Different Paths to Destiny [Game of Thrones]

11: King And Lionheart

OoOoO

I was in the woods. Bran was there with a bow and arrow and he was staring intently up at the trees where a crow was sitting. "Don't think too much, Bran," Jon said. I glanced and saw him beside me.

"Relax your bow arm," Robb said from the other side.

"Don't forget to breathe," I added. Bran let the arrow fly and missed the crow. The three of us onlookers laughed.

"Which one of you was a marksman at ten?" Ned called.

"Ami was!" Jon said shoving me playfully. We laughed again. Suddenly I realized that I was laughing alone. Robb and Jon had disappeared, leaving me with Bran. "This is a dream, isn't it?" I asked. It had taken me a moment to remember I was not in Winterfell. I would probably never be in Winterfell again.

"Yes, I'm dreaming," Bran said. I found his choice of pronoun odd but let it slide. This was a dream after all.

"I went to Winterfell to look for you and Rickon." I shook my head. "I can't believe Theon would do something so horrible."

"He's changed," Bran said nodding.

"I miss you. We all do." I began to feel myself fade away and Bran watched me curiously until I was gone. I woke up slowly. Much more easily than when Aylward shook me awake. I was getting quite tired of being jarred awake. I got up, dressed, and went to fetch Myst. We'd already been traveling for some time, but we still had more ground to cover.

"You know you have handmaidens for a reason," Aylward said, coming up beside me.

"I left them in Harrenhal," I told him. "I can take care of myself for a few weeks without imploding, I believe."

"You are quite different from a normal queen," he mused.

"And how many queens have you known?" I asked.

"Oh just Margery, though I expect Cersei is much the same. Probably Stannis's queen too, the poor broad."

"Selyse is ill, she is a special case. Though I guess you are probably right about Cersei and Margery."

"Did you tell them about Bran and Rickon?" He asked, abruptly changing the subject.

"I lied," I said. "Before you lecture me about how I shouldn't give them false hope-"

"You did the right thing," he said.

"I did?"

"Telling them the truth would have crushed them. Especially after Catelyn heard about her father. I do not typically condone lying, but I understand why you chose to keep this from them."

"I had a dream about Bran."

"A dream or a projection?" He asked.

"Catelyn said she didn't think there was a way for me to communicate with anyone other than Daenerys."

"Maybe you weren't the one initiating the communication."

"You think he's alive?"

"You tell me."

"He said something in the dream that struck me as odd. When I asked if it was a dream, he answered that he was dreaming, not that I was."

"Maybe he didn't realize he was actually talking to you."

"But I saw his body, he can't be alive."

"You saw a body. You said yourself, it was burned to a crisp. It was impossible to distinguish. That body could have belonged to anyone."