CH2 Meeting the neighbours

233 AC. Dol Guldur, lands beyond the Wall, Westeros.

Adrastia was bored. Bored and a little bit unhappy.

Two weeks since they had arrived. The tower was mostly finished, once again looking like a rip-off of Orthanc because Harry loved the look of it.

Speaking of Harry, he was currently transmuting a few luxury items and Luna was setting up some indoor greenhouses for growing various plants. There had been some mention of hydroponics as well.

Harry had not listened to her appeal that she would stay loyal to him without the geas and the shackles were back on. His recent blunder with Voldemort, even if he wasn't at all unhappy with the end result, had made him more cautious again.

Adrastia couldn't honestly blame him, since she wasn't entirely certain that she would have stayed loyal to him if an opportunity for betrayal presented itself. She was a treacherous sort and they both knew it. Still, it would have been nice to be truly free again.

But boredom was the real problem. Everything happened so damned slowly in a medieval world. She'd only barely managed to convince Harry to not cover the tower in concealing spells by playing on his sense of humor and propensity to act out wizard clichés. Now she just had to wait for the first 'visitors' to arrive

She hefted herself out of bed with an ungraceful grunt that would have never left her throat if someone was around to hear and moved towards her Glass Candle. Harry had allowed her to have one to do with as she wished, so there was that at least.

She also had her own room, despite being offered to stay with him and Luna. Sex was one thing, but sleeping in the same bed was a little too cozy for her tastes. The last thing she needed was to get used to being cuddled and craving the feel of Harry's arms around her. That would be giving him more power over her than she was comfortable with.

Adrastia placed her hands over the twisting spire of black obsidian and gazed towards the approaching visitors. She might be inept at magical combat and academia, but the Glass Candle required the Mind Arts, in which she was quite proficient.

The party of wildlings – or free folk, as they called themselves – was approaching at a steady pace. They would arrive by tomorrow. Hopefully, at least one of them would be the right sort despite the belligerence she could sense from their leader.

Harry might have lost all interest in humanity as a whole, but he could still be enticed to engage with individuals. It didn't take too much to get a modicum of respect out of him, people just had to be willing to learn. He wouldn't refuse those who asked for knowledge.

Adrastia sighed and took her hands off the scrying device. It would take decades to maneuver events in the direction she desired, what with how savage and undeveloped this land was. Not to mention how disinterested Harry was.

Truly, she had become spoiled by the privileges she'd had while sitting in the lap of a powerful king. Even after Harry and Luna had left, Lorkhan had still allowed her a great deal of freedom despite having an infuriatingly noble streak that his father lacked.

But if there was one upside to Harry's choice of real estate, it was that the people here venerated strength of all kinds. It would have been more fun to twist the politics of the Seven Kingdoms into a pretzel, but she could work with this situation.

---

Oreg was worried, very worried.

This huge tower had appeared where the Fist of the First Men used to be practically overnight. Had to be magic, powerful magic. The damn thing rose higher than the Wall!

They approached from the south, that being the only side of the rocky hill that was really accessible.

It was much more intimidating from up close than it had been from a distance. A great peak that seemed to have been carved from a mountain or raised from the very earth itself, black and hard; four mighty piers of grooved stone were fused together, but near the summit they joined into one. At the very top, four sharp spires stabbed into the sky like knives. A wide stairway between two of the piers led towards a pair of great stone doors. Flocks of ravens and crows either circled it or perched on it, giving it an even more sinister air.

There was nothing like it in any of the ancient legends, even the castles of the kneelers in the south had to be less than this tower. Whoever had raised must be mighty indeed.

And he was the fool heading right towards it. There were only ten of them. If whatever sorcerer had built that tower was hostile, he feared that it wouldn't be nearly enough.

But there had been no choice. Their clan lived very close and this winter was too harsh to be moving around in. They had to know what was what.

"Now what?" He asked his older brother, Borol, the leader of their party.

As if in answer to his question, the doors opened and three people descended the steps, two women and one man.

The first woman was a tiny thing with golden hair and didn't look at all dangerous.

The second was much taller with skin as dark as mud, something that Oreg had never seen before. It made him wary of her, wondering if magic had done that to her.

The man was the sort that he would not have been eager to challenge to a fight. Big, strong-looking, with scars on his hairless face speaking of an experienced warrior and eyes that almost glowed green. Oreg knew immediately that this one must be the sorcerer.

All three of them were also dressed far more finely than their own furs, like southron lordlings.

"What do you want?" The man asked bluntly, crossing his arms impatiently.

Oreg saw his brother swallow his fear and nod towards the tower. "That your tower?"

"No, it was there when we got here." The sorcerer mocked. "Of course it's my fucking tower!"

Oreg silently admitted to himself that his brother's question had been stupid, even if he didn't appreciate being mocked.

Borol's face hardened into a glare.

"Why did you build it?" He demanded.

"I like towers." The sorcerer shrugged carelessly.

Oreg saw his brother grip his bronze axe as if getting ready to use it and a block of ice seemed to form in his gut. If Borol attacked...

"Don't tease him, Harry." The mud-skinned woman spoke up in a bored tone, making Oreg blink at the sorcerer's apparent name. It was definitely not a free folk name, but it wasn't something he would have expected sorcerer to be called either.

"Hello, I'm Luna." The other woman said with a bright smile and what had to be the friendliest tone that Oreg had ever heard. "And there are Harry and Adrastia. Would you like to join us for dinner?"

Oreg relaxed a little. Guest rights had been offered. They should be safe now.

"I'd rather kill you before you can use your magic on us." His brother growled, brandishing his axe aggressively.

"Brother, they offered us guest rights!" Oreg hissed urgently, grabbing Borol's arm.

"You'd trust the word of a sorcerer?" The older man spat, wrenching his arm away.

"Not even a sorcerer would risk angering the gods by breaking guest rights." He argued.

"I don't give a fuck about any gods." The sorcerer, Harry, scoffed. "But I wouldn't harm a guest because it's a stupid thing to do."

"I don't believe you!" Borol near-shouted, gripping his axe in both hands. "You look like a southron cunt, you've got a name like a southron cunt and you talk like a southron cunt. You want to make kneelers of us, dont you?!"

"I came here, beyond the Wall, because I wanted to get away from people coming to me on bended knee, begging for help with this or that problem they have and absolutely can't solve on their own." Harry sneered, looking over at Borol with clear contempt. "Although it seems there's no escaping from meatheaded morons with rocks in their skull trying to kill me."

