~A Journey Through Time~

In one moment, Robert Baratheon, First of his Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, lay dying. And in another, he found himself standing atop the battlements of Storm's End watching the Windproud flounder in a storm.

Robert was transfixed for a moment and stood stock still, his hands on the battlements, gripping them tightly. Then, he regained his senses, slowly and looked around. Something odd was going on. The ship, which had held Robert's attention now drew his eye with its peculiarity. As Robert was looking at the ship, it slowly started to stop and then came to a complete halt right at the top of a wave. Even the sea stopped raging and Robert felt the humidity in the air as the sleet of the early winter stopped in its place in the air. Dread filled Robert's heart and he looked around the battlements in fear but found it empty.

Only, it wasn't. At the far end, on the other side of the drum tower from where Robert stood, and closer to the bay than his position, stood three figures. Three familiar figures, who stood still like statues. He recognized them immediately. It was Maester Cressen, with baby Renly in his arms, Stannis and … and himself. Robert watched himself stand and look at his parents die unable to do anything and saw a tear roll slowly down his own, younger self's cheek. It was the only thing moving in this hellscape where even time seemed to have stopped.

"What would you give, your Grace, if had the chance to go back?"

Robert jumped in fright and surprise. A voice spoke from behind him and as he turned he saw a man, an old, old man, in black robes and thin white hair, with red eyes and a magnificent sword resting on his hip.

"Who are you? Where am I?" Robert asked angrily.

Robert's fear, anger and frustration all boiled over into rage and he stomped over to the old man and swung his meaty fist at him. To his surprise, a no small amount of fear, the fist simply went through the man, as if he wasn't even there. It felt to Robert as if he was swinging his fist through mist. Robert snatched his hand back and took a few steps backwards, looking at the old man warily.

"Are you… the Stranger? Is that it? Am I dead then?" Robert asked, resignation filling his tone. "Is this Hell? Do I suffer for my sins, then, without any rest, forced to watch my parents die for the rest of eternity?"

"Nothing so severe," the man replied.

Robert knew that the man, or rather his form, stood in front of him, but his voice came from just behind Robert's ear. It took all of Robert's will to not flinch. The man continued speaking, heedless of Robert's wishes.

"Now, let us come to the matter of why we are here, shall we?" the man said.

"We'll get to nothing before you tell me who you are and where we are" Robert demanded, his rising anger pushing through his reluctance to antagonize this man. The man let out a chuckle, which grated on Robert's ears and then he spoke.

"Look closely and perhaps you can recognize me. I am rather infamous, after all," the man said and smiled cryptically. Robert started to get riled up and balled his hands into fists.

"Enough of this nonsense, Gods damn you! Speak up and speak the truth, in the name of your king," Robert demanded, his patience, already frayed, having worn thin by this man's riddles.

"My King is dead, your grace. He's been dead for nigh on a century by your standards. But, I see that we are getting nowhere. So, I shall be open with you. I have been called many names throughout my life; bastard, white worm, witch, Master of Whispers, Hand of the King, brother of the Night's Watch, Lord Commander and lastly, of course, Bloodraven. I presume you've heard of me?" the man said, with a smirk on his face.

Robert's blood boiled. Here he was, having just died, from a boar no less, and this long-dead Targaryen dragonspawn bastard came to have a jape at him? Robert forgot himself, gave a huge cry of rage and stepped forward, taking another swing at Bloodraven and failing to do so once more. He slipped on the wet battlements and fell down. He tried to rise up, but his hands could not find any purchase on the walls and his bulk was too much for him to rise by himself. Defeated and humiliated, he slumped down against the wall and turned his face down.

"Well, what is it then? Have you come to gloat? To see how far the man who destroyed your dynasty has fallen? You've had your look, now begone with you and let me have my rest in peace," Robert grumbled.

"You are not dead, your grace," Bloodraven said suddenly, unheeding of Robert's words.

"Huh? What is that supposed to do for me? I know what death is like when it comes for a man. I suppose you'll say that this is some fever dream and that I'll wake up back in my bed, hale and hearty," Robert said and snorted. He looked around. It would do him some good if there was some wine or ale or something to that effect here. Perhaps, this Storm's End was still stocked with the Volantene Wine Lord Steffon had brought for the Mad King's coronation.

"Not quite. Tell me, what do you know of the Others," Bloodraven asked.

Bloodraven launched into an explanation about how the world was due for a Long Night and how he, as the Last Greenseer, had the responsibility to ensure that the realms of men lived to see through it. As he spoke, Robert slowly lost interest in the matter. What did it matter to him, whether the realms of men lived or died? He was dead anyway and all that he had hoped for had turned out to be naught. Instead of finding his sweet Lyanna, he was stuck with this bastard dragonspawn.

