[BONUS] Winter Comes Pt. 2 (GoT SI) (Patreon)

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And just like that, the Long Night was over. Funny how fast time seemed to fly when you’d lived four thousand years, even if half that was spent in hibernation. The Long Night had been said to “last a generation” and in truth, that was how long we’d had. Twenty Five… Thirty years? Around there at least. It had only been three decades. It’d felt like a blink of an eye, though I was sure that for the Children of the Forest and the First Men, it felt like it lasted an eternity.

They would call it the War for the Dawn and in eight thousand years, their sacrifices and their battles and their victories would be decried as myth and legend. People would wonder if any of it was true, while their ancestors who had actually fought and died against us rotted away until nothing was left but dust in their crypts.

And I would still be here, ready to go again. That thought along brought a smile to my blue, monstrous face. My lips spread and my sharp teeth were bared as I grinned at the sight before me. It wasn’t something anyone would ever get to see again. The Wall was being built right in front of me and my remaining White Walkers.

Sure, we were on the wrong side to truly enjoy the benefits of the structure and it was in essence meant to keep us out in the end, but I could still admire the beauty that was going into its construction and the powerful magics that the Children of the Forest were infusing into it. Ah, the Children. Even now, thought of them drove me nearly mad with frothing rage. But I was getting better now. Rather than lose control of my incredibly short temper where those fucking wood nymphs were concerned, I simply spun on my heel, pulled a dagger of magical ice from my belt, and tossed it end over blade into the forehead of one of my few captives.

The life left dying Child’s eyes and it fell back into the snow twitching, its arms bound behind its back as its legs spasmed this way and that. There were gasps of horror from the others of its kin that we had captured, as well as a muffled scream of shock and terror and interestingly enough rage from our… other guest. I ignored it all, trusting my remaining White Walkers to keep our prisoners under control. They were after all, powerless now.

Turning back, I continued to watch the Wall being built before my eyes, faster than one might think humanly possible. Oh sure, there was some construction to lay the foundations and what not. Brandon the Builder was doing his part. But the vast amount of ice that would make up the seven hundred foot monstrosity of a blockage was being gathered up by the last few Children of the Forest that I and my armies had not managed to slaughter or capture.

And believe you me; we tried to eradicate them all. The ones behind me were special cases; one in particular was VERY special indeed. But the rest? The Children of the Forest had died nearly to the last. As far as I was aware, the ones helping to construct the Wall were a fringe group of five or ten greenseers, more interested in living with humans then with their own kind.

We’d raised every community the Children of the Forest had had. The only ones left had to have been those few recluses. They wouldn’t be able to save their race though. This was the day that the Children died. Cathartic, in a way. It certainly kept the smile on my face as I watched the barrier that would keep me and my kin here in the Land of Always Winter for the next eight thousand years go up.

They thought they’d forced us into a full retreat. They probably didn’t imagine that we’d come back here, this close to our last ‘greatest’ defeat. In truth, I had had one final thing to do before I accepted that it was over. Now that thing was done and I was simply enjoying my last few moments this far south before heading back further north.

That bumbling fool they would one day call the Last Hero… he hadn’t been much in the end. But he’d been a charismatic little shit and that was all the living truly needed to band together and defeat me. It’d be nice to be able to claim that I’d simply not been that inclined to end everything, and thus I’d allowed myself to be defeated and driven back.

Only partially true, that was. Ultimately, my ignominious retreat had come back for several reasons, not all of them my choice. Regardless of how menacing I and my White Walkers were, regardless of how powerful individually or together we were, and despite the army of the dead I was able to raise to assault the living… there was still dragonglass. Even now, Obsidian proved to be our biggest weakness.

Once the Children had let that slip to the First Men, our defeat was ensured. There were a lot more people living on Westeros in this time then I remembered from the show. They’d made good fodder at the start of the Long Night, but then when the rest of them started showing up armed with dragonglass daggers and dragonglass spears and dragonglass arrows. Well, it became fair. And when a fight is fair, between a living man and a walking corpse, the living man inevitably wins. They want it far more.

