Bran

He woke in a sweat despite the cold that had seeped into his flesh. Into Meera's as well, despite his arms around her and the babe. They're ready, he knew at once. Ready to march on the Wall. How he managed to glimpse into the future so cleanly was beyond Bran but under the circumstances he appreciated any help that could be given. Had I been awing above them, I might have thought it happening for true. Instead he stood among them, the endless dead hidden in the trees, watching as the cold giant sounded his horn and the Others themselves turned the huge shards of wall into a blizzard that spanned the breadth of Westeros. Just to dump it on our heads before they come calling. We ought to make sure anyone north of Last Hearth pulls back to the castle. I want to see what's going on, at least. When he reached for a raven though, it was as if every bird he could find turned to mist, turned to fog in his grasp. He got only the haziest glimpses of Queenscrown, returning to his bedchamber feeling wholly worse. A slight movement out of the corner of his eye took his mind off the Gift. The smallest pair of grey eyes bright despite the predawn darkness were locked on him over Meera's shoulder. Good morning, my prince, Bran thought. His princess was a light sleeper, he learned that in the years they spent in the Raven's hollow. Even with a whisper he might rouse her, and he was loath to do so. The eyes took in Bran's face, the infant prince looking at him suspiciously in his two-month-old way. He never cries, Bran wondered. He fusses when he's hungry or when he needs his clout changed. Apart from that, he never makes a sound. Faintly Bran couldn't help but worry and he knew Meera did as well, but her parents didn't seem overly concerned and so it was their experience he relied on to soothe the butterflies in his stomach. Lord Howland has more to worry about than one quiet babe. Whenever he wasn't with Meera and his grandson, he was everywhere else in Winterfell it seemed. The ramparts, the crypts, the keep, the yard, the great earthen ring that even now the giants push into place, block by block… Those not of the Neck soon learned the endurance of the crannogmen. They ate little and slept little, spending every waking moment fletching arrows for their funny little bows or else shoring up the castle's defenses with every manner of ingenious (some said untoward) measure meant to foil or snare the enemy. Slowly getting up for a look out the window, Bran was unsurprised to see yet more snowfall. Heady, too. The kind that comes to stay, that doesn't melt at the first hint of sunrise.

He turned his back on the outside world and brought the fur blanket back up over Meera. She muttered uncertainly in her sleep. You might find it heavy, but it will keep you warm, princess. It had been a good while before she'd taken to blankets. When Bran asked incredulously if she had not had them in the Neck, she'd shaken her head.

"Fur, wool or cotton, any blanket would rot off your body or else fill with the eggs of creatures you'd not want on your skin." Bran shuddered at the memory.

"Remind me to never ever go to the Neck." Truly, it was as if the crannogmen were a race unto themselves. Short, slight, quiet. With big green eyes. He couldn't begin to count them so many had come to Winterfell, and even then, they all looked the same and sounded the same. A tactic meant to unnerve, perhaps. It had worked wonders on the Valemen, knights and lords both giving the smaller people a wide berth despite their harmless affect. Meera sat up in bed, her hair a long dark curtain tangled around her head.

"I ought have this cut…" she said.

"Don't trouble yourself. You're not like to get it caught on anything in Winterfell." he said, finding himself fond of her black tresses.

"A wight can grab it, though." Ever the crannogwoman. If it cannot be used to your advantage, it will be used against you.

"Or Howland, when he gets a bit bigger." Bran frowned. "Perhaps you might tie it back out there and let it down when we're in here?" She smiled.

"As my prince wishes. But once the wights come in force, I'll do as I please."

"In the meantime, let your prince do as you please."

"Well, I think breakfast might do me good."

"I'll go get it right away." He moved for the door immediately but Meera stopped him.

"We could have it in the hall, perhaps." she said, sounding shy. Bran grinned from ear to ear.

"Shall we bring him down, then?"

"I think it's time. He may want to leave if the noise gets too loud, but he's old enough to be seen at least."

