[Day 8, River Ghost] Flowing chaos [Closed]

[Loreia]

What follows is the complete memory of Loreia's dream, if she were to remember all of it.

The horse nickers as she pets her rump with open palm. The horse master smiles reassuringly as an older gentleman offers a leg-up. She climbs into the saddle and spurs the horse to a walk with an experimental kick. It feels like an hour of crudely weaving the horse's path with the reigns. Occasionally it steers itself to avoid the fence. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a man in a robe approach the stables, a chain of multicolored links around his neck. She snaps the reigns frantically, digging her heels into her mount's sides. The horse hops the fence into the field beyond the enclosed pasture.

She rushes across the plain, losing herself in the chill wind. Her sword comes down on a wildling while a fellow rider mirrors the blow on his opposite flank. Death to you, savage. Riders on either side follow in a charge formation, decimating the enemy rank. A rogue spear sends a jolt as it skewers her horse, forcing her to dismount. Muffled clattering on wood accompanies pained groans as she falls onto a boat, occupied by two wildlings. After knocking a greatsword aside, she lands a stunning blow on one of them in the ensuing scuffle, nearly tipping the boat from the rough motions. She stabs her sword into the other and shoves him off, pausing long enough to watch him sink down into the Bay of Ice, before she is grabbed from behind by the recovering warrior.

He is Athelstan, and his eyes are full of malice and a mad relief in equal measure as he knocks her sword aside. She grasps for his axe, and in return he thrusts her head under the water. Sweat and blood give way to a watery prison of blue and green. Squirming, she holds her breath for as long as she can, but just as quickly, the hands and body holding her down relent. She rises, and the hindrance to his effort becomes clear: an arrow shaft juts from his side, and one sticks in his thigh. She steals the greatsword from earlier and gashes the Ironborn from behind. Death to you, Ironborn.

His fall reveals her assist, a hooded scout in gray finery with black fur lining. She steps out of the boat and onto the shore, and beyond, a dark tower rises into the clouds. In one of the windows, she notices Daveth lean out and wave. Just as she waves back and calls his name, he seizes up. A hand on his shoulder nudges him toward the window, a dagger in his back as he plummets to the ground. She climbs the spire, stairs with jagged edges resisting every step she takes, one foot in front of the other, keeping to the center of the gauntlet of sharp, jutting decor. At the top, her villain waits for her like a proper knight, armed with a morningstar and shield, encased in black armor. In a fury, she assaults him, striking at every opportunity with all the strength she can muster. When at last he yields, she clutches her stomach, where her armor had been dented in, pushing a dull pain on the gashes dealt in a powerful blow that punctured her breastplate.

Her foe interprets the pause as acceptance, and removes his helmet. She stares in surprise, seeing Dunstan Tullison with years upon his brow to match his uncle, whom she had expected instead. But her shock does not freeze her. Death to you, deluded fool. Flecks of blood fly from his mouth, deviating from the streams pouring down. She leaves the sword embedded in him, letting it weigh him down as she approaches the window Daveth fell from. A shadow looms overhead, threatening to block out the sun, shaking the ground and throwing her off balance.

Darkness fades. Lying face down in the sand, she looks up to see what she thought was a shadow is actually a dragon. It throws itself at another, leaf-green and larger than the first, sending it careening into another spire. Stone, with smatterings of wood and glass, shower the city below. All around her, a battle rages on the beach. Ironborn raiders charge from ships whose flags bare the banners of the squid and the direwolf. From one of the decks, Yoren dances and points with gestures to conjure fire on the ranks of the king's men. In retaliation, the green dragon dives at the fleet gathered at the shoreline.

Among the dead, she sees Jorah, with his helmet caved in;
Dyana, riddled with arrows;
Kevan, grasping at a spear impaling him;
Garret, crushed under the weight of a horse. She attempts to stand as Tullison men pass by, but something weighs her down;
her lower body is crushed, unmoving. She manages to catch Theomore's eye with an outstretched hand, sparking a futile flare in hers. Do it, you bastard. He raises his sword, but then he raises his shield in vain as unrelenting flame engulfs them both.

[Loreia]

*The first nightmare was too deep a slumber, far from nightmarish, far from personal. The River Ghost is not pleased with its work. Loreia's control over her dream had rendered its masterpiece artless, crude, lacking. And so, the River Ghost waits for Loreia to return for a second assault.*

Loreia approaches the wheel tower, apprehensive of what she may find inside. Footsteps cause her to turn on a dime, glaring at a familiar face she hadn't seen in the better part of a decade.

You. She could sense him. New scent? Of course. Eight years, ointment after piss-flavored tonic, and not a hair regrown, old man?

His resting scowl twitches. "
I've come to do my duty, child."


"
You stay back,"
she lowers.

