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Chapter Eleven

The weather grew cold, winter must be truly coming, or its because she and her crippled brother are stepping closer and closer each day towards the North, Bran had not yet to decided where he wanted to go, but Lyanna knew he will soon decide he'll want to go up North. Lyanna hid behind the tree as she kept her eyes on a deer, she had Bran's bow and arrow ready, she stood sideways as she was ready to shoot the deer. She eyed over to the left, spotted the Reed girl in position in the distance, and she signalled that she was ready.

Lyanna fired an arrow, an arrow struck into deer's leg, running off, limping, still too fast, but limping. Meera ran after it and then Lyanna whistled to signal Visenya. The direwolf ran pass her and went to chase the deer. Lyanna chased where the deer ran off to. She found Meera first with net in her hands while Visenya wounded the deer. Lyanna told her wolf to get off, when the wolf listened, Meera immediately caught the deer with her net, pulled out her knife and then stabbed it few times.

"Visenya and Summer can have the rabbits" Meera said as she wrapped the deer with her net. "this could last us a week" She pulled the rope and dragged the dead animal back to Bran and Jojen. Meera and Lyanna laughed together as they were both happy that they caught a deer.

"You run fast than I" Lyanna told her.

"You shoot well, my lady" Meera handed Lyanna another rope so they can drag the deer quick and easy.

"We're not in Winterfell, Meera" Stark girl reminded, "call me Lyanna. I'm not a princess anymore, or Lady of Winterfell"

"You still are," Meera told her, "And yes, I'll call you Lyanna if you like"

They were far from Winterfell already, it must've been forth to sixth day since Lyanna left her home. It was like the very first time in her life that she left Winterfell, she doesn't remember leaving her home before, she wasn't born there, she and her twin brother, Robb were born in Riverrun. Even Bran never left Winterfell, they spent their lives in Winterfell.
Bran, Jojen and Hodor will be delighted when Lyanna and Meera show up with a deer. Bran complained a lot about eating frogs behind Jojen and Meera's backs, Lyanna told him the frog was filled with protein and will keep him going. So Lyanna went hunting every morning to look for food, or any animal she could find. The snares only caught rabbits once every day, Lyanna would go check the snares first before going hunting.

As they approached into the abandoned tower at mid-noon, they went inside... "Hodor, hodor, hodor, hodor, hodor," Lyanna could hear Hodor as they approached close. She saw Hodor shaking Bran who was sleeping. He shook him softly by the shoulders, back and forth and back and forth.

"It's happening again" Meera said to Lyanna. She knew Bran could be in the mind of Summer's, Lyanna hasn't know how to enter her own wolf's mind, she didn't know how at all.

"NO!" Bran shouted and woke up angrily. "Hodor, leave off, I'm here, I'm here."

Hodor stopped, looking abashed. "Hodor?"

"Brandon!" Lyanna said like in their mother's tone, it was like Bran was beginning to like to be in Summer's mind...like it was an addiction.

Down in the damp vault of some ancient watchtower that must have been abandoned thousands of years before. It wasn't much of a tower now. Even the tumbled stones were so overgrown with moss and ivy that you could hardly see them until you were right on top of them. "Tumbledown Tower", Bran had named the place; it was Meera who found the way down into the vault, however.

"You were gone too long." Jojen Reed was thirteen, near fourteen, only four years older than Bran. Lyanna was almost a woman, nearly sixteen. Jojen wasn't much bigger either, no more than two inches or maybe three, but he had a solemn way of talking that made him seem older and wiser than he really was, and tall as Lyanna. At Winterfell, Old Nan had dubbed him "little grandfather."

Bran frowned at him. "I wanted to eat."

"Good news, Lyanna and Meera are here with supper."

"I'm sick of frogs." Bran complained. Meera was a frogeater from the Neck, so Lyanna couldn't really blame her for catching so many frogs, she supposed, but even so . . . Bran frowned again "I wanted to eat the deer."

"And you will eat one" Jojen slightly smiled at him.

Lyanna let go of the rope as Meera moved the deer in the middle. "Hodor! Hodor!" Hodor jumped up excitedly.

Bran smiled immediately when he saw the dead deer. "You caught one finally" he said.

"Hard to find one these days" Lyanna put the bow down beside Bran, "Took me hours to track it...since I woke up. You said you were eating a deer"

Bran nodded, "I was...but the wolves has it now.

"Did you mark the trees?" Jojen questioned.

Bran flushed. Jojen was always telling him to do things when he opened his third eye and put on Summer's skin. To claw the bark of a tree, to catch a rabbit and bring it back in his jaws uneaten, to push some rocks in a line. "I forgot," he said.

"You always forget."

