It was the eighth hour.
At least Bran could not feel the shackles. Indeed, it must be an insult, twisting icy chains around gnarled ankles. Ankles that would never move again.
How had it come to this? Hope had seemed certain. So certain. And yet, here he was, sure to spill his secrets.
Knitting his eyebrows together, he surveyed the circumstances of his captivity. An icy, cavernous, cell, with only darkness visible beyond the thick bars of icicles.
A wry chuckle escaped his full lips, which were certainly turning blue by this hour. The eighth hour. Bars seemed hardly necessary, given the status of his crippled limbs. He could not crawl away if he wished. He could not even use the chamber pot on his own, and what should he do now, for were those not his circumstances?
Oh. Bran stirred from the depths of the eyes of the Three Eyed Raven. So that was why he was restless. He had to go. No longer did a relative or stranger stoop to help him. Now Bran was alone.
Alone, and yet… Bran stiffened, as much of himself as he could stiffen, which was the top half, as his bottom half could not move, because he was crippled.
Minutes passed, and the faint sense of pressure only increased. Fine. If no one was to help him, he would have to soil himself. Perhaps that could serve as some small act of defiance to his captors, if they were ever to appear. Were the dead even capable of disgust at bodily functions? He would find out, he supposed.
But as he attempted to relieve himself, to release the pressure in his practiced way, he found that no warm liquid found itself in his smallclothes. Perhaps he did not have to urinate after all. He hoisted himself up on one elbow to look down in confusion at his uncooperative groin.
What he saw surprised him.
Instantly Bran was taken back to that day. Back to himself at that window, a small child, gazing in at something so similar to this. Could it be possible? That his body could take the same shape as Jaime Lannister's? An image seared into his mind.
Not a day went without the recollection, at least, until the Three Eyed Raven.
"I am no longer Bran," Bran whispered to himself. "I am no longer—"
"So." The voice sent ice up Bran's spine, and he winced. His legs…
"The Three Eyed Raven. How kind of you to join me."
Again, Bran stared at his legs, too distracted to watch the shadow as it bent. He could… It wasn't possible, and yet he could feel them. Feel them. Just when he heard the voice. The voice… Bran lifted his eyes to the source as it rounded the corner.
Cold; deep, bone-deep, cold; shot through his body, his blood turning to ice water as he saw him. The Night King.
The King of the Dead regarded the captive with an indiscernible expression – not quite victory, not quite superiority, not quite revulsion.
"A little bird in a cage." His voice sounded like the scraping of iron on iron, like the clash of swords. "How amusing."
Somehow, Bran found it in himself to speak, "I don't find this situation particularly humorous."
The Night King's laugh was loud, harsh, echoing through the icy halls. "Perhaps you will, little bird. In time."
Bran was annoyed, but took care that his voice didn't portray that annoyance – or his fear. "I'm not a little bird. I'm the Three-Eyed Raven."
The Night King strode forward and gripped the bars. "You are what I say you are, now," he snarled. "And I say you are a little bird. My little pet."
Bran did not reply, merely glared at the dead man from under thick eyebrows.
The Night King took a breath, his air materializing in a cloud at his lips. He stepped back. "Surely you must know. We are connected, you and I."
Connected.
Bran stared into the Night King's cold eyes, trying to glimpse their intent. For this was the truth; the truth Bran had ignored until this moment: he could not see The Night King's heart. His movements were concealed, secrets forbidden even to the Three Eyed Raven. Perhaps this was the reason for his discomfort. Perhaps this was the reason for his cowardice; how willing he was to sacrifice friends that he might escape.
But he had not escaped.
"I am no pet," Bran spat the words, uneasy as the Night King reached into his cloak.
"And yet…" the Night King drew forth a key and deftly unlocked the cell door and stepped into the room. He bent down, trailing cold fingers over Bran's legs.
Bran shivered. The Night King caught his eye.
"You could run," he said. "You could run and scream if you wished. I would let you."
"What good would that do me?" Bran closed his eyes, unable to take his mind from the sensation. The sensation. "Besides, my legs—"
"Have longed to run to me," the Night King replied. There was a click. Bran's eyes flickered as he watched the cuffs fall to the ground.
"What do you mean?" Bran studied the Night King. His callous expression, his sharp features, like bone decorated bone. Like the king were made with ice itself, and death lingered in his shadow.
"This is where you belong," the Night King said. Bran's eyes rolled back on their own accord as the Night King slid his fingers up his legs. "We were never opponents, you and I."
"You are not my brother," Bran forced his eyes open, pressing his palms to the ground to pull his body backward. "I am not your kin. If that is what you are saying."
"That is not what I am saying."
In a moment, Bran grasped the King's intent, and suddenly, images, feelings, thoughts, sensations, flashed before his eyes, took over his mind.
His eyes rolled back in into his skull as intense, fleeting, vibrations crowded out all other semblance of thought. He saw the other man's life, his creation, his whole story. He should have been familiar with this sensation, with this glimpse of another's destiny, but somehow, this was different.
Perhaps because in the Night King's case, Bran's own fate was intimately intertwined.
