The Night's King
"Night gathers," he remembered the words now clearer than he'd ever done before and spoke them aloud for some unspoken reason, on the edge of what would surely be his death, it somehow felt only right. It was his oath. It was his duty. "and now my watch begins." The old words rang in his head like so many bells, echoing from ear to ear, threatening to burst open his skull if they screamed but louder. Still he did not cease, determined to reach his final goal...
"It shall not end until my death." The cold winds bit at his heels, snow to his knees and a blizzard in his eyes. His death was here.
"I shall take no wife," he muttered the words still, jaw locked shut from the cold as he raised an arm to shield his eyes in what was a desperate attempt. "hold no lands, father no children." Why he tried was beginning to test his mind, frozen as it was, why he wanted to live; no lands to rule nor sons to pass them to. He kept muttering the words, bells still ringing. "I shall wear no crowns and win no glory." He'd worn no crown in life although his pride spoke true of glory, however small...
"I shall live and die at my post." The blizzard seemed unending and wholly without mercy, cutting through frostbitten fingers to bite at his cheeks. "I am the sword in the darkness!" He cried at the night as if to an old enemy, as he would in life against so many wildling bands. Without pause. Without fear. "I am the watcher on the walls!", He cried louder at the raging snows. "I am the fire that burns against the cold!" He raged still, stubborn to his last. "The light that brings the dawn!"
His hand had lowered, numb and useless as the world grew colder still; darker and darker and blue and... blue...
The man mustered a smile with what little life he clung to, that too frozen, a drowning man in a sea of snow and ice and winter. A stark contrast to his black attire, tattered and torn as it was, coated in snow and near brittle as ice from the cold. He brought his eyes high and beheld his goal. So... very... blue... blue... blu- eautiful…
The Wall was built on the backs of men and magic and beasts to haul the great structure high. To protect the realms of men and more. Whatever old magic was woven into the cold walls of his little kingdom, he did not know it's name, only that it existed to protect them against the dark things. Men were dark, true, darker than beasts in his unfortunate experience... but there were darker things still. He knew. His father had taught him and his brother. They were taught to rule. To protect. To serve.
He was born a second son. The spare. The replacement, if needed. It was a role he'd taken gladly, loving his brother so, too loyal to ever dream of more and so when father asked... he obeyed... like a good son should. Or at least that's what he'd thought at the time. So many years of blood had tested him fiercely.
The courtyard rang to the song of swords. He stood watching new recruits spar with some others, eyeing one in particular that showed great promise, ducking under one swing and countering with a sweeping blow that crunched against the back of the other boy's leg and sent him staggering. Another lads uppercut was answered by an overhand that dented his helm. When he tired a side swing, the lad with promise swept aside his blade and slammed a mailed forearm into his chest, causing his opponent to lose his footing and fall down hard in the snow. The promising one knocked the sword from his fellow recruits fingers with a slash to his wrist that brought a cry of pain.
"Enough!" One of the brothers cut the air, a voice with an edge of valyrian steel.
A recruit on his arse cradled his hand. "He broke my wrist!"
"He hamstrung you, opened your empty skull, and cut off your hand. Or would have, if these blades had an edge. It's fortunate for you that we need stable boys as well as rangers." The brother gestured at the two other recruits. "Get that one on his feet, he has funeral arrangements to make."
The spare son watched from a raised walkway above, smirk on his lips, dressed in crisp black leathers that whispered faintly as he moved. He was a man of some forty years by his looks, spare and hard, black hair and eyes like chips of ice. "You did well!" He offered the promising recruit, taking steps down, the courtyard turning to him cautiously. It was a rare sight for him to show interest. He eyed the recruit with a smirk on his lips, hand absently scratching the black stubble on his chin.
"L- Lord-" One of the less interesting recruits stuttered like a fool.
"Lord Commander." The promising one offered, head slowed in a slight nod, sword to his hip, back held straight and a look in his eyes that told the Commander the boy was afraid yet trying his utmost to hide the fact. "Thank you, my lord!" The recruit bowed his head lower now, diverting his eyes away from the mans.
"A nobles lad are you?" The spare asked, now the commander to the recruits.
"Yes my lord." The recruit confirmed with obvious pride on his tongue. He made no attempt to hide it.
He failed to note the looks of jealousy from the lowborn recruits.
"A name won't get you a free pass here lad," The commander explained with an edge of his own. "but your a natural."
"Thank you m-"
"Fight me." The commander offered, to the boys muted stuttering surprise...
