The man's voice changed then, his tone and cadence less like himself but more than it usually was, somehow. "'Do not talk down to me, boy. I've bent neither knee yet, nor will I ever to a fool that doesn't know a dragon from a hammer. You think you and yours are new to me and mine? My forebears have ruled as kings unbroken since the elder days, when firewyrms and flying lizards like yours prowled and nested from the Summer Sea to Land of Always Winter. Dragons come and go. They'll come and go again long after the world is free of pretentious children like you and your witch sisters. Think yourself the first upstart with delusions of grandeur? There have been many like you, yet none of what they built has ever lasted beyond three centuries. Try to take my crown and I will kill your dragons. Try to burn my army and I'll kill your sister-wives and then your dragons. Even if I don't get them all, I'll spread the knowledge of how to do it to every corner of the world. Bring war to the North and I'll have you chasing smoke from one ocean to the other while your army starves in burned fields and dies to the cold and poisoned well water. Kill me and my sons will do it in my stead. Half are waiting for you scattered to all corners of the mighty lands I rule beyond the marshes. Try to find them! Freeze your years away burning farms and stone towers. My other sons will just make common cause with your many other enemies. They'll come sailing back from Essos with coin and scorpions and every last sellsword the Free Cities are hiring even now. The Century of Blood is all they see of your kind's legacy, they'll pay through the nose to prevent the return of that hell known as Valyria. And don't think I don't know how petty you are in victory, after you tarnished the name of a man so much older and wiser and more accomplished than you. Argilac Durrandon was your better in every way, proven through both long peace and war across two continents. And you had the gall to shit all over his reputation and then sully his legendary line with bastard blood. Try to besmirch my good name and I'll turn all my wargs and greenseers to aid those at your back, who hate you and yours for how you swooped and burned and murdered your way into power over their mothers' and fathers' corpses. Try with me what you did to the Storm King, and my sons will dig out all our tombs and barrows and every last treasure hoard built over the last eight thousand years. Then they'll pay the House of Black and White to put the name Targaryen down on the lists of the Faceless Men for the next ten generations. These are the words of myself, Torrhen of House Stark, King of Winter, King in the North, Lord of the First Men and Green Men and the Children True, Steward of Vows New and Ancient. Now go ahead and speak yours, dragonlord. Tell me why Winter should let the North bide under the auspices of Summer, for a time."
The Logistics of Good Living
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