"Prince Howland Stark of Winterfell." Bran said aloud. I wonder what Father would have made of him. Of sharing a grandson with his most stalwart vassal. He held Howland while Meera bathed and dressed, tapping his nose to make him huff in amusement, perhaps the beginnings of a laugh. Howland cooed in turn when presented with one of Meera's fur slippers, grabbing at it enthusiastically whenever it was in sight. Perhaps he can smell his mother on them. Or he just likes the feeling of fur. His mind wandered to another Stark, one he'd looked the castle over for when Howland was first born. He'd found her in the crypts of all places, staring down a dark passage that according to her led to a hidden plain ringed in razor rock. Either out there, he supposed, or in the godswood by herself. Sansa has become quite the recluse. I knew letting her wander beyond the Wall was a mistake. Maybe seeing Howland will set her to rights. "I'll meet you in the hall, Meera." he told her when she had dressed, finally able to get into boots again with a giddy gasp. She took their son, Bran kissing his head and her cheek before they left.

"Be careful. She is your sister and mine and I'm sure she would never do us harm on purpose, but maybe Sansa is capable of more than what she knows." Meera whispered.

He didn't bother checking her room or the hall, where once it was the smart bet to find Sansa Stark trading courtesies with one lord or another. When she was not in the godswood either, Bran felt his heart sink. I pray I don't find her frozen to death from the inside in the crypts. The vines and roots that had taken hold in the crypts near the Hungry Wolf had frosted over, the floor icy and slippery. On staring into the empty crypt, Bran could only gape in dismay. He's gone. How the Singers had not realized at once was a puzzle he had to look to the vines around the crypt to piece together. The Other saw the trap and tore its teeth out. There was water on the floor of the crypt as well. Washing away the dust that kept him flush to the far wall. Now he's free to cause all the harm he can before we capture him again. Or kill him. The crypt was cold, of course, but not the kind that seeped into the soul and ground the mind to a halt whenever an Other was near.

"Long gone, then…" he said aloud. As is Sansa. His tongue slid between his teeth. Where could she be? Where could he be? Bran found himself following the crypts, heading further into the darkness. Toward the grotto. He had not been back since they'd first found it. It was a place of wonder, no doubt, but it was also a place for the dead as much as the living. Given Howland's birth, Bran felt his living family needed him more just now. The frost that formed on the stone would have shone mirror-bright had the Singers' workings not been undone, but as it was the greenish-gold glow was quite absent leaving Bran to use the rats that skittered at his feet as guides. Even then, they will only take me so far. Normal animals cannot abide the presence of an Other. Of winter given face, voice, form. The rats stopped at the entrance to the grotto, the rune-covered arch a Wall in its own way. Bran spotted a white sliver slipping through the trees. He braced for the cold, that legendary cold, but no paralyzing wave was forthcoming. Maybe the trees put a stop to it. Leaf had said as much when the wights simply dropped on entry into the Raven's cave. The power that moves them is powerless here. Well, until I mucked that up. He moved as quietly as he could as quickly as he dared but nimble as Bran was he was certain his every step sounded like it was taken on mammoth feet to the cold one's ears. "No dead down here to move, anyway. No dead kings for you." Bran muttered under his breath. Sansa had the right of it. Had we not scoured the crypts, the Other could have turned Winterfell into a crypt castle with just the kings newest dead. The faces in the trees frowned out of their trunks impassively. Annoyed, almost. Bran knew better than anyone how set the trees were in their ways, how any deviation rankled them to their wooden cores. So too with the old gods. Perhaps it was simply part of being a tree. Though he was hardly surprised, Bran found his inability to catch up to the Other irritating. Even crippled he is fleeter of foot than I. He only caught up because his quarry had stopped moving, staring at the pact on the wall of the grotto. On reaching him Bran sucked in a breath. Fine white hair fell down to the Other's shoulders and he was clad in icy armor, makeshift though it seemed. Lighter than beyond the Wall. Perhaps one needs time and cold aplenty to fashion true plate-of-ice. Whoever you are, you're no icesmith. The flesh seared away by Meera's smoky sword had not regrown, instead replaced once more by well-shaped ice. Bran had no doubt the Other knew he was there, but what threat could he pose? Why bother turning? "This is a Stark place. You've got no right to be here." Bran tried to sound as Father had when he wore the face of Lord Stark, but his voice was high and chilled, echoing off the walls. Bran the Boy, not Prince Brandon of Winterfell. He swallowed. No more. When he spoke again, his voice did not waver and it echoed in tones of iron. This time the Other turned. Beauty had returned to his face, the skull beneath it no longer visible through the skin. What was visible was the dark glassy scar beneath the armor where Meera had poked him with the dragonglass arrowhead. I pray Jon brings back as much as he can.

