Game of Thrones Commission - Melisandre vs Ygritte vs Myranda

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.

Game of Thrones: Myranda vs Sansa

Real big one with a whole lot of lore to it, so that took me a while. Sansa pulls some royal treachery, which gets her husband's mistress after her. What results is a battle in her family tomb that's among the more brutal commissions I've done, and also littered throughout with a spectral battle between a god and mortal spirits.

It is always summer in Winterfell. Winterfell was built on a natural hot spring, with tubes running through its walls to channel the hot steam from deep beneath the earth. So even in the darkest winters, the halls are always warm and the ladies dressed in summer silks. The crypt, though, is a whole other story. The crypt should have been warmer than most places in Winterfell, since it was closer to the hot springs, but the chill remained. The crypt is always cold and damp, far too cold for Sansa’s light silk.

It was chaos in Winterfell. Rebellions sprung up on all fronts whilst a menacing army marched from the Vale. Amidst the noise and confusion, no one seems to notice that the newest Lady Bolton has disappeared, and if they did, no one would have any clue as to where she is.

“Just as we'd planned.” thought Sansa, as she sat on her father’s stony lap, reading a book by lamplight. Her father was the latest Stark to be buried in the crypt. To her left, rows of statues sat on their stony thrones with a longsword in hand and a direwolf by their sides. To her right, countless holes extended into the darkness, gaping mouths waiting for the next Stark body.

The Starks had always buried their dead in the crypt, though only the Lords of Winterfell were given a statue in their likeness. Old Nan said that even the first Stark, the legendary Bran the Builder, was buried here, after he felled the Great Other. Old Nan’s stories also spoke of other, fouler things sealed in the crypt; ghouls and ghosts, ice dragons and giant spiders, and the Great Other itself. All the more reason for Sansa not to go poking around for the lack of heat in the gristly place.

“Those are just stupid stories for a silly little girl.” Sansa said outloud. No more true than all those songs about knights and monsters she sang as a little girl. There were no ice demons, just like there are no gallant knights. Men were all the monsters this world needs. But as she gazed across the rows of empty holes leading into darkness, she couldn’t help but wonder. Maybe Old Nan was more right than she knew.

The thought of monsters lurking in the dark gave her chill, so she averted her gaze to the more familiar faces. She could have sworn that the statues are staring back at her, but somehow, the notion seemed reassuring. She looked back up to her father’s stony face, and wondered out loud. “What would you say if you could see me now? Knowing what I have done. I have tortured a girl, deceived my husband, laid with whores, and murdered a kin. I have become a monster when all wanted was a knight to protect me from them. Perhaps... it is best that you cannot see me now.”

Despite all her words of regrets and shame, she had never felt more alive than she did in the last month. In merely a moon’s turn, she has turned every house in the North against the traitorous Boltons and instigated the rebellion that will surely end their brief reign. It wasn’t that difficult. Ramsay was smarter than Joffrey and ten times crueller, but she was trained and taught by Petyr Baelish, the greatest schemer in all the Seven Kingdoms. The only challenge turned out to be Ramsay’s long time love interest Myranda. The girl thought Sansa was another woman competing for Ramsay’s affection. The two had multiple fights since she got here, some even arranged by Ramsay himself.  Myranda had no clue that Sansa wanted nothing to do with Ramsay’s heart other than feeding it to the dogs, so she went after her savagely. No matter how many times they clashed, neither was able to get a clear victory on the other.

Sansa did not hate Myranda at first. She saw her merely as a mild annoyance. But Sansa had swiftly developed a strong hatred towards the girl after all their fights. It was hard to fight someone so much and have them force so much blood from you without developing some level of hatred. If Myranda somehow survived the siege, she'd remember to ask Petyr to deliver Myranda to her. She didn't deserve a clean death.

A sudden gush of cold wind interrupted her revenge fantasies. It has been years since she last set foot in the crypt and she has forgotten about how cold it was inside. She has water, food, lamp oil, and books to last for months but her thin silk dress did little to protect her against the cold. She considered sneaking back up for something warmer, but quickly realized that she couldn’t risk it. They would never find the crypt on their own, but she could not risk someone seeing her burst out of a wall. After all, a wildling was said to have lived in the crypt for ten years. Surely she could survive down here for the few weeks until Petyr’s men arrived to bring her back.

Sudden footsteps followed the wind and broke the tranquil air. Immediately, Sansa tensed and put out her lamp. In the direction of the statues, she could vaguely see a flicker of light - someone had come down here. The old Sansa would have been frozen with fear, or maybe even cried, but this Sansa was beyond that. Silently, she removed her heavy leather shoes, and hid her supplies in one of the pits. She held her breath and approached the light. Only one, and lightweight, she noted as she listened to the footsteps. As the light got closer, she made out who the intruder was - Myranda. She quickly hid behind a statue and pondered her options. She could just hide. Myranda would likely never find her. Myranda's clothes were a momentary temptation, though they were light silk just like Sansa’s. But maybe, just maybe, she could finish her off quickly. She just needed to keep herself quick and quiet... slowly, Sansa unsheathed her dagger.

