>>6367521>1) Stick around outside Though your first instinct is to go back to your tower until the welcoming feast, as you certainly don’t lack for work, it occurs to you that rumours about the Witches of Winterfell are already flying, so it might be better to be visible. Kings and tycoons on more civilised planes understand that wizards have better things to do than lounge around in salons gossipping and looking sagely, but the locals here most certainly do not.
So, you set about checking on the wards and other spells you’ve set around the castle, and the progress of some of your other labours. Your spells prove to be working as intended, without any detection anomalies suggesting anyone’s tried to sneak past them in the last few days - not the king’s party has anyone with the wizarding acumen or assassin’s talents to attempt such a thing, of course, but a professional doesn’t leave things to chance.
Shadow, watching from above, helps you keep out of the thick of the traffic. Visitors mostly pass by with only a glance, or an uncomfortable tilt of their head when you try to greet them; a few squires do stand around and stare dumbly for a time, gawking and whispering and elbowing each other in the ribs, before wandering off again. It’s a dull routine, and leaves your mind to wander, sometimes to rather gloomy places.
As the hours wax towards evening, Shadow alerts you to the presence of another raven following your movements. You look up to find that it's not one of the castle birds, those don't wander freely anyhow, but a bird you know well enough.
“I thought you'd be busier,” you say, calling up to it.
The raven glides down from the eaves, stopping in place a few feet from you, where it swiftly grows and morphs until Eva’s form is revealed, wearing a rather sheepish expression.
“I was,” she says. “I was in the stables. But those southern boys started sayin’ other ways I could help them out, or other things I could be doin’ with the horses, and after the third time I thought I’d better go before I ended up beatin’ someone over the head with a stick.”
“I suppose that really sets the mood, doesn’t it?”
“You’re telling me. Anyway, what’re you up to?”
“I’d say work, but truthfully, mostly thinking.”
“About Anarcálen again?”
You nod. "It's hard not to think of it here in Winterfell, standing in the shadow of the Long Night," you say. You've kept Eva well-apprised of your recent findings, and though she's no experienced ritualist, she's helped you considerably in understanding the divine components of the wards beneath the castle. "We highborn remember, even as refugees. But Bran's people are lost to time.”
