Bran

Arya hesitantly walked into the kennels. She saw Sansa kneeling on the floor, gently brushing Lady's fur.

"Hello," she said softly. Sansa looked up and smiled, acknowledging her appearance, and turned back to her wolf.

Arya sat down on Lady's other side, and started petting her. A few seconds later, Nymeria appeared, nudging Arya with her nose, demanding attention. Arya giggled softly and turned around to give her wolf pup a hug.

For a few minutes, the two sisters sat silently side by side, lost in thought. Neither was brave enough to say something out loud.

Finally, Arya took a deep breath and turned to face Sansa. "I'm..." She stopped her apology midway through before speaking again. "Are you ready to go back inside?" she asked.

Sansa smiled and nodded. "Let's go," she said, clearing her throat.

---

The rest of the family looked up in surprise when Sansa and Arya entered the room together. Catelyn reached out a hand to her daughters and pulled them into the empty seats next to her. "We're changing all of this," she whispered fiercely.

Sansa smiled back. She nodded in determination.

"I think we should read several more chapters today. We must learn as much information as we possibly can before the king arrives," Ned said. He was already drafting letters in his head. Letters to his bannermen, to King's Landing, to the Night's Watch.

"How much time do we have?" Arya asked. "Three weeks," Ned replied.

"May I read the next chapter?" Sansa asked. She looked around at her family's faces, trying to draw courage from them.

Ned handed her the book with a barely noticeable smile.

She took a deep, calming breath as she found the correct page, and smiled in excitement when she saw the tile. "Bran," she read out loud.

Jon, Robb and Arya all snuck a glance at their brother and sighed in relief. So Bran would definitely be alright.

It seems like Bran has been falling for years.

Fly , a voice whispers to him, but Bran does not know how. All he can do is fall.

Maester Luwin made a tiny boy of clay, and flung it off the roof, and Bran remembers how it shattered when it hit the ground. "But I never fall," Bran says, falling.

Bran had chills listening to this. It was still so unimaginable – someone pushing him off the tower? He was really trying not to think too much about it, and decided to just focus on Sansa's voice for now.

Mist is swirling around him. He can barely see the ground, far below him, but he can feel how fast he is falling. He knows what is waiting for him at the bottom. Even in dreams, you cannot fall forever. He knows he will wake up the instant he hits the ground.

The voice asks him what happens if he doesn't.

No one dared to speak up. The whole family was listening in complete silence.

The ground is a little closer now. It is cold in this darkness. There are no stars, only the ground below him, and the mists and the voice. Bran wants to cry.

The voice tells him not to cry. He should fly. Bran tries to answer that he can't, but the voice says he can't know that if he has never tried.

Sansa continued reading. Her voice was shaking slightly out of worry for her brother.

The Starks all felt distinctly uncomfortable with this... dream? Was it a dream? How was Bran expected to fly when he was falling? He had already fallen, and had landed on the ground, sleeping for months without waking up. Was this dream a message from the old gods?

Bran looks around for the source of the voice and sees a crow, following him as he falls. He asks the crow for help, but the crow says it's trying. It asks for corn and Bran takes some out of his pocket. The bird land on his hand and starts eating.

Jon frowned. Weren't there also crows mentioned in the chapter where Bran fell? Why would they be important? Or was this all an elaborate fever dream?

When Bran asks the bird if it is real, the crow asks back if Bran is really falling. Bran explains that it's just a dream. He'll wake up when he hits the ground.

The crow says that Bran will die when he hits the ground.

Sansa sent her brother a worried glance as she continued reading. He looked so small, sitting in his wooden chair. His eyes were wide and staring straight ahead, looking at nothing.

Bran can see mountains now. He starts to cry.

The crow says that the answer is flying, not crying. How hard can it be?

Catelyn's heart was breaking slightly listening to this. She knew it would never come to pass, but just the thought of his child going through something like this was horrific.

Sansa fought to keep her voice steady as she continued reading about Bran realising that he doesn't have wings, and the crow's answer that there are different kinds of wings. When she reached the part about the golden face swimming up to Bran and saying: "The things I do for love," she had to take a deep breath to calm herself down.

Bran screams. The crow shrieks at him to forget that, put it away, he does not need it now. The golden face is gone, and Bran is falling faster than ever. Bran is afraid. The crow said it's teaching him how to fly. Bran is flying right now, the crow says. Every flight begins with a fall. Look down.

Bran says he is afraid, but the crow screams at him to LOOK DOWN!

Bran flinched at Sansa's raised voice. He swallowed hard to stop tears from entering his eyes. He didn't want to cry. Not at a dream that he would probably never even have. He took in a deep, shuddering breath and actively calmed himself down. He would try and be brave like his father.

