Chapter 63: SI POV XV
Late 161 AC
Arc 4
It was not often that I had as many guests in my solar as I did now, glad for the warmth of an early summer evening now allowing for windows to be opened once more. The day had been long, so very long, and despite the bags under my eyes, there were tasks I needed to accomplish before I could crawl into bed. Yet the people gathered before me were only some of the greater 'council' I had so slowly formed, mostly due to my incessant need to be in control of so many things. Thank the Seven and whoever else cared that my mother and Mylenda had managed to convince me to delegate as I had, and the fact that so many were in my presence in and of itself spoke volumes of how greatly my house had grown with their aid. It also, exhaustingly, was just one more piece of an untold number of moving parts at play with our plans for the future of our house and lands. Speaking of which…
"Floris, I assume your people are in position?"
'Lady' Floris nodded, softly resting her hands on her swollen stomach. Her second child with one of my yeomen, Edric I believe. I was glad to have been able to give her away at their wedding, as I'd been able to secure her network and loyalty even more firmly. "Within the remaining staff of old Greycairn and Galewood keeps, I have several eyes and ears reporting to me of anything we would deem suspicious. The widowed ladies are most grateful that you guaranteed they could live out the rest of their lives in the keep, should they choose to do so during your stewardship."
Indeed, I'd extracted a wondrous deal for a house as young as mine. In exchange for my deeds during the war and then by Baelor's side beneath the Undersand, I had been awarded portions of the Galewood and Greycairn lands that had been in dispute with the old Stormhills before me. The rest of their lands I had been publicly named as their steward, to bring them up to the standards of mine own. Now, while I would have preferred to acquire the entirety of their lands for my holdings, perhaps it was best that I had not been granted such a boon. The other Stormlords yet liked me, but it did not take long for tempers to flare up amidst suspicions that I was rising far too fast for a house. While none had said anything as of yet, I knew that if I did not temper my rise by further ingratiating myself among them, it would not be long before others grew worried of me, and reacted to put their fears to rest.
Besides, Lord Baratheon and I had discussed this in private, for while my liege lord was a smart man, he was not a blind one, and pointed out such dangers that would arise, not only for my house, but for those associated with mine and even for House Baratheon. Were he to show too much favoritism, the rumors of my potential Baratheon ancestry through my grandfather could well and truly manifest in ugly ways. No lord wanted potential kin and allies to turn into rivals for their seats of power, especially with so few Baratheons alive. At least he and his wife had enough children that such an issue would fade as the years went by. Still, he had made clear to me that should my time as steward of these lands be sufficiently proper, and I brought them up to my own standards, then inheriting these lands into my own was something to be considered.
"What of the people themselves?"
"The most recent census indicated nearly four thousand additional smallfolk reside in your new borders, with the stewarded lands containing perhaps twice that apiece. Before the plows and other creations, their farmland was not as prosperous as your own, my lord, hence their lesser numbers."
So, they went from nearly twelve thousand in either domain to eight thousand apiece. Perhaps it was better that I hadn't been granted them all, since I'd have suddenly more than doubled the number of smallfolk in my domain. Taking on that many people with the amount of proper planning and infrastructure in place, as my own lands had built up over the past ten and four years, could have been disastrous. "What of their moods? Are they taking the loss of their lords well?"
"Most seem saddened but otherwise indifferent, as they know of your lands and what you brought to them. One could say they are cautiously hopeful you will bring them up to the same prosperity as your own lands, though many voice doubt that you would do so for their sake."
I nodded and turned to Jonos, one of the founding members of my maester's little academy. Or, not so little anymore, now that the great building itself was finished and the first classes, basic they may be, were being taught by those most qualified to oversee them. Now that spring had fully turned into summer, and the first harvests coming in were of good quantity, setting aside enough to feed those attending the academy was mere child's play compared to some of my earlier issues.
