Chapter Text
War is inevitable.
War is part of life.
It can start small or large, and last for a long time or a little while. But the outcome stays the same. People die, blood is spilt, and songs are written for those left standing.
And while a war might temporarily end, it never truly stops. Supporters always remain, those who felt cheated, those who felt forgotten. Usurpers always seize the chance to cause chaos, to remove the crown from a ruler they do not like.
And always, in the middle of it all, it is the simple folk who suffer the most.
Villagers were trying to survive the coming winter. Farmers who only know how to seed and reap crops, not wield a blade. Fishermen try to return home each day to wives who wait at the shore.
They are the victims no one sings for, no one mourns beyond a shallow grave.
They only have themselves and themselves alone.
That is what you were raised to know. What you personally saw.
But fate, in its abstract cruelty, has strange ways of shifting one’s perspective.
It began with trouble… and blood.
The great nations of the Stormlands, Dorne, and the Reach were known for their hostile borders. Tensions were always high between their lords, border lines drawn on fading sand centuries ago, redrawn with steel and stubborn pride.
There was a small point where all three lands met. A narrow stretch of earth where once the lords fell upon it like dogs fighting over a bone.
Then King Daeron the Good proclaimed the land free. Owned by three, yet slightly independent.
Enough to stop wars over it.
Enough to ensure no more blood would be spent there.
It saved your little town, once divided into three loyalties; now a single, strong community. Taxes were paid when due, and life continued, simple and free.
Your brothers teased you as you grew. Your younger siblings followed you like ducklings trailing after their mother.
Children played beneath your supervision, and your father promised one day to pass down his blacksmith shop to you, though he would grumble about the soot in your hair and the burns on your fingers.
Life was good. Happy. A memory that future you would only ever revisit in dreams.
Because when life seemed bright, the storm came and the dragons breathed fire.
Daemon Blackfyre was dead. His army destroyed, his greatest supporters left with nothing but the clothes on their backs and bitterness in their throats.
Yet his vision had not died. Men still chanted his name in taverns and hidden camps, still believed in his cause, still wished the crown to rest upon a different head.
They started small, but quickly grew bold. Taking prisoners, stealing cattle and crops, burning towns — they left death and destruction wherever they passed.
Your little town became their primary target. Your fields their battlefield.
The rebels came. They tried to take and claim through force. Innocent blood was spilt. Good men died screaming in dirt that had once grown wheat.
Your cries for help were heard — but your liege lords argued over shared responsibility.
Too far from Dorne, House Martell ignored your pleas.
Too poor for the Reach, House Tyrell sent minimal forces.
The Stormlands were busy skirmishing with Dorne, and the men they sent you were few and already battle-worn.
Your people were forced to take up arms. To stand shoulder to shoulder with whatever reinforcements arrived.
And the true battle for your life began then. Not when you picked up a sword to defend yourself.
But when you picked up a needle to save a life.
You spent your first two months searching through corpses for anyone still breathing, grabbing wrists slick with blood in search of a pulse. You rushed after your teacher, the town’s healer, who moved from body to body with tired but steady steps.
Years under her guidance had made you her right hand in the field. You carried herbs and salves, wrapped bandages around open wounds, and held men steady as infected limbs were cut away beneath raw sky.
Blood stained your hands so often you began to believe your skin had absorbed its colour permanently. Dirt glued itself into your hair — blood too — forcing you one evening to cut it short with your father’s dagger simply to save yourself the trouble of untangling it.
You lost track of days. Of weeks. Of months slipping past unnoticed. Every sunrise bled into the next, and every night made you wonder if it would be your last.
In your second month, you found a wounded soldier before your teacher did. She was too far to hear you, too busy to come.
The man begged for your help. Prayed to be saved.
In your second month, you picked up a needle and stitched him closed yourself. Your hands shook with each pull of thread, your courage flickering with his grunts of pain.
By the time you were done, your teacher approached.
“You sewed it wrong,” she pointed out calmly. You stared at your bloodied hands. “But better an uneven scar than a lost life.”
Her hand on your shoulder was steady and warm. Your heart beat louder at the praise. Looking at the man still alive because of you gave you a sense of pride.
You could still do something.
Not with a sword and shield — but with needle and thread.
By the fourth month of fighting, the rebels retreated to regroup. Three weeks of uneasy relief followed, time enough to burn the dead and whisper prayers over names carved into wood.
You lost count of the familiar faces you bid goodbye to. Some had shared your blood. Your features.
Among the dead lay your teacher. She had tried to aid a wounded soldier. In his frenzy and fear, he mistook her for an enemy and drove a blade into her before dying himself.
