233 AC, Dol Guldur.
It took Hala a few days to get comfortable being Harry's woman, which was helped along in no small part by how drastically her life had improved since he'd stolen her. The tower was safe, warm and there was always plenty of food to eat. In fact, Harry had needed to caution her to slow down because she was so used to either rationing carefully or eating as much as possible, whenever possible when there was excess food available.
There were other, smaller, things as well, like being clean all the time and having more than one set of clothes to wear, but the thing she like the best was being part of a clan. The free folk may honor and respect skinchangers, but they feared them as well and Hala had never truly felt welcome anywhere.
Luna and Adrastia could have easily seen her as an intruder and resented having to share Harry, but they were both glad to have her instead. She had been accepted and made one of them immediately. That meant a lot.
"No daydreaming." Harry's sharp reprimand snapped her out of her thoughts, accompanied by a poke to the side of her head. "Finish your work."
Hala glared at him sullenly, and then switched her glare to Bragni when she heard the boy snickering at her.
She'd been surprised to discover that there was someone else in Dol Guldur besides the four of them. Apparently, Bragni hadn't been at that first breakfast because he had a bad habit of sleeping late and Harry was trying to break him of it by making him miss meals if he didn't get up early enough. She was confused as to why he didn't just beat the boy until he learned, but she didn't question it, figuring that he knew what he was doing.
Currently, they were both having study time.
It was the only part of her new situation that she hated. Harry insisted that she learn how to read and write and wouldn't be moved on the matter. She didn't see what use it was, but she did it because she wanted to please him. Harry was a far better man than a free folk woman could expect to have, one who could easily become King-Beyond-the-Wall if he so chose, and she was determined to show that he made the right choice when he stole her.
She'd thought that she was doing a good job of it. Harry had certainly never seemed disappointed or upset with her. That was why she was confused and suddenly uncertain of her place when he left to steal another woman so soon after he took her.
XXXXX
233 AC, Valley of Thenn.
It didn't take a genius to figure out why Adrastia's second choice of woman was the daughter of the Magnar of Thenn, especially seeing as there was nothing magical about her. The Thenns were the largest and most advanced group of free folk, both culturally and technologically. They were firmly in the Bronze Age and had a rudimentary feudal society instead instead of the late Stone Age tribalism of the others. They also had a close relationship with the remaining giants.
So yes, Harry was able to see Adrastia's game in an instant. Fortunately for her, he once again didn't really care. If stealing the Magnar's daughter got him politically entangled with the Thenns then so be it. Politics beyond the Wall mostly consisted of being the baddest motherfucker on the premises anyway, which was the only form of politics he still had any patience for. By the time that started changing, he would be able to hand most of it off to his sons.
Still, he had no problem making a bit of a production out of it to help Adrastia's ambitions along. A little theatrics was good for a chuckle and it wasn't like he had any particular objection to what she was trying to do, seeing as she was so carefully making sure that her plans stayed within the border of his own.
"COWARD!" The Magnar's son and heir screamed at the top of his lungs in the Old Tongue of the First Men. "COME DOWN AND FACE ME LIKE A MAN, SORCERER!"
Harry looked down at the teenaged boy from his Nimbus Cloud with cool amusement and responded in the same language, having learned it as soon as possible. "And why should I do that, Sigurd of Thenn? I already have your sister." He punctuated his point by gripping the squirming girl a little closer.
She was a pretty thing of about 5'7''. Eighteen years old with chestnut brown hair and similarly brown eyes. Her most notable feature were the blue facial tattoos common among the Thenns, although hers were subtler than those worn by the men.
"LET HER GO!" Sigurd raged.
"Are you daft, boy?" Harry scoffed. "I came here to steal her, so why would I let her go now that I have her?"
Sigurd looked like he desperately wanted to skip right to the violence, possibly because he had no good answer to that.
"Fight me without your magic!" He finally said. "If you can best me, I will not dispute your claim to Sigrid."
"Brother, no!" Said sister yelled.
