Writer's Games Entries

Task 0: Audition-task

Task: How did my character convince their Lord to send him?

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"My Lords!" He called out. "Time is upon us. The Gods have stated their wrath and disappointment with us. I will not be the Lord that pisses them off even further. The war has been going on for too long, costing one generation after the other." The men and knights in the room immediately put their cups on the table. Many of them were no stranger to having lost an uncle or a brother in the wars for the Iron Throne. Entire future generations had gone under and several houses were on the brink of extinctions if the war continued the way it had. "It seems the time has come to rely on the Gods."

Lord Stark was no less than one of the seven great Lords in Westeros. He was the Lord that reunited the North and led the many attempts south towards the Iron Throne. He had won his fair share of battles, just as he had lost. The problem with being one of great Lords, was there were 6 others just as great. Lord Stark's only advantage against them was that he and his sworn Northern Houses knew their land like the back of their hands. They knew the harshness of the winter-winds and hostility of the cold, but they could not take the Iron Throne from the North. They had to march south, and they had done so multiple times without success.

Aerio stood silently in his own corner in the room as one man after the other, from the different smaller houses, volunteered for the important mission in the realms of the Gods. As the process went, each candidate had to state why he, or in the rare cases she, was the right person to accomplish the goal – securing Lord Stark the Iron throne. Why would Lord Stark trust them in front of any of the other candidates?

The process was a rather public one. Lord Stark would carefully listen to the words spoken by the candidates and make notice of the general reception of their proposal. Many of the ones that stepped forward came from families who had served House Stark through many generations. Many of Lord Stark's most loyal houses had many strong contenders to take on this mission. What could Aerio possibly offer that rest couldn't?

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He could not count the days he had been sitting on the horse riding north. He only knew where his destination was and how to get there, but he had not counted on the harsh weather that he encountered the further north he went. He had never been this far north. On the way, he found an unexpected person whom he decided to rescue and bring with him. Aerio knew that having done that, he could have very well granted himself into the service of the Lord of Winterfell, Lord Stark.

The winds and the temperature was treating Aerio just in the same manner as his past had. Harsh, without mercy. The wind cut through his cape like a million knives, and despite of how much it stung, it didn't come close to what he remembered from his past: the screams that he heard at night, the sounds of flayed human flesh. He did not know who any of them were. He could not recall from where he had those faces. His only desire from years spent as somebody else, was to recover the pieces in his memory that he had lost. He hoped that Lord Stark was a Lord who would understand that desire.

"Who is at the gate?" A man called from the top of the castle walls. Aerio tightened his grip on the cape and pulled it closer to his throat. He made sure to try and keep himself as well as his 'guest' as warm as he could. "Aerio of The Shadowlands! I come with a long lost gift for the Lord of Winterfell!" He called out eventually, barely managing to get his voice through the strong northern winds. He didn't hear any response for quite a while before another voice spoke. "Open the gates!"