NOVEL NEXT Chapter 21: A Very Petty Winter
Mid 273 Winter
"What are you doing?" Alysa shouted as she found me performing my morning ritual for when I'm at home.
"Trying to be a bear." I answered and continued crawling around on the floor naked under the massive white snow bear pelt.
"What? Why?" she cried out as our daughter on her hips started crying.
"All this magic that's happened to me in the last year. I deserve to be able to transform into a four thousand pound snow bear." I told her then growled a bit while pretending to claw at the floor.
"You've lost your mind." Alysa accused and I got up off the ground and stood up straight, crossing my arms thick over my barrel chest.
"A man does not have to lose his mind to want to transform into a gigantic bear." I declared and just like that the argument was won.
Not because I'd managed to use my words to win her over, but more due to the fact that by nineteen years old my supernatural hormone profile had done its best attempt at magically transforming me into a man shaped warhorse. And I'm not making some kind of crude joke about simple minded females who are overwhelmed by the sight of my awesome penis, there is a solid three to four seconds when I see myself naked where my mind repeats, 'that's photoshopped' over and over until my brain meat can finally understand that it's flesh temple can body shame the statue of Heracles.
As such I blame no one when they need some time to collect themselves after seeing me in the nude, and I am happy to weaponize my appearance to make a point seem more impactful. I quickly made tracks before Alysa.exe rebooted, granting me the last word and thus the moral victory. As I got ready for the day I considered the last year.
I'd worked my sailors and ships hard after my magical walk about delayed our schedules and the rapidly shifting season of fall to winter put the fear of the Others into me. Fall only lasted half a year, making us all afraid that the coming winter would be unusually cold and harsh. This was not the case. The weather remained quite warm, comparatively speaking, and the Bay of Ice only froze along the northern shoreline.
Despite the warmth, production suffered heavily from the regular freeze thaw cycle as night and day shifted back and forth, creating very icy conditions making overland travel quite the hassle. During the warm seasons, my ship yards reached a production rate of three seventy oar oak longships a year, but winter had us down to just one, and accidents and injuries were far more frequent. This contraction occurs across the board in the industries of Far Harbor, and my sailors were fearful of leaving port due to the high frequency of winter storms battering the island and coast.
With so much slowdown and available workers I did the only sensible thing and began a complete renovation of Mormont Keep. I live in a hole in the ground primarily because of how much I hated growing up in Mormont Keep, but after nearly a decade away I came to realize that I only hated the keep with half my heart. The other half hated living in the same building as Maege.
As such, I chose to take revenge on her by invading her home with a three hundred man work force looking to level up their spackling game during the most uncomfortable season to be outside. Despite spending most of her time training with men, Maege only tolerates the gruffer sex for what they can do for her. This tolerance doesn't last long when she feels that men are imposing on her, and also doesn't extend to boys. So to further punish Maege during this winter season I extended invitations to one hundred boys, the sons of the men who served me best on my ships and on campaign, and offered to train them along side my own sons daily at the Mormont Keep training yard for the entire winter.
Checkmate, you cantankerous harridan.
The boys she beat in the yard each day to relieve her frustrations didn't feel it, but this is victory. Petty victory.
I made it up to them by teaching them to ride horses. The boys worked with my well tempered garrons, the staple horse of the more rugged and mountainous regions of the North, while I worked with the largest destriers I could find in Old Town. They hated the cold weather, but needed the exercise.
One day I hoped to breed the perfect horse for me, but in my first attempt at the noble art of horse breeding I wound up creating more beasts fit for the butcher's block than worth living to attempt the next generation. Still, a handful of yearlings were showing promise, specifically the mix of Ryswell Courser stallion to Reach Draft Horse mare. About a third of those yearlings were showing good size, cardio, and cold resistance. We'd see in the future if any of this pays off, but for now I can simply enjoy sending my small folk to wrangle my horny horses. It's the kind of amusing pastime that is also befitting my station in life, so it's really a two birds one stone kind of thing.
Plus I get to eat the failures, and horse meat is pretty good, making it three birds.
Speaking of three birds, I'd gone on many trips into the wilderness this winter, not to slay bears, but to tempt the wildlife into my service. With my developing skin changing powers, I needed to build up my roster of animal companions. Dogs and horses are beyond easy, and incredibly useful, but I wanted some avian friends and struck gold in a hungry breeding pair of golden eagles. I tempted them with fresh kills over the course of several weeks, and as they built that expectation of food from the sight of me they opened themselves up to be snared by my magic. They paired well with the eagle owl I got by throwing mice and rats into the snow at night.
