This one gets magical and spiritual, so strap in for that! Definitely had to handle a lot of lore on this one, but I think it all fits in considering I didn't know any going into it.
Melisandre
had zealously served the Red God R’hollor throughout her entire
life. Thanks to her skill with the magic of Red Priests and
Priestesses, that life was exceptionally long. She had spent hundreds
of years followers the Red God's visions and performing his rituals,
and she had become one of his most devout and powerful worshipers.
She maintained a youthful visage, appearing as a lovely redhead in
her early twenties unless another form was needed.
The
Red God's messages could be cryptic, to say the least, casting rapid
images into her vision or dreams. She saw a great blizzard, miles
wide by the looks of it and moving in fast. There were men building a
wall at ridiculous speeds, piling stone after stone until the wall
towered over certain castles. It blocked her view of the cold storm,
leaving only the sun peeking over its walls. The walls spread around
her, forming a ring. Nineteen towers formed among the walls and her
point of view was flung through its entrance. There were no men
inside, but she was bombarded by information. Words, names, dates...
they went by too quickly to read them all, but those that she could
held little meaning. With that, the vision stopped with the snapping
sound of a closing book.
Melisandre
had come to recognize his patterns by now, so she was quick to
determine what her latest flash of memories meant. She had recognized
it as Castle Black, one of the 19 ancient castles that had been built
along The Wall. Somewhere within its libraries, there were secrets
she would need in the near future. With a soft smile and a nod, she
started her journey.
The
castle was ancient and poorly maintained. The Night's Watch,
Melisandre recalled, was a mockery of what it once was. An
alternative to prison where rapists and thieves went to work off
their crimes rather than protect the ancient structure. Getting by
them was simple enough for Melisandre as she forced open the door to
Castle Black. The place was falling apart, but there was nothing to
stop the mystical priestess. In all her time practicing her arts as a
Red Priestess, she had more than enough tricks to get past them. She
didn't need to worry about food or drink, and when the darkness
swallowed her up in the deeper parts, she could simple conjure fire
to her hands to let her see.
She
had spent a long time in the underground library, finding records
that seemed as old as the written word itself. She had spent months
poring over all the books and scrolls, taking dreadful note as she
felt a disturbance in the air. At first it felt as if everything in
the world had just grown a tiny bit colder. Before Melisandre could
fully acknowledge it, she felt a pain run through her chest as if
momentarily poisoned. She collapsed against her table, seeing an even
more powerful vision than normal.
There
was an old cave littered with the bodies of Starks and their wolves,
both ancient and fresh. Grim, gray clouds raced across the sky as if
they were chasing something. Dead men forced their way out of
frost-covered graves. Her vision lead her through a castle, ruined by
some merciless battle. Just as she seemed to reach as deep inside as
the hall would go, something massive and impossibly powerful turned
and set its terrible gaze on her.
She
woke up from her vision with a start. She briefly felt cold, which
was something she hadn't felt since the full embrace of her Lord. She
wiped some blood from her nose, seeing that it didn't make contact
with any of the documents. The Great Other was awake, which just made
her work that much more important.
It
was in an ancient journal where she found what seemed to be the key.
There was the ancient hero Azor Ahai. The Westorosi had called him
Bran the Builder, who had designed and created many tools and
structures meant to repel the Great Other. He had been the chosen one
of R’hllor, the Lord of Light who spoke to man through fire, and
wielded his might in his crusade against the dark invader. Melisandre
followed the logs to track his bloodline and other notable figures
throughout the history of Azor Ahai's creations. He had not been the
only one to contain the power of R’hllor's fire, but he was the
only one to wield it so potently. Pure Valyrian blood was the only
thing that could bring out such a force, something that even her
centuries of knowledge knew simply did not exist.
"So
much for that option," Melisandre noted as she closed her latest
tome. She returned to a rack of scrolls, considering seeing in Bran
had created some weapon that would do the job instead. She tucked the
book back in its approximate spot and turned to focus on the fire she
held in her hand. She checked on it regularly, seeking and further
guidance from her cryptic god, but she needed more information on
this newest revelation. It so happened that the flames came bearing
news.
Melisandre
saw the new Lord Captain of Castle Black had just been murdered. She
saw his body surrounded by traitors; men in the same uniformed armor
that glared down at Jon Snow’s corpse. He was laid on a slab in the
upper levels of the castle, being watched over until they arranged
the proper way to dispose of the body. It had to be just so, given
their location, or else they risked their dead rising as more white
walkers. The vision showed herself in the room with Snow, standing
over him while flames roared around him without burning the room. She
felt the message was clear: the fire was his life force, and she
would need to be there to revive the fallen leader.
