Well, this is something I never thought I'd be doing any time soon. I haven't published fanfiction of any kind in over five years but Breera ideas has been gnawing away at me ever since I became convinced of the ships existence during Bran and Meera's scenes in Season 6 Episode 6 Blood of My Blood. That and I also need a way to keep my Game of Thrones fix until Season 7 comes out next year so the result is this.

It goes without saying that I own nothing. All rights go to D&D and GRRM, etc etc.

"Promise me Ned. Promise me . . ."

With the dying words of the aunt he never knew echoing through his reeling mind, Bran felt himself rushing inexorably forwards from the Tower of Joy through the fickle, twining strands of the past back into his broken body in the desolate, frigid wasteland of the mundane present. His eyes, milky white and expressionless rolled back from inside his skull to look out on the world again, returned to their normal shade of brown, unfocused and blinking rapidly as the young Stark gazed up at the canopy the Heart Tree's red leaves gently fluttering above him in the winter breeze.

Bran began to gasp and greedily gulp down the chilly air like a half drowned man, breath steaming in the cold as he struggled to remember where, when and who he was. Dimly he remembered one of the Three-Eyed Raven's many cryptic lessons about the gift of the Greensight he possessed, what was it that the infuriating old man had said? "It is beautiful beneath the sea, but stay too long and you'll drown", his onetime teacher had perfected the art of speaking in riddles and cryptic half truths to an art form. Always the old Greenseer was answering one of Bran's many questions while posing two new ones for him to puzzle over.

But now he too was dead. Dead like the last of the Children, wiped out at last by their out of control experiment, dead like Summer who died protecting his master without a moment's hesitation, dead like Jojen Reed who never faltered even when he knew he was walking inexorably to his own doom, dead like Hodor whose mind Bran had accidentally broken as the Three-Eyed Raven attempted to confer all of his knowledge and ancient wisdom to Bran even as his catastrophic error had drawn the Army of the Dead and their cold King to their hidden sanctuary like insects to honey. Sweet, gentle, innocent Hodor whose wits had been shattered so that he could be there to hold the door against a numberless horde of wights with his great strength long enough for Meera to make good their escape, dragging Bran's crippled body behind her like a sack of potatoes as he remained insensible to the world even as the cold winds of the White Walker's howled around them.

The crunching of light footfalls in the snow pulled him out of his melancholy thoughts and Bran's heart gladdened to see his redoubtable companion, Meera Reed striding towards him. It was much darker than when he had last seen the Crannog huntress, pulling his hand out of her grasp and placing it onto the face roughly carved by unknown hands in a forgotten era into the living bark of the Heart Tree's ancient trunk. The days were getter ever shorter and the nights colder and longer but enough weak shafts of the sun's light trickled down through the clouds and trees for Bran to be able to just make out her pale face, framed by a riot of dark, tumbling curls.

She knelt beside him, concern writ upon her features as she took his hands in hers. For a long moment, Bran couldn't do anything but focus on how good her nimble, callused hands felt in his as she rubbed warmth into his cold, stiff fingers. With a small grunt of exertion, she helped him to sit up with his back propped up against the Weirwood.

"Are you alright, Bran?" she asked him "you've been out for over an hour"

"I'm fine Meera" he reassured her, she was always concerned for his wellbeing despite his mistakes and useless legs and for that, Bran would be forever grateful to her.

"What happened, what did you see?"

"I saw . . ." the full significance of what he had witnessed in the Tower of Joy came back to him in a heady rush. The death of the legendary Ser Arthur Dayne at the hands of Howland Reed and Eddard Stark, his aunt Lyanna lying on a blood sodden bed, her infant son who Bran now knew to be his cousin, Jon Snow and the promise she made his father swear to keep his identity a secret to protect the boy from the wrath of Robert Baratheon. How do you even begin to explain something like what Bran had just seen?

"I saw my Father and Aunt on the day she died. I saw how she died"

"Lyanna Stark? My own father said he was there with Lord Stark but he would never speak of what happened that day"

"She died in giving birth to a son, Meera. Rhaegar Targaryen's son" Bran paused as Meera absorbed the enormity what he had told her.

"Prince Rhaegar's son?" she said in wonder, putting the pieces together "then . . . that would make him heir to the Iron Throne! What did your Lord Father do with the boy to hide him away?"

"He kept him hidden in plain sight, passing him off as his own bastard son, my 'brother' Jon Snow".

