15 ,

Rhaegar enjoyed speaking to his mother and getting to know her again, although frustration lingered in his mind at the unsatisfying conclusion of the discussion. He could simply not bring himself to be so dismissive and had trouble believing that Harry did not care at all about the prophecy of Ice and Fire. In fact, he did not believe it and assumed that the wizard had his own designs.

It was only after Harry came to collect his mother and left him alone again that Rhaegar realized he had not thought to ask for aid in freeing his father from Duskendale. Probably for the best, he decided. It was unlikely that the Sorcerer would have been willing to do so and his mother clearly did not care what happened to her former husband.

XXXXX

2nd day of the 10th moon, 277 AC. Andalos, Highwater.

"See, this is what you get when you don't name things yourself." Harry said mockingly. "Dumb names like 'Highwater', chosen because there's a high-altitude lake on this spot."

Language itself was further proof of this. Waterfall, because water fall down! Flamethrower, because it throws flame! Sand, because it's between sea and land! Kugelschreiber, because it schreibs with a kugel.

Maybe with a little less grammatical mutilation on that last one.

Tarkus jerked in surprise at the unexpected address and spun around. "Father! What are you doing here?"

"Same thing as you, hiding from pregnant women." Rhaella was predictably freaking out with worry that she might lose another baby and telling her to calm down because undue stress would only make it worse certainly hadn't helped. Women, go figure. Harry had ended up asking Luna to try calming her down and then removed himself from the situation. It helped that he had a reason for being here as well.

"Ah...aye." Tarkus sighed, awkwardly rubbing at the back of his head.

"You never did manage to do anything in moderation, but twenty-two children? Really?"

"It's not my fault." Tarkus said defensively.

"Yes, I'm sure you were powerless before all those dangerous women that are a whole two feet shorter than you."

The demi-giant winced at his father's caustic tone. He'd almost forgotten what the old man's sense of humor was like.

"Alright, so it's a little bit my fault." He admitted. "Getting the Dothraki women adjusted had some problems and they all wanted the best man they could get."

Getting them used to a more stationary lifestyle wasn't hard. Women, even Dothraki women, generally preferred nesting than they did wandering and he'd known this – it was one of the things Father and Adrastia had taught him. The problem came when said Dothraki women realized that the promiscuity that ran rampant in a Dothraki horde had been replaced with attachment to a single man. Those that hadn't already been taken had scrambled to secure the best possible mate for themselves.

One day, Tarkus was greeted with a collection of olive-skinned beauties putting on a show for him, so he did what came naturally and here they were.

"Ah well, I suppose you're not the first man that let his cock do his thinking for him." Harry shrugged. "At least you didn't run off on them this time."

Tarkus winced again. He had done that a few times, hadn't he? "Are they alright?"

"Mhm, they're growing well and Luna has been having fun being the doting grandmother. Their mothers decided to name them after you though, so we've got two Tarkuses and one Tarka running around the tower now."

Tarkus was inordinately pleased to hear that even if he'd never seen those children. Maybe he could suggest that they visit in a few years?

"So, you're only here to hide from that Targaryen woman you stole?" He changed the subject, absently noting that the two of them had started walking back towards Highwater proper.

"No, I'm also bringing some news." Harry turned serious. "There's another khalasar coming for you, fourteen thousand strong, but this time they're being supported by multiple sellsword companies companies, including the Windblown, Second Sons, the Company of the Cat and most notably, the Golden Company. There are also five thousand Unsullied and twenty thousand Volantene soldiers, slave and otherwise, with them. A force nearly sixty thousand strong all told."

Tarkus froze in surprise and bewilderment.

"Who in the hells could get all those fuckers working together?" He asked incredulously.

"It would seem that the Free Cities as a whole don't like the idea of another power being established that is firmly opposed to slavery. They all want you dead and pitched in to hire the sellsowrds, including a few magisters from Pentos despite the risk of retaliation by Braavos." Harry explained.

He knew that Tarkus wasn't a bad thinker, but he also wasn't a fast one, so he left his son to it and decided to play tourist.

Highwater couldn't really be called a city, being sprawled over such a large area, but it was still fairly impresive for a medieval settlement. Flat ground was at a premium, so people had elected to make more of it. Chunks of the mountain had been carved out to make room for houses, basins mined out of bare rock to catch rainwater and terraces sculpted for farms. And that was just the most obvious things, but there were countless other little details such as stairways and fences that demonstrated that this was no mere temporary settlement.

Harry was just happy to see that his son still remembered his lessons. Left to themselves, these people would no doubt have been nearly as bad as the Dothraki, but Tarkus had shown them a better way. Under threat of violence of course, but threats of violence were the cornerstone of any civilization.

The demi-giant shook his head and spoke, acting as if they hadn't been silent for a full five minutes. "That still doesn't seem likely. The Dothraki don't play well with others and neither do sellswords. Having so many of them working together is a disaster waiting to happen."

"You're right of course." Harry nodded, pleased that his son still knew how to think. "The real impetus behind this move is Volantis, more specifically the red priests. Because of the dragons I hatched, their powers have increased dramatically – giving their words more weight – and Melisandre knew enough to point me out as the cause of all the unrest in Essos over the past few decades. You could say that this is the last gasp of the slaver faction of the Free Cities."

Qarth was the only Essosi city west of the Bone Mountains that he hadn't meddled with, curious to see what their Warlocks would do. He had investigated them from afar many years ago and concluded that they might have once been a power, but had since fallen far indeed, dangerous only inside their stronghold.

The return of dragons had revitalized them to a degree, but it seemed that they were content to play political games in Qarth and chug that hallucinogenic blueberry juice of theirs, much to his disdain.

"That...could be trouble." Tarkus concluded.

