he caught Lady Stark's glare.
For the old wounds never healed.
"Stay back, Sansa… Move to my other side" he whispered. The image before him was abhorrent. He did not believe wights could exist in such a place as this. The idea of the Master of the House permitting such abominations seemed alien, opposite of His nature. But what did Jon know? Nothing. Nothing about the Voice nor the Voice's nature.
Below them, as far as the eye can see was a field of bones. If he looked down he could maybe see the souls in puddles, moaning in agony. But he did not look down. That he refused to do. He kept a level head, stayed focus on what was immediate. Sansa still hadn't moved.
"Move!" he jerked her off his arm. Quickly she scuttled behind him. Clutching the back of his shirt.
The Hero made his sister move for two reasons. One, so he would be able to swing his sword freely should the undead ever make a move. Two, so that Sansa could not be made able to behold the unclean sight. The bastard recognized the malice in those eyes.
He had no way of knowing who the corpse was. It's flesh bloated, burnt and rotten. Maybe the recognition was just a trick of the mind. But he would make sure there was no recognition on Sansa's part. Not if he could help it.
The hero stared the corpse down. It was not like any of the wights he had encountered before. It's eyes bore a red glow.
"Free me! Savegbnmff!-" Hollered the Golden Man. The Hero moved forward and pointed his sword. The sword glowed aflame. Its shadow burnt the shape of a cross into the ground. From the handle to the guard to the blade to the tip. A light shining in the darkness.
"You can understand me- can't you? Release that man!" The Hero shouted.
At this sight, and the sound of his words, the Corpse Woman hissed and shrunk back. But so did the Golden Knight too. In terror. As if his very voice was damaging to their ears.
"Stay back! Away from me Stark! Always looking down on me! Always thinking you're better than me! What would you know?! Well, I can help myself! I don't need your pity!" The golden knight wrestled with the rope around his neck, bashing the stub where his hand used to be against it.
"If not me, then let me fetch the Master of this keep. Surely he would have mercy on you?!" Jon pleaded. It was sad, as he watched Jaime Lannister flail. Every time it seemed like he was finally going to expire, his face purple, he would somehow lift himself up catching air. He should hate this man, but he wouldn't wish this nightmare on anyone. Both the Kingslayer and Lady Stark looked almost pitiful, almost pathetic in this way. If not except for their ghoulish features.
The air in this region tasted like sulfur. At the mention of the Master, both the Golden Man and Corpse Woman looked with terror. The Corpse Woman pointed her decrepit finger and hissed. The Golden Man yelped.
"The Master?! The Master of the house?! Who do you think brought me here? It's his fault! His fault I am the way I am! His fault I don't have my hand! He judged me guilty, he had his guards cast me down into this pit! He must've been the one to send you here! To mock me! It's not fair, you're no better than I! Oathbreaker! Adulterer!"
How would he know? Wondered the hero. It did not cross his mind he was being mistaken for his father. It mattered not. For just as his father was married to Catelyn Tully, the son was married to the Watch. And they both broke their vows for the bedside of a strange woman.
The Corpse Woman continued her hissing, though this time words came out. "Traitor. Family… Family… Duty- No honor- traitor" Is she calling me a traitor? Or saying Lord Stark betrayed her and her family? It did not cross his mind, the accusations were hurled at his sister, who could still very well see all around them.
"I want to leave Jon. I want to leave. I want to leave now" The Damsel muttered like a prayer. She kept repeating it. "Take me away. I want to leave this place. Never return here again." She pulled his shirt. And suddenly they were gone.
•
They were in a clearing, with a pool. Looking around there were trees with strange fruit. The grass was soft.
"A taste to what is to come." A voice boomed. "A taste of what is to come" The same voice whispered. And lastly it repeated itself once more, in a more level tone. "A taste of what is to come. If you stay dead."
The boy and the girl turned, and beheld the ferryman, the coach driver who brought them to this strange place. A plate laid before them in the grass, in it the most most luscious fruit they'd have ever beheld. Jon hadn't as much experience having never gone South. Yet it was unlike anything Sansa had ever seen. And Jon knew in his heart there was none like it in all of Westeroes. It shimmered as if it was made of pure gold.
"You've stolen from the Master's orchard." The driver spoke up.
Suddenly the grass was hard, sharp. He'd of thought he stepped through a nail, though when he looked at his feet he still wore boots.
"How?" Jon replied offended.
"Look"
They saw the fruit again, this time there were bites taken out of it. And they knew they were guilty for they were covered in its juice. Their clothes and faces stained.