"I-" Came the words. "I could-"
"You could?!" The commander snapped, smirking still.
"N-"
He brought one hand up as one of his brothers tossed a blunted tourney blade into the air for him to catch with surprising grace. He made it look easy, but he always did like to show off. "Come then," the commander teased playfully as if speaking to a child far younger. "let's dance, little lord."
The little lords eyes darted about, seeking some form of help. He found only the smirking faces of every brother in attendance.
"Come boy," The commander swung his blunted steel, testing the balance in his hand. "before winter comes."
After several minutes of attempting to lure the commander into allowing his defensive stance, the boy lost his temper and adopted a style more akin to free folk than a nobles son, not that the commander minded. The world was kill or be killed. Still, he had a test to complete and the boy needed his lessons...
"That's the spirit!" The command offered, smacking the boy on the head with the blades tip when the praise distracted him for a brief glance.
The crowd, who had chattered and cheered, became completely silent, and the air rang with the tintinnabulation of traded blows and the hoarse rasp of one young recruits breathes; starved and tiring. "Very well done." The commander offered, circling slowly. "Yet, how's your footwork?"
The boys eyes narrowed, expecting some trick.
"If I move here..."
The boy moved.
"Good!" The commander gave a nod. "And... you mov-"
Again, the boy moved as desired. The commander was pleased.
"Whoever trained you did a fine job lad," he offered simply, tossing the blunted steel to a nearby brother to catch it with far less grace than the commander boasted. "who taught you to fight? Your footwork is impressive for one still so young." Not that he knew how old the recruit was, exactly. "How old are-"
"Ten-and-four." The recruit answered quickly.
The commander scowled. "Here," he offered the lad a cup of water. "drink. And don't interrupt when others speak."
That earned a scoff from the crowd of brothers.
"Do what I say," he eyed the brothers. "not what I do."
A horn sounded. "Harooooooooooooooooooooo," it cried, it's voice as long and low and chilling as a cold wind from the north.
"One for Rangers." The commander thought, his eyes and those of every brother having snapped to the Wall and the steps of ice that were carved into its side, leading high, having claimed the lives of one or two green boys too eager. The commander remembered the first time he'd seen a boy slip... not a pretty end...
They waited for the second with baited breath. Two for Wildlings. Three for something not seen in hundred of years.
The second never came and gods praised, neither did a third. "Rangers returning!" The call came, announcing the arrival followed by the great gates opening. Should the worst ever happen, old gods forbid it, the commander new his duty. Those tall black steel gates would be sealed with ice and rock. Then they'd pray.
He snapped out of it quickly, moving feet to stone and quickened to the gates. A ranger approached. He was frozen near death at first glance, black covered a fine white hunched over his horse; beast near collapse. The ranger had ridden hard and fast without rest. It was he that was first first to fall...
With a thud the man slipped from his saddle and onto the ground, steel clanging to his side as the commander rushed over.
"Will!" He knew the mans face, his First Ranger. "Will! Answer me brother!"
Will managed only a shiver and little more, alive, but only just.
"Commander," the voice of the forts maester called. "we must bring him inside to warm hi-"
"Yes!" The commander interrupted. "Quickly!"
Inside the great hall the frozen ranger was tossed besides the largest of the orders fires, fed more wood to burn brighter and hotter against the cold now in the hope of saving the First Ranger so that he may speak. "W-" He managed. "Wal-"
"Wall?" The commander assumed. "Yes, your home brother. We're he-"
"Walker." Will managed, a hoarse whisper that only the commander heard.
That word froze even the commander as the light began to fade from Will's eyes.
"Walker!" The word echoed through his head from ear to ear as Will grasped his arm with what little strength remained. Walker. Walker. Walker. The words rang as a warming. Will's grip lessened and all the light faded from his eyes. He'd been a friend, once. One of the few men the commander had counted on. One of his best.
"Commander?" Another ranger asked, eyes darting to the former First Rangers corpse.
"Burn him." The commander whispered to himself if not to the others.
"I'm sorry." The ranger offered. "Did you say-"
"Burn him!" He snapped, loud as a thunder clap.
"I-" The ranger seemed confused. Burning was not the normal rest of a ranger.
"See to it!" He commanded. "That's an order, brothers..."
None questioned that. They all knew better than to disobey orders.
The commander stayed put as Will's frozen corpse was taken away for a pier. He watched the fire in it's place as they left, enchanted by it, dancing and spitting as it did. "Walker" Will's last word echoed in his mind, as if he'd forgotten. The ramblings of a dead man.. surely? Madness. They were dead. They couldn't be back. And yet...