He was confident that they could handle the Dothraki – all the killing had attracted plenty of ravens and crows that could act as scouts even after Velka returned home, so they never had their customary element of surprise. Further, the fools were too stubbornly proud to concede that horsemanhip wasn't the end all and be all of warfare and kept beating their heads against a wall.

The sellswords would be a much bigger problem. Unlike the Dothraki, they didn't suffer from suicidal levels of confidence and would approach battle with more caution. Still, Tarkus was fairly sure that they could beat them decisively on account of their preparation time and other defensive advantages.

Even against superior numbers, they could hold out for a small eternity as numbers wouldn't account for much in an uphill battle on a mountain that they could trap to hell and back. The attacking force, especially such a divided one, would starve and tear itself apart before they won anything.

It was the red priests that made him uneasy. He wasn't particularly good at magic and wasn't sure if he could counter them.

"Don't worry, I'll be helping you out with this one." Harry assured.

Tarkus blinked in shock. Father never helped out directly. "Why?"

"Because this is a situation I cooked up and you shouldn't have to deal with it." He admitted. "Melisandre arranged for this attack on you in hopes of drawing me out, so I'm going to give her what she wants. Plus, this is an opportunity to strike a devastating blow to R'hllor's priesthood and to the reputation of the Free Cities."

Tarkus grinned at that, worries dispelled. "Sounds like a good time, and it's been a while since the last khalasar tried its luck against us."

That was certainly true. While the Dothraki remained suicidally confident when it came to actual battle, they did seems capable of realizing that they were being baited into unfavorable fights.

Not that it was hard to figure out when a few dozen prisoners were released after every fight, with instructions to tell every khal they could find that 'Black Iron Tarkus says you're too scared to fight him'.

Childish, but absurdly effective. It had worked for years before the Dothraki stopped falling for it.

"I'm going to ask your brothers if they want to join in as well." Harry continued. "They've only just started moving, so it's going to take them quite a while to get here. More than enough time for your brothers to muster their forces and sail here if Jala is willing to provide a little help with transportation again."

"The more the merrier." Tarkus said cheerfully, already looking forward to it. He'd always hoped that they could go into battle together one day.

XXXXX

20th day of the 10th moon, 277 AC. Dol Guldur.

Adrastia had been patiently waiting for a chance to get her hands on Lyanna Stark. As a girl whose mother had died when she was very young, she made an excellent target. Havel going off to war opened up an opportunity to do so while appearing to be benevolent rather than predatory.

"Why do I have to learn this?" The eleven-year-old complained, not even halfway through a lesson on posture. "I want to be a warrior!"

"You do not want to be a warrior." She contradicted.

"Yes I do!" The girl glared.

"No, you want to play with swords, you want to ride horses and you want to wear trousers, but you most certainly do not want to be a warrior." Adrastia rebutted implacably. "Do you even know what being a warrior means?"

Lyanna had obviously been preparing to fire off another denial, but the question put a thoughtful frown on her face. "It means learning to fight."

"No, it means going to war and killing people until someone kills you. Is that really what you want? To have a spear shoved through your guts on some forsaken battlefield? To be just another corpse staring at the sky with sightless eyes until the crows pluck them out of your skull?"

Lyanna looked distinctly uncomfortable now. Good. She had stubbornly persisted with her desires to learn traditionally male pursuits and hadn't been deterred by the hardships involved – in spite of Havel not taking it easy on her – but it was time for a reality check. The onset of puberty would make the differences between men and women glaringly obvious and reinforce the lesson.

"No." The young girl muttered almost too quietly to be heard.

"I can guess what you were thinking." Adrastia began again, this time using a soothing, commiseratting voice. "You were thinking of grand adventures in distant lands, where you would fight pirates and brigands, duel great swordsmen and undertake heroic quests."

Lyanna blushed and stared at her hands, nodding embarrassedly.

"Well, let me tell you what would have really happened if you tried it." Adrastia's tone took a grim edge. "Women warriors are rare, so you would be constantly challenged. As you will never be a big woman, you will have perhaps one third the strength of an average man when you are fully grown. This means that you would more than likely lose the very first such challenge even if you are more skilled. If you are fortunate, that will be all and said man will advise you to go back home and stop playing silly games. If you are unlucky you will be raped and murdered. If you are really unlucky, it will be something far worse."

"But you have women warriors here!" Lyanna protested angrily. "And Bear Island has them too!"

"And how many of those ever leave their homes?" Adrastia asked archly. "They learn to fight out of need, not because they make for good warriors. When warrior women are common, it means that men alone lack the strength to protect their families."

"You are just like my father." The little girl huffed. "He doesn't want me learning how to fight either."

"Your father wants to protect you. He knows that letting you think that you can fight on equal ground with men is more dangerous than leaving you completely untrained. He does not allow you to carry a sword at your waist because it would be seen as a challenge."

"But I don't want to be some useless lady." Lyanna complained.

"You don't have to be." Adrastia smiled. "What you truly want is power, but you made a mistake in thinking that there is only one kind of power."

"I don't understand." Lyanna said, looking curious.

"Then allow me to explain." The Black Widow offered generously. "You saw your father give orders, your brothers learn to fight, heard stories of mighty heroes and you saw the power in it. What you saw was hard power, the kind born of authority, money, threats or violence. Women are well advised to stay away from that kind of power and only use it as a last resort."

"Why?"

"Because while it may be more immediately satisfying, the consequences of it are also far more dire. Hard power is innately threatening and if it fails, it invites retaliation."

Lyanna looked uncomfortable again. "Would what you said really happen to me if I went out on my own?"

