The Three Eyed-Raven opened his eyes, his mortal eyes and looked around him. It was night and someone had put him in his bed. He released a breath. I should have known. Sixteen years and there was no sign of Summer ever coming back. Sam told him that Spring has come. Sam said that the seasons are often erratic in Westeros and it was no surprise that the spring is as much as long as the ten years of winter. But he was wrong. Spring has never come. It was still winter. But the Night King is dead, reduced to nothing but a pile of snow in the ground. Then he gasped. How can he, the Three Eyed Raven can ever be so wrong? Fear started to grip his heart. He does not feel fear. But now he does, once more.
The Great Other.
He felt his breathing goes faster and faster. Stop, he told himself. He breathed deeply. Then he grabbed the bell beside his bed, disregarding the shake his hand was making, and rang it. Before it reaches three rings the door from his chamber opens. It was Podrick who came inside with his white cloak and armor.
"Your Grace?"
"Assemble the Council."
Ser Podrick looked at him dumbfoundedly and was about to remind him perhaps of the hour when he decided against it. He merely offered a bow then left with a worried 'Your Grace' and closed the door.
Xxxxxxxxxx
Tyrion was on his books when Podrick came to his solar. Ser Podrick now, he thought as he saw the white armor and cloak of his former squire. His heart almost burst with pride. He knew he has little to no credit on Pod's achievements but he felt proud all the same.
"Why Ser Pod--" Tyrion happily greets the Knight then stopped when he noticed the scared look on his face. "What is it?"
"The King has called for the council, Lord Hand." Podrick bowed his head and busied himself with his sword belt, a nervous gesture he never seems to forget.
"At this hour? It's the hour of the wolf!" Tyrion said, surprised. Then he remembered the last time the King called for an emergency meeting.
It was when Daenerys...the Mad Queen came back from the dead.
Tyrion jumped down from his stool and close his book. He didn't even bother to memorize the page he was on.
"What happened?"
"The King didn't say anything but he looks scared, my Lord."
Tyrion would have laughed by the sheer unlikeliness of what Podrick had said but he saw his face and he knew this was no laughing matter.
"Rouse all the members, I'll be on the council chamber in a minute."
Pod nodded and turned to the door and out of it in a second. He was about to close it when Tyrion called for him. Pod sticks his head inside the room and looked at him, waiting for instruction.
"Fill the council chamber with wine. I have a feeling that I'm not the only one who will need it."
Xxxxxxxx
The Three Eyed-Raven looked at the faces of his councillors. Some of them were yawning or rubbing their eyes. Only his Lady Commander and his Lord Hand are the ones sober enough by the looks of them, but sadly Tyrion was rectifying that by drowning himself with wine.
"Winter is still here." He begun.
As expected it was Sam who contradicted him first.
"Your Grace, I beg your pardon but--"
He cuts him off by giving him a look. He had gone tired of his Grandmaester's explanations.
"It is just the long Spring, is that what you're going to say?"
Sam bowed his head and muttered unintelligible words.
The Three-Eyed Raven focuses his attention once more to the people around him. His Master of Coins yawns, while the Master of Ships sips on his goblet uncaring of what was just said. The Master of Whisperers just looked at him, mouth gaping with eyelids ready to drop in any minute.
"Your Grace, what is it that you saw?" it was Tyrion who asked him the most obvious question. For all his flaws, Tyrion can use logic and common sense.
"The Others are back."
He heard a gasp, from someone in the room, probably Brienne. He did not lift his head to confirm it.
"How?"
"What?"
"Others? What Others?"
"Where?"
He lifted his head and told them what he saw. All of them, the army, the boy and the woman, the storm coming that is larger and accomulating faster beyond the wall, at the Land of Always Winter as they speak.
"They never left at all. Those things we've killed almost seventeen years ago was just a diversion. A way to make us lax."
Silence envelopes the council chamber. Then a cold winter wind blows at them from the open windows. He watched as the people around him shivered.
"Why did you just saw this now, Your Grace? Why just now?" it was Tyrion. He sounds accusatory and he can't blame him.
"I was preoccupied. The Great Other knows it, I'm sure. I was trying to break through whatever Fire magic the Dragon Queen has cast beyond the narrow sea...and...I...I was fooled to believe that the thing Arya Stark killed will end all of this."
That Dragon's blood would end all of this.
He was wrong. So wrong. The Night King was just a pawn to prod their defenses. The true war was not yet ready seventeen years ago, now, he had bought Him the time He needed. The wife is a testament to that. The wives never leave the side of the Great Other, now it roams freely beyond the wall. The giants too, only a handful attacked that night when he knew there will be a thousand, he should have known.
"The war that will happen will be the biggest war the realm will ever see and I'm not sure if the realm will ever survive it this time."