My birds were gorgeous and gave me incredible eyes in the sky day or night. And the bird became a mainstay attraction at Mormont Keep as I moved their nests into save nooks upon the huge building. The boys I trained love looking at them during break periods. The boys focused on weapon drills and wrestling, the latter of which is the far harder training as my the memories of my own abusive training in Pittsburgh were burnt into my mind, and I had no problem passing down that intense passion for grappling to the next generation.
When not inflicting mental damage on preteens I work on myself. My own training with my horses starts with me shouting, 'Boy!' at Ulfric and getting him to help me into my jousting armor. I favored the heavier set of the two I ordered, a full Stechzeug tournament set with a broad crested shoulder shield pauldron, lacquered helmet to sabatons dark green and enameled with images of bears mauling and sodomizing Ironborn and Wildings. Crowned with a crest of gold and wax preserved weirwood leaves. It was armor, it was fashion, it was philosophy. Artistic and tasteful, even if in bad taste. A perfect suit that made a statement, 'Hello, my name is Jorah, and you will get down or lay down.'
The frogmouth helmet cut off a great deal of vision, but it didn't matter after I mounted my horse and felt myself slipping into its skin, taking control of the both of us to move as one single unit. Before my encounter with the Three Eyed Crow my horsemanship was very mid, but the powerful skin changing magic demanding expression quickly linked me to the horses I frequently rode and cared for.
The involuntary use of this power thrust my consciousness into contact with Bloodraven's, or at least what was left of Bloodraven. At first I thought the man playing sly with the fragmentary and fading nature of the imprint within the skin changing magic, but as time progressed and Bloodraven never rallied to possess me despite the fading away of his spirit, I became more comfortable using what he'd given me.
Along with the magic came memories of Bloodraven's life and his feelings, all of this was as stated fragmented and fading, and I believe this to be due to the nature of his imprisonment. One night of directly feeling the pain I inflicted onto others was enough to drive me into a delirious state of rage. Bloodraven has experienced over a hundred years of roots desiccating his body and forcing him to live as they tunnel through his flesh. He lives in darkness and pain constantly.
I only found a few useful memories as the vast majority of the imprint is Bloodraven's relationship with Shiera Seastar, their most intimate moments rather than their pursuits of sorcery. Bloodraven barely clung to any of his memories of skinchanging and other magics, letting them fade far faster than his more emotional remembrances, so I only got about half the cliff notes version of his abilities rather than a full text, but he remembered vividly killing Daemon Blackfyre with his longbow and his duels with Bittersteel. My skill as an archer greatly increased after I lived Bloodraven's remembrance of the Battle of Redgrass.
Now a year later, it was hard for me to find even the memory of Bloodraven nailing the Seastar for the first time, his most preciously held by far. I choose to believe the man is just so stealthy that he can hide himself in my soul perfectly and has faked his spiritual demise. It's safer that way even if it doesn't feel likely.
I didn't get the automatic boost to Thousand and Two Eyes, but can now put seven shafts into a man at three hundred yards. Farther even considering the construction of my bow is heavier than that used by Bloodraven. It's pretty awesome to spend some sit down time meditating one day and get back up the best archer in the North. I finally have the skill to match my horn and weirwood longbow. Good thing I have so many enemies. It'd be a shame to just use them to ring the register at archery competitions
With skinchanging, I could run my jousting drills while standing on my saddle and singing, my equestrian talents jumping straight to supernatural. I trained each day just to burn the reps into my body, transitioning from instinct and talent into well practiced experience. I just couldn't wait for the chance to get out on the tournament scene, I knew with my strength, speed, and skill I'd be cleaning house in jousts, melees, and archery contests. A medieval triple crown athlete.
That excitement is why winter lasting three years hurt my soul.
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Up next is the tournament people have been waiting for. I'll do each event, and we'll see if I have the attention to detail to pull it off. I was fairly bothered by the weapons used in the melee for HotD. You can't make a flail safe, the same way you cant make a mace or hammer safe, for tournament use. Tournaments are supposed to be sporting events. So are melees in Planetos just blood sport were people are expected to pull their punches, but murder is just boys being boys?
I'll let you decide all decide.
You can support me and my family at
ko - fi . com / jmanm