...POV: Dalton Waters...
Cold and wind, darkness and snow-covered trees, that is all That exists here, WHY does anyone live here? The crownlands had much more agreeable weather, Why did Bran the builder didn't put everyone on the other side of the fucking wall, and seal the fucking thing?
"Hurry up Dalton or we leave your arse behind!" someone shouts from the front of the marching column.
"I'm going!" I shouted, looking at the ranging party, two other brothers, Bryce and Ronan, and the First Ranger, Benjen Stark, and three of those things.
"First ranger, why we are here?" Bryce asked warming his hands with his breath, The First Ranger sighed.
"Once again Bryce, we are here to scout and see what is happening, why there are so many tribes moving about, and try and find what Mance is doing."
"Yeah, but why us?" the first ranger looked at Bryce with a raised eyebrow.
"We are the rangers of the night watch if not us, then who?"
"I know, I know, just complaining," Bryce sight as he said.
"As always!" Ronan says from the front.
"Fuck you," he says back
"Alright pipe down, We soon will arrive at the location of the tribe, We are here just to take a look, from afar, no need to draw attention to us," The first ranger explained the plan.
"Not draw attention? with these three fuckers over there?" he points at the nightguard as we are calling them.
"Funny, I don't remember you complaining when they stay guard at night, or when they carry the baggage."
Is a bit embarrassing when he puts it like that, but they are fucking weird.
They don't sleep, don't tire, don't complain. That is bad enough but to make it worse, they come from Moat Cailin, which by itself is enough to earn suspicion, that the demonic sorcerer is up to no good.
We never had a lot of recruits, but these last months, we receive a lot of those armoured freaks and little to no men.
"They are part of the Watch, like or not, and is better to have them with us than not."
...
"So I am not an authority on wildlings but... something is not right here," Bryce says.
We all lying on the snow some distance from the tribe location, The First Ranger passed the Myrish glass to me, and I looked through and saw the camp.
Is empty, with no one in sight, just the huts, there is still some kind of animal above the fireplace, the fire is long gone.
"Should we... you know... go there check?" I ask uncertainly.
"I say we count our blessings and thank the gods for removing a tribe of those animals from this place." Bryce makes his opinion known.
"Yes, we go check," the First Ranger says as he gets up and unsheats his sword. "Be prepared for anything."
We unsheath our swords, and we make our way to the desert camp.
As we entered the place, we were received by a silence so thoroughly that even nature was quiet, which was deeply disturbing, no wind, no distant howl, nothing.
The cold was more bitter here, it cut through our pelts our flesh and our bone.
"Look into the huts," the First Ranger all but whispered but I could hear it clear in this silence, the only sound that break this silence is the creaking of the armours of our companions.
I entered one of the huts, to check, but inside there was nothing out of expectations, pelts and fur, bones, some wood for carving, and some rudimentary weapons.
I leave the hut, I see Ronan leave the one in front, he looks at me and shrugs his shoulders silently, I walk to the next hut, more of the same, everything as expected with no disturbances, like they just got up and left all behind.
I leave again and I hear an "Over here!" coming from one of the huts, I run to the voice sword in hand, and I see Ronan and Bryce leaving the huts They are inside and running with me to the hut the voice came from.
As we arrive close to the hut, we can see the First Ranger kneeling by the entrance of the hut, We can see the red that tarnishes the white of the snow around the tent, blood, As we stop in front of the tent, the cold that comes from it is numbing, I feel my fingers freezing under the gloves and my toes under my boots, my lip break and the air becomes painful to breathe, is almost seem to be ice shards in the wind.
"W-What is... this?" I manage to wheeze out.
"I don't know." The first Ranger gives the worst answer I could receive, Bryce, Rolan and I are in a bad state, but the First Ranger seems the least affected by all this.
In front of us on a nightmarish spiral, are the limbs and bodies of many men, women and children.
One of the children seems to be looking straight at me with its dead blue eyes, I see it blink, I can't breathe, I can't breathe.
The terror that fills me with difficulty to breath becomes too much and I drop my sword and start to run away, not even outside of the triI stumble unto something and fall face first into the snow, As I rise from the ground bile comes up my throat and I vomit on the ground.
I feel a heavy hand on my shoulder it starts to push me, I feel so disoriented that I can barely resist, and soon enough darkness takes over my vision like a cold embrace.
...Pov: Daenerys Targaryen(Alisa)...
I feel the sorcerer's hand pass through my hair, from the top of my head to the tips of it, I can see a faint light coming from behind me as his hand move through my hair.
