Brandon

The twinge came as it always did—first in needle-pointed jabs, then an all-encompassing ache that spread up his leg, and then sheer numbness up to his navel. Sat there unable to move, Brandon—not for the first time—cursed Petyr Baelish.

You just had to turn my back on that little fucking rat, didn't you Brandon. You damned fool.

He was sat in the room he'd inhabited when he'd been heir to Winterfell, looking over reports and receipts as he looked in vain to try and find some way that they could possibly afford to keep everyone fed. Brandon had always hated this bloody quill-pushing as a boy and had done his utmost to either avoid it or pass it off to his siblings at any opportunity; now, here he was, quite literally unable to escape it.

There was a knock at the door, and Brandon briefly pushed his annoyance at everything to one side. 'Enter.' The door opened, and a genuine smile spread over his face. 'Sansa, how lovely to see you.'

'Uncle Brandon.' She came over and took a seat across from him. 'I trust you're well?'

He sighed. 'I can't complain. Well, I suppose I can, and I rather think I will—my leg, or lack thereof, is a bloody pain at the best of times, I'm stuck behind this desk while my little brother and sister get to ride off to war, and when I close my eyes all I see are numbers and farming reports.' He laughed mirthlessly. 'No, I'm fine, I suppose. And yourself?'

'I'm fine, uncle. I'm here because I received a letter from King's Landing. From Aunt Lyanna.'

Brandon quirked an eyebrow. 'Anything interesting?'

'See for yourself.' She handed over a letter, the grey wax seal broken. It took him a minute or so to read, but by the end his face was an odd mix of joy and dissatisfaction.

'Thank the gods they're all alright. And that they were successful, I suppose. I can't say I love the idea of putting the dragons back on the throne, but what's done is done.' He cast an eye back down to the parchment. 'The Tyrells are onside? Good. We'll have need of their crops in the coming war. Does that fat fool still lead them?'

'Lord Mace is still Lord of the Reach, yes,' his niece said diplomatically. 'But we'd have better fortune corresponding with his mother. She's the power behind Highgarden, so to speak.'

'You know her?'

'I do.'

'Would you be so good as to write to her in pursuit of a trade deal of some kind? There's absolutely no way that the North alone will be able to keep everyone fed, especially if everyone else is coming up here.' Sansa nodded, and Brandon looked down to the 'Good. I notice Lya's also referred to Egg starting organising the mining operations on Dragonstone, and that they'll soon be able to send up obsidian to craft weapons and the like. Thank fuck for that.' He briefly went silent as he remembered those creatures that had chased them through the North.

'Did you see the last paragraph, Uncle Brandon?'

'Aye.' It could hardly be considered a paragraph, in Brandon's opinion. It was a single line, clearly added as an afterthought, the sophisticated penmanship of the rest of the letter replaced with a hasty scrawl:

More of us have arrived from the East. They're older than any of us. Much older.

'It's bloody strange, that's for sure,' he conceded, unwilling to let his niece see his doubts.

'Do you suppose they're as old as Robar?' she asked.

'Could be, I suppose.' He couldn't help but remember Brandon the Builder, appearing before him as he had in his dream. 'No way of knowing until they arrive.'

Sansa nodded. 'With your leave, I'll get started on the letter for Lady Olenna.' She rose and almost seemed to glide out of the room, the very picture of southern poise.

You did a good job with this one, Cat. A very good job indeed.

Brandon sighed, staring into space as he finished a tankard of ale that he'd been nursing for a while. Feeling was slowly beginning to creep back into his stump. Sat here as he was, whilst one nephew sparred in the yard below him and another was co-ordinating the largest army of wildlings south of the wall in history, whilst his niece was using her political connections to keep his people fed, whilst his siblings were fighting a war, Brandon felt useless. The Builder's instructions had been followed, for the most part—people were uniting in ways that many would've thought impossible, and there was no such reliance on those who'd returned as he'd once thought there'd be. Still, he wished he could do more.

Winter was coming, and there wasn't a damned thing he could do to stop it.