"My lord, we have continued as you dictated with the academy's growth," he said. "A collection of the most experienced caregivers and midwives, septas included, so that such knowledge might be more available for the masses. Just as well, the treatment of minor ailments and injuries is also being spread, though it will take time to overcome some of the more… superstitious beliefs many smallfolk yet maintain, even after your expulsion of charm-selling charlatans and uncooperative woodswitches."
"Better we had started on that sooner, but everything worth doing takes time, and better now than never I suppose," I replied. "As for our motley crew of staff?"
"Dagmer is still working at his tinkering with many small projects, but those forceps of his are doing wonders for women with difficult births," Jonos said. "As for the others, we feared the guilds would try poach our staff for their own knowledge, but given how few guilds there are in this portion of the Stormlands, we have faced no troubles yet."
Ah, yes, guilds. They certainly had their uses, and clearly weren't all bad if they were around for so long, but they could prove troublesome if they did try to take my skilled folk for their own. "Best we offer a more profitable solution then," I replied. "If guilds do come knocking, then we offer a trade. In exchange for their journeymen learning from our institution, they will be charged a lesser rate, and should they offer something we do not know, we will waive any coin at all."
"Will that not inspire conflict between guilds of differing locations?"
"Aye, but I will also enforce that this academy of Lowhill will be a safe, neutral space for such guilds to learn without interfering with one another's business. Let them battle elsewhere, but here in Lowhill, where no such guilds have sway, they can come to learn and exchange ideas if they wish. Besides," I added, smiling as I sipped some fresh fruit juice. "Those that come only to learn what they can will find themselves falling behind those that willingly share knowledge. After all, reciprocity is a skill all its own, and should good relations be maintained, more are willing to part with knowledge if they know they can benefit from it. Now, what of our friends from Kings Landing?"
The Alchemists had only just finished their own little project near Lowhill last year, atop a small hill whose pastures had always been weak and the ground a touch too rocky for farming. Opposite the Wytchmill and Stormhall respectively, the squat, semi-underground building had walls thrice the thickness of any others, and I had made explicitly clear that while they were free to keep to their own secrets, if they wished for my patronage, then they would be subject to my laws and my plans for the future. I had also made sure the buildings aboveground were of similar construction and placed so that if they did start on fire and the fire spread, it would be downhill and away from Lowhill itself.
"The Wisdom overseeing their enclave has already begun correspondence requesting additional acolytes, if merely to try and alleviate the workload you so 'generously' placed upon them," Master Gorman said with a straight face, and I could not help but snicker. They wanted to learn what I knew, or thought I knew? Well, they were going to have to work for it. I'd given them their own distillery and similar equipment to the Wytchmill, though the secret of Wytchstone yet remained my own. House Darklyn had not yet tried again after their first attempt, but it had been more than three years by now, so additional precautions had been made within the S.E.C. to prevent such theft from occurring again.
"Their progress? I was told I would have a representative as soon as the next group of acolytes settled in, so they could report it themselves rather than pass it off onto you."
"Soon, I was told, and most of them are progressing well, taking judicious notes as you ordered and making copies. As for your distilling of… urine," he said, unable to notmake a face at that, "they are intrigued by what is occurring as they do so. What use you would find for it, my lord, I haven't the faintest idea…"
"We'll just have to find if it can be used for anything, or simply use the knowledge gained from fiddling with the process to try for something else," I replied. Soon, soon I would have a crudely synthesized fertilizer, and then Kings Landing would have the greatest fields in the Crownlands, given the sheer amount of waste a city of nearly half a million people produced every day. I know Baelor would find it very intriguing, at least…
"As for other matters, due to the delays caused by the short winter and lengthened spring, your wards will be arriving soon, along with their guardians to discuss the greater details of their fosterages."
"Excellent," I said, rubbing my hands together in apparent glee, while in truth it was to hide no small amount of anxiety towards the whole affair. This was going to be big stuff, we'd already begun a great deal of the work, but with unanticipated spring fevers sweeping through several portions of the Stormlands, the delays to mitigate the risks to my future wards would hopefully be worth it. "What of our other wards, maester?"
