The Wolf & The Tiger - GOT

Chapter 3: Marriage Proposals 

Third Person's POV

Ulfric was in his office writing letters to Maege Mormont of Bear Island. Seeking to betroth his eldest son to Jorelle Mormont.

The She-Bears of Bear Island are just as tough and just as loyal to the Starks as his family is.

The Mormonts are an old house with a proud and honorable reputation. According to northern histories, Rodrik Stark, a King in the North, gave Bear Island to the Mormonts after winning the isle in a wrestling match from a driftwood king of the ironborn. Skeptical scholars think it more likely the rival kings wrestled "with words".

'(Scoff) what do they know?' Ulfric finds it a amusing the scholars think they know more then the people who have recorded their own history. If anyone knew The Northerners well, is that if talks fail, wrestling or fighting is the next option.

Behind him is the sword that rests on the wall. Blizzard.

Valyrian steel slices through protections like so much cloth. As advanced as iron is from bronze, so is Valyrian steel from ordinary steel.

Lighter yet stronger, and nothing holds an edge like it. If one takes a whetstone to a Valyrian blade, he/she will need another whetstone. And maybe another hand to hold it.

Nobody knows how the Valyrians forged their steel. Less than a handful of smiths can now even reshape it. The process, like so much of their civilization, was lost in the Doom. Many claim they wove magic spells into the molten metal and blasted it with dragonfire.

When one sees a Valyrian blade, smokey and dark as if drinking in the sun and rippling with a thousand folds, one must not scoff so loudly.

The Valyrian steel that exists now is all there will ever be. Some survives in the Citadel with the maesters' chains, where a link of Valyrian steel signifies study of the higher mysteries, whatever those are.

But much more of Valyrian steel lives on in the Great Houses of Westeros, as their most treasured possession. A sword passed down from father to son for generations.

Ice of House Stark. Heartsbane of House Tarly. Lady Forlorn of House Corbray. House Kenmar's Blizzard and Frostbane.

But even precious treasures can be lost. Aegon Targaryen's Blackfyre and Visenya's Dark Sister disappeared in Daemon Blackfyre's rebellion.

A foolish King of the Rock took House Lannister's Brightroar to Valyria, and neither blade nor man was seen again.

And then there are the swords that are not lost, but lose their owners.

For five centuries, Longclaw was the pride of House Mormont. Even penniless and in great debt, Jorah chose to sell men rather than the sword.

And when his shame became known, and he fled Bear Island for the east, he left it behind for his father, Jeor to hold it for a worthier heir.

The Mormonts' lands are cold and poor. Like the other women of Bear Island, the women of House Mormont learned how to defend themselves from Ironborn and wildlings.

Ulfric figures a marriage alliance between the Mormonts, Starks and Kenmars will be beneficial to The North. For The Northern Dales have the best resources and they can survive all winter.

He can't help but wonder about what he said to Ned Stark. He won't lie. He feels that a war is coming. But wether he'll be alive long enough to witness it, or survive it is another tale entirely.

But he also wants to secure his family a future.

After he was done writing, his wife and daughter came in. He looks up and smiles at them. "My lovely wife. And my sweet daughter."