ASOIAF - Westeros and The Free Cities RP

By 298 AC, Winterfell had rarely seen so many southern banners beneath its walls.

The first outriders had been sighted before noon.

By the time the main column appeared along the kingsroad, half of Winterfell seemed to have found some excuse to be near the walls.

Banners moved above the approaching procession through the cold northern air: the crowned stag of Baratheon among the crimson and gold of House Lannister, followed by knights, guards, servants, wagons and enough horses to make the road itself seem crowded.

In the courtyard below, Winterfell was already alive with preparation.

“Straighten the line.”

Robb Stark's voice carried across the assembled household as another stableboy hurried past with an armful of tack.

Arya shifted impatiently beside Sansa.

“Stop moving,” Sansa whispered.

“I'm not moving.”

“You are.”

Arya looked down at her feet, then deliberately moved one several inches to the left.

Sansa stared at her.

Nearby, Jon Snow failed to hide a smile.

At the head of the gathering, Eddard Stark watched the approaching column without sharing the excitement spreading through the courtyard. Catelyn stood beside him, composed as ever, though her attention moved repeatedly between her children and the gate.

The sound reached them before the king did.

Hooves. Wheels. Men calling to one another. The metallic clatter of armour.

Then Robert Baratheon rode through Winterfell's gates.

He seemed larger than the men around him even after years away from the battlefield, broad beneath heavy travelling clothes and already grinning as he spotted the man waiting for him.

“Ned!”

Whatever ceremony had been intended lasted approximately three seconds.

Robert dismounted and crossed the remaining distance before Eddard could do much more than incline his head, catching his old friend in an embrace powerful enough to make several nearby northerners reconsider whether they ought to be watching.

“You've gone grey,” Robert announced.

Ned looked at him.

“So have you.”

Robert barked a laugh.

Behind him, the royal party continued pouring through the gates.

Cersei Lannister descended from her carriage with considerably more dignity than her husband had demonstrated, Joffrey and his siblings nearby. Jaime Lannister rode farther back among the white-cloaked Kingsguard, while Tyrion had apparently found the journey sufficiently tedious to begin looking for somewhere that might contain wine almost immediately.

Servants hurried forward. Horses were taken. Guards attempted to impose order on a courtyard rapidly running out of it.

Robert clapped Ned heavily on the shoulder.

“Gods, it's good to see you.”

For a moment, they were no longer king and lord, but two men remembering another life.

Then Robert's expression changed.

“There'll be time for all this later,” he said, quieter now. “First, take me to your crypts. I would pay my respects.”

Ned held his gaze for a moment before nodding.

Around them, Winterfell continued moving.

The royal household needed quarters. Travellers and retainers crowded through the gates behind the king's party. Stablehands fought a losing battle with unfamiliar horses, servants carried trunks towards the keep, guards questioned those whose business at Winterfell was less obvious, and curious faces appeared along galleries and stairways overlooking the yard.

For anyone arriving with the royal procession, already living beneath Winterfell's roofs, serving one of the gathered houses, or simply possessing a reason to be inside its walls, there was little chance of remaining untouched by the sudden arrival of the court.

And amid the confusion of the crowded courtyard, there was plenty of room for one more story to begin.

By the autumn of 298 AC, King's Landing had grown accustomed to public accusations of treason.

By the time the bells began to ring, the square before the Great Sept of Baelor was already filling.

Word had travelled quickly through King's Landing. Lord Eddard Stark, traitor to King Joffrey Baratheon and former Hand of the King, was to confess his crimes before the gods.

That was reason enough for half the city to come and watch.

Smallfolk crowded against one another beneath the autumn sun while Gold Cloaks struggled to keep a passage clear through the square. Merchants abandoned their stalls, children climbed wherever they could find a view, and every few moments another shout rose from somewhere within the gathering before disappearing into the general noise.

Upon the steps of the Great Sept, the court waited.

Joffrey sat above the crowd with the pleased impatience of a boy for whom thousands of people had assembled.

Cersei leaned towards him.

“You need only let him speak.”

Joffrey's expression soured.

“I know.”

“Then remember it.”

Nearby, Sansa Stark stood pale and rigid, her attention fixed upon the path through the crowd.

