endlessdel | (no subject)

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bran

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She hesitated, fingertips twisting at the hem of the long sleeves covering her arms. Fidgeting, she tucked herself behind a tree sighing at the unfamiliar and unpleasant sensation in her stomach. Twisting and fluttery and despairing but happy too. She clutched the box to her chest, hugging it tightly as she glanced down and stared at bare, chubby feet. Looking up Del smiled vaguely at her older sister blowing a kiss towards her.

You are nervous Sister, that is all. Stop treading into my realm or I will keep you here.

She nodded, squirming in the formal dress before she ignored the fluttery, despairing feeling and her sister before she creeped around the tree. Wandering down the path, she tugged the hem of her dress up as she skipped from place to place. It was the sight of an unknown boy that made her slow down. And she stopped suddenly, freezing in place with wide eyes before she lifted her fingers and wriggled them in greeting.

Sucking in her breath, she smiled and took a step closer trying not to fidget in the dress.

"Hi," Del said smiling as she tugged the box to her chest, hugging it close. Ignoring the way her sister, nottherenotthere, brushed a kiss against her ear. "Hello."

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Bran blinked at her.

He looked openly and exceedingly skeptical.

"Are you trying to tell me you're one of the Seven," he asked, and no matter how courteous he was trying to be his voice was flatly disbelieving. "That you're- the Maiden."

Delirium smiled at the look of disbelief and skepticism. Turning her head, Del laughed at who he thought she was before shaking her head.

"No, I'm not the Maiden. The Maiden is a God and Gods fade and Gods die, I don't. I'm one of Seven, the oldest seven in all of the realms. I'm Endless, I'm one of the Endless." Delirium said simply. Delirium reached her necklace and removed it, holding it out for Bran to see each of the six charms she had left. The sigils of her family, all there except her own. "Seven siblings, older and more powerful than Gods. Seven siblings who have existed since before time began and will exist after it all ends. Seven siblings named Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair and me. Why did you think I was the Maiden?"

Bran's fingers tensed around the tub in his lap and his whole body unconsciously drew back to settle into something tense and wary as he stared at her like she was a mystery, but a dangerous one. "Because you're not old enough to be the Mother or the Crone...so there was only one left..."

He shook his as though that would settle her jumble of words into a neat explanation. "No, that's. No. There's only six things there, anyway, and you can't just..." He bit his lip hard enough to hurt. Destiny and Death and Destruction and Despair and bad things, they were bad things, and he didn't know what to do. "Don't pretend, it's not a joke. So stop pretending."

"Robb has the seventh, I wanted to protect him so I gave it to him. I gave him mine to keep him safe, I love him and I want... I don't want him to ever hurt. Not ever," Del replied simply, looking at Bran Stark so very softly before reaching out. She held her hand out before dropping it away, she looked at him gently but her face so often wild and free was serious and sane. "Will it help you Bran Stark if I lie to you?"

Delirium looked at him seriously, curling her hand into a fist before hanging the sigils around her neck again carefully. "Because if it makes you happy I will do that, I can't change who I am but I can pretend if it makes it easier for you."

"No. No." He looked away from her and concentrated on Summer, smoothing his fur down and looking into his direwolf's eyes as he tried to compose himself. If she were really dangerous, Summer would know and he would rip her throat out. Grey Wind too, he's been watching out for Robb this whole time.

Bran wondered what he would smell if he could go into Summer, if she smelled like a person or...something else. She sounded kind, she sounded like she loved Robb even if she didn't want to marry him. And Theon Greyjoy had sat at their table for years and years before he took Winterfell and tried to hunt down him and Rickon.

"Gods aren't people," he told her as he looked at her feet instead of her face. "You can't meet them. They don't make sweets."

Mortals were confusing at times, Bran didn't want her to lie to him it seemed but didn't want to believe the truth about her either. It would have been easier if she could have shown him but the island limited her which she was grateful for most days. She couldn't have had a lifetime if her living had effected the island around her.

"I'm not a God, I'm a member of the Endless." Delirium replied, running a hand through her hair. She ducked her head down as Bran stared at her feet and tried to meet Bran's eyes with her own mismatched ones. "The island makes us human, it takes away powers and magic and turns us into people. And I like making sweets it makes people happy, I like making people happy it reminds me of who I used to be."

"That doesn't sound any different from a god," he retorted, because it was easy to be stubborn about this. He'd had to accept so many impossible things in the past day and here was finally a place to dig his heels in.

Bran stared penetratingly at her like she was a weirwood tree and if he looked hard enough she'd reveal her true face. There was something of the wolf in him as well as the boy. He wanted Jojen or Maester Luwin to be here and explain it to him.

