Nerd In the North 6-31

“They barred the door with seven blades,
White cloaks proud in golden shade~”

The string of a lute twanged loud, a short note sounding off against the end of the corridor leaning outside. He held his breath, spine and shoulders pressed back into cold stone as he did his best to pretend like he wasn’t there.

“But shadows broke before his stride~”

Sixteen months in this life and there were about a half-dozen voices Greg could pick out of a crowd without looking, and maybe three of them belonged to people he actually liked.

And this was not one of them.

“As the Bright Lord came for wolves inside.”

His medieval stalker made his way down the hall, Oren Snowlute — fake as hell name by the way — a persistent pain in his ass anytime he thought he was free to relax. Months of him being gone and the bard had stayed on in Riverrun ‘awaiting his glorious return.’

Sure, awaiting it with terrible lyrics about murder to play at taverns until those lyrics just became the expected and believed facts.

The lute came around the corner first, followed by the rest of him — black hair down past his ears, a cloak in a bright green shade over a skinny body, and the general persistence of a guy who’d walked from the North to the Riverlands just to have something to sing about.

“He broke the white, he broke the gold,
He led the wolf-blood home from cold~”

Technically, he wasn’t wrong. 

If anything, this song was the least embellished out of all the last few, but he still wasn’t in the mood for an interview to make it anymore detailed. Granted, he wasn’t sure how Oren would feel about the part where he’d jumped through a window while bleeding out of his mouth and screaming fake Latin.

Odds were good he’d love it, and…

Well, Greg just didn’t want to give him anything close to a win.

Petty? Sure.

But he was a lord and it was his privilege to be petty.

Across the yard, a serving girl turned to look at the bard as he sang, eyes landing right on the hiding Greg.

Don’t. He put one finger to his lips.

The servant blinked his way, face going red as she curtsied. Without another word, she hurried off with a basket clutched to her chest, her actions thankfully unnoticed by the bard.

“From King's Landing to the frozen shore,
The Bright Lord's vow rings evermooo~ooore!”

The voice went thin as it passed Greg by and crossed into the outer yard, song drifting before being swallowed up by the general noise of Riverrun; all the horses, hammering and the general milling about of thousands of soldiers with no war to fight.

It only took another ten count, and then fifteen more for good luck, before Greg peeled himself off the stone. “Finally…” With a sigh, he walked off the other way as fast as he could, doing his best to not look like he was walking fast.

How does he keep finding me? He’d left the guy behind so many times, first in that one village with the sick castellan — Snowthorne or something — and then back outside of Frostfall and then again in Robb’s camp.

Everytime though — every single time — that green cloak turned back up in his breathing space singing like he was Greg’s private boombox. God, I miss the future. Or… His eyes narrowed as he kept walking. Well, I guess this isn’t technically the past.

Whatever Westeros actually was — something Greg had been mulling over for over a year now and the answer always fell back to shitty isekai — went out of his thoughts as Greg came out from under the inner wall and glanced up to see a head of auburn hair on the wallwalk.

Lady Stark stared back over the yard, both hands on the edge as she pretended like she hadn’t just been looking at him. She’d been at that a lot, the last few days since they got to Riverrun proper. Her dad and her brother had at least tried to talk to him, while she hadn’t said more than five words to him. As much as he couldn’t stand Hoster, stomach cancer aside, at least the guy bothered to try and talk to him.

Even if he still came off as a whole dick, the attempt was there.

But not for Catelyn Stark.

And he just didn’t get why.

“Lord Veder.”

Blue eyes slid shut for a moment, Greg easing out a sigh. Great.

“...princess Stark.” He turned around, an eyebrow up as the girl made her way out of the passage behind him with her hands folded in front of her. Sansa had taken to life in Riverrun rather well for only being here a few days. Sure, Greg wasn’t going to deny he enjoyed sleeping in a bed, taking a bath, and eating proper cooked food again, but Sansa…

It seemed like everytime he blinked, Sansa Stark was in a brand new dress; her mother’s old wardrobe fitting the little princess perfectly.

And right now was no different, the drop-shoulder gown she wore elegant in all bright blues and silvers. “I assume I have the Lady Stark to thank for your presence, or am I wrong?”

“My…” The look Sansa wore told him he could have put money on his hunch, the words half-choked in her throat as she tried to talk around what he just said. “My mother… It is only that she has heard the ballads sung about you, a great many of them, and she is not… It is merely that she does not know what to make of you.”

Greg blinked at that, Sansa’s blue eyes held low as she kept them on the ground. “...uh-huh.”

“I have shared with her knews of what you did, and the honor you hold, and the care you have shown me i—”

“Sansa.” Greg picked some grit out from under a fingernail, flexing his hand as he interrupted the princess mid-excuse. “Does your lady mother want me to leave?”

"No! No, my lord, she—"

"Then it's fine.” The second interruption came with a sigh, Greg rolling his eyes before Sansa could feed him more and more of a story that he was pretty sure would go nowhere and mean absolutely nothing in the long run. “Perfectly fine.”

“She merely worries for us, Lord Veder.” Her head rose a little, those blue eyes that looked just like Robb’s staring at him as the practiced courtliness went out of her voice. “She only…” The more Sansa spoke, the more Greg found himself hearing the actual fourteen-year old under all that. “She only wishes to keep us safe.”

