There's no happy endings, not here and not now
This tale is all sorrows and woes
You might dream that justice and peace win the day
But that's not how the story goes
When Jon arrives at the Wall, it becomes clear to him that there is no Night's Watch to speak of. "All left for their homes," Tormund, the ginger wildling, says when he asks about it. "A few stayed with us, but most are gone."
His friend asks all about his time in the south, and offers consolations when he realizes there is nothing good to say. He laments 'the big woman' lost her 'pretty boy' and swore herself off other men, but otherwise shows little care over the events that brought so much suffering to Jon and the realm he inhabits—which may be explained by the fact that the Free Folk was never privy to the affairs of the rest of Westeros, as they were separated by the now ruined Wall and the now extinct Night's Watch.
Soon they begin to march north. The wildlings have no interest in living south of the Wall now that the White Walkers are no longer a concern, and Jon cannot go back, even if his punishment is probably null and void now that the order he's meant to serve no longer exists. So he follows them.
Tormund, informally appointed as their new leader, guides them to the abandoned villages in order to revive them. "Perhaps we can even repopulate Hardhome now," he says excitedly.
Days go by, and Jon is reminded of his time posing as a deserter. Of course, Ygritte comes to mind, and his heart squeezes at the thought that his love for her brought her death, just like Daenerys. We should never have left that cave, she'd said, and she was right. Maybe the realm's situation wouldn't have changed much, but his life would have gone slightly better, even at the risk of ending sooner. What is a longer life worth without someone to share it with?
Oh, there is Tormund. Jon dreams of him sometimes, in ways he probably shouldn't, but at this point he doesn't care all that much about what he should or should not do. He spent his whole life guided by rules and honor codes and traditions, and for what?
So he tries his luck with his friend. It works, and for a time they are happy. Tormund doesn't expect anything Jon isn't already willing to do, and vice-versa. They lead the Free Folk together, and nobody bothers to point out whether their relationship is cursed by the gods or not. What curse could they possibly bring upon them anyway?
Things go well, until they don't.
It starts when a young spearwife, Wanda, wonders why winter is getting worse instead of going away. After all, shouldn't the White Walkers' defeat have brought summer to them?
Several people wave it away, saying it was just a superstition and winter is going as it always did, but Jon doesn't forget her comment easily. Not even Tormund's soft reassurances calm his mind.
And then members of their group disappear. Nothing that much alarming, at first, at least not by Free Folk standars: a couple who goes out (probably to fuck) and doesn't come back, a child who wanders around and doesn't return, an elderly who gets lost. Those are common occurrences, and the wildlings have long learned to accept it—after all, even without the threat of the White Walkers, there are still wild animals and rival tribes to account for, as well as traps made by nature and the extremely cold chill that can kill anyone who isn't protected enough against it. Still, the fact that they never find corpses is concerning. After a while, they should.
Tormund is still optimistic, believing the fear to be merely a need to readapt to their way of living. "It's always been like this," he says when they are curled up together near a weirwood tree. "We just forgot after spending time south of the Wall."
It's too cold for Jon to even think about fucking—even though it seems to be exactly what Tormund wants—so he just snuggles on him and sleeps.
And sleeps.
And sleeps…
After another Small Council done without their King—for he is set on finding the last dragon, for reasons beyond her understanding and, frankly, interest—Tyrion invites Bronn, Pod and Brienne for a drink, even insisting the latter doesn't really have to join in the drinking to spend time with them.
They gather around a table in a small tavern, and soon the subject is Jaime. To be honest, it was his intention all along; he needs to talk about his brother, especially after the collective funeral that had him and Cersei buried under the remains of the Sept of Baelor.
"Ser Brienne, Ser Podrick," he begins, "I never asked… Did Jaime at least say goodbye to either of you when he left Winterfell?"
Brienne ends up taking a sip of ale, which is already an answer. "He tried to slip away unnoticed, but I found him in the yard." She doesn't say she found him because she woke up to an empty bed. Tyrion will surmise it anyway, and Bronn might as well guess.