Borol bellowed in anger and lunged forward, looking to take the sorcerer's head off.

With a crackling, tearing sound, a fucking lightning bolt surged from Harry's extended hand and struck Borol directly in the chest, sending him flying backwards with his furs smoking.

Oreg froze in sheer terror at the power he had just witnessed. His brother was dead for certain, and they might just join him soon.

"Now, how about we try that again?" The sorcerer asked pleasantly and turned to him with hard, glowing green eyes. "What do you want?"

Oreg swallowed. He would have liked to avenge his brother, but he knew it was futile and he had to think about the others. Everyone else in the group was also family; two of them his own sons, a niece and several cousins. If he died here, his woman would be left to take care of their young daughter all by herself.

Borol had rejected guest rights when they had been offered and paid the price for it.

"Nothing." Oreg said, feeling sweat bead on his face despite the cold.

"Alright." The sorcerer nodded. "Good day to you then."

Oreg blinked. Just like that?

"You won't join us for dinner?" The small, golden-haired woman, Luna, asked with a pout. She appeared genuinely disappointed.

"Umm..." Oreg had no idea how to respond. He didn't want to be anywhere near this place, but refusing a request didn't feel smart either.

"It would be discourteous to send them back out into the cold." The mud-skinned woman, Adrastia, added, looking remarkably like an amused shadowcat toying with its prey.

"If they don't want to stay then they don't want to stay." Harry shrugged again, apparently not caring one way or another.

"Uncle, he's still alive!" His niece called out, kneeling in the snow beside her father's body.

"Really?" The sorcerer frowned. "Huh, I must have misjudged the power."

Despite his words, Oreg was relieved to see that he didn't seem inclined to finish Borol off.

"We should help him." Luna said.

"He tried to kill us." Harry said flatly.

"I'm sure he won't try again." She said and turned to Oreg with another bright smile. "Right?"

That felt like it should be a threat, yet it somehow wasn't.

"Aye." He nodded slowly.

"Great!" She said happily. "Then we should get your brother inside and fix him up."

Oreg nodded and they carried the twitching Borol inside. Only the fact that guest rights had been offered again kept him calm.

---

Considering that his last memory was of a terrible pain, Borol was surprised to be waking up at all, much less doing so without pain.

"Da!" His daughter cried out happily and hugged him.

He hugged her back, still slightly bewildered by what was going on. He saw that his brother and all the others were there as well, every single one of them looking slightly awed.

"Right, now that the fool is back on his feet, Luna and I are going to go prepare dinner. Adrastia, I trust you'll take care of them?" A terribly familiar voice said with a hint of irritation.

Borol looked and saw exactly what he feared. The sorcerer.

"Of course, Harry." The mud-skinned woman, Adrastia, purred.

"As for you..." The sorcerer turned to glare at him. "You're my guests now, so try to act like it. My tolerance for stupidity is just about exhausted."

Borol swallowed and nodded. He still didn't trust the sorcerer and would have preferred to kill him and his women to safeguard his clan from whatever they intended, but that had already ended badly once. Not to mention that if his brother had accepted guest rights, then he couldn't do anything without offending the gods.

As the sorcerer swept out along with the golden-haired woman, the dark one smiled at them with perfectly white teeth.

"So, does anyone have any questions, or would you like to be shown to your rooms?"

---

Adrastia was quite pleased with how the situation had unfolded. That little hiccup with the lightning bolt was unfortunate, but there was only so much civility one could expect from savages.

Now she had this group of easily-manipulated people all to herself while Harry and Luna made dinner. With some care, they would become the perfect unwitting agents for her plans.

"What's wrong with your skin?" The only girl in the group, the leader's daughter Gella, asked rudely.

Adrastia smiled at her reassuringly. "Nothing is wrong with it, I was merely born far to the south, in a land of eternal summer. If your family spent long enough in such a land, your descendants' skin would eventually darken as well to protect it from the harsh sunlight." No need to confuse the girl with an explanation of genetics, mutation and inheritable traits.

"Protect it from the sunlight?" Gella repeated slowly, as if the words made no sense to her.

"Yes." Adrastia said patiently. "The sunlight in these lands is always weak and your skin is pale because of it, but the further south you go, the stronger the sunlight becomes and it would eventually begin to burn your skin because it has never needed to protect itself from it. On the other hand, you are far better able to endure the cold than I will ever be."

"Then why are you here?" The leader, Borol, interjected.

"Harry has always liked cold places better than warm ones." She shrugged

"Ha! Then he chose well." One of the younger men snorted with laughter.

"Yes, quite." Adrastia nodded.

"What does he want here?" Borol asked.

"Mostly he just didn't want to put up with the kneelers." She shrugged again, suppressing a predatory smirk as the conversation moved in the direction she wanted it to. Among the books she'd taken from the Citadel was Hardhome: An Account of Three Years Spent Beyond-the-Wall among Savages, Raiders, and Woods-witches, by Maester Wylis. Ponderous title aside, the book had been a treasure trove of information on local customs, beliefs and terminology. "Harry is mostly only interested in furthering his knowledge of magic and has a nasty temper when someone tries to give him orders. Had we stayed south of the Wall, he would have had to spend most of his time killing people, either because he refused to kneel or because the Faith of the Seven would hate us for our magic."

She made sure to put just the right amount of disdain into her voice when the Faith of the Seven was mentioned, noting with satisfaction that it was echoed in their faces. Religious animosity was always so easy to exploit.

They continued talking for a little while longer, with Adrastia subtly leading them towards the realization that Harry was just like them even if he hadn't been born beyond the Wall. An easy feat since it was basically true. Intelligent as her darling master was, he fit in with these barbarians far better than he did with civilized people.

After showing them to their rooms and explaining the functions of things like toilets, sinks, showers and so on, she also started dropping hints that Harry was not averse to sharing his knowledge, which was again true.

That was the easy half of the job. The hard part would be convincing Harry to send these people off to spread that information with a final good impression.

---

Dinner started off a little awkwardly. The guests were tense and unsure of their welcome, especially with Harry's typical surly attitude, but Luna managed to soothe their frayed nerves.

Adrastia could have kissed the petite blonde for her sunny disposition. It was the perfect supplement for her own approach and the party of free folk were soon enjoying themselves, especially when Harry didn't do anything to ruin the mood and even participated with the occasional dry remark.

They were especially impressed with the food and fell on it like starving wolves. The porcelain dishes and silver utensils got a few baffled or covetous looks, but none of them even considered stealing anything. Guest rights were held in high regard everywhere in Westeros and even in the Free Cities across the Narrow Sea, but beyond the Wall they were sacrosanct.

