The Grind (Book 2) Ch.7

Jynn Hill was a young woman of seven and ten. She was a bastard of the Westerlands but one better off than most. For where most baseborn daughters would only be able to work as whores or serving wenches, Jynn was a maid in the legendary Casterly Rock.

She didn’t know her father. Not wholly. But she had her suspicions. Her mother was a brothel’s madam, a whore competent enough to work herself to the top and teach herself numbers if not letters. Another way Jynn was fortunate — she didn’t follow in her mother’s footsteps.

When her mother died of natural causes, an unknown man came for Jynn. From there, she was whisked off to the Rock. She thought it to be a fairy tale dream at the time. It wasn’t that far. But it was still a boon that she couldn’t refuse. She was inducted into the service of House Lannister, serving as a maid and living a comfortable enough existence since then.

That was where her suspicions started. For, while living in the hold of the Lannisters, Jynn noticed something about herself. She was of almost perfect Lannister stock. She was fair and comely. Beautiful, especially for baseborn Smallfolk.

Her green eyes glimmered like gems in the dying light over the Sunset Sea. She was buxom and full-figured, with pert tits, a pinched waist, and breeding hips that she knew made the other maids jealous and tempted men to sin in equal measure. The only place her ‘Lannister’ traits failed her was her hair, more of a dirty blonde than the trademark Lannister gold.

Then there was the way the Lords of the castle treated her. Lord Tywin was not kind to her. But he was not unkind either. Which was more than could be said for the other servants and staff. And Lord Kevan, Jynn could see a certain fondness in his eyes when she interacted with him. Nothing outright or blatant, but a slight softening of glinting crystalline emerald. And a sort of familiarity and pride deep within the privacy of his Lordly mind.

Lady Genna stayed within the Rock as well, overruling her dreadful troll of a Frey husband at every turn. She was Jynn’s favorite of the Lannisters. And Lady Genna seemed to return the affection. She was warm and wickedly sarcastic, never failing to pull giggles from Jynn in her lowest moments. While she didn’t reveal Jynn’s father — much like her brothers — Lady Genna gave enough clues that Jynn had a good guess on her own.

Eliminating Lord Tywin, Lord Kevan, and Lady Genna — for obvious reasons — there were only two Lannister Lords left. And Jynn was almost certain she came from the loins of the late Lord Gerion Lannister. Lord Gerion’s legacy was fondly regarded within the Rock and Lady Genna never refused to talk about her youngest brother, both Jynn and Genna pretending they didn’t know the significance.

The Lord himself had been lost at sea for half a decade. Embarked on an expedition to explore the ruins of Old Valyria, from what Jynn heard. But he’d apparently loved Jynn’s mother enough to have arrangements made in case of his demise. With her mother’s death, those arrangements came into play, ensuring Jynn had a place within Casterly Rock, even if she couldn’t be recognized as a true Lannister.

Such was Jynn’s content existence. She served and discreetly asked after her likely father when she could, even learning her letters and numbers along the way in sparse lessons from Lord Tyrion the Imp. And so life went for five years. Until the fateful feast that saw her whole world upturned and shattered.

It was a relatively standard affair for Casterly Rock. Some of the Lannister bannermen were called upon for reasons that were frankly above Jynn’s station to know. All she had to worry about was serving and picking up after the Knights and Lords. Initially, nothing was amiss. Yet as she cleaned the hall after the feast had mostly come to a close, Jynn was set upon by a demon in human skin.

The Mountain That Rides was known far and wide. Infamous. Terrifying. A man who stood two heads above most. A brute. A monster. Most pressing to Jynn at that moment, he was an impossible man to refuse, especially for a bastard maid with no protection in the world.

She’d heard the dark stories of the Mountain, the Monster That Rides. Tywin Lannister’s beast. Someone who ravaged his Lord’s enemies and nearly everyone else he saw fit without a thought for chivalry or mercy. A rabid dog who raped and slaughtered as easily as he breathed. A man who drank the milk of the poppy by the tankard as if it were nothing more than ale.

