Nerd In the North 4-17 (Patreon)

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 off anyway. “Could’ve just said that instead of the runaround.”

Robb didn’t flinch in the slightest. That posture again—straight-backed like the weight of his entire icy Kingdom in the ass end of Westeros was stitched into his damn spine. “I would not ask if it were not necessary, Lord Veder.”

Greg grimaced at the title, not hating it but still weirded out by it. He still heard it like a joke, honestly. It was one thing to hear it from peasants and stuff, but from lords... “Yeah, about that. I’m not—look, I’m not a miracle worker. I mean, maybe, technically, but that’s not—” he waved vaguely toward the ceiling, “—that’s not how this works. It’s not a new wound. We’re talking months. Damage like that," Greg shook his head, entirely unsure of how to describe this, vague modern medical knowledge mixing with some of his weird, fragmented other-life memories. "There's like... the way the body heals... something this old and healed over already, it gets... sticky.”

Robb didn’t blink. His tone lowered, just slightly enough that his voice came out as more serious even though much didn't change at all. “He need not run. Nor ride. Just hope. Just something.”

That something sat heavier than it should’ve. Greg rubbed his temples, already regretting this, whatever this was. This wasn’t like healing up some guy who got the wrong end of a spear, or some village guard who followed him to fight and took an arrow to the knee. This was a kid.

Still, he knew that look in Robb’s eyes. He’d seen it from a lot of desperate smallfolk he’d seen through the North.

Greg exhaled. “Alright. I’ll try.”

The air shifted colder when they walked, which Greg couldn’t tell if was real or just the way silence stacked when no one filled it. Robb was ahead by two steps, not looking back as the big fuck-off direwolf matched pace on the other side. Greywind was apparently his name, and Greg had to admit that it was a cool fucking name, very fantasy MMO worthy, if he was being honest.

RPG games aside, the oversized dog was always watching. 

Ash watched him back. A good old watch-off.

As Robb came to a stop and pushed open the door nearest to him, the wood of the thing creaked like it had opinions and had no interest in holding them back.

Robb stepped in, Greywind beside him, and Greg followed after, Ash right behind him.

Inside, the room was dim but not dark. The bed took up more space than Greg expected. The kid he was obviously supposed to heal, Robb called him Bran, was smaller than he thought.

Two wolves. Of course there were two more, this family loved it's fuckin' wolves, Jesus Christ. One grey, one near-white. An even tinier version of Robb was there, too—cross-legged, dead-eyed serious, like someone had put a crown on a five-year-old and told him to behead a traitor.

Greg hesitated on the threshold. Bran looked thin, breakable, with that kind of calm that felt like it came from a place past pain. But his eyes tracked. They caught Greg clean and didn’t flinch.

“You’re the one with the magic.”

Not a question.

“Guess that’s me.” Greg stepped in, slow. “You’re Bran.”

Rickon didn’t blink. “Are you gonna fix him?”

Greg kept his tone even, neutral-light. “I’m gonna try.”

Rickon nodded once, solemn like a priest. Like he already knew that trying didn’t mean winning.

Greg moved beside the bed. Knelt. Let his hands hover just over Bran’s legs. Nothing glowed yet. He wasn’t ready.

Bran just watched. That same steady look.

Greg inhaled, low. “Okay.” Mostly to himself. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

He closed his eyes, cutting everything else out as he did his best to focus—not on the boy, but on the other stuff. The flickers. The fragments. Memories that weren’t his. A chant beneath an old house. A woman’s voice speaking in a tongue he barely understood, bleeding light into broken men. Holy light, so pure and bright— no, not yet. He had to let it build first, the chant filling his mind as he dwelled on his other life.

The words surfaced, Greg not having to force them at all as they rushed past his lips.

"Holy light, so pure and bright,

Mend this bone and set it right.

By sacred flame and faithful heart,

Blood be still, and pain depart."

Warmth poured from his fingers, gold light pooling soft and slow over the little Northern noble boy's paralyzed legs. The wolves didn’t move from where they were on the floor but Rickon leaned closer, eyes wide.

Bran’s mouth parted slightly, but he didn’t speak, not a single word leaving his mouth.

Greg kept the light steady and focused, the magic coming slow, doing this way harder than mending a break. He'd done that a dozen times before, but this...

God, this was like untangling vines underwater. He could feel the resistance, the old damage dug in deep, half-healed wrong. This wasn’t clean work. It never was.

Still, the power listened.

Bran let out a long, low breath of hair through his nose “It doesn’t hurt.”

Greg opened one eyes, just cracking it a bit to shoot a look at this patient. “I mean, it's not supposed to. Pain was a long time ago. You think I wouldn't tell you if it felt like getting stabbed?”

Bran smiled, and Rickon laughed.

Robb stepped forward then, nearer to the bed, his voice lower than before. “What do you feel?”