The three extra-dimensional magicals knew that this was because the harsh living conditions all but demanded a custom that assured good conduct, lest their entire culture devolve completely into animal barbarism. The free folk simply thought that the gods would punish anyone who broke sacred guest rights and thought of it no further than that.

Adrastia was counting on this fixation with guest rights to further her agenda.

"What kind of gift should we send them off with?" She asked Harry and Luna once dinner was finished and they had a moment alone.

"Gift?" Harry repeated questioningly.

"It is customary for the host to send his guests off with a gift." Adrastia explained.

"Is that so?" He asked suspiciously. "Because it seems to me like that particular custom isn't followed much anymore."

"Not always." She agreed. "But why not follow it when you can easily afford a few small gifts?"

"Maybe because I don't want more people coming here, hoping for gifts of their own?"

"They wouldn't do that." Adrasita shook her head. "They respect guest rights far too much to abuse the custom in such a way."

Harry considered it and grudgingly nodded, conceding the point. "But I still don't see why I should hand out gifts."

"For me?" She pouted.

He stared at her in a completely deadpan manner.

Adrastia pressed herself up against him and placed her lips against his ear. "Pleaaase?"

Even though she could clearly feel him responding, he just sighed and stepped away.

"Alright, spill the beans." He said flatly. "What are you up to?"

"Moi? Up to something?" She asked, adopting a look of shocked hurt. "My dear, you wound me with your cruel accusations."

"Cut the crap, Adrastia." Harry said with a frown, obviously not feeling playful.

"Very well." She deflated. "I'm bored. There is nothing for me to do here except act as your vapid concubine."

"Nobody is making you stay with us." He pointed out.

Adrastia scoffed. "And what would become of me if I went off on my own? I have no thralls, friends, allies, power base or even wand, and I am no great sorceress to begin with. This world's societies are harder and quick to resort to violence. If anyone suspected what kind of games I was playing or that I am a witch I would be lynched on the spot, not to mention the myriad of other problems. I need your protection now more than ever, but this idleness is killing me."

Harry mulled that over for a while before he replied. "So what do you want?"

"Help me make something out of these savages." She appealed. "You and Luna can do whatever it is you want to do, but give me something to play with."

"It would be the nice thing to do." Luna chimed in.

Harry exhaled gustily. "I won't be King-Beyond-the-Wall. I'm done with that shit."

"That isn't a real kingship and you know it." Adrastia waved off. "It just means someone with influence, someone that is listened to and respected for his strength and cunning. I doubt you will be able to avoid being called that if you stay here for any length of time given how much greater than these people you are, but you needn't pay it any mind if you don't want to."

Harry stayed quiet for a long time as he considered her words and Adrastia let a small smile creep onto her lips. Ruthless killer and sociopath he may be, but Harry did not forget those who aided him. His particular sense of honor would not allow him to dismiss her request as long as it didn't interfere with his own plans. It was that same sense of honor that she had gambled on when she had sold her freedom to him on the presumption that she wouldn't be treated like a slave even if she technically was one.

"Alright, I'm listening." He finally said.

Adrastia smiled broadly and gave him a kiss to show her appreciation. Then she began explaining the bare bones of her plans.

---

After explaining herself to Harry's satisfaction, she went in search of their guests.

She found them in the hall where their rooms were located, moving between them like fascinated children, talking in amazed tones about this or that thing and generally being impressed.

"Enjoying yourselves, I see." She commented amusedly after seeing them play with the shower faucets.

Borol immediately stiffened and turned to look at her warily. "Somethin' wrong?"

"Not at all." She reassured. "I just came to ask if Gella, Bragni and Orrik wanted to watch Harry make their gifts."

"Gifts?" Gella asked, her grey eyes alight with interest. Her cousins were likewise interested.

"Yes, I believe it is customary for the host to send his guests off with a gift when they leave his protection." Adrastia nodded.

The reminder that they were guests served to drain the tension from the set of Borol's and Oreg's shoulders, and they raised no objection when the three teenagers decided to follow her.

"What is Harry making?" Bragni asked curiously a minute later as they walked through the stone halls.

"You'll see." Adrastia said teasingly, smiling widely when the boy, barely old enough to have hair growing on his face, blushed.

The pound of hammer on anvil became audible soon, a sound that just about anyone would recognize...unless they had been born in a frozen hellhole and lived in what was essentially the late Stone Age.

"What's that?" Gella asked, curious and confused.

"Harry is many things, a master blacksmith among them." Adrastia explained, smiling when she saw the sudden gleam in their eyes. "We saw the poor state of your weapons and thought you could use something a little better."

Indeed, Borol's bronze axe had been the best they'd had among them. Everything else was either makeshift clubs, bits of metal or chipped stone tied to sticks or even just wood whittled into a point.

The three of them looked like they wanted to run inside, but restrained themselves.

The forge was a big room, lighted in a red-orange glow from the embers. Harry stood barechested before an anvil as he hammered the steel into shape.

"You're late." He grunted, not looking at them or stopping his work.

"We were delayed a little." Adrastia smiled, shamelessly taking the opportunity to admire the ripple of muscle moving beneath heated, sweaty skin. Working a forge barechested was a terrible example for people who didn't have spells to compensate for the safety risks, but she definitely appreciated the eye candy.

Harry grunted again and looked over his shoulder at the three gawky teenagers staring at him. "Well since they're here now they can at least make themselves useful." He said and turned to Orrik, the oldest of the three at probably about nineteen. "You, boy, get on the bellows."

"I'm a man, not a boy!" Orrik said with the stubborn defiance of teenagers everywhere, staying where he was.

"Whatever." Harry snorted. "But if you want a steel weapon then you'll get on the fucking bellows."

Orrik gaped in shock for a moment before hurrying to the bellows. Steel weapons were rare and highly prized beyond the Wall, so it was little wonder that he'd stopped trying to be difficult at the prospect of getting one.

"What does this thing do?" He asked after he started pumping, far more timidly than before.

"It blows air into the forge to make the fire hotter, which in turn softens the steel and makes it easier to work with." Harry explained patiently, his irritation cooled by the boy's curiosity.

"You're makin' steel?" Bragni asked with a tinge of awe. He must have assumed it would be bronze or maybe iron.

"Mhm." Harry confirmed and pointed at a handful of metal rods sitting on a nearby table. "See those rods over there? Put them into the forge so that about two handspans are inside the fire, but make sure they aren't touching each other or they'll stick together when they get hot enough."