It
was child's play for her to enter Castle Black. The traitors had all
been executed and the guards mourned the loss of their commander, so
their attention was turned inward as much as out. She slipped inside
easily enough, and when she found the acting commander, she slid a
bit of her comforting magic into him to make him collapse in a deep
sleep. She dragged him into an unused room at the far end of one of
the halls, shutting the door tight before she changed her shape once
again to look just like him.
They
had Snow's body locked away in a room until they could arrange a
burial. The guards watching over him were puzzled, but they certainly
didn't object when the current Lord Commander asked to see the body
alone. They didn't want to sound disobedient when there were still
men in the cells from a mutiny. They were left to watch the door from
the outside and that under no circumstances should they interrupt
"him."
With
the doors locked behind her, Melisandre dropped her disguise and
returned to her more familiar shape. She looked over the dead body of
the deposed commander. Reviving the dead was almost simple to her at
this point: she simply had to gather Snow's fire and guide it back to
its proper place inside him. Even if it had left him completely, she
could always provide him with some of her own abundant flame. That
was the strange part, though... the fire was still there. It wasn't
fading or slipping away, but rather it was raging beneath his skin
like a storm. It held strong against her manipulations, and she had
never seen anyone with so much and so strong a fire.
Melisandre
looked Jon over with concern. It had to mean that someone else was
controlling the fire, keeping it busy with something else. No casual
probing of her powers would do. Melisandre pulled up a seat for
herself, sitting in front of Jon before her body went limp. If she
couldn't see from the outside, she would look closer inside of his
body.
To
anyone who may have been watching, Jon's body would give a sharp
twitch and nothing more. Inside, Melisandre's spirit was mingling
with his, probing through what could control so much of his ethereal
fire and for what purpose. It didn't take her long to follow the
source of the turmoil. While it was nearly impossible for her to
explain to the less gifted, Melisandre felt it like a great battle
between fire and ice.
These
things were never perfectly clear to the senses, but Melisandre's
mind had a way of filtering the intense forces through her other
senses. A nude woman advanced while shedding fog and frost in her
wake. She let out a fearless war cry as she struck her foe, causing a
burst of chilling wind to rush across their featureless gray
battlefield that flickered with its surrounding clouds of flame.
Melisandre opened her senses and felt an intense sensation of rage
and power from it. She gathered the name of Myranda, and with such an
intense force that could even push past the Wall, there was most
mistaking that she was a host and a part of the Great Other.
The White Walkers were trying to claim him as one of their own.
Blocking
the freezing blow was a woman with dark red hair (compared to the
brighter shades of Melisandre's). Embers and wisps of flame followed
her blows and steps, blurring the air behind her with the heat
emanating off of her body. She deflected Myranda's blow and smashed a
fist of her own across the wintery woman's face, spewing sparks and a
wave of heat like that from a sudden bonfire.
Melisandre
opened her senses to her and felt a clear sense of both death and
mourning from the blazing woman. The form was that of Ygritte, a dead
love of Jon Snow. His love had been so powerful that he had taken a
part of her fire into his, and it was holding onto him with a fairly
literal deathgrip. She was keeping his fire where it was and wielding
it to fend off the incoming cold of the White Walkers. "Ygritte's"
presence was preventing Jon from rising, whether back to life or as
one of the twisted undead.
Melisandre's
real enemy here was obvious. As Myranda raised her hand for another
freezing swing, the priestess cast out a hand and summoned a burst of
fire by her hand. The surprising explosion made Myranda recoil,
allowing Ygritte to press her attack. She delivered several blows
that struck like hammers at the icy avatar’s ribs, each blow
sizzling and steaming against the contrasting cold. Ygritte brought
one hand back and summoned a short but solid burst of flame, holding
it like a dagger before she drove it into Myranda’s side. The
manifestation of the White Walkers jerked back as the attack left a
gaping and burning wound in her side. The flesh crackled like
thinning ice as it started to heal over, drawing on the mystic forces
that had brought it here in the first place. She didn’t have the
time to fully heal before Melisandre grabbed her from behind, pinning
her arms to her sides with a bearhug. While her deceptively youthful
body was fairly strong, the spiritual realm had her even stronger.
Enough that she could pin down this minor extension of the Great
Other long enough for Ygritte to finish the job.
The
blows that came to Myranda’s face gave off heat like opened furnace
doors, even to Melisandre who was simply standing nearby. The wintery
foe’s head snapped back and forth, visibly growing weak and dizzied
from her beating. Melisandre released one of her arms to grab the
back of her hair, briefly lifting and them smashing her face down
into what passed for the ground here. Myranda gave a short grunt as
her head bounced off the solid barrier, crumbling motionless to the
ground. It was hard to tell if the entity was truly dead or gone, but
it was certainly defeated at the moment.