It an instant he found himself atop the wall. Up the icy steps that were carved into its face so long ago by Brandon the Builder.
"Walker." The word kept nagging at him, unrelenting as it was.
He reached the top with relative ease and brothers parted as he passed them by with stony silence.
"Commander?" One builder asked as he walked.
He ignored the man. Walker. Walker. Walker.
"Winter is Coming." He remember those words now, and the lesson that followed before he'd departed for the Wall; off to serve his father's realm against the Wildling hordes and... apparently... so much more than that. It seemed so very long ago now, looking back at it. How time flew for the frozen guards of the night.
The land Beyond stretched out before his eyes as far reaching as the lands of his birth and yet so more untamed. The trees were some leagues from the wall, cut down as regularly as the order could manage by it's builders, all the better to sight the so called Free Folk. He however was not here for them...
Something called to him. It was out there, although he couldn't explain how he knew that.
"Walker." The word whispered now, almost smoothing and sweet as honey...
Something glinted in the distance as a sapphire shun in the darkness. "There!" His mind screamed at him.
He had to seek it out, whatever it was. It had killed his friend. It was a danger to his order. To his brothers. To the realm he served so many years. What choice was there? "Yes." The commander muttered to the cold, accepting. He would call for a ranging. He would see the truth of things with his own eyes.
It was a small order that none fought to question, gathering three hundred brothers of the watch to ride out and avenge the First Ranger. Will had been popular with the men that served under him and many were eager to avenge the man's death. Wildlings were the assumed culprits. The commander knew better.
The ride from the Wall to the Haunted Forrest's edge was a short one shrouded in silence and snow.
"No sign of them." One ranger spoke to his friend, the commander riding out ahead of the party.
"Just wait," a second replied. "you'll see. The commanders never led us astray, and Will didn't die for nothing..."
They hoped. They rode through snow and winter itself. They kept the complaints hushed. The commander pushed them on.
"It's close." He muttered to himself absently as the winds blew through his hair. The cold never fazed him as it did others. It was in his blood.
"We make camp here for the night!" He came the order, to the grumbling of his men.
"Commander?" A ranger asked, eyeing the surroundings. A small opening in an otherwise wooded hell. Too good a position for an ambush should anyone come across the camp... and the commander should've known that better than anyone. The ranger began to feel uneasy.
"Set camp!" The commander snapped at the man, unfazed by his look. It was close now. So very close...
The brothers went about the orders and prepared tents of thick furs to combat the bitter winds of the north. The clearing was near wide enough to host them without much effort, while each builder overlooked ten rangers as they prepared small defenses on the outskirts encase of ambush. Nothing major, but it was something.
"Commander." A voice spoke, but he didn't hear it. His eyes darting to the trees. Looking for som-
"Commander?" Louder now, as it caught his attention with a snap. "Are you alright, my lord?"
"Fine." He replied with an edge.
"You-" The man hesitated, a steward by the looks of him. "Your arm..."
"My arm?" The commander asked, brow raised and curious now. He looked. There was nothing on his arm, the idea was- no, wait...
"Did you trip on the steps my-"
"No!" The commander growled, more wolf than man.
Trip? Him? What nonsense. And yet not far from his wrist stood a bruise, ugly and shaded a blue so dark it appeared almost black. It was where Will had grabbed him, or so it seemed. It didn't matter. The maesters could see to it upon his return, no mere bruise from a dead man's grip would stop him in this. He scoffed.
"It's nothing!" The commander insisted. "Return to your post brother."
The steward offered no complaint, giving a respectful nod before leaving his commander.
He entered his tent and out of the winter winds, into the relative safety of his commanders tent, twice the size of the others and twice the comfort. Not that it bosted much by any means but while the others slept on hay he would sleep on feathers. There were indeed some perks to his position.
"Close." He muttered, finding his way abed with a heavy head filled with worries. "I'm so close."
Sleep took him. In his dreams was home again, with no great wall of ice in sight and no brothers or oaths to keep him confined. In his dream he was young again, a boy no older than four-and-ten sparring in the courtyard of his houses castle. He watched himself swing a sword. He laughed as his brother fell...
"I'm king now!" His younger self cheered, playing a game he recalled well as the two fought with wooden swords. He'd played the Red King of House Boltons days. His brother the Winter King, recreating an old war between great houses. They'd take turns as the Stark, this turn his brothers it seemed.