Bragni went to do as he was told without complaint, carefully inserting the rods into the forge one by one.

Orrik started pumping the bellows a lot more enthusiastically once his brother was done, clearly eager to do a good job all of a sudden.

"Oi, ease up over there." Harry scolded. "We don't want the fire to be too hot or the steel might actually melt. Plus, you'll exhaust yourself in no time if you keep going like that."

Abashed, Orrik went back to his previous speed.

Adrastia observed this byplay with a smile. It was a set-up of course. Harry was perfectly capable of animating the bellows with his spells. The point of this was to get word out that there was someone capable of working steel living beyond the Wall, and that he was willing to teach.

Fortunately, Harry actually was willing to teach. He and Luna might have plans to go on all sorts of expeditions all over this world, but they weren't in a hurry. No longer was Harry the same impatient youth that had resented the need for sleep and food because it took time away from his research. He didn't mind delaying a bit in order to pass on a little knowledge to someone that wanted to learn.

Even if neither of these two boys asked to stay and learn from Harry, they would talk about this and someone else might.

As for the girl...

Gella was staring at Harry with open desire, her mind clearly not on new weapons. There was little doubt that if it wasn't for her and Luna, she would be paying Harry's room a visit tonight.

Adrastia smirked to herself as a suspicion of hers was confirmed. True, just one example does not a pattern make, but she was sure that most women beyond the Wall would react similarly. Harry was too high up on the list of desirable mates for it to really be otherwise.

No doubt Gella was wishing that he would 'steal' her.

Free folk mating customs really were terribly amusing, as they clearly showed that these people had a societal structure barely a few steps above animals. Anywhere else, the practice of 'stealing' women would rightfully be called kidnapping and rape, but here it was a courtship ritual. Even the women were in on it, because while they might not enjoy being taken by force, they responded only to strength and would scorn any man that couldn't take them by force.

It made sense in the context of their living conditions. Pregnancy was risky enough in the best of circumstances when you didn't have advanced medical care available, exponentially more so when you lived in a frozen wilderness populated by savages and giant predators like direwolves, shadowcats and snow bears. A man that couldn't protect and provide for you during pregnancy and later on when your children were young and helpless was a liability and any such men tended to be killed whenever they attempted to steal a woman that was stronger than them. A fairly brutal form of natural selection, but it worked to cull the weak that wouldn't contribute to the clan while keeping the rest strong enough to survive.

Now she just had to find a way to convince Harry to take advantage of this...

"Girl, you see those wooden sticks over there?" Gella snapped to attention when Harry adressed her and she nodded quickly. "Those'll be the spear shafts, so what I need you to do is..."

Adrastia almost laughed at the girl's attempt to show herself off as she went to carry out Harry's instructions. It was just too funny.

---

The party of free folk spent the night at Dol Guldur and got ready to leave soon after dawn.

Most of them.

Whereas Orrik was more interested in using weapons, the brief exposure to crafting and a little hinting from Adrastia got his younger brother interested in making them. Oreg asked his son if he was sure that he wanted to stay, and when Bragni confirmed it, he simply nodded and wished him well. As the name implied, free folk culture placed great value on personal freedom of choice and even a barely pubescent teen was considered old enough to make his own decisions.

Gella clearly wanted to stay as well, but just like stealing women that were already taken by other men, attempting to insert yourself into an established relationship was a big no-no. Aside from their belief that the gods would disapprove, it was a good way to get killed. The free folk were fiercely territorial about such things and Gella had no way of knowing that Luna and Adrastia wouldn't kill her for making a move on Harry.

So they left with one boy less than they arrived with, six steel spears more and overall a very positive impression. Even Borol had mellowed out from his desire to kill them all pre-emptively to just watchful suspicion.

On the night of the day that their guests departed, Adrastia was laying pressed up against Harry during their midway break and raised another thing she wanted him to do in order to further her ambitions...

"Are you thinking of increasing this world's magic saturation?"

"Maybe." Harry nodded, keeping his eyes closed and just enjoying the feeling of her gently fondling his semi-soft member. "I don't want to go at it too quickly because it may throw off my measurements, but the low magic levels really are quite intolerable. If my hypothesis is correct then it may actually make it easier to reach the godlings, but it would likely also increase how much power they can exert in the material plane."

"Mmm." She responded, giving his nipple a little nibble. "How would you do it?"

"The usual, I guess." Harry shrugged. "Making liquid magic will be a lot harder without a dungeon full of magi, but I can drain magic from myself just as well."

"Have you considered…..children?" She asked coyly, giving his now hardened member a squeeze.

Harry gave her an arch look. "You want children?"

"Don't be ridiculous." Adrastia scoffed. "I wanted to know what you thought of stealing a few of the local women and using them as baby factories."

Now he frowned at her, thoughtfully more than in displeasure. "I don't think I can do that."

There had long been an unspoken agreement between him and his wives about who was an appropriate target for his less savory ideas.

Harry no longer cared who he hurt. Young or old, man or woman, good or bad, innocent or guilty…..it was all the same to him. But his wives had cared and out of deference for their sensibilities, he restrained himself to a certain demographic.

Need a test subject? Sure, go find some unrepentant rapist or murderer.

Need sacrifices? Hunt down some wannabe Dark Lord or something.

Want sex slaves but can't find any women willing to play? No problem, go find some slavers or slave owners and flip their gender if they're men. Mindwipes were optional.

Basically, they wanted him to stick to the Golden Rule.

Truth be told, the restriction was barely an inconvenience. There was never any shortage of people that fit the description of 'acceptable target', so the only thing it really imposed on him was travel time.

The only exception to this particular stipulation of his wives was politics. In politics, you sometimes had to be a bastard to people not because they were bad, but because they just wouldn't move unless you stuck them with a cattle prod. It was an ugly world, politics was.

Fleur and Dora might be long dead, but he would stick to that silent agreement for the memory of what they'd shared.

Adrastia swung herself over him, smoothly impaling herself on his erection.

"You would be doing them a favor." She argued, rolling her hips. "Life in this land is hard and usually short. Food and shelter are never guaranteed. The women you steal would be grateful for the safety and comfort you would provide them, and for their children being able to grow up without fear of death by starvation, exposure to the elements, being torn apart by animals or any number of other dangers. They would probably stay with you willingly even if you brutalized them when you took them, nevermind if you only employed some…aggressive seduction."

