He hears the hoofbeats first, the crunch of snow on the kingsroad, and he glances away from the Wall. It's still intact, for now, won't be for long, and all he can do is wait, because he is ready as can be for the true wrath of winter.
The horse looks like it's from the summer lands, not used to winter, and then he glances at the rider, he is a bit different than the last he saw of him, he too not used to winter, but winter is here, and it won't be going away anytime soon.
Bran feels anger looking at that face, and he had thought emotions would not trouble him any now. But despite all he has seen, all the pain and suffering from every moment of every time, all the cries and pleas from every person that had ever lived, despite the pain his family endured, his friends suffered, despite how it all hurt him in every moment of his existence, he remembers being a little boy who loved to climb.
He remembers his mother's worried eyes, his father's smiling ones, his siblings laughter, whenever he climbed dangerously high. He remembers that face, the face of a knight he thought he could be like one day as well, the fear in those eyes when he caught them, and now he sees steel and resolve in them, even stronger than when he pushed him.
"Jaime Lannister is at the gates," he startles Arya, who has taken to sit beside him in his bedchamber after Littlefinger's demise.
She doesn't question him, but perhaps she sees the hidden anger simmering behind his eyes, and Bran can see the questions in hers. Both of them, along with Sansa have gotten really good at learning of truths before lies are spoken, in their own different ways, since they all had different teachers.
"I always was good at climbing walls, I never fell, even in the rain," he says, and he knows he had answered her question, "but there is no need to add him to your list. He is here to fight in the Great War."
She smiles, and settles down, holding his hand in hers, rubbing soothing circles, to calm him or herself he doesn't know. He remembers the little girl she used to be, and he smiles sadly at the memory.
They don't say anything for long, just sitting together in silence, until Gilly knocks on the door.
"Come in," he says, and she enters. She still looks so unsure in a castle, she reminds him a bit of Osha, maybe just because of their wildling blood, she is far too timid otherwise, though he knows she could be protective when someone she loves is threatened, in that she is similar to his mother, protecting her young wolves, as Osha too was to her last breath and unable to save Rickon.
When he looks back, she is gone, and he knows he was drowning in his own thoughts and memories again, he has gotten good at controlling them, to be in the present, and not lost in the past or the many fragments of the future, to be in the here and not the distant vastness of the world even if it is in the present.
He sees a glimpse of Jon stepping foot back on Dragonstone, and with Theon, and he feels more anger, because his home was broken because of him, but it settles again, because he had seen him suffer too, and then his screams from the past echoes in his mind, and he turns his eyes back at his home in Winterfell, with Sansa meeting the Kingslayer in the Great Hall now.
She thanks him for giving Lady Brienne the Oathkeeper, and thus her assistance, and he remembers the oaths the honorable woman had made to his mother and then to his sister, she is at Dragonstone too now with her squire. And then with Jon, they will all be back at Winterfell, to get ready for the Long Night together.
He catches the glint of gold, and smirks because he is not the only cripple in Winterfell now. Robb wouldn't have thought his thoughts funny if he were to voice them, or perhaps he would have, he can't be sure, they've all changed so much now, maybe Robb would've too, and all they would have left to share would be grim jokes, instead of the hearty ones.
He wishes Meera was here, and he misses her presence, she always made him smile, but she has her family now, and she would be more safer in the Neck than anywhere else in the world. He never glances there for fear of seeing her alone, without her father or mother, for fear of not seeing Jojen with her, but she would be safe there, she has to be.
He is brought back to the present and the here, back to his bedchamber, when Arya presses a kiss to his forehead and leaves, just as Sam enters. The man is smart, and doesn't speak often, and for that reason alone Bran likes his company.
He remains as quiet as his father used to, and he wonders when he got as dull. Maybe when he fell, or when Winterfell fell with Maester Luwin and Ser Rodrik, or maybe when Summer, Leaf, Bloodraven and Hodor sacrificed themselves for him, and the massive guilt that starts to swallow him makes him cast his eyes far south, to Dorne, a place that has fascinated him in the cave, a place whose customs he liked.
He remembers an Arri there, not his sister, but of someone else, and just as strong as his, but she is dead too, like many already are. Winter is coming there too, it hasn't reached yet, but it would soon, and the place is in tatters now, or maybe that's the future, so he comes back to his room, because the present is safe, as safe as it can be now.
He realizes he had felt many emotions he had repressed in just one day, than he had felt in what feels like thousands of years now. He hears an anguished cry, and sees Sam's face startled through foggy eyes, and it dawns on him that tears are falling down his face.
Sobs wreck his body, and he bends forward in his chair, chest tightening imperceptibly. He feels hands on his back, hears words said frantically, and then the scent of Sansa, and of Arya reaches him through the fog in his mind, through the suffering of thousands in all time.
He clutches his sisters, doesn't want to let them go, and all three of them tumble to the ground. He wishes Jon were here, so that the remainder of their family can be together at last, and he knows he is coming, but he is still so far away.
He hears a howl, and he knows it's not a memory, and he thinks Ghost is crying with them. He is too big now to navigate the twist and turns of the castle with ease, otherwise he would be here with them, Bran knows it. He remembers when he was so small to be held in arms like a babe, like all of them were, but now he is the only one that remains, with a sister amassing a pack in the wild, just as his brother is for the Great War.
He had seen them all die, the great direwolves, one by one, over and over again, just as his father, just as his mother, just as his brothers, just as his friends, killed by enemies, and friends, and monsters, over and over again. He knows he is going into hysterics, and his sisters are helpless as they hold his crying form, and he hates that he is making them suffer even more, but he has no control over his body at the moment.
