FicWad

Chapter 30: Six months

JON

Six months! Six months, we’ve been at this, hunting Wildings. After they had passed through The Wall, they had scattered to the four winds. Instead of fighting an army of Wildlings, we were fighting against a guerrilla force that refused to engage us except when they couldn’t avoid it. And even then, a few would delay us, so the others could escape. We’d only had one decent battle, and that hadn’t even been against Wildlings! It turned out that the late Lord Bolton had a bastard, a vile little man who was the embodiment of all the things that Lady Stark had accused me of when I was a child. The Bolton bastard had declared himself to be the new Lord Bolton and we had to go remove him. Between myself, Edric and Bran, storming the Dreadfort had been pretty easy. My father continued to give me grief about my policy of not taking prisoners when I fought the Wildings. But when he saw what had been going on in the dungeons of the Dreadfort, he was in agreement with me. Because it wasn’t just Ramsey Snow. His father, Roose Bolton, had been practicing flaying down there for years. My father executed everyone at the Dreadfort who might have been an accomplice. To our surprise, the local small folk were grateful and showed up at the executions to cheer them on. When we stormed the Dreadfort, Ramsey Snow had escaped through a tunnel leading out of the dungeon, but between Bran, Jojen, Edric and myself, were were able to quickly track him down and his chief henchman, a man who smelled like he had just come out of a brothel full of skunks.

Edric had been using our Wilding hunting expedition to recruit new followers to help him man his new castle. It hurts my head every time I try to remember the name of it. After seeing him achieving some success at this, I started offering those Wildings who were willing to bend the knee to me, positions in my own guards that I would take with me when I eventually returned to King’s Landing. Having a small army loyal only to me made a sort of sense. I only encountered one Force sensitive Wildling, and he was too old to be trained as a Jedi. If I were still solely working with the Dark Side, I suppose I could have made him my Sith Apprentice. But he refused to bend the knee and insisted on fighting to the death, which didn’t take me very long because he was completely untrained.
The Rangers had been sent down from The Wall to help us round up the Wildlings. It was interesting meeting Ser Jamie Lannister again. To my great surprise, he held me no ill will about his exile to The Wall. And when we stopped by Moles Town, I got a chance to hear Joffrey and his band play. By now, his music had become a familiar style to me. In fact, the one good thing about these past six months was I got to see more of the North than I ever had when I lived here.
After six months of this, the King declared this to be a local problem for the Northern Lords to handle and went home to King’s Landing. I would be heading South as well. For now, I and my Wildlings that I would train to be my personal men-at-arms were going back to Riverrun. Bran had offered to take my men and their families in at Riverrun.


EDRIC

It’s been an interesting six months. When we first arrived at Winterfell, Sansa had taken me aside.

“Has my father told you about what happened to Mycella?” asked Sansa.

“No. He hasn’t mentioned her to me,” I replied.

“Oh. Well this is a big secret,” said Sansa. “I’m really not supposed to know about it. But just before he left to go South, Mycella was caught trying to get a job in the Wintertown brothel. Father was very angry about it! And just recently, she admitted to me the reason she was there. She told me she wanted to learn how to be a whore so she could run away to Moles Town, where she could be near her brother and father.”

“Sansa, you shouldn’t be telling other people these things about Mycella,” admonished Cat. “Think about what it will do to her reputation! You shouldn’t even know about this at all!”


Of course, the King still had to have welcoming feast at Winterfell. I had been able to avoid my father’s drunken party and so, was well enough to give Sansa another magic lesson the next morning. But when I arrived the the Gods’ Wood, Cat, the green copy of Magaery’s body inhabited by the sprit of the late Lady Stark, told me: “When Sansa’s lesson is finished, Lord Stark would like to meet with you in his solar.”


And so, after Sansa and I were done, I went to her father’s solar. I knocked, and he bid me enter.

“I was told you wanted to speak with me?” I said.

“Yes. Have a seat, Ser, and mean, Lord Edric,” replied Lord Stark. “My daughter, Sansa has been asking for a betrothal to you for a long time. And now that you are Lord of the Twins, I feel confident that you can provide for her, that is, if you are amenable to such a match.”

“I’m not opposed to the idea, in theory, someday, when she’s older,” I said. “But right now, she’ still a little girl.”

“She’s a maiden, now, but that will not always be the case,” replied Lord Stark. “If we enter into a betrothal agreement now, then, later, after she had flowered, you two can be wed.”

“Lord Stark,” I began.

“Please. Call me Ned,” her interrupted.

