The trip was surprisingly calm. My reputation has spread all across the North beyond the Wall, so nobody's stupid enough to try anything against me. On the contrary, villages are more than happy to welcome me, because their standard of living skyrockets when I'm around. I create food for them, upgrade their houses and tools, clean everything up, let them talk to their deceased loved ones again, and satisfy the single women (who, apparently, have heard more about my skills in bed than about my spells).
So yeah, I reach the forest before the Wall without any trouble. The journey itself is pretty uneventful. The only noteworthy thing is that along the way, I decided to train my Necrocall and Chillio spells, making ice sculptures all over the place, resurrecting random souls, and just leaving them out in the wild.
So, uh… let's say this area is about to earn a brand-new reputation, and people will already know who to blame. Anyway, not important.
Hands in my pockets, I stroll into the forest like I own the place, not even a little worried. Because, at the risk of sounding arrogant, the only things that could maybe be a threat are the Night King or dragons. The first one is hiding somewhere, and the dragons aren't even born yet, considering we're currently in 294 AC(thanks mance, meaning four years before the main plot, a plot I've already messed up with what I've done here, and that I'm probably going to keep messing up by doing my magical dumbassery across Westeros and Essos… maybe even Yi Ti, or that unknown-as-hell part of the world, if the magic that sends me home takes its sweet time showing up.
Which, of course, expands the threat list in ways I can't predict, because I don't actually know this world beyond what I read in the books and saw in the show and games. Who knows what kind of nasty crap is hiding out there… But for now, let's focus on the nasty crap in this part of the world, the nasty crap I do know, and that I'm not afraid of.
I keep walking, keep training, turning whatever crosses my mind into ice sculptures, making the animals I run into either fuck or fight, and now that I'm finally in a proper wooded area, I can train Floralorial too, giving every tree I pass a makeover. They're all way prettier now, and they clearly look totally out of place for this environment.
Since I've got the chance, I decided to turn the forest into a training zone to master these new spells. Potions will have to wait for now, because even if I can conjure potatoes whenever I want, I still need to find Obtanium, and I have no idea what that even is in the first place. But I'm betting I've got a good shot at getting some on the other side of the Wall, same for the frog and the valerian.
For now, I'll just keep training the paths of the Arcane.
[Five months later]
I've spent way too much time in this forest, but in my defense, using my powers is insanely addictive, especially when I can just drink a potion whenever I'm hungry or tired.
So yeah, the forest has basically turned into some kind of enchanted woodland: trees that are way too beautiful, ice sculptures scattered everywhere, an abnormal animal birth rate, an abnormal animal fight rate… Oh, and it's infested with ghosts. They're not doing anything wrong. They just wander around and enjoy the world of the living as one big ghost community.
They looked far too happy for me to send them back to the afterlife, and they're not hurting anyone, so…
Anyway, I've stayed here way too long. It's time to head toward the world, when a distraction shows up. And since I got here...I've discovered that I get distracted easily.
Which brings us to the current situation: I'm standing in front of a house in the middle of the forest, a bottle of whisky in my hands, staring at the man a few meters in front of me.
"May I come in?" I say, raising the bottle so he can see it. "I brought drinks." I add, as ice starts appearing all around us, making it very clear to the man facing me that I'm not going to accept a no for an answer, while keeping a friendly smile on my face.
The man in front of me clearly knows who I am. The fear I can see all over his body, even as he miserably tries to hide it, is proof enough that he knows exactly who I am, even if this is the first time he's ever seen me.
Finally, knowing he doesn't have a choice, he nods and steps aside, gesturing for me to enter.
With a wide smile, I walk past him and step inside the house, taking a quick look around. "Cozy." Then my eyes fall on the man's poor women/girls, all in a miserable state, some with fresh bruises on their faces. "Less cozy."
I sit by the fire and wait a few seconds while Craster settles into his pathetic version of a throne and signals one of the women to come take the bottle and pour us drinks into cups, mine getting a quick little cleaning spell before it even comes close to my lips.
As I take a small sip, my eyes never leave Craster's, cranking up his nerves as he tries—vainly—to hide them behind a mask of confidence and arrogance.
I guess he can't afford to look weak in front of these Spouses/Daughters.
Speaking of them, my eyes leave Craster's and move over the women one by one. When my gaze turns their way, their reactions are a mix of fear, submission, and curiosity, which I can understand. It's not every day you meet an asshole who, according to the rumors, can throw fire and lightning from his fingers and has fun hunting monsters that make even the fiercest warriors shit on themself.
