Sixth Iteration

The Setup
It was the blaze of red that had caught Ned's eye, carefully perched like a patch of newly spilled blood on the windowsill of his chambers. He'd thought himself mad, seeing visions of death in the blossoming sunlight of dawn, but upon closer inspection, the realization and understanding had cracked over his skull like an egg. He'd seen these envelopes before, twice - first with Moana, as she tried to rid herself of the letter by one of the trees on the outskirts of the village, and then with Beverly, as she sat, brows furrowed and concerned, by the crackling hearth in the inn.

Each letter demanded something of its recipient, the thing itself unable to be destroyed or ignored. He'd run his finger across the wax insignia. It had reminded him of the flaming tree of House Marbrand, but he knew this was no raven-sent message of home. This was sent from their captors, the Observers. The controllers who went unseen and unheard, known only through their manipulations of the villagers' lives. It had unsettled Ned down to his core, rattling his molars and vibrating his bones with a sense of dread he couldn't quite understand.

But now, it seems, his turn has come.

He takes hold of the sealed envelope, turning it over carefully in his hands a few times before finally slipping a finger underneath the flap to open it. With trembling fingers, he removes the letter - eyes skimming over letters without truly understanding, needing to go back and re-read to fully absorb the demand being made like a blade at his throat.

A sacrifice. The price to return home. The word itself, "home," screams out at him from the page, practically rendering him blind and deaf. But - what waits for him back in Westeros? Would he be returning to his last known breath? He'd rather not experience the horrors at the Sept of Baelor, listening to the jeers of the crowd with a thirst for blood and a call for his head. Hearing his daughter's pleading, frantically searching for his other daughter's face in the sea of sneers and flustered, angered faces. But if he could return to a time before that? Back to when life had been simpler, back to when he'd had his beloved Catelyn at his side, when they'd watched their children train in the yard and their worries seemed few and far between? How sweet a thought; it almost makes his chest ache with want.

The Stark House
He removes his fur-lined cloak from his wardrobe, folding the letter up and keeping it close to his chest underneath his other wintry Westerosi garments. As he makes his way through the house - getting himself something to sup on for breakfast, stoking the hearth, ensuring they've enough to eat, going about his morning routine - he seems to be preoccupied. His mind is elsewhere, brows stitched together with concern, worry, and silent dispute. He might even be grumbling to himself about this thing or that, not making much sense of whatever can be heard.

Outdoors - Anywhere around the village
Once he's finished there, he makes his way into the village, taking time to enjoy the silent solitude that these early morning walks provide him. Margaery had started the pattern shortly after he had first arrived, and he finds that he cannot seem to truly start his day without them now - though her company is more and more scarce as time goes on. (Deep down, this pains him as he'd come to enjoy her friendship, but he will never admit such a thing).

Still, he seems distracted, absent-minded. He goes about the motions as he heads towards the center of town, eventually heading north to check traps and investigate the riverbed, but it's clear his eyes are not truly seeing what lies around him. They're envisioning other worlds, other possibilities. He stops a few times at seemingly sporadic moments and locations, completely lost in thought, only to come to after a few moments, after which he continues on his way.

The Inn
Finally, as he does most days, he finds himself wandering back towards the warmth of the inn, sitting opposite the raging fire. He cradles a mug of something in his hands, though he's barely touched its contents. Instead, he idly spins the mug in between his palms and fingers, both restless with unused energy and worry.

It's only here, when his guard is down, that he reveals the envelope, clutching it in one hand, as he fights the call of home as best as he can.

WHO: Eddard Stark
WHERE: Around the village
WHEN: November 16, the beginning of the ice storm
OPEN TO: OTA!
WARNINGS: Will update as needed

---

The steadily dropping temperatures has filled Ned with a certain vigor, one he has not felt for quite some time. He has yet to experience a winter within the village, and while he has come to expect short and fleeting seasons here, unlike the seasons of Westeros, he cannot deny anticipating the frigid temperatures with which he's so intimately familiar. He will therefore enjoy the impending winter as deeply as he is able, for long as he is able.

It is in the early morning hours, when the village is still cloaked in darkness, that Ned is stirred awake by the sounds of rain pelting the roof of the cabin. No, it must be something harder than rain, given the noise and percussion of the sound; perhaps ice? He thinks to check on the others but, as he always is, he is concerned with being too overbearing and too meddling with their lives. None of them are children any longer, and though he does not anticipate having his usefulness wear out with them, he does not need to treat them as though they were still the children running around the yard at Winterfell.

