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Chapter 82: Omake 6: Across the SeaNotes:

Lucky isn't free this week. He's got a new job as a model, and there's a big photoshoot happening right around now, so he's really busy.

But fear not, for I'm here to pick up the slack. Better late than never I guess!

Also, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

-Alice

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

"We tell our children tales of horrible monsters and fantastical lands far far away to scare or awe them. But sometimes, just sometimes, the bedtime stories turn out to be true."

-Excerpt from 'All quiet on the Northern Front', unknown author

2000 AL, Wolftown, Nordos

Excitement hung in the air like smoke.

Throughout the streets of Wolftown, countless banners and flags descended from rooftops, balconies and even trees. A grey direwolf on white, the heraldry of the House Stark and the King-in-the-New-North.

And as the breeze blew though the snow-swept streets, flags fluttered, and for one moment, it almost seemed like the painted direwolves were alive. A grand pack ten thousand strong, running across the white snow of Nordos.

House Stark were generous rulers, and appreciative of loyalty and good service though, so though Wolftown was personal fiefdom of the King-in-the-New-North, the first and greatest of the cities of the Kingdom of New North had been bedecked with quite a few banners and decorations celebrating the Old Houses.

While there were countless lesser nobles and countless more chieftains and petty lords, the Old Houses stood as nobility among nobility.

There were many whom complained of the Old Houses, calling them complacent and arrogant, insisting that it was the New Houses whom were truly the backbone and lifeblood of the New North. They whom had earned their places among the highborn through their hard work and deeds, not privilege of blood. But today, all those naysayers would be silenced, for Arrival Day belonged to the Old Houses and the Old Houses alone.

Each of the Old Houses claimed descent in both blood and name from the twenty-three captains of King Brandon the First's great fleet. They whom had led the grand expedition to cross the Endless Sea to arrive in Nordos two thousand years ago, to the day.

Time had taken it's toll though, and twenty-three had since been whittled down to a mere ten, with Houses dying out, being subsumed through marriage, or losing royal favour upon facing disgrace or scandal.

"Two thousand years." A voice repeated, awestruck. "Never thought that we'd really reach this far."

"That's the tenth time you've said that today, Magnus." Alanna laughed, swatting her boyfriend playfully.

"And I shall say it ten times more: I can't believe we made it this far." Magnus declared, to the fond exasperation of his girlfriend. "Two thousand years is a very long time."

Indeed it was, Princess Alanna Stark reflected, though her musings were cut short when she saw a Green Man standing before a Weirwood Heart tree with circles drawn onto the dirt around the holy messenger of the gods and stones laid to symbolise the progression of the ages.

"The First Age!" The priest proclaimed, taking a single step into the outermost circle, one marked with the runes of travel and search, set with sandstone polished smooth and round by the Endless Sea.

"The Age of Discovery! Wonders from Endurance!" The surrounding crowd chanted.

The discovery of Nordos by Brandon the First and his fleet, after a long and arduous voyage across the Endless Sea. Upon which they would found new colonies to call home, and found the Kingdom of the New North.

"The Second Age!" The Green Man continued, stepping into the next circle. This one marked with the runes of strength and war, set with cold iron fallen from the stars.

"The Age of Conflict! Bloodshed from Competition!"

War with the native peoples of Nordos, whom saw House Stark's arrival as a foreign invasion onto their ancestral lands. The natives outnumbered the Stark forces thirty-to-one, but the Starks knew the secrets of bronze, and were able to fight back against the stone-wielding tribesmen.

"The Third Age!" Runes of brotherhood and forgiveness, set with peridot.

"The Age of Reconciliation! Friendship from Understanding."

Eventually, winter put an end to the war, as both the natives and House Stark realised that if they continued their bitter war, it mattered not whom would win, for the cold and starvation would kill the victor anyway. The hatchets were buried, and both sides immediately began stockpiling enough food to last the winter.

"The Fourth Age!" Runes of food and warmth, set with opals.

"The Age of Plenty! Prosperity from Unity!"

Spring had come, and both the tribesmen and House Stark began pooling their resources and knowledge. With the technology and bronze of House Stark married to the local knowledge and familiarity of the tribesmen, farming and agriculture became widespread and the peoples knew a time of peace and prosperity. A fledgling nation was born, one which was more than the sum of its parts.

"The Fifth Age!" Runes of mountain and river, set with chalcedony.

