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Rickon hadn’t understood, at first, why Osha had brought him here. Bran had said to go somewhere safe and from the few stories he remembered to have heard from old Nan, Skagos wasn’t safe. But Osha had insisted and Rickon, too upset and angry to argue or be afraid, had followed. Now, here, he understood why they’d come. She understood this place like no northerner ever could, because it was true that the Skagosi were more like wildlings than mainlanders. Rumours had reached her, long ago before crossing the wall, and she knew that this was where she had to bring him. For his own sake. He understood now, but that didn’t mean he was happy about it.
“Prince Rickon,” Greta called him, making him snap back to himself.
Even then, he could still feel the low growl that had formed in his chest and his teeth felt oddly short. He knew he should remember that he was Rickon Stark and not Shaggydog, that he was human and not a direwolf, but it was hard. When he was angry, Shaggy was angry, and when they were both angry it felt like only biting and tearing and ripping would calm them down again. It was dangerous, losing oneself. Osha had said so before coming here, Lord Magnar had said so when he told Greta to teach him, and Greta told him so every day. That was how Skane had lost all its people; wargs like him had lost control and eaten everyone. He didn’t want to do that.
Sorry, he wanted to say, but he found he couldn’t talk yet. Sometimes he couldn’t talk, because Shaggy couldn’t talk, and when they got mixed up too badly they forgot who could do what. It often angered him even more. He loved Shaggy, and he didn’t want to separate them like that. Shaggy was all he had left. He had to make space between their minds, Greta said, but he didn’t want to. When he thought about it like that, he didn’t want to say sorry at all. Maybe Shaggy knew that, and wouldn’t let him speak.
“I believe we are done for today,” She reached up a hand to stroke the feathers of her own familiar. The falcon would sit in the rafters and stare at them, unblinking and impassive, every time they came in. Sometimes that alone would bother him enough to lose all concentration.
Without saying a word, Rickon got on his feet. Turning on his heel, he pushed open the door to the little hut and stepped out into the cold air. It bit at his skin and tousled his beaded braids, crawling down his neck and into his clothing. The fur did little to keep out the cold. Skagos was worse than Winterfell or the empty lands around it. Sometimes it felt as if the island was only a skeleton of what it had been, hard and brittle and bare, but he had no memory to compare it to.
Still clenching his teeth, he moved away from the door. Apparently, Greta had taught many wargs how to not lose their way, she was the greatest of them, but he felt as if he were wasting his time. Whenever he came here, whenever he failed to stay completely and utterly human, he felt as if he were letting his family down once more. How could he help them, pick up the mantle his father and brothers left behind, live up to the Stark name, regain their land, protect their people, if he couldn’t even keep control of himself?
At a fork in the path, he chose the way upwards. It wasn’t where Osha would be waiting for him, and she didn’t like it when he went by himself. She hated when he went to see the Greenseer after his warging lessons even more. He was always on edge enough as it was, the added anger of Yorek’s riddles sometimes made him lose control. Not all that much, of course, since Shaggy hadn’t eaten the man yet, but almost. Too close for comfort, she always said. Still, today he couldn’t help himself.
Yorek was not so old as Greta, though his skin was more weathered and his voice was hoarser. One of the sons of Lord Magnar had told him that it was commonly used for the best Greenseers to cover their eyes permanently, Yorek had once refused to do it. Hadn’t wanted to stop living a common life, either, just went about and became a fisherman and married a fisherman’s daughter. Didn’t want to stop seeing the world before him.
It was something that often helped them understand their dreams better, covering their eyes. The daily world couldn’t confuse them, that way. Or so they said. All Rickon understood was that Yorek hadn’t understood a dream that had warned him about a bad storm and then his youngest two sons had drowned. Then he had left the town, left his wife and his remanning children, and blindfolded himself. That was years ago, now, and his family lived well enough without him, though they were unhappy. Rickon thought Yorek was also unhappy, that’s why he did his best to be as unhelpful as possible.
It angered Rickon, mostly, which was why his guardian preferred it when he didn’t go at all, let alone by himself. The small shack was very familiar to him, however, and he no longer even stopped to admire the fact that it was made out of wood. Skagos, meaning stone, had mostly stone buildings. Furniture was made of wood, not housing. Unless, it seemed, you were Yorek. No matter how run down the place might look, with the empty barrels and carvings in the walls filled with dirt, it was probably worth more than a proper house built out of stone. Rickon didn’t understand why he’d done that and not made himself a bigger house and taken his family with him. It was something he tried not to think about as he reached between the dangling ribbons with seashells and rocks to knock on the door.
