#isle of thorns

[the-toastyverse]

OC Fun Facts #1:

Ferrum and Cinis are the tallest characters in Isle of Thorns.

Ferrum is 8' 11", and Cinis is 8' 6".

[aroaessidhe]

aro & ace books: aroace boys/men

in some of these it's explored significantly, in others it's only vaguely/briefly implied!

Sailing By Orion’s Star - historical trilogy, 3 aroace MCs

The Stones Stay Silent - high fantasy

Fallen Thorns - urban fantasy/paranormal

The Wolf Among The Wild Hunt - dark fantasy

The Siren The Song and The Spy - YA fantasy, one of various MCs (in book 2)

Wander The Night - urban fantasy

Lord of the Empty Isles - scifi/fantasy

Sinners - dark fantasy duology

The Dragon of Ynys - fantasy

Royal Rescue - high fantasy

City of Exile - high fantasy series, one of many MCs (other aspec chars too)

The Loudest Silence - YA contemporary, 1 of 2 MCs

See also: Rick, The Rhythm of My Soul, Party of Fools, The Chronicles of Nerezia

#aspec books / aspec database / tumblr masterpost

[fourteentrout]

Updated Tamlin design + Isle of dogs sound

[janamensch]

Ilmera knight OC!!! This is Ser Valerie, she’s a knight errant from the Suncrest Isles!

[raptorstar]

Alright so to hype up this fine day even more, I decided to throw Thomas into two different things that just happened to come out on this day.

First up we got My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, which came out on October 10th, 2010

And then we got Amber Isle which came out like, literally today.

[pastelpaperplanes]

Omg the kobd couple is so cute, wildbreak too. What was Op and Megs reaction to them ? :3

ah, I’d imagine after both of them woke up after being patched up they’d surely be grateful, but dazed and confused as HELL

kinda like, whomst the fuck attacked us and how the fuck are we alive. WHAT the fuck is that little thing, where the fuck are we and why the FUCK are we all the way in the isles???

Give them a break, they are in pain 😂

[acourtofwhatthefuck]

yeah, he said the same to feyre 😤😤😤

[gh0stlyscooter]

Doodle of my boyyyyyyys

[quitethepirategal]

Tag Fix  ~  { 4 / 8 }  ~  ship tags  { a }

[feroshgirlsims]

The Haunting of Crumbling Isle

The Ghost Gang is back in a Halloween special brought to you by FeroshGirl Studios!

Will the crew survive their investigation of Windenburg's Crumbling Isle? Or will the monsters prove to be too much? And just how many times will they get distracted by kissing each other? Paul Romeo and Sierra Moss star alongside their spouses and newcomer Thorne Bailey in a crossover featuring the crew from The Save File Chronicles.

Track(s): Shadows in the Savoy, Sleepy Head, Skeletons (KINGS + Drew Ryn) | Music provided by https://slip.stream

SFX + VFX from Footagecrate

I had so much fun putting this together, even though I kind of wanted to tear my own hair out. I challenged myself to learn Davinci Resolve instead of sticking with my beloved Final Cut and, um, it was a JOURNEY, babe, let me tell you.

I'm glad I did it, though! I mean, yes, I do love Halloween, but I also wanted to make something special for the indomitable, always fabulous @sirianasims. I love this community, and since joining, I've met so many lovely simblr friends. But I wouldn't even be here with Siri. Not only is she a patient sounding board for all my (admittedly unhinged) ideas. She's super fucking generous with all her talents and never hesitates to help me out. She is a baddie, and I'm lucky to count her as a friend.

No sims were harmed in the filming of the machinima, but they did look good as hell thanks to some incredible cc creators (@sentate, the collab by @ice-creamforbreakfast and @surely-sims, @lady-moriel and billion more things I have in my game, so pls don't hesitate to ask if you see something you like).

Also, I'm obsessed with this lot by @rheya28. I had to destroy a few things to make it spooky, but I swear, if you download it, there is no blood on the walls or cobwebs.

Ok, that's all! Happy Halloween!

[ventique18]

Malleus book recommendations (⚠️ Warning: Adult novels)

Are you a MalleYuu simp? Are you tired of their endless pining that never goes anywhere? Are you frustrated and just want the Yuu♀️ to bed the Malleus? Well you're in luck because I've sacrificed my sanity to comb through heaps of trash just to feed my brethren's delusions!

If your fave is his temper tantrum: Rurik - The WitchSlayer. This is only one book, but very cute and satisfying. Not very heavy on the plot; more on a fantasy slice of life between a dragon shifter and a sweet part-dragon witch.

If your favorite is the playful in Malleus: Rhysand - A Court of Thorns and Roses Series. Note: Do not stop reading until you get to Book 2, at least. It's the actual start of the series.

If you like both Malleus and Silver and want to merge them into one person: Creon - Fae Isles Series. IMO the best out of all of them.

If you like Evil Malleus: Valroy - Maze of Shadows Series. From the most well-written book out of all of them, but requires the most open mind. This is a dark novel with an evil hero. When I say evil, he is EVIL.

Some rankings below:

Note that all of these are personal preferences.

Ranking the best boys:

1. CREON (Fae Isles). He's THE best hero out of all romance books I've read so far. He's complex. He's devilish. He's thoughtful. He has a unique feature about him that no one else possesses. You'll understand.

2. Rurik (The WitchSlayer). He's annoying, has a bad temper, grumpy most of the time, but he's very cute. He's a literal dragon. He's also smart and actually thinks things through to actively resolve misunderstandings because he understands that feelings can muddle the truth.

3. Rhysand (A Court of Thorns and Roses). He's perfect. That's all. Sometimes a bit too perfect, but he's much better than many fictional male leads.

4. Valroy (Maze of Shadows). This does not mean he stinks. He's literally just extremely evil, which in itself makes him very interesting and better than most cookie cutter heroes.

All of them are great characters. They're the main reasons why you would read these novels.

