Work Text:
The Drakebane
1 B.C
Bran was sitting in a crouched position; his cloak coming over his sides as he slowly measured the rope in the earthy humus-ridden soil of the grove near the pond. Here the winds were still, shielded by the trellis and branches that winded and wove a world of their own here, a peaceful world. A quiet, contemplative one, one making young Bran remembers as his mind started to wander.
I'll be here, don't worry. Make sure it's done, do what's needed, Bran, Bryeana. Her words echoed through in his mind and then slowly, somehow hearing the echoes started around him as well. The soft rustling of red, dry leaves that softly brushed the quiet pond's still surface, an old voice in his memory. He looked around slowly, nothing but the chatter of nature. He sighed, going back down to his work. The thread had been marked before, all he had to do was measure it off and then-
A step.
Bran looked behind him, soon the sole step growing into a clamor of footsteps that ended somewhere near the entrance at the periphery, he was sat crouched still, only head turned.
"I cannot convince you of what you must do, my love" a lordly woman's voice came, Bran already hooking himself up the old, thick, windy branches to easily reach out of sight, then deftly reaching to higher echelons among the leaves that cloaked his presence.
"But, I can advise you, and I do advise you to do this" the King of the North turned to his queen, probably the last ever that title would be handed out from what Bran could grimly see, "Stand down, husband. Do not send thousands to the burning death only reserved for the evilest of men. Why must brothers and fathers and sons burn when there is no hope of victory?"
The woman had a point, Bran had to admit shaking his head and widening his eyes, Queen Elyane was adamant in her posture, in a regal-looking red gown pattern and lined in brown fur hugging her collars down to her waist. The king in his usual battle cloak and armor lightly adorned.
"I understand, Elly." the King said ruefully, even from up here he could hear his crown-wearing half brother's love for the newlywed woman, with graceful gold spun hair that curled down to her waist, now braid up to her shoulders, "I promise you, I will do only what is best of the North, no matter the cost," he answered softly, lovingly reached up to the queen's face that was graceful and in anguish after the words she had spoken. At the calming smile from the King; she smiled, a tear-jerking free as she came to his embrace. Bran flushed; witnessing the intimacy, usually seeing a strict Matriarch who ran a tight ship around the ten-thousand-year-old castle.
Sighing, again, this time he took the thin piece of thread and looked around. The wood here was younger, more limber, and perhaps even more flexible? If so then he could play with the winds, Yes, this will do, he thought internally with glee.
Reaching into his deep pockets to find a small handled tool that hooked into the wooden body of a millennia-old weirwood tree; he worked quietly, the royal couple sat below the old rock as couples of the same title had done generations of Starks past, dating all the way to the First Folk, if Bran remembered those stories. The hooks slowly clamped into the fiber flesh of the smooth white surface, turning the handles then he scooped out a cylinder out, measuring it, working with a highly sharp, infinitely folded Valerian knife he'd won over dice against a Freewoman. Smiling, he then reached for one side of the cylinder and started sharpening, the process taking quiet minutes as the couple below was quiet in prayer, no doubt praying for the North. Well, Bran didn't really believe in all that, if anyone was going to save the North, he knew it was going to be him.
Queen Elayne Stark moved out, her clamoring entourage moving behind her as quietly as they could, the King still stood standing after kissing her goodbye. Before the pond, the man turned around was broad and tall, in his forties with five children to his name, and him technically next in line to the throne, if but only. The younger ones were already off to Gull Town, nowhere close to where the conflict would be hottest once the fight broke out.
He spoke out then, "You can come down now, Brandon" the King's voice hard and cold for him, like one of the old Kings of the North as ol' Nan used to say. He smiled, diving and falling after flipping twice on his knees, the arrow coming to his hand. The regal man turned, beard kept short and hair coming down to his gout cheeks dark the color of the wood. He smiled like cracking stone, then speaking, "So, you have it?"
Bran nodded, smiling as he raised his hand and showed his bastard father the arrows he had carved out of weirwood, arrows that could kill dragons.
For a moment the grove was silent, only the slow murmur of winds.
"I see. So," the kind paused, looking up at him then, what did he think behind those hard eyes? Was he sad to send his bastard brother to his death? Did he care? Bran was musing at the side when the King spoke up, "you wish us to proceed?"
Bran nodded, rising anticipation in his voice, "Let all the liege lords gather, we march this the afternoon. I'll have one down by sun fall in three moons. The purple-eyed whores and their brother don't have that many men, without their dragons they can be easily crushed."
The King was looking worriedly at the young man of four and twenty, already a man, already a member of the Watch. No need for the older brother to know what else he kept his interests in, remembering his broken Crow oaths.