"Was he acting like himself? Or did he sound… dead inside? Out of his mind? Dull and emotionless?"
She looks down. "Your words fit his description, Lord Tyrion," she admits. "I tried to reach out to him, but…"
"So did I," he says, tears threatening to come to surface. "I thought his intention was to go back to Cersei, to die with her because he loved her and their unborn child. Did you know Cersei was supposedly pregnant?" She shakes her head. "She wasn't, not when we made it back here. I don't know if she lost it, or she never had it to begin with, but Jaime and I believed her when she said she was. Anyway, I tried to use them two—Cersei and the baby—to cheer him up, but he… it was like he was a wight, if wights could talk. I don't… I don't think his decisions were done out of love for our sister."
Ser Brienne sits straight, but her eyes are understanding. Perhaps she sensed the same, for whatever reason. It's a comfort, at least.
They go on, reminiscing about Jaime. Bronn confesses he once thought he was in love with Ser Brienne. "When Cersei sent me to kill you two," he says, looking pointedly at Tyrion, "she promised me a Frey wife, to get control over the Twins, if I killed the lady knight as well."
He arches his eyebrows. "Any reason you didn't do it?"
"I knew it would mean my death," he replies easily. "Either because Ser Brienne would defeat me, or because Jaime would find out and kill me himself. He may not have cared much about his own life, but he wouldn't let me live if he ever thought his lady knight was in danger."
Hours later, he wakes up from a nightmare about Jaime. Of course he dreams of his brother after talking in length about him tonight. The details of the nightmare are already getting lost to him, but not the uneasy feeling, so he puts some shirt and breeches on and leaves his chambers.
As the Tower of the Hand fell in the fire, Tyrion's chambers are on the same floor as the throne room, which is also the same floor as the king's chambers—Bran chose them himself, as he wasn't looking forward to being carried up and down the stairs every day. His room's location ends up being advantageous tonight, as he has easy access to the gardens.
They are empty, as he predicted them to be. So far, the only appointed members of Bran's Kingsguard are Ser Brienne and Ser Podrick; the rest are under training and evaluation by the former. The City Watch take turns helping the Kingsguard, but there is no one for the castle gardens, or surroundings—not when there is a hungry and violent city surviving population to watch over. He walks slowly through the place, still dizzy from sleep but unwilling to go back to bed just yet.
It is only when he sees her that he realizes he's still dreaming—still having a nightmare.
She stands tall and proud before a tree, wearing the crimson dress he found her in after the fire. Under the moonless sky, he can't make out her features, but, when she turns to him, she can see her eyes shining in a way that sends shivers down his spine.
She turns to him and walks in his direction, as silent as Arya Stark is said to be after she returned from Essos—she was trained under the Faceless Men, wasn't she?
He tries to run, but his legs are slow—of course they do, this is a nightmare. When he accepts this, he stops and lets Cersei come for him. The sooner she kills him in the dream, the sooner he awakes and actually goes to take fresh air in the gardens.
When they go back to the Red Keep, she's doing all she can to hold back her tears, waiting until she's in her room to shed them. Memories of her time with Jaime in Winterfell flow without her permission and despite her resistance. It hurts a lot, but, given the chance, she'd go through it all over again. Better to have had this one month with him than nothing at all.
She misses him so, so much. They never said the words, but she loved him, and she had hoped he felt the same. She recalls his last words to her. He didn't make any mention of loving Cersei; he only said the two of them were hateful, implying their fate should be the same—death, and he knew it. It hurts that he would rather die with his sister than live with her, but it hurts even more that it's exactly what happened.
After all the heavy talks, of course she ends up dreaming of him. In her dream, she's in her real room in the Red Keep, as if she had woken up in the middle of the night to… what? Pee? She isn't sure, but it doesn't matter, because the door opens to reveal Jaime.
He's silent, as if he's doing something forbidden. She wants to tell him there is no need for secrecy, for she won't force him to love her in the shadows as Cersei did, but the words are stuck on her throat. He's here; does it matter whether he makes noise or not?
