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123 AC, Hardhome, Beyond the Wall
Brynden Rivers knew that history would not remember him kindly, if it would ever remember him at all. Perhaps that was the fate of most bastards, even ones with royal blood, legitimised he might have been. Daeron had certainly used this when Daemon inevitably rebelled, starting many of the Blackfyre rebellions that followed.
He had committed dreadful deeds, all to protect his brother and the realm as Hand of the King, and all he had received in return was banishment to the edge of the world. He had been abandoned by everyone in the end, despite his years of service. He understood Aegon's prerogative, respected it, even, for he wished to do away with the old and bring new blood to the Iron Throne. He hadn't resisted, for his sake, for House Targaryen's sake, but he had to admit that at the end of his life, he was alone.
In many ways, the Wall had been a mercy, a simple place with simple people. However, he had regretted not having any parting words with Shiera. He hated and loved her both, though he knew now that she did not love him, not as he wished she had. In the times they spent together, she relished control, in the power she held over him. She was always a creature of desires, uninterested in the opinions of others. And yet, she left for Essos long ago, beyond even his sight.
His life was a tragic one, born of the folly of his unworthy father, to serve a brother that he loved dearly, to battle against a brother that he hated just as much, all for a woman that he desired, yet when he grew old, he felt empty and alone with only the company of cowards and monsters in the frozen North.
He did not expect to find purpose with the Children of the Forest. He did not think that he would have a far greater role to play than even the Conqueror himself, as the last Greenseer. He did not expect the fate of life itself to rest on his shoulders. He had built on the work of greater and lesser men and forged a path to spring, a chance to triumph against the endless winter and the dead that came with it.
To achieve this, he had fought a discreet war, one that spanned decades, against an enemy that had nearly brought an endless night in the Age of Heroes. He had been clever and far more daring than his predecessor. Alas, with Winter coming, he had no other choice.
Brynden had a duty, one that he fulfilled, and in these rare moments, he dared dream, though he did differently to the Children of the Forest. They often relished the years of peace, where they spent their days singing in the forest unburdened by war or mankind. Brynden, however, had learned to do more. While dreaming of the past, he would try to peer into promised futures, as he often did to secure his path to spring. It was a trick that he was particularly proud of, something that he had discovered himself, and chose not to share with the others.
The ink was dry, the past could not change, but seeing the possibilities of the world had humbled him, at least before it all started to change. It was akin to a storm in the previously calm lake, and suddenly, everything, even his path to spring, had turned dark. He had tracked it to a few years before the Dance of the Dragons, to two meddling foreigners, a man whom the very world called a Stranger, and a woman whose soul was covered in blood and thorns.
The sorcerer had held him in the palm of his hands, casually threatening to erase him from Time itself, just as he had the path to spring, and while the Old Gods protected Brynden, all that they were able to do was allow him to flee. They had grown silent since that moment, as if they had expended the rest of their strength, and Brynden found himself alone once more, unable to see into the future and even the past becoming uncertain with every moment.
Never before had he felt such terror, or such fear. He thought that Death was a cruel fate, but the idea of being erased, of his suffering, his successes and failures, being gone from the world terrified him far more than they should have.
Brynden could have returned to his time, but he would not. He could not accept the risk of the very world changing on the whim of a single man. He needed to stop them. Powerful they may be, he was the Last Greenseer, and it was his duty to protect the world from threats like the Long Night, like the Potters, powerful that they may be.
And so, the former Lord Commander of the Night's Watch learned. He remembered the man's words on time and understood the flexibility that he never thought possible. Bryden had tried many times to change what once was, and yet he failed utterly and completely. He thought it impossible, but Harry Potter had shown him otherwise. He had shown him that he could change what could not be recorded, and so a plan formed.
Brynden discretely observed Harry and Daphne Potter on their journey in Westeros. He could not do it in every moment and place, but it was enough to understand them and their capabilities. The sorcerer was more powerful than any man should even have, and his wife far crueller and more vicious than anyone knew.
However, they were predictable. They journeyed wherever they expected to find anything interesting, often in places of myth and magic.
Brynden realised that they would inevitably go North of the Wall to speak with the Children of the Forest, and that was his opportunity.
And so, he had devised a plan. He had regretfully trapped the Children in their dreams and all but trapped his predecessor, making him unable to affect the world beyond his cave. He left traces to arrive in Hardhome, where he set his trap.
The dragon's fate had not been his doing. He could not peer into how it perished, only that it had. His greatest guess was that it occurred during the Long Night. He could think of very little that could snuff away a creature of such power, and despite it being nothing more than a corpse, it was indeed powerful.
