Capítulo 2400: 35
Chapter 35: Breathing Ice
Summary:
Everyone's making stupid choices.
Notes:
The time has come for action to take place which means --I hate it, I hate it here
35.
Breathing Ice
Winterfell
Back in her bedchamber, Daenerys searched for the locked wooden cage in which she kept what she had sneaked from King's Landing. When she opened the lid, she gasped for a moment, staring at the object inside in amazement. As she exited the castle and crossed the muddy courtyard of Winterfell, Dany felt the sullen stares of the Northerners, which now granted her a certain recognition rather than hostility. The object she carried with her caught their attention, of course, or perhaps it was the fact that she walked with it.
Though she did not notice it, the gaze that lingered most on her person was that of Brienne of Tarth, who immediately recognized the thing that hung on her back.
Jon was standing under the parapet walk, talking in an upsetting manner with his friend Samwell Tarly. Daenerys' heart dropped for a second, she could only imagine the many sick notions he was feeding Jon's ears with — to turn him against her.
When they both noticed her presence, they stopped their heating discussion.
Sam stepped away and before retiring, offered Daenerys a respectfully cold courtsy.
Jon frowned.
"Where did you get that one?"
"She was Jaime Lannister's," Dany explained about the longsword she had sheathed on a leather scabbard strapped to her back. His already punctured gaze only scowled harder.
Daenerys breathed sharply and squared her shoulders.
"You deem improper for me to take it away from its owner," she said, ascertain it.
Jon's dark stare darted away.
"Her grace wants my opinion on the matter to judge me on that basis, so here it is: to take away a family's ancestral bulwark seems to me a crude thing to do, regardless of whether such a family has been the bane of one's own."
Dany did not delve in the last bit, knowing it could mean the Starks or the Targaryens whatsoever.
She glanced sideways at the parting figure of his friend.
"Does he abhors me?"
"He is grieving, your Grace. As any son would."
In the shelter of their intimacy, they could have been just Jon and Dany, but here out in the open, it was adequate to stick to the forms. Have the precaution not to parade your affections so explicitly, were Sansa's words, and it seemed that Jon would abide by them.
So would Daenerys
"Your Highness does not err. If I had had it my way, the Kingslayer should have died," she overstated, pushing her hard words just to elicit his reaction.
Jon noticed it.
"I perceive so clearly how at every second I stand in your presence, I am also being tested."
Daenerys blinked and looked away. She couldn't bear to look him in the eye when she wielded those poisonous implications, as if she involuntarily wanted him to give her reasons not to trust him.
That morning peacefulness seemed like a distant memory, their bodies pressed against each other's warmth. Jon's gaze grew soft as if he knew where her thoughts went. His hands closed and opened in evidence of his restrained intent. He wished he was permitted to touch her freely, at least land a caress on her cheek.
"About what Sansa said..." he started but she snorted and cut him off.
"Lady Sansa is a smart, mischievous thing. Isn't she? Making sure that if I perish in battle, there is no doubt cast over who is next in the line of succession. She's praying that's the case, I doubt not, so you will sit on the Iron Throne and grant her the desire of her heart, which, by all accounts, is the Northern Crown."
Jon stiffened and flinched away as he did every time the subject of their conversation inevitably turned to the Iron Throne, the succession and the bloody contest that seemed to always be running.
He couldn't care less about it all.
"You handsomely underestimate my own take on the matter, don't you, Daenerys?" Jon slowly returned to the familiar grounds of their names.
He threw a small, bitter laughter.
"I cannot fathom a world after the death take over. I have not plans to survive this war..."
Her face whipped up at him as if annoyed at what he implied.
"I was brought back with a purpose by the red god, apparently and when that purpose comes to a conclusion, so will I," he explained himself better.
And I meant it to be permanently, he thought as he recalled telling the witch Melissandre something similar. He wished to be left alone. And about the bloody ugly chair, he felt the same.
Unless...
Unless...it came with what he now realized he wanted truly.
"If Rhaegar had beaten Robert at the Trident, what do you think that our lives would've been like?" he suddenly asked her.
She looked at him confused but responded anyway,
"The Realm was already bleeding. The blood of innocents had been spilled in the name of accursed and vain causes. And for what? For the glorious of some? What kind of new world can raise upon the trampled remnants of the old? What was left but smoking ruins?
You're going to be the best queen Westeros has ever known, he wanted to tell her, but he did not.
Instead he smiled, and attempted to reach out.
Before he could, she prompted, "Your brother Bran said something before his passing out."