The Prince that was Promised

'So…yes, I suppose that's all there is to it.' With that, Azor downed his pint of the watered-down horse piss that they called ale. It had been supplied upon his entry into Snow's solar alongside a small serving of bread and salt, and Azor—despite his many flaws—would never allow himself to be called a bad guest and was now on his third cup. Still, he couldn't deny that it didn't measure up to the ale he'd been served the last time he'd been in the North. By R'hllor, that stuff would put hair on your chest.

Azor looked up at Jon Snow. 'I presume you have questions?'

He'd spent the better half of the last hour telling Jon who he was, what he'd done, and how he'd come to be here. Whilst he had asked for silence until he finished at the start, Snow's continued silence had been curious to say the least. He was sure that Nissa, wherever she was, would inevitably have been bombarded with interruptions throughout.

The idea that she—or any of their companions—may not have returned as he did was one that he refused to acknowledge.

'You truly beat them?' Snow asked, re-filling his own glass but not taking his eyes away from Azor. 'You saw it yourself?'

'Well…no. As I just told you, I was dead by the end of it. Should you ask Hyrkoon or my son, I'm sure they'd be better suited to tell you of the immediate aftermath. But the fact remains, the world is still alive and distinctly not covered in ice, implying we—that is, humanity—were victorious. Given the fact that the Others, as you call them, still intend to attack and have the means to do so, however, it would seem that it was not a total victory.'

'I see.'

'I had dreams, Snow. As long as I could remember, I had dreams. They'd guide me, speak to me—make sure I knew where I was going, who I was with, what I was doing. At first, they rankled me, but by the time of my death they were more akin to a sixth sense.' Azor frowned and reached for his cup, only to find it empty. 'Since my return on the very spot where I died, the dreams have been absent. When I sleep, I see nothing but snow. It was maddening, lacking the guidance that had been within me for so long. Then I heard about Jon Snow, lord commander of the Night's Watch, who'd risen from the dead and was the one man had the means to fight what was out there. So, well, I decided I'd make my way to you.'

'Where is this going?'

'When I made the decision,' Azor continued as though he had not heard Jon, 'the dreams changed. There was still snow, but now it was falling faster, colder, harder. However,' he said, looking up at Jon, 'where once there was snow as far as the eye could see, there is now…'

'Now what?'

'I was unsure at first, simply seeing a dim glimmer in the darkness. Perhaps just the moon, cutting through the night, I thought, or perhaps a fire, holding out against the ice. As I came closer, the light grew; from a spark, to a blaze, to a raging inferno.'

'Ice and Fire.' Snow's voice was scarcely more than a whisper, and his already pale skin had seemed to almost turn grey. His eyes seemed as though they were drilling a hole in the desk, and Azor couldn't help but feel as though he was missing something.

'Is everything alright?'

'What? Oh, uh…yes.' Jon brought his gaze up to Azor and blinked, as though he'd forgotten he was in the room. 'You…you are not the only one who has dreams, ser. When I died, I was given a warning.'

'Of the dead?'

Jon shook his head. 'You forget that I was lord commander of the Night's Watch. I was among the first from south of the wall to see them and the threat they pose. No, she told me to look north and prepare for the arrival of those who'd returned.'

'I had assumed there were more of us out there, but I thank you for your confirmation,' Azor said.

I'll see you soon, Nissa.

'Aside from the warning of those coming from north of the wall, the woman giving the warning had…other messages. When she spoke of my parents, for instance, what she said was proved right within a day.' He clenched his jaw. 'But at the end of the message, she spoke of ice and fire, and ever since those words haven't left my head. Over and over, spinning around like a song you can't get out of your head.'

The song begins anew.

Azor was no longer in Jon Snow's solar, sat comfortably near a roaring hearth, but rather face down in the snow, a feeling colder than any he'd ever felt spreading through his belly. His sword lay just out of reach, and above him he could hear a steel meet flesh before a dusting of crystalline ice fell to the ground.

'Azor!' The scream came from some distance away, and he could just about make out the blurry speck of Hyrkoon sprinting towards him.

