Chapter 2

Disclaimer I do not own a song of ice and fire all I own are my OC's.

Upon awakening, I looked around and decided I could not wait for something to happen. I tried to think of what to do first, but I realized that I don't know where I am in the timeline.

And while I could theorize where I am with the few pieces of information I have, I could only plan for so much.

Knowing I need to gather all the information I have and come up with at least a theory of where I am in the story.

I have been in a cave and I haven't been moved, so I'm either before the free folk begin to march on the wall or I am with a group of idiots who think they can hide from the White Walkers.

Assuming that is the case then the only thing I can do is prepare for the Others and their wights, or find a way to escape all on my own in an area I have no information on, where I will likely be killed in the first five minutes beyond this cave.

The closest dragon glass I know of is located at the "Fist of the First Men" buried under a rock but not knowing where I am that doesn't do me much good, and judging from my body I am at best 3 years of age.

So my age and location are my biggest limiters for now. I will have to be older to travel on my own and that's not even mentioning being skilled enough to travel this side of the wall, with the cold being the least of my problems.

There are tribes of cannibals throughout the north, bears 3 times the size as the ones from my world and a million other things that could kill me the moment I stepped out of this cave.

I will have to pick-up as many skills as I can to raise the chance of me surviving long enough to even see the canon timeline.

To do that I need to make a mental list, of things that need to be done. The first and most important factor right now is my body. And from the looks of it I am not getting enough food for my body to grow at its optimal level.

I will have to figure out how to get more food in a cave, with a group of half starved free folk that I can't even communicate with.

I can't workout or do anything too strenuous, so I do not stunt my growth. Any heavy exercises will have to wait until I am at least 7 or 8 years of age.

Meaning I will have to do my best to learn to speak the old tongue and the common tongue. and any other skills that do not cause my body to experience too much physical stress.

If I am lucky, there is a small possibility that I am a skinchanger. And out of all the magic in the books, skinchanging seems to be one of the most versatile and powerful forms.

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After a few days of just laying in bed and listening to the other's conversations I started to pick up a few words. Words like food, eat and clothes, I also learned that I didn't have a name.

I had forgotten that beyond the wall they didn't name their children till they were 4 years of age so as to not grow too attached if they were to die.

Another thing I learned was that the gaunt woman was my mother, the two young adults were relatives of some sort and that the old crone was, she seemed to be what the nobility would call a woods witch.

I saw her carve some old tongue runes onto a stone so I was hoping to learn runes as well. But with all that being said my time in the cave was nothing short of torture there was nothing to do but sit and listen to people talk in a language I didn't know.

I was so bored I even tried meditation but with me not knowing what I was doing or how to do it I didn't make much progress in that area.

time skip-

A few months later, or what I hope were months, it was hard to tell time when inside a cave. That's beside the point so after a long period of time I was able to pick up enough words to ask for things and listen to conversations.

The first thing I asked for was a small knife so I could learn how to throw it, because the biggest weakness of armor is that it can't cover your eyes.

If I learn how to throw knives well enough then I could hold my own against multiple exponents wearing armor at once.

The reason I can try to learn the sword or spear, is because I don't live in a castle with a master of arms nor can I hire a master to teach me.

So I will more than likely have to learn from experience and I would like a skill that could protect me if my main weapon were to fail me.

time skip

After roughly a year and a half had passed,

I finally was given a name. It wasn't what I would have chosen if I had a choice but it could have been worse, I was named Dran.

For the past year and a half I had been learning to craft small knives out of stone, bone and any other hard materials I could find.

The reason I learned how to craft knives was so if any of them were to break I could always make another one.

And so I can make them different shapes and sizes, making it a harder challenge to throw them the right way. Which will in turn increase my skill in throwing knives.

My mother and her relatives seem to speak primarily the common tongue but they all seem to know some old tongue. I think it was the crone who taught them to speak it.

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I have tried to for lack of a better word shoot my conscience out of my body, so that I could learn to skinchange. But I don't believe I can learn to be a skinchanger without line of sight. So I haven't gained anything on that front.

Besides that I have carved all the runes that I have seen onto a stone slab, so I could memorize them. But without knowing their meaning I can't do anything but memorize their shape.

I have been walking around the cave for at least 45 minutes every day to build stamina, it seems that whatever was done to my feet has given me a better constitution.

I am not as bothered by the cold as I was earlier and it seems that the skin on my feet has the strength of boiled leather and while I can still feel sensations with my feet they don't seem to feel pain.

Making me think that they could be good weapons if I train to throw kicks and punches. It will be a good skill to have if I were to lose my weapons in the future.

I have started to trade my better knives for more food, since I can make better knives then any else in the cave. Because I have done nothing but practice crafting and throwing knives all day for almost two years now.

And it seems to have paid off. I seemed to have filled out and gotten taller over the past year and a half.

Sadly there still is nothing for me to do but practice practice and more practice, which is tiring at times making me feel like giving up.