"We didn't know." Protested Sansa. "How could we know?" Her cheeks were turning the same color as her hair.
"You have broken the law." The voice whispered.
The pair looked at the fruit again. And a worm popped its ugly little head out of it. And rapidly the fruit decayed. No more was it appetizing. It became disgusting. It was stale, expired. Rotten in every way imaginable. It reminded the children of that dark place they had seen. They had been in. Sansa threw up. Jon could feel the bile in his own throat rising.
"wh-" He spat. ""What must we do to make restitution?"
"Nothing can be done."
"So we are damned? Doomed to that eternal torment?"
"You are at The Master's mercy."
"Well I don't want to die. I don't want to die forever and ever" She protested. Jon had already died once, he was in agreement of not wanting to again.
"You've already been dead. For some time in fact. Long before either one of you ever thought you were"
Jon spoke up now "Is there anyway… to be clean of this" Both him and Sansa had vomited out pieces of the apple. They felt dirty. They felt sick.
The coachman smiled, as if this was the reaction he was waiting for. Like a father teaching a child.
"Drink of the fountain. Be washed in it. And you may live again."
•
Dany eyed the girl next to her warily. The Tyrells were social climbers, fair weather friends. The Targaryen Queen was attempting to admire the art of the room they were loitering in. She was attempting to do so in silence. But the blabbering mouth beside her was ruining that.
"It truly is inspiring to meet another so like myself, a woman ruling in a man's world"
One painting was a shepherd, carrying a wounded sheep over its shoulders. The painting even smelled of grass and blood. She was reminded of her own children, back home.
"And one of my own age too!" Tyrell's voice was high pitched, grating on the ears.
The next painting was very interesting to Dany. It was a city under siege, the throne of the city was wrapped in the tail of a great dragon. The symbol of her house. Its denizens were drinking, merrymaking and getting up to all sorts of debauchery. They looked part human, part beast. The soldiers outside were led by a king. And all of his men were clean, orderly and almost angelic looking. A closer look revealed the King had the same face as the Shepherd. It was titled 'War for Mansoul'
"Oh, what a shame we must be on opposing sides! Must we truly be opposed? Our houses were great allies once, why, my own father-" for all her enthusiasm, did the brunette not realize that her words needed to sound sincere for her enthusiasm to matter?
The next portrait held sort of half savage, half civilized. The person's clothes split into too. It was moving! Did Tyrell not even notice it was moving? No- the poor girl did. She just did not have the grit to deal with the supernatural. Her own brother's disappearance has taken away what little imagined safety she had left.
The Targaryen felt like a child somewhat, watching the picture with curiosity.
The person, for one minute it was a man, the next replaced by a woman. Half naked savage and half dressed as a member of nobility. The person hunted an boar. Skinned it. Wore its fur for warmth. Built a fire with sticks and rock. It then cooked its meat over the fire, drunk the blood as a drink, and built a shrine. Made of the animal's carcass, the sticks and the stones. And as the man, then the woman prayed to this makeshift god, they both choked on their own food and fell into the fire together.
"Oh thank the Seven! My sweet lady Sansa! Lord Commander! You're back!" Tyrell ran off, leaving Daenerys alone.
•
"But the rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons, and idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk. And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts."
— Revelation 9:20-21 (NKJV)
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Welcome back friends. It's been awhile. That's life I guess. I hope this chapter didn't filter out too many of y'all. If you've read my other works, I do take heavy influences from Christianity. My AOT fic after all was heavily influenced by Calvinism. This story in particular I wanted to borrow a lot from the Middle Ages, specifically high church theology and Platonic philosophy. There's even a line here that I plucked from a very famous piece of Medieval literature, comment if you recognize it.
I was a tad heavy handed with the allegory. Not even sure if we can call it allegory after all that. But as I've said before, I like allegorical books and I'm not a very good author. It's a bit ironic. ASOIAF was written as a refutation, or rejection of Lord of the Rings and Tolkien's 'medieval' view of things. The show especially was very anti religion. Here I am, writing a christian medieval fanfiction defense back, I think GRRM would doubly hate it due to his loathing of fanfiction in general. Nevertheless, it doesn't matter since him and HBO will never ever see this I don't think.
If you liked this story, make sure to follow, favorite and review. If you didn't well, I dunno. Go outside and stop reading fanfics I guess. Better yet, we should all be looking for adventure outside the digital world anyways. There is more to life than materialism, more to life than dopamine rushes and escapism.