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KoW - Chapter 42
🕑 Added 2025-03-13 16:33:11 +0000 UTCRobb Stark
He stared blankly at the walking cadaver before him, he could feel the dark side wafting from his body like a nasty smell.
“Interesting.” He comments. “You are a dead man walking.”
Dondarrion lets out a self-depreciating smirk, dissipating the tension.
“You have no idea, my lord.”
Robb felt the urge to frown, it seems the man thought him to be joking.
“I don’t believe you understand.” Robb says. “You are dead, the man you know as Beric Dondarrion has ceased to exist.”
Had he the capability to be paler, Beric would have certainly done so.
“You are but a body, puppeteered by a remnant of what you were, memories put into a cadaver to bring it to life, quite useful, did it not come with a price.” He explains. “You feel it, don’t you? That cold fire within you, clinging to your body, pulling you somewhere else, somewhere dark, silent, and… void.”
A snarl came to Thoros’ face, as he stepped forward and put a hand to his sword.
“How dare you!” He snapped, pointing toward Dondarrion. “He is the lord’s champion! The great other’s doom!” His rusty blade unsheathed and pointed toward him.
Greywind did not appreciate the aggressive gesture, so he steps forward and growls toward the offending priest.
“Is that what you truly believe, truly?” Robb asks, his steps echoing through the silence as he slowly approaches the man in red robes. “Whom are you addressing with those words. Is it I, or yourself?”
He kept walking until the blades dull edge gingerly rested on his shoulder, and whilst Robb stayed unperturbed, knowing that he’d be able to not only dodge, but decapitate the man should he even think of attacking, his own friends do not.
A young-looking man with a freckled face and red hair pokes Thoros with his bow. “Do not be daft, Thoros!” He hisses. “That is Robb Stark! If that monstrous wolf doesn’t crush your skull with its maw, that huge army less than a mile away from us will certainly gut you.”
But Thoros kept glaring, his eyes filled with untold fury.
“Your words ring false, Stark.” He grits out. “I held Beric’s cold body with my own hands, I gave him the last kiss -the good god’s kiss of life- and felt the fire of the lord alight his hearth of life, your temptation will not, cannot, stray me away.”
“Not again.” He whispers, unheard for none but Robb.
“Your understanding of faith is wrong, priest.” Robb says. “It does not dwindle, it does not disappear, once you cease to believe, once proven wrong, your belief, your convictions, your devotion and loyalty is simply shifted toward worthier causes.” With a finger, Robb pushes the blade’s edge away, taking another step forward, staring the man straight in the eyes. “Look at him, look at the man who you deem your chosen one.”
Thoros turns his eyes away and to Beric, the latter was stood stock still, a chagrined face on his face.
“Every single time his time comes, you pull him from the peace of the afterlife, every time he comes back, he is even more lost, even lesser that he was. That is torture, not a blessing.” He says. “Tell me, Thoros of Myr, what benevolent god would curse a man with such suffering? Were you in his place, would you not feel the same despair, the same longing?”
And there, acceptance.
Thoros falls to his knees, his own sword fell alongside him, clanging to the ground.
Robb turns to Beric. “You have two choices, Lord of Lightning, either I liberate you peacefully, or I forcefully snatch your ghost from the grasp of whatever entity enslaved you. I shall give you time to say your goodbyes.”
Even through his dismay, Dondarrion nods.
Robb turns to the frail old woman, walking toward her.
“It is an honor to meet someone of your skill, old lady.” Robb says to the diminutive witch. “It is very impressive what you did, staring through my veil.”
And it was right, his skill of obfuscation through the force was tempered through conflict with the Sith Empire’s formidable clairvoyants, brute force alone is not enough to even have a glimpse of his actions, Bloodraven -who had more power than sense- was proof of that fact.
The woman’s face was a gnarly sight. “What you call impressive, some may call a curse.” She murmurs. “I have gorged myself on grief at Summerhall, yet the old gods have seen to stuff me with more. I spend my days searching through their whispers for the briefest traces of hope, I thank you, Stark lord, for you have soothed my wounded heart.”
Robb inclines his head ever so briefly in acknowledgement.
“We all have our burdens to bear.”
The ghost of High Heart turns toward her humble shack.
“Please, do go in.” She bids. “It is not often I have such august guests.”
“I would have thought you used to receiving lords during your time at court.” Robb answers.
“I said not often, didn’t I?”
--*
Robb and the witch spoke for hours during the night, they spoke of the state of the world, she opened herself up about her adventures with Jenny of Oldstones and the horror of the burning of Summerhall, and Robb bid her request to speak of his deepest secrets.
He spoke of his inner grief, his anger and frustration at his inability to express emotion. He told her of his plans, on how he plans to unite the lands in preparation of the long night, yet she only wished to hear of the small stories, his childhood in Winterfell and the childish troubles he’d gone through.
He told her of how he missed his brothers and sister, how worried he is about Sansa even though she should be on her way here, how he regrets the stupidity of others, and how he blames his own mother for some of his predicaments.
