Chapter Text
“A Wolf-King lay cold in frozen ground, And a man rose up a stranger no longer ocean bound… With pale silver hair and red, red eyes, He carries with him still the age of strife...” A soft, melodic voice sang, the sound carrying easily across the unusually calm ocean waves.
Vaella’s calloused hands scrubbed at her son’s dirty breeches with some well earned intensity, her shoulders hunched and head bent low as she worked.
A huff escaped her between verses, a half-hearted attempt at dislodging a wayward lock of platinum-blonde hair that had apparently managed to escape its tightly bound bun.
“From north to south, the ground lay cold, The song of the people frozen to a halt… A man knelt down in ash and dust, His hands still red and ringing from rust.”
The lock returned, bending down to the very same position where it had been taunting her from mere moments before.
With a gentle sigh, Vaella paused in her tune, setting aside her worn brush, before raising a wet hand to push back her hair over her shoulder, cursing her own foolishness for not having it bound properly in her earlier hurry.
This time she twisted it firmly back into place, tucking it with the practiced fingers of a woman who had fought this particular battle many times before.
The fog was worsening, she noted from the corner of her eye while her deft digits worked. Vaella had seen the barely there haze, far off in the distance, when she’d first arrived, but now it had grown into a soft, but true barrier against light.
Slowly it lumbered toward the shore, and it wouldn’t be long before it engulfed all in its wake.
She returned to her task, the bun secured once more. Better not tempt fate by dallying overlong.
“The servants of light made vows of warmth, spoke of a blade to end the endless dark… Two desperate souls knelt to flame, And paid the price of hope in pain…”
A gentle shiver spoke to her of the emerging night. The sun having given in to the gentle tyranny of the night some time ago, leaving her working in naught but torchlight, the lonely source of flame guttering quietly in its metal stand not far from her bent form.
“Wash it clean, oh’ wash it clean, Oh’ how the Wolf-King loved his Queen… The scars on his hands deemed too deep to lift, The stain on his soul too fierce to forgive…”
Finally Vaella gave in and frowned in fond frustration, battling fiercely against a spot of dirt stuck to the breeches’ knee. Her precious boy had been kneeling in the fireplace again, undoubtedly having been cleaning the thing by his father’s command.
There was a hole there, the woman noticed, a small one previously hidden by the uncleanliness.
There was little to be done about it now, out in the cold.
She hummed most deeply between verses, placing the article back into the basket with her with the rest of her work, before rising and stretching, her body aching from the near hour of labor performed.
With a simple swipe of her plain skirts, she bent and picked up the well washed clothing, giving the still, eerie sea one last glance, before turning and beginning her march down the pier.
“Wash it clean, oh’ wash it clean,” She repeated quietly. “The Wolf-King’s penance a lonely eternity… Beware the mist, beware the shore, beware the ghosts that would swallow us whole…”
After the wooden pier came the wavebreaker, one made of a thousand loose-stones built by the village-folk centuries ago, when the still relentless sea had begun to eat away at the soft sands of the ancient beaches. Half a dozen other, similar small wharfs ran across and over the formation of stone.
It was a folktale as old as time - just how many souls the waves claimed before the stones were done and laid.
“Pull up your skirts and mind the lane, Don't pause for any dark wandering shapes… The red-eyed ghost that wanders the fog, Will it save your soul or swallow you whole?...”
Vaella’s song continued as she slowly wandered along the wavebreakers length. A rough cobblestone road having been built to run parallel to it, with houses and huts of varying sizes raised further inland, lining the street with their monotone forms.
How quickly it had engulfed the shore, the curtain of nothingness. How easily it made the homes and shops loom where they had only ever stood before.
Still she braved on, quite eager to get home and be done with the day, idly eyeing the forms of the few and far between torches as she passed, their light and their stands seemingly swallowed by the fog.
“Horrors of haze, wicked and wont, wandering spirits haunting the innocent folk… From the depths of the mist his spirit cam —”
The song froze on her lips when something cracked nearby Vaella’s stride coming to an instant halt, mid-step.
