It was a moonless autumn midnight, and six days from the twins' seventh name day.
Thousands of stars twinkled in the night sky above, and every now and then one of them fell, leaving a trail of silver mist in the vast, black infinity.
They slept in separate canopy beds, dressed in warm ruby-coloured velvet night shifts, thickly embroidered with golden thread like their silk bed-curtains. But neither of them could sleep that night, worried as they were.
Through the narrow gap in his bed-curtains, Jaime Lannister looked out towards the window and counted the shooting stars to himself. It didn't help at all: he was only weary, but still half-awake. Suddenly, he was startled when he heard footsteps, followed by someone pushing the bed-curtains back. He turned his head round to the other side and saw, in the half-light of the stars, his sister peeking in, her little fair face framed in golden hair.
"Cersei! You've scared the wits out of me!"
"I can't sleep on my own. May I come in to you?"
"You're always welcome. I can't sleep either, in spite of having the view of the window and shooting stars falling outside all the time."
Little Jaime gave his sister a place beside him and drew the bed-curtains, as Cersei made herself comfortable. They were warm and cozy together, stroking their soft covers.
The Lannister twins would have fallen fast asleep if they hadn't been startled by a gentle knock at the door. This time, Cersei pushed the bed-curtains back in a panic, to get surprised by the appearance of a young lady with a three-armed golden candlestick in her left hand. She was dressed like a blue septa, but she was the youngest and most beautiful septa she had ever seen, with a wisp of unruly auburn hair peeking out through her veil and the seven-pointed star crystal pendant on her chest swinging to and fro. Cersei remembered that their former septa had recently taken up another employment at a minor holdfast, which made her sigh in relief. Old Septa Rhianne had always been a tiresome, monotonous tutor, with no sense of humour. However, when she came near the children's lord father, they often spoke closely and seemed pleased with each other. That had annoyed Cersei as much as the septa's lessons being tiresome.
Yet there were more questions to be answered. For instance: why would she ever have entered their bedchamber at Casterly Rock so late at night? And why was this septa so young and cheerful? The young girl could find no answer.
She shook her brother's shoulders and called:
"Wake up! There's a strange septa out there!"
Instantly, Jaime woke up and stroked his now tangled golden hair. There was a strange septa in the room, and they were not dreaming at all.
"Good night, my children!", she said in a cheerful tone. "You must be Cersei and Jaime Lannister, am I wrong?"
"I'm Cersei, and this lad here is Jaime... But why would a septa like you show up so late at night?"
"Septa Poppine, if you don't mind", she kindly introduced herself. "I beg your pardon if I have scared you. In fact, your little brother was wide awake, reading in the library, when I came here not long ago."
"Ah... Tyrion is one of those who will never change", Jaime replied with a hint of sarcasm.
Then, a third child appeared from behind the septa's skirt. It was another boy, four or five years old, with hair like platinum instead of gold, and crooked legs. His right eye was black and shiny like an onyx bead, while the left one was as bright and green as those of his older siblings.
"Speak of the imp...", Cersei nudged Jaime. They could tell Tyrion apart in a crowd, given his most unusual features.
"At least he is fond of reading, I can see", Septa Poppine cheerfully said, as she left the candlestick on the table.
"Reading is for weaklings, who don't have the strength to fight", Jaime Lannister stood up and looked defiant.
"Well, I respect your opinion, but you will soon learn that everyone has their strengths, even those you call weaklings", the septa said, as she stroked his golden hair.
"So we've got a new septa", Tyrion told his siblings. "She scared the wits out of me as well. Right when the dragons were going to burn Harrenhal, I heard her voice and shut the history book."
"So why would I have scared you three? It was not my intention, and I'm telling you the truth. I was just trying to surprise you... for is there a child who doesn't like surprises?"
"If that's the case," all three replied, "you've surprised us to the core."
"Anyway, let's make ourselves cozy... If you can't sleep, could you with a story before?"
Septa Rhianne had never told them any stories. That made her tiresome as well. Their mother, however, the late Lady Joanna, had usually sat between the twins' beds at dusk and told them stories, but those evenings of yore would never return.
"A story, please!", three children's voices enlivened the bedchamber.
