Game of Thrones: Imagines and one shots. Book four

Old Gods - Ned x Reader

Ned looked up as the door to his cell was opened. Lord Varys entering the dark space.

"Well.......?" The Lord Paramount of the North asked, as the bald-headed eunuch looked down at his. Ned knowing that his request would be difficult to fulfill; and given that the man before him believed in neither the old nor new gods. In fact, he saw religion as a convenient fiction; Ned wasn't sure that he would even try. But if anyone knew where to find one of them, it would be the Master of Whispers.

"I have found someone; but you only have a few moments before we must leave again......so, I suggest you make the most of it, Lord Stark......" Varys told him, before stepping to the side. A figure clad in a rather tattered hooded cloak, entering the cell.

"I will leave you........" Varys continued. Giving Ned a slight nod, before closing the door to the cell.

"You worship the Old Gods.......?" Ned finally asked, as he looked up at the figure. He taken aback as the visitor removed the hood to reveal a beautiful woman. Her face graced with symbols and patterns that he recognised from the weirwood tree in the godswood, at Winterfell. They, along with the face, said to have been carved into the bone-white tree, by the Children of the Forest, thousands of years before Bran the Builder had thought to build the great northern castle.

"If I did not, I would not be here. Your sceptical friend would never have found me. I saw your plight in my dreams. The wind and rain told me to come to the city. The sea and sky told me to let the eunuch find me. So.....here I am...." She replied, before taking a seat on the straw covered stone bench across from him.

"You......you can see the future.......?" The lord continued. Ned, for the first time in his life wanting to believe that the old stories were more than fantastical tales. Were more than ancient Northman legends. That magic actually did exist. That skin changers, greenseers, were more than just a whimsy. Ned up to this moment thinking of himself as a practical man; one that was grounded in reality. Not someone who would look to prophecies or the supernatural. But he needed all that now. He needed someone that could tell him what was to come. Not for himself, but for his family; for Winterfell.

"Again, there would be little point in me being here if I couldn't......So, Lord Stark; what is it you wish to know.......?"

"I want to know of the future for my family......my children....my home......" Ned explained, as he sat further forward. He watching the woman as she closed her eyes and seemed to lose herself for a moment.

"I have seen many things in my dreams, Lord of the north. Good and bad. What I tell you, all depends on how strong you think yourself to be. Whether you can carry the knowledge in your heart of their fates, until your own time comes......"

"I need to know.....all of it......tell me......." Ned told her, praying that the bad, wasn't as awful as he feared it might be.

"Very well. But do not say that I did not give you a chance....." She replied, as her eyes slowly opened. Ned able to see that they were now completely white.

"I see two great castles; twins, separated by a trident. A see a lady of the south, and an heir, the King of the north, slaughtered by a vassal, and a toll collector, at the promises of a lion......." Ned's heart beginning to hammer on the inside of his chest. His son..... his wife were to die, at the hands of traitors, cowards. Were to be taken from him while at the seat of the Frey's.

"I see bastards at war. One wearing the skin of a wolf, and the scales of a dragon; the other of a flayed man. The wolf will rise, but not before the loss of a child, named for his grandsire...." Tears now slowly making their way down Ned's cheeks. As if losing his heir and wife were not bad enough, poor Rickon would die too. A part of the Lord wishing now that he had not wanted to know everything. But the battle......the man dressed in wolf skin and dragon scales..... it could only be Jon that would fight against a bastard of House Bolton and be victorious. The notion giving Ned at least a little something to cling to.

"And what of Bran....my daughters, Sansa and Arya......? What of them.....?" Ned asked quietly. He only able to hope that things would be better for the daughters that he should never have brought with him to Kings Landing.

"Ah.....the girls.....she wolves that are far stronger than any would give them credit for.......I see a girl with hair of fire, wearing the crown of the north. I see the Underfoot, travelling with a hound, with a faceless man. With a blade in her hand. She the end to those that have betrayed her and everyone she loved; before sailing towards the horizon and new worlds......." Ned closing his eyes and thanking the gods old and new, that at last his daughters would survive.

"And the boy.....the shapeshifter.....the Three Eyed Raven, will wear the crown of the Six Kingdoms as the first of his name; with a lion at his right hand....." The woman added. Her eyes back to their normal colour as she slowly came back from her visions. Ned having so much more to ask her. Wanting to know more about Bran, about Jon......if there was a way to change things........

"Bran is the Three Eyed Raven, and he will be king, elected by the lords and ladies of Westeros. Your sister's son will be exiled to the Wall, for the death of the Mother of Dragons; but will abandon his post to live with the Wildlings in the Haunted Forest. And...." The woman getting to her feet.

"As for changing things.....you put much of this in motion yourself, when you journeyed here. But do not blame yourself. For other things, that you had no control of, began many years ago; and could not be changed even if you tried....." She suddenly added. Ned shocked that she seemed to know what he wanted to ask. It as if she could read his mind. The pair looking to the door as it opened. Varys standing there. The woman making her way over to Ned and placing her hand on his shoulder, before she leaned into whisper in his ear.

"You will never see the Wall, child. Your head will be taken by the bastard of the Golden Lion. But know that you will face your death with courage. Steadfast and devoted to your principles to the end. You will die with dignity, as a good man. And when you do....we, the old gods, will be waiting for you......" The woman told him before placing a kiss to his cheek, then pulling her hood back over her head and following Varys out of the cell. Ned taking his seat back on the floor. The future known to him now. And if he was to lose his head, he would do it as she had said, with dignity; and the knowledge that the old gods, whether they be in the water, the stone that built the very castle he was imprisoned in; or the weirwood that grew in the godswood, would be waiting for him.