She had been promised mercy.

That promise seemed to be the only thing holding her upright.

Varys watched quietly from farther along the steps. Petyr Baelish appeared almost relaxed beside him.

“A remarkable turnout,” Littlefinger murmured.

“People have always enjoyed witnessing history,” Varys replied.

“Usually because they don't realise they're standing in it.”

A sudden movement among the Gold Cloaks drew the crowd's attention.

The noise changed.

Eddard Stark was being brought into the square.

He looked thinner than the man who had once ridden through the capital as Hand of the King. His clothes hung loosely from him, his face was drawn from imprisonment, and one injured leg made every step more difficult than the last.

The crowd shouted anyway.

“Traitor!”

“Stark!”

“Down with him!”

Others merely watched.

Near the statue of Baelor, Arya Stark stared through the bodies packed around her, barely breathing.

Yoren's hand closed around her shoulder.

“Don't.”

She didn't look at him.

“My father.”

“I know.”

Ned was led towards the steps.

For the first time, Sansa moved.

Her eyes found him.

Across the square, through guards and courtiers and thousands of strangers, Ned saw his daughter.

Something in his expression softened.

The High Septon waited.

So did the king.

So did the city.

What happened next was supposed to be simple.

Eddard Stark would confess to treason. Joffrey would show mercy. The former Hand would take the black and spend the remainder of his life at the Wall.

At least, that was what several people standing upon those steps believed had been arranged.

Across the square, however, King's Landing contained far more than kings and councillors. Gold Cloaks held the perimeter. Household guards watched from beneath different banners. Nobles and retainers occupied whatever vantage points their names could secure, while merchants, thieves, travellers, sellswords, servants and ordinary citizens pressed together below.

Some had come because they supported the king.

Some had come because they hated the Starks.

Some had come because public executions were entertainment.

And some had reasons of their own.

The bells continued above them as Eddard Stark reached the steps of the Great Sept.

The confession had not yet begun. Across the square, however, a thousand smaller stories were already in motion, each with the potential to change what happened next, or to allow the pieces to fall where they may...

By 299 AC, the Riverlands had learned that banners were often seen long before anyone knew whether to welcome them or run.

The inn had once stood beside a reasonably busy road.

Now the road mostly carried soldiers.

Rain had turned the yard outside to mud, churned repeatedly beneath boots, hooves and wagon wheels until the ground scarcely resembled a road at all. Inside, damp cloaks steamed beside the hearth while perhaps two dozen travellers occupied tables meant for half as many.

Nobody complained about the crowd.

An empty inn in the Riverlands usually meant something worse.

Near the fire, an old farmer held both hands around a cup he had stopped drinking from some time ago.

“Lannisters,” he said.

The man opposite him shook his head.

“Stark men.”

“I know what I saw.”

“You said they had red cloaks.”

“They did.”

“Then they're Lannisters.”

“I know.”

The second man frowned.

“You just said—”

“I said the ones yesterday were Lannisters. The ones this morning were Stark men.”

A woman at the neighbouring table gave a humourless laugh.

“Give it until supper. We'll have another king by then.”

Nobody asked which one.

There were enough to choose from.

King Joffrey sat the Iron Throne in King's Landing. Robb Stark had been proclaimed King in the North. Renly Baratheon had crowned himself with the strength of the Reach behind him, while word from Dragonstone claimed his brother Stannis had finally entered the contest as well.

And somewhere across the sea, if the more ridiculous travellers were to be believed, the last Targaryen had dragons.

The innkeeper had stopped arguing about politics days ago.

“Coin first,” he announced instead, setting another cup upon the counter. “Don't care whose face is stamped on it.”

A muddy man near the door looked up.

“You will when the wrong army finds it.”

The innkeeper stared at him.

“Then I'll tell them I stole it.”

That earned a few tired laughs.

Outside, thunder rolled somewhere beyond the fields.

Or perhaps it wasn't thunder.

Conversation faltered.

Several heads turned towards the shuttered windows.

A young man wearing what remained of a mail shirt rose from his chair and listened.

There it was again.

Distant.

Heavy.

Not thunder.

“Horses,” he said.

The room changed.

