Quick Author's Note: Thanks for checking out my first ever Game of Thrones story! I am a new watcher of the show, but I got hooked right away, watched the first two seasons in like a week, and now I'm all caught up to Season 3. I haven't read too much GoT fiction, but I got this idea and I had to start writing it. This story begins at the end of Season 1 and continues on throughout Seasons 2 & 3. It is based around two sisters (OC's) and the Stark family (because, come on, they're awesome), specifically Jon Snow and Robb Stark. It is a Jon Snow/OC & Robb Stark/OC (not the same OC for both, just to clarify) romance, but it is so much more than that. It is an epic adventure about love and loss and family, with some magic and monsters and lords thrown in, and I really hope you guys like it! :)

DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Game of Thrones or any of its characters and place. I only own Mari and Storm, and any other made-up characters you may see.

A Tale of Magic and Monsters and Lords

Chapter 1. A Storm Is Coming

Mari

"When a dragon is born during the Long Winter...and magic returns to the realm...she will come back to us..."

I still remember my mother whispering these words in my ear, night after night, believing without a doubt they were truth. I believed too, at first, when the memory of my baby sister was fresh in my mind, and I was so little that anything seemed possible. I had seen with my own eyes that the impossible was possible, but time has altered my opinion, and everything is so different now that I wonder if I made it all up in my head. Maybe I made up the baby sister who vanished thirteen years ago. Maybe I even made up the perfect, loving mother I once had, or the proud and devoted father who used to be my protector. Maybe...

No. No, it was not made up. I had a family once, but it was stolen from me, and now I have nothing. Now, I am called 'Mari Flowers', a bastard from the Reach, and a ward of Lady Olenna; who is mother of Mace Tyrell, the Lord of Highgarden. I have no sister. I have no parents. I have no home. But I did, once upon a time...

Thirteen years ago, I was four years old, and I lived in the castle Bitterbridge, which is two days' ride north of Highgarden. I was not called Mari Flowers, the bastard girl, but Lady Mariene Iris, daughter of the Lord of Bitterbridge. My father, Shaene Tyrell, is Mace Tyrell's younger, and more handsome as my mother used to say, brother. My mother, Lady Adelina Tyrell, was an exotic beauty born across the Narrow Sea in the far east of Essos. Mother captured the eye of my father nearly two decades ago, and Father says that he knew the first time they met that she would be his wife. The love between my parents was pure and honest, they loved each other unconditionally, and my heart still aches to think of how little time they truly had with one another. They married only a year after crossing paths for the first time, when Father was barely a man and mother younger than I am now. It was after their marriage that my grandfather, Luthor Tyrell, made my father the Lord of Bitterbridge, also stepping down as Lord of Highgarden and naming his eldest son the new Lord. My uncle Mace Tyrell birthed four children with his wife Alerie, three strong boys and a beautiful baby girl, before my parents had their first child; me. One month after my first nameday, though, my baby sister was born, and Mother said our family was complete.

They named her Ashlin Rose, and she was as beautiful as her name; fair skin, pink lips and cheeks, and hair and eyes the color of warm honey. It was on her third nameday that she disappeared before my very eyes, never to be seen again. Soon after that, Mother was killed, and my father was broken without her. He tried, for me, to remain the man he was, but it was a feat too impossible for him to bear alone. He denounced his title, fled north to the Wall, and made himself a brother of the Night's Watch. I was left in the care of my Uncle Mace, who eventually passed me on to my Grandmother Olenna, but neither cared for me as my parents did; neither could replace their love or fill the hole they left in my heart. It was decided amongst my caretakers that I would be known as 'Mari Flowers' and not 'Mariene Iris Tyrell', that I would forever be known as a bastard and not the daughter of a Lord and Lady who loved me. The wonderful, fairy-tale of a life I had was over, and my new life was bleak and depressing.

"When a dragon is born during the Long Winter...and magic returns to the realm...she will come back to us..."

