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Chapter Text

Bran is the first, seeking somewhere to hide so his Lady Mother would not shout when she discovers he had been climbing the walls again (and slipped so many feet back to the ground when he heard the sounds coming from the window above him). So he runs and climbs and still his wolf chases at his heels, until they’re both tumbling into a wardrobe in a room Bran doesn't think he's ever entered before. Which should be strange, he knows all the rooms in Winterfell; he's even climbed the windows outside and peeped through–

But what does it matter, because now both he and the wolf pup are cold and wet, lying on the ground next to a big old tree that looks burned and cracked. A blanket of thick, fluffy snow is laid over everything around him.

Bran has never seen snow so deep, and he runs in it with his wolf, scooping up handfuls to form into balls for the pup to chase.

They play until they tire, and then they sit and rest under a tree. It's old and twisted, cracked as though it once burned from the inside. Bran's wolf rests his head on his knee, and Bran giggles at the absurdity of it all.

It is then they hear the sound.

It’s almost like hoofbeats, but if hoofbeats sounded like footsteps, crunching through snow.

His wolf cocks his head.

(and bran is sure he feels his confusion, his interest)

A… something comes from among the trees. It’s taller than him but smaller than Father and Theon, with red hair like Bran’s own and a little pointy beard, but its feet are cloven hooves, like Bran’s pony.

Bran screams, because this must be a monster like Mother or Old Nan talk about.

The something screams too, high-pitched and panicked. It throws its arms up, scattering the brown things it had been holding. Bran's wolf springs upon one and tears it open, delightedly shaking the end of a scarf.

Bran hurries out to catch him, pulling him away and gathering the other items before his wolf can tear into them.

The something comes out from behind its tree. "Child?"

Bran frowns, peering up at it. It's not a deer or a cow, it's definitely a person, but it has little stubby horns on its head.

"Were you hiding from me?" he asks.

"No!" says the thing, but he still looks scared, like people do when they speak to Father. "I just– I was, um– I didn't want to scare you."

Bran laughs, because now he's heard the stories and met one of the monsters and it isn't so scary.

"What are you?" he asks. He's not heard of a thing like this from Old Nan, and she tells lots of stories.

"Well, I– I'm a faun," says the thing – a faun. Bran doesn’t know of fauns. He shall have to ask Old Nan.

“And what about you? You must be some… beardless dwarf?” says the faun.

Bran scoffs. “I’m not a dwarf! I’m a boy!”

The faun makes a funny noise and takes a step back. “You mean… You’re a Son of Adam?”

Bran laughs, because he’s never known anyone that doesn’t know who he is before. “No, silly. I’m Brandon Stark of Winterfell, and my father is Lord Eddard Stark, Hand of the King.”

“Yes, but you are human ?”

“I’m not a wolf,” Bran replied, and looks at his wolf, which has sat at his feet to think about the faun with him.

“What are you doing here?”

“Oh, we were climbing, but then I had to hide so I hid in this wardrobe and… now we’re here.”

Wherever here was. Further North than Winterfell if it had such snow.

“Is this The Last Hearth?” he asks as he decides it must be.

“Last Hearth? Is that a place in Narnia?”

“Where’s Narnia?” Bran asks, thinking of his father’s maps so he can place it.

“My dear boy, you’re in it! Everything from here, all the way to Castle Cair Paravel on the Eastern Ocean, every stick and stone, every icicle, is Narnia.”

“Is this Beyond the Wall then?” Bran asks, deciding it must be.

“A wall? No, no. I’m sorry, we seem to be getting confused. You introduced yourself, so please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Tumnus.”

“A pleasure,” says Bran, like Father and Robb.

“Well, Brandon Stark of Winter Fell, how would you like to come and have dinner with me?”

"Oh, no. My Mother wouldn't like that."

The faun giggles, and it's a funny sound. "It's only around the corner! We can have toast and tea by the fire!"

His wolf grumbles softly.

"I don't know," Bran says.

"Please? I have so few friends."

And Bran only has his siblings. He agrees, and so he returns to the faun's house with him.

It's a funny little place, not at all protected from the winter cold, but the faun sees him inside, his wolf following.

They sit by the fire and eat sweet foods Bran has never tried before, speaking about their fathers and wars.

"My father went away to war," Tumnus explains as Bran drinks his tea. "A long, long time ago. Before this dreadful winter."

"Old Nan says I'm a summer child. I've never seen winter before," Bran says.

"Then you are most lucky. We haven't even had a Christmas in a hundred years."

"I don't know what that is."

"Oh, it's a wonderful time when we all get presents. But that's all gone now. Even the music."

"Music?"

"We Fauns have music for all the seasons. But we haven't danced in such a long time. Would you like to hear some?"

"Music?" Bran looks at his wolf, and it really is getting late, he should be returning to Winterfell. "I suppose, maybe for a little bit. But then we really do have to go. Mother shall be looking for us."

"I did wonder why your friend doesn't talk," says Tumnus, looking at Bran's wolf as he gets out a flute.

"Talk! But he's a direwolf!"

"All wolves talk here."

"They do?" Bran frowns at his wolf. "Can you talk?"

His wolf only yawns.

"Now, are you familiar with any Narnian lullabies?" asks Tumnus.

"No," says Bran.

He only knows the ones Old Nan sings, and the occasional one from Mother.

"Well, that’s good. Because this… probably won't sound anything like one."

Bran giggles and Tumnus plays the flute and it's a funny tune that Bran must have slept to because he wakes up to his wolf licking his fingers and Tumnus is crying.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm such a terrible faun."

"You don't seem terrible," says Bran, but inside he wonders if now Tumnus will be one of Old Nan's monsters.

"Oh, I am. I'm doing something terrible."

"Well, what are you doing?"

"I’m kidnapping you."

Bran freezes and his wolf snarls, his hackles rising.

"It was the White Witch,"

"A witch?" Bran asks.

"She's the one who makes it always winter, always cold. She gave orders. If any of us ever find a human wandering in the woods, we're supposed to turn it over to her!"

"But you wanted to make friends!"

His wolf snarls and Bran snarls with him, and Tumnus cries and grabs his arm to drag him from the funny house.

They race through the trees, his wolf growling at Tumnus's heels.

"She may already know you’re here. The woods are full of her spies. Even some of the trees are on her side!"

"The trees?"

"They talk, you know."

They come back to a part of the woods Bran knows, with the big, twisted old tree.

"Can you find your way back from here?"

"I think so," says Bran, because if he can't his wolf can.

"Alright." Tumnus touches Bran's shoulder. "Go well and be strong, Brandon Stark of Winterfell. I am glad to have met you. You've made me feel warmer than I've felt in a hundred years. Now go. Go!"

Bran runs and his wolf runs and then they're falling through cloaks and then they're on the floor of the empty room, all tangled together and he's laughing and crying because Narnia Beyond the Wall is a wondrous place.

It is still daytime in Winterfell and Bran thinks he must have been gone all through the night and arrived in the morning. The first person he finds is Sansa, and he runs to her, trying to tell her about Narnia Beyond the Wall.

"I'm sorry if you've been looking for me," he says.

Sansa frowns. "Mother's looking for you. Fat Tom saw you climbing this morning."

"But–"

"I need to finish my sewing," she says, and leaves him.

Bran discovers he's been gone no time at all.

He takes Arya to the wardrobe and leads her inside, but there's nothing there this time except wood.

Arya punches him in the arm. "You listen to too many of Old Nan's stories."

After seeing the snow, Bran names his wolf pup Summer, to remind him of better times when the winter comes.

Bran tells Old Nan and Rickon of Narnia Beyond the Wall, and Old Nan warns him that he must not listen to the lies of the wind and magic. But still Bran goes back, again and again, and investigates the wardrobe. There's no country there any more.

Until the night there is.

He falls out into the snow, Summer at his heels, and laughs at the joy of knowing he's right.

He's more careful this time, because the woods are full of spies, and Bran is on edge as he finds his way through the trees to Tumnus's house. He should check that the faun is well and the White Witch hasn't harmed him.

Tumnus is well, but fears when he sees him, shaking his head and trembling. "You mustn't be here, you mustn't! This place is too dangerous for you!"

"It's my duty to make sure you weren't hurt because of me," says Bran, even if he doesn't like the faun that tried to feed him to a witch.

"You must go! Quickly now! Do you remember the way?"

"Summer can find it."

Summer knows his way as surely as anything wherever he goes. When Bran runs with him in the godswood, he always knows the way home.

"Good, good. Go, now!"

They go, crunching through the snow, but when they reach the burned tree, Grey Wind is there, looking confused. Summer barks to see him and runs to play, but Grey Wind shies away.

"Robb!" Bran calls, looking around himself. If Grey Wind is here, Robb can't be far.

"You made it here too!"

But there isn't any Robb.

And Bran looks and looks and Summer looks and even Grey Wind obeys his order to look even though he's not Robb and still there's no Robb. All they find is some snow soaked red with blood and a statue of a short man. 

Bran calls the wolves and finds the path home.

He needs to bring help.

Chapter Text

Robb is the second but Robb is lost, and so Sansa is third.

Bran comes flying into her room, Summer and Grey Wind at his heels, his face red and clothing wet. When did he get wet?

He skids to a halt at the end of her bed, and Jeyne, who has joined her that night, shrieks.

"Father isn't in his room do you know where he is?" he asks, all at once. 

"Hunting trip with the King," Sansa replies.

"What about Jory? Or Ser Rodrick?"

"With Father. Why?"

"Robb went through the wardrobe to Narnia Beyond the Wall but I think the Witch got him," Bran says, all a jumble.

And Sansa cracks.

She has spent much of the Royal visit listening to Bran talk about that wardrobe and how there's a country inside it. 

She can't take any more. 

"I'm tired of you and that wardrobe!" she snaps, rising from her bed. "We are going there now, and you can see that there is nothing there!"

"But there is! There's a country! And Robb's there now!"

