//the lone wolf {dies}// bran's goodbye

i45.tinypic.com/v76udi.jpg

[/img][/center]

~Bran Wolfe

Out among the stars I sail
Way beyond the moon
In my silver ship I sail
A dream that ended too soon

Bran's life was a ladder and so he climbed. When a tree falls, the entire ground beneath it is ripped up as well. The kind, soft soil that it had grown its roots in is upset, uprooted with the tree, creaking and crashing as they rip and crease, gripping the ground to the sky. The ground, the soil, the roots, they are torn up from their lives too as the son, the brother, the friend they'd supported all their life falls.

First rung was the Mother, fair and sweet and she drew Bran to the roof, glass in her hand. "This is what'll happen if you climb," she told him and she cast him away, flinging him high and far over the Justice Building, a fantastic arc. And Bran flew then fell. "This is what'll happen if you climb, Bran." The concrete was hard and cold and upon impact, Bran burst into a million sun-soaked pieces and suddenly, she was standing over him, sobbing.

"My boy, my boy, my sweet, summer boy!" The words echoed in his everlasting darkness and he teased her with the prospect of his awakening, just surfacing for a moment, eyelids perhaps fluttering, mouth opening slightly, before plunging down again and again. He tasted death's sweetness and reached for its fingers, but only found Mother's warm ones.

Bran recalled the first time he opened his eyes and there she was, smiling down at him and he was so warm, so safe and Bran felt his gums pull apart, gurgling. The womb had been dark, but she was full of light and he felt full, drunk, woozy on it. Mother's smile didn't extend as far as this darkness. In fact, he didn't feel it at all. Instead, her worry lines bored into him and he could sink his fingers into them like crevices and he could climb into them, but in this darkness, none-so-peaceful, he didn't care for anymore falls.

He didn't dream, but rather absorbed. Mother, he wanted to cry out, I'm scared. But, her fear infected him, crawling over his skin like spiders, piercing his heart with venom. Bran. Bran. Bran. Mother spoke his name with desperation. He had to crawl away from it and cover his ears against it. Bran. Bran!

In the end, it wasn't she who he awoke to, but a place far from her desperate cries that burned him. He woke up in her garden. Blinking in the sudden sunlight, Bran took a step forward and his toes sunk into the warm soil. The garden was lovely, bright, colorful, pink like his cheeks, green like his eyes, white like his teeth, and a yellow like her embrace when she stepped towards him.

"Bran, my boy, my sweet, summer boy." She drew him down in the shade of her flowers, he was that small, and on her lap he sat, a child once more. "I'm so proud of you."

One time, Father told Mother of how well he'd handled a wounded, near-death dog they'd come across. "He watched as I took care of it. Didn't cry or anything. He understands." Mother had smiled at the corner Bran had just jerked his head around before she could see that he was listening. Later, she came to his room as he was tucked into bed and kissed his forehead. "I'm so proud of you." His heart blazed and only then would he allow himself a tear up.

"You held yourself so well there, Bran. You're so strong." He was being smothered in her grasp and Bran was her for a moment, the strength of motherly love near ripping him in two, the quivering might of it. It was something a child, a boy would never understand.

"Even though I'm crippled?" In death, Bran found that he was unafraid to ask the questions that had always badgered him, like crows on his back. In the Great Darkness, Bran had feared her anger. She must have wanted him awake, despite his lack of obedience, for he had had to hid from her numbing cries. Except when he woke, he received only love and guilt that clawed at his stomach with each hug and his throat with each kiss. When she turned, however, he feared her disappointment. He feared that the smile had fallen from her face and that she studied her own legs and the legs of the little boys who ran past the house to catch a glimpse of the "cripple." She never quite looked at his legs straight on and when he saw her wandering eyes, a stab went through his chest and his cheeks burned in shame.

"Do you wish I could walk, Mother?" The embrace loosened. "Are you ashamed of me?"

And then her eyes found his legs. Those worthless, unmoving, paralyzed legs and he felt naked underneath her gaze. For a long time, death was a quiet place and then the Mother spoke. "I wish you hadn't climbed."

"But, Mother, I have to." The words were a stubborn absolute. He had to. It was a clawing, like an itch, deep underneath his skin. Ignoring her cries behind him, her protests, stay here, Bran, stay, stay with me, stay, he gripped the ladder once more and resumed his climbing. The wind was cold in his hair.