Ranking the stories:

1. Fae Isles. Its magic system is unique. A lot of it is unique. Just excellent all around and definitely my favorite.

2. Maze of Shadows. DARK romance. Toxic. But very interesting and a refreshing read for those who have the strength to stomach it and remind themselves that this is only fiction.

3. The WitchSlayer. Just a one-shot so you can't expect much, but its pacing is unique in that the conflict resolves fairly early, leaving enough room to tackle what happens after the big bad evil has been defeated. It also has a cute epilogue! Definitely read this if you only have time for one of these. You won't regret the sweet dragon moments, both in his tiny form and his giant form.

4. A Court of Thorns and Roses. I generally just enjoyed it for Rhysand tbh.

Do you know other stories with Malleus clones? Let me know because I need it 👀

[jonsnowunemploymentera]

This part in Jon III AGoT when he’s realizing that he means to swear his life to a celibate institution at only the age of 14, before he could explore all the options the world has to offer him.

“I don’t care,” Jon said. “I don’t care about them and I don’t care about you or Thorne or Benjen Stark or any of it. I hate it here. It’s too… it’s cold.” “Yes. Cold and hard and mean, that’s the Wall, and the men who walk it. Not like the stories your wet nurse told you. Well, piss on the stories and piss on your wet nurse. This is the way it is, and you’re here for life, same as the rest of us.” “Life,” Jon repeated bitterly. The armorer could talk about life. He’d had one. He’d only taken the black after he’d lost an arm at the siege of Storm’s End. Before that he’d smithed for Stannis Baratheon, the king’s brother. He’d seen the Seven Kingdoms from one end to the other; he’d feasted and wenched and fought in a hundred battles. They said it was Donal Noye who’d forged King Robert’s warhammer, the one that crushed the life from Rhaegar Targaryen on the Trident. He’d done all the things that Jon would never do, and then when he was old, well past thirty, he’d taken a glancing blow from an axe and the wound had festered until the whole arm had to come off. Only then, crippled, had Donal Noye come to the Wall, when his life was all but over.

This part in Jon V, only two chapters later, when he’s finally about to become a man of the Watch but he can’t get too excited because he’s realizing that there’s a great big world down there, yet he’s all the way up here at the Wall - a cold, unwelcoming home; a prison with no escape unless he wishes to die.

He had no destination in mind. He wanted only to ride. He followed the creek for a time, listening to the icy trickle of water over rock, then cut across the fields to the kingsroad. It stretched out before him, narrow and stony and pocked with weeds, a road of no particular promise, yet the sight of it filled Jon Snow with a vast longing. Winterfell was down that road, and beyond it Riverrun and King’s Landing and the Eyrie and so many other places; Casterly Rock, the Isle of Faces, the red mountains of Dorne, the hundred islands of Braavos in the sea, the smoking ruins of old Valyria. All the places that Jon would never see. The world was down that road… and he was here. Once he swore his vow, the Wall would be his home until he was old as Maester Aemon. “I have not sworn yet,” he muttered. He was no outlaw, bound to take the black or pay the penalty for his crimes. He had come here freely, and he might leave freely… until he said the words. He need only ride on, and he could leave it all behind. By the time the moon was full again, he would be back in Winterfell with his brothers. Your half brothers, a voice inside reminded him. And Lady Stark, who will not welcome you. There was no place for him in Winterfell, no place in King’s Landing either. Even his own mother had not had a place for him. The thought of her made him sad. He wondered who she had been, what she had looked like, why his father had left her. Because she was a whore or an adulteress, fool. Something dark and dishonorable, or else why was Lord Eddard too ashamed to speak of her? Jon Snow turned away from the kingsroad to look behind him. The fires of Castle Black were hidden behind a hill, but the Wall was there, pale beneath the moon, vast and cold, running from horizon to horizon. He wheeled his horse around and started for home.

Yes Jon could leave the Watch, but he has no place! Because where would he go, bastard that he is?

That’s why the most underrated endgame theory is ‘Traveling Diplomat Jon’. Yes he’s a talented politician and he would do very well as a ruling lord, but there’s so much he’s yet to discover because he struggled to see where his illegitimate status could take him. But even in his bastardy, Jon is connected to so many important locations all around Westeros. Forget Winterfell. He could visit Harrenhall where his parents met. He could go look for rubies in the Trident and see where his father died. He could visit the Vale, the place that raised his adoptive father and the man he’s named after. He could take a trip to Starfall and visit his milkbrother, then visit the Tower of Joy’s ruins. He could got to Dragonstone and Summerhall, his father’s birthplace and home. If he wishes, he can cross the Narrow Sea and visit his friend (and personal banker) Tycho Nestoris in Braavos. And if his suicidal tendencies get stronger, why not visit the smoky ruins of Valyria where sleeping dragons were once brought to life, just like himself?

Jon has spent five books earning his ‘Lord Snow’ title. And though it’s an oxymoron everyone, from baseborn bastards to mighty kings, calls him that and not all of them do it as a sign of mockery. He’s put in a lot of work towards coming to terms with his bastardy. So it’s finally time for him to take that in consideration and realize that there’s a great big world out there that’s ready to welcome him, bastard as he is.

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

🖤🩶🤍💜 Happy Ace Week, Bookish Bats!

❓ What was the last book you read that featured asexual characters? If it's been a while, here are a few to consider adding to your TBR!

