[BONUS] Winter Comes Pt. 8 (GoT SI) (Patreon)

So yeah, time to try to go to bed a little earlier. Hopefully. We'll see. 

In other news, you guys like cliffhangers right? :P

-x-X-x-

The Andals invaded in the south and while I did have plans ruminating in the back of my mind, the majority of my focus was on something else entirely. This little event had a bit more ceremony to it then I’d originally intended, but I supposed in the end it was unavoidable. I stood there, looking down at the snow-covered tree surrounded by hand-carved stones. 

At my sides stood Lyanna and my two children. Behind them stood every White Walker that currently walked the North. Both the intelligent and the unintelligent. Lyanna’s little red haired wildling had ultimately ended up being turned. She’d taken more of a liking to the girl then I’d first expected, but given we all shared each other’s beds more often than not, I wasn’t that offended. Kriyah, I think her name was. Rogund and Jorlaf were there as well, and a dozen more Thenn leaders besides.

I didn’t bother trying to recall names most of the time. If it was important, I could simply reach out and snag the identity of whichever White Walker I was talking to at any given moment. The only ones that truly mattered were Lyanna, Rickar, and Ayla, though of course none of the others knew that. I was their benevolent Night King, the being who had lifted them up and given them immortal life.

The need to crush their minds and ensure their obedience to me had never existed. If it did though, I could do it in a heartbeat amusingly enough. I could do it with all but Rickar and Ayla. My two children were not bound to me in the same way that the others were. I suppose that made them a weakness. But I had plenty of weaknesses already, in the form of dragonglass and Valyrian steel and dragon fire.

It felt appropriate to have weaknesses closer to my heart as well. Honestly though, I was actually a bit surprised Ayla had even shown up. The child, if one could call a woman millennia old a child, was wild, just as her mother had once been. Just as I was beginning to suspect all Stark women were, when they weren’t tainted by Tully blood and raised by Tully women. Hell, even then both Arya and Sansa had ultimately acquitted themselves as Starks quite well in the show from what I remembered. Even if it had taken Sansa longer than Arya and even if it had cost Arya so damn much.

Bah, irrelevant. I was letting my mind wander on purpose. Even after all this time, was I truly this scared of this spot? My lips pressed tightly together in the beginning of a snarl, I stared down at the snow-covered tree surrounded by rounded, snow-covered stones.

“Father, I-.”

That was Rickar and as soon as he attempted to speak, I snapped my hand up and closed it into a fist. The air around the tree and stones suddenly cleared up, the icy winds disappearing first. Then the snow stopped falling and the clouds overhead fled the scene. It was a move I’d used before, many times over now. It allowed me to give the Free Folk much needed sunlight ever since they’d started farming instead of simply raiding.

I’d created a culture without truly meaning to, one far different from the canon I remembered. Whoops. Either way, what mattered now was what was right in front of me. The snow melted away and the sun shone down on a leaf-less Weirwood tree, surrounded by stones carved with ancient ruins. I could not completely recreate the scene of course. Not only was the ground still dead, no grass growing from it regardless of my removal of the snow, I did not have Children of the Forest to place in a tight scheming circle. Nor did I have a First Man to tie to the tree itself so I could stick a dagger in his heart.

“So this is where it all began.”

Lyanna’s fingers touched my remaining hand, curled into a fist as it was at my side. I slowly loosened it until she could slip her own hand in and hold onto me. My other hand remained a fist though, pointed towards the Weirwood and the stones. Rickar and Ayla still stood behind us, but now Lyanna was next to me, staring with her own glowing, swirling eyes at the sight of my murder and resurrection.

“Yes. This is where she did it. Where they did it. This is where I was created.”

A moment of silence as the White Walkers with intelligence digested this news. Only my immediate family had known why I’d saved this Weirwood for last after all. Here, Rickar stepped forward, placing a hand on my shoulder. He was a good son. I’d been sure to nurture that, to create a bond between us and to raise him to my way of thinking. He wasn’t a good man, but then he wasn’t a man at all. And he WAS a good son.

“Father… this is the last Weirwood north of the Wall. All the others are destroyed, just as you bade. Shall I order this one removed as well?”

I stare at the site of what is essentially my birth into this world for a long moment more. Then, I shake my head.