He was even more massive up close. Jynn barely came up to the center of his torso. His hands could crush her skull in a single palm. His embrace would snap her in half like a twig. Not even his thighs were kind, corded with the power to shatter any woman’s hips. He was the sort of hulking brute to break a mare should he lay with it. Yet even that crude thought brought Jynn no humor. Only more fear.

“Stay still, wench! You’ll take me tonight one way or another! I don’t mind taking my pleasure from your still-warm corpse!” The Mountain’s voice was like gravel, his threatening words sinking into Jynn’s psyche like the heaviest of blows.

She did all she could to resist, struggling against his grasping hands as she laughed and put on an innocent farce, “H-Haha, milord, surely you jest… Please, Ser, I have duties I must attend to.”

“Duties to me, aye,” The Mountain growled. “I think I deserve a Lannister beaut and you ain’t Highborn enough for them to complain, whore.”

Jynn’s blood ran cold. Her heart threatened to hammer out of her chest. Massive hands pawed and clawed at her body. Harsh, bruising pain ripped across her skin. Her dress tore from the force. She struggled and struggled and struggled, giving up the mummer’s play of the ‘dutiful servant’.

The Mountain would certainly break her. Destroy her as a woman and as a person, in mind and body through sheer force of rape. There were others still within the hall. But to a man and maid, they averted their eyes from Jynn’s plight. None would challenge the Mountain for a bastard maid, not even as Jynn began to scream and cry and plead.

He grappled with his pants, quickly revealing his member. Time seemed to slow for Jynn in her hopeless struggle. And she couldn’t help but think the craggy cock was rather small for a man of the Mountain’s stature. Not that it mattered much. The manly — beastly — weapon was still large and grotesque enough to rip and tear at Jynn’s virgin hole.

That thought finally sent her over the edge. The thought of losing her maidenhead to this-! This THING in the flesh of a man! Glibbering with terror on the outside, an unnatural calm filled Jynn. With it, came power. Power such that she couldn’t describe. Something stirred in her blood — her bloodline — and yet Jynn felt numb. Impossible as it was, her throat tickled, her tongue grew heavy, and the power within burst forth as numbly spoken words.

“Get away from me,” Jynn didn’t shout. She didn’t scream. 

Yet the Mountain MOVED…

The words rolled off a golden tongue. They manifested in the air as they snapped and cracked. Brilliant gold, charisma imposed upon reality. Like an ancestor long before, she tricked the world — seduced and convinced it that her will was the way of things. The smell of smoke from no fire filled Jynn’s nose, of molten metal that glowed with malleable power. A tremendous bang sounded throughout the hall, echoing in the sudden silence. And in front of her, a Mountain of a man was thrown through the air like a paper doll.

He slammed into the wall of the hall with a crash. Where he slid down, Jynn saw blood. The Mountain gurgled and choked and coughed with his voice like grinding stones.

“D-Dammit… That’s… the third breeding bitch… this week…”

Jynn heard the words as she rushed past his fallen form but she paid them no mind. All she could think of was fleeing, panic filling her heart and mind. Whatever blessed power allowed her to save herself was quickly fading. Her panic scattered it to the seven winds.

Still, the spark of inherent, instinctive power that allowed Jynn to somehow throw a man more than twice her size was hardly considered. She knew what would happen if she stayed. She’d struck a Lord. Baseborn Lannister or not, she’d be punished. Perhaps even put to death or worse, given to the Mountain as compensation.

And so Jynn fled. She fled from Casterly Rock, not even stopping in her quarters to gather her things. She would have the clothes on her back, her wits in her mind, and the strange new power in her gut to see her through this alive. Magic, she was coming to realize. For what else could allow her — an untrained, slip of a maid — to throw a Mountain?