“Enter, little Prince.” It sounded as if the man had been standing behind the door, just waiting for him to knock. Often it seemed as if Yorek knew far more than what his dreams should be allowed to tell him.
Trying to bite back the tiny spark of anger that the name -as often used as it was by now- still managed to ignite in him, he pushed the door open, blinking quickly to get his eyes to see through the dark. Yorek never put on lights in his shack, since he clearly didn’t need candles. It made no difference to him wether the room was dark or not, so he was happy to just sit in a far dark corner, wrapped in his furs and blankets and let his guests bump into half a dozen things until they reached him. If it weren’t for the fact that everything else about Yorek put him on edge, it might even seem very funny to Rickon.
“What would you like to ask me today?” Yorek asked him as soon as he’d taken a seat before him. The furniture was carved out of rocks. Everything was the wrong way around here.
“I want to ask about my siblings,” he began, burying one hand in Shaggy’s fur, feeling his friend’s warmth soothe him a tiny bit. “How’s Bran? Where is he?”
“Who’s to say where a raven will choose to fly? All we can do is hope its wings don’t freeze in place, but they will if it perches in one place for too long,” was the raspy answer.
It was always like this. Yorek never gave a straight answer. He wasn’t the only Greenseer on the island and he wasn’t the only one that spoke in riddles, but all the ones that gave proper answers saw less and lived too far away.
Rickon took a deep breath, reaching up to run his other hand over the little braids that had been made in his long hair. There were beads in it, of different colours, though the black obsidian ones were the most common. They made a very strong contrast with his red hair. Somehow his hair had grown slightly darker over the last year, going from cheerful Tully red to dark bloody weirwood red. He didn’t want to think about why that was, so he hadn’t asked about it.
“Is he all right, though?” he pressed.
“He is alive,” Yorek answered him, as if he should be content with hearing just that. Maybe he should.
“What about my sisters?”
“Which one? The one with two faces or the other? The one with too many, yet none at all.” Yorek laughed. “Can you guess which is which, little Prince?”
“No.” He wouldn’t even try to puzzle it out. It was always a waste of time, when it came to this man. “Where are they?”
“I cannot tell you. The gods do not want you to know, yet.”
Rickon grit his teeth, anger churning in his belly. He felt his teeth get longer and somewhere in the back of his mind he knew they weren’t really his teeth. They were Shaggy’s, and the direwolf now had a deep rumbling in his chest. A warning. These answers were going to get Yorek very hurt one of these days, and Rickon couldn’t find it in himself to be upset about that. Not right now.
“What do you know of the gods?” He snapped at the man, forcing himself to lash out with human words rather than with animal actions. “You couldn’t even understand a simple storm.”
He could remember that in Winterfell shocked silence would always follow such blunt proclamations. But here there was no silence and Yorek was definitely not shocked, not that the man was speaking. The growling from Shaggy had become really loud, making Rickon tremble with the echo of it, and the wind had suddenly picked up immensely, making the decorations around and inside the shack rattle against the wooden walls. Were those the gods? Chastising him for saying something cruel? Or for doubting their spokesman? He refused to acknowledge that he’d lately gone from calling them ‘the old gods’ and started referring to them as just ‘the gods’. As if they were the only ones, ignoring the mere existence of his mother’s seven gods.
“Fine,” Rickon allowed, settling down again and clenching his fingers in Shaggy’s fur. “What about Jon?”
“Who?” Yorek’s false ignorance was not to be believed. He’d spoken to Rickon about Jon before. He’d told him about Jon being somehow touched by fire and the fire not being able to burn him but also that it had left a scar that would never vanish. It had been very confusing.
“My brother Jon,” Rickon insisted with clenched teeth. In truth, he didn’t remember much about Jon. Mother hadn’t liked him because he was a bastard and since Rickon had been so small, he’d spent most of time with her. Away from Jon. He could recall the face, but barely. He thought he could, at least.
“You have no brother Jon.”
