The Alliance Of Middle-Earth and Westeros

Shadowfax the horse couldn’t go on any further. No matter how many times Gandalf the White urged him to get going to Minas Tirth, he kept on insisting to have a rest.

“Don’t you have some magic to help him get going, Gandalf?”

Gandalf looked down and gave his hobbit companion an annoyed look. “Leave the magic business to me, Peregrin Took,” he snapped. “Now, make yourself useful and go and get some food for the three of us. That’s all you’re ever good at.”

Peregrin Took or Pippin for short went off ahead. He wondered if the wizard was still mad at him for looking at Saruman’spalantirback at Rohan. Though his deeds did find out that Sauron was making a move at Minas Tirth, it made the enemy think the hobbit himself had his One Ring with him and that was why he had to go with Gandalf.

Soon Pippin found an apple tree all on its own. After picking the ones that fell on the ground and checking they were okay, he made his way back to Gandalf and Shadowfax. Finding them had made him so hungry that he had to have three or four of the bunch he was carrying. Then he heard a sweet innocent voice that sounded to be in trouble.

“Where’s my father?”

Being the inquisitive hobbit he was – the worst according to Gandalf – he followed the voice. It led him to an army camp and was shocked to see who was there. It was the lovely Princess Shireen of the House Baratheon of Dragonstone.

“I want to see my father,” Shireen demanded.

A lady wearing red just smiled at her. “It will all be over soon, Princess.”

Then Pippin gasped as he saw two Baratheon soldiers taking her to a pyre. All her parents, King Stannis and Queen Selyse, did was just watch as she was being tied on the pyre while the Red Priestess was praying to her god. It was as if her parents gave their red priestess their full permission to burn their lovely innocent daughter alive.

Pippin dropped his apples and ran back to Gandalf. “Gandalf!” he cried. “GANDALF!”

After a few minutes of rest, Shadowfax seemed to be able to stand up and run to Minas Tirth. A pleased Gandalf got back on his saddle and started to look for Pippin.

“GANDALF! GANDALF!”

Gandalf followed Pippin’s cries and found the hobbit running to him. He kicked Shadowfax to run to him.

“Come on, Peregrin Took,” the wizard said. “We must hurry.”

Pippin didn’t seem to listen to what Gandalf said. “Gandalf, Stannis has lost his mind! He’s burning Shireen alive!”

Gandalf knew who would be behind it: his old enemy Melisandre. There was no time to waste and they needed to get to Minas Tirth urgently, but he knew Shireen was the most innocent person in the whole of Westeros and she didn’t deserve what was going to happen to her at all. “Up! Quickly!” Gandalf helped Pippin up onto Shadowfax and they ran to the Baratheon camp.

“No, please don’t do this! Mother! Father!”

Shireen’s pleas did nothing except make her be heard very loudly. No one came to help her. Her mother had a change of heart and tried to get Stannis to stop it, but he refused. She tried to stop it herself, but the soldiers stopped her as Shireen’s sacrifice had to happen by their king’s orders.

Melisandre started to lower the flaming torch to the pyre, but a loud horse neigh stopped her. As she started to look up, she got pushed to the ground and dropped her flaming torch.

“STAY THIS MADNESS!”

She looked up to see who knocked her down. “Gandalf? You look different since the last time I saw you.”

Gandalf jumped off Shadowfax and approached the Red Woman. “I am no longer Gandalf the Grey. I am now Gandalf the White.”

“What are you doing here?” Melisandre demanded.

“I have come to stop you from making a terrible, unforgiveable mistake.”

“This is the only way.”

“For what?”

“The Lord of Light needs king’s blood so the weather will improve and we can march to the Boltons.”

“So you are sacrificing one little girl just so because your pathetic god might give some better weather?” Gandalf aimed his staff at Melisandre’s face, making her shiver with fear.

The Baratheon soldiers drew their swords out, but didn’t march when Stannis ordered them to halt. He approached the wizard himself.

“What right have you to be here, wizard?” he demanded.

“A wizard only does his business, preciously where and when he needs to. And I am here to stop you from burning an innocent child! Your own daughter!”

“There is no other way,” Melisandre said.

“There is always another way!” Gandalf argued back.

“You think I would do this if there was another way?” Stannis said. “If a man knows what he is and remains true to himself, the choice is no choice at all. He must fulfil his destiny and become who he is meant to be.”

“Be silent!” Gandalf snapped at him like he did at Grima Wormtongue in Rohan. “Keep your forked tongue behind your teeth. I have not passed through fire, monsters and death to bend the knee to an evil, brainless, easily manipulated piece of horse dung such as yourself!”

Stannis grinded his teeth at those insults. “Attack!” he yelled at his soldiers. But before he could grab his sword, he was knocked down by Gandalf’s staff and his forehead hit a big sharp rock.