Eventually, my eyes return to the man in front of me, savoring the fear in his. I'm not a sadistic man, far from it, but a lot of people in this world deserve the worst I could do with my magic, and Craster is one of them.
"Believe it or not," I say slowly, as the campfire between us begins to stir. "You look a lot like my father."
The flames grow more restless, which triggers frightened whispers from the women around us and feeds Craster's fear, a fear I unconsciously relish.
"He was pathetic. Too weak to go after anyone stronger than him, so he went after the weak, the ones who couldn't fight back. Every time someone stronger hit him, he'd lower his eyes and submit… and then he'd dump his cowardice on my mother, my sister, and me."
The fire keeps flaring higher. The women curl in on themselves, scared, while Craster grips the handle of an axe beside him in a useless attempt to feel safe.
"Whenever something went wrong in his life, the blows rained down. I can't even count how many times he raped my mother because he didn't like the way she breathed. How many times he nearly killed me because I didn't speak fast enough, or I spoke too much, or my footsteps were too loud."
"And then, one day, what had to happen happened. My mother couldn't take it anymore and hanged herself. Nobody was surprised. We were all expecting it. The problem was, with my mother gone, my father would come straight for us. So my sister took matters into her own hands, and the next day, our house went up in flames because of a "cigarette that hadn't been put out properly.""
"My sister and I were standing right in front of the house, listening to his screams of pain, him, who thought he was strong and powerful, begging for help."
The flames swell as Craster tries to stand, but I shove him back down and keep him pinned with my telekinesis.
I don't even know why I'm this angry. My father died years ago, and in the end my sister and I won, she killed him before he could kill us. But seeing this insect so confident and smug with his little harem just makes me want to burn every cell of his body and hear him scream the way my father screamed that night.
I shouldn't be this furious, and yet I can't calm this rage and hatred that doesn't even feel aimed at Craster, or my father. But it's there. It's alive. It's feeding itself.
So without the slightest hesitation, Craster's body begins to burn slowly. He starts to howl, held in place by my telekinesis.
Looking around, Craster's spouses and daughters watch the man burn with a mix of fear… fascination… and relief.
Which isn't surprising. They've lived under his tyranny for years. But me? What's my excuse, other than just wanting to watch him burn?
I don't know how long the women and I watched him burn, but eventually the flames vanished, leaving nothing but his ashes. And yet I couldn't tear my gaze away from that pile of dust, one question taking over my thoughts.
What the hell just happened? Why did I do all of that?
This had nothing to do with me. I had no reason to kill Craster, especially with how terrified of me he was. He would never have tried anything funny. So why?
Was seeing that resemblance to my father really enough to bring a flood of emotions and bad memories to the surface and trigger this hatred toward… everything? I'm not sure. All I know is that while I watched that piece of trash burn slowly, I felt my rage and hatred calm down. I felt good. Like watching him burn was normal. Natural. And even now, I can't find a single shred of remorse for him.
This isn't like the people I killed before. Every time, it was because they attacked first. But this? No. I came to this house when I could've just kept walking, and I killed this man cruelly. His death was long and painful, and why? Saying it was to save these poor women would be a complete lie, because like I said, what happened here wasn't my problem.
I saw Craster, caught the briefest image of my father in him, and that was all it took for me to want him dead in a way this horrific.
"S-Sir."
A voice pulls me out of my thoughts, making me turn my head to one of the women standing beside me—well, at a careful distance. I can see the terror in her eyes when she looks at me, just like all the others. And for some reason, I create a small mirror of ice so I can see my face.
What I see freezes me in place.
My eyes are completely black, my irises a bright, vivid violet. Around my eyes, dark traces spread across my face, like the blood in the veins of my face has turned black. In my mouth, I can see fangs, tiny, but they're there. My enhanced vision has no trouble spotting them.
And on my arms, the marks covering them glow with a bright, mystical light, when they're usually dull.
I take a deep breath and manage—barely—to calm myself enough for the visible changes to fade away. Then I refocus on the woman beside me.
"Sorry you had to witness that." Not even a year since I promised myself I wouldn't let my powers control me… and I already broke it.
God, I'm pathetic.
I guess I should just try to be better in the future, even if it looks like my powers have no intention of making the job easy.
One step at a time, like my sister would say.
For now, I need to deal with this mess and take care of all these women, because as far as they're concerned, it is my problem now.
I'm the reason for it.