Disclaimer – This fanfiction was not written by me; it belongs to the user William Dellinger on alternatehistory, by publishing it here I only intend to bring it to a wider audience and make it available for offline reading. I do not claim any ownership of the content.

Scene Zero

It had been a hell of a long day.

That's how most of these stories start off, right? You know, the ones where people are transported to Westeros into the bodies of one of the characters and they try to make that miserable shithole of a planet into something better, juuuuuuuust in time for the mega-creepy Winter Zombies to come gallivanting over that massive, Fuck You Wall they have up there. But in this case, it's true.

I had just gotten off of a long shift at work, the kind of soul-sucking, life-draining, monotonous "job" that I can't afford to quit and can barely afford to keep. But, hey, I have health insurance, at least. So I have that going for me. Had. Whatever.

Anyway, blah, blah, blah, I fell asleep and woke up in a dark room. The edges of the room were shrouded in darkness, so I wasn't really sure it even had edges. I just kind of assumed, the way your mind does when it's faced with something it doesn't know. It fills in the spaces.

The only light was coming from a spiral of small, brilliantly colored orbs, thousands of them, arranged in a quadruple helix, a mathematical form that made me go cross eyed. Some, about a third, of the orbs were a bright leaf green, with another third a brilliant white with shades of blue. The remaining third were a swirl of both colors, constantly shifting and moving, like they were breathing.

I was completely prepared to pass right the fuck out and hope the skeevy looking Waffle House waitress, with her gold grill and neck tattoos, had slipped a tab into my omelet when I wasn't looking, when an old man stepped out of the shadows and tapped me on the shoulder.

Just tapped me on the fucking shoulder. Like, yeah, dude, I just abducted your tripping ass through time and space, so I'ma tap you on the shoulder.

I spun around so hard I gave myself whiplash and let out a cry that could've easily been mistaken for a strangled cat with a tracheostomy. I fell to the floor and started crab-walking away from the old man, sure as shit he was going to give me the Bad Touch.

He just leaned over me and peered through old guy eyes. Looking me dead in the eyes, he moved one gnarled finger from left to right, watching my eyes follow it. They did. He abruptly snapped his fingers like the crack from a starting pistol, to see if I'd react. I did.

He nodded, satisfied, still leaning over me. "Quit being a pussy," he said, turning his back and walking towards the great big twisty orb thing.

Honestly, it fit in with everything else that was happening. Shrug. I rolled with it as best I could.

"What the fuck is this? Who the fuck are you? Where the fuck am I?"

He turned to look over his shoulder and motioned for me to join him. When I didn't, he turned around fully and glared. I glared back.

"If you get off your ass, I'll tell you."

Still untrusting of the space rapist the old man undoubtedly was, I stood and shuffled a few steps toward him, keeping my hands ready to fend off his creepy advances.

He looked deep into the vortex of orbs and gestured for me to do the same. "The world has achieved critical mass," he intoned, solemnly.

What? "Dude, if you really wanted company for your acid-and-light-show trip, there's easier ways of doing it. Craigslist, for one."

The old guy rolled his eyes – YEAH. THIS GUY ROLLED HIS EYES. Like I was the one not making sense. "For fuck's sake. I show you untrained monkeys the secrets of the fucking universe and you think I'm looking for – Fuck," he said, throwing up his hands and stalking off.

I stayed where I was and watched the old guy's tantrum. "So you're not looking for a power top with daddy issues?"

Something long and heavy and dangerously pointy came flying out from the guy's general direction and I ducked just in time. "Did you throw a fucking spear at me?"

"Do I have your attention now?"

I backed up slowly. "Look, man, there's way too much symbolism flying around for this to be anything other than a Grindr meetup gone wrong, so let's just go back to whatever blacked out van you threw me in and take me home. Gonna be honest – I'll probably call the cops. But I'll give you like a half hour head start." Fat fucking chance. Cops were getting called like immediately.

The old guy mumbled something under his breath and there was suddenly an excruciating pain between my eyes. Images flashed in my head. Castles. Knights. Swords. Dragons. Huge Wall. Freezing, ten foot snows, and arid deserts, and islands, and continents, and huge cities. Dragons.

Yeah. Y'all know where I'm talking about.

I collapsed to the floor in a quaking, heaving mass of tissue and the old man quickly came over and rolled me on my stomach so I didn't choke on my own vomit.

"Are you ready to take this seriously?"

I gasped for breath, my eyes blurry and aching. "Does HBO know you're pirating Game of Thrones?"

The old guy let out a frustrated scream and stalked back to the swirly orb thingy. "Did you not pay attention to any of your orientation?"