He stood his ground, staring at the Other as his cold blue eyes took him in. The steel in his spine sparked a memory he thought forgotten. Once in another life he'd been paired against Prince Tommen in the training yard by Ser Rodrik Cassel. Tommen's eyes were green though, his face round and red. After a bit of huffing and puffing Bran had knocked him to the ground, pulled more by the weight of his padding than pushed by any skill of Bran's. Meanwhile you could go through Ser Rodrick and all the rest without stopping for breath. The Kingslayer was supposed to be a splendid knight, but steel shattered against razor ice no matter the gold spent on it, parted for a crystal sword heedless of the times it had been hammered. "The things I do for love." he said, choking up at the words. The Other's remaining hand flexed and a sharpened icicle appeared as if from thin air. Nothing comes from nothing, the Singers say. From the water in the air, or else left in him. A moment later and its edge had spread until it was a sword for true. Past the Other the figures of grey and green stood frozen in the stone. I wonder if they ever got this close. He stopped not three feet away. Bran did not so much as shiver. "That's how you lost before." he said, pointing to the figures. "That's how you'll lose again." For the first time Bran saw disdain creep into the Other's face. Again, he was reminded of the Kingslayer. Where Jaime Lannister was hollow as a suit of armor though, the Other was full of dread purpose. Still, Bran saw the nose flare, the cold lips curl. Not a word of the True Tongue and still I struck a nerve. No doubt he'll understand this just as well. He stuck his tongue out and crossed his eyes. "Mlhhh." There was movement too fast to see, a noise like a tree crashing down. The Other was knocked off his feet, slung to the ground like a dog would a rat and there was a crunching, cracking sound as his armor shattered off his body. Bran blinked. What just happened? For his part the Other stirred feebly on the grotto floor. As if he'd run full sprint straight into a brick wall. Footsteps behind him made Bran turn, still at a loss, only to see an obviously dead woman coming straight at him. He dove behind a tree but she made no move to pursue, instead pouncing on the Other and driving her elbow into his mouth. Another sound of ice cracking, freezing blood spattering the moss that covered the floor. Quite unceremoniously she stood, hoisting him under his arm before dragging him back off toward the grotto's entrance. Have I just been saved by a wight? Bran turned on legs that had turned to water, stumbling after her. Standing by the arch was another woman, someone straight out of one of Old Nan's tales. In her grip was a walnut branch. A dozen black feathers dangled from the wood bound by red thread along with a white one from a bird far rarer, far fairer, than a common raven. Yet the eyes are not an Other's. Tully, even when the rest of her has turned to ice. "Sansa?" he asked. Her hair was a mess of tangles and weir leaves, she smelled of pine and earth instead of sweetscent and yet the more he looked the more his sister shone through. A Stark at last, if one less fit for the second Long Night than the first. She seemed as like to speak as the wight. The green-eyed wight. Dimly he heard it dragging the Other up the steps. "We should make sure he can't get out again." he told her shakily. When she gave no answer again, he took her hand. Forgive me, Sansa. He reached for her and found only a tree-bending blizzard raging within. Well, an Other may reach her but not me. His effort made her blink in the waking world though, the unflinching stare melting into unsure glances around the grotto. Her perfect lips parted.

"Bran."

"Sansa, are you hurt? Did they get in again? Did-"

"Bran, I saw them. I saw every one of them-"

"That is quite enough."