"Sounds like you haven't been told stories for a while", the septa replied, with a look of concern in her bright hazel eyes. "And two of you would rather listen to stories than read them on your own..."
She turned her face towards a portrait on the bedchamber wall, which Cersei and her twin were looking at: a beautiful young couple, a clean shaven lord and a tall lady, both with golden hair and emerald eyes, and she held twin infants, both equally lovely, fair-haired, and green-eyed, up in her arms.
"Are these lovely people your parents?", the young septa asked, now with an even more heartfelt look of concern. "Where are they?"
"Three days ago, Father left for King's Landing", Cersei honestly said.
"That holdfast on top of that hill?", Septa Poppine said with a hint of irony and a little giggle. "That's right across the realm, you know! For which reason?"
"He said he had duties to attend to at court", the young girl replied.
"Then, it must be some very important duties to attend to. And your mother? Is she around here? I have been looking for her for a while."
Upon hearing these words, Cersei burst into tears, and Jaime held up a handkerchief for her to dry up those tears. Tyrion hid behind the septa's skirt. All three looked brokenhearted. It was Jaime, the young heir, who spoke at last:
"She went away, and will never return."
The septa herself, looking quite sorrowful, dried up a few tears and embraced all three Lannister siblings, as she addressed them warmly and full of love:
"I'm sorry if I hurt you, for it must be so sad that you have completely lost your good cheer. I never knew my parents myself: they left me in a basket at a septry door across the Westerlands, shortly after I was born I don't know where."
They embraced for a while, and the young septa kept on drying up their tears and warming their hearts.
"And you, left on your own with all those retainers, could have been orphans or foundlings as well... I will never have children myself, sworn to the Gods as I am, but at least my employment as a governess septa lets me share many a warm moment with them. So I've been all over Westeros, tending to the children of lords and those of landowners, gleaning stories from every land where I've spent part of my life."
"Love stories?", Cersei asked, excited.
"Stories with quests or battles in them?", Jaime had sparkles in his green eyes.
"Clever stories, riddles, dragons?", the odd-eyed Tyrion had also given a request.
"Everything you've ever wanted and more!" Septa Poppine reassured them. "And, as we listen to the stories, you shall know more about the various lands and the history of Westeros. For these are true stories, that happened in real life at various points in the past."
"Then, why not tell us one already?"
"Right now", the septa said, as she looked out the window into the dark night sky. "A dark story from the distant North. Are you afraid of the White Walkers?"
Both boys rose up and looked at her defiantly. Even Cersei stood up and waved an imaginary sword.
"I'm glad you're not afraid, for what happens in this story has scared some usually well-behaved children."
Then, all four formed a circle, or rather a square, with Tyrion opposite Septa Poppine, Jaime and Cersei on either side, snuggled up in their covers.
The young septa cleared her throat, and, by the faint light of three candles, she began to tell the children a tale...
The Crow who Flew too Far: A Tale of the North
In the far North, where the woods are thick and the air is cold, in a middling wooden holdfast in the highlands beyond the wolfswood, a dark-haired lady was blessed with a healthy heir not long ago. The same evening, she held her most precious treasure before the weirwood that grew in the fort's little godswood, for the clan still believed in the old gods of the woods. And there, in the presence of a little red squirrel, a nestful of robins, and the smiling face once carved into the weirwood's white bark, the so far only son was given the name of Kyle.
As the years went by, the heir became a curious and cheerful boy, who loved climbing up the walls and the treetops of the godswood to feed the songbirds and the squirrels from pockets full of breadcrumbs. The animal and plant life around Kyle fascinated him, and he would rather have robins than his own three older sisters for playmates. In due time, however, when he had reached his sixth or seventh name-day, he turned from pets to wooden swords, riding his silver pony and sparring with freeriders or with the Night's Watchmen who appeared at the fort time after time.
The Liddle holdfast was and is a certain distance from Winterfell, and, from time to time, the appearance of Night's Watchmen, known as "crows" for the colour of their uniforms, enlivened the routine of everyday life for the children of the modest Northern household, where the lack of pastimes makes every day appear tiresome (especially to southron children). The crows often came to shelter from a snowstorm, or to have a rest on their way to the redoubtably long and high Wall of ice that still shields the realm from wildlings, direwolves, and other threats. Wandering crows came with ragged southron lads to become part of the garrisons of the Watch, and sometimes with southron commodities, rarities like ornate books or warm Reach wine, to give away to their generous hosts.
