Inside Westeros, winter was no mere season—it was the ancient judgment of the land.
Frost binds stone. The wind grows keener. A solemn quiet falls across fields and keeps alike.
For the smallfolk, life strips itself to bone.
Families huddled beside beasts for warmth. Meals shrank to thin porridge, black bread, dried roots, or small game. Every scrap was counted.
The aged gave their last stores to the young.
When the hearth grew cold, they took the road no one returned from. The North called it the Last Hunt.
Muted tidings passed from village to village: neighbors frozen, children starving, men driven to desperate deeds.
Even castles could not hold winter at bay. Gates barred. Windows shuttered. Smoke thinned from chimneys.
The old houses—Stark among them—do what honor demands. They rationed meat and roots to keep folk breathing. Yet their great halls, once heavy with feast and song, now stood silent beneath winter's shadow.
Each day, nobles count their stores with grim precision:
• How many sacks of grain remain?
• How many days of firewood?
• How many mouths can be fed—and for how long?
Population often rose in winter—not from celebration, but necessity. Long nights brought more children, cold-born replacements for the lives winter was certain to claim.
If Westeros was to endure, the Wall must face it head-on.
The colossal barrier of ice became the front line of a nearly hopeless war. Passages froze shut. Watchtowers loomed like blue tombstones.
The Night's Watch huddled in frigid keeps, gnawing hardtack and strips of dried jerky, washing it down with thin, sour beer. Standing atop the Wall was a punishment harsher than any dungeon. Men stared into storm-choked forests, fingers burning numb, praying they did not lose a hand to frostbite.
Some broke. They fled south in silence, abandoning vows—not to seek life, but to escape the maddening cold.
Across the North, roads drowned beneath mountains of snow. Rivers froze solid. Trade died. Gold lost its worth.
In winter, a pouch of salt or a bundle of kindling is worth more than a chest of coins.
Throughout summer and autumn, the kingdoms warred against time. Granaries swelled. Taxes came in grain, dried beans, and oats. Turnips, parsnips, carrots, and onions crowded every cellar. Every scrap of food was gathered and stored: hard bread, dried legumes, and whatever small game could be trapped or hunted. Half-grown crops were seized before frost. Forests stripped bare—not for growth, but for firewood, the only shield against winter.
Slaughter season followed, the final heartbreak. Cattle, sheep, and pigs could not survive the frost. They were butchered before starvation claimed them. The air steamed with blood. Every part was used: meat for sustenance, fat for warmth, hides for clothing. Preserved flesh—dried, smoked, and stored—became the backbone of survival.
Every long winter slashed Westeros's population. Cold, hunger, and plague—especially the dreaded Winter Fever—claimed countless lives.
...
On the Iron Islands, winter carried a different sting—born of sea salt, relentless wind, and waves that battered stone into submission.
Here, the rule of House Greyjoy faced its harshest test. The Ironborn were masters of salt.
Throughout autumn, the workshops of Saltcliffe and Saltport toiled day and night. Fish were gutted and packed in layers of salt. Seal and walrus meat were preserved the same way. Even seaweed was dried—for food and fuel.
The Old Way offered little aid in winter. But the Ironhold Merchant League—strengthened by Euron's foresight and Lord Quellon Greyjoy's full support—became the difference between life and death.
Throughout summer and autumn, the longship fleet shifted its purpose. Pirates became traders. Reavers became merchants. Iron, plunder, and the Ironborn's precious Refined Salt were traded across the Narrow Sea for:
• grain
• timber
• furs
• medicines
• tools
Pyke's cellars swelled with food from every corner of the world—more than some Reach lords could boast.
Lord Quellon knew a hard truth: if the common folk died, the boats would not row themselves.
A lord could choose mercy or fear—but a lord must choose practicality.
He ordered the island lords to distribute stores fairly, protect fishermen, and keep craftsmen working indoors: repairing ships, forging tools, preparing for spring.
Idle Ironborn were dangerous.
Busy Ironborn survived.
The priests of the Drowned God worked tirelessly, chanting salt-soaked prayers, urging endurance, promising that hardship was the path to the Drowned God's halls.
The Iron Islands had their own quiet version of the Last Hunt—tales of old sailors rowing alone into winter gales, offering themselves to the sea so their families might eat a little longer.
Winter was ruthless here. The damp cold burrowed into the bones. Storms cut islands off from one another for weeks.
But they endured.
Because the sea provided.
Because discipline held them together.
Because trade bought what the sea could not give.
Because Ironborn did not break.
And because Euron had prepared them.
The Refined Salt he created years earlier filled their coffers with gold and silver—wealth that now bought survival for thousands.
For this winter, at least, the Iron Islands would live.
---
📚 Author's Note:
Big thanks to Dome35 for the 3 shiny Power Stones!
🐧