Myranda was in a foul mood. Sansa Stark has been acting strangely lately, and she had been stalking Sansa on and off for the last few days. At one point, Sansa had entered a room and just vanished. She tried telling the guards about it but the guards just laughed. They would have never dared to laugh at her when she was the only woman in Ramsay’s life. After a few hours in the room, Myranda finally found a secret entrance leading to some dark tunnel. Convinced that this must be where Sansa was hiding some dark secret and unsure who else to trust with the fact, Myranda took a torch and a dagger before venturing down into the tunnel. Once she was inside, entrance shut itself right after her, sending a gush of wind that almost blew out her torch.

The tunnels eventually opened up to a vast chamber with countless statues leading into the darkness. As the light shone on their stony faces, Myranda thought for the briefest moment that the statues were staring at her, cold anger in their stony eyes. "You don’t belong here," a voice in her head called. "Get out. NOW." That was a bit too much for Myranda to withstand. As she was about to retreat, she heard a faint shuffle from up ahead. "The Stark bitch," she thought, and she advanced. Hatred outweighed her fear as she did her best to ignore the cold stony eyes and left any sense of dread behind her.

Myranda heard the attacking Sansa before she saw her, but it was enough for her to react to. Both responded quickly, twisting and lunging with their daggers. Sansa's incoming blade slid and caught on Myranda's, coming up just short of sinking into her belly. The Bolton mistress swept her knife to one side, trying for an awkward parry that would hopefully at least take a finger. Sansa pulled back in instinct, but it still left a thin slice up the side of her arm. Sansa grabbed the wrist that held Myranda's knife and pushed into her, slamming the mistress' back into the nearest statue's stoney leg. Myranda grunted, but when Sansa's own knife came swinging down on her she grabbed and redirected the stabbing motion. The awkward slash left a slice along the back of her hand, but she had gone through worse.

"Now why does this feel familiar?" Sansa hissed at her, steadying her breathing when she realized it would be a genuine struggle rather than a stealthy assassination.

"Because you realize how easily I can destroy you," Myranda grinned sadistically, the two struggling to free their armed hands.

"There are enough Starks buried here," Sansa said, eyes darting suggestively at the nearest random ancestor. "They don't need another." She suddenly twisted her weight to one side, swinging Myranda with her. She went off balance and grabbed for the next wolf statue to stay upright, but Sansa threw a kick into her other hand that send the knife sliding off into one of the shadowy depths of the future tombs.

Sansa gave a shout and went in for a finishing blow with her dagger, but Myranda caught it before it reached her face. With both hands free, she bent over and twisted Sansa's wrist. She'd attempted to steal the dagger, but only succeeded in disarming her as it flew off and bounced off the tunnel's floors, dropping into another random spot of darkness. Sansa's eyes tried to follow which one it went into, but Myranda suddenly punched her across the face, jarring her vision and quickly losing track.

"There's no guards, knives, or laws to save you now," Myranda snarled. "You're a wolf pup amidst hounds. I think I'll do Ramsay the favor of making his decision for him."

"Look around; my pack is here," Sansa snapped back. "And he won't be around long enough to decide anything. Fortunately, neither will you!"

“All dead and buried and rotten,” snarled Myranda, doing the best to forget the whisper she heard earlier. “They aren’t a threat to anyone and neither are you.”

Myranda threw another punch at Sansa's head, but she was still wary from the first hit and ducked away from it. She wasn't quick enough to deliver any actual counter attack, but she threw herself into the intruding mistress. They both fell at the feet of one stone ancestor or another, fingers crooked into claws to claw and grab at whatever their attacker left remotely vulnerable. Their grunts of effort and furious growls echoed off the vast and seemingly lifeless cave. When Sansa raked her nails down Myranda's cheek and left a shallow red slice down her cheek, her shriek of pain pierced even further into the depths of Winterfell.

And faintly... something heard her. It was not used to hearing much of anything in the somber caverns that contained it. It has slumbered here for thousands of years, a prisoner of the offsprings of its captor. The prison and the guards have kept it asleep for eons, but now, it sensed warm flesh; some of it familiar, and some quite new; and it sensed death, in the near future. Still half asleep, it started to rise, slowly pressing against the forces that held it at bay. But almost instantly, a soft grey mist creeped out of nowhere and silently enveloped it, half like a blanket and half like chains. It shook a bit, and fell back to its slumber...

"You treacherous little coward!" Myranda hissed as the blood ran down her cheek. She caught Sansa by the throat, the mounted Stark woman bracing herself for an attempted strangling. Instead, Myranda simply shoved her head to one side, bouncing her head off of the knee of one of her seated forefathers' monuments. Sansa gave a sharp cry as her skull bounced off and took a small chunk off of the ancient stone with her. Its pieces tangled in her hair as her eyes watered from the jarring pain, but she fired a fierce kick into Myranda's stomach.

The mistress stumbled back, trying to regain her footing as her hand rested on the staring statue's sword-hand for balance. Her eyes flitted to it briefly, denying the possibility of wielding its weapon. Even if it could be forced from their grip, they were too heavy to wield in any practical means. Still, her heavy breathing echoed back to her off the deep, dead walls as if the dire wolves were panting softly all around her.