Officers on leave would also arrive, these southward instead of northward, to visit their loved ones for a while. And thus, by the crackling fireside, while looking at the dance of the warm orange flames, a growing Kyle Liddle heard, from veteran recruiters and young officers alike, stories of the harsh and strange world beyond the Wall: direwolves the size of his own silver pony, wildling women who fought with spears, wights whose eerie blue eyes were more piercing than steel. And even great ice dragons that breathed frost instead of fire. And, of course, there were the mysterious White Walkers, led by the Night's Queen, as eerie as beautiful, and allegedly still alive.
Whenever a man in black was welcomed into the holdfast, Kyle would curiously listen to the stories that he had to tell, always paying attention, often missing his sparring lessons to rather lose himself in the accounts of the crows. And thus, slowly but steadily, an idea began to take shape inside him, filling him completely from within: he would one day, come what may, join the Night's Watch.
One stormy evening, the family had received a book from a wandering crow. It contained detailed, ornate maps of the entire realm of Westeros, from the southern coasts of Dorne to the lands beyond the Wall. And then, at the Frostfangs, the map came to an end. There was nothing, ostensibly. But, in Kyle's young mind, that place was full of ice spiders and ice dragons the size of the holdfast he called home. The riddle of the nothing in that part of the map attracted him more than any other sight in the realm. And that mystery had to be discovered someday... what if he were the one who revealed it?
When he joined the Watch, he thought, he would go beyond the Frostfangs, deep into the Lands of Always Winter, and chart them, describing their fauna in more detail. And then, the world would know what lurked or not in that hitherto uncharted frozen wasteland.
Kyle Liddle, with his dark brown hair and eyes the same colour, was a curious and stubborn soul since early childhood, but also as impatient as he was stubborn. Whenever he had an idea, he wanted it to come true as soon as possible. The same applied to his dream of joining the Night's Watch. Though his parents and sisters tried to dissuade him time after time, saying that his duty as an heir disagreed with the Watch's vow of chastity, Kyle didn't despair easily at all. And, when another sibling, a boy called Brandon after the regional hero, was added to the Liddle clan, the one who had hitherto been the heir saw his chance to leave the wooden holdfast and go forth in search of adventures after having taken the black.
In the end, Kyle's sixteenth name-day approached, and the mulled wine the wandering crow had brought from the Reach was warmed up and served to the children, as the lordling's health was drunk. The old recruiter himself had made an appearance, having become almost an honorary Liddle, and bringing a couple of southron youngsters who would have made love to the now two maidens of the household (the eldest had left for Last Hearth to marry an Umber) had not their lady mother, now widowed by a sudden snowstorm, intervened between her daughters and the recruits.
Kyle was now a slender and sprightly youth, no longer a child, eager to take on the great unknown. And, as he told his loving mother and the wandering crow of his dream, they shook their heads at first and tried to reason with him:
"Your place is here, not at the Wall or beyond it. There are things which someone of your early age and rank should never dare, and this is one of them!"
"Let Bran hold the lands and take himself a wife when he comes of age! I'm no longer a child, and I've always wished to see what there is beyond the Wall... Besides, I will be doing my duty to the Realm!", Kyle defiantly replied.
The next day, his mother embraced him and kissed him as warmly as she could, giving him the best wishes she could, after his siblings had displayed their sincere affection as well. Kyle Liddle wished his kin good luck in turn, and he looked back to see his mother saying farewell and drying up her tears, with little Bran in her arms and the girls waving Kyle goodbye. The young lord looked back at his loved ones, hoping that he would see them soon, when he was on leave, someday. Then, he resumed the northward journey towards the frontier, led by the recruiter who had encouraged him so much, ever since early childhood itself.