The sound - one that rang wooden, as if something had fallen - had emanated from an alley between two sturdy timber buildings, the balcony of the leftmost one hanging over her singular, lonely form.
The woman’s eyes narrowed as she stared into the fog, her fingers instinctively tightening on the basket.
“... Hello?” Vaella quietly called, her voice seemingly echoing twice in the quietness.
For a moment she waited, noting how the night had seemingly gotten just that much cooler then.
When nothing but the absolute softest gushes of wind eventually answered back, Vaella turned and took a step forth, shaking her head at her own silliness, before resuming her stride.
She’d paid far too much attention to those old folk-tale —
A yelp escaped her lungs when a calloused hand wrapped around her mouth from behind, the harsh fingers forcibly closing her lips shut. Not a moment of reprieve was given when the oppressive arm yanked her backwards, making Vaella drop her basket in panic as her world tilted sideways - towards the alley.
She struggled, even when surprised, even when she’d barely had the time to realize what had happened - Gods did she struggle.
Vaella was being dragged, half-bent over with her face near parallel to the ground, away from where someone might stumble upon her, away from the lanterns and the sea…
Her entire body twisted and turned and trashed as fiercely as its small size allowed, forcing grunts and hisses from the ambusher. One of her wildly flailing elbows struck the man’s poorly guarded belly by chance, the deep, wet wheeze that followed giving her momentary hope of an escape.
That’s when he finally shoved her forwards most harshly, Vaella just managing to place a leg beneath her to prevent herself from fully stumbling to the ground, and instead crashed against the leftmost building's timber wall.
The impact nearly drove the air from her lungs.
… Fully aware of what would be the alternative, she hurriedly forced herself to inhale enough air to scream - only for the unfortunately familiar hand to return once more, muffling her efforts, followed by the press of something impossibly sharp against her back - its deadly, steely tip nicking skin despite the heavy dress standing in its path.
“Shut yer fuckin’ mouth!” A rough voice slurred into her ear.
When she attempted to move either way, daring to ignore the command, the blade pressed into her skin hard enough to draw blood truly, making her yelp into the makeshift gag.
It was ale that she smelled on the man’s fingers, Vaella panickedly realized then. She was held at knifepoint by a drunkard…. Had been dragged into a lonely alley by a drunkard...
And she smelled ale on his breath, she smelled ale on his breath because the drunken brute leaned in, pressing his nose into her shoulder before inhaling.
“Ye make a sound - you make one sound, an' I'll leave ye bleedin' out on these cobbles. Y’hear me?”
She moaned - horrified - when the hand previously over her mouth slowly eased in its hold, and instead lowered down, bundling her skirts into a fist, and began lifting them.
The sensation of the cold night-air striking Vaella’s stockinged calves finally made the first tears slip from her eyes.
The ambusher cared not, seemingly mumbling to himself when the hem passed her knees and revealed pale, uncovered thighs for his feasting eyes.
The same hand holding her skirts quickly moved down and awkwardly, drunkenly palmed at her bare skin, the man actually moaning to himself during the act. Vaella quietly wailed when he distractedly pressed the knife harder against her back amidst his fumbling.
The assaulter’s breath hitched when her skirts passed her thighs and revealed to him the very bottom of her buttocks - a wet, near hysteric sob escaping her when his hand ran over her smallclothes, and then across her crack and upwards.
The indignity of snot running down her nose never even crossed her mind, Vaella wishing desperately that she’d have the courage to raise her arm to wipe away her rapidly escaping tears… to battle this brute to the death if needed.
… But she wasn’t brave like that, she sang songs and told stories and washed clothes and her son, her precious son - what would her boy do, if his mother chose the dignity of death over defilement? What would —
Vaella’s panicked thoughts came to a halt when her skirts finally passed her buttocks and settled on the small of her back.
Her assaulter wasted not a moment, moving his hands down and taking hold of the rim of her smallclothes.
What would her boy think if she didn’t even try?
