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Bran

In the yard below, Rickon ran with the wolves

Bran watched from hisseat Wherever the boy went, Grey Wind was there first, loping ahead to cut hiht, and went pelting off in another direction Shaggydog ran at his heels, spinning and snapping if the other wolves came too close His fur had darkened until he was all black, and his eyes were green fire Bran’s Suold that saw all there was to see Sht he was the smartest of the litter He could hear his brother’s breathless laughter as Rickon dashed across the hard-packed earth on little baby legs

His eyes stung He wanted to be down there, laughing and running Angry at the thought, Bran knuckled away the tears before they could fall His eighth naro, too old to cry

"It was just a lie," he said bitterly, re the crow from his dream "I can’t fly I can’t even run"

"Crows are all liars," Old Nan agreed, fro her needlework "I know a story about a crow"

"I don’t want any more stories," Bran snapped, his voice petulant He had liked Old Nan and her stories once Before But it was different now They left her with him all day now, to watch over hi lonely, but she just made it worse "I hate your stupid stories"

The old woman smiled at him toothlessly "My stories? No, my little lord, not mine The stories are, before me and after ly old woht spitefully; shrunken and wrinkled, almost blind, too weak to climb stairs, with only a feisps of white hair left to cover a mottled pink scalp No one really kne old she was, but his father said she’d been called Old Nan even when he was a boy She was the oldest person in Winterfell for certain, doms Nan had come to the castle as a wet nurse for a Brandon Stark whosehirandfather, or perhaps a younger brother, or a brother to Lord Rickard’s father Sometimes Old Nan told it one way and sometimes another In all the stories the little boy died at three of a summer chill, but Old Nan stayed on at Winterfell with her own children She had lost both her sons to the hen King Robert won the throne, and her grandson was killed on the walls of Pyke during Balon Greyjoy’s rebellion Her daughters had long ago married and moved away and died All that was left of her own blood was Hodor, the siiant orked in the stables, but Old Nan just lived on and on, doing her needlework and telling her stories

"I don’t care whose stories they are," Bran told her, "I hate them" He didn’t want stories and he didn’t want Old Nan He wanted hisbeside him He wanted to climb the broken tower and feed corn to the crows He wanted to ride his pony again with his brothers He wanted it to be the way it had been before

"I know a story about a boy who hated stories," Old Nan said with her stupid little s all the while, click click click, until Bran was ready to scream at her

It would never be the way it had been, he knew The crow had tricked hi, but when he woke up he was broken and the world was changed They had all left him, his father and his mother and his sisters and even his bastard brother Jon His father had pro, but they’d gone without him Maester Luwin had sent a bird after Lord Eddard with a e, and another to Mother and a third to Jon on the Wall, but there had been no answers "Ofttimes the birds are lost, child," the maester had told him "There’s ’s Landing, the e may not have reached them" Yet to Bran it felt as if they had all died while he had sleptor perhaps Bran had died, and they had forgotten hione too, and Hullen and Harwin and Fat Touard

Only Robb and baby Rickon were still here, and Robb was changed He was Robb the Lord now, or trying to be He wore a real sword and never s his swordplay,with the sound of steel as Bran watched forlornly froht he closeted hi over account books Soone for days at a ti distant holdfasts Whenever he ay more than a day, Rickon would cry and ask Bran if Robb was ever co back Even when he was home at Winterfell, Robb the Lord seemed to have more time for Hallis Mollen and Theon Greyjoy than he ever did for his brothers

"I could tell you the story about Brandon the Builder," Old Nan said "That was always your favorite"

Thousands and thousands of years ago, Brandon the Builder had raised Winterfell, and some said the Wall Bran knew the story, but it had never been his favorite Maybe one of the other Brandons had liked that story Sometimes Nan would talk to him as if he were her Brandon, the baby she had nursed all those years ago, and sometimes she confused hi before Bran was even born She had lived so long, Mother had told him once, that all the Brandon Starks had become one person in her head

"That’s not my favorite," he said "My favorites were the scary ones" He heard some sort of commotion outside and turned back to theRickon was running across the yard toward the gatehouse, the wolves following hi way for Bran to see as happening He s

"Oh, my sweet summer child," Old Nan said quietly, "what do you know of fear? Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet deep and the ice wind coht, when the sun hides its face for years at a time, and little children are born and live and die all in darkness while the direwolves grow gaunt and hungry, and the white walkers h the woods"

"You mean the Others," Bran said querulously

"The Others," Old Nan agreed "Thousands and thousands of years ago, a winter fell that was cold and hard and endless beyond all eneration, and kings shivered and died in their castles even as the swineherds in their hovels Women smothered their children rather than see them starve, and cried, and felt their tears freeze on their cheeks" Her voice and her needles fell silent, and she glanced up at Bran with pale, filmy eyes and asked, "So, child This is the sort of story you like?"