Stories were told every evening by the campfire of those three days that passed with the wandering crow and the southron lads. One of the recruits had poached a doe, the other one had stolen some bread at a marketplace. And both had been sent to the Wall as punishment. Then, Kyle Liddle shared his own, different story: one of no crime, but rather of dreaming and wishing for the strange events that allegedly occured beyond the Wall. Everyone liked the story, and the wandering crow commented that it was unusual compared to the tales of other recruits, were they privates or officers:
"Few join our ranks because they wish to explore the great unknown."
The lithe lordling wrapped himself in his brown bearskin cloak as sparks from the campfire leapt onto his cheeks, and soon he fell asleep, dreaming of riding an ice dragon all the way to the full moon that filled up that late autumn night with a silver sheen.
On the third day at dusk, the wandering crow and the lads finally reached their goal. Castle Black was and is, in reality, a cluster of keeps, barracks, and towers with walls of the same black stone and darkened woods. Beyond the fortresses, the great Wall of ice, glistening and golden against the setting sun, stretched all the way from the western horizon to the eastern, and from the ground to the warm-coloured twilight sky. Kyle was parted from his unequal friends, and escorted to the officers' quarters, where, the next day at dawn, he tried on his midnight-coloured uniform. Cloak, breeches, and doublet, scabbard, gloves and boots: everything was black and soft, and warm as a second skin. In no time, he had grown accustomed to his new attire, he broke his fast on black pudding and custard, and got himself prepared for his first exercises in the courtyard, where officers and privates alike were sparring against each other under the watchful eyes of a stern instructor. Their faces were all equally bereft of expression, their eyes piercing, their words as cold as the air and the ice of the Wall:
"Here comes another lordling... Let's see how long he lasts!"
Kyle steeled himself and drew the sword that hung in his scabbard. True steel flashed in his hand for the first time in his life, and he lunged against those who had jeered at him, quickly crossing swords and disarming them. The other recruits grunted. The instructor smiled and clapped his hands.
That day, after sparring, the recruits entered the sept whose black tower rose above every other in Castle Black. And there, before the fourteen eyes of the Seven Gods the southron believed in, within a shrine full of colourful light and incense, the young recruits, their heads bent in reverence and his hands held on their hearts, swore their sacred vows:
"Night gathers, and now my watch begins.
It shall not end until my death.
I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children.
I shall wear no crowns and win no glory.
I shall live and die at my post.
I am the sword in the darkness.
I am the watcher on the walls.
I am the fire that burns against the cold,
the light that brings the dawn,
the horn that wakes the sleepers,
the shield that guards the realms of men.
I pledge my life and honor to the Night's Watch,
for this night and all the nights to come."
Kyle chanted every word sincerely, without a single trace of regret in his oath. Little did he care for wealth or love: the only wish in his heart was to be given a mission into the great unknown beyond the Wall. But, for long time, it appeared that his only duty consisted in sparring, leaving for the table or for bed, when the pealing of the watchtower bell called the whole garrison.After weeks of swordfighting, the moment finally came for Kyle Liddle to receive his assignment. He had prayed both to the Warrior and to the Old Gods to become a Ranger, and thus be able to explore the lands beyond the Wall, with all his heart. Either his prayers were heard or he had a great stroke of luck. Or his prayers had been overheard by the Maester and the Lord Commander themselves, who had got word from the more veteran officers that the young swordsman was a precious crystal in the rough.
The young officer counted the days left to his first mission with his well-known impatience. At last, the time came for him to ride forth beyond the Wall and look for wildling settlements. Never in his life had Kyle been so nervous. As he broke his fast as quickly as he could, a concerned Maester Aemon stepped towards him and gave him a blade of some coarsely broken black crystal.
"What is this for a weapon?", the young officer asked.
"A dragonglass dagger", the wise old maester replied. "You may need it if you are in sore distress..."
The officer kept the black dagger inside his cloak, sure that Aemon mustn't have given him such a gift in vain. And then, he gathered the rangers that would follow him beyond the Wall, into the great unknown.
When the gate in the Wall was opened and the detachment rode forth into the Haunted Forest, Kyle Liddle thrust his spurs into the flank of his destrier. Off he dashed, leaving a path of whirling snow in his wake and throwing the snow into his subordinates' eyes. Rider and steed dashed past countless firs tall as sept towers, past more than three wildling encampments, outriding the rest of the detachment.
