FicWad

EDRIC

Ever since I learned to Warg into my owl, I had been neglecting my friend Joffrey. I guess between training Bran and socializing with Margeary and Jon I had become distracted. Then, the Ironborn attacked. But I already knew the attack against Joffrey had failed before I even knew it had happened. So It took until the tedium of shipboard travel took over before I had bothered to send him a letter. His reply was large as he told his point of view on the Attack on him and Ser Jamie, of the disappearance of his brother and how the Lord Commander had laid a death sentence on him if he ever returned. I dutifully reported all this to Prince Stanis, as I had reported the earlier letters to Renly when Joffrey had told me of the two Night Watchmen that had gone insane and killed the previous Lord Commander. I had also reported Ser Jamie’s tale of seeing real Wights and a Giant. But Prince Renly had not taken seriously the stories that Ser Jamie had told Joffrey, who had told me, who had told Renly.

“Surely if there were any truth to these stories the Night’s Watch would be sending us Ravens about it,” Renly had sneered.

But Prince Stanis seemed to take me more serious, in light of the fact that the Ironborn had made multiple incursions into the North. I had just finished my letter in the pre-dawn when Jon came staggering out from the sterncastle of the ship. He must have Warged again last night, because he was clearly in pain. I wish real tea existed in Westeros, a nice cuppa would probably help him right now. My musings were interrupted by a call from the Crows Nest:

“Ship Ho! Off the Starboard Bow!”


JON

“Greywind has found a goat path that goes around the Golden Tooth,” said my brother, Rob. “If we send a force through there, we can catch the Lannisters from behind.”

“And fuck them in the ass! I like it!” proclaimed King Robert. When do we leave?”

“Your Grace, you need to stay here, leading the troops,” advised my father.

“Piss on that, Ned!” exclaimed the King. “ I want to hit something!”

“And that is why you need to lead the attack on the front,” replied my father. “You need to create a distraction so that Rob can sneak around behind the lines and attack them from the rear. Let him be your Hammer, We’ll be the Anvil.”

“Alright, Ned,” grumbled the King. “But have him take Ser Barriston with him.”


I woke up with a pounding headache. I hate magic. It really hurts. But was grateful for the peak through Ghost’s eyes. I looked around the cabin, Edric was already up. Bran was rising too. But his eyes were still white.

“The Ironborn are attacking,” stated Bran.

“Where?” I asked.

“Here,” stated Bran. “They are here now!”

I staggered out on the deck just in time for the look-out to announce he has seen a ship. But I trusted Bran’s judgement so I raised the alarm. As it turned out, that ship had been one of many Longships with Krakens painted on their sails. And as they approached, they sailed landward of us, to the East. When we turned to attack them, I realized our mistake, as we had the rising Sun shining in our eyes!

Both fleets had ships with both oars and sails. We, in our galleys had more oarsmen and could go faster. But our ships were much larger. Theirs were much more maneuverable. With us partial blinded, we couldn’t aim to ram them as well. So they were already upon us before we could prevent them from boarding. They were mostly armed with hand axes and round shields, with no other armor. Many of us had donned our armor. It was a risk, if we fell in, the armor would drag us down. For this reason, Bran, Edric and I were forgoing our armor. I drew my hand-and-a-half bastard sword and decapitated the first one, then blocked the one behind me. I had to kill two more before I could take care of the one who had flanked me.

“Petrificus Totalis!” yelled Bran, as a felt a pain stab me behind the eyes.

I glanced at him. He and Edric had become overwhelmed and had drawn their wands, fighting with their sword in their off hands and their Wands in their good hands. In the heat of combat they had started openly casting. Edric was doing it silently, while Bran was shouting out his incantations. I stopped watching them and got my head back in the fight, jumping and dodging and dealing death to the Ironborn. Every time one of the wizards would cast a spell, it felt like my eyes were being stabbed from behind. I used the Dark Side to convert the pain to strength and did a Force push to clear out the five Ironborn who were threatening to overwhelm me. Some more surged forward to take their place. I cut through the handle of one’s axe, removed the arm from another, then stabbed one in the eye. It felt like one hit me in the head with a war hammer, but no, I was feeling the magic from whatever Edric had done to make the head of the man behind me explode. I cut two more of them down. The fight continued like this for a while. Finally, the boarders were slain, and their ship seized.

