"What foolish thing have I done?" Sansa demanded.
"What is past cannot be retrieved, and what lies ahead is not yet decided. There is no point in talking about it," Bran sighed.
"Then what about now?" Sansa was clearly unhappy and insisted that her brother give her an explanation.
"The most important thing right now is for you and your child to pass the Long Night safely. But look at yourself. What have you been doing lately?"
"Mother and child? She's a girl." Sansa stroked her belly, the harshness on her face turning into the gentle tenderness of a mother.
Then she raised her voice and roared at the great raven, "What am I doing now? If you had helped me even a little, I would be lying in my husband's arms right now, singing lullabies with him for our unborn daughter.
If Aegon were still alive, I wouldn't have to worry about anything. I could simply be a mother and a wife in peace.
Do you think all these schemes and plans are not exhausting?
But I am a widow. My daughter lost her father before she was even born.
And who caused all of this? Tell me, Bran. Who?"
"So you mean that you made the choices, and I should bear all the responsibility?"
Bran said coldly, "That is exactly why I did not want to see you. I knew you would think and say something like this."
"Yes, you are the Three-Eyed Raven. You can know anything you want to know." Sansa's pretty face twisted slightly. "Since you know everything, why didn't you help me just once? Even once would have been enough."
"It would have been meaningless," Bran said sadly.
"Meaningless to you, but it could change my entire life!" Sansa shouted angrily.
"Sansa, if I told you that I have been protecting you and paid a great price to help you avoid the most tragic fate, would you believe me?" Bran sighed.
"Could I possibly be more miserable than I am now?" Of course Sansa did not believe him. She thought her brother was making excuses. Her face turned pale with anger, and her lips trembled.
The great raven's red eyes swept across Jon, Arya, and Theon one by one before asking, "If I helped Sansa once, do you think she would ask me to help a second time? A third time?
If I helped her once and then never responded again, would she hate me even more than she does now?"
"Well..." Jon lowered his head and rubbed his nose, silently acknowledging Bran's point.
Theon gave an awkward smile.
Arya had no such reservations and nodded directly. "She definitely would."
Sansa pulled a cushion from behind her and hurled it fiercely at Arya.
"Bang! Ouch!" Arya even had the leisure to roll her eyes. With a light punch, she knocked the pillow back, sending it flying straight into her sister's head.
"I am only asking you to help once and keep Aegon alive. Is that too much to ask?" Sansa shouted.
"If Aegon is to keep living, I would have to help you countless times. In the end, Jon, Arya, Rickon, and even I would be dragged into the abyss.
By that time, what you lose will not only be your husband, but also your brothers and sister, and even your daughter," Bran said calmly.
"You are lying!" Sansa shook her head vigorously. "I don't believe Aegon is destined to die. Daenerys has no hostility toward him. As long as she does not take action, and as long as you are willing to help, there is no one in Westeros who can harm him."
"That way of thinking is the main reason he cannot survive," Bran sighed. "No one is destined to die, but after meeting you, Aegon would die sooner or later."
"I have done everything to support him. How could I possibly harm him?" Sansa's eyes widened.
If you had not helped him so forcefully, he might actually have lived.
Bran sighed inwardly and said bitterly, "In the river of fate, I have seen many endings for Aegon. In one, he died under Melisandre's magic while trying to save you and your child. In another, he died because of Euron's poisonous scheme while trying to secure the grain of Highgarden. In another, he fell into an ambush beneath Riverrun while seeking revenge for you and for our House Stark. Because you insisted on killing Cersei, Aegon fought a trial by combat with the Kingslayer and died beneath the Kingslayer's left-handed sword. You believed that wearing Valyrian steel armor guaranteed victory and wanted to kill the King of the White Walkers before Stannis could. In the end, Aegon became one of the wights in the army of the dead.
"There are many more. Compared to those endings, failing directly at Winterfell is actually the best outcome. He suffers far less, and you would not have to live in constant fear or even lose the child."
Jon stood there dumbfounded.
Arya's little mouth fell open.
Theon looked dazed.
Sansa...
"I don't believe it. I don't believe I would be that stupid." After staring blankly for a moment, she immediately shook her head in denial.
The "Sansa" described by Bran was worse than Cersei. It was too absurd.
He must be talking nonsense just to shirk responsibility.
Bran seemed to guess her thoughts and said meaningfully, "Sansa, you stayed with Cersei for a long time. You should understand her fatal flaw: she cannot recognize herself clearly.
To put it more directly, Cersei always believes she is the smartest person."
"I am not Cersei. I have self-awareness!" Sansa said angrily.
"You do have self-awareness, and you are even good at summarizing lessons from experience. That is your strength. But you are used to realizing your mistakes only after doing something foolish, and then drawing wisdom from your last failure.
I can tell you clearly that not helping you is the greatest help I can give you. Your current fate is the best among countless possibilities," Bran said solemnly.
"If you do nothing, doesn't that mean your great power is completely meaningless to me? I don't believe the all-knowing Three-Eyed Raven cannot help me at all." Suspicion was written all over Sansa's face.
"You do not understand. The Three-Eyed Raven belongs to Westeros, not to the Starks," Bran sighed with emotion. "Take the previous Three-Eyed Raven, Brynden Rivers, for example. He was a noble Targaryen bastard, yet he watched the Targaryen dynasty collapse, even its extermination.
