Chapter 20: Proposals
Bran POV: Eleventh Day of the First Moon, 299 AC
The first thing he noticed was the cold, the will-shattering chill that blew around him. The smell of burnt wood and grass, how the trees around him felt like they were watching him. He felt as if he could run between them and would meet the stare of a hundred eyes. They were not friendly eyes he knew. The trail was wide and long, and he felt as if he were going to be skewered at any moment. He tightened his cloak around himself as he continued down the trail he was on, the mud, gods the mud was deep and thick, making his short trek feel as if he had walked the length of Winterfell's battlements thrice over.
He stared at his bare cold feet, they were numb, whether it was the deep mud that seemed to want to drag him into it or the coldness of it he could not tell. His feet had developed their own will and continued on.
As he turned a hook in the trail he was met by a smell, it smelled rotten. His eyes met a brown stallion, it was covered in armor, crimson, and gold. Lannister armor. The horse was dead, an axe had sunken deep between its eyes. He grimaced at the sight and in the gaps between the armor there was an arrow buried within its hind leg.
After spending a few more moments at the horse's side he continued down the path, more dead horses, and dead men too. Most wore red and yellow, but some wore the grey leather and mailed armor of the Northmen. As he continued down the path the dead Northmen only seemed to increase in number and for every dead Westerlander, there was a Northman beside him. The path became clogged as he struggled to traverse the hundreds of bodies that covered the pathway.
He continued his advance for some time until he entered a clearing, the smell of the burning had reached its zenith there. The plains were black and the amount of bodies strewn across the fields was numerous. He spied a black castle, sitting upon a hill, it was a haunting thing. Darker than night.
As he walked further towards the castle his eyes caught something, an anomaly among the dead and rotting. It was a body, dead like the rest but his armor. His armor was different. He walked over to the lone soldier, his feet now free from the mud but not the cold.
The soldier was crushed underneath a horse, presumably his own. His neck twisted in an uncomfortable angle as it was mashed to the ground. His right arm disappeared under his body but his left arm hosted a shield. He grabbed at the soldier's arm and loosened the shield from it until it was off of him. He let the man's arm fall limply to the ground as he flipped the shield over.
He dropped the shield out of fear as soon as he had flipped it over, a loud cracking sound came from behind him. He turned around slowly, the sound had come from the castle. He squinted at it, and numb feet slowly guided him towards it. He walked hundreds of feet, walking over dead men and horses and even some dogs. He squinted at the castle. Through the murder holes, blood seeped and soon over the walls it poured. He heard the whipping sound again and again and again. Each time cracks began to form on the already broken and black walls.
He heard a loud cawing from behind him. He turned and looked down as a crow poked at and chewed on a man's rotting hand. The crow noticed his stare and turned to look at him tilting its head slightly, it began to caw.
CAW!
CAW!
CAW!
CRACK!
CAW!
CAW!
CAW!
CRACK!
The sound of the birds cawing and the brittle walls cracking merged becoming a cacophony of noise that deafened him. He closed his eyes and covered his ears trying to muffle the noise and when he opened his eyes once more to stare upon the bird. A third eye had opened.
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Reborn (Discontinued but being reworked)
Fanfiction'A good king must be just... Orys the first was just. Everyone applauded his reforms, nobles and commoners alike. But he wasn't just for long, he was murdered in his sleep after less than a year by his own brother. Was that truly just of him? To aba...