Then the wizard aimed his sword at the king’s face and turned to the soldiers running to him. “HOLD! Or your king dies!”

The Baratheon general immediately ordered the army to halt.

“You all have a choice,” Gandalf said. “Face me and face death or run and live. It is entirely your choice, but I suggest you run. RUN!”

He shouted that so loudly that it frightened the Baratheon soldiers and caused to run, knocking the Queen Selyse down and running on top of her.

“Gandalf!” Pippin yelled.

Gandalf turned to see Melisandre back at the pyre. He lifted his staff off the king and headed to her.

Picking himself up, Stannis saw his soldiers fleeing. “STAND AND FIGHT! STAND AND FIGHT, DAMN YOU!”

But the soldiers ran off, not listening to him.

The mannis turned angrily on Gandalf, drew out his sword and headed to him.

Melisandre chanted inValyrian to her Lord of Light and touched the pyre with her own hands. It was lit and the flames rose as trees. The poor terrified Shireen started screaming for her life.

Gandalf pointed his staff to her and she fell onto the pyre and became lit in flames. She screamed her head off as loudly as Shireen did. Gandalf didn’t want to kill her, but he felt it was the only way to get Shireen free from both the fire and her. He tried to negotiate with her and her king and offered to help them, but they didn’t want to listen to him.

Now that Melisandre was burning away, Gandalf went to help Pippin rescue the princess but he was stopped when an enraged Stannis got in his way. He was snarling and the cut was still bleeding on his forehead like a waterfall.

“I don’t know which house you support,” the king said coldly. “Lannister, Bolton or Greyjoy, I don’t care. You will not stop me from fulfilling my destiny.”

Gandalf was now more determined to save Shireen as her own cruel father had finally chosen the Iron Throne over his own daughter. “Peregrin Took, free the princess! Get her to safety!” Then he got engaged in a sword fight by Stannis.

Pippin nodded. He took Shadowfax to the pyre, jumped onto the pyre where the flames hadn’t caught up to it yet and started to undo the ropes around Shireen. He did it as quickly as he could, but the flames were still catching up to them.

“You know the Iron Throne is mine by rights, wizard,” Stannis said. “And you know the world will be better for –”

“Oh, shut up!” Gandalf yelled. “After all the bad things you’ve done such as killing your brother Renly, burning Mance Rayder among all those lives you had burnt, all the lives you took during the battle at the Blackwater, trying to kill your brother’s children Tommen, Myrcella and Gendry and now you trying to kill your own beloved daughter, you’re not making a very splendid figure as a king, are you?” This was reminding him of how Thorin Oakenshield became sick with dragon sickness and how he tried to kill his friend Bilbo Baggins for giving the Arkenstone to the wizard, Thranduil and Bard the Bowman. “You are not even fit to be a human being at all!”

The only reply Stannis gave was another angry whack at the wizard, who blocked it with his staff. This time the king’s sword was truly stuck to it. After the king struggled to free it, he tried to kick Gandalf away, but the wise wizard swiped his own sword below his enemy’s left knee.

Stannis screamed in pain as he held onto the sword stuck on the staff.

Gandalf kicked him off and the king fell backwards, landing on the pyre.

“NOOOOO!” he screamed like he did when he lost the battle of Blackwater. He screamed in pain as the flames covered him up. That was all he could do as he couldn’t get off with just one leg.

Gandalf thought of stabbing the horrible king in either the forehead or the neck to stop his screaming, but he didn’t. He thought it would make him see how he liked it after all the people he had burnt, especially Mance Rayder and now his daughter Shireen.

Pippin managed to free Shireen from the ropes around the pole and get both of them off the pyre just in time. The hobbit saw the princess had some flames on her so he quickly tapped them out.

“NO!”

Pippin was grabbed. He looked up to see it was Queen Selyse holding him.

“You will not take my daughter from me!”

She was about to put him on the pyre, but Gandalf on Shadowfax charged for Selyse. The horse lifted his legs up and knocked Selyse on the pyre herself.

As she regained conscious, the first thing she saw was Shireen starting to wake up. “Shireen,” she said happily, as if she was starting to love her for the first time.

Then the flames caught her and she screamed in pain. She got up and started to run, but she tripped over a crack and fell over. She stayed there as the flames grew larger.

Gandalf looked at the three burnt carcasses. “So passes Stannis, Selyse and Melisandre.” He thought at least there were three less horrible people in the world now.

Then he turned to Shireen who was alive and had been crying her eyes out. Pippin did his very best to comfort her.

“Are you all right, my dear?” Gandalf asked gently.

“I can’t believe my own mother and father would burn me alive!” Shireen sobbed.

“Is there anyone who can look after you?” Pippin asked.

“Ser Davos,” Shireen said. “He’s at the Wall.”

“Come, we will take you to him.” Gandalf helped Shireen and Pippin onto Shadowfax and they rode off.