Bran’s brow furrowed as he blinked, slow. A look of deep thought crossed “Warmth. And... and... and... like something waking up.”

Greg gritted his teeth and pushed more and more of that golden power he knew as holy magic out from his hands. The warmth wasn’t fire this time, not quite. It moved like syrup, like light trying to remember how to be liquid, and his hands weren’t shaking yet as they attempted something he had never managed but they were definitely thinking about it.

When the light finally faded, it wasn’t gone. It just... settled into and deep under Bran's skin, like it had burrowed somewhere beneath all the muscle and bone, and... huh, I guess down in the nerves too. He was trying to fix paralysis, so Greg guessed it would have to go all the way in there.

Do Westeros people even know what nerves are? He frowned, probably not.

Greg dropped back to his heels, spine clicking as he breathed out and wiped the sweat he hadn't realized had been forming from his temple with the side of his palm. “Alright. That’s what I got.” Christ, I didn't sweat this much fighting a fucking war, man.

Bran shifted.

Not dramatically, though. 

As magical as his life was in this grimdark isekai, things weren't that cinematic. No, Bran Stark moved just enough that Greg saw the blankets twitch and Rickon sucked in a gasp like the little boy had nearly drowned.

“I can feel… them,” Bran said. His voice was small, but his eyes were large. "Not all of it, but… some."

Greg blinked as he sat there quietly, watching his patient watch himself.

Robb stepped forward like he couldn’t help it, like something was pulling him. His voice came lower, a lot of the depth and power taken out of it for a few seconds, even as he gathered himself by the end. “You... you have done it.” Obviously still a commanding lord, but more of a happy brother, someone who sounded fifteen instead of at least twenty-five. 

Greg shook his head, hands braced against his knees. “I started it. That’s not the same thing.”

He moved to his bag without thinking and started rummaging, half on instinct, half on that weird echo feeling like something he'd dreamed three weeks ago was suddenly important. His fingers closed on the vial before he remembered why. 

The liquid inside was red. Not blood. Thicker. Brighter.

He held it up. "Now this, this baby will get you across the finish line, little Stark."

Bran blinked at it. "What's that?"

Greg shrugged. "Finish line, hopefully. Probably tastes like ass, but it'll work."

Bran looked to Robb. Robb gave the smallest of nods.

Greg passed it over. Bran pulled the cork. Sniffed. Grimaced. Drank.

The silence was sharp. Held. Then—

Bran choked. Just once. Cough caught in the throat.

“Bran?” Robb stepped fast.

But Bran held up his hand, each finger as steady as his legs weren't. “I’m alright,” he said. Then again, faster: “I can feel everything.”

Greg didn’t move. 

Bran lifted one leg. Slowly and jerkily, he moved the other one too, almost like he wasn’t sure what the limit was anymore. His heel came off the bed. His toes followed. The leg held. Then dropped back onto the furs.

“Old Gods save us,” Robb breathed, voice clear with quiet relief and sounding entirely like his age now.

Greg stood, flexing his fingers as he did so. It felt weirdly final.

He turned to leave.

“Wait.” Bran again. Voice smaller now. Not because it was weaker, but because it clearly meant more.

Greg stopped, turning around to look at Bran.

“Thank you,” the tinier Robb said, the tiniest Robb next to him muttering the same words as well.

Greg shrugged again. “Don’t thank me yet. You still gotta do the hard part.”

Then he stepped out.

Robb followed after a few moments. Greywind trailed him, making vague wolf-sounds that Greg assumed were the precursor to dog-sounds. His hand found Greg’s shoulder, not hard, not heavy. Just there.

“You’ve done more than I could’ve asked,” Robb said, voice lighter now, a little bit of that Northern weight gone from his shoulders.

Greg let out another half-laugh. “Yeah, well, not like I’m in the habit of leaving paralyzed kids in beds when I can do something. That’d make me a pretty terrible person, right?”

Robb didn’t answer immediately. Greg almost thought he wouldn’t.

“No man does what you’ve done without wanting something,” Robb said finally. “And I wouldn’t be much of a liege lord to let it go unanswered.”

Greg blinked. Shrugged once. Tried to smile but gave up halfway. “Eh. It's whatever.”

Robb stepped in front of him. Looked him full in the face as his tone changed, hardening as he fully became Lord Stark again. “No. What would you ask of me?”

Greg opened his mouth. Hesitated. “...Well, there is one thing.”

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –​

The great hall had this buzz in it that didn’t feel like talking. It wasn’t chatter, not exactly, more like pressure. People moving different. Talking louder, faster, like words would get them control of something already slipping.

Greg felt it the second he stepped in. Not even through the doorway, either. Way before, even as he was walking down the hall.

By the time he fully stepped in, and eyes landed on him, his eyes were on the person in the middle of it all, where the middle Stark boy was sitting up straighter than he had any right to, eating like nothing had changed.