She sits up, and he sits in front of her. His blue eyes shine despite the moonless night, and his golden hand is gone, just like in real life—she would often take it off when they were in bed, and Tyrion had it melted to make more coins. His real hand cups her cheek. He's cold to the touch, but the winter chill is still strong, and he isn't properly dressed. I must get him warm, she decides before kissing him.
Soon their clothes are on the floor. He touches her just like he did back in Winterfell, in a way that makes her feel cherished and cared for—loved. He is in no rush to get inside her, focusing instead on bringing her to the edge with his tongue and fingers. When she motions to touch his cock, he distracts her with a deep kiss on her lips and his hand on her breast, effectively shutting her mind off any rational thought.
She gasps his name between kisses, and his hand moves to her forehead, jerking her head back to expose her neck. His push is rather rough, but she doesn't complain as he kisses and sucks her flesh. His whole body is pressed against hers, and she doesn't feel his hardness against her as she usually did, but she doesn't mind, she doesn't mind, she loves this man and she—
When King Bran says both Brienne and Tyrion are indisposed, Pod doesn't think much of it. All four of them had a bit too much to drink while lamenting over Jaime Lannister, and while his first liege should already be used to it, his second one is definitely not.
Their sickness goes for days, though, and none of them are allowed to visit. Then, as the days go by, more people fall ill in the castle. Samwell Tarly asks permission to visit the sick in order to investigate the matter, but he gets the mysterious disease shortly after, which redeems him unable to work. His wife and his son fall ill alongside him.
Podrick takes over his Commander's duties, including representing her in the Small Council, and soon only him, Lord Bronn and King Bran are left to the meetings. Everyone else has fallen sick, except for Ser Davos, who went to Storm's End to help Lord Gendry take over his appointed seat as a legitimized Baratheon.
However, when Bronn falls sick too, Pod decides he can't run the Small Council all by himself. He goes to the rookery and writes to Ser Davos about the mysterious disease, asks if he's seen anything of the sort in Storm's End and begs him to come back to the Red Keep as soon as possible.
Two days later, at sunset, he is in the armory, retiring from a training session—most of the new recruits also turned up sick, so he only has two pupils to train now—Brienne shows up suddenly. Strangely, she wears her blue armor; he hasn't seen her wearing it since Ser Jaime's death.
She doesn't say a word and merely motions with her head, calling him outside. Her grip on Oathkeeper—she has yet to change the pommel to something that resembles House Tarth, as she once said she'd do—indicates she means to spar with him. Glad she is back on her feet, Pod follows her.
Again, she begins the fight wordlessly. Brienne is quiet, but even this is unusual for her. He waves it off as a consequence of her illness—perhaps she's still recovering, and gods know what her symptoms were—and focuses on the duel. She's vicious as always, maybe more so than normal; then again, he's asked for her to make their sparring harder for quite some time.
In the blink of an eye, he's on his knees. Aware he's lost, as usual, he opens his mouth to say, "I yiel—"
It's been a year since she last received letters from anyone in the South other than Bran. Brienne only wrote to her once, a very formal letter concerning her new duties as Lady Commander of the Kingsguard—Sansa nearly cried when Bran asked her to relieve her sworn sword from her duties so he could have her in his guard, and she's regretted her decision ever since.
Tyrion wrote to her twice, and for a while she thought he'd want to form a friendship with his former bride, but he also stopped. Her last non royal letter was, surprisingly, from Pod, in which he mentioned most of the Small Council and the castle staff had fallen with an unknown sickness. Bran later informed her everyone was healed, and the mysterious illness gone as it came, but still she heard no further words from people she held dear and considered friends.
She sighs as she finishes reading yet another dispassionate letter from her brother. Bran no longer reminds her of the boy who liked to climb; sometimes, he barely reminds her of a human being in general. Three years after his return from the lands beyond the Wall, she still has a rocky relationship with House Reed, all thanks to the cold way he treated Meera when they said their goodbyes. She and her father don't seem to trust him, and this affects her communication with them.