Lyanna would go back out there and find Summer. It would be easy since Visenya was here, Lyanna would just follow her that will lead her to Summer, she finds Summer, she finds another deer, and they would be lucky enough to last for few weeks.

"I was a prince, Jojen," he told the older boy. "I was the prince of the woods."

"You are a prince," Jojen reminded him softly. "You remember, don't you? Tell me who you are."

"You know." Jojen was Bran's friend and his teacher, but sometimes Bran just wanted to hit him, what he told Lyanna.

"I want you to say the words. Tell me who you are."

"Bran," he said sullenly. "Brandon Stark. The Prince of Winterfell."

Winterfell was gone, burned and trembled. The glass gardens were smashed, and hot water gushed from the cracked walls to steam beneath the sun. How can you be the princess of someplace you might never see again?

"And who is Summer?" Jojen prompted.

"My direwolf." He smiled. "Prince of the green."

"Bran the boy and Summer the wolf. You are two, then?"

"Two," he sighed, "and one."

"Remember that, Bran. Remember yourself, or the wolf will consume you. When you join, it is not enough to run and hunt and howl in Summer's skin."

Lyanna sometimes reminds Bran who he is, if Bran goes out for too long, he will forget who he is. She let Jojen take over...

"Will you remember? And next time, mark the tree. Any tree, it doesn't matter, so long as you do it."

"I will. I'll remember. I could go back and do it now, if you like. I won't forget this time."

Jojen shook his head. "No. Best stay, and eat. With your own mouth. A warg cannot live on what his beast consumes."

Meera Reed was sixteen, a woman grown, but she stood no higher than her brother. All the crannogmen were small, she told Bran once when he asked why she wasn't taller. Brown-haired, green-eyed, and flat as a boy, she walked with a supple grace that Bran could only watch and envy. Meera wore a long sharp dagger, but her favorite way to fight was with a slender three-pronged frog spear in one hand and a woven net in the other.

"We have to skin the deer first" Meera said,

"I'm hungry," Bran whined and impatient. Lyanna too was hungry.

"We'll eat the trout and frogs for now" Reed girl said, "then we'll skin the deer. We'll have deer tomorrow, or tonight"

Back at Winterfell before all the bad things had happened, the Walders used to say that eating frogs would turn your teeth green and make moss grow under your arms. She wondered if the Walders were dead. She hadn't seen their corpses at Winterfell . . . but there had been a lot of corpses, and they hadn't looked inside the buildings.

Lyanna went out to get wood to build a fire, and Jojen insisted to come along. Bran, Meera and Hodor were in the below tower to clean the trout and frogs. She knew why Jojen wanted to come along to get wood, he wanted to speak with her... Maybe ask about wolf dreams again, tell her she has to open her eye more wider, or something...

"What is it now, Jojen?" She asked as they stepped into the woods.

"It's Bran" the boy said.

"Yes, I know he spends his time mostly wearing Summer's skin" She blurted, she found a few of woods on the ground, "I'm worried too"

"It's not that"

Lyanna slightly kicked the woods towards Jojen so he can pick them up. "What about Bran then?"

"His dreams about the three-eyed crow are not going to stop" Jojen said.

She began to chop off large wood in half with Meera's axe, "They'll stop until he knows how to fly, is it?"

"No" Jojen replied, "The three-eyed crow won't stop coming to him until Bran comes to him"

That was the answer she was afraid of, she didn't want Bran to go further into the North, she didn't want him to go beyond the Wall. Gods know what is at beyond the Wall. Lyanna stopped chopping when the wood split, she sighed "This is why I decided to come with Bran..." She turned around and looked at Jojen, "I don't want him to go up the North just to find this three-eyed crow... What if there is no three-eyed crow?"

"There is, he is there, I saw him in my dreams" Jojen said, "It's no coincidence that Bran and I see the same one, he dreams the same one every night and day. The three-eyed crow wants Bran to come to him"

"If this crow appears in Bran's dreams, why can't it teach him how to fly then?"

"It's not that simple"

"It's not that simple" Lyanna half laughed and then continue to chop the wood, "It's not that damn simple to travel up the North to find this thing. It's a long journey, and dangerous"

"Bran will live miserably for the rest of his life, the crow came to him for a reason, he gave him the abilities for a reason" Jojen said, "he's a broken boy, he won't be a broken boy anymore when we find the three-eye crow. He'll be better than the rest of us, better than a knight perhaps. Do you wish to let him stay like this for the rest of his life?"

Lyanna stopped, the words struck her, Bran is indeed broken, he will never be happy...

"You're his eldest" the boy said, "That's why I'm here and ask you that once Bran decides he wants to find the crow, will you let him go?"

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