Sansa grabbed the hesitating intruder by the hair and drove a knee into Myranda's stomach. She bent over, suddenly breathless as Sansa helped hold her down in the position. She drove her free hand into Myranda's back, repeatedly bashing and bruising the back of her neck and shoulders. Myranda would only endure a handful of such punishing blows before she reached a hand under Sansa's silk and raked her nails down her inner thigh. Sansa screamed out in pain as her Stark blood trickled here and there while her husband's sadistic lover savored the sounds and signs of her pain.

"You should have stayed hiding, little pup," Myranda scolded mockingly as she pulled on Sansa's leg. The Stark heiress tumbled to the cold floor, the edge of her dress tearing on the protruding handle of the statue's sword as she fell. Myranda delivered a quick but painful aimed kick into Sansa's ribs. "The Starks deserve to be forgotten if you're all that's left of them!"

"You will remember where you stand, you pathetic slut!" Sansa shouted at her. She leaned to one side and swung her foot up, driving her foot upward. It hooked under Myranda's skirts and plowed her toes right into the mistress' pussy.

The disturbing of the statues and spilling of the Stark blood stirred it up once more. The bonds seem to loosen on the sleeping presence and it started to rise. It stirred like a great, sleeping avalanche., For the first time in century, ancient and undying thing that was only kept asleep by the souls and bodies of the Starks, was stirring.

"You will stay down." A man's firm voice drew the rising Other's attention. He was more a memory of a man, broad and of noble visage and dress by what could be seen of him. He was a rough and coarse man, clad in thick furs that blended with his beard. He wore the Winter Crown on his head, the black iron circlet spiked with its sword-shaped tips. "The North remembers. We will stand watch over you, even in death." The spectral royal drew a sword and pointed it at the dark entity. The creature either ignored or dismissed him as it started to rise again. The dead king gave a bellowing shout and threw himself at the ethereal prisoner. His form, sword and all, broke against it like water on the rocks, shattering into a puff of grey smoke that merged with the chains binding the prisoner. The creature clearly felt it. It recoiled, beaten back a few more steps. It trembled slightly, as if the hit was enough to send it back to sleep, but the smell of blood was too strong. It regrouped and started to rise again, but a new phantom of the Starks stood in front of him. Slightly different, slightly younger, but clearly of the same line.

"There are plenty more of us where that came from. Dare you try again?"

Myranda dropped to her knees with a grunt. That hard of a kick would have taken a lesser woman out of the fight, but no part of any lover of Ramsay Bolton lasted this long without a familiarity with pain. It still slowed her enough that when she grabbed for Sansa, the last Stark dodged around her hand and kneed her in the middle of her breasts. The firm blow drove a deep grunt and a burst of breath from the mistress, who was left clawing at one of the statues just to remain on her haunches. Even that frantic clawing left chips and scratches in the carved, old stone, disturbing the monuments to their rest as if giving them more reason to glare down at her.

“Don’t worry,” Sansa jeered mockingly as she advanced on her again, grabbing the back of Myranda’s hair. “I’ll see that your body is thrown out in the mud rather than sullying my family’s tomb.” She drove her fist into Myranda’s back, sending a sharp pain up her spine. As her back arched, the sadistic mistress found herself staring up at one of the stone Starks. The jarring pain and haunting visage stunned her a moment but when Sansa hit another blow into a similar spot in her back, she growled and spat on the statue.

“Your bloodline ends with you, Stark slut. There will be no one left to bury you!" Myranda ranted at her, but Sansa kicked her in the stomach before smashing her face into the floor of the cave. Myranda's teeth hit the inside of her lips, causing her to spit out blood when Sansa kicked her once again, this time in the ribs. Even with her bare feet, the blows were hard and precise enough that they kept hitting the same spot to optimize the pain Myranda suffered through.

The blows spurred Myranda's already bloodthirsty hatred, throwing herself into a tackle around Sansa's waist. She shrugged off the ache in her side that stung freshly when she rammed Sansa into another statue. The last Stark knocked more stone loose from the statue and while she hardly winced from the impact, her elbow landed against one of the rusted swords of her ancestors. It left more of a deep scratch than a true slice, but her hard landing made the dulled blade leave a wide and thick bruise across the back of her arm.

Sansa lashed out and scratched a stinging red line across Myranda's face just short of her eye, but Myranda shoved the treacherous bride back into the statue. This time Sansa stumbled and splayed into the lap of the stone Stark, Myranda quickly mounting her and raining punches into her face. Blood ran down her pale skin as not only did the blows threaten to ruin her face, but bounced her head back into the statue's hard but crumbling surface.

The tomb's spectral prisoner continued to rise, slowly waking from its unnatural hibernation and creeping towards the surface. Whenever it grew far enough, another Stark charged and obliterated themselves to drive it right back. Some were kings clad in robes and armor, while others were better remembered clad in armor and wielding maces. Even the occasional bastard son threw themselves at it, beating back what was otherwise unstoppable.