Sansa takes his arm and drags him into the passageway. She must have been too loud, because Jon and Arya are awake now too, sleepily peering round their doors. All they need now is Rickon and it'll be a midnight meeting like when they were children. 

"What's going on?" asks Jon.

"The Witch got Robb!" Bran cries.

"There is no magic wardrobe, no Witch, and no Narnia!" Sansa tells him, and she leads him upstairs to his beloved wardrobe room. Jon and Arya follow behind, Jon tiredly trying to persuade her to return to bed so they can sort this mess in the morning. 

Sansa ignores him.

They must have woken either Rickon or Shaggydog coming past the nursery, because by the time they reach the wardrobe, both are with them.

"Right," Sansa says, opening the wardrobe. "Oh, look at that. No secret country and no Robb. What a surprise."

"I know there's no Robb!" Bran cries, waving his arms. "That's the problem!"

Grey Wind barks and charges into the wardrobe. Summer darts after him. Sansa groans. "Get out here, you two."

"We need to get into the wardrobe," Bran says suddenly, and follows the wolf pups in. 

Arya giggles, calls for Nymeria, and follows. 

"This is ridiculous," Sansa mutters.

"We can agree on that," says Jon, climbing into the wardrobe. "Come on, you two. We can sort this out in the wardrobe."

Arya comes out, but Bran refuses and Sansa steps in to grab him, but then there are footsteps outside the room. Septa Mordane. Or Mother. What would they think, finding them like this?

"Quick!" Sansa calls, gratifying for the others. "In here!"

"But you said not to go into the wardrobe!" says Arya.

Sansa scoops up Rickon and gestures for Lady and Shaggydog. "And now I'm telling you to come on, hide!"

Arya and Jon climb into the wardrobe, Nymeria and Ghost at their heels.

Jon pulls the doors closed. 

The wardrobe is big, but it's still too small for the five of them, and they push and shove and complain at each other until they're falling and Sansa is shielding Rickon with her body. 

And then they're on the ground in a snow drift, the cold soaking through her nightgown. She sees her confusion on Jon's face.

"What?" he says.

"I–" she stutters. 

Bran stands over them, triumphant. Arya throws a snowball for the wolves. 

"But this is impossible," Sansa says. 

"I think we owe Bran an apology," mutters Jon as he stands and reaches down to help her up. He and Bran are the only ones wearing boots; she is in her slippers and Arya and Rickon barefoot. 

Sansa dusts down her dress. "I– yes. I'm very sorry for not believing in you, Bran."

"Now we need to find Rkbb," he says.

"Robb's here too?" asks Arya, and then they're treated to more of Bran's terrible attempt of an explanation about how he'd found Grey Wind here but no Robb.

"The faun might help us," he says, and sets off through the trees.

"Bran!" Sansa shouts. 

Jon turns to her. "I'll get him. You get Arya and Rickon back to Winterfell. I like this not."

It's probably the most her half-brother has said to her in years, and yet Sansa nods her agreement. 

"But that's not fair!" Arya protests. 

Jon takes her shoulders. "This is some magic we can't trust, Arya. I'll be right behind you with Bran."

Hr turns to leave and Sansa calls him back by his name, which surprises even her. She sees the surprise in his eyes as she holds out a cloak from the wardrobe. 

Jon shrugs it on with a smile. It's too big for him, but it will suffice to keep him warm. 

Sansa takes Arya's hand with her free one and leads her back through the wardrobe. 

Except it's not all there anymore. 

There are no doors, and even as she feels for them, she feels the walls fading away under her hands. 

"No," she says, putting her hand through the air where the door should be. "No, no, no."

"My feet are cold," says Arya.

There is no wardrobe any more, so Sansa grabs the remnants of what used to be inside and fashions Arya something that might at least protect her feet until they can get her some boots. A shame the wolves are not a little bigger, she could have ridden one. 

"We best go after Jon and Bran," Sansa says, even though she's trembling, inside and out. The pack had to stick together. 

"But we don't know where they've gone!"

"The wolves do," Sansa says, and directs Lady to find Summer and Ghost. 

It had been a guess, but the wolves do know the way, and they find Jon and Bran in the ruins of a small house.

Arya gasps. "What happened here?"

Jon frowns as he turns to her. "You three aren't meant to be here! I told you to go back to Winterfell!"

"We can't," says Sansa.

"What do you mean 'we can't?'"

"The wardrobe doors are gone," says Arya.

Bran goes a terrible a shade of sickly white. "But– how will we get Robb home?"

Jon pats his shoulder. "We'll think of something."

"What happened here anyway?" asks Arya as Nymeria joins Summer in sniffing through the house. 

Jon holds up a piece of paper. "Bran's, uh, friend–"

"He wasn't my friend," Bran mutters.

"– faun… person," Jon amends, glancing at Bran, "Has been arrested by someone called Maugrim. Apparently he was fraternising with humans."

"Oh." Sansa doesn't really know what to do, so she hushes Rickon as he starts to fuss and holds her arm out to gather Bran against her side. Arya takes hold of Jon's sleeve, and Sansa is jealous, but now is not hot the time for that and so she says nothing. 

"Psst!" calls something from outside. 

Jon draws the knife from his belt. Something inside her is glad that he's armed. 

"What that?" asks Rickon, squirming in her arms. 

"I… think it was a bird," Sansa replies, frowning at the little robin perched in a nearby tree. 

"Birds don't talk," says Arya.

"Tumnus did say everything here talks," says Bran as Jon makes his way over to the door. Ghost stands at his side, ears pricked, alert. 

"Who's there?" Jon calls. 

Rickon mumbles something about walking, but Sansa quietens him again. 

The bushes before the funny little house part, and a brown face pokes out. Not a person. 

"A… beaver?" Sansa asks, puzzled. 

"Mr. Beaver, thank you," says the beaver. 

Arya's eyes light up. "So they do talk!" She turns to Nymeria. "Hey girl, can you talk?"

"Is one of you Brandon Stark?" asks the beaver. 

Bran jumps forward. "That's me!"

"Maybe don't tell him that," mutters Sansa, but it's too late. 

"Tumnus said you might come back. Come this way, it's not safe here."

Sansa sighs and nudges Bran towards the door. Jon catches her arms and she can't remember the last time they touched each other.

"We can't trust him," he says. 

"He says he knows this faun of Bran's," she replies.

"He might be lying."

Sansa sighs, because she hasn't thought about that. 

"And he's a beaver! He shouldn't say anything!" Arya adds.

"We need to focus on finding Robb," Jon says, and Grey Wind's ears prick at the mention of his master's name. 

"What do you think, boy?" Sansa asks, shifting Rickon against her hip. He's heavier than the nursery nannies always made it look. She decides when she's a mother, she'll make someone else hold the child until it's big enough to walk. 

"Everything alright?" asks the beaver. 

They ate a beaver once. It wasn't very good, but Robb had shot it while hunting and father decreed they couldn't waste perfectly good meat. 

"We're just talking," Jon says. 

"Best leave that for safe quarters," replies the beaver.

(sansa decides then that she must have fallen and hit her head inside the wardrobe and all this is nothing more than some crazed fever dream)

"How do we know you are safe to go with?" Jon asks. 

“Look at me, I’m a beaver! I’m one of the good ones!”

“The White Witch has spies everywhere,” says Bran.

“Indeed she does, little Prince. Including many among the trees.” The beaver holds out a paw. “Come, we must go.”

And…

Sansa doesn’t want to trust him, not when they’re so vulnerable, but what else can they do, when they have no guards except Jon, who barely counts, and she must be strong for her siblings?

“Let’s go with him,” she says to Jon, because they have no other options. “Keep your knife close to hand.”

They follow the beaver into the woods. It leads them through thick overgrowth, past bushes without leaves and over fallen logs. Sansa loses one of her slippers and decides to kick of the other, leaving her barefoot in the snow. Her skin soon turns blue and she can’t feel her toes.

Jon offers her his boots, but while he might only be a bastard, that seems unfair, so she declines and goes on barefoot. Rickon huddles against her chest and feels heavier than ever. Shaggydog and Lady press close to her legs, providing some amount of warmth, though it’s not really enough. It’s too cold out here for any of them, even with the cloaks from the wardrobe.

“My feet are cold,” Arya complains, reaching down to tug at her makeshift foot-bindings. They’re soaked through from the snow by now

“Oh, your feet are cold?” Sansa gripes back, kicking her own bare, numb foot into a snowdrift. Snowflakes flutter against a nearby tree, which moans and sways as though hit by some great breeze.

Bran gasps. “Sansa! Some of the trees are spies!”

"They're trees!" she replies, but something in her remembers Old Nan's stories about how weirwood trees can speak to each other, all across the land. 

'Once,' she would say during her stories, 'They would talk all across Westeros.'

Sansa had never liked those stories. 

She doesn't kick any more snow or brush up against any more trees.

“Don’t worry,” says the beaver, pointing through the trees at where the light is becoming brighter. “It’s not far now.”

‘Not far’ is still far enough when one is cold and wet, their feet are numb from the snow, and they are holding a toddler that they’re sure is getting heavier by the minute. Jon has long since decided to lift Arya onto his back, and Sansa envies her sister that she is small enough for that. Bran, though younger, still walks, but he is wearing proper boots.

And at long last, the trees open and they find themself standing on the shore of a frozen lake, in the middle of which stands a tall beaver’s dam. Smoke is rising from inside it.

"Oh, lovely! Looks like the old girl has the kettle on," says the beaver. 

"Are we going all the way across the lake?" Sansa asks. 

"Hop to it!" replies the badger, jumping out onto the ice. 

Bran giggles and slides out after him, Summer and Grey Wind either side of him, but Sansa hesitates on the bank. 

"How do we know it's safe?" 

Jon slides Arya from his back on the bank of the lake and sets one boot on the ice. It doesn't even groan beneath him. 

"Frozen solid,” he says.

“So you think it’s safe?” Sansa asks.

Jon grimaces. “Bran doesn’t seem to be having any trouble.”

