A cold wind blew over my body, making me shiver as I felt my hair stand on end. It crept beneath my skin, curling around my flesh and reaching into the shaky thoughts of my mind.
'It's cold. So cold,' The thought flashed through my mind as I struggled through the blizzard raging around me. My four limbs were shivering with every step as I continued to walk, slowly but surely reaching the warmth of my pack as I heard my mother growl.
Where were you?
"I…I don't know", For some reason, I could not recall where I was or where I had been. All I could remember was the warmth of my bed. Yes, the pillows, the warm sheets, the lights and then…Wait, bed?
'What is a bed?', I thought, wincing as pain stabbed at my skull and I felt flashes of memories through my mind that were not my own.
I was a wolf pup, sleek and clumsy yet strong with teeth bared at the cold as I ran alongside my sibling through the snowy wilds, watching how my mother and the pack chased elk through the woods.
Then, I became a murder of crows, our group numbering in the dozens as our dark wings blocked out the sky and cast an eerie shadow over all who dared to walk below us.
Then, I was a young boy, my older twin brother the heir to our family's land. Unfortunately, I myself as the second son had no purpose in life and thus, I was struggling to find out where I belonged in this world.
The last stumped me the most as I found myself in the body of a young man, neither boy nor beast nor bird. I was a man living a life of simple comfort, surrounded by strange metallic boxes that hummed and flowed while I stared at glowing panes that had some form of script on them.
However, what confused me the most was that in this life, I had found myself consuming the media of a fictional world called A Song of Ice And Fire.
It existed in many forms, from TV series(which was another term that stumped me) to wondrous books and novels called 'fanfiction' that painted such fascinating tales of fiction.
However, I couldn't help but note how the terms I saw and heard in these forms of media could also be found as actual places and terms in the life of the young boy, which reminded me that perhaps this could be those 'reincarnation' things I've heard so much about.
'Wait, where have I heard that? I am a wolf. I should not…No, I am crow…No, I…I am…'
"What am I?"
"You are all yet none. You are many yet few. You must see what you are before you decide what you are not," My mother wolf spoke and my pup form blinked as I felt the wolves stirring.
Yet, I could feel myself waking up as well, first a dozen and then two until I felt all hundred of my consciousnesses fully waking. All of us looked up at the sky to see the sky being blacked out by the dark wings of my crow forms.
"We are many yet we are few. Decide who we are before we forget who we are not," I crowed with dozens of beaks in unison, landing on the backs of the wolves who all tilted their heads to the sky before letting out ominous howls.
With every howl, I could feel my child-like form shivering as the memories of my older life merged with that of my younger life, my head throbbing with the memories of the lives I had lived, am living and will live.
"We are many," My older form spoke as he stepped forward and knelt in front of me, slowly pulling me in a warm hug. As he did so, the wolves circled and pressed their forms against us, their warmth wrapping around us like a cocoon while the sound of their heartbeats drummed in my ears.
With every caw, the snow began to fade away and revealed the snow-white roots wrapping around my limbs, watching as the large white tree slowly became visible.
It was beside us when I noticed the blood-red sap dripping from its eyes, a root lifting and curling like a finger as it caught a tear of sap and brought it to my lips.
With zero hesitation, I drank, the sap feeling warm and easing my pain as another of the tree's roots caressed my face.
"You are many yet you are one," It did not speak yet I could feel the words echoing inside of me, my wolves howling again and this time, I howled with them.
My crows took flight and so did I, feeling my wings slicing through the sky like ink across parchment before I felt my older form drowsing off and closing my eyes with a smile.
As I closed my eyes in my younger form as well, one name flashed through my mind as I took a deep breath and fell asleep to the howling of the wolves and the cawing of my crows.
"You are Torrhen Stark."
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As I opened my eyes, I stared at the tree I was kneeling in front, my body feeling tired yet elated at the same time as there were no crows nor wolves nor snow in my vicinity.
Yet, I can remember the howls, the caws, the different lives and above all, I could feel the ethereal energy that flowed through me as I continued to kneel in front of the tree.
It was not like blood. No, this felt older. It clung to my bones as I felt it humming at my fingertips, racing down my spine and pooling at my feet while flickering behind my eyes like distant lightning.