Now I know exactly
who I am and
what I'm here for
And I will go
sailing no more

The second rung was a Stranger to him and Bran climbed into a crowd. For a long time, they were silent and Bran sat there, just as silent as the rest of them before realizing he wasn't sitting at all, but paralyzed and rather his wheelchair, Hodor, was being carried. Jon bore the weight of his legs in his arms.

Bran was small when he first witnessed a fight between Mother and Father over Jon. The word Mother kept spewing was foreign to him at first, but soon became a word that hung heavily over the household, just as "cripple" would soon.

Bastard.

Mother said if he ever repeated it, his mouth would be washed out with soap. But, she said it all she liked. Bastard. Bastard. Bastard. The word had never meant much to him until cripple! cripple! cripple! was hurled at him left and right.

"You carried my wheelchair up," Bran said dimly as Jon set Bran's legs down on the stage beside him. "I can't give you my mother." He blushed in shame for his inability to pay his half-brother back.

He had never gotten to know Jon like he'd gotten to know Sarita, Aria, Ricky and Rajas. Mother didn't approve and Mother's approval was everything and so, they missed each other just around corners and down stairs. He was always close to Rajas though.

"You're still my brother," Jon said and Bran was sitting between two brothers at Father's funeral. Lucky Bran had woken up just in time. This was all new to him. He hadn't gotten Hodor yet and so he sat in a chair that Jon had brought to the gravesite as Rajas carried him. Halfway through the ceremony, Rajas extended his hand to Bran for his looked cold and awfully lonely and when Bran took it, he saw Jon out of the corner of his eye to his other side and his hand looked cold and lonely as well. But, Mother was standing across from them, next to the casket and Sarita patted her arm as she blew her nose loudly and titters of pity for the grieving widow rose in the crowd and Bran knew that the last thing she'd need was to see her son, just days awake from death, clutching the hand of the boy, the bastard, she was now stuck with. On the stage, Bran felt shame rise up in his throat, over his red face, as he let Jon's hand freeze.

"You've always supported me." Jon trailed behind Rajas as they raised Bran to the slaughter, sacrificing his wheelchair too, so at least, Bran died in comfort and only now did Bran warm Jon's hand in his as they sat on the stage, two outcasts of a cruel world. They needed to share all the warmth they had in between them.

"I know how hard it is," his brother told him as they stared out at sea of blank faces and suddenly, words began to appear that Bran couldn't hear or see, but knew they all for.

Cripple! Cripple! The word was like nails on a chalkboard, an incision on his heart, causing it to leap and hammer with pain and as Bran shrank away from it, Jon grimaced and Bran realized, his heart giving another strange jolt, that he was hearing a word too, but it wasn't cripple. Perhaps Mother wasn't the only one who used the word. Maybe on his way home from school, on school yards, flung at him in crumpled up notes, Jon experienced the same churning pain in his stomach that Bran did almost every single day. And maybe, although they came from different wombs, they weren't so different at all and now, Bran's hand heated in order to warm his brother even more.

"You understand," Bran whispered to him and his stomach ached with loss opportunities for it took the climb for him to realize, but Jon sat before him now and now, a smile, pained smile formed followed by a short nod.

"I've always understood."

"And I avoided you." Bran's wheelchair stopped short just as Jon's open door for his brother was inside, but, today, Bran didn't care for his sad looks. He just wanted his own room. He wanted to scream and throw things and he wanted Mother's head shaking, her forehead creasing at the pages from storybooks he used to love, floating down onto his floor, at the blood from his knuckles streaked down the wall, at the bits and pieces of clothing, torn up by his own hands, a sleeve here, a pants leg there. He didn't want the widened eyes, the short gasp as he sought comfort in his brother, the bastard.

But he hadn't known, Bran hadn't known as he maneuvered his wheelchair around and instead sought solace in Rajas room, in his sweaty, manly smell, in his bed that Bran slept in when he wasn't home, broken in, indented and so soft, in his desk where his brother surely sat and thought thoughts Bran would one day think, not yet, but one day, when he was man.

He'd never considered that Jon was a man too, Rajas’ age, near enough, but he'd never considered those with such titles people.

And so, Bran, to himself, meant nothing as well.

"You understand," Bran said again and the words dispelled the cripple, the bastard, being spouted both at them left and right and the hairs on the back of his neck slowly relaxed and sank back down to his skin. "You understood all along."

