Chapter Text
“Well, here we are.” Brenn Fossoway’s voice was disgustingly cheerful as the old compact ground to a halt in the empty parking lot. “Home sweet home!”
“Maybe it’s your sweet home,” she said as she gazed up at the science building, looming above her in the purpling dusk. “But it’s not mine.”
“The North has a way of growing on you.”
“Like athlete’s foot,” Liana Pyke replied, as she yanked open the car door and stumbled out, stretching and yawning. The road trip from Oldtown to Winterton had taken the best part of a week. The traffic at the bridge of the Twins, where the border between North and South Westria lay, had been gridlock, even though the yawning border guard had asked them if they’d only brought any fruits or vegetables. Liana, who had been driving, smiled and said no, even though a bag of oranges was sitting in the trunk.
Breakin’ the law, breakin’ the law, Brenn sang as they drove through the Neck, until Liana wanted to pull the car over and toss him into the nearest marsh. She really didn’t mind her uncle’s assistant most of the time—and sometimes she thought he was kind of cute, in his long, coltish, geeky sort of way—but he had a way of running a joke into the ground.
Her yawning and stretching immediately turned into shivering, though, and she dived back into the overheated car to grab her hooded sweatshirt. University of Oldtown, it read. She still couldn’t understand why her uncle, a respected physicist who grew up in Qarth, for God’s sake-- would accept a position at the University of Winterton, in the windswept, godforsaken plains of North Westria. Her tits were about to freeze off. She should have brought her down jacket, but she’d thought, silly her, that as it was spring, she might not have to dress like an arctic explorer.
“Yeah,” said Brenn with an apologetic air. He emerged from the car as well, his long legs unfolding. He must have been ridiculously uncomfortable in the tiny car for the six days they’d been travelling, but he hadn’t bitched once. She felt a little guilty, but then reminded herself she was doing him a favor by helping him drive back north and splitting the food and hotel bills. Of course, they’d had separate beds, but it had been awkward as fuck, even though she was used to traveling with guys.
“It’s been nice lately,” he continued, “but soon as the sun goes down, it’s crazy cold.”
Liana stamped her feet and rubbed her hands. She shot Brenn a lopsided smile.
“On the bright side, at least it’s not the way it used to be during the Ice Age, when winters lasted for years.”
“If that was the case, you’d still be back in Qarth, huh?”
“You bet your ass I would!”
As Brenn blushed a little, she rolled her eyes. She was hardly as obscene as her father (who, as an ex-pat construction worker from the Iron Islands, could weave a tapestry of obscenities as colorful as a Qartheen carpet). She couldn’t understand why a grad student these days would be so prissy, but maybe that was northern culture for you. But Liana, to her chagrin, still didn’t know much about North Westria, apart from her studies of the old Northern province in her literature classes and the out-size role it had played in the so-called “Cataclysm,” almost a thousand years before.
Of course, that and a dollar would get her a cup of coffine. She knew that Dad thought she was like Mom and much too infatuated with the rarefied environs of academe—and maybe she was. She always had this fantasy of lecturing dewy-eyed students about the Age of Sagas, quoting the timeless poetry of Archmaester Tarly in the ancient Westrian dialect.
Legends of bygone times reveal wonders and prodigies/ Of heroes worthy endless fame, of matchless braveries/ Of jubilees and festal sports, of tears and sorrows great/ And knights who daring combats fought— the like I now relate.
Of course, despite all the chivalry and knightly ideals, it all ended in a bloodbath, with betrayal, rape, torture, incest, cannibalism and mass slaughter as the most frequent leitmotifs of the Song of the Starks, or The Saga of Ice and Flame as it was sometimes called.
The very thought twisted her lips in mirth. It reminded her of the old joke: the aristocrats!
Liana opened the trunk, fetching the oranges and some Summer Island bananas as well. Most of her friends were going to raves down in Dorne, or catching the waves down in Tall Trees Town, as any sane person would do during spring break. But—she was here, in Winterton, near the ancient Stark seat, Winterfell. (Or, as she liked to call it, jokingly, Winterhell.) Though it had been extensively rebuilt in the fourth century, and supposedly bore little resemblance to how it looked before the Cataclysm, she’d always wanted to come here. It was much smaller than it used to be, and it was a museum now, with supposed recreations of “Queen Sansa’s bedchamber” and “the crypts” and all that. Winterton was perfectly respectable as tourist destinations went, but to come up during Spring Break was nuts. It was still fucking cold.
So yeah. She must’ve been crazy to come here. But maybe she should blame the unholy combination of Ironish and Qartheen genetics. The idea of seeing the sights, hanging out with her uncle, and researching the Sagas at the university had its appeal.
Also, there was Brenn, but she shoved that thought aside.
“He’ll like the oranges.” A smile brightened up Brenn’s long, thin face, and his hazel eyes sparkled. Her roommate Lindey said he looked like a horse, with his outsize nose and big teeth, which wasn’t wrong, but there was something appealing about him. God, she was perverse. “The groceries up here have lousy produce.”
