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"Free folk don't follow names, or little cloth animals sewn on a tunic," the King-Beyond-the-Wall had told him. "They won't dance for coins, they don't care how your style yourself or what that chain of office means or who your grandsire was. They follow strength. They follow the man."
Mance Ryder, the King-Beyond-the-Wall
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Westeros, Beyond the Wall
Aerion/Jon
Many hours had passed since Tormund found him amidst what was arguably his most painful personal defeat. Were it not for the Greater Will's intervention, it would likely have also been the site of his death, or rather, his annihilation, for he was certain those frenzied flames would have consumed him as well.
And so he ended up marked by another god, this time a clearly insane one at that, accompanied by the being's now maddening whispers echoing in his head.
He'd done this to himself, and he couldn't blame anyone. He could have escaped, and all the people he was supposed to save would have turned into wights... now, not even ash remained, and he ended up with the voice of a mad god in his head.
On the other hand, he couldn't deny that the fire had consumed over a hundred Others and thousands of wights, destroying them utterly.
Though he feared it wouldn't change anything in the long run, considering how many similar places there must be in the Lands of Always Winter, where hundreds and thousands more members of this ancient race might sleep. If there were tens of millions of people, what prevented him from believing there were significantly more Cold Shadows than they had anticipated?
However, it seemed that the Others weren't his biggest concern at the moment, as the Wall stood and held. He, however, had been marked by something equally terrifying.
While Greater Will seemed still somewhat capable of reasoning, had her own plans, and resembled a player playing cyvasse, this mad god seemed to simply destroy the board itself, along with the pieces on it.
He also couldn't shake the thought that the resistance to Madness was linked to that deity. He focused his mind for a moment, trying to drown out the incoming whispers.
Could increasing the Mind attribute, which was clearly linked to this particular resistance, at some point completely drown out the whispers, or perhaps drive them away entirely?
He had to hold on to this for now, for it was a glimmer of hope in the hopelessness of this entire situation. Why couldn't anything be simple in his case?
His only consolation at the moment was that even if there were any Others left this far south, they were clearly keeping their distance. Even the very presence of the Great Other he had sensed earlier had receded, whether by the fire god or by Greater Will.
He glanced at Tormund, sitting by the fire next to him, eating a scrap of dried meat in unusual for him silence.
He hadn't seen him so lost in thought in a long time, or maybe it was confusion. Their utter failure to rescue the Free Folk from Hardhome clearly weighed on him, as it did on Jon. That, and Jon's story of what had happened.
"Are you alright, Tormund?" he asked, searching for conversation, to which the man looked at him absently, then shook his head after a moment.
"Nothing's alright, lad. Har, this is a fucking nightmare," Giantsbane replied, his tone lacking his usual bravado and humour.
"And I'm not even talking about the deaths of all those Free Folk, because I expected we wouldn't be able to save them. By the giantess's tits, from what you told us, we're all as good as dead, and those cold bastards haven't even taken us seriously until now. There are hundreds or even thousands of them."
"If… if there are hundreds or even thousands," Jon corrected with a sigh. "That's just my speculation, and maybe Hardhome was the only place they were asleep."
Tormund immediately began shaking his head and laughed bitterly, "Stop it. We both know it makes sense. We tried to get through the Wall the same way we did. We sent out scouts, small groups, and only then did the rest of us, led by Mance, move in. It's fucking obvious now. We can fight dead men, but their masters are a whole other story. A few is bad news, dozens is a nightmare, but more than that, I can't even begin to tell you how fucked we are."
Jon closed his eyes for a moment, wondering how to respond. He wasn't in the best of minds right now, after all, and his spirit wasn't in any better shape. But if he couldn't find hope within himself, it would be hard for the people who depended on him to do so.
"Aye, you're right; to say it looks bad is an understatement," he admitted after a moment, but then his tone hardened as his resolve returned.