🖤 Aces Wild - Amanda Dewitt 🩶 Loveless - Alice Oseman 🤍 That Kind of Guy - Stephanie Archer 💜 We Awaken - Calista Lynne 🖤 The Kindred - Alechia Dow 🩶 Scavenge the Stars - Tara Sim 🤍 Fire Becomes Her - Rosiee Thor 💜 A Snake Falls to the Earth - Darcie Little Badger 🖤 Forward March - Skye Quinlan 🩶 The Romantic Agenda - Claire Kann 🤍 The Reckless Kind - Carly Heath 💜 Summer Bird Blue - Akemi Dawn Bowman

🖤 The Charm Offensive - Alison Cochrun 🩶 Meet Cute Diary - Emery Lee 🤍 Cupid Calling - Viano Oniomoh 💜 The Bruising of Qilwa - Naseem Jamnia 🖤 The Loudest Silence - Sydney Langford 🩶 Kiss Her Once for Me - Alison Cochrun 🤍 So Let Them Burn - Kamilah Cole 💜 Dear Wendy - Ann Zhao 🖤 Exes & Foes - Amanda Woody 🩶 The Final Curse of Ophelia Cray - Christine Calella 🤍 Firebreak - Nicole Kornher-Stace 💜 Never Been Kissed - Timothy Janovsky

🖤 Bury Your Gays - Chuck Tingle 🩶 Baker Thief - Claudie Arseneault 🤍 The Many Half-Lived Lives of Sam Sylvester - Maya MacGregor 💜 The Story of the Hundred Promises - Neil Cochrane 🖤 Adrift Starlight - Mindi Briar 🩶 Help Wanted - J. Emery 🤍 If You Still Recognize Me - Cynthia So 💜 Bad At Love - Gabriela Martins 🖤 The End Crowns All - Bea Fitzgerald 🩶 The Winter Knight - Jes Battis 🤍 The Meister of Decimen City - Brenna Raney 💜 It Sounds Like This - Anna Meriano

🖤 Fallen Thorns - Harvey Oliver Baxter 🩶 Don't Let the Forest In - C.G. Drews 🤍 Just Lizzie - Karen Wilfrid 💜 The Siren the Song and the Spy - Maggie Tokuda-Hall 🖤 Wren Martin Ruins It All - Amanda Dewitt 🩶 She Who Became the Sun - Shelley Parker-Chan 🤍 Poisoned Primrose - Dahlia Donovan 💜 How You Get the Girl - Anita Kelly 🖤 Lord of the Empty Isles by Jules Arbeaux 🩶 Moth to a Flame - Finn Longman 🤍 Little Thieves - Margaret Owen 💜 Someone You Can Build a Nest In - John Wiswell

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

When The World Is Crashing Down [Chapter 3: We Drown Traitors In Shallow Water]

Series summary: Your family is House Celtigar, one of Rhaenyra's wealthiest allies. In the aftermath of Rook's Rest, Aemond unknowingly conscripts you to save his brother's life. Now you are in the liar of the enemy, but your loyalties are quickly shifting...

Chapter warnings: Language, warfare, people being aware of Daeron's existence, violence, serious injury, alcoholism/addiction, Aemond having feelings (not good ones), references to sexual content (18+), an unexpected field trip.

Series title is a lyric from: "7 Minutes in Heaven" by Fall Out Boy.

Chapter title is a lyric from: "Champagne for My Real Friends, Real Pain for My Sham Friends" by Fall Out Boy.

Word count: 6.2k.

Link to chapter list: HERE.

Taglist (more in comments): @tinykryptonitewerewolf @lauraneedstochill @not-a-glad-gladiator @daenysx @babyblue711 @arcielee @at-a-rax-ia @bhanclegane @jvpit3rs @padfooteyes @marvelescvpe @travelingmypassion @darkenchantress @yeahright0h @poohxlove @trifoliumviridi @bloodyflowerrr @fan-goddess @devynsficrecs @flowerpotmage @thelittleswanao3 @seabasscevans @hiraethrhapsody @libroparaiso @echos-muses @st-eve-barnes @chattylurker @lm-txles @vagharnaur @moonlightfoxx @storiumemporium @insabecs @heliosscribbles @beautifulsweetschaos @namelesslosers @partnerincrime0 @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics @yawneneytiri @marbles-posts @imsolence @maidmerrymint @backyardfolklore @nimaharchive @anxiousdaemon @under-the-aspen-tree @amiraisgoingthruit @dd122004dd @randomdragonfires @jetblack4real @joliettes

Let me know if you'd like to be tagged! 🥰💜

Aemond never tells you where you’re going.

You follow him—ivy-green velvet tunic, silver flood of hair like moonlight—to Grand Maester Orwyle’s chambers and up a narrow spiral staircase to the rookery of the Red Keep. Windows open out into all four cardinal directions: wests towards the Reach, south towards the Stormlands, north towards the Riverlands, east towards the Narrow Sea. Late-afternoon sunlight like the pulsing glow of embers paints you both in gold, in rust. As Aemond goes to the writing desk and begins drafting a letter—his penmanship is always slow and precise, painstakingly neat—you look at the ravens that tiptoe on talons like a dragon’s through the straw beds of their cages. Each enclosure is labeled with the castles that particular raven is trained to fly to. One raven knows the way to Lannisport, another to Riverrun, a third to Winterfell where Cregan Stark is gathering far-flung Northerner soldiers to help him march south and leave his mark on the world, something like a brand or a bloodstain or a bruise. You notice that a particularly clever raven—old, greying, fast asleep with his beak tucked into scruffy feathers—is assigned three separate strongholds, all in the Crownlands: Dragonstone, Driftmark, Claw Isle. It is not often that you see all the Valyrian houses of Westeros listed together; it is not often that House Celtigar is properly acknowledged. Generations of intermarrying with Westerosi bloodlines has camouflaged your Valyrian features, but still, the truth is inescapable. The fates of the Targaryens, Velaryons, and Celtigars are hopelessly intertwined. They always have been. You survived the Doom together; you are meant to prosper or burn together.

“Who are you writing to?” you ask Aemond.

He speaks without looking up from his letter, straight regimented lines and meticulous dots. “Eastbriar.”

The seat of House Thorne, your supposed kin. You choke down a dismayed mewing—it rises in your throat like stream from a kettle—and imagine the tone of your voice to be like a ship: vital to keep level and upright, even in the roughest of waves. “A summons for our soldiers?”

