The Children of the Forest scattered before us, their eyes and mouths wide with fear and shock as they stared at my handsome self and, of course, Little-Cloud, who walked by my side. They were rightly afraid of Little-Cloud, since I figured they knew what she was or, at the very least, had an idea of what she might be; their race was most likely old enough to have seen the most ancient Others, before they were corrupted by the Great Other into servitude.

They spoke in hushed tones, in a language that was expressed almost entirely through song. Listening to them as they spoke was actually rather enjoyable. Watching their fearful gazes was the exact opposite of enjoyable; it was downright pitiful. All it took for me was one look to see that they were a broken people. The sun had begun setting on their race a long time ago, when whatever idiot of a god created them decided to fuck with their birth rates.

And now, the few hundred here were probably the last of them, a race that once dotted Westeros and Essos.

I had to wonder if they could feel the presence of death about me. Was that why they were afraid or was it because of the two giant fucking lizards behind us? Probably both.

"Where's the Greenseer?" I asked aloud, loud enough for all of them to hear me. Though, not all of them would understand. I knew, vaguely, that the Children of the Forest spoke a unique language that no one else in the whole world knew how to speak and only a very few of them could even remotely communicate with humans. Then, to be fair, I probably didn't have to ask that, since there was like... only one cave underneath the hill, which meant there was only one place where the Greenseer could be, which was underneath the Weirwood.

I asked because I didn't want to kill the last legitimate... wood elves of ASOIAF. Though, honestly, they were closer to hobo hobbits than actual elves, while Little-Cloud's people were literal snow elves.

One of the Children of the Forest stepped towards me. Telling them apart was a little difficult. On average, they all had a height of maybe four feet, had similar skin tones and facial features, and even wore nearly-identical clothes. Their faces were... odd – humanoid and bestial at the same time. I was pretty sure that they recognized each other mostly through the shape of their facial and bodily markings, the white spots on their reddish-brown skin. They each had only three fingers in each hand. The one that took a step towards me really didn't look too different from the rest of them.

"The old one has been expecting you – the both of you."

I nodded and the little creature turned and led us into the cave. I wasn't afraid of anything, due to having two dragons at my command and so I just followed without hesitating. "Lead the way."

The other Children of the Forest just kind of followed us as we walked on, but otherwise kept a wide berth, before we entered the actual cave, where they stopped following us altogether. The dark of the cave did not bother me as much as I'd thought, even without any sort of light. Near the entrance, I felt Nightfury pop close, scaring the absolute shit out of the Children of the Forest; dragons were scary enough, the good boy had to be even worse than that.

Eventually, we were led into a dark chamber, where a red-eyed child was bound upon a throne, or a prison, of bone-white Weirwood Roots, the tendrils snaking into and around the child, who was still very much alive as I stepped towards it. "Yo."

The red-eyed child stared at me, those glowing orbs following my every movement as if trying to discern everything about me at once. I approached slowly, with Little-Cloud following just behind, her icy breath almost audible in the chilled air of the cave. Nightfury lingered at the entrance, a protective shadow, his presence radiating power.

"Yo," I repeated, hands relaxed at my sides, not sure what to expect but unwilling to back down.

"Why are you here, Necromancer?" the child asked. But I felt that it was more of a rhetorical question than anything else, because asking that after inviting me here with his ravens would've been stupid.

"I'm here because I'm free – because I choose to be here."

The child's eyes narrowed slightly, but a flicker of a smile—if you could call it that—formed on their pale lips. "You come before me with no fear. Not of the dark, not of death... not of what I represent."

I smirked. "Hard to be afraid when I've brought my own darkness with me," I replied, gesturing to Little-Cloud. "And as for death… well, let's say I've had some practice."

The Greenseer let out a quiet, raspy sound—laughter, maybe, though it was hard to tell. "Yes. I can feel it. The stench of death clings to you like frost to a winter morning." The tendrils of the Weirwood throne shifted slightly as the child leaned forward. "I have waited a long time for your kind to return."