"Without a doubt. There is a reason that women are kept away from hard power and it usually isn't because the men are controlling tyrants, it is because they fear for you." Adrastia nodded. It was also because they believed – correctly in the main – that women were incompetent at wielding it, but that was neither here nor there. "And this brings us to the kind of power you can wield as a woman, soft power, the kind born of charm and influence. Because men see you as something to be cherished and protected, they will bend to your desires to appease you...if you approach them correctly."

She waited for a while to give the girl time to think before continuing. "Say for example that you wanted your father to allow you to train with a sword. Assure him that you have no aspirations of being a warrior and wish to be allowed training in case you ever need to defend yourself. If Rickard's fears for you are diminished by allowing you to train with a sword, then he will be more likely to grant you that freedom."

"But he will still marry me off to someone." Lyanna huffed.

"So?" Adrastia raised an eyebrow. "Always keep in mind that he wants the best for you, which is something you can use. Instead of fighting his decisions, twist them in your favor. Make him worry that your husband-to-be will treat you poorly and ask that both of you get to know him before anything is approved. If he is judged worthy, then it likely means that he can be influenced just as you influenced your father."

"What about love? I don't want to marry someone I don't love."

"Love does not exist, not in the way you are thinking. The stories and songs would have you believe that there is something magical about it, but this is just a lie to make the stories and songs more interesting. It may be simplest to think of love as a combination of friendship and appreciation of what the other person can provide you."

"I don't want anything that a man could provide." Lyanna declared, clearly still in the 'boys are icky' phase.

"No'?" Adrastia asked archly. "Then you don't want to train with a sword or bow? Ride horses? Wear trousers?"

"I can do that without a man's permission!"

"No, you cannot. Rickard is the Lord of Winterfell and not even your brothers can do those things without his permission. You will always be beholden to a man's authority, so it is best that you learn how to manipulate it instead of smashing your head against a wall."

Lyanna sulked and glared at her lap.

"Come now, don't be like that." Adrastia soothed. "There are many benefits to your situation."

Lyanna refused to look up, too busy fuming at the 'injustice'.

"What a spoiled brat you are." Adrastia sighed dramatically. "I suppose it can't be helped. Rickard did a poor job raising you."

Lyanna squawked in outrage, jumped out of her seat and let fly a kick at her shin. That was most definitely not appropriate behavior for the daughter of House Stark and had probably been learned in Angmar.

Adrastia wasn't much of a fighter, but manhandling one eleven-year-old girl was no great feat.

"Understand something, little girl." The Black Widow began softly, speaking directly into Lyanna's ear from behind. "You were born into privilege that most people cannot even dream of. You exist in a bubble of safety that keeps you separated from the world's cruelties, a bubble that was created and is maintained by the men in your family. They constrain you for your own safety because they know the world better than you."

"I don't want to be safe, I want to be free!" Lyanna yelled, trying to tear herself away.

Adrastia let her do it and just stared coldly at the defiant brat.

"No one is ever truly free." She said coolly when she saw Lyanna's confidence waver. "And that is a good thing. Do you know why?"

The usually willful girl shook her head meekly, cowed by the frosty stare.

"Because people are animals. When we are set free of expectations and obligation, we behave like animals."

"That's not true! The gods made us different." Lyanna protested.

"Why? Because mankind is special? What an arrogant presumption." Adrastia rebuked and changed the subject before the girl could argue. "You have been taught about the Dothraki, yes?"

"Yes." Lyanna nodded cautiously. "They are savage horsemen across the Narrow Sea."

"Close enough, we will return to them later. You see, Lyanna, it is not a man's nature to marry and raise a family. A man's nature is not to stoically do his duty. It is not his nature to be kind and honorable. A man's nature secure his bloodline by any means necessary while competing against all the other men doing the same thing. A man's nature is to survive at all costs."

Lyanna stared at her with wide eyes, but did not protest, So Adrastia decided to continue before she could. "Likewise, it is not a woman's nature to be a loyal and respectful wife. It is not her nature to marry and raise children with men of equal social standing. A woman's nature is to seek out the strongest possible man and bind him to her in order to secure a future for herself and her children while competing against every other woman doing the same thing. A woman's nature is also to survive at all costs.

"All of this is the primal instinct that any cat or dog can boast, but mankind is different in that we are capable of deep thought and complex speech. We are able to find common ground, set aside base urges and cooperate in the face of a harsh and unforgiving world. Ideals such as duty and honor were created to shackle and control our instincts as a levee controls a river, so that they may be harnessed for greater purpose. That is how nations are built. The Dothraki are savages and will remain savages because they are too free, which means that there is nothing to govern their behavior except instinct. They run wild, their men do nothing but fight and fuck, and their women spread their legs for anyone strong enough to take them. Just like animals."

Adrastia took a deep breath after her mini-lecture and decided to go in for the kill. "And now we come to you, Lyanna Stark. The privileged daughter of a powerful family, born with every advantage imaginable. A father who loves you and brothers that would do anything for you, yet all you can do is howl about the injustice of not being allowed to get yourself killed with your own stupidity. I was going to explain to you the advantage you have as a woman, how men are forced into using hard power and scorned as weaklings if they attempt to do otherwise, and how it blinds them to soft power. I could have taught you how to use this to get whatever you wanted out of life without putting yourself at risk needlessly, but now I am beginning to doubt you have the intelligence for it."

Seeing Lyanna's shaken expression at her venomous tone, she spun around dramatically and strode out of the room, counting down from ten in her head.

"Wait!" Came the call from behind when she reached 'three'.

"Yes?" She prompted as Lyanna shifted awkwardly shifted from foot to foot in the empty corridor.

"I...apologize." The girl forced out formally. "I did not intend to give insult."

Adrastia deliberately stayed statue-still as she replied. "Are you willing to listen or not?"

Lyanna nodded hesitantly. "I will listen."

