He of a thousand eyes looked upon the city of three hills. Dragons flew above the city for the first time in a century. He had been anticipating this moment for seventy years, ever since he heard Shiera's prophecy for the first time. Such a sight should have brought joy to He of a thousand eyes, for this has been his goal for so long. To see dragons returned to the world. To finally prepare the world for the invasion of the Others. But this victory tasted hollow, for not all was as it seemed.
He of a thousand eyes left the city of three hills and willed his mind to head north. Beyond Brandon's wall and the Forest which Haunts Dreams. To the large wierwood grove, whose white roots extended to caves deep beneath the earth. To the body of Brynden Rivers.
Brynden opened his single red-eye to the cave. His body was surrounded by the children who had long been his allies.
"We need to speak." The eldest of them sang in the old tongue.
"You could have sung to me in my dreams. Why bring me back to my body?" he asked.
"We needed to release you from the root immediately." The elder sang again. It was only then that Brynden noticed that the roots that had been inserted into his body over the years had been removed.
"Impossible!" Brynden cried out.
"There is much you don't know, you who are of a thousand eyes." The elder stood and pressed upon his leg. And for the first time in ten years, he had felt his legs numb. But that was impossible, he shouldn't be able to feel more than his head.
"You have been keeping things from me!" Brynden shouted at the elder. His legs had been completely healed, as had his body. Something the children had told him was undoable when he had first come to them ten years passed.
"You could have healed me for so long!" Brynden seethed with fury. He hadn't felt rage since the Redgrass Field, so many years ago that was. "How dare you keep such things from the last greenseer?! From ME. I am your lord!"
For the first time in a decade, Brynden stood up on his own legs. His magic roared to life, consuming the cave with its strength. The younglings ran away from him, clutching their head in pain. Trying to escape his fury. Brynden thought the Elder might do the same, but he merely stood there, unmoving. Uncaring. As if he did not even deign Brynden a threat enough to escape.
The elder did not even deign to blink at his rage.
"You are no longer the last greenseer, son of Blackwood. And you were never our Lord, to begin with." The elder sang simply. "I had the younglings tell you such things to put you at ease in our cave. For we children will never reduce ourselves to be servants of a human."
Brynden's mind came to a complete stop at the words.
"Who?" he asked faintly. His mind still stuck at the first words the elder had spoken.
"Magic has returned to the world. It's only natural that greenseers return as well. For one, I myself have reopened my mind's eye." The elder answered.
Brynden tried to calm himself, calm the rage consuming him from the words. He tried feeling the Elder with his magic, to see if he was telling the truth. But the moment he tried, his mind's eye revolted in pain and closed in terror.
Pain.
Pain.
Pain.
Pain.
Pain.
Pain.
Pain.
Fear. Terror.
Darkness.
When he opened his sole red-eye again, he was no longer in the cave. But in the Haunted Forest. The children were sitting around a fire, out in the open.
"You left the cave," he said as he sat up. Every part of his body ached, he didn't know if it was being stuck in that cave for a decade or if he was still hurt from the Elder's magic. The children sat around the burning fire, with the Elder sitting across from him. The phantom pain that crossed his mind when he looked into the elder's now deep red eyes gave him his answer.
"We no longer need to stay there." The Elder sang simply.
"What did you do to me?" Brynden asked.
"You have a thousand and one eyes, son of Blackwood. But I have ten thousand-thousand eyes. All of which have been closed for millennia, until they began opening again when magic returned."
Brynden couldn't believe it. Ten thousand-thousand... a hundred million eyes. Was that why Brynden had been so overwhelmed when he peered into the magic of the Elder? No. It was a lie; it couldn't be true.
"You have been lying to me," Brynden said pointedly at the Children sitting around the fire.
"They didn't lie to you, son of Blackwood." The Elder said.
"They did," Brynden answered bitterly. "Maggy, the Greenmen, the Children living in Kingswood and Oldstone. I have been being lied to my whole life."
"You have been lying your whole life, son of Blackwood." The Elder sang softly. "You have lied to your father, your mother, your brothers, your only love and many scores of strangers and friends beside them. Lying and darkness are in your nature. As it is in the nature of all humans. We Children of the Forest are unable to lie. But you humans have taught us well in the art of deception."