"It's done." I hear him say.
I look behind at his face, Captain Bradburn and Gibbs are looking as well, and he points to the river water, I run to it and take a look at my reflection, it's me but with red hair! It looks so pretty!
"GIBBS! GIBBS! Look at my hair!" I ran to him, I like Gibbs, he is so nice and he taught me how to sail, more or less, I have a lot to learn.
"You look very beautiful, Alisa," he says with a kind smile.
"I still don't know why you would do that, my lord, white hair is perfectly normal," Bradburn said to Lord Palestars.
"Better safe than sorry, it's a temporary thing."
Well, my good fellows, I will let you do your work, Come, Alisa, I have someone to introduce to you." He gets up and starts to walk to one of the buildings, There is a lot of construction happening here, Lord Palestars said that this would be a trading post or a port for his ships, so they are building a lot.
"Since you accepted my offer, You will learn how to sail and command a vessel from both Gibbs and Captain Bradburn, but I want to see if you can be something more." Lord Palestar say.
"M-more?" I stutter, he still makes me nervous.
"Yes, more but first we have a promise to make," he says as we approach the big temple, The sailors say that lord Palestars killed a devil and took the temple for the old gods.
As we enter inside a golden light bathes the whole place, Many men are kneeling and the ground hands clasped or on their laps, there is a comforting silence and a warm atmosphere inside this place.
At the end of the hall, the origin of the golden light is made clear by a big white tree, that has a stone face coming out of its bark and is glowing, well the leaves are glowing golden. Lord Palestars approach it and I follow.
The closer to the tree we get, the stronger the feeling gets stronger, I feel happy, genuinely happy, I feel like when I was in the house house in Braavos again, the image of the tree gets blurred and tears start to fall from my eyes.
I feel a light hand on my shoulder It gently pushes me forward, towards the altar in front of the tree, People start to rise and leave until there is only me Lord Palestars and an old man.
"This is Marwyn he will be the witness to your promise and your teacher of the high mysteries," I nod too entranced by the tree to care.
"My lord?" the old man questioned.
"In our future endeavours, she will most probably be useful, after all, Valyria was built by fire and blood, I am sure she will ease our path, she will be the first of many." The old man looks at me once again and nods.
"Let us begin" He pushed me to my knees in front of the tree, my knees hit the cold stone floor.
"Do you Daenerys Targaryen, renounce any claim to the Iron throne in front of the old gods?" Lord Palestar inquiries.
"I-I do!" It feels almost wrong to do so, like he is stealing something from me and I am letting him, but at the same time, I feel lighter, like a burden was taken from me.
"Do you renounce your name?" Marwyn questions.
"Yes, I do."
"Do you believe in the power of the old gods?" She looks at the glowing tree that fills her with uncontained joy.
"I do"The tree glows brighter.
"Do you accept them in your life?" the voice belongs to... someone?
"Yes"
White lines start to appear on my arms, they look like branches of a weirwood tree.
"Raise then, First Scion of the Dawn." the same voice I can't identify says, and then blackness takes me as a warm blanket.
...POV:Antares Palestars...
I catch the girl with telekinesis as she falls, That was badass when I thought to make her a paladin, paladin? More like a warlock maybe, well anyway, when I decided to give her the blessing of the old gods I didn't expect that, I didn't expect to work at all.
Seems like the magical glowing tree is a very convincing argument to convert normal people, let alone a 5-year-old.
Damn, that's kind of fucked up, I am using magic to convert a 5-year-old to a religion I don't particularly believe because she might be useful exploring the ruins of an ancient civilisation.
wow, I changed huh, When I think about it feels kind of bad but not enough for me to stop.
There are worse fates to have, especially here in Planetos, like her brother who is dead because I moved a chair or something, Planetos messes with your mind.
"Marwyn tomorrow you will start her education in the high mysteries, She not only has the blood of Valyria but of the dragonlords, as thin as it might be, she should take to sorcery like a fish to the water, or better yet a dragon to fire."
"My lord why the sudden interest in her?"asked the aged man.
"I don't know how valyria is Marwyn, Any attempts to look at it with the glass candle simply fail." I shook my head.
"I can think of some reasons why, first the doom was so potent that is fucking with magic in the region until now, which is very possible."
"If that is the case is better to have another pair of trained eyes on any magical shenanigans."
"On the second option, is possible that part of the protections of Valyria still work, which is a problematic possibility as well.
"If the second could be true, maybe, MAYBE we could use the dragonlord blood to pass through them, instead of forcing our way through whatever protection valyria has."