The King spoke and brought him to the present, "Fine, Bran, I'll inform Maester Ifruam." he said, starting to turn before speaking again, "Listen," the kind paused, "Once this is done, once you came back" Torrhen looked sure that he would somehow, even Bran didn't believe himself. Feeling something old for the man before him, something too many years apart, don't, he's not your real brother, the Watch is all the brothers you got, Bran he reminded himself. The King went on, "I have things to tell you. About your mother and your, your powers." the man finished, stunning Bran as he smiled once more, "You have her eyes, Bran. She would be proud." the tired man ended, smiling and then walking away for good this time.
Torrhen Stark exited out the weirwood grove leaving him there alone with the winds, wondering at his words.
He was on the outer porch of Winterfell, from here he stood almost a head taller than most people who huddled together through the second interline of walls, outer still more refugees stalked outer Winterfell. The southern helmets and villagers evacuated here to the Capital, it just made the city that enticing to turn into a roasting pot.
Bran turned to Talen, moving across the wet road as he side-stepped a few carts, the old Housekeeper with graying, wiry hair that smiled a crooked look at him as he came, nodding towards the dark stallion,
"The King called this in for you" he eyed young Bran, wearing a simple cloak over wool and hide, nothing out of place. No armor or any form of metal, except those arrows he had on his quiver, and a few that were wrapped in something white. None of the crows on him either; Bran appearing a simple commoner in his garbs that none spared a second glance at.
He ducked down and spoke up, "Well, well, well, now that something depends on it." he said quietly as he rounded the majestic beast after, wondering where she had been hiding all these years. He hadn't been home in years, the weather here almost warm as he looked around people shaking in the cold. I'm frozen now, I guess, just like how old Gyoram used to say. It had been too long, he smiled. No matter, this time he'd make it work.
"You be careful, now." the gruff man said, folding his arms as he looked at his quiver sideways, the old man knew little of Bran's plan but he felt the Housekeeper suspected something odd.
Bran turned to him, surprised, "Don't worry, like hunting pigeons." he smiled easily.
The bowstring was taut against his chest as he slapped the Horsemaster on his arm and hiked up the black beauty at once. She kneed, flaying out forelegs. Then with two legs soon becoming four, he was off on a gallop.
By about five hours out he was over a valley by a peak and trough of long pine trees and small shrubbery that ran thick and unending across miles upon miles of mire and swampland around him lest he got lost. The north, an untamed behemoth from eyes so tiny against it all. He galloped over a hill, reaching a clearing from where he could see about a few hundred miles out where the small figures and the more stable sights of camps and their fires started becoming more visible the closer he came.
It had not been long enough before he had exited the long woods, hours later now as the sun lay now on the third day after. Here at the river toll booth; the Targaryen army faced off against the entire north, the grassland clearing for hundreds of miles around him was a quiet sight, a gust of winds that blew west. Moving slowly now as he saw marks then, blackened charred spots or bones that looked burnt cracked or boiled clean. The cries were still far, too far for Bran to hear those beasts. He got back on the horse, starting his trek across the lowlands as he moved closer to the Valyrian camp.
It was then he heard the cries, the beast was sleek, coming like a winter storm, all at once and overwhelming. The horse shrieked him into a jerk as the dragon glided through the air behind his galloping back. He turned, reaching for the arrow he had made, kept within those wet white wraps.
He turned, twisting out his stirrup as he landed both feet on the horse's back, the horse was easily capable of handling his weight, balancing he pulled tight. Somehow feeling the arrow to be heavier, much more so than he had ever drawn or imagined it to be. He saw those green gem eyes on the serpentine beast, eyes that were for him alone. Then, a slow rise of heat radiated from a molten store of fire emanating from within its gullet, warming his nose then face. He caught a glance at a young girl then too, a soft-skinned doe with big violet eyes and hair the color of clouds. She firmly held onto a few scales as the dragon closed in.
He released the arrow.
The beast gave out a cry, one that turned the horse-mad as it then stumbled, the dragon starting to retreat as the distance between the two beasts grew. Bran had little time to think, Oh, what the hell? He rationalized.
He grabbed a scale on the thorny upper shell of the beast now wailing in pain, the cries did not subside as the red gowned woman turned and faced him from the thorny carapace. Watching intently she did something, the dragon at once moving straight up as it flapped hard, the winds beating against his very soul as he lost grip on each smooth thorn one after the other. Just then, the quiver behind him released off another arrow, this one like a wedge he grabbed hard and thrust into a section of unprotected flesh.
