14. Children of the Forest

Cave beyond The Wall

The cavern was silent. The only noise that remained was the quiet rasping of the soulless body of Brynden Rivers. The few Children of the forest that remained in the room were staring at him with gazes filled with apprehension and fear.

Sam never liked it when people only feared him because fear leads to questionable decision which may not be good for him ultimately. He had come to learn long ago that fear was a tool but there also needs to be respect with it. In certain situations, it could be very useful. And it was a lesson that Starks seem to know very well. But that's not to say that it should be wielded carelessly. Fear fades with time or it is overcome by hate. Admiration has the opposite effect. It grows stronger over time. People who love you, admires you will always go the extra mile. They will always fight harder than those who are compelled to act through fear.

In his opinion it was always better to be loved than feared, but it is even better to be both loved and feared. To have people love you for your actions and for what you do for them, while having them fear going against you. An ideal King or Lord should have his subjects' love him while at the same time they should fear facing his wrath.

So, while normally Sam would try and calm the Children of the Forest down, in this instance they should fear him. They should fear his wrath. They should fear the consequences of their actions and the actions of The Three Eyed-Raven. It's the easiest way to get them to cooperate with him.

After the silence stretched on for too long, he decided he should try and push things along. "Well?" He drawled. "I'm waiting. I know you speak common, you gave it away while I was talking to your Raven. So I'll say it one more time, take me to your leader."

He believed he got the message across when he saw the two Children that stayed in the room with him trade glances. Before they got a chance to say anything however, his attention was drawn to a voice coming from one of the tunnels. "I'm here, Symeon Stark."

Sam moved his attention onto the Child of the Forest that spoke. It was a female, Sam noted. A female leader was something he found incredibly rare in this world. She was the same size as the others, she didn't have any special markings, tattoos or clothes to signify that she was the leader of the Children. She looked the same as every other child of the forest he had seen. She carried the same agelessness that he found in all their species, but her eyes did look older and wearier than the others he had met. The biggest difference he could spot between her and the other Children he could see was that she didn't have a speck of fear in her eyes. She looked mournful when her gaze passed over Brynden Rivers, but she collected herself admirable and quickly fixed a passive look onto her face. It wasn't enough to confirm she was the leader. For all he knew, the real leader was hiding in the shadows watching what the outcome of this meeting would be. Or they were one of the dozens that followed behind the one that spoke.

Sam decided that it didn't matter for now. He would take her at her word that she was the leader. It was the only way this discussion could continue swiftly.

"You seem to know who I am but who are you?" He asked.

She bowed her head. "You will not be able to pronounce my name with your tongue but you may call me Leaf. "

Sam nodded slowly. She was probably right about not being able to pronounce her name. The language he heard the Children speak with earlier was beautiful, almost musical but he doubted that humans could make sounds like that if they tried.

After a moment he continued. "Greetings Leaf. I would say it is an honour to meet the fabled Children of the Forest but with circumstances being what they are…." He trailed off.

She winced slightly. "Yes, I can imagine it is a poor introduction to our race."

He nodded. "Regardless, what is done is done. There is no point in wallowing in the past. Now I want to look towards the future. "

She tilted her head in reminiscence of a cat. "The future?"

He folded his hands behind his back and straightened up to his full unimpressive height. It was still enough to tower over the Children. "Your future to be exact."

She tensed. "What future are you speaking of? Without the Three Eyed-Raven we have already lost. There is no future!"

Sam waved his hands negligently. "We haven't lost until we have lost. The future is not so easily determined. I will get to that in moment though. First, I want to set a few rules for this conversation. It will go much more smoothly."

She looked at him warily. "What rules?"

Sam smiled. "First, we will only tell the truth. No lies and no omissions. You aren't my enemy, yet. As far as I can tell the Three-Eyed Raven acted on his own to attack me. If you lent your combined power to his, I have no doubt he would have succeeded. Also remember I am a Greenseer and can verify everything you say at a later date. "

She eyed him. "Why would we agree to these rules? Why would we even agree to this conversation? You killed our greatest chance against the White Walkers. The world of man might be able to survive a few more decades, but we will not."

Sam shrugged. "Maybe I will help you. Maybe I won't. As far as I can tell you lose nothing by agreeing."

She looked conflicted. "I can sense the magic coming off of you. Even if this is only your spirit, you have a lot of it. Possibly more than I have ever seen. I have felt a shift in the magic's of the earth over the last few years. Where you walk, magic grows stronger. " She stopped speaking to Sam and started muttering to herself in her strange language. After a few moments she firmed her expression. "Do you truly believe you can help us? That you can stop the White Walkers?"

