After a very long night taking care of all the Ironborn on each of the islands, and the stragglers spread around, like Euron Greyjoy and Balon's children, I stepped back to my small living area on the ship where I had left Dany and Arya asleep.
I spent a couple hours napping with them, then I woke them up to get them ready to break our fast, helped them dress because neither of them were morning people, and I took their hands and led them off of the ship.
“You there! Boy!” A woman's harsh voice shouted across the docks.
I held in my sigh at not getting a mont's peace first thing in the morning. I felt Arya's hand in mine tighten slightly and I gave her a smile and a nod, before I turned and walked with her and Dany down the docks towards the handso woman that looked like a grey-haired Linda Hamilton in her 40s.
“You bellowed, Lady Mormont?” I asked, politely.
The two Highgarden soldiers guarding the docks chuckled and quickly averted their eyes.
“I heard it was your idea to burn the bodies.” Maege Mormont responded and looked a little angry.
That I had to smile at. “Yes, as a final insult to their religion. None of them will be returned to their pagan god of the sea.”
“That's a pretty ruthless act to do against the Ironborn.” Maege said and gave
a pointed look for a mont, then she lost it and bared her teeth in a huge grin. “I wish I'd thought of it.”
The guards let out another chuckle and one coughed to cover it up.
“You were a bit distracted last night, Lady Mormont. A lapse in judgnt can be forgiven.” I said and she barked a laugh. “We were heading to the center of town to see what foods and supplies the n have recovered, then we were going to break our fast. Would you like to join us?”
Maege nodded once and turned to walk away. “That was another thing I was going to ask you. As the leader of the raid on the Iron Islands, by rights, everything found here is yours to claim.”
“I'm sorry, Lady Mormont. I'm too young to marry you.” I said with a straight face.
Maege stumbled to a stop as she choked and sputtered, as did Dany and Arya, then all three of them turned to glare at .
I grinned at their reactions and motioned with my head to keep walking. “As things stand, I have my own tasks and duties to perform. You and your people will make better use of the supplies than I could.”
“There's no room on the ship to carry more than it already does, anyway.” Dany said and fought down her blush.
Maege nodded and started walking again. “My daughter is already sorting through them. We were taken just after inspecting the village, so we know which things should be returned.”
I didn't tell her that was pointless, since there weren't enough people left to live in the village. I did give her a questioning look and her face fird up and she didn't say anything else. We soon arrived at the center of town and saw the piles of crates, bags of grains and vegetables, a separate and much smaller pile of valuables and weapons.
A handso eight year old girl was there directing n to move things aside and called the items out. She looked just like a younger version of her mother and luckily hadn't suffered being violated like her mother did.
“Lyra.” Maege said, her face softening when she saw her daughter.
“Mother! The n have recovered everything I've described from the village.” Lyra said and pointed at the smaller pile of weapons and valuables. “Most of the smaller food things have been spread out and eaten.”
Maege nodded and placed a hand on her shoulder. “That's to be expected from raiders too lazy to grow their own food. They eat anything edible as soon as they can.”
Lyra nodded at the lesson. “I've asked one of the n that can write to record everything.” She said and waved to the soldier at a small table writing on parchnt. “I'm not sure where a lot of the other things ca from. So of the markings on the crates are odd and I didn't want to open them up without you here.”
Maege smiled. “That was a smart decision, Lyra.”
Lyra bead a smile at her. “Thank you, mother.”
“I'll check the list and see what we have that can be prepared for us all.” I said and let Arya's and Dany's hands go before I walked over to the man at the table.
“Commander.” The man said and stood and saluted. “We saw no harm in listening to the little lady, since she knew what she was doing and made the work go faster.”
I returned the salute and motioned for him to sit. “The Mormonts have always had strong won in their family.” I said and didn't have to look to see the happy smiles on both Maege's and Lyra's faces. “Let's see what I have to work with.”
I chose a few things, enough to make so tasty porridge, toasted sliced bread, and I knew there were fresh fruits in one of the crates. Unlike them, I easy read the markings and they were stolen from a Braavosi ship. Instead of pointing that out, I went into one of the abandoned hos and grabbed another table and brought it out.
A few of the people started gathering, probably to see what Maege and her daughter were doing, and noticed
setting up a camping setup and I had to pretend to go back into the ho to grab pots and pans, knives, and other things like bowls. I sent Arya to the well for a bucket of fresh water and started cooking.
