BRAN III

"The world was grey and warm, embracing him in the thick wool and down felt of the bed, as Bran awoke to find himself staring into the ceiling of his bedchamber once again. Summer lay on top of him, a large, heavy shape slumbering further down on the bed by his still, useless legs. To the side of him, by the large cushions, at the side of the bed, Old Nan sat in her armchair, knitting as usual. He turned to look at her.

"The little lord's been dreaming again." Old Nan's voice was smiling.

"How do you know?" Bran said.

"Oh, don't you worry about that. Dreams are not always true, little lord. Even the ones we see a hundred times may never come to pass."

"Do you know what I dreamt?" He asked her.

"It's about your father, is it not? The little Ned."

She was in her fine state of mind again. She did not confuse him with Father's brother Brandon this time. He was glad.

"Yes", he admitted. "Is it true what I dreamt?"

"And what was it that you dreamed then, little lord?" Old Nan asked, pliring with her dark grey eyes to look at him.

"I dreamed that someone tried to kill my Father. Kill the king", he clarified, to make sure she knew who his father had since become ever since he was a little boy running around here at Winterfell himself. Old Nan studied him, knitting slowly and slowly with her knitting needles, before speaking a word. Then she took to wording, and properly as well.

"There is always someone wanting to kill a great lord such as your father. Even a king. But what matters is that there are people there to protect him. Does your father have people to protect him?"

"I... I guess so", Bran said, thinking of Jory and Ser Marlon and all the others back at the Red Keep. One time he had thought to become one of them himself, if he'd practice with Robb and in time... He himself could bear the white cloak and be a proud member of the Kingsguard, keeping his father and Robb safe when he grew up. But now, as it happened... He was sure that day would never come to pass, as he looked down on the coverlets and felt nothing of his legs from underneath it.

"The King has seven strong swords to protect him... Or at least he did in my day." Old Nan said.

"He does", Bran confirmed. "I've met them. They are all proper and strong, and ready to defend him though... Two are here."

He was not sure whether she had even remembered all the times that Erryk and Ser Mandon had come into the room, all the times Erryk and Rickon had come bursting into the room during the past two days. He told her, just to be on the safe side.

"You met one of them. Ser Erryk."

"Oh, yes", she chuckled. "He's certainly a large and strong lad, that one. A Glover is he?"

Bran nodded. "Yes."

"Well then I know for a certain that the king will be in safe hands, for if he has a Glover to protect him then not even the King-beyond-the-Wall could hurt him... " Old Nan said, as she began to start on another one of her stories.

"One time, the Lord Glover of Deepwood Motte went forth to protect himself from ironmen raiders, who came to take the keep into their possession, and take the women and children for thralls... Lord Glover took his finest forty men, along with only ten proper horses, they were, and spread out around the keep to defend it.

The ironmen were surprised to see them, since it was in the middle of the night, but they had been warned by the arrival of a scout from the shores up by Sea Dragon Point. The Glovers met the ironmen by encircling them slowly, slowly, while the krakens did their best to take the keep by storm, but one after the other, Lord Glover and his men shot them all down full of arrows, and encircled them closer and closer, with sword and with shield, with horses and men, and the ironborn did not have any horses with them either, mind you, but Lord Glover strode forth himself all the same, even when the battle seemed to be in their favour in the clear...

He strode forward on his horse, brave as any man had been, to go and meet the invadors in their thicket, just before it had disappeared, and then met and fought with the biggest of the raiders, Ulf the Iron-nose, that one was called, for he had a large and ugly beak of a nose with an iron ring in it, you see, and a tall and terrifying foe he was, as tall as any man that had surely walked or sailed west of the Wolfswood in those days... But Lord Glover was strong, and brave, and good with his sword, whereas Ulf the Iron-nose had a terrifying great axe and sword to match it, would you believe. And yet he fought without any armour on, whereas Lord Glover had his regular finest armour on, just so... And therefore he managed to slew Ulf the Iron-nose and all of the other raiders, slew them down just like that, along with all of his strong men, and the remaining ironmen fought to their death, or else ran away like cravens and all the way back to their boats by the rivers, and never returned. Or so they say... That, my lord, is the price of bravery for coming to throes with a Glover."

