Categories > Books > Harry Potter > All Men must Serve
Chapter 59: Spring
SAM
It was very sudden when the weather suddenly shifted. The howling winds stopped blowing and the Army of the Dead all retreated to the north, passed through The Wall and returned to the Land of Endless Winter.
After the Long Night, there was some debate about how effective The Wall had been and whether there was a need for an Order of the Night’s Watch, which had diminished to a small number of old men led by their Lord Commander Tomen Waters. And only Lord Edric Peverell even knew where they were located.
As the weather warmed and the snow melted, people began venturing out of the city and cultivating the lands of the Crownlands to grow vegetables. After four decades of a diet that was almost entirely mushrooms, the demand for fresh vegetables was immense. There was a fortune to be made and people poured out of the city to try their luck at farming. When there is something valuable, it needs protecting. And those who were martially inclined rushed to fill the void offering their protection in exchange for a share of the crops in a return to the feudal system. But the people of King’s landing had grown accustomed to making their own laws, having their disputes settled by an impartial arbiter and voting on their leaders. A parliament was created to make laws for the Crownlands that the Queen had the power of veto over. Local judges were put in place to provide justice and guilt or innocence was decided by a jury of your peers, just like in King’s Landing.
The real Children of the Forest remained hidden in a secret location. The ones from North of The Wall that had been at Riverrun moved to a secret location somewhere in the North. A century after the Long Night had begun, we neo-Children of the Forrest were invited to join their society. Many of us took them up on the offer. The difference in our appearance, which was increased when we started turning green again, and the slowness of our aging was causing some resentment amongst the people of King’s Landing. Shae and I decided it was time to leave. We brought Cat and her Child of the Forest by Shae with us, as well as my own child. We had been warned when we made the transformation that our fertility had decreased. And Shae and I often switched in the bedroom who was the husband and who was the wife. But I did not expect that I would be the one who would carry Shae’s child in me.
JON
After the spring thaw, we started to make contact with the other survivors. King’s Landing and a few places in the Riverlands and North had survived due to Lady Margaery’s super mushrooms that we were all tired of. Other places, that we had not made contact with, had managed through a combination or ordinary mushroom growing, hunting and cannibalism. Casterly Rock has survived that way. But no where else in the Westlands had. Asha Lannister led an expedition that took the Rock and was re-establishing civilization in the Westlands.
In the Vale, the Bloody gate had not fallen to the Others, but had been abandoned when they ran out of food and retreated to the Eyrie. The Eryrie had not fallen, but everyone there died of starvation. Many of them ended it by jumping through the moon door. The Mountain Tribes had weathered the Long Night just fine and were reclaiming their lost lands. The only castle where people survived in the Vale was Runestone, where they were able to use the magic of their Runes to help them make it through the Winter.
Storm’s End was the only castle in the Stormlands not to fall to either starvation or the Others.
Horn Hill was where the only survivors in the Reach were.
Dorne had no survivors at all, except those who escaped.
Pike had survived. And the Giants and their Mammoths had survived on Great Wyk. None of the humans had. Asha Lannister was able to claim the Iron Islands as part of the Westlands and the Giants as the inhabitants of them. The Mammoths thrived once they came to the mainland and became a popular work and war animal in the Westlands.
In Essos all of the free cities had collapsed and there were few survivors there. At one point, a large portion of the population of Bravos drank poison provided by the House of Black and White. Most the people died that day rather than face starvation. There is apparently a land connection between the far eastern Essos and the Land of Always Winter in Westeros. Yi - Ti faced the same invasion by the Others that Westeros did. In the Dothraki Sea, high winds kept the snow from sticking. But a grass-like fungus called: Ghost Grass grew to cover the Dothraki Sea. Since the ghost grass is inedible to horses, the power of the Dothraki was broken by the Long Night.
Once Spring had come, Shireen decided it was time for new leadership. She stepped down from the throne in favor of our oldest daughter Padme ‘the Witch Queen’ who only reigned for 10 years before handing off the throne to her oldest daughter: Cassanna, who was an even more powerful Witch than her.
My small Order of Force users remained separate from government. For now, we were focusing on increasing our numbers and improving ourselves through the use of the Force. Unless they married someone with magic, the children of Force sensitives would be Force Sensitive too. Why had the Jedi banned marriage?
