Flights and Rituals

King Jon was caressing the neck of his mighty she-dragon atop the island bordering Yara's flagship, as he focused on projecting calm into her mind through their bond. He smiled as she actually gave a loud sigh of contentment and lowed her wings and shoulder in their direction, thereby giving the Greyjoy siblings an open invitation to climb onto the big saddle. The secret god contained a chuckle as he noticed the look of wonder and disbelief on Ironborn but before he could tell them to go on, he heard someone running towards them.

He turned around and saw Arya staring at him with a determined look on her face.

"If you want to negotiate with these two so that you can come to a mutually beneficial agreement, I will accept it," His sister acknowledged. "But if you think I am letting you take them on a ride atop your Ice Dragon before me and keep my mouth shut about it, then I am afraid you are sorely mistaken, my King," She added, the last part making her smirk in amusement.

"Hmm," Jon hummed with a contemplative expression, ignoring the sharp intake of breath from the Greyjoys at the revelations that the dragon was actually one from the icy breed and that he had become a king. "I suppose you have a point there, since I hadn't had the chance to show you around the skies yet. Alright, you can come with us. Just leave your knife behind. Like I told you before, despite everything, I am trying to be diplomatic here.'

"One step ahead of you, brother," Arya replied as she pointed her thumb to her back, further into the island where the House of Black and White was located.

The young King followed the motion and saw Bellegere waving at him with a nervous smile, showing the knife Arya was carrying the day before in her other hand. Jon turned back to his sister, pleased that she was at least willing to let him try to make peace with Theon and Yara without sabotaging his efforts due to her anger and desire for retribution.

"In that case, feel free to do the honors," Jon said with a smile as he pointed at the saddle.

His brave sibling took in the enormous, magnificent creature and actually hesitated for a moment but soon, resolve filled her gaze and she approached the dragon without pause in her pace. The two of them stared at each other in the process but the huge beast made no move to stop her and after a few moments to climb, her short frame made its way to the saddle, a look of excitement on her face.

Jon turned back to look at his potential allies and nodded towards the saddle. "Do you want me to climb first or do you want to be next?"

The Ironborn siblings glanced at each other for long a moment before walking forward without saying anything, their white banner that bears the sigil of House Greyjoy in Yara's hands. After a brief hesitation on their parts, they swallowed and headed up. Before long, on chuckled and made his way there too, taking his place at the front of the saddle with Arya behind him, while Yara stayed behind his sister and Theon behind his'.

"Alright, brace yourselves and remember to show the flag of truce as clearly as possible," The dragonrider called out, before placing his palm on his mount's neck and connecting with her. "Let's go!"

And with that, a she-wolf and two krakens took to the skies for the first time, their shouts echoing across the Braavosi canal.

Sansa Stark was sitting on a small chair they brought to the Godswood of Ironrath, scratching the head of her direwolf companion as she panted happily with a toothy smile. Nearby, Josera Snow was grabbing a few twigs from one of the weirwood trees, bowing with reverence every time he snapped one of the tiny branches with as much tenderness as he could manage, and offering what she imagined was a prayer under his breath. Behind her was Brianne of Tarth, her sworn sword standing guard but remaining otherwise silent. To the side, Lyanna Mormont was looking at the experienced warg as he gathered the ancient pieces of wood, her hand caressing the shoulders of his white bear familiar absentmindedly as it laid on the ground, partially covered by snow.

The redhead had grinned slightly at that. It appeared that by this point, the bonded predator had come to like the ruler of Bear Island as well. How much of that was due to Josera's influence, however, she couldn't be sure.

"Well, not yet at least," She thought to herself. "Maybe that will change in the future if my skills at the warging arts grow."

Regardless, she was glad that their respective familiars had chosen not to fight each other now that they were near. In fact, Lady was quite calm despite the other beast's presence. Josera had told her that he had trained his bear through their bond so that she could sense other animals that were the active familiars of other wargs and not to attack them as a result unless he commanded it or it started attacking them first. As a result, the predator seemed quite tranquil as he laid there on the clearing. That didn't quite explained why her horse-sized wolf wasn't getting territorial, however. When she had asked, Josera just shrugged and said that by this point, Lady probably respected and loved her too much to get too violent for anything other than hunting and defense without her permission. That had made her look down at the grinning face of her companion as she licked her lips before chuckling and starting to give her a belly rub.

Eventually, Josera had finished gathering the Weirwood twigs and placed them a few feet from Sansa before trying to start a fire with them and a flint rock. Sansa raised an eyebrow.

"Alright, are you finally going to tell me what are you doing with those branches?" She asked.

"Yes, just give me one moment...there," He said in a good mood as the sparks gave way to smoldering flame.

Josera rearranged the twigs so that they would sustain the flame better and then looked up.

"From what you have told me, it appears that you have already warged Lady in your dreams at least once," He started. "That's usually how warging starts. However, between your bond with your direwolf appearing to have been at least a bit damaged for a time when you thought she was dead and the fact we don't have much time before our enemies arrive, I thought it would be good to prepare this little ritual I discovered while living in the North Grove."

"Interesting," She said slowly. "Go on."

"Well, to cut a long story short," The Forrester bastard said, "I have discovered that smelling the smoke produced by weirwood twigs covered by their blood-red colored sap has...empowering effects on wargs," He explained. "It helps strengthen the bond between a warg and their main familiar, which is especially helpful if the animal got injured and is lashing out in pain. In your case, it would make it easier for you to warg into Lady consciously. And since doing that the first time is always the hardest first step to take because you are not quite sure what to do, instinctively, this little push will be able to help you manage your powers faster the next time around."

"I see..." She said hesitantly as she analyzed his words. "So, you want me to smell this smoke?"

"It's not as unpleasant as it sounds," Josera said with a shrug. "The tree sap actually makes the smell more bearable too. But yes. Just inhale it in short breaths for about 30 seconds while staring at your direwolf. Before long, you will be able to feel the connection grow and be able to make the jump almost without thinking."

Sansa scratched the back of her head in consideration, while Lyanna Mormont stared at her in silence. Then she nodded to herself firmly and stop up to get her chair closer to the new cloud of smoke. She made sure that Lady was in her line of sight so that he could lock her gaze with hers while smelling the gas that came out of the wood from the sacred trees. Her eyes started tearing up uncontrollably after a time and her lungs started complaining to her when she started coughing but she remained where she was, continuing with the ritual.

Before long, her vision started to blur and she could feel her joints coming alert, as if suddenly infused with energy. But then, she noticed something strange. The smoke no longer bothered her, as if the wind had changed directions but she could smell its strong, **** odor even more strongly than before. Then, her eyes came into focus and she blinked realizing she was seeing her own face...her eyes growing white, with tears flowing around their edges that got a bit red due to the heat.

"It worked!" She wanted to shout but only the sound of barking came out.

She got up on all fours and felt incredible strength coursing through her, wiggling her tail on instinct.

"Wait, I have a tail now!" She thought, her mind reeling.

Soon, she heard Josera chuckled and looked at her with pride in his eyes, while Brianne moved her chair away from the smoke.

"Well, done my Lady," He said with a respectful bow. "You have taken your first step into a larger world."