Blackheart (GoT, Witcher, DC)

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***

Daniil Rylov, aka Damian Rivers.

I think I should tell you about myself first.

My name is Daniil Rylov, but I prefer Danil or Dan. I've loved mobile games since childhood, especially "war games". My parents were hereditary military, so knowledge in terms of self-defence and the desire to follow in the footsteps of an army officer is quite common for me.

I graduated from school with average grades: not a double, but not an excellent student, but physical education on a hurrah. But I had enough for the military academy.

The service was slow and boring at first. I wanted something more, something more interesting than staff work. I was young and hot. Many such officers signed up as volunteers in hot spots, and I was no exception. I fought in the Caucasus, though it was not exactly a war, but a "conflict", but it doesn't change the essence. I earned awards and ranks. A year after my last deployment, the regiment commander recommended me for a peacekeeping mission in Iraq.

It was really hot there. But I liked it.

This heat - not the heat that came from the climate and the sun, but from the blood boiling in my veins during the battle, during situations that put in doubt the chances of living until the next morning, was very much a turn-on. I liked the excitement and the danger. And I wanted more.

I even met my first real friends there. We had a combined experimental company from different militaries in Europe, Russia, China and the USA. I was the commander, and my company was the best. Although it was a very difficult task to bring this motley mass into one coherent unit, I did it - with difficulty, but I did it.

However, at one point my fun was over. A staff psychologist from the Headquarters who came to us found out that I had some unknown crap, which, quote: "can make any military man act like the ultimate sadist, worse than the Nazis. This syndrome is quite dangerous, but you can be cured..."

I'm a military man and I know how to obey even unofficial orders. I didn't really want to go for "treatment", but remembering my grandfather's words that medics are sometimes the first instance for a soldier, I grudgingly agreed to "rehabilitation". Which turned out to be a real asylum. That's what pissed me off...

I tried to hold on for a while, filed appeals and complaints through my grandfather and father. But they wouldn't listen to me. After six months behind the walls of the nuthouse, I got tired of playing the victim, so I took off.

I killed three orderlies and two guards in the escape. I was put on the federal wanted list. Three special forces groups chased me across the country and abroad. One Russian one in Russia itself - I almost completely exterminated it on a lucky break. The second, again, from my homeland - already in the Middle East, where I worked part-time as a bodyguard for a rich uncle. Because of them I lost my earnings, so we, together with a small retinue of the same ex-military men, had to kill the second group.

The third group was the best I'd ever seen. It was, as it turned out, a composite of Americans, British and my fellow countrymen. It was a hot encounter. Lost all my guys and almost got killed myself. But it turned out they wanted to take me alive for an international court martial.

In The Hague there was a trial of me and two other big Asian strangers, who were either dictators or warriors like me.

Both my grandfather and father were present at the trial. Both generals and both looked at me judgementally. Thirty-nine days of trial. I volunteered to defend myself, because I knew perfectly well that I would never get out of there, the court had already passed judgement in absentia. At least I could make fun of the jury and the others present. On the twentieth day I was read the full list of "sins", which included violations of human rights and laws for a total of eleven points.

The sentence was life in some kind of prison. It didn't matter, because I "didn't make it" to prison, having "accidentally" choked on a bullet during lunch....

I guess they'll write something like that in the witness statements after I'm dead.

Death, cold and darkness.

That's what I thought was waiting for me. But it turned out it wasn't the end...

***

You know, now it's hard to even pinpoint when exactly it started, at what exact moment? It was the realisation that I was alive again.

And not just alive, but alive after death. It would be even truer to say that I was reborn in someone else's body.

At first my head was splitting as if I had a burning coal shoved into my skull - the memories of my first life were mixed with new, local ones. Then everything settled down and I clearly realised that I was living again.

I was reborn in a new life and retained my old memory. That was good: now, with my past experience, I could live here and not make stupid mistakes.

However, I was in for a shock when I realised that I had been reborn on Earth - but not my usual Earth.

It was strange.

How?

Firstly, it was a strange time and place - Westeros, the Seven Kingdoms, the Riverlands, the Twins.

Secondly, my name was no longer Rylov Daniel Alekseevich, but Damian Rivers. I am the bastard of a very familiar character from the series and Martin's books - Walder Frey, the one who is almost a hundred years old, and he's had a lot of descendants. Although it should be noted that I didn't have time to watch the series because of business trips, but I read all the first five volumes of the books. Sometimes relaxed in conversations with his deputy, an American David, on the topic of "who will take the Iron Throne and who will remain alive at the end".