The next Stark grunted as he came to face the entity. He was a broad-shouldered lord, and he could feel the vast number of the Stark spirits were thinning. They were an army throwing themselves at an immortal. They could strike it, and they could pin it down, but however massive their numbers, they were finite. It was a matter of hoping it would tire itself out and return to being contained by its bonds. "I see... Winter is coming," he muttered as the creature readied another attempt. "It is inevitable."

"True, but the inevitable can be delayed." His sister appeared beside him, the woman in noble dress but with a blade of her own in hand. "Hope is not yet lost. We still have one heiress left alive, should we continue to protect her."

The grim Stark smirked at his sister's words. "Then let's make this one count. For the North!"

"Winterfell!"

The two ghostly figures charged with a haunting roar, and the advancing form of blue and black was once again blown away.

Sansa was pounded into the statue once more before she braced a foot against Myranda's stomach and shoved with all her might. The might of an enraged and meticulously trained woman was no small amount, sending the mistress flying off and hitting her head against the opposite statue. Myranda's blood ran from the corner of her hairline, where the edge of her temple had struck the head of the carved wolf. It didn't seem to hamper her in the slightest as she growled furiously, Sansa rubbing her own bruised and bleeding face while she stood back up. Neither felt that pursuing their knives (even if they knew where they were) would end up being productive, considering that would mean exposing their backs to their hated rival.

They had been through enough fights at her newest husband's whim to remain well aware that they were a deadly pair of women. Too often had they fought to a draw, or at best, with one of them lasting just long enough to see the other fall and then collapsing themselves. Sansa had no love lost for Ramsay, but she wouldn't stand for meddling pet defying and challenging her. The fight was a long time coming, and not a hint of regret plagued the warring women as Sansa threw a punch across Myranda's nose. The cartilage cracked and bent as more blood tainted the seductive mistress' face, but she still grabbed frantically for Sansa's throat. The Stark evaded well enough to avoid any sort of strangling, but Myranda's meticulously sharpened nails kept leaving fresh scratches around her neck and throat.

Sansa finally cut off her opponent with a sharp punch to the throat. Myranda gagged and clutched her throat, giving Stark a chance to swing a hard if unpracticed uppercut into her jaw. Myranda stumbled and tripped over one of the stone wolves, her face swelling in several spots. She fumbled around in an attempt to rise, her head throbbing. She was able to shut out such negligible pains after so much time living and surviving with Ramsay, so when Sansa stood over her and grabbed her by the hair, Myranda reached under Sansa's skirts from her low position and rammed her claws into her womanhood. Sansa's resulting shrill scream echoed off the walls and into the depths of her family's tomb.

It was getting stronger. The ancestral Starks' sacrifices were still holding the back their prisoner, but it was taking more and more of them to do obtain the same result. The ancient thing had reached a point where a single Stark soul would only slow it down.

"Night gathers," one of the armored men muttered. He had been of the Stark blood, but had left his position to join the Night’s Watch and had never returned alive. However, he had not been the only one. Another Stark that had died guarding The Wall.

"And now my watch begins." Another specter manifested beside him, one that matched his armor but was older and built thicker. "It shall not end until my death."

A man in the same Night’s Watch garb of plain black appeared with a bow in his hands. "I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children." More and more gathered in their line in front of the incoming immortal force. Soon, even those remaining lords and ladies and fallen kings appeared beside them. Not all of those present had served the watch, but they knew of their oath enough to recite it beside them. Their voices found a singular rhythm as they all spoke up.

"I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the shield that guards the realms of men!"

The dark and cold force started to take a crude shape like that of a skeletal humanoid, emitting a howl like a mighty winter wind as if infuriated by the ancient oath.

"I pledge my life and honor to the Night's Watch for this night and all the nights to come!" With that, the ghosts all joined in a battle roar and hurled themselves at the Great Other. Their energies erupted like an exploding sun, flinging the dark entity back to where it had been bound before.

Sansa pushed at Myranda’s wrists, burying her nails into the base of her hand. She didn’t bother pulling, well aware that it would only make her claws tear over more of her flesh from past experience. When Myranda’s arm twists and she instinctively cried out, Sansa twisted on one foot to smash her knee into the side of her face. Myranda went down, but lashed out enough to claw down Sansa’s leg. The noble grabbed for the mistress’ throat, but Myranda caught her hand to stop it short. The pinned mistress managed to grab and strategically twist Sansa’s finger, a dull crack getting a fresh scream from her as she broke the delicate digit. Myranda flashed a brief grin at her sadistic success, but Sansa threw a punch into her face with her good hand. A lesser woman likely would have blacked out from the snapping of her fingerbone, but Myranda had spent enough time fighting Sansa to imagine that she would.

