Leaf appeared from behind me, her strange features pale even by what must have been the standards of her kind. The Child of the Forest moved with the careful deliberation of one who had witnessed something that challenged the very foundations of her understanding. Her large, golden eyes remained fixed on the scattered remnants of ice that had once been the Others.
"In all my years," she whispered, her voice carrying the weight of the ages she had lived, "I have never seen their kind destroyed with such... ease."
Coldhands approached, his damaged arm hanging at an unnatural angle. Black ichor still seeped from the wound, but he seemed unconcerned with his injuries. The undead ranger's hollow gaze swept over the battleground, taking in the crystalline remains and the deep gouges my brief combat had left in the ancient trees.
"The Night King will know of this," he stated matter-of-factly. I turned to him, realizing for the first time that he could in fact speak on his own. I guess that was what remained of Benjen. Still, wasn't the Night King just a Game of Thrones invention?
"The Others share a connection deeper than mortal understanding. Much like they do with the wights they control. When these three fail to return, and their essence are scattered to the winds..." He gestured at the glittering fragments. "He will feel their absence like a wound."
I considered this information with the detached interest of a scholar examining a particularly fascinating specimen, as were the implications. There was a Night King. I doubted it was the smooth-brained Night King Arya Stark had shanked. However, the existence of a Night King spoke of a leader. I would have asked Coldhands how he knew so much, until I remembered he was a wight.
"The Night King should know neither you nor Bloodraven is capable of killing three Others, so they should come to the obvious conclusion," I replied, adjusting my cloak. "I'll be the next target."
The bird that had crowed in my ears previously hopped on the spot and gave another crow, drawing my attention. We stared at each other for a second, then it spoke, the voice that emerged was the distressingly familiar harsh caw of a corvid.
"Enter!"
I raised a brow in surprise and tugged at my goatee in response. "Are you certain?"
"The wards have been destroyed already. Discretion more than power has always been the reason we were able to hide from the Others for so long." Leaf spoke up beside me as she began to walk towards the cave with Coldhands trailing behind her.
I looked around before shrugging in response.
I followed after them, ducking into the cave entrance. The cave had not been built for someone of my size, so I had to move with my back in an arch. I'm certain that the original Dracula would have declined to enter the cave and put himself in such an undignified position.
I looked around as Leaf led us further into the darkness of the cave, only deeper where there were signs of light. The death song of the children had long ended, leaving us with blessed silence. We were all children of the night, so there was no need for any lighting.
The cave system was like an ant hive. There was no path more used than the other to navigate. There were simply a hundred holes in the walls, different paths leading to different places. The paths were held up and reinforced by the roots of what, at some point in time must have been an enormous Weirwood tree.
Eventually, our journey led us to a wide cavern, an opening, and what I estimated was the middle of the cave system. There was a Weirwood tree placed firmly there, one that looked to have been planted in the cave, yet it had grown beyond its original plans. I didn't bother thinking about how the Weirwood tree had grown in the middle of a cave, without sunlight or water. Instead, I just chalked it up to magic.
The more interesting thing was the person in the tree. A man with pale white hair that fell to the ground in a curtain. I could see some of the children of the forest braiding parts of his hair, while a couple of others hung from the roots in the ceiling, watching me in surprise.
The figure in the tree was indistinguishable from a corpse. Its black riding leathers were faded and tattered, with most of them destroyed by the long stay here. Roots and flowers sprouted along his form, growing out from his midsection and coiling back into the great tree. Then, despite the deathly pallor and look, the figure raised up its head and looked at my entrance.
"We finally meet face to face, Lord Vlad." He spoke, his voice hoarse from disuse.
I nodded cautiously as I looked down on Brynden Rivers. The show had not done the scene justice. There was something deeply visceral and alien about looking at a man who had a root growing out from where one of his eyes used to be. Bloodraven looked like a character from Elden Ring more than a regular man.
"Bloodraven, I presume."
I asked rhetorically, as silence immediately filled the cavern. It was a curious thing to notice. The sudden absence of sound as the man with one and a thousand eyes looked at me, the last caretaker of the children of the forest.
He nodded in agreement as I walked past Leaf, and I went in a circle, curiously observing the tree that kept Bloodraven alive. It was a fascinating feat of magic and alchemy. The tree was old, way older than Bloodraven in fact. I realized as I spotted older bones in the gaps between the bark. Smaller bones. Bloodraven was not the first to be placed on life support, it seemed.
