A/N: Axel finally gets some much needed answers.
-x-X-x-
"Awaken, Champion."
The first thing Axel Baratheon notices when he wakes up is that there's no pain. The second thing he notices is that he's not really 'awake' at all. Not unless he's dead and this is supposed to be his afterlife. All around him, he sees nothing but a white void. And when he looks down, he doesn't seem to have a body either, hence the lack of pain from his recent injury. Hm… maybe he is dead after all.
"You are not dead. You are merely unconscious."
Looking forward, Axel finds himself face to face with nothing in particular. Yet somehow, he intuitively knows exactly who and what he's speaking with. The Seven.
"Yes. We understand you have been hoping to have a conversation with us for some time. We took this opportunity to reach out to you, knowing you had many questions for us. We hope to provide answers, where we are able."
Well they weren't wrong. He did have a lot of questions. But Axel has to admit, he can't focus on anything but the present. What just happened between him and that White Walker… it consumes him.
"The Night King. He is the Great Other's Champion, as you are ours."
So they did claim him as their Champion. Given they'd helped him with Daenerys, Axel supposed it made sense. But back to this 'Night King'… what in the world was that scream? Why had it hurt so much?
"The Night King took advantage of an unknown weakness to both you and us. No doubt he did so at the behest of the Great Other. The same physiology that allows you to fly also leaves you vulnerable to certain high pitched sounds. If we had known ahead of time, we might have been able to protect you… as it was, we were only able to assist in a limited capacity."
The voice. The melody in the back of his head. They'd been with him then. He really was their Champion all along then, huh? All of this power… came from them?
"No."
What? A jolt goes through Axel's non-being at the immediate rebuke.
"Your power is your own, Champion. Your strength, your speed, your power. All of it comes naturally to you. We name you our Champion not because we had a hand in creating you or empowering you, but because you are the most powerful being to ever claim us as your gods. Before you came along, we were powerless to interfere."
Axel would blink at that if he had eyes. They were… powerless? But they were the Seven Who Are One! They were literal divinity! How could they possibly be powerless?
"To understand that you must first understand the history of this world. Eight thousand years ago, the Long Night came. Eternal Winter arrived from the frozen north. The Great Other sent his children along with ice and snow and terrible, dark magicks that allowed them to command and control all they slew. The Children of the Forest and the First Men united in order to drive the Others back with flame and dragonglass."
He mentally twitches at that, filing away the mention of both dragonglass and flame as weaknesses to the Others. Fire made sense, but dragonglass… he never would have guessed it.
"The Long Night ended with the Battle for the Dawn. The Great Other was defeated when his forces annihilated and he himself left without power. However, it did not come without a cost. The Children of the Forest were decimated. And the Gods of Westeros at the time, those that you would call Old Gods, gave everything they had to shield their followers from the Great Other's Evil. In the end, a great working was raised in the form of your Wall, a monumental fortification of ancient magicks… not just mortal magicks, but divine as well."
The Old Gods… were the Seven saying what Axel thought they were saying?
"Yes. The Old Gods have not truly existed in a divine sense for the past eight thousand years. Only fragments of their power and will remain behind in their heart trees. There is no mind behind them though. No divine intelligence remains to direct those slivers of ancient intent."
Huh. So that explained why the Old Gods hadn't made a play on his life like the Drowned God or the Lord of Light, Axel supposed. They quite literally couldn't because they weren't really around anymore. Oof, Sansa and her family weren't going to like hearing that. Maybe he just wouldn't tell them…?
"In the end, when the Wall was finished, it drained the magic from the lands to its south. The construction sucked up all the power that it could, including divine power. This left the continent you know as Westeros as the equivalent of a desolate wasteland to entities such as us."
Wait, really? That causes Axel to do another mental blink. He didn't think of Westeros as anywhere near 'a desolate wasteland'. It was a beautiful place of many different and diverse environments, was it not? But then, the Seven were likening it to a desolate wasteland only for the divine. So then… why had they ever came here in the first place.
"Why indeed. Our exodus here was not by choice. Six thousand years ago, two thousand years after the Battle for the Dawn, we suffered a major defeat at the hands of our enemies across what you refer to as the Narrow Sea. As a consequence, we were stripped of much of our power and forced into the divine wasteland that Westeros had become. This was considered a death sentence by our triumphant foes, but we were not ready to lay down and die just yet."
Hm, that wasn't how the histories said it went. Everything he'd been told and everything he'd read said that the Andals came over to Westeros as conquerors, traveling across the sea and taking over most of the southern half of the continent from the First Men who had been there first.
"We pushed for our followers to make the journey to Westeros with the last scraps of our power. We pushed for them to set down roots and build new homes in the place we'd been exiled to. And we pushed for them to build places of worship, temples to our names that could be used to strengthen us and keep us from falling into obscurity."
