Robert

He stood there at the top of the Wall and stared North. Bloody hells, it was cold up here, the wind like a knife through you if it blew hard enough from the North – and it could. He couldn't quite imagine what it would be like here in the Winter that was to come. Worse, far worse than anything he could imagine. He'd known a winter or two in the Vale, when the Eyrie was too cold to be lived in and everyone descended to warmer quarters. At the time he'd thought that that had been the coldest place ever. Not compared to how this place would get.

Well now. Best that he started to get used to the cold at the Wall whilst they still had Summer to enjoy.

At least he could start to plan things out now and he narrowed his eyes as he looked at the trees that stretched off into the far distance and the snowy hills and mountains that he could just about see beyond that. He disliked that damn forest already. You could hide a damn army in that mass of trees – and for all they knew there already was one there.

The last of the Wildlings were still trickling in, the rearguard in some cases, composed of men and women who had been fighting the Others and their wights for months or years. They were all equipped with spears and arrows tipped with dragonglass these days, but they spoke of the enemy having numbers that could swamp even the best equipped force. Fire was still the best deterrent, something that kept the white-haired fuckers back and destroyed their wights, but even the hottest fire could be snuffed out by snow.

He thought back to that dream he'd had in Winterfell and the Other that had been hunting Lyanna. It was something that still brought a chill to his spine when he remembered the way that the Other had looked at him. He'd fought all manner of men before, Dornish, rebel Stormlanders, Reachmen, Crownlanders, Rivermen and Ironborn, but they'd all been men with the faces and expressions of men.

That Other had been… well, wrong. Alien was the word that he'd heard Maester Aemon use. Yes, that was the word. The right word too. It had looked at him with a look of such… indifference, as if he was a beetle beneath its boot. Insignificant. He wasn't used to that.

He huffed a little and looked at the forest again. He needed to memorise the view from here and from the Nightfort and all the bloody castles. They all had people in them again now, even if some of them were little more than ruins that were being rebuilt. Time was their enemy as well now, they needed to rebuild much after centuries of neglect.

There were times when he wanted to curse his bloody ancestors, the Valyrian ones at least. The Baratheons and the Targaryens had been too obsessed with cementing their control over the Seven Kingdoms whilst neglecting the needs of the North. The Night's Watch had been protecting all of them, but they hadn't realise that. They'd seen it as this odd Northern tradition, or the Stark's private army, or some such rot.

The castles should never have been allowed to fall into disrepair. They would take time to repair, rebuild, reman. Gods, he wished that Ned was here with him now. They needed to plan so much.

Boots sounded to one side and he looked over to see Tarly approaching and then bowing. "Your Grace."

"Tarly. Up to see the potential field of battle?"

The bald man quirked a smile at him for a moment before nodding at the silent spectre that was Ser Barristan Selmy to one side. "Aye, your Grace. I do hear tell that you are not fond of a siege?"

That bought him a tight grin. "Stony Sept. That was a nasty little corner. Pyke was better. Better to be the besieger than the besieged." He felt his eyes tighten as he looked North again. "We must hold them here. Best place to fight. Narrowest point to the South is the Neck and I don't like the idea of being up to my neck in foul-smelling mud and marsh, do you?"

"No, your Grace," said Tarly. "The logistics will be nasty once winter comes."

"Aye, and we can't gamble too much with the men." He sighed. "Every man – aye, and women, I've seen them down there – that dies might add to the enemy's number. We have to take that into account. Wights. Bloody magic. Pain in the arse, but we can't ignore that. And this place-" He gestured at the Wall. "When Winter comes we'll need protection up here for the men from the wind. If they're freezing to death from the wind as they keep watch, the enemy's winning already. And what if they attack in a blizzard? Can you imagine it?"

Tarly shivered a bit as he looked North as well. "Aye, you have the right of it, your Grace," he said eventually. "Covered wooden walkways perhaps, with wool between planks? Duckboards to tread on and braziers suspended from the ceilings? It will be expensive, but glass windows here and there?"

