Cersei was livid.
He had forgotten her.
She'd seen it in his eyes. She had been nothing more than an interruption to his day, dealt with and dismissed after everything he'd done.
After she had spent every waking moment with his smirking face burned into her head, his eyes haunting her dreams and nightmares alike.
He had given her what she craved, partially at least, but only because he wanted her gone.
How fucking dare he.
The worst part was how good it had felt.
To feel again.
That monster had given her just enough to remember what he had taken away from her. Just enough to make the emptiness that much more unbearable.
She was contemplating how to burn this entire wasteland down when she heard a knock.
"Go away," she snarled.
"It's me." Jaime's voice carried through the thick oak. "I really need to speak with you."
"What do you want?"
"Something odd is happening and I'm not sure… you're the only one I can trust right now." He sounded worried.
Despite not wanting to talk to anyone, her curiosity won over her rage for the moment. Jaime rarely sounded shaken.
She opened the door reluctantly, and he stepped inside.
"Well?" she demanded, crossing her arms. "What's so important that you had to barge in here."
Jaime nervously ran a hand through his hair, "They're talking about White Walkers."
She stared at him. "What?"
"Stark called a meeting of all the lords in Winterfell. Somehow he's convinced the King too." He began pacing the room. "He claims the mage and his brother from the nights watch went beyond the Wall and found them. An army of the dead, led by something called the Night King."
Cersei looked at him sceptically. "You're telling me that Stark has convinced Robert that White Walkers are real?"
"It's not Stark who's behind this. It's him. The mage. Everyone seems to be hanging on to his every word like he's some kind of prophet."
She felt her hands tremble at the mention of the mage. Even hearing about him made her skin crawl. Made her remember how helpless she felt in his presence.
"Don't," she whispered, backing away. "Don't talk about him."
"Cersei, listen to me…"
"No!" The word came out as a snarl. "You don't understand what he is. What he can do."
"Why does everyone keep saying that? Even Tyrion talks about him the same way." His frustration was spilling over now. "I'm starting to think he's cast some kind of spell on everyone here."
She scoffed "and you think you're the only one immune to whatever he's done?"
"I don't know, alright?" He looked more agitated than she'd seen him in years. "Something just feels off about this entire mess."
-------------------
Oberyn had been a part of many uncomfortable feasts in his life, he had even been the cause of some of them.
But the one last night had felt more like a funeral than anything else. People were barely touching their food, whispering in hushed tones and looking around nervously instead. Half the guests had fled to their rooms early, muttering excuses about needing rest after the long journey.
Under normal circumstances, doing so at a feast in honor of the king's arrival would carry consequences. But these weren't normal circumstances, were they?
He understood why the King and Stark had decided not to announce the reason for the gathering. But they were fooling themselves if they thought this could stay quiet much longer.
Oberyn had already overheard at least three different versions of the story being whispered in corridors, each more dramatic than the last. Hell, half of Winterfell probably already knew.
He had watched the faces around that table, taking note of how everyone was behaving.
Very few were willing to consider the possibility. But everyone was scrambling to figure out what it meant for their houses, their plans, their futures.
He couldn't really blame them. You didn't survive long in this world without a healthy dose of selfishness.
That was yesterday's drama, though. This morning promised something far more interesting.
He had heard from his daughter that the White Mage himself would be teaching today.
That had apparently happened only once before, and his daughter had not stopped talking about how the mage had created stringless little puppets that represented different parts of the human body and had acted out a play to help everyone learn what different parts of the body did and he himself had been fascinated.
Oberyn had never been one to pass up an opportunity to learn something new, especially from someone as fascinating as El.
As he approached the clinic, Oberyn couldn't help but grin. The crowd gathered outside was impressive.
It seemed he wasn't the only one eager to see what the mysterious mage would teach them.
----------
I facepalmed as I took in what looked like half the population of Winterfell crammed into the auditorium, something I had built during the expansion of the school, just in case we eventually had bigger numbers of students. I guess it was already being put to good use.