"
You and I both know what must be done."
He raises a wrinkled hand, and out of the shadows he is flanked by two orderlies, one on either side. "
Restrain her. Get those toys away from her."


Loreia grips her blade in both hands, daring them to come closer. "
Go ahead...take it from me."


The fools actually rush her. She swipes at one to force him to retreat and neck slashes the other. The sword is heavy in her hands, and only cuts his chin. The effort to hold it up is too much, and it falls noiselessly from her hand. She keeps the shield up, cowering behind it as the orderlies grow in size. They hold her down, tightening straps around her wrists and ankles. A septon joins the maester by her side, reciting scripture from the Seven-Pointed Star in prayer to the gods while one of the orderlies place various tools on a table beside her. The other brings a cup. Milk of the poppy.

"
No."
The maester smacks the cup away, spilling some of the pain relieving drug on her tunic. "
T'would spoil the results."


She strains to to reach it, sweet numbing so tantalizingly close, but so far away. Before she can lap at it, her chin pressing against her chest, the maester grabs her hair and pulls her back down. A final strap goes over her neck, she has to press herself down to keep breathing. A saw comes up, presses against her just below her shoulder, she closes her eyes as a piece of wood is placed in her mouth...

Stabbing metal, no sawing. The old curmudgeon missed. She opens her eyes to see, and instead, a spear is dug deep in her shoulder, below the collarbone. Her ragged breath fogs in front of her face. Fur gloves grip the length of the spear stuck through her metal chest, attached to a fur coat, worn by an old woman. Her face is in the shade, blocking the afternoon light coming through trees.

"
Kneeling bitch,"
she hoarses, churning the spear.

Grunting in pain, Loreia unsheathes a dagger and pulls her assailant down, stabbing over and over, tasting victory in the wildling's pained, curdled cries. "
Savage whore."


Odd. She sounds a touch too old for a warrior. Now that her face is in the gray light of winter, something about it seems eerily familiar. "
Gran?"


"
Why, chi--"
she asks, coughing blood.

Sound of whistling, and Loreia looks up to see some familiar shapes in fur coats.

Loreia's spear-fishing father, her horseback trainer and mother, her little brother, and a handful of her friends. "
Sweet old woman like her, my mother, my gran, how could you do that to her?"
they tremble with shock, despair and rage.

She tried to kill me, stop. She tried to kill me!

Her pleading is unsuccessful. Mother, father, friends and little brother each loose an arrow. Like ticks suddenly latching on, each bite a thousand times deeper, they stick from her flank and chest, thin shafts bloating her with pain. One in her neck stiffens her head movements, and she finds herself unable to turn. She falls to her knees, clinging dearly to life as it bleeds out her throat.

Her vision unclouds, and she finds herself bent on her knee in the warm light of two torches, straining to cast their light from the entrance to the Great Hall. The seat of House Coldbrook is vacant, dimly lit, until a figure strides toward it and sits. A vague shape of a hand comes up, bidding her to rise. Proud to obey any order given by the lord of House Coldbrook, Loreia rises. Torches near the rear of the hall light up, revealing the lord sitting in his chair.

"
What is your command, m'lord?"


Daveth smiles warmly. From the seat, he points to the left. Bound in chains, knight waits for Loreia, in iron not painted or guilded. On his sigil is a mountain with two boulders, with stylized lines indicating their downward motion, rolling down a hill. The lord claps his hands, and a guard comes to remove the chains, and gives the mystery knight a sword and a shield. Loreia immediately takes a battle stance, ready to fight, but wondering why the helmet is not removed. Perhaps it is Theomore. It would be just like him to enter a real fight with his identity protected, to avoid risking humiliation in an early defeat in the grand melee. Nor would it surprise her if he entered as a mystery knight in the tilts to add to his winnings. That he should come before her now to face his execution was only poetic justice.

He raises his own blade. Loreia's shield provides her brief respite before her sword dances with the Knight of Stones. She lashes out with her shield, bringing her sword to bear, but the knight is quicker. He shatters her shield, knocks away her sword, and forces her to her knees with bashing shield strikes. She curses her hubris, curses the man's deceiving ability, and all the gods for their trickery and her role in the callous plans they have made. Trial by combat had decreed his innocence, washed his hands clean, but she could not yield. She tries again to stand, but is quickly beaten down, all her efforts in vain.

Panting and loathe to flee in the presence of her lord, she rasps, "
Let me see your face before I die, blackguard."


The helmet disappears, and the sword is replaced with a mace. Daveth postures angrily as shadows swarm him. His gnashing is cut short as a knife appears through his throat, twisting. It leaves as its victim falls, returning to its master's side in the hand of Theomore.

"
Good. Very good,"
he praises his nephew. "
You have done well. Now kill her."


Loreia raises a hand. "
Please..."


"
Do it."


The mace comes up. An eternity passes in the span of time it takes to come down on her head.