"Enough to keep the men alive up here, whilst watching and waiting," he agreed. "And then we need to have the ground in front of the Wall surveyed. Where is it higher than the land around and where lower?"

Tarly eyed him with a frown and then comprehension dawned. "The Wildfire!"

"Aye. Not much point using it on the buggers if it flows downhill and against the bloody Wall. We need maps, Tarly."

The Lord of Horn Hill nodded. "I shall talk to the Lord Commander and get onto it once your Grace." And then he was gone, walking briskly away. Well now. Tarly was a man like him. Born for war.

He thought about the sad shadow of a man he had been that Robb Stark had seen in the future that was now gone from them and sighed for a moment. Gods, how had he let himself go so badly? But then that was gone. He was here, now, at this time. And he was fucked if he'd fail in this. He'd not lose this bloody war, there was too much at stake.

More boots to one side and he looked over to see the Green Man approach him. "Do you know that I still have no idea how to address you? Ser Duncan? The Green Man? What should it be?"

"The Children of the Forest have a title for me, but I fear that neither of us can pronounce it."

He chuckled at that, before sobering. "What's amiss?"

"I will be heading North into the Haunted Forest in a day or so with young Jaime Lannister, on a… well, I need to meet an old acquaintance there." The old man smiled slightly. "But before that I need to talk to you about something else. You have come far in this past year, but you need to go further. You must put aside your hatred for Rhaegar Targaryen. It is holding you back, just as your grief for Lyanna Stark did. If you are to become the Storm King that we need you to be, you must move on."

He clenched his fists for a long moment as he felt his nostrils flare. "You ask much."

"There are things that you need to understand. This is important your Grace."

He closed his eyes for a long moment and then nodded choppily. "And how can I? What would you suggest?"

"Come with me. You and Barristan. I can show you both what is needed."

They followed The Green Man down to the bottom of the Wall and then they mounted the horses that he had ordered saddled. He frowned and then looked at the Green Man. "Where are we going to?"

"North of the Wall. We need a Heart Tree for this."

Ser Barristan looked up at this. "North of the Wall? Is it safe? Should there not be more of us?"

"It is safe," the Green Man nodded. "We have time. The Others are moving, I sense, but they are still well North of us."

They had to ride half a league to a grove of weirwood trees and he stared at them as they dismounted. Nine of the trees had faces carved into them, faces that seemed to peer at him as if the trees themselves were wondering what and who they all were. He shivered slightly, more in unsettlement than anything else. "What should we do?" He asked in a careful voice.

The Green Man walked to the middle tree and placed a hand on it, before extending his other arm off to one side, the sleeve rolled up despite the cold. "Barristan has done this before, your Grace. Take your gloves off and hold my bare arm."

Frowning a little he pulled off the leather glove on his right hand and then he and Ser Barristan did as the Green Man had asked. "What n-"

Darkness fell and he had the unsettling feeling of falling straight down, everything too sudden to utter a word. And then, suddenly, he was on the ground, looking around wildly. It was dark, it was warmer, there were men singing off to one side and he could smell woodsmoke and food cooking and horse dung.

It was a camp. The camp of an army. Someone somewhere was using a whetstone to sharpen a blade and he could smell latrines somewhere.

"The Trident." The words were spoken by Ser Barristan Selmy, in tones of shock. "This is the Trident. Before the battle at what became known as the Ruby Ford. This was our camp."

"The camp of Rhaegar Targaryen," the Green Man rumbled. "Who had been at the Isle of Faces not too long before."

He was about to mutter something about where that whoreson was, when suddenly he saw movement to one side and then a white-cloaked figure strode straight through Selmy's body, passing through it as if it did not exist – before coming to a sudden halt and looking around almost wildly. He blinked. It was Selmy himself, or rather a younger version of him, more colour in his hair and fewer lines on his face.

"I remember this moment," the older Ser Barristan said in a stunned voice. "The night before the battle I had the oddest feeling, as if someone had walked over my grave. I was sensing… myself?"

