The Provenance || Jon Snow | Game of Thrones

6.10

The others look at Leaf, and it seems to validate Bran's presumption of her leadership as said Child walks away and Bran rushes after her. Hurriedly, she passes around the swirling grey stones that belie the godswood tree before suddenly turning towards Bran as the others' conversation drones out behind them in the distance of the winds.

Suddenly pulling back the swaddling of the child, Bran's struck by the sight before him—a baby with the light-green skin of a Child, appearing as one of the race and newborn, before it's black eyelashes flutter against the greenery, falling back to look at the weirwood branches before them and revealing the unnatural blue color of White Walker eyes.

"Now you understand, Brandon Stark," Leaf says, Bran stumbling back at her words and the sight of the baby before him—but locks eyes with the seeing Leaf as she speaks to him from twelve-thousand years prior, before his known existence. Pressing her finger to the baby's forehead, the infant begins to cry loudly in Bran's ears as the green skin washes away into an alabaster porcelain and white blonde hair sprouts from the crown of the child's head. The blue eyes of the Night King dim in the infant's sockets to reveal something less magical, but still striking in the cerulean color. The child wails in pain at the process imposed upon it.

And suddenly, the bundled child is being shoved into his arm as it wails loudly with fright. Bran realizes then—at the stiff cold of the cloth—that the child is not swaddled to keep it warm, but to prevent her from burning Leaf's arms at a White Walker's touch. Leaf meets his widened eyes and urges sharply, "You need to go. Knowledge is power, and only you can tell her. If she is to save Westeros by destroying her father, she will need the power of knowing her heritage."

The Child of the Forest reaches out and clutches Bran's arm, sending him into another tailspin through time as the child cries in his arms and sends pangs of pain into his heart. But like before, right as he begins to accept the nothingness of blurred color, Bran's suddenly thrown back to a distant reality as his feet press into stone and he stumbles to stay upright. Brown eyes darting about, his ears are quickly assaulted by screaming and the clash of swords as well as cannons from somewhere close. Ducking into a corner to avoid notice—not willing to risk it—Bran recognizes the city of King's Landing from the Red Keep towering above him...and the crying to be none other than the child still in his arms, as she squirms and warms with each assault on his ears.

"You had no mother—you had nothing. Your only companion was your sadness when I picked you up from outside the door of the Red Keep. Your screams—like those of Aegon and Rhaenys—were silenced by my presence," Petyr Baelish hissed.

"She is of a Northern line. The blood of the First Men flows through her veins," the Three-Eyed Raven had said.

And Gabrielle Baelish taunted and teased the young boys called Robb Stark and Jon Snow, "I was born on the Night of the Sack of King's Landing. They say the screams of the Targaryen babies and myself were what drove the Mountain mad."

And—in that moment—Bran Stark realizes that the child in his arms in none other than the Lady Gabrielle Baelish—a Child of the Forest and a White Walker in the shell of the Mock Queen. Realizing what he must do, Brandon Stark bolts out into the crowds of swarming chaos, through the depths of the capital as women scream in pain and men are butchered like cattle. He tries not to look, but it's everywhere before him, ignoring the shouts of people—they can see him—as he shoves through them and towards the Red Keep where the Mad King may still reign.

Minutes pass but they feel like hours before Bran reaches the front gates of the Keep, eerily absent from soldiers as all defenders fly into the city center. But from the other side of the doors, he can hear voices, walking slowly and unsurely as Gabrielle Baelish continues to scream in his arms, up towards the gate and a door that looms silently.