Salt wind, salt tears.
Nock.
Draw.
Loose.
Can you see me now, Lord Stark?
Nock, draw, loose.
Salt wind, salt screams,
salt wind, salt words.
Nock, draw, loose.
Can you see me now, Lord Eddard?
What is dead may never die
and
I have been dead
so
long.
What is dead may never die
what is dead may
never
die.
Nock draw loose, nock draw loose.
Winter is coming;
it follows behind me.
I brought it with me.
Can you see me now, Eddard?
Winter is here.
The Drowned God has forsaken you.
Winter is here.
Your God has abandoned you.
I am here.
My gods are here.
Up and up and up and
over.
Over the wall.
Winter is here.
I am here.
Salt winds,
ice winds.
Death has come for you
and I have brought him.
Can you feel my ice chill your bones?
Can you see me now, Stark?
Nockdrawloosenockdrawloosenockdrawloose
and draw my sword instead.
A sword in the crow's eye,
another,
another.
I will die with a sword in hand;
my gods—
the old gods—
my gods gave me that.
Can you see me now, Ned?
Can you see me now, Robb?
Salt scream,
ice death.
Salt wind, ice wind
through
the portcullis.
Death rides our wind;
I've brought him with me.
Not her,
she is no crow's eye.
Not him,
not the thralls.
Only warriors shall die.
Run and run and hide from us:
the kraken tide,
the wolf tide.
Can you see me now, Father?
Can you see me now, Brother?
Into the bloody tower
and down
and down
and down.
You cannot stop the kraken tide—
the wolf tide.
Axes to doors,
axes to locks.
Salt wind, salt tide,
salt cell.
And there she is.
Salt tears, drowning tears.
What is dead may never die.
Never, never, never.
Can you see me, father?
Can you see me, brother?
I found you, sister;
I came for you.
I brought Death.
I brought Winter.
Raise the banners.
Raise your swords.
Raise your voices.
I howl at the moon.
Can you see me?
"Enter," Yara called from beyond the door. She did not seem surprised to see him, though it was the dead of night.
"Come stand by the fire," she coaxed him. He used to swagger into rooms, needed no coaxing. Things changed. She grabbed him by his upper arms, looking into his eyes. "You came for me," she said, and Theon thought it must be the hundredth time.
"I could not leave you," Theon said.
"No," Yara said in agreement, and Theon wondered if she truly heard him. She turned to watch the flames, as he knew she must have for hours. How many days had she spent in that salt cell, with wind and wave and weather her only companions, her only sustenance? Would she ever be warm again? He wondered.
He never would be, not where he was going.
"You could not leave me," she murmured to herself. "But you are."
"Yes," he said, looking at her, though she did not meet his gaze.
"North, then?" He didn't answer—she didn't need him to. "When?"
"On the next tide."
He watched her lips twitch into a false smile, then she looked at him again, with sadness in her eyes. "You never were a kraken."
"No," he said, this time in his own affirmation. "No, I never was."
"You're still my brother, even if you are a wolf," she said. "Don't die on me."
He could not promise that, but he put a hand on her shoulder, wondering if it was enough. It would never be enough.
"Sail well, little brother."
"Rule well, big sister."
"Come back and see how well I rule."
"I will," he said, and finished the sentence in his head—dead or alive.
Jaime watched Snow follow the dragon woman through the crowd. She's not Cersei; he heard the boy's words again. "You better hope so," he murmured in answer to the memory. Then he turned back to his work. He'd volunteered to give a hand in the clearing of the rubble around the First Keep. An entire side was sheared off, the floorboards where he'd loved Cersei rotted away, the window that had ended all normalcy so much empty air.
It seemed only fitting.
He felt the eyes of the surviving gargoyles following him as he walked armfuls of stones to the growing salvage pile. The Unsullied engineer in charge nodded once to him as he arranged the pieces as neatly as possible. When he turned, he saw Brienne talking across the yard, almost went to her, decided against it. If she wanted to see him, she'd come to him. She'd made that very clear the night before.
It wouldn't hurt his pride, he refused to let it. He wouldn't let her take that from him; after all, it was nearly all he had.
He hauled and lifted for another ten minutes and then gestured he was taking a break to the team lead. Another silent nod and he walked away. Snow, so much snow. He was nearly wading in it by the time he walked through the multitude of internal gates to the godswood. Why he felt he needed to rest there, he didn't know, but he moved through the hot pools until he found a relatively quiet spot—it was impossible to find silence in a castle so full of people. The steam from the hot pool in question had prevented any snow from accumulating beneath the evergreen trees surrounding it, so he found a dry rock near the roots of one and sat, leaning back against the trunk.