Your questioning of me now is just like when Daenerys questioned him back then.
If I helped the Starks change their fate in the struggle for the Seven Kingdoms, Brynden could have done the same, and so could his predecessor and the one before that. If every Three-Eyed Raven plotted for their own family, the final result would bring no benefit either to their families or to Westeros.
A simple example: if every Three-Eyed Raven had complete freedom of will, Brynden could have seen in the past the future where I helped you and simply erased your birth."
The great raven's icy red eyes made Sansa shrink back.
"Everything I see now may have already been seen by the Three-Eyed Ravens of past generations decades, centuries, or even thousands of years ago. If they were dissatisfied, they could solve the problem at its source and eliminate you."
"I don't believe it. You're lying to me. You helped Jon and Arya," Sansa shouted.
"You are different. Your desires are endless, while they only wanted to survive. Sansa, believe me. For someone like you who wants to compete for the Iron Throne, the best choice is not to become entangled with me," Bran said sincerely.
"Ah, Sansa, you actually want to compete for the Iron Throne?!" Jon cried out in belated realization.
Seeing the "strange" looks from her brother and sisters, Sansa awkwardly explained, "It is not that I absolutely must. It is just like walking by a river and suddenly seeing a fat sheep drifting down from upstream, bleating all the way. Is it not natural to make a little effort and casually fish it out? If I truly cannot catch it, I would not jump into the river and wet my shoes."
"Ah, you are so small!" Dany exclaimed in surprise.
Early the next morning, in a forest fifty kilometers south of Castle Black, she saw Bran wrapped in furs.
He was truly small, a little over 1.4 meters tall and weighing less than sixty jin. Thin and tiny, he looked like an underdeveloped child.
Well, he was indeed a child. His real age was only twelve. Because of his broken spine, he had lacked exercise for many years, which caused muscle atrophy. Life beyond the Wall was also harsh, so his nutrition had been somewhat insufficient.
If his disability were cured, his nutrition might fall even further behind.
Dany glanced at Meera Reed, who was standing beside him with a shy smile, and thought this rather unkind thought.
But after looking at the two of them carefully, both were thin and small, and they did have a bit of the look of a married couple.
Like Sansa, Meera also had a large pregnant belly. With the support of the Children of the Forest, she left the cave with Bran and leaned against an iron tree to welcome the Dragon Queen who had come from afar.
"Ah, they really look like squirrels!" the two Dothraki maidservants, Jhiki and Irri, stared at the Children of the Forest and clicked their tongues in amazement.
"Can my spine be cured?" Though Bran was small, his eyes were deep and ancient, like a wise man who had lived for centuries.
Leaf glanced at the Dothraki maidservants and frowned. "Let's talk inside the cave."
This squirrel-like person still wore only clothes woven from dried vines. His hair was messy, like a chicken's nest.
"Why don't you wear proper clothes? Even if you are poor, you should at least have fur coats or linen. Even the wildlings have clothes," Jhiki asked curiously.
"We are those who sing praises to the earth. We are the spirits of nature," Leaf said expressionlessly.
"It is the Long Night. Aren't you cold?" Dany asked.
"You are not wearing very thick clothing under your armor either, are you?" Leaf replied.
The cave was much cruder than the shelter beyond the Wall.
It was not crude in terms of decorations or furniture. The Children of the Forest had little furniture to begin with. The shelter there had been very spacious, with many stone chambers of different functions along the corridors: sheep pens, pastures, mushroom farms, fish ponds.
This place was simply an ordinary mountain cave that had once belonged to a bear. Cracks inside the cave connected to underground tunnels, making it damp and cold.
"How have you been living these days?" Dany asked curiously.
"There is an underground river where we can catch fish, and there is a forest nearby where we can cut wood for fire."
In Leaf's large golden cat-like eyes there was only peace and contentment.
"How is it?" By the campfire, Bran had already removed his shirt and was lying face down on a thick fur blanket.
The skin on his back was pale as paper. Because he was so thin, the twisted and uneven bones were clearly visible.
Above the pelvis was a grayish-blue lump of flesh the size of a melon. It looked like a tumor, but it was actually a mixture of shattered bone fragments, tendons, nerves, and blood vessels.
"Ah, that is disgusting!" Irri covered her mouth and exclaimed softly.
"Do you want to drink milk of the poppy?" Dany gestured to the two maidservants to prepare the surgical tools.
Jhiki opened the backpack and skillfully and swiftly took out bottles and jars, preparing to mix the anesthesia unique to the world of ice and fire for Bran.
"No need. I will transfer all my consciousness into a raven's body," Bran said.
Under the watchful eyes of Bran and more than a dozen Children of the Forest, the Dragon Queen first wiped the "corpse's" back with high-concentration alcohol. Then she separated strands of red flame from the dragonfire fireball above her head and burned the surrounding air.
The scalpel danced in her hand. The deformed bone fragments were removed, the lump of flesh was cut away, the nerves and blood vessels were adjusted, and the white light of the holy healing technique swept across like a laser line.
"This is truly miraculous. The combination of holy healing with pharmacology and anatomy can actually be so powerful," Bran murmured in shock two hours later as he looked at the smooth, flat skin.
"Go inside and try it," Dany said.
"Ahhh! It hurts, it hurts so much. It feels so wonderful. I can finally feel pain in my lower body again!" As his soul returned to his body, Bran howled and burst into laughter.
(End of chapter)
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