“My
thanks,” the fire in Ygritte’s shape said as she gathered her
breath. Flickering flames danced around her skin, something that
Melisandre saw as her starting to regenerate. She was drawing on
something as well. Melisandre opened her senses to probe in deeper. A
piece of the outsider had stayed within Jon, some echo of his love
for her and a dash of her essence that was feeding off of the fire
around them.
“It
was nothing,” Melisandre excused as she turned in a slow circle.
She looked at the flame that danced through the air. There was
never this much within one person. Most had a few smaller, simple
wisps of flame. A small bonfire, perhaps, and that’s only if they
were still properly alive. For him to be dying and still have such an
inferno within him could only mean one thing. There was Valyrian
blood within Jon Snow. It was far from pure, but it was certainly
something special.
It
wasn’t anything like Azor Ahai’s. It wasn’t enough to stand
against the Great Other. Not on its own. However, there was an old
technique discussed in a scroll she had studied when she was still
young. It theorized the use of one bloodline to purify another.
Drawing the power from one could strengthen another, and if done
enough times she would be able to turn a faint bloodline into a more
potent one.
“What
are you doing here?” Ygritte asked. She noticed the distant and
thoughtful expression on Melisandre face, and with the fight done
with, she realized that she hadn’t been here before.
“I
have good reason to follow this man’s condition,” Melisandre said
dismissively. “And now I think I see why. I’m sorry, but you’re
about to be used for something much more important than one man’s
life.” The apology was a token gesture, really. Melisandre’s god
had sent her here, and she would see his bidding done. She held out
her hands and focused on the fire around them, draining it into her
fingertips.
“What?
You can’t do that!” Ygritte started to storm towards her, raising
her hand to conjure more of the fire for herself… but nothing
happened. Melisandre smirked at her and closed a fist, sealing the
flame she’d taken so far within her. “What did you do, witch?”
the spiritual Ygritte demanded.
“I’m
just making sure this flame goes where it belongs,” she deflected
once again. Once the icy foe was taken care of, she didn’t want it
getting back up in full force. She had set up a barrier to block both
of the other creatures from gaining any further power from the
outside. It was just her and them now, and as she’d shown before,
she could certainly defeat a PART of a divine power.
Ygritte
glared between Melisandre and Jon’s flame before giving a sharp
wave of her hand. Melisandre felt a similar pressure around them,
seeing what looked like a translucent bubble seal around the
inhabitant of Jon’s fire. “You’re not the only one with power
here, you thief,” Ygritte hissed, glaring hatefully at the
intruding priestess. “And I will not let you rob my love of what
life he has left!”
Melisandre
flexed her fingers, seeing that she was right. The barrier kept her
from draining any further fire. It was only what little she took from
Jon and her own. “It’s true,” the priestess noted. “But not
for long.” She turned and performed the spiritual equivalent of a
cunt punt on Ygritte, getting the huntress’ spirit to grunt and
fall to her knees. They were spirits, after all, and there wasn’t
even clothing to protect them, let alone armor. Ygritte spat out a
raspy curse as Melisandre readied a blow to the interloper’s head.
Ygritte lunged forward and grabbed the priestess by the leg, but
rather than tripping her opponent she bit into her leg. Melisandre
gave a loud scream as what was effectively her soul being torn apart,
if on a very small scale. Ygritte tore her head away, but kept her
teeth clenched so that she ripped off a chunk of the intruder’s
thigh.
Melisandre
shuddered as she felt a number of things. The pain, of course, was
intense. She also felt a brief flicker of power between them. Of
course, if she could draw from fire, so could a native to this realm
like Ygritte. Melisandre’s power was its own sort of fire, leaving
them both capable of ripping it from each other if they were brutal
enough about it. Melisandre drew on the finite power she had,
focusing it on the wounded area. Her spiritual “flesh” rejoined,
healing over the spot to maintain her strength. It wouldn’t last
forever, but they could effectively do whatever they wished to each
other in the spirit realm and grow back from it… so long as they
had that precious life force to draw on.
Ygritte
gnashed her teeth like a feral grin as the piece of Melisandre
vanished into wisps of flame. Much of its drifted into the air around
them and vanished from existence, but she saw some of it go into
Ygritte herself. The priestess saw the echo of a woman's aura flare
up a small amount with the stolen piece of her power she'd absorbed.
If she couldn't draw on the energies outside the bubble, she'd take
it from the one inside.
Melisandre's
eyes glowed with a flash of fire as she lunged at Ygritte. The fire
priestess' hands went to claw at the wildlings face, but she caught
the incoming hands to stop short. To Ygritte's surprise, Melisandre's
palms began to glow. She grabbed either side of the wild woman's head
with them, her fingers burning like hot irons against Ygritte's skin.
Ygritte
released a wordless howl of agony as her flesh smoked and bubbled.