"The Age of Expansion! Brotherhood from Oaths!"

The newborn Kingdom of the New North began expanding, engaging in diplomacy with the surrounding tribes, and bringing many under their banner. The peoples under the King of Winter increased tenfold during this time, and the lands increased a hundredfold. Cities and towns began sprouting up all across Nordos, and the maps began to be filled.

"The Sixth Age!" Runes of pride and greed, set with obsidian.

"The Age of Strife! Hunger from Hubris!"

Stagnation and impotence. Arrogance and internal squabbling for the King's favour had spilled out into the streets. Civil war ensured, and famine set in. The Kingdom was brought to it's knees and very nearly splintered.

"The Seventh Age!" Runes of repentance and rebirth, set with jade.

"The Age of Humility! Rebirth from Turmoil!"

Eventually, the warmongers burnt themselves out. The strife and infighting ended, as all belligerents swore oaths of friendship and forgiveness before the heart trees. None could lie before the gods, and none ever will. Faith bound squabbling brothers, and the divided peoples back together. Recovery could begin, under the watchful eyes of the Weirwoods, and slowly but surely the Kingdom healed it's wounds.

"This is our way." The Green Man finished, now standing in the innermost circle, with his hand on the heart tree.

"This is our way!" The crowd repeated back, heads bowed before the Weirwood and the gods looking through them.

"This is our way." Alanna and Magnus both proclaimed as well, repeating their ironclad covenant with the gods.

Again and again, the cycle would repeat. Not necessarily in order, for there were many a time a different age followed one. For instance, since the arrival on Nordos, there had been twenty-three Ages of Humility, but only eight Ages of Discovery. Each Age didn't even last the same amount of time, with the shortest being a mere three years, while the longest Age stretched near two centuries.

But one thing was certain, each Age was a step along the path of the Long Journey. Slowly but surely, bit by bit, the Kingdom of the New North stepped ever forwards towards a brighter tomorrow. Cities were slowly growing larger. Technology improved gradually over time. More and more of the lands of Nordos fell under their sway and yet more tribes of natives knelt before the Throne of Winter, with ever firmer alliances and ties binding them.

It was not a straight path, and they were often setbacks and hardship along the way, and sometimes the path was lost. But like rivers flowing back to the sea, the people would endure, regather themselves and reform the Kingdom, slowly but surely treading towards the future.

The Long Journey was essentially endless, with salvation at the end. But like perfection, salvation was something you could chase, but never catch. But that hardly meant that the chase was not worth it, for the gods though fickle and oftentimes cruel, were beings of their word. Faith and patience would be rewarded one day—be it decades, centuries, millennia or even eons later— and salvation would come to them all.

The couple continued their walk down the streets of Wolftown, chatting aimlessly about meaningless topics. Occasionally, people would stop and greet them, but most were tactful enough to leave the young couple to their own devices.

"Did you know?" Magnus suddenly asked, as they helped themselves to skewers, sitting down on a wooden bench by the side of the road. "That the High Priestess of the Serpent People does not dare tread the streets of her city without at least a hundred guardsmen by her side?"

"I do. And so does the Chieftains of Star Peoples, and the Emperor of Llama People." Princess Alanna agreed.

Magnus made a show of conspicuously looking around the street, as though looking for hidden guardsmen.

"And where are yours, Princess?"

Alanna laughed and playfully slapped her boyfriend on the arm.

"It is the proof of a good ruler that he and his family be so beloved that they can walk the streets unarmed and unguarded and fear nothing." Princess Stark smiled. "Why, so safe is Wolftown that I could stride these streets naked and alone, fearing not for my virtue."

"Please don't actually do that."

"I won't, I won't!" Alanna grinned. "Not without my mighty bodyguard by my side to keep me safe."

"First off, no, I won't let you stride around naked like some exhibitionist." Magnus firmly denied. "Second, dashing and handsome though I may be, I'm pretty hopeless in a fight."

An exaggeration that. While it was true Magnus was a pretty poor fighter, he'd earned his place as a Fourskins among the Order of Wargs honestly, for he was one of the few Skinchangers capable of possessing insects.

By and large, insects had brains too small to sustain a human entering their minds. In fact, it was already tough enough for a lot of Skinchangers to possess rats. But the trick it seemed, was to divide oneself up among an entire swarm at once, pooling their meagre brains until a cohesive whole capable of sustaining a human could be stitched together like a hive mind.