He shrugged again. "Perhaps."

Leaf let her shoulders drop and sighed. "Very well. I will speak nothing but the truth." Her expression once again firmed up. "I expect the same from you however. "

I could see her decision wasn't very popular with the other Children, based on the way they frantically started shouting at her in their language. She let each of them speak for a few moments before she spoke back harshly. The Children settled down afterwards. Some with troubled expressions, but others with clear looks of despair. Still one or two looked slightly hopeful.

Sam nodded. "Very well, I will speak nothing but the truth as I know it. I swear it on the Gods."

Leaf stood straight and lifted her head proudly. "I will speak nothing but the truth. I swear it on the Gods. "

Sam allowed himself to relax fractionally. So far things with the Children have gone better than he could have hoped for. "My first question is this. What exactly are the White Walkers?"

He could see Leaf freeze for a moment. Even after her oath he could see her hesitate to answer. The truth must be uglier than he thought.

She took a breath and began to speak. "I think it is best if I give you context for that question. Thousands of years ago, the Children of the Forest and the Giants were the dominant sentient species on this continent. There were others but they lived in hidden places. We lived in peace. Peace with each other, peace with nature. Everything was perfect. It was a utopia." She looked out in space wistfully. Mournfully.

Then her expression hardened. "Then man came. "

She took another breath to compose herself. "At first we didn't really think too much of them. We tried to get on with them as peacefully as we could, just like we did the giants. Man was cruel though. So cruel. They started chopping down our forests. Our Weirwood trees. We asked them to stop. Practically begged them. They refused to listen. It wasn't long before they started killing my people. Hunting us down and slaughtering us for sport. Or because they wanted to be the only race. They burnt down our forests and killed us down to the last whenever they could!" She spat. Hate and fury boiling in her eyes. But underneath it all, Sam could see her sadness.

Unfortunately, he believed her about mankind starting a war with the Children. Mankind had always been a temperamental race. Quick to violence and anger. Quick to condemn those that were different. They didn't stop from killing and enslaving one another over looks, what is stopping them from killing another race altogether.

She continued. "It wasn't long before we started fighting back. Killing man whenever we could. To protect ourselves and our Gods. The Gods of the Forest, Streams, Rocks and Earth. "

Her eyes shone with knowledge of countless ages. "We killed many. Thousands. Hundreds of thousands. It made no difference in the end. Mankind kept coming. Kept killing our people and destroying our Gods symbol on this land. So we destroyed the path they took to get to Westeros. Flooding it with massive amounts of water and sinking the land in hopes it would stop them. That place is now known as the Stepstones."

She paused for a moment before continuing. "It worked for a time. Mankind stopped coming and we were able to live in peace for a bit more. It wasn't long before they came again though. On wooden ships they landed on the shores by the thousands and began exterminating my people wherever they could find them. We warred with them for years. Centuries. "

She looked back into my eyes with a sadness that was almost painful to look at. "It was no use though. We could kill hundreds for every one of us that died and we still ended up being pushed back. We are not as fertile as man. While it may take hundreds of years for one of use to fall pregnant and hundreds more for the child to mature to adulthood, mankind breed quickly. In a decade and a half of life they could have children and in a little over a decade those children would be considered adults having children of their own. We were fighting on the losing side of the war. We fell back again and tried to stop them by flooding The Neck. It hardly made a difference at that stage. Before long that had pushed us further and further North. There were less and less of us. It wouldn't have been long before we were hunted to extinction. We were growing more and more desperate."

She swallowed thickly. "So we made a weapon. We took a man and called upon an evil god, a god do evil that even his name is not spoken and is only known as the Great Other, to create a creature which would hunt men for us. That would allow us to change the tide of the war."

Sam said. "The Others." Sam wasn't sure about how to feel about the fact that the White Walkers had a God's hand in their creation. This may complicate things. I don't know if they are more stronger, have more power than merely raising the dead and control over ice. This needs some research.

While he was obviously angry that they would do something like that, he couldn't help but pity them. He had seen men do stupid things out of desperation. There was a part of him that understood, that couldn't help but empathise with them. If his loved ones were being systematically hunted down and killed and there was nothing he could do to stop it, he would probably use drastic measures as well.

Leafs eyes lowered to the floor. "Yes. The Night King specifically. In the beginning we thought it had worked. The Night King was pushing the humans back. The more humans that died the stronger they got. We were ashamed of what we did. But we were also relieved that we were no longer being hunted to extinction."