After I died, I became a Force Ghost and watched over Shireen constantly. She couldn’t see or hear me. But my sons and their children could. And I often used them to relay messages to my Shireen. When she finally joined me in death, we were re-united and merged into the Force together.
TRYSTANE
After the Long Night, I took my wife and children and grandchildren back to Sunspear, along with my cousins, the Sand Snakes and their families. Arya had no interest in ruling, so we made our daughter: Joan, the Princess of Dorne. Together we would rebuild Dorne. Arya was making plans for a fleet of ships. Best start with one for trade first. Tormund and his family came with us to help us get re-established. They then headed back north to Tarth.
TORMUND
We went with the Martells to help them conquer Dorne but there was no one to fight. Then, we went to take Tarth island back. By now, Brienne was too old to fight. But no one had survived on her island home. At least she got to return here for her last remaining years. We made our daughter: Willow Lady of Tarth Island. After Brienne died, I became a bit of a recluse. I stayed in the private quarters of Tarth castle where I could play with my grandchildren and their children. I became a bit of a legend. No one ever saw me but my family. I would hide when visitors came. Sooner or later there will be an alien invasion or something and my skills will be needed. But for now, I will just stay here and enjoy my family.
MARGAERY
When the Spring came, my true form turned green again. This was true of all the Children of the Forest, both the natural ones and the ones I had created too. I started planting and re-growing my plants. I had a long list of magical plants to re-create for Edric so he could make potions. Eventually there where enough plants to spin Magical Herbology off as a different subject than the science class I taught. Later, there were enough ingredients to make Magical Potions into a viable class.
People were starting to spread out around the Riverlands. Mycella and her family tired and failed to reclaim Horn Hill from the survivors there. Instead they took over Old Town and what was left of the Citadel. When we had tried to make return trips, the place had been full of wights. And the books we failed to take in the first trip were rotting away. The Maesters, as an order, were totally broken by the Long Night. There were very few left. Only the ones who had been young when the Long Winter began. And no new ones had been trained during that time. Instead, we were stepping into the void left by the maesters. Every student we taught, left our school as a fully trained warg with their own dire wolf. Now that it was spring, they were all leaving with their own magical owl that they had trained. We had also started a program by which non magical people could learn to be Raven Wranglers and thus restore communication to the world. Witches and Wizards also became the healers in this new world, replacing the maesters with people who knew actual things that worked, like the germ theory.
After Meera died, I left the Riverlands to my daughter, Willow, and threw myself into my work. I replanted birth blossoms all over Westeros and I put my spying houseplants all over. When Blossom invited me to return with her and live with the Children of the Forest, I took her up on it and moved to the Isle of Faces. The changes I had made in my body had given me their kind of lifespan and they considered me an honorary Child of the Forrest. With my spy plants, I could see much of what was going on outside the island and with my birth blossoms I could easily travel when I needed to. But mostly I stayed on the Isle, expanded my knowledge of plants and Shared Pleasures with the people who lived there with me.
EDRIC
When Lord Robb had handed out Arya’s valyrian steel, he had done it with an eye to the future. He wanted to make sure that his sons or grandsons would be able to re-establish themselves as Lords of the North after the Long Night was over. For this reason, he had established advantageous marriages for all his sons. Now that it was spring, he wanted me to help him conquer the North. All those keeps I had cast the Fidelitus on were still hidden and I was the only outsider who knew where they were. Wildings could roam where they pleased, then retreat to the safety of their home. The Night’s Watch was a few old men and an entire settlement of their descendants that had been born to the women they had rescued from the Moles Town brothels and brought there. Many of the Keeps had been settled by non-Northerns that came up there to fight the Others and even the Northerners didn’t all want to Kneel to the Starks any more. The Umbers did. But the Karstarks went back to the Karhold where even I couldn’t find them. Lord Robb bugged me about helping him find these other keeps so much that I resigned from my Headmanstership at the School and let Minisa take it over. I stayed at Harrenhal, spending a lot of time under my cloak until Sansa died. She’d lived to a ripe old age. But I still looked like a twenty year old. I left my family after Sansa’s funeral. Just for kicks, I did an imitation of Bilbo’s birthday exit from Lord of the Rings. only, I had a cloak to disappear under, instead of a ring. But I still had vanished in public, never to be seen again in Westeros. I traveled the world by ship and broom. Exploring this new world while waiting for the next time I was needed to save the world. I met a few women, got married, had children, then left them when my wife died. Someday I would be needed again. Until then, I would enjoy myself.