"Jonnel continues well with his studies, and little Maron has taken to following him around when he's not in his lessons, seeing as no other boys of his age want anything to do with him."
Probably one of the funniest things to come out of this potential clusterfuck of a situation. Maron Martell came to Stormhall not two moons after the birth of my first daughter Argella, and while it had taken some time, the boy was behaving very well, given that he had only been four upon arrival. I'm curious how much of Dorne he remembers at this point, having only just turned seven namedays a moon previously, so by now almost half his life has been in my halls. Given how the other Stormland boys treated him upon arrival, and how my Reach and Stormland wards would likely react to him upon their arrival, was it any wonder he gravitated to another boy from a culturally distinct and distant kingdom? At least Jonnel tolerated him better than I'd thought he would, even if he did blame the Dornish for the state of his elder brother after the war. Poor man hadn't yet recovered from the brain injury the Dornish defenders inflicted upon him…
"Excellent," I said, rising from my chair. With a quick dismissal on my part, they departed back to their posts and respective homes, save for Gorman. "Yes?" I asked.
"As you know, the first contractions of Lady Mylenda have begun," he said. "While it is too early to yet tell, the signs point to another healthy babe."
"Thank the gods," I muttered, departing for the birthing room, the maester close on my heels. Already, my wife was lying in her bed, propped up with pillows but angled so that she was no longer flat on her back. She looked up from a report and smiled as I leaned in for a quick kiss.
"You're still awake?" she asked, gingerly twisting to set aside what I assumed to be our latest projects in the lands of her ancestors. The dam high in the mountains was near complete, as was the aqueduct the resulting lake would feed during the drier times.
"Of course."
She chuckled at that. "I don't know why I expected anything different, oh husband mine, always working himself-,"
"Papa!" a giggling voice cried, and rushing past the outstretched arms of a rather exhausted-looking maid, our first daughter slammed right into my legs.
"Argella!" I chuckled, lifting her into the air and tucking her into a free arm by my side, much to her delighted squeals. "Were you a good girl today for your mama?"
"Mhmm," she said with a fierce nod. "M'good for mama!"
"That she was," Mylenda replied, leaning over to ruffle our daughter's thick brown hair. How it grew even thicker than my own, I'll never know, and I'll never be jealous of it, not one bit. "She was always fetching the maids when I needed something but was too busy to do so myself."
One of said maids approached us, another squirming bundle in her arms. I looked within, smiling as the toddler within, big and burbling with that baby talk all do at that age, reached out with her grabby hands towards me. I reached in and tickled beneath her chin, earning a pitched set of squealing giggles, her bright blue eyes alight with delight as her own curly hair, as black as my own, framed her chubby little face.
"How was Brienne?" I asked, looking up to her caretaker.
"A darling as always, and we hope she stays that way," the maid said, the bags beneath her eyes mirroring my own. "Much more liable to sit still than the little lady in your arms."
"I'mma be a big lady!" Argella declared, pointing a free hand into the air, as if declaring before a crowd. "I'mma be big like daddy and smart like mommy!"
"Are you saying I'm not smart?" I asked with an overexaggerated gasp, feigning hurt at this sudden but inevitable betrayal of my own flesh and blood.
"You're daddy smart, I'mma be mama smart!" was her exceedingly eloquent reply. Already learning the ways of chivalric speech and courtly etiquette so as to not give offense to someone. Clever girl.
I arched an eyebrow at my wife, who was barely stifling her giggles at my expression. "Mama smart?" I asked.
"I'm thinking of my head for sums, but with her, it could be anything," my wife replied, before wincing slightly.
"A contraction?" I asked, maintaining my calm for the sake of the little girl nestled in my arm. Argella was already good at picking up on emotions and was liable to become upset if others around her were.
"Yes, I'd recognize them anywhere," another voice said, and I turned back to find my mother taking the burbling Brienne from the maid's arms. "Go rest, my dear, you've earned it today looking after these two."