The same fire she'd tried to absorb now felt like it burned its way
into her brain, leaving branded fingerprints on her flesh where
Melisandre touched. The priestress' burning hands held on as if she
meant to melt the flesh from her skull, bringing Ygritte too her
knees. The wild woman's fist clenched tightly, slowly turning into a
solid sphere of metal. Flames and spikes sprouted from it to become a
full fledged mace before she punched it squarely into the very edge
of Melisandre's ribs. Without so much as a scrap of clothes on her
spiritual embodiment, the iron spikes pierced her skin while the
flames left their own ugly burn on her stomach.
Melisandre
crumbled to her knees, releasing Ygritte and holding the few slowly
bleeding puncture wounds. She couldn't actually bleed to death or
worry about a ruptured kidney, but the pain itself was even more
intense than it would have been in reality.
Ygritte
shifted her hand back to its normal shape so she could grab
Melisandre by her hair. She pulled the priestess' head forward while
raising her knee, smashing her in the mouth with the hard joint.
Melisandre gave an abrupt grunt from the impact, satisfying Ygritte
enough that she repeated the maneuver again and again. Melisandre's
head bounced against her knee, bruising up her face as blood and
embers spilled from her nose and mouth. Every few blows, Melisandre
would instinctively heal back the damage, but Ygritte's brutal
efficiency was keeping her too dazed to stop her.
Melisandre
finally applied the same shape shifting that Ygritte had. Her basic
form had to stay the same and serve the same purpose, but it's exact
shape didn't matter to this world. Her fingernails grew longer and
thicker until she lashed out, digging her strengthened nails into
Ygritte's side and squeezing.
The
wildling screamed at the invasive pain and released Melisandre's
hair. She instinctively tried to pull away, but the other redhead
lunged at her again. She grabbed Ygritte by the hair while she
tackled her to the ground (or the invisible wall that passed for it
in this realm), both women swinging and clawing wildly at each
other's chests and faces. Melisandre finally got a firm grip on
Ygritte's scalp and pinned her head to the ground. The other hand
grabbed the dead woman by the throat and not only squeezed, but
pulled.
Ygritte
gasped despite her missing a handful of her throat, glaring up at
Melisandre like a possessed corpse. No blood came from the gaping
wound, but embers trailed out of it like a stirred campfire. While
the agony was clear on Ygritte's face as the hunk of flesh withered
into ash and smoke, but the wildling still punched Melisandre
squarely in her breastbone. She grunted and moved to defend herself,
just for Ygritte to strike her again across the face. Melisandre gave
a startled cry as she backed away clutching her face, the haunting
woman's knuckles burning at her eyes like they were made of coals.
As
the priestess recoiled, Ygritte crawled back up to all fours. Her
breathing came out wet and raspy as her neck began to regenerate, but
she glared at Melisandre with no less hatred than before. "I
will kill you," she growled menacingly. "And I will do it
as many times as I have to to save him."
Melisandre
finished rubbing her eyes and rose to her feet. "What do you
know of what's going on? Even if you had the gifts I do, you've been
stuck inside a corpse." Melisandre gave a grim and derisive
grin. "You are fighting for the memory of a dead man while I am
saving the souls of thousands."
Ygritte's
expression remained unchanged. The occasional tongue of flame
sprouted off her hair or skin. "I am fighting for the only one
that matters. If you're so blind from cowering behind your kings and
armies, then you're as witless as the rest of your Southerners."
She stared directly into Melisadre's eyes, letting her see the
deeply-rooted fires that danced behind her pupils. "I... will
kill you," she spelled out again firmly.
She
sprinted towards Melisandre from her crouched position, grabbing her
around the middle and trying to wrestle her to the ground. Melisandre
fell to her knees, but she brought one shooting up into Ygritte's
stomach. She grunted and fell back, just for Melisandre to summon
flaming stone around her fist and smash her in the jaw. Ygritte fell
to the unseen ground, reeling from the powerful blow as Melisandre
stormed after her, the cooling rock crumbling from her fist. The body
would want to return to its natural state before too long, and such
powers vanished quickly without enough focus. She reached out to tear
another piece off of Ygritte, but she rolled over to face her and
screamed a defiant battle cry. Her rage poured from her open mouth,
and with it a solid stream of fire like dragon's breath. It consumed
Melisandre's right arm, completely burning it off of her astral form.
Melisandre screamed in agony as she felt every flake of her carefully
recreated skin blow away with the incoming flame, leaving her with
nothing but a deformed and bloodless stump that ended halfway to her
elbow.
Ygritte
gladly pressed her attack, rushing in and punching Melisandre in the
stomach. She let her fist linger against her belly, her fist's
temperative rising until it started to scald her skin. She wound up
and hit her again with the searing punch, her free hand holding
Melisandre at bay with her one good arm. The priestess screamed and
twitched, not wanting to expend so much of her fire this early into
the fight reclaiming her arm. It was hard enough just to focus on the
battle as it was, let alone regrow the limb while she was doing it.