"The tree keeps you alive by siphoning life and vitality from the very earth itself and pumping it into your body, using the roots, correct?" I hazarded a guess, judging by what I had seen so far. Dracula's massive intellect did the legwork of making the calculations and observations to determine a specific magical result.
"You're correct," Bloodraven replied as I continued my circling to end right back where I had started, before his immobile and decrepit form. "You deciphered all that from a single observation?"
I tugged at my goatee in response, the movement instinctual. "I've seen something similar, but it is not my preferred method of immortality. I reckon it is not even complete immortality. The moment you're cut off from the tree, you would begin to die, but that is not all, is it, Bloodraven?"
"Correct again," Bloodraven admitted in a rasp. "The tree heightens my connection to the old gods of the wind, the rocks, and the trees. It feeds me life. However, the ritual that bound me to the tree was not meant to be done on humans; therefore, it is imperfect, which means sooner or later, I will waste away. My body unable to handle the process, and I shall end, like all things do."
"Not all things do," I replied with the barest hint of a smile.
"I've no interest in becoming a tool to the Others," Bloodraven replied, misinterpreting my words. I didn't bother to correct him. Instead, I hummed in response as I thought about it. Transforming Bloodraven into a vampire. Did I have it in me to bequeath this unlife upon another?
"If you were given the chance to turn your back on your connection to the old gods, to break free and become your own person once more, would you take it?"
If there was silence before in the cavern, now there was a chill. It was not just hostility; it was a presence. The old gods, I was assuming. They had not been present earlier, content to simply watch things from far away. However, now they were paying close attention.
Bloodraven stared at me with his one visible eye, red a lighter shade than my crimson hue, and somehow he must have seen the truth in my words. "You do not mean as a wight, do you?"
My smile widened, revealing teeth that had no business being in the mouth of a human.
Bloodraven's eyes flickered to the side, like he was communicating with someone, the old gods no doubt. "And what would such a gift entail? I doubt it is for free."
I let out a chuckle as I continued to tug on my beard. "Nothing comes for free in this world, Brynden Rivers." I started using his full name so he would understand the full weight behind my words. "Nonetheless, if I deem it so, it shall be so. However, it is no simple gift. It is a curse and a burden. Yet one within my power to disperse."
Bloodraven closed his eyes. When he opened them once more, there was a sense of calculation behind them, like he was wary of offending the old gods. However, he spoke anyway. "I shall consider this offer, your curse, and the burden that comes with it at the end of my lifespan." The pressure that had been in the room shifted, and I could tell it was... displeased? I think. Accurately deciphering the feelings of an anonymous amalgamation of millennia of greenseers was difficult at the best of times.
Bloodraven must have sensed it too because he continued speaking a tad bit more hurriedly than before. "However, I owe a debt to the Old Gods of my mother. They saved me when a Free Folk raiding party ambushed me. I managed to kill them thanks to the aid of Dark Sister." Bloodraven gestured at the blade tied to Coldhands's hips.
The wight was receiving treatment from the Children of the Forest. They were stitching his injury shut. Sewing the shoulder and joining the almost detached limb with a bone needle, while pouring the red sap that Weirwood trees possessed into the injury. No doubt there was some medicinal benefit to it.
"The children found me lost in the snow, bleeding and dying, and they brought me here, and I was given an offer. Therefore, before I make any decision that removes me from their influence, I shall train and prepare my successor first. Only when I'm certain he is fit and somewhat ready would I consider your... curse."
There was a new change in the air. I could tell that the old gods were not exactly pleased at the thought that one of their own would escape the fate of all greenseers. To avoid rejoining the amalgamation that was the old gods. However, they had been somewhat placated by Bloodraven's acceptance of training a successor. Poor crippled Bran. I assume Winterfell must have been sacked by now, and he, as well as Hodor, and that little wildling girl must be in the winds now. No doubt Bloodraven was already leading them to himself.
"Alright then." I accepted with a tilt of my head before continuing. "However, the fact remains, your wards have been ruined. This place is no longer safe."
"The moment you leave, we shall shut the entrance, as well as other entrances, until all that remain are entrances and passages that only the children can pass through."