'We….we did it, father,' his son said, kneeling down to hold him. 'The song begins anew. You…you can rest.'

'The song of ice and fire,' Azor blurted out. He was unsure of how he'd known to say it, but the words seemed to roll off the tongue, as though they contained wisdom he'd once known but long forgotten.

Jon frowned. 'What's that?'

'I…I do not know,' Azor admitted. 'But if we're to have any chance in the coming war, I think we'd better find out.'

Garth

Never in either of his lives did Garth think he'd be so glad to see the tunnel of snow and dirt that had practically become a second home over the past few moons. He jumped in with practiced ease despite currently running at a full sprint and hurriedly crawled forward, desperate to find the sanctuary at its end.

The sounds of the wights mindlessly reaching after him from the end of the tunnel gradually began to quieten, and Garth was finally able to slow down after what had felt like an eternity of running. In reality, of course, it was closer to an hour or so, but if he couldn't damn well complain to himself, who could he complain to? As he entered the dingy opening and the smell of rotten weirwood leaves hit his nose, however, Garth felt that there'd soon come a point where complaining only to himself just might not cut it.

He knew he shouldn't complain, of course—in the months they'd been living in the catacombs beneath the great weirwood, their hosts had been nothing short of competent, even at the worst of times. They'd never gone hungry, and Garth could count the number of times his life had truly been at risk on one hand.

Well, I suppose it might be two hands now, what with those bastards chasing after me just now and all.

It had been too close; amateur mistakes had been made, courtesy of an ill-timed sneeze and an unlaced boot, and Garth couldn't help but mentally kick himself.

'Everything alright?' The question came from Lann, sat in the dirt, cleaning his sword. Garth knew he couldn't tell him the truth, or he'd actually kick him.

'Oh, aye. All good,' he responded, trying not to make it obvious just how out of breath he was.

'Any idea how long before their army will reach here?' Lann's eyes stayed fixed on his sword, and Garth knew he was trying to maintain an aura of indifference. It wasn't working.

'A bit over a moon's turn? Maybe two?'

'Shit.'

'Yes. Shit.'

'A week,' came a voice from the darkest corner of the chamber, a blank pair of eyes slowly regaining focus and settling on Garth.

No matter which way Garth thought about it, Brandon Stark the Younger was fucking strange. Sure, the boy's ancestor may have had his own eccentricities, but at the end of the day was a man, and that was that. The boy, though, was something else entirely. He'd barely said ten words to any of them in all the time they'd been there, preferring to spend his days in the solitude of his green-dreams. If he was speaking, Garth was sure it would be best not to ignore him.

'I'm sorry?'

'A week, and they'll arrive here,' the boy said in his dull, monotone voice.

'I don't think so,' Garth responded, his brow furrowed. 'I watched them for a week and a half, saw how fast they were moving, when they stopped and when they started. An army of that size, moving at that speed? A moon, at the very least.'

'Correct, Greenhand. But it is not an army of that size descending on this tree.' This voice was even more unnerving than the boy's. Where Bran's was monotone and soulless, it belonged to a person; a real, tangible person of flesh and blood. The other voice was the opposite. It had warmth and personality, being spoken by someone who'd become used to the thousands of lifetimes they'd lived, being spoken by something that was little more than a skeleton, sat as it was in the roots of the weirwood. Garth wasn't sure which of the two of them he found stranger. 'A small contingent of Others will soon break off from the main invasion force, and they'll make their way here. Within a week, they will be here.'

'Shit.' It was all Garth could muster, but he still felt it was an adequate response to the situation.

'We're leaving!' Brandon stormed in, a scabbard that Garth had never seen before in his hand, and made a beeline for the furs that acted as his bed. He was pale, as he always was after he'd using a weirwood. Then again, he hadn't been scouting as Lann and Garth had been, so the paleness may have just been the result of months in darkness. 'Someone was followed here,' he said angrily whilst shooting a glare a Garth, 'so we don't have the time we thought we had. We need to move, now.' No, he'd definitely been using the tree. He rolled the pelts up angrily, tied them, and slung them over his shoulder.