Aemond nods, his eye still on the parchment. “They have had ample time to mop up after Rook’s Rest. Those who have survived and are capable of battle will meet me and Criston as we lead our army north to the Riverlands.”

This is a compromise, you know. Aemond wanted to depart from the capital on Vhagar and pursue Daemon and Caraxes alone. Everyone was against it—Criston, Otto, Alicent, Orwyle, Tyland Lannister, Jasper Wylde, Larys Strong, the entire Kingsguard, Aegon when he was roused enough to pry an answer out of—and so Aemond relented. But there is still a restlessness that lives in the icy blue cave of his remaining eye like a caged animal. “You’re doing the right thing.”

“This brings me great confidence, the endorsement of a woman with no tactical proficiency whatsoever.” And you think: I might know more of wartime strategy than your own advisors. I have heard what the Black Council discusses. I have stayed up with my father and brothers until the dark, lonely hours of the early morning as they plotted, Clement rabid to see combat, Everett assisting Father with calculations of cost and gain. Aemond smirks and beckons you closer to the desk. “I’ve finished. Go on, leave a note at the bottom.”

“What?” You stare at him, then down at the parchment. “Me?”

“I thought you might like to include a brief postscript for your family. I assume you have told them that you are here and safe. They would appreciate further report on occasion, I’m sure. To read that you are perfectly well in your own words.”

“Right,” you agree uncertainly.

Aemond crosses the rookery and turns his back to you. His hand slips into a pocket of his tunic and reemerges with small pieces of crumbly bread; he feeds them to the ravens, voracious black beaks jabbing out from between metal bars. “I will give you privacy to disparage me as much as you wish to,” he says, and you can hear the teasing smile in his voice.

He’s not suspicious, you realize. He means this as an act of kindness, of esteem. He trusts me.

And you have grown to understand Aemond well enough to know that this will only make things worse for you if your treason is discovered. It is not just the Greens’ security or strategy that is implicated here. It is Aemond’s pride. Sometimes, you think, it is his grudging affection as well.

 You pick up the quill and contemplate the letter to House Thorne. What do I write? What the hell do I write?

Then an idea occurs to you. You add to the bottom of the parchment, just below Aemond’s signature:

P.S. Please send any livestock that you can spare to help sustain Sunfyre at Rook’s Rest. His alertness and strength improve each day. The Greens cannot spare any of our dragons…and Sunfyre is beloved for his ferocity by all the loyal subjects of the realm.

You hesitate, then sign in a looping scrawl:

Aegon II, King of the Seven Kingdoms

This comes so easily, like breathing, like healing, a treachery as smooth and painless as milk of the poppy.

“Done?” Aemond asks.

“Yes.” You roll up the parchment and give it to Aemond. Without looking at what you’ve written—he trusts me, he trusts me, a chant that is in equal parts honored and horrified—he ties it with a green ribbon, attaches it to a twiglike ink-colored leg of the raven trained to fly to Eastbriar, and looses the bird out into the troubled world through the open window that faces Blackwater Bay.

The sunlight catches on something: gold wings, jade eyes. Aemond is wearing Aegon’s ring, the one you stripped him of at Rook’s Rest as he lingered at the gate between our world and the one beyond, above or below or wherever you believe it to be, ice or fire or clouds or void.

“You should give that back to Aegon,” you say. “His hands are no longer too swollen to wear it. And I think he has noticed it’s missing.”

Aemond watches you, twisting the ring where it remains on his finger. He is thoughtful in a way that you cannot decipher. “You have done your king a great service. I know you will be generously rewarded.”

“That’s not why I’m helping him.”

“Yes, I know that part too.”

A silence, deep and laden and uncomfortable. Then Aemond winces—a tiny gesture he is used to hiding—and touches his fingertips to his forehead just above the black leather of his eyepatch. You have never seen him without it. “Headache?” you say.

“Having pieces of your eye scooped out of its socket comes at a price. I’m still paying it, I’ll never stop.”

You see it clearly, the story you were told: Aemond climbing up the rope ladder into Vhagar’s saddle, his skull rattling with vengeful maroon glee, slate-grey storm winds in his rain-soaked hair. “Is that why you killed Luke?”

Aemond gazes out the open window over the frothing waves speckled with sunbeams, and there is something strange in his face: not gloating but a pensiveness that grows almost despondent. At last, he speaks. “Now he has his brother to keep him company in the afterlife.”

“Jace?” you say, shocked. “Jace is dead?”

“Larys just informed me. The rest of the city will know by nightfall.”

You remember Jace, self-assured and ambitious and looking nothing like a Velaryon. You’ve met him. You’ve met all of the Blacks, even if only fleetingly or from a distance. “How?”

“Corlys’ navy attacked the Triarchy’s fleet in the Gullet.” The Triarchy are Essosi allies of the Greens, won over by Otto’s diplomacy, notes and promises that Aegon was too impatient to wait for. At last, they have arrived. “Jace and Vermax were torching our ships. Vermax was struck by a crossbow bolt and crashed into the burning wreckage of a galley. He struggled for a while and then disappeared into the waves. Jace clung to a piece of debris but was shot by arrows until dead. His body could not be recovered before it sank.”

You don’t know what to say; it is a defeat for the Celtigars, it is a victory for Aegon, it is a tragedy for all humankind. Are we any closer to peace? Or is this a wound that rips apart its stitching again and again until infection turns all our blood to poison? “So Rhaenyra has two sons buried in the sea.”

“There is something else that Larys told me,” Aemond says. And he does not seem like a man just handed news of a triumph. “Vermax was not the only dragon at the Battle of the Gullet.”

Caraxes is with Daemon at Harrenhal, last you heard. “Syrax?”

“No. The bitch won’t fight.” He means Rhaenyra, not her dragon. Aemond looks at you with fear swimming in his river-blue eye, something he rarely lets others see. “Silverwing, Seasmoke, Vermithor, and one that was never ridden before. The Blacks call him Sheepstealer.”