… Then again, if that WERE the case, then why was there no Andal Empire over on Essos? The Hills of Andalos, where the Andals were said to originate from, shared nothing in common with the Andals of Westeros. Not a single trace of their culture… or worship to the Seven, remained on Essos. It lined up with what the Seven were telling him right now, Axel supposed.
"Unfortunately, it was not enough. In a place as desolate and unfriendly to the divine as Westeros, our followers and their worship were not enough. Enough to sustain us yes, but not enough to empower us. Only enough to keep us alive for a time."
Oh? They certainly seemed to be a lot more than living now…
"Our enemies considered this fitting when they realized what had happened. They knew even if we could survive indefinitely, that one day the Great Other would return. They expected us and all of Westeros to fall to the Great Other and his armies while acting as the early warning for the rest of them to heed."
Bait. They were essentially being used as bait. A barely breathing, unmoving body set out before the great beast's lair so that when it finally exited hibernation and began to eat, the screams would alert everyone else that it was awake again.
"An apt description. Yes, our enemies saw no reason to move to finish us off when we seemed to pose no further threat to them. Until now. Until you, Champion."
Him?
"Indeed. Only when you came along and started worshipping us did we begin to receive more energy. Enough to do more than just survive. Enough to begin to act, if in small ways here and there. It is your faith, your belief in us, that gave us the strength to help you where we could. This terrified the remnants of our ancient enemies who exiled us to Westeros in the first place. The one you know as the Lord of Light was one of them."
That was paradoxically difficult and easy to believe. On the one hand, it lined up with everything Axel had observed so far. On the other hand, it sounded utterly ridiculous. If all of their followers, hundreds of thousands if not millions of Andals, couldn't empower them with their worship, how did one man, even as powerful as he was, equate to enough on his own?
"Because you are no mere man, Champion. Your father was one of ours, there is no doubt about that… but your mother… your mother came from the stars. You yourself are Starborn, Champion. And that comes with more power than you can ever imagine."
… Starborn. Fuck, every answer they gave him only prompted more questions. But… no. No, he needed to focus. He needed to ask the right questions. Or rather, the most time sensitive questions. What was happening out in the real world right this moment? Was the Night King and his army of corpses on the move?
Were they bearing down on Axel while he lay somewhere, wounded and unconscious? The last thing he remembered was… the wildlings. He'd instinctively flown to their camp and he thinks he killed someone… but the Seven have already said he's not dead…
"Do not fret, Champion. There is still time. Just as our other enemies moved too fast, so too has the Great Other as well. He has sent forth his Champions and his armies too early. The Wall could not stand forever, the power that built it had to eventually run out… but it has not run out just yet."
The Wall could not stand forever?! That was a chilling thing to hear. But then again, the massive fortification was already eight thousand years old…
"It will take months more for the Night King to force his way through the dregs of the Wall's magic. Months for you to recover, months for you to rally your armies and prepare for battle. To the Great Other, these months are nothing but the blink of an eye. His folly is not understanding what you, Champion, have proven yourself capable of accomplishing in the span of mere months."
Months. That… wasn't the worst news, Axel supposed. Though it did put him in a race to the finish. Every moment was precious and he couldn't just spend it all here, in his mind, talking to his gods. He needed to wake up. He needed to get moving.
"It will do you no good, we're afraid. You are still gravely wounded and those trying to help you have used medicines that will leave you delirious and barely capable of stringing two thoughts together in the waking world."
Axel would be the judge of that. He could handle a little chest wound. And he was immune to poisons as well, so what were some wildling drugs going to do to him? No, he needed to wake up. Now.
"… Very well."
Suddenly he's awake. Suddenly, the pain is back.
-x-X-x-
Val finds herself tending to the kneeler king's wound and trying not to admire his impressive physique too much. It's been two days now since he'd crashed into the snow and taken off Rattleshirt's head.
Two days in which the Free Folk Wisewomen had said he was getting neither better nor worse. Enough time for them to start teaching her some things so they didn't have to move their old bones across the camp to her tent every few hours to do the work themselves.
Everything Val knew about injuries said that Axel Baratheon should already be dead at this point. Even as she unpacks his wound and then repacks it, she wonders if there's any real hope for his survival. He hasn't woken up in all this time either, forcing them to drip water and mush into his mouth and massage his throat until he swallows it so he doesn't die from starvation or thirst.
It was all so damn hopeless. He was-
Axel would clench his jaw if he had one right now. He still had a promise to keep where the Red God was concerned. One day, he would go to Essos and he would destroy every temple to the Lord of Light that he could find. By the time he was done, there would be nothing left of R'hllor's worshippers.