"Don't worry, I won't kill him or even hurt him much." Harry murmured to her ear, knowing that she was more concerned about her brother than herself. Being a daughter to the Magnar of Thenn meant that she had enjoyed a lot more protection than any other free folk woman. She hadn't needed to be a fighter, a spearwife, but she was still of the free folk and grew up tough, with a keen understanding of the harsh realities of life.
True enough, she calmed down considerably and he gave her one final squeeze before jumping off the Nimbus and floating down to the ground, much to the awe of everyone observing him. "Very well, I accept your terms."
The other warriors that he had scattered during his little invasion had mostly picked themselves up by now, including the Magnar himself.
The man gave him a hard stare and only spoke when he didn't flinch or look away. "Who are you to make a claim on my daughter?"
"I am Harry, the Sorcerer of Dol Guldur." Harry said, fighting down the impulse to roll his eyes at the pissing contest of a societal ritual.
"What kind of name is Harry?" Sigurd sneered.
"You can think of it as short for Harold, Hadrian, Haraldr, Halaster or any number of other similar names if it makes you feel better, but my parents named me Harry." He shrugged.
"Enough." The Magnar said sharply. "Harry of Dol Guldur has made a claim on my daughter, Sigrid. My son, Sigurd, disputes it. Choose your weapons."
Sigurd merely spun the bronze sword already in his hand with a nasty grin.
Harry smiled and pulled a simple quarterstaff out of his hammerspace, his favored weapon. His smile widened slightly when he noticed everyone who saw him do this blink in confusion before shaking it off and forgetting where exactly the staff came from. Confounding spells were always so amusing to see in action.
"Fight!" The Magnar proclaimed.
Sigurd immediately rushed forward, swinging his sword for a killing blow.
Harry spun his staff and deflected the attack, following it up by shoulder ramming the unbalanced teen to send him stumbling backwards into the hard-packed snow.
"Mind your balance." He lectured with amusement. "If you overextend on your attack you leave yourself wide open for a counter."
Sigurd got up and angrily bared his teeth, but approached with more caution than before.
This time it was Harry who went on the attack, using the much greater reach of his weapon to probe the boy's defenses and then pulling back before he could counter.
Sigurd had some training and managed to keep up with the light assault easily enough, but it was clear that he was inexperienced and that he'd never fought a skilled staff user. Getting poked from afar and being unable to close the distance frustrated him almost as much as Harry's occasional bit of advice, until one final whack to the shin when he put his leg out of position, accompanied by a reprimand about his footwork, made his temper snap and he charged in again.
Harry had been waiting for it and smacked him over the fingers, forcing him to instinctively let go of the sword. He followed it up by sweeping his feet up from under him with the staff and making him fall onto his back with a grunt. He placed the tip of the staff on the boy's chest to keep him from trying to get up again and looked at him with an arched eyebrow.
"Watch your anger." Harry continued lecturing. "It may let you fight longer and harder, but it also narrows your focus."
"Harry of Dol Guldur is the winner." The Magnar announced stonily. "Take good care of my daughter, Sorcerer."
"She will live like a queen." He said with a nod to the man before turning to the glowering/sulking Sigurd with amusement. "Come to Dol Guldur, what was once the Fist of the First Men, if you want to visit your sister or get another lesson on fighting properly."
With that, he flew back up to the Nimbus Cloud, much to the shock and awe of the watching Thenns. Sigrid notably didn't resist at all when he pulled her to him this time before they flew away, even seeming eager.
The simplicity of barbarian girls was pretty great.
XXXXX
Hala lay awake in bed, trying to sort out her complicated feelings.
At this very moment, Harry was fucking the Thenn girl he'd stolen and she didn't know what to think about it.
She had done everything to be a good woman to him, but he had gone to steal another one anyway. Was she really just another warm body for him to fuck?
But no, that couldn't be it. He had treated her with more respect than she'd expected, taught her things and listened to her when she spoke. If all he'd wanted was someone to fuck then he could have just kept her locked in a room.
So why did he take another girl? There was nothing saying he couldn't of course, but she'd thought.....well, it didn't matter.