"

She drifted off again, to some irrelevancies. That was not important. Ser Erryk was here with him. Father was a thousand miles away down in the capital. The Red Keep. He tried telling her as much.

"Ser Jory. He has Ser Jory Cassel. Of House Cassel. Ser Rodrik's nephew. Martyn's son."

Old Nan seemed to spark up a light inside her mind at the mention of that.

"Yes... Rodrik. How is he faring?"

"Good... I believe.", Bran said. "He is master-at-arms."

"Is he still?" Nan burst out. "So it is him I can thank for that ungodly clanking day and night. It would make an aurochs hop over a cliff, that sound. Best that it comes to help 'gainst the wildlings. Else he has no use for that title of knighthood he won in little Ned's war."

For once, she seemed strangely up to date. But she was still off, Bran thought. Wildlings...

"There are no wildlings here.", he said, tiredly. "This is Winterfell. Inside the castle walls."

"Oh, they'll come, little lord. You be so sure of that. To Longbow Hall, and the Last Hearth, to Long Lake, and all the long way down to the Wintertown alike... When the days grow shorter and winter comes more near for each passing day... Then they will come. You be so certain of that. For nothing in this world is surer to come than winter. And with it, the cold winds that will make man and mouse flee as far south as they can to escape what little of it they can...

In my day they'd even climb over the Wall to get to the other side. They had spears and grappling hooks to make their way over, you see. They could be coming a hundred at one time if the Watch did not keep their eyes open for them. And Lord Stark had his hands busy with it more often than not, unless the Mormonts could stop them in time. Lord Beron Mormont, for one... He was a fighter more than most men... He put up their heads on the walls of Longbow Hall. And his wife fought a hard fist herself... Brynda..."

"Did you meet with him? Did he come here?" Bran was intrigued by the story.

"Oh, he came here all right, for feasts and meetings, banners called against Skagos, Dustin and Bolton alike, and much else over the years. But he died long ago now... It is only his grandson who holds Longbow Hall now. Jeor, his name is."

Bran knew Jeor Mormont as the Lord Commander of Castle Black. He wondered if that was the same man, or someone else named after him. From what his Father and Mother both had told him, and Grand Maester Pycelle as well, some lady warrior named Maege or Maegelle or Megga Mormont held Bear Isle.

But to Bran it would not matter. He would see neither of them before returning to King's Landing, he was certain. Mother would not even let him leave his room to go down to the courtyard anymore. He was stuck here, a hollow shell of a boy, in his bed with Old Nan, perhaps forever. He felt sad. Sad but longing. Sad and dead inside but longing for Old Nan's stories, the Wolfswood, the Nightfort and even the tales of fisherwomen on the Long Lake of winters past... He might have been happy to stay here, wonderfully so even, if only he knew that the rest of the world did not go on without him.

His cousin Tommen walked on plump legs in the courtyard down below, and Bran felt a tinge of jealousy and grief once again. Then he dragged his spare blanket across the window and pushed his head down into his cushion again.

"Don't you mind, little lord. Don't you mind that.", Old Nan only said, as if she knew despite being almost blind. She always seemed to know what was on his mind.

And so she began telling another story, one of old Lord Beron Mormont, the third of his name, as Bran laid his head back, his useless legs still resting somewhere in front of him under the weight of Summer, his arms laid out blankly against his sides, his hair against the goosedown of the cushion, his eyes staring into the grey stone ceiling high above, and listened."

...