"What do I care? I'm dead and I have no more bearing on the world of the living," Robert replied.

"As I said earlier, your grace, you are not dead yet. And even if you were dead, I still have a means of sending you back. To change things for the better," Bloodraven said.

"Send me back? What back to my bitch of a wife and my cowardly son? I'd rather have the boar gore me once more than that. And you speak of changing things for the better. Send anyone else back to their life after their death and they'd do a better job than I'd do, I wager," Robert said and he gave a small snort at the ridiculousness of it all.

"You were not my first choice either, your grace. As things stand, you are my last hope," Bloodraven said, a sombre tone colouring his voice.

"So, what you give me my life back, I go on being the King again and then I have to stop these Others who are all the way beyond the Wall," Robert asked in disbelief, feeling foolish for even considering the prospect.

"No. I do not yet fully trust you, your grace. You are my last hope, I admit, but not my only option. I shall send you back in time, as far back as I am capable of," Bloodraven said, fixing Robert with a serious stare. Robert felt that Bloodraven did not truly trust him to carry out this task.

"But what are the Others? How can I know that they really exist? How can I even be certain that this is no fever dream, brought about as I die?" Robert asked.

"Behold," Bloodraven said.

And the sea around Storm's End froze solid and the temperatures dropped as the early winter sleet turned into snowflakes in their positions suspended in the air. Robert could see his breath in the air around him and he started to shiver. Bloodraven walked away from Robert and moved towards the battlements overlooking the lands surrounding Storm's End. He gestured for Robert to follow and Robert, who had struggled to stand up, found himself rising propped by some power he had no control over.

Robert was floated gently over to where Bloodraven stood and then deposited on his feet beside him. He put his hands on the battlements to steady himself and glared at Bloodraven who seemed not to notice. Bloodraven had his attention fixed on a point far inland, around where a small hillock rose above the surroundings. Even as Robert watched, the lands around Storm's End were covered slowly with snow despite no snow actually falling down to the ground. And upon the hillock, Robert could make out the figures of what looked like men, some standing and others riding on some sort of beasts or creatures which seemed to have too many legs.

Bloodraven made another gesture with his hands following which Robert could now gaze upon the gathered men as if he was standing right in front of them. And he saw that they were not men at all. Oh, they had the form of men, to be sure. They walked on two legs, they had two arms, two eyes, two ears, one nose, they had skin, hair and all of that, but Robert would not be a man if these creatures were also men. They had skin as pale as milk, of the same colour as Ser Barristan's white cloak and their eyes were of the deepest, stormiest blue. So blue their eyes were, that for a moment, Robert felt as if he was gazing at his own eyes, or those of Renly or Stannis or his lord father and Robert recoiled backwards.

Even as Robert was looking upon them, he could also see a man kneeling in front of them, in the position of a man whose lands have been conquered, whose riches have been stolen and most importantly whose will to live has been sapped away. Defeat was writ upon the man's face and with a jolt, Robert recognized him, even with is tattered clothes and unkempt beard.

"Ned!" Robert exclaimed and made to move forward to help his friend, but he found himself back at Storm's End almost a league away. He staggered at the sudden disorientation of the difference between where his body stood and where his eyes saw. Bloodraven turned his gaze to Robert and spoke.

"There is nothing we can do to intervene. Gaze upon the horrors that they wreak on this land and perhaps you will understand the urgency of your quest," Bloodraven said.

With that, Robert found himself back near the top of the hillock where Ned stood up to face the Others with a sword in his same. The same sword that Bloodraven wore at his waist. And he watched in mute horror as Ned took a wide swing at the one closest to him but missed by more than a foot. The Other stepped into Ned's guard and pushed what looked like a sword made of glass and ice through Ned's chest. Ned twitched upon the sword once, twice then stilled and the creature pushed him off of it. Ned fell back on the snow-covered ground and Robert watched, helpless as he had been when his parents had died, as Ned's blood stained the ground red.

The Others were gathered around where Ned had dropped the sword and one of them reached down to pick it up, raising it and observing in the fading sunlight. Then, the creature threw the sword away, disregarding it and moved towards where Ned was. It stood over his body at stared at it, in apparent concentration. Then, Ned's body twitched.

Robert watched in mute horror as Ned rose up to stand once more. And when he opened his eyes, they were of the deepest blue. Ned shambled forward in a slow shuffle and walked towards the Others before passing them completely and walking further on in what the direction of what Robert presumed to be the North.