My mother is an unknown warrior from Essos. I'm sixteen years old, and yesterday the previous owner of my body got drunk enough to drink himself into oblivion over the joy of finally being knighted.

Now I'm a bastard knight, given my shabby knightly armour, a horse, a small purse with ten silver stags, and sent away by "Daddy" himself to build up a reputation for our "glorious Frey family". It makes me want to puke.

No, the Freys are better than the Starks and the Tullys, but they piss me off too. A herd of ferrets that bicker amongst themselves when there's trouble and can only behave properly when Old Man Walder tells them to.

It's a good thing I was dumped at the tender age of sixteen. At least I'm not restricted by anyone. The only bad thing is that I don't have any friends or companions as such, so I'll have a hard time at first. But I know the canon very well, because my memory was almost perfect in my previous life. And I think it still is. So everything that I learnt from IP and PLiO, I remember very well. It's a good thing that I'm interested in this universe, I like it.

Grim medieval with bloody battles, intrigue and betrayals. And the main thing is that here you can do what you can't do on Mother Earth: kill, torture, rob, burn, rape and so on.

Here all adequate people do it, it is only necessary to observe the "norms of decency" in order not to run into such a "lawlessness" among the nobility. After all, burning and robbing common people is in the order of things, but you need to know aristocrats to understand who can be killed, tortured and raped. It's important.

But I'll figure it out! And I'll find my place in this world.

Now the important thing is to know what I look like and how old I am.

Hmm. I look all right. Blood-red eyes, pale skin, and tarry hair are not Frey's. He was about five feet tall, too. My body for my sixteen is pretty good, and by the standards of the last world, I look about twenty years old.

The year is two hundred and ninety-six from Aegon's Conquest of Westeros. That means Robert Baratheon's trip to Winterfell is still two years away. And that's just fine. There's time to ponder your destiny, plan your Game of Thrones, and take a favourable position in the events to come. I won't be playing for the Baratheons or choosing to side with the Stark spawn. Only Arya is adequate there. Although Jon, whom I have grown to love quite a bit despite his naivety and too smarmy face, I would support him on the throne. He's a Targaryen by blood and seems to realistically be Rhaegar's only legitimate heir. Aegon-which-beyond-the-sea is not yet clear whose son he is. Jon Conington? Illyrio Mopatis? Some left-wing mercenary or the real Rhaegar? I don't care, I don't like him. But Jon does!

He's got potential. He's got grit and strength of character. The key is to put the right ideas in his head and talk him out of joining the Watch. And then, by chance, he'll find out that he's Prince Rhaegar's legitimate son and has a right to the throne. That's one of the most likely possibilities, though there are others. I'm a strategist, after all, and I can think, despite what they say about me.

All right, then. Time to get up.

After throwing off two too fat whores and nearly throwing up from the nightmare, I started to get ready to go. I was in my room, which I had to leave today with eight pieces of silver in my pocket. Damian had been a little too much of a pain in the arse yesterday. Fuck him, though. I'll earn more.

The main thing now was to test the most important thing to the average man here: warrior skills.

My body was, as it thought, an average swordsman and a good archer. We'll see about that now.

I put on leather boots, a shirt, trousers, a doublet with metal inserts, attached a belt with a scabbard, which contained an ordinary well-maintained sword, and wore arm bands with shoulder pads, which served as additional protection. There were also greaves and a light chain mail, which I didn't put on. It was obviously too long, and they gave it to me because no one needs it, but it was a pleasure for me for my "merits". In general, my relatives love me. Well, I'll sell it somewhere later.

And now - skills ...

Skills, inherited from the last owner of the carcass, I liked in a way. My reflexes and speed are still intact, as if I learnt swordfighting myself. One of my relatives, also a bastard, but not my father's but Walder Black Frey's, helped me in a friendly sparring match, clearly intent on killing me. But I didn't stand still, and after I'd tested all I could, I knocked him out of action with a sneaky but effective kick to the balls. And then added a hilt to the top of his head. He won't die, but he'll be out for a long time. I'd kill him, but there's other Freys and guards around. And I'd rather not show my face, even if half of my closest relatives approved of my actions with smiles.

So I went to pack for the long journey with a clear conscience (as much as possible in my case). I had no one to wait for me and little to take with me, so I left Gemini an hour later for the south of the Riverlands, where I could do a bit of travelling and make some money.

- Westeros, meet your 'hero'," I said with a grin and rode my horse forward, towards new achievements.

To be continued...