Nerd In the North

Blood soaked into the collar of Greg’s fine blue tunic as the soldier seized his arm like it was a lifeline and he’d already let go once. The guy couldn’t have been more than sixteen, maybe seventeen if you counted the sheer volume of fear trying to punch through the grime on his face. Even…

Blood soaked into the collar of Greg’s fine blue tunic as the soldier seized his arm like it was a lifeline and he’d already let go once. The guy couldn’t have been more than sixteen, maybe seventeen if you counted the sheer volume of fear trying to punch through the grime on his face. Even…

Day 10, 299 AC The cold was not new to Eddard Stark, son of Rickard Stark, himself the son of Edwyle Stark and so on for nearly eight thousand years unchanged, a persistance as unchanging as Winter itself. It was not so now and he knew that if he lived another five-and-thirty years, that simple…

The small chamber reeked of incense and dried blood. Smoke curled slow from the brazier’s mouth, dancing lazy spirals like it didn’t remember why it had been summoned. Serala knelt where the soot-stained stone had shaped itself to her bones over long months, her fingers drifting across the etched flame sigils, each groove worn smooth…

Ash clung to her skin in a fine coat, from heel to crown, covering her in a pale film that softened the raw glow of dawn. Daenarys did not brush it away. Instead, she inhaled through scorched air and tasted charcoal, copper, and something sweet—her own skin meeting flame and refusing to char. Around her,…

The banners came first. Of course they did. They were the most obvious thing, held up high, and bright as hell. Even if his eyes weren’t as good as they were now, he could probably still see them at least half a mile away. Big dramatic fuckin’ parade of old beefs on linen, flapping like…

There’s no place like home.Greg wasn’t sure who said that. Actually, wait, he did. He’d watched Wizard of Oz so many times with his mom growing up and she had read him all the Oz books, too. Even the really, really weird ones, like why were those ducks talking? He frowned to himself, face actually…

The black cells were a place of honesty. Walls that wept with salt from the sea, dark mildews creeping across unclean surfaces, and a darkness that made all that slightly more pleasant. Even with that slight blessing,  the air rang eternally with a stench one could only assume was that of old straw, rotted fish,…

So. Greg’s voice broke the silence like it was a thing that could break. He scratched the side of his neck, and didn’t bother looking up at first. “You want me to heal your brother.” He clicked his tongue, mouth tilting upwards in something that wasn’t a smile but tried its best to pull one…