“Ned, then. When she has first flowered is still too young for me,” I explained. “I don’t want her to be a child bride like Bran was. I would rather wait for a few years after she’s flowered. I want my bride to be clearly an adult.”

“So you ARE agreeable to this match?” asked Ned.

“I am,” I confirmed.

“Then, welcome to the Pack,” said Ned, as he shook my hand.

When I exited Ned’s solar, Sansa and Cat were waiting for me.

“He has agreed,” said Ned

“Oh! Edric!” gushed Sansa, as she put her arms around my neck and pulled me into a kiss. I tentatively deepened the kiss and felt her respond, as my hands began caressing her back.

“No! Hands behind your back,” scolded Cat.

“What?” I asked.

“Now that you two are betrothed, you are permitted to kiss,” explained Cat. “But your hands have to remain behind behind your back so that you won’t do anything improper.”

Sansa let go of me and clasped her hands behind her back, while looking at me expectantly. I copied her movement, then leaned in for a kiss. We did this for a while before Ned cleared his throat.

“Why don’t you two find a better place to do this than the middle of the hall here,” commanded Ned.

“We could go back to the Gods’ Wood?” offered Sansa.

“Good idea,” agreed Ned. “And Cat can go along to chaperone.”


Our stay at Winterfell had not been very long before we had to go out and actually look for the Wildings. This was harder than it needed to be. Our various magical methods of finding them were much more difficult when we didn’t know the names or appearances of the specific people we were hunting for. However once we found them, it was pretty easy for me to subdue them. Out next dilemma was what to do with them when we caught them. When offered a choice of death or joining the Night’s Watch, they almost universally chose the block over The Wall. And we couldn’t offer that choice to the women and children. Fortunately, one of them offered me a third choice when I captured her, one that would also aid me in the manning of my new castles.

“If you let me down and don’t kill me, I’ll bend the knee to you,” said the young woman who was magically hanging in mid air by one leg.

“I thought your kind didn’t bend the knee?” I asked.

“Better to be a live kneeler than a dead Free Folk,” replied the woman.

“Very well,” I said, before waving my wand and dropping her on her head. She rolled over and got up, but on her knees.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Osha, m’lord,” she replied.

“Take my hand Osha,” I said as a reached out for her and waved my wand over her. “Do you swear to obey me in all things, not to knowingly work against my will, and not to kill or harm those I consider family, specifically the Starks, the Tullys, the Baratheons and the Peverels, And to ask to be released from this vow if you ever desire to leave my service?”

“I swear by the Old Gods,” replied Osha.

“Then I swear, by the Old Gods, by Death and by Magic to always provide for you: meat and mead at my table and never to ask a service of you that might bring upon you dishonor.” I swore, as a snake-like spell of light appeared, wrapped around both our wrists and sunk into our skin. “Rise Osha, loyal woman of House Peverel.

“What did you just do to me?” asked Osha.

“Something of my own devising,” I replied. “It was not quite an Unbreakable Vow, but almost. I can release you from it if I want. And you must tell me if you ever want to leave my service. It binds me just as much as you. I have to give all I promised too. And if you ever even think about trying to break your vow you will feel a mild shock. If you try to break it, the shock will become more painful and if you actually break your vow, it will kill you.”

“So . . . doesn’t this mean you just stole me?” asked Osha. “I mean, since I have to obey you in all things, if you wanted to fuck me I would have to do it, right?”

“Technically, that is true,” I agree. “But I would never ask that of you.”

“Why not,” asked Osha. “Am I not pretty enough for you?”

“No. You are plenty beautiful,” I explained “I won’t ask that of you partly because I am promised to another woman. But the main reason I won’t do that to you is . . . I’m not a bloody evil wanker!
Sorry about that. I lost my temper a bit. So now that you serve me, what would you like to do? Do you want be a servant in one of my castles? or grow food as one of my small folk?”

“If it’s just the same to you, I’d like to fight for you,” replied Osha. “I’m a spearwife of the free folk.”

“That would be fine,” I agreed. “You can be the first member of my guards. I’m going to use magic to send you to Riverrun. It’s the castle of my friend and Lord, Bran Tully. It’s being run by his wife, Lady Margaery Tully. You will obey her as you would me unless she asks something of you that would break your vow. Now let me write her a letter to explain who you are . . . . and make a portkey out of this stick . . . All done! Now hold onto this stick, because it is going to take you there in three, two one.”

