𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬 || 𝑾𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝑾𝒐𝒍𝒗𝒆𝒔 𝑪𝒓𝒚 𝑶𝒖𝒕

𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑽

CHAPTER V
300 AFTER CONQUEST

BRAN

Flying and soaring, gliding and glowing, he moved through the wings of crows, saw through their eyes. He was there in the moment again, staring through the blurry gray eyes of a crow. But as Bran lingered within the body and mind of the creature, he found it to be a raven, a black as night raven, not a crow. But what he saw through the eyes of the raven was indeed a Crow.

"Stark! Stark!"

Bran found he had no control over the bird, finding the words on his own tongue as if they were speaking through him.

"Stark! Corn!"

"Gods damned bird.."

Muttered a voice in response, and Bran tried to listen closer, tried calling out to the Crow through the raven.

"Corn! Corn!"

I'm getting nowhere, Bran thought in his own mind but through the raven's also. He was getting frustrated. Again and again he tried but all the raven would speak would be the same thing it was saying for hours now. Deciding to take a break from trying to speak to the Crow, Bran moved his blurred eyes around the room, noticing that it was an office of sorts, with candles and a hearth, flames and warmth wrapped around it. But the Crow was cold. The Crow wasn't in a good mood, Bran could see.

"Stark?"

This time the raven spoke with a questioning tone, a tone that surprised Bran deeply. It wasn't a sharp caw or shout that previously pestered the Crow, but a calm asking of a question. It almost sounded human. And to the Crow, he seemed to think the same.

"What?"

It asked.

"Don't you see these letters? They're important, and I've given you corn already, so what do you want?"

The Crow asked with frustration in his voice, half glaring, half staring into the eyes of the raven. Into my eyes, Bran thought as he looked deep into the Crow's amethyst eyes.

"King!"

I didn't say that.

"King! King!"

Bran could feel a different presence within the raven then. It was a powerful presence, and Bran suddenly snapped out of the raven far away, brought back to the reality of his life and location. Looking at himself now, he saw he did not have feathers on his arms, he had no wings. He had no third eye anymore.

The cave was dark and gloomy, damp and cold. It was not a home, though several enigmas and mysteries found it as such. Barely looking behind him to the man who sat upon the weirwood throne, Bran sighed.

"Why are you trying to stop me from seeing him?"

Bran asked, turning to the old man, the old man with one eye in a thousand.

"I was once the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, long ago. I once had a duty, a duty to follow. So does he, so you mustn't disturb his duty."

"But you called him 'king'. Why did you call him king?"

"It is time to sleep."

The old man muttered, closing his single crimson eye and began to dream, which made Bran turn away, huffing with frustration. He didn't want to dream again tonight. He wanted to sleep. Real sleep, Bran thought. He hadn't had real sleep in what felt to him like years. Since the Broken Tower..Bran tried not to think about the memory of that night. Sometimes he tried thinking back to it, trying to remember who he saw, but the only memories he had of that night were of him falling from the freedom of the sky.

Looking across the cave, Bran noticed the little green creatures staring at him with cat-like eyes through the darkness. They seemed to glow almost. They're always watching me, he thought with annoyance. They barely spoke any words of the Common Tongue at all, and the ones that did speak spoke in mystery and confusion, as did the old man in the tree. Meera and Hodor sat together across the cave with the smallest of fires as to not burn the place down or fill it with smoke either. Summer, Bran closed his eyes and opened them, peering across the cave to himself, hid own body once again. It was beginning to become easier now, though a raven was much more difficult than a direwolf to control, which was surprising to him.

But almost as soon as Bran entered Summer's mind, he was kicked from it as well, thrown back into his own body as he gasped, almost as I'd waking from a nightmare. It was so sudden, yet even Bran knew who was responsible. Turning to the old man in the weirwood tree, Bran scooped up a handful of dirt and rocks and little tiny bones and chucked them at the man on his throne, yet it did not wake or disturb him, which frustrated Bran even more.

"What have you even to show me? Did Jojen die just for you to sleep in that tree and do nothing at all? Why am I even here?"

Bran asked to him out of frustration, but the man with a blood red mark on his neck and cheek said nothing, gave no hint that he heard him at all. The Stark huffed, shaking his head as he laid back down, closing his eyes, wishing to any of the gods out there to allow his legs to work so that he could walk or run out of this place and never come back.

"Y-You can wake him up. Ned, tell him to wake my son up!"

"Only time will be able to tell if your son will make it through this, Lady Stark. I'm sorry.."

"Lady Stark... Forgive me, not for any offenses I may have done in the past—"

"I do not want to hear one more word from your mouth."

"But I am sorry. I am. Bran is like a little brother to—"

"He is not your kin, Dayne!"

Bran tossed and turned, he found he was sweating as though he had a fever, hearing the howling of a wolf chasing after a star whilst running from a trout.

"The trout, the trouth, the trout in the towers,
The wolves dropped the fish, and they all ran away!"

