26th Day of the Eighth Moon, 281 AC – Wolfswood, the North
The air was sharp with pine and smoke. The northern host had marched south as far as Moat Cailin, but not all loyalists to the crown had bent knee. A column of Bolton men, sworn still to watch and wait, had turned on smaller villages suspected of sheltering rebels. Word reached Rickard Stark, and so the wolves moved swiftly through the Wolfswood to answer.
Jin Mu-Won walked at the edge of the column, his staff tapping the roots, his eyes narrowed. He did not cheer when men spoke of the glory of battle. He heard only the quickening of breath, the thrum of fear beneath their bravado, the dread of men about to kill neighbors.
When they came upon the village, it was already half-burnt. Smoke curled into the grey sky, chickens scattered, children wailing as their mothers dragged them toward the treeline. Men in pale pink and red cloaks rode through the mud, swords dripping.
Brandon Stark drew steel with a roar, his men thundering forward. "For Winterfell!"
The clash was sudden, brutal. Steel rang on steel, men shouted, horses screamed. The Boltons fought like wolves turned rabid, cutting down rebels and smallfolk alike in their fury.
Jin did not charge with the first rush. He moved toward the houses, where women pulled children from burning huts, where an old man had fallen in the mud, coughing on smoke. His staff flicked, swift as a striking snake, knocking aside a Bolton soldier's sword as it descended toward the old man's skull. With a twist, he swept the man's legs from beneath him and sent him crashing into the mud.
"Run," Jin told the elder, hauling him to his feet. "The forest will hide you."
The man stumbled away, coughing.
A woman screamed. Jin spun, his staff whipping up as a Bolton knight swung down at a mother clutching her child. Wood met steel, qi surging down Jin's arms. The knight's sword shuddered, sparks flying. Jin's staff snapped forward, striking the man's helm with a resounding crack. He toppled from the saddle, crumpling in the mud.
The mother sobbed thanks, clutching her child as she fled.
---
The battle raged around him. Stark men fought in a fury, Brandon's voice carrying as he hacked his way through foes. Ned moved more quietly, his blade steady, his stance firm, guiding men rather than driving them to frenzy.
Jin wove between them all, not as a knight but as a storm's eye. Wherever innocents stumbled, he was there. His staff bent blades, cracked bones, deflected arrows. Qi rippled from him in waves — subtle at first, then stronger as the chaos grew. When a hut collapsed in flames, Jin thrust his staff into the earth, qi surging outward in a shield that deflected the falling beams long enough for a family to crawl free.
Men stared, shaken. Some called it sorcery. Others swore he was a god made flesh.
But Jin's gaze was calm, his movements measured. To him it was no miracle, only the same vow he had carried from one world into another: no innocent shall fall if I yet breathe.
---
At last the Boltons broke. Their banners fell back, bloodied and scattered, leaving the village half-burned but standing. Stark men roared their victory, lifting Brandon on their shoulders, cheering his reckless courage.
Jin did not cheer. He walked among the dead, his staff steady, his eyes on the bodies in the mud — not only soldiers, but smallfolk caught in the clash. A boy no older than ten lay still, an arrow through his chest. His mother's screams carried over the celebration.
Ned came to him quietly, his sword sheathed, his face shadowed. "We've won, Jin."
Jin's voice was low, heavy, every word a stone. "You call this victory? Look. The boy did not march with banners. The mother did not swear oaths. And yet they lie broken all the same. Tell me, Eddard Stark — is that victory?"
Ned's jaw tightened. His gaze fell upon the mother, then the boy. Slowly, he shook his head. "No. It is only blood."
Jin looked at him long, his eyes like iron. "Then remember it. Remember it when the lords speak of honor and the bards sing of glory. War is not their songs. It is this. It is blood in the mud, and mothers who will never laugh again."
Ned said nothing, but the truth carved itself into his heart.
---
That night, as the campfires burned low, Brandon drank deep, boasting of the day's fight. "Did you see how they fled? How my blade split them? The Boltons will think twice before they cross Winterfell again!"
Men laughed, cups raised.
But Ned sat apart, his eyes on Jin, who tended to the wounded by lamplight. He pressed his palm to a man's chest, qi flowing into cracked ribs, easing his breath. He steadied another's fever, whispered words of calm to a boy trembling with shock.
When at last Ned spoke, his voice was quiet but firm. "You're not one of us, Jin. Yet you've done more for these people than any of us today. Why?"
Jin looked up from the man he was healing, his face lined with weariness but steady. His answer came slow, deliberate, long.
"Because I know what war forgets. Lords fight for crowns. Warriors fight for glory. But the forgotten — the mothers, the children, the farmers — they bleed just the same, and no one sings for them. I have seen worlds where no one stood for the forgotten, and they burned until nothing was left. I will not watch it happen again."
Ned held his gaze, and in that moment he understood: Jin Mu-Won was no sorcerer, no lord, no wandering hedge knight. He was something rarer — a man who lived only to shield, even when the world broke itself upon him.
And as the wind howled through the Wolfswood, Ned Stark swore to himself that if war must rage, then he would stand beside the nameless shield, not only for Lyanna, not only for Robert, but for all the forgotten whom no lord remembered.