Myranda kicked at Sansa’s leg hard enough to get out from under her, but Sansa gave another punch to her mouth. Blood came from Sansa’s knuckles and Myranda’s mouth as the mistress spat out a tooth. The trickle of blood encouraged Sansa rather than deterring her, clawing at Myranda's eyes. A quick dodge was all that let Myranda keep her eye at all, her nails leaving a deep and bloody scratch down from the edge of her socket to the side of her face. She snatched Sansa's arm and bit into her wrist, a thick stream of blood pouring from her pierced veins. Their audience of statues watched grimly as Sansa's screams drowned out the faint and distant rumblings of anything going on deeper in the tomb.

The fog was clearing around The Great Other, in both a mental and mystical sense. It had taken a beating from the Starks’ guardian spirits, but the prison had never felt weaker. The realm of mortals was just beyond its reach. There were fresh bodies waiting to be taken.

“And here I thought I’d seen the last of you.” One more phantom stepped forward from the fog that surrounded the terrible entity. He was a lean man carrying a hammer, a long sword slung over his back that glowed faintly through its sheathe. “Stubborn old pest.”

The Other seemed to seethe to the point where steam poured from it. “You have no guardians left, Builder.”

Bran the Builder looked back at him and shrugged. “There’s me. That seemed to be enough last time, if I remember correctly.”

“Your walls… your mortal souls. They grow weaker. They are too weak to contain me.”

Bran hefted his hammer, as if weighing it for a precise swing soon enough. “I’ll keep you down here with everything I’ve got, you miserable storm cloud.”

“And when that is gone as well?” The dark entity was focused now. Its smoky form condensed and shifted, taking a more concentrated form. It formed a towering, skeletal shape, its twisted features spreading into a skeletal grin. “What then, Bran?”

Bran drew his legendary sword, the one coated in flames from the hilt upward. The Great Other recoiled from the weapon that had slain it once before, and Bran whistled off into the fog. Whether called by the light of his sword or the sound of his whistle, thirteen figures appeared beside him. Ten were men of all sizes and builds. An oily-haired man with a long and wicked knife. Another was covered head to toe in heavy steel, the helm curving into the shape of a dragon’s head. The other was a man who if he was not a true giant, then was large enough to spawn legends about them. Another appeared to be a dark, small and childlike figure dressed in leaf, but with a wise and knowing gleam to his ancient blood red eyes. A bald man stood between the two contrasting silhouettes, armed with a long axe that he held tightly across a lengthy beard. Two were women, one stocky and handsome with a blood-stained axe that lesser men couldn’t even lift and the other with an ornate crossbow leveled at the surrounded entity. The last was an especially huge dire wolf the size of a mammoth.

“Let’s find out, shall we?” Bran offered. With no words needed, the old warband descended on their ancient foe once more.

Sansa grabbed a chunk of rock that had fallen from one of the crumbling statues, swinging it like a primitive hammer that smashed into Myranda's eye. It struck with a meaty crunch leaving an ugly bruise and blood leaking out from behind her eye. Myranda didn't even finish her cry of anguish before it turned into a howl of fury, driving a crushing punch into Sansa's belly just below her ribs. No matter how she resisted the pain, Sansa's body reacted for her and vomited onto the ground of the ancient cave. It left her disoriented enough for Myranda to shove her off, grabbing Sansa by the hair as she stood over her and driving more crunching punches into Sansa's face. Fresh bruises grew on the last Stark's face, joining the thick discolored lumps already developing on her pretty face and head.

Sansa was knocked onto her ass, throwing a kick between Myranda's legs only for the bloody and psychotic mistress to catch her by the foot. "The Starks should have died out a long time ago," Myranda hissed, the blood staining the white of her eye so that even if the light were better, Sansa couldn't just how well she could see out of it. "Let's finish the job."

Myranda swung Sansa's leg to one side, smashing the center of her bone against one of the swords held by her ancestral statues. It wasn't sharp enough to slice her open as Myranda might have wished, but her bone snapped at the sudden impact. Sansa's scream rang out as she focused to block out the agony in her leg, fending off the impulses to black out from both her leg and finger. She had to keep her mind on how it would affect her performance in the fight. Myranda sneered in sadistic triumph as Sansa dragged herself away, tears welling in her eyes out of instinct more than actual pain.

"Time to put down this wounded dog," Myranda hissed, advancing on the crippled Stark. Sansa managed to get a grip on the knee of her father's statue, forcing herself up quickly and turning to swing a kick into Myranda's chest. Ramsay's plaything was sent tumbling back, tripping one one of the wolf statues and tumbling into one of the open mouths of the future graves. She landed in a haggard heap, breathing heavily as she felt lightheaded. The pain was one thing, but she was bleeding from several of her wounds, and no amount of strength prevented her from bleeding to death. She tried to push herself up, more focused on killing than staying alive, but her hand brushed something that slid across the ground with a light clattering noise. Sansa saw the gleam the weak light off of her blood-red eye as Myranda grabbed one of the stray daggers.

Bran was on one knee as The Great Other towered taller than ever. Though all the other Starks had vanished, his comrades' spectral bodies were littered around him once more. He wondered if it was the doing of the dark thing to torment him, trying to break his will and his prison. His hammer was in pieces well out of his reach, only the flickering of his flaming sword remaining. Even that seemed to be fading as his body flickered in and out of existence, taking all he had just to exist.