Then she looked at him and a tear escaped out of one of her eyes and rolled down her cheek. "The Night King was smarter than we thought though and the Great Other did not wanted his champion to waste away as a weapon. It wasn't long before he slipped out of our control and started hunting everything. Everything that lived was his target. Mankind, animals, my people or giants. It made no difference. He would kill us all the same. The more of the living that died, the more dead would be added to his army and the more powerful he became."

She took a shuddering breath. "Thanks to our folly, everything was dying. We had no choice but to ally with humans to fix our mistake, and they had no choice but to ally with us to survive the Night Kings forces. We made a pact to become allies and to cease our wars with each other. So that we could focus on our common enemy. After years of war and death we finally managed to push the Night King back into the far North. Regardless of how much we tried we could not pin the Night King down to finish him off and he went where we were unable to follow. Into the far north, known now as the Lands of Always Winter. There he called upon the

Great Other and changed the weather, freezing everything completely, making it impossible to hunt him down. We knew he would be back though. So we then worked with the giants and your ancestor Brandon to build a wall. "

She stopped talking at that point and Harry was content to let her so that he could process his thoughts. Much of this had been guessed by him already, due to old legends and folktales told in the North, but it was nice to have confirmation that those stories had some truth to them.

He nodded to Leaf solemnly. "Thank you for answering my question. "

She pursed her lips. "Perhaps you can answer a question for me now."

He waved her to continue. It was only fair at this stage. With a determined look in her eye she asked. "What are you?"

Sam startled slightly. "I'm not sure what you mean?"

She shook her head. "You swore to speak only the truth Symeon Stark. You are more powerful than any man I have ever met in my life. You are more powerful than the elders who were around when I was still young, when mankind first made their way to this land. More than that though, you are skilled at skinchanging and Greenseeing. You would not be here if you weren't skilled at Greenseeing and if you weren't skilled at skinchanging, you would never have been able to defeat the Three- Eyed Raven in the manner you did. You are all of this and you are only a child. It should not be possible, it is not possible for a normal man to do this. So I ask again, what are you?"

Sam pursed his lips. He should have expected this. The Children of the Forest were a long lived species. They live so long they are practically immortal compared to men. It shouldn't be a surprise then, that with all they have seen, they could tell something was off. The question is whether or not he should answer.

On the one hand, the Children had been truthful with him so far, as far as he could tell. If they were to lie to him he doubted they would tell him about their part in the creation of the White Walkers. Still, his secret was a secret for a reason. He doesn't know whether or not he could trust them with the truth.

In the end he decided it didn't really matter if they knew. If everything went according to plan for the rest of this meeting, then they would be reliant on him to help them. Both to survive as a race and to beat the White Walkers. Once they had been defeated he should have a lot more trust with them and their gratitude. If they betrayed him and released the knowledge after that, then there is a good chance he could use it to elevate himself even higher in the eyes of the lords, as a champion of the Old Gods. If they believe the Children at all that is. Regardless, it wasn't a secret he would like to share at the moment. Not to so many of them and not near a Weirwood tree, where any Greenseer can stumble across the information. He was slightly surprised that they even admitted to creating the White Walkers in a place any Greenseer with enough power could uncover the secret. Perhaps they had a method to conceal information in the Green. He wouldn't take the risk though.

No, it was better to perhaps only inform Leaf in a more secure location.

He shook his head. "This isn't the time or the place to have this conversation. I will tell you one day. But only you." He finished, casting a glance at the other Children that had started to fill up the cavern while Leaf was talking. There must have been around thirty of them now.

Sam could see that she wasn't happy with his answer but she seemed to accept it all the same. With a resigned nod she spoke. "Very well. I will accept your silence for now."

He smiled slightly. "You will receive the answer someday. Provided you earn my trust."

After casting another glance at the figure of the Three-Eyed Raven he decided he had more questions that needed answering before he could discuss the future. "What about the Three-Eyed Raven? What is he?"