Every night, before I go to sleep, I close my eyes and I recall my mother's voice saying the words in my ear as she held me in her tight embrace. I can still see her face, every detail fresh in my mind even after all this time, and I remember how fiercely she believed those three things would occur and Ashlin would be returned. Dragons haven't been in existence for a thousand years, not since they were all killed off, but Mother said 'things never truly die'. Winter is coming though, as the Starks say, but I have little faith a dragon will be born this winter. As for magic returning to the realm, the only magic I've ever witnessed was my sister's disappearance, which my mother explained was the only thing she could do to keep Ashlin safe. There was a monstrous woman who wanted to get inside our home and take Ashlin Rose from us, a woman called a Red Priestess, and she had bad magic inside her. I didn't understand at the time, but I realized a little later that my mother had some kind of magic in her too. I do not believe that magic has returned to the realm, despite the magic that was in my mother and the Red Priestess, because my mother is still dead and my sister has not returned. I have never seen or heard from the Red Priestess since she stole my mother from me. I lost hope that Ashlin will ever come back from wherever it is she was sent for safe-keeping.

I had lost hope, I should say.

Last night, I had a dream; it was no ordinary dream. I dreamt about my sister, about Ashlin, and not the night terror I've had since I was four of the night she disappeared. This dream was of Ashlin returning to Westeros, and arriving in King's Landing! I would not have believed it, I should not believe it, but when I woke I knew it was not only a dream but a vision of an event that will soon pass. I don't know if a dragon has been born in the Long Winter or if this means magic has returned to the realm, but my long lost baby sister is being returned to me, and that means I have to find a way to get to King's Landing. Grandmother Olenna will not let me go, not now when she's planning on marrying me off to a young man of noble stature on her home island, the Arbor. I know how rare it is for a 'bastard' to marry above her status, and Grandmother expects me to be grateful, but I don't want to marry someone I've never met. Besides, I can't go to the Arbor now, I have to get to King's Landing, and I'll never get there if I'm shipped off to the Arbor. I fear for Ashlin's life if I'm not there upon her arrival...

If Grandmother won't let me go, I'll have to run away. I know most of the areas of the Reach, and King's Landing is only a week's ride away, if I can steal a horse. I can't believe I'm even considering running away, or stealing anything, let alone a horse, but I feel I finally have something to live for. All this time, I've been living without purpose, but now I have a sister to find and protect. I will find her, and I'll do anything to ensure that I do.

-*-*-*-A-Tale-Of-Magic-And-Monsters-And-Lords-*-*-*-

Storm

Three large eggs, covered in scales; slate gray, jade green, and fiery red...A fire...A girl rises from the ashes, three baby dragons clinging to her body; slate gray, jade green, and fiery red...

I wake from the dream with a headache that only grows worse as the day goes on. Last night's dream was strange, especially the naked chick with dragons crawling all over her, but it's not the weirdest one of I've ever had. Recently, my dreams have gone from strange to border-line crazy-town. I'm starting to wonder if something is seriously wrong with me. It would be just my luck to make it to sixteen, only to be told three months in that I'm going to die of some rare and tragic dream-brain-disorder. The doctor will say, 'There's hope for your survival, Storm, but we have to find your real parents,' and the search will begin again, but they'll find nothing. My parents are either dead or never wanted me in the first place; nothing else would explain why I was abandoned in the streets of Chicago, Illinois at age three, why I was never reported missing or claimed after all these years.

I think about them all the time; my parents. I wonder if they're out there somewhere, if they think of me, if they're happy…I try and picture a situation where they both loved me so much, and it broke their hearts to give me away, but they had no other choice. My favorite theory is that they were simply too young and were incapable of raising me, that they had no money and no support from their families, so their only option was to let someone else raise me. If that were true though, wouldn't they have contacted me by now? Wouldn't they have tried to reach out, apologize for what was done in the past, and at least check in on me? Wouldn't they want to know that they made the right decision when they left me on the streets? And there goes my favorite theory, right down the toilet, because if they loved me they would never have left me like that; they would have done anything in their power to keep us together as a family.

Patricia, the woman who found me thirteen years ago and took me in as her own, says I don't have any parents, because I was 'a gift from the gods'. And she doesn't mean God, as in Jesus' father, creator of the Earth; she's talking Zeus and Athena and Poseidon. Patricia believes I was sent down during the lightning storm, like friggin' Thor, the God of Thunder. She loves telling the story of the night she found me, stating that the night was beautiful and clear, the ideal mid-summer night, and the dark ominous clouds rolled in completely out of nowhere, taking everyone by surprise. The sky darkened in a matter of seconds, the clouds unleashed a mighty rain shower, and then the lightning lit up the sky like the firework finale on the Fourth of July. The roaring rumbles of thunder that followed the lightning were deafening, drowning out all other noises, all but one. Patricia heard a noise that sounded like a baby crying, and she followed her instincts, running down the six flights of stairs of the apartment building she shared with her husband and their young son, and bursting outside into the storm. There I was, she said, lying in the middle of the street, naked as a jaybird, and throwing a fit something awful. Patricia scooped me up quickly, thinking I'd be freezing from the rain, but my skin was hot as fire. She said that my eyes captured sight of hers, seeming to hold knowledge far greater than that of the average toddler, and I gripped her hand with my little one and squeezed, but still I screamed and screamed.