Within instants, he was already all alone and outside the forest, in the middle of a frozen steppe at the foothills of the granitic Frostfangs. Beyond those glaciers lay the great unknown which he had always wished to know. The young officer wrapped himself in his soft black cloak, as the cold winds lashed at his fair face. The air was so cold that it seared his skin, and his strength had already begun to fail, but Kyle's resolve was still as firm as the ice in the glaciers before him.
Suddenly, his exhausted destrier collapsed, leaving the youth to continue his daring journey on foot. The Northern Lights gave the frozen floor of the plains and the glaciers on the peaks the air of a colourful, shimmering paradise decked with countless tiny flowers, whose bright colours were constantly changing. Kyle Liddle stood there astonished, pleasantly surprised by the sights that lay before him, slightly reeling yet always keeping a steady pace forward. A few snowflakes, brittle and bright like ice petals, fell from the night sky around the young officer. Though the wasteland was bleak and barren, it was the most beautiful place he had ever seen.
Suddenly, a dozen silhouettes of ice with piercing blue eyes advanced towards young Kyle. Their features were like chiselled in the ice and as pale as the moon, and they wielded blades of blue crystal that cut through the air. A thirteenth one approached, but when Kyle saw their leader, who appeared to be female, his heart skipped a beat and he suddenly lost all thoughts.
She was the most beautiful lady that the officer ever had seen, indeed, her beauty was unearthly. Her face was cold and white like a moon of ice, her cold eyes as bright and piercing as two blue evening stars, her hair as white and shimmering as sterling silver, her figure tall and well-proportioned. For a split second, a single thought crossed his mind, before it was clouded by a wave of feelings: this beauty could be none other than the Night's Queen herself!
He hadn't seen a lady for moon-turns, and he was sworn to his duty, but something deep inside him, or far outside him, was making him falter against his will. Was this love, and could a mortal ever love a White Walker without losing himself?
There he stood in awe, entranced, trying as hard as he could to steel his surging passion, but in vain. Still, he was not afraid of her the least, and this lady was the most perfect sight in the world to him. His knees gave way, he bent them against his will, to make one last effort and take a last resolved stride on to her presence. She said some words in a strange language, which sounded like the cracking of thin ice, and he made a few difficult steps towards her. It was impossible for Kyle to resist the Queen's commands, she seemed to be drawing him towards her, and soon he was in her cold embrace from which there was no escape, the nape of his neck caressed by delicate hands that seared his fair skin.
And then, she kissed his lips.
For a while, Kyle Liddle felt light-headed, then everything turned as black as his uniform before his eyes and he felt that, as the blazing kiss seared his lungs, the blood in his veins froze to ice, and his heart was freezing as well. Fire in his lungs, ice in his veins, and life quickly receding from his system. The young officer, numb and powerless, felt that he was going to die.
This altered state only lasted for an instant, for, as he lost consciousness, he quickly reached for his dragonglass dagger and seized it. The black crystal grazed the brittle skirt of the Night's Queen's gown, slightly scratching the skin of her left thigh below. A puff of steam rose from the cut as she screamed in pain and let go of her prey. Then, she took a few steps backward and retreated into an ice cave in a glacier, escorted by her guards.
Kyle Liddle was, in the meantime, coming to his senses, feeling as weary as he had felt before the kiss, but he could not know who these beings were, or why they were leaving, where he was or what he was doing there in the first place. With the Queen's kiss, he had also forgotten his mother and siblings, his vows to the Night's Watch, the hardships of his new life, and the dream that had taken him to sacrifice a whole world for the sake of it.
In due time, he resolved to go somewhere, but where? The flames of a wildling camp lit up the winter night in the Haunted Forest, and thither he retraced his steps. There, he came across a few men in black like he was himself, who threw themselves before them and looked rather excited:
"Ser Kyle! You're alive! What a hard time you've given us! We thought you were... But look at you! Your eyes don't sparkle, and there's a faint blue shimmer in them..."