"But that doesn't mean all is lost. Maybe we'll die; in fact, we definitely will, but it can happen in two ways. With our heads held high, or waiting for the icy blade to sink into our backs.
I know what I choose and what the Tormund I know would choose. A man who used to say he feared nothing. I hope that man isn't lost yet."
His words must have had the desired effect, because a fire that hadn't been there a moment ago flashed in the man's dark blue eyes. Mostly obscured by his thick white beard, the man's lips stretched into a smile that, to Jon's surprise, turned into a bawdy laugh.
"Sorry, Jon. I let the Cold Shadows get into my head for a moment, but don't worry, Tormund Giantsbane is back, and he'd love some good mead. And if I'm to follow anyone into this madness, it's you, Jon Snow. The same goes for the rest of the Free Folk, except perhaps for those fools, the Weeper.
You let us through the Wall when anyone else would have gladly killed us or abandoned us to certain death. You saw us as desperate men where others saw only barbarians and savages. So now we will follow you into the Long Night."
A smirk spread across Jon's face as he sensed the old Tormund had returned, though he sensed that, like himself, the man hid his fear well. Now they had to return to the Wall, and then he still had the North to reclaim and the Seven Kingdoms to conquer.
In the current situation, he not only deemed it necessary to unite all living beings in the fight against the Great Other but also needed to increase his strength, and aside from the Lands Between, the rewards for the tasks Greater Will had set for him were the quickest way.
He glanced around at the faces of the men watching them, who were probably listening to their conversation, or at least the last part of it. Their faces showed fear, mingled with hope and the steely determination of men who had survived in conditions that would have killed most.
"Men of the Free Folks!" he called out loudly, and even those who hadn't been listening to their earlier conversation turned to face him. Then he continued.
"Our enemy is stronger than we could have expected, and many good people and innocent children have lost their lives today, just as many before! However, I refuse to give up, and I am heading south to unite the entire continent in the fight against the Cold Shadows!
Since birth, you have striven to survive in this harsh land and its deadly conditions, and you have not given up! So I ask, will you do it now!"!? Will you surrender, or will you instead march south with me to prepare for the Long Night!? WHAT WILL YOU SAY!?"
There were no loud shouts, no raising of clenched fists, and no brandishing of weapons. Only hard stares and a glint of determination in the eyes of the men, hardened by fate. And the accompanying nods of respect.
For Jon, that was satisfying enough. He turned to Tormund once more. "Go back to the Wall... I have one more place to check and a brother to find."
"Aye. Just watch your back and don't burn down the forest, lad," Giantsbane replied, then turned to his men. "You heard King Crow, we're packing up and heading out; just don't fuck around, or my balls will freeze."
Jon watched as nearly a hundred men gathered in a flash, ready to travel, then set off towards the Wall, pushing through knee-high snow.
Left alone, before setting out, he finally decided to take a good look at his status, as some changes had occurred. As a reward for surviving, Greater Will had surely granted him a one-point increase in all his attributes, which he clearly felt.
It seemed that the higher his attribute, the greater the change in him that occurred with even the slightest increase.
Name: Aerion Sand
Title: Tarnished of no renown
Level: 76
Runes: 10 618
Runes required to level up: 17 255
Lineage: Song of Ice & Fire – You were born with magic flowing through your veins and under the watchful eye of the Outer Gods.
You have an extraordinary facility in learning Spells and Incantations; they are more powerful, faster to cast, and their effects are prolonged. You don't have to limit yourself to memorizing just a few. You have an innate increased resistance to fire and cold.
Trait: The Prince That Was Promised - You are part of the prophecy and inextricably linked to another world. Under the right conditions, you can travel between the two worlds.
Blessing: Eye of the Grace - Graeter Will has rescued you from the influence of two other Outer Beings to make you It Champion. It locked a fragment of Elden Ring in your eye.
The cost of increasing your level with your Maiden is halved. The number of runes you gain is also doubled. You are no longer limited to a single Great Rune.