Something easier said than done however. While through learning and practise, most Skinchangers gained the ability to divide themselves between their familiars and own body, seamlessly controlling both. Few were the Skinchangers capable of earning the rank of Twoskins, and even fewer the exalted titles of Threeskins or more.

Even Alanna, widely considered the best Skinchanger among King Eddard Stark's children, was barely a Threeskins. And even then, her simultaneous control was with her direwolf Biscuit, her favourite horse and a hunting eagle she'd raised from young. All three were particularly docile and obedient towards her, and no strangers to Skinchanging.

Meanwhile, Magnus had been seen possessing an entire horde of insects at once, so many it looked like he had been surrounded by dark buzzing clouds. So many that he could use them to strip an entire warband of bandits to the bone in under a minute.

With his ability to divide himself up among insects, Magnus was easily a Hundredskins, if not a Thousandskins. Though her boyfriend had never bothered sit for the exams seriously. Instead preferring to limit himself as a mere Fourskins. Enough that he was qualified enough to be consort to a Princess, but not enough that his blood was deemed exalted enough that he be permitted to take multiple wives and breed a new generation of powerful Skinchangers.

Alanna — and her father the King— had made clear that they didn't mind her being one wife of many, but Magnus still staunchly refused to become a Fiveskins or even a Sixskins.

The two young lovers spent the rest of the day wandering aimlessly around Wolftown, occasionally stopping by shops to browse. Magnus in particular spent quite a bit of time contemplating what gifts he should buy his family for Arrival Day. Princess Alanna's boyfriend had a principle that he only give gifts which the recipients would appreciate, which meant that he could spend hours in a shop contemplating if something was just right.

But eventually the sun began to set and two of them returned to Folkvangr castle. Snow was beginning to fall, as the couple walked under the stone archways of the castle. Winter had come, after all.

Biscuit came scampering up to the two of them, as did her mate Snowball. While it was tradition that the spouse of a Stark only be given their direwolf upon marriage, Magnus and her had been together for years now, and Alanna's father was rather indulgent. So although in theory Snowball still belonged to the communal pack of House Stark, in practise he'd been Magnus' faithful partner for years.

The two young lovers took the time to freshen up in the hot springs once they returned, before getting dressed for the Arrival Day's Eve dinner.

Traditionally, Arrival Day's Eve was spent with the wife's family, while Arrival Day itself was spent with the husband's. As such, the ancient table made from the timbers of the Seawolf, flagship of King Brandon the First, while large enough to seat three dozen people comfortably, only had seven at the table.

King Eddard Stark, Queen Sophia Stark, Princess Alicia Stark, her husband Lord Zachary Riah, their son Mark, Princess Alanna and Magnus. The King sat at the head of the table, as was only fitting. Two his right were the men, and the left, the women. Both in orders of rank. Queen Sophia and Lord Zachary sat at the King's sides, while Princess Alicia and Mark sat beside them, and Princess Alanna and Magnus furthest down.

The remaining children of King Eddard were all sons, and were thus with their families in the city itself.

"Two thousand years." King Eddard began, raising his mug of vodka. "An unbelievable milestone in our history."

"He sounds so much like Magnus right now." Alanna whispered to her older sister.

"Why do you think Father likes him so much?" Alicia whispered back.

"Here's to two thousand more!" King Eddard finished, giving an amused glare at his giggling daughters.

"Aye!" The table chorused, knocking back their drinks and beginning to eat.

The first course was potato salad, liberally sprinkled with the cherry tomatoes that Alicia liked.

A truly marvellous and enduring crop, gifted by the Llama People from the far south during the seventh Age of Discovery. A miracle crop from the stories, potatoes rarely rotted, and could grow in all but the most inhospitable of soils, while remaining most nourishing and filling. Potatoes had been the backbone of at least seven Ages of Plenty, while the ensuring famines from potatoes crop failures as a result of the blight and other pestilence had caused no less than three Ages of Strife.

The second course was mushroom soup. Every family in Nordos had their own recipe for mushroom soup, and this particular broth had been made using Magnus' grandmother's recipe. A particular earthy blend of mushrooms, pumpkins and cheese which Alanna's father had fallen in love with, to the point where it was a fond joke in Wolftown that Magnus— a mere commoner— had managed to buy his way into royalty with mushroom soup.