Bran's hand squeezed Jon's and as he squeezed back, Bran's arms were being held down to his bed to keep from beating his legs and waist and on one side was Rajas and the other Jon and Bran only heard Rajas whispers, "It's okay, Bran, it's okay!" Jon was echoing the call and on that stage, it reverberated all around him and Bran realized he could sit with his brother forever and listen to that soundtrack, filled with such calm, such relief that someone else understood finally.

But, the ladder was calling for him again and Bran stood to go. Jon's sad eyes turned on him and there was a sort of pleading in them, for when he just finally had someone to dispel the bastard in him, the cripple no more had to leave. Again, guilt made Bran's hands cold, resisting the sweet tug at his stomach, Bran gripped the ladder and continued his climb. His hands were nearly frozen as they gripped and grabbed.

All the things
I thought I'd be
All the brave things
I've done

[/center][/i]

The third rung had the Warrior’s touch and soon Bran was in his arms again. “Rajas, Rajas, Rajas!” His eyes filled as his brother carried him from the foot of the Justice Building and into bed as he slept with his eyes wide open.

“You’re safe now, Bran,” and his brother kissed him on his head warmly, tucking him deep into his slumber, but ill-received it was for Bran frowned and shook his head against it.

“I didn’t make it though, Rajas.”

“The fight isn’t always about winning,” Rajas advised him wisely, but still, young Bran stabbed at him with his toy sword, the one his brother had fashioned out of wood for him. Rajas was quick though and the next thing Bran knew, he was on the ground, having been dumped out of his wheelchair and the soft, spring dirt was in his mouth, but he couldn’t raise himself up to his feet for they didn’t work and he was stuck on his elbows, spitting brown, face wet with tears. He couldn’t defend himself, the thought, oh how it was maddening and his stomach churned, he just couldn’t defend himself, not like Rajas could, not without his legs.

“Cripple! Crippl-!”

“They got me, they always do,” Bran cried as a panting Rajas helped him back into his wheelchair, as he’d just run them, the cruel animals, away. “I can’t do this, they always get me. They hate me because I’m this way,” he gestured at his lifeless legs, “I can’t win. They always get me.”

They sat in his room, Rajas’s and it was warm and smelled like him, like a teenage boy: sweat, dirt, perfume from a girl’s mouth and it was everything Bran had hoped for and, with a sinking heart, could never have and Bran’s name rang in his ears, “Bran Wolfe! Bran Wolfe! Bran Wolfe!”

Rajas read his thoughts and put a hand, a warm one that Bran could feel, on his knee, “I would’ve gone for you. I would’ve won for you.”

Bran struggled helplessly in his brother’s arms as the stage neared and neared and he knew what it meant. It was the stage where they hanged repeat criminals in the District and Bran begged in his mind, begged that they’d just do it now and his brother’s eyes were on him, wide and Bran knew what he was thinking as the steps drew closer, but Mother’s cries were loud behind him and Bran, worthless Bran, wasn’t her firstborn. Rajas was. Bran, cripple boy Bran, didn’t have function of his legs. Rajas did. Bran, stubborn Bran who didn’t listen to his mother when she told him not to climb, could hardly calm her with words for his eyes were filled to bursting as well. Rajas could and Rajas was what she needed. Not a broken child. No matter wanted that and looking him deep in the way as he felt his brother’s feet hit the creaky stairs, he whispered with force, ]“Don’t.”[/i]

The world was black and blue with bruises that Rajas would’ve sustained for him, with red knuckles from sending off the bullies, with bloodshot eyes from watching his little brother die and Bran welcomed his arms for he’d ached for them for so long and now they filled his hollow, hungry stomach and his brother was nourishment, his brother had loved him and Bran drowned in his warmth. “Bran, you’re so strong.”

“I’ll never be as strong as you,” the young Bran grumbled as he fell flat on his backside once more, victim to Rajas’s quick toy sword work and he rubbed his backside as his brother chortled.

“I can teach you,” he offered and Bran knew he could and the offer sent his heart soaring for there was nothing that he’d like more than to grow big and strong, not tied down to the worthless legs he had. “You just need to stay here, stay here with me,” Rajas added and he extended his hand to Bran to lift him up, make his legs work and teach him to be better, to be stronger and Bran’s lips parted, reasoning it.

Then, he remembered the fall.

“His spine is damaged,” a garbled voice said and through the darkness, Bran knew it as his spine gave a twist. “He’ll never be able to walk. There’s nothing to be done, I’m afraid.”