"Deception?" Brynden laughed. "Was this what you wanted from the beginning. From the moment I was born? You wanted me to bring back the dragons so magic can return to the world. It was all a deception so you can regain your power. You used me!"
The Elder laughed. A burst of high-pitched melodic laughter. "You brought back magic?" The Elder laughed again.
"You are much too arrogant, son of Blackwood. If you had your kin hatch a thousand of those eggs, it would not have restored magic like what has occurred now."
Brynden paused at this. "Then what caused this?"
"A Great Other has appeared."
Brynden reeled from the elder's song. The Children were as much taken back as he was. The Great Other. It was the warning he received whenever he looked to the past. Whenever he entered the roots to learn of the past, they whispered to him of the Great Other. Of his power, of his strength. That he would destroy the world.
"They didn't lie to you, son of Blackwood." The Elder repeated the tune. "They didn't lie, because they didn't know the truth. The eldest among the children you have met has only lived for a thousand human years. No one besides I who have lived for ten thousand years knows the whole truth. And even I cannot claim to remember the Ancient Times before my birth."
The Ancient Times? Brynden contemplated the words. His thousand eyes each imagining a meaning.
"The weir roots only go back ten thousand years. To the breaking of the Arm, the crossing of the First Men. And even those memories are weak."
Brynden had looked many a times to the Dawn Age, to see how the Others had come about. But the farthest he could go back was the invasion of the First Men. A vague memory from a skin-changer watching from an eagle as the armies of the First Men crossed the Arm of Dorne. The war that followed was just as vague, as was the Age of Heroes. And when tried looking at the Long Night, all he saw was the Army of the Others marching.
"I lived in those time, son of Blackwood. I remember them and I remember them well. I was a youngling in back then." A hint of a smile accompanied the Elder's song, as he looked at the other Children around the fire. "But I lived with the True Elders, the Great Elders, those who remembered a time before the invasion of Men."
"And they spoke of terrible things." The Elder continued, his tune was cryptic. "They spoke of the Great Others."
"And they spoke of good things." The Elder's song continued as all were entranced. "They spoke of the Great Empire."
The Great Empire of the Dawn, Brynden concluded warily. "I thought that was a song."
"We Children of the Forrest are unable to lie, son of Blackwood." The Elder answered. "And our songs are as truthful as our words."
Brynden contemplated the words carefully as a silence swept around the campfire. The silence was broken by the other children.
"Great Elder, since you have regained your powers, can you defeat the Great Other?"
"No." the Elder answered immediately.
"You do not know the Others as I have known them, youngling." The Elder song was soft, almost timid. "I said A Great Other. The Great Other that brought magic back to the world is not the same as the Great Other responsible for the Long Night."
"WHAT?!"
Brynden was sure the whole forest could have heard the collective shout of those around the campfire. He saw that even the children who he thought were in on the Elder's schemes exclaim at his words.
"THERE ARE TWO GREAT OTHERS?!" Brynden exclaimed. The Children seemed to be just as alarmed as he was.
"Two?" The Elder tune sounded amused. "Try a few thousand."
"WHAT!"
This time, Brynden was sure the collective exclamation could be heard at the Wall.
"EXPLAIN!" he raged against the Elder. All the younglings were just as furious.
"Before everything came to be, there existed The Great Empire. It was created in a time that is now immemorable." The Elder began. "The Empire spread across the whole of this world, and everywhere there was peace and prosperity for millennia uncounted."
Brynden had never heard the elder sing with such... nostalgia.
"That's when the first Others came. Plunging the empire into total darkness. Into war, death, and destruction."
"We have heard this song before Elder," One of the Children interrupted. "It's about the Long Night."
"No," The Elder's song turned haunting. "For the Long Night does not even compare to the destruction that came millennia before it."
A cold shiver went down Brynden's spine at the Elder's tune.
"The Others would appear in this world and attack the Empire every few centuries." The Elder continued. "The Empire defeated them over and over and over again. But they kept appearing, without end. Sometimes only a handful would appear, sometimes hundreds at once. And sometimes they numbered in the thousands. And eventually, over the course of thousands of years, even the Great Empire was overwhelmed by their power."