While potatoes were by far and away the staple crop for the Kingdom of New North, mushrooms were by far the crop with the most farmers. Every single family in Nordos had dug basements to grow mushrooms in, to feed them through even the longest and coldest of winters. Growing them was a simple matter, as mycelium and mushroom spores would be mixed with dried grass, straw and nightsoil in a special barrel with many holes on the sides. And within three days, enough mushrooms could be grown to feed a man at dinner.

In fact, it was these mushrooms which fed the Starks and the natives through the winter during the First Age of Reconciliation. Where previously the native peoples of Nordos could only grow these mushrooms in caves, the Starks had brought knowledge of agriculture and tunnelling, and managed to improve the harvest a hundredfold by growing them in underground warrens, away from the cold.

Now that the first two courses were out of the way, the main course could arrive.

A great turkey, roasted to perfection with herbs and honey, sprinkled with cranberry sauce and stuffed to the brim. Barbecued corn cobs and squash were served alongside the dish, seared nice and brown.

The traditional main course, served during Arrival Day's Eve dinners since the First Age of Plenty. None could remember why the tradition began, with the most likely theory being the idea that turkeys were similar to a bird King Brandon liked to eat from his homeland. A bird which could not be found on Nordos, forcing some… improvisation.

Not that such a tale be verified, for maps back to King Brandon's ancestral homeland had been burnt during the First Age of Conflict, and later the First Age of Strife. And all expeditions to sail back east across the Endless Sea never returned.

Shipbuilding had admittedly lagged behind in the Kingdom of New North, for the lands to the west and south were so bountiful and aplenty that few saw the need to venture out east into the Endless Sea, and most fishing was done in the shallow within sight of the coasts.

After the main course, all that was left was dessert.

A beautifully baked apple pie came out, and was split up. Two-year-old Mark, whom had previously complained of being full from dinner, was now clamouring for the pastry, kept only from jumping up onto the table and seizing the whole pie by Zachary and Magnus, much to the family's amusement. The wolfsblood ran strong in the child's veins, the true hallmark of someone born of the Stark blood, if not the name.

"So when am I going to get more grandchildren?" Father laughed, as he swirled a cup of hot cocoa, looking indulgently at his young grandson.

"You'll get them when we're ready to have them." Alanna exasperatedly sighed. "I'm still only sixteen. I want to enjoy my youth a bit more before I become a mother."

"But Magnus is already eight-and-ten! At this rate, he'll be a decrepit spinster before he has children!"

"Hey Magnus, can you go become a Fiveskins? Find another wife to have kids with and get Father to stop nagging me." Alanna made a pleading moue. "Pretty please?"

"Yes, I would love to have another daughter-in-law to spoil!" King Eddard enthused.

"No thanks." Magnus denied, the filthy traitor. "You make me sore enough by yourself. Bloody insatiable, I swear. If we added more women to the family, I worry that I'll be a shrivelled old husk by the time you lot are satisfied."

To punctuate his point, Alanna's boyfriend dramatically made to stretch his back and shoulders, pretending to be a stiff old man with achey joints.

"Try do some stretching before going to bed. And I know a good carpenter to get a massage roller from." Zachary sagely advised, sipping his cocoa as he spoke. "And get plenty of baths in the hot springs. Those will help with the pain."

There was a good deal of laugher from the family, though Alicia did shoot her husband a glare.

"But in all seriousness though, would the two of you not consider getting married?" Father asked. "Tomorrow is the two-thousandth anniversary of our arrival. The most auspicious date in a thousand years. It's the perfect time for a wedding."

"Can't we just take things at our own pace?" Alanna asked. "Besides, we don't want to upstage the event with our wedding."

"Agreed, so don't even bother take that wedding dress you think we don't know about in the bottom of your wardrobe out." Magnus nodded, shooting Queen Sophia a warning glare. "And that five-layer wedding cake in the kitchens that you also think we don't know about."

"Bah, Skinchangers take the fun out of everything." Mother complained, though without any real heat behind it.

"No, it's my aunt whom told me, actually. You forget that she's the head maid in this castle."

"Treason! This is treason! We have a seditious mole in the castle!" Father dramatically proclaimed, waving his cup around. "Bring me my sword, I shall take her head for this travesty!"