"What?"
Their conversation took on a unexpected turn.
"Lord Podrick told me," Dany admitted.
Why would Podrick tell you and not me directly, he wondered, however did not questioned her.
"What did he say?"
"That the Night King is upon us — he's enraged."
"Enraged...by what?"
Daenerys surprised him by grabbing his hand.
"I want to go to Castle Black. I want to face the Night King," she said dead serious. Had it not been for the look of overt resolve, Jon would have openly laughed in her face.
Jon walked them to the lonely corners where furtive glances would not reach them, so as to quell the whispers of an affair that was in fact taking place.
There, near the entrance to the crypts, Jon took her by the shoulders, shaking her small form a little, now heavier with that sword hanging on her back.
"Have you taken a leave out of your senses, Dany?" he asked her. "He's not alone. He has commanders. He has an army."
"And your men are facing him. Alone. Resourceless," she countered, rather accusatory.
"It's what they are duty bounded to do," Jon stated.
She shook her head and took a step back, wiggling out of his grip.
"Jon, I will go, not matter what," she declared. "It is your decision if you come with me."
Jon gazed at her the way somebody would to a stubborn child, that is, with disapproval and reproach.
He finally said,
"Off with you, Daenerys. Cover yourself up tight — you'll freeze otherwise."
Castle Black
For hours, they had groped their way through the twisting, narrow passages, searching for an exit, a secret door, but all was pitch black and cold, so cold that it chilled every bone in their bodies.
Jaime felt so utterly a cripple. A man takes much for granted when he has two hands. Ladders, for an instance. Even crawling did not come easy; not for nought do they speak of hands and knees.
Every now and then they heard the shrieks coming from those left behind, from the creatures taking them away, and that only made fear tighten its grip even harder around their necks. Surrender seemed a clear and achievable notion for Jaime when the threat was not yet so close. Now it seemed his instincts would not give up so easily.
The Lord Commander long ago granted so gladly command to him, the poor, desperate fool, even if Jaime understood him. Now his aim was to escape as soon as possible from the castle, into the woods, to flee and flee to the nearest village until they had to keep on fleeing. But first, to his stubborn misery, he had to get the bloody imp. He wasn't going to leave his brother behind.
So off he went to the kitchens to retrieve his little brother.
***
When Tyrion heard heavy footsteps creaking on the wood he unconsciously moved further behind. For the first time in his life, he was glad he was a dwarf, for he had fit into a gap in the furniture that hid him, at least for the moment, from those shuffling figures entering the kitchen.
The dead were only skeletal and frizzled human remains, barely covered with any clothing, their faces illuminated only by bright blue eyes that indicated a state of possession. Then came others, even more disfigured, almost just bones moving.
His heart leaped as among them came a figure that was in perfect condition. The cook. His breathing halted as Tyrion saw its eyes; blue, deeper, and bluer than any human eyes.
He was one of them.
Shit. Shit. Oh, shit. Shit to all the gods, he cursed inwardly. It was possible that they could remember? He wondered. If so the cook would be looking for him. As soon as he had that thought he felt the gaze of ghostly eyes of the cook, now one of them, scanning the room for him. For an instant, he felt like a child, hiding under the bed so the Septa who was trying to punish him wouldn't catch him.
Was such a cowardly death worth dying?
If only there was a way to set the whole place on fire...yes, that would do it. He remembered that he and the cook were preparing the meal for that night, they had a cauldron boiling over high heat, a fire lit on tree skins, which they lit with a stone and a knife. But with the darkness and the blizzard, the fire went gone and Tyrion doubted that the water was naught but frost now.
But there was oil for the lanterns in the hanging cupboard, he recalled. If I could get up there, Tyrion thought, just above him and spill the thick liquid, he would still need fire, at least a spark. For a heartbeat, he dared to hope, that with one swift movement he could reach the oil, spill it, dart down the aisle, and use his knife against the stone to send sparks flying.
His mind figured it out so quickly — yet it was a fool's errand. The dead would pounce on him before he could even reach the oil.
Pray tell, why would I care?
Tyrion was shifting from his hiding place ready to make an attempt when swift figures rushed inside and flooded the kitchen.
***
Tormund and the few men who survived the tremor descended to the bridges only to find their own companions turned into wights. It was a lethal and bloody battle as the growing influx of the dead poured through the now open tunnels. It was another fight to flee into the woods, toward the nearest villages to warn the people and help them flee.