MARGEARY

Just like in the England of my first life, the speech of the monarch had a tendency to become the official way of speaking. So Robert’s renaming of Jazz into Jass became the official pronunciation. And the instrument Glynn played had changed it’s name from banjo to banjar. With an unlimited budget, and Renly doing nothing to restraint him, this Glynn fellow had recruited an very large band. Many of the instruments of this time had very limited ranges. Glyn over came this difficulty by including multiple sizes of the same type of instrument. In all he had seven sections, each of seven instruments. There was a drum section with bass drum, snare drum, three different sized large tambourines, i guy who would ring different pitched cowbells or how them still for a drummer to hit, and a guy who played cymbals. There was a section of trombones in various sized ranging from trumpet to tuba. There was a section of clarinets. The lower pitched ones sounded a lot like saxophones. There was a section of crumhorns, a windcap instrument that sounded like a cross between and oboe and a sax. A section of recorders. (which could only be heard well when they were featured in a slow quiet songs. There was a section of instruments that resembled violins, except they had seven strings instead of four. They ranged in size from violin sized to bass violin sized. And there was a section of banjars. They didn’t look like the ones I was used to seeing on country shows. They were more like a gourd with with a skin over it, with gut strings that had be pitched lower than I was used to hearing. The half sized one was in the range I was used to hearing banjos make. They ranged in sizes up to one that was pitched lower than a bass viol. Most of them would just play a rhythmic chordal sound. But Glynn picked his in a style that resembled classical guitar more than it did bluegrass banjo. He had been a member of Edmure Tully’s band up near the end and had been present when former prince Joffrey had played with them at River Run. So He had heard the Jazz songs from the “future” that Joffrey had sung the melodies for Edmure. So he had been present to hear what Edmure had been working on until the very end. Although Glynn was not the musical genius that Edmure was, nor was he a re-incarnated musician from another world, (I had interviewed him to check) he was a great musical prodigy in his own right. His band had played a few times for the Royal Court and the end result sounded a lot like the Big Band music my grandparents used to like.

One day, I was on a balcony of the Red Keep when I heard a commotion in the city. Something was going on. Women were screaming. Looking in the direction of the sound a saw a very large man briefly become visible in the gap between buildings. He was not just a big man like the King. They person was so large his head had to be big enough to eat a horse in one bite. Closing my eyes to use my plant senses confirmed it. I had found another superbeing!


TORMUND

When we started approaching the city of the King’s of the kneelers Landing, I got myself cleaned up and changed into my new blue outfit. The grey one was made of wool. A little cooler than the furs, but not as well suited to this place as my blue outfit, which was made of some sort of plant fibers. As we sailed up to the pier, people began to spot Wun-Wun. Some of them would point. Some of them screamed and ran away. We unloaded the boxes, each of which contained a Wight in a cage, and made a pile of them. Then Wun-Wun hefted one onto his shoulder and we set out into the city. Lord Manderly had suggested we take it to the big Church of the Seven and one of the sailors who knew the way had given me directions, which I had scribbled down in my native language from my previous life as I didn’t know how to write the kneeler language. (Though I was sure the Power would help me learn it if I encountered enough of it) Wun-Wun’s greater size made it easier for him to carry the Wight, so I walked ahead to clear the way, while Ygrette and Toreg followed behind to make sure no one attacked from behind. I got in a few scuffles with local bully boys and police. (which seemed to be the same thing) Maybe the Free-folk are right to be skeptical about the value of civilization. But I was able to handle anyone who got in our way bare-handed and never need to draw the Sword. We wound our way through this stinky rat maze of a city until we found a large square with a Large building that had a seven-pointed star on it.