Except everything had.

Greg didn’t even know how he ended up next to the kid. Just... landed there after Bran called his name and he had to take a seat, otherwise he'd be insulting the main family that ran the frozen kingdom that was the North.

He sat near the center of the main table, back stiff not because he wanted to look proper but because relaxing would mean absorbing all the stares. Bran sat beside him, upright, breathing in the attention like it didn’t sting. Kid was handling it better than him, and he was the one who just barely got his legs back. Figures.

Greg stabbed the slab of meat on his plate with too much force. It slid an inch. “You’ve got everybody acting like we lit the castle on fire.”

Bran didn’t look at him. Just smiled faintly, cup in hand, posture straight. “They’re not looking at me, though.”

“I mean—” Greg exhaled through his nose. “You weren’t walking yesterday.”

Bran shrugged, the little ten-year-old lord unbothered. “You weren’t lordly last week.”

That made Greg pause, a frown crossing his face before he even muttered, “That’s not even a real word.”

It didn’t matter. Bran was smirking.

Greg leaned back and swept the room with his eyes. Lords scattered like stains across the table—Dustin, Ryswell, Karstark, all those Stark-adjacent fossil-heads pretending their food was more interesting than the walking spellslinger sitting six feet from their heir. And none of them looked happy about it.

“Guessing the court of public opinion’s not voting in my favor,” Greg said.

“They don’t like you,” Bran said, voice even.

“Understatement of the century,” Greg muttered, leaning back. “Just cause I'm stronger, they're just waiting to call me the devil. Or the Westerosi version of one. Maybe I should start floating. That’d really sell the demon thing.”

Bran tilted his head, just a bit. “You might be, though.”

Greg blinked, tilting his head to match as he glanced back at his former patient. “Uh—one more time, little guy?”

“Not the demon bit,” Bran clarified, taking a sip. “But stronger than them. You made something happen they couldn’t. They don’t have words for that. Not the good kind, anyway.”

Greg scoffed, the sound almost forming a whole laugh before he choked it back down. “Yeah. Cool. Terrified old men without vocabulary. My favorite demographic.”

The doors opened before Bran could reply, and Robb stepped through like he’d planned the timing. Like he wanted the room to hush.

Which it did. Oh, it did.

Bran moved slowly but deliberately, rising beside Greg with that almost imperceptible sway that said still healing but definitely walking. Greg didn’t follow. He just watched, arms crossed. Let it play.

The murmur started as Robb reached the head of the table. Calculated glances. Thoughtful frowns. Lady Dustin’s lips were already curling. Greg could feel her loading the chamber.

She fired it clean.

“Impressive, my lord,” she said, voice too smooth to be sincere. “Though some of us might wonder what sort of gods trade in miracles so convenient.”

Greg’s jaw tensed. He didn’t speak. Not yet.

Robb did.

“It’s no god’s doing,” Robb said flatly. “It’s the North, standing on two legs again. My brother walks again. Soon, he shall ride, and all that boys and men do.”

Karstark shifted beside Dustin, arms folded across his chest, clearly judging by the look on his face. “Aye, but there’s always cost. Magic carves deeper than coin. We’ve bled enough already without debts we don’t understand.”

Greg didn’t lean forward so much as let gravity do it for him as he met Karstark's eyes with a snort.

“Yeah, there’s a cost,” he said. “Mine. I gave effort, time, energy. Got a nosebleed so bad after I finished up yesterday it looked like I killed someone." He rolled his eyes and let out a loud sigh at how annoying that was. "What I didn’t do was cut a deal with any demons or devils or whatnot. What I didn’t do was burn any souls or curse any bloodlines or whatever other bedtime stories you’re making up in your head to find another reason to call me evil.”

Ryswell cleared his throat like he wanted to say something, then didn’t. Greg let the silence crackle before he spoke up again. "Besides, for the record, if I was all about power, I wouldn’t waste it healing some kid."

Bran pulled a frown, face screwed up. Greg caught it and added, "No offense."

Bran shrugged.

Robb didn’t move. His voice came low but clipped. “The North is whole, or it’s dead. I won’t divide it because some lords still believe shadows mean sorcery. Lord Gregory serves this house. His actions speak louder than fear.”

Greg didn’t need a scroll to read what Robb was saying: the Starks are fine, just stay in line. We already got wolves, now we got a wizard.

It was a strong message.

The lords shifted like bad actors missing their cues. Whispers rose like smoke.

With Bran still at his side, Greg let out a breath that came out more like a scoff.

Greg muttered under his breath. “Your brother’s got presence, I’ll give him that. Real main character energy.”

Bran gave him a look, the ten-year old seemin far beyond his years. “You realise he just made every man in that room hate you more.”

Greg sighed. “Yeah. He’s real good at that too. Tell him I said thanks.”

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –​

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