"That's incredible Bran!" exclaimed Meera "Did you find out if Rhaegar and Lyanna were married before he was born?"

"No, she . . . died before she could tell my father"

"Oh Bran, if he isn't a Snow then your family is directly linked to the Targaryens!"

Bran considered the enormous political ramifications this had for the North before he remembered what he had heard about the wider world at large from Maester Luwin before Theon had turned his cloak and seized Winterfell, cutting off all information from outside the North.

"House Targaryen is all but extinct; the last of them was married off to some Dothraki warlord somewhere in Essos. I doubt she'll be coming to Westeros any time soon if she is even still alive." So much had happened since the Sack of Winterfell that Bran was uncertain about what was happening south of the Wall beyond what he glimpsed in his waking dreams or in half-seen flashes whilst Greenseeing.

Certainly years had gone by but how long exactly was a mystery to him. In the far North learning under the tutelage of the Three-Eyed Raven in his cave, the passage of time became near meaningless to a Greenseer. Enough time for him to be on the cusp on manhood certainly. If his legs weren't useless and broken, Bran had a feeling that he could have towered over Meera despite the Crannog girl being several years older than he.

Bran considered Jon's difficult relationship with his family, his mother in particular. In hindsight, Bran realized that his father had publicly sullied his own honor by "fathering" the bastard and raising him in Winterfell in order to protect his nephew from the rage and hatred his old friend, Robert held for all Targaryens. More so than any other time since his father had been executed, Bran felt a pang of fierce love for Eddard Stark and sorrow for his Lord Father's ill fated end.

Gods, I miss you so much Father.

"We have to tell Jon!" said Bran determinedly. "He'll be at Castle Black and Uncle Benjen only left us half a day's travel from the tunnel gate there."

"That's half a day's travel with a sled we don't have any more" said Meera dejectedly. Both of them were silent at the unsaid "or Hodor to pull it". Meera was the strongest and toughest woman Bran knew aside from Osha but he knew he was heavier than he looked and the prospect of dragging him there herself was a daunting one for Meera at best. Bran chewed his lower lip in concentration, trying to figure a way around the problem before a thought struck him.

"Perhaps if I could warg into an animal big enough to carry us both, we could make it to Castle Black by midday provided we start early."

Meera brightened up at this "Sounds good enough. I'll build us a fire then, my Prince". Bran's heart lifted when she rewarded him with one of her brilliant smiles and he couldn't help but grin at the teasing, lighthearted way she had called him "my Prince". Such formalities had lost their meaning to them out here where the nobility of the Seven Kingdoms was irrelevant. Her smiles were infectious and it had been far too long since he had last seen one grace her pretty face. Ever since Jojen's death and what had happened in the Cave, her countenance had been as grim and cold as the land that surrounded them but now they were headed south towards civilization and relative safety behind the Wall, the mood both of them shared was cautiously optimistic.

Soon enough, Meera had bought forth a small blaze that crackled and spat loudly in the night air. As the darkness deepened, the fire cast long, flickering shadows that danced in the orange light and above them the sky was all but cloudless, speckled with too many stars to count and a waxing moon rose into the night sky. Meera remarked on this as a good omen.

"White Walkers bring the cold with them. They must be far off if the weather is this clear." Bran could attest to that. He still remembered the unnatural, bitterly cold blizzard that had swirled around them when Uncle Benjen had plucked them from the jaws of certain death at the hands of the wights after their flight from the Cave. That was the coldest he had ever been in his life. Benjen had said that the Walkers summoned up the storms to hide their movements and to sap the strength of the people they preyed on. Benjen had told them about how he had seen from afar, the Night King use this power at a place called Hardhome while shadowing the Army of the Dead to devastating effect against the Wildlings who had lived there.

As they sat together under the Heart Tree, enjoying the warmth they chewed on some strips of dried rabbit meat that Benjen had given them and some pine nuts that Meera had managed to root up from the hard ground. It was meager fare but compared to the moss they had been eating in the Cave of the Three-Eyed Raven it was a veritable feast. Bran thought it was a pity that they didn't have a pot or skin to cook with but they weren't starving to death and that was the important thing.

Their hunger satisfied for the moment, Meera shuffled over to Bran and sidled up next to him beneath the Weirwood tree. Bran felt his stomach flip as she wrapped an arm around him, pulling him close to her.

"W-what are you doing?" he said uncertainly. This was not unwelcome, far from it but definitely unexpected.