Vaella inhaled shakily. As the last vestige of her dignity began to lower by the will of a foreign hand, she made up her mind, tensing her arms, determined to at least try and —
“Who the fuck are ye —” The would-be-rapist suddenly spoke, only for the pressure of the knife at her back to disappear instantly after, the woman not having the time to properly take in what had happened before she heard it clatter to the cobbles beneath, its oppressive pressure on her back lifting.
The flesh of her back turned to gooseflesh when she heard the horrified yelp that followed, and the answering impact that seemed to bounce from the very walls around her.
Her skirts fell back down, hiding her from the world and the monsters within it.
Vaella had not the mind to turn and see what was happening behind her - her own breathing making her feel lightheaded, the corners of her vision darkening as her focus seemed to narrow onto a singular, small imperfection in the timbers...
Despite the loudness of her own breaths, despite the burning in her eyes and the pain in her back, Vaella heard - oh, how clearly she heard the lightly muffled, heavy - heavy thuds from behind her… Just as she heard the panicked yelling and the loud crash that followed, one far meatier than the knife’s fall had been.
‘Thud, thud, thud,’ the noise repeated again and again, each strike seemingly a little more distant than the last, followed by the sounds of desperate, pointless struggling, before finally came the sad, drunken pleading.
It didn’t work. The wailing and the begging, it didn’t work for him just as it hadn't worked for her. The only answer to the man’s pleas of mercy being something hard striking his flesh once more.
Her ears rang as again, and again, and again the fist struck, before that too devolved as something cracked, and the pleading turned into gurgling, hollow and horrendous.
And just as quickly as it had all begun, it went silent - if not for her own, confused sobs…
The wall seemed to tilt within itself, a pattern not unlike a whirlpool forming in the texture of the wood as she tried to breathe.
Still Vaella refused to turn, though her hands did absentmindedly rise to wipe at her eyes, failing thrice to stem the tide of tears, before grimacing terribly when her arm lowered, and she ran the length of it across her nose, leaving a long wet line on her sleeve.
Black spots had appeared in her vision by then. Her own heart racing in her ears.
It was the sound of something being dragged that finally drew her dazed gaze from the wall, breaking through the ringing and the thumping - that finally had her gather her courage and swallow her fear… And slowly turn around —
Only to gasp when she saw the back of what could only be a man, this one slimmer and taller than her own attacker could possibly have been.
Thrice in rapid succession did she have to blink before her vision cleared enough to make out the grey, perhaps silver locks resting against the man’s back in long, damp ropes. Unloved they looked, uncared for and abandoned.
Vaella thought she sensed the stench of fish in the air.
Slowly, without acknowledging her, the man - her rescuer - moved away with uneven steps, and it was only then that Vaella realized one of his hands was holding onto the leg of her assaulter, dragging the unmoving, ruined form across the cobbled street.
Her hands came to her chest, crossed, as if to protect herself when she saw just what state the drunkard was in, too terrible for her to describe even in the depths of her muddled mind.
Eventually naught but a pair of boots were visible of the brutalized man, the rest already swallowed by the mist.
… The mist, her confused, addled mind repeated, before her eyes widened, a thought most strange striking her…
“The Ghost…” Vaella whispered without thinking, the Monster of the Mist —
Only for her to recoil back in shock when a pair of red eyes snapped around to glare at her from the fog, their steady, heavy gaze as otherworldly as it was disturbing. As hypnotizing as it was repulsing.
He gazed upon her for but a moment - or so Vaella thought - in truth it felt like an eternity to her confused senses… Before seemingly losing interest, and turning around again.
Slowly the boots moved, and the monster turned, disappearing completely into the haze’s embrace, the ruined drunkard but a step's length behind.
First went the body’s breeches and the legs, and finally, with a final long tug, so did the boots, and then all that remained was the virgin fog.
Vaella crashed, her legs giving out from under her, all the fight finally escaping her tired bones with a single exhale.
She fell onto her buttocks, her back dragging across the very same wall that she had nearly been raped against mere moments ago…
… And she sobbed. She sobbed into her hands that had left her helpless, and she sobbed for the robbed sense of security that the looming Dragonstone above had previously so easily provided… And she sobbed until the darkness around her eyes finally closed in, and took her to oblivion's bitter embrace.