Mid 273 Winter
"What are you doing?" Alysa shouted as she found performing my morning ritual for when I'm at ho.
"Trying to be a bear." I answered and continued crawling around on the floor naked under the massive white snow bear pelt.
"What? Why?" she cried out as our daughter on her hips started crying.
"All this magic that's happened to in the last year. I deserve to be able to transform into a four thousand pound snow bear." I told her then growled a bit while pretending to claw at the floor.
"You've lost your mind." Alysa accused and I got up off the ground and stood up straight, crossing my arms thick over my barrel chest.
"A man does not have to lose his mind to want to transform into a gigantic bear." I declared and just like that the argunt was won.
Not because I'd managed to use my words to win her over, but more due to the fact that by nineteen years old my supernatural hormone profile had done its best attempt at magically transforming into a man shaped warhorse. And I'm not making so kind of crude joke about simple minded females who are overwheld by the sight of my aweso penis, there is a solid three to four seconds when I see myself naked where my mind repeats, 'that's photoshopped' over and over until my brain at can finally understand that it's flesh temple can body sha the statue of Heracles.
As such I bla no one when they need so ti to collect themselves after seeing in the nude, and I am happy to weaponize my appearance to make a point seem more impactful. I quickly made tracks before Alysa.exe rebooted, granting the last word and thus the moral victory. As I got ready for the day I considered the last year.
I'd worked my sailors and ships hard after my magical walk about delayed our schedules and the rapidly shifting season of fall to winter put the fear of the Others into . Fall only lasted half a year, making us all afraid that the coming winter would be unusually cold and harsh. This was not the case. The weather remained quite warm, comparatively speaking, and the Bay of Ice only froze along the northern shoreline.
Despite the warmth, production suffered heavily from the regular freeze thaw cycle as night and day shifted back and forth, creating very icy conditions making overland travel quite the hassle. During the warm seasons, my ship yards reached a production rate of three seventy oar oak longships a year, but winter had us down to just one, and accidents and injuries were far more frequent. This contraction occurs across the board in the industries of Far Harbor, and my sailors were fearful of leaving port due to the high frequency of winter storms battering the island and coast.
With so much slowdown and available workers I did the only sensible thing and began a complete renovation of Mormont Keep. I live in a hole in the ground primarily because of how much I hated growing up in Mormont Keep, but after nearly a decade away I ca to realize that I only hated the keep with half my heart. The other half hated living in the sa building as Maege.
As such, I chose to take revenge on her by invading her ho with a three hundred man work force looking to level up their spackling ga during the most uncomfortable season to be outside. Despite spending most of her ti training with n, Maege only tolerates the gruffer sex for what they can do for her. This tolerance doesn't last long when she feels that n are imposing on her, and also doesn't extend to boys. So to further punish Maege during this winter season I extended invitations to one hundred boys, the sons of the n who served best on my ships and on campaign, and offered to train them along side my own sons daily at the Mormont Keep training yard for the entire winter.
Checkmate, you cantankerous harridan.
The boys she beat in the yard each day to relieve her frustrations didn't feel it, but this is victory. Petty victory.
I made it up to them by teaching them to ride horses. The boys worked with my well tempered garrons, the staple horse of the more rugged and mountainous regions of the North, while I worked with the largest destriers I could find in Old Town. They hated the cold weather, but needed the exercise.
One day I hoped to breed the perfect horse for , but in my first attempt at the noble art of horse breeding I wound up creating more beasts fit for the butcher's block than worth living to attempt the next generation. Still, a handful of yearlings were showing promise, specifically the mix of Ryswell Courser stallion to Reach Draft Horse mare. About a third of those yearlings were showing good size, cardio, and cold resistance. We'd see in the future if any of this pays off, but for now I can simply enjoy sending my small folk to wrangle my horny horses. It's the kind of amusing pasti that is also befitting my station in life, so it's really a two birds one stone kind of thing.
Plus I get to eat the failures, and horse at is pretty good, making it three birds.
Speaking of three birds, I'd gone on many trips into the wilderness this winter, not to slay bears, but to tempt the wildlife into my service. With my developing skin changing powers, I needed to build up my roster of animal companions. Dogs and horses are beyond easy, and incredibly useful, but I wanted so avian friends and struck gold in a hungry breeding pair of golden eagles. I tempted them with fresh kills over the course of several weeks, and as they built that expectation of food from the sight of they opened themselves up to be snared by my magic. They paired well with the eagle owl I got by throwing mice and rats into the snow at night.