"Well struck." His brother smiled up at his younger self, raising an arm for help.
The commander watched with a grin. This was a dream he'd had before and by the gods did he miss those days of inno-
"Arrrggghhh!" His brother screamed. The voice seeming to ring out across the whole of existence.
This wasn't right. His younger self had brought down his sword, now steel, freeing his brothers hand at the wrist in a spray of crimson.
"Brandon!" The commander wailed, but found himself frozen in place and unable to help.
His brother cried as blood flowed, looking up at his younger self with pleading eyes. "Why?" His brother cried. "WHY!?"
"I'm king now!" The boy raised his sword high and swung, ending the heirs life and claiming the castle for himself.
"No!" The commander fell to his knees. "This is a dream," he whispered and refused to look up. "nothing can harm me. Just a dream..."
He'd lifted his brother up in life. This was a dream, nothing more. He'd wake up now and everything would be fine.
"WAKE UP!" The commander screamed, looking up. His younger self smiled down at him, sword bloodied at his side with eyes that shun a pale blue.
"You were jealous." The boy spoke, his voice cracking like ice.
"No." The commander denied. "Never!"
"You were." The thing continued, taking a step forward. "You can't lie to me, Stark."
"Lies!" He denied again. "Your nothing but lies!"
The boy smiled wide. He brought his sword up and swung true as the commander held his arm aloft to shield himself.
"NO!" He screamed and awoke in an instant to shield himself from the blade. The bruise from earlier was the first thing to demand his attention, breathing heavily as he was, the tents flap wide open as it let in the winter snows; bruise burning like nothing he'd quite felt before.
"Close." His mind's voice called him outward, into the snow, out to the cold and dark. "Close."
Holding his arm in a vise-like grip, he lifted himself from his feathered bedroll and ventured to the tents flap that flew about freely in the blizzard winds. "Come." The voice called him and he felt powerless to refuse. It felt akin to the dream, frozen in place and unable to act. Closer and closer he went, until he stood in the snows alone.
The camp was shouldered in white, tents covered in a layer thick enough to have been here for a month or more despite only a night having passed. "Come closer." The voice seemed to call to him, closer than before and twice as sweet. "Here." The honied words snapped his attention outside his head now, not in...
There it stood, with eyes that shun like sapphires and skin like pale milk. It seemed to... smile at him...
"Awake!" The commander cried out to his men, hand moving to his sword only to find it absent.
"Sleep." The creature spoke, it's voice like cracking ice. It still smiled.
"Witch!" The man accused and held his ground, refusing to turn and flee. He was brave. He'd always been brave. "Demon!"
"Neither." The demon's smile turned, amused. It stood at some five foot with bare skin and white flowing hair. If it was indeed a demon, it was surely one sent to trick the hearts of men; unlike anything he'd seen. He struggled to keep his eyes from wandering, the demon undeniably attra-
Gods. What was he thinking? "Get out of my head, demon!"
It smiled wider, motioning to its body.
"Like?" It laughed, a sound like a cracking lake of ice.
It also seemed completely without shame.
"Follow!" It continued it's laugh, fading into the snows as it fled.
"Come back!" The commander demanded, eyes darting to his tent and back to the trees where the creature fled.
"Catch!" The voice was in his head again, pleading sweetly. It begged to be heard. Obeyed...
He broke into a sprint and decided in an instant without truly thinking that there was for whatever reason no time to turn back and grab his sword, nor wake his men. The demon had to be stopped! It was a danger to his brothers! He had no choice in this! It was his his duty! His decision to make!
The snows gathered quicker than he'd expected. The blizzard picking up tenfold, his camp behind no longer in sight.
"Face me!" He cried out into the winter winds.
The demon offered nothing but a chuckle, ice cracking upon the wind and echoing around him. The blizzard continued to rage and the demons voice seemed to cling to every flake of snow, it's almost girly and delighted chuckle taunting him. He'd be red with anger if not near blue from the cold. Closer. Closer. Closer.
"Night gathers," the voice spoke sweetly, willing him forward, taunting him with it's words. He offered no reply. "and now my watch begins." The words rang in his head like so many bells, echoing from ear to ear, threatening to burst open his skull if they screamed but louder. Still he did not cease, determined to...
"It shall not end until my death." He wasn't sure what he was so determined to do now, oddly enough. He knew only that he wished to live.
