Oldcastle and White Harbor

As you sleep, she protectively holds your head in your lap.

You begin to dream a strange dream. You are in the same wood, but the girl is gone, as is your horse. You stand before the weirwood in a simple white tunic and leggings. Your feet are bare and the loamy soil is cool in between your toes. You hear a twig snap behind you. A woman, dressed in a dress of weirwood leaves appears. Bright blue winter roses crown her nut brown hair. Her eyes are a familiar mossy green.

You are a greenseer, Rhory.

Her voice is not audible to your ears, but to your mind. It is as musical as a babbling brook.

Blood of the Old Guard

It whispers in his ear, a soft background harmony to the voice of the woman in his head. Rhory kneels before her, humbled in her presence, his mind at once awhirl with dozens of questions and yet calmer than he has known in years. Oh, he had heard tales of the greenseers from his brother, but they were few and far between and lacking in much detail. But to meet one, to have seen and touched one of the Children of the Forest. And not just that, but a greenseer.

Blood of the Old Guard

It resonates in his veins, pulsing with a regular insistence, beating a soft tattoo in his heart and brain.

Blood of the Old Guard

He looks up at the woman in white, noticing the drops of dew glistening on the leaves of the blue roses in her hair. At the veins on the weirwood leaves that form her dress. At the swelling of her breasts beneath that dress. And at the mossy green colour of her eyes.

Lowering his eyes and bowing again, Rhory seems to push the words out through his mind... I am yours to serve M'lady. What would you have me do?

Blood of the Old Guard

The tracks looks like the long bony toes of a bird, but do not have corresponding claw point marks, nor is the weight distribution correct. Some of the long lines have other smaller lines branching off of them. They remind you of something, but you are unsure of what as it is on the edge of your memory. The tracks lead away from White harbor toward the south and slightly east.


John continued to follow the tracks southward heading away from White Harbor. He no longer concerned himself with going back to his home. The trail now took him off the road towards untilled countryside. There was something about the prints that triggered something within himself, but he try as he might he could not delve deeper into his mind and decipher what it was. Fleetfoot's head came up as if detecting something, he began to stir...

She smiles serenely at you.

You simply need to learn. You will use your gift and understand it in time. That is your main duty to uphold. Your blood is the reason why you have this gift. Your second duty is to protect me. The life of this world’s forests have waned, as has my strength. I am the last of my kind. Your third duty, if at all possible, is to find my brother’s body. He recently was killed and was all I have. Do this for me and I will unlock the secrets within your blood, your heritage, your destiny.

Now rest, my darling. I will guard over you until the sun kisses the sky good morning.

She helps you to lay down in your mind, and cradles your head in her lap. Her long hair tickles your cheek as she kisses your forehead. Your mind succumbs to a deeper level of sleep.

As he drifts off to sleep with the memory of as kiss on his forehead that seems to be lulling him into sleep, Rhory gazes into her moss coloured eyes. She can easily read the promise contained therein, to do just as she says. Also visible are the pain that her brother has died and the sorrow he feels for her as his heart goes out to her. Soon the moss coloured eyes fill his entire world and his last thought as he drifts off to sleep is that he has never seen such eyes.

Little does he realise that the first faintest of flecks of the same colour have appeared in his eyes as well.

Rhory wakes feeling much refreshed and listens to his tutor with a quizzical expression on his face. "Alright, I'll give it a try... uh... I just realised something, I don't even know your name. How should I refer to you M'lady?"

Rhory sits down cross legged in front of her and attempts to picture a bridge of spider silk between himself and Mina. But he keeps being distracted by the sights of the forest. So he closes his eyes and tries to picture Mina's eyes in front of him and forming that bridge between them.

Can you hear me?

Rhory's eyes remain closed as he struggles to hold the image of the bridge in his mind. A picture. Hmm. What to send? he thinks to himself. He mind, perhaps influenced by recent events, settles on the lady with the blue rose crown from his vision. He attempts to picture every detail from the dew on the rose petals to the weave of the fabric. And then he remembers the swell of her bosom beneath the leaves and his concentration shatters as his face goes red.