He found it completely by accident in his curiosity about numerous historical figures in his youth. He had followed Joramun, one of the most legendary kings beyond the Wall, with the hopes of finding the infamous Horn of Winter. To think that he had seen a remnant of the First Dragons, legendary beings that he could slay, and Brynden then understood the madness that existed within this man. For he could find no other explanation with his plan, both its purpose of destroying the Wall, with the Long Night still fresh in their mind, let alone charging his entire army at the Wall, hoping to kill them, to awaken the beast, with the sole command of destroying the Wall.
It would not have worked. The First Dragons were creatures far beyond mankind, even during the Age of Heroes, hence why, even after thousands of years, when someone foolishly blew on the Horn of Winter, all that remained of Hardhome was death and ashes.
In Hardhome, he had found the corpse of the creature, and it was the perfect place for his trap. A location that the Potters would inevitably visit, a place with no trees for the witch, Daphne Potter, to use, as opposed to most places North of the Wall, a place where the White Walkers' magic would make divining the future impossible, which would mean that they wouldn't be able to see the trap coming.
He had set everything perfectly, Skinchanging into various wildlings whenever he needed to do something physical. He created a trap for the woman, sacrificing wildings every seven years for centuries, making their blood spill onto the Weirwood Trees, which he isolated from the rest of the network. They could barely handle the strain when he activated it, destroying them utterly.
As for Harry Potter, he used the dragon's corpse, a species beyond the mortal plane, which he gave but a spark of life, a singular focus, to destroy the sorcerer, to take him in a realm of empty time, and wipe him out. Should the sorcerer survive, by some miracle, Brynden would have captured his wife and bound the man to him, perhaps even eventually use him as a weapon against the Others, during the war for Spring.
However, he regretted that Leaf and Cregan Stark were involved at all. He took great care not to kill them, only injure them enough until he had fulfilled his purpose. Cregan was necessary for the path to spring, at least the previous one, which meant that he would likely be involved in the new one, and Leaf was… a friend.
She had been his only companion for decades, the only one who spoke the common tongue, at least. It was hard not to see her as anything but that. She was still too young to fully grasp the necessity of his actions, but she would eventually, in the future, her future, when she understands the cruelty often necessary for life to thrive.
As for now, he couldn't get distracted. His plan had worked perfectly so far, but he couldn't get too complacent.
Wait… It hadn't worked perfectly, had it?
There was something slipping his mind, and the moment he realised it, it was like a fog had lifted.
Daphne Potter had somehow undone his wards with her blood and killed his thralls. Her husband fell from the sky, having escaped the realm of frozen, the corpse of the dragon fading away into nothing. He could not escape; he could not leave the skin of the wilding that he possessed. He remembered feeling afraid as they faced him, and then…
And then nothing…
Bryden's eyes widened as he looked around him and saw the familiar sight of the Red Keep, a place that he had once called home before it became nothing more than a painful memory. It looked strange, wrong in some way. He spread his senses and froze as he could not feel anything, not any possible thralls, nor the Weirwood network, nothing.
Realisation dawned on him, which slowly morphed into terror, as he realised what must have happened, "Show yourself, Potter."
A loud chuckle echoed across the Red Keep until it all faded away into an empty white expanse. Other than Potter standing before him with a smug grin on his face, of course, "You caught on faster than I expected, at least for someone who came up with this shitshow that you call a plan."
"You!" Brynden seethed despite knowing the futility of the action.
"Me," the sorcerer answered brightly.
Brynden could not put into words how much he wished he could take Dark Sister and skewer the man's smug face with it. However, he understood that he was not in a position to do so. He needed to escape, to try again on another day. The past was endless after all, and he would have ample opportunities to try again later. However, if he couldn't, then he would lose everything.
And so, he calmed himself and spoke up, "Where are we?"
After all, the first thing he needed to escape was knowing where he was held in the first place, or even how he was held captive, given that his rotten body remained centuries in the future.
"That's a rather complicated question, believe it or not," Harry answered, "The best description of it would be your soul."
"My soul," Brynden blinked.
"Everything that you are, manifested into a single place. And what a person you are, Brynden Rivers. Interesting isn't even a good enough word to describe you, yet you are. You are impulsive, perhaps, definitely arrogant, though you are brilliant enough to justify it..."
Brynden inwardly smiled at the detail the Potter had let slip. If he had spoken the truth, and this was some strange manifestation of his soul, then it would explain how he was trapped. However, wouldn't that also mean that he was the one with the utmost authority?
He imagined the sky darkening, for hundreds of dragons to rain fire on Potter, and he felt, for a fraction of a moment, the world obeyed his will, only for the man to snap his fingers and the world to return to its previous whiteness.