"I'm not terribly interested in having more children." Harry replied, reaching up to fondle her breasts.

"But you don't care if you do either." Adrastia pointed out smugly, thrusting out her chest to give him better access. "Did you think I wouldn't notice the trail of bastard children you left behind while you were gallivanting across Earth with Luna?"

Harry raised an eyebrow. "You were tracking me?"

It was true that he hadn't bothered to be careful about contraception when fucking any of the women he and Luna came across during their travels. After raising or partially raising twelve children, fathering hundreds more on random veela and acting as a sort of surrogate father to another eighteen orphaned apprentices over the course of his life, he had found it hard to care in what field his seed sprouted.

"Of course." Adrastia said, her tone clearly making it known that it was a stupid question. "I may not have been able to actually find you, but a trail of black-haired, emerald-eyed children wasn't hard to follow."

Harry twisted her nipples slightly so that she hissed in surprise at the minor pain. "Getting back to the point….leaving a trail of kids behind me is one thing, but keeping them around is quite another. I'm not interested in raising another brood of brats to support whatever scheme you've cooked up."

"You wouldn't, ah, have to." Adrastia bit her lip and obviously swallowed down a moan of pleasure when he sent a minor stimulation spell through the nerves in her breasts. "Just leave the women to deal with them and maybe take them in hand once they've grown a bit if you want to. That's how things are usually done in this world anyway."

"You still haven't told me why you need me to sire a bunch of children." Harry pointed out, thrusting his hips upwards and using his member as a medium to fire a much more powerful nerve-stimulation spell directly into her core.

Adrastia cried out at the unexpected shock of pleasure and nearly collapsed on top of him, holding herself up on trembling arms as her ebony skin developed a gleaming, sweaty sheen.

"Well?" Harry prompted smugly when she didn't answer after a few seconds.

She took a deep breath and visibly collected herself before sitting upright on his lap again. "I want to set up your sons as vassal lords to rule in your name in a system reminiscent of the southern kingdoms, although there would obviously have to be concessions made to the local culture. We could have the entirety of the lands beyond the Wall locked down in twenty or thirty years."

"My, aren't you ambitious." Harry said dryly. "And what would you do with my daughters?"

"A few of them might have what it takes to lead." Adrastia shrugged, which did delightful things to her breasts. "Something would come up for the others, I'm sure."

Harry just nodded, well aware of her opinions on matters of leadership. As far as Adrastia was concerned, smart women stayed away from direct positions of authority and allowed men to take the heat while they controlled things from the bedchamber if they were so inclined. Her saying that a few of his daughters might be fit to lead directly was no compliment.

"What if I refuse?" He asked.

"That would be unfortunate." She frowned. "Finding suitable candidates to take the place of your sons among the locals would be sub-optimal and take considerably more time. It would also require a lot more personal involvement on your part and their loyalty would never be as secure."

Harry regarded the woman straddling him thoughtfully. Her pedestrian little plans were a minor inconvenience in his quest to unravel the secrets of existence, but she did deserve some consideration for centuries of loyal service. It was the reason that he was letting her use him as a figurehead even though he honestly had no more interest in these games that she was so fond of.

Still, while increasing the overall magic saturation of this world was something he wanted, he wasn't sure if this was how he wanted to do it. True, letting the mothers deal with the screaming brats until they reached the age of reason would mean that he'd be able to skip out on the most annoying parts of parenting, but doing the dad thing again….

Not to mention that he also wasn't sure what Fleur and Dora would have to say on the matter of him basically kidnapping women to do it with. Luna would probably agree with Adrastia and he didn't think they would object given the circumstances, but there was a good chance that his defective emotional compass was misleading him. It had happened before. He'd have to use the Resurrection Stone and ask them if he decided that spawning a bunch of kids would be less irritating than the alternative.

"I'll consider it." He finally said and thrust his hips upwards again, sending another nerve-stimulation spell into her.

Ah, it never got old to tear those surprised cries of pleasure from her throat.

---

Approximately 150 miles east of Dol Guldur.

A few days after meeting the first of their new neighbours, Harry and Luna were walking through the Haunted Forest.

"Do you think they'll be happy to see us?" Luna asked, playing some kind of imaginary hopscotch as they walked up the gentle slope of the wooded hillside.

"Hard to say." Harry shrugged with a smile, amused by her antics. "They've got plenty of reason to hate humans, but you can never tell how non-humans process the world."

They will treat you with courtesy as long as you do the same. Came the whisper from the Old Gods. The Haunted Forest was full of weirwoods and their presence permeated every inch of it.

Harry and Luna had both already started learning the Greensight and it was definitely one of the more interesting branches of magic they'd come across in their lives.

If he'd thought that the Glass Candles were an improvement to his own Palantíri, they had nothing on the Greensight. Seeing through the weirwoods had more in common with what it was like to view memories in a Pensieve. In fact, because the weirwoods hosted the gestalt of millions of souls collectively known as the Old Gods, they remembered everything, and it was possible to look into this memory to observe the past. Furthermore, because worshippers of the Old Gods saw the weirwoods as a connection to their gods, they left their minds wide open to any skilled greenseer that might be inclined to take a dive into them.

The Greensight was naturally limited to places where weirwoods grew, but in those places they allowed something perilously close to omniscience.

Upon learning that, helping Luna with her desire to plant more weirwoods stopped being something that he was doing to make his last living wife smile, and became something that he very much wanted to do for his own reasons.

"Should we have brought a gift?" Luna asked, spinning to face him with a worried look on her face.

"Eh, we should be fine." Harry waved off. "We're looking to become students after all, not guests."

He had learned from the Old Gods that the language he had heard in the memory shown to him in Highgarden was called the True Tongue and it was indeed special. It was a magical language similar to Parseltongue, but instead of speaking to snakes, it allowed a person to speak to the world itself.

Harry had never considered that such a thing might exist. A way of understanding a planet's world-soul, sure, but an actual language specific to a planet? What a notion that was. He wanted to see it in action and more importantly, he wanted to learn it. The Old Gods had cautioned him that the race of men wasn't able to learn it, but he had brushed them off the same way he had always brushed off anyone that told him he couldn't do something. Maybe they were right, but he wasn't going to take anyone's word for it.

It was only a few minutes later that they arrived at their destination, a well-concealed cave entrance between a small grove of weirwood trees. Harry could sense a ward that blocked necromantic magic anchored on them, as well as a crude Notice-Me-Not.

It was no barrier to him and Luna and they stepped inside unimpeded.