The Black Widow smiled. She had her first disciple among the nobility of the Seven Kingdoms. It would have been better if Lyanna wasn't such a tomboy, but she'd worked with worse.

XXXXX

30th day of the 2nd moon, 278 AC. Dol Guldur.

Harry rolled his shoulders to settle the dragonscale coat he'd made for himself. It wasn't quite as good as his old basilisk scale one, but it would do. It helped that his upgraded body was more than strong enough to carry the weight of it.

"Big boobies and armor do not mix." Luna stated, frowning down at her chest.

"Sorry, I didn't get much practice making a cut for a figure like yours." Harry replied, amused.

Standing off to the side were Adrastia and a heavily pregnant Rhaella.

"Be careful." The former queen requested, projecting a dignified air but concern clear in her eyes.

"Will do." Harry promised, moving forward to give the hormonal woman a hug, as did Luna.

Rhaella briefly relaxed, before tensing up again and grunting. Water splashed across the floor.

Harry looked down at the mess and could only sigh in resignation. I don't know what I was expecting. "Bugger. Change of plans. Luna, stay here and help Rhaella deliver."

Luna nodded in confirmation, already shucking her own dragonscale coat. She wasn't surprised by the bad timing either.

"Please don't go!" Rhaella pleaded fearfully, clutching at him with the strength of a woman going into labor.

"I have to." He replied, bending down to give her a peck on the lips. "Just listen to Luna and you'll be alright."

"What about you?" She near-demanded.

"I'll be fine, Melisandre and her red priests might be stronger now than they were before, but they're still a thousand years too early to be challenging me."

As Harry activated his portkey to Highwater, he silently admitted to himself that those words didn't ring quite true. That nagging sense of destiny was rearing its ugly head again.

XXXXX

Myles Toyne, Captain-General of the Golden Company, also known as Blackheart for the sigil of his House, regretted his decision to take this contract. Had the employer been completely honest with them, he would not have taken it. One of the Golden Company's unofficial creeds was 'gold over gods' with good reason. Religious disputes always got messy and everything was taken personally. Bad business all around.

Alas, the first that they learned of the the red priests being involved was when they met up with the Volantis contingent on the outskirts of Andalos. Said contingent was more than twice their size and perfectly willing to get into a pointless bloodbath on the say so of the red priests.

Running wasn't an option either, even if the dishonesty shown when hiring them was cause enough to break contract.

The Dothraki were committed to this. their fear and hate of magic overpowered by their thirst for vengeance against the Sorcerer of Dol Guldur and the promise of getting the dragons off their sacred mountain. The horsemen would be able to slow them down long enough for the Volantene forces to engage them, along with whichever of the other sellsword company wished to join in, even if it left both sides bloodied and broken.

Rank madness. Who starts a battle against a non-enemy on the enemy's doorstep? The red priests would rather diminish their own forces than allow anyone to abandon their cause.

Myles swore to himself that this was the last time the Golden Company ever took a contract that required cooperation with another force. He and the other high officers had been relying on the notion that nobody would wish to incur the losses of fighting them should the contract not be as straightforward as promised.

They had not counted on zealotry.

It would be hard to weed out converts to R'hllor from their forces after this was over, but it would have to be done. The Golden Company did not need fire-mad zealots in its ranks.

The red priests were powerful these days, there was no denying that. Myles had seen a priestess set a Dothraki man alight with a gesture when he tried to 'mount' her as if she was one of his people, had seen the fires reflected in her hungry gaze as he burned. It was easy to see why the credulous might be swayed.

He was brought out of his brooding thoughts when a cry went up. The enemy army had been spotted.

Myles made his way to the front to get a look and saw exactly what the red priests claimed to have seen in their fires. Angmar was ready for them, and in far greater numbers than their colony should be capable of fielding by itself. They had brought reinforcements from Westeros.

Furthermore, there were fortifications and wooden stakes spread out all around them. They might not have any cavalry of their own, but they certainly had made it extremely difficult to use it against them.

Which, of course, meant that they had known of their coming moons in advance and were suitably prepared. Myles was really starting to hate magic for how it upended military strategy. Instead of facing a decently-sized that would have only had a few days of preparation at most, they were facing a force of near equal size that had several moons to prepare gods only knew how many nasty surprises.

There were seven men with dark hair and dark armor standing in front of the enemy army, their weapons gleaming in the sun. No doubt the Sorcerer and his sons.

Hoping for parley? To what end? If they had been able to divine their coming, then they must surely know the why of it as well. Bloodshed was unavoidable, there was no use in talking.

Yet it seemed that his opinion was not shared by everyone, as a delegation stepped forward from the Volantis contingent. A tall red-haired woman in a red dress and a man in a tiger-striped cloak.

Myles didn't much like the pompous Tiger, but the priestess made his skin crawl. There was something deeply wrong with Melisandre of Asshai, more than just the zealotry of her fellow red priests.

The Dothraki horde rustled agitatedly as if they were just one beast before a scowling khal emerged with his bloodriders, trotting to catch up to the red priestess and the Tiger.

Myles swallowed his frustration and his unease as he joined them. Even if he thought there was no use in parley here, he would not be left excluded from it.

The other sellsword commanders had the same thought and soon they were all moving forward to meet their enemy in the middle of the battlefield.

Up close, it was apparent that all of them were big men, and a few of them were outright huge, all clad in black armor that looked to be made of dragon bone. The youngest-looking of the lot stood in the middle in a strange robe made of black scales – once again dragon no doubt. The others were all bearded and had some grey in their hair, but that one's face was smooth and his pitch-black hair was prettier than any maiden's that Myles had ever seen.

"Melisandre." He spoke, casually holding a staff with a sword on one end and an odd red sphere on the other over his shoulder, baring his very white teeth in a way that could never be mistaken for a smile. "It's been a long time."