"Some circles take time to close," the Green Man said gravely. "But, yes, you were."

The Selmy from the past looked about again, before shaking his head and striding off towards a large tent which was surrounded by guards, and then flaming torches and then banners. And the largest of the banners was one that he had not seen for some time. That bloody red many-headed dragon on black. The Targaryen banner.

The trio followed him, before slowing slightly as two more white-cloaked figures approached.

"Ser Barristan!" Bloody hells. It was Prince Lewyn Martell, along with that earnest bugger Jonothor Darry. "What news?"

"Little and none of it good," the younger Selmy said gruffly. "We know who faces us now and in what numbers. No reinforcements will reach us in time for tomorrow. And Lord Tyrell continues to besiege Storm's End with his full army."

Martell and Darry both pulled faces. "Still?" Darry barked. "He could invest it with a tenth of the man he has and march North to meet us!"

"He could, but he has not," the Selmy from the past said. "He is either a fool committed to this siege or he is betraying us."

The two Kingsguard traded looks. "I always thought Mace Tyrell to be a damn fool," Martell muttered. "Perhaps I was wrong. And what of Lord Lannister?"

"Nothing. Ravens are sent but return with nothing but empty words, if that. The Lion has retracted his claws."

"Then we must do what we can with what we have. Even then…" Darry looked about and then beckoned the other two Kingsguard closer, making Robert also approach. To one side Ser Barristan had his eyes closed as if in pain, whilst the Green Man was staring at the large tent.

"Morale is not good. Connington's men are dispirited by their defeat at the Stony Sept and the Riverlanders are all asunder. The Rebels are in full accord however and they are flush with victory and match our numbers." Darry shook his head. "We need more time and more men. Barristan, you must speak with the Prince. Persuade him from this course of action. His plan is… well, I think it unwise."

"How is his mood?"

Darry and Martell exchanged glances, before the Dornishman answered: "Also not good. He sleeps badly, he looks tired all the time now and he seems… dispirited. Although he received a letter from Kings Landing early today, written by little Rhaenys, which has lifted his spirits a little."

The Selmy from the past – Gods this was strange! – frowned a little. "I wish I knew what happened at the Isle of Faces. He was downcast before and then truly depressed after that."

Martell glared at Darry. "If you had bloody well done your duty and stayed with him on that bloody island then-"

"I could not!" Darry glared back, before an unsettled expression crossed his face. "Prince Rhaegar instructed me not to follow him, that I could not come with him, that I had to wait at that jetty. But I tried to. He walked down that path between those white bloody trees and I waited a moment and then tried to follow him by walking through the trees. But after a few minutes I lost sight of him and then somehow – somehow the path was gone! I swear it, my brothers! I wandered and I ran and I looked – and then I was back at the shore. I ran again, back to the jetty – and the path was gone! I know this seems like madness, but… well, it was gone. I walked, I looked, I went back into the trees… but there was no path. Every time I ended up back on the shore, heading back to the jetty. I swear it! Something kept me from the Prince. And then, after a while, I looked up and there he was, walking back on the path. Looking like… like he does now."

The Green Man chuckled slightly to one side. "The Isle of Faces keeps its secrets well."

Martell was looking at Darry in bafflement, before looking back at Selmy. "Barristan, you must persuade the Prince to change his mind. If we must fight the rebels tomorrow then we must be at his side. The plan of his to scatter us across the battlefield – it goes against every one of my instincts. We must be there at his side. If we can press hard and kill one of the main traitor lords then we can prevail against them. Should Stark, or Arryn, or especially Baratheon falls, then their ranks will waver and split."

The younger Selmy looked uncertain but then nodded. "I will try. I cannot promise anything, but I will try."

And so they followed him as he walked to the large tent with the Targaryen banner. Robert swallowed back his bile as they approached it and forced himself to be calmer than he felt. Gods. He couldn't believe that he was here, seeing this.