Arya must take that as permission, because she grins and slides out onto the ice, Nymeria yapping and chasing alongside her. Shaggydog barks and dashes after her.

Sansa sighs and puts her foot on the ice. Jon catches her arm. “Wait.”

“What is it now?”

“Your feet.”

She looks down at her bare feet, and then at the ice. “Oh.”

“Here.”

Jon kicks off his boots and she’s about to tell him no for the fourth time during this too-long walk, but then he takes off his socks and hands them to her. “I know it’s not much.”

She smiled. “Thanks.”

They pick their way out across the frozen lake and follow the beaver into his… well, Sansa supposes it is a dam, even if Beavers aren't meant to speak nor dams be this big. 

"Beaver, is that you?" asks a woman's voice. 

"He wouldn't let us call him Beaver," Arya whispers to Bran, and they both giggle. 

Sansa pokes her sister in the back. "Stop it, you're being rude."

This night be a place with strange talking beavers and trees that spied, but that is no reason to be rude. 

Another beaver hurries from another room, scolding the first, and then stops when she sees the children gathered in her little room. 

"Oh! Well, those aren't badgers!"

Bran folds his arms. "I keep telling people I'm a boy."

Sansa frowns and nudges him too. Rickon is heavy in her arms, so she checks the room and finds it safe before setting him down. He stretches slightly and scampers off to wrestle with Shaggydog. He probably doesn't even know anything is wrong. Sansa envies him, but she needs to be strong for them. 

"Oh, I never thought I'd live to see this day!" exclaims the badger.

And Jon frowns at that. "What do you mean?"

The beaver shakes her head. "It's been an evil time, it has."

"Have people been threatening you?" Jon asks. 

Bran gives him an annoyed look. "Well, I told you that! It's the Witch! That's why their winter has lasted a hundred years!"

"A hundred years?" Sansa asks, aghast.

"That, and more. But I think that's all to end, now that you're here," says the beaver, far too cheerfully.

“What’s that meant to mean?” demands Jon, and Sansa can see his frustration beginning to show through. It takes a lot to rile Jon, he grew around their mother after all, but it’s happening now, his eyes darkening until they look almost indigo.

“Do sit down. Don’t mind the mess. I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I want to know what’s going on here!” Jon snaps.

Sansa takes his arm. Jon glances at her.

“Mother says if you lose your temper, you’ve lost the war,” she says.

“Your Lady Mother doesn’t care for me,” Jon replies.

“That's only because you're a bastard," Sansa replied. 

"But that's hardly my fault, is it?"

Sansa feels guilt at that, and bows her head. "I'm– sorry."

The female beaver places a plate on the table. "Here we go. Some nice fried fish. I'm sure the five of you must be starving."

Sansa looks at Jon. Jon looks back at her. Arya climbs into a chair and reaches out for the fish. 

"No," say Sansa and Jon as one. Sansa grabs Arya's wrist. 

"We don't know it's safe to eat food from here."

Old Nan had told plenty of stories of those that had eaten food from magic places and been cursed. 

"Safe?" laughs the female beaver, taking a piece of the fish. "Why, of course it's safe! Why in blazes wouldn't it be?"

"See?" says Arya, and snatches a piece of fish before Sansa can stop her, stuffing it into her mouth. 

"Arya!" Sansa scolds, but in the end all her younger siblings are eating the fish and feeding it to their wolves, and so she tries some and vices a piece to Lady. It's good. 

"You were going to tell us what's going on," says Jon, the only one of them not to have eaten anything. 

"What's going on? Why, you're the talk of the country!" says… Mrs. Beaver, Sansa decides, wife reasonably. 

"Yes, but why ?" asks Arya.

"Why? Because it's all because of you !"

  "What's because of us?" asks Sansa. She's getting tired of answers that tell them nothing. Why can't things be simple?

"Tumnus's arrest, Aslan's return, the secret police. Why, even the warmth in the world! Surely you must feel it?"

"A little bit," Sansa says, because it's polite and she doesn't why to upset the beaver, but really she doesn't. Maybe it's because her feet are still numb. 

“You’re blaming us?” Sansa asks, picking up Rickon as his eyes begin to droop.

Mrs Beaver laughed and shook her head. “Not at all. All of Narnia is thanking you!”

“Thanking us for what?” Jon asks, and Sansa sees him putting an arm around Bran as he too begins to tire.

“There’s a prophecy, you see,” said Mr. Beaver.

“Prophecies are lies and fairytales,” says Jon sleepily.

Sansa had heard the same from Old Nan so many times when she was a child.

“Not at all, not at all. All of Narnia has been waiting for the prophecy to be fulfilled.”

Sansa sighs. “What is this prophecy?”

“When Adam’s flesh and Adam’s bone sits at Cair Paravel in throne, the evil time will be over and done.”

“That doesn’t rhyme,” Bran complains, snuggling into Jon’s side. “All the best prophecies rhyme. Don’t you know that?”

“You’re missing the point!" protests Mr. Beaver. 

Mrs Beaver looks at the little group gathered around her table. Rickon is sleeping in Sansa's arms, and Bran is much of the way there. Arya is letting Nymeria chew one of the bindings from her feet. 

"It has long been foretold," says Mrs. Beaver in a tone very much like Septa Mordane, "That four Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve will defeat the White Witch and restore peace to Narnia."

The five of them look at each other around the table until Arya states the obvious. "But there are only five of us!"

“So there are! Well, where’s the sixth?” asks Mrs. Beaver.

"The Witch got Robb," says Bran. 

“Oh dear, that’s terrible. But I'm sure Aslan will get everything sorted out."

Sansa frowns. "Who's Aslan? Is he the King or Lord of Narnia Beyond the Wall?"

Mr. Beaver laughs, and then stops to look them over. "You really don't know?"

"No," Sansa replies. She decides she doesn't like this dream. 

"It's not like we've been here long, Sir," says Jon.

"Aslan is the King of the wood! The finest beast in the land!"

"Oh."

"He's been away for a very long time, but he just got back. He's waiting for you near the Stone Tale."

"He's waiting for us?" Arya asks. 

"Of course! He's gathering your army there!"

Sansa frowns and rocks Rickon against her as he moves in his sleep. Her arms ache from holding him. "Our army?"

Father has an army, she knows, even if he has to call the banners to gather it. These banners aren't theirs, but they're gathering all the same. They intend on fighting for them. 

Sansa is supposed to be the beautiful Princess in a tower, waiting for the Prince to rescue her. In this story, she is the Prince.

Sansa wants to throw up the fish. 

"We just want our brother back," says Jon.

"And we have to help Tumnus. Is my fault he was arrested," says Bran.

Jon looks at Sansa. 

Sansa looks at Jon.

“We’re all tired,” he says.

Mrs. Beaver gives them a bright smile. “Oh, yes, of course. You all look exhausted, and we’ve got a long journey ahead if we’re to get you to the the Stone Table. Why don’t you sleep for the night and we can leave in the morning?”

The beavers give them a tiny room just off the main one, filled with old odds and ends. They make it comfortable by layering blankets on the blood, and tuck Rickon in between Arya and Bran.

Then she and Jon huddle together in the opposite corner, and it’s the closest she’s been to her bastard brother in years.

“What do you think we should do?” Sansa asks, and she hasn’t asked Jon for advice since she was seven and they wanted to surprise Father for his birthday.

“It sounds like the people here are relying on us,” replies Jon.

“They’re not our people.” Sansa rubs her foot. Much of the feeling has returned, but it’s still a little numb.

“Robb is our family,” Jon says, and she can’t deny that. 

(there’s a tiny piece inside her that wishes robb is here instead of jon, but she makes that go away because jon is her brother too and she loves him)

“It is our duty to protect those that need it.”

And Septa Mordane says that too, and Mother, but that’s meant to mean that she prays and mends, not plays the part of a prince.

“And it would be dishonourable to leave them now when they need us,” Jon says, and it is only now that Sansa understands what he has been doing.

Jon is a bastard, not her mother’s son, but Family, Duty, Honour are the words of House Tully, her mother’s family.

And if she leaves these people to their fate, she will be denying all of them.

“I will need some shoes,” she says.

The beavers have no shoes, because they are beavers, so she and Jon take pieces of wood and bind them to her feet with strips of fabric hacked from the blankets. It's crude, but it works, so they do the same for Arya and Rickon. 

But as she finishes tying Rickon's makeshift shoe, Mr. Beaver gives a panicked shout. 

"The secret police! They're here!"

Jon's hand jumps to his knife and Ghost springs up at his side, snarling. They look fierce and wild, and Sansa is glad of them being there. He turns to Sansa, and she can see the steel in his eyes.

“Ghost and I will lead them off. You take the little ones and have the beavers guide you to this stone table. I’ll follow once I can.”

And Sansa doesn’t want to be separated from him, he’s family, he’s pack, but sometimes they must all do things they don’t want to do, and so she steadies herself and nods.

Jon clasps her shoulders. “Be strong. I think you’re braver than you think.”

“Hurry now!” shouts Mr. Beaver, rushing about the few rooms of the dam. “They’ll be after us!”

“Right then!” Mrs. Beaver proclaims, and begins to grab various things, packing them into a large basket.

“Do we have time for that?” asks Sansa, because Jon is right by the door and he has his knife in his hand and she won’t let him get hurt for nothing.

“You’ll thank me later! It’s a long journey!”

“One that we won’t be making if the wolves get us first!” Arya snaps, and Nymeria growls with her. 

“Arya’s right. If you’re going, you need to go now,” says Jon.

“And what about you, lad?”

Jon squares himself in place and Sansa sees his fear even as he tries to hide it. “I’ll be fine.”

Mr. Badger leads them over to a corner and pulls back the rug there before lifting a hatch in the floor. “Down here, quickly now!”

“Do as he says,” Sansa says, because she’s lost one brother and might lose another, and she won’t lose any more. “Arya, you first. I’ll pass Rickon down to you, and then I can help Bran.”