"You have failed, builder!" the smoky voice boasted, but it didn't move to finish his ancient foe. "You failed to slay me, and now you fail to bind me. You and your bloodline worked for centuries just to keep me here, and you let them die once again just to buy your world minutes. It was as a drawing breath for me to annihilate your entire clan." The Great Other leaned forward, casting its black shadow over Bran but still not striking. "But I admire perseverance. You could spare me the bother of ending you and join me, Bran. I would build you a new body to house your soul... even the one you keep in your sword." Its dark grin spread wider than its face should be able to contain. "Think of your wife, Bran. The one whose body you sacrificed to bring me here. You've let so many die, but you could bring her back, Bran..."

Bran looked to his flickering sword and frowned. "I loved that woman," he muttered grimly. The Great Other's grin twisted even wider. "Because she knew when something needed to be done, someone had to do it. She knew about sacrifice... she married a scrawny young fool like me, for one," he added with a small smirk. "And when I told her about the sword, she said that a real man isn't one that accepts his fate quietly, but one that spits in the eye of Death as he takes him. I cursed my own bloodline that their spirits may return here to guard you. What kind of ancestor would I be if I try to escape myself?"

The Great Other rose tall as its grin returned to a grimace. "Then you damn yourself and your whore bride." It raised a clawed hand, but Bram's sword burst into fresh and powerful flames.

"Ohhh, I don't think she cared for you calling her that. You went and upset the missus." Bram smirked, raising the fiery blade over his head. The dark immortal flung itself at him just as Bram spiked the tip of his sword into the ground between them. "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" he boomed as the fire spread from his sword into the ground in a broad ring that surrounded the Other. The sword faded into dull, dark steel, but The Great Other hit the wall of flames and bounced back as the unstoppable entity was a bird hitting a window. The entity slammed and clawed at it a few more times to no avail.

Bran dropped into a sitting position, breathing a long sigh as his body flickered again. "I've bought you one week," he said, glancing over his shoulder at his distant descendant. "That's all I've got left." He closed his eyes and vanished from The Great Other's sight, leaving only the sword. As Bran left, it gave a short, anguished wail before shattering to pieces against nothing in particular. The Great Other raged in a forgotten language as it repeatedly bashed itself against its newest prison, still not gaining so much as an inch.

Sansa ducked behind her father's statue, letting Myranda's wild swing plant her knife into it rather than her own skin. "Stop running, you treacherous whore!" the mistress threatened. She grabbed Sansa's tattered clothes and drove her knife into her inner thigh. It wasn't clear if it was aiming for her belly or trying to ram it into Sansa's crotch, but either way Sansa's sudden shift in position stabbed it into the tender flesh of her leg instead. Sansa grabbed the knife-wielding hand, trying to force it away without allowing Myranda to take another swing. Even more of her blood ran down her unbroken leg as she leaned more heavily against the Stark statue. Myranda struggled against her grip, starting to overpower Sansa as she pressed one of her thumbs down on her broken finger. Sansa grit her teeth to endure as Myranda pushed closer and closer to her chest until finally, she was near enough that Sansa could lean in and bite her ear, tearing loose a chunk of flesh and cartilage before spitting it to the cave floor. Myranda recoiled and howled in pain, but Sansa still had her grip on her armed wrist. Sansa leaned to the other side of the statue and pulled down, making Myranda's elbow pop out the wrong side of her arm as it connected with her father's knee.

Myranda let out a long, horrible howl as her twitching fingers went limp and Sansa claimed her dagger. Even as her legs gave out, she lunged for Myranda and rammed the knife between her ribs. The sadistic mistress gurgled as more blood came from her lips, Sansa not bothering to linger on her wound. They both hit the ground, but the vengeful Stark felt herself fading fast. She twisted the knife quickly, ensuring she had hit something vital before pulling it out and going for another stab of her blade. Myranda surprised her as not only did she not go down quietly, but countered as she grabbed Sansa's hand and turned it around to stab herself in the shoulder. Both women gave off savage screams of agony and fury that filled the tomb, echoing off every wall as both of the bloody women threw themselves at their hate enemy with no thought for their own safety.

Sansa raked her nails down Myranda's face, her nails tearing into her vulnerable eye. Myranda sent sloppy punches into Sansa's face, letting her fist land where it may. Her knuckles drove into Sansa's mouth, skull and throat with quick but random strikes as her vision blurred and strength faltered. She pounded her fist against the knife stuck in Sansa's shoulder, spraying fresh blood over the both of them before Sansa gave a savage howl. She was losing some color in her face from blood loss, but she balled up all her rage into her fist and smashed it into Myranda's throat. There was a crunching noise and a wet choking sound from Myranda when she stopped moving. Sansa stared at her enemy and watched the murderous mistress die in front of her. There was a strange flicker of blue from one of her bloody sockets, but it seemed to be a trick  of the light as it faded away quickly.