Suddenly, Robert was flying. He could feel the wind in his hair and the cold of the snowflakes melting upon his face and in his beard. He found himself following Ned and then crossing him and flying further beyond. He passed through King's Landing and saw Joffrey, with those same blue eyes and with his throat cut open cruelly. Robert wanted to stop, to take his son in his arms, but he was gone by then. He flew over the Eyrie and saw Jon's son, his arms bent awkwardly and broken, but the same eerie blue light in his eyes. Then, he passed on further North even faster, barely catching a glimpse of men shuffling about in Winterfell's yard, each having those same infernal, blue eyes.

Then, he crossed the Wall, flew threw it, even as the last remnants of it crumbled down around him. He chanced a look back and saw that for long stretches, there simply was no sign of there ever being the Wall at all. Then, he flew for a long while, straight North. How far Robert flew he knew not and then he stopped just as suddenly as he had taken flight.

Robert found himself on his feet once more. He was standing outside a giant, dead Weirwood tree which stood on top of a small outcrop of rock and was flanked by two more Weirwoods. He took a few steps forward. The ground was heavily snowed on, with snowfall reaching all the way up to Robert's knees and even higher in a few places. He walked around the small rocky outcrop and then tried to climb up it, which was not very easy for a man of his girth. When he reached halfway towards its top, he spied a hole in the rock, entwined between the roots of the massive weirwood, hidden in the shadows. Curiosity, and something else which he could not place, spurred him on and he entered the cave.

When he entered the cave, it was pitch black, but he could make out things which were dangling from the ceiling of the cave. They looked like fat, white worms and Robert figured that they were the roots of the weirwood above him. He delved deeper into the hole and despite never having been here before at all, he found that he could navigate the place easily as if he knew where and how to turn. The weirwood roots above him shone with a pale light, casting harsh shadows on the cave which turned and twisted as Robert strode forward, backward, up and down.

Eventually, Robert came to what looked like a large cavern. The roots above Robert's head had been slowly thickening and increasing in number as he had been coming to this place and as he entered, he could see that the roots converged at a point on the far wall. Robert moved closer and the light from the weirwood roots seemed to pulse as he moved closer. When he was within an arm's reach from the cluster, he could make out what looked like a skeleton wearing fine black robes nestled within the roots. Then, the skeleton's head rose up and looked him in the eyes.

Robert shuffled back in fright, but the eyes looking at him were red, not blue. And it wasn't eyes, but rather one single eye which looked out at him, for the other socket was empty and a root of the weirwood was growing through it. The skeleton opened its mouth to speak and Robert realized this was Bloodraven.

"Do you see what I have become, Robert?" Bloodraven asked in a papery thin voice which barely carried over to where Robert stood, not even an arm's length away.

"You called me as 'your grace' earlier," Robert said.

"But, you were a stranger to me then. Now, you know the true enemy. Will you take my side and fight them? Not for me Robert, for I am not long for this world. Fight them, for your own sake. Or for the sake of your friends or your family. I have fought this long out of a sense of duty. I am still alive and so I fight for the living. But when I die, who shall do so?" Bloodraven pleaded.

Robert's mind flashed back to Ned, bleeding out on the snowy hillock and to his Joffrey, his throat slit, with those damned blue eyes, so unlike the green that Robert knew his son to have. And as he gazed upon Bloodraven's emaciated form a sense of shame filled him. Here he was, the man the realm had spit upon as a sorcerer still working to save it and what had he done? The Demon of the Trident. Hah! What did that ever do for him? It brought him nothing but misery as he grew ever distant from his family and his friend.

Robert made up his mind. He'd go back to whenever Bloodraven sent him to. He'd kill that bastard Rhaegar, take his Lyanna as his wife and let whomever wants the Throne have it. He'd then go North and smash these Others just as he had smashed Rhaegar and come back a hero. At least he'd have done something good in his life then, become worthy of the name he had.

"I'll do it," he said.

Bloodraven nodded. A semblance of a smile came upon his face and he spoke.

"Remember one thing, Robert. If you want to see, all you have to do is open your eyes," Bloodraven said.

"What? Stop speaking in riddles," Robert said, but his voice was drowned out by the cawing of a raven. The sound was thunderous and Robert was momentarily deafened. Robert barely made out the form of a large raven as it swooped down and struck him with its beak right between his eyes. Then Robert was falling and falling and falling and falling until suddenly he wasn't.

