On My Honor ‣ Jaime Lannister

Broken Little Bird

BRAN

That three-eyed bird visited Bran in his dreams once again. According to Old Nan, these birds held omens, good and bad. While asleep, this bird often visited him and brought him to the tower as if to tell him he must remember what happened.

He liked these dreams. He didn't know a single thing about what they meant, but they felt pretty real. He could walk around the courtyard again with perfectly functional legs, something he had taken for granted so dearly until he could no longer have it. The sun on his skin felt warm and the winter chill would bite at his flesh as if it were real. It wasn't, but it was real enough to him.

 Last night, he had one of those dreams where he was trotting around the courtyard with a bow in his hand. He could feel the smooth wood of the weapon and the tight tension of the bowstring. Perhaps he always held a bow in these dreams because one of his last memories before losing the feeling in his legs was bow practice where Arya showed him up. He remembered the feeling of letting an arrow fly between his small and nimble fingers, and the disappointment when he realized he hit nowhere near his target. He theorized he revisited this feeling in his dreams because he wanted to recall the days before falling from the tower in sense memories. The better days, he called them now.

The autumn winds once again nipped at his face and the sun hid behind the clouds, casting the already dreary Winterfell in a dimmer color. This felt all too familiar to him.

Once he saw the bird on the statue and heard its distinct caw, he remembered this dream. He had followed it into the crypts, but before he was able to see what it wanted him to, he was woken up by Hodor with his newly crafted saddle. This time, he was not awoken by Hodor and was able to follow it. 

Though there was a sense of urgency in the bird's caws begging him to pick up the pace as to reach his destination, he couldn't help but glance at the previous Starks resting in the crypts, trying to remember their names and accomplishments. He thought it was a good exercise in his memory and, given his state, Bran discovered knowledge would better serve him. If he was the smartest person in the Seven Kingdoms, the loss of his legs might not be so strongly felt.

He finally trudged along to where the bird was, only to find once he reached it, it was gone. This confused him greatly as its caws were sourced from that spot, but the bird seemed to be swallowed whole by the shadows. 

Looking around, he wondered what the bird wanted him to see until an image of his father appeared before his eyes. A smile broke out on Bran's face. No words left either of them, but Bran wanted to express his joy at seeing his beloved father again. It had been too long! He was gone for far too long and with everyone else skipping Winterfell, he was glad someone made it back. 

It was almost a bad omen, Bran thought to himself, that he saw Father again in the crypts of all places. Before he could think on it too long, something rousted him from his sleep and he went along with his day.

"Your father's not down there, little lord," said Osha, the wildling woman that was taken captive. Since then, she proved to be a good caretaker of Bran and Rickon though she had little reason to be that way. She didn't seem like the kind of person who held a soft spot for children, but the wild woman was good at keeping secrets. "Not for many years yet."

He knew she was trying to shake the thoughts of going into the crypts from his mind to check if his father was still there. "You're afraid," he accused. "Just like Hodor."