'Magic. It's hard to believe that it actually exist,' In my life as Eric, I had only read and seen it in different forms of fiction as well as some 'true stories' where people tried to summon spirits.
In my new life as Torrhen II Stark, I had heard only old wives' tales and red of how my ancestor Brandon Stark had created a gigantic wall that cut off the entirety of Westeros from the Lands of Winter beyond the wall.
Yet, I could also remember the times in my mind when I had watched a young girl in a show called Game of Thrones use Blood Magic to give birth to her dragons as well as a time where a red woman had used the insemination of her eggs to produce a shadow demon with magic.
'How did that happen exactly?', I thought before shaking my head, deciding to ignore such things considering they were of a time that were far in the distant future.
Yes, unlike others that I have read of, my life was set at a time where dragons were a dime a dozen and so were their riders, the royal family having silver hair and amethyst-coloured eyes instead of golden blonde hair and emerald-green eyes.
Rising slowly to my feet while ignoring the thoughts that flew forward, my knees cracked and my back protested as I stood up straight, yet my limbs have never felt stronger and steadier as I stared at the tree in front of me.
Its eyes wept no more and the sap that was there were as dry as its pale bark. Yet, I could still not only its gaze but the gaze of many others looking at me in recognition.
They knew me and in some strange way, I knew them all. If I stilled and closed my eyes, I could feel each of them breathing, their eyes focused on me as I felt my eyes rolling backwards and my mind splitting.
'One deep beneath the snows of Skagos, another nestled in the mossy heart of the neck and a third sleeping forgotten in the depths of a quiet godswood in the Vale,' They were not the only ones as I felt more singing to me, their voices making me sigh in euphoria before I gasped as a hand was on my shoulder and I felt myself snapping back into my body.
"Are you good, brother?", I heard a young voice ask, slowly blinking before looking at the sight of my older twin looking at me with a concerned frown.
It was a bit unsettling to see on the face of an 11 year old boy, but for us Starks, it was a normal sight as I smiled at Cregan's concern before patting his shoulder.
"I'm okay," My voice sounded a bit hoarse and I could see Cregan didn't believe me as his frown simply faded before he nodded, lowering his hand from my shoulder.
"I thought you'd fallen ill. You did not move when I left and when I came back, you were standing with your eyes in the back of your head like one of those wargs Mother told us of."
"I was asleep for a bit, but then I was simply listening."
"To what?"
"To them," I spoke while gesturing towards the heart tree and like I expected, Cregan simply looked at the tree before letting out a soft sigh.
"The gods?", He asked and I wanted to say yes, but I frowned as I felt like this was a lot more simpler than the complexity of the being we called gods.
"No, not the Old Gods. It was something…more primitive, I think?", I answered and he gave me a look I was all too familiar with, the kind older brothers give you when they're trying not to call you mad but are thinking about it.
"They're just trees, Torrhen."
"I used to think so too, brother."
"…Hah, let us just go before Father decides to send Uncle to come fetch us."
"As you wish, brother," I spoke with a smile, chuckling as he rolled his eyes before we began making our way back.
Taking one final glance as I heard the tree rumbling, I smiled and bowed my head before turning back and followed Cregan back to the castle.
'Thank you, oh great tree, for this awakening.'
A/N: Yeah, we end it off here. A bit short, but I wanted this to just be a prologue and to show what I have planned for this story.
Let me get this off first. I am using a mixture of the D&D magic system and the ASOIAF magic system and let's be honest, our character is not going to become a master swordsman so why not make him an expert in something else?
Second thing is that he is going to be a druid/ warding specialist. However, I will be adding a few limits so he can't shift around the battlefield willy-nilly without preparation.
Thirdly, pairing is Helaena. It was going to be Alys Rivers, but I believe the song of Ice and Fire in human form fits better.
P.S. I was going for the mystical/ eerie prologue at the beginning there so let me know if I nailed it or if I didn't.
Like always, you can go to my Pat-reon-.-com-/-KingCrimsonNova to read ahead on this as well as many other stories & even some that haven't been released out to this site yet. If you want to, you are free to, but if you don't want, all's good as I will still be uploading here. This is just me trying to get some extra cash.
Anyway, as always, read, enjoy, review and until the next chapter, welcome to…
The Second Son of Winter~!