"Try
to cower behind your god now, you meddling cunt," Ygritte
snarled, but Melisandre only replied by leaning into her attacker and
biting into her shoulder. She sealed her lips around the bite and
sucked on it, drawing out a soothing warmth as her lifeblood rather
than the literal sort.
Ygritte
screamed and tried to shove her away, but Melisandre grabbed her with
her remaining arm and buried her fingers into her side. The wild
woman shuddered almost orgasmically from the pain, but she grabbed
Melisandre by her wounded arm and scraped her claws along the burned
stump she'd left behind. The priestess shrieked and fell to the
ground holding her throbbing wound. Ygritte mounted the downed woman
and starting to pummel her face with the heartless brutality of a
woman protecting her loved one.
Melisandre
raised her arms in a feeble and instinctive guard, but she couldn't
stop them all. Ygritte clenched her fist, a flare of fire appearing
in her grasp like a dagger before she plunged it into the dazed
Melisandre's shoulder. The pinned priestess screamed in agony as it
coursed through her body, the painful heat overpowering her natural
sense of the fire.
Melisandre
was trapped, but not powerless. She spread her fingers out and
grabbed Ygritte by her privates, squeezing and digging in her claws
before summoning her own ball of flame right within the walls of her
vagina. Ygritte gave her own screech of pain to mirror Melisandre's
as she leapt off of her, rubbing her crotch as the skin began to
sizzle and boil. She pulled back enough for Melisandre to kick her in
the chest, launching her back as they both laid still, breathing
heavily as they focused on their energies and started to reform their
bodies. They had worn themselves out with their vicious struggles,
taking the moment to regroup with what they had and start again as
best they could.
It
was then that they felt the tingling of cold air against their skin.
It would have been a welcome feeling in the physical world after all
the heat and fire being thrown around, but this chill reached the
bone and the soul. They had barely started to rise when they looked
up to see Myranda doing the same. The freezing power had been
resting, storing its own power until a more opportune moment arose
for it to strike. It had been trapped within the bubble as well, but
it wasn't powerless. Melisandre had only a loose grasp on such
things, but it seemed to be on the same level as either of the fiery
spirits.
"I
think you two look just about ripe," Myranda said with a twisted
grin. "Best to harvest you now. Winter is coming, after all."
"You
again," Ygritte spat, her eyes darting swiftly from one woman to
the other. "Fine. I'll kill you both myself. What's one more for
Jon's sake?"
Melisandre
frowned and shook her head. “I have my holy mission. You will not
slow me from reaching my goal, let alone stop me!”
The
echoes of women didn't bother to size each other up. They all ran
towards the spot directly between the three of them, swinging and
slashing at whatever they could. They all took a few frantic blows
before Melisandre send a flame-coated punch into Myranda's throat.
Melisandre gasped and called a thick shard of ice to her hand with a
flourish. Melisandre screamed as the chunk was staked right below
where her ribs would be, faltering and nearly falling over. Its cold
dug deeper than the weapon itself, stifling the fire within.
What
little hope she had for a rescue was quickly lost when rather than
attack the distracted Myranda, Ygritte shoved her own fiery dagger
into Melisandre's other side. She howled as the contrasting forces
attacked her front either side, letting her drop to the ground while
the original combatants went at each other once again. Ygritte kicked
into the icy invader's knee, popping the joint to bend in the
opposite direction and fall to one side. The wildling screamed
furiously as she pounced on Myranda, pounding her in the face while
the sharp popping sound cued Myranda mystically fixing her knee.
Myranda herself was not especially magical, but being host to one of
the oldest things in existence gave her plenty of understanding and
absorbed experience. She was only a portion of its endless collective
of a mind, but she added her own touch of sadism to the already
dangerous pot.
Myranda
reared back an arm and struck Ygritte in the face as well, but her
hand had been shaped into a viciously curved scythe. Ygritte screamed
as she remained alive, but her astral form still felt the amplified
pain of the blade gouging straight into her forehead. The leaking
embers spilled from her as Myranda swept the arm to one side,
throwing the haunting wildling aside. Ygritte rubbed her face along
with the crackling sound of her flesh mending, letting it move like
burning paper in reverse. The elemental enemies charged for each
other in blind hatred and fury, but they had barely gotten a hold of
each other when Melisandre rose again. She had removed the blades
from her sides, burying the weapons of fire and ice into their
opposites’ backs.
The
both stumbled and clutched at their freshest wounds while Melisandre
targeted Myranda. She grabbed her by the breasts, holding her steady
as she threw a knee into the ice spectre's crotch. Myranda groaned
from the mind-numbing pain, trying to cross her legs but Melisandre's
attacks kept coming. She pounded her twat like a reversed jackhammer
before she swiftly tore her hands in opposite directions. A thick and
cold burst of fog came from Myranda's chest instead of gore, but she
still screamed in agony as Melisandre held her disembodied tits in
her hands. She threw them aside, letting the frosty breasts melt and
then vaporize amidst the intense heat. Myranda could only fall to her
knees while clutching her ruined chest.