“No.”

My hand opens and then twists to the side. One of the carved stones, one of the last remnants of the Children of the Forest, suddenly cracks as it freezes solid and breaks apart from the inside out.

“It’s best if I do this myself.”

Lyanna holds onto my hand the entire time. Rickar keeps his grip on my shoulder. Ayla and the rest stand in silence. One after another, the stones crack and crumble from within. One after another, they become so much rubble beneath the final Weirwood tree beyond the Wall. I couldn’t really explain how it is I did what I did. 

My control over the forces of cold was so absolute that I didn’t need to understand what I was doing. All I had to do was make my intent clear, and results would follow. Like grabbing something or breathing or walking. One did not have to understand how their body and their muscles and their brain worked to do these things. They just did.

And so did I. Eventually, it was just the Weirwood tree left in a field of stone pieces. Now I slipped free of Rickar and Lyanna. They let me go as I moved closer to the Weirwood. A heart tree, I suppose it’s called if I want to be accurate. The Children of the Forest had carved faces onto the tress at the center of their godswoods. And yet, this heart tree stood alone, surrounded by nothing but stones.

There were no others like it in all of the True North. Every Weirwood I’d seen burned the last two thousand years had been surrounded by more of its kind, true godswoods dotting the Haunted Forest and what not. The Free Folk had worshipped them and as a result I had been forced to leave them alone at first. But with Isvir’s pact, the Free Folk had turned to worship ME and then the godswoods had become fair game.

I’d left this one for last though. I’d saved this destruction for myself. It was important that I do this, important that I take responsibility. Finally arriving at the face carved into the heart tree, I splayed my fingers wide and pressed my palm into its ‘brow’. There was the faintest of stirrings, as if the greenseer magic that had once permeated these lands was not truly dead, merely asleep.

I could feel it rising up to meet me. Did it think me a long lost kin, simply because this was where I had been birthed? Did the heart tree view me as a savior to bring it back from the brink of a cold death? Probably not, but the thought that it might amused me all the same. I did not wait to find out the intentions of that flicker of magic. Instead, I channeled my own magic directly into the Weirwood before me. Direct contact was definitely best. The effects were immediate this way.

I felt something akin to a scream as I snuffed out the spark of magic still in the tree. Then, there was only silence save for the cracking as the Weirwood frozen from the inside out just like the stones had. Slowly but surely, the great tree turned frost and when I drew my hand back and pulled my fingers together, it bended towards me, the ice it had become obeying MY will.

With a roar on my lips, I thrust my entire arm forward through the tree, and it exploded out from me. The entire Weirwood shattered into a million frozen wood chunks, spraying out in a conical pattern for at least a hundred feet from the ferocity I had channeled into my magical blow. There was nothing left but stump and roots, but I was not content to leave even those, frozen to the last bit as they were.

Lifting up my arms, I pulled and the iced Weirwood stump answered. Every last inch of the thing tore free from the ground, roots and all. I spun it in the air for a moment, admiring it. Then I blasted that apart too. There was nothing left when I finally turned and walked away, back through the frozen rubble left behind by the destroyed stones.

Lyanna and Rickar greeted me in silence, but it was Ayla that ultimately surprised me, running right past both of them to slam into my chest and hug me tight. I blinked dumbly, having never been quite as close as I wanted to be to my only daughter. Slowly, I closed my arms around her, brow furrowed as I tried to figure out what exactly had affected her so. I failed in that though. Women, even now I did not understand them.

Ayla clung to my like a limpet the rest of the day, as I took Lyanna and Rickar and the rest of my White Walkers and we had ourselves a little… celebration. The True End of the Children in the True North. It was certainly cause for a party. But even still, there were more godswoods out there, south of the Wall. The Andals would destroy many of them for me thankfully, but the Northerners would push the Andals back. This was good for my plans, but it would still leave Weirwoods dotting the North for the time being.

I would fix that, one day. 

-x-X-x-

The Night’s Watch had been in decline for a while. It shouldn’t have been. The threat of the Wildlings had never been greater. The rest of Westeros should have been there to answer the call. The problem was that the Wildlings were proving to be a contradiction these days. They no longer gathered to attack the Wall, but they still gathered. The Night’s Watch’s yearly rangings had turned into slaughters, not of the Free Folk as before, but of the men who served on the Wall.