"Harry." The red priestess returned. "You have changed."

"Ah, the body." The wizard said and patted himself across the chest. "The old one was getting a bit...well, old. The extra height took some getting used to, but I have to admit that it's nice to be able to loom."

Myles could not believe his ears. The magic user was speaking of changing bodies as if it were a tunic.

"You have brought your sons." Melisandre stated more than asked. "Are you ready to submit to R'hllor?"

"Ahahahahaha." The Sorcerer burst into laughter, followed by his sons. It only lasted a few seconds before he stopped and looked at the red priestess in mock surprise. "Oh wait, you're serious? Let me laugh even harder. AHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Myles saw Melisandre's face grow stony as she snapped out her next words. "Cease your mockery, Blasphemer!"

The wizard did not seem impressed, giving off a final few chukles before shrugging carelessly. "It's your own fault for asking such a ridiculous question, woman. What, did you think I'd say 'yes, we're ready to abandon all sense of pride and reason and become slaves to your fire-mad religion'? Are you drunk?"

Melisandre's nostrils flared in irritation and Myles was amazed. He'd seen her burn people for far less provocation.

"We must all serve R'hllor, whether it be willing or not." She said with conviction. "You will learn this in time."

The Sorcerer bared his teeth in a mockery of a smile again. "You make a fine slave, Melisandre, but a poor speaker. You'll never get anywhere with that attitude."

"R'hllors light is all I need." Melisandre replied. "It will not be as before, Harry. He is with me now."

"I can see that. Your blood must be boiling."

Myles didn't know what exactly they were talking about, but he had an unnerving sense of unimportance, as if he was a servant watching two high lords converse instead of the captain-general of the finest sellsword company in the known world. The magic users barely even acknowledged them.

A feeling he was not alone in apparently, as the Volantene Tiger stepped forward during the lull in conversation with his chest puffed out proudly.

"Sorcerer, I am-"

"Silence, boy. The adults are talking."

Myles had had dealings with the Old Blood of Volantis once before and had to admit that seeing one of their nobles humbled was amusing. The Tiger looked so outraged that the power of speech deserted him.

Or was it outrage? The Tiger's face quickly changed from anger to horror as he tried to speak and found his voice stolen.

What a terrible power. Myles kept a wary eye on the Sorcerer and held his mouth shut. Without his voice, the Tiger would be unable to give orders to his men. With just one little spell, the army of Volantis and the Unsullied they had brought along were deprived of leadership.

"Maegi." The khal sneered in his own language, apparently lacking the same caution. "I will see you and your sons pulled apart by horses, and your women raped by them."

The Sorcerer's son's glowered thunderously and brandished their clearly magical weapons, but their father looked merely bored by the threat.

"Boo." He deadpanned, looking at the horses.

The animals reared back, eyes rolling in mortal terror. It was only the excellence of the Dothraki's horsemanship that prevented them from being thrown off.

"Careful now." The wizard mocked. "You wouldn't want to fall off your horse."

Given that no khalasar would follow a khal who fell off his horse, that was entirely true.

Suddenly, Myles found himself pinned by an emerald-green gaze that felt like it cut right through him. He couldn't look away.

Only death waits for you here, Blackheart. The thought bubbled up in his mind against his will, and it was in the Sorcerer's voice. Turn back.

"I see it now, Harry." Melisandre spoke again, her tone fervent with absolute faith. "Though you deny it, you belong to R'hllor."

Myles was at last released from the wizard's arresting gaze and he was grateful. He had never felt so naked in his life, naked all the way down to his soul.

"You see what you want to see, Melisandre." The Sorcerer scoffed and turned away.

XXXXX

Hovering on his Disc in the air above, Harry observed the rather odd battle happening below him.

Even discounting the horribly inefficient mish-mash nature of the attacking force and the prepared defenses, they were just too timid on the advance. Almost like they were stalling or waiting for something. Only the Dothraki and the two most vicious sellsword companies – the Brave Companions and the Company of the Cat – were showing any real enthusiasm, and even they were not committing fully just yet.

What are you up to, Melisandre? Harry asked himself suspiciously.

The red priestess was not the same as she had been during their last encounter. When he'd looked into her eyes earlier, he'd seen only the fanatical drive of someone convinced that they'd discovered their ultimate purpose in life and that it was glorious.

Well, that did make some sense in light of the fact that he had been able to sense R'hllor stench all over her. The fiery bastard's presence was as strong about Melisandre as it was in his temple in Volantis, if not stronger.

Harry doubted she would survive the day. Even if he didn't do it, channeling so much of her god's power would kill her as surely as it had killed Garin the Great when he had used himself as a conduit for Mother Rhoyne's final act of spite against the Valyrians.

Unfortunately, she could cause tremendous damage before croaking, which meant that he needed to hoard his own strength so that he would be able to counter her whenever she made her move.

Unless of course he could take her out before she could do anything...

Harry took a bow out of his hammerspace, one that had a draw weight well beyond what should be humanly possible to pull.

"Seek Melisandre." He hissed to the nocked arrow, feeling it accept his command.

Aiming carefully, het let it fly towards his target, who stood close to the front of the Volantis contingent, surrounded by her brothers and sisters in faith. The arrow shot forward like a homing missile, aimed unerringly towards Melisandre's heart...and then it inexplicably curved to the side, avoiding the red priestess and her cohorts, striking an armored officer instead.

"Of course, that would be too easy." Harry muttered to himself, putting the bow away. R'hllor had too much authority over and around Melisandre right now, the only way to kill her would be melee.

Which was a bit of a problem, because even if that course of action didn't grate on his pride, Melisandre was staying well away from the front lines and even he couldn't just bulldoze through thousands of warriors to get at her. Not without employing several army killer level spells that would cost him a good chunk of his strength to cast.