“Four more dragons,” you exhale with terror. “Four battle-ready, full-grown dragons.”

“They can’t use them here,” Aemond says, like he’s comforting you. “Rhaenyra cannot sanction the burning of King’s Landing and keep the love of the people. The people’s fondness for her is halfhearted at best already.”

“But the Blacks can use their dragons against you and Criston when you march north.”

Aemond smirks, half-taunting and half-warm. “It almost sounds like you’re worried about me.”

You ignore this. You don’t know how to respond. “When are you leaving?”

“Soon. A week or two.” He swipes for your wrist. You pull it away just as his fingertips graze your skin. Aemond smiles. “I’ll leave it to you to inform Aegon of Jace’s demise. I’m sure it will cheer him.” Then he descends the narrow spiral staircase and abandons you in the rookery, surrounded by squawking, pacing ravens that claw at the walls of their cages.

You stop at Helaena’s bedchamber before going to Aegon’s; he drained his goblet of milk of the poppy an hour ago and is almost certainly still unconscious. He is trapped in a cycle of bitter disappointment. He has a day when he feels better, overexerts himself, and then spends the next three or four sleeping to escape the pain. It doesn’t matter how many times you tell him to be cautious, to be patient. You walk into his room and find him polishing his sword, trying to pull on his boots, crawling out onto the balcony after nightfall when the sun cannot burn his fragile skin.

The queen is sitting in a chair and staring at the wall. She is watching the shadows of birds flit across tapestries depicting the night sky, a flurry of butterflies, unicorns, ladybugs, Dreamfyre. Each day you bring her flowers from the gardens; they sit in vases all over the room gathering dust, lilies and irises and tulips and daisies, roses red like the crabs that scuttle across your true house’s sigil. “Your Grace? Are you alright?”

Helaena says nothing. When you move closer, you see that her ghost-pale eyes are wide and vacant.

“Helaena, come walk in the gardens with me.”

Her voice is quiet, as if from a great distance away. “Is Jaehaerys playing there?”

It takes you a moment to decide how to answer. There is no sense in upsetting Helaena; she has suffered so much already. You will not remind her that her firstborn son was beheaded in front of her. “We’ve sent him away to keep him safe. You will see him again when the war is over.”

“I’ll see many people again when the war is over. But not you.”

You hold out your hand to her. “Helaena, please. Let’s walk in the gardens before the sun sets.” Before the world ends, you think randomly, unwelcomely.

You do not expect Helaena to take your hand. She never has before, though you offer it frequently. But this time her delicate, feather-light palm finds yours. One of her children is dead, and she cannot bring herself to act as a mother to the two that remain. Her marriage never brought her happiness, her father never cherished her. You cannot change any of this. But you can remind her that she is not alone. When you have spent an hour strolling through lush greenery and past ponds that ripple with the splashing of fish, you bring Helaena to Otto—he has supper with her most nights—and then continue on alone to Aegon’s bedchamber.

You stand in the doorway watching him as he sleeps, this man that you as a Celtigar have no business touching, this man you cannot bring yourself to leave.

He is mending. He is past the worst of the danger. If I disappeared now, Grand Maester Orwyle would be more than capable of tending to him. And every second I spend in King’s Landing is another opportunity to be discovered, imprisoned, interrogated, punished, ransomed, killed.

So when will you go?

Today seems impossible. Tomorrow isn’t any better. A few days, a week, a month?

Never, you think, so abruptly and forcefully that it stuns you. I never want to be away from him.

Aegon stirs, his eyes opening in bleary slits. His mess of silvery hair cascades over his face; the scar on his right cheek spills across his skin like blood in snow. He spots you from across the room, smiles, reaches out to you with one seeking, unburned hand.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Aegon, you have to set it free.” It’s morning, days later. Outside the sun is bright and forbidden; in his bed across the room, draped in cool shadows, Aegon follows your eyeline to the glass jar on his bedside table, to the tiny creature Helaena gifted him. The once-caterpillar is now a captive butterfly with shimmering gold wings.

Aegon looks at it without much interest. “I’m terribly sorry. I was distracted by my many deformities.”

“Stop trying to lure me into complimenting you.” You remove the lid from the jar. The butterfly ascends through the opening, meanders around the room, and eventually finds its way through the window. “Besides, lots of women appreciate scars on a man.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Women in general, or one in particular…?”

“Quiet, miscreant.” You unwrap Aegon’s bandages and inspect the places you are most concerned with: the crooks of his elbows, the backs of his shoulders, his waist where the scar tissue strains when he moves. You begin massaging rose oil onto his arms, starting at his wrists. He is lucky the flames did not claim his hands; from what you have learned from books and maesters, keeping fingers nimble and stopping them from fusing together as they heal is nearly impossible.

“You’re always undressing me,” Aegon muses, gazing at you with hazy, murky blue eyes and a playful smile. “Maybe one day I’ll have the opportunity to return the favor.”

You won’t. But Cregan Stark will. And for the first time you are vividly aware that the thought of Aegon touching you—anywhere, everywhere—does not fill you with fear or dread but rather a sort of curiosity, maybe even willingness, maybe even the first pangs of a craving like hunger.

Aegon’s smile dies as you knead rose oil into his right forearm. He will require the use of it if he is to ever wield a sword properly again. “I did not mean to offend you. Allow me to apologize. I am thoroughly medicated, my judgment is impaired. And I confess that it was not so good to begin with.”

“I’m not offended. I’m…distracted.”

Distracted by the promise-prison of your betrothal, Aegon knows. “Angel,” he says firmly, and waits until you meet his eyes. “What can I do for you?”

“Nothing, Aegon. I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. You have enough worries already.”

“You’ve helped me,” Aegon insists. “Now let me help you. I may be weak and hideous now, but I’m still the king. Whoever he is, I can have him married off to someone else. I can have him sent to the Night’s Watch. I can fix this.”

