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Chapter 54
Robb Stark
Robb lidlessly stared at the bloodied head of his father, blaming him again and again for his death in its death throes.
For a single, insignificant moment, Robb felt his words reach him, and in that moment, he stood stock still as memories went through his head, of days when his father and family were in Winterfell, happy days where minor issues were considered life changing to his teenage mind.
And for that single moment, he felt great amounts of sorrow and grief surge through his mind, almost enough to make him shed tears once again.
And in the next moment, he crushed Ned Stark's head under his boots.
"Illusions like these cannot be cheap." Robb let his words echo through the endless fog. "Let alone this mystic mist, how many deaths can you survive, before your will finally crumbles?"
His hand extending to his left without looking, and Robb held his own mother by the throat and crushed it, ignoring its fake wails.
His force skills might not be enough to sense through the fog, but they were certainly enough to parse through it. And so, letting his precognitive sense guide him, Robb slowly walked toward a random direction, sure that it would lead him to his prey.
Along the way, even as he cut down family and friends, Robb began to feel the fog's ability to hide Thorns weaken as he got closer, and at some point, he began to clearly sense him, him and the deep fear he held within him.
Finally, there he was.
A despairing wail echoed through the forest.
"What—what sort of monster are you?!" Thorns shrieked, eyes wide and unfocused. "No, no, no—this wasn't—this wasn't how it was meant to go! I planned everything! I knew how this ends! I win—I always win!" He clutched at his head, stumbling back, laughter bubbling up between ragged breaths. "This isn't real... it's not real!"
Robb finally stood in front of the kneeling child of the forest, looking at him with his cold eyes.
"It is real enough." His lightsaber buzzed as the surrounding landscape disappeared, turning back into its white expanse. "You made sure of that."
Thorns seemed to flinch at his speech, fearing another death. But Robb stilled his hand, death in this realm is meaningless, if he was to end it, it would be through speech.
"I admit to feeling a measure of pity for you, Thorns." He said. "My ancestor should not have punished you so, death should have been enough. And I cannot imagine what sort of suffering your loneliness brought you."
Thorns finally looked upward, meeting his eyes with a flinch.
"But it is you who chose this ritual, you could have bargained for your freedom, asked for mercy, perhaps even offered a trade." Each of Robb's alternatives brough another flinch, and Robb began to sense his resolve faltering. "I could have certainly granted you freedom then."
And finally, regret began to mar his soul.
"Even if it would have been in the form of death."
Thorns' only reaction was silence.
They met eyes for a while, none speaking to the others.
And Robb almost allowed himself the luxury to relax, as he felt Thorns resignation begin to hold.
"So be it." His words were light, almost unheard.
Then he threw his head back and cackled maniacally, the sound high-pitched and broken, like glass shattering in slow motion.
"Haha—HAHAHA!" Spit fell off his mouth as he did,blackened and ugly. "I lost? I lost! HAHAHAHA—"
His words were halted by a buzzing sound, and he looked down at the lightsaber piercing his heart, an expression of shock in his face, as if he hadn't expected it.
But then, a smirk donned his face.
Like lava, his face began melting on itself, sending waves of agony through his body. But Thorns did not care, he just laughed maniacally.
"You feel that?! I win, I win, I WIN—even when I lose!" Robb idly rubbed a piece of errant drool from his cheek as he assessed the situation. "I win! I win! I WIN! I WIN—" His words ceased as his face fully liquefied.
And then the artificial mindscape almost shattered, a hole appearing at its ceiling, without color or form, it was an eldritch apparition beyond human comprehension.
And through it, an uncontrolled connection to the Weirwood Network was formed, allowing all its errant and unfulfilled ghost free access to it, and therefore, to both their minds.
'Although he doesn't have much of a mind, anymore.' Robb thought, glancing at the disgusting liquefied form that is Thorns' corpse.
He felt the urge to sigh, that pest didn't even have the decency to die in silence.
Countless Force ghosts surged from the gaping wound in the sky, their forms amorphous and screaming, a chorus of untethered souls set loose upon the shattered mindscape. Some drifted like smoke, others twisted and clawed at the air, their features flickering between pain, rage, and despair. The hole they poured from pulsed unnaturally, a void without edge or meaning—an open sore in the Weirwood Network.
And yet, despite the chaos, Robb remained still.
Thorns' gambit, for all its cruelty and madness, had not halted the ritual's completion. It had simply failed to kill him.
It was his mind that had been under siege, not the soulbinding itself.
So, he raised his hand and drew from the purest core of his will. Light burst from his palm. Radiant and stern, the Force Light coalesced into a shimmering wall, brilliant and defiant against the spectral tide.
The ghosts howled as they struck it, some recoiling, others mindlessly throwing themselves against the barrier in blind fury. The wall would not hold forever. It wasn't meant to.
It only needed to buy him time.
Time to reach inward.
Time to grasp the flood of impressions, thoughts, and fragmented screams that had once belonged to Thorns.
Time to understand what had truly happened.
Time to learn.
His eyes closed, and the memories came.
The first memory struck like a whisper too ancient to name.
"—rál'thún, come here—"
A melodic voice, unfit for human tongues, sang his name. A mother's warmth, a soft hand reaching—
Crack.
A stone fell from the canopy above, and the warmth was gone.
Running, panting.
Tiny feet through roots and underbrush. A hand grasping another, smaller and trembling.
Behind them: fire, shouting, steel.
Humans.
Kneeling under moonlight,
Surrounded by stone circles and watchful eyes.
Endless chants, silence more punishing than pain.
The ancient masters did not smile. They never smiled.
Battle.
A thousand screams. Arrows fell like hail.
He watched as a boulder flung by man-made fire crushed a giant's hand.
He turned just in time to avoid the next.
Creatures with the scales of fish.
Knowledge offered—but with a price.
Betraying his fellows, all for a chance at survival.
A cavern of moss and echoes.
Thorns—no, Zhun'korraelvanysmal'ithurvaellorien-rál'thún—standing before a circle of ancient beings: giants draped in furs, Children in ceremonial bone.
He proposed to fight their enemies using their own kin.
And from that, the Green Men were born.
Endless nights.
Alone in stone chambers beneath the earth.
Mixing sap with blood, carving sigils into bark and skin.
Each loss brought them closer to extinction.
And so he shall bring extinction to his enemies.
A Ritual circle.
He stood at its heart, arms open to the stars, a man with grey eyes looking up at him—
—and they came.
Children. Giants. Men.
They shattered the stones.
They shattered him.
Betrayal.
They said it was mercy.
Seven bronze spikes driven through his limbs and chest.
A weirwood grew from his spine.
The grey-eyed man whispered, "You will dream of a peace brought by your evil."
Agony becoming authority.
Roots spread.
Thoughts shaped the dream.
He was prisoner no longer—he was lord.
Seasmoke.
A dragon, silvery-grey, descended through the mists.
The man atop it had hair of snow, and eyes like winter's edge.
He smiled.
Robb.
Striding through the spectral village.
A shadow of vengeance curled in Thorns' gut.
He had waited so long.
Now—finally—retribution.
Robb's breath was calm when his eyes opened.
The path to survival was clear.