“I can’t,” Bran heard himself choke out and his hand which was just about to touch his brother’s dropped back to the ladder as his brother gaped at him, burning his cheeks, but Bran went on slowly, “I can’t. I can’t be fixed. I can’t grow strong. Not unless I keep climbing.”

“That’s what I’m good at. Climbing,”[/i]

There were tears in his eyes as he took the ladder in his hands once more, but the wind soon blew them away.

Vanish like a snowflake
With the rising of the sun
Never more to sail my ship

[/center][/i]

The fourth rung was only a Maiden and at the sight of her, Bran growled. Not today. Not today. Not today. He was only a child and he could barely toddle, but she spoke to him and filled his heads with stories. With lies.

“The hero always defeats the villain. The hero never dies. The hero always wins.”

“Then why am I here?” Bran’s hand left the ladder to approach the Maiden standing in the sea of black and suddenly, he was lying in his bed, lost in a world of darkness, struggling like a baby would in the womb, kicking and crying as a muffled voice came over him from afar.

“Hodor was his trusted stead…and he rode into battle…on that day…he raised his sword high and…”

The lies were already beginning and they infected Bran’s haven like poison. Except, he didn’t know it yet and he readily breathed it in and the seed was planted, which would later take root, grow and kill, choking him from the inside out.

The Maiden turned to him and her eyes were sad and Bran found he couldn’t swim to her. She was out of reach, tugged over his head by strings and Bran reached and reached. “Tell me a story!” he cried, reaching up to tug at her hair and she laughed.

“Which one?”

“The one where you kill your brother.” Bran’s legs didn’t work and slowly, he began to drown into the darkness, taking root at the bottom where a girl stood over him with a blade, glinting evilly and Bran was crippled and he couldn’t move and he gasped, his heart racing. He couldn’t fight. Bran was going to die, the hero never died, the villain always died, was he the villain and she the hero, but, but he never did anything.

Was it because he climbed?

“Bran Wolfe.”

Was it all a result of wrongs done? Mother told you not to climb, Bran thought as they carried him to his doom. Mother told you not to climb, Bran thought as he tried to run, but found himself trapped.

“Aria Wolfe.”

Mother said to never lie.

“We’re both going to hell.” The realization rocked him sideways and Bran fell with his blood around him and he was again drowning and his sister was facedown next to him and he reached for her. “We’re both going to hell.” And her skin melted away at his touch into a skeleton and they were both being tugged up and now Bran stood to meet her eyes, but they were dead and hollow, filled with fire Bran must be returning.

“You killed me,” Bran told her and the anger that he’d held in life was pouring out of him, from his wounds like blood and disappearing into the open air, bloody mist the tickled his face but soon vanished into the night as they were both constellations in the stars, but Bran didn’t shine for his sister had killed him and left his body below on the ground and his heart sank for, “what happened to you? Did you ever care?”

And the siblings all around his bed gave small giggles and leaned forward one at a time to kiss him on the forehead and give his lifeless legs a pat. “We’ll love you no matter what, Bran. We’ll always love you.”[/i]

Mother said to never lie, Aria and Bran shook his head, falling from the heavens to the ground with a soft thump and a gasp for he was worthless, on the black obsidian, so unrelenting and again, she stood over here, so alive though, still alive, but he was worthless and his legs were gone and Bran was nothing. And the pain returned, sharply jerking up into his stomach, slicing him in two as she struck and struck and he screamed and screamed, “You lied! You lied!”

“I’m so sorry, Bran,” but her lies burned him and he tried to shrug away, grabbing for the knife he knew he had. He could do it and he could see his dead face in the blade’s reflection: pale, sick, crestfallen for it took his sister’s murderous blows for him to realize that he never had a chance. He was nothing. He wanted her blood to make up for it as his veins boiled and his chest tightened. But as he swung his arm up to strike, his legs, oh-so-far gone, they gave a twinge, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” and the knife fell to the stone with a clang as tears poured hotly down his face.

“Don’t lie to me, don’t lie to me anymore,” Bran begged and the apologies stopped as readily as they began and he shook his head at the sister he used to have. “You’ll pay for your lies. I paid, I’m paying. I’m paying. I paid.” And as the words came and went, his legs came to him, lifeless as usual, as the day he dared to climb, dared to listen, dared to see, dared to fall.[/i]

“We’ll always love you,” but her words were weak, so easily shattered and Bran saw that his legs were broken beyond repair and there was no fixing it, no amount of guilt to make it all better and Bran gave her one last long look for she was his sister after all and he, for a long moment, wondered if he should ask, who, who was the hero after all and he knew, if he stayed long enough, on this black sea, floating with her, he’d soon know the answer and longing burned in him, but the ladder’s call, though faint, finally had him taking it and this time, his arms ached against the climb.

