The soldiers exchanged glances before Bard Lannys spoke up.
"My lord, the Clegane noodles truly don't stick together."
Lord Auren held back a scoff that had almost burst from his lips. He could tell from their serious expressions that they genuinely believed it. They really thought the noodles wouldn't stick.
But decades of experience told the lord otherwise, no matter how well made, no matter how skilled the cook, noodles always stuck together. That was just how things were.
Still, Auren was a rational man. He'd seen snow-salt, whistles that worked without wind, and even those strange chopsticks. Could it be that this time, Gregor Clegane had actually created noodles that didn't clump?
In that fleeting moment, a legendary name flashed through his mind, Brynden Rivers, the man of the Thousand Eyes and One, from the Targaryen dynasty of the old kingdom. A ballad was still sung of him throughout the Seven Kingdoms: "A Thousand Eyes".
How could a man possibly have a thousand and one eyes?
And yet, that was exactly what he had. Brynden Rivers, better known as Bloodraven, or the Lord of Bloodraven, was the legitimized bastard of Aegon IV and Lady Melissa Blackwood.
Bloodraven had started as a powerful warrior, not unlike Gregor Clegane himself. He wielded the Valyrian steel blade Dark Sister, passed down through the Targaryen family. He was also a master archer, using a longbow crafted from weirwood.
Any noble properly trained in the history of the realm knew of Bloodraven's gift, the thousand eyes.
According to the histories, he'd first been able to possess a simple rabbit, seeing the world through its eyes. Then came dogs, goats, pigs... eventually, even wolves and shadowcats. At last, he mastered birds, gliding on the wings of hawks and ravens.
His gift gave him an almost divine advantage in war.
When did he acquire this power? No one knew, not even the maesters. The only ones who might have known were the Seven Gods, and Bloodraven himself.
But one thing was certain: Brynden Rivers was seen as the embodiment of divine will in the mortal world.
The Seven may have seven faces, or seventy, or seven hundred, or seven thousand.
Lannisport regularly traded with the Free City of Braavos, across the Narrow Sea. On the islands surrounding it, there stood the Isle of the Gods, where temples to every deity imaginable were built. Among them was the House of Black and White, dedicated to the Many-Faced God, the god of death. If one death god could wear a thousand faces, how many faces did the gods of the world truly possess?
So if Gregor Clegane had somehow made a noodle that never stuck together, it may not have been as wondrous as Bloodraven's powers, but it echoed the same divine mystery. Perhaps this too was a sliver of the Seven's will.
As Bloodraven's abilities grew, he rose swiftly through the ranks. King Aerys I made him Hand of the King, the highest office in the realm after the Iron Throne itself. After Aerys died, his brother Maekar I also kept Bloodraven as Hand.
And all the while, Bloodraven's powers deepened.
He used his all-seeing gift to thwart plots before they ever bore fruit. A man blessed by the gods, loyal and sharp, was always favored by kings and great lords alike.
Eventually, his powers let him dream of the future, visions that showed him places and moments yet to come. Then, through strange training in dreamwalking, he learned to move not only forward in time, but backward, uncovering secrets thought lost forever.
In 233 AC, Bloodraven, then still the king's Hand, called a Great Council to decide the next heir to the Iron Throne. He tricked the rebel leader Daemon Blackfyre III, promising him safety and a fair chance to stake his Targaryen bloodline in the council.
But the moment Daemon entered King's Landing, he was seized by the Gold Cloaks.
Bloodraven had him beheaded outside the Red Keep's gates, mounting his head on a spike.
Afterward, the council elected Aegon V as king. Yet because Bloodraven had broken his vow to Daemon, Aegon V had him arrested, unwilling to be seen as a king who broke his word.
To preserve the crown's honor, Aegon sentenced Bloodraven to death, but offered him a place on the Wall instead.
Bloodraven accepted, becoming a brother of the Night's Watch.
In 239 AC, he was elected Lord Commander of the Watch.
Then, in 252 AC, he vanished beyond the Wall during a range and was never seen again.
No one knew where he went, or if he even lived. The chronicles simply ended there.
But Lord Auren, who may not have known Bloodraven's fate, had the memories of a modern soul, reborn in this world as the Mountain. He did know the truth: Bloodraven's powers only grew. He became a Greenseer, his body fused with the roots of the old gods, his spirit reborn as the Three-Eyed Raven. One day, he would pass that gift to a northern boy named Bran Stark.
As a noble heir, Auren had studied history and diplomacy from a young age, both of Westeros and even the Free Cities across the Narrow Sea. He knew Bloodraven's tale well.
After the dragons vanished, magic had faded too, but divine will never truly left the world. That's why the Faith of the Seven had become the kingdom's dominant religion.
Even though the maesters of Oldtown pushed the world forward with science, mysticism never disappeared. It lingered beside men like a shadow.
So, with a tangle of suspicion and curiosity, Lord Auren tried to file "Clegane Noodles" into that same category of arcane wonder.
But when he met the gaze of his soldiers again, he realized, perhaps he was wrong.
These men, from trusted local families, knew him too well.
Then Bard Lannys said calmly,
"My lord, these Clegane noodles aren't some mystical power… They're made by machines. Devices not unlike the winch systems on the city gates."
Auren's frown deepened.
Bard Lannys added, "My lord, this noodle machine wasn't invented by the Mountain himself. It was designed by a smith, a very skilled one, who once helped install those winches. It's not sorcery. It's science. From the Citadel."
Auren exhaled, rubbing his temples.
"…Fine. Lead the way. I want to see for myself these so-called Clegane noodles that never stick together."
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