Chapter Text
King Bran and Lady Harry were plotting something, though Lord Commander Brienne knew not what it was. All she knew was that it was likely the reason they had stopped longer than usual in Harrenhall. King Bran's travelling court never really stayed in the same place for more than a few weeks, but they had been at Harrenhall for almost two moons. Pages ran too and from the library carrying books and scrolls. The King and Lady often took walks in the Godswood when not secluded in the King's solar arguing. They had been speaking for several days, arguing back and forth, as seemingly one-sided as it was. The King’s icy demeanor unrelenting in the face of the Lady’s fire. Never before had anyone, much less Ser Brienne, dared to shout and rage so openly at a royal, especially a King, fearing their tongue was to be removed, but Lady Harry had no such reservations. She never seemed to have any reservations about things she believed in.
“I’ve faced death!” She would exclaim when told of potential punishments for speaking so crassly to royalty. “I’ve faced horrors you could not even imagine, wars not even the comedians could make light of! If a king wishes to cut my tongue out for telling the truth, simply because of the way I spoke it, I welcome him to try! For such petty things do not scare me. Besides, I could always grow it back.” Ser Brienne did not believe having one’s tongue cut out was a petty thing, but based on some of the stories she had heard from Lady Harry, she could somewhat understand her point of view. Not entirely, but somewhat.
“Ser Brienne! Just the woman I was hoping to see, won’t you walk with me, if it’s not too much trouble?” Lady Harry spoke stopping Ser Brienne in her walk as she came upon her in the hall. Having just finished her Kingsguard duties for the day and switched out with one of her sworn brothers. The woman barely came up to her chest and though Brienne may be tall enough to make those around her seem short, Lady Harry was short even without Brienne’s help. Seven help those who say that to her face. “Perhaps we should eat together, if it’s not too much trouble?” The wixen’s speech has been improving at the very least, no longer using strange words, or “slang” as she referred to it. The odd manner of speaking that travelled here with her and slowly, but surely, Lady Harry was learning the words and cadences used in Westeros. Her sentences were much easier to follow without the "slang," though the Lady often liked to use them to confuse those around her. Or when annoyed. Or angry.
“Certainly my lady.” Brienne agreed with a small bow, having already been on her way to the soldiers' mess herself and knowing that whatever the Lady cooked would certainly be better than the bland stew and bread likely being served in the mess. Her answer was met with a bright, beautiful smile and sparkling green eyes as Harry abruptly turned on her heel and led the way to her chambers. People quickly moved out of their way, for once Brienne could not tell if it was because of her. While most at court were unsettled by Lady Harry’s presence and her unnatural beauty, Brienne found Lady Harry to be pleasant company, if a bit unconventional. Having fought by the wixen’s side during the battle with the dead, Gods was she a force to be reckoned with, Brienne had grown fond of the fiery haired woman and time had only deepened that fondness, so dining with her was not unusual. What was unusual was the tension that Lady Harry was trying to hide. Unsuccessfully hide. She walked with a forced "pep in her step" as the wixen likes to say. Her body to stiff to truly allow such carefree movements. It set Brienne's teeth on edge. The normally boisterous woman now walking as if to her death. The closer they got to the Lady’s chambers, the more tension wove its way through her body. Her shoulders practically swallowed her head by the time they made it to the door. Brienne was surprised she could still walk with how tightly Lady Harry held herself. It was getting to Brienne, the tension, and she didn't even know the cause of it.
“I took the liberty of making some comfort foods for us, I hope you don’t mind.” Lady Harry said. “I figured you wouldn’t mind, and the cooks were happy to have me so you don’t need to start in on me about being in the way of them, again. And I bought all the food myself, so I didn’t take anything away from any of the staff. The market had some fantastic potatoes and the carrots looked so good I couldn’t resist! And the peas-” Lady Harry continued to babble as Brienne took in the food she had prepared. Rolls and a warm, hearty stew sat on the table in Lady Harry’s solar. As well as some dishes Lady Harry referred to as casseroles and sides. The aroma had Brienne’s mouth watering, but as Lady Harry filled the silence with her unsteady voice, a pit settled deeper and deeper into her stomach. Lady Harry is confident in a way that Brienne has rarely seen. She would dive face first into trouble to help a stranger, has jumped into a war that was not her own to save Westeros and its people despite the suspicion placed upon her when she first arrived, she holds the ear of the King and has counselled him on many matters in the past, and yet, whatever it is she is about to say to Brienne has her stalling and delaying as best she could.