"You were something special," Patricia tells me every so often, "I could just tell. There was a fire in your eyes, and it's never left them. You're something special, Storm, don't you ever forget it. You remember why I called you Storm? You brought that storm here with you the night you were sent to me, a fierce force of nature that kept going strong as long as you screamed and carried on. The moment I got you to stop crying, the rain stopped, the sky cleared, and the sun came out…"

Patricia's husband Mark doesn't agree with his wife's theory. He thinks my parents must've tossed me out of the moving vehicle as they drove by, thinking the fall or the storm would kill me, but Trish had to step in and 'have a heart'. Mark says it like it was a bad thing, her saving me from imminent danger, like she's some kind of freak for not letting a toddler suffer. He doesn't think I'm anything special. I'm just an unwanted nobody who has burdened his family with my presence. I live in their home, eat their food, waste their time and money, and I'm not even their blood-born child. My real parents didn't want me, Mark says, and he doesn't want me either.

It should bother me, the way Mark treats me, but it doesn't. Sometimes I agree with him; I am an unnecessary burden to their family, and they didn't have to take me in or adopt me. But that is also where I disagree with Mark; if he didn't want me in the first place, then why did he go through with the adoption? They already had Ricky to feed and clothe and care for, so why adopt a little girl that Mark never truly wanted? There are days when I think Patricia deserves so much better than Mark, that she should divorce him and find someone who appreciates her, but I can see that she loves Mark. Patricia loves Mark with all her heart, and if I weren't around they probably wouldn't fight or argue half as much as they do now. I'm not something special. I'm a burden, a piece of life that is endured and not enjoyed, and I need to stop pretending there's anything special about that.

The only place I feel even remotely like a normal sixteen-year-old girl is at school, which is where I should be right now. No one at school knows the dark secrets of my past; they just know me as Storm, or Stormy, Parker. The kids in my class know I'm adopted, but they don't ask why or how. That's just the way it is. They don't know that Patricia loves me, but Mark and Ricky alienate me as much as possible. My classmates know that I'm terrible at math, but excellent in English, and I have a strong interest in History. They know my best friends are Corrine and Holly, and my boyfriend is Trey, who most think is reckless bad boy, but I think he's spontaneous and exciting. Even Trey doesn't know much about my home life, though. I like things that way. I need to keep my home life and my school life separate, otherwise everything will fall apart.

Like I said, I should be in school right now, but I'm not. That headache I woke with has gotten so bad I can't turn my neck left or right without daggers of pain slicing through my head and neck. I've never experienced such a strong headache, and I wonder if maybe it's escalated to a full-blown migraine. I can't keep my eyes open, the light is too strong, and even the slightest movement has me moaning in pain. I am thankful to have the house to myself, since Patricia and Mark are at work and Ricky has left for school, so I won't have to explain why I'm still in bed. I'd like to take something for this headache, but I think if I make a move to get out of bed, I might just toss my cookies. So…sleep it is, then.

Snow falls all around, thick flakes flying in all directions, dizzying and mesmerizing at the same time…It must be a blizzard; there is so much snow that visibility is virtually nonexistent…I can hear the wind, howling in the distance…Then, snow crunching beneath strong, sure feet…I blink up at the sky, only now realizing that I am not standing, but laying in the snow…Suddenly I see two red eyes looking down at me, belonging to a huge white wolf…Behind the wolf, standing still as stone, is the dark-haired man…

I sit up in bed with a gasp, so startled to have been ripped from my dream without warning. Immediately, my hands are clutching at my forehead in an attempt to soothe the pain pounding in my head. It feels like a thousand flies are buzzing around inside my brain, slamming into my skull and trying to break free. The pain is so intense that my most recent dream is soon forgotten. I whimper as the ache seems to intensify even more, squeezing my eyes shut and holding in the tears that threaten to fall. Blindly, I stumble out of bed and towards the bathroom, not caring if the movement does make me vomit, because I have got to take something for this headache. I pull open the medicine cabinet and reach for the strongest pain killer we've got, my fingers fumbling with the child-proof mechanism to get the darn thing open. I pour three little pills into the palm of my hand and toss them straight into my mouth, sticking my head in the sink for a mouthful of water to swallow them. I sink to the ground in relief, curling my body up tightly and cradling my head in my hands while I wait for the medication to kick in.