Most of the enemy army would probably scatter after the first one if it was gruesome enough, but not the Unsullied. Which might very well be their main reason for being there to begin with.

Flying over was an option, but not good one. If R'hllor was able to deflect an arrow then he might very well be able to disrupt flight as well and Harry was not willing risk becoming stranded in the middle of the enemy army.

The hours dragged by in this fashion, leaving Harry to ponder the situation to the background noise of clashing weapons and screams of the dying.

He wasn't worried about his sons. They were clever and strong and a good portion of the attacking force looked like it was waiting for an opportunity to go AWOL. With the skinchangers habitually using their gifts to take control of the enemy's cavalry and cause all sorts of havoc before retreating back to their own bodies, there was little chance that they would be overwhelmed.

Harry occasionally probed at the bubble of divine protection, but found no obvious weaknesses. Spells fizzled out as soon as they came into range and physical objects got deflected.

But Melisandre and her followers weren't actually doing anything. It made no sense. Did they expect him to just rush at them and get himself killed? Were they deluded enough to think they'd win the day just because R'hllor was with them?

They could be waiting for the perfect moment to make their move, but the sun was starting to go down and their powers would wane when that happened.

Worse still was the looming sense of destiny. Something was coming, something big, and he couldn't act without knowing what it was.

Whatever the case, he was starting to have doubts about the wisdom of his decision to leave the enemy alone during their trip. He could have quite easily broken their spirit before they even properly got underway, but had reasoned that Highwater could use the reputation boost associated with repelling such a force and that he'd be here in case things went pear-shaped anyway. There was an implicit bit of arrogance in there that nothing they did could hope to match his own power.

Melisandre channeling R'hllor was an unpleasant surprise and her red priests holding themselves back in obvious preparation for something did nothing to put him at ease.

When the sun dipped below the horizon and the shadows lenghtened, the battle began winding down as visibility faded. With the somewhat cautious pace of the fighting, the death toll wasn't as big as it could have been, but there were still thousands dead.

The fighting had come almost to a halt by the time that the last vestiges of sunlight faded, and then a red light became visible in the heavens.

Harry's head snapped upwards as the sense of destiny resolved itself into a distant, but extraordinarily powerful magical signature.

"What fresh hell is this?" He growled to himself, scowling at the approaching object.

It came in fast, much faster than anything natural should have. At first just a bright red dot in the dark sky, it became a blazing red comet that cast a crimson haze upon the world in mere minutes. And the closer it got, the more powerful it felt. He could feel his own ability to use magic rise exponentially at its nearness.

Then he felt another magical signature from down below and looked to find Melisandre and her cadre of followers preparing some kind of ritual.

They had known! Harry fumed to himself, charging towards them.

The fuckers had known the comet was coming. It featured prominently in many of this world's myths and the red priests had somehow known exactly when it was coming. Maybe R'hllor had been able to warn them of it or maybe one of them was cracked enough to be a seer and sane enough to give an accurate prediction. It didn't matter, what mattered was that Melisandre absolutely could not be allowed to complete a ritual with that kind of power boost. Interrupting it could be catastrophic, but that was a risk he was willing to take.

With everyone gawking at the celestial event taking place, the enemy army didn't even notice him zooming in. Harry cast one of his simplest spells at a spot close to Melisandre. It was a variation of the basic pushing and pulling magic, adapted into a spell that created an omni-directional wave of force at the point of impact.

His reason for choosing it was because overpowering this particular spell did nothing except make it stronger. The odds of it backfiring were nearly non-existent.

Seeing as he was in a hurry, Harry decided to err on the side of caution and shoved a great deal of power into the spell, enough to affect a radius good two dozen meters. The added power from the comet magnified that immensely, causing Volantene and Unsullied bodies to fly in all directions for ten times that distance.

But the one direction it did nothing in was the direction of the red priests. R'hllor's power halted the wave of force like it was no more than an errant breeze.

Harry noted that, but paid it little mind. It had been expected. He charged his Disc towards them, jumping off halfway there and using it as a makeshift projectile, hoping that it would cut through them. To his disappointment, even the spellforged artefact was forced aside.

Left with no choice except reckless direct assault, he didn't hesitate to sprint towards them, bladestaff at the ready.

"You are too late, Blasphemer!" Melisandre shouted, her voice echoing with the power she was channeling. "The Lord of Light will have his due!"

Even beneath the crimson light of the comet, Harry saw the sudden gauntness in her features, the smoke coming out of her hair, the red-hot glow of her ruby choker and heard the sizzle of it scorching her flesh. The blood pouring from her orifices only added to the general impression that she had only seconds to live.

Despite the ever increasing weight of R'hllor's presence and the feeling of something pulling at his connection to Light magic, he pushed forward with a grim determination. He didn't place good odds on surviving this, but he was too old to be afraid.

A spiraling wall of flame forced him back from his target and no amount of dispelling magic was able to breach it. It felt worse than Fiendfyre, that particular spell only had rudimentary motivations, but this fire was much more focused.

To his honest surprise though, it didn't burn him, instead flashing outwards all around him in many small tongues of flame.

Screams came from all around him and Harry saw that the flame tongues had struck the people around them. Said people caught fire like rags soaked in kerosene, burning out in mere seconds and the now much enlarged flames came rushing back towards the red priests.

They were consumed without pause, the fires briefly spinning around Melisandre for a before being absorbed into her choker.

"My lord...!" Harry heard her choke out in a tone of tortured rapture, then her body burst apart like a microwaved tomato.