"If we don't force our way in then perhaps we can study the defences and recreate them while they still working!"
"That is the ideal, but Ideal is hard to find around here."
Marwyn scratches his chin and says.
"I might need some books from the Moat to start with her education in the high mysteries."
"You will have it, I have to go back to the Moat to check if they didn't sink my castle in the swamp while I was away." I say with a dramatic flair.
"After I come back we will go into the submerged part of the Palace of Prince Garin," I say and Marwyn smiles.
"I can't wait for my lord"
...
The glow diminishes and I see the room of the teleportation circle in the moat, I leave the room, and head to my library, is not the biggest, but is growing, the spell Mass transcription lets me copy an entire book into a blank one was astronomically helpful, of course still expensive but at least it doesn't take months to finish copying one single book, I just need more paper for books.
I walk through the keep, I see some maids working, carrying baskets full of clothes,one in particular sees me, and calls my name.
"Lord Palestars!" she comes running down the hall.
"Tysha, how are you? Have everyone treated you well?" it have been a hot minute since I spoke with her.
"Better than I have been in a long time, and yes, some tried to be a problem but Mansy set them straight," she answered with a smile, That's nice, I knew mansy was a real one, she has that grandma that takes no bullshit vibe.
"Mansy said if anyone saw you we should say that she wants to talk to you and warn that Lord Stark is in the Moat, which is weird because I heard you were in Essos," she says.
"Lord Stark, here? well in case he asks I have never been here okay, Keep it between us, I will see what Mansy want to talk about where she is?."
"Proprably in your chambers my lord with Lady Haela,"
"All right, thank you Tysha." I start to walk in my chamber direction,"
"Thank you, my lord, for everything," she bows her head.
As I arrive in front of the doors of my chambers the two owlguards salute me and I enter through the doors.
Inside I hear the unmistakable sound of someone vomiting, I walk further in and see Haela vomiting in a chamber pot, Mansy holds her forehead.
"Ah, my lord your back, We have much to talk about,"
"Forget about that, What is wrong with her?" I approached worried to start an examination on Haela.
Mansy smiled and said.
"Well..."
...POV: Oberyn Martell...
"Doran, you're my brother and a smart man, but I will fucking throw you down the stairs, you can't really have a sliver of trust in that smug blue-lipped freak." Doran is visiting the water gardens and Arianne and I, I am here to keep an eye on the man we brought to help with the child.
My brother's grand plan for revenge twisted turned and changed, and I can see it still not working, maybe is a family trait we plan for so long that the plan turns useless or we don't plan at all and get fucked for it.
It is an effective plan, for a hastily made one, It would work if he trusted a bit more to his people, but he still kept his card too close to his chest.
The plan is we take one of the children of Antares and Arianne and send him or her to Essos, he would live as a king, learn from any magic user we could find, and when the time was right the child would be married to one of the Targaryen.
With Arriane married to Antares and one of his children in the line for the throne, we would have the most powerful navy and sorcerer of the known world, plus the spears of Dorne and whoever joined in, and it would be many, king among them the Reach.
The position of Antares is also perfect to cut the North from helping the Baratheons and their lot, so yes the idea is good but is too fragile.
Especially with this fucking warlock looking at Ariane's belly like it is a dragon ready to be born, it also fails to consider how pissed Antares could be, my brother is not thinking straight, where did he even find this warlock?
"Razneq has my trust Oberyn, He will help us," he says and looks me in the eyes, his eyes, have an almost blue hue to them now, Doran got the gaut sometime this year, and the warlock offered potions and whatnot to keep his pain away, I don't trust it, and I don't trust the Man, soon he will not be a problem anymore though.
Sunspear seems darker this day, colder even, as funny as it may sound.
"That put douth on your judgement, it doesn't make me trust him more." he frowns at it.
"Then trust yourself and your spear, if he does something that deserves punishment, then punish him."
"I will, Doran, I will."
We arrive at one of the benches that lay on the shadow of a big palm tree there sits my niece with a big belly, and my beloved sits by her side.
"Well look who finally arrived." Ellaria rises and kisses me, and I return with passion." Your niece has a new admirer," she says with a humorous smile.
"Does she?"
"Well, dear father," the sarcasm in the voice took me away from my paramour, I looked to see my niece glare at my brother" You will be happy to know that even in your prison I still manage to make friends." I hear Doran sigh.
"Is that so?"
Ellaria let a small laugh and says
"Yes indeed, where he is, where he is, oh over there," She points at one of the trees and a red hawk is looking, no, glaring at us, he quite funny, he looks almost shocked.
