Game of Thrones: StormBorn

He turned towards one of the arrow slits in the side of the tower as a particularly massive blast of thunder shook the sky. He could see the light as it illuminated King's Landing. 

Half of him wondered if this was entirely wise, given what he had learned about the Prince of the Stepstones from the Greenseer, indeed, he half wondered if the entire thing might have been a dream.

He certainly wanted that it had been, but his stomach told him better.

His children had been blessedly asleep against the Storm, sparing him a conversation he very much wanted to put off.

Not that he was looking forward to this one very much more. 

The whole atmosphere around the tower seemed to be greasy and charged, and there was a strange smell in the air, not quite burning, but odd nonetheless.

As he reached the landing he came face to face with a tall woman, taller than him In fact, and armored as heavily as any man short of the Cleganes. Her plate mail glimmered in the torchlight.

He recognized her immediately as Brienne of Tarth, one of the Prince's sworn swords. Her identity only reinforced by the coat of arms on the heavy cloak that hung over her shoulders as she lifted her visor.

"Lord Stark." Sharp blue eyes met his own. "I'm afraid if you've come to visit Prince Arthur it would be best to wait until morning, he is indisposed at the moment." Her tone was not hostile, but there was a warning there and a firm one at that.

Still, if the world was at stake as the Greenseer had said then there was little time to waste in warning the Prince from his course.

"This is an urgent matter." He said plainly. "If you would only inform Prince Arthur that I am here I am sure he would be willing to hear from me. It is in regard to his sorcery, and how it risks harming him."

The woman-knight stared sharply at that, before shaking her head slightly. "My Prince has just been informed of the death of the Wisdom Frey, one of his closest retainers. I will have Maena inform him of your presence, but I do not expect he will respond positively."

Eddard grimaced, that would no doubt make the conversation somewhat more difficult, but he couldn't just stop here, the Greenseer had spoken with urgency, and even if the man was grieving he had seemed reasonable enough.

He watched as the knight called a matronly woman to the door, speaking to her in hushed whispers. The woman turned to look at him only once with a glare he wasn't accustomed to from the typically silent servants of the south, but then, the Stepstones were supposedly not like the rest of the South.

A few minutes later, the woman came back out, before beckoning him in. "The Prince will see you, but I should warn you that he-"

Eddard stumbled as a thundering voice, distinctly that of the Prince, but also not, as if it was echoed by the Storm outside the walls came from further within. "Just show him in Maena. Don't waste his time or mine."

The woman stood to attention immediately, pushing open a door leading to a small study, albeit one currently in ill repair. 

The bookshelves were scorched as if they had burned in sharp, cracking lines, and some still smoldered, the floor was similarly burnt, with one massive scorch around the desk at the center of the room, where the charred and burnt corpse of a tall old man, likely the wisdom Frey was lying, as if in an embalmers shop.

Across the desk from him stood the Prince, but not as he had appeared during the day before, a young conqueror, boisterous and resplendent in victory.

No, Prince Arthur seemed altogether more dangerous at the moment. His slick black hair was unkempt and stuck up at odd angles, and far from his bright garb of the day, he was wearing only soft and puffy black night clothes that hung loosely from his tall form. On his face, there was a blush of anger and his teeth were visibly grit as Eddard entered, while behind his eyes there flickered a hazy green glow of light that seemed to flash with danger.

"Well? Out with it then. I'll have no small talk tonight." 

Eddard nearly took a step back at the way the Prince's voice boomed in such a confined space, while the young man in front of him visibly exhaled through his nostrils. He found himself wrong-footed in front of the clear anger, though a lifetime of dealing with Robert let him find his balance more quickly.

Eddard hardly had time to ponder how ridiculous what he was about to say was before it left his lips.

"A Greenseer dragged me to the Far North in a dream, he says your magic may lead to the destruction of the world."

Even as his mind grasped the words he felt a moron, but the sorcerous prince seemed to believe him at once. At least if the immediate stiffening of his spine was anything to go by. 

"And what did the Bloodraven tell you then? That I'm a monster or a demon or some such bullshit of the Red Faith?" The Prince sneered, and this time Eddard did step back as from the Prince's skin lightning began to flare out into the room in massive arcs, explaining instantly the state of the study as the storm above flared behind him. "Are you such a fool that you cannot see him for two tongued serpent he is?"

The air seemed almost hard to breathe as the Prince stood from his desk, lightning beginning to flicker around his forehead like some sort of crown. "Well? ANSWER ME!" The young man shouted, and Eddard felt for a moment that fighting the living dead at the Red Plain had been less terrifying than being locked in a room with this sorcerous Baratheon.

"He said that magic begets magic." Eddard bit out at last. "That you had brought so much new magic into the world that it risked awakening great horrors in the long night."

"WHAT?" the Prince shouted at him, lightning flaring out like a cloak about his shoulders, though a moment later a look of recognition spread over his face. All at once, the lightning receded drawing back into him like water down a drain as he fell back into his chair and brought his hand up to his face. "Get out," he said, at last, the booming echo leaving his voice as Eddard felt at once the beating of his own heart from the terror that had surely grasped it a moment earlier. "Get out, I'll talk to you again tomorrow, not tonight, I'm in no state for it."

Emboldened by the seeming calm Eddard raised his hand to press the urgency of it all, but the Prince waved him off. "Leave, Lord Stark, I apologize for my anger, it was directed at worthless murderous wretches, not you, but again, I don't have time to speak right now, and talking won't change anything until the morning anyway. Get out, and don't trust the Bloodraven."

Eddard stared at the man a long moment, his hard features and piercing eyes so kin to Robert, then nodded sharply once. It would be best to leave the Prince to his mourning.

"Very well," he said quickly, turning towards the door and stepping straight out past the maid and the Sworn-Sword, who had been standing ready outside. 

As he left the quarter he felt a choking pressure begin to lift off of him as if the air had stopped trying to constrict his neck, and he wondered just how dangerous the Prince would have been if his anger were truly raised against Eddard and not whoever slew his retainer.

He cut that train of thought off quickly, there was no need to ponder it.

He would most certainly be dead.