Furthermore, she couldn't even complain. She was his third woman. Luna and Adrastia had welcomed her when they had every reason to reject her, so if she refused to welcome the Thenn girl now, she would just be shaming herself. Not to mention that Luna and Adrastia seemed pleased with the newest addition.
"What are you thinking about so hard?" Luna asked suddenly, startling Hala, who had thought that the smaller woman was soundly asleep.
The sleeping arrangements in Dol Guldur seemed a little odd to the skinchanger. Adrastia apparently disdained sharing a bed with others even though she obviously enjoyed fucking Harry, whereas Luna loved it and would have had Ash sleep on the bed with them if Harry hadn't gainsaid it.
"I don't understand what he needs the Thenn girl for." Hala admitted.
"Babies." Luna stated like it was nothing, scooting over so that she was laying on top of her.
"I'd have given him babes!" Hala protested indignantly, hand instinctively going to her stomach. In fact, with how much they'd been fucking, there might very well be one growing inside her already.
"You will." Luna nodded enthusiastically. "And so will Sigrid and all the other girls he takes."
"Oh." Hala was once again confused. A man that wanted many children was hardly unusual, but...."But not you and Adrastia?"
"I am making children with Harry, you'll see them soon."
How mysterious. Still, Hala had already learned that when Luna had that mischievous smile on her face, there was no point in digging any further. "What about Adrastia?"
"Oh, she doesn't like children."
Another baffling thing about the dark-skinned witch, and Hala had noticed quite a few of those already. Maybe that was normal where she came from? Did people dislike children more the further south you went? She'd heard that the kneelers bartered theirs away like they were things, so they obviously didn't care about them much. Since Adrastia claimed to come from even further south, it seemed possible that her people were even worse about it.
"Don't worry." Luna said when she didn't respond for a while, smiling and giving her a kiss on the lips. Yet another oddity that had taken some getting used to. "You impressed Harry and he likes you. We'll always be a family, him stealing more women just means it'll be a bigger one."
What was there to say to that? Much of her disquiet assuaged, she allowed herself to be shifted into a spooning position with Luna, the much smaller woman curling happily into her embrace.
Some time later, Hala was woken from her light sleep when Harry joined them on the bed, pressing himself up against her back in turn. He smelled clean, so he must have showered after leaving the Thenn girl to sleep off the fucking he'd given her.
She smiled and relaxed, easily falling back asleep sandwiched between her man and clan-sister.
XXXXX
The next day, Hala got to see what her own morning after being taken by Harry must have looked like from the other side.
Unlike her, Sigrid had chosen to wear one of the dresses that Adrastia seemed to like so much and was doing her best to hide how uncertain and awkward she felt.
With the conversation from the previous night still fresh in her head, Hala pushed down the part of her that wanted to growl territorially and welcomed the new arrival.
Luna's bright smile, Adrastia's approving nod and Harry's hand giving hers a brief squeeze made it worth it.
XXXXX
Later that day.
Hala watched the sunset from one of Dol Guldur's balconies, breathing in the sharp, cold air.
Next to her, Ash whined slightly, staring down at the strip of Haunted Forest that lay between the tower and the Milkwater.
"You want to go hunting?" Hala asked, interpreting her direwolf with the ease of long practice.
Ash rumbled out a confirmation.
Hala had to admit that the idea was appealing. Dol Guldur was great, but she did miss the wilds, and Ash obviously missed it even more if her running around the tower was any clue.
Luna loved to play chase with her. Actually, Luna loved to do a lot of things with the direwolf, grooming especially. Ash was looking quite pampered these days with her fur being so fluffy and shiny from regular bathing and brushing.
"Aye, you look like you need it or you might actually get fat like Harry said you would." Hala chuckled, and the chuckled some more when the direwolf chuffed as if offended. "Come on, let's go ask him if we can go."
Aside from having to get the furs that he still hadn't returned to her, she did actually feel the need to get his permission. Wandering the Haunted Forest was dangerous business even for a skinchanger and he wouldn't be wrong to call her a fool for doing it when there was no need. Still, she had a feeling that he wouldn't deny her.
They found Harry in the forge, teaching Bragni his craft while examining one of those wondrous Valyrian steel blades. Gods, but did she want one of those.