Thankfully, Mother allowed him to go out to the godswood on Hodor's back. That was the only way she trusted him to move around the castle grounds anymore. Bran lay down at the thick red carpet of old leaves, feeling the whispers and faint rustles of thousands of years of dead men and women beneath his hands as he crawled forth towards the heart tree. Summer had gone with them as well, as usual. He was almost like a part of Bran these days, for the closeness they had grown to.

He was large now, a huge and impressive direwolf, still a youth but larger for every day, light grey fur, almost beige around the stomach, neck and around the muzzle of his jaw, and [Greenish yellow? ] eyes that seemed to held an enormous otherworldly wisdom. Bran could feel it whenever he was near him, and sometimes when he had dreamed that he was within him. He was seeing the world through his wolf's eyes, and he was in Summer, and Summer was in him. Summer always anticipated that, also. He was never scared of it, or a stranger to it at all. They were naturally connected in a way that Bran couldn't explain.

And so, as he felt himself inside Summer, he saw his yellowish eyes gleaming back up at him from the dark black pool of the godswood, reflected in the still murky water's surface. He looked back up at himself and saw that he was a wolf staring back at him. The real him was still some several six or seven feet away, slowly crawling with his strained and weak human boy body, the broken body, with the soft pink paws dragging themselves forward inch by inch as his Mother and the two other men, clad in their man-stone suits and with their long man-claws at their sides, watched from afar.

He could feel the hundreds of different scents around him in the soil, in the rich red humus of a thousand years, and that of the green earthy moss on rocks closer to the surface near the granes and soldier pines, the clitter of tiny beetles and the trittling pouring of black and red ants all around, the softness of the dirt beneath his paws, the smell and sweat of men, of men and women, a brunsty woman, a woman in heat, his man-Mother was. She smelled unkerly of blood dripping from inside of her womb. She missed her mate, his man-Father, who was far away.

He felt the strange man-stone from the two men, clanking, grey and silvery, like the moon, and the thickness of the air from all the leafy and piney trees that surrounded them. He heard the flapping of some pigeons far away up in the tops of the trees, in the tops of the granes, yes, and the distant hooing of some owl, the quorking of ravens and crows close by, nestled far high above them in the red crown of the weirwood tree.

He felt the entire world when he was in Summer, in his wolf-self. It was a marvelous feeling.

There was a scent of something rare, something fluttering and ruffled close by. A prey. A bird. It was a wood pigeon, or perhaps a ring pigeon, sitting high up in one of the granes close by. And just as he was thinking about it, it came down to peck at some acorns over by the oak tree to the northeast. He made one look towards his boy self, nodding slightly with his shoulderhood up and head and neck down, and then continued forward around the pool by the heart tree, further on towards the scent of the bird.

Summer padded softly on four feet, for once not even thinking about whether his black brother would follow him, but he hoped that he would not. The prey was his. His brother would only stir the bird unnecessarily, he was sure. That was what he usually did.

The godswood grew thicker with ferns as he walked on. The trees nestled closer together, their twigs and great branches meeting like thin sticklets high above. The ground became somewhat more riddled with broken twigs, mushrooms and small groves of lingonberries. He padded on, a silent stalker on the move.

...

…

After they were finished in the godswood, Mother decided it was time to return to their chambers. Bran was not upset this time. He was not in the mood to see Tommen or Ardon at the chicken coop. And so, Hodor took him up and back to the castle, as his Mother, Ser Erryk and Ser Mandon, Summer and Rickon and Shaggydog all went with.

...

He felt the familiar soft embrace of the cushions behind his head as he was lain down in the bed by Ser Erryk. His Mother looked on him with the same troubled yet affectionate expression that she usually wore. She was always sad these days. Bran was sad too, though it was a different type of sadness. She thought that someone would come and kill him. Bran knew that they could not.

Summer had felt the scent of the poison already as the girl walked through the door. He had sensed it, and Bran had felt it within himself as well. It was not even the scent of it, not particularly, it was just... Something. He just knew, somehow. And Bran had known too, in that moment, already half a heartbeat before the wolf began to bark and howl rough, hopping up to bite the girl and topple the tray with the posioned drink over before she could even place it on the footside of his bed.