The Lord Commander of five centuries prior had been forced to end the yearly rangings, but the damage had already been done. Too many spares, too many second and third and fourth sons of Lords and Kings had died in service to the Night’s Watch. The honor and prestige of the Wall died with those scores of men and ultimately the Wall became the place you were sent to die, rather than a place of glory and solemn duty.

Westeros had stopped sending its best to the Wall. Instead it began to send throwaways. Not quite the thieves and rapists and murders that it would send in around six thousand years at least. No, the Night’s Watch was still considered too important for that. Instead, Lords and Kings and even Smallfolk sent their bastards to the Wall, to take the Black and to serve rather than cause problems down south.

The problem was… this only served the Free Folks’ plans. How could they know that though? How could they know that hiding amongst bastards made for the perfect camouflage?

A small gate on the southern side of the Wall slid open and out into the snow walked a group of ten crows and five trainees. They walked for an hour in complete and utter silence, before eventually arriving in a godswood. The crows gathered around the godswood’s heart tree and the five who had yet to take their vows fell to their knees before the Weirwood’s carved face. Everything was silent for a moment, and then the five began to speak in unison.

“Hear my words and bear witness to my vow.”

“Night gathers and now my Watch begins. It shall not end until my death.”

“I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post.”

“I am the Sword in the Darkness. I am the Watcher on the Wall.”

“I am the Fire that burns against the Cold, the Light that brings the Dawn, the Horn that wakes the Sleepers and the Shield that guards the Realms of Men.”

“I pledge my life and honor to the Night’s Watch for this night and all the nights to come.”

There is a pause as the five trainees complete their oaths. A sense of finality hangs in the air, before the highest ranking crow grunts and speaks.

“Rise, brothers of the Night’s Watch.”

The five young men, ostensibly all bastards, do so, smiles on their faces that are matched by their older more experienced brothers. There is handshaking and back claps and even some completely heterosexual hugging as those who were before welcome those who are now into the Watch. The Night’s Watch and the Wall are now five stronger, and all are happy for that, regardless of where these five have come from or the circumstances of their birth.

The group, now fifteen crows strong with no ‘trainees’ among them, heads back to the Wall. There, they have a feast and the five newest members of the Night’s Watch are the focus of that feast. The current Lord Commander watches from his table with a smile on his face but a tired weariness in his eyes. The man is growing older and he knows he will not be Lord Commander for much longer. He also knows from the journals of his predecessors that there was a time when a hundred trainees would range out to the godswood to take their oaths together.

The Night’s Watch is diminished, yet as the Lord Commander stares down upon these five newest brothers, he feels a flicker of hope in his breast. He wants to believe that these men are capable, that these men are each worth a hundred of the crows of old. They all acquitted themselves well in training. Arriving to the Watch with skill in all manner of weapons before their time out in the yard could even begin. Sword, spear, axe, bow… the Lord Commander wondered if those in the south had finally reached the point where they were quite literally raising their bastards from birth to go and take the Black.

But no, that probably wasn’t true, given just what the South was facing now. Foreigners from across the sea landing all across Westeros. The aging Lord Commander was almost grateful that the Night’s Watch did not interfere in the affairs of the Realms of Men. It was not his place to ride south to defend against these invaders and if by chance they did manage to conquer all the lands that lay beneath the Wall, the Lord Commander could only hope that these foreigners were not quite as savage as the Free Folk. If they could be reasoned with, then they would accept the Night’s Watch and the Wall as necessities both.

If they could be reasoned with…

The feast eventually ended and as night fell over the Wall, the five newest brothers were assigned to guard atop the massive structure, a time honored tradition. All five were glad for it, happy to be alone with one another. All five stood on top of the gigantic barrier that held back the True North and looked out upon the Haunted Forest.

Each of them reached out and pressed a gloved hand to the same place on their covered arms. Each luxuriated in the feel of their God as he reached back to them, wrapping them in his warm embrace and praising their success. Beneath the black cloaks of crows that they all wore, the five Chosen felt the icy touch of the glowing blue mark that lay on their skin and smiled.