Bran looks down. The world is a tapestry of white and blue and green. He can see Winterfell, the castle walls just lines in the dirt. He can see Maester Luwin on a balcony, and his brother Robb practicing in the yard with real steel in his hand, and Hodor on his way to Mikken's forge. He can see the godswood, and the great weirwood tree stares back at him knowingly.

Sansa continued to read about Bran looking east and seeing his mother on a ship, and then looking south and seeing his sisters and his father. When she got to the paragraph where Bran looks across the Narrow Sea and sees the free cities and the green Dothraki Sea, and Vaes Dothrak, and the fabled Jade Sea and Asshai, Jon raised his eyebrows at the mention of dragons that are stirring.

He quickly shook his head to get rid of those thoughts. Dragons were not important right now. This was about Bran.

Finally, Bran looks north and sees the Wall, and his brother Jon sleeping in a cold bed. And he looks past the Wall, past the frozen shore and the dead plains. North and north and north he looks, beyond the curtain at the end of the world. He looks into the heart of winter, and then he cries out in fear, tears on his cheeks.

Ned tilted his head in interest. What would Bran see in this dream that would make him react in that way? How many more white walkers were there beyond the wall?

The crow tells him that this is why he must live. Because winter is coming.

The family felt shivers go up their spines. Suddenly the age-old words were taking on a completely new meaning. Winter is coming.

Bran looks at the crow. It has three eyes, and the third is full of terrible knowledge. Bran looks down once more, and sees the –

Sansa's eyes widened at the unwelcome mental image, but she steeled herself and bravely kept reading.

bones of thousands of other dreamers impaled on the spikes of ice on the ground below.

Bran flinched slightly, and Arya and Jon shared a shocked look.

"The bones of other dreamers?" Arya whispered. So, this dream could truly kill people? What kind of danger would her brother be in in the future?

Bran is desperately afraid. He hears his own voice, far away, asking if a man can still be brave if he is afraid. And his father replies: That is the only time a man can be brave.

Hearing Father's comforting words again visibly helped Bran calm down. He took a deep breath to steady himself and looked at Ned for a while, a tiny smile on his face, before fixing his gaze back on the book in his sister's hands.

The crow urges him to choose now. Fly or die. Bran spreads his arms and flies.

The world grows small beneath him. This is better than climbing, this is better than anything.

Arya let out a tiny whoop of joy under her breath. Robb noticed and smiled fondly.

The crow flies beside him, wings flapping in his face, blinding him. Its beak stabs at him fiercely, and Bran feels a sudden pain in his forehead.

"What?" Catelyn asked sharply, but Sansa chose not to answer her question, wanting to finish the chapter as quickly as possible.

He shrieks and asks what it is doing, but the crow doesn't respond, and he sees that the crow is really a serving woman, and he is in Winterfell, and the woman is shouting "He's awake, he's awake."

Everyone let out a collective sigh of relief.

"He's awake," Catelyn whispered, eyes shining. She pulled Bran close to her, grateful that she would never have to experience this horror herself. Reading about it happening in the future was bad enough.

Bran touches his forehead, but there is no wound. He feels dizzy. He tries to get out of bed, but nothing happens.

Something jumps onto his bed, landing on his legs, but Bran feels nothing.

Ned and Catelyn shared a look of worry. What did that mean? Would Bran be alright?

It is staring at him with yellow eyes. Is that his pup? He is so big now.

Robb bursts into the room. Bran looks up calmly and says that the wolf's name is Summer. "The chapter is finished," Sansa said, feeling a little reassured at the happy ending of this chapter.

Arya, Robb and Jon took some time to stretch after sitting for so long, and smiled at each other in relief. "Bran is awake!" Arya said excitedly.

Robb laughed and nodded, just as happy about these developments as his sister. Once the happiness faded, though, there were still a lot of unanswered questions.

"What was that dream about, though?" Jon asked, frowning. "Who in all the hells was that crow? Why would it attack Bran right after saving his life?"

No one had an answer.

"Summer," Bran said in an awed voice, clearly not having paid attention to the previous conversation. "Summer is a good name."

Ned hid a smile at his young son's enthusiasm. "Yes, it very much is," he said gently. A few moments later, Robb asked quietly: "Should we just continue straight away?"

Jon nodded. "We want to get this book done as quickly as we can, right?" He looked around the room for confirmation.

Sansa closed the book, keeping a finger in to mark the page. "Yes, I think that is a good idea," she said. "Who would like to read now?"

"I can," Robb offered, taking the book from his sister. "I haven't read in a while." He cleared his throat and started the next chapter.