The sigh left him without thought and he realized he was exhausted. It didn't surprise him really, not with the weeks he'd passed since leaving King's Landing. Trying not to dwell on that either, he instead busied himself with removing his hand. The damn thing was heavy, too heavy, and weighed on his elbow whenever he had to maneuver his arm. Unstrapping it and laying it next to his leg, he tried to massage feeling into the damn stump without letting the cold touch the sensitive flesh. The guttering breezes through the trees managed to reach his skin anyway, but he tried. When he could feel the tingling return to the end of his arm, he gave it rest, folding his sleeve to more fully cover it. Then he leaned his head back against the tree and shut his eyes.
The dreams took him again.
The snow wouldn't let up. The white flakes swirled, causing Jaime to glance around him every few seconds, half-expecting a wight to jump out of the optical illusions created by the erratic movement of the wind. A flash—an undead skeleton headed straight for Cersei, for their baby. Her baby. Was it even his, even real? Snow swirled again, the sky-blue eyes surrounding him and the sound of Clegane's sword sliding free of its scabbard. Another gust of wind.
He could feel the cold between his legs despite the warm beast beneath him. He missed Honor; Honor was a horse he could rely on. Honor had been burned alive by the dragon queen. Roaring, crashing heat. This horse, Glory, was as skittish as Jaime himself when the wind blew and erased the way forward. Gods, he was cold.
A fire. All I want is a fire, he thought. And a pie. Jaime shuddered against a stronger gust. Glory balked at a swirling shape in the snows, but Jaime urged him on. It took them another hour before he saw light seeping out of covered windows and chimneys leaking smoke.
The dream warped and he stared into the eyes of the inn-keep's daughter, a mousy-haired girl—Missy—of near eighteen who'd borne a child named Ed, both of them sporting emerald eyes.
"And how much for a room, then?"
"Five stags. Six if you want the girl to warm your bed," the innkeeper growled, not looking away from the fire.
"Just the room." Jaime watched Missy's form wilt in relief. She'd turned away, and when she glanced back, she was his own daughter, his own Myrcella, her eyes dripping red tears even as she smiled. "I'm glad you're my father," she said. And she fell into his arms, the memory of her limp weight too real, too well remembered.
Then he was at the Inn at the Crossroads, another haunted ground, another nightmare.
"Hullo, ser," a fat boy said to him. "What'll it be for dinner?"
"Pie, if you've got it," Jaime answered, his eyes wandering over the other patrons for familiar faces. Was that Ser Ilyn in the corner? "And mulled wine."
"Good choice, ser. I made the pie this mornin'. Mutton. You'll like it, I expect."
Before Jaime could be annoyed, the boy ran off to fetch it. The inn was full and bustling, and he caught snatches of conversation over the hum.
"…dragons over The Bite last week…"
Massive jaws opening, a fire burning in a throat wide enough to swallow him whole.
"Thousands of them savages, looking for women to rape…"
Tyrion's crying eyes as Tysha fled from him.
"…whole family dead by the cold…"
Tommen, Myrcella, Joffrey standing in the snow, their eyes blue and their golden curls white with death.
The boy came back and set a steaming plate in front of Jaime. "There ya are, ser. You goin' south for the winter?"
"North," Jaime said as his mouth filled with saliva. He plunged his teeth into the steaming crust and nearly groaned with pleasure, only keeping his dignity by a thread.
"North, ser? But it's winter. My friend Arry's from the North. Says 'Winter is comin',' and I says 'It's always comin'.' She don't mind though. Went north, just like you. Was goin' south and then changed her mind when I told her 'bout Jon Snow bein' King in the North and all."
"Arry, you say?" Jaime said, between bites of food. "Arya Stark is alive?"
"You know her?" The boy seemed surprised. "Aye, she's alive. Strange though. Kept telling me she was going south to kill the queen. Glad she changed her mind, I am. Then she'd really be dead. The Kingslayer woulda killed her before she got to the queen."
"Hm, yes," Jaime said, contemplating the boy. "I'm headed to Winterfell, actually. I could send your regards."
Give Robb Stark my regards, and Jaime restrained a shudder.
"Winterfell, really? In this snow? If you make it, tell her Hot Pie says hullo. What's your name?"
Jaime swallowed slowly, the pie turning to ash on his tongue. "Hill. Eddard Hill."