On top of that, the Children of the Forest had proved to be an utter nuisance with their magics, which once the Last Hero got involved, they were far too willing to share with the First Men. Magic was the great equalizer and it was something I would not have to deal with overly much in eight thousand years, beyond a trio of dragons and a few Lord of Light followers.

But here in the Age of Heroes? It was… a bit distressing to realize something about halfway through the Long Night. The White Walkers first push down from the North? It came in the MIDDLE of the Age of Heroes. We didn’t bring about the end of an era; we were merely a footnote in the midst of one. After we were pushed back, the Age of Heroes would continue on and great men would do great things for centuries to come.

It was a bit irritating to be so… marginalized. If I’d been able to think beyond the all-encompassing rage against the Children of the Forest that had swallowed me whole from the moment I woke up, I very well might have said ‘fuck it’ and gone back to sleep for another two thousand years. But then who the fuck knows where the world would be at. 

The one thing the Long Night was good for, or at least, the one thing MY Long Night undoubtedly accomplished, was the death of the Children of the Forest as a species. Best to cut them down now and then deal with the humans however I liked eight thousand years later when they were weak and hero-less.

And of course, the final reason that my defeat had ultimately been assured despite my foreknowledge. My own cowardice. It had kept me from committing. I stayed at the back, especially when the battles started including dragonglass. Even with all that I’d done, even with all the centuries I’d lived, if one could call it that, I was afraid. I did not wish to die, even now.

And so, my foreknowledge proved useless as my half-hearted attempts to kill important figures like Brandon Stark or the mysterious Last Hero failed on account of my assassins just not being good enough. Perhaps it was fate or destiny that those men survive, but I rather hoped that wasn’t true. Because that very well might mean it was fate or destiny for me to lose eight thousand years from now when the canon began, even if the Night King’s actual defeat hadn’t been out by the time I was torn from my world and put here.

No, best not to think in terms of fate or destiny. I was the Night King. And though my White Walkers had been greatly diminished, numbering less than a hundred from the thousand or so that the Children had made for their wars, I wasn’t worried. In eight millennia we would still be the most terrifying things in existence. And in the meantime… I was pretty sure I knew how to make more of us.

Speaking of which, a commotion distracted me from my inner thoughts and my quiet viewing of the growing Wall. Turning around, my glowing blue eyes looked upon the other prisoner that we had taken north with us. This one was not a wight, not a White Walker, and more certainly not a Child of the Forest. Stalking over to the human woman bound in rope and gagged with cloth, I stared into her beautiful blue eyes for a long moment of silence.

“MMMMPH!!!”

She screamed through her gag at me and glared daggers. The fire in this one’s soul was amusing, but I kept the smile from my face as I reached out and tore the gag away to let her speak. She immediately began to do so, her mouth running a mile a minute. Not that anyone here would get that idiom.

“Unhand me! Unhand me at once! I am Lyanna Stark of House Stark! My brother is Brandon Stark, King in the North! He will come for me! He will kill you all like he killed so many of your stinking kind at the Fist of the First Men!”

Ah yes, the Fist, where Bran the Builder and the Last Hero had dealt us our ‘final defeat’, seemingly driving us into the Land of Always Winter forever more. It had been only a month ago that the battle had taken place. They’d worked fast to pull back and begin the construction of their great Wall to keep us out. But even after the battle at the Fist, I was far from done. There was one more thing I needed before I slinked back to the Land of Always Winter. And she was standing right in front of me.

“Don’t waste your words woman. They don’t understand you. They don’t care to understand you either. The White Walkers are mindless, monstrous beasts who only understand cold, darkness, and death.”

I turned to look at the Child of the Forest who had spoken so presumptively. Of course it was Leaf, the name of which I only knew because of the show. Leaf, the one who four thousand years before, had drove a sharp rock into my heart beneath the branches of a Weirwood, turning me into the very being I am today. She’d created me, which I assumed was why she presumed to have knowledge over my existence and that of my kin.