For once Arya doesn’t answer with her and climbs down the packed earth that forms the sides of the tunnel. Nymeria jumps down the hole and sits at the bottom as though puzzled about why it’s taking her mistress so long. 

Once Arya’s at the bottom, Sansa smiles at Rickon. “You need to go to Arya now, alright? I’ll help you.”

“Not a baby,” Rickon protests, but he’s little more than. Sansa lifts him in the tunnel, leaning right over so she can lower him down to Arya, who reaches up to take him. Shaggydog jumps down behind him.

“I’m next,” Sansa says to Bran, and slides her legs into the hole. It’s cold, and presses in around her. Lady jumps down beside her, and Sansa can feel the soil beneath her paws as she tumbles to the bottom, feel the concerned noses of her littermates as they greet her.

Then she’s standing alongside Arya, looking up at Bran and the beavers above.

She reaches up to catch Bran as he slides down, catching him against her and steadying him. He’s still small, her little brother. Summer comes toppling down alongside him.

The beavers follow soon after, and Mr. Beaver grips the earthy walls of the tunnel so he can pull the hatch closed. 

“Wait!” Bran cries, jerking suddenly in her arms. “What about Grey Wind?”

Sansa checks the wolves in the tunnel and sees no, Robb’s pup never did come down alongside them. She looks up at the hatch, a few feet above her now.

“Grey Wind!” she calls, but the wolf doesn’t come.

“Grey Wind!” Arya shouts, but the wolf doesn’t come.

“Grey Wind!” cheers Rickon, but the wolf doesn’t come.

“Grey Wind!" Bran yells, and if the wolf will listen to any of them, it's him, because it's Bran he's been following the longest while here; was Bran that found him. 

But the wolf doesn't come. 

"We gotta go!" yells Mr. Beaver, and slams the hatch.

Chapter Text

The lone wolf dies.

But Jon isn’t a lone wolf.

He’s protecting the pack.

Ghost stands at his right, and, more to his surprise, Grey Wind stands to his left, growling furiously.

Were they in Winterfell, Jon would have called to Robb to quiet his wolf, but he’s a long way from Winterfell and the direwolf’s snarls make him feel safe.

But he’s not safe.

Snarls and curses come from outside the den, and he can hear paws pounding at the wood of the dam.

Grey Wind’s snarls grow louder.

Are Sansa and the younger ones safe yet?

It will only be her, if Jon can’t do this. When they were young, that had always been the division. Robb and Jon and Sansa the older ones and Arya and Bran and Rickon the younger. Then Sansa started to become a lady and Robb made friends with Theon and they were all parted.

He cannot allow it to only be her. 

Heavy paws smash through the flimsy wood of the door. Jon drives his knife through one, and blood explodes from the wound, spraying across the room and splattering Jon's face. The wolf outside howls in pain, but its weight hits the door and it breaks under the impact. 

Jon rips his knife free and Ghost leaps on the other wolf still caught in the wreckage of the door. It’s only a little bigger than the direwolf, and snarls as it tries to shake him off.

“Gerroff me, you little savage! Gerroff!”

Jon tastes the blood in his mouth as Ghost clamps his jaws around the back of the wolf’s neck at the spine, feeling the bone crunch.

Beside him, Grey Wind is already racing forward, fast as his namesake, to engage the biggest of the wolves, a huge, dark furred thing. Jon adjusts his grip on the knife and turns on the third wolf as it leaps at him.

“Will you kill us, Son of Adam?”

“I’ll butcher you for the birds,” Jon bluffs, even though it feels strange to finally kill something that talks and even stranger for that talking thing to be a wolf. Is this meant to mean something, that he’s fighting the symbol of his father’s house?

The wolf lunges, snaps, and withdraws, once, twice, three times. Jon circles him, clutching his knife in his hand, and on his fourth lunge he strikes out, plunging the blade through the beast’s eye.

It makes a dreadful screaming sound, its back arching painfully, its claws digging into the wooden floor of the beavers’ home, and Jon digs the knife in deeper as blood rushes over his hand and stains the sleeve of his nightshirt.

Then the corpse of the wolf falls to the floor and he rips his knife free.

He’s killed a wolf with a belt knife.

He’s killed a wolf with a belt knife .

How many people could say that?

Ghost’s opponent is dead too, and the one Grey Wind targetted close to it, making those terrible death screams as the direwolf tears into it.

And at last it too is dead, and the dam is quiet.

Jon observes the destruction. The little home is ruined. There are holes in the walls letting the light in from where the wolves beat it with their paws. The beavers will have to repair.

He walks to the tunnel entrance in the corner.

Ghost follows, but Grey Wind doesn’t.

“Come on. We need to catch up to the others,” Jon says.

Grey Wind stays in the doorway to the dam.

“What is it, boy?” Jon asks.

More wolves?

But when he moves to look at what Grey Wind sees, the wolf runs, racing away through the trees.

“Grey Wind!” Jon calls, but the wolf doesn’t come.

The lone wolf dies. 

Jon is not a lone wolf. He has Ghost. 

Sansa is not a lone wolf. She has Lady, and Arya and Bran and Rickon and their wolves. 

Grey Wind is a lone wolf.

Sansa needs him, the younger ones need him – but Robb may never forgive him if he lets his wolf run off and be lost. 

Grey Wolf stops in the distance and looks back at him, his ears pricked. He gives a sharp bark. 

"I think he wants us to follow," Jon says to Ghost. 

And if Robb is already dead then Grey Wind is all they have left of him and they shouldn't let him die. 

Jon closes the door of the beavers' home and Ghost lopes at his heels as he sets off after Grey Wind.

Grey Wind, he soon learns, definitely wants him to follow. The pup never comes close enough for Jon to catch, but he never gets too far ahead either, stopping for breaks so he can be sure Jon and Ghost are still following. He leads them through the snow filled woods and thick undergrowth, past frozen ponds and across snow drifts as deep as Jon is tall, until at last they reach a great looming castle built of ice. 

This, Jon decides, must be where the Witch lives. 

Perhaps this is where she's keeping Robb.

Grey Wind snuffles around the great walls surrounding the castle, pawing at the snow drifts piled up against them. Jon thinks of his siblings, but Robb is one of them, so he sighs and gets to work. 

After a short while looking, Grey Wind reveals a tight hole in the wall where the ice has begun to melt. It's big enough for him and Ghost to fit through, but Jon is bigger and much broader at the shoulders. And if they need to bring Robb out this way, he is bigger still than Jon. He has to dig his fingers into the ice and break more away until the hole is big enough for him to just wriggle through and fall into the garden on the other side. 

Everything is frozen and icicles hang on the statues that fill the space. They are grey stone, but scarily lifelike, depicting various animals and some creatures Jon doesn't know; a man with cloven hooves for legs, a woman with the body of a horse. He wonders if these are all things Old Nan told him stories about.

Grey Wind gives a low bark and goes bounding away towards the castle. Ghost chases after him and so Jon is close behind, hiding among the statues. The wolves know where they are going, he's sure. 

When they reach the castle he finds it isn't just frozen like the statues. It's made of ice, like the great wall around it. 

"What now?" Jon asks. 

Grey Wind looks at him, and there is intelligence in those eyes, intelligence even more than the wolves usually have. Something inside Jon knows , because he has seen that intelligence for every day of his life. 

"Where are you?" he asks. 

Grey Wind leads him around the castle until they find a piece of the wall with barred windows set into the bottom. Jon crouches down and peers inside, grimacing as wet snow soaks into his trousers. 

Inside is a large, frozen cell, like the ones at Winterfell but four times as big. And against one wall he can see Robb, propped up and bound hand and foot in chains. His eyes are open, but a strange shade of white, as though rolled right back in his head. 

"Robb!" Jon hisses, but Robb doesn't wake and Jon fears calling louder. 

He must get inside.

He's so close now, and he can't leave his brother now. 

He looks at Grey Wind and into those familiar intelligent eyes. "How do I get to you. 

Grey Wind not Robb leads him further round the castle. There doesn't seem to be any doors, but there are small holes, like in the wall, where the ice is starting to melt. Grey Wind finds one large enough for him and Ghost to squirm through, but Jon has to stop and widen it, every moment fearing the Witch might appear and find him, before he can crawl inside. 

Almost as soon as he does there's noise outside, great, crunching paw steps and what sounds like a carriage being dragged. Jon holds his breath and presses himself to the ice wall beside the hole, leaning down to peer outside. There's a wheel-less carriage out there with two great white bears attached to it and a woman with skin like ice shouting at a gathering of strange looking creatures around her. 

"I want those humans found!" she screams, and Jon wonders what she is if she's not human before deciding that if this is Bran's Witch, she could be something else. 

He stays frozen in place until her strange carriage leaves and then turns to the wolf pups. 

Now they have time to free Robb.

Chapter Text

Robb is the second. 

He follows Bran to his little forgotten room with his precious wardrobe and watches as his little brother disappears inside, Summer at his heels.

Robb laughs and shakes his head, calling for Grey Wind. He opens the doors of the wardrobe and Grey Wind noses his way inside but there's no Bran.

Robb frowns and climbs into the wardrobe himself. "Bran?"

This wardrobe isn't this big. He can't have disappeared. 

But he isn't here. 

Robb closes the wardrobe door behind him in case Bran might somehow be hiding that way, but nothing.

"Bran?" he calls, pushing his way through the cloaks in the wardrobe. This thing can't be that big. The door must be here somewhere.

But as he gets deeper inside, the temperature gets colder, and then his boots are crunching through snow instead of stepping on wood. 

Robb laughs at the impossibility and Grey Wind barks at the snowy trees, his tail wafting snowflakes. 

"Come on. We should find Bran," Robb says. 

They don't find Bran.

They do find a woman with skin like ice in a carriage pulled by great white bears. 

Robb tries to avoid them, but while her driver is less than half Robb's size, he runs twice and fiercely and bowls him over into the snow. 

Robb yells and Grey Wind snarls and the little man-creature-thing pins him down with a knife to his throat.