Rickon’s eyebrows pulled down in a frown and Shaggy’s growling picked up again. Yorek, to his credit, did not even flinch. Even if it was dangerous. Even if Rickon was clenching and unclenching his hands, feeling like his teeth were too big for his mouth and his nails were far longer and sharper than they really were. This was what Greta warned him about. Forgetting was was truly there, what was truly his, and what was Shaggy. Yorek should have flinched. It was only common sense to be afraid of a warg that did not have full control of himself. Let alone one whose familiar was an almost fully grown direwolf.
“My half-brother, Jon,” Rickon amended. With difficulty. Speaking around the fangs that weren’t really there was hard.
“You have no half-brother, Jon,” came the answer, and Shaggy pounced.
“Rickon!”
“Shaggy!” Rickon, snapped back to himself by Osha’s sudden entrance, managed to recall Shaggydog before his teeth grazed Yorek’s neck. His eyes snapped open to find the huge black beast standing on top of the Greenseer, head turned back to stare at the woman with green eyes that shone through the dark. Yorek was wheezing, clearly bruised from the fall and the heavy weight on top of him, but in between the laboured breaths Rickon could make out weak laughter. It made him grit his teeth once more, though Osha’s hands on his shoulders kept him grounded now. Her grip was strong enough to bruise but he didn’t mind.
“Go outside, both of you,” she ordered, practically hauling him out of his seat. “And don’t wander off.”
Rickon didn’t protest, calling Shaggy to him and refusing to look down at Yorek. He’d brought this on himself, and from the looks of it, the man had known how this would turn out since before Rickon had even come in. He would never understand Greenseers, he thought, and he would never understand how Greenseeing truly worked. Maybe it changed from person to person, like people’s minds changed. He didn’t ask because Yorek wouldn’t answer. That much he knew.
The air outside was possibly even colder than it had been before, making him pull the fur on his shoulders tighter around himself as he walked off to the side of the shack. The leather of his boots was worn and scratched and would probably rip soon. He could feel the cold air biting his toes. If they got cold enough he would stop feeling them, Osha said they could even break off. He didn’t know what that would look like but he knew he didn’t want to find out. Moving was a good way to stay warm, so he walked around the small area that surrounded the hut.
There was a path that headed further up the side of the mountain and a path that headed down, but he’d been told to stay put and he didn’t want to risk his guardian getting any angrier. So he stood by the edge of the cliff, toes almost peeking out into the empty air. He wouldn’t fall though, even if his balance had been bad enough to topple over Shaggy would have saved him. Shaggy hadn’t left his side since he’d been given to Rickon, not willingly at least. The hulking black direwolf now sat next to him, head at the same hight as Rickon’s own, echoing everything he felt.
Rickon’s heart was still beating wildly and he had to dig one hand into his familiar’s fur and tangle the other in his own hair to remind himself that they were separate beings. Losing control so thoroughly always left his hackles raised for far too long. Too long to feel comfortable or safe or for him to understand how Osha could possibly not feel threatened enough to leave him to himself. It was a deep, savage anger that lived in his chest, hollowing it out until only that remained, and it would stay there no matter how hard he -or anyone else- tried to coax it out. The only thing that could quench it even for a second was violence, lashing out, and that made him angrier. Hurting people was bad, he’d been taught that by his family, as far as he could remember.
“Stop staring off into nothing and get away from there!” Osha snapped at him, standing by the path that led downwards. “We’re going back to Kingshouse. You’re going to be late for the sacrifice.”
Then she stomped off, leaving him to hurry after her over the uneven ground. It wasn’t a long walk back to the town, but it went through caves and along narrow paths in the mountains. Falling was easy and dying was common, particularly when one was in a hurry. There was no choice now, though. It wouldn’t do for him to be late, Lord Magnar would be disappointed and Rickon didn’t want that to happen. The man had done much for him already, never asking for anything in return except that he try to become… a true northerner. That started with the gods.
Unlike the southern gods, the seven, the old gods were much less involved. They never gave orders, never laid out clear rules or demands, rarely intervened. There were no septons or septas, chants or hymns, septs or symbols. All they had were the weirwood trees. The wargs and the greenseers didn’t hold any authority over what the gods wanted or what the people did for them, they rarely even understood what they were shown or the abilities they were given. What was certain, however, was that they watched through the trees’ eyes. If one wanted to talk to them, one talked to the tree. Maybe they would pay attention to you, maybe they might answer, maybe the words would fade into nothing.
