Meera woke up in cold sweats again from a dream. As she twisted and turned she accidentally smacked her husband in the face with her elbow.

"Ouch," he said sleepily. "What is happening?"

"I had a dream again," his wife replied while her hands went to her belly to make sure her child was safe. There was a slight flutter inside of her. She had never felt that before. It was like her child was trying to tell her something.

Gendry leaned over with a concerned look. "Are you all right?" he asked. "Is something wrong with the child?"

"I'm fine," she said and reached up to kiss him. "And the child is fine too. I think it's moving."

She took his hand and moved it to the spot on her belly where she sensed the fluttering. "Can you feel that?" she asked.

His rough blacksmith hand rested gently on the round bump, waiting for a sign. Gendry looked unsure at first but then his expression changed at the same time as Meera felt another fluttering sensation. "It's actually in there," he said with an expression of amazement on his face.

"The dream must have woke the child up too," she said.

"Was it the same dream?"

"No, this one was different. Jojen was still there, but he wasn't alone. Devan was with him."

"Devan? Do you think that means something? Hopefully, he's doing all right."

"I don't know. But I think Jon Snow was there too. Although I only met him once, when he came to the swamp and tried to kill a baby crocodile."

"Jon and Devan are both by the wall. Maybe the dream is trying to tell you something about them."

"There was also a third man there... But I didn't recognize him. He was tall, with a bushy red beard and dressed all in fur."

Her husband gave her a weird look. "Tormund," he said. "I fought next to him against the dead. He's a wildling, but he's a good man. After the war, he went back beyond the wall, but he might be with Jon now."

"I don't know him, so how could I see him?"

"I don't know..."

"It must mean something. But I don't know what."

She laid back down and thought of her dream. Both her and her husband's hands still rested on her belly, feeling the bubbling movements of their child.

Somehow she felt the presence of Jojen more intensely than ever. It was like he had actually been there in the dream. Like she could have reached out and touched him.

***

Devan stretched out his hand toward the boy's shoulder to assure himself that he was real, and not an apparition. The skin felt rough and hard, like bark, but Jojen definitely was there and he gave Devan an odd look as he kept poking and prodding.

"What are you doing, boy?" Tormund asked. "Don't touch him. He might be cursed."

Quickly Devan pulled his hand back. His curiosity had got ahead of his caution. That happened quite often to Devan.

That's probably why he had fathered a bastard child.

"I'm not cursed," the boy said and looked over at Devan. The red eyes didn't make the statement sound convincing.

"That's exactly what someone who's cursed would say!" Tormund exclaimed and took a step backward.

Devan tried to retreat too but fell over a root in his hurry. His ankle twisted in a painful way as he tumbled on the ground. With a whimper, he sat down.

"Can you two morons try to control yourselves?" Jon said with a sigh and crouched down in front of Jojen.

Devan and Tormund for once became silent.

"Your sister said you died, so how are you alive?" he asked the boy.

"I did die," Jojen said. "Just like you did, Jon Snow."

Devan looked at Jon in confusion, he had not heard about this incident. "You died?" he asked. Jon looked down at the ground and ignored Devan's question.

"How do you know that?" Jon growled at Jojen.

"I know a lot of things," the boy answered. "And you know nothing, Jon Snow."

As he heard those words Jon finally looked up. In his eyes was bewilderment, like the words had shaken him to the core.

"I know who told you that," Jojen continued, his red eyes focused on an invisible spot in the distance. "And I know that the red woman brought you back to life."

"And who brought you back?" Jon asked.

"The tree brought me back. When I died the children of the forest told my sister that my body was destroyed so that I wouldn't walk again. But it was actually transported down to the roots of the tree. The tree keeps things safe from turning, that's why none of the creatures who died in this area has been turned. And it kept me safe too. Because the tree needed me if things went wrong..."

"If what went wrong?"

"Bran. Bran went wrong. He flew too high and he turned to anger."

Jon looked down again, covering his head in his hands for a moment. The information seemed hard for him to comprehend. "Bran is my brother," he said. "What do you mean? How did he go wrong?"

"The old gods are good," Jojen said. "They aim to protect this world and everything that lives in it. And that's why they're angry. Because humans are ruining it. They've killed the giants, the children of the forests, and countless other things that used to live here. The three-eyed raven's purpose is to help this world restore itself. But Bran wanted to fly. He wanted to know everything at once. He stayed in his dreams for too long and he fell to the darkness."

"The darkness? What do you mean?"

"The darkness is the knowledge of what the best solution is to save this world. It's to end humanity. That's how the rest of the world can thrive."

"And the army of the dead? How do they play into this?"

"They're a manifestation of the darkness. Bran became part of them. He became the darkness. And they were coming to Winterfell to join him. The combination of their strength and his powers would have been unstoppable. Humanity wouldn't have stood a chance. Now he's left on his own to complete their mission of ending humanity. Or letting humanity end itself rather. He's setting up all the pieces for that to happen."