"Oi, Harry!" She called out from the doorway, knowing better than to barge in there with a curious, horse-sized direwolf.
Harry put the magical blade down and made his way towards her, bare chest gleaming with a thin layer of sweat. Her loins started burning with a familiar heat as she remembered the times that chest had been pressed against hers while his cock plunged into her cunt over and over....
"Yes?" He questioned, the smirk on his face letting her know that he knew exactly what she'd been thinking of. He always seemed to know.
"Ash and I want to go on a hunt." She said, shaking off her little daydream.
Harry hummed and she briefly worried that she'd been wrong and that he would actually forbid her from leaving the tower, but then Bragni spoke up with clear excitement.
"Are we finally going to show it to her?!"
Harry looked briefly irritated, but then he just rolled his eyes. "Yes, we're going to show it to her. Come on."
"Show me what?" Hala asked curiously as they walked a short distance away to another room that she hadn't been in before. It was full of wooden racks and dummies, one of which had a sheet draped over it.
"This." Harry declared and pulled off the sheet.
Hala stared. She recognized her old furs, although they looked to have been cleaned, but now there was armor attached to them. Steel plates like she'd heard the kneelers used were placed on the shoulders, upper arms, forearms, chest, waist, upper thighs, shins and feet.
On a rack next to the dummy with the armor, there was a collection of weaponry. A knife, a short-handled axe and a short sword all made of steel. Even better, there was also a bow made of some kind of bone, with a quiver full of arrows next to it.
"Fur-lined platemail with padded cloth beneath it, along with some enchantments for extra protection and heat regulation. Guaranteed to keep you comfortable and safe anywhere you go." Harry explained. "As for the weapons.....A dragonbone bow with steel broadhead arrows, it should have far more range and power than you're used to. The sword, axe and knife aren't anything special, but they'll serve you well."
Nothing special he says, when some clans would go to war with each other for less than half that much steel.
"You made all this?" Hala asked, still stunned.
"Bragni did some of the less precise work." He said, gesturing to the clearly proud boy. "It was good practice for him to have an actual project to work on instead of just hammering metal into shape for no real purpose."
"And this is all for me?" She was still a bit shocked and felt the need to make sure.
"I knew you wouldn't be happy just staying in the tower all the time and I didn't want you getting killed out there after I went through the trouble of stealing you." Harry teased, still smirking. "I was starting to think I was wrong and that we did all this work for nothing."
Hala grabbed his wrist.
"I need you to fuck me, right now." She growled, already pulling him in the direction of their room.
"Take the rest of the day off, boy." Harry called out. "I'm going to be busy."
Ash sat down and let out a discontent grumble. Her human seemed to be in heat all the time lately, ever since the old scary one with with black head-fur and green eyes had taken her as his mate.
She caught a whiff of the mate-scent from the young one next to her and chuffed with disgust before leaving to find the small, old female that gave good scratches.
XXXXX
The next morning.
"You went to get my tent?" Hala asked happily, accepting the folded up bundle of furs.
"Yes, and I made some improvements." Harry confirmed with a smirk. A lot of her stuff had been left behind in her camp when he'd stolen her.
"What kind of improvements?" She questioned eagerly.
"You'll see." He evaded, not wanting to spoil the shock of seeing the expanded space. Best of all, he could use the Greensight to see it later.
"Fine, be that way." The skinchanger huffed, before turning more serious. "We shouldn't be gone for more than a few days at most."
"Take as long as you want, you should have plenty of supplies." Harry assured. He had given her a Bag of Holding, as well as enough nutrient dust and water to last her two weeks even if she didn't supplement it with foraging and hunting. "When you come back, we'll see about teaching you some more magic."
"The Horned Lord said that sorcery is a sword without a hilt." Sigrid spoke up warily from nearby, almost disappearing inside the thick cloak she had draped around her shoulders.
"That's certainly true for a novice..." Harry said, deliberately showing off his burned right hand. "but I'm no novice."
Hala nodded with a clear gleam of interest in her eyes. While she had initially been frightened by his magic, she was already a skinchanger and adapted quickly.
