Kingdom Came
Author's Note: I own nothing, except my disdain for what happened. This short little one-shot has been running around in my head since the finale. Because this is Game of Thrones I refuse to believe that the Three Eyed Raven is innocent.
He had been a man once, he had loved and laughed, fought and bled like any man. Then they had taken him, turned him into a creature of ice and hate, a weapon designed to destroy his own people. He had fought in the beginning, he had used every ounce of his strength to defy the creatures who had stolen his life, he existed in chaos, two warring halves vying for control. In the end he accomplished the task the children had created him for, though not in the way it had been intended. When his creators realized what they had done they banded together with man and together they turned on him. They locked him away in a land as cold as he was and built a wall of ice and magic to contain him.
Like the children and the men had banded together so too did the parts of himself, monster and man. They existed together bound to each other by their mutual hatred for those that had caused this. Years passed, the cold that inhabited him spread out until the world of his prison was a icy as he was, together the man and the monster turned inward, exploring the powers that had been a part of the man and the ones gifted to them by the children, They learned to see.
Eventually, slowly, they became aware of another presence, something old and powerful, tendrils of it's power stretched as far as they could see, out into the world beyond the wall, they were patient now, they had no choice in the matter, time was all they had left to them. They learned to trace the tendrils back and back and back, it was a web of intentions, of dreams and prophecy, exquisite in it's subtly, horrifying in its magnitude. And they were wrapped in it's web.
Back and back and back, they traced it until it became clear, they had been manipulated, a life of seemingly endless choices had been a lie, they – he had been manoeuvred into place to serve this thing, his life had been stolen, he had been violated and twisted for the purposes of this force.
A cold unlike anything that had ever existed woke in him then, a hatred so fierce it should have burned like an inferno, but he was a creature of ice now. That was alright, fire would burn itself out, but ice, ice would endure.
He watched for centuries, he tracked its web back to it's source, it was close, hidden behind the wall as well though he did not understand why. Perhaps simply to taunt him. He learned all he could about it. It existed in the trees, in the animals, it inhabited the body of a man, over time the body changed, one man was replaced by another and another, they were merely vessels, they mattered not. It was the thing inside them that mattered.
He tried time and time again to end this creature, to destroy the thing that had destroyed him. And time and time again he failed, it was always one step ahead, always plotting, manipulating moving people and events into place like the pieces of a game. He could see it's influence clearly now, he could see a glimpse of what was to come, he could feel the pieces , being arranged for one last great move. He knew he would have to move now if he was ever to get revenge.
He gathered every creature he could find to his cause, he used every dark and horrible power he had been given to raise an army that surpassed all his other efforts, he knew the body of the creature was weakening and that it would be at it's most vulnerable after it found another host, it always was. But the thing got away. It was no matter, he could track it's new host, foolish young thing didn't understand yet, he would soon and just like the man he had once been, the boy would soon come to understand that he too had been used.
He plotted, he manoeuvred he waited, he too could see some of what was to come, he would use it to his advantage.
He came so close, he breached the wall! For the first time in eight thousand years he marched free of his prison, his armies rolled over the country of his birth like a wave of death, oh but he was arrogant. He had wanted to see the face of this thing as it died, he wanted it to understand, to know just how much he hated it.
As he stared at the girl who had appeared from nowhere a sense of dread began to climb its way up his back, he could see the thread of power tying them all together. He was still stick in the web, everything he had done had been part of a plan, it just hadn't been his.
As the knife slipped into his frozen skin, for the briefest moment of time, the monster and the man became two entities once again and the man wanted...
The man wanted to warn her, this scion of the house he had helped found so very long ago, he wanted to warn her of the danger they had let into their presence. For the boy was not what she thought he was. And they had all been playing a part in a great game, nudged and pushed into place to serve that thing! That sat there and watched so calmly.
And he could see, the tendrils spread out like a spiders web, across time and space backward and forward until it covered the world in it's image. There would be no choice for anyone just as he had never had one. As the magic that had held him together for so long finally broke apart and he felt himself begin to fracture into a million pieces he wanted so badly to warn her.
But it was too late.
The Raven had won.