“This must be the place,” I said, indicating for Wun-Wun to set the box down.

People had been following us or running away from us the whole way here. Some of them screamed as they ran away. But when I ripped open the box to reveal the wight inside, that was when the screaming really started. People trampled each other to get away. Looked I guessed wrong about which end was up, as we had set this thing upside down. The Wight scrambled to its‘ feet and the crowd moved further back. I began to address the crowd.


SAM

I had been delivering more books the public library I had established. When the sound drew my attention to the street. There was some sort of commotion ongoing as people fled before something. I looked as saw in the distance an enormous man dressed in furs towering over the crowd and carrying a box on his shoulder. As this assemblage processed closer, I saw a large man dressed in a blue hooded costume of trousers and a hooded shirt that was also blue. He had leather gloves and boots to complete the regalia. He was clearing the way, making certain that none could impair the passage of the giant, whether it be brigand or gold cloak. After the Giant passed, I also saw a couple of more people, also dressed in furs similar to the giants. Could these be the Wildlings I had heard tales of? I resolved to follow this procession to see where its’ destination lay. As we wound threw the streets, the lead man would occasionally pull a piece of paper out of his pocket, look at it and direct the group as to their intended direction. But I quickly surmised that that there destination was the Sept of Baelor, a hypothesis that proved correct. Once they Wildlings had reached their destination, the giant set down his box on it’s end and the man in blue ripped open the box, a seemingly impossible feat as the box was clearly nailed shut. the destruction of the box revealed a metal cage within that was slightly smaller than the box and within the cage was a no desiccated corpse. The wildings had clear miscalculated as the corpse was clearly on display standing on it’s head. But I found myself gasping in shock along with the crowd when the corpse scrambled to it’s feet and gave off an hiss-like scream. I fought the tide of retreating crowd as tried to move closer and saw that the corpse’s eye were an unearthly blue colour. But my attention was then draw to the Wilding in blue as he addressed the crowd:

“People of the South,” began the man in blue. “Aye, it’s true I’m a Wilding. All four of us are. We prefer to call ourselves Free-Folk because we don’t kneel to Lords. But now the Free-Folk need your help. Beyond The Wall, where we live the Others, the Wight Walkers have awakened again. They are turning us into this.”

He then pointed at the corpse that was trying to reach through the bars to get him.

“They have already done this to thousands of us,” continued the Wildling. “Not just the long dead, like this one, but the recently dead too. They are killing us to make more of these monsters. Every single one of the Free-Folk is a potential recruit into the Army of the Dead. They do this to men. They do this to women. they do this to children. Unless we get South of The Wall, every single one of the Free-Folk with be forced to join the Army of the Dead. But the Crows, the Night’s Watch that guard The Wall won’t let us through. . . . And so, we have come here to the city of the King of the kneelers. We have come bearing proof of the danger that has awoken North of The Wall. Tell your King to help us. Help us . . . or this is the fate of everyone you have ever known!”

As soon as his speech ended, I step forward to ask him for more details. I learned their names and got them to tell me their stories. The next edition of the Kings Gazette would have this story as it’s headline.


TRYSTANE

When I saw the crowd moving through the streets following the Giant, I shifted into the wereworld and climbed on the mesas where I could more easily move through the city. The Giant and the two people following him appeared to be the most normally dressed people I had seen in this life. I followed until they unveiled their monster in a box. Of cours,e Sam Tarly was right there in front. The monster looked a little by like the Void. I guess I can safely assume that radiation was not responsible for his condition. The man in blue gave a speech about what this walking dead man was. Hmmm. I will have to look more into these Wight Walkers. But it’s clear I have overstayed my welcome here. My father needs to hear about this. It’s time I took the Mountain’s head back to Dorn, anyway.