The beast wailed again, suddenly moving downwards against them as both humans were thrown off balance and their steed in the open air. Bran felt weightless for only a second, seeing the shocked face and those violet eyes almost magenta in the setting glare of red. She was afraid, he saw. Only a girl, maybe a moon younger than he? She fell first, Bran falling then after, both gaining speed across the empty sky. Bran had to think fast, and inside his head, the girl's screams didn't make it any easier either. He first swayed his body her way, catching a thin arm and pulling her up to him, and grabbing her by the waist.
Sunflower and Cinnamon, he found himself thinking thousands of feet above the earth.
"AHHHHHH!" The girl cried him into the present, By the Gods, he sighed, then holding her tight and another hand over her mouth as he narrowed his and her form out to cut through the air quickly, desperate to reach the dragon.
Moving faster now as her cry became a moan in his ears louder than the gusting wind, he persevered grimly. Bran was getting irritated now, he could climb the Wall Northside drunk where it was shortest but this was insufferable.
The dragon was closing into their view, getting bigger by the moment. The green reptile appearing to be in some kind of stupor, Bran reached the well-made handholds that the girl had been grabbing before. He reached it and put it there as he went to the beast's tail, using his normal arrows as hooks to hold himself to the beast. Reaching behind the lower leg he found the white stick protruding out the scaly body, still leaking boiling blood that flamed as it met the beast's own skin, the weirwood arrow left unburnt.
Crazy stuff, that, he found himself saying as he pulled the almost cool arrow out of the beast. At once the animal changed posture, becoming whole and taut as air halted below it to slow their descent. The last minute or so of their impact was a laborious effort by the beast forced itself and glided about fifty feet over the flatlands and rose as a hill came to block their approach before the beast fully arched upward again, regaining control.
The sun was almost down now, a cool, darkening blue taking over the sky as stars became prominent and the moon was a wasteful crescent across the eastern sky.
Rhaenys Targaryen, sister to the most powerful man in the world, well, Westeros perhaps lay unconscious before him. He saw her closely then, the small upturned lip as she breathed softly through those even teeth, an artful nose ending gracefully on a bridge with small, pronounced eyebrows and dark lashes below them. Her hair was a mess now, still glinting in the sunlight, however; among the leaves and twigs.
He reached for her, his hand trying to grasp a twig as her violet eyes shot open. Trying to rise at once she was about to scream. Bran had his hands out before any of that, more interested to notice the dragon beside to rise at once as if bonded by the soul to the princess. The dragon wanted to rip his head off no doubt, he slowly smiled at the understanding beast as it calmed, looking below, two paws dug into the earth with white arrows hammered in.
"Meraxes," the girl said then, not looking his way, "stay." she turned to him then, considering her words as a courtly aura overtook her away from the combat heroin she had been from the tales just moments ago. He decided he liked the girl sleeping better.
"So, what is your ransom? My brother can pay anything, you must know" she paused, speaking more darkly as she went on, "Of course, should any harm come to me" she eyed him fiercely and Bran could feel the heat on her. Or was it the beast that mirrored her to his side? The beast could still burn him where he stood, for now, it seemed to not mind him that much.
"The North's surrender," he remembered Bryeana for a moment, "my brother will be the first King in the North to kneel, imagine that."
She was quiet, pondering his words as she stood up, dusting off her gown and dressing her hair as best as she could without shinned metal. She came to him then, Bran reaching for her as the dragon perked up and the warmth grew again in the cool afternoon.
Grasping that same twig from before, he turned to the beast amiably smiled as he dropped it and looked back at her, "So? What do you say?"
"How do I know this isn't some trick?" Those magenta eyes were fierce in her interrogations.
"You aren't in a position to negotiate, lass" he walked to Meraxes as he kneeled and looked at the arrow, "What do you think happens when this little secret gets out?"
She was quiet, at a loss for words, no doubt already planning the destruction of all groves south of the toll. It was a sacrifice, one Torrhen could not make, so he had to. That had how it had always been.
"Fine, we have a deal; write out the papers, our Maesters shall converse shortly." She said, folded arms coming around her as she faced him so that told Bran the meeting had adjourned.
He nodded, going over to each paw of the beast beside them as he relieved the serpentine creature, letting it freely crouch and then flare its wings and give a cry. Walking quietly she turned around as she was about to climb onto her mount, "Thank you, for saving him." she said quietly, looking and patting the humming beast. She didn't care about her life, he mused, wondering what these bonds between man and dragon really were.
As the beast gusted upward and threw off dust and pebbles as it moved away, soon becoming a small smudge on a clear, darkening sky. Bran only scratched his neck, feeling dirty and wondering, now where did that horse go?