"A human?" it asks in an odd sounding voice.

Robb brings his legs up to kick it and draws his own knife, leaping at the thing. He's never fought in a fight like this for real, only in the training yard, but he finds it comes naturally. Grey Wind snarls with him and springs, and Robb tastes the blood in his mouth as his jaws close around the man-creature-thing's lower back, ripping out a great chunk of flesh. It screams and Robb takes his advantage, plunging his knife through its eye. 

The body crashes into the snow and Robb turns to run, but one of the bears pounds forward and crashes into him, pinning him with one enormous paw.

The woman steps down from her carriage and stalks over to look at him. "Interesting."

Grey Wind turns on her, too, snarling, but Robb feels the danger as something in him screams and and bids the wolf to run. Grey Wind is reluctant, but Robb pushes on the part of him that he can sense in a distant corner of his brain and then his wolf obeys, bolting into the trees. One of the white bears makes a sound and lurches as though to follow, dragging the carriage in that direction.

“No,” says the woman, raising her hand to him. In her other, she holds a long white staff, which she waves at the man-creature-thing that attacks him. There’s a strange crunching sound as it turns to stone.

“Witch,” Robb whispers, attempting to wriggle away from the bear above him. Its hot breath pours down on him.

The Witch strides over to him, tapping his hand with her staff. “Tell me, Son of Adam, what is your name?”

Robb kicks her, as hard as he can, driving his boot into her shin. She slams her staff down on his hand and he cries out as he feels his fingers break.

“What is your name?” she repeats.

“Robb Stark, heir to Winterfell,” he replies.

“Hm.” She looks at her man-creature-thing, now little more than a statue, and waves her staff at him. Chains of ice form around his wrists, binding them together. “Come, Robb Stark. I’m sure we will have much to speak about.”

She drags him into the carriage. Robb kicks and curses in a way his mother would never allow, but he can't free himself from the chains. The woman offers him a hot, sweet drink and tries to make him speak about his siblings, but he spits out the drink and snarls swear words at her rather than surrender his siblings.

The Witch gives up and takes him back to a castle of ice, where he is thrown into a large cell similar to the dungeons at Winterfell. Robb slams the chains around his wrists against the floor, but they don’t shatter.

“Tell me, Robb Stark heir to Winterfell, do you have siblings?” asks the Witch.

Robb spits at her feet. It freezes to the floor.

(and he can feel grey wind panicking, hear bran’s cries for him as he searches and searches)

“Are they here now?” she asks.

“I’ll tell you nothing,” he replies.

She smiles. “You will, in time.” She leaves the cell and he hears her telling someone to search for his siblings, that they can’t be far.

(bran needs to leave, but he’s still wandering the woods with grey wind and summer searching for robb)

Robb closes his eyes pushes Grey Wind away. 

‘ Back to Winterfell, you need to go back to Winterfell. Take Bran.’

Grey Wind goes.

A pair of strange talking wolves drag a small man-beast thing with cloven hooves into the dungeon cell, throwing it against the opposite wall. Robb ventures forward to speak to him, but then he feels Grey Wind back again, not as strongly as he might have done had they both been in the same cell, but strongly enough all the same. He frowns, because Grey Wind was meant to go back to Winterfell and stay , so he and Robb’s siblings would be safe from this world made of ice.

Robb closes his eyes to try and focus better on Grey Wind and it works a little too well, because he can see and hear and is the wolf. The snow is cold under his paws.

He’s with only Sansa and Arya and little Rickon, Jon and Bran and their wolves have gone somewhere ahead. 

Then he's him again, back in his cell and shivering against the cold. 

The Witch comes again to demand he tell her where his siblings are, but Robb refuses. 

The pack stays together. 

He's not with the pack right now, but he won't endanger them. 

The jailers bring stale bread and a jug of frozen water for Robb and the strange looking man at the other side of the cell to share. Robb lets him take it all, because he can taste food in his mouth from Grey Wind. When he closes his eyes, he's laid beside Sansa in what looks like a cabin and taking pieces of fish from her hand.

(also there are talking beavers and robb is sure he's going insane) 

The Witch wakes him from Grey Wind's mind and when he refuses to tell her where his siblings are she turns his left hand to stone.

(its all for nothing because a bat that talks comes and tells her the human children are with the bats)

(robb is certain he’s lost his mind)

His hand is painful and heavy but Robb tries to ignore it as he slips back into Grey Wind's skin. 

He's getting better at it even over these few hours that he’s had to practice it. Grey Wind’s instincts lead, but Robb can push and press and make him go certain directions.

(what he cant do is make his siblings listen to him)

He tries pawing at the door, tries barking at Jon and Sansa, but all that happens is Bran and Arya pull him away.

“We’ll get Robb back for you,” Bran promises.

Arya rubbs his head. “Yeah, you just hang on.”

Robb wants to tell them that he doesn’t want them to try to rescue him. They’ll only endanger themselves. He wants them to go home to Winterfell and bring Father’s army; wants them to go home to Winterfell and leave him to rot.

But the pack sticks together and they know that as well as he does.

He knows they won’t give up.

He knows they won’t leave him.

Which is why when Jon and Sansa part and Jon remains by the door with his knife in hand, Robb squashes Grey Wind's instinct to follow Sansa's call down into the tunnel and pushes him to join Ghost. Grey Wind fights a little, but Ghost and Jon are his pack too and he listens to Robb's will.

It takes the wolves a few minutes to come crashing into the little house, and when they do, Ghost and Jon set upon them. Robb lets Grey Wind take control as his instincts know best. His wolf leaps into the fray, racing away from Jon and pouncing on the biggest of the wolves.

It's a bloody fight, the thing is bigger than Grey Wind and its teeth rip him open several times, but at last Grey Wind tears out its throat. Scarlet blood splatters the snow. 

For a minute, they are all still. Jon is panting and Robb can't tell if the blood he's covered in is from him or the dead wolf. 

Finally though, Jon moves. He crosses the room to the tunnel hatch, but Robb is looking at the distant castle and nudges Grey Wind towards it when Jon  calls. 

There's a brief push and pull between them, but Robb wins and guides Grey Wind away into the trees. Can he guide Jon home to fetch Father? 

Maybe. 

Can he bring Jon here? 

Jon is reluctant to follow at first. He tries to call Grey Wind back, tries to argue that Sansa and the smaller ones need them. 

But when Grey Wind doesn't listen, Jon still follows. 

They work their way through the trees until they come to the ice castle, and Grey Wind looks at Jon expectantly, awaiting praise. When none comes, he sets off too find a way through this ice wall. They've come this far. 

He leads Jon through the wall and across the castle grounds.

(and robb fears hes leading jon to his death this way and his brother would be added to the collection of statues out here)

But Grey Wind finds a way into the castle as Robb had wanted and Jon crawls in behind him. Not a moment too soon, because a heartbeat later they hear the Witch outside. Robb fears Jon might run off to fight her himself, but he stays hidden in the ice walls of her own castle until she is gone and then he turns to Grey Wind. "Let's find Robb."

Finding himself proves to be the easy part, after everything. Grey Wind and, surprisingly, Ghost, find the way. Robb slides back and lets the wolf take over again. The ice floor is cold beneath his paws. Soon they find the outside of the dungeon he is in, but here they find a new problem. Two more of those man-creature-things. 

One has the keys.

Grey Wind feels the threat and bares his teeth, snarling, and his white littermate snarls with him. They hate these things that would capture their two-legged brother. He must run with them.

Jon draws his knife but this time stays behind the wolves. 

The man-creature-things are about the size of the young direwolves, but the wolves have teeth and claws with which to bite and slash. The things fight valiantly, but soon enough both are dead.

Jon takes the keys and unlocks the cell door. "Robb!"

Grey Wind bounds inside and runs to him, shoving his great head into Robb's chest. It's strange, seeing himself like this.

Jon and Ghost hurry behind. Ghost's white fur is red with blood, but he wags his tail because he has pleased Jon.

Grey Wind paws Robb, but the boy doesn't wake.

Robb doesn't know how to stop being Grey Wind.

Jon kneels and shakes Robb's shoulders, but the boy doesn't wake.

Robb doesn't know how to stop being Grey Wind.

Ghost licks his hand, a rare honour from the albino wolf, boy doesn't wake.

Robb doesn't know how to stop being Grey Wind.

Robb tries to focus himself, but that only makes him more Grey Wind.

He needs to let go.

He tells himself to let go.

Robb stops being Grey Wind and becomes Robb again.

For a moment it's jarring – Grey Wind doesn't feel the cold of this castle the way Robb does, and his hands and feet have gone numb in the time he was away – but soon enough he's pulling himself together and blinking up at Jon.

“Robb?” Jon asks, and Robb has never been happier to see him.

“Jon,” he whispers, his voice rough from the cold and his earlier screams and shouts. Grey Wind prances around him, pawing at his arms. He stops at his stone hand, sniffing his frozen fingers. Robb uses his good hand to scratch the wolf pup’s head.

“Your hand,” Jon breathes, as if he’s only now noticing it.

“She’s an actual Witch, Jon,” Robb replies.

Jon reaches out to his hand but draws back from touching it. “Does it hurt?”

“I… no, not really. I mean, I can’t feel it,” Robb admits. That should be more worrying than it is.

Jon fumbles with the keys in his hands. “Come on. Let’s get you out of those chains.”

These dungeon shackles and chains are metal, not ice like the ones first used – the man-creature-things guarding the cell had changed them when Robb was brought in – and Jon unlocks them quickly, laying them on the floor so they won’t click. He stands and helps Robb up. “It’s not far now.”

That’s a lie.

They have to go all the way through the castle, and along the way they run into another talking wolf and two more of those short man-creature-things. Grey Wind and Ghost waste no time in tearing their throats out. Robb swallows the taste of blood in his mouth and takes their daggers. One he gives to Jon. He has enough functional hands to hold two weapons.

Jon guides him quickly to to the hole that he and the wolves had entered through. Even now it looks marginally wider.