"I shall take no wife," the voice muttered the words still. He raised an arm to reach out, almost pleading. "hold no lands, father no children." He'd always secretly wanted lands, with a wife and family to call his own. He'd told no one. The voice sung the words, soft as silk. "I shall wear no crowns and win no glory."
He'd earned his glory. What was a in a crown? Was he not worthy? Had he not bled enough for such a thing? He deserved more...
"I shall live and die at my post." The blizzard no longer fazed him as it cut through his frostbitten fingers. "I am the sword in the darkness." He said the words himself now. The voice asked it of him and he gave it freely. "I am the watcher on the walls." He called louder at the raging snows, to the beauty of winter that wished to see him. "I am the fire that burns against the cold." He called still, numb to the pain as the mark on his arm glowed an eerie blue. "The light that brings the dawn!"
He lowered his hand as his purpose drew closer; darker and darker and blue and... blue...
What was once the commander smiled, a drowned man in a sea of snow and ice and winter. A fallen Stark in tattered black, coated in snow and near brittle as ice from the cold. He brought his eyes high and beheld his goal. It was beautiful. She was beautiful. Skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars...
"Mine." She spoke, her voice sickeningly sweet. She offered her hand to the once Commander of the Watch.
The fallen took her hand, softer than silk and cold as ice as only a single word came to him. It was the last he'd ever speak. "Love."
She brought his hands to her cheek, caressing, wrapping an arm around the fallen commander and embracing him in the snow. They stayed there for hours and nothing remained of him by the end, the man once known as the thirteenth Lord Commander of the Night's Watch died in the snows Beyond the Wall in the arms of death. What returned to the Nightfort to rule as King was nothing but a puppet, used to confuse the magics of the Wall after giving the creature what it sought, a child to fool old magics... for nothing wholly dead could pass... but the the living passed freely. No brother questioned the Commanders return.
History would not be kind to the man as his true name was removed from all records. The stories named him traitor. The truth was far sadder, bewitched by a creature beyond him and used for it's ends, cut down by his own brother when King Brandon the Breaker lead his army to the Wall in the hopes of freeing his brother; only to free him with cold steel. Brandon ordered his name removed from history, never to be uttered upon pain of death. His brother died. That's all anyone would know.
Brandon Stark had been a warrior, like is brother, but he stood now on the edge of tears in doorway of the highest tower in the Nightfort. A cold demon stood before him, snarling like a wolf, bare skin white with hair like snow. It's eyes shun as he charged. The demon seemed unfazed, as if nothing could ever harm it.
"For my brother!" The king growled, his sword Ice having sliced into the creatures chest with great ease.
It screamed as it died, wide blues eyes, the sound causing Brandon to stumble and near drop his sword as his ear threatened to bleed under the sheer pressure of the demons wail. It shattered like ice in an instant and the terrible noise ceased, falling to a hundred thousand pieces before him.
"Your Grace!" A voice came from the doorway, it's concern obvious.
"I'm fine." Brandon waved the man off. "What of the others?"
"The brothers-"
"Well?" Brandon's patience was long since gone. "Speak, or bloody well find me a man who will!"
"T- They've stopped. The brothers, they just... stopped fighting..."
Brandon eyed the melted remains of the demons thousand chunks of shattered ice. It was the cause. That thing had done all this.
A cry caught his attention, moving from anger to confusion.
"A babe?" The man asked, the wailing of a child coming from the room.
It was Brandon to see it first. A cradle behind where the demon had stood. Inside was a pale skinned child barely a year of age, it's wailing ceasing as Brandon moved closer and it's eyes opened to reveal a haunting blue. "A child." Brandon muttered, thinking hard now, all reports having spoken of how the demon was his brothers queen...
"It's the monsters!" The man all but shouted upon seeing the babe.
It seemed unfazed by the loud man, eyeing Brandon curiously before appearing to almost smile.
"Brother." The king whispered, eyeing the child. It had black hair. It's fathers hair.
"We must destroy it before-"
The man choked on his words. Ice was there now, sticking through his stomach and out his back.
"He's my blood." Brandon said sadly, removing the valyrian steel with a single motion as the man dropped dead.
The child laughed. An all too human laugh that filled Brandon with some hope that his brothers son was more Stark than demon. "Winter is Coming." He spoke to the child now, picking him up in his arms. "I'm your uncle," he informed the blue-eyed babe. "and nobody is going to hurt you. I promise."
He held his finger out for the boy to grasp, that he did gladly and with surprising strength for one so very young.
"Beron." The king named him. "Beron the Blue. You carry your fathers name now my boy, so best do him proud..."