A three-headed dragon of red iron hung from the walls. It was huge, Bran thought with stupefaction, so big it had to be made in at least five dozen pieces.

"What is that?" he asked, his voice shaking. He had always been curious, had always loved to learn, to know - but something felt terribly wrong, standing there at Winterfell's old courtyard, staring at that cursed sigil instead of the proud, greyish direwolf.

Cursed? the hissing turned to laughter. It was ancient, and cold, and almost sly. You mean blessed, little one. Do not play ignorant, it suits you not. You know full well what it is.

There it was, again. That raven that seemed not to get the hint - leave me alone, said Bran, his courage wavering. Be gone.

His voice trembled. And the bird, with his three crimson eyes, did not shrink from him. In fact, it did not move at all, did nothing but blink down at him. It was still perched in the oak tree, and it seemed to be watching him with the same intensity it always did.

There was a wrongness about it all. The air was tense, loud, brash.

"Be gone," he repeated softly, "please - go away."

"Ah," said the Three Eyed Raven calmly, "you fear."

The silence was what Bran hated the most. He no longer dreamt of being a knight and serving the realm of the living. His nights were consecrated to long, confusing conversations with that mad, ugly bird, and the worst of it? He could not speak of it with no one else.

Else they would label him stupid, or worse yet, mad. They would confine him in his rooms, he was sure of it, and would never take him seriously again - he did not even believe it himself, how could he dare to hope someone else might -

"Please."

The three eyed raven considered him for a long moment, then, he said, a chilling low whisper, "if you would not talk to me, then-"

"Then nothing," said Bran sharply, already tiring from playing the quiet little obedient pup. "I would not hear you. Be. Gone."

"Very well."

There was something sinister in the way it spread its wings - something both sinister and triumphant. Bran's throat tightened. No, he wanted to say, wait- I meant no disrespect - stay, please-

Bran woke up screaming.

Brandon was used to the occasional weird experience - waking up in a dog's body, conversing with talking animals, Sansa willing to play with him - but usually, they were over quickly. This moon's silence was more than he could handle. The Three Eyed Raven did not seek him, sleeping was back to what other people would consider normal. There were no more visits into the past, the future, or even the present.

It was all he ever wanted.

But why did he feel so alone, so empty? Even climbing could not cheer him up. The raven wants to mess with me, he thought shakily, I did not hallucinate it. It was very real. I'm not insane. I'm not.

Still, Bran started to forget. There were times he could not recall its warnings, other times he forgot about its name. He almost did believe that everything that had happened - or didn't happen - would not affect his family. They were protected, nothing would tear them apart, of that he was sure.

Your family will die one by one if you do not heed my advice.

He started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. When Arya asked, for the ninth times, why he was such a stupid snot, he snapped, called her a selfish brat. Mother gaped at him, but his dark headed sister took no offense, and smiled her crooked smile.

Then the execution happened, and the direwolves came again. He remembered Jon's unreadable expression as he cradled the pup in his arms -Ghost, he had named it. You'll be Ghost. Bran had went pale at the sight of it. Red of eyes, white of furs. The Targaryens colors...merged with the Stark's.

Bran sat very still, watching the doomed man as impassively as Father, as Jon, as Robb. He had been dragged by Father's orders, looking ragged and broken and utterly afraid. The prospect of death terrified him, though he tried so hard to hide it, to imitate his lord father's solemn expression.

He could sympathise with him, fear was not foreign to Bran. He watched from afar as the guardsmen forced his head down, and finally, finally, Father dismounted. He had forsaken Father's face, Bran reminded himself. It was Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell who accepted the sword Theon Greyjoy brought forth, not Bran's father.

Ice, Bran thought, and suddenly shivered. He remembered a sword as long, as pale as this one.

Protect the sword, urged a voice in the back of his mind. Protect it!

"YOU!"

There was a silence. Father tightened his hold around the hilt of his greatsword.

"Me?" said Bran, when the man's eyes settled upon him. He felt rather than saw Jon move behind him, but his attention was solely fixed on the condemned ma- Gared, he had called himself.

"Yes, you," he nodded eagerly, "he told me to hand you the message - he told me it would make great differences. He told me to try - to waver your defiance."

"Whom?" asked Father, a great weariness in his eyes.

Gared ignored him. "My lord," he said, addressing Bran, "he accepts your terms. You bid him to leave you alone, and he did so-"

"Leave you-" started Robb in confusion, his tone laced with worry.

"I did," interrupted Bran coolly, but his expression was relieved, I am not insane, t'is happened and happens still, "yet it seems he is adamant in having me brought to him."

"My lord," said Gared again, this time desperately, "he spoke to me. You need to -"

"I don't think so."

Father's lips thinned, and he looked at Bran as if he was seeing him for the first time. With a start, Bran realized everyone was staring at him with that very same look. They had never seen me this angry, he thought, but I have a good reason. What happens between the three raven eyed and yourself, stays between the three eyed raven and yourself.

They won't understand, beside, they never would.

Gared seemed positively close to tear now, and Bran almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

"Your Grace!"

The title had Father wincing. Robb made to move, and Bran frowned, with whom is he speaking? Not to me, no. There is no royalty-

"You called?" said Bran's bastard brother with a smirk. It seemed so alien on Jon's normally expressionless, sometimes kind face.

Robb turned to stare at him, blue eyes full of unasked questions. Bran saw that Theon scowled, and looked uneasy at the prospect of a smug Jon Snow.

"What do you -"

"Your Grace, please," continued Gared quietly, "you need to warn them. All three of them. Only you may discover what truly lies beyond the Wall. Only you might awake the weapons."

Robb spoke up. "This is madness-" he glanced at his brother for confirmation.

But Jon, who until now had only titled his head in consideration, nodded. "Very well. You have my promise."

Gared sighed in relief. Father took hold of Ice with, Bran noticed, trembling hands. Robb stared at Jon blankly.

"In the name of Robert of House Baratheon," Father began, rather quickly. Bran had known of course of the formal sentence his lord father had to deliver, in fact, he had been waiting for this particular moment : Lord Stark executing the King's Justice.

Though, Bran could not shake the feeling that there was some mistake, in calling Robert that, "King of the Andals and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm-"

"Do not look away," said Jon over Father's voice, his pale lilac eyes never leaving the condemned man. There was little they did not see, Bran knew. For a moment, he thought he saw anxiety in them —the same fear he had seen in the three eyed raven during his frequent dreams —as if his brother too felt an odd chill in the air. But then his sullen expression returned, and his lips curled into a small grin for Bran, and only Bran, and he figured he must have been mistaken. "Father will know, if you do. And keep your pony in hand."

"I, Eddard of the House Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, sentence you to die." Gared sent one last sad filled glance their way, then Father lifted his greatsword high above his head and brought it down.

Father turned away immediately. The odd chill was still there, growing colder and colder, a tenseness that had everyone move so slowly, so fearfully - no one said a thing when Theon put his boot on the head and kicked it. No one seemed bothered, too.

"You did well," Jon appraised, solemnly. He ruffled his hair, and for a moment, Bran felt everything would be alright, surely-

"Jon!" Father called, voice strong and face pale, "Brandon. We need to speak. Now."