"What does it look like I'm doing, my Prince?" she said with amused incredulity, an impish smirk on her face "I'm trying to keep us warm for the night!" Bran felt an odd jolt in the pit of his stomach at how close she was to him and her warm breath was raising a tingling sensation on the flesh of his neck that was making it hard to think properly. Hesitantly, Bran reciprocated, placing his hand around her waist and he couldn't help but admire how good it felt to hold her even through the thick furs they were wearing.

The Others take proper social decorum he thought to himself. None of that mattered north of the Wall, especially after the things they had seen and done. There was no room to be concerned with courtly niceties in such a dangerous place where death was never far away. As they sat there in each other's comfortable companionship, Bran felt now would be as good a time as any to share a concern that had been gnawing away at him with Meera. He held up his right arm in front of them and asked her to pull down his sleeve.

Meera gasped when she saw the hand shaped bruise that still blemished the pale flesh of his forearm. The ghastly blue icy frore of the Night King's grasp was thankfully gone and the bruising was fading and not as dark as it had been but His mark was still there. Bran fancied he could even hear it calling out to the monster who'd put it there when it was quiet enough.

"It's healing but I don't know if the mark He put on me is gone or if it's sunk down to the marrow" said Bran, grimly. "I can't risk undoing the wards and spells laced throughout the foundations of the Wall and the Bay of Seals is months away from here so I can't travel around it before He gets here."

"What are you saying Bran?" Meera breathed fearfully, her eyes meeting his.

"I'm saying you . . . have to leave me behind Meera. The Seven Kingdoms would be at risk if I go under the Wall. You have to go on without me. Find Jon, tell him the truth about his heritage, your father will corroborate it. He must be the one to lead us through the Long Night."

"No nonono you don't know that!" she said, fiercely "You'd die within a day without me around to look after you."

"Meera, my life is not worth risking the lives of every man, woman and child still alive! Enough people have died because of me already!"

"They all died getting you this far!" cried Meera "You heard what Jojen, the Children, Benjen and the Three-Eyed Raven all said! The world needs you to face the Night King when the time finally comes! I ne-" she broke her gaze and averted her eyes suddenly, it was hard to tell in the twilight but it looked like her cheeks were slightly flushed.

There was a pregnant pause, he put his fingers under her chin and gently lifted her head so that her eyes met his again.

"You what, Meera?" Bran whispered.

"I need you, Brandon Stark." Those simple words struck him like a thunderbolt. "I need you to live, for me, for the North if nothing else. You're the Prince of Winterfell, the rightful heir to the North and I'll not leave you to freeze and die damn it! Where you go, I go too. I swear it by earth and water, by bronze and iron, by Ice and Fire."

With a start, Bran realized that she was paraphrasing the ancestral oath of House Reed to the Starks of Winterfell. So sincere and devoted was she in her pledge that Bran was momentarily dumbstruck with wonder. He wanted to take in all of her at that moment so that he could remember her face for the rest of his life; her fathomless green eyes, her dark curly hair, her strong nose and creamy skin. When he got to her lips, he was struck by a strong impulsive feeling to kiss her, their faces were so close together but he couldn't do it, afraid of scaring her away. Instead he nodded slowly and said "aye, you're right. We'll go south together, take our chances" in a thick voice.

". . . Good, because I'd hate to be the one to explain to King Robb why I let his eldest brother die" she said, satisfied as she pulled his sleeve back over his forearm and rested her head on his shoulder, tickling his face with her hair.

Fool! Coward! He thought to himself, if ever there had been an opportune moment to kiss Meera then that had surely been it. He rested his chin on top of her head, listening to the sound of her steady breathing and mulling over the feelings of deep affection for Meera he had long held, recognizing them at last for what they were. Just as they were starting a new leg on their journey tomorrow, Bran felt that the nature of their relationship had subtly changed in a new way, you didn't have to be a Greenseer or a Warg to sense that. Where both would lead though, not even he could say, Three-Eyed Raven or no.

"G'night Bran." Meera murmured sleepily, her left hand grasping the hide wrapped hilt of her dragonglass dagger.

"Sleep well Meera" said Bran as he leaned back against the Heart Tree, bringing his pounding heart under control.

That night, Bran slept peacefully and without interruption for the first time since they had left the Nightfort, untroubled by the Greensight or beast dreams or worse.

So, how was that? Would you like to read more? Did I do good? Reviews and constructive criticism will be most welcome and if you have any suggestions as to how to advance Bran and Meera's relationship, I'd be more than happy to hear them! You guys all take care out there now!

The Spirit