"Forgive me Your Grace, I was not there when you fought this...Others, but I heard stories and I've asked Grandmaester Sam about the Long Night," his Master of Whisperers--the only foreign man in the room--gestured to the Grandmaester. "Why don't we just do what you did those long years ago, only do it in a larger scale?"
Lord Aurane Waters nodded in agreement.
"Lord Tyrion, it was obsidian that killed the...undead was it not?" The Master of Ships asked.
His Hand nodded and filled his goblet with more wine.
Lord Aurane looks sober enough now and apparently he spilled his wine over his tunic base on the stains on it. He looks pensive though, he apparently thought about a plan.
"You're trying to propose what, my Lord?" Tyrion asked, guessing the look on the young Lord's face.
"I propose that we arm every single living people in Westeros with obsidian. All the soldiers even the civilians, send all the population of Westeros to the North, your problems are solved." The young Lord said with a pound of his fist in the table.
"First of all, let me remind you, Lord Aurane that you are part of the small council, it is OUR problem now. Second, we don't have evidences for the other Lords to fight for us. We had nothing except the words of King Bran. The Stormlands will support us, I'm sure of it, the Riverlands too if Lady Sansa begs enough to his uncle, the Vale no doubt will help, but the Iron Islands? Dorne? Even the Reach are not friendly enough after the appointment of Ser Bronn as the Lord of Highgarden and Lord Paramount of the Reach." Tyrion gestured at his up-jumped sellsword friend. "And if the King was right about it being bigger than the war seventeen years ago, we cannot afford a fight amongst ourselves. We can't just go to the kingdoms and force them to fight with us. And the civilians? We will be handing over the whole population of Westeros to...whoever that was beyond the wall."
"Then let them be," Bronn said, anger was concealed on his bored voice. He was still affected by the Lords of the Reach's treatment of him for sure. "Let the Lords sit on their castles and when we win the war we will pluck whoever those who disregards the summons of the King."
"If we win, Lord Bronn." The Three Eyed-Raven reminded him.
"We had limitless supply of Dragonglass in Dragonstone," Bronn said with a shrug.
"We have no dragons."
That induces another silence.
"With all due respect, Your Grace," Ser Brienne broke the silence. "The dragons did not do much in battle. Sure, they burn the dead but--"
"I was not aware you were blind Ser Brienne. The dragons did not only help us that night by burning the army of the dead, it keeps the storm at bay. The Dragon Queen was the reason why the Great Other was hesitant in bringing all His army. Why do you think there are only a handful of giants that night?"
"Giants," the Master of Whisperers whimpered.
"Huh, didn't know the Dragon Queen helped the Realm that much," Lord Aurane was talking to Sam, who apparently did not tell the young Lord all there is about the Long Night.
"I had a proposition my Lords, Ser," Tyrion bowed in acknowledgement to the Lady Knight. "Your Grace," his Hand bowed to him last.
"What is it, my Lord?"
Xxxxxxxxxx
They lasted all the night and a good half of the morning too in planning. They had a brief respite when the servants brought them bread, bacon, and boiled eggs to break their fast only to resume once more when they had finished.
"...we just need to decide where we will held the Great--" Tyrion was interrupted when the door of the chamber opened and a servant came.
"Forgive me, Your Grace, my Lords but the Commander of the City Watch has requested audience with you."
"We are currently discussing the future of the realm, we are not to be--" Ser Brienne stopped when the King raised his hand and nodded to the servant.
"Relax Ser, we needed a few rest after all." Lord Aron offered a smile at the knight which she did not returned.
The lack of sleep was getting all in their nerves, the Three Eyed-Raven knew. That and the fact that the realm may not survive this war.
"Your Grace, Commander Gerold Crest." The servant introduced the tall, red-headed man, then bowed as he closed the door.
"Your Grace," the young Commander of the Gold Cloaks knelt.
"Rise, commander."
"What is it my Lord that made you interrupt our discussion of how to save the realm?" Lord Tyrion says with sarcasm on his voice directed mainly on Ser Brienne.
Commander Crest shifted uncomfortably. "Forgive me, my Lords, my La--" then he caught the eye of Ser Brienne and changed tact immediately. "Ser," he bowed to her then turned his attention to Tyrion instead.
"But my men found...something in the bay early this morning. I thought you might want to see it, my Lords. Your Grace."
Something was wrong he felt it instantly. He turned his eyes, the eyes of one thousand and one to the bay. There he saw it. Them. Lined in five rows, a hundred in a column. He did not count it. He knew. Five hundred. Then he noticed it there at the fiftieth column on the first row, a standard was buried in the ground, attached to it were two banners, dancing in the wind. He opened his mortal eyes and he was back to the chamber once more.
"What is it your Grace?"
"Bodies."