"This is a just cause, and one we will wholeheartedly support you on, our Champion. Fortunately, the Lord of Light has overstepped. Just as we did not have the power to reach out across the sea and fully obfuscate the eyes of his priestess as we wanted to… he did not have the power to reach over to Westeros. Not with us renewed as we are."
Oh? Now that sounded interesting. Fortunately, the Seven were happy to explain.
"If it were not for your worship empowering us, the Lord of Light would have faced no opposition here on Westeros. Through his Red Priestess, he could have done anything he wanted. But with the death of the one you know as Melisandre and his Champion turning her back on him, we had an opportunity. In trying to destroy Daenerys Targaryen for her betrayal, R'hllor overstepped and wasted much of his power in those final moments before we intervened and cut him off at the last possible second."
Well shit.
"Indeed. You do not need to worry about the Lord of Light or his followers traveling to these lands any time soon. He took quite the blow when we welcomed our lost dragon daughter back into our warm embrace at your urging. He lost everything he'd poured into his Champion when we stopped him from accessing her and made sure that her power would remain her own."
Axel was going to choose to believe they were telling the truth about… all of that. In the end, it wasn't like he had a better option at this point. And looking back, everything they'd said so far seemed to line up with what he'd experienced. They really had been helping him for longer than he'd known. Although… something they'd said before sticks in his mind even now.
What did it mean for him to be Starborn? What did it mean that his mother came from the stars? Were they saying his mother was a goddess? Was he some sort of half-god?
"No. To be Starborn is to be from beyond this world. Your mother was not a Goddess… but nor was she within our domain. She came to this world from the empty expanse above, a place commonly believed to be nothing more than an abyss in which nothing can survive. And yet when we finally traced back your origins, we discovered that she arrived from that very same abyss… and it was to that abyss she returned when she left you with your father."
Damn. Axel thought he'd heard and seen it all by this point, but they were talking about something beyond the world. The empty dark of the night, only kept from being pitch black by the stars spread throughout its canopy? That was where his mother had descended from? That was where half of him came from?
No wonder he was fucking weird. He really wasn't entirely human. Hell, for all he knew, he might actually be half demon after all. Or even something worse…
"You are not anathema, our Champion. Even desperate as we were, we would not have taken your offerings and accepted your worship if your heritage was something we could not countenance. Still, you should know now that in all the history of our existence, we know of only one other entity that came from the abyss above our world."
Again, he'd be narrowing his eyes here if he had them. Who were they talking about, exactly?
"The Great Other. He and his servants are no more of this world than your mother. But while she came and went after producing you, he has stayed. Even in the wake of his failure to subjugate this world with his armies, he has remained in the frozen north, carefully marshaling his power for a second attempt."
Ah. Axel had to admit, being told that his mother shared company with the greatest evil that the world had ever seen was a little… disconcerting. But the Seven had already said that he was not 'anathema', right? So…
"Indeed, neither you nor your mother were cut of the same cloth as the Great Other. In fact, we have come to believe that without you, any permanent victory against the Great Other and his servants would be doomed. You, Starborn as you are, are our greatest opportunity of finishing the Great Other off once and for all and not just sending it into dormancy for another eight thousand years."
… Right. No pressure. There was just one problem with them pinning all of their hopes on Axel. How was he supposed to get up and make use of the handful of months he had left if he was laid out on death's door?
The Night King was draining the magic from the Wall and destroying the barrier holding the army of dead back right this fucking moment! Axel needed to heal up, but he'd felt like he was in just as much pain as before. It was one of the few things he actually remembered from his short stint awake.
"The Champion of the Great Other used a most terrible weapon on you, we're afraid to say. By all accounts, you should already be dead. The magic of the crystal spear is such that any living thing struck by one is meant to lose their vitality in moments, sucking them dry of all remaining lifeforce until they are just another corpse to be commanded by the Great Other's servants."
Well that didn't fucking sound good.
"You, however, are Starborn. We do not fully understand what you are capable of, only that your unique physiology is allowing you to fight the effects of the spear to a standstill. With the weapon removed, you may even heal from the wound on your own in time… but as you said, we do not have the time to wait."
Oh?
"We have already called upon the one that can help you heal from this predicament. They cannot fly as fast as you though, so it will take some time for them to arrive. Not much longer now though, we expect."
Who were they even talking- oh. Ohhhh.
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A/N: *insert inspirational music or superhero theme here or something*
Funnily enough, this chapter was originally imagined as three chapters in my outline. Needless to say, that felt… gratuitous in the end. Hope people like this worldbuilding and expositing!
Feedback is GREATLY appreciated, every comment helps me shape the story with a Daily Free Write like this one!