"Bless you, m'lady, bless you," the maid replied with a curtsy, before scampering off to the servant's quarters. I was glad I'd managed to expand and upgrade them to standards most servants would never expect, and no doubt she would be most grateful once her head hit her pillow for the night.
"Mother, you've not had a child in over a decade," I teased as Argella began to play with my hair. I'd learned long ago to keep my beard short around her, almost cleanshaven, lest she pull a bit too hard on the moustache and make me sneeze. That, and I was tired of her already trying to braid my beard as soon as it grew long enough to do so.
"Yet three I bore, you among them my son, and you will do no good for your wife by staying up during the early stages of birth, no matter how much you wish to," Janyce said, turning to my wife and eldest daughter. "Such a silly man, to think pacing can help during a woman's duty."
"Well, he has helped in other regards," Mylenda said with a chuckle. "The midwives tell me the smallfolk adore those tongs that came from the academy, and the losses of babes and mothers to the birthing bed are much less in Lowhill than even five years ago."
"Better to have them and not need them to be without when in the direst of times," I replied, a touch defensively. I'd wished I'd remembered them earlier, and it wasn't until Brienne's nearly difficult birth that I recalled how lifesaving they could be. Luckily, she'd not suffered any apparent damage from being as briefly stuck as she was, but we wouldn't know for certain for a few more years, and it worried me. At least Gorman was certain she was progressing well enough, and I trusted him more than almost any other man in this world.
"Be that as it may, the midwives say she is not yet to give birth until at least the morrow, as the contractions are far too spaced. Go, take your rest, I implore you, it would do your wife no good for you to be up all night at her expense and unable to rule as you should come morning."
It was all I could do not to argue with my mother in this second life, and with weary eyes I did as she suggested, though not before giving my wife a quick kiss, and telling her I would return in the morning. I was truly blessed with Mylenda, for even as a random contraction made her grunt in pain, she returned my kiss and bid me goodnight. Handing off a suddenly yawning Argella to my mother, it was not long before I crawled into my empty marriage bed. The knowledge of everything that was going right did little to ease my worry, even if there was nothing more I could do for my wife. Since the comparably difficult birth of our second child a year and a half before, I had taken it upon myself to advance birthing technology by truly leaps and bounds, much to the thanks of women high and lowborn alike. Now with our third ready to meet the world, my wife could look forward to the inclusion of Dagmer's forceps, proper sanitary conditions, and additional birthing aids, all of which were rapidly spreading through my lands and those under my stewardship.
It did not take long for sleep to overtake me, but once more, I was lost to not mere dreams, but of a landscape I had seen all too many times. I had fought, bled, and nearly died above and below these lands, but to see them now, as a mere specter unseen by mortal eyes, it was a jarring experience. The sun shone brightly as it always did, but the formerly desolate landscape had begun its transformation not a moon after I had departed, and now, with the death of Nadresy and its foul corruption gone from the waters, the lands of the old Vulture keep and the long valley plain it watched over had come alive again.
Certainly, the settlements were nothing compared to more established Dornish lands, but they had grown quickly in the time since that abomination met its end. Numerous springs and wells dotted the landscape, with some seeps erupting from the weathered rock flowing directly into stony canals and tightly packed earthen ditches, either to funnel the water or to collect it for animals to drink. Every cluster of homes surrounded one of these springs, the old manorial ruins repurposed or rebuilt to house animals rather than people. The sheep and goats that grazed upon grasses along the sloped hills and steeper mountain meadows were herded by Dornishmen with billowing robes and wide-brimmed hats, sheltering their yet-tender eyes from the light of a Dornish sun.
The people formerly of the Undersand had recovered quite well in coloring and health, their bodies strengthened by clean mountain air, the sun, and the variety of foods they now could grow. The pigs and valuable mushrooms they had taken with them from Darkwell were tended to in pens and alcoves alike, though the latter never went too far into any cavern. The cultural memory and trauma of what had transpired beneath these lands would remain a part of their folklore for generations, possibly longer.