“Everything’s melting,” Robb whispers.

“I’ve noticed that. It’s the same in the woodland,” Jon replied.

Robb has limited memories of the last time winter turned to spring, but he’s sure it doesn’t usually happen this fast. Things must be different here than in the North. He doesn’t think this is truly Beyond the Wall as Bran believes.

They crawl from the hole and find there are more guards outside now than when Jon broke in. They consider fighting their way out, but starting a fight with one of these strange creatures would almost certainly bring more running. They could fight two; they can’t fight two hundred.

Instead, they stay close and crawl from statue to statue. Jon pauses at one that looks like a man with cloven deer hooves.

“You know him?” Robb asks.

Jon touches the man’s waist, as high as he can considering both are crouched at the statue’s feet. “I think he’s Bran’s faun. He looks like a picture from the house we visited.”

So Bran had been telling the truth about that too. Robb’s guilt only grows.

They reach the wall around the castle grounds, and it is melting quickly now, little streams of water rushing down from the top. Within a few days, Robb thinks, there will be nothing left of it.

“This way,” Jon says, and leads him out through the hole in the wall.

It feels good to breathe in the cold air outside the castle, but even as Jon directs Ghost to lead them back to Sansa and the small ones, Robb struggles to make himself relax. He expects to see the Witch any moment, charging towards them on that terrible wheel-less, bear-drawn carriage of hers, ready to turn more of him to stone. Or maybe she’d make Jon a statue and Robb would have to watch his brother die for his loyalty.

He won’t let his brother die for his loyalty.

Ghost and Grey Wind lead them, finding their way through the trees on steady feet. As the distance between them and the castle grows, Jon turns to him.

“Were you really..?”

Robb blushes and bows his head. Ahead of him, Grey Wind wags his tail, and even now Robb can feel the cold ground beneath his paws.

Jon smiled. “I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t going mad.”

Robb laughs. “You thought you were the one going mad? I was a wolf !”

That breaks the tension and they both begin to cheer as they make their way. Robb even starts to forget about his stone hand. They’re hungry and thirsty, but they’re together and they’re free.

The pack survives.

The sun drew high in the sky, and it's then that they can see just how much everything around them was melting.  The blanket of snow is quickly becoming water and flowers are popping up. 

Jon giggles, plucking a tulip and twisting it between his fingers. "I wonder if seasons change by the day here."

It's not the craziest thing Robb has heard since falling through a wardrobe into this strange land. He takes a tulip of his own, though neither of them are really sure what to do with them. They're not girls. 

The further they walk, the more Robb starts to consider eating the tulip, until he tosses it away to keep his good hand free. Grey Wind brings him a mouse and wags his tail, but they have no fire to roast it and a mouse wouldn't have that much meat on it anyway. 

Robb directs Grey Wind to eat the mouse.

Finally the trees start to open up ahead of them, and the sound of voices drifts on the breeze. Robb brightens at that and his heart soars.

"Sansa! Arya!" he calls. 

"Robb?" comes the echoing cries.

A moment later four more direwolves come crashing into the woodland, bouncing towards them. Robb laughs and opens his arms to greet them. Summer bowls him over into the snow and stands on his chest to lick his face. Jon kneels to hug Nymeria and the excited howls of wolves ring through the trees. 

Sansa and Arya aren't far behind their wolves, dashing through the snow to reach them. Sansa has Rickon bundled in her arms, his little legs wrapped around her waist. 

"Robb! Jon!" There's relief on her face and delight in her voice. Grey Wind rushes to meet her.

Bran trails behind his siblings, and he looks tired and unsure. Robb calls him over and wraps him in his arms. 

"I'm sorry," Bran sobs.

"For what?"

"Bringing you here. Letting you get captured by the Witch."

Robb kisses his head. "It wasn't your fault. We all made our own choices."

"Do you forgive me?"

"There's nothing to forgive."

Chapter Text

For a moment the world feels brighter now that Robb is back with them. The snow has less bite and Arya's feet are less numb. Nymeria's tail wags so fast it's blurry.

Then Sansa ruins it all when she gasps and calls Robb's name again. "Your hand!"

Robb looks down and lifts his left hand. For a moment Arya isn't sure what she's looking at. His skin looks funny, grey and mottled, and his fingers don't move.

"Is that… stone?" Sansa asks.

"The Witch did it," Robb replies, turning his hand over.

Arya takes a few steps towards him and reaches out to him, but she’s hesitant. What if she breaks his hand? It would hurt him so much.

Bran bursts into tears anew. “I’m sorry, Robb!”

“Oh, Bran, it wasn’t your fault,” Sansa says, shifting Rickon against her and wrapping her other arm around Bran’s shoulders. Bran turns and buries his face in her chest.

“We don’t know what kind of magic this is,” Jon says, taking Robb’s hand. He doesn’t fear that it might infect him then. Emboldened by that, Arya creeps closer. Jon lets Robb’s hand go.

“We might be able to reverse it.”

“Ah, pardon for interrupting,” says Mr. Beaver, climbing into the woodland from the frozen riverbank beyond, “But we really should be going. We won’t reach the Stone Table today if we don’t.”

“The Stone Table?” Robb asks.

Sansa sighs. “Someone called Aslan is waiting there for us. We’ll… fill you in along the way.”

They all stay close to Robb as they lead him back to the frozen river. Arya has never seen a river so big, and when the beavers had first brought them here, she had wondered as to whether it was the sea.

Nymeria frolics at her feet, and Arya can feel her excitement. The pack is together again now. And together, the pack will be strong.

Sansa explains everything to Robb as they walk, while Jon drops back to speak to Arya.

“So tell me again why we’re following this river?”

“The beavers say it’ll take us to Aslan,” Arya replies. She still isn’t sure why they have to do any of this, but for once Sansa isn’t being boring and Bran isn’t running off to try and climb something, so she accepts the victory with glee.

“Right. Great. Of course.”

Arya giggles and takes his hand. “Do you think everything here is magic?”

“It seems that way.”

When they get back to Winterfell, she’ll never be able to look at anything the same way again.

They stop again a little further upriver so the beavers can show Jon and Robb a map that Arya has already looked at. It shows a vast land, with mountains to the north and a vast expanse of sea to the east.

It’s certainly not Westeros.

Jon and Robb pour over the map, whispering to each other and Sansa. Arya feels very left out and tries to invite herself into the conversation, but Sansa only scolds her.

“It’s nothing,” she says in that voice that tells Arya it’s not nothing. “We’re just talking.”

Mr. Beaver taps an area further upriver yet from them. “Aslan’s camp is just here, near the Stone Table. It’s across this frozen river.”

Robb frowns at the river, picking up a stick and throwing it out across the river. "What happened here anyway?"

Mrs. Beaver gives a smile that looks funny on a beaver. "Oh, the river’s been frozen solid for a hundred years."

"A hundred years?" Arya asks. That's longer than she can even imagine! 

"I'm afraid so. The White Witch caused it, when she took over."

"That's so sad!"

Sansa shakes her head. "And it's so far!"

Mrs. Beaver laughs. "Well, it is the world. Did you expect it to be small?"

Sansa sighs and shakes her head. "I suppose not."

The beavers seem a little wary of Robb, but they offer him some jam from their basket of supplies. Robb must be hungry, because he actually eats it like that while Arya and Bran skate on the frozen edges of the river. 

"Don't go out too far!" Sansa calls. She's still carrying Rickon, and Arya pitied him that he can't skate with them. 

She sticks her tongue out at Sansa's back. "Spoilsport!"

"For making sure you aren't drowned?" Sansa replies.

"Oh, come on, humans!" calls Mr. Beaver. 

"I'm not sure he likes us," Bran whispers. 

Arya shrieks with laughter. 

Robb groans and shakes his head. "If he tells us to hurry up one more time, I shall turn him into shoes for you three."

They all giggle, but Arya does look down at her makeshift foot coverings and sigh. When she has shoes again, she decides, she shall never take them off.

"Here, quickly! Come on!" shouts Mr. Beaver.

"We're all going as fast as we can!" Jon shouts back. 

Mrs. Beaver waves her hands. "Behind you! It's her!"

"Run!" shouts Robb. He grabs Bran from the ice and pushes him towards the trees. Arya stumbles behind him. Sansa and Robb bring up the rear, while the wolves hang behind with Jon, snarling. Sansa catches at Arya's arm and Robb grabs Bran, but Jon–

The sound of something being dragged across the ground gets louder and louder and Arya's heart beats faster and faster and she feels Nymeria's anxiety, tastes the anger of her white and grey brothers beside her–

"It's not her!" Jon shouts.

The beavers stop. Arya exchanges looks with her siblings. Bran is still clinging to Robb and Sansa has Rickon bundled in her arms. 

"Well, who is it then?" Arya calls back. 

"A man!"

"A man?" Sansa echoes. 

The beavers look at each other. 

"Could it be..?" asks Mrs. Beaver. 

They lead the way back to Jon. Robb gestures for them to follow, though Arya sees he has his dagger in his good hand.

On the riverbank with Jon is one of the biggest men Arya has ever seen. He wears red and has a long white beard flowing down his chest. 

"Father Christmas, sir!" says Mrs. Beaver excitedly. 

"We thought you were the Witch," Robb says crossly. Grey Wind growls. 

The man laughs, a great, booming laugh that shakes the trees. "Oh, I'm sorry about that! But in my defence, I have been driving one of these longer than the Witch."

"Who's he?" Arya asks Bran.

Bran grins. "Oh, I know! The faun said he brings presents!"

"Presents? Really?"

"I certainly do!" says Father Christmas. 

The six of them exchange looks. Arya tries to think of any stories Old Nan might have told them about strangers bringing gifts, but all she can think of are warnings and scary rumours. 

"Tumnus said there hadn't been Christmas for a hundred years," says Bran.

"Sadly true," says Father Christmas.

"I'm sorry, sir, but what is Christmas?" asks Robb.