“-I managed to talk one of those page boys into helping me find-”
“My Lady.” Brienne cut her off, “perhaps it is best to speak whatever it is that is on your mind plainly.”
“What? Oh! Oh no, there’s nothing on my mind.” She pauses and her emerald eyes slide to the left, a tell. “I simply wanted to eat with you. Am I not allowed to do that?”
“Dine with me.” Brienne corrected gently and watched as Lady Harry mouthed the words to herself. “And while you are more than welcome to invite me to dine with you, there is clearly something else going on.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, besides the fact that you were rambling on about the merit of stew being a “comfort food” was it? You have also had several heated discussions with his Grace.” At Lady Harry’s startled look Brienne continued, “I am a Kingsguard my Lady sworn to keep the King’s secrets. His Grace is unlikely to keep them from me.”
“Right, so you know then? About his plan?” She asked, searching for whatever route that made the looming conversation easier.
“I know there is a plan,” Brienne confirmed. Lady Harry’s shoulders dropped at this. “Though I know not the shape of it nor do I know why it is being formed.” It seemed as though that was not the answer Lady Harry was looking for, if the stiffness that returned to her shoulders was anything to go off of.
“Right, well uhm, have a… have a seat. Please.” Lady Harry gestured haltingly to one of the chairs at the table, walking subduedly to her own. If one didn’t know better, it would seem as though she was walking to the gallows. Seated at the edge of her chair, Lady Harry served herself from the gathered dishes, though she made no move to eat. After a moment she gestured for Brienne to do the same. “Sorry, I still forget about your customs sometimes. They are still so odd to me, but I see now how important they can be.” The Lady chuckled nervously. She was still stalling, even after Brienne’s, and her own, acknowledgement that there was something bothering her. Brienne watched, taking bites out of her own meal, as Lady Harry swirled her stew around and around in its bowl.
“My Lady,” Brienne prompted, “what is it, if I may be so bold? What is so horrible that it has so thoroughly worried you? It can not be worse than the Wrights.”
“Don’t jinx it, please.” Came the miserable mumbled reply. While Brienne needed no explanation for the word “jinx” she still found it odd whenever the Lady spoke in such a foreign way. She waited as Lady Harry seemed to find the table more interesting than the imminent confrontation with whatever was troubling her, though Brienne knew the wixen was merely gathering her resolve. Finally, Lady Harry looked up at Brienne. “I would not ask this of you if I believed there was any other choice Ser. But, I fear there truly isn’t and I have delayed the inevitable long enough.” Both women took a fortifying breath as their food cooled around them, forgotten. Brienne opened her mouth to speak, to reassure her companion but Lady Harry cut her off with a raised hand.“If you interrupt me now, I will never finish, please save your questions for the end.” At Brienne’s nod she looked away and continued. “The magic of this world is dying, Ser, it has been for a long time, long before you were born. The Whitewalkers slowly but surely soaked up the magic in this world leaving little to those who live and truly need it. I thought, and so did King Bran, that with the defeat of the Whitewalkers, magic would recover. We were wrong. Magic has continued to die out and King Bran has been slowly losing his ability to wield his own magic. I have seen it in other ways as well. The weirwood trees have stopped singing, for one, the lands seem to be on the edge of famine, and not just because of the havoc that was wrecked upon it in recent years. There are rumors of disease across the narrow sea and the maesters report that people are taking longer to heal than they used to. All this to say that magic here is still dying.” She takes a breath, puffing out her cheeks a little as she exhales. Her eyes have once again strayed to the table as she chattered.
“Do you know why? Can you fix it?” Brienne dared to ask despite Lady Harry’s previous warning. She receives a slight glare for her troubles.
“There are several possible reasons for it, chiefly among them being the strain the wrights placed upon it, with each person they raised from the dead the more magic they consumed and corrupted. Another reason is the lack of magical flora and fauna. Plants and animals” She clarified after seeing Brienne’s confused expression. “They act as anchors for the magic of the world, so even if no people are born with magic, magic still persists. While this world still has some magical plants and animals, it doesn’t have nearly enough to sustain the magic, or help it heal. As for fixing it, that’s what I would like to talk to you about, sort of.” The Lady seemed unsure of herself once more. It was unsettling the normally self assured woman curl in on herself as if to protect herself from a blow. A blow Brienne would never deliver.
