Alright, so this is basically just a super-short fic based on the T.V. HBO series Game of Thrones. I haven't read far enough in the books yet to know if this is also accurate to the novels, but it's basically my interpretation of what happened before the coolest series ever forced me to wait until it comes out again on television. Please review, I'm a very new fanfic author and I'd like to know if you guys like my stuff or have any constructive critisism for me. Thanks!
Bitter, dry, frigid air slithered through his hair and tickled his warm skin, waking the boy from his sleep. He felt strange, his body distorted and changed, his nose filled with cold and sharpness, his palms stinging where they touched the ice-coated snow below and his fingers thick and clumsy, with irritating chunks of hair filling the gaps between them.
He cracked open an eye and saw white and blue. A vast expanse of pure, gleaming whiteness stretched outwards from where he lay for what seemed like forever, and the clear sky above was not marked with a single cloud, though the sun seemed smaller and less bright.
Knowing this was a dream and seeing in the edge of his vision the pink of his nose and white of his muzzle, he stood, and his body felt strong and lean and powerful.
Then he moved, and he was not in control. He loped easily towards the horizon that rose upwards slightly, the only difference in the flat white desert of cold. Southward he moved.
For awhile he simply ran, his loping gait easy and warming on his strong, muscular body. The snow stung his paws and the wind blew flakes into his fur, which melted against the heat of his flesh and made his coat damp and then stiff and cold, but he moved on unhindered.
At last, when the burning in his muscles began to start, the ground suddenly dropped away before him into a sheer slope. Before him lay a vast valley surrounded by small mountains and large hills, one of which he clung to the side of, his body partially hidden behind gray rocks. A sudden gust of wind swirled down into the valley and a large cloud of snow lifted into the air before dispersing again, leaving three men in plain sight of his excellent vision.
They wore black cloaks, heavy broadswords and one was so fat that any sane leader of an army would turn him away laughing. They were the Knight's Watch.
It seemed that they were arguing. Digging holes in the snow, milling about uncertainly, obviously lost as he was.
Then they all looked suddenly at something in the distance and fled, the fat one lagging so far behind that he simply collapsed and trudged to the nearest rock. He called out for them, but the wind stole his voice.
He looked to the northern end of the valley from his vantage point above, and he saw an army. A dark sludge of people moving closer to the rock, closer to where both he and the fat man could see which army it was, what flag they bore above their heads.
But as they got closer, they appeared to be more of a militia that hadn't been graced with a sigil, nor proper weaponry. What startled him was that many seemed to be missing arms or legs, and that the one who led them, a seemingly naked figure with skin so white it blended with the clean snow, was mounted atop a horse with the bottom of its neck a mass of torn, bloody, red flesh.
The figure raised its head, wispy locks of white hair flying as it opened its mouth and screamed, a glowing, sky-blue stream of energy shooting along the length of its blade. The militia raised their heads, and the two lone spectators were horrified at what they saw.
Glowing eyes as frigid as unbreakable ice, all watching the almost-naked, thin, sinewy man on the horse (who the watching boy now saw was wearing a short loincloth).
A farmer with a torn, bloodied face approached the fat man, and even from the distance, he saw the man's shoulders slump and his head roll back in the extremes of his fear.
Five more surrounded the man wearing black, and hid him from view.
They faced south.
"Winter is coming."
Bran woke with a start and instantly saw Summer, his lean body coiled by the dead ashes of the campfire. The others, including Shaggydog, were asleep, but Summer's golden eyes were open and watchful.
"Ghost," Bran murmured, realizing that was the only wolf so far north that he was connected to. He remembered seeing his pink and white muzzle, then how real the dream felt and the militia of Others.
Bran tsked softly and Summer came to him. He wrapped his arms around the direwolf's shoulders and buried his head in Summer's soft neck fur. The wolf simply sat and accepted Bran's need of comfort.
"Summer, Winter is coming," Bran murmured, and looked into the dark, star-specked, cloudless sky…