"Well," Bran said reluctantly, "yes, only"

Old Nan nodded "In that darkness, the Others came for the first time," she said as her needles went click click click "They were cold things, dead things, that hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every creature with hot blood in its veins They swept over holdfasts and cities and kingdo their pale dead horses and leading hosts of the slain All the swords of men could not stay their advance, and evenbabes found no pity in theh frozen forests, and fed their dead servants on the flesh of human children"

Her voice had dropped very low, al forward to listen

"Now these were the days before the Andals ca before the women fled across the narrow sea frododoms of the First Men, who had taken these lands from the children of the forest Yet here and there in the fastness of the woods the children still lived in their wooden cities and hollow hills, and the faces in the trees kept watch So as cold and death filled the earth, the last hero determined to seek out the children, in the hopes that their ancient ics could win back what the armies of men had lost He set out into the dead lands with a sword, a horse, a dog, and a dozen companions For years he searched, until he despaired of ever finding the children of the forest in their secret cities One by one his friends died, and his horse, and finally even his dog, and his sword froze so hard the blade snapped when he tried to use it And the Others smelled the hot blood in hi hi as hounds--"

The door opened with a bang, and Bran’s heart leapt up into his mouth in sudden fear, but it was only Maester Luith Hodor loo in the stairway behind him "Hodor!" the stableboy announced, as was his custoely at the "We have visitors," he announced, "and your presence is required, Bran"

"I’ to a story now," Bran complained

"Stories wait, my little lord, and when you come back to them, why, there they are," Old Nan said "Visitors are not so patient, and oftti stories of their own"

"Who is it?" Bran asked Maester Luwin

"Tyrion Lannister, and soht’s Watch, ord fro with them now Hodor, will you help Bran down to the hall?"

"Hodor!" Hodor agreed happily He ducked to get his great shaggy head under the door Hodor was nearly seven feet tall It was hard to believe that he was the same blood as Old Nan Bran wondered if he would shrivel up as srandmother when he was old It did not seem likely, even if Hodor lived to be a thousand

Hodor lifted Bran as easy as if he were a bale of hay, and cradled hiainst his massive chest He always smelled faintly of horses, but it was not a bad smell His arms were thick with ain Theon Greyjoy had once commented that Hodor did not know much, but no one could doubt that he knew his name Old Nan had cackled like a hen when Bran told her that, and confessed that Hodor’s real name was Walder No one knehere "Hodor" had co it, they started calling him by it It was the only word he had

They left Old Nan in the tower room with her needles and her memories Hodor huh the gallery, with Maester Luwin following behind, hurrying to keep up with the stableboy’s long strides

Robb was seated in Father’s high seat, wearing ringmail and boiled leather and the stern face of Robb the Lord Theon Greyjoy and Hallis Mollen stood behind hirey stone walls beneath tall narros In the center of the rooers in the black of the Night’s Watch Bran could sense the anger in the hall the h the doors

"Any ht’s Watch is welco as he wishes to stay," Robb was saying with the voice of Robb the Lord His sas across his knees, the steel bare for all the world to see Even Bran knehat it uest with an unsheathed sword

"Any ht’s Watch," the dwarf repeated, "but not , boy?"

Robb stood and pointed at the little man with his sword "I am the lord here while my mother and father are away, Lannister I aht learn a lord’s courtesy," the littlethe sword point in his face "Your bastard brother has all your father’s graces, it would seeasped out from Hodor’s arms

The dwarf turned to look at him "So it is true, the boy lives I could scarce believe it You Starks are hard to kill"

"You Lannisters had best re my brother here"

"Hodor," Hodor said, and he trotted forward sh seat of the Starks, where the Lords of Winterfell had sat since the days when they called thes in the North The seat was cold stone, polished smooth by countless bottoms; the carved heads of direwolves snarled on the ends of its s dangling The great seat made him feel half a baby

Robb put a hand on his shoulder "You said you had business with Bran Well, here he is, Lannister"

Bran was uncomfortably aware of Tyrion Lannister’s eyes One was black and one was green, and both were looking at hi him "I am told you were quite the climber, Bran," the little man said at last "Tell me, how is it you happened to fall that day?"

"I never," Bran insisted He never fell, never never never

"The child does not re of the fall, or the cliently

"Curious," said Tyrion Lannister

"My brother is not here to answer questions, Lannister," Robb said curtly "Do your business and be on your way"

"I have a gift for you," the dwarf said to Bran "Do you like to ride, boy?"