I arched an eyebrow. "My kind? What, you've been waiting for someone who looks this good to show up?"

"Not your form, but your power. The power of the grave, of the cold. The Necromancy you wield—it sings to me in a way I have not felt since..." The Greenseer's voice trailed off, their eyes drifting somewhere far beyond this cave. "Since the dawn of men, and even before that. Your magic is... reminiscent of an old and terrible enemy."

The mention of Necromancy didn't surprise me, but it did make me curious. I folded my arms and leaned against one of the cave's walls, careful not to touch the roots. "The Great Other, right?"

The Greenseer's gaze snapped back to me, sharper now. "Your people call it the Great Other? Few living beings even remember its true name and fewer still remember its visage. So, you know of the great enemy; how?"

"Call it an educated guess," I said, shrugging. "I've been around long enough to pick up a few things. But I've got to ask—how is my Necromancy anything like that old bastard's? Last I checked, I'm not exactly leading an army of ice zombies. I've got regular zombies, which are a lot less cool."

That said, my mind wandered back to that time, many weeks ago, when something took away my control over my Wights for the barest of moments.

The Greenseer's voice softened, almost like they were speaking to themselves. "Your magic is not the same, but the resonance... the intent. It is as though the Great Other has marked you, or at least watched you from afar. You touch the realm of death with familiarity, shaping it, commanding it, as he did long ago."

I didn't like the sound of that. But, being compared to a literal god felt pretty good, too.

"Cool. I guess you're not an enemy. What do you want? I'm here because I chose to be here, but also because you left behind your little breadcrumb trail." I asked plainly, because I honestly didn't wanna be here. The Children of the Forest were cool and all, but the little guys just wanted to be left alone and I could respect that.

"I'm dying," The Greenseer said. "And, even now, I await the one who will replace me; the Bloody Raven shall come soon and he shall sit upon the same throne as I."

"Okay, and?"

"When I die, so too shall my people begin to fade until there is nothing and no one left of us, but the bones in the earth and soil." The child continued for a moment, before pausing. "I do not want that to be their fate..."

"Ah..." I smiled. "You should've started with that."

Having someone to fly around with was actually really fun.

The night sky came to life around us, the distant stars twinkling. My superhuman vision, something I almost never thought about, allowed me to see further than most people could ever see in their whole lives – and I was above the clouds. I didn't recognize any of the constellations, which was a pretty good reminder of the fact that I really wasn't on Earth anymore.

I mean, it was already fun as is, but having someone else be there, doing aerial stunts and shit. White-Shadow was too big and too heavy to do any of the cool shit Nightfury could do, but the second goodest boy did his best anyway and that was cute – if nothing else. White-Shadow's vast wings created miniature storms with every flap, thick and nebulous clouds swirling into violent hurricanes, before the next flap dispersed them entirely. It was... fascinating to behold. ASOIAF dragons weren't up there in terms of pure firepower, especially when compared to other fictional worlds, but goddamn did White-Shadow change my mind; the second goodest boy was probably large and powerful enough to maybe not die immediately if he showed up in Warhammer Fantasy, for instance, or Skyrim... depending on how bonkers the Dragonborn actually is.

Whatever the case, I found myself chuckling rather loudly as White-Shadow did a 360 degree spin over the clouds, before unleashing a blast of frozen... something from his mouth at Little-Cloud's command. And that was another thing that kind of made little sense to me. A fire-breathing dragon was easier to understand. What did it spit? Fire. Simple. But what about an ice-breathing dragon? What did it spit? Not ice, as ironic as that might be; White-Shadow didn't just puke out a large ball of ice or anything like that. And it wasn't just a blast of snow, either, because that would be useless. It was probably something that was closer to Liquid Nitrogen, but even colder. White-Shadow's frost breath could freeze rivers dry and turn them harder than stone.

So, what the fuck was the big boye spitting?

I had no idea. Some kind of magical liquid nitrogen, I guess? Eh, I could probably take a few samples later on, when I feel like it.