Opening his eyes in guilty embarrassment he stammers out a quick "Erk... let me try that again." He quickly closes his eyes as his mind races through images before settling on his room in Oldcastle as something safe. And he begins to picture that and send it down the bridge of spider silk...

At which point Rhory goes bright red again and is sure that a lot of embarrassment is going down the bridge. This time though, he keeps his eyes shut as if that will hide it. He begins thinking back to his family. To his elder brothers and his, if not hatred then at least intense dislike of them. To Aemund and his love for his scholarly brother. To his sorrow when he overheard his mother say she wished she had a boy, causing a single tear to course down his cheek.

Overriding it all though is a sense of loneliness; of not belonging; of wanting to be a part of something more.

Fleetfoot suddenly came to a halt. John immediately knew why as he spotted something off of the trail ahead. He dismounted and came upon the body. He shook his head in regret as looked down upon a boy that could not have seen more then nine summers.

"At least a day old. Yet untouched by scavengers. Very odd." He turned as his horse edged closer with a particular sadness in it's eyes. He looked again at the small body. "May the Stranger guide you safely to the next world, little one."

How had the boy come to such as fate to be rotting in a field? He gently examined the boys body more closely. He soon found what he was looking for. The puncture wounds indicating he had been shot down by arrows. Of the shafts there were no sign. Anger welled up from within him quickly turning to thoughts of vengeance.

No. Not yet.

Then Fleetfoot did the oddest thing. He knelt down as low as he could go, indicating that his master should place the boy upon his back.

"Yes, Fleetfoot. We must bear him away from this place and give him proper burial rites."

With care, he secured the boy's body on Fleetfoot's back. He then mounted up. Fleetfoot, without any additional urging set off; deeper into the countryside. The treeline where the deeper forest began soon became visible...

Rhory reached up to touch the hand that wiped away his tears and held it tenderly in his own as all his anguish slowly leeched out of him like a boil that had been lanced after way too long. Slowly, ever so slowly, all the pain leeched out of him as if contained in the tears he was now shedding freely in an emotional catharsis.

Slowly but surely they came to be replaced with a greater calm, a sense that somewhere deep inside him a connection as made that somehow needed to be made. This was not a sweeping away of old wounds, but more a closing of a chapter of his life. One that would still be there, but would become more distant now as it became replaced by something more; something deeper; something he belonged to.

After a timeless period his sobs quietened and the tears ceased to flow. A more tranquil feeling came over his mind and eventually he opened his eyes to stare up into Mina's.

Thank you, Mina, for giving me... everything.

You are welcome, dear one. We will start your next lesson now, for surely you are hungry after that release? It will be hunting.

She helps you to your feet.

Hunting the way you know it isn't respectful to She Who Makes All. The dirt, the trees, the water, the sky, the fire all these things are our Mother. She gives us everything. Hunting is not for sport, but only for food. We must honor the animals that give us sustinence. Follow me.

She leads you out into the forest, revealing a knife of dragonglass from a hidden pocket of her robe. A deer, a mother with two fauns, has entered the clearing.

Mothers we do not kill. It is cruel and unnatural. We wait.

Shortly after that, a stag comes into the clearing. She carefully approaches it, and gives it a hug. You hear her whispering strange words in the stag's ear as she as gently as possible slits the stag's throat. She lowers the stag to the ground and says a prayer in her native tongue.

This is true hunting. We honor this noble beast for his sacrifice to keep us alive. We honor the life that is around us, and within us. Come, kneel beside me. Reflect on the life of this stag, from birth to this day. Honor him. Thank him.

Rhory kneels down next to the dying stag, awed at the oneness with nature that Mina exudes. He places his palms on the animal's body and starts to reach out with his mind for some sense of it, though something in his mind warns him from forming a connection. He tries to impart a deep thankfulness to this glorious animal for its sacrifice. He catches glimpses in his mind of the life of the stag; from its first wobbly steps through to the feeling and exhilaration of running like the wind; through to finding a mate and fathering children. Each act, each part in the stag's life, Rhory gains insights from and honours the stag for all it has done.