But then I am reminded of the ice zombies that will come for the free folk, making me push that much harder to improve my skills. So I can survive the second long night.

Another skill I tried to cultivate was climbing and while I am nervous about falling to my death.

I pushed through that fear because if all else failed, I would be able to climb the wall and escape the true north that way. And so I will always have a backup plan if all else fails.

time skip one year later

If my estimate was correct I was somewhere past six years of age.

At this point I was fluent enough in the common tongue to wear I was able to have conversations and ask questions about the world and gain information about where I was in the timeline.

Sadly all I know is that I am somewhere near Robert's rebellion. That was all the information I was able to gather about the timeline.

And I was only able to make this estimate because the old crone said she was a small child when Raymun Redbeard was killed. With her being around the age of four and sixty.

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I had asked the crone if she was willing to teach me the old tongue and while she said yes. She would teach me by speaking to me in the old tongue, So progress was slow on that front.

She said she'd teach me runes, but only if I was fluent in the old tongue.

My knife throwing and crafting skills have plateaued, without having moving targets to practice on and having sub-par crafting materials, makes any further progression slow to a crawl.

I have gotten to where I can hit a target from anywhere in the cave and with the crafting I have been able to make them faster and been able to make them sharper. Sadly most of my materials are brittle, making them easy to break and they don't last long under heavy use.

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As the months went by I began to pick up more old tongue but not to the point of fluency.

My relatives and I don't really have a loving relationship. They make sure to take care of the essentials like food, water and clothing but that's about it.

I believe the reason they treat me so coldly has something to do with my father, but they have made sure to not say anything on the matter.

Not that it really mattered. I didn't want to replace my old family with a new one, especially while I was still grieving for what I had lost.

The first few months were the hardest, but as time passed I did my best to move on. And not let it bother me because if I did, then I would still be wallowing in grief.And when the Others came I would die like the majority of the free folk did.

So I did my best to think on the bright side. I was in a world of magic and I could meet my favorite characters from the books.

So as long as they can provide for me long enough for me to go out on my own, then I will be grateful.

time skip one year

As I turned seven I started to trade my best knife and spear heads for more food, in preparation for heavy exercises and practice with training weapons that I had made the year before.

I made them by slowly carving a large piece of wood they brought in to burn later. They let me use some of the wood after I traded my best knife for it.

I used the wood they gave me to make some small training weapons. A short spear, a small long sword, a long knife, and a buckler were all things I crafted using the wood.

With the spear I trained, thrusting, slicing and cutting the air with precise movements to build up my frame, along with hacking and slashing with the sword, thrusting with the knife and bashing the wall with the buckler.

I did all this to condition my body. The reason I focused on conditioning instead of skill was because I don't have anyone to teach me stances, katas or even spar with me.

I made sure to stretch regularly to stay nimble, because no matter how strong I become there will always be someone faster, stronger or more skilled than me.

So I will have to try and stack the deck in my favor in all areas that I can. A strong but limber body will give me the most advantages.

The main thing I wanted to work on is hunting with a bow and knife because that was the best way to train those skills. Sadly, I am too young to survive outside this cave.

After I get stronger and grow some more I will request that one of my relatives teach me to hunt.

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For the past couple weeks, I have gotten into a routine of training and learning from sunrise to sundown.

I have started to fill out more and no longer look like skin and bones. and

I'm becoming more fluent in the old tongue, I am almost to the point where I can have a conversation in it.

I am excited to be able to talk with giants or learn the runes of the old tongue. That in theory is able to perform feats of magic like enchanting, rituals, warding and enhancing the body.

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After doing the same routine for a few weeks.

I asked my relatives to catch an animal, to test and see if I was a skinchanger.

South of the wall skinchangers were nothing but a myth, a scary story to tell children.

But north of the wall skinchangers are met with both fear and awe.

The idea that someone in their group could be a skinchanger was very important.

So even if they were skeptical, it would still be worth it for them. Even if it was just a small chance that I was one.

After a few days of begging they went out to hunt and brought back a small white colored fox with eyes the color of crystal ice, It seemed to be a young adult.

For the first few days they kept an eye on me and the fox. But after a couple of weeks of no progress, they seemed to have lost interest.

What they didn't know was that I was pretending to practice during the day, because if I was a skinchanger.

I didn't want anyone to know, it was too large of an advantage, to be a skinchanger and there being no one who knows, even my relatives

So at night I would practice skinchanging, after a few nights where nothing seemed to happen. But a few nights later as I was trying to enter a calm state of mind, I became frustrated over the lack of success. I got angrier and angrier when it happened.

One moment I was looking at the fox, and the next I was looking at myself lying on the ground with nothing but the whites of my eyes showing.

Being in the skin of an animal felt weird. I seemed to be very curious yet overly cautious at the same time, it was a weird dichotomy.

I could see much better, the smells in the cave were horrible and as all of my new senses started to overwhelm me. I found myself looking up at the sealing of the cave.