Leaf glanced back at the still breathing corpse with a look of sadness. After taking a moment to compose herself she answered. "Over time we saw that mankind started to forget about the White Walkers. After a few thousand years they started to see the White Walkers as either a myth or something that was destroyed a long time ago. We feared in another few thousand years they would forget about them completely. We had no idea when they would attack, how they would attack or if we would be strong enough to stop them. They had thousands of years to gather the dead from north of the Wall and to bring them back to the Land of Always Winter, where the cold preserved their bodies. We knew they had only grown stronger over time while we and the giants were constantly growing weaker. We created the Three-Eyed Raven to be the memory of the world. To make sure that mankind never forgot about the danger of the Night King, even if my kind disappeared. We used a volunteer, a powerful Greenseer, and tied their life-force to the life of this Weirwood tree. The Three-Eyed Raven was a weapon we created to oppose the Night King. We were here constantly monitoring it and watching it to make sure it never slipped out of our grasp to reap havoc the way the Night King did."

Sam raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "So you created a weapon more powerful than you to stop man. That weapon escaped from your control. Your solution to this problem was to create another weapon more powerful than you and hope to keep it controlled this time." He asked incredulously.

She frowned. "It worked. The Three-Eyed Raven could see into the future more clearly and accurately than we could. He put long term plans into place in the hopes of creating a future where we had the greatest chance to destroy the Night King for good. He could never see the actual defeat of the Night King, but all the pieces were there for his defeat. "

Sam frowned. Something wasn't adding up. "I don't really believe that."

Leaf scrunched her eyebrows together. "What?"

He sighed. "Perhaps he was putting pieces in place to defeat the Night King. I can believe that. I just don't believe it was his only goal. Tell me, after the first Long Night there were still many Children alive, correct?"

She frowned. "Our numbers were low but there were probably several thousand, maybe tens of thousand of us left at the end. Yes. We were losing numbers constantly due to man still, we were no longer at war with them but there were still those that hunted us because they could. Still we only really started dying off in large amounts again when the Andals came and started cutting down the Weirwood trees and killing us when they could. We are creatures of magic, we need magic to be born. Between The Wall using a lot of excess magic, the Night King using more to build his army and to completely freeze the Land of Always Winter, even more than it already was, and the loss of so many Weirwood trees, magic started to become gradually weaker. It was a slow decline but it added up over time. We need magic like a tree needs the sun. Without it many of my kind and many giants started to reproduce less and less. Many more died from illness due to a lack of magic. It is why so many of my kind live in places that are still rich with magic. Like this place. We can survive without magic for a century or two before we die but it is not a pleasant experience. It is like a piece of us is missing."

Sam nodded. "That makes sense. What doesn't, is why the Three-Eyed Raven allowed the Andals to get a foothold in Westeros."

She frowned. "I don't understand."

He sighed. "The Three-Eyed Raven is supposed to be the most powerful Greenseer alive. You say he can see the future. If he was such a powerful Greenseer, then he could see out of any Weirwood in Westeros. He could use birds or animals to easily spy on the Andals. How hard would it have been to sabotage them? To use animals to assassinate a few of the more powerful members of the Faith when they first arrived on Westeros shores? He could have easily used his so called prophecy powers to completely change the outcome of the war between the Andals and the First Men. All he would have needed to do was make Artos Arryn be thrown from his horse at the right time and House Royce, or make the Griffin King win his battle against Arryns, both houses with deep ties to the First Men, would be ruling the Vale. The Vale would probably still be in the hands of the First Men and would still worship the Old Gods. There would be many more Weirwood trees then. Dragons give off magic, according to legend. Why didn't he do something to stop them from going extinct? No, the Three-Eyed Raven probably planned on destroying the Night King, but it seems to me like he was also trying to weaken his jailers."

He noticed that she had gone still. Completely and utterly. It wasn't really a surprise to Sam. It can't be easy to only have this revelation after being subtly sabotaged for so long. Sam noticed that many of the Children that were watching the conversation seemed about ready to burst into tears. There were others who were whispering angrily to each other and more that were just completely silent with a blank face. Like they couldn't even comprehend what he was saying.

Leaf releasing a shaky breath brought his focus back to her. "The Three-Eyed Raven was only meant to watch the world. Not to change it. The only thing he was meant to act against was the Night King."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "I would think that strengthening the Children of the Forest and the giants as well as preventing the extinction of the dragons would have been acting against the Night King."

She looked at Sam with a face devoid of emotion. "I will need to think on it more."

After a pause she spoke again. "What now?"

Sam thought over his options for a few moments. "I'm angry. I'm angry that you created a creature as despicable as the Night King. I'm angry you never learnt your lesson the first time and created the Three-Eyed Raven."

He released a breath. "But I am also sympathetic. You were desperate and you made stupid decisions. Very stupid decisions. But they were made thousands of years ago, so I am trying not to hold it against you too much."

