Maester Wise, the Keeper of Crawling Things

(The Origin of “Sleep Tight, Don’t Let the Bed Bugs Bite”)

The Tale (as told to children)

“They say he was a man who carried the world upon his back — not in stone, but in crawling, buzzing, writhing life. His cloak was stitched from feathers and fur, his beard alive with ants, his staff sprouting fresh leaves every morning. Where he walked, weeds followed. Where he slept, vermin nested. He was Father of Creeping Things.

When Maester Wise visited your village, you had to tuck yourself tight into your bed, seal your sheets, and whisper a rhyme:
‘Sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite,
Or the Maester will take you into the night.’”

Children still whisper it to this day, not knowing it is a prayer — a plea for him to pass them by.

The Truth (as known by the Proven)

Maester Wise was born in the Age of Fire, when dragons scorched rivers to glass and Saint Estes, in his wars, helped them by culling cities he deemed “corrupt.” To Maester, man and dragon were equally ruinous.

So he turned not to gods or kings, but to the small things.

• He carved a living archive into the stone face of Mount Kevara, etching in meticulous script the shape of every leaf, the veins of every insect wing, the curl of every tail and tusk.

• He carried cages, jars, and baskets overflowing with beetles, rats, birds, snakes, and seedlings, never letting them perish even when famine swept the lands.

• Villagers who hosted him found their homes filled overnight with creeping things — spiders in the rafters, mice in the beds, ivy tearing through windows.

And yet, he was not cruel. To him, all life was sacred. All except men and dragons, whom he saw as butchers.

They say one night he stood before the Proven themselves and declared: “You are not the makers. I am the keeper. When the last dragon falls, and the last man dies, my swarm will inherit this world.”

It was not an ascension. It was a metamorphosis. He became Proven not by prayer, not by lineage, but because the teeming weight of life itself crowned him.

His Godhood

Now he is Maester Wise, the Proven of the Swarm.

• His body is draped in crawling insects, birds nesting in his hair, serpents coiled around his arms.

• His flesh constantly shifts with blooms of moss, fungi, or scales, as if he were a patchwork of every living species.

• His voice is a chorus, layered with the hiss of cicadas, the caw of crows, the rustle of leaves.

Where he treads, vines burst through stone. Where he lingers, plagues erupt. He is not merciful — but he is not malicious either. He is balance given form.

The Fear

Among children: “Don’t let the bed bugs bite.”
Among farmers: they leave offerings of seed at the edge of their fields so his vermin won’t spoil the harvest.
Among the Proven: he is unpredictable, answering to no throne, no hierarchy, only the endless will of nature.

Some whisper that one day, when the Proven fail, it will not be dragons or men who inherit Nova Prime. It will be Maester Wise’s endless children — beetles, weeds, and worms — crawling over the ruins of empires.