Nerd in the North 6-9 (Patreon)

Magic, dragons, and handsome knights.

All things she had read of in stories and listened to in song; all that she had hoped for in her dreams since she was a little girl in Winterfell, stealing lemon cakes from the kitchens and dreaming of the south. 

The dreams of the South had become a waking nightmare, yet her escape from it all had been even more terrifying still. 

A sennight had passed her by and the terror had not yet fully faded as Sansa Stark had been dragged through bog and forest both. A fine silk dress, the only one she had, ruined day after day, the hems heavy with filth, only to be restored with magic that frightened her with every pass over her skin. Her hair, once brushed a hundred and more strokes a night by Septa Mordane, was a tangled mess of leaves and dirt she couldn't comb through. 

Men cut in half, insides spilling out like sausages as blood spilt itself upon the ground and staining the mud the worst color her mind could conjure. She had seen magic — real magics, not the songs of Old Nan — used to crush and kill, sundering men and horses alike until one could not be told apart from another.

The boy who led them, this Lord Veder, was a monster in human flesh; a demon playing as a knight. 

He had to be. 

No simple man could move like that, faster than a blinking eye, striking with the force of a falling tower. A boy even, not a nameday past her eldest brother, and yet he laughed like a madman while standing in a field of corpses, wiping blood from a sword that shone like fresh snow as if it were wine from a goblet.

Even his second, the Black Lord they called him, was only a man of strength and size; nothing she hadn’t witnessed before in the form of the Mountain or the Hound.

Princess Sansa pulled her gray cloak tighter around her shoulders, the wool scratchy against her skin. It smelled of horse and sweat, a sharp scent no different from what she had grown used to, yet so very different from the lavender and rosewater she preferred. 

Around the fire, the men laughed, voices crude as they spat back jibes, japes and insults like gristle. Stark men-at-arms, some of them claimed to be. And she believed them, as much as she could, her family’s sigil worn proudly on their armors as they bore a Northern look too.

But they looked like bandits in the dark of night, rough men she had always feared.

"Oi, pass the skin, Daeric," a boy grunted, the one who she knew as the squire of the lord leading the party. "Throat's dryer than a septon's sermon."

“Easy there, squire-boy. Don't drown yerself.” Daeric laughed, a sharp, barking sound that made Sansa flinch. He tossed the wineskin across the fire, leather slapping into Lobb's waiting palm with a wet sound. "The Bright Lord'll skin us if we're drunk on watch. Or the big man'll use ye for whetstone practice."

"Ain't drunk.” The boy, no more than ten and four, wiped at his mouth with the back of a dirty hand. "Just thirsty. Carrying the packs ain't light work, ye know. Not all of us got magic armor to do the liftin'. Some of us got bones that ache."

"Says the one with the magic sword," Wilkin laughed back before Daeric could answer, the sound mingling the sound of him sharpening his own dagger. "Saw it glowin', I did. Lightin' up the dark like a second moon. Don't tell me that ain't heavy magic, Lobb."

"Ain't magic… not magic like the lord’s magic.” The squire clutched at the hilt of the silver blade on his hip. "Just... sharp. Lord Greg said it was enchanted. That ain’t magic. There’s a difference, see? Magic is... power. Enchanted is like the Targ swords."

"Aye, the difference is one gets ye burned by the Faith and the other gets ye rich.” A snort left the mouth of another boy, one named Harald who claimed to hail from Wintertown. "Though with the way the Lord throws flame and light around, reckon we're all burnin' eventually. Might as well drink while the drinkin's good."

Sansa looked away, staring into the darkness beyond the firelight as she did her best to block out their voices, to pretend she was back in the Red Keep, safe in her chambers. 

But even that was a lie. 

There was no safety there either. Only Joffrey's smiles, the Kingsguard's fists, and the Queen's cold eyes.

The sound of the camp was heavy, all the voices broken only by the crackle of the fire and the sound of the giant man they called Guts. The Black Swordsman cleaned his giant of a blade, every slide of the cloth a reminder of what that sword had done. 

What it could do. 

Sansa turned her head aside from the noise and looked over at the one who called himself Lord Veder.

The lord was sitting apart, bright blue eyes staring into the flames. He looked barely older than she was, too young to have killed so many men with such ease. His face was unlined, blond hair brighter than Joffrey’s and shining in the light of the fire in front of him. Nothing about him seemed like a killer. He looked like... like a prince she might have dreamed of dancing with at a feast, before everything went wrong. 

Before her father…

Sansa choked back as a sob, the sound swallowed up as Lord Veder spoke easily with Myrcella, the blond lord doing most of the speaking as the princess sat in near-silence. His beast rested behind him, a massive, scaly bulk of heat and danger that breathed smoke into the night air. Myrcella was patting the giant bear-like winged monster, her small hand lost in its fur, with no fear in her eyes or her manner. 

She looked... peaceful.