Curse: You have been marked by the Frenzy Flame of Chaos. It is an unrelenting force that seeks to destroy all life and melt everything into one. Through the spread of Madness, it rends sanity from the mind with suffering.
You have caught the gaze of the Outer God. You gain a permanent bonus to Faith. Your Frenzied Flame Incantations are twice as powerful.
You are cursed. The cursed whispers of those burnt and melted by the Yellow Flame of Frenzy accompany you, capable of driving you mad. Your resistance to Madness has weakened.
Focus Points: 281/281
Attributes:
Vigor: 23 → 24 (+1 from Erdtree's Favor)
Mind: 20 → 21
Endurance: 24 → 25 (+1 from Erdtree's Favor)
Strength: 25 → 26
Dexterity: 25 → 26
Intelligence: 20 → 21
Faith: 30 → 36 (+10 from EotG, +5 from Marked by Flame)
Arcane: 22 → 23
Resistance:
Poison - 23% → 24%
Scarlet Rot- 23% → 24%
Madness - 20% → 21% → 6% ( -15 from Marked by Flame)
Sleep - 20% → 21%
Blood Loss - 24% → 25%
Frostbite - 74% → 75% (+50 from Song of Ice & Fire)
Death Blight - 22% → 23%
Damage negation:
Holy - 22% → 23%
Fire - 74% → 75% (+50% from Song of Ice & Fire)
Lightning - 30% → 36%
Magic - 20% → 21%
He stared fixedly at the description of the curse and his significantly weakened resistance to Madness. It was a disaster. Not only was the damned voices now accompanying his mind because of one stupid ego decision, but the risk of him going mad because of them had increased as his resistance had diminished.
"Are you ready, Lightbringer?" a familiar voice called out, and he turned to see Song's familiar silhouette standing on the rock nearby, when she wasn't there a moment ago.
"Aye, lead me to my brother," he nodded, casting one last worried glance at his status.
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Westeros, Beyond the Wall
Bran Stark
Slowly, what he saw in his visions and what was real seemed to merge into a single whole, which he struggled to disentangle. Brynden was a harsh teacher, and little of the human element remained in him, but Bran felt he was making progress.
He found it increasingly easier to control what he observed and what he chose to observe, and what he didn't. However, he felt its impact on his mind. Repeatedly awakening from visions, he had difficulty remembering who he truly was.
He couldn't shake the unsettling thought that with each vision, he was losing a part of himself. On the other hand, the thought that without his abilities, he was nothing more than a crippled, useless, and burdensome boy haunted him.
His greensight abilities allowed him to experience true freedom when he was not bound to his broken body. They also brought him knowledge, satisfying his unquenchable curiosity, and, moreover, allowed him to see his family once more.
Though even that began to take its toll on him, for over the past few days, everything had begun to fade, replaced by visions that flooded him without control, and all he could do was watch helplessly.
It all began with a vision that nearly tore his heart apart. He saw his brother Jon murdered treacherously, just as his father, Robb, and mother had. But then something strange happened. Bran was blinded by a golden light, awakening him completely.
Bloodraven himself didn't know what had happened. He had experienced a similar vision at the same time, and it had ended exactly the same way. Bran was convinced the old Greenseer was hiding something, knowing more than he had revealed. However, he was clearly disturbed by what had happened. He whispered something about prophecies and a promised prince.
From then on, he was unable to see not only the moment of Jon's death nor what had become of his body but even any past events involving Jon, as if something were blocking his visions.
The bitterness of losing another family member was accompanied in the following days by visions of golden light and places and events that, overwhelmed by their sheer number, he couldn't even piece together.
On the fourth day, everything changed... for the worse. It all began when Brynden suddenly looked eastward, horror etched on his bony, gaunt face, and let out a terrifying scream.
A moment later, Bran himself felt something was terribly wrong. His mind was barely touched by a presence so terrifying that no words could express it. His mind was flooded with thousands of screams of agony and despair, and before his eyes, a vast, yellow flame burnt in the void, the mere sight of which could drive one mad.