Even more fear joined her mind at that realization. The air around her began to smolder and smoke with gold from her distress, settling like a hot coal within her. Was she a demon? Damned by the Seven? By the Father…! Oh, could she even still pray to him?!

And what of the reactions? Others would surely reach the same conclusion. Smallfolk and Lord alike would bray for her blood! The Faith would lead the hunt! It was a miracle she hadn’t been caught already. Nothing happened in Casterly Rock without Lord Tywin’s awareness, Jynn knew that as readily as she breathed. Yet as she raced through the gatehouse at the bottom of Casterly Rock — a most suspicious sight to be sure — none stopped Jynn’s flight.

She disappeared into the night, leaving the only place she’d ever known as home. It was far from perfect, but Casterly Rock was where she belonged. Baseborn she may have been, she was a Lannister, dammit! The blood of the Rock flowed through her veins, unacknowledged but real and powerful nonetheless. Her ancestor had won it through wit and trickery, the same as Lord Tywin’s.

Yet Jynn fled from a birthright she’d never be granted, never be deemed worthy of. She fled from her home. She would never see Lord Kevan’s kind eyes and subtle favor. Or hear Lady Genna jest and jape with dry wit to put a smile on her face. Or sneak lessons from the same book as Lord Tyrion, the Imp never bearing a hint of scorn for he knew the emotion well enough himself.

With hot tears in her eyes and tortured emotions made manifest in the air around her, Jynn’s life was shattered by doomed circumstances and power unknown. Her curse would not leave her side through it all. The sinful power still burned in her throat. On the surface, it aided her. But she couldn’t control the cursed magic. Wonderful: a taste of power for a woman who’d never known it. Woeful: the thing that sealed her fate even more than striking a Lord, that damned and doomed her to be hunted and feared.

Jynn didn’t dare to hide in Lannisport. It was the city at the heart of the Lannister’s power, she would surely be found before the morrow, even if she hadn’t run into Lord Tywin’s resistance just yet. She took to the roads, walking long into the night. In the end, that first night, she simply collapsed in a crevice out of sight from the road, bundling herself tightly with a cloak her new magic had stolen from a passing wagon.

IIIII

“I’se tell ya, I’se tell ya!” The man’s loud voice bellowed and guffawed. “The Mountain, brought low! By a fair maiden, no less! Not even flowered, she! Yet she spoke an’ threw ‘im clear ‘cross the hall! Brained ‘im right good against the wall!”

A week after her flight from Casterly Rock, Jynn found herself in a roadside tavern and inn. She sat next to the largest, loudest table in the place, hoping to listen in for news and rumors. She got just that. Though it seemed her story had already started to shift and change. Jynn frowned to herself, she was very much flowered, thank you!

“The Mountain’s dead…?” Another man asked in awed whispers.

“He’ll live,” A third grunted, the bearer of bad news. “My sister serves as a scullery maid in the Rock. Says the Mountain lived the night, though he don’t seem to have his whole head in his head no more.”

Jynn worried at her lip, unsure if that news was good or bad for her. On one hand, the sentence might be less since the Lord lived. On the other… It might be worse, with the Mountain himself looking to carry it out. She shook her head. In the end, it didn’t change anything about her plans or more accurately, lack thereof. The permanent damage she’d inflicted on her attacker did flare dark satisfaction in her soul though.

“How did it happen?” A mature woman, one of the whores to be found in any tavern anywhere, asked, leaning forward to press her womanly charms onto the bearer of bad news to loosen his lips.

The man grinned at the woman, his voice a rasping, teasing purr, “Magic~…”

“Aye, I heard the same!” The first man loudly exclaimed. “The air cracked like stone and they claimed to smell smoke with no fire! And words of gold, Lannister gold! And the Mountain flew! FLEW, I tell ya! Biggest fucker in the Seven Kingdoms thrown about like a babe!”

“Then the witch fled from the Rock, trailing a cloak of golden flames,” The third man added.