They reached a settlement of their own and hurried everyone to flee as far south and westward as possible, so far south that the sun would burn their eyelashes, he thought. There was no more time. The wall had given way to those bastards.
Gasping with astonishment and cold, they continued across the vast lands of The Gift. The world by moonlight could seem lovely as well as threatening; the sky was clear, now, but those lean, serene clouds looked like hunting shadows following them. Somewhere, a little stream tinkled and guided them through the valley and the mountains, and the wilderness that was to Tormund and to his people and novelty, more harsh, more wild and terrifying, than they could ever bear.
Tormund knew they had to get to Winterfell, and fastest way was through the road they called the King's to Mole Town, but there were too many of them and the pace was much slower than they needed. Beric suggested they turn east. Head for the waters.
"We have no boats, you damned fool," he roared at the one-eyed fire-sword cunt, whose gaze seemed as possessed as the damned wights — him by his fire god.
"We don't, but she does," Beric replied.
"Who's her?"
Beric gave no answer, only beckoned him to silence, and with the same finger pointed to the sky, silent and still dark though slowly lighting up in incandescent gray.
A sigh passed, and then a shadow loomed over them.
Dragons.
Winterfell
The golden dragon ran its tongue over its glistening scales that glowed even in the dark, reflecting the moonlight. The beast resembled a dog and held itself with the gracefulness of a cat. Arya stood there for hours, hidden in the shadows of a gap between the walls, under a rickety and dilapidated tower. Her gaze held a mixture of awe and resentment.
Since learning the truth about Jon, it's been like every moment of her life so far had acquired a tinge of greenish death, fading the good of it into something rotten and vile. It deeply hurt that her brother was not her brother but her cousin. It pained her that he had trusted Dany —no, Daenerys — before her, and it destroyed her to know that her father carried this secret with him to his grave.
What Arya was experiencing was something akin to grief, like losing someone in life. She was unable, in that daze, to understand that Jon was still Jon no matter what.
All she saw and believed at that moment was that the dragons were coming to take her family, as the lions had done before. And motivated by that, she came out of hiding, and with the recklessness of someone who did not fear death, she walked toward the dragon that was left behind, in her clenched hand the Valyrian steel dagger Bran had gifted her.
Castle Black
There were seven of them. The Others numbered at least twenty. Just revived bodies, which would grow as they lost theirs. Jaime's muscles tugged almost to the point of breaking, but he persisted, swinging his sword — a decent sword but of common steel sword — at the cadaveric form of someone who once lived and should have remained dead.
"Fuck the swords, use the bloody dragonglass daggers!" commanded who ought to — Edd Tollett.
Jaime checked a second blow, and a third, then fell back a step. Panting from the effort now, his breath came out in a thick, visible mist. His blade was white with frost. Then he pulled out from his side the small knife that seemed so a little thing but which finished off the pile of bones that was his opponent. Another flurry of blows, and they only lost one man — twice, as they had to kill him again when he revived.
"Something's off," he heard the Lord Commander utter a thought aloud. "If they are raising again, it is because..."
But before he could finish that sentence, the sound of ice crawling along the walls filled their ears and a petrifying cold enveloped them.
One of the army commanders walked in.
A White Walker.
Now Tollett's adrenaline-filled face returned to a helpless, somber countenance. So looked a man who lost all hope, just as Jaime did the day he first saw Daenerys Targaryen's armies and her dragons.
But his face regained a shade of color at once and he accepted his sealed fate. He gave Jaime a quick glance, and nodded, full of meaning — it told Jaime that the time they had shared, though short, had been valuable.
Jaime, wide-eyed in the darkness, nearly sank to the wooden floor in a deadly faint.
"For the Watch," the Lord Commander shouted and he threw himself at it, lifting the frost-covered longsword with both hands and swinging it around in a flat sidearm slash with all his weight behind it. When the blades met, there was no ring of metal on metal; only a high, thin sound at the edge of hearing, like an animal screaming in pain.
Again and again, the swords met, until Jaime wanted to cover his ears against the strange anguished keening of their clash.
The Other's sword danced with pale blue light. Lord Comander's parry came a beat too late. The Lord Commander cried out in pain. The Other said something in a language that Jaime did not understand; his voice was like the cracking of ice on a winter lake, and the words were mocking.
When he had tossed Edd Tollett's frozen body aside, his bright blue eyes fell on Jaime. He raised his sword and readied himself with the same willingness, ready for whatever was to come.
But it came a scraping sound, and both monster and man turned to see, in a dark and forlorn corner, Tyrion scraping his knife over and over against the stone.