“How could I possibly help heal magic?” Brienne asked as if it was the most ridiculous thing she had heard. Which it was. “I’ve not one magical bone in my body. Do you mean to turn me into some sort of magical creature?” The words may have been said in jest but it did not put the Lady at ease. Lady Harry winced and Brienne took her hesitation as confirmation. “Do you truly!?” Brienne cried. Worry and fear raced through her before settling in her sternum as anger. “Am I to become some monster like in the tales parents tell children at night?”
“NO! No, gosh no.” Lady Harry responded emphatically. “No, but, if you agree, I would ask you to accompany me on an adventure. A journey.” She paused, considering her words. “A journey through time, one that we would be unable to return from.” The wixen could not meet the knight’s eyes after she said this. As if she had confessed to some great sin. “I could not order you to do this, nor could I sit idly by and let King Bran order you to do this, or rather send us off without warning you as to where we were going. This deserves to be your choice and your choice alone.”
“And if I refuse?” The knight asked.
“Then I shall go alone. I’ve been studying the history of this world. I could do it on my own. I've also been stockpiling resources, books and such of your history. It would simply be more difficult.” By more difficult Brienne knew she meant “more likely to end up being burned at the stake again.” “I came here on my own afterall, and it worked out. For the most part.” She seemed so defeated speaking those last words, so unlike her usual bright self. Despite what some people would say, what happened in Westeros was not her fault. Not that the Lady really believed that. It was the smart choice to refrain from choosing a King or Queen to serve after the war for the North was over. Instead choosing neutrality. "Being Switzerland" as she called it. It was kind of her to help rebuild the towns that had been torn asunder. She even tried to help rebuild Kingslanding before it was declared a lost cause. The defeated look had no place on Lady Harry’s face in Brienne’s humble opinion.
“You did everything you could, and beyond for us my Lady. The things that transpired after the fight with the Whitewalkers was not your fault, nor was there anything you could have done to prevent it.” The Lady did not look like she agreed, but whatever rebuttals she had, she kept them to herself. “No more of that now, tell me more about this plan. How would it work? When would we leave? What provisions would we need? I will have all the information I can before I agree to this.”
“I’m not sure how King Bran intends to send us off. He says that here at Harrenhall and the Godseye are saturated in magic, that the boundaries between past, present, and future are thinner. I agree, however, I have no idea how he intends to send us through time as the methods of time travel I am familiar with are temporary, no matter how impactful they can be. Nor do I know when he would send us. As for when we depart, we would leave tomorrow morning. Before sunrise, you would wear your tourney armor and whatever weapons and other things that entails. I will take care of the rest. I have no idea what will happen when we get to where we would be going, nor do I know what will be happening at the time. As you have a more in depth understanding of your own history, if you were to join me, I would look to you for direction. Who’s who, what's what, who to trust, what is going on, that sort of thing. If you decide to stay, I will just have to wing it.” “Winging it” as Lady Harry liked to say, usually involved something exploding, or falling, or catching on fire, or some other disaster. For as much as “winging it” works out for her, it is often rather destructive. Brienne shuddered to think what would happen should Lady Harry “wing it” in the past. What it could mean for the present.
“Should I decide to help you, there would have to be rules.” Brienne stated sternly, even as Lady Harry looked up hopefully. Serious blue eyes meeting eager green ones. “You would need to follow my lead. You yourself have said that you do not know Westerosi history as well as I do. If I tell you not to do something, you must not do it.” The wixen nodded their head enthusiastically, listening with rapt attention. “You can not use your magic carelessly, we must keep it from as many people as possible for as long as possible. That means no miraculous healing, or suddenly and conveniently fully grown plants, and certainly no blowing things up with just a word. We need to remain as ordinary as possible for as long as possible.” Brienne prayed that Lady Harry took her words to heart, though with the Lady around she doubted everything would go smoothly. “Additionally, my Lady, once we get to whenever we are going, how do you plan on helping magic?”
