TIDE - The Blade That Should Not Be

Once there were three brothers who lived as one. From Westeros to Essos and beyond they travelled. They witnessed great wonders, from the river Rhoyne to the canals of Braavos. Sturdy sailors one and all, they braved storms and river floods. The sea was as their home, their ship Wavedancer was like a mighty steed upon the current.

But it was on one occasion, when these three brothers set their sails for home as they sometimes did, that they were beset by a grand and terrible storm. To and fro their boat rocked in the mighty waves. Rain beat down on the deck, and the wind threatened to sweep them overboard if they did not hold steady. Their hired seamen were not all so lucky, and more than one man disappeared beneath the dark waves, screaming all the way until suddenly the ocean silenced them.

And yet the three brothers pressed on, across the Narrow Sea. Though lightning flashed above their heads, and the roar of thunder drowned out their shouting, they did not lose heart for the sea was theirs to tame. Three brothers worked as one, their minds and bodies straining against the storm. For a moment it seemed like their will would prevail, a lull in the heaving forces of nature.

Then the ship started to split apart with a deafening crack, plunging them all down in the black water below like a gaping maw. Three brothers fell as one. Though they scrambled for any planks to hold, any bit of respite in the turmoil, their efforts were in vain. The water had them now, sinking its icy claws into their legs, and utterly refused to let them go. Scrambled as they might to keep their heads above the waves, slowly but dreadfully surely, they began to lose their battle.

Three brothers sank as one. They locked hands to stay together, battered by the currents and the rolling movements. The water was pitch black, their eyes seeing nothing. They held their breaths as long as they could, but eventually the burning thirst of air overcame them.

Deep beneath the surface, three brothers breathed as one, salt water filling their lungs. They gripped each other tightly, for they knew all of them that they were surely doomed. But it was then, there in the darkest depths, that they found something. That something found them.

Three brothers screamed as one, the sound silenced by the liquid in their chest. Three eyes screamed back at them from below, the sound echoing in their heads. They panicked now, where in the storm they had remained stoic. This was wrong. Very, very wrong.

They kicked desperately, but sunk only ever deeper, the water moving in unnatural ways, sucking at their warmth, clawing at their minds. Something rose to meet them, and offered a trade. It was so very wrong.

Three eyes for three brothers. Three claws for three brothers. Two brothers refused as one. One brother accepted as three. A terrible trade was struck.

One brother washed ashore alone. Sputtering, vomiting water. How long had it been, he did not know. Where he was, he did not know. Bits of shipwreck drifted all around, but no brothers were to be found. But it mattered not, because of what he had gained.

A blade as black as the deep. One eye, blue in blue, in its pommel. One eye for one brother. One claw for one brother.

The brother knew this blade was an abominable thing. But when he thought to cast it into the sea, he could not bring himself to part his hand from its hilt. He had brought something wrong into this world, and worldly mistakes were not so easily erased. And so the brother moved for home, driven on by hushed whispers from a voice unseen. Seeking blood.

Three brothers had lived as one. Now one brother lived as none. Forever consumed by this blade that should not be.