Laughter filled the room once more, and one of the butlers even had the audacity to kneel before the King and solemnly offer up a butter knife like it was a headsman's weapon.

Said butler got threatened with a pay cut, but everyone knew that there was no heat behind the king's words. If anything, the man was more likely to get a promotion, for Eddard Stark was a merry King-in-the-New-North with a great sense of humour, and didn't shy away at being the butt of many jokes.

"Jokes aside, is there nothing I can do to bribe the two of you into marriage?" Father seriously said, once the laughter was over. "A lordship of your choice, perhaps? You do like skiing in the Stoney Mountains, no? I could give you both as many mountains as you'd like."

"No, no." Alanna denied. "We don't want to upstage the event. Tomorrow is the two-thousandth anniversary of our Kingdom, and very likely a changing of an Age."

"The Green Men have been out in force recently. They say that the Weirwoods have been whispering for a good while now. In dread or excitement, none can tell. But they do agree that there is a certain… energy in the air." Alicia agreed, nodding solemnly. "This will be the last night of the Nineteenth Age of Plenty. And tomorrow…"

"I see your point." Mother frowned. "I've lived through five Ages; the Twentieth Age of Expansion, the Eighteenth Age of Plenty, the Seventeenth Age of Strife, the Twenty-third Age of Humility and the Nineteenth Age of Plenty. And changing of Ages has rarely ever been a peaceful affair."

"I still think this is supposition." Zachary denied. "It is an auspicious date, to be sure, but that does not mean that the Age needs to change with it. The Nineteenth Age of Plenty has lasted ten years. I see no reason to end it just based on the calendar."

"I beg to differ, my friend." Magnus shook his head. "The Green Men speak truth. The insects have been restless as of late. I think that they can feel something we do not. Tomorrow will be a new chapter in history, mark my words."

"And be what? It cannot be another Age of Plenty. And our father-in-law has no intention of expanding the Kingdom, be it through diplomacy or otherwise, meaning it can't be another Age of Expansion. Our neighbours have been peaceful for generations now, with no sign of that changing, so it can't be an Age of Conflict." As Zachary spoke, he counted in his fingers, ticking off one Age at a time.

"House Stark has never been more beloved among both the lords and the commons than before, our harvests are aplenty and our coffers full, making an Age of Strife dubious. And with neither Conflict or Strife to precede it, it cannot be an Age of Humility or an Age of Reconciliation." Alanna's brother-in-law finished. Sitting back down smugly in his chair. "There is no reasonable Age to change into."

"You've answered your own question, you know." Magnus idly said, sipping at his cocoa.

"An Age of Discovery? That is by far the least likely of the options." Zachary dismissed. "In all our two-thousand year long history, there have only ever been eight Ages of Discovery, and none in the past five hundred years. There simply is nothing left to discover. Either here in Nordos, or down south in Naeros."

"We'll just have to wait and see then." Alicia placatingly smiled. "I wonder what we shall find, when we rise tomorrow."

———

As things happened, what woke the people of Wolftown up the next morning was not the usual crowing of roosters or the clanging of the bells in town, but a great shrieking batlike cry that caused snow to fall off of trees and roofs and sent countless birds fleeing into the air.

Alanna herself sat bolt upright from the sound, immediately running out to the balcony, uncaring of her nudity. She stared into the sky, searching for the source of such a sound.

And there she saw it.

Two great scaly beasts circled like hawks around the capital. They were massive, easily the size of galleys, with wingspans so large that entire districts of Wolftown were plunged into shadow when they flew overhead. Both creatures were red, but different shades. The smaller one was crimson like blood, while the larger was a blazing scarlet.

"Dragons. By the gods, those are dragons." Magnus whispered, awestruck, stepping up behind Alanna and draping a blanket around her to preserve her modesty. "I can't believe that they're real."

The two dragons turned around, and began flying back towards the harbour, and as one, the people followed.

It was like they had all been turned into one singular organism, a tide of men, women and children all walking down towards the harbour in utter silence. Footsteps seemingly deafeningly loud from the sheer awestruck quiet that had ensued.

The castle was immediately abuzz with activity, everyone hastily dressing themselves and washing up as quickly as possible without compromising decency. And within ten minutes, the entire royal family was mounted up on horses and galloping for the harbour.

The two dragons flew over the Endless Sea, hovering just above the horizon shrouded with morning mist.