She
was still curled up in her painful crouch when both of her opponents
tore into her. Ygritte had melted the ice shard buried in her back,
standing up to kick her repeatedly in the face. Melisandre had
meanwhile turned her hand into a steel hammer that glowed like it was
fresh from the forge, smashing it across Myranda's face with a brutal
clang. They both pounded on Myranda, distorting her features in a
bizarre fashion. There weren't any actual bones to break, but her
face was bent or pushed around by the crushing strikes until she was
swollen and warped enough to barely resemble her original self. She
was barely able to see with her damaged head by the time that
Melisandre turned and smashed her hammer fist across Ygritte's jaw.
The fiery wildling went staggering back as Melisandre grabbed her by
the back of her neck. She flexed two of her fingers together, forming
a short dagger-like blade out of them and jabbing it into Ygritte's
eye.
Fire
poured from the wound, but Melisandre kept pressing her bladed
fingers in and twisting them around. Unlike most people, she had
conquered any natural caution around fire. She rooted around with the
spike in what would have killed any mortal body, but instead fed
Melisandre as she drained the power from Ygritte to add to her own.
The wildling screamed and pulled at her arm, but the pain distracted
her from forming any notable defense or weapons of her own.
Her
screaming did manage to give away their position to Myranda. She had
focused her life force to heal most of her injuries, leaving a few
welts and bruises on her face when she picked up on the sounds of her
enemies fighting. She grabbed Melisandre by the leg, and while the
priestess felt the enriching warmth pouring over her fingertips,
there was a deathly chill that ran up her body. The avatar of the
Great Other froze her leg to the ground, the flesh frozen solid and
caked in ice. The cold pierced her very being, and the strange agony
of her flash-frozen limb send needling pain through her entire
essence.
Melisandre
halted her attack on Ygritte, trying to thaw out her leg before it
crippled her too severely in the fight. She didn't have the chance
when the wildling spirit proved herself to be very adaptable even in
death. She mimiced Melisandre's earlier move and blew a broad spray
of fire into the priestess' face. It was her turn to howl in pain as
her hair and skin crackled and burned, clutching her face that surged
with agony.
Ygritte
followed up on her attack with no mercy, regenerating her eye while
hammering away on Melisandre's face and body. The priestess couldn't
heal fast enough to prevent all the damage from her fists alone, and
that was while she tried to stay balanced with one frozen leg. That
was unfortunately resolved when Myranda kicked hard into the frosted
limb and shattered it into shards of frozen gore.
Melisandre
fell and screamed as she clutched at the stump. With the sealing ice
gone, it was spitting out tongues of flame and cinders to show her
major loss of power. Ygritte continued to pursue her and kick her in
between her legs (or what was left of them). "You'll leave Jon
to me! He is mine!" she shouted down at the crippled priestess.
She was ready to launch another attack when Myranda rose and grabbed
her from behind. She grabbed the naked wildling by the chest and
squeezed. Rather than stealing her energy, the dark entity began
pouring her cold into her much like she had with Melisandre's leg. It
worked like a poison, not corrupting but draining her heat rapidly.
It showed in a streak of black that spread over Ygritte's skin like
frostbite, rapidly rotting and warping her flesh. Ygritte shuddered
at first, but she engulfed her arm in flame and rammed it backward.
It hit Myranda in the chest and made her stumble back, but she
grabbed once more and caught Ygritte around the neck. More ice
spread, this time forming a choking crystalline collar around her
neck. Ygritte grunted as she started to choke, but brought her hands
up to start boiling the strangling substance away.
Myranda
prepared her hand to finish Ygritte by shifting it into a
hook-covered mace, but a stinging pain shot up from her nethers.
Melisandre had thrown herself at her, still missing her leg but with
her fingernails driven deep inside the flesh of Myranda's thigh and
pussy. She flexed and squeezed to drain more power from the dark
entity, who even at her unnatural strength had to scream from such
invasive pain.
Melisandre
held on while Ygritte finally escaped her collar, coming to attack
both of her enemies. The priestess opened her mouth once again,
flames stirring like a furnace as she turned the power she had just
stolen into a streaking beam of flame. It consumed Ygritte's lower
half, destroying it in one brutally hot blast. The wildling landed
with a meaty thud while Myranda started to claw and push at
Melisandre's face to try to remove her from her leeching position.
She left some deep scratches along her cheeks before Melisandre
released a burst of strength, grabbing Myranda near her ribs and
ripping her completely in half.