Where no man has gone before
And I will go sailing no more
But no, it can't be true

[/center][/i]

The fifth rung was the back of a Smith and Bran held onto his shoulders tightly before he could fall. Curtis. His heart suddenly began beating again in rhythm to his brother’s footsteps. “Yeah, I’m back, bud,” Curtis said in his gruff voice as he’d read Bran’s mind or sensed his excitement. One or the other. Either way, Bran clung to him as they walked through the beautiful meadow they’d grown so accustomed to. It sparkled even more brightly as the two brothers reunited, stretching themselves out together on the ground as the wind caressed their faces and they were both free.

“You never left,” Bran said softly, his heart filled with softness, like a pillow, like fluff.

“How could I, Bud?” And that was all Bran needed as they travelled the Arena together. Two outcasts. Two cripples as Curtis’s arm came away and Bran’s dead legs were there to stay. Two misfits as everyone swung and struck at them. Two losers as everyone slipped off in the night. Gone, gone forever.

Bran woke up in the middle of the night and saw that the stars were disappearing one by one and for a moment, in the face of fading infinity, he clutched at Curtis. The boy, almost a man, Rajas, he never woke, but he must’ve felt his younger brother there, hanging to him for solace, for he grunted in his sleep and rolled over onto his side, snoring into Bran’s hair and Bran chuckled softly for there was nothing to fear with his brother by his side.

His brother’s breath, out into the open air, filled him for they were both breathing, both alive as they side-stepped the blows of tributes, ran from the noxious gas, filled their mouths with hot water from Bran’s fire and slept side-by-side, waiting for the next day in hell. But, this, this, lying next to his brother in the meadow, sparkling with gold, this was paradise.

“I couldn’t win for you,” Bran told his brother, his heart sinking despite the beauty around them, “I couldn’t do it.” His hands fingered the cuff links of his brother and he saw his necklace glinting at Curtis’s throat. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, Bud,” and Curtis’ words instantly washed away shame Bran had red on his face, “it’s a cruel life, Bud, a cruel life. Something that we, the two of us, could never beat. But, we’re here now, Bud, we’re here now and we’re safe.”

They’d been here many times before, many times safe, alive, dirty, cold and scared, but alive and many times, Curtis promised to stay with him. They had each other. “I...I won’t leave you.”[/i]

And he never did. He died before Bran, but it wasn’t leaving. It was a temporary good bye, Bran knew, for he felt Curtis glowing inside of him as he trudged on, guiding him. It wasn’t enough. The souls of the dead are never enough to keep the living alive. Sooner or later, they pull you down too, but what better a place to be pulled down to but this safe haven of a meadow with his brother by his side and Bran’s lips, crusty and hard with frowns, tugged themselves into a smile.

“Thank you,” he whispered, briefly squeezing his brother’s hand, “thank you, thank you.”

“Here we’re safe, Bud,” and looking over, Bran saw, with a jolt, that Curtis was no longer armless, but had propped himself up on two working arms and Bran knew, with butterflies in his stomach, what that meant for him as he sat up and Curtis gave him a grin. And Bran knew even more that he could stay here, live here, walk here, climb here with Curtis by his side and never would he leave.

But, the meadow had shadows and blood on the ground and suddenly, Bran felt very cold and sensing it, Curtis’s beam flickered and died as Bran made to go and his hand, warm, yet so distant, clasped his wrist. “We’re safe here, Bud. I’ll never leave you.”

“I know,” Bran whispered, his stomach contorting with guilt as he gently pulled from his brother’s grip and took the ladder yet again. “I know,” he repeated as he climbed and this time, the stone barely felt like stone, but rather ice.

I could fly if I wanted to
Like a bird in the sky
If I believed I could fly
Why, I'd fly

[/i]

The sixth rung was the Father Above and his smile was what greeted Bran first. “Bran, Bran, I’m so proud of you.” Ice dropped back into the water, still running wet with blood as Father took Bran into his arms. “I’m so, so proud of you.”

“Why?” Bran chanced asking, his eyes filled with the writhing of a dying animal as they sat by the creek together. “I didn’t make it, Father.”

