Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The tale is one of sacrifice. Of a man anointed, his mettle tested. It’s the history of the world, and, in the way of such things, someone like you is only an echo. A reflection. A foundation.

You were not asked for permission. You were not asked for anything. He only took, as they all do, even this man whose words of love for you could have moved the inhuman stars to weeping. You, who had already given him all, every bit of you, you who made his story possible.

(It is too mundane for stories: the cooking and cleaning and washing, the ordinary machinery of living. What are those compared to legend? What is life compared to legacy?)

How would you have answered, if he’d asked? If the sacrifice was yours to make rather than his to take? It’s impossible to say now, on the other side of everything. You are not who you were then; the act of the taking changed you from being someone who might have given. Now, here, you would say no. You must build your legacy on your own ground, make your own bones into the architecture of salvation. I’m using mine, you would say, these are mine. They’re not yours – were never yours – to take.

Did he weep when he drove the blade into your heart? You can’t remember, or you don’t want to. Either answer is a betrayal. The tale believes itself to be his tragedy. His sacrifice. No one ever thinks that the tragedy is yours. No one knows about all that you sacrificed for him.

The tale is one of sacrifice, but it will forever remain unfinished.

Chapter Text

No raven arrives on dark wings. No letter comes by horse or foot. No messenger travels the road to Greywater Watch. Instead, Meera learns of the new King in the south the same way as anyone else whose lives change little with each passing monarch, particularly those no longer their own: idle gossip among serving girls, drunken talk in a tavern, laughing wagers made over supper tables.

Brandon of House Stark. First of his name. King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men. Protector of the Realm. Lord of the Six Kingdoms.

Only six Kingdoms. The seventh was lost, like so many other things had been.

Meera could give her own list of names. Leaf. The Three-Eyed Raven. Summer. Hodor. Jojen. All lost, just as that Kingdom was.

Was she lost too, she wonders, or simply thrown away?

The gossip makes no mention of them, of those who died that Bran might live to become a King. Of the girl who carried him for leagues on aching feet and learned to greet the sharp taste of fear at the back of her tongue like an old friend. The girl who was his legs, his strength, his heart, who gave all of herself until there was nothing more to give.

The girl who was merely a tool that outlived its purpose.

Didn’t you know him once? they ask sometimes, when talk turns to such matters once more. Meera, didn’t you know him?

No, she tells them with a shake of her head. That was another girl. That girl was lost, like all the rest. Lost as swiftly and easily as the seventh Kingdom.