Lyanna (and wasn’t that just hilarious. Did the Starks just recycle the same names for the next eight thousand years? Truly?) didn’t seem so convinced as she furrowed her brow at the Child of the Forest.

“Then why are we their prisoners? Why do we still draw breath if they are mindless? Surely those that cannot be reasoned with would not take captives in the first place.”

She had a wit about her too. I’d chosen well with my little grab. A smirk began to spread across my face, only to die when Leaf began to speak again.

“Who knows? This is certainly unusual, but don’t let that fool you. They’re unintelligent, the same as ravenous animals, hungry for their next meal. All they care about is destroying ever-Urk!”

My fingers closed around the short forest nymph’s throat and I lifted Leaf off the ground. Her hands were bound before her, but her legs were free to kick and flail as her already large eyes bulged out of her unnaturally shaped skull. Slowly, I draw her close to my face, enjoying the terror in her dilating pupils as we get ever nearer to one another. 

Then, and only then do I speak. They’re the first words I’ve said the entire Long Night. Had to keep up appearances after all.

“You can fuck off bitch. Be silent, or I’ll cut your tongue from your skull.”

That shuts her up. All of the remaining Children of the Forest are staring now in stupefaction and bewilderment, mixed in with the fear and terror that was already there. I drop Leaf to the ground where she falls to her knees, coughing and hacking around the superficial damage I’ve done to her fragile throat. With that said, I turn back towards my distinctly human prisoner. 

She’s looking at me with new eyes and I can see what she’s going to say before she says it. I allow the words to leave her delicious looking lips all the same.

“So you ARE intelligent. And you speak our tongue as well. Then why?! Why do all this? Why did you wage war on our peoples? Why did you desecrate and defile our dead? Why did you do ANY OF THIS?!”

Stepping closer to the Stark woman, I give her a smile. Even with all the fire in her heart, the wolf balks at my toothy grin. I think I might be frightening to look at or something.

“Revenge.”

“Revenge?! What did we ever do to you?!”

Lyanna seems flummoxed by my answer. I shake my head and point to the bound Children.

“Not you. Them. You were just in the way, so much chaff for my army. The Children of the Forest were our true targets. My revenge was upon their people, not yours.”

Not that we’d really given any thought to rolling over towns and villages and even whole cities of First Men in our pursuit of every last stinking Child we could locate. We’d needed to replenish the army of the dead after all. Lyanna looks shocked though at what I’ve said. Her mouth opens but no words come out as she looks between the Children and me. A glance tells me that the Children of the Forest are hanging their heads, one and all. Considering these were the ones that had been there the day that Leaf turned me into the Night King, they have a lot to be ashamed for.

“What did they do to you? What was so bad that your revenge took this form?”

She sounded like she wanted to hear something she could rage against appropriately. Like she wanted it to be some small slight that would be meaningless in her eyes. I was happy to disappoint her.

“I was not naturally born as this creature, Lyanna Stark of House Stark. We, the White Walkers… none of us are naturally born. The Children of the Forest created us from YOUR ancestors. WE are of the First Men that fought for two THOUSAND years against the Children of the Forest. WE were taken and transformed and forced to do unspeakable things to our own flesh and blood, our kin, in THEIR name. And when the wars ended and the Children made peace with the First Men that came long after us? We were sent north, we were imprisoned in the ice and we were NEVER supposed to be seen by living eyes, ever again.”

I pause, well aware that I’m ranting. Lyanna is staring at me in fresh horror and dare I say it, a small smidgen of pity. It amuses me just a little, that she would feel something for me given what I intend to do to her.

“That’s… that’s horrible.”

I shrug my shoulders and spread my hands out as I agree with her.

“Yes, it is. But justice has been met. The Children are dying off. They will never recover. Our work is done and the Wall will be allowed to rise.”

Not that we could have really stopped it, but it was always good to pretend you’ve got more of an advantage than you truly do. Of course, now Lyanna was just plain confused.

“B-But if that’s all true, why take me? I am not a Child of the Forest. And my brother WILL search for me once he knows I’m gone.”