He saw the union of their bodies, looming close within the next few minutes, but he also saw something deeper, something that had existed since the very dawn of creation. The weaving of two souls together. A mirrored reflection, tightly bound by a glistening red thread of fate. A union wrought by the Old Gods themselves: The Night King and the Three-Eyed Raven.
The Ruler of the Dead, and the Future Ruler of the Living. What could be a more fitting partnership than this?
Bran couldn't help but cry out as the vision suddenly released him, eyes rolling forward and meeting the blue stare of the Night King, whose fingers traced his once-unfeeling thigh.
In that moment, they knew they understood each other. They both knew how this fated meeting unfolded. They both knew how this story would end.
"How…" Bran found himself at a loss for words. Perhaps for the first time since touching the roots of that old gnarled tree. And it was just as well. The time for action rarely called upon knowledge, whether extensive or otherwise. And now was the time for action.
The Night King's fingers trailed past Bran's legs and up his torso, disheveling his tunic, reaching his soft skin underneath. Bran met his eyes, acutely aware of the decision. He could run. He could move. But he did not.
"For the good," the Night King murmured. "For all the good."
Bran scarcely understood as his body ignited in flames. Flames of yearning, though he did not know he yearned until this moment, and yet he had yearned. In every dream, every conversation, all the days spent weighing down his comrades. Bran had kept on, though he had thought he yearned for death… Maybe Bran had yearned for death.
Maybe this was death's answer.
The Night King was surprisingly gentle as he undid the straps, the buttons, all that veiled Bran's thin and fragile frame. Bran let death breathe upon him. He shuddered at the short rasps of the Night King's breath, cooling his hot skin as ice met fire.
Death and life. Bran was bare before death. In a few short motions, Death was bare before him. Before Life.
"Then…" Bran reached up of his own accord, touching the Night King's bony shoulder. "Then we are to unite the word. We are to become the gray."
"We are the gray." The Night King smiled, as well as he could. "The lust for power ends when life is given and when it is taken."
"The throne—"
"Is merely a throne." The Night King shoved aside their coverings, the scraping drawing Bran's eyes as he beheld the sight. A mound of cloth, as though something so flimsy could come between the natural forces. The natural forces.
Life and Death. These things all creatures knew. And now was the time for such contradictions to unite. To bring understanding to what humans separated. A dirge, funeral bells… Were they so different than the bells at sunrise welcoming a birth?
Perhaps they were one. Perhaps that was the entire point. The end to the struggle. What was a throne, iron or otherwise, when measured by the force of all that brought it?
"My life." The Night King seemed to inhale always, and never exhale. "My life, how I have craved you."
Death, longing for life. Bran had thought his ache to be natural, given the state of his legs. The state he had been left in, after the fall rendered his dreams and passions useless. But he should have known better. For what is life, but the thrill of another breath? The dew on the grass, come morning. The changing of the seasons. Life bears witness and revels in other life. And death…
The Night King seemed to grow uncertain as his body met Bran's. As though imagination could not compare with the reality at hand. This life. Bran wondered if Death knew how to resuscitate itself. Whether it knew any other path than to consume. The Night King was wary, as though his own concerns met Bran's, as though he did not know how to welcome the lilt of breath to his weary cold features.
So Bran moved. For life was to move. Death was to be still. So Bran would move.
Bran reached out to touch the figure looming above him. His fingers, still warm, grazed the back of the Night King's neck, gently at first. Unsurprisingly, the King's skin was cold and hard, though not uninviting. The texture was unusual, but it only made Bran wish to touch more, to search out every hard crevice of Death's form.
Gods, it had been so long since Bran had touched, or been touched. And he had never, not in his whole life, desired to touch with such lustful intent.
He pulled the Night King's lips to his.
The kiss could hardly be called romantic, but it wasn't desperate, not the shameful embrace of two temporary lovers in the night. No; it was fast, but deliberate, the culmination of a meeting that had been prophesied for eons.
They parted, and Bran exhaled into the Night King's open mouth. There was no smile on those cold lips now. There was no discernable expression, only a deep, red, fire surfacing behind the dead man's once-cold eyes.
The King closed the distance between them once again, and this time Bran became aware of cool fingers pressing against him, roaming his torso, exploring his heaving chest and stomach, then gripping at his hips and pulling him closer, his full body pressing up, towards the other man. Bran's body pulsed towards him, frantically seeking contact, like a worshipper desperate for the word of their god.
The fingers and hands were cold, but somehow, Bran felt his body burning ever brighter, a fire ignited in the friction between their bodies, a fire that threatened to melt this cell. A fire that would burn the seven kingdoms to ash.
And yet, who's fire would prove brighter? Bran moaned as the Night King pushed his legs open, fitting himself between them in a fashion that would dominate life.
Life, or death?
Bran sat up, pulling the Night King in toward his chest, holding on with all he had, though he did not know to what end. Or… No, he knew what was to come. And yet the details were blurred, details that he must write with his own movements, his own hunger.
The Night King seemed to growl, though the cell echoed only with movement, and not words. There were no words as one came into being, neither did words bid one depart. And there were no words in the union, just breath and meaning.