SAM
It was very sudden when the weather suddenly shifted. The howling winds stopped blowing and the Army of the Dead all retreated to the north, passed through The Wall and returned to the Land of Endless Winter.
After the Long Night, there was some debate about how effective The Wall had been and whether there was a need for an Order of the Night’s Watch, which had diminished to a small number of old men led by their Lord Commander Tomen Waters. And only Lord Edric Peverell even knew where they were located.
As the weather warmed and the snow melted, people began venturing out of the city and cultivating the lands of the Crownlands to grow vegetables. After four decades of a diet that was almost entirely mushrooms, the demand for fresh vegetables was immense. There was a fortune to be made and people poured out of the city to try their luck at farming. When there is something valuable, it needs protecting. And those who were martially inclined rushed to fill the void offering their protection in exchange for a share of the crops in a return to the feudal system. But the people of King’s landing had grown accustomed to making their own laws, having their disputes settled by an impartial arbiter and voting on their leaders. A parliament was created to make laws for the Crownlands that the Queen had the power of veto over. Local judges were put in place to provide justice and guilt or innocence was decided by a jury of your peers, just like in King’s Landing.
The real Children of the Forest remained hidden in a secret location. The ones from North of The Wall that had been at Riverrun moved to a secret location somewhere in the North. A century after the Long Night had begun, we neo-Children of the Forrest were invited to join their society. Many of us took them up on the offer. The difference in our appearance, which was increased when we started turning green again, and the slowness of our aging was causing some resentment amongst the people of King’s Landing. Shae and I decided it was time to leave. We brought Cat and her Child of the Forest by Shae with us, as well as my own child. We had been warned when we made the transformation that our fertility had decreased. And Shae and I often switched in the bedroom who was the husband and who was the wife. But I did not expect that I would be the one who would carry Shae’s child in me.
JON
After the spring thaw, we started to make contact with the other survivors. King’s Landing and a few places in the Riverlands and North had survived due to Lady Margaery’s super mushrooms that we were all tired of. Other places, that we had not made contact with, had managed through a combination or ordinary mushroom growing, hunting and cannibalism. Casterly Rock has survived that way. But no where else in the Westlands had. Asha Lannister led an expedition that took the Rock and was re-establishing civilization in the Westlands.
In the Vale, the Bloody gate had not fallen to the Others, but had been abandoned when they ran out of food and retreated to the Eyrie. The Eryrie had not fallen, but everyone there died of starvation. Many of them ended it by jumping through the moon door. The Mountain Tribes had weathered the Long Night just fine and were reclaiming their lost lands. The only castle where people survived in the Vale was Runestone, where they were able to use the magic of their Runes to help them make it through the Winter.
Storm’s End was the only castle in the Stormlands not to fall to either starvation or the Others.
Horn Hill was where the only survivors in the Reach were.
Dorne had no survivors at all, except those who escaped.
Pike had survived. And the Giants and their Mammoths had survived on Great Wyk. None of the humans had. Asha Lannister was able to claim the Iron Islands as part of the Westlands and the Giants as the inhabitants of them. The Mammoths thrived once they came to the mainland and became a popular work and war animal in the Westlands.
In Essos all of the free cities had collapsed and there were few survivors there. At one point, a large portion of the population of Bravos drank poison provided by the House of Black and White. Most the people died that day rather than face starvation. There is apparently a land connection between the far eastern Essos and the Land of Always Winter in Westeros. Yi - Ti faced the same invasion by the Others that Westeros did. In the Dothraki Sea, high winds kept the snow from sticking. But a grass-like fungus called: Ghost Grass grew to cover the Dothraki Sea. Since the ghost grass is inedible to horses, the power of the Dothraki was broken by the Long Night.
Once Spring had come, Shireen decided it was time for new leadership. She stepped down from the throne in favor of our oldest daughter Padme ‘the Witch Queen’ who only reigned for 10 years before handing off the throne to her oldest daughter: Cassanna, who was an even more powerful Witch than her.
My small Order of Force users remained separate from government. For now, we were focusing on increasing our numbers and improving ourselves through the use of the Force. Unless they married someone with magic, the children of Force sensitives would be Force Sensitive too. Why had the Jedi banned marriage?
After I died, I became a Force Ghost and watched over Shireen constantly. She couldn’t see or hear me. But my sons and their children could. And I often used them to relay messages to my Shireen. When she finally joined me in death, we were re-united and merged into the Force together.