Bran had felt the taste of her fabric with his fangs. He had felt the anger, the seething wolf blood, had felt Summer's anger and fear in that very moment. But he was not afraid.

Sometimes he even wished that the poison would come, to give him over to the Seven Heavens, where he would be able to walk again, as he did in his dreams, and be together with all of the people he met there. His father and mother were both there, but they were happy. Together. Jory as well, and Ser Barristan, and Robb and Arya, his cousin Jon and all of the others as well, even though Jon had left for the Wall only a fortnight before. Ser Barristan watched over them, even though in reality he was back down in King's Landing with Father and Sansa and the rest of them.

And all of the knights of legend were there as well, the ones who Father and Ser Barristan had met when they were in his youth themselves. Ser Arthur Dayne, Gerold Hightower, the White Bull, Ser Oswell Whent, Duncan the Tall, Ser Aemon the Dragonknight, Serwyn of the Mirror Shield, Ser Clarence Crabb... All of them were there when he thought of them, and many other people, animals and places as well. They were all close to Winterfell, though, somehow, but he could still see down allt he way to the Vale when he wished so. It was as easy as lifting his eyes a little and there they were. Ser Clarence Crabb was riding on an aurochs, just like in the stories and legends of old. Around him were green trees and bushes, along with white birds under the sprawling bright summer sky, and there was also Father and Lord Robert in their youth, tilting at jousts in the training yard under the tutelage of Lord Jon, and there were mermaids swimming around in the water over there by the Three Sisters, and a bird that flew up to perch on the head of a Braavosi stone giant.

He saw pigs and deer, swine, wild boar, dappled hinds and grey-brown stags, hares, hedgehogs and small shadowcats, running along the edges of the forest brush, while his sisters ran after them and tried their best at mimicking their calls. Sansa stopped at a bush of roses after only a short while, however, smelling the sweetness of the fragrance as a young lion followed after her, pawing at her dress from behind. Arya hopped up against a rock, stepping and steadying herself to break the flow of the animals, while a young boy with red hair hopped up from the bushes and knacked swords with her. Then her wolf, Nymeria, hopped out of the bushes, howling all wild, and Arya let her head back and howled as well. That made Sansa and the lion stop in their tracks, and they fled. A flock of geese flushed from the trees and veened itself lika a straight line in the sky heading northwest.

All the ways lent back up to Winterfell. And beyond, up into the Wolfswood, into a small stone wall in the forest, into the black brown deep hollows of dirt in the earth, into the darkness and on... Bran felt the presence of roots from a white tree, a large weirwood tree, he believed it to be, but it was not the one here in the godswood. No, it was somewhere further up North, he felt, as he saw uncle Benjen and Cersei stand alongside his Mother and Father peering into the hole to see where he himself had went.

And he had gone in, apparently, even though he was standing there beside them and screaming at them that he was there. But they did not see him anymore. Could not see him anymore, even as he stood with his legs that he had in the world of dreams, jumping and hopping up and down, screaming as loudly as he could. For they all merely looked into the hollow in the side of the Wall, which was like the hole of some ancient hill, strangely warm yet cold and buried, and yet warm all the same, warm from memories and the warm presence that was felt somewhere deep inside, something that was waiting for him...

...

Then he was suddenly back at the base of the old broken tower again. He saw the crow from his earlier dreams, circling above him as usual, but this time he was not falling yet. He was still down on the ground, with Summer nipping at his heels, but he was going up to climb and have a look. Yes. He was going to feed the crows with corn, just like the three-eyed crow had asked him for. He remembered now.

He saw himself, and then he was in it again. The marks of the stone tower were scraggled, old and marked by the stone and mortar, and he could easily grip one after the other, as the still young and little Summer nipped and napped around him with a worried sound.