There had been no last lesson. No farewell.
Only her satchel, heavy with herbs and instruments, was strapped now across your own torso.
The men around you nodded once, placing their trust in you without ceremony.
You vowed not to let them down.
A year had passed since the fighting began. A year in which you felt you had aged far more.
Yet you were still one-and-twenty, freshly past your nameday.
Once, you had celebrated with a small cake ordered from the local baker. Surrounded by friends and family, offered wine that was too cheaply made to taste pleasant.
Now, such celebrations had no place. Smiles were rarer than clean water. The land around you lay barren, burnt, and drowned in blood.
You stepped among corpses, crows cawing as you passed. They lifted lazily, only to settle again and resume their feasting, black beaks tearing at grey flesh.
Your boots were worn thin. Your dress was cut shorter to keep mud and blood from weighing you down. One hand remained tight around the leather strap of your satchel.
You scanned the field for signs — a twitch, a groan, a prayer breathed too faintly to carry far.
A distant bark made you freeze.
Your head snapped toward the sound. In seconds, you were sprinting, careful on the slick mixture of mud and blood beneath your boots.
You leapt over a severed shoulder, barely avoiding the head of a fallen horse. Crows scattered at your sudden movement.
Ahead, you spotted him — your dog. A mutt of no particular breed, once a starving stray that had wandered into your village two years ago. He had survived flying wild beasts, hunger, and filth.
You had nursed him back to strength. He had never left your side since.
“Good boy,” you breathed, dropping to your knees beside what he had found.
A wounded man lay there, the Tyrell rose stitched faintly into his blood-soaked tunic. A lesser soldier. A broken blade was buried deep in his abdomen.
He struggled to breathe. When he saw you, his lips trembled. “Ma… ma…”
You knelt beside him, assessing the wound. Gut injuries were cruel. Often fatal. The broken metal had slowed the bleeding but not stopped it. Dark red seeped through torn cloth and dented armour.
Each laboured breath pushed more blood outward.
You bit your lip. Your hands hovered over your satchel.
You could try. But supplies were scarce.
Every bandage used, every salve applied, every stitch made — it had to count.
If he died regardless, what you used on him would be lost. Better saved for someone with a higher chance of living.
A tired sigh escaped you.
“I am sorry,” you whispered, tearing a strip from his expensive tunic.
You pressed the cloth firmly over his nose and mouth.
His weak hands fluttered uselessly. His legs trembled once, twice; then stilled.
Silence.
His brown eyes stared at the sky. You gently closed them. “May the Mother greet you in her arms. May the Warrior reward your strength. May the Father permit you… and may the Stranger guide your soul to peace.”
The flies buzzed louder in the stillness. Something wet brushed your cheek.
You opened your eyes to find Spur beside you, panting softly, his coarse fur tickling your skin.
His half-fallen ears bounced faintly when he barked, like small wings attempting flight.
“It’s alright, boy. You did well.”
He leaned into your palm.
“Another lost one, huh?” Borrei’s heavy steps approached. The gentle giant of your group stopped beside you.
You nodded. “Yes.”
“You cannot save everyone, kiddo.”
“If I had more supplies, I would try saving everyone.”
“Maybe one day,” he said softly, nudging you forward. “Come. Let’s return to camp. We’ll count today’s losses.”
You followed silently, Spur racing ahead only to stop and wait for you.
It made you smile.
That night, you sat on a worn log around the fire. A cheap blanket that had seen better days was wrapped tightly around your shoulders, its edges frayed from months of rough use.
Spur lay at your feet, asleep but restless, paws twitching occasionally as if he still ran through the battlefield in his dreams. Now and then, he let out a low bark, muffled and distant, chasing enemies only he could see.
Warm wine was passed around, the tin cup pressing heat into your palms. The liquid was bitter and thin, but it warmed the throat well enough.
Winter had yet to come, but the air had begun to shift. The nights lingered colder now, the wind sharper when it brushed against sweat-damp skin.
Men sat in uneven circles, their armour loosened but not fully removed. Some leaned back on their elbows, staring at the stars as if trying to count how many more nights they would live to see.
A few women moved between tents, helping the wounded settle into their places, adjusting blankets, passing bowls of thin broth, whispering quiet reassurances that would not be remembered by morning.
“I heard the King is sending reinforcements,” one man said at last, his voice cautious, as if even speaking hope aloud might curse it.
Borrei, seated beside you, scoffed deeply. “As if. It’s been a year. What makes you think he remembered us now?”