TRYSTANE
After the Long Night, I took my wife and children and grandchildren back to Sunspear, along with my cousins, the Sand Snakes and their families. Arya had no interest in ruling, so we made our daughter: Joan, the Princess of Dorne. Together we would rebuild Dorne. Arya was making plans for a fleet of ships. Best start with one for trade first. Tormund and his family came with us to help us get re-established. They then headed back north to Tarth.
TORMUND
We went with the Martells to help them conquer Dorne but there was no one to fight. Then, we went to take Tarth island back. By now, Brienne was too old to fight. But no one had survived on her island home. At least she got to return here for her last remaining years. We made our daughter: Willow Lady of Tarth Island. After Brienne died, I became a bit of a recluse. I stayed in the private quarters of Tarth castle where I could play with my grandchildren and their children. I became a bit of a legend. No one ever saw me but my family. I would hide when visitors came. Sooner or later there will be an alien invasion or something and my skills will be needed. But for now, I will just stay here and enjoy my family.
MARGAERY
When the Spring came, my true form turned green again. This was true of all the Children of the Forest, both the natural ones and the ones I had created too. I started planting and re-growing my plants. I had a long list of magical plants to re-create for Edric so he could make potions. Eventually there where enough plants to spin Magical Herbology off as a different subject than the science class I taught. Later, there were enough ingredients to make Magical Potions into a viable class.
People were starting to spread out around the Riverlands. Mycella and her family tired and failed to reclaim Horn Hill from the survivors there. Instead they took over Old Town and what was left of the Citadel. When we had tried to make return trips, the place had been full of wights. And the books we failed to take in the first trip were rotting away. The Maesters, as an order, were totally broken by the Long Night. There were very few left. Only the ones who had been young when the Long Winter began. And no new ones had been trained during that time. Instead, we were stepping into the void left by the maesters. Every student we taught, left our school as a fully trained warg with their own dire wolf. Now that it was spring, they were all leaving with their own magical owl that they had trained. We had also started a program by which non magical people could learn to be Raven Wranglers and thus restore communication to the world. Witches and Wizards also became the healers in this new world, replacing the maesters with people who knew actual things that worked, like the germ theory.
After Meera died, I left the Riverlands to my daughter, Willow, and threw myself into my work. I replanted birth blossoms all over Westeros and I put my spying houseplants all over. When Blossom invited me to return with her and live with the Children of the Forest, I took her up on it and moved to the Isle of Faces. The changes I had made in my body had given me their kind of lifespan and they considered me an honorary Child of the Forrest. With my spy plants, I could see much of what was going on outside the island and with my birth blossoms I could easily travel when I needed to. But mostly I stayed on the Isle, expanded my knowledge of plants and Shared Pleasures with the people who lived there with me.
EDRIC
When Lord Robb had handed out Arya’s valyrian steel, he had done it with an eye to the future. He wanted to make sure that his sons or grandsons would be able to re-establish themselves as Lords of the North after the Long Night was over. For this reason, he had established advantageous marriages for all his sons. Now that it was spring, he wanted me to help him conquer the North. All those keeps I had cast the Fidelitus on were still hidden and I was the only outsider who knew where they were. Wildings could roam where they pleased, then retreat to the safety of their home. The Night’s Watch was a few old men and an entire settlement of their descendants that had been born to the women they had rescued from the Moles Town brothels and brought there. Many of the Keeps had been settled by non-Northerns that came up there to fight the Others and even the Northerners didn’t all want to Kneel to the Starks any more. The Umbers did. But the Karstarks went back to the Karhold where even I couldn’t find them. Lord Robb bugged me about helping him find these other keeps so much that I resigned from my Headmanstership at the School and let Minisa take it over. I stayed at Harrenhal, spending a lot of time under my cloak until Sansa died. She’d lived to a ripe old age. But I still looked like a twenty year old. I left my family after Sansa’s funeral. Just for kicks, I did an imitation of Bilbo’s birthday exit from Lord of the Rings. only, I had a cloak to disappear under, instead of a ring. But I still had vanished in public, never to be seen again in Westeros. I traveled the world by ship and broom. Exploring this new world while waiting for the next time I was needed to save the world. I met a few women, got married, had children, then left them when my wife died. Someday I would be needed again. Until then, I would enjoy myself.
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