Harry could only stare in shock at the thirty foot being of elemental fire that had torn itself out of Melisandre's body. This...was not on his list of plausible outcomes, mainly because all his research suggested that a fully formed divine avatar couldn't exist on the material plane for even as long as a minute even if some suicidal idiot managed to scrape together enough power to summon it. A god needed certain conditions in order to exist that weren't present on the material plane, so it had to exert a constant pressure to keep the physical universe from squeezing it like an impertinent zit.

That fleeting thought was firmly driven from his mind when R'hllor rushed forward in a roar.

The air was too choked with magic to fly, apparate or use his emergency portkey, not to mention that the god would have been able to block it at this range anyway. There was nothing Harry could do to escape, so he tried to defend himself instead.

His magical shield help up for about one tenth of a second before failing, allowing R'hllor to envelop him.

Harry roared in agony as the god shrunk and tiwsted, pouring inside him through the connection established by those of his runes dedicated to Light and the sun. The balancing rune, Yen'Lui, worked to bring in an equal amount of Dark to counter this, but it was hopeless. Might as well try to put out a forest fire with buckets.

It seemed to last an eternity, but was in truth only a few seconds. Harry collapsed to his knees and gasped for air, his entire focus turned inward to the god that was already making itself at home in his soul.

He could feel exactly what kind of creature it was now. Arrogant, ravenous, cruel...it felt entitled to everything in the world, just as its followers made it.

This is bad. He thought inanely, fumbling for his portkey. He had no idea what R'hllor intended to accomplish with this stunt, but he was quite sure it wouldn't end well for him.

Fortunately, the overwhelmingly thick magic from before had vanished along with the god, but even if it hadn't Harry would still have risked using the portkey.

A brief, dizzying trip later and he was thrown to the floor back in Dol Guldur.

"Harry!" He heard Adrastia exclaim in surprise at his ungraceful landing. "Are you alright?"

The hint of amusement in her tone sparked a killing rage inside him, such a rage that he'd not felt in centuries, a rage that eclipsed reason and demanded blood and pain.

"HELP ME!" He snarled, instinctively squeezing the geas binding her.

Her shriek of pain filled him with a savage delight, which had the fortunate side-effect of snapping him out of it because he knew that he was not a sadist and never had been.

Harry applied an attitude correction to himself by smashing his head against the stone floor. The entirely physical pain helped bring some focus to his whirling thoughts.

Strong, feminine arms helped him get to his feet.

"Where to?" Adrastia asked in a very subdued tone.

"Room of Contigency Plans." Harry grunted, stumbling towards said room. Fortunately he'd had the foresight to put it near the portkey arrival point.

"What happened?" She asked a few seconds later, helping him shed the dragon scale coat as they went.

Harry clamped down on the rage at being questioned, knowing it was not truly his. "Melisandre. Red comet. Ritual. Mass sacrifice. Summoning. R'hllor. Possession."

"Oh dear." She vocalized, easily interpreting the string of grunts, and sped up her pace.

They burst into the room and Harry leaned against the wall with a deep breath as he went over his options.

Plan A was the same as it was for every situation. Do nothing. That was obviously out of the question this time.

Why? Maybe it wouldn't be so bad? The thought floated across the forefront of his mind, prompting Harry to smash his head against the wall again.

"I'll go get Luna." Adrastia said, leaving without being acknowledged.

Plan B was an ornate, raven-themed jar of crystal, metal and bone. His prospective phylactery. All he'd need to do was put his mouth to the lip of the jar and his soul would be sealed inside, held forever on the border of life and death.

A powerful distaste for that option welled up inside him, which prompted yet another head smash against the wall. Thinking through the fledgling concussion was still better than thinking through R'hllor's influence, but the distaste wasn't from the god alone.

It would likely work. The Void would destroy the god as surely as it would drown his soul in it, but what he would have to sacrifice for it made it an unappealing option.

Harry's eyes slid reluctantly over to the tools required for Plan C, a ritual knife and a scroll with instructions.

Luna had insisted that he create a ritual that would sacrifice her life to purge him of all outside influence. The magnitude of such a sacrifice was enough that it may work, but Harry had no doubt that it would also leave a gaping scar on his soul. If it wasn't for Luna, he was quite sure that he would have gotten bored of living a long time ago and found a way to sacrifice himself in some ritual or other to help out one of his children or perhaps a favored student.

Regardless, he didn't feel as if he had time for it even if he was inclined to go with Plan C.

"Plan D it is." Harry grunted, grabbing the rune-covered weirwood spear and the hangman's noose from their place.

"Harry?" His wife's concerned voice came from behind him.

Harry turned around and looked into her eyes, his wild emotions calming for just a moment.

"I need to go." He said, already feeling himself lose control again.

"Do you have time to see Rhaella and your new daughter?" Luna asked, not questioning his statement. "She's been waiting so that you could name her together."

Harry had completely forgotten about Rhaella's existence over the past few minutes

"I'll bring them to the living room." Adrastia said, almost startling him. He hadn't even noticed her, his entire focus on Luna.

"Come on." Luna said, grabbing his hand and leading him away.

Anger swelled inside him again, but this time it was easier to suppress, either because it was Luna or because he was getting better at it.

The trip back to the living room was made in silence, with Harry putting all his focus on Luna's soothing presence.

"Harry?" Rhaella's uncertain voice snapped him out of it and he finally noticed that they'd arrived.

She looked as if she'd been woken from a badly needed rest and was holding a blanketed bundle to her chest.

Harry stepped forward and gently took the baby when Rhaella offered her to him. There was a little tuft of deep black hair on her head and her eyes opened to reveal irises a shade of purple intense enough to match his own green.

She'd make an excellent sacrifice. He thought, and nearly dropped the girl as he realized what had just gone through his mind, about his own daughter no less.

"Is there something wrong?" Rhaella asked as he hurriedly gave the now crying newborn baby back to her.