She was feeling lightheaded as she looked up at the statue of her father. His image seemed to blur, but she managed to focus and keep her vision clear. She was still bleeding, and she could probably manage some basic bandages from her supplies. She pulled the knife out of her shoulder and tossed it aside as she carefully tried to clean and cover the wound with a piece of cloth torn from her dress, her heavy breathing suddenly all the noise that remained in the tomb…

Which made it that much more obvious when something moved. Sansa froze and heard the sliding of pebbles again, turning her head cautiously to keep her shoulders still. She saw it again; the blue glow by Myranda’s face. She turned to look more carefully, seeing that the light flickered like torchlight in the center of her eyes, but the color of deep water or especially thick ice. Myranda pushed herself up, her movements a bit jerky by growing smoother as she stood back up. The blood running her from eyes did nothing to diminish the flames, and even her numerous wounds didn’t seem to slow her down. Sansa jolted back as Myranda started to approach her, teeth baring in a vicious grimace and her chipped and broken nails outstretched. “I’m still not done with you, you treacherous cunt,” Myranda seethed through her menacing grin.

“What is the matter with you?” Sansa snapped, more confused and concerned than afraid. Sansa’s back hit the foot of her father’s statue, turning briefly towards it in surprise before going back to Myranda. Still in the corner of her eye, she saw a kind of grey fog rolling in, seemingly from the statue itself as well as her aunt Lyanna’s nearby. The mist passed over her shoulders, and Sansa couldn’t explain why, but she felt herself strengthened. Her wounds didn’t go away, but she found them easier to ignore and a fiery strength in her weary muscles.

Myranda came rushing at her, but Sansa grabbed hold of her arm to stop her hand short. Her nails still left a fresh scratch on Sansa’s face, but she swung a surprising punch across Myranda’s jaw. It hit with a short, clear crunching sound as she reeled and shook her head. Her face looked swollen and her jaw was bent into an unnatural angle, but she still snarled and grabbed for one of the nearby statues. She ripped one of the swords from its inanimate owner and swung it in a wide arc. Sansa grunted loudly out as the blade cracked into pieces against her, but still left a slash down the side of her arm. Sansa grabbed the wrist that was left holding the handle and an inch or so of broken blade, pulling on for leverage as she kicked the inside of Myranda’s knee. The reanimated mistress fell with a crunch, but she lashed out and bit down on Sansa’s fingers to penetrate deep into her flesh. Her manic attacker buried her claws into Sansa’s inner thighs, burying them deep to keep herself painfully close to her nemesis.

Sansa gave a shrill scream, not sure if she was going to be able to keep those fingers but not bothering to find out now. She grabbed Myranda’s hair just as the nearby torch flickered out, leaving nothing in sight but the glowing of her unnatural eyes. Sansa still had a grip on her, so she turned and shoved her head towards the spot where she’d last seen one of the dire wolves. The soft crunching noise told her she had guessed right, cuing her to rapidly lift and slam Myranda’s face into the cracking statue again and again. She felt blood and torn flesh against her fingers, but she didn’t stop until she saw the flashing streaks of blue finally go out. With a few more final, puffing breaths, she felt whatever had empowered her fade away and collapsed onto the bloody earth.

Sansa was still dazed when she saw the figures descend upon her, but she wasn’t afraid. There was her father, and her aunt and brother as well. Her father knelt down to brush her bloody hair from her face. "Rest easy, child," his deep voice assured her.

"You fought a wight and you fought well," her brother Robb noted rather proudly. “Not all Starks can say that, and I think Grey Wind relished that bit of blood” A monstrous grey direwolf appeared and softly nuzzled against Sansa’s lap. A monstrous grey direwolf appeared and softly nuzzled against Sansa’s lap.

Her first instinct was to ask if Myranda was dead, but the gruesome scene was fresh in her memory. "I'm sorry," she blurted instead, tears forming in her eyes. "I'm a disgrace. I'm a kin-slayer and a traitor. I'm a whore and an assassin, always hiding behind someone else when things go wrong. Petyr is the only reason I'm still around, and..."

Her spectral father gestured her to hold as he softly shushed her. "I know. I know. We've been watching over you." He looked down the long row of statues before looking back at her. "Sansa Stark, you have caused many changes wherever you go. You were always your mother’s daughter. You did what I never could have done. You survived amidst foes and beat them in ways I never could. You protected yourself when all I’ve done was to endanger you with my damned honour. You survived, when winter came for our family.”

Sansa didn’t pay much attention to her aunt, but as Lyanna seemed to be smoothing out her clothes and dabbing at her wounds, they slowly healed and closed at her touch. “Nearly done,” she said, but looked more to her fellow spirits than to Sansa. Bran had sent them to see that Sansa made it through this encounter safely, and with her foe gone, all there was left was to heal her from her violent injuries.

Sansa smiled weakly as she looked up at her dearest family. “I’m sorry. I’m not the fine lady you all remember… but I’m not afraid anymore, either.”

“Good girl,” her father said simply. “You’ll do us proud.”

Sansa woke up with a start, but rather than the cave, she was in a proper bed. She patted herself down, finding herself in a simple night gown. She lifted up her sleeves and skirts to see that she had been entirely healed from the struggle… all but a small but very clear scar that felt icy cold to the touch. Whatever it was that had healed her, it had run out just before it could truly finish its work.

