It had never been easy to understand the Lord of Light.
Several lifetimes ago, Beric had been a lord from the Stormlands, paying lip service to the Seven like anyone else, upholding his oaths to King Robert like anyone else. Then he had died and from that day on, he was nothing like anyone else anymore. Ser Gregor, the man he had sworn to bring to justice, had taken his life and then he had not. When the lance pierced Beric's chest, he knew he was dying. He knew it was more than an injury he'd eventually recover from. And yet he opened his eyes when the dust had settled, right where he had fallen; his lungs drawing the air still filled with blood and steel, not the serene scent of an afterlife. And it was Thoros of Myr kneeling next to him; as far from divine and pious as a man could be. In a distant past, Thoros had been a priest, or so he said. When Beric had met him, not much had been left of it. Thoros only paid lip service to women and wine and his prayers for the fallen were habit more than anything. Until that very moment when Beric opened his eyes.
The Lord of Light never explained why he chose to bestow his gift on Thoros, of all people. There were other red priests in Westeros, and even more in Essos; true believers who did not slur their prayers into bottles out of habit. The Lord of Light never explained why he choose to answer Thoros' prayer that day. Why it was so important for the Red God to bring a Westerosi lord back from the darkness, a man who had never prayed to him.
Thoros didn't wonder as much as Beric did. For him, it was enough that the Red God had given him his friend and commander back. His newfound faith was stronger than it had ever been. His god had given him a second chance, had proven that he truly existed. Thoros was pleased with his role and sometimes joked that the Lord of Light's true gift was tying his fate to Beric and not some prissy noble from the capital. But Thoros wasn't the one the Red God had a greater plan for, that was clearer now than ever before.
Over time, Thoros began to see things in the fire. Maybe he had been too drunk to see clearly before, maybe his faith hadn't been strong enough, or he had just never paid attention. Now he did and he often showed Beric those visions. There were images of places and people and sometimes those pictures were clear enough to be useful. Sometimes they told the Brotherhood where to go, what they had to do, who needed their help. But the visions never showed any hints regarding Beric's greater purpose. They never showed his death; not one of them, as if it wasn't important. Maybe that was the Lord of Light's way of saying death was little more than a minor inconvenience. Maybe it was his mercy to not tell Beric when he would die for the last time. That knowledge could cast a dark shadow over a man, no matter how bright the flames of faith.
It had never been easy to understand the Red God, but it had been easy enough to accept his ways.
Thoros had made it easy. Now Thoros was gone and with him the visions. Beric had stared into the flames for hours, surrounded by the icy walls of Eastwatch. And they were just flames. All he could see were logs slowly burning, embers flickering and disappearing, the soot stains on the hearth, the pile of ash gathering below the wood. There were no answers, nothing Beric could at least try to understand, though it would have done little to accept this time anyway. Why had the Red God elevated a faithless priest above the true believers, given him a gift so rare, to then just abandon him? Why had he let Thoros die here, in the North, in the eternal cold? Clegane's words were well-meant, Beric knew that, but it didn't matter if the cold was said to be one of the 'better ways to go'. It was not what Thoros would have wanted. Death by fire was the purest death. Thoros got the opposite, in any percievable way. And the Lord of Light was silent about his reasons to let it end like this.
"You mourn your friend."
Beric looked up from the silence of the fire. He hadn't heard Tormund enter the room, though the wildlings were not particularly light on their feet. Beric nodded quietly. He had no more words than his god since he had returned from the journey beyond the wall.
"Good place to do so," Tormund said. He tried to sound compessionate and wasn't sure if he succeeded. "Your friend, he put up a good fight. I've seen even free folk run away from bears and not toward them."
Beric's glance wandered back to the hearth. 'I wish it was the bear that had killed him,' he almost said. Even a bear would have been better than the cold. "I wish he could have seen the dragons," he said instead. "Fire made flesh. He would have liked that."
Tormund nodded. "It was sure a sight," he said. "Thought I had seen it all beyond your wall, but the South sure got me with that one." He made an undecided step toward the table by the hearth and slammed a bottle on it. "The good stuff," he explained. "Your friend would've liked that, too." Beric turned back to him and regarded the bottle. The wildling brew Tormund had talked about; it tasted like death and felt like fire in the throat.
"He was more than a friend," Beric said, thinking back through the years, when Thoros had been so much more. A brother, not only in arms. A father even, in their early days. A trusted advisor. And literally his life, six times his life. "But you're right. He would have."
Tormund filled the mugs and raised his to a toast. "To friends and dragons," he said and drank, downing the death and the fire like Thoros would have.
"To friends and dragons," Beric echoed and drank. The aftertaste burned and it was a good pain. It almost tasted like coming back from the darkness. Like the life Thoros had breathed down his throat every time he had died.
"Not bad for a Southerner," Tormund commented and nodded appreciative. "Some men think they can breathe fire after a swig of this. You should've seen Jon's face after he first tried it. I should..." He broke off, realizing it was a bad time to bring up his friend. His living, breathing friend who had seen the dragons, who had lead them beyond the wall and returned. "I should go," he finished instead. "Drink the rest if you want." He pushed the bottle closer to Beric and turned to the door.
Beric ignored the bottle and looked back to silent flames. "What do you think is the worst way to die?" he asked, not really expecting an answer, not really asking Tormund.
"Drowning in a frozen lake." Tormund stopped by the door, waiting if the conversation was really over.
Now Beric looked back to him. "Why do you think the Lord of Light chose to let a loyal servant die in the cold?" He still didn't expect an answer, but he had to say it out loud, had to ask someone other than the fire.
Tormund shrugged, though his face said he wished he had a real answer. "If I learned anything about your Light Lord, it's that he's a cunt," he said. "But what do I know about Southern gods?"
Beric reached for the bottle and got up. "Maybe more than you know," he sighed with a sad smile, then he took another swig from the bottle, another taste of death and fire, and followed Tormund outside.