After that, I started recruiting amongst the Wildings we encountered. The wargs were particularly interested when I offered to teach them to do magic, like I do. It sweetened the pot that I offered to let their wives and children go with them. Not everyone was willing to accept my offer. Sometimes it just had to be the block, because they’re rather die than kneel or become a Crow. And there were rumors that the ones I had vanished had, in fact, been killed. But the fact that I made them take magical vows first helped lessen those rumors.


Ravens help with the communication problems of living in a medieval society. But they were only able to fly to the one place they had been trained to fly to, and back home. This made it difficult for us to receive messages when we were in the bush. We could, however bring ravens in cages for sending messages. To make things easier, my owl, who could deliver full letters personally to who ever I named was recruited to ease communication between the King and various parts of the army, which were increasingly separated to hunt Wildings in different places. If it was really urgent, and if I had been there before, I could apparate with the message.

One of the highlights of the campaign was when we stopped at Moles Town, which had grown into a full blown city. One one of the brothels had a band led by my ex-brother Joffrey. He played some of the songs from his early career in his past life, some of his favorite songs of his peers from that same era, and some new, original songs that he had written since he got sent to The Wall. Many of these songs like: “Sympathy for R’lor (the Devil)”, “House of the Rising Sun”, “Isolation” and “the Crystal Ship” were familiar to me. Part of me wanted to make requests of my old favorites of his songs from our past life. But I couldn’t resist asking him to do more of his new original songs. Here I was, able to hear him sing songs that he never got around to writing in his past life! Songs that no one in the world we left behind would ever get to hear!


JOFFREY

The Wildings were loose in the Seven Kingdoms, and the Rangers of the Night’s Watch, my father amongst them, were sent to catch them. When I finally got a chance to return to Moles town, I was relieved to see that Colleen was all right. Life had changed a little though. Nowadays, when we went to Moles Town, we had to ‘sneak’ down there in large groups to guard against Wildling raids.
This had been going on for several months. One night, when I was in the middle of my first set, A couple of men in white armor, wearing white cloaks walked into the Mole Hole, followed by my ex-father, the King. We all stopped playing and knelt before our King.

“No, no, that was good! Keep playing!” commanded our King, as more people came in after him. Amongst the ones I recognised were Jon Snow, Rob Stark, Ned Stark, Bran Stark and my ex-brother, Edric Storm.

So we started up with “Sympathy for R’lor”, then, an original one I had written here at The Wall: Wild and Loose”, then “House of the Rising Sun”, the another of my new songs: “Old people/New People”, then, “Isolation”, then another new song: “It’s all your fault”, then, “the Crystal Ship”. Throughout the whole set I noticed Colleen making eyes at the King. After the set was over, we took a break.

“Thank you for coming, your Grace,” I said, with a bow.

“Aw, piss on that! You don’t have to call me your Grace,” excused the King. “You may not be my true son, but I still think of you as a son. It broke my heart to send you up here. I’m glad you found a way to keep making your music. I now realise that the circumstances of your birth are not your fault, they’re your mother’s . . . and you father’s. Where is the Kingslayer, anyway?”

“Oh, he’s out on a ranging,” I explained. “Ever since the Wildings got through The Wall, the Rangers have been ranging South to go after them. Look, if you’re serious about being sorry you sent me here, I could use your help.”

“I can’t release you from the Night’s Watch,” explained the King. “It would set a bad precident.”

“No, no, it’s not that. This lovely lady,” I said as I pulled Colleen forward, “is the mother of my child. She could really use some money to help support our child.”

“I told you I don’t know who the father is! It might be you. It might not.” groused Colleen, before turning to the King and offering an explanation: “I’m a whore.”

“Are you, indeed?” asked the King as he reached down and rubbed her bulging belly. “Then perhaps later tonight, you might let me rent your favor, for a rather large fee, large enough to support the babe?”

While Colleen giggled at him, I was torn between wanting to thank him for helping us with money and throttle him for wanting to fuck the mother of my child!

“My Prince, I loved the music!” praised Edric.

“I’m not a prince anymore,” I grumbled.

“Of course you are,” replied Rob Stark. “Everyone in the North has heard of the Prince of Rokenrole!”

“Could I make a request?” asked Edric.

“Of course!” I replied.

“Could you play more of the stuff you’ve written since last time we met?” asked Edric. “I’d really like to hear it!”

“Sure. Just give me a few minutes to take a piss and we’ll start the next set,” I replied.

Our next set was heavy on duets that Colleen and I sang while she made eyes at the King. And after that set, we had to do without her, because she went upstairs with the King. When I asked her about it, she told me she wasn’t about to give up an opportunity to fuck the King. And besides, he’d kept his word and paid her enough money to support her child for twenty years if she was careful with it.
In spite of my jealousy about her fucking the man I think of as my father, and her continuing to fuck Pod when it was her turn, as well as any other man that she wanted to, provided he was willing to pay for her, she and I were becoming very close, almost in Love.
And when her baby was born with recognizably Lannister green eyes, I knew that I was the father of our daughter.