Your words spill out in a mournful whisper. “You can’t touch him.”

Aegon shakes his head, stretches out his hand, skims his thumbprint across your cheekbone like shadows dance over walls. “Who the hell is he?”

There is a noise outside, a shrill reverberating shriek that grows louder as it nears the Red Keep. You and Aegon share a startled, knowing glance. It is the cry of a dragon, and not one already housed here in the Dragonpit. You do not recognize this voice: a high whistling, a tinny quality like a small bell being rung. Not Vhagar or Dreamfyre, not the reptilian infants Shrykos or Morghul…

Then Aegon begins to laugh. “Oh, Aemond is going to murder him.”

You jolt up off the bed and race to the open window. Down on the beach, it is landing: a shining lapis-colored beast about the same size as Sunfyre, lean, regal, sprightly, swanlike. A white-haired boy, perhaps fifteen, is climbing down out of the saddle as waves bubble up around his mount’s claws. “Tessarion,” you breathe, awed despite yourself. You have no fondness for dragons—you are too closely acquainted with their singular capacity for destruction—but her beauty is striking. You understand now why she is called the Blue Queen.

“And Daeron too, I assume,” Aegon quips. “Or has she eaten him?”

“No, he is presently uneaten. His hair is already longer than yours.”

“Yes, everyone’s is.”

You turn back to Aegon, sitting up in bed and wearing only his loose cotton trousers. “Why is yours so short and…” What is a polite way to put it? Haphazard? Irregular? Uneven? “Choppy?”

“Do not bully me, angel. I may perish and you will regret your harsh words.” He smiles drowsily. “I used to cut it myself. I have since I was eight or nine years old.”

He has servants for that. “Why?”

“I didn’t want to look like a Targaryen. I didn’t want to be one at all. But this inheritance cannot be refused, it seems. It’s written into parts of me that can’t be burned away. The whites of the bones, the chambers of the heart.”

It occurs to you as you say it: “Had you not been born a Targaryen, I never would have met you.”

He studies you thoughtfully. “Then perhaps it was not all a curse.”

There are robust, hurried footsteps, and then Aegon’s bedchamber door is thrown open. Daeron stands there. He is already as tall as Aegon. He is athletic, fussily dressed in seafoam green, more conventionally handsome than either of his brothers. He lacks something…an edge, a cynicism. He has a cape that flutters around him as ocean wind pours in through the open windows.

“Seven hells,” Daeron gasps as he approaches Aegon’s bedside, large blue eyes—a clear, shallow blue like Aemond’s—sweeping over Aegon’s wounds: gnarled thickets of angry red scar tissue, raw spots that are still weeping, a scorched landscape like the ruins of Valyria. “You look awful.”

Aegon chuckles. “I know. I’m a roasted pig.”

“A burnt-to-a-crisp pig, rather. A dragon might eat you, but no human would.”

Aemond and Sir Criston stampede into the room, blinking at Daeron as if he is a mirage that may vanish at any moment. Aegon tells Daeron: “Now we must stop discussing pigs.”

Aemond ignores this and addresses Daeron. “You’re supposed to be with Lord Ormund Hightower’s army.”

“That’s where I was. Until the Battle of the Honeywine.”

Aemond exchanges a puzzled glance with Criston. “The what?”

“Well I won it, you see.” Daeron grins, and you suddenly glimpse so much of Aegon in him it hurts, it feels like someone is digging around in the marrow of your bones with a rusty blade. “The nobles of the Reach who have sworn loyalty to Rhaenyra descended upon Lord Ormund’s forces and all hope was lost. Until Tessarion and I arrived. Our enemies look worse than Aegon now, if you can believe it. They are puffs of ash and memory.”

“We haven’t heard anything,” Aemond says.

“News never travels faster than by dragon.”

“But you’re too young to fight,” Criston says dully, his mind struggling to catch up.

“Am I?” Daeron replies with mock scandal. “Thank you for making me aware. I will free Tessarion immediately and take myself back to the nursery. Is there a wetnurse available for suckling? I’ve flown a long way, and I’m very hungry.”

“I’ll tell Mother that you’re here,” Aemond says flatly. “She’ll want to have a feast.” Then he strides out of the bedchamber, long hair streaming and aisles of daylight cutting stripes across his back. After a moment, Criston trots after him.

Daeron says to Aegon: “I heard he stole your crown.”