“But, you understand.” As soon as the words left his mouth, Bran did. His broken, bloodied body lay before him, but Bran could walk outside of it and he left it, kneeling beside his father as he pressed his beloved possession, Ice, into his hands. He had to leave his body to make it here, here with his Father.

“I wanted so long to see your eyes again,” Father muttered, taking in his son’s eyes as he spoke, which matched his own, Bran realized with a jolt. Years without Father had caused him to forget and the fact that his father was back before him both filled him up and chilled him to the bone for where had Father been all this time? And reaching forward, the dead man squeezed his dead son’s hand and Bran cried around corners as Mother did, passed out on the carpet, her shoulders shaking with deep sobs for she now had a crippled son and a lost husband. On some days, Bran couldn’t even bring himself to wheel to her and comfort her, knowing he was part of the cause of her tears and each sob in her throat made his heart drop even further into his stomach.

“Where did you go?” Bran asked his pillow as he finally made it back to his room and now he let his own tears and snot to run. “Where did you go?”

“I went to sleep,” his father told him as calmly as the creek flowed and he closed Bran’s hand around the hilt of Ice. “But, now you’re here. We’re both awake now. I’m so proud of you, Bran. You made it here.”

“I missed you,” Bran told him. The fall had been bad enough, the sleep even worse, but the cherry on top of the cake was Father’s absence. All around his bed, they fell quiet when Bran asked where he was. Sarita burst into tears, Jon and Aria exchanged looks, Ricky blinked, and Mother gave a strangled sob.

“He…he…oh, Bran, he isn’t here.”

And Bran fell and fell and fell and fell because Father couldn’t be gone. He couldn’t just close his eyes one day with a father and wake up the next without one. That wasn’t how it worked. Bran felt himself tumbling and crying and clinging to his lifeless legs for he lost two things in that darkness.

“Don’t cry, you’re here now,” Father told him, wiping the tears from his son’s eyes as they held each other by the creek, Ice in between them like some kind of holy material. “I missed you too. I’m so proud of you. I watched you. You’re so strong.”

“But, I can’t walk,” Bran’s hands come down on his lifeless which didn’t feel a thing, but were numb to his touch.

“That’s not where you keep your strength,” his father told him and Bran’s heart suddenly warmed inside of him as he faced his sister through his father’s eyes, but didn’t strike. Maybe that’s what strength was. Learning when to stop and evaluate. To recognize. To understand.

But, Father had never taught him to forgive.

And so Bran stared up at the ladder and scorned his legs for failing him, his hands for slipping, his eyes for seeing. He wanted to stay with Father. He ached for it, for his guidance when all he could do was crawl and barely so. He wanted his arms, his words, his smile, his Ice to teach Bran how to be strong without the use of his legs. He’d waited so long to be with Father, but now here, Bran couldn’t stay, not while the climb called. Bran couldn’t forgive. He had to prove. He had to do.

He kissed his father’s hand and with his kiss, left Ice behind. “I understand, Father.” And with his new understanding, Bran once more resumed his climb. The wind was biting, the chill deep within his spine as he gripped the unforgiving stone of the Justice Building and tugged his body up, fingers digging into crevices, toes tapping window sills. Something else called in a Crone’s voice.

Keeping climbing, keep climbing[/i], it said, and Bran, like a fool, he obeyed.

Behind him, they all cried. “Don’t climb, Bran!” Mother, the Mother Above, sobbed.

“I understand,” Jon the Stranger whispered just loud enough.

“I’ll teach you, Bran,” Rajas the Warrior promised.

“I’m sorry!” Aria the Maiden shrieked.

“I’ll never leave you, Bud,” Curtis the Smith muttered.

“Bran, Bran, come back!” Father, the Father Above, yelled, but the Crone spoke louder.

Keep climbing. Come to me.[/i] Bran wasn’t supposed to look back. Keep climbing and he’d be fine, but the words were poison. Come to me.[/i] No, keep climbing, don’t look back. You mustn’t look back.[/i] But, the appeal was too great. Bran heard voices. One begged and cried and the other was harsh and unrelenting. It tugged at his interest. Snow had begun to fall and it kissed his cheeks as he approached, his heart racing. Come to me. The window was near and Bran shouldn’t have stopped, but he did.

One look was all it took.

“He saw.”

He barely had time to scream, to cry out, before his hands slipped from the ladder entirely and

Down

Down

Down

[/color][/color][/blockquote][/size]

(I'd like to thank Zoe, Kay, Charade and Onyx for contributing their fabulous characters in order to write this death post!)

[/blockquote]