The woman, who still had no name, simply listened with an ugly, yet peaceful, smile. And as the first lights of dawn pored through the cracks on her wooden shacks, the Ghost of High Heart took to her last slumber, dead with a smile, and a last, hopeful whisper.
“Jenny.”
Robb came out of the hut gingerly carrying the dead woman’s corpse, he looked to the group of shaken up brotherhood, and asks for a shovel.
He digs her own grave right in the middle of the hill himself.
A thin man who looks in his fifties approaches with a harp on his hand, Tom Sevenstrings, a name often told of as a famous Riverlands bard who joined the Brotherhood without banners.
“A song, for her spirit?” He asks.
He nods “Jenny’s song.” Robb answers.
“Very well.” The man nods.
“High in the halls of the kings who are gone, Jenny would dance with her ghosts…”
--*
After a somber ceremony, the ghost of high heart was finally laid to rest, and as Robb glanced at her grave, he felt the presence of someone else step to his side.
“Six score.” Dondarrion breaths out. “Six score of us set out to bring the king’s justice to the Mountain. Six score brave men and true, led by a fool in a starry cloak.”
Robb looks to the man, who almost flinches at his sight, but at the end, his dead lips fall on a self-depreciating smile.
“They say I was a comely lad in a pretty cloak, slight and callow. They say I was a valiant knight, inexperienced and dashing, blind to the world’s horrors.” Beric muses. “Can I dwell on what I scarce remember? I held a castle on the Marches once, and there was a beautiful woman I was pledged to marry, but I could not find that castle today, nor tell you the color of that woman’s hair. Who knighted me? What were my favorite foods? Who was Beric Dondarrion?”
Beric’s gaze turned to the sun, its first lights covering the hill in a breathtaking shade of red.
“It all fades. Sometimes I think I was born on the bloody grass in that grove of ash, with the taste of fire in my mouth and a hole on my chest.” He holds a hand over his chest, caressing the wound that was proof of his first death. “Fire consumes. It consumes, and when it is done there is nothing left. Nothing.”
“Are those your last words, Lightning Lord?” Robb asks.
“Do you think I am a brave man, Lord Stark?” Robb stays silent, but Beric just laughs. “My men tell me I was brave, that I stared death in the face with no fear. Yet I think… I think that the difference between a brave man and a coward is that both are afraid, but the brave man acts anyway. And any man who does things simply because he is not afraid is not brave but an idiot.”
“I believe, that before that first death, I was an idiot. An idiot who rose to be a coward. The foolish boy who felt no fear tasted death and saw its horrors, now he knew fear, but could not act through it.” Beric looks back to his companions, a sad expression on his face. “And the brave men beside me did nothing, as even brave men blind themselves sometimes, when they are afraid to see.”
Looking back, Edric Dayne held onto Anguy’s leg, his face smushed on his stomach as he cried his heart out, while Thoros and half of the men couldn’t turn to look at him.
“Seeing that woman die with a smile brought hope to me, maybe death isn’t a horror to be feared, but a peaceful ending to our journey. But now that my time has come, I feel that I am more afraid than I can remember.” Beric looks to Robb, his smile turning warm. “But I am ready, a man has to be brave, doesn’t he?”
Robb nods. “Very well, kneel.”
Beric slowly gets on his knees, he looks up to Robb’s unflinching eyes with tears on his eye, the droplets coming out dark as if tainted.
Robb held his head with a hand, his thumb over the crown of his head.
“Take care of my men, they are good guys, one and all, better than any knight I know, and my betrothed, tell her that I loved her, even if I cannot remember her name or how she looked, she ever still brought warmth to my cold dead heart.” Beric sobs. “And… and Edric, he is a good boy, so find him a brave man to squire under, perhaps not yourself, but he deserves a good mentor to make him the man I know he can be.”
“Anything else?”
Beric shakes his head, trembling all the while.
“You were a good mane, Beric Dondarrion.” Robb finally says. “I will make sure you are remembered.”
Robb extended his senses to the depth of Beric’s spirit, feeling malice clinging to it, an echo of suffering long past. Closing his eyes, he exhaled slowly, centering himself in the warmth of the Force. He extended his hands, allowing the light to flow through him like a river, a beacon in the abyss. The air shimmered around his fingertips as he reached out, not to destroy, but to heal.
Golden light radiated from his palms, washing over the Lightning Lord’s body like a cleansing tide.
He could hear the sounds of exclamation coming from the side, but he powers through, as his work wasn’t yet over.
The golden light washed through Beric’s body, finally coming across a dark shadow in its depth. The shadow writhed against the purifying light of the force to no avail, dissipating away.
The light slowly faded away from Dondarrion’s eye, as the golden light surged forth, upward to the sky, fading into a wispy light that momentarily resembled a man’s silhouette.
The man in the light, for a split second, resembled a dashing, healthier version of the dead man, and looked down at them with untold warmth, before dissolving into the sun’s light.
“By the gods…” Anguy was the first to exclaim, followed by the others who shared looks of disbelief.
Robb turned to them, pointedly staring at the gaping face of Thoros of Myr.
“He is in a better place now.”
Comments
BPellet
Thank you for the chapter! This is definitely my favorite GOT story out right now.
Glowbot
That was sooooo great