MARGAERY

After the battle of Harrenhal, the leaders of every House that had fought for the Seven were sent to The Wall. The heirs and in some cases it was the second sons, were allowed to bend the Knee and return home. The surviving peasant levies were also allowed to return home. And many of them returned home with tales of seeing a Child of the Forrest that had caused they or their Lords to convert to the Old Gods. Also many of the Houses that had taken our side were converting. It wasn’t everybody. The Riverlands was just barely majority Old Gods now, when their followers had been an overwhelming minority before. And all these Old Gods converts wanted to come to Riverrun and see the Child of the Forrest! For security reasons, I would receive them in the Gods’ Wood where I could meet them, let them speak with Blossom, and re-take their oaths of fealty, which I received in Brans name. None of them missed the resemblance I had in my green form to the Children of the Forest and they had taken to calling me: the Lady of the Forest. But one of the changes this brought was in fashion. Although Meera had not minded being stared at by the servants and the few soldiers Bran had left behind to guard the castle, with all these strange people showing up, she no longer felt comfortable guarding me with her breasts exposed. So she went back to wearing the shirts and breeches she had arrived here in. As for me, as the baby bump grew, I starting raising my waistline above it, and lengthening my skirt until it became a strapless dress, then, a looser, sleeveless dress, like Blossom wore. A few women came to me dressed like I was, wearing a miniskirt made of leaves and nothing else. I quickly realized what an ecological disaster this could become, and persuaded them to save real leaves for special occasions, and to use fake leaves, cut from cloth, instead.

One day, a woman appeared in the Gods’ Wood dressed all in furs and bearing a letter from Edric. Osha was the first of many he sent to me to be told the Secret of where the Twins were. But the Wildings didn’t know where anything in the Riverlands was. So even knowing the secret I had to send them in weekly expeditions with a guide.

I am able to use certain plants for intelligence gathering. With these plants, which are disguised as ordinary house plants, I can hear anything said in front of them and they have another sense that is similar too, but not the same, as sight. It allows me to gain information I would ordinarily need to see. But it has trouble with colours and things that move too quickly. I had placed these plants all over King’s Landing, especially the Red Keep. After the Freys attacked me in our home, I put them all over Riverrun. But being able to see in many places is not the same as knowing everything that ever happens in those places. My plants had no hard drive and no memory. If I wasn’t looking through a plant when something happened near it, I would miss it. So this is how I missed it when some members of the Sparrows gang murdered Petyr Baelish. I only heard about it in a Small Council meeting. Also, when the neighborhood called Fleabottom burned down, I lost all my eyes there. It was difficult to sort out who had died and who hadn’t. Many people had disappeared in the resulting chaos. The most prominent was: Shireen’s mother, Selyse Baratheon. Renly was the new acting Hand, until the King could appoint another. I had indirect control over him via my brother Loras. So when I saw Renly scoff at the cost of rebuilding Fleabottom and the proposal made by one of the former residents. I sent Loras a raven to have Renly approve the plan which seemed well thought out. This man was badly burned and made me turn my research toward offering the burn victims a better solution than heroine.

As a test. I made Cat, the former Lady Stark, a Birth Blossom in Riverrun’s Gods’ Wood. Bran had been uncomfortable the time he met his mother in a green copy of my body speaking in my voice. So, Blossom’s appearance had given me the idea of making her a less mature body. One that looked more like I did when I was ten years old. I wasn’t certain that Lady Stark, being a spirit inhabiting a plant duplicate of my own body, would be able to survive the transition if she over attempted to use this new body. But at least she would had it as an escape of last resort. Blossom was fascinated by the work and it got her to let me do some research into the nature of the Children of the Forrest. They looked very androgynous, and their physical structure was very similar to my plant duplicates. As it turns out, the Children of the Forest are all hermaphroditic. Blossom even let me take a look at her plumbing. I think I could duplicate it. But I would need some Y chromosomes to make it work. If I am going to do this, I would want Bran to be the donor. So this will just have to wait until he returns.

The Small Council meetings occasionally gave me information that Bran would be pleased to know about his missing sister. Her appearance in Astapor was the first we heard of her. But later, there had been sitings that happened earlier, but were so far away it too longer for the songs to reach Varys. Before Astapor, Captain Euron Greyjoy and his ship: the Silence had been seen in Wi Ti, before that, in Assai, before that, in Carcosa. More recently, the Silence had been the Summer Isles. In spite of the death of it’s captain, the Silence remained a pirate ship.