"He landed right here by the bench and hasn't taken the eyes out of Ariane since then, he looked shocked at her, Maybe Antares has competition." he giggles behind her hand.
"First the owl, now a hawk, It looks to me like you have a type, my dear niece."
"You are hilarious uncle, a truly borne jester," she says with a cheeky tone.
"You hurt me, dear niece, Deep inside, I like it."
"Of course you would," Ellaria chips in.
"Now, what that is supposed to mean?"
"You know very well what it means," she gives me a sultry smile.
Silence grows after that, Doran sits on the bench and asks as he did all the visits.
"Are you well, Arianne?"
"I don't know how can I be well, with that freak of yours watching me like... well, I wouldn't compare him to a hawk since I felt a lot more comfortable under the gaze of one." She gestures to the red hawk still glaring at us.
"I know you don't like Razneq but he is important to your health, We don't know what will happen with those children during labour."
"Then. send a message. to their. father!"
"I can't do that, Arianne, and you know it," Arianne threw her hands in the air.
"Then no father, I am not well, That warlock of yours makes me feel threatened and not because of my health but for my children!"
"Is unfortunate that you feel like that about him, but he will remain here, until the birth of your children, It won't take long for it or so he tells me" he looks her in the eyes as he says.
"And then he is gone?"
"Yes," he broke his eye contact.
The hawk flies away.
...POV: Razneq...
"Yes, yes, I can feel it, The children will have immense power if we give them to the heart, we will rise again, the lord is already under my control, too far into the evening shade."
the candle glow increases and a voice coming out of nowhere speaks.
"The sorcerer, he must not find out, he is too dangerous." The voice was raspy and dragged the words.
"He doesn't suspect a thing, the children are almost born, and he didn't care to step in Dorne."
"He can't sense them or does not care for them, which is understandable for someone of his power, he doesn't need the competition an heir would give him, the girl would die in the labour if I had not been draining the children's power."
"Good, bring the children, the heart hungers, bring it such a banquet and you shall be revered among your peers, be wary of the sorcerer." the raspy voice says once more.
"Yes, we shall be grand once more,"
The candle slowly starts to wane until the uncomfortably bright light turns into a fraction of what once was.
I rise from the front of the candle and clean my robes, these children are what we need.
I hear a voice coming from the door.
"M-my lord?"
I look in the door direction to see a brown-haired, girl, looking scared, she carries a tray with food.
"Leave the food on the table and leave."
"As you wish"
I ignore her and go to my tomes, maybe just in case it would be better to put the Martell girl under a protective spell, to avoid detection, the amount of power that is coming through her is more than enough to feed said spell.
I feel a sharp excruciating pain in my back, I feel the blood start to pour out, I turn and see the girl with a dagger on my back.
I quickly shove my hand on her face and start to sip her life force.
Instead of her getting weaker and her skin getting saggy and old as is normal, her face brakes into a thousand pieces and falls to the ground.
Behind the girl's common innocent face a male one hides smirking as he plunges his dagger in my throat.
I start to choke on my blood as I watch the man approach with a dagger, I hear the sound of wings flapping as darkness takes me.
...POV: Antares Palestars...
What the actual fuck is happening? Three days ago I discovered I am going to be a father! I also discovered that moon tea doesn't work! On my children at least, And then I noticed that if didn't work on Haella didn't work on Arianne, so here I am, in Dorne.
And what cluster fuck this place is, Doran simply decided to not warn me of MY children, yes children, I don't need to be an expert to know that her belly is too big to have one baby there. And I am an expert.
And then out of nowhere there is a fucking warlock here, and then then I go look in his chambers and he got murdered by a faceless man, what the fuck is up with that!?
Ok, ok calm down, deep hawk breaths, what I am going to do for now?
I see the faceless leave the room and I look back down to the yard where the Martells are still sitting in the shade of a tree.
Didn't Doran want to take my children?
Maybe I should will take one of his.
...POV:Arianne Martell...
I woke up from a quite pleasant dream, I was flying, with that hawk that visited me yesterday, shame to have to wake so soon from it, I looked around for my...
I don't recognise this room, where am I, panic starts to fill me until I see what is by the door.
Its one of Antares owlguard! Why he is here? Why I am here?
While I think that the doors open and many servants come in with plates of food and hot water for the tub, behind the small crow enters a familiar face, with green eyes and a mane of red hair, I smile at the father of my children, he stops at the front of the bed and says with a teasing voice.
"Do you have any idea the headache you caused me?"