Harry turned to the direwolf that was wagging her tail with eagerness. "Take care of her for me, Ash. You know how clumsy she can be."
"Oi, fuck you!" Hala cursed, although she sounded more amused than angry.
Ash lolled her tongue out and butted her head against his palm. The direwolf had initially been quite hostile, but she had quickly realized that she wasn't the apex predator in this situation. That was the great thing about animals – they trusted their instincts and didn't get misled by ego. It also helped that he had been able to use Legilimency to effectively communicate his lack of ill will towards Hala.
"Traitor." The spearwife grumbled. "Come on, let's go."
"Just one last thing." Harry grinned slightly as a crow perched on his shoulder. "Take Dust with you, he can act as a scout and warn you of approaching danger." He specifically didn't give her a portkey because it would have taken away some of the authenticity from her trip. The weirwood dryads would look out for her in case something went tits up.
"Danger!" Dust croaked.
"Yeah, like that." Harry nodded.
"Alright." Hala said, a bit bemused as the crow flew up to perch on the stonework above Dol Guldur's doors.
"Be safe." Luna said, throwing her arms around the much taller woman's neck and kissing her on the cheek.
"I will." The spearwife promised.
XXXXX
Dol Guldur, the Vault.
Nineteen dragon eggs.
Harry stared at them contemplatively. They were petrified, but their fiery hearts still smouldered and could be awoken again.
I wasn't as simple as just warming them up of course, but not any great riddle for the knowledgeable wizard.
Had he been younger, he would have already hatched them, but age had made him more patient and cautious.
There were consequences to consider. Where would they lair? How to ensure they had enough access to food? How would their hatching affect his plans? Would they be safe from greedy humans trying to use them as weapons?
Harry strongly suspected that the lands beyond the Wall would not be a good place for the dragons. The region was steeped in the magic of earth and living wood, with a dash of death and ice from the Lands of Always Winter. Dragons needed fire and air. He still had to confirm this, but he was fairly sure that he was right. It would neatly explain the slow degeneration of the Targaryen dragons, why Cannibal had been able to survive for so long in a land where food should be hard to come by and the possible reason for why the Valyrians never came to Westeros.
In truth, Harry already had a place in mind, but the other concerns still needed to be addressed. Adding nineteen extremely powerful magical creatures to the world could have all sorts of effects that might throw off his investigations. He needed to get a baseline assessment before he started tossing rocks into the pond.
Then there was the human problem. He didn't want to hatch the dragons just to have them become mounts for a new generation of so-called dragonlords. It was a certainty that the flailing Targaryen dynasty would try to get control of them to prop up their rule, and they would merely be the first. There was no shortage of people with Valyrian descent scattered across the Free Cities either, any one of which might get it into their fool heads that they were entitled to having a dragon at their beck and call. Most would just end up extra crispy, but there was a chance that someone might actually manage to tame one. Something would have to be figured out to protect them from that, to keep the dragons wild and free.
"Soon." Harry muttered as he rubbed his hand over the deep red scales of the closest egg fondly.
XXXXX
True North, Earthsinger Warren.
Luna was feeding carrots to the goats and accepting happy licks in return with a delighted giggle.
"These are really nice goats." She said to Leaf.
Leaf said nothing, but she did give a slight, pointy-toothed smile, the persistent air of melancholy around her dissipating slightly.
Over the past few months, Luna had tried very hard to cheer up her new friend, but nothing really seemed to work. The depression had deep roots, going back through thousands of years of fading hope and centuries of hopelessness.
She had asked Harry for help and he was already researching viable methods to restore their hope.
"You really should come by the tower some day." Luna said, an invitation that she had extended several times already.
As usual, Leaf just shook her head and sighed fatalistically. "There is no place for us in the world that men made."
Even though they were happy to know that she and Harry planned to restore much of the old forests and plant more weirwoods, they still believed that their time was over.
"But there will be in the one that Harry and I make." Luna insisted.
"You think you can stand against all the young gods and their followers that would see us destroyed to make room for their own ways?" Leaf asked skeptically.