It was only a simple al and I made short work of it, then left the oats to boil as I went over to the crates. One of the n handed
a pry bar and I thanked him and popped open the top crate. Lyra gasped and pointed at the nicely wrapped fruits.
“It seems the Ironborn were busier than we thought.” I said and grabbed several fruits to hand to Dany and she brought them over to the table. I moved the crate aside and it was raided by the won. A bunch of them tucked them away for later in their clothing and a few bit into them to taste them.
I opened the next crate and it was filled with silks. I lifted my head to look at Lady Mormont and she knew what I was implying. I was giving her quite a bit of riches and she was to use it responsibly. She nodded and pointed at the other crates. I opened them and called out what was inside, trinkets, different clothes, and more fruits and vegetables.
I handed Arya a few more fruits and she brought them over to Dany, whom was chopping the others up into slices. I nodded at Maege and went over to the large pot of oats and stirred them. They were at the right consistency and I made a bit of a show of it as I squeezed the juices of several of the fruits into the thing and stirred it.
“All right, call everyone here to break their fast.” I said, a little loudly, and turned to the man that just finished writing out the items. “Have the n bring out all the tables and chairs they can find.”
“Yessir!” The man said and saluted. “I'll lt te captain know.”
I nodded and he ran off towards the ship. I pulled the large pot off of the burner and half-filled the first bowl with porridge. Dany sprinkled so fruit pieces on top and Arya cut off a piece of bread to toss onto the open fla. I only let it stay for a second and then flipped it over, then tossed it onto a plate.
That was how I spent the next half an hour, filling bowls and cooking bread, while occasionally pretending to reheat the porridge. I didn't stop until everyone was fed and then Arya, Dany and I sat at the cooking table and ate our own al.
It was perfect timing, because as soon as I finished eating, the first refugees from the closest harbour arrived. They had piled into the fishing boats and ca into the main harbour with a look of relief on their faces. I hadn't lied about Lady Mormont being there and they all rushed to the woman to pledge themselves to her once more.
The ones from the mainland also pledged to her, because no one else had tried to rescue them. Maege's protests that it was
that rescued them, fell on deaf ears, because I had told them I had pledged to cleanse the Ironborn for Lady Mormont an they wouldn't hear anything different. In their eyes, she was their savior.
I set up cooking more food for the new arrivals just as more fishing boats showed up. Their story was the sa and Maege had a very difficult ti not yelling at
for setting so many people upon her. I could only laugh at her discomfort, because there were a few thousand more won that would be arriving to pledge to her, too.
I was going to be cooking breakfast for the rest of the day and no one would question how the supplies were lasting for as long as they were. They were all too grateful to have actual food in their bellies to ask where it had co from.
I also ntioned to Lady Mormont that she could spread her own people all over the Iron Islands and make new and better hos for herself and them. Bear Island was not the best place, not with how her cousin was treating their people.
That reminded
I should probably do sothing about it, so that night I put Arya and Dany to bed, kissed their foreheads goodnight, and used my clairvoyance power to check on Jorah Mormont. I saw his n loading up a fancy ship with the man and his lady wife overseeing everything.
A gentle probe of the man's mind told
he had already been sentenced to death for selling slaves and was fleeing to the free cities in Essos. I couldn't have that happen, so I stepped from my ship to his. I was silent and invisible as I cast the Imperius curse on Jorah and gave him the mories of his future self.
Without prompting, Jorah turned to his beautiful wife and pulled a dagger out, told her he loved her more than life itself, and he couldn't live without her if she left him. The dagger went across her throat first and he stared at her as she clutched at her throat, then the blade went across his own. He dropped to his knees, kissed his wife, and they both died right there on the deck.
The n loading the ship gave the now dead couple a look, gave each other a look, then they shrugged and started unloading the ship. They weren't going to get far without a lord to protect them and decided that staying was a better option. As far as anyone else knew, they weren't there, hadn't been there, and none of them were going to admit to anything if anyone asked them anything.
It was almost funny that they reached that decision by themselves and I didn't even have to manipulate anyone. I used my clairvoyance power again and peered through the fog to one of the main antagonists in the story, the future king beyond the wall, Mance Rayder. He was asleep with a woman, whom looked way too tanned to be a Wildling and she was shivering constantly, despite being asleep.