The Elder looked around to all around the fire, "They aren't the Others you have seen in visions. You see the White Walkers in those dreams, creatures that bring snow and cold wherever they go. They used to be known as the Children of Ice."
"The Children of Ice?" Brynden asked.
"Yes," The Elder nodded. "Just before the Long Night, a Great Other appeared that enslaved them to his will with terrible magic. But before that, they were kin to us Children of the Forest."
"...our kin," "It can't be." "But they attacked us." "They were enslaved."
"Who are they?" Brynden asked as soft tunes of the children stopped.
"They are kin of ours. A remnant of the Great Empire..." the Elder began.
"Not them," Brynden corrected. "The Great Other... or the Great Others"
"Only the Ancient Elders knew the whole truth and they are long dead, their voices in the weirwood silent." The Elder said. "But they are gods."
"Gods?" Brynden considered the word carefully.
The Elder nodded. "Gods that come from another world. From a world called Yggdrasil."
The campfire died out when the elder merely mentioned the word. Rays of sunshine cut through the branches as Brynden looked to the rising sun on the horizon. He shuddered to wonder what this Great Other, who had returned magic to the world, planned to do with their world.
Winterfell 267 AC
This is really hard, thought one Eddard Stark as he looked up carefully to his older brother's parchment for an answer.
"NED!" He winced at the yell, looking up in the direction of the voice.
"...yes, mother."
His mother, Lyarra Stark was staring at him in disapproval. "I have told you this before. No cheating, Ned."
Brandon chuckled from beside him at the scolding their mother was giving him. His mother narrowed her eyes at his older brother before continuing. "Besides, if you want to cheat, cheat off young Theo's work. There is reason Bran is learning with you despite being a year older."
A laugh came to his throat as it was Brandon's turn to get scolded. Theo Wull, sitting on Ned's other side laughed as well. But the laugher quickly died out in Ned's throat as soon as it began. He would laugh and then...stop. Cry and stop. Be furious and then suddenly become calm. It was Ned's curse.
He looked up at his mother, hoping that she didn't notice it. But she did. Lyarra Stark gave him queer looks whenever she saw it happen. The slight frown on her face hurt. It hurt every time he noticed her look. It hurt more than any jab from Bran or teasing from Theo. It hurt and hurt and hurt... until it didn't. It was an odd comfort to have. The very curse that he has always known at least protected him from the bad feelings as well.
The three of them finished the assessment an hour later. His mother collected the parchments and graded their work.
"Who did the best, mother?" Bran asked.
"Ned did," Lyarra answered.
"I don't even know why you bother cheating, Ned." Theo Wull said from beside him. "You spend more time studying than both Bran and I combined."
"Yes, yes he does." His mother said, smiling at him. Ned smiled back, made happy by his mother's praise. But his curse acted, and Lyarra Stark's slight frown burned him more than her smile made him happy.
"YOU," she pointed at Bran. "Apparently still don't know how to spell 'Stark'."
Theo laughed at that, which turned the Lady of Winterfell's ire onto him. "And you, Lord Wull, couldn't name House Harclay. Your mother's house."
"I expect all three of you to be able to answer every question correctly by the time of the Harvest Feast. For it would reflect upon your Lord Fathers if you did not know the names of Lords at the feast." She dismissed them with a wave of her hand after that.
Ned ran through the winding corridors of the great keep to his room. Locking the door behind him, Ned went straight to bed, thinking of his mother's frowns. Her disapproval, her distaste, her hatred.
He didn't quite think she hated him... though she must hate him. After all, Ned was cursed.
All the servants whispered it when they thought Ned couldn't hear them. But Ned heard them, thanks to another curse of his. He wanted to cry but his curse stayed the tears. The very curse that earned him his mother's ire also made him stronger. Or at least, less prone to crying.
Closing his eyes, he let sleep take him. But instead of the dark unbearable world he normally dreamed of, he dreamed of old friends whose names he always thought were at the tip of his tongue but he could never remember them.
AN: Damn, been a while since I published the first chapter of this. I will try to put them out more regularly than this.