A Lion's Pride, a Stag's Fury

Chapter 4: Stannis I

Disclaimer: I don't own anything!!!! Everything belongs to George RR Martin and HBO!!!

He was running. It was dark and cold. The rain was falling upon his face with such force that he felt as though he was being torn apart. His feet were sinking in the damp ground. And yet, he was running with more fierceness than he thought himself capable of.

He heard it again. The gut-wrenching scream of a woman. He ran even faster. Where was she? He looked around but only darkness enveloped him. He shouted in frustration.

"Where are you?"

Only another sickening scream answered him. But it was more than enough. She was down on the beach.

It did not take him long to find her. The woman was sprawled over the rocky sand in an unnatural position. She was not moving. He approached her quickly and dropped on his knees beside her. He turned her around.

As suddenly as it had started, the storm ceased to exist. The sun came out. Everything was dry again. That is everything except him. It all became still. Nothing moved. Nothing could be heard.

The woman's face was revealed.

Slowly, ever so slowly, a terrifying sound started to vibrate in his ears growing stronger and stronger until it became so abnormally loud that he finally recognized what it was.

His voice. His own voice was making such unearthly sounds that it was monstrous.

He struggled to breathe. His emotions were thundering on his chest.

"Mother..." he muttered feeling his heart breaking into a thousand pieces.

The woman did not respond of course. She was dead. Her eyes were unseeing and cold. Her skin was pale blue...

He took her in his arms sobbing uncontrollably.

"You disgust me!" a hollow voice said from behind him.

He turned around sharply. Blearily he was able to make out the figure of a man.

"You should never have been born, you bitter, narrow-minded, cruel imbecile!"

He cleared the tears that were still streaming from his eyes and got an even greater shock.

"Fa...ther?"

"You are no son of mine! You do not deserve to carry the Baratheon name. You are a traitor and for that, you will die."

He watched frozen as his father approached him threateningly. He simply could not move.

"You make my people suffer. You order them around like a lordling, watching them die helplessly. My child suffers because of you. This ends now."

His father grabbed him by the neck and dragged him towards the sea. He tried to defend himself, but for some unexplainable reason, his body was completely unresponsive. He tried to speak, but it was hard to even breathe. His own father was suffocating him under the water of the sea. His vision was getting darker. He made a last attempt to save himself. Nothing. So, this is what death feels like, he thought before finally succumbing to total darkness.

Ahhh! He took long, deep breaths. I'm alive! Where am I? He weakly looked around. Oh... only a dream...

Stannis Baratheon relaxed back on his bed. It had seemed so real. Relieving his greatest heartache and fear at the same time- his self-doubt. He shook his head and got up grimacing immediately. He was feeling ill. No. More than ill. He was feeling as if he was dying like in his dream. His bones cracked with each movement he made. His hands could not even hold his cup to drink some water without trembling. His legs... he felt that they would soon give way. He looked at himself. His chest was bare showing off his bony ribs. He looked like a walking corpse. Like one of the mythical Whitewalkers the Northerners loved to scare children with.