"What fucking orientation?"

The old guy stopped moving completely, like the last piece of a puzzle had slipped into place. "Did he get an orientation?" he yelled off into the blackness.

A voice answered him, and I swear on my life the voice sounded slightly ashamed. "No."

Before I knew what was happening, the old guy had hauled me upright and sat me down in a chair that I was pretty sure hadn't been there before. "Sorry about that. Usually they get an orientation, but we are in a bit of a time crunch, so..." he trailed off, as if that sorry ass explanation made up for the abduction, the creepy vibes, and the mind rape.

"So. Quick version. When a written work achieves what we call critical mass – usually in terms of mass readership – that world becomes a reality. It becomes real. All those readers thinking about it, and dreaming about it, and theorizing about it actually breathes life into the words. It's the one redeeming quality of your species, actually."

I nodded my head, not knowing whether to be insulted or not. "Ok."

The old guy continued. "We are in charge of making sure things stay in their worlds. Making sure none of it spills over into reality. And we have a problem."

I nodded again. "Harry, Hermoine, and Ron giving you trouble?"

The slap came out of nowhere. "DON'T YOU DARE FUCKING JOKE ABOUT THE POTTERVERSE! I LOST FRIENDS IN THAT WAR!"

"Ok, ok! Jesus fuck, man," I said, rubbing the entire side of my head.

"Anyway," he said, straightening his robe, "Short version. A Song of Ice and Fire has achieved critical mass. You see these," he said, pointing to the leaf green orbs that had segregated themselves off to one side of the room, "these are scenarios in which the Others are defeated. The white-blue ones are worlds where they are victorious. The ones that are constantly changing are the ones still in flux – worlds that could still go one way or another."

"Ok. Cool. Really cool, actually. But what does this have to do with me?"

"Short version. Since George R. R. Fucking. Martin still hasn't finished the series, the ending is left open. Which means that if too many of these worlds fall to the Others, then they can enter the real world. Your world."

Ah. "Well, that's not good."

"No, it isn't, because they would rampage all over your world and then no more worlds would be created from the written word and those already created would die."

"Ok. And also because they'd kill everyone on my planet. Including me," I said, somewhat defensively.

The old guy gave a kind of 'meh' shrug. I shook my head. "Ok, but what does this have to do with me?"

"Short version. We–"

"You keep saying that, but you keep talking."

"We," he said with a glare, "have been sending certain people from your world into the worlds still in flux in the bodies of characters in an effort to stem the tide. Sometimes it's Robert just after the war, sometimes Ned at the Tower of Joy, or even Emmon Frey right after he married Gemma," he said with pride, as though he had had something to do with it. "Point is, we can keep the Others from spilling over into reality and robbing us of our vacation spots– I mean, marvelous quirks of the universe."

I nodded before I realized what exactly he meant for me to do. "No. No, no, no, no. Nope. Fuck you. Nope."

The old man spread his hands. "Your world needs you."

"My world needs someone else."

"Who else would be so extremely qualified?"

"Oh, I don't know, how about someone who's read the fucking books?!"

The old man blinked. "Yeah, well, you can get around that." He walked around to get in front of me. "Look, you're ex-military. Combat veteran. Master's in Literature. Top marks all around. You're an organizer, you're a leader. You're perfect for this."

I fixed the old man with a stare that I hoped was steely. "Fuck. You. Old. Man. No."

He shrugged almost regretfully. "Eh. Too late," he said, pushing me with what I am ashamed to admit was a lot of force. Instead of falling to the ground, I went off the edge of the platform into the shadows.

"Remember," the old man said, leaning over the edge, "prophecies are bullshit!"

I fell for what could've been days or seconds. I don't remember hitting the bottom. Darkness enveloped me and when I could finally open my eyes, I was laying in bed.

Sunlight streamed through windows and I practically leapt out of bed onto a stone floor. I looked around the room, finding a bed draped in silk, a table covered in books, armor in a corner, and a sword propped up against the wall. I took a deep breath and tried not to scream, nearly choking on the smell of day old shit. There was a mirror in a far corner and ran to it, tripping over a chest, clothing, and boots on the way.

I looked my new face. White hair. Thin face. Purple eyes. Young, much younger than I remembered being. Maybe fifteen.

In the end, it was the armor that gave it away. The red dragons and winged helm.

Rhaegar. I was Rhaegar fucking Targaryen. Rhaegar-start-a-fucking-war-and-throw-the-realm-into-chaos-for-another-man's-wife-Targaryen.

Fuck me.

And that's when the memories came back.