<div align="center"><div align="center">***</div></div><br/>Maiev looked at the red figure before her. She suspected it was a man, due to its strong posture. It lacked a woman’s delicacy. Clad in red, the man was travelling through the seas of water, ice and fire. Fire she had known, dancing orange and red flames leaping from one wave to another, and fire she had never seen before, flashes of wild green, devouring everything on their path to victory. She wasn’t sure which colour suited the man better. He seemed calm like water – she could almost swear she had seen him dancing on water, and yet he was a burning man. He burnt like no other she had seen. His eyes were two swirling balls of fire and desire, his hands moving swiftly like flames. She saw him leaving trace in the Northern snow, as he had finally reached a port town she could swear she almost recognised. But he didn’t stop, he pressed on, through the winds and summer snows, even the cold didn’t seem to bother him. He was fire, Maiev reminded herself, as she observed him further.<br/><br/>She could not pierce the shadow of his red hood. His face was a secret even to her green eyes. The only thing she had seen were his fiery eyes that made her feel uneasy. She was shaking, burning shivers going through her body as she looked into those dangerous eyes one more time.<br/><br/>Her vision followed his moves. He was getting closer, she could almost hear words he spoke, almost feel his hot breath on her face, almost touch his hot body. He was coming to Greyhold. And he was bringing fire and destruction with him.<br/><br/>A song.<br/><br/>Maiev had heard this song before. It was a song filled with ice and fire, but there was also a hint of something else.<br/><br/>The redhaired Northern woman woke up as a desire to break the fast struck her.<br/><br/>Desire.<br/><br/><div align="center">***</div><strong>Where:</strong>Greyhold<br/><strong>Tagging:</strong>Leynir, Lowell, Tybolt, Owell<br/><br/><div class="floatright">(http://i325.photobucket.com/albums/k388/eryrwyn/LewysGreystark_zps72af6b54.jpeg)</div>The morning had dawned clear and warm, almost inspiring a feeling that this summer would never end. Some had already called it “the Long Summer”. It had already lasted a couple of years and there was still no sign of winter. The maesters of the Citadel, as always, wouldn’t agree whether it was indeed a long summer, or maybe winter would come soon. Lord Lewys had never had a great love for the scholars. They would argue over matters of no importance, do research of no value and usefulness, and spend all their days in the library, instead of going out like true men. He still remembered how their maester was unable to help his feverish brother. All those herbalist tricks, all the medicinal liquids, nothing seemed to work. All was in vain, the maester couldn’t help his elder brother Edric. Although he had been only ten at the time, he could still hear the poor boy’s feverish moans and sobs, filled with pain emanating from the festered wound just under his knee. It wasn’t the only time when a maester failed him and his family.<br/><br/>His memories of his first wife were much more vivid than those of his childhood. She could easily recall his divine Ceridwen. The moment he had seen her, Lewys swore that if the New Gods existed, Ceridwen must have been a personification of the Maiden. She was beautiful in a wild, passionate way. She was a woman of wild, raw beauty, with dark hair and eyes of icy blue. A woman of wild, raw passions as well. Gods be cruel, she was taken away from him, giving birth to his firstborn son. It was then that a maester had failed him again. He said there were complications during labour and that she, the woman of Lewys’ dreams, had died. She had died, just like that, with no war, no conflict, no fire, no disease.<br/><br/>It was just after the great civil war that had taken many lives among the members of House Greystark that Lewys experienced joy of having a competent maester serving his house. The new maester, Owell was his name, managed to cure his youngest son, Erik, from a persistent cough that threatened to kill the boy. Lord Lewys was afraid his child would join his mother, grandmother and aunt in the afterlife, so soon after their deaths, but the young maester was able to restore the boy to health. It was quite a miracle in Greystark’s eyes. From that moment on, he had shown much more respect to the maester’s craft and listened carefully to his words of wisdom.<br/><br/>He was listening even now. Lord Lewys sat on a stone chair in the dining hall, listening to the maester giving advice on the economy of the house. He nodded his head, agreeing with the scholar’s suggestion and smiled, but it was a smile devoid of happiness. There was only fatigue there. It seemed that the years of peace and quiet had taken worse toll than the days of war on the lord. Or was it the matter of the wedding? Owell had noticed how concerned he was with this arrangement. It was clear that he was torn inside, it wasn’t clear why however. Tullisons were a respected and wealthy house of good renown in the Riverlands, kin to Tullys of Riverrun. What the maester suspected was that thinking of Tullisons made Lewys think back to his second wife and her untimely death during Robert’s Rebellion. She was a Tullison, and now his heir was taking her brother’s firstborn daughter as his wife. A future lady Greystark.