"Which are you then? If your brothers and sisters are Death and Despair and Destruction?"

"It is, it might not sound different but it is." Del replied simply, she was used to stubborn brothers but usually they were related to her. Delirium sat with her legs, tucked beneath her and her dress spread out. Placing her elbows on her thighs, she dropped her head to her hands and stared back at Bran smiling at him as he stared at her quite intently. "Eat your ice cream Bran Stark and I will tell you or it will melt and won't be as peachy keen."

Delirium smoothed the dress down, offering her palm to Summer before going to scratch behind Summer's ears. "I was Delight when I was younger. Then I changed. I liked being happiness though, some days I feel like that again. Robb makes me feel like that. And Reynald and the twins and meeting you even if you don't believe me."

She was so calm and cheerful in the face of his obstinacy, it was easy to see why Robb would like her. Bran softened, a little. It was clear from the way Summer leaned into the petting that he didn't think she was dangerous. He could be as suspicious and protective of his brother as he wanted, but maybe he could be courteous at the same time. That's what Mother would say to do.

Bran ate another spoonful while he listened and tried to keep his expression neutral. "What did you do, if you were endless? Listen to peoples' prayers?"

Delirium leaned forward, blowing a soft woof of breath in Summer's face before smiling at him and scratching him beneath his chin. Scrunching her nose up, Del turned her head towards Bran and thought about his question. Sometimes she was like sissy, Death could have explained this much easier to him without him getting upset or hurt. It was hard to be hurt with Death when she was so calm and cheerful and perky.

"Mostly I existed," Delirium said wondering if he would understand that. Bran Stark was clever, much cleverer than her stick-in-the-butt brother. "Wherever and whenever people needed me. Not in their prayers but in themselves, it's harder with who I was to explain. Sissy is better at explaining it, she's... she is my big sister, she makes everything better even if people don't like her very much. She's Death, that means she is everywhere a life ends and everywhere one is created. What did you do Bran Stark?"

"Death doesn't make everything better," Bran shot back fiercely and quietly furious and remembered Maester Luwin's dying eyes and burned bodies in the yard where he'd played. But he also remembered the grisly satisfaction of Summer when he tore the throat out of a deer and got to enjoy his kill.

He was still frowning when he stuck the spoon into his ice cream and took another bite. "We were going to see the three-eyed crow. I rode on Hodor's back. And I- climbed. Before. And took lessons."

"She's my sister, my big sister, of course she makes everything better for me. Doesn't yours?" Delirium replied, tickling beneath Summer's chin before patting her lap trying to encourage him to come over so she could pet him properly. She did not think Bran Stark would take too well to her petting him. "Yatagarasu? No, wait.... he had three legs not three eyes. The Corinthian had teeth for eyes and he wasn't a crow. Matthew was a crow, he could talk but he didn't have three eyes. Why were you going to see him?"

That flummoxed him and took the wind out of his anger's sails. "Well- yes-" He said uncertainly. Arya was-or had been- his playmate, Sansa and he had been giddy together over going to King's Landing. But Death wasn't supposed to be anyone's sister.

"He was going to teach me greenseeing..." Bran was quiet for a long moment and looked at his useless feet. His voice was smaller and though he tried to keep his face as still and neutral as a man grown Bran didn't manage it. "He was going to give me my legs back."

"It's just the same human, mortal, God or Endless." Delirium replied simply, bending over to sniff Summer and giving him a soft tickle before she looked up at Bran and the small sound of his voice. She could feel the sharp, bitter, metallic taste of her sister's hook and she reached out to hug Bran before hesitating. "Bran Stark... can I give you a hug now? You can say no if you like but I would like to hug you. I can't- I can't give you your legs back in this mortal body but I could hug you. It always makes me feel better when Robb hugs me."

Edited 2012-10-10 21:04 (UTC)

Bran hesitated, torn, and Summer took that time to lean forward and lick a wet stripe against her cheek. He hadn't realized until now that he'd be the broken boy here, too, just as if he'd never gone north at all. Crippled, broken, useless. For a moment he hated himself so much he could choke.

He nodded, then, and asked quietly. "Could you have? Could you have fixed them?"

Summer's tongue was wet against her cheek and Delirium scrunched up her nose before turning her head suddenly to place a kiss against his nose. Stroking his head fondly, Del smiled at Summer. He was a good Big Puppy, he looked after his human just like Barnabas looked after her.

Turning her attention to Bran she smiled softly at him before sitting up properly, standing she scrunched down before wrappning her arms around Bran Stark in a hug. Reaching a hand up to smooth his hair, an errant mother gesture or an errant Delirium gesture, Del nodded her head gently.