Although this might be her fault too, if the awkward manner with which she's dealt with her council is any indication. None of these people are her friends. None of them were by her side during the most trying times, and none of them supported her in her darkest moments. Those people are all gone, in one way or another. Her parents, Robb and Rickon are dead; Arya and Jon are out of reach, and Bran might as well be; Theon is gone, and Brienne and Tyrion stopped talking to her for unknown reasons. She's a lone wolf, and she hates it.
It doesn't help that winter is getting progressively worse. Elder people who survived the wars are now 'going for a walk' so their children and grandchildren will starve less—everyone is starving, and Sansa doesn't know what to do. The Ironborn don't even raid their lands anymore, because there is nothing to steal.
And then one day she receives news she had never expected to.
"Your Grace," the young soldier says with wide eyes, "I went on patrol last night down the Kingsroad, as you requested since Dreadfort and Last Hearth have yet to be occupied. I went with three friends, but only I returned. It was near the hour of the wolf, I think, when we were suddenly attacked. We didn't hear a single thing before the attackers jumped on us. Their eyes… were shining blue, Your Grace."
She knows exactly what he means. The soldier, who introduced himself as Yuri, fought in the Long Night a year and a half ago. He knows a wight when he sees one…
...But those were supposed to be gone. What is going on? Why didn't Bran warn her of anything?
She orders Yuri to summon all generals and goes to her room to write to her brother about the issue. Days later, after she and her commanders have made several battle plans, Bran replies saying there is no such thing as wights.
She interrogates Yuri again. He insists on the wight-like description, but concedes it might have been a trick of light. Relieved, she tells her generals to relax.
It proves to be a fatal mistake when Winterfell is invaded by a horde of undead. Her last vision is of a blue-eyed Jon raising Longclaw, looking pointedly at her head.
As it turns out, what is west of Westeros is… Essos.
After a stop on a set of three islands—which, according to her captain, were once discovered by Elissa Farman and named Aegon, Rhaenys and Visenya—the ship went on aimlessly for over a year, until they found a place to stop, a small forest followed by what she now knows to be the infamous Grey Waste. They get the ship repaired in Asshai, which is far more interesting city than the maesters paint it to be, and spend half a year enjoying the wonders of Yi Ti. She finds out Daenerys is still influential in Slaver's Bay, nearly two years after her death. Her captain is tempted to explore the Valyrian peninsula, but she convinces her otherwise, and they end their trip in Lys.
Well, she does. Her crew is determined to go on and circumnavigate Essos in order to reach Mossovy; while she was initially on board, she gives up when she finds Gendry in a crowded street.
After the initial shock passes, he invites her for a drink and tells her what prompted him to leave Westeros—what prompted hundreds of people to flee the realm.
"It all began with reports of a mysterious illness spreading over the Red Keep," he says. "Davos was in Storm's End, helping me get acquainted with those lordship stuff, when he got a letter from Ser Podrick begging him to go back to the capital. Soon after, he just… disappears. At first I thought he had left for King's Landing, but then I found him in the lower levels of the castle and… he looked like a wight, Arya.
"I threw my torch at him, which obviously worked, but then I thought—what if this was the illness Ser Podrick spoke of? I couldn't understand how the wights were back if you killed the Night King, but they did, and I wasn't going to risk the people I just swore to protect. So I told them we had to evacuate the settlement and wrote to all my… bannermen to do the same. Several turned up dead in the days that followed, and I was forced to flee before the last of my people evacuated due to the massive number of wights that popped up in the castle, but… yeah."
Arya gulps. "How is the realm now?" If this all began right after she left, it's been roughly three years.
"I don't know, but it can't be anything good. We've seen refugees from Dorne and the Reach. They all say the only word they've received was from the King himself, saying he was working on the threat and would soon solve it, but he never did."
A sudden dizziness takes over Arya as she processes all she was just told. If the wights are back, either the Night King wasn't the true leader of the White Walkers, or she killed a fake one—a mere White Walker posing as something more to distract them all. But shouldn't Bran have seen it? He had told everyone Arya killed the Night King and ended the Long Night. How could he have missed anything, if he's the Three-Eyed Raven, who supposedly sees over everything and everyone?