Branch's voice sounded angrier than Bran thought a Singer capable of being. Both he and Sansa turned toward Branch, the harmless-looking creature's gentle hands balled into fists.

"Branch? What do you mean? What's going on?" Bran asked. Branch ignored him utterly, which was very much a first.

"You are perilously close to going down a road that can only harm, Princess." Sansa gulped.

"I didn't mean any harm-"

"A hurricane does not mean to sink ships by the dozen and drown sailors by the hundred. A blizzard does not aim to scour a fallow field of crops or freeze men where they stand." Bran frowned.

"You speak as though my sister were a child playing with a crossbow."

"Wiser minds than she have tried to make themselves master of forces that will not be ruled."

"I didn't try to master anything." Sansa said, her voice hardening.

"I was sick of waiting around for someone else to handle my problems for me. Maybe if your ways, so sacred, worked in the first place, you wouldn't be huddled in the dark with a pair of orphans trying to figure out how to put an end to the Others' schemes." Branch blinked, as did Bran.

"We tried it your way the first time. At best, we can only hope to force them away and forget they ever existed."

"There is no other way."

"That doesn't make sense. Winter is part of the world, as much so as the other seasons. Your kind exist for a reason, surely, as do men. So, too, must the Others. Why, I cannot fathom-"

"I already explained. They are winter's will embodied. They seek to scour all life within reach, because that is what winter does."

"Winter is sleep, not death. The world goes to sleep and yes, the sun is further and dimmer and yes, life is harder, but not so much for creatures borne of cold. Others and ice spiders, they are alive as we are. Life does not seek to destroy itself out of hand. Why would it?" Branch could not seem to comprehend her words, lost for his own. He cannot think outside the roots, the trees. The past, Bran thought. At least Sansa's trying something different. Maybe she got lost in some briars, got a little muddied, but she seems alright now. Branch for his part seemed ready to cry. "Easy enough to hide behind the old conflict. It's something else about the Others. Something that rankles you to your core. The other Singers, too." Bran reached for the Singer's three-fingered hand and for the first time he saw one flinch.

"You are one for stories, Brandon Stark. There is one told among your kind, about the Night's King." Bran frowned. "Not the miscreation of our own doing. The thirteenth man to hold the Wall."

"How would you know about the history of the Night's Watch?"

"Let him speak, Bran." Sansa said, soft and ready to listen. Like Mother.

"Before men forgot the threat of winter and the ones who brought it, we gave them that which you call dragonglass often and generously. There were no secrets between the Watchers on the Wall and Those Who Sing the Song of Earth." His lip quivered and curled. "Until he came." He was silent for a long time. To speak of him is pain, Bran thought.

"Old Nan used to tell me stories about him. How atop the Wall one night, he saw a woman wandering in the Haunted Forest. A woman with cold white skin and eyes like blue stars. A corpse queen, as Old Nan put it." Sansa's own blues widened. "Well, you get the picture." Bran said, less to spare Sansa than Branch.

"What became of her, when he was overthrown?"

"She disappeared. There was no trace when the northmen scoured the Nightfort-"

"She was no more corpse than the Watcher she wooed." Branch said as quietly as he could, it sounded to Bran. He is beyond pained, he is hurt hollow. "No part of her was any less alive than the men who forced her to flee back to her kind. When men arrived, there was discord. After that brief strife though…you cannot know how glorious it was. We were close to the giants, are close to the giants, but…"

"They're giants." Sansa said rather bluntly. "They go their own way." Branch nodded.

"Men were our great trial and our great triumph. Men helped us to cast them out, back into their blighted emptiness even as they raised the dead among them as their chattel." Is that what all this is about?

"Branch, wights are dead things. That the Others can raise dead people to fight for them, that isn't a failing of the Singers. That isn't us being closer to them than you, choosing to be with them over you..." Branch's forehead creased and he shook his head. Bran was reminded vividly of his father-by-law. What can cause such lasting pain? A wound in the spirit, not in the flesh. One that never heals.