“Father protect…!” Someone exclaimed breathlessly.

“Seems a story that’s happening often these days,” The mature woman mused.

“Aye, magic’s returned, there’s no doubt,” The man nodded.

“I’ve seen it for me-self!” Someone claimed. “Fire that burns from the air, men in beasts’ skin, and the strength of the Warrior in an old crone!”

“A boy from my village always knew where the good game was, he claimed. Brought home boars and stags and birds with nary a scratch on them. Like they just walked into his hands and died. Unnatural, that. The septon and villagers ran him and his family out of their hearth and home. Poor folks brought it on themselves, consorting with demons like that.”

“Do you think the Lords and Ladies know?”

“They’ve gotta! This maid in the Rock wasn’t even the first witch to strike back at the Mountain, I hear. Just the only one to escape with her life.”

“Not for long, ‘reckon. Lord Lannister put out a notice for her head. The Lords won’t suffer a witch to live. She’s barred from the whole of the Westerlands. She shows her face, and it’ll come straight off.”

“I’m surprised the Lord let her leave the Rock alive.”

“Heard rumors ‘bout that too. ‘Parently, the chit looks the spitting image of a Lannister…”

“Bastard daughter? Blood’s about the only thing that’d make the Old Lion show any mercy at all.”

“The magic forced his hand. Seven Hells, it forces everyone’s hand. Even the septons ‘be nervous these days.”

“I’ll be the Lord covets his bastard daughter’s magick! Gold runs in the Lannister blood, after all.”

“A sign of the end, I tell ya! The end of days!”

“Oh, shut it, ya great sot! You said the same thing about the Squids’ Rebellion! As if those reaving fucks could call up a Kraken and Dragon with blood sacrifice at sea!”

Jynn sunk into the shadows of her cloak, shuddering at everything she’d heard. There may as well have been a bounty on her head. The whole world seemed against her. All she had was a cursed power that didn’t answer her call. It — her magic — worked with emotion and raised blood. Jynn had figured out that much. But it could be as fickle as it was powerful. And it would hardly help her with a whole Kingdom calling for her head — Smallfolk, Highborn, and Faithful.

She’d just about given up the night as a depressing waste, about ready to find herself a corner to curl up and die in, when another whisper caught her ear.

“I hear the North knew about it before anyone else. The magic? Heard they founded a city of magic for their Old Gods… I talked to one of ‘em, ya know? One of the witches. She wasn’t too different. Just scared. So scared. Seemed to think the North would offer sanctuary. Damned to sin or not, I can’t help but pray she’s right… for her sake…”

Hope sparked in Jynn’s gut at that last rumor. Sanctuary… To be found in the heathen North, but sanctuary all the same. Unassuming and unnoticed, a shadow slipped from the tavern, trailing hair that sparkled like a cloak of gold. And so, a lost Lannister set out north, searching for a place to safely belong.

Jynn trekked through the Westerlands, avoiding everyone she could. The Smallfolk knew her as a passing, cloaked figure. Whispers of golden hair, no longer dirty blonde followed her. The Faithful knew her not at all. As much as it hurt, Jynn avoided septons and septas she would have previously gone to for advice. She wasn’t even sure she could believe in the Seven Who Are One anymore. To their religion — hers — she was a creature of heretical sin, something to be feared and purged from the world of the Faithful.

Occasionally, Jynn would run into trouble on the road. Red Cloaks who would bring her head back to her bastard uncle. Whether that head was still attached to her shoulders, Jynn couldn’t know. Or brigands — murderers, rapists, and thieves — on the roads. Yet always in her most dire of straits, Jynn’s magic answered her. Convincing words from a tongue of gold instead of silver. Never so dramatic as what she’d done to the Mountain but enough to see her through safely.