Don't worry, Summer. I'll come back down soon. Just stay here, the told him again, like he had done last time. Arya and Nymeria were going to the stables, but Joffrey did not want to join if Father was not going to go, and Father would stay, so Bran would climb and explore the old tower in the meantime. It was an exciting plan. He was sure that he could climb just as fast as at the Red Keep.

Step after step, Brandon's brown boots tread themselves up and up, higher, further, feeling the wind of the air in his hair, and the craxing of the crows above, as Summer yipped and whined from down below. Calm down, Summer. I will be back soon, I just need to go up and see it for myself, he thought down to the wolf. He was sure that his little wolf friend could hear him, but he did not appear stillened by his words.

Bran took another hand up, and then another foot, and then another hand again. Suddenly, he was up. This was not the top of the tower, not the roof where the crows nested, not as of yet, but it was a good ledge to stop up and steady himself. There were gargoyles and crenellations to either side, left and right, and he steadied himself on them while looking up towards the birds.

Craaawh! Craaah! Craaa-raaah! Caaw-rrrax! The crows were creeing and craxing, hopping back and forth against the nestled hay and sticksteads they had made their home in. Bran could only see the edges of their wings, as black as soot, though, and he promised himself that he would climb up to see more, even if it might scare the birds a little at first. He had brought corn with him from down below, though, taken earlier from the kitchen gardens just some courtyard or two beside. When the crows got a taste of the corn, they would forgive his intrusion, Bran was sure.

Just as he was about to steady himself for another climb up, however, he suddenly heard a strange noise coming from his right.

It was a strange sound, of some human form. A woman moaning, he almost thought it sounded like. He slowly began to climb to his right, and then he got a view of the balcony where the noise was coming from, from inside the tower within. He inched himself further, as he saw the green leaves of wallgreen ivy surrounding him, slingering themselves in a thick green balustrade curtain across the window's edge.

Bran took another grip around the edges of the overpart, and then another step with his right foot, and then inched himself closer with his left. He finally reached the window.

He saw two pink shapes inside the room, a man and a woman. They were completely naked and embracing eachother, wrestling, or embracing, Bran did not know what to call it. He had never seen anything like it before.

The woman was moaning still, ever higher, though Bran did not know if she did it out of pain or weariness or some other feeling. It was... something different. The woman was under the man, and she was moaning, "Yes, yes, please... Yes, please, don't stop...". She had long golden hair, Bran saw. She almost looked like...

Suddenly the woman turned her head up, as Bran stumbled slightly on the outcropping of the windowsill. She stared him dead in the eye, with shock on her face. And she was Lady Cersei.

Brandon Stark was in shock. As his mind befuddled itself, thinking of what to do, she clutched ahold of the man, gripping into his sides with terrified fingers.

"Stop! ...Stop, stop...! Jaime, STOP!"

The man raised his intensely weary eyes from underneath his lock of equally golden blonde hair. And then Bran suddenly remembered. All of it. Again.

He knew that he was dreaming, but it still felt as real as it had done the first time, and time stopped and yet fast-forwarded itself as he wondered about how to fly away from the entire situation, as the three-eyed crow had told him to do.

He fumbled with his hands, he fumbled with his feet, trying to steer himself away from it again, to climb up to the overpart of the window, grabbing ahold of the wallgreen ivy leaves, but then a strong hand yanked ahold of him and tugged him back, holding him, almost dangling him, dragging him into the window to get a look at him.

Bran closed his eyes, for only an instant, as he felt that he would soon be falling again, and then wake up. He heard the crawing of the crows from above, the three-eyed crow circling outside somewhere, speaking to him, pecking on his third eye in his forehead again, as it had the last time. But this time he remembered it all beforehand. He knew what was to come. He knew what he remembered now, that he had not the last time he dreamt it. He took courage to himself, and opened his eyes again.

…

And then, as he stared up at the figure, he saw the smiling face of the golden man."