“Now you know " the crow whispered as it sat on his shoulder. "Now you know why you must live." "Why " Bran said not understanding falling falling. "Because winter is coming.”

“Not cry. Fly.“I can’t fly,” Bran said. “I can’t, I can’t…”How do you know? Have you ever tried?The voice was high and thin. Bran looked around to see where it was coming from. A crow was spiraling down with him, just out of touch, following him as he fell. “Help me,” he said.I’m trying, the crow replied…The crow took to the air and flapped around Bran’s hand.“You have wings,” Bran pointed out.Maybe you do too.Bran felt along his shoulders, groping for feathers.There are different kinds of wings, the crow said…Bran was falling faster than ever. The grey mists howled around him as he plunged toward the earth below. “What are you doing to me?” he asked the crow, tearful.Teaching you how to fly.“I can’t fly!”You’re flying right now.“I’m falling!”Every flight begins with a fall, the crow said. Look down.”

“It seemed as he had been falling for years. Fly, a voice whispered in the darkness, but Bran did not know how to fly, so all he could do was fall.”

“Up and down," Meera would sigh sometimes as they walked, "then down and up. Then up and down again. I hate these stupid mountains of yours, Prince Bran.""Yesterday you said you loved them.""Oh, I do. My lord father told me about mountains, but I never saw one till now. I love them more than I can say."Bran made a face at her. "But you just said you hated them.""Why can't it be both?" Meera reached up to pinch his nose."Because they're different," he insisted. "Like night and day, or ice and fire.""If ice can burn," said Jojen in his solemn voice, "then love and hate can mate. Mountain or marsh, it makes no matter. The land is one.""One," his sister agreed, "but over wrinkled.”

“Oh, my sweet summer child," Old Nan said quietly, "what do you know of fear?Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feetdeep and the ice wind comes howling out of the north. Fear is for the longnight, when the sun hides its face for years at a time, and little childrenare born and live and die all in darkness while the direwolves grow gaunt andhungry, and the white walkers move through the woods”

“Now I understand why King Stannis let the wildlings through the Wall. He means for us to eat them.”

“Winter is coming, and when the Long Night falls, only the Night’s Watch will stand between the realm and the darkness that sweeps from the North.”