“No,” Aegon replies, as if he can’t quite believe it himself. “For some reason, he’s only borrowing it.”

~~~~~~~~~~

A banquet in the Great Hall would be ostentatious during wartime when others are expected to ration their bread and send their sons to slaughter. Instead, Alicent settles for a private early supper with the royal family and only their most essential guests, of which there are three: Hand of the King Sir Criston Cole, Master of Whisperers Larys Strong, and you.

Daeron is regaling the table with the dramatic tale of his victory at the Battle of the Honeywine. He is using the chunks of carrots and squash on his plate to demonstrate military formations. Otto is beaming at Daeron with bright, probing eyes, suddenly aware of his worth. Alicent touches her youngest son constantly, his hands and his hair and his face. He allows this; perhaps he even enjoys it. He is the only child who does not make her feel like a failure of a mother; he is the only one she can love in a way that is uncomplicated. Helaena stares down at a tiny figurine in her hands, a bear carved out of wood. Aegon made that for her years ago. Aemond says little and frowns often.

Aegon was determined to attend. He wears an emerald green tunic over his bandages, his burns hidden except for the scarlet plume on his right cheek. He sits beside you taking frequent gulps from his wine cup, dripping sweat from his temples, glazed-eyed and exhausted by even the smallest motions: the tearing of a hunk of bread, the slicing of a slab of beef wet with gravy. As he saws with his knife, his movements grow slow and feeble and labored.

“Aegon, please, let me cut that for you.” You reach for his plate; he slides it away.

“I can do it,” he pants.

“Aegon—”

“Dignity,” he says. He wants to keep what little of it he has left. “But if your fingers are too idle, I have another task for you.”

You do not need to ask what he means. Smiling, you begin weaving a fresh braid into his hair; his most recent one was washed out last night. Criston observes this with awkward fascination. Aemond twists off the ring—Aegon’s ring, the golden dragon with jade eyes—and tosses it over. It lands on the tabletop, bounces twice, and comes to rest by Aegon’s wine cup. He picks the ring up and examines it.

“I was wondering where that went.” He slips it onto a finger and grins at Aemond crookedly, mischieviously. “You’re always developing attachments to things that are mine.”

Aemond tells you as you braid Aegon’s hair: “He can do that himself, you know. I’ve seen him. He just pretends he can’t when you’re around.”

“Do we know who the new riders are yet?” Otto asks Larys, and now the conversation has been monopolized by the machinations of war. Everyone—with the exception of Helaena, who is walking her wooden bear across the table like a child would—is listening to Larys.

“Vermithor is ridden by a Dragonstone bastard, the son of a blacksmith,” Larys says. He is eating red grapes with his pink, rodent-like hands; he peels each one completely with his fingernails before popping it into his mouth. “He calls himself Hugh Hammer. Seasmoke was claimed by a boy rumored to be the bastard of Corlys Velaryon.”

Daeron mutters to Aegon: “Goddamn, it’s bastards all the way down over on their side.”

“Silverwing is ridden by a man known as Ulf the White,” Larys continues. “He has the Targaryen coloring. And is supposedly a drunk and an unreliable character all-around.”

Otto casts a glance at Aegon, long and unsubtle. Aegon pretends not to see it.

“And the last one?” Aemond says. “Sheepstealer? Ridden by yet another undesirable dredged up from the slums of Dragonstone, I assume.”

“Interestingly, no,” Larys replies. “She is a girl from Driftmark called Nettles. Fierce, rugged.” He pauses meaningfully, reeling his audience in like fish on hooks. “She is now at Harrenhal with Daemon.”

“With Daemon?” Alicent echoes. “As an…understudy? Strategist? Accomplice?”

“As far more than that, if the rumors are to be believed.”

“Oh, may the Mother have mercy,” Alicent murmurs, gripping her gold necklace in the shape of the seven-pointed star.

“Daemon? With a teenager?!” Criston says. “He’s repulsive. He’s ancient.”

Otto laughs, a wicked low rumble. “Rhaenyra must be mortified! She must think of little else.”

Larys nods, smirking, conniving. “My point is, my lords…and ladies…these lowborn new riders—Dragonseeds, as they are being called—possess unsound loyalties. They risked their lives to claim the beasts for the promise of land and riches, not to help any particular faction win the Iron Throne. They do not love Rhaenyra or her cause. Already they are causing discord within the Blacks’ ranks. In time, they may prove to be liabilities more than assets, and if we could win even only Vermithor or Silverwing to our side…”

You peer over at Aegon as plots sail across the table. He is swaying in his seat, hands trembling, agonized and empty like a dry well. His eyes are dark and glassy; he gazes inanely straight ahead. He needs to leave soon, and you will go with him. But you have one question to ask first.

You say to Larys: “Do you think the Pact of Ice and Fire might be dissolved? Now that Jace is dead?”

Everyone looks at you; everyone, that is, except Aegon and Helaena. They are well-matched for once, equally present in body but not in soul. Too late, you realize that perhaps this was an unwise inquiry. You should not be attracting attention to yourself. You should not be expressing anxiety about Cregan Stark’s allegiances.

Fortunately, Larys does not seem to be wary. He titters, peeling a grape with those rat-like little fingers. “I don’t think we’ll get that lucky, Lady Thorne. Cregan fancies himself to be an honorable man, and he believes Rhaenyra—as Viserys’ allegedly chosen heir—to be the honorable choice. And I’m sure she will offer him some redress for his lost future daughter-in-law, perhaps a daughter of Joffrey.”

“Or Daemon and Nettles,” Daeron adds, snickering.

“In any case, there is another matter keeping Cregan on the Blacks’ side,” Larys says. “I heard months ago that he is apparently smitten with some Celtigar girl, and she’s been promised to him—”

Aegon groans and nearly tumbles out of his chair; you leap up to steady him. “The king must be taken back to bed immediately.”

Alicent stands and throws down her green cloth napkin onto the table. She’s wrung it with nervous hands into a tight little twist. “I’ll go with you.”

You and Alicent trail after the guards as they carry Aegon to his bedchamber. Grand Maester Orwyle meets you there and helps you undress Aegon, drug him, clean him, inspect his wounds for any new abrasions or signs of festering, apply honey to raw patches, work warm rose oil into the scar tissue around his joints, rebandage him with fresh strips of linen. Alicent watches all of this with tears brimming in her eyes, those vast shadowy pools of memories, so few of them good.

When Orwyle is gone and Aegon drifts in bottomless psychic darkness that he will likely not surface from for days, you ask Alicent: “Would you like to touch him? You can. On his hands, his face. It’s alright. You won’t harm him.”

Her own hands are clasped together so tightly her knuckles are a bloodless shade of white. “I won’t?”

“No. Come and see.”

