BRAN III

Bran knew he had to talk to Rickon after he had attacked Theon in the Great Hall. Rickon obviously gave himself away, but the possibility of this strange situation extending out to more than just Arya and him at once excited, calmed, and scared Bran. Mayhaps his older brothers were affected as well? It would explain why they'd acted so funny in the courtyard earlier, leaving the castle without a word to no one.

Bran and Arya, who insisted on coming along, slipped into Rickon's room after his parents had had what had obviously been a long talk. As they left for their own compartments he heard them say,

"I know not what he's raving about with this Shaggydog or Osha, or Theon attacking Winterfell," said his mother

His father responded, "The child is sick, he needs to be a bed. I'll send Maester Luwin to him in the morning."

"He's more than just sick, Ned! I fear he's gone mad..."

"He's not the only one, I'm afraid."

And at this their voices travelled too far for Bran to hear any more of their conversation. If Bran had had any doubts before of his brother being from the same time as him, he no longer harbored them, although as he had suspected his parents remembered nothing. He and Arya then snuck into the nursery, as quietly as they could. The room felt at once smaller and larger than it had when Bran had last lived in it four-or was it now two?-years earlier. He attributed this to the fact that the extra bed and chests that he had held had been moved to his own compartments when he'd left the nursery. The candles were still lit and their sister Sansa was sitting by the bed trying to sing the toddler a lullaby, but Rickon kept interrupting with a demand for Shaggy.

"Shaggy will come, Rickon. He's nearby, just busy." said Bran

Sansa at this stopped her attempts soothe Rickon and stared at Bran.

"Shaggy is near?" asked Rickon, his face lighting up with a desperate smile.

Bran tripped over his words on how to put it to Rickon, saying, "Yes... he's with his pack mother. He's still too small to leave her."

"But Shaggy's big, bigger than me!" protested the toddler.

"Well... uh... he just found his pack mother again after being separated, just like you found Mother again, Rickon. Want you not to be near Mother?" asked Bran

The toddler gave a small nod of his head.

"But when will he come back?" asked Rickon

"I know not, but soon probably."

"Maybe his pack mama could come too, so he wouldn't leave..." added the toddler fitfully, as he laid down, burying his head in his pillow.

Bran didn't know what to say to this, and Sansa just continued to stare at him, and Arya at Sansa. It wasn't long before they even began to hear their baby brother's light breathing, indicating that Rickon had fallen asleep. They passed a few moments like this before Sansa broke the silence, "Do you remember?"

"Do you?" replied Bran.

Sansa slowly nodded her head and then at once scooped him up in a very un-Sansa like way and hugged him as she exclaimed, "I thought Rickon and I were the only ones!" After Bran reminded her that he needed to breathe, she then looked over to Arya, who stared almost impassionately at her from the door.

"Arya too?" asked Sansa tenatively.

"Did you kill Joffrey?" was the only thing that Arya asked, refusing to move from her spot.

Sansa seemed troubled by this question before answering: "Yes and no. I was part of a plot, but didn't know it. Though I'm not sorry he died."

Arya snorted and simply replied, "Valar morghulis."

Bran was confused by her response. He knew enough from his old lessons in High Valyrian from the Septon and Maester Luwin that it was in fact High Valyrian, but Sansa seemed to comprehend it more than he could at the moment. Of all the things he'd been taught, High Valyrian had been the one thing that he'd found the smallest use for and committed the least of his memory towards.

"Did you escape? I was so worried they'd caught and were t-torturing you too in some black cell" said Sansa to Arya. Bran's eyes met Sansa's when she spoke of torture-Arya apparently as well, for Sansa looked between the two of them as though she thought she might have said too much. Arya, simply nodded her head in response to Sansa, and moved closer, and moved closer, now standing at the far corner of the foot of the bed away from Sansa. Sansa then turned to Bran and hugged Bran and cried into him, "And when I heard what Theon did to you and Rickon... oh Bran! I'm so sorry!"

Rickon whimpered and whined at the sound of this, causing them all to return to the whisper they had been speaking at before.

Bran felt he was repeating himself by telling Sansa what he'd told Arya earlier-that Theon hadn't killed him or Rickon, but in fact had only betrayed them and taken Winterfell. Sansa seemed simultaneously relieved and troubled by this news before adding herself "We all escaped, somehow... is there anyone else who remembers, you think?"

"I think Jon and Robb might," suggested Bran.

"No, they're clueless about Sh-the direwolves." said Sansa, apparently thinking better of mentioning Shaggydog again within earshot of Rickon. She then asked, "Bran, how did you know where the wolves were?"

Bran swallowed hard before answering, he had to tread lightly here. After considering and rejecting a million different ways to explain, he decided the truth was the simplest option-it was already fantastical enough that the four of them had been sent here to the past, if she could accept that, then surely she could handle the truth. But he still had to approach it carefully, he decided to deflect the focus from him for the moment while still explaining what it meant to be a warg in a way he thought she would understand, and so he asked, "Sansa, before she died, did you ever dreamt you were inside Lady?"

He expected to see Sansa's eyes bulge and grow worried, but not for her to answer, "Y-Yes, I think. Rickon too... the way he talks about Sh-his wolf, you would think that sometimes he was the wolf."

Bran looked on at his sister with incredulity, but it was Arya's answer which shocked him next.

"You too?" Arya now leaned in closer against the wooden base of Rickon's bed.

Sansa took a deep breath and shuddered it out before speaking."It was on the King's Road, just before, well she died. I thought it was just a dream, you see. In it... I was Lady, and we-she-I were playing with a little white rabbit. It was so cute and so trusting... and then she-I grabbed it by its neck, tossed it into the air, and it landed dead on the ground, snapping its neck. It scared me so much I then woke up, screaming... father came in and asked what was wrong-and before I could tell him my dream, Lady came in with the dead rabbit in her mouth. I was so scared that I hadn't dreamt it that I just blocked it out. I didn't want to think about it... you know what the The Seven-Pointed Star says about... skinchangers."

"We've got the blood of the First Men, Sansa, and our ancestors all have a direwolf carved next to them in the crypts... if we all can do it, perhaps it was for a reason that our House has forgotten."

"But to change one's skin is an unclean thing!" trembled Sansa, quoting one of the many proverbs and passages of The Seven-Pointed Star that spoke of skinchangers.

"But we're Starks! We follow the Old Gods."

"We also have Andal blood. Or would you disown mother?" snapped Sansa.

Bran didn't know how to respond to this, but Sansa apparently felt her point had been made and continued with, "Do you know where the wolves are? I think not Rickon can take another day without Sh-his wolf."

"They haven't been born yet."

"We've gone back that far?!"

"Gone back?" asked Arya suspiciously.

Sansa ignored her question by continuing, "Could we get the she-wolf here, then? As long as there's a wolf nearby, I think we could keep Rickon calm, and then what happened tonight-"

"-wouldn't happen again." finished Bran, understanding where Sansa was going with this.

"I could try and warg the pack mother... I learned to change skins with a few ravens, but I'd have to force myself onto the pack mother. It might not work, I tried warging with Summer earlier and there were a few problems..."

"And you question me about being a Stark! Well are you, or aren't you?" asked Sansa.

Bran felt a little miffed by Sansa's sudden challenge to him, and so he began to focus on the pack mother-the headache he'd earned earlier in the Maester's room returning, only this time stronger and much more painful-soon the room around him began to spin and the next thing he knew he was in the forest stalking two men pups upon horses as they travelled through the forest. He soon recognized the two men pups as his older brothers, and suddenly realized by his ability to recognize them that his was the only consciousness inside the wolf. Where was the wolf?