Another man, older, scar crossing his jaw from ear to chin, shrugged. “Does it matter when he remembered us? If he sends the Anvil and the Hammer, then we shall be saved.”
A sharp laugh escaped the first speaker. “Please, the Anvil and the Hammer?” He spat into the dirt beside the fire. “Those Princes tasted battle once and were hailed in songs for it. They are sipping wine and sleeping around as we speak, safe behind their stupid tall walls.”
Murmurs of agreement rolled through the small gathering. A few nodded. Others stared silently into the flames, unwilling to argue but too tired to believe otherwise.
You chose not to participate.
Your eyes remained fixed on the fire. The way it consumed wood without hesitation. The way sparks leapt upward only to die before reaching the sky.
The Anvil and the Hammer. Maekar and Baelor Targaryen.
Even spoken aloud, the names carried weight. Carried expectation. Carried stories of Redgrass and shattered rebellions.
You had never met them. None of you had. Not even the borrowed Tyrell and Baratheon soldiers stationed among your camp had stood close enough to know them personally. They were figures on banners. Names in songs.
Distant. Mythic.
And distant men did not bleed for small border towns.
No one seemed eager to believe the rumour. You could not blame them. It felt foolish to cling to such fragile news after a year of silence.
So long forgotten and ignored, you had learned not to grasp fleeting hope with both hands. When it slipped through your fingers — as it so often did — the fall hurt more than the waiting.
Yet still, a small part of you wondered.
What if this time the rumour carried truth?
If they came — truly came — perhaps this hellish year would finally draw to an end.
Perhaps this recording rebellion would be wiped from history, no more than a failed ember in the shadow of greater wars.
And perhaps, this month, you would not have to bury another friend. Another brother. Another child.
The thought alone made your heart beat faster.
You chose to hold onto that hope. Just once more.
Days later, the men’s words seemed closer to the rumour than the truth.
No reinforcements.
No additional provisions.
Only the same daily rhythm of blood and loss.
The rebels had assembled again, emboldened by your dwindling supplies and your visible exhaustion. They came at dawn, drinking in your weakness like starving wolves scenting prey.
They nearly took the camp by surprise.
If Spur had not started barking at the first shifting shadows among the trees.
If the clouds had not parted for a brief moment, letting sunlight slice through branches and reveal movement where there should have been none.
If the gods, in some twisted and unpredictable mercy, had not tilted fate ever so slightly in your favour.
Halfway through the rising chaos, you grabbed a sword from a fallen soldier. The blade was heavy in your hand, its steel smeared red, the leather grip still warm from the man who had held it moments before.
You did not know how to wield a sword properly. You had never trained with one. But you would not stand defenceless while steel flew around you, not without resistance.
Suddenly, the sharp cry of a war pipe cut through the noise.
The deep, vibrating call rolled across the field like thunder. It made your spine stiffen.
More rebels?
Your mind raced.
Then came answering war cries — disciplined, unified, powerful.
From the nearest hill, armoured soldiers surged forward in formation, on foot and horseback alike. Their charge was not chaotic. It was measured. Purposeful.
Banners snapped violently in the wind as the bannermen rode amongst them.
Your breath caught in your throat at the sight.
A black field.
A three-headed red dragon, wings spread wide.
Targaryen.
Men around you noticed as well. Cheers erupted across your camp — broken, hoarse voices suddenly alive with something that had long been buried.
Reinforcements had arrived. And not a handful.
An army.
You could only stare as the royal soldiers crashed into the rebels. Steel struck steel in a harsh symphony. Horses reared and kicked, hooves slipping in mud, soaked dark with blood. Rebel lines fractured under disciplined assault.
The sound of metal colliding echoed in your ears. The smell of fresh blood mingled with churned earth and sweat.
Your heart pounded so violently you could hear it over the shouting.
The dying ember of hope inside you flared brighter, as if someone had thrown dry wood onto a near-extinguished flame.
And through the chaos...
Through the swirl of bodies and banners and steel...
You saw him.
His armour caught the light differently. Designed like overlapping scales, dark and deliberate, decorated not in gaudy excess but in careful craftsmanship befitting high birth.
His shield bore the Targaryen dragon boldly, the painted beast seeming almost alive as it flashed red between movements.
He rode a black destrier, reins held steady in one hand, sword in the other. He did not flail wildly as some commanders did. He issued orders, sharp and controlled, guiding men like pieces across a board only he could fully see.
You could not see his face beneath his black helm.
But then he turned.
As if sensing movement.
As if noticing someone still standing in a sea of rushing bodies.
And beneath the rim of his helm, you saw them.
Mismatched eyes. Brown and blue.
Watching.