My birds were gorgeous and gave incredible eyes in the sky day or night. And the bird beca a mainstay attraction at Mormont Keep as I moved their nests into save nooks upon the huge building. The boys I trained love looking at them during break periods. The boys focused on weapon drills and wrestling, the latter of which is the far harder training as my the mories of my own abusive training in Pittsburgh were burnt into my mind, and I had no problem passing down that intense passion for grappling to the next generation.
When not inflicting ntal damage on preteens I work on myself. My own training with my horses starts with shouting, 'Boy!' at Ulfric and getting him to help into my jousting armor. I favored the heavier set of the two I ordered, a full Stechzeug tournant set with a broad crested shoulder shield pauldron, lacquered helt to sabatons dark green and enaled with images of bears mauling and sodomizing Ironborn and Wildings. Crowned with a crest of gold and wax preserved weirwood leaves. It was armor, it was fashion, it was philosophy. Artistic and tasteful, even if in bad taste. A perfect suit that made a statent, 'Hello, my na is Jorah, and you will get down or lay down.'
The frogmouth helt cut off a great deal of vision, but it didn't matter after I mounted my horse and felt myself slipping into its skin, taking control of the both of us to move as one single unit. Before my encounter with the Three Eyed Crow my horsemanship was very mid, but the powerful skin changing magic demanding expression quickly linked to the horses I frequently rode and cared for.
The involuntary use of this power thrust my consciousness into contact with Bloodraven's, or at least what was left of Bloodraven. At first I thought the man playing sly with the fragntary and fading nature of the imprint within the skin changing magic, but as ti progressed and Bloodraven never rallied to possess despite the fading away of his spirit, I beca more comfortable using what he'd given .
Along with the magic ca mories of Bloodraven's life and his feelings, all of this was as stated fragnted and fading, and I believe this to be due to the nature of his imprisonnt. One night of directly feeling the pain I inflicted onto others was enough to drive into a delirious state of rage. Bloodraven has experienced over a hundred years of roots desiccating his body and forcing him to live as they tunnel through his flesh. He lives in darkness and pain constantly.
I only found a few useful mories as the vast majority of the imprint is Bloodraven's relationship with Shiera Seastar, their most intimate monts rather than their pursuits of sorcery. Bloodraven barely clung to any of his mories of skinchanging and other magics, letting them fade far faster than his more emotional rembrances, so I only got about half the cliff notes version of his abilities rather than a full text, but he rembered vividly killing Daemon Blackfyre with his longbow and his duels with Bittersteel. My skill as an archer greatly increased after I lived Bloodraven's rembrance of the Battle of Redgrass.
Now a year later, it was hard for to find even the mory of Bloodraven nailing the Seastar for the first ti, his most preciously held by far. I choose to believe the man is just so stealthy that he can hide himself in my soul perfectly and has faked his spiritual demise. It's safer that way even if it doesn't feel likely.
I didn't get the automatic boost to Thousand and Two Eyes, but can now put seven shafts into a man at three hundred yards. Farther even considering the construction of my bow is heavier than that used by Bloodraven. It's pretty aweso to spend so sit down ti ditating one day and get back up the best archer in the North. I finally have the skill to match my horn and weirwood longbow. Good thing I have so many enemies. It'd be a sha to just use them to ring the register at archery competitions
With skinchanging, I could run my jousting drills while standing on my saddle and singing, my equestrian talents jumping straight to supernatural. I trained each day just to burn the reps into my body, transitioning from instinct and talent into well practiced experience. I just couldn't wait for the chance to get out on the tournant scene, I knew with my strength, speed, and skill I'd be cleaning house in jousts, lees, and archery contests. A dieval triple crown athlete.
That excitent is why winter lasting three years hurt my soul.
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Up next is the tournant people have been waiting for. I'll do each event, and we'll see if I have the attention to detail to pull it off. I was fairly bothered by the weapons used in the lee for HotD. You can't make a flail safe, the sa way you cant make a mace or hamr safe, for tournant use. Tournants are supposed to be sporting events. So are lees in Planetos just blood sport were people are expected to pull their punches, but murder is just boys being boys?
I'll let you decide all decide.
You can support and my family at
ko - fi . com / jmanm
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