A Rest of Swords

Part eight

The Three-eyed-Raven sat in his chair under the heart tree in the godswood of his home castle. Or that it had been to his former self. Bran Stark had been at home here. He had been born, raised and educated here. Had learned to ride a horse, trained to shoot an arrow, dreamed to become a knight one day...here he had climbed the walls of the castle, had been told by his mother not to more times than he could count, and here he had been pushed from a tower, putting an end to his wishes for the future.
But these things were all distant memories now. Memories from another life, another person. He knew his destiny had been written in stone a long time before the lion had sealed it.
And now he sat here, waited, expected just this man who had once destroyed everything and yet opened the door to what Bran Stark had always been meant to become.

"Ser Jaime", he greeted with the back to the man he knew to be arriving by the sound of his footsteps.

"Did you know I would come?", Jaime asked suspiciously and the Three-eyed-Raven nodded.

"You saw it?" He nodded again.

"You see everything that's happening?"
Jaime was still not used to this...person that Bran Stark was now. Every time he looked at him he saw the little boy, desperately clutching at the walls of the tower window.

"Yes."

"And what has already happened? Everywhere?"

"Yes. And some things that haven't even happened yet. And that's what you've come for, isn't it?", he asked then to Jaime's surprise. He shouldn't be surprised, though, but the thought that this young man he had once wronged so greatly was now able to foresee everything that would happen to him was alarming - even though Bran, or whoever he was now, had already assured him that he wasn't blaming him for anything.

"You want to ask me what's about to happen to Lady Brienne", the Raven continued quietly, a simple statement he knew to be true, "And to you as well, perhaps..."
Jaime stayed silent, the last word echoed in his ears. Perhaps...
Did he really want to know? He had wanted to, that was why he had come. He wanted to hear that everything would be alright, that he would live, that she would live, he would have given everything to have certainty - but what if Bran would reveal the opposite?
So, now that he stood here, he wasn't so sure anymore. Bran seemed to know what was going through his head, for a knowing smile appeared on his lips. It was a strange sort of smile, emotionless, somehow, but then again - full of something Jaime couldn't quite put his finger on. Understanding? Compassion? Pity? Maybe just...knowledge.

"Do you want me to tell you?", the young man asked, his voice giving not a hint if he approved or not.

"N-No", Jaime heard himself say without having intended to and the Raven blinked, watched his unsure face for a moment.

"That's wise", he said then, startling Jaime by this remark.

"Wise?", he asked bewildered. "But isn't knowledge the foundation of wisdom?" Bran nodded.

"Indeed."

"And still, you call refusing it wise?" There was this strange knowing smile again.

"Not every knowledge is a gift, Ser Jaime", he told him. "Some can be a burden. Believe me", he said and for the first time, Jaime thought to hear a hint of emotion in his voice, but it was gone before he was sure it had actually been there. "I know it."

"But knowledge is power", Jaime objected.

"So they say."

"And what do you say?" Something in the Raven's face twitched, just for a second, before it became completely calm and expressionless again.