In desperate times like these, however, the gods needed to be shown just how badly the people needed intervention. All service required payment and with the gods it was no different. What the people offered had to be valuable enough to warrant help with whatever they needed, sometimes that was as simple as livestock or crops, sometimes it was people. Nothing was more valuable than a human life. When everything was said and done, all a person had in this world was their flesh and blood and innards. To the Skagosi, giving one’s life as a sacrifice was no less terrible than going to battle. Sometimes it was better because most men didn’t have a choice about who to fight for and what for and when. When these men sacrificed themselves, it was their choice. Payment not willingly given was theft, after all, and if normal folk didn’t appreciate stolen payment, why would the gods?
Sometimes he wondered what his family would think of him. He was not what they would want him to be. He’d been taught what precious little house Magnar knew about the mainland but that was next to nothing. The houses he was to rule over were almost completely unknown to him. He couldn’t read or write yet, he spoke the old tongue better than the common tongue, he was a warg, and as of a few months ago he’d started taking part in human sacrifices. Rickon doubted they would like it, or understand it, or even try to. He didn’t remember almost anything about any of them, other than Bran, but he knew that much.
“Oi, stop daydreaming!” Osha pulled him to the side roughly to stop him from stepping into a hole in the ground. “You’re in enough danger as it is without getting yourself hurt! That goes for killing Lord Magnar’s favourite Greenseer as well. Y’can’t go around hurting people, you’ll make them hate you even more.”
Rickon nodded but refrained from commenting. It wasn’t that the people hated him, not really. He had come bearing news that made all their worst fears come true and dragging them into wars they had no real business in. As if that hadn’t been enough, he held a title that claimed superiority over them. He came from people that had looked down on them for as long as they could remember, his family had forced them to their knees twice, and his mother was a southerner. Things were getting better, what with his willingness to learn about his warging abilities and about the Skagosi way of life. Having picked up the language pretty quickly also helped in smoothing ruffled feathers.
It was Lord Stane that had the most misgivings about him, even Rickon at six years of age could see that. Driftwood Hall was further south than Kingshouse, on the shore. They made their living off fishing and trading with the northern mainland. His people dealt with non-Skagosi northerners the most and therefore also had to deal with their dislike directly. To be able to trade and make a living they had to grit their teeth and bear being mistreated nearly every day. Rickon understood, through Shaggy, what instinct was, and he thought that it might just be the instinct of southern Skagosi to dislike whatever came from off the island.
Maybe it was fortunate that Lord Stane wouldn’t be at the sacrifice tonight, he always made Rickon nervous. Or maybe it was unfortunate, as seeing Rickon take an active part in the sacrifice -he had to cut the man’s jugular, he had to kill him- might make Lord Stane think him less of a stranger. It might make him seem more worthy of the title ‘Prince in the North’ in the eyes of the daunting one-eyed Lord. It was Yerik’s idea, Lord Magnar’s second son. He was Robb’s age, or rather, the age Robb had been when he’d left Winterfell, it seemed to him.
Rickon had been helping in the slaughterhouses ever since. The first couple of days he’d been too sick to eat anything other than the few vegetables that the rocky island could provide and even now he still had to wash himself thrice before his hands stopped feeling slick with blood. He kept going, though. After all, if he couldn’t kill a sheep, how could he hope to kill a man? If he couldn’t kill a man, how could he ever persuade anyone to help him get his home back?
He had to keep thinking about that, never forgive and never let go, otherwise he might just forget about revenge for his family. He’d forgotten so much about them already that it would be too easy to let them fade alway altogether and just start calling Kingshouse home. The idea was very tempting. He was taken care of, here, respected. He could grow up to be a great warrior -strong with a direwolf by his side- for a great family. All he had to do was forget all the pain and anguish that had been brought to his own blood. He couldn’t do that, he would rather give his own intestines to the gods than let that go.
“Nervous about tonight?” Osha asked him, suddenly sounding much less angry than she’d been before.
Maybe if he told her he was unspeakably nervous she would attribute his not-unusual angry outburst to that, this time.
“A bit,” he told her truthfully. True northerners, Lord Magnar had told him, didn’t lie. Not even when it suited them. “But I can do it. By myself, without Shaggy. I can do it.”