Then came the fire.
***
The moon was in her fullest form, shedding her light onto the grey and bold clouds the blizzard wrung about. Daenerys and Jon soared above them, Drogon and Rhaegal so high in the sky that they could look down upon the snowstorm the Night King was bringing with him.
The dragons glided evenly against the crushing wind, but as soon as the blizzard turned into a full-blown snowstorm that prevented them from seeing properly, their screeches indicated pain.
Returning to the Wall was a madman's folly, an unlearned lesson, Dany reckoned, yet there she was, with Jon following her blindly — or for what was worse and unbestknown to him, following her thirst for revenge.
It was an unpaid debt of the Night King for taking her son from her the previous time, the sweetest of them all.
Viserion.
Now that he was left behind and safe at Winterfell, and Rhaegal safer in Jon's reins, Drogon and herself were eager and stirring with the urge for action.
Daenerys decided — out of or through good judgment — that she would face the Night King head-on.
No more delays.
She knew fire would not kill him, she tried it before without success. It was the sword slung across her back that gave her hope. Jon had been taken aback when he saw her with it. To his knowledge, Daenerys was ignorant of the uses of such a weapon. And though she hoped her muscle memory was as good as her mind — for in her memories she still collected all that she'd learned in the life she lived after death —, Dany was after one goal alone.
This can end now. We don't have to drag it out any further, she thought.
Daenerys and the Bran she met in Pentos knew this moment would come but never discussed the specifics of the event. 'Something went wrong'. That was all Jon's brother-cousin told her then, and now with him in that state, the matter needed to be put to rest.
The Night King had to go. One way or another.
And she would do it now.
Winterfell
Bran was everywhere and nowhere at once, trapped in the collective memory by a powerful hold he knew came from the magic of the Night King. It happened so fast that he couldn't stop it, just as they both saw and discovered what was happening with the timeline.
He was doing his best to try and stay at least one of these recondite, lost moments in the collective memory but all Bran achieved was snatching pieces here, pieces there. The collective memory was his gift and his condemnation, Brynden Rivers told him from the beginning.
Words and voices enveloped him like fluttering leaves with the force of a billowing, stormy wind. Bran thought for a moment that he was being repelled by these when in fact they were seeking to be listened to, to be tended.
He made another effort and picked up the fragments of a long lost conversation.
"I've been there, in the past and I've seen that it is possible, though not always convenient. To intervene I mean."
These were his own words, but spoken by someone else. At least he did not recognized them as his own.
"But I haven't been there, not really. Just a whisper in the wind."
Closing his gaze on the memory that unfolded in front of him as if in a mirror, he saw a version of himself. A more mature one. A version from the future.
"I can't be separated from my body, my mind is just one of the thousand minds living in the collective memory. But you...maybe I can take you to the Daenerys of the past."
Bran started back.
So that's how it happened...or will happen.
"How it would work?" Daenerys, also another version of her, asked.
"I don't know if it'll work. Only that there's a chance. Something is amiss in the reality we are in. The year of the Long Night was supposed to mean the beginning of a new age, everything was set to serve a purpose."
"How long it'll take?"
"Here? It'd be like a blink of an eye. For you? The time that is necessary."
Before he could probe further into that moment he was snatched back by the violent force that kept him trapped.
This time he appeared in a much darker and gloomier place. In front of him the skull of a dragon, its black bones, still decaying.
Behind him two figures were standing, talking. Their shared silver hair quickly gave away who they were.
"Aegon foresaw the end of the world of men. Tis to begin with a terrible winter, gusting out of the distant North. Aegon saw absolute darkness riding on those winds, and whatever dwells within will destroy the world of the living. When this great winter comes, Rhaenyra, all of Westeros must stand against it. And if the world of men is to survive, a Targaryen must be seated on the Iron Throne. A king or queen strong enough to unite the realm against the cold and the dark. Aegon called his dream 'The Song of Ice and Fire."
Then the older man, King Viserys Targaryen, placed a dagger in Rhaenyra's hands.
It was Catspaw.
The dagger Petyr Baelish owned and gave Bran, seeking to gain his trust.
The one he passed on to Arya.
Arya, whom he could now see in the present time, striding toward Viserion with her arm raised and Catspaw clutched in her fist.
Bran woke up with a gasp.
Notes:
Truth time, the aim of the story was to turn back time (restore the timeline) to look for what went wrong so that the future would not turn out bad as it is in the present.
That HotD gave me *that* piece of information is just a bonus.
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