𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬 || 𝑾𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝑾𝒐𝒍𝒗𝒆𝒔 𝑪𝒓𝒚 𝑶𝒖𝒕

𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑰𝑽

"It's always for something. Somebody somewhere always does something for a reason. And theirs? Mine? You can bet your Dayne ass it's for the Watch. Always for the Watch."

And right before Ben's eyes, Qhorin Halfhand stood from where he sat, his eyes turning to a glare as before him the man in black turned into crows, arms shifting to black feathered wings and face to that with a black beak and even blacker eyes of emptiness. Ben couldn't even react as the crows stormed towards him, the murder coming like knives driving into his chest and back a thousand times, yet he still breathed.

And silence once again filled his ears, but the pain was still there. It was always there. It was his only constant in life up until that point. Pain, he thought painfully. Pain is what drives someone forward. It's what drove Robert Baratheon to a war of retribution for the kidnapping and rape of Lyanna Stark. It's what drove his father to join in the war as well, breaking his mother's heart.

"Dragonborn.."

He whispered to himself quietly. What did the shadow woman mean by Dragonborn? The thought rang through his head. Slayer of Lies, Daughter of Madness. Who are these women? He asked himself over and over again, but he could not think straight as through the stabs in his back, he felt cold. He felt cold and alone and fear all at once as through the darkness appeared the figure who tormented him: the one with the crown of ice, with the eyes of a blue winter of eternity.

"S-Stay away.."

Ben panted heavily as he tried to stand up, but the sharp pain in his back and his leg nearly kept him down, making him tumble and stumble his way to his feet. He used his ancestral sword as a cane like that of a crone, limping forward through the darkness, away from the being of death.

But as he crashed and banged his way through the twisted, wicked halls of the Nightfort, all Benget saw was wickedness and twisted, monstrous things. He tripped and fell over a root growing deep from a tree that bulged out through the ceiling, bit revealed very little in the way of light, as there was not a lot anyways. But there was enough to see what was happening inside the room on his left as Ben looked inside.

A girl with hair cut down to her scalp almost was in a bath, and two candles flickered across the room. He tried to shake out of it, to look away, but he couldn't as a boot slammed into his back, pressing him to the ground as Ben grunted him. A Crow stood on him, but clearly did not notice his presence, nor care. The man's eyes was on the girl that Ben saw must've been no older than Arya was the last he saw. And soon, the Crow stepped off of him and charged at the girl. And as Ben tried to stand up, make an effort of any kind to help the girl, another boot slammed him back to the ground before stepping off, only to be replaced again and again six times over.

Flint, Ben realized. Danny Flint... and true to the song's words, Danny made not a sound as the six men of the Watch broke their vows a thousand times over, all the while the poor helpless girl stared Ben right in the eyes as if she could see him.

"No...s-stop.."

The door to the room had closed slowly, but Danny did not look away as Ben tried to reach out to help, but the door then suddenly slammed into his hand, making him seethe once more in pain. Blindly reaching out in front of him, he groped the darkness in search of Dawn. He finally found the familiar hilt as he grabbed it, and he paused only for a second when he didn't feel the strip of bark from the weirwood that Val had tied.