Gagged

By: AndiKaneUnderwood

Listen, I don't know what language these people speak, I'm reading the books and watching the show, so I'm just going by how they talk in the show because that just seems more normal. If I get anything wrong, please feel free to tell me, but I've only seen a few episodes and I just wanted this plot bunny out of my head.

Okay, now that that's out of the way, based of Season 3, Episode 6 "The Climb" when Bran, Hondor, Osha, Meera, and Jojen are in the woods and Jojen gets a vision. I wondered why Meera put the strip of whatever-the-heck-it-was in his mouth, this is my explanation based off speculation and what I've seen on Pinterest/the Wikia page.

Please note that if I write for this fandom again, it'll probably be in the modern setting where they have their weird lives, but a modern twist to it. It'll basically be "Game of Thrones" modern version.

On with the show.

GoT~GoT~GoT~

It wasn't difficult for Bran to believe the Reed siblings when they told him about the powers he possessed and what he truly was. It wasn't any harder for him to believe them when Jojen told the young Stark that the blonde male had Greensight, the ability to see the past, present, and future of what went on around him.

(Bran had once asked him if he where ever able to change it.

Jojen had blinked at him a few times, thinking, then smiled sadly and said, "Even if I wanted to, I'm not sure I could. Many events that have come to pass where never able to be changed and the Sight doesn't show me the different paths that could've happened, it only shows me what will." Then Jojen looked away, brown eyes flicking to his sister, then to the ground.

Bran got the feeling that Jojen was hiding something, but he didn't push.)

If any doubts had been left in Bran's mind, they'd have been dispersed after watching the convulsions tearing through Jojen's body while Meera knelt next to him and spoke to him softly.

She pulled him up by the shoulders and shoved her own leg beneath his head, playing her fingers across his hair with more softness than Bran thought possible for a woman like Meera Reed.

"I'm right here with you." She murmured to her brother.

(There was a frustration in her eyes that Bran had never seen directed at her brother.

At Osha, always, once at Summer, but never at Jojen.

Bran thought about it, then (after seeing the small smile as Jojen calmed down) decided it was more likely at the circumstances rather than at her brother.)

Bran saw her pull a strip of some kind of leather, like something a horse would bite on while being ridden, and push it into Jojen's mouth.

He didn't understand it, why she'd put it in his mouth. He thought perhaps it was to keep him quiet, but there was no one around for miles, and while hearing random grunts and moans would bring any passerbys to come investigating, Osha had checked the surrounding trees and any homes she came across herself. There was no one.

When Jojen came out of it, he was still for a moment before he sat up. No one mentioned that he did it with his sister's hand on his back.

Bran didn't mention it because he wanted to hear what Jojen had to say.

He suspected the others didn't because of the glare Meera threw at Osha when the other woman opened her mouth.

(Bran got to see more of those moments, when Jojen would be weak after a vision hit him. Sometimes he'd spit white stuff from the mouth like a wild dog, other times he'd simply grunt and moan like a wounded animal, but no matter which happened, he would shake and shiver as if he where cold and Bran noticed the leather strip again and again.)

As they trekked on into the forest, Bran thought more on it.

He decided to ask about it when they'd settled in for the night.

GoT~GoT~GoT

Meera was off looking for their dinner and Jojen was stripping the bark off of a tree branch. Why, Bran didn't know, but that wasn't necessarily important, everything the Reed siblings did, they did for a reason.

(Bran spared brief thought for Jon and his other siblings and wondered if they where okay. He hadn't seen them since before his fall and he missed them all terribly.)

"Jojen?" Bran asked, turning to look at the blonde haired male.

"Yes?" The brown eyes boy looked up, and Bran was struck with the fact that this kid wasn't much older than him.

"When you have your visions and you start shaking, Meera puts some strip of leather in your mouth. Do you know why she does it?" Bran asked.

Jojen thought about that for a moment, then he smiled slightly. "Sometimes I think she does it just so she doesn't have to hear the moaning. I'm annoying enough as is." He joked, then his eyes sobered and his smile fell. "Meera does it so I don't bite through my own tongue. The visions I get are sometimes painful and often times scary. I don't have control over my body while the vision have hold of my mind. If she doesn't gag me, then I'll bite down on something far more valuable to me than a strip of leather." Jojen replied. "You understand?" Jojen asked, looking back at Bran.

Bran nodded quickly. "Yeah. I understand, Jojen. Thanks."

Jojen nodded and went back to his tree branch.

Bran laid down, intent on napping before Meera came back with dinner.

Then he smiled to himself.

Annoying enough, as he is?