The Stag and The Frog - (GendryxMeera GOT fanfic) Part 1: Alone

38: Weirwood

Meera had left her home, without knowing when or if she would be back, once before. That time she had left together with her brother Jojen, and he had not come back. This time she would leave alone, hiding in the darkness of night.

Before she left this time there was a place she needed to visit. A place she had not been to since she came back without her brother. Because it reminded her too much of him. It reminded her too much of what had been lost and the mistakes they had made. But she wanted to remember Jojen now. She wanted to remember who he had been and what he had believed in.

So Meera went to the godswood, where the weirwood trees grew. The woods were found in a circular water-filled courtyard in the middle of the castle. A giant heart tree with a face carved in it grew in the middle, surrounded by a dozen smaller weirwood trees.  The crown of the heart tree covered the whole courtyard, creating a ceiling above her and shutting the rest of the world out. The war was still going on all around her, but she couldn't hear or see it here. This place was still peaceful and calm.

The godswood looked just like the last time she was here, it never changed. Red leaves cascading over the waters and reflecting on the surface. Making the whole place look like it was tinted in red. The bark was pale white and where the trunk met the ground there was an indention. This was where her brother used to sit. Every day she would find him there.

It had been the morning of the day when they were to leave the Neck. Jojen had a couple of days earlier convinced their father that his visions were true and that they must go help Bran Stark. But on that morning Meera wasn't able to find her brother. She looked everywhere and finally found him sitting under the heart tree, lost in his own thoughts.

Meera walked towards her brother, wading through the water. Jojen didn't even seem to notice her as she approached.

"Jojen, we need to go," she said, not knowing if he could even hear her. "I've looked for you everywhere."

Her words seemed to bring her brother back to the real world, away from whatever dream he had been stuck in. He looked up at her.

"I wanted to say goodbye to the tree," her brother replied. "Since I won't come back here."

"Of course you will come back... Don't be silly, Jojen."

"No, I won't be back. But you will."

"We both will. We'll leave together and come back together."

"It will only be you, Meera. You're the one who will protect these lands. I saw it, in a dream. Darkness will fall upon us one day, darkness threatening our lands, threatening to take it away from us. But you will summon a storm to help us. You will step into the storm and the storm will chase away the darkness. But the storm will also take you with it, away from here. Forever."

"I would never leave this place, not forever. This is my home."

"It will always be your home, but it won't be where you die."

"You've seen my death too?"

"No, I can't see it. And that's why I know it won't be here. It won't be in the North. It won't be where the weirwoods grow."

Her brother looked at her with those innocent greens eyes who could see things no one else could see. He looked right through her it felt like. And he said nothing more. Instead, he got up, put his hand on the heart tree one last time, and followed her out of the godswood.

That was her last memory of her brother in their home. The last pure memory before it all happened. Before they followed the wrong path. Before he died.

And now Meera stood there again. Looking at the same tree. Remembering what her brother had said.

Meera waded through the waters once again and sat down at the spot where Jojen used to sit. She could feel Jojen's presence there. She could feel what he had believed in. He had believed that what they had done was for good. He had been wrong.