"Why, tis a joyous time of year for all to celebrate! And the hope that you have brought, Your Majesties, is finally starting to weaken the Witch’s power. Still, I dare say you could do with these." He reaches into the strange carriage and lifts out a huge brown sack. 

"Presents!" Arya cheers, jostling against Bran as they run to him. Sansa catches the back of her borrowed cloak. 

 "We don't know we can trust him."

"Of course we can trust him," says Mrs. Beaver with a laugh.

"Now, these are tools, not toys," says Father Christmas, taking a short spear and a round shield from his bag. He presents it to Arya with a smile. "Arya, Eve's daughter."

She takes both, and wonders at having a weapon of her own so readily given. 

"Bran, Adam's son." Bran grins up at him, his eyes glittering, and is handed a bow and a quiver of arrows. "Have faith in yourself and in this bow and it will not easily miss."

Bran straps the quiver to his back. "Thank you, sir."

Next is Sansa, who is given a small bottle with a strap attached, along with a small ivory horn.

“Blow on this horn and wherever you are, help will come. And in this vial is the juice of the fire-flower. One drop will cure any injury."

Sansa smiles, looking at the bottle curiously. "This is a strange magic, sir, but thank you."

"And, though I hope you never have to use it, this is for you, Rickon." He holds out a small dagger to Rickon. He takes it, holding it in his chubby hands.

“Say thank you,” Sansa whispers.

“Thank you!” says Rickon.

The man, Father Christmas, turns to Jon and Robb. “Robb, son of Adam.”

Robb steps forward and is given a lance that looks too big for the bag it came from, along with a large silver shield. "I hear you can use this."

"Yes sir."

To Jon goes the final gift, a fine silver shield similar to Robb's and a longsword in a scabbard with a lion's head carved into the hilt. 

"Bear these wisely. The time to use them grows ever closer."

"Thank you, sir," Jon says, sliding the sword from its scabbard. Arya scuttles closer to admire it. 

Father Christmas returns to his funny carriage and climbs into the front seat. "Now, I must be off. Winter is almost over, and things do pile up when you’ve been gone a hundred years." He shakes the reins and the reindeer pulling his funny carriage begin to move. "Long live Aslan!"

They all call their goodbyes, and he disappears into the snow. Arya holds up her spear to investigate it. "Does this mean you'll reach me how to fight?" Robb laughs and Jon ruffles her hair. "We'll see."

Sansa, however, is frowning at the liquid in her bottle. "Robb, give me your hand."

"What?" 

She thrusts her own hand out. "Your hand."

Robb passes his lance to Jon and offers her his good hand. She sighs and reaches for his stone one. "Your other hand."

"Will that work?" asks Arya, sceptical. 

"Let's find out," Sansa replies, removing the stopper from the bottle. With a painful care, she let one drop fall onto the stone of Robb's frozen hand. 

For a moment Arya thinks it hasn't worked, but then a strange ripple runs across Robb's hand and the stone seems almost chased away by the returning flesh. His fingertips are the last thing to change, and Robb flexes his hand. "Thanks, Sansa."

"Of course."

Jon, however, is frowning as he gives Robb's lance back. "He said winter was almost over."

"Yes," says Arya, but both Robb and Sansa start to look uneasy. 

"You know what that means?" Jon said. 

Robb cast a grim look at the river. "The ice is melting."

They stop and look at the river. In the centre, huge chunks of ice are already beginning to be swept away. Further up the river is the biggest waterfall Arya has ever seen, dominating everything around it. Pieces of ice are already breaking away from it. 

"We need to cross, now," says Robb.

Jon looks more hesitant, but soon begins to climb back down the riverbank to the edge of the river. 

"Will we make it?" Sansa asks.

"Of course we will!" Arya declares, calling for Nymeria and stepping out onto the ice. It cracks under her weight and water spurts up from beneath, spraying her. Jon catches her collar and pulls her back onto dry land. "We won't cross this way. We need to try further up."

Robb shakes his head. "Everything's melting. It'll be worse up there. And we don't want to risk being swept over the edge of the waterfall." He holds his arms out to Bran. "Come here, you."

Bran hurries to him, and he crouches so Bran can climb onto his back. 

"Wait," says Mr. Beaver, holding his paw out to stop the two. "Maybe I should go first."

"You are a beaver," Arya says, and then a thought hits her. "Don't beavers make dams?"

Sansa flicks the back of her head. "Arya!"

Mrs. Beaver laughs. "We're not that fast, dear."

Arya wonders how she was meant to know that about magical talking beavers.

Mr. Beaver scuttles out onto the ice, testing it with his feet and tail. Pieces of it crack even under his slight weight. “This way!”

Arya hurries out behind him, and her siblings follow on. The ice creaks and groans beneath her. She giggles at the thrill of it as they pick their way towards the other side.

“We must never tell mother and father what we’re doing,” Sansa says.

Robb laughs. “We must tell Father. Jon and I are going to make him proud. But you’re probably right that we shouldn’t tell Mother.”

Their little group laughs, and for a moment everything was well. But then the ice cracks dangerously under Arya’s feet and Jon grabs her arm, pulling her closer. Ghost and Nymeria prance around them.

As fun as it is to cross the river, Arya is still relieved when they reach the other side. Behind them, the ice is quickly breaking away into the river. 

Robb lets Bran slide to the ground. “We need to keep moving.”

The beavers consult their map and lead them into the trees.

“Not far now,” Mr. Beaver sats cheerfully.

“I’m hungry,” Bran grumbled.

“Hush,” Sansa mutters. Even here she’s bossy.

As they walk, the wood seems to warm up around them. Arya’s feet are finally warm, and beads of sweat are running down her back. At last, she chooses to shrug off the cloak and toss it over a tree branch. Sansa scolds her for that too and makes her bring it with them.

Robb nods. “She’s right. If the Witch finds it, she’ll know which was we’ve gone.”

Arya grumbles, but she does keep the cloak with her, dragging it across the ground. Bran, too, takes off his cloak, and Robb and Jon soon follow. Sansa tries to keep hers and Rickon’s on for longer, but at last those too are removed. Robb directs the wolves to dig a shallow hole, and they bury the things rather than having to continue carrying them.

Evening is drawing in by the time they reach the top of a slope, at the bottom of which is a massive camp, sprawling out across the land. 

“Is this it?” Arya asks, dragging her bare feet through the grass. She has long since abandoned her makeshift foot wrappings.

“Tis indeed!” declares Mr. Beaver.

They cheer and rush down the slope to the camp, their wolves dashing around them. Arya feels Nymeria's glee, the grass under her paws.

The camp is filled with animals and strange looking creatures, men with the bodies of horses, people with hooves for legs, beautiful women and strange, ethereal looking men. They all stop and turn to star as Arya and her signings walk through the camp. 

"Why are they all staring at us?" Arya asks. 

Maybe they think you look funny," Sansa replies. 

Arya sticks her tongue out at her. 

In the centre of the camp is a large, official looking tent with one of the man-horse things standing outside. Jon bows to it. "Er… We were told to meet Aslan?" 

The tent opens and from it steps a great, powerful golden lion with a fine mane, his head held high. "Welcome, Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve. And to you, Beavers. You have my thanks for guiding the Kings and Queens here."

"Sir," Jon says nervously, fear written in his eyes. "I think there's been a mistake. We aren't Kings or Queens."

Though Arya is sure Sansa would love to be. 

"You are Kings and Queens of Narnia. Narnia itself has declared you so. And now is the time to reclaim your land."

The creatures of the camp have prepared two tents for them already, along with great trunks of clothes to choose from and wear, as though they've been preparing for this day for years.

The clothes are finer than anything Arya has at home, and Sansa gasps and fusses over the dresses.

"You aren't choosing anything," she says. 

Arya sticks her chin in the air. "I don't want a dress. I'm not a lady."

Sansa thinks for a moment and then digs through the trunks until she has found a pair of pants, an undershirt, and a leather tunic. "Will these fit? If not, we'll have to take from Bran's. Robb and Jon are too much bigger than you."

The clothes fit her well enough, and Sansa even takes her to Bran anyway to help her find a chainmail shirt that fits. If she cuts her hair, Arya thinks, she would look just like a boy. Like Jon and Father. 

"And who are you, stranger?" Robb asks with a laugh.

"I'm a knight!" Arya replies happily, and Nymeria barks at her words.

They feast that night with the creatures of Narnia, bread and meat and roasted vegetables, dripping with gravy and honey. There's fruit and cake and cream afterwards, and Arya eats until she's stuffed. Rickon falls asleep in Sansa's lap and Bran on her shoulder, and gradually the people and creatures of Narnia filter away until it's only them and Aslan and Oreius, who has explained that he's a centaur. 

"We've never actually fought a war, sir," says Jon.

Robb nods. "You should have brought our father."

Aslan only rumbles and nudges each of them in time. "Narnia has brought you at the right time she wants you."

They have two tents, but they all sleep that night in the boys' tent, like a midnight meeting. Arya curls up close to Sansa and they nestle Rickon between them. Where he'll be safe. 

In the morning, Robb and Jon speak with Aslan and Oreius to arrange their army. They must do it quickly, for the Witch's forces are already gathering.

"There is a task I must do," Aslans announces. 

"But we need you to lead!" protests Oreius.

"King Robb and King Jon will lead. I will take Queen Sansa and the younger Kings with me. They may be needed."

"For what?" asks Sansa.

"A great undertaking."

True to his word, Aslan takes Sansa, Bran, and Rickon away, and Robb and Jon finish arranging the army.

"You will stay in the back lines," Robb tells her. 

"But I can help! Father Christmas gave me my spear!"

"And there will be many enemies bigger than you."

Arya looks at Jon, but he nods and agrees with Robb.

"If we could, we wouldn't bring you into the fighting at all," Jon says. 

The sun is high in the sky as the army assembles on a hillside. Robb had had her found proper armour and Arya feels like a real Knight in her platemail and helmet, sitting aside her little battle strider.

Father would never give her a battle strider.