It wasn’t as if he had much of a choice; he had to show the people of Skagos -or at least of Kingshouse- that he was deserving of his title. If a man was brave enough to sacrifice himself for their safety, as their Prince he had to do his part. Human princes -human, not direwolves, human like him- cut through the sacrifice’s jugular so he could peacefully bleed out. They didn’t rip through the man’s throat with their fangs. That meant that he had to do it alone, and he had to be in control of himself.
He could do this. He had to do this.
The torches had been burning for a long while, filling the open air with the hazy smell of hawthorne and passionflower. The night was cold, so high up in the mountains, but the weirwood tree had not lost a single leaf and the bare ground was only covered here and there by a pile of ashes and the moving shadows of the flickering fire. The spectators, standing in a wide circle around the tree, had been standing there -waiting- until their feet were numb and their heads heavy.
Dozens upon dozens of men, women, and children had come up tonight, leaving Kingshouse deserted for the hours the sacrifice would take. The crowd reached far into the caverns and passages that led through the rock, a mass of dirty browns and greys that would’ve faded into their surroundings if it hadn’t been for their pale faces. Looking up to the tree’s branches, they could see crows and ravens amassing between the red hand-like leaves. The creatures waited silently for the supper they seemed to know they would get. The gods must have called them, to watch, to listen, as if the face on the white bark hadn’t been enough.
Rickon swallowed, one hand seeking out Shaggy’s heartbeat through his thick winter coat and the other clenched tightly around an obsidian dagger that hung from his belt. His mouth was dry and his eyes could barely process anything of what was before him. Eluf, Lord Magnar’s oldest son, was muttering words into his ear, probably repeating the instructions he was to follow tonight. They’d gone through this countless times already, Rickon knew what he had to do.
He was about to tell the young man to stop talking when the crowd’s chatter suddenly died down. Looking over his shoulder, he saw that the crowd was beginning to part so that Leif -a merchant, he sold hair decorations in the square, he’d gifted Rickon with pretty feathers often enough- could walk forwards. Lady Magnar and her daughter, Iona, walked on each side of the man, each at least a whole head shorter than him. He didn’t seem scared or nervous, only pleasantly calm and slightly sleepy. Someone must have given him something for the burning herbs around them were barely strong enough to be felt after several hours.
The women led Leif to a large table before the tree and laid him down upon it. While Lady Magnar stood to the side, Iona took four carved bowls and handed them to her brothers as her mother spoke. Hella, for that was the Lady’s name, thanked Leif in behalf of house Magnar and Skagos and the North, thanked him for his bravery and selflessness and loyalty to the gods. They were pretty words, in the way the people of the island only spoke when it was of utmost importance. Even most formal events didn’t warrant such -as Lord Magnar would put it- frivolities.
Before Hella had finished talking, Iona passed by Rickon, squeezing his shoulder once, and went to stand beside her mother. He didn’t acknowledge it, he couldn’t right now, but rather busied himself with taking deep breaths of the sweet-scented air around him. The herbs worked best in teas or eaten dry, but the smoke was enough to take the worst of his nerves away. Or at least, to make him feel like he could stand without help.
Once silence reigned again, Lady and Lord Magnar’s sons went to kneel by the table, getting down on their knees in the hard ground. A new one had had to be made for this occasion because Rickon had been too short to reach the normal one. It came up to the middle of his chest, but it barely reached Eluf’s waist. The make was no less intricate, though, for all its smaller size. The groves under the man’s body were just as deep and smooth and would serve just as well to lead the blood to the bowls. It would be used to water the tree. All Rickon had to do tonight was set it all free.
As if in a daze, he started to move forward, leaving Shaggydog behind with Lord Magnar and absentmindedly listening to the man’s deep voice. His words were guttural and rough, like all the words in the Old Tongue, but they curled and flowed easily. He was asking the gods for their attention, for some aid, some intervention, some kindness. The people of Skagos would give them as many gifts as they required, for they would never ask for anything without offering payment in return.
That was Rickon’s queue, so with a surprisingly steady hand he drew the black blade from its sheath. The crystal was sharp, sharper than anything he’d ever held before, but far more fragile. That was another reason for why Leif had to be calm. If the muscles in his neck tightened around the blade they would break it. Obsidian blades were valuable, nowadays, and they could not lose a single one.