The earthen tunnel was cramped and claustrophobic, with weirwood roots everywhere making it even more so. Harry had to stoop quite a bit, but Luna could usually stay upright.

On and on they went, slowly moving ever deeper into the earth. Not far in, bones started appearing in the walls and on the floor. So many bones that it was nearly a carpet of them.

"Oooh!" Luna vocalized a good half hour later, looking around with wide eyes at the vast cavern they had arrived in. It was full stalactites and stalagmites and echoed with the 'plunk' sound of water droplets hitting the stone in a steady pattern. Ravens and giant bats watched them pass with unnerving intensity, while other bats had apparently died in their sleep and left only their skeletons to hang from the ceiling.

Well, it would be unnerving if Harry wasn't highly partial to ravens and didn't know that he could fill the cavern with fire if the bats tried anything funny.

"Over there." He said quietly, pointing out another passage.

They walked on, crunching over an even thicker carpet of bones than before, the evidence of life that countless birds and beasts had left behind. At least they could be sure that they were heading in the right direction, as alcoves with skulls placed inside them started appearing, a clearly artificial bit of decoration.

Harry knew that they must be at least several hundred feet below ground by this point, so he gazed at the weirwood roots that still branched through the walls with mild shock. He'd known that the white-barked trees had deep roots, but not that they grew this deep.

"Their roots probably never stop growing." He realized and narrowed his eyes in thought. If that were the case, then the many weirwoods chopped down in the south had likely left behind a vast root system that might very well still be alive to this day.

That…..could be useful.

Harry suddenly looked at a nearby shadow, where he could see the outline and aura of the one that they had come here to find, the only Child of the Forest that knew the Common Tongue. "Isn't that right?"

"It is." The small being responded in a high-pitched voice that could easily be mistaken for that of a child if not for the maturity and sadness it held. "How did you find us, Sorcerer?"

He grinned at her, quickly taking note of her physical features. Just under four feet tall, a tangle of hair in the colors of autumn, nut brown skin dappled with white spots much like a deer, a face that was cute more than beautiful to his human sensibilities, flat-chested, large ears that further reinforced the deer comparison, big gold-green eyes that were slitted like a cat's, pointy needle-like teeth, short black claws instead of nails on her four-fingered hands. The nature theme was topped off with a cloak of woven leaves.

Harry noticed her apprehension and squatted down so that they were at eye-level, Luna following suit immediately after. Looming over people never put them at ease.

"We saw you in the trees." He said.

"You are greenseers?" She gasped, suddenly stepping forward and staring intently into his eyes.

Harry knew what she was doing. Greenseers among the Children of the Forest were always born with bright green or blood-red eyes and his own green were a rather close match for the former.

"We're learning." Luna smiled at the small being brightly. "Hello, I'm Luna."

"And I'm Harry. What should we call you, Earthsinger?" He added, deliberately using a term that was closer to what they called themselves instead of the moniker that humans had saddled them with.

"My name in the True Tongue name is too long for the any of the tongues of men." She said with a shake of her head.

"Oh," Luna pouted. "Can we call you Leaf, then?"

"You may." The newly dubbed Leaf allowed. "Why did you come?"

"We want to learn the True Tongue."

"No man can learn it." Leaf asserted with the same certainty as the Old Gods had done so.

Harry grinned again, amused. "I haven't been so badly underestimated since I was a child. How refreshing."

"Pleeeease." Luna wheedled with big, hopeful eyes. "It sounded so beautiful in the memories and it must be even better in person. Please teach us."

To his vast amusement, Leaf seemed taken aback by Luna's earnestness. Apparently not even a member of a mythical race was immune.

"If we can't learn it then we can't learn it." Harry interjected. "But it costs us nothing to try."

"Why do you even want to learn it?" Leaf asked with a frown.

"Because it's beautiful." Luna said simply.

"And we're intending to restore the weirwoods across Westeros, maybe even beyond the Narrow Sea." Harry added, thinking that it might help sway her decision. "Knowing the True Tongue would help us with that if I'm right about its properties."

He saw the glimmer of interest and hope in Leaf's eyes and knew that he was on the right track.

"You would restore the forests?" She asked.

"We would." Harry confirmed.

"Men will oppose you." Leaf warned.

"I am over six hundred years old." He said, amused when her eyes widened in shock, knowing that she was less than a third of that. "In my time I've seen both the best and worst that mankind has to offer, and they tend to show the worst when allowed to have their way. I already have the blood of over nine billion people on my hands, a few thousand more won't make any difference."

"How could you have killed so many?" Leaf whispered, completely baffled and more than a little horrified.

"It's a long story." Harry sighed. "I can tell it to you if you want."

"Yes, I think I may need to hear it." Leaf said, nodding slowly.

"Do you want some chocolate pudding?" Luna asked, holding out a bowl with a guileless smile.

"What is chocolate?" Leaf asked, looking at the brown stuff curiously.

"It's delicious!" Luna chirped. "Try it."

As it turned out, Leaf agreed that it was delicious and a very unusual friendship was born.

---

Hidden clearing in the Haunted Forest.

Harry carefully painted a layer of weirwood paste across Luna's abdomen, directly over where her womb was, ignoring her ticklish giggles.

"What is the purpose of this?" Leaf asked in obvious bewilderment. "You are supposed to eat the paste."

Harry took a glance at the thick, red-veined white paste made out of weirwood seeds and sap. Along with being hallucinogenic, it was also powerfully, but subtly, magical and he knew that its purpose was to awaken a greenseer's gifts and bind their powers to the trees. He and Luna didn't need their gifts awakened and most certainly didn't need binding.

That being said, the paste had other uses as well, ones that the nature-inclined beings hadn't ever figured out. It had excellent potential as a component of certain rituals.

"You'll see." He replied to Leaf with a smirk, listening to the chatter of True Tongue among the other Children of the Forest, or the Earthsingers as Harry had taken to calling them, as she relayed his words to them, being the only one that spoke the Common Tongue.

It truly was a beautiful language. To his ears it may sound like melodic singing, but to his soul it was the rumble of thunder, the sigh of wind, the creak of wood, the crackle of fire, the burble of water and so much more.

And the Earthsingers were a curious people. There were just barely over sixty of them still alive, with many more of them who had been born greenseers living a half life with the weirwood roots in their cave growing around them and through them. Those numbers weren't nearly nearly enough to sustain their race. Human encroachment on their homes had shrunk their population over the millennia until only this small enclave was left, hiding beneath the ground. They had never tried to retake their stolen living space because it wasn't their way to initiate violence, and now they were dying.