But Gendry claims it began right under his nose, inside the Red Keep. Shouldn't it have begun in the North? Shouldn't Sansa have been the one to report people 'falling ill', dying, disappearing or turning into wights?
"What of the North?" She asks.
Gendry frowns. "I saw a few refugees from White Harbor," he replies carefully, "and I've heard there are crannogmen in Braavos. They all say Winterfell has fallen over the course of one night. Nobody knows how or why."
"Was this before or after you left?"
"Definitely after. Over a year later, I think."
So it did begin in the South. It doesn't make sense, though; any other Night King would have to come from the lands beyond the Wall, not suddenly pop up in King's Landing—unless…
"You said you got word from the King," she says quietly. "What about the rest? The Small Council? The City Watch?"
He shakes his head. "Nothing. Ser Podrick's letter was the last word I got from anyone not the King, and nobody mentions anyone but your brother."
"He's not my brother," she mumbles, realization dawning on her.
If she is right, they did not defeat the White Walkers, only a faction of theirs. The Three-Eyed Raven took over her brother and used them all to achieve his goal of defeating his rival. Now he rules all over Westeros, with unlimited power, which he used without hesitation to convert his living subjects to undead ones.
She must stop this. Now.
She stands up abruptly and turns to go, but Gendry's arms are fast around hers. "Don't go," he begs, already aware of her intentions.
"Someone has to stop him!" She all but shouts.
He turns her around to face him. His expression is pained, more than when she rejected him, and she hates it. "And you think none of us have tried? It's been over two years since I had the stormlands evacuated; of course we tried to solve it! Selwyn Tarth went back to rescue his daughter and never returned. Quentyn Martell sailed to King's Landing and never came back. Paxter Redwyne went to Oldtown to find any remaining maesters to help them, now he's lost to us. Essos has given up any attempts on trading and piracy when they realized no ships that landed in Westeros ever returned. Those who do are the ones who only pass through the coast. They all claim to see shining blue eyes in the distance at night, and no signs of life in daytime. Why do you think that is?"
She gulps, but shakes her head. "I was trained under the Faceless Men. I can sneak in unnoticed—"
"No, you can't," he insists. "If you truly think Bran is behind this—and trust me, you're far from the first one who guessed it here—you must remember he can see everything. Yes, you can go by unnoticed by ordinary people, but he will sense your presence, and he will go after you. I'm perfectly aware of how capable you are as a fighter, but even you can't fight against the entire realm, Arya."
She shakes her head again, more frantically this time. "Then what am I supposed to do, stay here and live my life and if nothing is happening in my birth home? As if people aren't dying and returning as wights?"
"They already died," he says, calmly but firmly, hands on her shoulders. "It's too late for you or any of us to do a damn thing about it. Yes, I want you to live your life here, because going there is suicide. Please, just this once, stay with me." A tear falls from his left eye. "I'm not a lord any longer. You won't have to be a lady if you stay by my side. Please. Don't try to be the hero. Stay."
The sight of him so broken and pleading breaks her heart. He's right; she can't face an entire realm of undead. "I'll stay," she whispers, and he hugs her tightly.
Save from the sound of the wind brushing against the tree leaves, the entire Red Keep is silent. He likes it; he's always preferred a noiseless environment, and he'd missed it in the years that followed his journey south.
He remembers the moment he killed the Stark boy. It wasn't an abrupt move, no. First, he marked him, giving himself an opening to enter his body if he so desired. Then, the sudden wight attack he orchestrated drove the Three-Eyed Raven to transfer itself to the boy, which made both of them vulnerable, as they didn't have time to learn each other and balance two minds inside one body.
Bran Stark grew weak as time went by. The Raven was needed, urgently so, to guide the living against him. At first, he considered invading the fragile body to pretend to be the Raven and give the living all the wrong instructions. However, the Raven was still strong enough to overpower him, especially when he had to coordinate two bodies at the same time. He'd have to choose between his body and Bran Stark's.
