Author's Note: Before anyone reads this, you need to know that I loved the end of GOT; it was the only ending that made sense and I am convinced that if it had been any other ending, I would have been disapppointed. But, because I am not ready to say goodbye to Westeros yet, I started writing this on a whim. This is a mere prelude and each chapter will be as self-contained as possible. My main idea, the one that makes me think that the ending works so well, is that this is not merely the end of the 'Song of Ice and Fire', but also (as the title suggests) the end of the game of thrones... or is it?

The Great Council of 305 AC was widely accepted as the true end of the wars that had followed the death of Robert Baratheon. Although the maesters would, in later years, take great pains to insist that this had not been a single conflict, only one name was chosen to refer to the events that had torn the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros apart over the course of seven years. Save for within the closed walls of the Citadel, and but for the logic in the minds of the maesters, gone were the old names of the first conflicts and even the battles, campaigns and skirmishes that followed them were mere chapter of a greater story.

Memories remained of the five kings who had arisen after King Robert had died in a hunt, and none could forget the atrocities and the deaths their war had caused. But it was the War of the Five King no longer.

The nameless conflicts that had happened in the wake of those kings' falls had pretty names to be spoken of. Tales and songs had already been told for years of the Bloodless Siege when Riverrun had been taken and no life had been lost either by the royalists or by the rebels; of the Battle of the Bastards, when the bastard sons of the rival Houses of Stark and Bolton had fought for control of Winterfell, one leading an army of wildling savages and giants, the other legions of flayed men immune to pain; of another war for Winterfell, one forgotten south of the Neck but spoken of in horrified tones for the Northmen, an obscure event they had taken to calling the 'Kinslaying'.

The Northmen and the remaining men of the Night's Watch had also named their own war the Great War, where men of all lands and of all allegiances had forsaken their conflicts to fight the Army of the Dead. When these mysterious forces of nightmare and sorcery had been defeated after a brave stand from the living at Winterfell, the battle gained its own poetic name: the Battle of Ice and Fire. The North rang with the recollections of this tale, one the Northmen would pride themselves on telling for ages to come. And even to the south, the tale of the Great War spread, though not as successfully. But even the idea of magic and ice demons was not enough to engrain the Great War's name into the minds of the people of Westeros.

Not even the Second Conquest, which had seen the return of dragons to Westeros for the first time since they had died out following the Dance of the Dragons, had remained for long in their minds.

Much more to the liking of the commons, and even to the lords and ladies of Westeros, was the name that adorned the great history of these conflicts penned by Archmaester Ebrose, one which had not taken long to enchant the commons with its poetic beauty: the Song of Ice and Fire.

For surely, it had been. All remembered that the war had truly begun after the death of Lord Eddard Stark. Five kings had arisen in the wake of this tragedy, some to claim the Iron Throne, other to rebel against its authority. Great houses that had stood for centuries had been devastated by the conflicts, cities burned, commons and nobles left dead or maimed on the battlefields. Villages and castles stood in ruins or empty. Two stag kings had claimed the Iron Throne, while two lions had sat upon it, followed by a queen. But all remembered that it had been the arrival of ice in the form of the vengeful Starks that had led to greater war. And, although the ice had appeared to melt when Robb Stark fell at the Red Wedding, it returned with a new strength after the Battle of the Bastards. And, just as it had, fire had awoken in the east and fallen upon the Seven Kingdoms yet again. A brief alliance to repel an even greater foe had not been enough to end the Song. The smoking, ash-blanketed ruins of King's Landing and the scorched field of the Goldroad stood as a reminder of Daenerys Targaryen's invasion. But her tyranny had ended at the point of Jon Snow's dagger; Ice had prevailed over Fire. And only then had the Song ended.

For a brief time, it had appeared that the Song might continue, as the Northern armies remained camped outside the ruins of King's Landing while their king languished in a dungeon, prisoner of the Dragon Queen's foreign armies. And it might have, had it not been for the quick thinking of one man. With Jon Snow imprisoned, command of his host had fallen to Ser Davos Seaworth, the man who had once served as Hand of the King to Stannis Baratheon. Knowing that the Northmen would seek revenge if Jon Snow was executed by the Unsullied, he met with Grey Worm, their leader. It had not been hard to convince the eunuch-warrior to wait to meet out his justice. The death of his Queen had wrenched the will to fight out of him. Ser Davos was able to convince the Unsullied to wait until the lords and ladies of Westeros had gathered in King's Landing where they could decide the fate of the Seven Kingdoms.

Weeks later, in the ruins of the Dragonpit, dozens of lords and ladies great and small gathered in what would be known to later histories as the Great Council of 305 After the Conquest. What none had expected was that the deliberations would last no longer than a single day.

That the son of the man whose death had started the war was now the King.

And that the ascent of Bran the Broken would mark the end of the Song.