Hands moved towards sword belts. A merchant hurried to gather the coins scattered beside his cup. Someone near the stairs disappeared towards the upper floor without explanation.

The innkeeper swore beneath his breath and crossed to the window.

Through a gap in the shutters, shapes were moving along the road.

Riders.

Too distant yet to make out colours.

“Whose men?” somebody asked.

“If I knew,” the innkeeper muttered, “I'd know whether to open the bloody door.”

Nobody laughed this time.

Across the Riverlands, villages had burned for supporting lords they had never met. Castles changed hands. Armies stripped fields for food and called it necessity. Deserters became bandits, bandits sometimes became soldiers, and a man's allegiance could be decided by whichever banner happened to reach him first.

Some travelled because they carried orders.

Others carried messages, merchandise, wounded friends, stolen coin or names they preferred not to give.

Still others were simply trying to reach somewhere the war had not found yet.

The riders continued along the muddy road towards the inn, their banners still hidden by rain and distance.

Whoever they were, they were coming closer.

And for everyone beneath that roof, there was still time to decide whether that was reason to stay, hide, run... or simply order another drink and see what came through the door.

By 300 AC, the old masters of Meereen no longer ruled the city.

That did not mean they had accepted it.

Morning heat already hung over the streets beneath the Great Pyramid, carrying the smells of dust, spices and the crowded markets opening for another day. Above them, the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen moved lazily from banners where the harpy had once proclaimed another order.

For some, it was the banner of a liberator.

For others, a conqueror.

Near one of the market squares, a merchant arranged bolts of coloured silk while an Unsullied patrol passed.

He waited until they were beyond earshot.

“Another one last night.”

The woman at the neighbouring stall didn't look up.

“Where?”

“Near the eastern wall.”

“Unsullied?”

The merchant shook his head.

“Freedman.”

That made her pause.

“Harpy?”

He shrugged.

“In this city?”

Neither needed to say more.

Across Meereen, white plaster increasingly concealed old symbols painted during the night. Freedmen gathered in districts where once they had been property. Former masters continued occupying estates built upon wealth the queen had declared unlawful, while sellswords, merchants, priests and foreigners discovered that liberation had made the city no less complicated to live in.

At the Great Pyramid, complication had become government.

“The killings continue.”

Ser Barristan Selmy stood before the queen with both hands resting lightly upon his sword belt.

Daenerys Targaryen regarded the men assembled before her.

Grey Worm stood nearby, still as stone.

“They murder my people in the streets,” Daenerys said. “And hide behind masks.”

Hizdahr zo Loraq inclined his head.

“Your Grace, fear will not persuade the noble families to trust you.”

“No,” Daenerys replied. “Apparently neither did leaving them alive.”

Barristan's expression shifted almost imperceptibly.

Hizdahr noticed.

“Peace requires compromise.”

“So everyone keeps telling me.”

A distant roar rolled across the city.

For a moment, nobody spoke.

Daenerys looked towards the open terrace.

One of her dragons was somewhere beyond the walls.

The other two remained beneath the pyramid.

Neither fact made ruling Meereen easier.

Far below, another Unsullied patrol entered the market.

Conversation quietened around them, though whether from respect, fear or simple caution depended entirely upon who was watching.

A boy carrying a basket hurried across their path.

One of the soldiers stopped.

Something had been painted upon the wall behind him.

A harpy.

Red paint ran freshly from its wings.

The Unsullied turned towards the surrounding market.

“Who did this?”

Nobody answered.

The merchant lowered his eyes.

The woman beside him suddenly found her spices extremely interesting.

Beyond the square, Meereen continued beneath the shadow of its pyramids: freedmen and former masters, soldiers and sellswords, merchants and slaves who had discovered that freedom did not immediately provide food, foreigners seeking opportunity, and agents whose loyalties were considerably less obvious.

Some believed Daenerys Targaryen had broken their chains.

Some believed she had destroyed their world.

Some simply intended to survive whichever world replaced it.

The painted harpy remained upon the wall while the Unsullied waited for an answer.

Around them, hundreds of lives continued through the streets of Meereen, each with their own reasons for welcoming the dragon queen, opposing her, fearing her...