The Selmy from the past talked to the guards by the entrance to the tent and then entered it and they followed him in. Ser Barristan had an odd expression on his face as he walked by Robert's side and the Green Man had a look of faint distaste.

He saw his cousin at once as he entered the tent and could not help the growl of hate that emerged from his throat. And then he blinked as Rhaegar Targaryen looked up from the papers on the table in front of him and for a moment seemed to look straight at Robert, his eyes widening for a moment before he saw the other Selmy.

And by all the gods he could see that Rhaegar looked terrible. He was pale, he looked as if he had not slept properly for a week at least, or a month, such were the black lines under his eyes and his hands shook slightly.

"Barristan."

The Barristan from the past bowed. "My Prince."

"What news?"

"The scouts have confirmed at we face the full force of the rebels, my Prince. They match our numbers. Baratheon is here, along with Stark, Tully and Arryn. The morale of our men is not good and the Tyrells and Lannisters are not here. My Prince – surely we should wait or retreat to gain the advantage of numbers and better ground."

Rhaegar looked at him and then around the tent, before sitting again at the table and passing a trembling hand over his eyes. "If morale is not good then how many would desert if we retreated?"

"Some cravens would flee, I will not deny it. But if we sent messages to Lord Tyrell, ordering him, in the name of the King, to send us just a third of his host then we can prevail."

The man that he hated so much bit his lip for a moment. He seemed genuinely torn. "What was so clear a week ago is not anymore," he muttered. "And what was clear this morning is also not clear." He closed his eyes for a long moment. "I… I must think on this, Barristan. Rhaenys wrote me a letter."

The past Selmy looked confused for a long moment at this change of topic. "A… a letter, my Prince?"

"She is so young and yet so talented already. A letter to her daddy, telling me about her cat, Balaerion. And telling me to 'beat the bad men' and come home so that she can kiss me on both cheeks and show me her cat."

The Selmy from the present closed his eyes in anguish and Robert felt himself swallow. Oh. That poor child. The Selmy from the past nodded. "Your daughter is much loved."

"She is." Rhaegar looked about the tent again. "Barristan, I need to think and also to pray. I will call you once I have made a decision. And please move the guards a little away from the tent, I must not be overheard."

"My Prince?"

"Barristan. Double the guards if need be, but move them – and yourself – away from the tent. I must not be overheard."

The Selmy from the past looked confused but then nodded and strode out of the tent, calling out to the captains of the guard. As he did so the Selmy from the present looked at Robert. "I remember this. We could hear him talking at one point, but no-one knew what he was saying."

"We will know now," the Green Man said grimly. "He doubted the path I told him to take. It was hard for him not to after his child wrote to him."

There was a long moment of silence in the tent as Rhaegar looked at the letter in front of him, but then as the sound of men marching away from the tent diminished he looked up again. "You're here again, aren't you? The presence I felt in the Hall of the Green Man at the Isle of Faces. I… heard something, sensed something. What are you? Who are you? The Old Gods? My Ancestors?"

The silver-haired young man walked about the tent slowly. "I know what must be done tomorrow, I know, but how many must die before my own sacrifice is enough? I… I know that I must die, but I want to live. I want to see my daughter again and hear the tales of her cat! I want to see my son again, and the daughter that Lyanna will bear me. I have a wife that I still love, a mother that I must protect and father whose crimes I must make right! But how can I if I must die?"

His face crumpled for a long moment and he sank back into his chair again. "I am not afraid to die. But I also want to live. So, tell me. What must I do?"

There was a horrible strained silence in the tent. Robert looked at the man, an unexpected sympathy welling up for him, matching the hatred. Gods. He looked over at the Green Man. "And yet he will still fight in the morning. What are we here to do?"

"Draw Stormbreaker, place the tip of the sword on the ground in front of you, hold the hilt with both hands and trust me, your Grace." The Green Man closed his eyes for a long moment and then when he opened them again there was a red fire burning in them. "He will see you. And you will know when and what to speak."

