On My Honor ‣ Jaime Lannister

Southern Curse

BRAN

He remembered nothing of how he fell, only that he did. Everyone else had their theories, some weak and some strong, but the only people who would know for sure were him and anyone else who could be involved, anyone involved being the guilty party and they surely were not about to come forward. That only left him. And he knew nothing.

Bran was not sure how long he was out when he woke, but Naya told him about a month he was asleep. An entire month. That felt impossible. Surely, he had to have died after a month, but he did not. Surely, more impossible things have happened.

He remembered waking up. It felt like a small dream, a small night of sleep. He remembered trying to sit up, move his legs, only he felt nothing. He remembered using his arms to push him up, but when he tried to swing his legs over the bed to get up, he couldn't.

Naya was passing through the halls when it happened. For a moment, she thought she had been hallucinating, seeing Bran awake, but after blinking a few times, she knew it was real.

She had rushed into the room and, seeing how Bran was trying to get up with tears in his eyes knowing he could not, carefully laid him back down and lied the sheets back over him.

"Naya?" Bran murmured.

"Yes, Bran?" she replied.

"I can't move," he said solemnly. "I can't feel my legs."

"Just lie down," she said calmly. 

"I've done enough of that," he said, tears beginning to fall from his eyes. "Why can't I feel my legs?"

"You fell," she answered quietly.

"I fell?" he asked.

"Someone pushed you," she responded. "Do you know who?"

"I don't know."

She held in a sigh of frustration. She did not want to make him wonder if he upset her. She was simply upset that they had no solid proof of who had done it.

"Am I a cripple?" he asked. "My legs-"

"You are not a cripple," she said. "That term sounds dirty and demeaning. Like anyone else who is suffering injuries that can't be healed, you're a survivor."

"I can't-" the boy began.

"We can't tell yet, but Brandon Stark, you are no less yourself without your legs. Understood?"

He nodded wordlessly, poking at one of his legs to see if he could feel anything. Not even a tickle.

"I will go get Maester Luwin."

Now here he was, lying in bed like he had been since the day he fell, only he was awake. After spending so much time asleep, people liked seeing him awake. He would have believed that he would not need to sleep after doing it for so long, but he was more exhausted lying in bed with people waiting on him hand and foot than he would be climbing every wall in Winterfell. Oh, Gods how he wished he could do that.

Bran missed his mother more than anything. Sure, the young boy loved his father and sisters who were traveling on the Kingsroad, but he was still a boy and a boy needed his mother. She had gone to avenge whoever it was that did this to him, but he would rather have her beside him than trying to seek justice. He was still alive. 

Everyone in Winterfell rejoiced at the news that the little lord was alive and mostly well. They also knew he was dying of boredom being holed up in his bedchamber every day. 

Old Nan was an older woman who had once been a servant to House Stark, but more recently, she had become a bedtime storyteller to the Stark children. As of now, she tasked herself with telling Bran stories to pass the time as he sunk further into boredom.