"It was not the first time. The first time one among your kind…but it was the last." Branch nodded. "The gods watched, and we saw to it that it was the last."

"Take an Other to wife, you mean?" Bran asked, so confused, while Branch gasped as if stabbed.

"Winter roses are not our doing, nor of our making, Brandon Stark. They brought them south into green lands when the Long Night fell. The Ones That Walk With Winter…what they have, what we lack…" He was doubled over, unable even to weep. "The next time you find yourself among them, Sansa Stark, look a little closer. You may then see what so draws our ire." he said, before turning and staggering away.

Bran made to follow, mind reeling, but Sansa slipped an arm in his and held him fast.

"Let him go, Bran." she said.

"I don't understand-"

"Neither do I. I haven't the faintest idea. But he is far too upset to go prying further into matters his kind clearly would like buried forever. I need you to be my lookout anyway, so I can get back to my room and bathe before I go showing you, your princess and your new prince off to the rest of Winterfell."

"Er, what about that?" Bran asked, pointing to the length of walnut. "Who's-"

"Ramsay Snow's. It was his dying desire to be part of me, as he put it. I suppose he thought I might have been with his get, and that I'd not have it in me to drink a barrel's worth of moon tea to put it off. To my very great relief, I felt no sickness nor aches and no cravings were forthcoming. I needed brew no tea. After my last jaunt across the Wall, I returned…in rather a wild mood. I may have scared the wits out of poor Brienne, I ought to apologize…"

"Sansa, you have a wight of your own dragging our friend back to his cell. That may require some explanation."

"Not if people don't see her. She can stay there, dragonglass in hand, a tireless ever-watchful sentry while the Singers go about repairing the cell and getting on with doing whatever else they need to do. Gods know it will be more she's done for others than anything she did in life." Sansa said dryly. "Go ready Howland for a bit of showing-off. Meera needs you just now, not me." Bran swallowed. She isn't incoherent, or cold, or Other-eyed. I think she'll be alright. He nodded, squeezing her hand before he left her for the surface. I suppose after the Raven's hole, I'm done with being put off by tight dark spaces. He didn't recognize the guardsmen on duty, two hairless chins of an age with him. They nodded nervously, one after the other. Boys, worried about chasing girls or getting drunk once their relief appears. That was never me.

"Just see that nobody goes down there. The Singers- er, the Children of the Forest like dark and quiet, not a gaggle of children chasing each other around."

"Yes, my prince." they replied in unison. At least we recaptured the Other before he could cause any harm. Bran thanked the gods for that much. On reaching their room he slipped inside quietly, closing the door behind him.

"It would be easier on you if I came in through the window. Quieter, I wouldn't wake him on you."

"Easier, too, for you to slip and fall. Only instead of to the floor, you'd fall what, thirty feet?" Meera replied, gently rocking Howland as he fed. It was an idyllic scene, one Bran hated to ruin, but he brought her current with the goings on in the grotto anyway. Her lips tightened but she didn't stop her slow, rhythmic movement and the babe kept on his quiet course. "Did you expect him to stay bundled up until the king returned? I'm only surprised it took him this long to get out."

"But Sansa-"

"Sansa wanted to find out for herself what she is worth. For all we know the Other thinks she was playing with him, the cat letting the mouse go only to catch it again." Howland gave a hiccup and Meera patted his back.

"Here, I'll hold him while you change. I know you aren't proud-"

"Proud enough not to go before the lords in a nightgown with a babe at the breast, Bran!" Meera said, cheeks turning rose as she found a clean jerkin and leggings. Green and brown and grey, ever were they hers to wear.

