"Speaking out loud."
'Thinking.'
Highlighted information, emphasis.
(Translations)
[Titles, books, signs]
Written Knowledge.
Disclaimer: I do not own Game of Thrones, and do not write this story for any financial gain.
A Wolves Den.
Prologue: The Old Ones.
In all our years of warning our folk about winter coming, we never expected what would come with it. Winter came, and with it, the nightmares our ancestors warned us about, but we've long forgotten.
The Long Night came, and was overcome, but Azor'Ahai never revealed himself, as if fate was twisted and the stories forgotten.
The Prince that was promised was a tale once again.
"No." The hiss came higher than the cacophony of voices that seemed to swirl into one another.
"Again." And all the other voices started repeating the same word, hissing and whispering, until everything was undone.
Chapter One - Undoing.
The last remaining Starks were reunited once again by the Weirwood tree in Winterfell, but not for long, as duty and fate called. Sansa had just been crowned Queen in the North, Bran, King of the six kingdoms, and Arya had her ship being made in the capital. They made sure to come here to say their goodbyes to Jon, who was being exiled into the wilderness.
"You know there are only a few thousand of them, don't you? If we gather the rest of the free folk and the northerners, we can defeat the Unsullied. The Dothraki are all scattered-" Sansa started.
"It's not about that, Sansa, and you know it. I murdered their queen, and I was their prisoner. They could've- should've killed me back at King's Landing, but they gave me a proper trial. No, I will honor their demands."
"The Northeners will fight for you, you know that. This is your home." Sansa cried out, and Jon shook his head.
"The only thing I have left is this. I gave everything away. I murdered the one I swore to follow and protect—He took a deep breath and nodded—If I go back on this, then I truly would have become a man of no honor."
"Fuck honor, what you did was justified." Arya barked.
"Was it?"
"Of course it was, she burned a city full of innocents-"
"They still were her enemies, and they were hardly innocent." Bran said low.
"What?" Sansa asked, and he turned in his chair.
"It was still war, and in a war, all lives are at stake. Cersei is the one to blame for what happened. She could've fought her war with honor, but instead, she chose to behead Missandei in front of Daenerys and use the lives in the capital as a shield. Would you really care for their lives if you were in her place? Would you have stopped if Cersei had murdered your family in front of you?"
Arya frowned and tried to see his point, and even though she could understand it, she would never accept it.
"I would have never stepped that low. I kill only those who are deserving."
"And in her eyes, they all were. They were not her people, they were not slaves that needed to be saved, in her eyes, they were all allies of Cersei."
"So you were on her side, then?" Sansa asked.
"This is not about sides, I could've never done what she did, but I can understand why she did it, and so should you." His intense gaze made Sansa freeze, remembering her own desire to murder everyone who had ever wronged her.
"The point is, the Night King is gone, the free folk are returning to the wild, and I must go with them." Jon said before anyone could say anything else.
"Why? Because they said so? They are already at sea-" Arya asked, irritated, but Jon touched her cheek, making her stop talking.
"Because that's the place where I belong. I fought my whole life to belong somewhere, but in the end, I destroyed and killed everything I touched, I tried to change what I shouldn't, and it cost me everything I had. I'll try their way now, so don't mourn me, I'll be finally free."
They were looking at each other and missed the moment that the Weirwood tree started shedding tears of blood once more, catching Bran's attention.
"That is interesting." Bran said low and uninterested, making Sansa, Arya, and Jon turn and follow his gaze to the tree.
"What is that? Is it crying?" Sansa asked, squinting her eyes before Arya smiled.
"In Bravos, I heard stories about Weirwood, how it only cries when something is coming, something big, something beyond mortal coil."
"Did they teach you to speak like that in Bravos as well?" Sansa taunted, and Arya smiled devilishly.
"They did, they taught me an awful lot."
And then, they all felt it, it was a pulse of warmth that passed through their bodies, making them groan and stumble back. They could actually feel it was coming from the tree, but when they tried to focus on it, they heard a deafening scream, making them cover their ears and close their eyes. It was coming from the tree itself, but the sound was something they had never heard before, not even Jon in his fights against the wraiths. It was bestial, unholy, monstrous, and then, they all tried to look at the tree, just to succumb to the horror.
The face.
The face was screaming, blood coming from everywhere, the red leaves falling from the branches, as wind picked them up and moved them around, and then, they were engulfed by darkness, hearing only the shrieking of whatever was in there with them.
Arya woke up with a gasp, instantly covering her ears to that deafening sound. Her heart was beating faster, and even though her training stripped her of most of her fear in the face of death, whatever happened back there was beyond any fear she ever felt. She could still remember the feeling of being pulled into the darkness, rather than falling into it. She felt grabbed by something, pulled against her will to where she was now, and where was she?
She looked around, but there was only a burning candle to the side of the bed she was on, barely illuminating the room she was in, but she was used to the dark, quickly jumping out of bed just to miss her footing and fall on her face.
She frowned, wondering why the ground was so low, and not a moment later, the door was open and someone came in carrying a bigger candle.
"What in god's name are you doing, Arya?" Arya didn't have to see her face to recognize her voice; she was right there in front of her, alive.
"Mother?" Arya's voice was barely a whisper.
"Who else? Must I chain you to your bed so you can have a decent night's sleep-"
She never finished her question because Arya ran forward to crash against her mother, enveloping her into a hug so filled with emotion, that Catelyn felt something was wrong.
"Wha- Did you have a nightmare? What happened?"
"Is this a dream?" Arya was able to whisper to herself, making her mother move them to the nightstand, where she placed the candle before pulling Arya off of her.
"What are you saying? Are you ill?"
But Arya just kept staring, and then, it suddenly hit her that she was staring at her mother from below. She looked down at her hands and her chest, gasping before touching her breasts, making Catelyn grunt.
"Enough of your fit, the day is almost breaking and-"
But before she could finish, they heard rumbling and turned to the corridor. Catelyn wondered who was up at this hour and doing such a ruckus, but when she took a step forward, she bumped into Arya, who was already in front of her, looking at the corridor, assuming a defensive position.
"How did you-"
And then, one of the many doors was pushed open and Sansa appeared, holding a candle, her eyes wide as she focused on Arya and Catelyn behind her. Sansa's eyes widened when she saw her mother, and even with so little light, Arya could see the tears falling down her face, and a moment of silent communication passed between them.
"Is anyone going to tell me what is going on here?!" Catelyn exclaimed just when they heard a third noise across the hall.
The trio kept standing there, in the freezing morning, staring at the tree without saying anything, until Bran broke the silence.
"I did not see that. In all my visions, I never saw the tree doing what it did, I never saw what happened to us, happening before."
It was weird to see a young version of Bran talking slowly and unaffected like that, Sansa thought.
"Are you still that Raven you said you were?" Sansa asked while looking him in the eye, and he shook his head.
"Not anymore, to be fair, I still am, but just in parts. I still remember most if not all of it- I can't fully explain it, but if I concentrate enough, the memories come back to me, but I'm not entirely myself."
"What is this? Is this the past?" Sansa asked low, but before they could answer, they heard steps and turned to face Jon, who was coming with a fearful expression.
"Jon, are you-"
"You came back too?" And then both Sansa and Arya walked to hug him, barely reaching his chest height, while Bran kept looking at the tree with a frown.
"What does this mean? Why are we back?"
"I don't know, but one thing is certain." Bran pointed to the tree that was shedding tears of blood again.
"Something wanted us here."