No, no, no, he was now running from the noise and voices, running on legs he knew should not be working as they were. But this was a dream. Anything is possible, that's what the Raven had said to him, the old man. He struggled to run away from it all. Bran knew he couldn't get away, and so at last, he gave up on running and let go, sinking to the floor of nothingness and let the voices drown him like the cold waves of the sea.

"You must wake up."

He did open his eyes, but what Bran saw before him confused him more than the voices of song and terror. It was if he were now standing in another man's dream, another man's world that wasn't his own. A man appeared, or what could almost be considered a man appeared before him now. He looked to be sleeping whilst floating in seawater as if he were a fish. Or a kraken, Bran thought as he stared at the sight before him.

"Open the third eye. Wake—"

"No! Leave me..the hell alone!"

"Wake up."

"ARRGGHHHHH!"

Bran fell back into the water of the sea, scared as the man flung himself out of the water in tremendous power, standing on the waves as though they were solid ground as the man tore at his own face, ripping away a string covering his eye, a damaged eye it seemed. Suddenly, tentacles ripped throughout the man's body, tearing him into pieces as he guttered inhuman screams of pure agony, screams that Bran tried to kill through screams of horror of his own.

"Ned?"

Bran stopped screaming, the storm and the waves were gone, the kraken man was gone, everything was gone. It was all quiet now as Bran opened his eyes once more, looking around from to right, now seeing anything or anyone. It was just him. But the voices were still there.

"I‐Is that r-really you..?"

"No.."

Bran answered back.

"I'm not Father. I'm Bran.."

He was so confused now. Turned around and lost.

"Oh..it really i-is you, Ned... You're real..you're not a dream.."

"I'm Brandon Stark!"

Bran called out now, looking around the void of nothingness now for the face to the voice of the words echoing softly around, almost as if each one was spoken through fits of pain and exhaustion.

"..oh, Ned...t-take.."

"What are you doing there?"

Bran snapped forward, sweat drenched his clothes and he breathed in and out rapidly, eyes wide with a frantic look as he found himself back in the cave of the weirwood tree. Turning sharply behind him, the Raven was staring at him now with a single crimson eye that seemed to bleed now with anger.

"What do you think you were doing at that place?"

"Me? I don't even know where I was!"

"The past, Brandon Stark. You were in the past."

"So? Isn't that the whole point of all of this? Isn't that why you brought me here?!"

He shouted in frustration, taking a handful of dirt once more, but this time, he through it aimlessly across the cave, hitting nobody at all as the Raven simply shook his head, the root of the weirwood in his eyesocket shaking a little as he sighed deeply.

"You were in the past that is not yet ready for the future. Tell me now how you found that place."

It wasn't a question that the old man was asking now, and Bran sighed with frustration. He gave in reluctantly.

"I was..running."

"The training is so that you can fly."

"I know, I know, but it's so hard to do it in that world. The one we live in here is so much easier!"

To demonstrate, Bran almost easily Warged into one of the sleeping ravens on the roots of the tree, opening its eyes and flew around for just a moment around the cave. But then he was suddenly thrown out of the raven and back into himself, and the raven landed back on its place on the root, going to sleep once more as the Raven scoffed.

"Seems not so easy to me to stay if I was so easily able to kick you out."

"Stop doing that!"

"Learn, then."

"It's bloody impossible to learn from you!"

"The task of learning is impossible only because you deem it so."

The old man berated him, silencing Bran as the Stark boy looked to the cold, damp floor of the cave in silence for a long time. The Raven finally spoke once again.

"Your journey. How did you get to the beginning?"

"The beginning?"

"The beginning, Brandon. Tell me."

"I was running... And I saw a man with one eye be ripped apart by a kraken.."

"A failed student makes for a poor master.."

The Raven muttered, shaking his head slightly as Bran raised a brow at that but did not push the meaning behind his words.

"I saw a wolf chasing after a star..or maybe it was a trout chasing the wolf..I don't know."

"Mm. More."

"I don't know anymore! I don't know how I got to..wherever that place was! I don't even understand who was talking or why they mentioned my father's name!"

"A vain woman to some, the bearer of prophecy others could say. The weight of duty was held in her womb, and then placed upon her child's shoulders. It shall weigh heavy until the end of his days, until the wars are won, the price is paid."

"You speak in mystery and prophecy as though each were but second or even first nature to you. But tell me this plain and true: who are you?"

Bran asked, almost with a pleading voice.

"Why am I here? Why and what are you teaching me? Tell me why?"

The Raven's crimson single eye narrowed slightly for a moment, but almost as if the old man saw no other use or way, he began to speak.

"My name was Brynden Rivers. I am the Three-Eyed-Crow. And you must learn everything."

A/N

Hi everyone. It's been a minute, hasn't it? Yeah sorry about that. To be honest with you all I'm struggling to write lately and I have no idea the times updates will come out in the coming months. I know this chapter is rather flawed and rushed it seems but it's all my mind is allowing me to write right now. I hope you enjoy it. Ask any questions or concerns you have, too, I'll be happy to try and answer them as best I can!
Thanks guys!