"Yes." He forced out through clenched teeth. "I have to go, Luna and Adrastia will explain things to you when they come back."

"Oh." Rhaella looked a bit hurt by his tone, but seemed to realize that something was indeed very wrong. "Do you want to name her first?"

Harry vehemently shook his head. He was in no condition to be thinking of baby names right now. Although he was sure that he'd had one picked out already, he couldn't for the life of him remember what it was. "Whatever you choose will be fine."

Rhaella smiled sadly and nodded, clutching her baby close. "Alright."

"Goodbye." Harry bit out, unable to wait any longer. He strode over to Luna and Adrastia and activated the portkey on the hangman's noose as soon as all three of them were touching it.

They were deposited far to the south, in front of the largest and oldest weirwood tree on the Isle of Faces.

The sudden urge to burn it all, every single weirwood on the island and then the world, and then keep on burning things, nearly overwhelmed him.

Harry smashed his forehead into the white trunk, hard enough to feel his brain rattle inside his metal skull.

"It's ready." Luna said quietly, making him turn around.

The hangman's noose was tied to a thick branch. There was a chair sitting below it and Adrastia standing next to it, spear in hand.

Harry wasted no time climbing on the chair and tying the noose around his neck. R'hllor raged inside him, but its hold wasn't yet strong enough to do anything about it directly and he would not be stopped.

"Come back to me, Harry." Luna said softly, looking up at him with love in her eyes.

"I'll do my best." He promised and hesitated for a moment before continuing. "Tell the kids that I'm proud of them."

Then he kicked away the chair, making a strangled noise as the rope tightened around his neck.

Asphyxiation was such an odd feeling. If not for the pain of your body screaming for oxygen, it could almost be called pleasant.

Harry did his best to ignore both the pain, the lightheadedness and especially R'hllor's enraged roaring inside his chest, instead diving recklessly into the Greensight. Deeper and deeper into the weirwoods and the earth, far deeper than he'd ever dared go before. So deep that he ran a serious risk of being unable to find his way back.

Mere moments before the lack of air robbed him of consciousness, he felt the spear being shoved through his body.

XXXXX

"I still find it hard to believe that this exact scenario was necessary for Plan D, no matter his insistence." Adrastia commented, staring at Harry's impaled, gently swinging body with a morbid fascination.

"He does like his Odin references." Luna agreed sadly, pointedly not using past tense.

"Well, hopefully he will finish the reference and returns." Despite feeling a flare of resentment for the pain he'd caused her earlier, Adrastia would prefer that he not stay dead, especially with all this godly nonsense going on. Getting to impale him with a spear had gone to some length to mollify her as well.

Luna stared unseeingly at the blood dripping down the spear shaft, knowing it would continue to drip as long as Harry remained where he was. This was a ritual and rituals followed their own rules.

"We should get back to Rhaella." She said absently.

XXXXX

Astral Plane.

Plan D hinged on the gamble that he could maintain his sense of self even as he plunged deep into the world-soul. And if he couldn't...well, at least he'd take R'hllor with him.

Harry 'looked' around himself, though with no eyes to see it would be more accurate to say that he sensed around himself.

The Astral Plane was a confusing place of abstract and treacherous concepts where truth was wholly subjective.

The first thing he noticed was himself. He had many shapes, all tied to what he was perceived as. He was a 7'2'' man with black hair and green eyes, but he was also a 6'3'' man with black hair, green eyes and a scarred face. And he was also an old man with a kindly face and a white beard.

Harry had become the god he had been trying to create. In the future, the question of whether it was the timing or the Law of Contagion or something else that made him assume the role of the Father of Freedom, instead of spawning a new god or failing entirely, would bother him incessantly.

But there was no denying what he was. He could feel all the worshipers he had created across Essos and even a rare few in Westeros. Could feel their prayers and their desperate hope. Their hearts were open to him and through them he could perceive the material world.

And he was also so much more than just another godling. The weirwoods held so many souls, none even a tenth as strong as him and some so faded that they were barely even echoes, but he was part of them all now and they were part of him. They were one.

What a grand irony. The Odin references had just been a fun little joke on his part, but now he could well and truly be called the Allfather. Many of the living had blood ties to the Old Gods through the ancestors whose souls inhabited the weirwoods. As the strongest and most aware of them, they were all his children. This wasn't even a decision on his part, it simply was.

Of course, he was not alone in the Astral Plane, not even remotely.

A being that constantly shifted between seven forms, exuding hostility. The Seven.

The Drowned God, even more hostile, but much less visible.

The twenty gods of the Summer Isles, welcoming and friendly.

Mother Rhoyne, weak and nearly faded. Bitter and grieving, but a small spark of hope remained that her children would one day return to her.

The gods of Old Valyria, worshiped only behind the Black Walls of Volantis. He could barely see them.

The cruel gods of the Ghiscari, seething at him for challenging their dominion in Slaver's Bay.

The Lady of Spears, the secret goddess of the Unsullied, as stoic and cold as the brutalized eunuchs that worshiped her.

Many, many others, some completely out of his sight because there was no contact between their worshipers.

But the greatest and strongest of all was R'hllor, bound to him with a chain forged of light and fire.

"Wizard, what do you think to accomplish?" The God of Light and Shadow demanded. Its shape cycled through amorphous fire, a burning heart, a giant fire elemental, an impossibly handsome horned man with draconic features and golden hair, something distinctly balrog-ish and many more.

"I'm going to end you." He stated, grabbing the chain holding them together and pulling on it. "I will draw you in, to the bones of the earth, into the stones and the dirt. I will scatter your essence across every mountain and valley, every stream and river, every forest and plain, until you forget yourself and become part of us. And when it is over, I will return to the world, renewed and whole."

That was, if he could keep from losing himself as well.