The man continued as if nothing had happened, which felt far more demoralising than anything else. How feeble must a man be for him to hold no power over his own soul? "Almost a perfect example of what I was saying, the brilliance of manifesting your soul, even at such a basic level, and the arrogance to do it, thinking that it would work against me, somehow. Though I must say, I didn't expect you to be a coward."
"I am no coward," he growled at the man before him, taken by the insult.
"This is your soul, Brynden. You can't hide from me, not here. Your plan was a marvellous one, given what you knew of our capabilities. Using Hardhome as a trap, using the corpse of an Elder Dragon as well as its multidimensional nature to take me into a realm of time whose authority was too chaotic for me to affect, as well as trapping Daphne the way you did. It was brilliant. You used the small amount of knowledge that I gave you in Skagos and weaponised it in a way that I didn't expect, and believe me, I am very hard to surprise. You set up pieces in time, changing things that would not affect the rest of history against your present. However, you cannot say that all of this was not because you felt afraid."
"I did it to stop you! You are a threat to…"
Harry interrupted him, "What I am capable of doing isn't relevant here. You must have known that I would eventually turn North, and by doing so, I would end up facing the White Walkers. Any risk I pose to overwhelming your 'path to spring' as you aptly call it, is completely overshadowed by my inevitable showdown with the White Walkers. No, you prepared for hundreds of years, broke the laws of Time itself, for a simple reason. You were terrified. You did all of this because you were afraid of what I had changed, what I could change, and how it would affect you. You were afraid that if the ink was not dry, as you liked to say, your entire life would fade away, that your moments of happiness, sadness, sorrow, victory, and failure would all be meaningless, like pages in a burning book. And nothing, not even stopping the Long Night, was worth that, not to you."
Brynden remained silent at that for a few moments, thinking back at the desperation he felt every moment since he confronted the Potters in Skagos. It was disturbing, seeing the veil be removed so abruptly, and as much as he wished to protest Potter's words, he could not deny them.
Because he was afraid, wasn't he?
The prospect that the Potters could wipe out the White Walkers was not entirely foreign to him. After all, their actions in Valyria, in Harrenhal, and many other places showed him that they would likely do it should they have the chance.
But the thought felt bitter, for Brynden's purpose to be taken away from him, for his life, for everyone's lives, including his brothers and their descendants, to be destroyed on their whims. He hated the mere idea with a passion. And so, he practically hissed at the man, "You had no right."
The man did not feel guilty at Bloodraven's rage or his admission, nor did he even look satisfied. If anything, the sorcerer remained frustratingly impassive, "In another world, we would not have been in this situation. What you achieved should not have been possible. The past is supposed to be immutable, and any change creates a branch of the world in a tree of endless possibilities. Unfortunately, this world is unbalanced, broken, and sometimes, things slip through. Though I must admit that mine and Daphne's presence probably didn't help."
During all of this conversation, Bryden had been trying to do… anything. Whatever measure of control he held over the world around him was gone. He could not feel anything, not a single mind that he could invade, not a single tree that he could use, and to think that it was all for nothing.
He slumped after this and spoke up, "There's no escape from this, isn't there?"
"I'm afraid so," Potter answered.
"Did I even stand a chance?" Brynden asked.
"No. You obviously did your research, planned this like an elaborate assassination rather than a battle, which is smart. That trick with the dragon was neat, especially using it to seemingly negate two of my greatest skills, the manipulation of Space and Time. Believe it or not, I'm even thankful for it. That realm gave me so many interesting ideas, you know. Unfortunately, there's only so much that you know of Daphne and me. You were never going to be able to trap Daphne. There were many ways out of that trap, and she used the one she found the most fitting, by cursing your own wards to turn against you, to lock you into a single vessel. As for me, well, there's more to me than the 'Lord of Space and Time'. It's such a silly title, one that I'm sadly stuck with. I don't own these domains; they just exist on their own, mighty and eternal. Though very few know of another title of mine, the Master of Death."
Brynden felt his breath catch as he heard the title, a shiver running down his spine, and the white space around him suddenly darkening by the words alone.
Brynden opened his mouth to answer, but no sound came, and the sorcerer released a chuckle, "Such an intimidating title, huh? It's from a silly story about my ancestors, the Peverells. They specialised in the manipulation of souls, you see. Enough to imprison one's consciousness inside one, to turn it into a prison beyond the physical realm. It took me a while to truly grasp their legacy, and I don't think I did it until I witnessed war, true war, I mean. You cannot cheat Death. And you cannot hide from it either, Brynden Rivers. No one can."
These words were absolute; that was a truth that Brynden easily recognised, and in that moment, he realised that the man had not lied. He was completely and utterly in this man, no, this monster's mercy.