"Ser... Kyle?" he wondered, but in the depths of his frozen heart the ice was beginning to crack, he decided to follow the men in black cloaks because something within him told that they were trustworthy, and one of them took him up on his steed, until they crossed a gate in a high wall of ice and passed amidst the lights of a few keeps across the wall. More men in black saluted them and called him Kyle once more. He looked around at the cluster of keeps and forts, and he was led into one of them. An old gentleman with a chain around his neck asked him if he had the dagger. The young officer produced a blade of black crystal, looking at it with a tinge of doubt. The maester received the dagger as he gave the young officer a look of concern.
There were many around him at the supper table, curiously asking the youth for the things he had seen: wildlings, direwolves, or White Walkers... but what did they mean? He was sure he had heard something like that one day... but in which circumstances? He gave no reply and shrugged his shoulders.
So he went to bed confused, sure that at least his name was Kyle and that he was among friends.
The next day, as he was breaking his fast, he could hear the peal of sept bells and was drawn by the sound to the shrine as soon as he had finished a bowl of warm custard. From within, he could hear through the shut door a chorus of male voices chanting at unison:
"Night gathers, and now my watch begins.
It shall not end until my death..."
Then, suddenly, a flash of lightning lit up his thoughts. The words reached down to the depths of his chest, warming his frozen heart. His eyes began to sparkle, and he burst into tears, that warmed his cheeks as he wept and wept, laughing with glee at the same time, leaning against the sept door. He recognized the place where he was, the people he had met, the dagger he had given back to wise old Maester Aemon. Then, drying up his tears with the back of his soft black gloves, he laughed and he smiled as he shed his last tears and beheld the door open to greet the new batch of recruits.The same day, the maester and the Lord Commander heard the young man's wish to stop being a Ranger and become a Steward, confined to the safety of Castle Black, instead. And they granted Kyle Liddle's surprising wish. From that day on, he never dared to venture beyond the Wall, and he wrapped himself completely in his black cloak, honoring the uniform he wore with pride and modesty. He became quiet and brooding, more thoughtful and mature, reflecting carefully upon every step he took. Though Kyle Liddle had become a more reserved and stern person after the adventure, he shielded himself from both love and greed, giving a perfect example for the recruits under his command. And to the Lord Commander, whose personal steward he became. There was no officer in the Night's Watch more devoted to his duty. And there has never been up to our days.
A Moonless Night: After the Story
A sleepy Cersei was already rubbing her eyes, while both her brothers appeared to be more on the alert. At the end of the tale, Jaime tugged the septa's sleeve and told her:
"I love that Kyle became a good officer. Now every time I bicker with Cersei or Tyrion, I tell them I'll join the Night's Watch... Now I know this will doubtlessly be tiresome!!"
"Well, I'd like to go beyond the Wall and beyond the Frostfangs!", the imp had twinkles in his mismatched eyes. "Just to see the White Walkers, if they do exist!"
"Haven't you learned anything from the story, Tyrion?", Septa Poppine inquired.
"This story sounds so true to life...! Did anything really happen?", Jaime asked the septa.
"Well, once I was in the North, at Winterfell, as a governess to the Starks, and one day they showed me the way up to the Liddles' keep, where Lord Rickard had to do some business there in person. The young lord of the keep and his aged mother were warming himself by the fireside when his older brother, a Night's Watch officer on leave, came in from the cold. He looked absent and distant, and when his concerned mother asked why, he told the story of what he had experienced beyond the Wall, as we all listened eagerly to his account, believing it to be true."
"Septa Poppine, there's something sad about this story", the young girl said, her emerald eyes half-closed and her golden hair hiding Jaime's right shoulder. "The officer... Kyle... he fell in love, but he didn't get the girl in the end."
"Well, Cersei. I'll bear in mind that you like happy love stories. Maybe tomorrow, or another day, I will tell you a story you like. Now it's getting already too late, and I'm falling asleep myself, in fact, I see no problem in sleeping here for a while, instead of in the servants' quarters", the septa replied. She calmly put out the light of the candles, then she curled herself up on the floor, covered in costly tapestries, and so did the youngest of the Lannisters. "Good night, my children."
"Good night, Septa Poppine", all three children wished her, as Cersei and Jaime got into their canopy beds and drew their embroidered bed-curtains.
"Well, I'm glad at least one of you liked today's story, my children!", Septa Poppine said. "Hope that tomorrow's story, though it may be different, will be equally interesting!"