Robert woke up with a gasp. He was lying in a bed which was quite unfamiliar to him. He looked around to figure out where he was. The room was very well furnished, but not one that was befitting a king. Perhaps he was at the castle of a vassal. The walls of the rooms were not of red stone, so he could count out the Red Keep. He knew of no rooms that were of this size and with these stylings within the Keep. The windows were closed but the drapes were drawn back and sunlight streamed through them.

Robert got out of the bed. Or rather, he tried to. As Robert reached the edge of the bed, he found out that his legs did not reach the floor. Panic shot through him and he jumped from the bed and ran over to where a looking glass was hanging on the wall. And it was then he looked upon his appearance.

Robert looked upon the face of a person who was most definitely himself. But there was a single problem. The man in the mirror was no man at all. It was a child. Robert was a child. He remembered vaguely how he looked like as a child and the similarities were uncanny. He could place himself at around ten or maybe twelve years old, but that was it.

Panic started to set in and Robert started to pace around the room. Then, he stopped and looked around in wonder. He could pace around! When he used to be larger around the middle, Robert found out that even pacing around brought him much fatigue very quickly. Robert let out a sharp laugh at his newfound mobility and started to pace 'round the room once more, his thoughts in disarray. As Robert walked over to the window, he could see that he was in a castle near the sea. And then, it hit him. He was in Storm's End, back when he was younger and not yet being fostered at the Eyrie.

Robert spied a chest near the window and ran over to it and threw it open. Inside were clothes which would fit a man, no, no, a child of his age. He selected them at random and threw them on quickly. He had found out where he was. Now came the hardest part. He had to find out when he was. Robert finished dressing and he was about to go outside the room when the door to the room opened and his father stepped in.

"Father!" Robert exclaimed in happiness. For a single moment, he forgot himself and ran forward, tackling the man in a hug.

Steffon Baratheon had never been a very severe man, but Robert knew he was not one prone to displays of affection. Robert was therefore very surprised when the man put his hand on Robert's head and ruffled his hair, with a smile on his face.

"What's this then, son? Did you have a bad dream?" Steffon asked.

"Something like that," Robert replied evasively. Steffon clapped his hands one spoke.

"I had wanted to wake you up myself. We have guests lad and very special ones at that. Your mother and your brother are entertaining him as we speak. I had thought you would have the need of a servant to draw a bath and help you put on your clothes," Steffon said.

"I'm no child. I can put on my own clothes. And I'd rather not have a bath today if it is all the same to you, father," Robert replied, wrinkling his nose.

"Ah, you're at that age when your clothes are simple enough that you can put them on by yourself. Mine, on the other hand, are not so simple. But I digress. You are presentable. Come with me," Steffon said.

Robert nodded and followed Steffon. Steffon led him throughout Storm's End and Robert followed in silence his mind still awhirl with his thoughts and plans and ideas. As they neared the Round Hall, Robert tried to voice a few of his questions.

"Who is this guest, father? Is he our vassal?" Robert asked.

"Oh no. Not out vassal. You shall find out shortly. Keep your patience," Steffon said.

And with that, they arrived at the Round Hall where the 'guest' was being entertained as he broke his fast with Robert's mother and his brother. The crier announced his father and then Robert and they strode in. Robert looked around the hall to see who had gathered. He immediately recognized the Lords Grandison and Fell as well as old Selwyn Tarth who looked quite young and hale. Then his gaze went to the centre of the high table the figure he saw sitting there, exchanging words with his brother, boiled his blood.

Rhaegar Targaryen sat at the high table, his seat to the immediate right of the lord's and to his right sat Stannis who seemed to be hanging on to Rhaegar's every word. Robert's anger rose with each step he took. As the lords gathered rose when Robert's father walked in, Rhaegar looked up and saw them and he too rose a smile on his face. That was what did it. Robert had to wipe off the smile, even if it was the last thing he did.

Robert let out a sharp cry and he ran, marvelling at his speed while he did so. He was focused on Rhaegar to the exclusivity of everyone else and that proved to be his undoing. Just he was about to reach Rhaegar and punch the life out of him, he caught a flash of white from the corner of his eye. Then a sharp pain at the back of his head and then, everything went black.

AN: A new story! Yay! This one has been jumping around my head for quite a while. I wanted to put it down, lest I lose it. Please let me know how it was. Did you like it? Did you hate it? Want to complain? Please do so. Any feedback is appreciated.

For, those who follow my other story, the Unworthy (nudge, nudge, wink, wink, please check it out), this is why I haven't updated in a while. I've been busy planning this one and sketching this one out.