(no subject)

[ruin_mania]

[Good evening, explorers! After departing from Cair Paradisa, the path was south at first, but turned west fairly early on. Skirting well south of Eldritch Forest, the travelers had camped near the edge of the Amber Steppe, not quite within sight of the forest that marks the Totem Coast. The grasses are parched brown by the heat, though greener patches mark the presence of water. It's near one of these - a small, bubbling stream leading west that Raine has chosen to follow as it will almost certainly run into the river marked on her map - that the travelers have made their camp.

The carts and wagons are arranged in a defensive circle, though the campers are free to set up their tents outside them as well as inside wher ethe rest of them are. There are small cooking fires scattered around as well as a large bonfire in the center for socializing.

Play music? Sing? Teach those poor non-Earth kids how to make s'mores? Or just sit around and socialize with others.

Or hide in your tent and ignore everyone, if you really want to.]

Comments

[persequor]

[ A kind of useless one. She shrugs and lies down. ]

[wilder]

[Cooking is important missy considering you need to eat]

[He makes no more to stop her, glancing over at her ]

So what's the sky like in your world?

[persequor]

It's a proper sky. We've only one moon. Some days the sky is cloudy and you can't see anything; some days you can see a million stars.

Maester Luwin taught us them. There's twelve houses of heaven and their rulers. The Faith has the seven wanderers too. Then there's the Ice Dragon, the Shadowcat, the Moonmaid and the Sword in the Morning and all the others. 

We'd stay up all night in the godswood to see them, Bran and me and Maester Luwin. One time, Maester Luwin had to go for a moment; I can't remember why. Bran climbed the heart tree and I hid in the hot pool in front of it. We scared him so bad when he came back. 

[ She smiles at the memory. ] 

He asked us if we were proper little lord and lady. We told him we're wolves. He laughed at that. Said we're proper Starks.

Come morning, we stayed in the godswood to sleep. Bran slept in the branches. He could climb anything, Bran could. Even asleep. We slept right through the first summer snows of the year. By the time we were up, almost all of it had melted in the courtyard. Couldn't make a single snowball. [ The face she makes illustrates what she thought of that turnaround. ]

In winter, after the storms, the sky is supposed to be the clearest and most beautiful one you'll ever see. [ She fans her arms open as if encompassing the sky. ] I've not seen a winter yet, but Father says so. [ The slip in verb tense goes unnoticed. ]

[wilder]

Twelve houses of heaven and seven wanderers huh? [He listens to her story intently, laughing lightly at her actions with her brother. It sounds exactly like something she would do. He's not going to bother correcting the slip in the verb tense.] You're very much a wolf, alright.

[At the story of the snow, he simply smiles in amusement- trying not to think of his own associations of snow. He had become very good at it. Instead he thinks of his own memories of the Flanoir sky; the one he kept finding himself looking at whenever they would go there to not focus on the snow that laid on the ground. ]

It's true. In the northern land Flanoir, it's always winter. And if you're lucky enough to catch sight of the sky past the clouds- it's breath-taking.

[persequor]

[ A warm bubble of pride spreads in Arya's chest at the words. She'll never be a proper lady. Some days she doesn't think she makes a very good daughter or sister or friend. A wolf she can be. A wolf she wants to be. ]

That's how it's supposed to be Beyond the Wall. Bran the Builder raised the Wall thousands of years ago to protect the realms against everything beyond. It's wildlings what try to invade really, but Old Nan liked to scare us with stories about the White Walkers and the Long Night.

That's where Nymeria's mother came from. Before her, no one had ever seen direwolves south of the Wall in hundreds of years. She was dead when my brothers found her, but they brought her litter to Winterfell. Six pups, one for each of us.

[wilder]

White Walkers and the Long Nights? What are those?

[oh wow great so they gave even more direwolf pups to kids. What a brilliant plan] Huh. I wonder how she got past the Wall.

[persequor]

I don't know. The Wall is supposed to be impassable except through the tunnels the Night's Watch carved in the ice. Mayhaps she found an old, forgotten tunnel. And it's the Long Night not nights.

It's supposed to be a time when a terrible winter came. It lasted a generation. The Sun never rose. Entire families froze in their homes. Food ran out. People would kill each other for what was left. Some even ate each other. That's when the White Walkers came. Old Nan called them the Others. They're cold dead things that hate life. They wield swords of ice so cold they shattered steel. And they could raise the dead to fight for them. Anything, it didn't matter. People, animals, so long as they were dead.

[wilder]

Hmm...that does sound like a pretty scary story. I'd hate to run into guys like that.

1/2

[persequor]

[ She shrugs. ]

It's just an old wives' tale.

[persequor]

You're not scared, are you?

[wilder]

[He snickers, reaching over to lightly poke her in the side]

Alllmost, my darling. Almost.

But I went to school on the edges of the Gaoracchia Forest. Now that's a place you get lots of old wives' tales about so I'm used to stuff like that.

[persequor]

[ She bites her lip on a giggle and squirms away from the finger. She's grinning nonetheless. Arya turns on her side to face him. She curls her arm under her head. ]

Like what?

[wilder]

Well...

[He'll turn on his side to better face her, propping his own head up with his arm, elbow against the ground]

The Gaoracchia Forest is this very dark and dense forest. So little sunlight gets in there that if you shine a light on the plants? They'll cower away from it. It's full of monsters too. And to make it worse? It's like a labyrinth. If you don't know the exact path to take, you could be lost in there forever. The plants will move to block the path too, so you have to make sure your light source never runs out.

Anyway, they say that it used to be a normal forest - like the one around the castle? But one day, a thief hid a stolen treasure deep in the forest. He got so protective of the treasure, he slaughtered anyone who came after it. He killed so many people, that the blood tarnished and cursed the place into what it is today.

Even now, they say sometimes the spirit of the thief will come and slaughter travelers. And if he doesn't get you? The undead spirits of those he killed that seek to raise their numbers might.

[persequor]

Did you ever go in there?

[wilder]

A few times, yep. Even traveled the whole way through it once, on a journey.

[persequor]

How much of it was true?

[wilder]

Wellll, I didn't see the thief, but there was a lot of undead trying to add us to their numbers.

[persequor]

How did you get out?

[wilder]

We had a guide. A girl from Ozette named Presea, a village on the other side of the forest.

She's one of the few ever brave enough to cross the woods regularly, so she knew the path.

[persequor]

That was lucky.

[wilder]

It really was. It's definitely not a place you go through without a good reason.

[persequor]

Why did you cross it?

[wilder]

We needed to speak to Altessa the dwarf to help Presea because she was...sick. [To put it VERY lightly] He lived near Ozette, but I had to been branded a traitor by the Pope so we couldn't use a boat or anything. The forest was the only way to go!

[persequor]

[ Her voice is small. ] Are you still branded a traitor?

[wilder]

Me?

[he'll reach over and brush a couple of her stray hairs out of her face]

Nah. The Pope was trying to take the throne for himself, he branded me a traitor because he thought I was in the way. Buuuut they cleared my name when I uncovered that he was poisoning the current king so it'd look like he died of illness.