He attempts to find slumber again but finds it impossible with the noise. He goes to the window to glance outside and, indeed, it seems as though ice is falling and crashing against all that lay on the earth. He busies himself until first light, donning the Westerosi outfit he'd received as a gift some time ago, as well as the heavier of the two fur-lined cloaks he'd also received as gifts. Quietly, he slips out of the house and out into what feels like a transformed world.

The village he knew as of the night prior has been turned into a wintry, sparkling land reminiscent of the North - the trees cocooned in layers of ice, the rain and ice falling from above. There is a particular smell in the air that always follows these colder, more frigid conditions, and if he closes his eyes and inhales deeply through his nostrils, he can almost convince himself that he's been transported back to the Godswood.

The thought of it reminds him of the small Weirwood sapling just south of the cabin and, after checking on it, he decides that perhaps he should build some sort of shelter for it, to protect it from the dagger-like ice.

He can be seen wandering about the village, checking the inventory at the Inn, trying to figure out a way to shield the small, white-barked tree from nature's harsher elements.

WHO: Eddard Stark
WHERE: The Stark Family Cabin
WHEN: August 15 and onward
OPEN TO: OTA; feel free to jump in at any point during his halluciations.
WARNINGS: None; will updated as needed

---

It had started with redness of the skin, first on Ned's hands. It spread like blood-red ink across the paper of his skin, up his arm towards his shoulder, down his back, around his torso. It made decades'-old battles scars scarlet and renewed, the pain of touch excruciating, as though the wounds had only just been made. And then, the heat. At first, he thought it a continued byproduct of the summer temperatures, but it was the absence of perspiration that had drawn his brows together in confusion and realization: he had gotten ill.

Half a fortnight later, having spent the majority of the time bed-ridden and unable to leave the confines of his room, the visions had started.

He’d first seen his siblings’ faces: Brandon, Benjen, Lyanna. He imagined Brandon’s death, simultaneously feeling the constriction of his airways as Brandon tried to rescue their father, and wakes to a coughing fit while gasping for air. Benjen he imagined in black, half-human and half-crow, taking to the skies and soaring back to The Wall. Lyanna, he had seen bloodied and ghostly pale, her trembling hands leaving crimson paintings against his skin with every touch, while the rage and pain and impending loss stormed within him.

Second, Robert’s face - glossy-eyed and slender, the way he’d been when they’d grown alongside each other under the care of Jon Arryn. He imagined them wandering the grounds of the Eyrie, practicing their fighting with one another, Robert daring him to draw closer and closer to the Moon Door. His half of these fabricated conversations are audible to anyone near enough - even through the closed door of his chambers. None of it makes any sense, especially out of context, though it’d be easy enough for someone familiar enough to surmise that Robert was on his mind.

Next, he’d seen visions of Catelyn at their wedding; the hatred and betrayal in her face when he’d revealed to her that he had returned from war with a dark-haired babe in tow, a newly born Robb still in her arms, which she clutched tighter to her breast; the way she’d peer up at him as they lay under their furs and in each other’s arms with only the soft glow of the fire as their audience; when he’d last seen her, outside of Littlefinger’s brothel in King’s Landing, the blue scarf wrapped over her fiery crown. He reaches for her, when he imagines her with him, hands and fingers fumbling in the air for a woman who no longer exists.

Then, he’d seen each of his children at varying stages of their lives, from birth to the last he’d seen of them: Robb at Winterfell, when Ned had left for King’s Landing; Sansa when he’d knelt at the steps of the Great Sept, silently praying for her rescue; Arya when he’d spotted her in the crowd, crouching by Baelor the Blessed, doing the only thing he could to keep her safe by signaling Yoren to take her into his custody; Bran, unconscious in his bed, unsure if he’d ever open his eyes again; Rickon in the yard at Winterfell, too young to understand the weight of the world and his father’s departure beyond a glaring absence; and, though not a child of his own creation, Jon at the crossroads to King’s Landing and The Wall, promising to tell him about his mother upon their next meeting. These memories are strong enough to make a weakened, unwell Ned weep, crying out for the family from which he’d been taken, his feverish mind no longer remembering he has four of them still with him, whether by fate or by the blessings of the Old Gods.

He floats in and out of consciousness, back and forth between the world of Westeros he’d left behind and the world of the village - his second chance - though he cannot seem to convince himself that the latter exists. He wonders if he’s returned to the Children of the Forest, to the Old Gods themselves, to the Weirwood back in the Godswood of Winterfell. All the while, the skin affected by the rash blisters and reddens, leaving smears of blood on the linens underneath - though, if there is one light in the darkness, the intensity of his hallucinations seems to negate the pain from the rash, and he seems blissfully unaware of the sores.