Thank the gods. Whilst he was by no means looking forward to the journey south, where any number of things might kill him along the way, Garth was certain he was reaching the end of his rope—he'd rather die on his feet with the sun on his face, than eat another damned meal of leaves and twigs supplied by the children of the forest in the perpetual darkness of the weirwood tree.

Within a minute, they were prepared—supplies packed, swords at the ready, stood by a large tunnel that would come up quarter of a league south. Brandon turned back to Brynden. 'Thank you for your hospitality, my lord.' A rare flash of emotion came over his face. 'I…I wish you good fortune in the war to come.'

The waxy skin stretching over Brynden's face did the impossible and seemed to stretch even further, into what Garth assumed must've been an attempt a smile. 'I know my fortune in this war, Builder. My time is over, at last. But as a thousand eyes close, a thousand eyes must open.' With colossal effort, he turned his head over to the prone form of Bran Stark. 'You must take him with you.'

'You joke, surely,' Lann shot back. 'We'll never make it with the bloody cripple!'

The girl who'd been sat at Bran's feet jumped up, her spear pointed straight at Lann. 'Take that back!'

'Why? It's true?'

'You will take him, or you will all die,' Brynden said will volume and intensity that Garth frankly would've thought impossible from a man like him. 'Those in the south need your intelligence, yes, but they need the wisdom he brings far, far more. There is no other way. You must take him.'

Silence seemed to ring throughout the chamber. Until—

'Fine,' Brandon conceded. 'We will leave in five minutes, girl. I trust you and your…' he briefly tailed off as he gestured to the giant they'd had with them, 'companion can handle him?'

The girl nodded and began rushing to prepare.

'Good. We will not slow down.' He looked to Garth and Lann. 'You ready?'

The two of them nodded and murmured their assent.

'Very well. Gentlemen, the south needs us, and I'll be buggered if we're to let them down.'

Seven wights later, and the four of them called for the giant to bring their cargo up. They'd initially protested bringing the girl out with them immediately, but she'd refused to listen and made fools of all of them with the deftness of her spear.

They took a moment to bask in the cold glow of the sun before moving.

There was work to be done, and precious little time to do it.

The Three-Eyed Raven

Time was a funny thing. What had once been a straight flat line was now more akin to a ripple in a pond—a person was the pebble breaking the water's surface, and all the ripples spreading out were all the possibilities of what might be. It all seemed to happen at once, and all seemed to never happen at all. Two weeks would be the same as two seconds, as it would be two years.

But, no…that wasn't it either. Not really.

Time was at once the thrower, the pebble, and the water. It was the wind that might have blown it off its original course, it was the decision to pick up a stone and throw it in the first place, it was the argument that might have filled the thrower with enough anger that catharsis through throwing stones might seem the only sensible recourse.

Time was the axe, time was Aenys' head falling from Aenys' neck, and time was Egg's clenched jaw as he sent him to the wall.

Time was the warm touch of Shiera.

Time was the cold point entering Brynden's chest.

A thousand eyes closed, and for one brief moment, for the first time in fifty years and a thousand lifetimes, one truly opened, staring up at the blue eyes wielding the spear above him.

The Three-Eyed Raven would survive. It always had.

Brynden Rivers smiled for a moment as the life slowly bled out of him, for now his watch was done, and time could no longer touch him.

A/N: As Bill Drummond says, It's grim up north.

Another chapter, done! I figured it had been a while since we'd really seen the north, so here we are.

Hope you enjoyed it, and as always cheers to those who give any kind of feedback-it's the kind of stuff that keeps me writing. I'll leave that up to you whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Hopefully my actually having covid won't have actually impacted the writing quality too much, but I suppose we'll see.

Cheers, and see you soon,

-Kinginthenorth1 xox

Kingmanaena: Cheers!

Force Smuggler: Cheers, glad you enjoyed it

ClaireR89: Glad you're enjoying the story and sorry about the distinct lack of Elia. I'd apologise for the chapter lengths and all, but I'm a busy person who honestly doesn't have the time nor motivation to write particularly long chapters. Hope you still like the updates though!