Suddenly, a golden glow blinded him, like the moment Jon died, and then everything stopped. Bran, breathing hard, realized he was reaching for his eyes with both hands, his fingernails digging sharply into the skin around his sockets. Wait, was he trying to tear his eyes out? Scratch them out?
Bloodraven was in even worse shape, bleeding visibly from his eye and everywhere else visible, and the weirwood tree into which his body was rooted was blackened, as if scorched by fire.
Meera was immediately at Bran's side. Her face was filled with concern and terror. Jojen knelt nearby, clutching his head, but seemed in better shape than Bran himself. Hodor stood beside him, lost, unsure of what was happening.
But it was the Children who surprised him the most. They huddled against the cave walls, their large golden eyes expressing pure terror, while Leaf tried to calm them, though she was clearly shaken herself.
"It's o-okay, Meera," he rasped, but despite his words, he grabbed her as his head began to spin.
"What happened, Bran? Did the Others find us?" she asked, fear clearly etched on her face.
Bran shook his head weakly, "No, it's... it's something else. Maybe even something worse."
The next dozen or so hours were probably the worst since they arrived, as everyone struggled to recover. Brynden regained consciousness but stared into space, muttering under his breath and completely unresponsive to attempts at contact.
The Children of the Forest had calmed down by now, but he could still see they were worried. Jojen had recovered, and Meera was trying to control everything while he tried to organise his thoughts.
He was also afraid to use his greensight, unsure of what might happen and whether that terrible, maddening fire might use it to reach him. Instead, he occasionally reached out to Summer, allowing their bond to calm his nerves. But even the direwolf was on edge, sensing a likely unnatural threat as well as his own unease.
Summer, at the head of three wolves that had once belonged to Varamyr Sixskins, searched for any prey, but any animals either fled or perished and became wights like the bear the pack had devoured.
The direwolf had wandered many miles east, too far from the cave for Bran, who feared for its safety. The direwolf's powerful jaws were useless against the Others, whose presence in the Haunted Forest was becoming increasingly prominent.
Bran tried to isolate himself from most of his animal companion's senses, remaining merely an observer for the moment. Suddenly, the pack turned slightly south, sensing scents familiar to the direwolf.
Suddenly, from the trees, much faster than any animal should be able to move, the silhouette of a horned steed emerged, slightly larger than the warhorses he had seen in Robert Baratheon's retinue when he arrived at Winterfell.
On his strange horse's back sat two figures, one of whom, to his surprise, was one of the Children of the Forest. It was the second figure, however, that caught Summer's attention, followed by Bran.
The man was dressed like any common lord's man-at-arms, but he wore no fur or cloak, which in these conditions should have meant certain death by freezing.
His scent was both recognisable and not, and his facial features were strangely familiar. He was completely bald, lacking even eyebrows or eyelashes, as if they had been burnt, as had happened to him once when he had brought his face too close to a fire.
However, it was his eyes that were the most distinctive feature of his appearance. One was clearly human, but the other couldn't be human. It looked like a molten gold box, within which glowed some unfamiliar symbol, very distinct despite its size.
However, both he and the direwolf recognised a slightly more mature and lower, yet familiar, voice.
"Summer, is that you?" The man said, leaping from his mount and approaching them. Without fear, he approached the chest-high direwolf and reached out to touch its head.
Bran no longer doubted that he saw his brother, alive. Touched by some unknown power, but safe and sound. Summer recognised him as well, allowing him to scratch his massive head and behind his ears.
The three wolves, however, cautiously kept their distance, as if sensing the threat posed by the man.
"If I've found you, that means Bran isn't far away. Will you lead me to him?" Jon turned to Summer, who immediately turned to where the caves he was currently in lay, miles away.
"Do it, Summer. Bring Jon to me," he commanded the direwolf, then left his mind and returned to his body. He immediately noticed Meera sitting on the ground before him, watching him with concern.