He was in the middle of the Neck's swamps on the causeway, wondering just how many days he'd have to spend looking over his shoulder for lizard lions when a shadow in the unending storm caused Glory to rear in fright and Jaime to curse and pull his sword. A wight, he thought, and I have no fire.
"Come on, then!" he shouted in fury, thinking he didn't want to die with his balls frozen to his thighs rather than warm in a woman's bed, but he might as well fight.
"Kingslayer," the wight called. Jaime hesitated.
"Show yourself," he said. "I don't fight shadows."
"Then you're going the wrong way." The voice sounded female, and when the petite figure stepped into view out of the swirling snow, Jaime realized she was just a girl."My father sent me for you. Said you were following us."
"And who's your father? How does he know me?"
"Howland Reed. We ride North with the Dothraki. The Dragon Queen calls, and we must answer."
"The Reeds have pledged to Daenerys?" Jaime asked. The girl came closer, a diminutive horse following her out of the white. She was only about the height that Myrcella had been, but the lines on her face aged her.
"We are; the King in the North bent the knee, which you well know, my lord."
"And the North accepted it?"
"The North remembers, Kingslayer, and we will not betray the King in the North again." She was close now, and Jaime could see her clearly. Green eyes peered up at him. Myrcella. "Put your sword away ser, or I will throw you to the lizard lions."
Jaime eyed the net and three-pronged spear she clutched in either hand. He was not sure he could beat her with his left hand, even from the back of Glory. "Your father trusts me alone with you?"
"He trusts me not to kill you, despite what you did to my friend."
"Remind me, what evil thing does the world say I did?"
"You threw him out a window," she said plainly, before jumping on to her horse.
The snow swirled again and left him in the dark. He could hear breathing—his own?—but nothing else in the empty blackness. Then his sword burst into flames, and he saw a circle of dead men around him. Rhaegar, Arthur Dayne, Jonothor Darry, Lewyn Martell, Barristan, Gerold Hightower. All of his Kingsguard brothers and not a one smiled at him.
"Kingslayer," one of them spat, he wasn't sure who.
"Where were you, Jaime?" That was Rhaegar, he'd remember the voice anywhere.
"Coward," hissed another.
"Where were you?" the prince said again, taking a step forward, his sword down at his side. "You told me you'd protect them. You told me you'd keep them safe."
"Kingslayer," Barristan said this time. "How many kings died under your care?"
"One," Jaime said back, shuffling to try to keep them all in view.
"Four!" someone yelled. It echoed in the dark caverns and he heard a lion roar in response. Casterly Rock, he realized. We're below the Rock.
"You told me you'd protect them, Jaime. You told me you'd protect Elia, that you'd keep my children safe." Rhaegar lifted his sword and Jaime went to do the same, but he felt weak, winded.
"You should have taken me with you," Jaime said and his voice came out like the boy's it had been when he'd begged—begged—Rhaegar to bring him to battle.
"You think I would trust a Kingslayer?" Rhaegar asked, and lunged.
With an animalistic roar, Brienne leaped in front of the blow, her sword afire, her cheeks red from battle heat. Jaime spun wildly, tried to fend off the men he'd stood beside once. Blow after blow rained on his sword, and the fire began to die.
"No," he begged. "No, not here. Not here."
"Jaime!" Brienne called in fear, but she kept fighting, holding back the men who would kill them all. The dead men.
"I could have your head," Cersei hissed in his ear.
"Ser Hill," someone said in a musical voice, and Jaime's eyes fluttered open. Lord Reed looked down at him, his green eyes dancing with a humor that never seemed to go away.
"Jaime," he said, his voice momentarily rusty. "Just call me Jaime." He was sick to death of Lannister, of Ser, of Kingslayer.
"Are you sure?" the man said but didn't wait for an answer. "I wondered whether you might like to join me. Lord Snow has called his bannermen."
"I am not his bannerman," Jaime said, and remembered he wasn't wearing his hand, something he tried not to do in front of anyone important; it made him feel weak. As did being towered over by a mud-man.
"No, but it may interest you regardless, and with my invitation, you would be welcome."
"That's an exaggeration," Jaime said, but he focused on getting the hand reattached.
"Perhaps. But 'like it or not, we share a common cause, now,'" the marsh lord said, quoting Snow's words.
"That is nearly as maddening as Brandon Stark's new trick," Jaime said and tried not to think of the boy falling, falling. The boy had told no one yet who'd thrown him, and if he was honest, Jaime was waiting for men to take him in hand and remove his head. He wondered if he still deserved it.
He felt he must.
"Fine," Jaime decided, cinching the last strap of his hand.