Across the rolling green field from them, the opposing army begins to arrive, led by a woman in a wheeled chariot drawn by white bears. Nymeria and Lady, who has stayed with Arya, snarl at the sight of her. 

Down below, the Witch’s army begins to advance. Robb raised his arm to give the signal.

The griffins charge first from their back lines, bombarding the enemy with boulders. Their army cheers at the sound of the enemy’s screams. Robb raised his lance high. “For Narnia and for Aslan!”

The charge begins in proper then, pouring down the hillside like water, rushing at the enemy down below. Arya kicks her heels into her strider and it huffs beneath her.

“Not so hard, please.”

“Sorry,” she mutters. She hopes the horses at Winterfell don’t think she’s too rough.

But then they’re flying down the slope towards the enemy, her strider’s hooves tearing up the grass beneath them. Arya leans forward in her saddle as the first wolf nears her and plunges her spear through its head.

The scream it lets out nearly breaks her heart.

Nymeria and Lady stay close, and Shaggydog soon joins them, the three wolves making sure few can get near her. When they do, Arya’s strider rears and crushes them with its hooves or she lifts her spear and drives it through their heads.

But the enemy is still too many.

Their army, Aslan’s army, Robb’s army, is being overwhelmed.

At the front, she can see Robb and Jon fighting the Witch, who is turning creatures to stone all around her.

They will lose to that black magic, Arya sees. She doesn’t even know if Sansa has enough magic potion to save all these statues from the battlefield.

But Robb rides bravely towards her on his unicorn and for a moment it looks like he might strike her true, but then she raises her staff–

And Robb is stone.

And Grey Wind leaps, seizing that staff in his powerful jaws and wrenching it from her hands. He brings it to the ground and smashes it all to pieces.

The Witch screams in frustration.

And then, from behind her army, comes a great cheer.

Cavalry riders, the back-up, led by Aslan and Bran! Sansa and Rickon are behind them, smiling.

And Arya knows now they will have victory.

The battle doesn’t last long after that. Aslan tears the Witch’s head from her shoulders, and those that had fought for her either surrender, flee, or are cut down by the Narnian forces. Arya gathers with her siblings around Robb’s statue. Grey Wind is whining and has laid down at its feet, looking distressed. Jon scratches his ears and promises him that they’ll make all this better, as though he’s talking to a person.

(arya almost thinks he sounds like hes talking to robb but she doesnt want to say that aloud)

“Will the medicine fix him?” Arya asks.

“Maybe. But it doesn’t have to,” Sansa replies.

Arya whirls on her, spear in hand. “Of course it has to! He’s Robb !”

Bran catches her arm. “No, she means… It’s alright. Look.”

And Arya looks, and sees how Aslan is walking among the statues scattered across the battlefield, breathing on them. Each time he does, the statues ripple oddly and return to flesh and blood.

It takes a painfully long time before he gets to Robb, but then he’s there, and in a matter of moments Robb is falling into their arms, crying and laughing, and Jon is smacking him upside the head and demanding that he never scares them in such a way again.

Chapter Text

Cair Paraval, their castle, has been awaiting them for a long time. In honour of the spring the new Kings and Queens have brought, the great hall and all the grounds are decorated with flowers and twisting vines, an explosion of colour throughout the world.

The six of them stand side by side, their wolves at their heels, and walk up the aisle, between the centaurs and fauns and creatures of Narnia. Before them, the six thrones look huge. They step up onto the raised stage and stand in front of the throne they have been told is theirs. Rickon is still so small that his throne is taller than he is.

“People of Narnia,” Aslan announces, prowling in front of them. The Narnians are quiet, hanging on his every word. “It has been a long winter, but now spring is here, and with it, your new monarchs.” He stops in front of Robb. “To the over-reaching sky, I give you King Robb the Free.”

Tumnus approached from the side of the hall, while the Beavers follow on, each holding a cushion with three crowns sat on it. Tumnus takes the first of the crowns and places it on Robb’s head.

“To the Wilds of the World, I give you King Rickon, the Valiant. To the great Western Wood, I give you King Bran the Bold. To the great Glistening Eastern Sea, Queen Arya the Bravehearted. To the radiant Southern Sun, Queen Sansa the Gentle. To the strong Northern Mountains, King Jon the Unwavering. Once a King or Queen of Narnia, always a King or Queen. May your wisdom grace us until the stars rain down from the heavens. ”

Cheers rang out around them, filling the hall.

“ Long live King Jon ! Long live King Robb ! Long live Queen Sansa! Long live Queen Arya ! Long live King Bran! Long live King Rickon! ”

The people here loved them.

Later that night, Bran and Arya watch as Aslan walks along the beach beneath the castle. Over the sea, the sun is setting.

“Where’s he going?” Arya asks.

“I don’t know,” Bran replies.

Both have long since shed their crowns and ceremonial clothing. It was uncomfortable, and they wanted to play in the castle’s fine garden.

“Don’t worry,” said Tumnus, trotting into the room. “We’ll see him again.”

“When?” asks Bran.

Tumnus smiles sadly. “In time. He comes and goes as he will. You mustn’t press him. He’s not a tame lion.”

Sansa sits in Rickon’s room and watches as Aslan takes a step into the sea and disappears. Somehow, she isn’t surprised. There is little now in this world that can surprise her.

“Sansa, am I King now?” Rickon asks.

Sansa smiled and twirls in her pretty dress. “We all are, little one. We all are.”

Robb and Jon walk together in the castle gardens, their wolves weaving between the trees around them.

“Do you still…” Jon asks.

Robb flinches. “Always. I think I always will, now. It’s like a door’s been opened inside me.”

Jon looks at him. “Do you think you could teach me how to do it?”

Their rule is a long and happy one. Robb and Jon take wives. Sansa takes one husband and many. Arya never marries, but there are many whispers about her and the dryads. Offers come in for Bran and Rickon, but decisions are never made, for, well…

The world has many secrets.

Chapter Text

Rickon grows up a King of Narnia. He knows the love of his sister-mother, Sansa, and his fathers, the air and the sea and the beasts of the wood. He runs on two legs on the beach and hunts on four through the trees.

Tutors teach him to read and write, but what he truly lives to do is race and play and wrestle with the creatures he rules. Sansa finds him there often, filthy, with twigs in his hair.

But he grows, and sometimes he must be tame to ride with his siblings. He doesn’t even ride Shaggydog this day, the great black direwolf is bounding alongside his steed.

Arya’s horse quickly falls behind and Rickon circles his own around to check on the pair. “Arya! Philip! Are you alright!”

Arya’s horse snorts and shakes his head. “I’m not as young as I once was.”

Their other siblings return, gathering in a circle in the little glade.

“Come on, Arya!” Sansa calls.

“Just catching my breath!” she replies.

Bran laughs. “That’s all we’ll catch if we keep going like this!”

Jon though is frowning, and looking at a tree. “What an odd looking tree.”

“It’s just a tree,” Robb says, even as Jon dismounts to take a better look at the tree. It is big and old, blackened and cracked as though once burned.

“It seems familiar,” Bran says.

Sansa smiles up at it. “As if from a dream.”

“Or a dream of a dream,” Bran says, and then darts off into the trees with a frown.

Robb groans. “Bran!”

Sansa slides from her own horse. “Why must you two always do this?”

“I haven’t done anything this time!” Rickon replies, indignant. He jumps from his horse and hurries after Robb, calling for Shaggydog to follow.

His siblings are close behind him, pushing their way through the trees. The branches grew thicker and thicker around them, pressing in as though trying to suffocate them. Everything looks far too big.

“These aren’t branches,” Robb says in surprise.

“They’re cloaks,” Jon says, having caught up with Bran and grabbed him by the collar of his tunic.

“What kind of cloaks grow on trees?” Arya asks.

“Jon, you’re on my foot!” Robb complains, pushing at him.

“I’m not–” Jon replies, pushing him back but only resulting in knocking him into Bran, who tumbles into Arya.

“Stop shoving!” Sansa snaps, and she sounds funny – and high up.

And then doors are opening and they’re falling, crashing out onto a wooden floor in a great heap. Their wolves tumble out around them, tangled in their nightclothing.

“...what?” whispers Robb.

“But this is impossible!” exclaims Sansa.

“Where are we?” asks Bran.

“This is…” Arya murmurs.

“Winterfell,” Jon says.

The door opens, and now there’s a woman there, tall, with red hair like sister-mother Sansa and blue eyes like most of his siblings.

“What are you all doing in here at this time of night?” She looks at Jon, and there’s something like dislike on her face. “With him.”

“We were just… playing,” sister-mother Sansa replies.

“In the wardrobe?”

“In the wardrobe,” Arya agrees.

“It was a hiding game,” says Bran.

“I won,” says Robb.

“Why am I so fucking small?” asks Rickon.

Everyone looks at him.

They’re children again, and he’s not a King, and Winterfell is his home. Sansa is only his sister, not his sister-mother, and Jon seems to be some kind of exile from the family. But everyone comes to Rickon’s room that night and sleeps on the floor with their wolves, like they can’t bear to be apart.

In the morning, he learns Sansa and Arya and Bran are to go somewhere with a great giant of a man they all call father. Rickon understands the concept of father , he doesn’t understand the concept of his father.

He also learns they wish for Jon to go somewhere very far away.

Rickon is the first to scream, ‘No!’ He clings to Jon, wrapping his arms around his legs. But Robb is next, and then Arya, followed by Sansa and Bran, and all of them look at the lady they call mother and tell her that if Jon goes, they all go.

The pack must stay together.

Rickon has known these words since before he could remember.

Now he knows what they mean.

There is a tremendous argument, but Rickon and his siblings stay steady, and in the end, Jon is not to go very far away. Rickon is glad. He will not lose all his siblings.

Rickon lives as the youngest son of Lord Stark. He knows the distance of his mother-mother, Lady Catelyn, who doesn’t understand him, and his siblings, Jon and Robb, who do. He totters on two legs during the day and at night hunts on four in the walled garden of the godswood.

He longs to be free.