And then from the morning mist emerged a most wondrous sight. One which none present today would ever forget for the rest of their lives.

Ships.

One, two, three… thirteen in total.

Thirteen ships, each bearing a mast painted turquoise with a silver seahorse emblazoned onto it.

The first ships to have come out of the Endless Sea since the days of King Brandon the First. This was history in the making. Alanna could feel it. The type of thing that would herald great sweeping changes into the world, for better or for worse.

It felt like both forever and an instant, but eventually the thirteen ships entered the harbour, and the one in the lead, with a great silver figurehead of a sea snake, approached the wooden docks. The two dragons came down, landing in the shallows with great waves and splashes that drenched many standing too close to the water.

The two red dragons were mounted, Alanna now saw, with a pair of massive saddles on their back.

A pair of women dismounted smoothly, boots landing on the docks with small puffs of snow. The younger of the two, a girl around Alanna's age, stepped forwards gingerly, kneeling down and placing a hand down onto the stone beneath her feet, reverently touching it as though she couldn't believe her eyes.

The other woman seemed less awed, merely stepping back down the pier towards the flagship. Deckhands threw mooring ropes out and the older woman took ahold of them, guiding the ship into port. An anchor came down, and a gangplank was extended.

Father approached, and the rest of the royal family followed behind him, gingerly nearing the massive flagship of this seahorse fleet.

A man stepped off the flagship.

Tall and well built, he had a silver beard and long white hair that snaked down his back. His white hair had been woven into countless smaller braids in an unusual hairstyle reminiscent of ropes descending from his scalp.

But most surprising was his skin, which was dark as pitch, a colour Alanna had never before seen on a human, even from the southernmost parts of Naeros, the continent below Nordos.

Many of the other crewmen whom filed off the ship behind him were equally dark skinned, and fell behind the first man with practiced ease. As did the two dragon riders, flanking the captain to the left and right.

They were speaking a foreign tongue, like none that Alanna had ever heard before, but awe and disbelief were most prominent in their tone.

Magnus appeared, having somehow produced a platter of bread and salt, stepping forwards between the King and the captain.

The dark-skinned man nodded approvingly at the gesture, and eagerly broke off a small bit of bread, which he dipped into the salt before eating, as was traditional.

"Corlys Velaryon." The man said, placing a hand on his chest as he spoke.

"Eddard Stark." Father introduced himself as well, mimicking the gesture.

"Stark?" The foreigner asked, blinking in surprise a few times. There were murmurs from the other crewsmen, all of them whispering the name among themselves as though they could not believe the word.

"You know House Stark?" Father asked. There was a bit of shuffling among the foreigners, but eventually they pushed a chained man in grey robes forwards.

"Sons of sons of Brandon the Shipwright?" The grey man asked. He haltingly spoke an older dialect of Wolftongue, like a distant kin to their own, with hundreds of not thousands of years of separation. But for all that it was still perfectly understandable.

"Yes." Father nodded. "Brandon Stark was the founder of our House. He sailed across the Endless Sea, from a faraway land called the North."

"The North land of Westeros. We come from Westeros." The grey man replied, sparking great whispers of awe and wonder among the gawking crowds. "Your family is known. House Stark still magnar in North."

Was that true? Did Brandon the First leave descendants behind before he made his fateful voyage? Could there really be another branch of House Stark, just waiting for them back in their ancestral home?

The captain of the fleet spoke a few sentences, and the grey man nodded before translating.

"We heralds of House Targaryen, magnar of Westeros. We offer friendship and brotherhood, and share story, maps and learning." The grey man offered.

As he spoke, Corlys Velaryon extended a hand to shake.

"We accept. Welcome to Nordos." Father smiled, and shook the black man's hand.

And just like that, it felt like a paradigm shift had happened. Like the world had been tilted in a new direction and was now careening down a different path.

Some things were so obvious that nothing needed to be said to convey a message, and this was one of them. Everyone here, from the oldest crones to the youngest still suckling at their mother's breast knew such in their bones.

The Ninth Age of Discovery had finally arrived. 

Notes:

I want to give special thanks to my good friend Pamela for helping me write this Omake. She's seriously a genius, is super awesome and gives plenty of great advice. She's like low-key a second mother to me, and a really cool one at that.

-Alice

Also, side note: We're changing the appearance of House Velaryon to match their show depictions. Which means that they're black now.