𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬 || 𝑾𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝑾𝒐𝒍𝒗𝒆𝒔 𝑪𝒓𝒚 𝑶𝒖𝒕

𝑷𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒖𝒆 𝑰 𝒐𝒇 𝑨𝒄𝒕 𝑽

꧁꧁~~~𝑬𝒅𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝑨𝒔𝒉𝒘𝒐𝒐𝒅~~~꧂꧂
꧁꧁~~~300 𝑨𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑪𝒐𝒏𝒒𝒖𝒆𝒔𝒕~~~꧂꧂

꧁"Bound by Blood."

Those were the words his father always told him. They were the words of his and his father's House. "Bound by Blood," though to who's blood he was beholden to now, was a question Edward often found himself asking to his own and his blood. But his father, the commanding Lord of Winter Wolves, had little room to hear anything since the fall of their home.

But even as their family castle did burn, the Lord Harwin wasn't easily swayed to do anything about it. Ashwoods have proudly commanded the Winter Wolves for generations. And it wasn't that they commanded them, for they did not have a true leader of sorts, but Harwin Ashwood was the closest thing to one.

The Winter Wolves were but a practice, really. Any man could be one, though no oaths or vows or blood bounded them to anything. It was duty that bound them together. Duty for their families, for their survival. For the North. In truth, the last two decades has been kind to the North, the last more so than the first. The Great Summer required minimal use for the Winter Wolves. No man needed leave his home, his hearth, to spend the winter in snows and cold to spare his family another mouth to feed.

But The Great Summer did not last, and when the summer ended, the leaves turned from green to frail orange and brown, the white winds did begin to blow again. Winter is coming.

"We need to make an ally of someone."

Edward spoke out to nobody in particular as the fire before him crackled, it's flames glowing low as he and several men of duty sat in the snow, some with blankets while others without.

"The Boltons haven't helped a damn... Thieves continually steal our supplies, yet we cannot do anything about it!"

The young Ashwood shot up from where he sat against a log, and he sharply kicked a bit of snow onto the fire. Nobody really batted an eye. They were all frustrated. They were all cold. Turning to his father, the oldest living man of the Winter Wolves, Edward glared at him, his own blood, shaking his head.

"Whilst you sit in solemn and silence, the Boltons continue to push around the smaller Northern Houses. Stealing and terrorizing all who dare say a damn thing about—"

"And what would you have me do, Edward? Hm?"

Lord Harwin hummed, the much older man closing his eyes as he shook his head.

"You say for us to make an ally of someone, yet who is there to ally with? And besides, that is not our way."

"Bullshit!"

Edward took a step forward, angered and frustrated by his father to no ends. The cold was driving him mad.

"When the Starks were in Winterfell, the Winter Wolves did survive, and survived well. When the Starks ruled the North, no man, woman or child feared the cold or the steel of bastard Boltons and other oathbreakers. A woman could walk the Kingsroad without fear of rape. A man could fish the White Knife and worry not for cutthroats taking his catch and his life. When the Starks..