Safe. Unfortunately, that fourteen-year-old could also get on his nerves.

“Safe.” He repeated the word, one syllable escaping his thoughts as he echoed it right back to the princess’s face with a short laugh — short and ugly. “Like I wasn’t doing just that the whole way here? What? Does she think I’m suddenly now going to hurt you?”

“No, it-”

“Listen, I’ll put this in words you might understand better.” Blue eyes met blue, Greg wearing a smile he didn’t feel. “Find another fool for your games, princess. Your lady mother’s fretting is no burden of mine and I am no child of hers.”

Sansa looked at him, hands tight in the cloths of her gown. Seconds passed in silence until the princess simply sank into a curtsy so perfect it could have gone into a book. “As you say, Lord Veder.”

With nothing else to say, the princess Stark turned and left, soft shoes barely making noise against stone.

“Nailed it…” Greg watched her leave, well aware he had probably put his foot in his mouth and finding it hard to care too much. "Great talk. Really building those crucial alliances."

A loose pebble went flying into a puddle as his leg snapped out. She’s fourteen and her brother just died and she came over here to smooth things out and you told her and her mom to hit the bricks.

Yeah… well…

Greg clicked his tongue. I’ll apologize later.

Probably.

Greg kept walking, doing his best to push that to the back of his mind as he made his way further up into the castle. The steps up to the very top of the battlements were slick and a bit too wet for his liking, but the Riverlands had the name for a reason. Either way, Greg took them two and three at a time, soles slapping soggy stone.

The sun was already a good bit down past the halfway mark, sky still a few hours from purple but enough that the shadows off the towers were long and jagged in their path. Unless I’m wrong, it’s about to be August.

He could be wrong.

After all, he’d been off in his count since the day he got here and Tybald letting him glance at the Westerosi calendar didn’t help. For one, they didn’t even name months. You just had to count moons and hope for the best.

Either way, he knew one thing. Sixteen months.

Sixteen months since his birthday and a party and the last time he even saw his mom. He’d be starting junior year by now? Yeah, that sounded about right. He’d be starting junior year and he held onto that tight, the thought grounding unlike the number of his own house he couldn’t remember anymore.

Boots plodded heavy on the stairs behind him, a lack of hurry in their weight that told him it was Guts before the man even came to a stop by his side.

“...if you’re here to throw me off ‘cause you’re mad about my win this morning, I gotta tell you, man…” Greg clicked his tongue. “Not sure it’d finish me off.”

Guts didn’t laugh.

Honestly, Greg didn’t find it all that funny either, simply going back to staring out at the landscape. It’s a lot of water.

Again, for a place called Riverrun, it wasn’t exactly unexpected. Two of those rivers came together right under the walls and the whole castle pretty much sat between them, the noise of water a constant never-ending thing.

Thankfully, it was also something you got used to, because Greg hadn’t really noticed it all day.

Greg stared down as something white came down out of the sky, cold kissing the back of his wrist.

Huh. A single snowflake lasted all of a second before it left a drop of freezing water behind as a memento of the fact it ever existed.

"Bit early for Christmas."

"What."

“Nothing.”

Another flake fell into his eyelashes, Greg blinking it out only to find himself blinking again as something appeared in front of him — sitting atop the parapet. The hell?

A rectangular slate of blue-grey stone rested there all of a sudden, the edges rounded as what looked like ancient gold circuitry was inlaid into it. Both hands reached out, Greg grabbing it by the side handles as he raised it up to see what looked like a glowing eye symbol on it, the thing lighting up with a… A screen?

Greg could find no other word to describe what was in front of him but, for the life of him, he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with some sort of weird magic tablet. At least without wi-fi?

“Another?”

“Yeah, Guts.” The blond boy let out a sigh. “Another.”

“...looks weird.”

Greg turned the thing over one more time, his attention tracking back to that gold eye symbol again. “Yeah, I’m getting that feel too.”

"So." Guts turned his head. "What now, little lord?"

The snow came down harder, the flakes thickening as Greg slid the odd tablet into his tunic.

"We go home, Guts."

Sansa Stark (14) - 299 AC

Catelyn Stark (34) - 299 AC

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

Adept Muse — 100 GP
Inspire ten different songs.

Sheikah Slate (Basic) + Basic Runes – 100 GP
Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild | Magitek
A magical tablet the size of a hardcover book, and also the key to unlocking the true power of the ancient magitech that the pre-exile Sheikah left behind. In its most basic form, missing all but the essential Runes, this Sheikah Slate has a sophisticated mapping system where you can mark points of interest (Though you'll need to find a method of actually downloading maps onto the thing) and a digital zoom "scope" that both lets you scout out distant places and set map waypoints at wherever you're looking to keep you on track. Most importantly, the Sheikah Slate authenticates you as a valid user of ancient Sheikah tech, and as such you will be able to use the ancient Shrines and Towers that the Sheikah left behind, and it even includes a Sheikah Sensor function that will alert you of nearby Sheikah technology if you get within range.

—————————————————————————————————

The Basic Runes add camera functionality to the Sheikah Slate, storing pictures in an album for later recollection, as well as the Compendium, which stores and logs useful information on anything you take a picture of - with a limit of one item logged per picture. 

(CG Note: Requires Sheikah Slate (Basic) - Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild first.)

Grimoire Points: 200