Or having no particular interest in choosing a side at all.

By 305 AC, King's Landing had survived kings, riots, sieges and wars.

Nobody yet knew whether it had survived Daenerys Targaryen.

Smoke hung over the capital beneath a grey morning sky, drifting between streets where fires still burned among collapsed houses. Ash covered roofs, armour, bodies and broken carts alike, turning whole districts the same colour.

The bells had stopped ringing.

The screaming had not.

Davos Seaworth stepped carefully over the remains of a shattered doorway as several Northmen struggled to lift fallen timber from what had once been a house.

“Here,” he called. “There's someone underneath.”

Two more men hurried over.

A hand appeared through the rubble.

Alive.

“Easy,” Davos said, crouching beside it. “We've got you.”

Farther along the street, an Unsullied patrol marched past without slowing.

The Northmen watched them go.

Nobody said anything.

Not far away, Arya Stark emerged through the smoke.

Her face was grey with ash, one side bloodied, her clothes almost indistinguishable from those of the survivors moving around her.

A woman stumbled past carrying a child.

Arya stopped.

For a moment she simply watched them.

Then she looked towards the Red Keep.

Or what remained of it.

Across the city, soldiers who had entered King's Landing expecting a battle were beginning to understand what victory had meant.

Jon Snow found Tyrion Lannister among them.

Tyrion stood in the middle of the ruined street, staring ahead.

Jon followed his gaze.

Neither spoke for several moments.

Finally, Jon said, “The fighting's over.”

Tyrion looked at him.

“Is it?”

Grey Worm appeared through the smoke behind a column of Unsullied.

His expression gave no answer.

Above them came the distant beating of wings.

Every head in the street lifted instinctively.

Drogon passed through the smoke overhead, enormous wings briefly casting the ruins into shadow before carrying him towards the heart of the city.

Towards his queen.

Daenerys Targaryen had won.

Cersei Lannister's rule was broken. The gates had fallen. The Golden Company was gone, the Lannister armies defeated, and the capital of the Seven Kingdoms belonged to the woman who had crossed half the known world to claim it.

What came after victory was considerably less certain.

Throughout King's Landing, survivors crawled from cellars and ruins. Lannister soldiers discarded armour and searched for ways to disappear among the smallfolk. Northern soldiers gathered beneath unfamiliar streets while Dothraki rode through a city they had crossed an ocean to conquer. Unsullied guarded prisoners, crossroads and approaches to the ruined Red Keep.

Some searched for family.

Some searched for enemies.

Some searched for food, shelter or a way beyond the gates.

Others had already begun wondering what sort of realm would emerge when the fires finally went out.

The Iron Throne still existed somewhere beneath the Red Keep.

So did the woman who had come to claim it.

Jon Snow had not yet confronted his queen.

Tyrion Lannister had not yet made his final choice.

And nobody in King's Landing knew what the next few hours would make of either of them.

Across the broken capital, thousands of smaller stories continued among the ash: soldiers and civilians, victors and defeated, nobles and nameless survivors, each carrying their own loyalties, losses, ambitions and choices into whatever came next.

The war for King's Landing was over.

What followed had yet to be decided.

By 299 AC, the Wall had stood for thousands of years.

The people north of it had spent just as long refusing to be impressed.

Night settled slowly across the frozen country, draining the last colour from forests and mountains until snow, stone and sky seemed made from different shades of the same darkness.

Across a sheltered valley, fires burned.

Hundreds of them.

The Free Folk had gathered in numbers rarely seen south of the Wall: hunters and raiders, families and fighters, clans that had spent generations feuding now sharing ground beneath the same bitter sky. Tents and rough shelters spread between the trees while horses stamped against the cold and cooking fires struggled against the wind.

Somewhere among them, a child laughed.

Somewhere else, two men were fighting over a knife.

Nobody appeared particularly concerned by either.

Tormund Giantsbane sat beside one of the larger fires, tearing meat from a bone.

“You're holding it wrong.”

Jon Snow looked down at the knife in his hand.

“I'm cutting meat.”

“Aye. Wrong.”

Ygritte glanced across the flames.

“He's a kneeler. They probably have someone cut it for them.”

Jon looked at her.