Someone is shouting for something, in the present, that much he is aware, but he sees ice and fire and snow and dragons and children and wolves and men and women, and so much blood, everywhere, and he is hearing screams, sobs, and his heart feels like it will burst, and he is feeling so much pain, and he hears Old Nan.
"Oh, my sweet summer child," she says, and he hears pity in her voice for the first time, so maybe it's not a memory, and just a dream.
He is, for all the power that he has, still a child, and more than ever now, Bran, the Broken.
He dreams, or maybe he doesn't, his third eye is still open, so he still sees, but maybe he dreams too, because there is his mother and father, and brothers and sisters, all laughing together, and they'd done that in the past, so maybe it's a memory after all, but there is Jojen, and Meera, and Osha is there too. And Hodor, and Old Nan, and Maester Luwin, and Jory, and Ser Rodrik, and the wolves, and even Theon, everyone he loves together, so maybe it's really a dream.
But he isn't there with them, and then he is. Outside the broken tower, fallen on the ground, and everyone he loves is laughing at him.
Then he sees his father being beheaded, and brother being stabbed, and mother's throat cut, and another brother being stabbed, and another one shot, and Grey Wind being shot, and Lady being killed, and Nymeria being lost, and Jojen being stabbed by a wight, and Theon being tortured, and an uncle being strangled, and his grandfather being burned, and Summer being slaughtered, and Shaggydog being shot, and Hodor being slaughtered, and his sister being beaten, and another being tortured, and Osha being stabbed in the throat, and Uncle Benjen being ambushed, and Aunt Lyanna in a bed of blood, and Meera's sad eyes when she said good bye, and he hears Maester Luwin's last words, and Ser Rodrik's last promise, last instruction, and he sees Old Nan quietly pass away. And then he opens his eyes, the two that he always had.
He is still in his bedchamber, in his bed now, Sansa is sitting beside him this time, and she offers him a broken smile, and he gives her one of his broken ones in return.
"How are you feeling?" she asks, and he thinks she asks just because she is a lady, they both know he isn't well, none of them are, so he doesn't answer her.
"You know, you and Arya weren't the only ones who saw father murdered," he says instead, she blinks at him, "I saw him killed too, as did Rickon. I thought it was just a bad dream at first, or Osha, my caretaker, made me believe that, but then a raven arrived from King's Landing, and I knew it wasn't a dream."
"Oh, Bran," Sansa says holding his hand, moving from her chair to his bed, like Robb had done once.
"Funny, that was the exact tone Maester Luwin had when he told me," he says smiling sadly, and she moves forward and held him tight.
He feels her pain, she has suffered so much, but she is so strong now, the Lady of Winterfell, and he feels proud of her, of both his sisters, and his brother too. But he misses the naive, sweet girl she once was, that told him that demons will go away if he just hid beneath the blanket.
She sends word to Arya that he is awake, and tells him that Jon will be coming back home soon, he is happy that his family will finally be back together to a place that all of them wish they had never left.
Arya hugs him for long too, and all three of them then sit together, both his sisters on either side of him on his bed. The cackling of the firewood is the only noise in the chamber for a long time, all three of them lost in their own thoughts.
"I told you that I see everything, everywhere in the past, present and future," he starts after sometime, "I often see the wars, the deaths, the pain, and the suffering the most, because there has been so much of it through the years."
He hasn't talked this openly to anyone about what he sees, and he can tell that both his sisters are surprised by what he is telling them.
"There is a lot of good too, but the happy moments of people's lives won't help me, so my third eye doesn't show me much of that for that reason, I think. Sometimes it's easy to see what I want to see, sometimes it's not, I'm still learning," he says quietly, "I saw father, and mother, and Rickon, and Robb and his wife killed numerous times now, and Jon too, and it's not always a nightmare, most of the time it feels like I am witnessing it all as it happened.
"I have been witness to everything in history, including both your sufferings, and I am so sorry for what you both went through, I wish I was there to help you, but I am just so proud of both of you now," he says, and there are tears in his eyes again, and his sisters' eyes too, "and I know father and mother, and Robb and Rickon would be too. You two are the best big sisters I could've asked the gods for, and I am so happy that you're here now, with me."
There are those broken smiles, amidst the tears again, and he is being hugged tightly by them once more, both at the same time now. And he thinks there will be more tears, when Jon is with them too, it will be even better, and he doesn't try to see how it will happen in the future, he turns his eye away from it, he likes the now.
He is walking again, on four legs this time, the body is different than Summer's, the mind is different, but Bran knows he is not Ghost, there is that hunger to hunt of course, but it's not a need, he is not starving, and neither is the wolf. He has flown as a flock of raven at once, flown as the Bloodraven had promised, and he had seen the Night King for the first time out of one of his visions, without the aid of the wierwood tree, still not with his own eyes and he had been afraid still. But the body of a direwolf is more familiar to him, and comfortable, so that's what he is now, he likes this skin. And so he is less afraid.
He likes to go to the godswood, to the heart tree, not just because of what he has to see, but his father usually came here once upon a time, there are a lot of happy memories attached to the place, and he likes to remember them, a few sad ones too, and he remembers them as well. Ghost also likes it there, just like Summer did once, it is a place for only the wolves and the Starks, the only place that they felt completely safe, and at home.
Everything was white now, the snow covered everything, Ghost's white coat, a perfect way to blend in with the surroundings, Bran exited the godswood with that thought, and spied a man in the distance through Ghost's eyes. Looking at the man who made him a cripple didn't anger him much anymore, but he let out a slight growl anyway, shocking the man, but he was a cripple too now, so he just turns his attention away, there were more important things to worry about.
He is the winged wolf, the three-eyed crow, he is done being broken, he is done being angry, and done being afraid.
Bran comes back to himself, the last thing he hears is the thump of paws on the snow in the courtyard, and he feels peace, and a bit brave.