I wave a hand dismissively, tilting my head to the side as I look at her with what I know to be quite the unnerving stare. 

“He very well might. He may even realize WHO has taken you and lead an expedition beyond the Wall to search for you. He will be too late. We go further north than any living thing has ever gone. More than that, we go further north than any living thing could possibly survive. If he truly does go to such lengths to find you, he will die in the cold dark that we thrive in, never having laid eyes upon your person. He will make a strong wight for our new armies if that does turn out to be the case.”

Lyanna shudders, more than likely because of the sheer malevolence in my voice. I’m not a good man, but then I’m also not a man at all. I’m a monster; I’m what the Children of the Forest as well as the Omnipotent being who sent me here have made me. I am the Night King. I’m also a little more than that though, hence Lyanna Stark’s capture.

“If no living thing can survive where we’re going, how am I to do so?”

Now she’s asked the right question, or at least the question most pertinent to her situation and her future. I don’t begrudge her this talk though, even if it has been the longest conversation I’ve had as the Night King since… ever? Probably ever actually. Huh, I’m fairly verbose when I’m in the company of a pretty woman, aren’t I?

My face splits into a wicked grin as my clawed, blue hand snaps up and grasps Lyanna Stark’s jaw. My claws dig into her cheeks and the blue of her eyes immediately begins to glow.

“You are not.”

Her eyes widen in fright, but the process has already begun. This is the first time I’ve done this actually, but the instincts are all there within me. I’d always known I could, I’d just never had reason to do more than raise the dead as wights before now. Now though, I am doing FAR more than that. Lyanna Stark, sister of Bran the Builder, the first King in the North, begins to change before my eyes.

Her black hair turns white inch by inch and her pale skin begins to go blue. Her body, covered in the furs of one who would live in the North and brave its chills, shakes and spasms in place as I hold her up by her jaw. I can hear exclamations of horror behind me, but the captured Children are impotent. There is nothing they can do to stop the crime against humanity that I am currently committing. And then, it’s done.

I release the creature that had once been Lyanna Stark and gaze with satisfaction upon what I have wrought. Until this moment, every White Walker the Children had made was male. We looked monstrous, inhuman, and in many cases, decrepit, as the Children had used feeble old men when they could not capture strong, younger men like myself. All were equal beneath me once they’d become Walkers, their past as humans meaningless in the end.

Just as my new creation’s would be. The first female White Walker raised her head and stared at me with piercing, ethereal blue eyes. She too was inhuman, but in a way that made her all the more beautiful. She was gorgeous in every way and I could feel my bond with her, the same as I had with every White Walker. Lifting up a hand, I beckoned her forward.

“Come, my Queen.”

Once more I could feel the palpable horror of the Children behind me as the being that had once been Lyanna Stark approached. My lips split into a wide, sharp-toothed smile as she came within distance of my outstretched hand and stepped right past it. She leaned in close, as if to kiss me. Then, as I foolishly let my guard down, she abruptly reared back and slapped me hard across the face.

My eyes widened as I took the most damage from that one blow then I had taken from anything in four thousand years. White Walker on White Walker violence was nothing to laugh about, it felt like she’d loosened a tooth as I rubbed my face free of the lingering pain of her blow and worked my jaw around to make sure it wasn’t dislocated by her new strength.

As I looked into the eyes of the woman I’d turned into a White Walker, I saw something unexpected. I saw Lyanna Stark, glaring back at me in anger. Her gaze flitted one last time to the Wall her brother was currently building to keep me… and now her out. A snarl of impotent rage left her lips and then the ethereal beauty spun on her heel and began to walk in the opposite direction of the massive barrier.

After a moment of watching her go (and oh how fun it was to do so), I shrugged my shoulders and nodded to my men before gesturing at the captive Children.

“Bring them. We’ve got time ahead of us. They’ll make good sport for the next eight thousand years.”

That more than anything seems to drive Leaf and her comrades into the depths of despair as our band trails after Lyanna Stark, deeper into the Land of Always Winter.