"Good," Reed said, then extend a hand—his left—to help Jaime rise. Once, he would have ignored the offer, maybe even knocked it away. Now he took it, let the little man help him rise.
As he dusted himself off, he asked a question that had plagued him since the cursed causeway. "What is your interest in me?"
"Mayhaps one day I'll tell you," the greener said, stoking Jaime's frustration. "Come, we'll not want to miss this."
Jaime wondered if that was another green dream or only a normal prediction. He followed regardless, not seeing he had much choice. They entered the Great Hall in a tide of people and Reed, though diminutive, managed to clear a path to the front where his daughter held a position, her jaw clenched so tight Jame wondered whether she'd crack a tooth. He watched her scan the room, managing to never let her gaze fall on the man—he's not a boy anymore—in the rolling chair by the dominating hearth.
"If he's your friend," he whispered when they'd joined her party, "why are you avoiding him?"
"Careful, Kingslayer. I'll still gut you at the first opportunity," she hissed.
"Now that doesn't answer my question," he said, needling her as a source of distraction from the eyes he could feel crawling over him.
"I don't answer to you."
No, he thought, no one does. He let her pain go, knowing it mirrored his own and straightened to a rest pose, clasping his remaining fingers over the leather-covered gold wrist, lifting his chin, and letting his eyes blur. He was well-practiced at going away inside; he needed the distance from the stares, the whispers. At least they aren't screams, a voice he could no longer quiet murmured from within his internal sanctuary.
He didn't need to hide there long; Snow, with his economic stride and quiet eyes, entered with his sisters, and the murmurs and gazes fled, following the Starks instead.
"Thank you for coming," the northman said from next to his father's chair, one hand white-knuckled on the back. "We'll not keep you long in the face of everything there is to do."
He paused, glanced at his eldest sister and Jaime wondered at the depth of that look, the silent nod of support she returned. He and Cersei had shared those looks, but they'd never felt so pure as this one. Snow seemed to gain strength from it and turned back to the room.
"I have offered my hand in marriage to the queen. She has accepted—" The roar of protest cut off Snow's words and he let it crash over him. Jaime thought that of all those attending, only he and the Reeds seemed unfazed. Did you love her? Jon had asked. She's not Cersei.
The rabble died back by half, and still, Snow waited for calm, his dark eyes scraping the room. Jaime felt the slight hesitation when those eyes met his own, but the other man let no other sign of his surprise show. When the quiet began to come back fully, Jon nodded once.
"I understand this is sudden. Allow me to explain and then I will answer to you. She has accepted, and we will be married in the eyes of gods and men this afternoon. I could tell you it is only a marriage for the sake of the alliance we have formed, but that would be a lie. I love her," he admitted, no shame upon his face, only sheer determination, and Jaime wondered at that. He'd never been able to tell the world who he loved, but if he had, would he have held that confidence? He and Cersei… there had been no time for doubts. Into the world together and never apart until it was forced upon them, it had just been. Until they were separated by war and death. Jaime found himself seeking Brienne's eyes, but she was not looking his way, and he snapped his attention back to the Lord of Winter as the man spoke again.
"My father loved his wife," he said simply. "Their marriage was strong for it, their family strong for it. I am seeking to do the same, to be the same, not only in my marriage to Daenerys but also in our ties across our realm.
"We are a people divided, for all we are one nation. Westeros is not a country, it is truly seven kingdoms, always separate, always vying for each other's strength, wealth, land, power. A united people is stronger against threats beyond our borders, and yet we fight more amongst ourselves than against others who would seek to conquer us as the First Men conquered the Children of the Forest, as the Andals did them, as the first Targaryens did.
"If we are one, united through bonds of honor and family, we will be stronger against the Others, against Cersei Lannister and those who follow her, against the Free Cities, anyone who may challenge our right to our home and our land.
"All of that is enough reason to unite our causes through marriage, but it is not why I asked for her hand. I want to marry her," Jon said. "I want what my brother sought with his queen, what my father found with his wife. In Daenerys, I have it."
The questions poured out of his bannermen and women, but Jaime only watched the man. Never did doubt cross his face, never did he waver from his conviction. Jaime wondered what it meant that he was jealous of that surety.
It's been a long time. I apologize for that; it's something I'm hoping to work on the next couple months-more consistency in updating. In good news, the reason I was gone so long is that many big, good, and/or wonderful things happened over the last few months. I wrapped up an insane project at work, decided I couldn't work there anymore, got a new job, and-oh yeah-got married. Getting married could be a full-time job, I swear. Anyway, now I have my after-work hours back so I've been catching up.
How's everyone else?