"Yes," Del replied, careful not to knock the ice cream over into his lap. Changing reality, changing the shape of a man was easy she had done it with nightmares and demons and people before but being Delirium, being Insanity again meant that she might not have wanted to. If she became Delirium again she might not recognise her own children let alone Robb or Bran.

His head against her shoulder, Bran closed his eyes and sighed softly at the touch to his hair. After a moment he wrapped his arms around her and held her back.

So close, he'd got so close to the three-eyed crow's cave. Maybe the wights would have killed him but maybe he would have got there and been fixed like a toy that needed mending. Then he could be here with his siblings and whole again; he would climb every strange tree and run with Summer down until they splashed into the sea. "I miss them."

Bran felt tears welling in his eyes but tried to blink them back. He didn't want Robb's lady to think him a baby as well as a cripple.

"I know Bran Stark," Del replied, brushing his hair gently and smoothing it back from his face. Hugging Bran tightly, Del went to play with his hair before stopping her twitchy fingers. Smiling softly, a little sadly, Del leaned back and ignored the way his eyes watered before sitting back a little. "There are things and people here unlike your home maybe they can help even if it is just a little and even if they can't then I will give you as many hugs as you like. Or make Robb hug you. Okies?"

"Thank you. For the ice cream too. And...making Robb happy." It took another sigh to compose himself as he scratched Summer's ears but then managed to give her a small if rueful smile. It was hard to look at this lady and imagine her as an endless, boundless god, but none of it felt like a lie.

"They said I could use the wheeled chair for now. It's for a grown up, but I like it."

Delirium smiled up at Bran Stark before giving him a fond play of his hair. Sitting back down, she straightened her skirt before looking at him with a more pleased, relaxed smile.

"Ohoh really, well then Bran Stark I know two very small children who would love to have races with you when you are ready." Delirium said knowing that the twins would probably, like their mother, want to crawl all over Bran in an attempt to play with his hair. "What's your chair like? Is it colourful?"

He reached to touch his hair as though he could understand what made it so good for ruffling. It'd got long on the journey north.

"I don't know what Reynald thinks of me," Bran confessed as he took a bite of the ice cream before holding out the spoon to her in case she wanted any. It was hard to see him and think of him as Robb's son, as his own nephew. Bran looked at him and his heart hurt for Rickon. "It's shiny metal, not colorful. And light enough to carry. We don't have anything like it at home."

Delirium leaned forward taking a large bite from the spoon before smiling at Bran. She almost went to offer him a sweet for sharing with her when she realised that Bran was not as little as the twins or Reynald.

"He will love you because you are his uncle and he will love you even more if you talk about dragons. He likes dragons. But I was not talking about Reynald, I meant Abby and Daniel they will love you too." Delirium replied never one for filtering what should be told and when or appropriate topics of conversation. Delirium even now, even saner and happier still thought of present things before their implications. "I could make it prettier for you, make it colourful if you wanted."

"Really, dragons?" Bran could not blame him. He'd hung on his father's descriptions of the dragon skulls that used to hang in the Red Keep during the Mad King's reign.

He smiled back, only a little tentative, but then his expression turned a little puzzled. "I don't think I know them," Bran said, politely, but there was comfort in knowing that he'd know of any additional Stark babes on the island. "Perhaps? The maester doctors say they might find someone to make a chair in my size."

"There's a dragon here, his name is Toothless and he's very sweet. My brother had dragons, they used to like to pick me up in their teeth. That was very fun," Delirium replied seriously with a smile as Bran looked at her puzzled. Del made an oh face before shaking her head when she realised what he might think. "Oh, they're mine. I wanted you to meet me first and then maybe later, if you liked me, you could meet the twins. I know they'll like you."

Delirium clasped her hands together as she thought about who in particular could help Bran Stark. And he did so hate her, which of course meant that he would want to avoid her.

"Ohoh I know someone who might help maybe... who is the Needleman? Is it Chase?" Delirium asked curiously.

His eyes widened. "There's really a dragon here?" Bran asked slowly. "Here, really? Does it breathe fire?" Then he frowned in confusion and opened his mouth to ask her a question before pausing again and contorted his face into something resembling courteous again. It was difficult to do when what he wanted to do was ask all kinds of impolite questions, but he more or less managed. He'd save his questions for Jon or Arya later. "Oh. Of course."

She was widowed, maybe, or her husband had disappeared like Robb's Jeyne Westerling. That wouldn't be so strange. It was just...different. Sansa would know how to act about all this. "How old are they?"

"I don't know what a needleman is?" Bran looked uncertain. "Doctor Leonard helped me with my frostbite."