UPCOMING WESTEROS FEUILLETON!

The Seven Tales of Septa Poppine, my latest project, will be a retelling of the Haft Paykar IN WESTEROS! A stories-within-a-story fiction laced with allusions, intrigue, romance, adventure, tragedy, and even comedy... A Night's Watch officer hellbent on, rather than performing his duty, exploring lands bereft of life and seeing White Walkers. A Dornish princess in love with her Lysene cupbearer, who is involved against his will in a poisoning plot. A maester and a courtier vying for the affection of the same maiden, their mutual childhood friend, as they debate on whether science or religion is more reliable. A clever princess of Tarth who will not yield her independence or that of her island kingdom without a battle of wits. An Ironborn warrior weary of injustice, who sets sail westward into the great unknown, in pursuit of the magic spot where discord never has entered. A young bastard betrayed by his trueborn stepbrother and saved by a quick-to-act bandit maiden. Lastly, a couple of lovers who try to have some intimacy in a godswood full of Frey girls are thwarted, time after time, by the flora and fauna of the place... Does any of the stories sound interesting?

It will take, as a frame story, the Lannister children (Cersei, Jaime, and Tyrion) getting a new septa, an absurdly youthful and rather eccentric one, who will change their lives by telling them stories during the course of a week, while their father is away in King's Landing tending to affairs of state. On the days leading up to the twins' seventh name day, the septa will give the three siblings a new story every day. Stories that will introduce the children to the climates and cultures of Westeros, while simultaneously telling them love stories, adventures, and sometimes tragedies, but also funny stories and happy ever afters.

Of course Septa Poppine will leave no one indifferent!

The story arose from a plot bunny I had last week, and feature, aside from Septa Poppine, many more of my Westeros original characters.

Here is the list of the tales, in order, and the characters that will be in them:

• The Crow who Flew too Far: A Tale of the North (Ser Kyle Liddle x Night's Queen)
• The Secrets of the Golden Halls: A Tale of Dorne (Princess Nymeria Nymeros Martell x an unnamed Lysene youth, serving as cupbearer at the Water Gardens)
• The Suitors of the Rose Bride: A Tale of the Reach (Maester Willas Fossoway [maester, green apple] vs Ser Loras Fossoway [courtier, red apple] over Mallorie Meadows [x Lord Paxter Tyrell, whose sister Selyse marries Loras])
• The Princess of the Evening Isle: A Tale of the Stormlands (Princess Elysenne of Tarth x King Renly Durrandon)
• The Marvels of Uncharted Tides: A Tale of the Iron Islands (Ser Sedrik Harlaw x troll queen)
• The Good Bastard and the Wicked Lordling: A Tale of the Vale of Arryn (Waymar Stone x Princess Anya Arryn, Ser Byron Hardyng x Mya Daughter of Conn, leader of the Burned Men)
• The Courtship in the Godswood: A Tale of the Riverlands (Lord Edmund Tully x Lady Lysa Frey)

What do you say? There will be references to the Princess Bride, the MoV, MSND, and other works of Shakespeare, Cinderella, the Snow Queen, and other fairytales, history (a character will be the fantasy counterpart of Queen Christina of Sweden [combined with the clever princess in The Snow Queen], while others will be based upon Lizzie Bennett, Odysseus, Rasputin, Cinderella and the rest of the cast in that tale...!), and so on.

I will, like Nathaniel Hawthorne in his myth retellings, put chapters on what happens in the Lannister frame tale before and after the stories are told. The structure of the project will thus follow this scheme:

• A Moonless Night: Before the Story
• The Crow that Flew too Far: A Tale of the North
• A Moonless Night: After the Story
• A Blazing Day: Before the Story
• The Secrets of the Golden Halls: A Tale of Dorne 
• A Blazing Day: After the Story
• A Moonlit Godswood Afternoon: Before the Story 
• The Suitors of the Rose Bride: A Tale of the Reach
• A Moonlit Godswood Afternoon: After the Story 
• A Stormy Evening: Before the Story
• The Princess of the Evening Isle: A Tale of the Stormlands
• A Stormy Evening: After the Story
• A Misty Morn on the Shore: Before the Story
• The Marvels of Uncharted Tides: A Tale of the Iron Islands
• A Misty Morn on the Shore: After the Story
• An Afternoon at the Table: Before the Story
• The Good Bastard and the Wicked Lordling: A Tale of the Vale of Arryn
• An Afternoon at the Table: After the Story
• A Bright Day of Celebration: Before the Story
• The Courtship in the Godswood: A Tale of the Riverlands 
• A Bright Day of Celebration: After the Story

Are you excited to find out more about the stories?