To Bran's relief the hall neither cheered nor rushed Meera to get a glimpse of the bundle in her arms. There were raised mugs and tankards, more than Bran could count as well as countless calls of congratulations and a few for someone to pay up, sparking laughter in the hall. Not much else to do but build whatever pops into Lord Howland's head or bet on our babe's gender, I suppose. He was absent as he almost always was, here and there and everywhere about Winterfell. Atop it, below it, sealing every crack and slowly but steadily putting the pieces together. A southern lord commander would remain in the keep and direct the defenses from a fireside chair. Not that the little man's approach was decried by anyone. If anything, their guests found the vigor of Howland Reed and his countrymen nothing short of astonishing. Bran pulled a chair out for Meera on the high table, slipping a blanket around her shoulders to keep her warm. He saw Lord Arryn shoot the table a few glances. Probably looking for Sansa. Poor Lord Royce. While he waits for his liege lord to ask Sansa for her hand, I can imagine a scarce few people less fit to one another. Then he thought about it again. Perhaps he was being unfair to the Lord of the Eyrie. He wasn't so stiff in his ways or thinking as were many lords his elder and indeed had only been civil to the peoples from beyond the Wall when they felt the urge to join the goings-on in the hall. Sansa was just as possessed of a wildness as Jon, if one eminently more dangerous and unpredictable. Storms are dangerous and unpredictable. That doesn't make them bad. Again, Bran found himself reconsidering. Liberal as Harrold Arryn was, Bran could not picture him taking Sansa's new friend or games of come-into-my-body with something beyond the Wall in stride. As breakfast wore on the hall slowly filled, mostly with northmen and valemen. Some of the more known wildlings were sat around the leftmost table, closer to where the king would sit than the door. Once Jon returns, he's like to do things in the godswood where the wildlings are more comfortable. The giants, too. Maybe the Singers would see fit to join in turn. Or maybe they'll stay beneath the earth and dismay of things that happened before their own lifetimes. Maybe it had to do with all the change happening of late. They don't do well with quickly adjusting course. Like the Others, I imagine. Wood or ice, once on a path they stay on until they fall. Not that he'd ever suggest such to a Singer, even one less resolute (if one existed) than Branch. Bemoaning men's impermanence just then seemed to Bran rather foolish. At least we're not afraid to go our own way. We may not be so able as the Dawn Races, but our paths are ours to choose.

When Sansa joined them, she wore a spotless ivory gown shot through with grey silk at the wrists and hem. No few heads turned, though whether that was due to her or the walnut stick she held Bran could only guess. Behind her as ever came the pack of hounds, the big black one laying beneath the table at her feet. Oh, now the wildlings feel welcome, Bran thought, rolling his eyes. Top a stick with a skull and all of a sudden, you're worth looking at twice. It may keep marriage offers from high lords away but who can say what is proper in the wild? Sansa paid the murmurs no mind, didn't even look up from her plate but Bran saw the look on Harrold Arryn's face. Not fear, as with the Waynwoods. Not mirth, as with the wildlings. Something in between. Perhaps he knows more of Sansa's time in Bolton hands than I realized. Small wonder, then, he took such joy in watching the giants smash their cavalry aside, watching Jon smash the Bastard of the Dreadfort's teeth in. If only the other lords saw it quite that way. The time for courtly courtesies would end with the coming of the Others, Bran knew. Manners and homage would not send them packing back to the Land of Always Winter. The snows fell every day as well, keeping the walkways in the castle clear had become a chore without end. I hope Jon comes back soon, he thought,feeling small. I may be Prince of Winterfell but I wouldn't last long if Tommen's wight attacked me in the yard. Nor can I lead half so well as Jon. His melancholy didn't go unnoticed, Meera sliding her hand into his and squeezing. Nor soothe half so well as Meera. House Stark fell from focus when the next course arrived, free food and ale bringing the conversation a bit louder as the hall's occupants fell to talking among themselves.

"Can we bring him outside? I would think it's too cold for a babe…" he wondered.

"Too cold is a matter of perspective, Bran. We've borne cold worse than this." Meera replied. Bran shivered at the memory. Meera dragging him through a blizzard. Hold the door. How strange that the last command Hodor obeyed, after years of serving House Stark, would be Meera's. Maybe he knew a Stark when he heard one, even unto death.

Despite her bold words, Meera held Howland close as they moved out onto the ramparts. His burbling earned him a kiss on the head. Not to be outdone, Bran honored him as well making her laugh.