But they weren't angry, they were just sad. So terribly sad that the emotion hung around them like a thick fog and Luna had gone around hugging each and every one of them in an attempt to comfort them.

"My turn!" Luna beamed, bringing him out of his thoughts as she took the bowl of weirwood paste and got down on her knees.

Harry shrugged off his robe and stood naked before her. Luna set the bowl on the ground, lifted his semi-erect member and used the ladle to carefully apply a layer of the paste over his testicles.

As soon as she was done, Harry felt his virility being, for lack of a better word, 'captured' by the ritual circle they were standing in, also painted with weirwood paste.

"There, all done!" Luna declared and set the bowl aside. Then she turned around and bent over, wiggling her naked arse at him with another giggle. "Come and get it."

Harry spared a look at their spectators, noting the variety of curious, baffled and even somewhat embarrassed looks on their faces. That was just too cute, he hadn't expected that they'd have taboos about public sex.

"Don't worry, it should all become clear in a mon…err, moon turn or two." He assured them and dropped down to his knees behind Luna and carefully inserted his member into her wet and willing opening.

Luna hummed approvingly at the penetration and rocked her hips backwards to take him in deeper.

Harry obliged and thrust forward all the way, setting a pace that could only be called 'quick and efficient'. While it still felt good, pleasure was definitely not the point this time, especially seeing as it was the dead of winter in an arctic climate.

Mere minutes after they started, Harry felt his wife approaching climax through their Joining and rammed himself home with one final grunt, discharging his seed into her as she clenched around him, as if trying to squeeze out every last drop.

Once he was done, Harry popped out and Luna raised herself up so that she was sitting on her knees, turning her head around to kiss him languidly.

Between them, his sperm started dripping out of her and onto the small weirwood seed that was the focus of the ritual, lying half-buried in the frozen earth.

Luna only broke the kiss when she felt that nothing more was going to slide out of her and looked around at the empty clearing.

"Oh, where did they go?" She asked with a pout.

"I think we scandalized them with our deviant ways." Harry quipped and summoned their clothes. It was starting to get a bit chilly even for his tastes.

---

Dol Guldur.

Adrastia grinned to herself as she stalked around Bragni, noting the tense set of the boy's shoulders.

He had been here for a good month and a half already and had adjusted pretty well. Instead of just focusing on teaching him how to be a blacksmith as he had expected, Harry had started giving him a general education.

Bragni had protested learning 'useless' things such as reading, writing, mathematics, geography, history and so on, but a student didn't choose what the master decides to teach. Harry had given him an ultimatum; learn or leave. Unsurprisingly, Bragni had decided to learn.

The boy's presence also provided Adrastia with a constant source of amusement. Whereas Luna tended to mother him a bit and had thus firmly placed herself in a non-sexual context, she had quite deliberately done the exact opposite, so she was frequently featured in the boy's wet dreams and adolescent masturbation fantasies.

Normally not a problem, but her flirting and status as 'Harry's woman' had him living in fear of Harry's wrath should he learn that his apprentice was lusting over her, which was why he was currently as tense as a steel cable. Harry and Luna had gone to have their language lessons and left the two of them all alone in the tower. If this world had porn, Bragni would recognize the situation as a perfect set-up for a babysitter scenario.

"How are your studies going?" She asked, leaning over him and peeking at the sheet of paper he had been writing on. He was currently learning the alphabet and a long repetition of letters filled the page, their lines getting a bit shaky towards the end.

"Alrig-" Bragni's voice cracked and he quickly cleared his throat. "It's going alright."

"That's good." Adrastia said, placing her hands on his shoulders and giving them an encouraging squeeze. She could almost smell the combination of fear and arousal wafting off him and it took an effort of will to back off instead of pushing it further. Young boys were always so much fun to play with. "Have you given any thought to what you will do when your apprenticeship to Harry is over?"

Bragni was caught flatfooted by the sudden shift into safe territory and he gave her an incomprehending look for several seconds before mustering an answer.

"I'm going to return to my clan and make steel weapons and armor for them." He declared proudly.

"Mmm." Adrastia hummed noncommittally. "How?"

"Eh?" Bragni blinked.

"I'm sure that Harry will send you off with all the tools you need and you can get your hands on some charcoal easily enough, but where will you get the iron?" She elaborated. "He provides you with it while you are learning, but he won't be doing that anymore once you strike out on your own."

"Oh." Bragni realized, his enthusiasm crushed as it became clear that simply having the skill didn't mean anything if you didn't have the materials to use it on.

"Your clan would have to find an iron vein and start mining it." Adrastia continued.

"But we don't know about any iron veins." He said with a frown.

"I could probably convince Harry to find one for you, as well as show you how to make a proper mine." She offered casually.

Bragni's frown deepened and she knew exactly what he was thinking.

The free folk were a hard and proud people and didn't like being indebted to anyone. Adrastia knew for a fact that Bragni was already thinking of ways that he could repay Harry for taking him in as a student. Being placed further in his debt was not something that he was comfortable with, but he also didn't want to refuse help that his clan's survival may very well hinge on.

She was fully intending to exploit the situation to draw people close to Dol Guldur until first a village and then a city sprung up around it, with all of its inhabitants feeling that they owed Harry something.

---

Hidden clearing in the Haunted Forest.

Bragni tried not to stare at the several dozen Children of the Forest gathered in this clearing, but it was hard. It wasn't every day that you met legends thought long since lost.

Harry, Luna and Adrastia were also here and all of them were waiting for something to happen with the strange plant thing sitting in the clearing.

It was pretty big, at least three feet or four across, and red like the leaves of a weirwood tree. It bulged occasionally, as if something inside it was moving. The thought scared him and he looked towards Harry to see if he was scared as well.

He wasn't, he just looked like he was waiting for something.

"Here we go." Harry said.

Bragni refocused on the fleshy-looking pod thing, noting that it now definitely looked as if something was trying to get out.

"Is it some kind of egg?" He asked quietly.

"Something like that." Luna replied to him with a smile. "You'll see."

Her calm and gentle tone reassured him and he was able to watch without being too scared.

The thick red leaves peeled off and the creature contained within stood up.

Bragni could only stare in absolute awe. It was a woman, but like no woman he had ever seen. Well over seven feet tall, her skin was white bark and her hair red leaves. Deep red sap leaked from her equally red eyes and down her cheeks, making it seem as if she was crying tears of blood.

It was a walking heart tree, a living god.