Along the road, Jynn came across others. Others like her. Scared folk. Scorned folk. Sunken and somber with wretched hopelessness. She shared her destination with them. Her hopes of sanctuary in the North. She gathered more tales of the magical city. With each one, her spark of hope grew. And for the hopeless in situations so similar to hers, Jynn brought them into her confidence and urged them to follow her. Strangers, they were, yet also brothers and sisters in their curses.

Jynn grew a host around herself. Wretched, cursed folks who followed her to sanctuary. They found strength in numbers and shared tragedy. Similar groups were met along the roads. Others who’d found the same hope as Jynn and her fellows. Families and individuals alike. Slowly, as they trekked north, the Caravan of the Cursed grew.

Weeks, then fortnights, then many moons of travel. All they had was each other. Through the curses they bore and the situations that brought them together, comradery and unity grew from tragedy. Smallfolk from the Reach to the Vale and everywhere in between came together as if they were one people. On the road, they mourned what was now lost, loved new lovers, and laughed with friends they would have never known. The hope of sanctuary sustained them just as much as food or drink. Yet a certain anxiety was ever-present, for they had no idea what they might find at the end of their journey.

Finally, they came upon the sanctuary that was rumored. North of White Harbor in a land that didn’t damn them for their curses, the Caravan of the Cursed found New Hogsmeade. The small villages of the lands around it had been absorbed yet the travelers coming and going spoke fondly of the newly founded town.

It was just as promised. Safe. Perhaps even better, set around Castle Hogwarts — a place of undeniable magic. Yet the Caravan heard no scorn or fear directed at Hogwarts and its ‘Wizards’. The locals saw their magic as blessings from the Old Gods. Hogwarts healed them, they said. It brought advancements and progress to a mostly ignored land. The Wizards were kind and good to the people under their care. Furthermore, the castle and town were favored by the North. Naturally, the Smallfolk had flocked to the developing town, pushing it to further prosperity.

Upon their arrival, Jynn walked with the vanguard of the Caravan. She and a few others had become figures for the Cursed to rally around. Jynn the Golden, they called her now, the title and trust never failing to tickle her pink and fill her with pride. Owyn the Patient, another of the leaders, walked next to her. As did Kit the Kindler, Roarch Beast-talker, and Miralin of Healing Hands.

Magic had become inescapable for the Caravan. Some still saw it as a curse. Others were coming to see it as a blessing. Each magic in the Caravan was slightly unique, through blood or simply talent. They had no training or teachings to follow. And still, they could do wonderful, terrible things.

Yet as they came across two men on the outskirts of town, they found they knew nothing of magic. The men engaged in a great magical duel, changing the very land around them and leaving the air heavy with power. Awe spread through the Caravan — nearly 300 strong in the end — as two magical giants clashed in front of them.

Noticing them, the two forces of nature brought their battle to an early end. A spar then, Jynn thought, though how that devastation could be considered friendly beggared belief. And that wasn’t even them at their most powerful. The two Hogwarts Wizards — for they could be no one else — approached the Caravan and Jynn found her thoughts silenced. Both men felt like Kings, Lords among Lords, though in very different ways. One old and wise, the other young and dashing.

“Ah, welcome!” The older man exclaimed, his friendly tone setting all at ease. “I almost didn’t notice we had an audience. Even my old blood can run hot in the heat of a good tussle.”

“Tussle, Albus? Really?” The younger man shot his companion an exasperated glance. “Sounds like I’ll have to up my game when we resume. Give you something to break a sweat over…”

The older man chuckled, “You’re still many decades too early to make me sweat, my friend.”

“Never too early to try,” The younger man shot back goodnaturedly.

“And fail,” The older man shrugged, seemingly without a care in the world.

The younger man rolled his eyes, “Oh, can it, you old goat.”

“A-Ahem,” Jynn cleared her throat to interrupt. “Pardon, milords, but we come to you in need, seeking refuge and sanctuary. We are the Caravan of the Cursed and we hope to make new homes for ourselves here… under your protection.”

IIIII

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