And last, but not least as the Stag's last life ebbs away, Rhory thanks it for the sacrifice it made to help something that he feels building inside him. Something that Mina has stated that he needs to do. For all their kind. Something that murmurs softly in his blood as it builds slowly, every so slowly until one day it becomes a mighty crescendo that will shake the foundations of the earth.

You are progressing quicker than I thought. I'm proud of you.

She smiles at you tenderly.

Help me get him back to our camp. I shall teach you how to prepare meat to last for the long months. Even though it still is summer, it is good to know now so not to waste any part of Mother's gift.

She shows you how to butcher the stag into various cuts of meat, and, using small willow branches and vines, creates several grids to stand in the air over the fire.

These will hold the meat above the fire as it dries. It doesn't use salt, so it doesn't last quite as long, but is better for summer months.

She takes the pieces of meat and places them on the grids. She then takes the cleaned skin and drapes it around the whole contraption, leaving a small smoke hole on top. She lights some damp wood underneath it to start smoking the meat.

Now we wait. Tell me dear one, what would you like to know? Surely you are curious.

Rhory watches all that Mina does with intensity, trying to remember all he has been taught. Somehow his mind slips... sideways would be the best way he could describe it... and he stumbles upon something and manages to send a memory to himself of what is learning. And somehow he grasps that this memory will be there again for him to play through as he needs it.

I... I think I just did something M'l... Mina... I somehow put what you were showing me into my head and... I'm not even sure how I did it... but it's there, I can sense it and see it?

She beams widely, her smile more radiant than the sun itself.

I knew you would eventually find it... it is a gift greenseers have. The reason we can talk like this is we both have the gift. Now that you know how to slip to my knowledge, take a copy of everything within. Go on, you won't hurt me. I trust you dear one.

Rhory attempts to calm his mind as it starts getting excited at everything that is happening to him. Forcing a certain amount of calm on himself, he attempts to reach into Mina's mind. The first one was easy, because Mina was showing him. But this is harder as he's trying to form a link to something that's not right there in front of him.

And then he feels something guide his mind into the right place. Something that is not of Mina and not of him, but something much larger. And yet something that seems to be dwindling and fading away over the eons. And then with a flood images flash into Rhory's mind. I can see! he cries out in his mind.

He sees a young girl running through the forest with grass stains on her feet. He sees small villages of small people living as one with nature. He sees the love they feel for each other and the world around them He sees the coming of the First men with their bronze weapons and the wars that raged between them and the Children. He sees the eventual peace that binds them together and flourishes for years beyond counting. He sees the long night and the alliance that pushed back the white walkers. He sees the building of the wall. And then the coming of men with fire and steel. He sees the death of the weirwoods and the dwindling of the Children.

And then his mind drifts off, seemingly unattached as it flies through the world. And he recognises a green dream. And somewhere beyond the wall, he seems to sense that there are... someone... something important... something lost that must be found again...

And he glimpses people. A young female warrior who seems linked with a young male. Two older men, brothers with quick smiles. And a golden haired man from the West. And a man he senses is not too far away at all. There were possibly more as well, but he sensed now was not the time...

All this and much more flash into his head in numbers and amounts too great to comprehend. And he somehow senses that is mind protects itself by not trying to grasp is all at once, but just keeping it stored for now. And as he comes to, he looks at Mina with eyes now as mossy green as hers. We must move. There is... something, I couldn't see it clearly... but there is something we must find, and others we need to find it. But you... you know this... don't you?

Yes, but I cannot see it either. Let me show you more.

You feel the slight wall around her thoughts fall away as every single experience of hers, every second of every year, becomes part of your memory. All of her joys, the abuse she suffered from some of the first men, the loss of her kin, her bonded, her children. Her emotions are also transferred over, including a wonderful feeling blossoming in her heart like the first buds of the winter rose bush. All that she is, you know. It is a bond far more intimate that you've ever experienced in your life.

As you come out of the mind bonding, you see tears silently streaming down her cheeks. Even though you withdrew from her mind, you feel her heartache at reliving her losses. Her moss green eyes lock on yours.