A lone figure lay across the soft white snow. He was still, his dark brown hair caked with snow and his skin pale. He wore all black, from the iron armour to the tunic and pants, including his gloves and his boots. Around him, the wind howled, cold wind that cut into the skin harshly. Yet the man did not move, he did not even flinch. Slowly his eyelids twitched, slowly opening. Bright blue star eyes stared at the moon, unfeeling and unmoved still. Slowly the blue of his eyes receded to dark brownish-grey, like the colour of dark oak.
He was not sure how long he had been walking. He had woken up in the snow with the memory of someone stabbing him through the heart. He did not know who it was, but he felt as if he recognized the face. This face was someone dear to him, someone special even. Yet he remembered nothing of him, nothing but the man's last words to him.
"Forgive me…"
The man had said more but the words never reached him, or maybe he just didn't remember them.
"Well if it ain't a lonely fucking crow!"
The man stopped, straightening and turning to his right. From the trees came out a rough-looking man, twice his size and age. With him was a woman with a spear and a younger man.
Wildlings, the man thought as he looked over the clothes they wore.
"That's a pretty cloak you got yerself there," the younger man said eyeing the fur cloak over the man's shoulders. "We'll need something like that."
"He looks unarmed" the woman commented, "should be easy to deal with."
"Hear that boy? Your chance to become a man" the older man barked, the younger one stepping forward while licking his lips and drawing his weapon in reply. It was made of bone and bronze, a throwing axe.
The wildling charged for the man, his movement slow and sluggish. He was taking it easy on the man, underestimating him and probably planning on toying with him. But the man was not taking it easy on him. He could see all the flaws in the wildling's charge, the many points he could exploit. He chose instead to sidestep when the wildling got close and grab him by the wrist.
A sickening crunch broke the silence of the night, followed by a howl of pain. The wildling fell to his knees, clutching his wrist. He looked up and only for a moment did he feel the impact on his neck.
The other two seemed to straighten once their comrade fell. They had underestimated the man and only grew enraged when the man kicked their comrade's head towards them. The larger wildling growled, stepping over the head of his comrade that stared lifelessly upwards.
"You'll pay for that crow" the wildling hissed with venom, pulling his weapon out. It was another axe made of bone and bronze, but this one was larger, an axe meant to be wielded with two hands instead of one, not one meant for throwing.
This wildling proved a better challenge, an experienced fighter. But he was slow like the previous one. But his size gave him an advantage. The man dodged, weaved through and parried the blows from this one. But like the wildling before him, he had many openings. The man spun around a strike from the Wildling and slashed the man's heel open.
The wildling stuttered in his step and twisted around to slash his axe at the man. The man ducked the blow and in a fluid motion got in close and buried his axe in the man's face. Blood squirted out from the wound on his face and the man kicked him square in the chest and watched him fall on his back, blood pooling around his head. He walked over to the fallen man, grabbing his axe by the hilt and yanking it free from the man's face. He turned and found the last of the group of three not there anymore. Probably ran away when she saw the last male Wildling of her group fall.
A crow's cry made the man turn away from where the woman had been moments ago. A crow sat on the trees, watching him with its beady eyes. But it was not the crow that had his attention, it was what sat beside it.
The thing was smaller in size than a normal human, like a child. Yet it did not look like a child. It had nut-brown skin, dappled like a deer's but with paler spots. Its hands had only three fingers and a thumb, with sharp black claws instead of nails. Its ears were large and it had large gold and green eyes, slit like those of a cat.
Gracefully the thing jumped off the tree and approached him. Leaves and vines were weaved into its hair, and a cloak of leaves covered its body as clothes did for the man.
"He is waiting for you," the thing said.
"Who is this he?" the man asked.
"The last Greenseer."
The man had been following this creature for a while, in which time the sun had risen and gone down again. One of the Children of the Forest, how long had it been since he had seen one of their kind? The man could not tell.
The creature had led him to this cleft in a wooded hillside, halfway up between some weirwood trees. He felt uneasy as he walked into this grove of trees as if the trees themselves were telling him to get out of there, that he should not be there. That he did not belong amongst them. The creature walked and the man followed, pushing these feelings aside.
Under the hill was a vast and silent cave system. Its cramped and branching tunnels were full of tree roots, Weirwood tree roots he was certain of it. Further, into the passage a great cavern opened up and beyond it were more passages, these ones larger than the one he had come through. He could feel the bones of animals under his feet as he walked down its path. Skulls of various creatures were placed in the stone niches of the walls of this passage, their hollow eye sockets seemingly staring at him as he passed them by. The route steeply descended to an even greater cavern which opened on a black abyss, a swift river running its course below a natural bridge. He was not sure how far down it was, but he was sure that should he jump to find out, he would not survive the fall. On the other side of the bridge sat something that the man guessed was this last Greenseer.
This thing sat on what looked like a throne woven from the roots of Weirwood trees. He was a pale and skeletal figure, a male now that the man had a closer look at him. He wore black clothes that had rotted over the years he had been here, his skin white other than a red blotch on his neck and cheek. His hair was fine white, long enough to reach the earthen floor. He was missing an eye, while the other was red. The roots from the throne extended to his body, growing through his leg and the empty eye socket.
"You… have slept…for many years" the male creature spoke, his voice slow and dry. It was like those times when one would teach a child to speak, its voice untested with words still. "Do you…remember who…you are?"
"Aye," the man spoke bluntly, his brownish-grey eyes staring at the creature before him with little to no emotions. "I had died, had I not?"
"You had" the creature agreed, "but it would seem…the old ones were not…done with you. A gamble…I call it. But who am I…to question them?" he asked. "Touch…the Weirwood root. They remember…the trees. Allow them to…educate you. Show you…what you missed."
A warg, the man thought. Only a warg proficient enough in their gift would know of the secrets of looking through the Weirwood Trees. He had known it from a young age, from the moment he learned of his gifts.
He approached the throne of woven Weirwood roots and placed his hand on one of them. Immediately he felt that familiar tug and let his mind be drawn into the connective minds of the Weirwood trees.