<br/><br/><div class="floatright">(http://i325.photobucket.com/albums/k388/eryrwyn/SeptaRosine_zps3d624c42.jpg)</div>Lord Lewys shook his head and realised that his children were just arriving in the dining hall to break their fast with him before they took to their horses and leave for Riverred. His only daughter, sweet and innocent Elise, with her mother’s red hair, was accompanied by septa Rosine. Although Greystarks all followed the Old Gods, when Elayne Tullison came to Greyhold, she begged her lord husband to build a small sept of the New Gods, so that she had a place of worship. It was not beautiful like most of the septs his late wife had attended. It was stony and unwelcoming, and yet… the rainbow light had always been able to calm her nerves down. She then had a septon sent to Greyhold, so that she could take part in small ceremonies in the gods’ name. Only when Elayne died, however, did he invite a septa to his household. He realised that his daughter needed a womanly presence in her life to make a good wife one day and septas were great teachers of manners and all the other womanly pursuits. Thus, septa Rosine arrived at Greyhold. Ever since, she was a constant companion of Elise… at least when the girl wasn’t with maester Owell. Lord Lewys trusted the maester, but he wasn’t too happy with his daughter’s fascination with the maester and the knowledge he offered to teach. Nonetheless, lord Greystark did nothing with it, seeing no harm in it.<br/><br/><div class="floatleft">(http://i325.photobucket.com/albums/k388/eryrwyn/EliseGreystark_zpsc46c8455.jpg)</div>“M’lord,” septa Rosine bowed down and looked at the young lady just behind her. Elise curtsied with reverence, “Father, may we break the fast now?” Lewys nodded and soon there was food being served on their table. Hot bread, butter and honey, with blackberry preserves, as well as rashers of bacon and soft-boiled eggs, wedges of cheese and mulled wine to wash it all down.<br/><br/><div class="floatright">(http://i325.photobucket.com/albums/k388/eryrwyn/ErikGreystark_zps137ca4d0.jpg)</div>“Father,” Elise’s twin brother, Erik, spoke up, “when do we leave? I’ve heard almost everything’s ready. We should make haste!” His sister sneered. Erik had been behaving as if it was his wedding, and not his elder brother’s.<br/><br/><div class="floatleft">(http://i325.photobucket.com/albums/k388/eryrwyn/StewardDeryl_zps16f776cf.jpg)</div>“We’re leaving in two hours,” said lord Lewys, although no one could be sure whether he was talking to his children or his servants to make sure they were prepared to leave. “Deryl,” he addressed the castle’s steward, “I’m confident you’ll keep my lands safe and prosperous during our short absence.” Deryl, a man of thirty years, nodded, “Of course, m’lord. As always. I have been…”<br/><br/><div class="floatleft">(http://i325.photobucket.com/albums/k388/eryrwyn/MaievGreystark_zps037ebd80.jpg)</div>Before he could finish his sentence, an elderly woman stormed into the hall, with a look of madness in her verdant green eyes, her hair a mess of fiery red locks, “Fire! Fire!” she shrieked like a madwoman.<br/><br/>“What? Fire?! Where, mother?!” Lewys stood up in an instant.<br/><br/>“No, no, no! Not yet, will be! Fire’s coming! I saw it! Dreams, dreams don’t lie, now, do they?! Dreams, fire, a burning man is coming to burn us all down!” The lady mother’s talk of prophetic dreams was a constant reminder of her madness. She was a fierce woman, every member of House Greystark knew that. There was no disagreeing with her. Her moods changed like the moon.<br/><br/>“Mother… this again? Dreams do not hold the truth of the future.” Lewys said, shaking his head.<br/><br/>“You may be a lord now, but you’re as stupid as you were as a boy of green!” Maiev cried out aggresively.<br/><br/>“Enough of that, mother. I want to hear no more about your dreams. Now come and break the fast with us,” Everyone living with the wild woman had to learn how to endure her changing moods without losing temper. Even lord Lewys, however, sometimes was on the verge of patience with his own mother, especially when she publicly challenged his authority. He had to tolerate the old woman though. She was his mother, after all.<br/><br/>The redhaired woman looked at her son with her emerald green eyes and said nothing. She sat down and covered her bacon with blackberries.<br/><br/>A servant, with a look of distress on his face, came rushing to the lord. “M’lord, a guest’s arrived at the castle, seeking hospitality. He says you’d want to talk to him, m’lord.” The servant, a young man of nineteen maybe, could have been handsome if puberty had not left some horrible red scars on his youthful face.<br/><br/>“Show him in, then. May he break the fast with us!”<br/><br/>“Of course, m’lord.”<br/><br/>In a few moments, a figure in red robes was shown into the dining hall, where the more important members of the household sat and ate. There was light summer snow still on his robes, but it didn’t seem to cause him any discomfort.<br/><br/>The lord stood up and moved to welcome their guest, “Well met, traveller! What brings you to our castle? Please, come in and sit at our table with us. Know the hospitality of the Old Gods.”<br/><br/>Lady Maiev’s green eyes flashed with a mixture of anger and recollection, “Fire! Red! Burning man! You!” she opened her eyes as wide as was humanly possible and made a cry of shock, “Gods be good! Can it be…? After all those years? Tybolt?”<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Mechanics</div><div class="spoiler_body">Everyone, except Tybolt, is allowed a Knowledge (Education) check here to see if they recognise Tybolt's robes as those of a red priest. DC 12 [Formidable considering red priests are almost unknown in Westeros at this point.] (Leynir - 2d6, Lowell - 3d6, Owell - 7d6, keeps 4 highest rolls)</div></div>