The Night King gave as Bran's fingers searched, finding themselves brushing against the heart of the King's being. What lay between his legs was as interested as Bran's own body, though greater in length. For death was the end of life, and all living knew of it. Thus, it festered, and now brought the culmination of every thought of those with beating heart.
Death was full, aching for a taste of life. Aching to have its own fate, intertwined with question, pulse, and rhythm. Bran wrapped his fingers around the Night King, then, and soothed his cravings with a light stroke.
The Night King slumped forward, unable to tame his response as feeling entered that which could feel no longer. Bran stroked him again. Then again. It seemed a delight, to Life, to take the edge off such sorrow. To soothe the ache of the end by any means, and these means brought a new creation entirely.
Unity.
The Night King found himself, then slid his own fingers around Bran's stiff cock. Fragile, though erect, for life, though eager, was quick to decay. But that was not the meaning of this night. This night was not to watch, but to become.
Bran gasped as the Night King stroked him, measuring his motion to compliment Bran's attention. All life feared death, and all death obeyed life, allowing as much as it would give before consuming. But tonight, order was defined. Not in narrow lines of new to old, first to last, beginning to end. But in cycle. In entering and rebirth. Death and then life.
"My life." The Night King hardened further as Bran poured himself into his affection. For death was not to be feared, then, but embraced. Loved, and nurtured, as the gateway to growth.
Bran could hardly keep pace as the Night King quickened his rhythm, as though desperate to see how the encounter would play out. As though desperate for the fruition of life, longing for the celebration to leak upon his own calloused skin. And it would. It would, so soon.
Bran brought himself closer, letting the Night King's length go as he stilled Death's hand. Then he shifted, guiding their lengths together, for this was not a matter of pretense, and perhaps evaded action itself, and called upon the heart. Then they would meet. The vulnerability of life, the transience of death.
The Night King met Bran's eyes as they met.
They rocked together, finding tempo between their opposed entities. The sheer measure of sensation seemed to flip Bran's world on its head as the pleasure emanating from one point grew and spread throughout his body, causing his legs to tense and stiffen, then release, then tense again, the ebb and flow of the very universe.
His breath quickened. Gods, he couldn't bear this much longer. The pleasure mixed with pain, with some sense of longing. Just as all rivers flowed to the sea, just as all stories would soon converge into one, soon this fleeting pleasure must come to an end.
He realized his eyes were closed, as the waves of sensation overtaking him had overwhelmed his senses. Though the Three Eyed Raven at once could entertain all possibilities, all fates, at this very moment the only thing he could feel were the points of contact where the Night King's deathly flesh met his.
He forced his brown eyes open to gaze into the other's blue. He was close, too, Bran knew it. Close to completion of this particular story, though the culmination of their larger narrative would have to wait. Not much longer. Not much longer.
"Look at me," the King commanded, and Bran couldn't help but follow orders. Although now he knew, finally grasped his own fate. He would rule, too. He, too, would give commands. He would be a king. Such was his burden. Such was his destiny.
Bran beheld him, and the Night King beheld Bran. Their eyes met as equals. The Night King's breath drew short, Bran's shorter. This was the moment. The end of a moment. And that was the truth; that each moment had its own beginning and its own end. Then creatures held only freedom, and time bore the weight of restriction.
Restriction. Bran held their lengths firm, the Night King's fingers wound over his as they thrust blindly. Bearing life in one moment, death as they withdrew, life in another thrust, death as they parted, then…
Fullness.
Perhaps nothing held such power as a moment fulfilled. Neither begotten, nor slain, but realized.
Ropes of liquid shot forth, though neither knew who bled first, overcome with the unity covering their bodies. Death coated Life in thick strands, Life spread his seed upon Death. They caught each other, reveling in the truth made known; a truth spread only through understanding; a truth knowledge could not reveal though it may scream infinite words.
Words were not truth, but interpretation. Knowledge was not all, and death was as limited as life.
They were one. Bran's nose brushed against the sharp cartilage of the Night King's as he gazed deep in his eyes.
"We shall bring this to them," he whispered, "We shall end their games."
"We shall play their game," the King returned, smiling. "They shall be soothed in my downfall, ripe for your teaching."
"But I—"
"Cannot teach," the Night King murmured, pressing his lips upon Bran's gaunt cheeks. "Then you must show. You must let them breathe. You must let them understand."
"They will hate me," Bran said. "You know this."
"I shall bear their hatred," the Night King said. "I shall remind them of the truth."
The truth. Bran gazed at their skin, gleaming with the remnants of the moment passed.
"It is not pleasant," the King said. "We must suffer the mark of time, you and I. But they…" He breathed out. "They see death where there is life. They see life, where there is death. They know, and do not understand."
"Then it is my duty," Bran said, "to allow their screams."
"It is our duty." The Night King placed soft kisses over Bran's tears as they fell. "They will understand. Just as we have tonight. Just as we do now."
The ice creaked as heat rose from the union. A wolf howled somewhere south, past the wall.
The world danced in games of good and evil, around an ugly twisted throne.
It was the ninth hour.