This time it was Luna that shook her head. "I don't think they're going to survive Harry's curiosity."
She knew her husband of many years, knew what he was like. Few things were safe from his rapacious intellect and he would take any excuse to satisfy it. Mysteries and secrets drew his attention like little else, and he had always been gifted at tearing them apart. The Old Gods had avoided the danger because they were, at the end of the day, just trees. All they cared about was earth and water and helping their living kin. They were happy to share their memories and knowledge. All the other gods didn't seem so easygoing.
XXXXX
Riverlands, Stoney Sept.
What do you want?
Harry opened his eyes and smiled, still sitting in a meditative pose in the middle of the town's sept.
"Knowledge."
Knowledge of what? The Seven persisted with its questioning.
"Everything." Harry persisted with his unhelpful one word answers.
And you think to find it here?
"Some of it."
You have aligned yourself with false gods. We will tell you nothing.
Harry had to chuckle. "As you wish."
That seemed to stump the godling and Harry slipped back into meditation when nothing further was said.
Time passed by in silence inside the cold, dark sept. The hour was very late and there was little chance that anyone would come to disturb him in the middle of winter.
Harry could feel the godling observing him, trying to figure him out. He was an out-of-context problem that it didn't know how to solve.
It didn't seem to grasp how much information it was betraying by doing so.
"Why does the Stranger never speak?" He asked abruptly. All six other aspects of the Seven had come to the forefront at one time or another, but never the Stranger.
We are one. The godling stated unhelpfully.
"Hmm, are you really?" Harry murmured. The nobles and the more educated septons may understand the concept of separation and unity existing together, but the lay believer didn't. Most of the Seven's worshipers genuinely thought there were seven gods. What effect, if any, did that have?
Most of the Seven's worshipers didn't like the Stranger, discomfited by its association with death, and didn't pray to it.
He brought a palette of colors out of hammerspace, prepared specifically for this outing. A small globule of pink was gathered magically – despite the Seven's attempts to interfere – and flicked it at the statue of the Father, splattering its stern visage with the thick, clingy paint.
DEFILER! The Seven boomed, the Father aspect the most prominent by far.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Did that make you angry?" Harry mocked. He was hoping to provoke an attack.
Is there no end to your blasphemy?!
"Nope." He replied in the same mocking tone. "Strange that you would care so much about these statues....."
He grabbed a small brush and dipped it into peach-colored paint. Then he started to paint nipples on the statue of the Maiden.
Stop that! The Seven 'shouted', this time far more like an embarrassed girl than the offended dignity of the Father.
"I'm just practicing my art." Harry retorted blithely, painting a crude and vulgar representation of a vagina around the Maiden statue's waist. As a finishing touch, he wrote 'slut' across the midsection in bright red.
You are a disgusting deviant! The Seven....whined, basically.
"So I've been told." Harry nodded as he moved on to the next statue, that of the Mother. This one got an artistic rendition of milk dribbling from its nipples.
You shame yourself by doing this. The Mother aspect came forward reproachfully.
"I've done worse."
The other statues got similar....enhancements. The Warrior got gaudy, glittering blue eyeshadow and bright red lipstick added to his face, the Smith had his hammer defiled and the Crone's lantern ended up looking like something between a child's finger painting project and cat barf. Without fail, the relevant aspect of the Seven would complain or demand that he cease and desist.
But when he started turning Stranger's hood into a crude pornography sketch, said aspect did not raise its voice.
"Well now, isn't that interesting." Harry murmured. "The beliefs of your worshipers affect you, don't they? No wonder you're such a collection of humorless cunts."
It wasn't conclusive evidence of course. The Stranger could simply be the strong silent type. It was, however, another data point on which he could base a proper theory later on.
The Seven gave him the figurative cold shoulder.
"How do you even perceive the world?" He continued, undaunted. "The septs obviously act as focal points of worship and allow you to be aware of what happens inside and around them, but what else can you see? Does the devotion of your faithful turn them into conduits for you into this world?"
There was no reply, so Harry merely snorted and walked out. "Fine, we'll do it the hard way."