Even
possessed by her dark hivemind, Myranda screamed in agony at the
amplified feeling of her very spirit being ripped in half. She kept
screaming when she hit the unseen ground, steam and cold winds
pouring from her lower torso as the rest of her faded into a
vanishing fog. She had no time to suffer as Melisandre crawled after
her on her one good leg. She pounced onto Myranda as the two rolled
across the ground, clawing and biting at what was left of each
other's bodies rather than risking a healing rest. Melisandre ended
up on top, burying her claws into Myranda's neck and starting to
choke the life from her. The frigid woman stared at her with bulging
eyes before she opened her mouth wider than she should have been able
to. A blast of ice shards came out like a handful of broken glass,
spraying the priestess in the face and making her recoil as the sharp
edges stuck to her face.
Myranda
turned the tide and shoved Melisandre onto her back. The ghoulish
woman crawled on top of her, still with no flesh to show beneath her
belly as she turned her fists into squared mallets of dense ice.
Melisandre threw her blind slaps and punches, but Myranda's sadistic
and bone-crushing blows smashed into her face and upper body.
"He
will be just the first of many to join us," Myranda warned
ominously in between her ruinous blows. "We will see him walk
again."
"Not
as one of yours!" Ygritte had only gotten a part of her legs
restored, but it was enough to prop herself up on one arm. She
summoned a long and narrow spear made of pure fire, hurling it
straight through Myranda's back. Melisandre saw it burst out of her
stomach, coming just short of hitting the priestess herself. Myranda
was stunned by her impaling, eyes wide with shock and pain as the
burning weapon stayed embedded inside her. Melisandre reached around
it and grabbed both of her breasts, tearing them off in opposite
directions with one fluid motion.
Myranda
let out a piercing shriek that echoing inside their sealing bubble. A
burst of arctic wind came from her chest wounds and hit Myranda in
the face, but it stopped quickly and began to freeze over. The
possessed woman sputtered as her body collapsed on top of Melisandre.
She shoved the body off of her in disgust as it stared blankly back
at her. It had no power left to fuel its consciousness; the last of
it had been blown away by the spear and her missing chest. The
spectral form was trying to heal itself with nothing left to do it
with. It started to destroy itself, disintegrating into wisps of snow
and ice that then vanished completely.
Still
one opponent remained. The interfering wildling was still trapped
with her, helping to maintain the bubble that kept them both held
hostage. Melisandre took a deep breath, focusing on her lower body.
Ygritte was mostly healed now, but she had to restore her entire
lower half. Melisandre only had to handle her one leg and a few fresh
injuries. Even with the power she'd stolen from her opponents,
Melisandre was running herself ragged. Her powers would be limited
now if she didn't want to burn herself out in a similar fashion, but
she imagined that Ygritte couldn't be in a different state herself.
While
they were still healing, they were close enough to be heard by one
another. "You're making a foolish mistake, you know,"
Melisandre called to her between her labored breaths. "Jon
coming back could be just what we need to stop all this. It's for the
greater good."
Ygritte
scoffed at that. "You didn't even know him. No one knew him like
I did."
"Now
you're just sounding like a selfish child," said the red
priestess.
"And
things like 'greater good' is what people with power say to try to
manipulate the weak."
"And
what about the people he would save? You'd damn them all just to
haunt a dying man?"
"Jon
deserved death." Ygritte said it more solemnly than one would
expect. She spoke as if dying was an honor. "He was too good for
us. He was a strong man, but the longer he stayed among those people
on the wall, the weaker he became. Just because of his 'honor' and
'duty." She said the last words like she was spitting out
something foul-tasting. "He owed them nothing, but gave them
everything. I won't let him make that mistake again. Let him rest. We
may not live, but here, we can have peace."
Melisandre
watched her coldly as their lower bodies began to finish taking
shape. Ygritte looked up at Jon's fire as if she saw her old lover's
face in them. "The living need Jon Snow," the priestess
said simply. "As a leader and for the fire he brings."
"Then
you'll have him die to save tyrants and traitors," Ygritte
sneered. "I won't let you ruin him again!"
“Then
you’ll just have to stop me, now won’t you?” Melisandre said
rather flippantly.
They
were a fair distance away, but Ygritte rose slightly sooner and
charged in right away. A roaring fire consumed her body as she moved
in, making Melisandre immediately recoil and dodge out of the way.
Ygritte's burning punch missed her, but she could feel the heat
singing the closest hairs on her head. Ygritte turned around and
whipped a backhand at her foe, and while Melisandre could dodge the
hand the fire still raked across her skin. She cringed and continued
to retreat, Ygritte always too close for comfort. The foreign flame
left her sweating, slowly exhausting the priestess who couldn't even
get close enough to fight back.
"Coward!
Don't you come here for my lover and then try to run away!"