He did what the Green Man had said, drawing Stormbreaker from his sheath and holding it as he had been asked to. And as his hands wrapped around the hilt a wind seemed to come from somewhere to the South for a long moment, making the flames of the candles that lit the tent bend horizontally before returning to normal.

Rhaegar looked about wildly as the wind struck, but then relaxed – and then his gaze reached Robert and he froze in his chair, his eyes widening. For a long moment he sat there – and then he stood shakily.

"Robert?" He asked the question in a low, uncertain voice. "Is that you? How can you be here? And so… changed?" He half-raised a hand before his eyes for a moment. "It is you but yet not you… in robes and with a sword… and your face…" He froze. "Your face. You are older."

"I am older indeed," he ground out through gritted teeth. "Looking back at you."

"Your sword… the clouds around you… I see lightning and hear thunder as if…" Rhaegar's eye widened again. "You are the Storm King come again." He swallowed and then shook his head a little. "The Storm King. So – I was wrong about that again. Prophecy wrongly interpreted by me. Again."

"Prophecy?" He asked the word with a scowl. "About what?"

"I thought… I thought that the power of the storm was something that would follow the Prince that was promised. So, you are the Storm King."

"I'm trying to become that."

"You're looking back from when? Or where?"

"Sixteen years. I'm at the Wall. The Others are coming. Ned Stark has sent out the Call."

Rhaegar screwed his eyes shut. "Then I am dead."

"That you are."

"Robert… cousin… I am sorry. Everything I have touched has withered and died. I am sorry. So sorry. The Realm is broken due to my foolishness and stupidity. I thought I was obeying prophecy. I was wrong. I should not have done what I did. And Lyanna… please tell me that she is at your side now."

He took a deep breath. "No. She died."

Rhaegar groaned deep in his throat and scrubbed at his eyes for a long moment with both hands. "How?"

"You left her in a lonely tower in the Dornish Marches, with three idiot Kingsguards without a clue about how do deal with a girl who was pregnant after you raped her. No Maester. No midwife. She died of childbirth fever after giving birth to a son."

And now Rhaegar moaned and sank to his knees on the rug on the floor, rocking with anguish before beating at the ground with his fists. After a long moment he looked back up at him, his face smeared with tears and anguish. "So I was wrong yet again?"

"You were."

Rhaegar Targaryen ran a hand over his face – and then he slowly stood and wiped the tears from his face. "What hope do you have now?"

"Some. The Realm rallies. The castles on the Wall are being rebuilt. We will fight."

"Then tomorrow I must die." Rhaegar looked him in the eye, resolve building on his face. "Do not tell me how. But I do, do I not?"

"You did. Will. It was clean."

"Then, again, I must."

"Your Grace," the Green man said softly, "Step back. Take your hands off the hilt. He will see you fade."

He nodded and did as he was told. Rhaegar's eyes widened again, as he looked about the tent, before nodding and then walking back to the table and picking up the letter from his daughter. "BARRISTAN!"

There was an acknowledging shout and just before the Selmy from the past entered the tent Rhaegar ignited the letter from his daughter on a candle and then threw it into the nearest brazier.

"My Prince?"

"My orders stand. We fight tomorrow. You and your brothers will command and fight where I have ordered you to. The army needs leaders. You must be those leaders. I will do what I need to. And there will be no discussion on this. I understand your objections. But my orders stand. I command it. No argument, Barristan. I command it."

The face of the Selmy from the past worked for a long moment – but then he nodded sharply. "Very well my Prince. I will order it so, as you command." And with that he was gone, his white cape billowing behind him.

Rhaegar strode over slowly to a side table and poured himself a large goblet of wine. "So, I die on the morrow," he said softly, before taking a large swallow. "As it must be." He held his goblet up. "Robert: save the realm." And then he drank again.

The scene seemed to shiver and freeze – and then, suddenly, Robert was back at the Heart Tree, releasing his grip from the arm of the green Man and then falling to his knees.

Only then did he weep.