I looked at Freya, "What is all this?"
"Well, word kind of spread and everyone wanted to attend, and they sounded pretty genuine in their desire to learn" she replied sheepishly.
I pushed back the oncoming headache. "I... never mind."
The murmur of voices slowly died down as I reached the center of the auditorium.
"Okay, this is a lot more people than I was expecting, so there's going to be some rules to follow," I announced, my voice carrying across the packed room.
"This is a place of learning, so only one person speaks at a time. If you have a question, you raise your hand. I'll give priority to my students since I'm technically here to teach them, but I will answer yours as well if time permits."
"If I hear anyone breaking that rule, I will be asking Fenrir to drag you outside and sit on you. If you are bored, you can leave quietly."
I didn't hear any complaints other than a few muttered acknowledgments.
"Good, then we can begin. I know some of you are mostly here to learn about biology, but today is going to be very different."
I had given some thought about what I was going to teach today. I couldn't do the same thing as last time—I had certain standards I needed to live up to.
I had thought of teaching them chemistry so that they could start to understand something about medicine, but that would be too complicated to jump into directly. They would have to know basic physics for that, but physics was also a bit too complicated to explain without math.
"Today we are going to be learning the most important language in the universe."
That got their attention.
"It's a language that even if you meet someone from other worlds, you would be able to communicate with, with some effort."
I was pretty excited myself cause I was going to teach them my favorite subject.
"Math."
The reaction was mixed.
"Math is the language of numbers. Now I know most of you are familiar with your numbers but don't really see much use for it, but let's change that, shall we?"
I started simple with the number line, showing them how numbers worked, how they related to each other. I moved up to addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, using examples they could understand—counting money, dividing grain, calculating distances.
I introduced them to negative numbers, which caused quite a stir. The concept of numbers less than nothing was clearly blowing some minds.
Then fractions, which I explained using pies and loaves of bread.
Geometry came next, and when I reached linear equations, I looked back and saw nothing but confused faces and realized that I might have gotten carried away.
"Now I know I explained a lot and you all are wondering what the use of all that is. Math is the truth of the universe. It will not—cannot lie to you.
So let us work on some problems that we can solve with the help of math. Say you are packing for a journey to the Wall and you need to figure out how much food to bring. How would you go about it?"
A few hands went up slowly and I called on them. With everyone chiming in, I was able to hopefully teach everyone how to break down a problem into smaller parts and go at it one small manageable problem at a time, working my way to a solution that everyone seemed to agree on.
"Now let's think bigger, Say it's not just you going on an adventure. Now you are in charge of figuring out how much food you are going to need to keep the army fed and in fighting condition. Not just food though—you need to figure out armor, swords, and arrows..."
The rest of the class was spent working on that problem with everyone chiming in on different issues and intricacies and how to incorporate them in a logical manner into the problem.
By the time I'd finished answering questions, I realized I'd been teaching for nearly three hours. The crowd hadn't thinned—if anything, more people had squeezed in.
"I think that's enough for today," I announced, though I could see disappointment on many faces.
"Will you teach more of this?" called out someone from the back.
I shrugged. "Yes, I'm not sure when, but the best way to get better at something after an introduction is to work on it on your own and ask each other questions."
The cheer that went up was surprisingly enthusiastic, considering I had spent the last three hours ranting about math.
As the crowd began to disperse, chattering excitedly about equations and geometric principles, I noticed several people lingering, still discussing what they'd learned.
"Well," Freya said, coming up beside me, "that wasn't what I was expecting."
"Math is and always will be my favorite subject. I just had to give them problems they could understand," I replied.
"Though I have to admit," I continued, watching a group of northern lords still huddled together discussing supply calculations, "I didn't expect them to get this into it. Usually when I mention math, people's eyes glaze over."
"Well, you made it about food and war," Freya pointed out with a smirk. "That's basically the only two things most people care about."
"Fair point."
---------------
A/N: Find me on patreon to read 8 chapters ahead.