Chapter Text

Prologue

It had all started long ago as a bet between those that would come to be known as the ‘Old Gods’ of the forest and the Valyrian Gods. Both believed that their toys were of the best quality and so, to settle this bet once and for all, to see which traits would dominate they made a bet. At some point in the future a human would be born of both bloodlines, at that time the Gods would watch and see whose toys were the better depending on whose traits the human favoured. So, the Gods agreed on a timeline in which the bet would play out, for there were an almost infinite number that existed to amuse the Gods, and in that timeline, they would not interfere lest it affect the outcome of the bet. The Gods chose a timeline fairly far on, after all not all timelines were in the same ‘year’ at any one time and agreed that they would not look in on timelines that were further in the future so as not to be tempted to cheat on the bet.

What neither set of Gods had counted on was that the bet would not be fulfilled until the Long Night arrived, by which time it was almost too late, and the Gods realised that without divine intervention all their toys would be wiped out in almost all the timelines, and that would be incredibly boring, not to mention dangerous, after all did a God exist if no one worshiped them? As such the Gods convened, old and new, Valyrian and otherwise, to agree a course of action. It was time to start breaking the rules, and since the favourite toys of the Valyrian Gods were front and centre when it came to preventing the Long Night (one of the few facts the Gods all agreed on) it was decided they would have the first stab at changing the future in a handful of realities (although what is a handful to Gods?), and the other Gods would sit back and learn from their mistakes…

Long ago, when living beings first came into existence the Gods of the time had decided that all living things should have free will. After all, how many times can one watch a play they wrote themselves before they get bored of the monotony? What no one knew was what would happen if you took it away. This was the first lesson they would learn.

The first attempt to change the future was simple, if dragons were the best weapon against the dead then stopping the dance of dragons should be the easy fix, stop that, the dragons would still be alive, and the dead would lose the battle. And so, the Gods found a suitable timeline at a pivotal moment, and they struck. It did not go as planned. By forcing the King of the Seven Kingdoms to agree to his brother’s proposal of marriage to his daughter the Gods thought it would be the first step to solving the problem. What followed was disastrous, if entertaining for them all. The Gods found that they had to keep stepping in to prevent the order from being revoked and each time they did the King seemed to lose his sanity. The result was the first truly mad Targaryen king, one that never again trusted what would come out of his mouth and spent the rest of his days ranting about being possessed. The Prince and the Princess faired not much better, as it turned out the Princess was too young and inexperienced to handle her new husband, who at that point still desired the throne. The dance still occurred, and all the dragons still died out in short order but with a lot more death, chaos and disorder. The one that finally took the throne at the end was more insane than depressed and the Gods agreed that it was time to abandon that timeline all together for there was every chance the White Walkers wouldn’t get the opportunity to wipe out humanity there. (They still looked in on occasion for the entertainment value, after all the Gods were not known for being careful with even their favourite toys)

After this lesson it became obvious something a little more significant was required, but something that allowed their toys to keep their free will. Evidently removing it even temporarily led to madness. As such they decided to start a little later, instead of deciding for their toys they would try a new way to teach them a lesson, one they may the use to defeat the dead. So they took two of their remaining toys from their own time and dropped them 200 years in the past to learn from two of the favourite dragons. As this experiment progressed however a new idea formed. What if, instead of learning lessons to use in the future, they used the bonds they had created and the lessons they were learning to change to past? So the Gods recreated the same situation, only in this new timeline, they would give their time travellers a choice. Instead of living in the past as ghosts, they could become real and try to prevent the Dance of Dragons and save the Targaryen Dynasty, the price? They can never go back to their own time. Such a simple choice to make, from the Gods point of view at least.