As it was, of all these small but numerous settlements, the largest lay along the shores of the old Wyl river itself, several hundred strong and bolstered by new blood over these past three years. Be they Stormland merchants whose passage through former Wyl lands was more secure than anywhere else in Dorne, Dornish migrants looking to find good land after the war had greatly depleted it elsewhere, or former mercenaries given plots of land by the king for their service in the war, the people formerly of Darkwell would need not fear a future decimated by inbreeding. Already, children had been born of migrant fathers and mothers whose future would be brighter than it had been for their Darkwell parents for generations, and their health greater than ever before. Indeed, this town of Brightwell, so named for the rejection of the dark godling I had partaken in slaying, would be a beacon for a bright future for these people and the house that would come to rule them.
Old Perros yet lived, and for that, I was grateful. He had more than earned his keep in saving us multiple times, and as the foremost expert of what little Rhoynish water magic he could recall, he was elevated personally by Prince Baelor to a masterly house, with a Targaryen oath that his eldest grandson and heir would rise to a minor lord upon his own ascension and proof of loyalty. Neither Baelor or I had any doubts as to that, but it was to show the Dornish that loyalty to the new regime would be greatly rewarded, and resistance… not so much. House Freewater, as it was called, would be the first genuine house to rule over these lands in centuries, technically subservient to whomever we decided would take over the position House Wyl once had. Besides, the houses that had once laid claim to the Vulture Keep had been lost to time, and records of them were proving incredibly difficult to find. As such, upon their ascension, House Freewater would govern not from Brightwell, but from a refurbished Vulture Keep. Which, coincidentally, called to me in this dreaming state, and with unseen steps, I journeyed up the mountain and into its ruined recesses.
The ruins of this old fortress lay as still as death, dead trees and scraggly weeds poking out from wherever they had found purchase in both sunlight and meager soil. The great hall, with a portion of its roof long-since caved in, was far wider and longer than it had any right to be so far into these lands. Yet amongst the shadows, through a sight I could only consciously control in my dreams, I saw the flickers of what a seat of power had once been, now long lost to time and memory. I could imagine good feasts of Dornish delicacies and the imported foods of their neighboring kingdoms, of weddings and funerals, of merry times and the anxiety of a wartime assembly.
A low rumble, like the driving wind of a distant storm, shook the old keep around me, and from the swirling dust and filtered light, shapes began to take form. I had long accepted that things occurred around me, rather than by my choice, in instances like this, and to my amazement, this was something I'd not expected. Rather than silent spectres of mere lords and ladies, I was suddenly overlooking a great gathering of what could only be tribes, hundreds upon hundreds in this hall, likely from across the southern lands. Their complexions ranged from Dornish to Stormlander and some were even of a complexion similar to Reachmen, their armor and weapons alike comparably archaic, and their tongues far more guttural than I'd ever heard.
Yet atop the throne at the far end of the hall, amidst a cloak of long dark feathers, sat a lord among them, a king perhaps, his spear shining brightly compared to those of burnished bronze and jagged black stone. No, not stone, though some among these shades bore what could only be obsidian spears, and yet even these paled before the star metal that only the highest among them bore. The king's cloak was clasped by a pair of bronze bones, and from his crown I spied numerous burnished talons, glinting in the flickering light of ancient torches. I did not understand their words anymore than they would have understood my original English, but every so often I heard a word uttered, 'Stark', and as each man and woman announced 'Stark', I felt a presence grow nearby.
Knowing I could not be hurt in this world, yet steeling myself all the same, I turned, only to see a great shadow, darker than pitch and as tall as the hall itself emerging from an even darker alcove than that which I found myself in. It held but the barest of shapes in the recesses of the hall, save for a pair of terrible eyes floating high where a head would be, huge and glowing and boring into my very soul.
"So," the voice croaked, and I instinctively wanted a glass of water at the sheer rasp of its voice, "you have come after all this time. They did not speak of me, did they?"