SAM

Eventually, I surmised what they desired of me to confess, and I was able comply. After I had convinced them that I had become one of the faithful, they forced me to make the Walk of Atonement. After bringing my person outside, what turned out to be the oldest Sept still left in King’s Landing, the High Sparrow told everyone of my sin of promoting atheism through my paper of news and my library. I was then stripped of the robe they had forced on me in the first place and made to walk naked through the streets of the city. I was not allowed to cover my manly parts. But to tell the truth, I was more self conscious about showing my burned face than I was my manhood. While I walked naked through the city, a male voice behind me kept ringing a bell and shouting: “Shame! . . . Shame! . . . Shame!”. The Septs chose the route for me, one that would take me far from home before allowing me back to my beloved Fleabotttom.

When I arrived at home . . . . it was not there! . . . . where the once triving neighborhood of Fleabottom had once stood, then was only piles of ash . . . and I had nothing . . . not even clothes on my back.

“I thought I might find you here,” said Bronn, deputy leader of my minute men. “How was your little stroll through the city?”

“Humiliating,” I replied. “Did Shae? . . . Did Shae survive this?”

“She’s fine,” replied Bronn. “They nicked her on the same night that got you. But she was smarter and confessed right away to everything they wanted her to. It only took her a few weeks before she did her little Walk of Shame.”

“Where is she now?” I asked.

“Just like you, she did her Walk and ended up here without even any clothes to call her own. Speaking of which, I though you might like these.” replied Bronn, as he handed me a bundle of clothes that were my size. “So she went back to being a whore. She’s at Ros’ brothel on the Street of Silk.”

“I thought she was unable to engage in her former profession as a courtesan due to her burns.” I mused.

“That was before,” explained Bronn. “Nowadays, between The Great Sept and Fleabottom, there is a big demand for whores that won’t flinch no matter how badly you’re burned. Compared to some of them, she’s not so bad. I fucked her myself.”

“You are a good friend for bringing me these clothes,” I said as I pulled on the hem of my sleeve. “And a bad friend for engaging in relations with my wife.”

“Hey, someone was going to fuck her during that time,” pointed out Bronn. “Why not me?”

“Can you take me to her?”

“Sure! Follow me!” said Bronn.

He led me to the Street of Silk and to the establishment at which she practiced the world’s oldest profession. Since I insisted on waiting on her specifically, I had to wait, knowing that as I waited, she was engaging in coitus-for-hire with another man. And I had to rebuff many enticements from her co-workers who wanted my coin for their own.

Finally she emerged and kissed a man who much worse burned than us before she noticed me.

“Sam? Sam!” she rushed up and hugged me before turning to the red haired woman who appeared to be her employer. “This one will be gratis.”

“You’ll still have to pay me my cut, even if you don’t collect anything,” replied Ros.

“I pay for him,” offered Bronn, “And I would like your next available lady.”

After leading me into the room, she pulled me into a kiss.

“Oh, Sam! I was so worried about you!” gushed Shae when we stopped for air.

“Does this mean that you would like to remain my wife?” I asked.

“Of course I do!” exclaimed Shae. “I only went back to whoring because I had no other way of supporting myself. Before the Great Sept I was an expensive courtesan. Now, I’m a cheap whore!”

“As much as it distresses me to know you are engaging in sexual congress with other men for financial enumeration, you may need to continue for a short time,” I explained. “Do you have a new domicile?”

“No. I have been living here,” explained Shae. “But I have some savings. Maybe you can find us a place to live. But for now, I believe you have rented me. Let me be the Whore that fucks you.”

Somehow, it made the experience more exciting, knowing that my wife was also, as she said: “the Whore that fucks” me.

I used some of her money to rent a bit of floorspace in a flophouse. The rest, I used to purchase some nice clothes, nice enough for Court. I intended to re-build not just my house, but all of Fleabottom. And it simply was not possible for my wife to rent her body to enough people to raise that kind of money. For that kind of money, we need to a royal patron. And so I attended Court and made my proposal to the acting Hand of the King. He was suitably impressed with my plan but admonished that the costs were too extensive. Imagine my surprise when a few days later I was summoned back court and granted more that the original sum than I had requested. With the grant I had received, I could do so much more than I had planned. So once I had rented an apartment for us to live in, and Shae had once again, retired from her former profession, I penned a letter to a nobleman that I knew had experience with sewers and drains.