It wasn't that hard to choose. The body he possessed then gave himself away way too easily; he didn't look human, and he lacked the ability to speak. It was also fragile in ways the crippled boy wasn't. His sister proved as much when she stabbed his upper abdomen; a human could have survived it, but his body shattered in an instant.
Thankfully, he warged into the boy's body just in time. Nobody noticed the transition, not even Arya Stark, busy as she was watching his subjects shatter and his creatures fall all of a sudden.
The Raven was still strong, so he battled Bran Stark first. Killing him for good was way too easy. Then he turned his attention to his nemesis. Although the Raven was old, he was older, and therefore stronger. Still, his powers were useful. Being able to see over everything and everyone would give him a huge advantage and would speed things up. Also, he could merge their warging abilities to warg into living people's minds and control them.
It wasn't easy and it required practice. First, he went for the woman who called herself Dragon Queen. Her mind was unstable, so he didn't face much trouble. Getting her to burn the city she meant to conquer was almost effortless, drained as she was by grief and loneliness.
His second target was the man known as Kingslayer. Like the Dragon Queen, his mind was fragile from years of manipulation and dissociation crisis. He also had a severe case of self-hatred, which helped him convince him to leave the woman he fucked to go back to the other woman he fucked—apparently, his sister, which seems to be an issue among the living.
His third target was the bastard he faced several times over the years. Those were brief interventions, as the living grew to share his goal as the Dragon Queen went 'mad'. After the bastard killed her, he only had to get inside a few other minds in order to get his host crowned as Bran the Broken.
As he grew stronger and overpowered the Raven, he learned the names of his subjects and their stories—those alive and those dead. This information helped him draw his plan on how to begin his true conquest.
Brienne of Tarth, the woman he made the Kingslayer leave, accepted his request to join his Kingsguard out of grief and a desire to bed no other man after the one she loved died. Love is a strange thing, he learned in his lifetime; it can make someone strong or weak, depending on what the feeling brings to them. Had the Kingslayer (Jaime Lannister, that's his name) lived, Brienne of Tarth would be a stronger woman, but grief over her loss made her weak and vulnerable.
He remembers Jaime Lannister as the one who crippled Bran Stark, eventually enabling him to become his host. He remembers his last thought while alive was directed at Brienne of Tarth, filled with regrets over leaving her. As a token of gratitude for granting him a new, more powerful body, he decided to revive him and give him one more chance to be with the woman he loves. That it allowed him to kill his strongest—physically speaking—subject and bring her to his ranks was a bonus, of course.
Then he exploited that aforementioned sister, who was also sister to his Hand. Tyrion and Cersei Lannister were, apparently, each other's nemesis, one fearing the other would kill them in the end. So, at the same night the Kingslayer laid with Brienne of Tarth, Cersei Lannister found a sleepy Tyrion in the gardens and killed him.
Of course, he couldn't have his new subjects show up in their new, perfected forms just yet. As such, he made everyone believe they've fallen ill. He repeated the lie as more and more people joined his ranks, until there was no reason to keep up the farce.
Not everything was smooth, of course. People grew suspicious, and he lost several potential subjects as they fled before he could kill them, but in the course of three years his goal was achieved. Now he truly is King of Westeros.
Still, his task isn't over. For now, people in Essos seem afraid to go against him—most haven't even realized he's the one behind all this—but eventually they will. Even if it takes centuries, he knows those refugees and their descendants will wish to 'save' their ancestral homes. He has to be a step ahead.
It wasn't possible before, but it is now. After years of waiting and monitoring, the last dragon is finally dying. The creature flew away with his rider after her death, taking her body to the place all dragons instinctively know: Old Valyria. However, it is not a liveable place, and eventually the dragon fell terminally ill. It took a while, but finally the time has come.
Normally, he wouldn't have any power over living beings in Essos. Had it been the case, he would have gotten to the refugees in no time. However, he had discreetly left a mark on that specific dragon during the battle in Winterfell, which allows him to reach out to him anywhere he is. It was only a matter of time…