"The other gods? No, they never spoke of another like Nadresy-,"
"I am nothing like that pest," the towering shadow hissed, mirroring sliding rocks with its sheer coarseness. "I am more than that filth could ever hope to become, made by the hands of foolish, vengeful men and fed by the blood and bones of innocents to gain its power. My power comes from the land itself, and until the land recedes into the ocean itself, it will remain with me."
"I'm sorry, I meant no offense," I replied. "Yet, again, the others never spoke of you. Should they have?"
The low grumble that greeted me might have been somewhat funny, were it not for our surroundings. "Given how I have saved your plans more than once, they should have," it replied. "Pernicious, the lot of them, even those of our lines. Always cryptic and mysterious when forthright discourse would accomplish the same!"
I sighed. So, the gods were keeping other secrets from me. I knew they would, it was their nature, but come on, I should have known about something like this! It's not like I was asking for them to commune with whatever the Black Goat of Qohor was on the nature of Valyrian steel or anything. "On that we can agree, hence why I tend not to speak with them unless necessary, but back to the situation at hand. It took me years to master what I can now do in this realm, especially after I almost died, so I apologize for not coming sooner."
"I do not blame you for that, even if the strength that invigorated you to overcome it was not of your doing, but that of your bloodline."
"Be that as it may, I will admit, I have dreamt of this place and others without knowing how or why they came to me, but never felt a pull to Vulture Keep. Yet now that I can control this dreamscape of mine, I have taken to revisiting the places I have been as I choose, as they are the clearest to my sight. Only recently have I begun watching the people of Darkwell rebuild their lives and the legacy of the forebears who descended into the Undersand."
"A similarly fitting legacy for one whose ancestors drove them there in the first place," the towering being replied. "Yet what we see now is history, not the present."
I figured that as much, but just when were we? "The people speak of Stark. Was this…?"
"Aye, answering the call of their northern kin." The great eyes drifted across the empty stony ruins, the shafts of sunlight peeking through the ceiling casting some areas into dusty relief. "The war saw many leave these lands and their halls, but so few, so very few, returned in the end."
"Was that the Vulture King?" I asked, gesturing towards the one wielding the starmetal spear.
The eyes hovered on the throne for a few moments before turning back to me. "Aye, the last of his people, and the last of my line," the being said, before slowly stepping into the light.
The light shone softly on the great figure, and with its features thrown into greater relief, it was all I could do to not gasp in shock. The eyes were set deep into a face, too alien to be human but far too mannish to be simply that of a great bird. A massive, jagged beak erupted from where the mouth would be, and the lack of feathers atop its head reminded me of a balding man, save for a very thick set of feathers serving as eyebrows above that terrible gaze. The body was simply that of a massive vulture, or perhaps even a condor, with the feathers dripping in such darkness I could not distinguish between shadow and the feather.
"A god whose direct line of mortal descendants passed into history," I replied as respectively as I could. "I take it you were not the first to suffer such a tragedy?"
"No, many came before me, and in time, more will follow my path," the great creature replied. "Yet I take heart that not all my kin were slain in the War for Dawn. Many yet survive, distant as they may be, in the land of storms."
"The Stormlands?"
It chuckled, like rocks tumbling against one another in a great landslide. "Aye, some of which, by happenstance, include your own house. Kin we are, as are all that share the blood of Durran's children."
"Durran Godsgrief? His wife was the daughter of the sea god and goddess of the wind…"
"Yes, dear Elenei, a joy greater than any mortal man deserved," the figure said, and the melancholy in his voice nearly made me cry. Or was it his presence, so great before my own, comparable to the gods who approached me with fear and trepidation? He was more of this world than they were, just as I was. "It was her that brought me my own joy, as an older sister should for someone as… damaged as I was."
"Sister? I didn't know Elenei had a brother."
