The stew was indeed good. A bit bland to his 21st century palate but still undeniably delicious.
"Where do you hail from m'lord? Dorne perhaps? I heard that the people of Dorne have different skin colors" Mary's father asked in between of bites. He had no table manners and plenty of stew was stuck in his full beard, not that he seemed to mind. He was a simple man with simple taste.
Max's mind raced, trying to come up with a cover story… a stranger with a strange ability, having an Asian complexion… right!
"I hail from Yi Ti, far in the east of Essos"
"Yi Ti you say? Don't think I've ever heard about them… even as you get older, you still learn new things… what is it like?"
"It is warm, much like how I imagine Dorne and the cities… king's landing looks like a little village in comparison", he hoped desperately that he was right. He had read up on Yi Ti before but without his mobile phone, he had to recite from memory, so he kept things vague. The smallfolk family clung to his lips though. They had likely never been farther away from their village than kings landing. This 'Yi Ti' sounded strange and exotic. Their imagination was running rampant.
After they were done eating, Mary invited him to stay and he accepted quickly. It was getting late and he liked the little family. He could spend the night here without worry.
It was as he drifted off into unconsciousness that a dream or perhaps a vision came to him. His mind drifted through the air, only hazily aware where it was, rising higher and higher until it clicked into another mind. He could feel wings flapping under the wind and saw the ground beneath, racing past. He could feel a pull, deeper and deeper into the forest, past large oaks and pines, heading east from where the village was. Then, there were the calls, caw, caw, caw… until he saw the source of it. Dozens of ravens, sitting on a massive weirwood tree, cawing at him. Their black feathers almost seemed to blend into the darkness above. The weirwood tree cried red sap, the same shade as the raven's crimson eyes.
He landed on the ground, eyes transfixed on the visage carved upon the white bark, a bloody grin which seemed to call out to him. Not a voice but a feeling, like he needed to get closer. He hopped forward, his bird legs landing on the ground again and again, advancing by inches each time. When he was directly in front of it, he pecked at the bark and as soon as his beak touched the bark, there was a flash of images, a golden lion cup, crippled and sickly, transforming slowly into a healthy adult with a thick mane, then an empty stretch of land, which slowly became a bustling city. Walls grew from the ground, carts full of silver ore being wheeled out of mines and people walking through the city as it grew. First it was just a small fort, with a little village around it but it grew and grew, until it stretched as far as the eye could see. The final vision was of a mighty kraken, dead, with a silver hand grasping its heart, or what he assumed to be its heart. It looked nothing like a human heart but it beat in a steady rhythm. Then, he awoke with a gasp. His head was swimming. He needed to find that tree. Those visions… they had to be from consuming that sap. Green dreams and skin changing, those were the gifts that just that little amount of sap gave him… what would happen if he consumed more?
He could shit on the old gods, he wanted power. He was strong already but he could always become stronger.
A coin sized piece was enough for him to start skin changing… what could a whole tree worth of the stuff do?
Sun hadn't even risen yet when he snuck out of the village. He walked in the darkness, the moonlight barely illuminated the path which he had to take. It was familiar, he had seen the exact path in his vision, it was etched into his mind. The way there wasn't as straight forward on the ground as it had been in the air, he needed to deviate from the path every now and again but he never lost sight of the path to the weirwood tree. He could hear the ravens before he could see the tree, cawing loudly and constantly. The tree was even more massive in person. In the body of that bird, everything had seemed big but only as a human could he appreciate the sheer size of the tree. Crimson leaves contrasting against ash white bark and a smiling face leaking sap carved onto its surface.
He could feel the magic seeping into the ground and the air around it, like a beating heart, only instead of blood being pumped, it was pure magic. His finger trembled as they reached the tree. Before he could even think of using overhaul, he was filled with a wave of ecstasy as more visions came. It was like a wicked good trip and he couldn't even remember half of the visions he was shown but when it concluded, he knew for certain that he couldn't harm this tree. There was a reason why the children of the forest -and later the first men- worshipped these things. When he had touched it, he could feel the connection between each and every weirwood tree in the seven kingdoms and beyond the wall. Destroying even just one of them was out of the question. Still, he desired power but he could get the sap without harming the ancient monument. Not as much as he'd have liked but still.
What he scraped from the face was three or four times as much as had been in the hut and he swallowed them without hesitation. The magic channels in his body -which had appeared when he swallowed that first bit of sap- were flooded with more magic and grew wider, stronger. It felt as if lightning was coursing through his veins.