“Well,” she considered her words carefully, “I would help restore any Godswood we come across, strengthening them and thus the magic in the lands. I would see if there are any other magical practices, plants, or creatures that roam this world that have been lost to time and see if I can help them. Nurture them and teach others to nurture them. And, depending heavily upon the time period and the people residing in it, I may even hatch some dragon eggs.” The Lady said the last bit low and hesitantly as both her and the knight sitting across from her are intimately aware of how disastrous that could be. Before Brienne could even shoot down the suggestion Lady Harry continued. “If I were to do it, I would only allow sane Targaryens to ride them and I would extract an unbreakable vow that would pass from rider to rider to ensure that if dragons are used in war it would be a very last resort, a desperate measure, and would not be used to burn down whole cites, the specifics can come later if I decide to return dragons. Additionally dragons are fire whereas the Whitewalkers are ice, if there were dragons it would make it harder for the wrights to raise the dead, and harder for them to make intelligent ones. But nothing is decided yet, there is still time to think about it. If it is not necessary then I absolutely will not do it!” She rushed out in one breath. Brienne simply stared at Lady Harry for some time. Weighing in her mind the benefits and the potential downsides to this all. But in the end, her mind was already made the moment Lady Harry started speaking of magic dying. Of this realm dying.
“Fine.” Brienne said gruffly.
“Fine?”
“Fine. I will go with you. I will meet you on the morrow before dawn at the gates and we shall embark on this journey together.”
“Really! Oh thank you! Thank you so much!” Lady Harry exclaimed as she sprung up from her chair, ran around the table and wrapped Brienne in a bear hug. Brienne sat still for a moment, not expecting the hug, but as her ears turned pink, she slowly wrapped her arms around the wixen, returning the embrace.
“This is not appropriate my Lady,” Brienne said, retreating from the embrace, “besides we still have to finish our supper, though it is no doubt cold by now.”
“Not to worry! I can heat it back up.” And she did with a simple wave the food returned to steaming and was once more a comfortable eating temperature. After their discussion, the wixen and the knight ate in silence. What more could be said on the matter. Besides, Brienne’s mind was far from the meal. She would need to bid her friends farewell, her King, her sworn brothers, everyone. The food tasted like ash on her tongue and acid sat in her throat. She would never see them again. None of the people she has grown to love and trust. She would be throwing herself into an unknown, potentially hostile, environment. She has no plan. No idea what awaits her. No idea if she will even survive long enough to be of any help. Completely reliant upon a powerful being who may as well be a goddess, and while she may trust Lady Harry with her life, she can not fathom why she wants to help. They have certainly done nothing to deserve it. Save for a few people, most won’t even look at her at court. The few times she ventured away from court without a guard she was mobbed, having to fight off wandering hands and lustful eyes. Some are even openly hostile, throwing things and saying cruel things. Even through all of that the woman, who could have left them all to die, is still kind enough to save them from their fate. If it were Brienne in Lady Harry’s place, she likely would have left them to their own demise, being tossed aside again and again like Lady Harry had been. And yet she did not, she left everything she knew and loved to help them, and she’s going to do it again. Not because she owes some debt, but because she seemingly cares. And now Brienne was going to do the same thing. She was going to leave everything behind, her comfort, her position, her certainty in the future. She was going to throw it all away for a potentially better future. A future she may never see.
Standing abruptly, Brienne made to excuse herself. She could no longer stomach the food in front of her. Her thoughts were spiraling, she needed to prepare, she needed to pack, needed to ready her horse, needed to say goodbye, there were so many things she needed to do. There was not enough time to do them.
“It’s settling in, isn’t it?” Lady Harry’s voice broke through her thoughts. “The realization that you're not coming back. That everything is going to change, for better or worse.” She smiles ruefully. Like she understands. But surely she can return. Surely she can go back to wherever she came from and see her family, her friends whenever she pleases. Why would someone as powerful as her ever leave her home, never to return again, for people she didn't even know, people who didn’t even like her all that much. “It was hard,” she said in response. Brienne realizes she must have said some things out loud. “I didn’t have much there anyway, not really, but the ones I did have, I cared for deeply. They were my rock, and to lose them was to lose another part of my soul. But we saw the suffering of other places, we saw that we could fix them. That I could fix them and I knew. I knew I had to try.” Crystalline tears fell from her luminescent eyes, landing on the table as pearls. She rolled one of them between her fingers thoughtlessly. “I knew that I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t help them. If I didn’t help you.” Their eyes met. “It was one of the hardest choices I have ever made, but one that I don’t regret. Not anymore, not since I met you all. You’ve made the journey worth it. So go say your goodbyes, Ser. Do not let anything be left unsaid. Do not allow for regrets. Let the tears come, for tomorrow there will be no time for them. Most importantly, get some rest, I have a feeling there will not be an opportunity for some time.” Brienne sat for a moment more before rising. Bowing to Lady Harry, Brienne turned and made to do exactly as her Lady bid.