"In another timeline, she did not, but you should know all about how those changes can arise," the figure said. "Just as ripples from a stone may change the surface of a puddle, so too did our mutual manifestations, changing all else in their wake. In another portion of the river of time, I did not exist, as neither did your line as lords, but as mere smallfolk. Yet our arrivals changed things as upstream as our actions did downstream, and here we are, outsiders from places farther than any could imagine, young Casper. Yet that is not your true name, the one you once had, is it?"
"No, yet I am glad I have never forgotten yet where I came from, even if the memories have begun to blur and mingle. What of you?" I asked. It was odd having someone to talk to who had experienced much as I had, even if our worlds were entirely different.
"Here, I am Aean, the storms of the western winds, rare but powerful when I make my presence known in these lands. Elenei was of soft summer rains and gentle winter snowfalls, carefree and gentler than a breath of spring and the warmth of autumnal sunshine. Yet Durran won her heart and brought unto her the life of a mortal."
"So the stories say, Aean. The wrath of your parents was terrible, by all accounts."
"Aye, and were it not for my sister, I would have taken Durran himself to the highest peaks in a great gust of wind, and left him there to die," his distant godly uncle said, eyes squinting as a gust of wind threw dust through the air. "Yet for the love of my sister, who so helped me overcome my past in my other life, I swore instead to look over her descendants, as I had my own before the War for Dawn."
The figures of the gathered First Men began to disappear, one by one, fading into darkness until only the Vulture King remained, and with a gust of wind, his image faded into a dissipating cloud of dust. Once more, we were within the old, broken hall, surrounded no more by ghosts, but only shadows and memories forgotten by the minds of men. A feeling grew inside me, like one's stomach rising up when rapidly climbing a hill, one that I had long recognized as the sign I would soon awake.
"Since the gods did not deem me fit to know of your past, would you mind telling me?" I asked.
The beak curled into a smile that might have once been cruel, but now seemed more bitterly amused than anything. "I was likely once someone you knew as fiction, young traveler, if you even knew of my world at all, as such happenstances occasionally do. I dwelt not in high desert mountains, but in a nameless cave of ice, where the sun never shone, and the cold devoured all who tried to approach me. I terrorized those who traveled amongst great deserts, time being the only enemy I would ever need to defeat, for nothing else in the world dared attempt my destruction."
"Sounds like a rough, lonely life. Was it all by choice?"
"In a sense, yes, young kin of mine. But time has a way of correcting mistakes, mine included, and with my rebirth into this world, and Elenei to love me enough to aid in overcoming my shame and guilt, I saw the truth of my former actions, and sought to correct them as best I could." He paused as the feeling in my chest grew greater. "I owed that much to her, at least, and always will, but so overtly? I can no longer, not as I once did, when I drove storms upon raiders, pirates, Dornish and Reachmen alike to destroy them. As I aided you before, I would again, but as magic wanes, even here, in a place it will always be strong for me… I must remain here, in this place, a silent sentinel, until magic once again reawakens," it said, the great white ring around its neck a stark contrast to the rest of its dark body.
"Magic will return one day, but before we depart, I need to know, as I have troubles of my own past that come back to me when I try to ignore them for too long. If your past actions were by your own choice, and you recognize that, was your former life so terrible that by Elenei helping you overcome it, you willingly pledged to look over her descendants for all time?"
Darkness began to overtake my vision as the great vulture reared his head back and let loose a rough, croaking laugh that shook the very air around us as an avalanche of sound. "Yes, yes! I was a monster, truly a monster. Yet she loved me all the same after she learned of it and saw in me something I never had! For how terrible I realize I was, the mere memory of her love and kindness has driven me to watch over her descendants for countless ages, and I will continue to do so! No matter how much death and destruction I must leave in my wake, for Elenei's children I will bear the weight of the sky upon by shoulders and cast terrible storms from upon my wings. For even if they know not my name, all fear Aean the West Wind, that which brings the most terrible of inland storms, just as they feared the scourge of the Sands of Time, I, Aeon the Terrible!"