She was quickly brought up to speed and shared the information of her own, for what little all that did to explain things. One of Petyr’s men had found her passed out in the catacombs and brought her back. They hadn’t found anyone else down there apart from the butchered remains of another woman with her blood everywhere. They insisted she sleep some more rather than press herself minutes after waking up, but she insisted on bringing an armed batch of guards into the tomb when she was rested.

Sansa regretted this decision, as her sleep was plagued by ominous dreaming. She saw thousands of statues of her ancestral family crumble and collapse to the sound of the mournful howls of wolves. There was darkness until she saw two flickering blue flames, burning brighter until they lit up the scene. It showed the figure Myranda staring at her through grim, ice blue eyes until she awoke with a gasp. She quickly gathered her men, but when they reached the passageway, it wouldn’t budge. It was as if the secret door had been turned back into a random part of the castle walls.

Unknown to  them, a few miles from Winterfell, a pale girl crawled from the earth, her flaming blue eyes rising behind her probing hands.

Sansa wasn’t exactly pleased with this outcome, but it would do. Petyr and his forces had done just as they’d planned and the keep was now her own. While she would always show respect and deference to him, she was now the Wardeness of the North and essentially his political equal. Petyr offered to stay in the North for the time being and Sansa graciously accepted. She still had much to learn and much more to do to solidify her rule. For the time being, things appeared to have settled down.

It stayed that way for about a year. Sansa was fully recovered apart from the scar between her legs, but there weren’t many who would notice. She was requested (never ordered) to come visit Petyr’s office, and she was quick to arrive. He had his usual orderly pile of work in front of him, but he set it aside with a smile when he saw Sansa enter the room. “Prompt and punctual, as always,” he praised.

Sansa returned his smile and seeing that the doors were closed, she asked “So what news do you have for me?”

Her mentor gestured at some parchment, the pile nearest to him. “”Quite a deal of it, really. King’s Landing finally lived up to its name. Our beloved King Tommen flung himself out of a window and landed in the moat. A pity no one was there to stop the young king when he heard of her mother’s death.

Sansa returned his smile and seeing that the doors were closed, she asked “So what news do you have for me?”

Her mentor gestured at some parchment, the pile nearest to him. “”Quite a deal of it, really. King’s Landing finally lived up to its name. Our beloved King Tommen flung himself out of a window and landed in the moat. A pity no one was there to stop the young king when he heard of her mother’s death."

"And nobody stopped him?" Sansa pried in a detached tone, studying the window curtains as if they proved more interesting than the conversation.

"I'm afraid his servants left him alone in his room." Petyr breathed a short scoff of amusement. "Must have been their breaks. I have contact with a good number of them, and I must tell you they are just dreadful at keeping a good schedule."

Sansa let a small smirk cross her lips. "Has anyone found the body?"

"In Riverland. Or so they say. I had been investigating her squabble when there came reports of her corpse being found abandoned by some scheming maniac or another. Her face was slashed to bits, but they say the hair was sign enough. More gold on her head than in her coffers, they say."

"Sounds like a lot of effort just to murder a royal," Sansa observed casually.

"Oh, murder is easy, child. The hard part is in the body. You'd be shocked at how difficult it would be finding someone with hair to match that radiant color. Once you'd have that, it's easy enough for a man to mutilate a face beyond recognition. Without the eyes, lips, nose, a face is just a face." He spoke with a tone of playful mock-frustration as if a royal corpse was like finding a stain on his shirt.

"So with Tommen and Cersei missing, there's quite the political sinkhole drawing people into action. The Lannisters rally behind Princess Myrcella (likely Doran's doing, that meddler)." Hearing Petyr accuse someone of meddling got a snicker out of Sansa. "They march on King's Landing as we speak while Prince Doran prepares for war in Dorne. Royals out for royal blood: business as usual, as you surely know by now."

Sansa nodded, folding her hands patiently. "And have you hear the rumors? The talk of monsters?"

"I read more than I hear, but of course I have. More information passes through me than food these days. Reports of dragons to the east, and krakens out west. The south sends word of mermans in their seas, and the north even says White Walkers threaten their walls. Thankfully, the Night Watch is full of tough enough bastards to beat back the dead themselves. They say your reinforcements are greatly appreciated, and that your brother is leading them very effectively."

Petyr stopped to tap a finger on a very small pile of paperwork; only two or three thick at most. "Perhaps most peculiar, a dragon prince from Volantis has set sail for the mainlands with nearly everyone failing to notice." Sansa glanced at the papers then back to him, getting Petyr to flash a guilty smile.

"I suppose that you're not 'hardly everyone,' then."

"Perish the thought!" he chuckled. "People can be so predictable. It's boring enough watching them work, let alone being one." Petyr smirked at his protege and leaned back in his seat. He shook his head in a bemused sort of way at what other people would read as signs of the end of the world. “Dragons, prince, and Queens, I may have found you a prince straight from the fairy tales. If that sort of things still interests you of course.”