Not even five minutes later, my stomach turns over, and I am bracing my body over the toilet as I empty the contents of my stomach, which didn't have much in it since I skipped breakfast this morning. I'm most disappointed that I threw up the pain killers. How much did my body absorb before they were expelled? Do I take more? Before I can think of an answer, a shooting pain rips through me, starting at the top of my head and ending at the bottom of my feet. It was almost like an electric shock, paralyzing as it struck and leaving my body feeling tingly and numb. The pain passes and my body starts to shake, violently and uncontrollably. I briefly wonder if I'm having a seizure, but another shock tears through my body, this one ten times stronger than the first, and I can't help the agonizing scream that passes my lips. I'm crying now, my body lying flat on the tiled floor of the bathroom, even my head, and I don't care at all that Ricky or Mark have probably pissed on the floor in this very spot…

I'm dying, I think to myself, this is it; I'm going to die. I'm nothing special. I'm not a gift from the gods. I'm not a fierce force of nature. I'm a weak, freak of a girl, who is going to die of shock-like seizures on the gross bathroom floor of my adoptive parents' home. I'm going to die.

The pain is everywhere now. My skin hurts, my muscles, my bones; it feels like I'm being burned alive while also having every bone in my body broken and shattered. My ears are ringing, but that might be from my ear-piercing screams, and tears are leaking from my eyes and down my cheeks and dripping onto the floor. The floor, which is shaking like an earthquake is happening, suddenly gives away and I feel myself falling…

I'm falling…falling fast through the dark nothingness…Am I already dead? Is this what happens when you die? You spend eternity floating through darkness? Or have I been so terrible of a person that I'm being condemned to an eternity in Hell, and this is only the beginning of my sufferings?

When I hit the ground, I expect it to be a hard landing, but it is so soft and gentle that I don't believe I fell for quite as long as it seemed. The ground is soft, but cold, so very cold, and when I finally open my eyes I can see that I'm lying in the snow. The snow! It is falling fast all around me, covering the surrounding area in a blanket of thick, fresh snow. I sit up to get a better look around, and it is only then that I realize I am completely naked; lying in the snow in a foreign place in my birthday suit. Perfect.

Quiet footsteps crunching through the snow captures my attention, and I quickly curl up in a more protective stance, covering my exposed bits from whoever is sneaking up on me. It seems there are multiple footsteps, all growing closer from different directions. I'm being surrounded…but why? By whom? There's nowhere for me to run to, nowhere to hide, so I simply wait, and hope that whoever it is will be a help and not a hindrance.

In front of me, a wolf appears; a big white wolf with blood red eyes. My eyes widen in recognition as it seems this is the wolf from my dreams. I've seen this wolf countless times in the past three months while I've been asleep, and always close-by was the dark, curly-haired man with the sad eyes and the fur cloak…

As the wolf steps closer, I suck in my breath and hold it, feeling vulnerable and scared. I look over the wolf's shoulder when I see something black moving through the snow behind him. It is a man, of that I am sure, but I can't make out any other details about him as the snowstorm is raging making everything hard to see. He stops just behind the white wolf, and by some form of a miracle the snow lessens in its fall long enough for me to get a good look at his face.

It's him! It's the man from my dream…the one who's been haunting my dreams for months now!

What happens next, I'm not too proud of, but I had no control over it. My breath catches in my throat, my eyes roll back in my head, and I pass out.

A/N: Thanks again for reading! Please review if you like it and you want me to continue:) I am completely ready to keep writing this story, but I need to know that I'm going to have readers, so for that I need your feedback. Please be awesome and let me know what you think:)

Question: Would you like to read pieces in Jon's POV and Robb's POV also, or just Mari and Storm (Ashlin - if you didn't already pick up on that...)?

-MissCarolineForbes