Fatalis also seemed to enjoy White-Shadow's company, even if the number one goodest boy thought of the much larger dragon as little more than a pet. Actually, Nightfury thought of every other creature, aside from my gloriously handsome self, as little more than playthings – Halga was kind of another exception to that rule, but in the sense that the goodest boy thought of her is my plaything, which meant she had to be protected.

Yeah, he's a little lost, but he's got the spirit. And that was certainly better than the average genocidal Fatalis with a grudge against every living creature. This world actually had enough of those if I was being honest. The Others were still a big problem, after all, and beating just one of them had been ridiculously difficult already – imagine a whole fucking legion of the fuckers just coming at me.

So, yes, I still had to come up with a way to permanently deal with the Long Night, but I also figured that the current timeline was so far away from the book timeline that it'd be easier for me to just prepare the whole of Westeros from the shadows, assuming I don't suddenly decide to conquer the whole continent just for fun. I didn't want to, at the moment, because I'd rather be exploring first, but I might just do it at some point.

Little-Cloud laughed inaudibly as she held out her arms. From her, I caught a glimpse of the fact that the Others did feel emotions, but the cold in their veins muted and corrupted their feelings into something dark and dead and silent. Now that Little-Cloud was freed from the corruption of the Great Other, however, she was once again free to feel joy and everything else she would've otherwise been able to feel if her people had never been corrupted.

Eventually, as Bear Island came into view across the horizon, our little fun in the air had to end. I planned on visiting one last time before I moved on. There was so much I could be doing, instead of babysitting Lysa Mormont. Oh, and my undead army was still there; so, I now had to find a way to bring all my interns into the mainland. And since there was no OSHA here to stop me from being the Chinese Manager of my dreams, then my grand idea was to tie them all up with a bunch of ropes, strap them to White-Shadow and them just ship them off like a bunch of parcels to Westeros. A few of them may die, but that was a sacrifice that I was more than willing to make.

That a large crowd was still gathered outside of Mormont Keep was a pretty good reminder of the fact that it really hadn't been that long since I came rushing out of the place, everyone around me bewildered as I offered zero explanations, before I hopped on Nightfury and flew all the way to the Frozen Shore. Actually, it probably hadn't even been three hours since I left. White-Shadow's thunderous wings brought the eyes of the people towards the sky and in their eyes I saw fear almost immediate. White-Shadow's wings were so large that he blotted out the stars. For good measure, the second goodest boy roared, sending the peasantry rushing and panicking blindly. Nightfury and I shared our amusement at the sight. A few did not run or panic – Halga stood there, arms crossed over her chest, and beside her was Lysa Mormont, who had a fearful expression on her face, but otherwise held her ground courageously.

That was the one thing I really admired about Lysa. The girl would look at death in the face and give it the middle finger. Fucking badass.

White-Shadow landed a few dozen meters away from the keep itself, upon a patch of ground that was almost immediately flattened as soon as he crashed down, splintering trees and rupturing the very earth around him, shaking the ground. Nightfury, I found rather amusingly, was incensed at the very idea that people seemed to be more afraid of White-Shadow than they were of him and would've done something reaaaally stupid like burning down their villages if it hadn't been for me just being there. Regardless, people screamed and ran around in circles, which – in the presence of two dragons, was fair enough.

Nightfury landed much closer to the castle, since he wasn't so large that his mere presence would cause the structure to crumble into absolute shit, unlike White-Shadow. Grinning, I hopped right out of Nightfury's neck and planted my foot atop the ramparts. Little-Cloud then disembarked from White-Shadow, sprinted forward, and then jumped high and landed right beside me – all in the span of like four seconds. I glanced down at Halga and Lysa and waved at them. "Hey! I'm back! This is Little-Cloud. Little-Cloud, that's Halga and the short one is Lysa; say hi."

Little-Cloud shrugged and awkwardly waved her right hand at them, but forward and backward instead of side to side. "Good enough!"

AN: Chapter 42 is out on (Pat)reon!