He placed a hand on the man’s cheek, feeling distinctly small in comparison, and looked into the brown eyes with a lump in his throat. Leif didn’t look scared now either, even with the blade mere inches from his neck. In fact, he was looking up at Rickon with a small smile on his face and encouragement in his eyes. It was all up to him now, so he took a deep, slow breath and looked down at the expanse of soft skin. There was a small patch between the windpipe and one of the muscles which was where he had to cut. Once on each side, so it would go more quickly.
Rickon let out a breath he seemed to have been holding before slowly but surely pushing the dagger twice, carefully trying to avoid causing Leif any pain. Blood started to shoot up into the air so, as Eluf had told him, he sheathed the blade quickly and reached forwards with both hands to cup the wounds. The purpose was not to stop the bleeding, but rather to make sure that the blood went where it was supposed to. The heat of it was not something he had been prepared for, no matter how many hours he’d helped at the slaughter house. It felt as if his skin might melt off, but that was probably his imagination.
It felt eternal, the drumming of Lord Magnar’s words, the slick dripping between his fingers, the exhaustion creeping up his spine, the smoke that entered his lungs and filled his head. But then he looked down between his arms and saw that Leif’s eyes were empty and the flow of blood had slowed down to the point where his fingers were starting to dry together. The sons of house Magnar were wiping their hands over the table and through the groves, guiding the last stray drops into their bowls.
Behind him, the tall figure of Lady Magnar walked forwards, holding him still by one shoulder as she passed two fingers over the table. Cupping his face gently, she drew tears on his face, identical to the ones on the tree, before giving him a little push backwards and taking his place. Now she had to wait for Lord Magnar to cut the body open so she -and Iona- could receive Leif’s innards. They had to be draped through the lowest branches and left for the carrion birds to feast on.
That was not for Rickon to see, however, as he walked towards the red face and stood before it, with his back to the crowd and the Lord and the corpse. All he had to do was stand there and wait for it all to be over, stand and stare into the blank eyes on the white wood. It was like a mirror, in the way that his hair was the same colour as the leaves and there were bloody tears on skin so pale from the cold that he might look dead. The thin shirt on his back had done nothing to keep out the chill but he hadn’t felt it in a long while anyway.
He didn’t know how long he stood there. The world around him felt thick and unreal and he felt numb and drowsy. Maybe everything was real but he wasn’t, maybe it was the other way around. There was no way to tell, he couldn’t look around or at himself, he could only look into the carved eyes. They weren’t real eyes, they didn’t belong to a person or an animal, but in that moment it seemed like they saw him much more clearly than anyone else. Only that which wasn’t real could see someone who wasn’t real either, it seemed to him.
Suddenly his ears popped, like they did when he came down from the mountains, and he blinked. A deep breath followed, feeling the bitingly cold air clearing his lungs. Suddenly everything seemed like a dream, something impossible to remember, something not worth remembering, and though his cheeks were stiff with dried blood and his ears felt as if they were filled with water, he felt calmer than he had been in a long time.
Everything was silent now and heat was radiating from a looming figure beside him. When he turned his head, Shaggy’s rough tongue began to wipe the stickiness from his face. He could practically taste the metallic flavour on his own tongue but it didn’t make him gag. The knowledge that he and Shaggy were still one, even after fading away, was more reassuring than he could say and he felt himself stepping forwards against the black fur. Turning his face from the warm mass, the smell of dust and grass and home surrounding him once more, he saw that the face on the weirwood tree had changed. He couldn’t say exactly how, for there seemed to be no visible difference. He just had the feeling that it had.
“Prince Rickon, we must go now.” Lord Magnar spoke somewhere behind him, making him turn around to look.
Osha and the whole of house Magnar stood there, waiting for him in the now empty clearing under the dripping guts. They were pale and shivering and bloodied, but they were there. They had waited for him through the night until the sun had come up again and he’d come back to them. Where exactly he’d been he couldn’t say, but he knew he’d gone away. How he knew that, or how they knew that, was a mystery to him.
They must be tired, the correct thing to do was to go back with them now, back to the keep in Kingshouse. He didn’t want to go, something here felt right now, something felt familiar, but he knew that he couldn’t stay any longer. Thus, he nodded and cast a final glance at the tree before walking away.