"I suppose you're right. He is no stranger to cold, to snow. I wonder if he had to contend with it in the womb."

"Who can say what happens before we come into this world, Bran?" Meera replied, feeding Howland beneath her heavy blanket. The approach of one of the giants from the wolfswood drew several cries from the sentries.

"My prince-"

"A giant is approaching. They're rather hard to miss. Still, at least you didn't simply wet yourself. Next time just make one of us aware. Giants don't much like our ballyhooing whenever they turn up."

"Yes, my prince." When the giant reached the wall of Winterfell, he was red-faced from running and needed a moment to take several massive breaths. Then he began to speak excitedly, his elated voice making Bran's bones rattle. He saw Howland's grey eyes pop open wide, looking around warily while the giant talked. The Old Tongue, Bran thought, understanding maybe a word in ten. The guard ran off and returned with a grumbling older woman from among the wildlings whose sour mood vanished on sight of their visitor. A few exchanges in the Old Tongue later and she was grinning wide as the giant.

"He says Moga had her baby. A girl, the other giants are fairly excited. I guess they haven't had a wee one come along for a bit." Bran felt a smile creep across his own face.

"Tell him she has our congratulations. We had a babe come along recently as well, the world has yet to grow sick of us. Despite what the Others may think." The woman relayed his words, the giant snickering (a truly odd sight to Bran) before he moved off, back toward the wolfswood.

"Well, that should please Jon mightily. A new giant rising is just the kind of news he'll be looking for on his return." Sansa said from behind them.

"You made quite the impression today. Both with your gown and your stick." Bran told her.

"If someone is curious, they may ask me." she replied, shrugging.

"And if Jon asks?" That shook Sansa, so much that her lip quivered.

"I will tell him the truth. At the least I can be of more use than some firedancer who can't tell future apart from flames." She pulled a face much like Arya used to and Bran found himself laughing. There is room for all at Winterfell, even in the cells for the Other, but none for the followers of the red god from the east. As if the Singers needed something more to be upset about.

Bran closed the door behind them when he returned to their room, eager to let Howland get some sleep.

"I thought we'd get a visit from my mother today." Meera said, looking worried.

"She must be with your father, then. I'm sure she's fine."

"I would have asked a few people, but it's not exactly like they can tell the crannogmen apart from one another." Well, you aside, sweetling.

"Shall we pay her a visit, then? Howland doesn't seem in the mood for a nap anyway." Bran said, running a finger down the babe's cheek. Again, the grey eyes popped open, slowly looking around in front of him. Hello, there. Howland stared out from his bundle, taking in Bran's face. "Alright, let's go. Surely she has time to dote on her grandson." He made for the window without thinking, promptly going red at Meera's expression. Then she was laughing, tears in her eyes. "Well, it's easier to get there by climbing!" Bran replied defensively, trying not to fall in love with her all over again.

"Not with a babe in arms. We'll walk, unless you don't know how to get there going hall to hall?" she teased. Bran led her to her parents' room without another word, ignoring the hot feeling in his face. Several crannogmen were posted in front of their door, idly peering about without saying so much as a word to each other. Meera's smile returned and she made a sound, one that made them all jump and look to her immediately.

"What was that?" Bran asked, startled by their uniform reaction. She made the sound again, Howland looking up.

"It's the sound of newly-hatched lizard-lions, calling to their mother." She made it again. "Awp!" The other crannogmen (and women, Bran saw) looked on fascinatedly. "I used to be able to get them to come out of their eggs when the time came. They would hear me and spring out, crying for food." "You and no other, princess." one of the women said.

"Lady Fenn." Meera replied. "Bran, this is Syra Fenn, Lady of Wyrelake." Another ladyling from the Neck, Bran thought excitedly. She looked perhaps of an age with Meera, though it was truly hellish hard to tell for certain. That his princess came form the same bogs and quags as her fellows never ceased to astonish him. She favors her mother, he thought, if not by much. Again, she made the sound and it snapped Bran out of his reverie. To his astonishment, Howland reciprocated with an odd little squeaking of his own.