Entrances that would also be accessible to a young cripple as well, I suppose. The old gods were no doubt going to create some sort of localized rockslide or earthquake to do just that. In the same way the children once broke the land that is now known as the arm of Dorne.
I'm certain I would be able to dig a path through if I wanted. However, judging by the strength the Others had displayed, there was some possibility of them doing the same, but at a much slower rate. I still had the option of bringing even more night creatures out of stasis and setting them here to guard Bloodraven. However, I shelved the thought once more.
"You fought like no creature I have observed in over a hundred years of watching," Bloodraven said, drawing my attention once more. "The Others have not known defeat in single combat since the Age of Heroes, yet you dismantled them as a child might break toys."
I inclined my head in acknowledgment of the observation. "Experience has taught me that reputation is often inversely proportional to actual capability. The more fearsome something's legend, the more likely I am to find it disappointing."
"And what of your own legend, I wonder? What stories will be told of the night the Others learned to fear?"
"That remains to be seen," I replied. "I care not for such, and there shall be no bard or minstrel to spread the story. If that is all..."
I turned around as I began to walk away. Tracing my path out of the cave complex once more, leaving Bloodraven behind, although I noted the pitter-patter of footsteps following behind me. A child of the forest most likely.
"Goodbye, Bloodraven. Oh, and thank you for the man you sent my way. I have not had the time for introductions, not with the way I rushed here, but that would be rectified soon." I said with a wave as I walked into the darkness.
I came out of the entrance of the cave, and my attention was drawn to the still glittering ice crystals that were all that remained of the lead Other, so I changed direction and moved to where the lead Other had fallen, and crouched beside the scattered ice crystals.
The Nightmare trotted to me and gave me a huff in my ear as if it was offended I had not needed it in the fight. I gave a chuckle and rubbed at its nose before refocusing. I gathered several fragments, noting how they maintained their supernatural cold even separated from their source. The ice felt different from normal frozen water, denser, more purposeful, as if it had been shaped by will as much as temperature.
"Their magic," I mused aloud, allowing a note of genuine curiosity to color my voice. "It's not just elemental manipulation, there's some other aspect to it." I held one of the larger fragments up to the sky, watching how it seemed to drink in the illumination rather than reflect it. "Fascinating."
Leaf approached cautiously behind me, her small hands wrapping around herself for warmth. I'm not certain why she followed me outside yet.
"The Others were born as the first children of this world and winter," she explained, though her voice carried some hesitation. Still, she continued. "Before the Long Night, before the wars between my people and the First Men, they were Planetos's own spawn, given form and purpose by the world and the everlasting season of winter itself."
I discarded the growing image of the world having sex with winter. It felt like a Greek tragedy. "And now they serve this Night King?" I asked, though the question was largely rhetorical.
"They serve Winter, and its aspect of the Great Other," Leaf corrected. "The Night King is merely The Great Other's chosen instrument, its most perfect expression. He does not command the Others so much as embody their collective will."
I remembered the way the rest of the white walkers had died when the Night King had been killed in the series, which made me wonder, was the same thing going to happen here? I had no intention of killing all the Others if they were reasonable. If they could be convinced to stop their version of the rumbling. I did not avoid a genocide to come to another world and unleash one.
I stood, pocketing several of the ice fragments for later study. Ice magic was a curiosity. In fact, it was more of a curiosity than skinchanging had been, if only because of its very physical effect. After all, who wouldn't want to shoot icicles from their hands? I still remember how well Sypha fought with the use of her speaker's magic.
I turned back to what remained of the Others scattered around. If I didn't want to genocide the entire race, I would have to be more diplomatic than I had been today. "Then I shall have to introduce myself properly," I decided. Such creatures required different procedures than the way I approached Bloodraven.
The admission surprised me with its honesty. Some buried part of Dracula's consciousness, the part that had grown bored with centuries of easy dominance, stirred with something approaching excitement. At the prospect of facing the Great Other and the Night King.
Leaf's golden eyes widened. "You speak as one who courts death," she observed.
"Perhaps," I admitted with a chuckle at the inside joke, then I smiled, baring fanged teeth to the night sky. Leaf didn't realize how true those words were, considering Dracula's relationship with the personification of Death in his world. "Perhaps I do."