He didn't even hear the Children of the Forest chattering excitedly, too numb with shock.

"My baby!" Luna squealed and rushed forward to hug the tree woman. A hug, Bragni noticed with even greater shock, that was eagerly returned.

"Harry, come hug our baby." Luna beckoned and Harry did so with a roll of his eyes.

At this point Bragni was far beyond merely shocked. He barely noticed when the Children of the Forest began to crowd around the living god.

He was too busy wondering if Harry and Luna weren't perhaps gods themselves. After all, who other than a god could bring another god to life like this?

"Impressive, isn't it?" Adrastia murmured to him. "I've never been present for one of these things before."

"They've done this before?" He squeaked, still too shocked to care about the embarrassment.

"Countless times, on another world." The dark-skinned woman answered. "You could even say that most of that world's forests are their children."

Bragni swallowed the lump that seemed to have formed in his throat, more convinced than ever that Harry and Luna really were gods.

Almost able to hear the conclusions forming in the boy's thoughts, Adrastia smirked openly. She was starting to think that coming to this savage land had been a stroke of unintended genius on Harry's part. If he kept doing these kinds of things – and she knew that he would – then it wouldn't be long before everyone was convinced that he was a god.

And there was nothing quite so easy as getting people to do something if they genuinely believed it was divine mandate that they do so.

---

Castle Black, the Wall.

Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, Jack Musgood, suppressed the urge to throw his goblet at the closest wall in sheer frustration at his ill-fortune.

He had just received a report from his rangers that a huge fucking tower had apparently sprung up at the Fist of the First Men. A tower far too large to have been built since the last time a ranging party had gone that way.

That left magic as the only explanation.

He did not need this. It had only been seven years since latest King-Beyond-the-Wall, Raymun Redbeard, had slipped past his watch and attacked the North with his host of wildlings, killing Lord Willam Stark in the doing.

That failure on his part had earned him the derisive moniker of 'Sleepy Jack', replacing the previous one of 'Jolly Jack', which he'd earned for his jolly disposition.

Sleepy Jack was no longer jolly. Who would be if their shame and humiliation followed them around wherever they went?

And now this. A powerful sorcerer had made his home among the wildlings and could very well be intending to become another King-Beyond-the-Wall.

Jack could only shudder at the thought. There were stories about another King-Beyond-the-Wall from long ago that was also a sorcerer, known only as the Horned Lord. He was said to have used magic to get past the Wall.

At least Raymun had been just a normal man, if canny. Who could really say what a sorcerer was capable of?

"Get me Bloodraven and Maester Aemon." Jack ordered the ranger that had brought him the report.

If anyone could give him good advice on the situation, it would be those two. Maester Aemon should by all rights have been sitting the Iron Throne as Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, but he had instead chosen to go to the Wall so that nobody could use him against his beloved younger brother, who was even now King in his place.

Nonetheless, Jack was more than happy to have him. Maesters rarely chose to swear oaths to the Night's Watch and when they did it was usually because the lord they were serving had caught them doing something they shouldn't have been doing. Having a proper maester was a rare luxury, especially since Aemon was truly brilliant.

As for Bloodraven….Brynden Rivers…..the man might be the bastard son of one of the worst kings Westeros had ever had, an albino, a kinslayer and a whole lot of other unsavory things, but he was damned good. He'd only been here for a few turns of the moon and was already his best man by far. He was certain to become First Ranger soon and then Lord Commander after Jack.

It didn't take long for the two Targaryens to arrive, one trueborn and the other a bastard.

"You called for us, Lord Commander?" Maester Aemon asked respectfully.

Jack did appreciate that. He'd met a lot of men that would have been unbearably arrogant if they were as highborn as Aemon Targaryen, but the man considered his place as a maester and sworn brother of the Night's Watch to be more important than his blood. He would have made a great king.

On the other hand, Bloodraven's penetrating red-eyed stare was rather unnerving, more so because he only had one eye remaining.

"The rangers that just came back had some disturbing news." Jack began. "Someone built a massive tower on the Fist of the First Men, taller than the Wall and looking as if it had been carved out of a single stone."

The two men were silent for a while before Bloodraven spoke.

"A sorcerer." The man said softly, brow furrowed in thought. "A powerful one by the sound of it."

"I must agree." Aemon said with pursed lips, purple eyes troubled. "The dragonlords of Valyria were said to have been able to liquefy stone and raise buildings that resemble the description of this tower."

"You think a dragonlord decided to go beyond the Wall?" Jack asked, alarmed. He'd already figured that it must be a sorcerer they had on their hands, but a dragonlord?

"Impossible to say without more information." Aemon shook his head. "It could just be that someone finally managed to find a way to safely traverse the Doom and plunder Valyria of its secrets or it could be that a surviving dragonlord has come here chasing legends about ice dragons or it could even be something else entirely."

"We should inform the Starks." Bloodraven suggested. "We might very well need them to call their banners."

Jack kept the sour look off his face. Yes, it might be the sensible thing to do, but he didn't want to talk to the Starks right now, not when Artos Stark, known as Artos the Implacable and brother to Willam Stark, saddled him with his current moniker.

"I don't want to bother them until we have something tangible to report." He decided. "Bloodraven, you'll take a ranging party and investigate this tower more closely. Kill the sorcerer if you can, but don't take any risks."

Bloodraven gave him a final shrewd look which told Jack that the man probably saw right through him, but he nodded without complaint.

---

Asshai-by-the-Shadow, Essos.

On the other side of the world, Melisandre of Asshai, priestess of R'hllor, shadowbinder and sorceress, gazed into the flames to see what her god wanted of her.

The crackling flames were as hypnotic as ever, drawing her consciousness into them until images began unfurling in her mind.

In a frozen land beyond a wall of ice, a great raven spread its wings and cast a deep shadow far and wide.

In the safety of that shadow, a black spider with a red marking on its abdomen patiently spun its webs until it had ensnared everything north of the icy wall, then its spindly legs began reaching south of it and east across the sea.

A cute white rabbit poked its head up from where it had apparently been napping on the raven's back and nuzzled its dark steed affectionately.

Melisandre came out of the vision with a gasp, utterly bewildered. She recognized the Wall in her vision, but she couldn't tell what or who the raven and the spider represented, not to mention the rabbit.

It was tempting to think that the Great Other was moving given that the place in the vision clearly referred to the furthest north of Westeros, but her many years of experience at interpreting the visions sent by her god told her that it was more likely that something else was going on.

Regardless, the Lord of Light clearly considered it important, so she would have to investigate.