“Well, I smuggled it in, like the daring pirate I am,” said Liana. She squinted, affecting an exaggerated Iron Islander accent. “Arrr, matey! Avast ye landlubbers, for I bring fruit!”
“I knew it!” He laughed, but then affected a scowl. “But where did you get the fruit, you Ironborn scum? Which of my family’s orchards did you raid for such bounty?”
“Never you mind, greenlander. I paid the iron price for it—not the gold! So sink ye, you southron scoundrel, it’s mine. Mine!”
“Damn you all to hell!” said Brenn, sinking against the car. “The honor of House Fossoway will never be restored—oh God! The humanity! The fruitanity!”
Liana giggled, leaning on the trunk next to him. Her mom had loved both operas and musicals and old costume dramas, with swashbuckling and romance and overblown soundtracks, and Liana had loved them too. They all the same type of stories. Young princes and princesses, torn apart by feuding families, filled with passionate yearning, and separated and tortured by various sadistic villains, until they were at last reunited (the operas usually featured them dying in each other’s arms, while the movies usually had them living happily ever after). There was the Qartheen story of Kaasro the Pureborn and Xira the shadowbinder’s daughter, or Prince Theon the Forsaken and Queen Sansa Gloriana, or Iselle, the last princess of South Westria, and her revolutionist lover, Alexis, at the end of the Age of Luminance…
Even though Liana knew it was nonsense, she didn’t care. Real life was grueling and dull. Cleaning sinks. Toilets. Paying down credit cards. Fixing cars. Long-distance arguments over alimony. Eviction. Cancer. Chemotherapy. Haggling with a mortician over bills.
So what if she wanted to think about something else? The past was a fascinating place. Nowadays, of course, the Iron Islands were just another dead end place that kids fled as soon as they could, and Qarth was a city in Essos mainly known for its museums and its pharmaceutical industry. Many of the forests in North Westria had been cut down, making room for ranches and farms. Direwolves, south of the ruins of the old wall, had been hunted to extinction.
It had been so different, back in the age of the Sagas. Part of her wanted to see what it was like—when pirate princes ruled the Sunset Sea, sinister warlocks ruled Qarth, and shape-shifting wolves stalked the forests of the North. That was before the sorcerous principle had left the world. In those days, the air was riddled with portent, prophecy and enchantment.
But when the Cataclysm had been averted, all of that went away. Now, eight hundred years later, the descendants of all those pirates, wizards and shape-shifting wolves were left with technology and science- and an increasingly hot and crowded planet.
Liana wrapped her arms around her. Well, the North was still cold as ever. Though no doubt the ancients would consider this balmy. They’d think she was soft.
She laughed at that. Perhaps she was.
“A penny for your thoughts,” said Brenn.
“Oh, I think my thoughts are worth more than a penny,” said Liana, toying a little with her necklace. It was her favorite pendant of a white jade lotus, that used to belong to her mother. “Inflation. They’re at least worth a nickel.”
“I’m all out of nickels,” he said. He stretched his arm out, and Liana realized, a bit belatedly, that his hand was inching towards her shoulder.
It was her turn to flush. “Ah, uh, yeah. It’s getting late. We should find Uncle Xandros.”
There was an awkward pause as Brenn plunged his hands into his jeans pockets. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “He’s usually up in the lab on weeknights. He’s working something…well, you’ll see.”
“I hope it’s interesting,” said Liana. “I don’t have much of a head for physics. I barely passed algebra, even with my uncle tutoring me.”
“Oh, you’ll find it interesting,” Brenn said with a grin. “I think it’s right up your alley.”
“Right up my alley?”
“So to speak. I know you like the Age of the Sagas.”
Liana stared at him. “What does physics have to do with the Age of the Sagas?”
“You’ll see!”
She never thought nerdy, gangly Brenn Fossoway would enjoy being mysterious as a shadowsider, but apparently he did.
“All right,” she said, swallowing a nervous laugh. She pushed herself off the car, but the heel of her boot caught on some uneven bit of the concrete; she stumbled. She almost fell over the curb, but he grabbed her just in time, almost jerking her arm out of her socket.
“Are you okay?” he said, concerned.
“Yeah.” Liana ground her teeth, cursing herself for her clumsiness. But she always started tripping and dropping things when she was exhausted.
After a moment she remembered her manners. “Thanks,” she mumbled. “I could’ve sprained an ankle.”
A street light by the science building entrance turned on, and the harsh sodium-yellow light flickered over his straight brown hair. He grew very still.
“Look—” his voice cracked a bit—“it’s been a long day. Maybe I should just take you back to Professor H’s house. I can get the keys. We can get some dinner. You don’t have to worry about anything—”
Her stomach growled. The idea of getting dinner sounded amazing, but she could wait a bit longer. She really wanted to see her uncle and his allegedly awesome lab. She had a chicken sandwich anyway, in her bag. If she was really hungry she could eat that.
“Nah, I’m good.” She straightened with as much dignity as she could manage. She even threw in a flowery gesture. “Lead the way, my good ser.”
He stared at her, as Liana smirked.
“You mentioned this mysterious project. Well, you’ve piqued my interest. I’m going to see it, Brenn Fossoway, even if it’s the last thing I do.”