“I was a bastard.”

Ygritte shrugged.

“Fancy bastard.”

Tormund laughed loudly enough to draw several looks from neighbouring fires.

Jon returned his attention to the meat.

“I preferred the Wall.”

“No, you didn't,” Ygritte said.

He paused.

“No.”

She smiled.

Farther through the camp, the atmosphere was less cheerful.

Men came and went from Mance Rayder's shelter carrying reports from scouts ranging south and east. More people arrived every day, whole families abandoning hunting grounds their ancestors had occupied for generations.

They were not moving south because they had suddenly developed an affection for the Seven Kingdoms.

Something was driving them.

Near another fire, an old woman spoke quietly while repairing a torn fur.

“My grandfather used to tell stories.”

Her companion snorted. “Everyone's grandfather told stories.”

“About dead men walking.”

That earned silence.

The old woman pulled the thread tighter.

“Said they came when the cold came. Blue eyes in the dark.”

“Your grandfather drink?”

“Constantly.”

A few people laughed.

The woman didn't.

Beyond the camp, somewhere among miles of forest and snow, a horn sounded.

Once.

The laughter faded.

Heads turned towards the darkness.

A second call did not follow.

Tormund stopped chewing.

Jon was already looking towards the trees.

Ygritte rose slowly beside the fire.

Around them, the Free Folk continued moving: warriors reaching for weapons, parents drawing children nearer, scouts exchanging hurried words and others simply watching the treeline.

It might have been another band approaching the camp.

A hunting party.

A ranger.

An animal disturbed among the trees.

Or something that had given thousands of people reason to abandon their homes and follow Mance Rayder south.

Beyond the Wall, names and titles carried considerably less weight than they did in the Seven Kingdoms. A person might be Free Folk, Night's Watch, deserter, captive, traveller or something harder to explain; what mattered more was whether they could survive the cold, the people around them, and whatever else shared the wilderness.

The fires continued burning.

Beyond their light, the forest remained still.

For now...

Westeros had never required a war to be dangerous.

From the frozen lands beyond the Wall to the deserts of Dorne, roads wound between castles, villages, forests and cities beneath the banners of hundreds of lords. Ships crossed the Narrow Sea carrying merchants, soldiers, pilgrims, exiles and travellers towards lands whose customs changed long before the horizon did.

Somewhere, a lord was arranging a marriage.

Elsewhere, another was preparing for war.

A raven had just reached a castle carrying news somebody had been waiting weeks to receive. An innkeeper was unbolting his doors for the morning. A merchant argued over the price of grain. A knight rode beneath a banner he had sworn to defend while, from the safety of the trees, a poacher waited for him to pass.

None of them knew whether history would remember the day.

Most days, it didn't.

In King's Landing, courtiers and councillors gathered around whoever presently held the Iron Throne, each carrying ambitions that rarely ended at the doors of the throne room.

In the North, ancient castles stood between forests, mountains and roads where travellers might pass days without seeing another soul.

Beyond the Wall, the Free Folk lived without much concern for the laws of southern kings, while older and stranger things remained among the snow.

Across the Narrow Sea, the Free Cities traded, plotted and fought beneath their own banners. Farther east lay peoples and kingdoms for whom the struggles of Westeros were little more than distant rumours, if they heard of them at all.

Most people would never meet a king.

The decisions of kings could still reach them.

A marriage agreed in one castle might prevent a war or begin one. A message arriving too late could change the fate of a house. A sword drawn in anger might end a life, begin a feud or amount to nothing more important than blood spilled beside a nameless road.

And countless lives continued between such moments.

Nobles and smallfolk. Knights and sellswords. Healers and thieves. Sailors, servants, merchants, soldiers, wanderers and outcasts, each living through whatever age happened to find them.

Some would become involved in the struggles that shaped kingdoms.

Others would spend their lives avoiding them.

Some might alter events that once seemed inevitable.

Others might simply allow the pieces to fall where they may.

There was no single year in which the story had to begin.

No single kingdom, city or road upon which it had to unfold.

No king, war or prophecy around which every life was required to revolve.

Somewhere in the known world, another story was already beginning.

Where it began, when it began, and what followed remained entirely open...