Devan nodded. It all made sense with what he had seen in the capital. The king wasn't a human. He was pure darkness and destruction.

"But you don't want that?" he asked Jojen.

"I don't. I speak for the tree and the tree still has hope. It still thinks that both humanity and the rest of the world can be saved. It still thinks that humans can be good."

"So what are you exactly? Are you alive?" Tormund asked. He still didn't seem convinced that Jojen wasn't some kind of cursed ghost.

"I'm part of the tree," Jojen said like that was an obvious answer. "So I guess I am alive. As alive as the tree is at least. My greenseer ability made me suitable for the task of speaking for the tree since I will be able to hear it. But my injuries were too severe for me to be fully reanimated. I can't leave this place. So I had to wait for you to come to me so I could tell you what the tree wants you to know."

"So do you have the same abilities as Bran?" Jon asked.

"No, only the Three-eyed Raven has abilities to see the past and the future, "Jojen replied. "But the tree shares its knowledge with me through dreams. Sometimes people who have died appear in them and tells me things. And I can reach my sister Meera through the trees and share my dreams with her since she has a bit of the same ability I had. She's the only one Bran can't reach so that's why I only communicate with her."

"Why can't he get to her?" Devan asked, still cradling his hurt ankle. "Meera suspected he couldn't but she didn't know why."

"Because Bran loves her;" Jojen replied. "When the darkness took over his mind Bran protected his love for her. She's the only part of him that's light. That's why he can't see her, no matter how deep he looks. But the more he tries the more he gives in to the darkness."

"So was it you who told her to bring weirwood branches with her to Storm's End. I saw her pick them after she had her vision when we were in the swamp."

"Yes, that was me. Meera will need weirwood to defeat the darkness. And wherever there are weirwoods I can talk to her. Although I can share my dreams with her now even when she's not touching the tree since the child she carries also has some of the same ability she has."

"Meera's with child?" Devan asked. "I guess my child will have a playmate then..."

Jojen nodded. "She's carrying the child that Bran wants to prevent from being born. The child who will rule us all and bring peace into the realm."

"The child will be king?" Jon asked.

"Not a king, but a queen," Jojen replied. "A wise and strong queen. The last queen."

Jojen closed his red eyes. His breath was suddenly labored. "You need to protect her," he said. "You need to march down to the capital with as many men as possible."

"What will happen there?" Jon asked.

Jojen's head hung towards his chest now. "You'll know once you get there," he wheezed. "That's all I have to tell you. My body is too broken to talk any longer. Whatever else I'II find out I will tell Meera in her dreams."

Then he became quiet. Eerily quiet.

Jon stretched out his hand and touched the boy's chest. "He's still breathing," he said. "He's still alive. Or whatever he is..."

"Should we wait until he wakes up to tell us more?" Devan asked.

"He said he didn't have more to tell us," Jon said.

"We can make camp here for the night," Tormund said. "To see if he wakes up. In the meantime, we can burn the bodies. Tomorrow we'll leave and go back."

"I can't walk far on this ankle," Devan said as he tried to put weight on his leg.

"There's a wildling village not long from here," Tormund said. "If we can make our way there we can find some transportation back to the wall from there. Perhaps a mammoth for you, seabird."

Tormund decided to go look for some firewood and left Devan and Jon by the tree, pondering over whatever they had just been told. Devan looked over Jon, who sat staring into nothing.

"Do you believe what he told us?" Devan asked.

"I don't know," Jon said. "I don't know what to believe."

"Jojen knew things he shouldn't know:"

"So did Bran. How do I know that Jojen isn't the imposter?"

"I guess we can't know, Jon. But I trust Meera, so I trust Jojen. I know she saw things in her dreams. That must have been her brother sending messages to her."

"I know you trust Meera, Devan. But I don't know her. I only met her once. She tried to feed me to a crocodile. Why would I believe her, or Jojen, over my own brother?

"Because the king's not your brother. Your brother is gone, Jon."

Jon looked over at Devan and shook his head. In his eyes were anger and sadness.

"You keep saying that," he snapped. "But I can't accept it. I've lost two brothers already. Do you know what it's like to lose a brother, Devan?"

Devan got up from the ground, limping slightly on his injured ankle. "Yes," he said, no hint of joking or sarcasm to his voice. "I do know what it's like to lose a brother. You're not the only one who lost someone in the war, Jon. But I rather admit that my brother is dead than tell myself stories to avoid the truth."

He turned around and limped after Tormund. Jon was left with his thoughts by the tree. "Sorry," he mumbled as Devan left.

***

That night smoke loomed around the giant weirwood tree. Smoke from pyres burning the dead left behind long ago. Finally, they would get to rest.

Jojen rested too. But he still breathed. He still lived. Or whatever his existence could be called.

And that night Meera saw smoke in her dreams.

Author's Note: Yes, luckily Jojen is an exposition machine...

And hopefully, I didn't butcher all the lore of the show and the books completely with this chapter :)