Ygritte roared furiously. She flared up her fire even higher, and
Melisandre had to cringe from the wave of heat. The huntress threw a
vicious punch that finally caught Melisandre in the cheek, leaving a
burning brand in the crude shape of her knuckles. Melisandre
staggered, just to be hit by another in the other cheek. A knee drove
into her groin, making the priestess scream and clutch her scalded
pussy as she fell to her knees. Ygritte threw a fierce kick into her
head, burning off a chunk of hair and sending her flying across their
battlefield until her body slammed into the wall of the dome.
"None
will take him from me," Ygritte seethed as she advanced on her
enemy. "Not even death." She was so caught up in her march
that she was puzzled when she misstepped, tripping and nearly falling
over halfway to her foe. Melisandre smirked back at her, running a
hand across the side of her head as if fixing her hair. The hair grew
back and her burn wound healed over.
"I
was wondering when you would burn yourself out," she noted
dryly. She didn't feel like she had the strength to manage a sword or
anything so fancy, so Melisandre simply formed her fist into a large
brick and used it to punch the weary Ygritte squarely in the mouth.
The wildling went down hard, feeling the strength leaving her body
after launching such a vicious attack. A few embers flew from her
lips as she coughed, a final flicker of the fight she'd put up
defending Jon. Her ethereal body simply couldn't keep up with her
wants. The more experienced and patient Melisandre mounted her and
continued to smash her with both hands, brick and fist beating around
the wildling's face as she threw up her arms to protect herself. Even
with her power fading, she threw all her weight into one more punch.
The fist literally buried into the priestess' side, piercing her
flesh with the superhuman force. Melisandre gasped as she was blown
completely off of her, clutching her ribs and the sparking hole that
remained there.
Ygritte
breathed heavily nearby, eyes wide with a savage confusion at the
agony she'd been through. She was mentally and spiritually exhausted.
She had nothing left. She could only stare when the wounded
Melisandre limped over, covering the wound she had no power left to
heal. Melisandre shook her head (perhaps with pity or disgust) as she
raised her foot and stomped down on her breasts. The foot spiked
right through her chest, leaving a flaming hole instead of the
expected gore.
Ygritte
twitched, but she was too weary to truly react to the pain she felt.
There was nothing left to give. Her body began to fade, breaking into
bits of orange as they drifted away like embers on the wind.
"Just...
let him rest," she muttered. Her eyes looked cloudy, unclear if
she was reaching out to some unknown hallucination, Melisandre, or
the spirit they rested in. "He owes them no more. His watch has
ended." Some bright fluid ran from her eyes like lava, a final
teary-eyed farewell before the last of her face vanished. For a
moment, Melisandre saw the wild woman's point of view. Things were
quiet within Jon's soul. The conflict and struggle she saw in most
people was gone. No duties were expected of the dead, after all. It
was perhaps the most restful place he could have ever been, compared
to all the battles and treachery he'd been through. Of course, the
priestess' mind was already made up.
Melisandre
finally released the bubble, giving a sigh of relief as her strength
returned to her. She was able to take her time now, draining the
flame from his body. Deciding to not truly abandon her original plan,
she still left him just enough to restore Jon Snow's life. When she
sensed his heart beating once again, she lulled him to sleep long
enough for her to return to her body. She ached in a few places,
assuring herself that it was all phantom pains from her spiritual
battle. She hurried out, trying to get a grasp on how much actual
time had passed while she went to send warning.
It
was around an hour later when the corpse of Jon snow stirred. It was
a few small shifts of his body at first before she pushed himself
upright. "Ygritte!" He blinked a few times, as if he were
getting used to the idea of breathing and blinking again before he
patted down his chest. He had apparently been loud enough that the
guards at the door came barging in, staring at the dead man risen.
One went to ready his sword when Jon waved a hand at him assuringly.
"Steady, Ben. I'm no walker."
The
fairly simple guard frowned. "That sounds like somethin' a White
Walker would say..." He received an elbow in the ribs from his
taller partner, making him concede the point and return his weapon to
its sheathe. "So you're not dead then, commander?"
"No,
Ben. I guess I just... needed some rest." Jon rubbed his face
between his eyes. He was alive, but still not in the best of shape.
His head was a blur with memories, and the recent wounds that had
felled him still stung.
"So...
what was Ygritte?" the taller guard pried.
"What?"
Jon looked at him quizzically.
"You
said Ygritte when you... ah... 'woke up.' Is that what brought you
back?"
"I...
don't remember," he muttered. He felt as if there was something
missing, but that was all.
Melisandre
was well on her way to the south by now. She had heard news from a
passing trader that another Targaryen had just been found. She
thanked him as she finished pretending to inspect his wares,
continuing on her before sparking up a fresh tongue of flame in her
hand. She whispered to it, sending her message back to the Red Temple
of Volantis. She told them of the return of the Other and what she
had gathered of The Builder's bloodlines. There was much to be done.