It made little sense to her. How?Her family was engulfed in war, her uncle captured in the North, and her father — the king — was dead. And she sat there, unbothered and quiet, just petting the monster of a monster.

Anger bubbled up in her chest, hot and choking; heat of the helpless struggling for a target as she continued to stare at the blond Veder lord speaking mindlessly. It was the anger of a girl who had done everything right, said every courtesy, stitched every seam, and still lost everything.

"You didn't have to kill them all."

Lord Veder looked up, blinking as if waking from a dream while the firelight danced in his blue eyes. "What?"

"The men on the road…” Her voice trembled, but she forced it steady, channeling the lessons of Septa Mordane. A lady is always composed. A lady does not scream. A lady’s armor is her courtesy. "The ones in the village. You didn't just fight them. You... you slaughtered them." 

“Slaughter is a big word.” He shook his head, blowing air out of his mouth.

A shudder ran through her body, the memory of the red mist fresh in her mind as he cast the spell, the way the horses had crumpled like paper. "You revel in murder. I see the smile on your face as you slaughter. Like it is a game."

The magic lord stared at her for a moment, his expression flat and near-unreadable. 

“Okaaayyy.” He snorted, the sound short and dismissive that stung worse than a slap across her face. "...not all the time. Sometimes I'm just thinking about dinner. Or how much my feet hurt. Or about breakfast.” His shoulders rose up and down. “Killing is... pretty messy. Hard to smile when you've got blood in your mouth. Tastes like pennies. Wait, uhh… coppers."

"Do not mock me!" Sansa snapped, her fragile courtesy cracking like thin ice. "You speak of death as if it were a... a chore! Those were men! With families! With souls!"

"They were rapists and murderers, princess." Blue eyes fully turned her way, the lord’s voice drained of the humor he wore like a cloak. "They bragged about killing your brother’s men. They would have dragged you back to King’s Landing, if they didn’t fuck up and kill you first. Am I wrong, Guts?”“Not wrong.” The big man rumbled from her side, enough to send another shudder through Sansa. “Not wrong at all.”Lord Veder hummed again. “You know I did the math on it, I’m pretty quick like that. Dead bad guys equals alive us. Alive us is good. I like alive us. You’d like life a lot more if I kept my head on my body.”

"And you treat it all as a jest, even now!" Sansa stood, hands balled into fists at her sides as she stood tall, like a Stark of Winterfell. "A game in which you count lives for play. You drag us through the mud, you slaughter men in the road... you say m-my brother sent you? Robb would never! He honors the laws of war. My… my brother is a just man! He is… he is the King in the North!"

She had never allowed herself to utter those words, barely even acknowledging Lord Veder’s claims of princess laid upon her head, but at this moment, they felt as true as anything else.

"The laws of war?" Lord Veder threw his head back, letting out a short, bitter laugh. “You’re joking?” The moment passed and he let his head fall as he looked tired suddenly. "Princess, look around. There are no laws. Joffrey killed your dad! Where were the laws then? Where was the honor? Be real, like… c’mon?"

Sansa flinched again, the mention of her father another slap across her face. The image of her lord father falling to his knees, the sword plunging... it was always there, everytime she closed her eyes. "That... that was… that… Joffrey said..."

"Your psycho of a betrothed… Right, that Joffrey.” The lord sighed again and shook his head slowly. “Look, I just want to keep you alive long enough to get you home and make Robb’s day, even without your sister. So sorry if I don't bow and all that good shit before I decapitate the guys trying to rape and murder us. I'll work on my etiquette."

"This is not a jest!" Tears stung her eyes, hot and angry. "And I am not a piece on a board! I am a person! Myrcella is a person! You cannot just... move us around and kill everyone in the way and call it strategy!"

"Who’s calling it strategy? Strategy’s for war. I pretty much just run up to people and do what I gotta do." He leaned towards her, almost rocking off his feet. "You wanna call it strategy? Sure, strategy means the guys with the red cloaks die so the girls with the pretty names live. Simple enough. You want complicated? Go back to King’s Landing."

"Wolves."

The small voice cut through the shouting like a knife.

Sansa turned her head, Lord Veder doing the same.

Myrcella sat by the fire, staring into the flames as her green eyes swirled once again with the light of the fire reflected in them. "The wolves wear human skin, and men wear iron proud. But the iron rusts. And the skin rots. Only the fire remains."

The silence that followed was absolute as even the men stopped their chatter. Guts paused in his cleaning, the giant blade resting still on his knee.

Myrcella blinked, looking around at them, the fire in her eyes fading back to their normal green as she stared at them all confused. "Why is everyone staring?"

Sansa felt a chill that had nothing to do with the night air settle deep in her bones, deep and cold. She looked at Lord Veder, expecting an answer from him; maybe even a jape or a deflection.

But the magic lord wore no smile on his face. "Just... admiring the poetry, Princess.”

Sansa wrapped her arms around herself, looking out into the dark as the nightmare refused to end. "I want to go home.” 

"We're working on it," Greg muttered, hearing her. "We're working on it."