-x-X-x-

I felt how pleased each of the five men were and a smile of my own stretched across my face. It had taken quite a long time, but finally the crows were weak enough to be susceptible to infiltration. It was far too early for the Night’s Watch to be in decline of course. I suspected that that was my fault. Whether Isvir, the second King-Beyond-the-Wall would have existed without me or not, whether he would have attacked the Wall without me or not… I highly doubt he would have found giants to attack it with, if it were not for me.

Isvir’s taking of the Wall was legend for the Free Folk, and I suspect it was a black mark on the Night’s Watch’s record that they would have liked to forget just as much as their Thirteenth Lord Commander and HIS actions. Isvir and his army had successfully besieged the Wall, stormed all the way to the top of the massive structure, and killed half the Watch including the current Lord Commander of the time before they’d been repelled.

Though truthfully, I suspected that Isvir hadn’t been so much as repelled as he’d decided that his vengeance was sated and pulled his army back before the North could arrive to defend the Watch. The Wall had been proven to be beatable and the Night’s Watch had lost prestige from the event, especially when no ranging could gain them the retribution that they sought.

Things had only gotten worse for the Watch from there, as the next several centuries proved to be either quiet or disastrous for the organization that sat atop the Wall. The Free Folk no longer attacked the Wall, but if the Night’s Watch ranged, the ranging was slaughtered no matter how big they made it. As such, the rangings had had to end and the Night’s Watch had ended up truly becoming the Watchers on the Wall that they claimed to be, powerless and impotent in the face of their own inadequacy.

Now here I was, standing beneath the Wall, my hand reaching out to barely touch the magical barrier that kept me from going any further south. My Chosen did not know how close I truly was to them, even if they were over seven hundred feet above me. I stood in the tunnel that they themselves had used to go from beyond the Wall to below it. 

There were several such tunnels that connected the North and the True North at this point. The Night’s Watch was not in a position to ferret out these secret paths, not anymore. And the Wildlings did not use the tunnels for invasion, so neither the North nor the Night’s Watch had any reason to suspect they were there. After all, would the Free Folk not invade if they could?

In actuality, of course not. They’d been in a position to invade Westeros for hundreds of years now under my guidance and stewardship. They did not because I did not wish them to. Instead, they infiltrated and that was how I now had five Chosen inducted into the Night’s Watch. It was how I now stood beneath the Wall, testing the limits of the Children’s magic.

Reaching out yet again, I pressed the very tip of my finger to the barrier I could not see but could definitely feel before me. My finger smoked and I withdrew it before it could catch aflame. A smile spread across my face nonetheless. I did not try to physically touch the magic again after that. I settled back on my heels, lifted my arms, and felt the last great work of the greenseers with my own magic instead.

As far as I could understand it, it was a work of art to my senses. An interlacing array of barriers laid into the very foundation of the Wall itself. The power still thrummed within the Wall, strong, far stronger than the spark of life I’d found in that last remaining heart tree up north. Yet even as the greenseer’s magic hummed all around me, I knew that I could do something about it.

I had long suspected that I could. In the TV show, the Night King had used one of Daenerys’ dragons to burn down the Wall with some sort of icy fire breath. It’d made for a great scene, but I remembered watching a commentary after the fact. One of the commentators had made a joke about the Night King waiting eight thousand years for someone to bring a dragon north of the Wall so that he could kill it and resurrect it for that purpose.

I remembered agreeing with the fact that that was ludicrous. There’d been a slight fear that the writers were just that stupid, but now as I stood here beneath the Wall, feeling out the magic that was tied to it, I found my theory vindicated. The ice dragon in the show had merely made the Night King’s life easier. He had not marched south solely because he thought one would finally show up, he’d simply taken advantage of the fact when one DID.

Reaching out with my senses, I brought my arms up in front of my body, holding out my open hands. This, I imagined, was what the Night King had originally had in mind. This was the reason that he had gathered up an army of the dead, a distraction to any defending the Wall when he finally had to work his magic. 

I grasped the framework of the Children’s magic with my mind. My fingers curling back into gripping, tearing claws as I did so to help me visualize it properly.

Once I was sure I had it, my focus and strength against the ancient magic of a long dead race, I gritted my teeth.

And then I pulled.