A ntal probe told
she was stolen from a Dorne ship heading to Essos, as were her two sisters, and their cargo of things to sell in the free markets of Braavos was taken from the sinking ship. I sighed at the stupidity of the man, because a person born and grown up in a land that was practically a desert, was not going to survive long in a mostly frozen wasteland.
I did not feel guilty as I stomped my foot through the idiot's head to mulch it. I cast a sleep spell on the woman to make sure she didn't wake up and then stepped from there to the other tents her sisters were in, both in similar situations, shivering from the bitter cold. I killed their 'husbands' and took them to the first woman's tent, then spent a few minutes picking through their minds.
Once I had the images of their hos in my head, I stepped them from there to where they lived back in Sunspear, the seat of power for Dorne. While I was there, I did the aneurysm thing on the Prince of Dorne and then dropped all of the stolen things from the ship into Arianne Martell's room with a note to use the funds as she saw fit and to enjoy ruling her kingdom.
My good deeds were done for the evening and I stepped back to the Wildling camp where Mance's body was. I walked out of the large tent and ntally counted almost six thousand Wildlings. Thankfully, there were no other recently captured won and the rest had given up a long ti ago and fully embraced their lives of raiding and pillaging, because they had to eat and it was better than being dead.
Not in my opinion. I thought and took out a wand for the first ti in a while. “Fiendfire.”
*WHHHOOOOSHHHH!*
Horses, griffons, hippogriffs, eagles, thestrals, wolves, and then dragons appeared in the flas that were much more powerful than I had ever seen. The fiery animals swept through the camp and burned everything. Tents, farm animals, clothing, and people. It was so fast that no one had a chance to scream as they were engulfed and consud.
Surprisingly, it was really easy to control. I directed it to burn hotter and the flas almost turned white and went faster. I didn't want anything of the Wildlings left and the fire followed my direction without resisting
or trying to fight against my control. It was a novel feeling.
In almost no ti at all, barely ten minutes, the entire encampnt was gone. Completely. Even the previously frozen tundra was little more than barren rock. The fire had burned up the frozen grass, the soil, the ground, and slagged the smaller rocks to leave the entire place as flat as a large expanse of rock could be.
Before the fire died out at my final command, an androgynous male face appeared in the last flickering of the flas and I felt a presence appear. I knew this was the fabled god of fla and shadow, the lord of the light, R'hllor. The face looked at
and I felt the distinct impression that one of his priestesses would be paying
a visit soon.
“I suppose I did invoke you when burning down so many Ironborn ships, their crews, and then all the bodies afterwards.” I said and the face nodded slightly. “Then I hope you're ready for a lot more. I'll be sending along the worst of the Wildlings soon, a tribe of cannibals, and maybe so mountain n as well.”
The face seed to twitch and the flat line that was its mouth moved to show a small smile before the face and the flas faded away.
“Heh, at least soone's happy with all of this.” I said and then rembered sothing. “I wonder if it will be lisandre that shows up?” I asked and didn't feel any kind of response. “Well, I'll worry about it tomorrow. I can't skip two nights of sleep in a row or I'll start feeling cranky.”
I stepped from there and back to my room on the ship. I took off my uniform that Arya designed, equipped my pyjamas, and climbed into bed with my two apprentices. I was kind of spoiling them by treating them so well and they didn't care. They knew I wanted the best for them and that was all that mattered to them.
We would only have to stay for a few days to help Lady Mormont arrange for living spaces for everyone, since a lot of the people that had been claid by the Ironborn were from Bear Island and the mainland near it. What was the term Balon had in his head? Oh, yeah. They were easy pickings if done right. Little did he know that with
around, so was he, as was his entire family and his people.
I dozed off with a smile on my face, because the Ironborn were no more and I had kept my pledge. Arya cuddled in on my left and Dany had a stranglehold on my right arm, so all was going right in the world.
*
lisandre was woken from a deep ditation inside the main chamber of R'hllor's place of worship. As one of his priestesses, she usually tried to commune with him on a regular basis. This last ti, there had barely been any kind of response in the flas, as if he had been distracted by sothing. She had then felt a small burst of emotion, a pleased feeling, and then she received a ssage.
“By the will of the lord of light, I'm coming for you, Jon Snow.” lisandre promised.
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