He paused to let that sink in before continuing. "I want to strengthen magic. To bring it back to how it is meant to be. I want the South to be filled with Weirwood trees and for magic to not be feared or hated but accepted and embraced. Your race is on the brink of extinction. So are the giants. I would like to help you."

He could see all of the Children perk up slightly at his words. "There will be costs and there will be conditions however."

Leaf was looking at him with slightly wary eyes. "What will those be?"

He answered. "You will have to bend the knee to House Stark."

That released pandemonium amongst the Children, there were many shouting angrily at him in a language he couldn't understand while gesturing wildly. He kept his eyes on Leaf however.

He could see she was looking slightly angry now. "So you will not help us unless it is to your benefit?"

Sam reminded himself to remain calm. "It is for your benefit as well. If I am to help you. If I am to strengthen magic, you need to come south of The Wall. You need to help me plant more Weirwood trees,I don't know how to, you need to help in taking care of the ones we already have. You can do this without swearing fealty, true. Many Lords in the North will probably welcome you with open arms and smiles. You are living proof for many of them that their religion is real. There will be those that will not welcome you though. While most in the North worship the Old Gods there are those who worship the Seven. There are even more in the South who would demand your heads on principle. The Maesters, the Faith and even some of the Great Houses. If you bend the knee you would become citizens of the North. I would be honour bound to protect you as long as you follow our laws. My bannermen would be honour bound to protect you because you are a part of the North. If the South were to demand your heads at that point, no Northern Lord would have the right to complain about the measures taken to ensure your safety."

She looked slightly appeased but still conflicted. "Men are fickle. You may protect us, but what of your children when you die? Or their children?"

Sam took a breath. He had already thought of this. If he was really going to be doing this then he needed to plan for the future. He needed to build a solid foundation for future generations. "I will be giving you a decent amount of land in the Wolfswood to live in. The forest is close to Winterfell so it will be easy to keep in communication. You are right. Men are fickle. That is why I would give you a chance to have an influence on future Starks."

She furrowed her eyebrows. "Go on."

Sam continued. "The wisest amongst you will help raise future Stark children from when they are born. Teaching them about the Old Gods, skinchanging, greenseeing and magic in general. You will get the chance to advise them. To help guide them."

He hardened his expression. "Don't believe you can control them though. If even a single bannermen thought you were, then they would go to war. Mankind is fickle, as you said. What I can guarantee is that they would never be happy being ruled by anyone who isn't a part of mankind themselves."

He could see she was thinking deeply on what he said. Before she could come to a decision there was still another rule he would have to inform them of. "There will also be no blood magic. Not unless the Stark of Winterfell gives their express permission."

She tensed slightly. "With magic so weak, blood magic is the most powerful kind left."

Sam nodded. It was a fair point, however "Blood magic also almost always comes with a cost. That cost is not always something that is easily noticeable and when it is noticed, it can be devastating. I will work to strengthen magic as much as I can, but there will be no blood magic." Sam know this from the books he found in the hidden room in Lord's Solar. Some will say, rituals are same, they also have a cost, but they are wrong, rituals follow the concept of equal exchange and in most rituals the exchange is the ingredients of the ritual. I will say it is more closer to potion but needs more precision and care and are permanent.

She frowned but nodded. "You are correct, there is almost always a cost. You have given me much to think on Symeon Stark. I can't come to a decision right now."

He shrugged. "Nor do I expect you to. I am not ready to receive you just yet. There is probably a war happening with the Iron Islands soon and I still need to lay some groundwork to make the transition as smooth as possible. In a year, I should be ready, then you can come south with few problems, hopefully. If you agree to my terms then I would ask you to gather as many giants as possible and explain the terms to them. They will be given permission to roam some areas if that is their wish, otherwise I will give them a piece of land for them to build on. "

She nodded and Sam noticed she was much more relaxed now than she had been through the rest of the conversation. "I will think on your offer Symeon Stark."

Sam smiled at her slightly and prepared to leave before a thought stuck him. A question he had forgot to ask. "One more question. How am I here? I never knew greenseers could do this, travel in the present and hold talk like this."

She laughed. It was a light and joyous sound reminding Sam of the tinkling of bells. "Before magic weakened only the most powerful or skilled could do it. Even then they could only do so at locations rich in magic, like here. "

Sam decided to think of the applications of this ability later. For now he decided it was time to get back to his body, he had probably already worried Lord Reed and Morna a lot. He nodded farewell to Leaf and the other Children before he grabbed onto the link to his body and pulled.