Then suddenly it came to him. Why had Potter trapped him in his own soul? Why was the man entertaining this conversation in the first place? Brynden was defeated completely, and his value as a prisoner was very little to the sorcerer, but he must have wanted something, "What… What do you want from me?"
"Finally, we're at the most important question. As I said, you're a very interesting creature, Brynden Rivers. What I want from you is to know who pulled your strings. No Greenseer could have possibly been of the realm you tried to trap me in, and you certainly couldn't have woken up the Elder Dragon, let alone be able to live more than a moment, despite being directly affected by a temporal paradox. Someone… Something helped you, and I would have you tell me who that is."
"And you would let me live?" Brynden commented with a dry tone.
Potter snapped his finger, and the former Lord Commander of the Night's Watch froze as the world around him shifted into a familiar clearing, where he had confronted Daphne Potter earlier.
He saw Harry Potter's figure as he touched the head of the wildling that Brynden possessed earlier, whose eyes were releasing a green glow. Suddenly, a searing pain spread through him, shaking the very world around him. It was only for a fraction of a second, and yet he could help but gasp, shivering from the phantom pain, "What was that?"
"This is what's happening in the real world, outside of all of this. Whatever gave you your protection seemingly decided to cut you off, which allowed Time to affect you once more. Not a very pleasant feeling, isn't it? Time is erasing you, your very soul, from existence. This is only a consequence of your own decision."
Brynden released a hollow breath. He had expected this. After all, he knew the nature of the being with whom he had struck a bargain. Though he had planned on having long since returned to his time by then, "You're offering to protect me if I tell you?"
Potter then burst into laughter. It was an ugly thing, cruel and spiteful. The sound of it made Bloodraven panic, "Oh, Brynden. Did you think that it would be that easy? Even if you tell me, you will be erased from the timeline. However, if you refuse, if you protest, I will personally rip my answers from your soul, and I will not just destroy you. I will erase every single version of you that ever was or ever would be. All these possibilities that you liked to watch would be gone, and the very idea of Brynden Rivers would simply not exist, and with it, everything that you have ever achieved or could ever achieve."
The sky around him darkened as the man spoke, and Brynden could almost feel the very world inside him fracturing, and he could do nothing but blanch in terror at the feeling. Then the oppressive feeling slowly simmered down, and Potter finally spoke, his eyes barely hiding the rage within, even if his tone was calm, "As you can see, I'm a little angry. Did you truly think that I would be so merciful after you tried to use my wife against me? It might have failed miserably, but I quite dislike the attempt, nonetheless. So, what will it be, Brynden? Will you pick the easy way or the hard way?"
"How… How do I know if I can trust that you won't do it anyway?" Bloodraven stammered.
"Unlike you, I'm a man of my word, Brynden River."
Brynden thought of the bargain that he struck, of the spark of power that had been granted to him to help rid the world of the Potters, the mission that he had failed. There was nothing that he could do, could he? He could not argue. He could not escape. The best that he could hope for is to cease to be completely. Perhaps it was fitting to receive the punishment that he sought to escape the most.
He had to admit that the idea of the possibilities that he had used to anchor himself, to justify his choices, would be erased, was more terrifying than his own deserved end. He remembered the version of himself who had been happily married to Shiera. He remembered their children and how beautiful they were. It had been what gave him strength against the Long Night that he protected them even indirectly by making hard choices. They did not deserve to suffer for his own arrogance and mistakes.
Bloodraven would not do it, not for an entity that betrayed him already. "It was R'hllor."
Harry stared at him for a few moments before nodding, "That makes sense, I suppose. Very well, you seem to be surprisingly telling the truth. Farewell, Brynden Rivers."
Then, Potter's figure faded away, and his mind returned to the living world. He felt his very body burn, his soul becoming a kindling to a fire hotter than that of any dragon. He felt the sorcerer's hand leave his forehead, and he felt the pain redouble in intensity. He felt his body slowly turn to ash, Time itself undoing his very being.
Brynden's last thought was that of a single small spark of happiness he treasured before the world bitterly swept it away, "Oh, Shiera…"
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AN: That chapter really got away from me. The idea was to portray Bloodraven as a bit of a hypocrite, pretending that what he's been doing was for the good of the realm, while it's just because of his own fear. In the meantime, Harry would be his usual self, but while also restraining from showing how angry he really was, hence the punishment near the end.
I had planned on writing more about the details of the deal between Bloodraven and R'hllor, but the chapter had already gotten too long, and I'll just get to it later. As usual, please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.
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If you want to support me, check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr
I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions on them, so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.
Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.