"Lady Reed is asleep just now, princess. She took mildly ill after the babe came, perhaps a touch of exhaustion, but she should be fine." Meera looked confused.

"Ill?"

"We thought it odd too, princess, but they were your father's words. We are no longer in the land of our ancestors, perhaps only there are we proofed from sickness. Once he is certain Lady Jyana has regained her strength I'm certain she will rejoin the rest of us." The journey back to their room had Meera almost in tears.

"Has your mother been ill before?"

"Never. It's the first I've ever heard of one of us taking ill, save when Jojen nearly died as a child. She can't have got greywater fever in Winterfell, though."

"Lady Fenn suspected it was just exhaustion. I'd be under the weather too if I were on my knees ready to catch my grandson for who knows how long."

He stood in the midst of a massive blizzard, a storm the like of which he'd never seen even in the glimpses he'd gotten of the Dawn Age when he was with the Three-Eyed Raven. Winter, and with a vengeance. Looking around, he saw trees, hills, and countless wights walking slowly but implacably onward, even rising to walk again when the winds knocked them off their dead feet or tossed them about like so many leaves. But who am I, who can stand in the midst of the Army of the Dead unbothered? It feels like Summer, but Summer died with Leaf and the Raven. He followed the countless dead, the huge shadows of wight-giants plodding here and there. Given the viciousness of the blizzard and the severity of the snow, it was some time before he realized just where he was. I know this place, he thought with a growing dread. In the distance he spotted the glint of gold atop a high far tower. Queenscrown, a hundred miles south of the Wall. No need for a raven this time, either. They must be about to sound the horn. A sharp cry woke him at once, so suddenly he gurgled unintelligibly and took a full minute to become sensate. Another sound, of fist on wood. Looking outside Bran saw only darkness, the moon absent. What can it be at this time of night? The noise prompted fussing and burbling from Howland while Meera, already awake, sought to soothe him.

"Something's happening, Bran. I can hear guards running on the ramparts from our window." she said tersely. He dressed as fast as he could while answering the door, finding himself face to face with the sentry from that morning looking similarly disheveled.

"We're getting members of the Night's Watch, my prince. Coming from the Wall. I…you'd best come along, my prince." he said. Bran made to close the door but Meera had come up right behind him.

"Aren't you tired?" he asked her.

"I was tired the night I pulled you from the cave. Better tired than dead." she replied, bringing Howland with her.

They were the last ones in the hall, northmen and Vale knights and wildling chieftains all present while Howland Reed took the account of the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch.

"We were atop the wall when they came in force. Them, their dead, and gods only know what else crashing through the trees. There were cold giants too, they had a massive horn that took a tempest to awaken. One of them sounded it and lightning began to hit the Wall." he gulped. "Forget the Horn, I thought the ice beneath me would give from that alone. We took the lift down fast as we dared and just started running. I didn't stop for anything, not even to see the Wall come down. What daylight hours we were spared were spent on sleep only to run like dogs when daylight went. Two days, three, I can't remember." They had come from a dozen different places, a dozen different peoples, but to a one Bran saw the same expression on each of their faces. Lord Royce's mouth moved for a full minute before he realized he wasn't speaking.

"I don't understand, my lord. Are you saying Castle Black has fallen?"

"I'm saying Castle Black is gone. Gone with all the other castles. Not the Wall, though. One of them shaped the pieces into snow as they fell and sent the mother of all blizzards south after us as we ran. Any of the lads who couldn't keep moving got swept up in the wall of white. I expect they're right back to it, on their way here now." Immediately Howland Reed began to speak, so fast Bran had trouble hearing.

"Assemble my lords, and in force. All your power, all your men. It seems the Others wish to pay us a visit. Let us be courteous hosts and greet them." Then he moved from the hall, leaving his peers in stunned silence.

"What he said." Frygga, the chieftain of the Ice-Wives said, and they went about it, rushing to and fro to wake the castle.