"I am many things, a widow, a daughter, a princess, a queen. But that isn't who I am. I am a storm that you should not want to meet. I am the queen of storms."
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JOANNA BARATHEON HAD BEEN A LONG BELIEVER OF THE SEVEN. But she could not help but be fascinated as she stood by the heat of the pools that surrounded the cold five pointed tree. Joanna had not known of the true nature of the weirwoods until she had come to the north, not that she could have...her faith was for the seven gods of the seven pointed star.
Harold Stone had traveled Westeros in his youth, after he had decided to leave his home in the Vale. Joanna had been pleasantly surprised when Harold who did not like to speak about his life fully, had told them of that time he had gone to the Isle of Faces. Joanna had been a young girl, about eight years and had heard of the tales about the things that had happened in the Isle of Faces and was intrigued by Harold's story.
Joanna had remembered it like it was yesterday. She had no desire at all to go to sleep that night and the maiden herd had been having a hard time putting Joanna to bed who was making noise and ran through her chambers with energetic bursts. The maiden herd had come to ask Harold for his aid, perhaps forcing Joanna to have a bounty of dreamwine. But Joanna, the child she was, refused and put her royal authority over them as to not sleep.
Harold was diplomatic and knowing of her love for him and his way of telling her the tales of both ancient and present time, had told her that if she wished to hear a story of his life if she agreed that afterward, she would drink her cup of dreamwine. The princess was excited to hear of this, smiling and laughing as she went to her bed with the help of Fiorella and sat down at the edge while Harold gave her a tight smile, his eyes had been full of emotions. He took a stool and asked the maidens to leave him and Joanna, promising to call them once the princess had long gone to bed.
It was a memory the former princess would never forget. The way her stag had told him her story, the things he had seen and heard. They were forever in her mind, etched in the stone walls that formed the keep that Joanna had in her head. Harold had never spoken of it again, she recalls. It had only been that one moment a long time ago.
The stone stag had gone through many things and had just never told his tales, even to those he trusted and loved. But now that Joanna had looked onto it, she had thought that Harold was rather saddened by his memories, by his life. That was why he had never shared everything with her or the other knights of the herd.
"What are you thinking about?" The shelled stag exclaimed as Joanna knelt down and touched the hot pools. She flinched at the heat, but dipped it deeper and looked up as the leaves continued to dance. "Joanna, that is dangerous!"
"I am fine." Joanna says to him, her other hand holding onto her borrowed cloak. "I was thinking of Harold's stories. From when I was a child."
"His stories? The ones he used to make up?" His face slowly contorted in confused questioning, brow raised.
The lady of Winterfell nodded ever so slightly. "Not only the ones he used to make up. He told me truthful stories as well."
He had left the Vale when he had been a younger man, he had told her in a solemn voice. It had almost sounded so mournful, as if he had mourned the idea of parting with his homeland. But he had not said why and the young princess then did not pester him why, urging the knight to tell his story.