"Meera, it's Jon. He's alive, and he found us. Summer is leading him to us now," he told her with an excitement and joy he hadn't felt in a long time.
Meera looked at him with an unreadable expression. "Bran, you said yourself you saw your brother die. Besides, how would he have found us here?"
Bran shook his head vehemently. "No, it's definitely him. Changed, older, but he's my brother. You'll see. He'll be here soon."
Meera looked at him for a moment, as if still disbelieving, then sighed and fell silent.
The Children and Jojen began to gather in the main cave, and even Bloodraven perked up, waking from his trance. A few minutes later, they heard voices and the sound of footsteps.
A moment later, Leaf appeared at the tunnel entrance, leading an unknown Child, who was accompanying Jon, and his brother, accompanied by Summer and three wolves, entered behind them.
Jon looked around the cave intently, his gaze lingering briefly on each person present before finally settling on him. Then, in a few long strides, he found himself beside Bran himself, kneeling by his throne of roots and hugging him close.
Bran felt a growing pressure in his chest, and for the first time in a long time, he allowed himself to cry. Tears rolled in twin streams down his cheeks, and his breath became ragged. But that didn't matter now.
His brother was here now, safe and sound. That was all that mattered at that moment. He had Meera, of course, Jojen, Hodor, and of course Summer. But this was something else. Jon was family, and family was everything.
As their father used to say, 'When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.'
The thought of his lost father naturally brought on another flood of tears, but Jon only hugged him tighter, just as the Lord of Winterfell used to.
When he felt there were no more tears and he was beginning to calm down, Jon cupped his face in his hands and looked at Bran with his usual seriousness. "Bran, what are you doing on this side of the Wall? We need to get south as quickly as possible."
Bran shook his head. "I can't; I have to learn from Brynden how to become the Three-Eyed Raven. It's important."
Jon looked at him for a long moment, then stood, his gaze falling on the almost deathly figure of Bloodraven tangled in the roots of a weirwood tree.
Brynden's red eye also fixed on Jon, and he spoke, "So I have finally met the prince that was promised, A Song of Ice and Fire. If I could, I would bow low."
Hearing his tone, one might have thought he was mocking Jon, but Bran knew better. Brynden River was absolutely serious and painfully sincere about it.
Jon nodded in response, "So, you're the famous Bloodraven. I'd say it's surprising you're alive, but it's hard to stay dead these days. I know something about this." His brother's ironic voice caught Bran off guard.
The Jon Snow he knew had never been confident in the presence of anyone other than his siblings, feeling inferior and unworthy. His bastard origins weighed heavily on him. This man, however, looked upon and addressed the old Greenseer as an equal, perhaps even looking down on him.
"Hodor, it's good to see you alive." Jon greeted the large man with a smile, then looked at the two crannogmen. "You must be Lord Reed's children, Meera and Jojen, correct?"
The siblings merely nodded at this, even the usually brave Meera. Jon had a presence that reminded Bran of their father, but in Jon's case, it was something more. It didn't stem from power but from his own strength. Mystical strength. Jon was intimidating to them.
"Lightbringer," Leaf addressed Jon on behalf of the Children of the Forest present. "We are glad you are safe and sound. You may call me Leaf. I speak for the Singers here."
Jon bowed slightly, then replied, "It's good to meet you, Leaf. It's good to meet you all." Then he looked at the newcomer standing a little behind him and introduced her. "This is Song; I met her at Hardhome."
Leaf nodded and replied, "We know each other and also know of her mission. Seeing our sister here with you means the Others who lay dormant there have awakened."
"Yes, sister. They have awakened, but they are no longer here," Song replied, without elaborating or explaining anything further.
The loud coughing of the old Greenseer suddenly caught everyone's attention. "We clearly have a long conversation ahead of us," Brynden rasped, not taking his eyes off Jon. "But let me tell you first about your mother, Aerion."