She steps closer tentatively. She ghosts her fingertips across his limp left hand, where his dragon ring glints and his flesh is unscarred. Then she threads his braid through her hand. Her voice is so soft you can barely hear her, though she stands right beside you. “If he died, it would kill me.”

I understand. I’m afraid that’s becoming true for me too. It’s spreading like infection, like plague. “He’s not going to die. He is mending.”

Alicent nods, sniffling, swiping tears from her flushed, puffy face. “What can I do? Anything?”

“Tell him you love him. And that you’re proud of him. That he is a true Targaryen and a worthy king.”

“Yes,” she agrees; but she looks as if you have given her instructions in a language she does not speak. She flees from the room in a daze, in a nightmare she cannot wake up from.

An hour later, you are sitting on Aegon’s floor in an corridor of late-afternoon sunlight and reading a book on herbology when Aemond comes to collect you. He never tells you where you’re going, and now is no exception. You follow him down hallways and staircases, through throngs of courtiers who wear green and toast to the deaths of Jace Velaryon and those traitors at the Battle of the Honeywine. Contrary to your best guesses, Aemond does not lead you to the council chamber or the rookery or the library.

“I have a surprise for you,” he says as he beckons you out into the gardens. There are a group of nobles clustered by a trickling fountain and chatting merrily. One of them is Sir Rickard Thorne. “Your family is here.”

Cold blood in your veins, a terror like a prey animal’s, legs that threaten to buckle. Your shoes halt mid-step. “Family…?”

“Some of Sir Rickard’s relatives came to visit him before we march north. I thought you might appreciate the opportunity to see your aunt and cousins—”

A woman screams, a sound like glass breaking. She drops the cup she was holding and wine floods across the cobblestones like blood. Her hands fly up to her face. You know her: Sir Rickard Thorne’s mother, a name like Clara or Cora or Camila. Her daughters yelp and gape alongside her. Aemond is baffled but not alarmed. The truth is too unthinkable for him to consider.

“Why is she here?!” Sir Rickard Thorne’s mother hisses through bared teeth.

Aemond looks at you, then to the woman. “She is not your kin…?”

“She’s not ours.” Sir Rickard Thorne’s mother points at you, a finger like a knife, stabbing, lethal. “She’s one of Bartimos Celtigar’s daughters!”

Someone is yelling, not you, but someone. People are making accusations and demands. Aemond is not listening to any of them. He is staring at you with his remaining eye wide and filling up with blade-sharp realization, shock, betrayal, hatred. You have no good options. You choose a not-good one. You bolt away from him and through the gardens, trampling flowers and ricocheting off marble statues. You can hear Aemond behind you, swift and deft like a falcon. You crash through a wall of scrubs and tumble blindly into a fishpond. You gasp for air as you burst up out of the water, your fingers scrabbling for purchase on rocks slick with algae. Panicked fish zoom by you, their fins leaving paper-thin gashes in your skin. Aemond is at the water’s edge, his hand closing around your wrist to drag you from the pond. And now there is nothing funny about it; now Aemond isn’t smiling.

You’re on the cobblestones and coughing water from your lungs, you’re being yanked upright, you’re being hauled through the gardens. You claw and shove, you fight him viciously. It’s just like when you first met. Except that now Aemond knows exactly who you are.

“Aemond, stop, stop, please listen to me—”

“You fucking liar,” he seethes. He is towing you out into the streets of King’s Landing. Where? Where? “In our bedrooms. In our council meetings. While your father bankrolls Rhaenyra’s treason.”

“I meant no harm to you—”

“House Thorne!” Aemond roars into your face. “I asked you which family was yours and you said House Thorne, you masqueraded as a Green, you deceived us, you lied to me—”

“So you would let me help him!” you shout back. “You asked me to save Aegon’s life and I did, I did and I was the only one who could, and you never would have let me near him if you knew who my family was!”

“A Celtigar.” He snarls it like a curse that can kill. “You never cared about any of us.”

“That’s not true.”

“A traitor, a spy.”

“I never spied—”

“Sending letters home to your avaricious demon of a father.”

You strike at Aemond’s chest as hard as you can, hard enough to try to get him to listen. “I never wrote letters! Not one! They don’t know I’m here, they don’t know anything, all I’ve done since the second I met you was serve your house, your king!”

“Keep moving,” Aemond snaps. Smallfolk and mule carts jostle by you. Street venders and shopkeepers bellow out the attributes of their merchandise. You are accustomed to the aftermath of battles, but not filthy and bustling city streets. You are overwhelmed by foreign sights, sounds, scents. People gawk and bow when they spot Aemond, perhaps genuinely, perhaps because they know he commands the largest dragon in the world and does not shy away from murder. Where is he taking me? Where?

There are women wandering in the streets now, their faces smeared with sweated-through makeup, their sleeves hanging off their shoulders. They simper at the prince regent, they reach out to comb their long painted fingernails through his hair. They are prostitutes.

No, you think. No no no.

“Aemond, where are we going?”

“Exactly where you belong. You sell lies. There are lots of women who make a living that way.”

“You can’t do this,” you say with horror.

“I assure you, I can do just about anything.”

“You found me!” you scream at Aemond. “You dragged me off the battlefield at Rook’s Rest and into that tent, you brought me to King’s Landing, every step I made was orchestrated by you, you found me, so don’t you act like I gained anything from this except the satisfaction of saving your brother’s life when you were incapable of it!”

“Your father funds Rhaenyra’s war effort,” Aemond says with chilling matter-of-factness. “Now you can help fund ours.”

“No!” You struggle against his grip, scratch at his face. Your fingers catch on the strap of his eyepatch and tear it away. Beneath is a sapphire that glitters cruelly in a nest of the frayed remnants of his eyelids. You shriek, but there is no one to help you, nowhere to run.

“Are you finished now?” Aemond demands, glaring ferociously: one eye of flesh, the other of cold earth-mined fire. He draws his dagger from his belt and lays the blade against your jugular. “Yes, you are. You’d better be.”

He brings you to a doorway. There is a woman standing in it: voluptuous, beautiful, middle-aged, hair long and braided and the warm brown color of a stag’s coat. She summons a practiced, enticing smile. She knows about things you do not want to imagine. “Hello again, my prince.”

They are already acquainted. Aemond does not seem pleased that she is being so forthright about it. “She will stay here,” he says, meaning you, this terrified woman with a dagger to the pulsing arteries of her throat.

“Yes,” the brothel madam agrees immediately.

“She will be put to work. Each week, someone will come to collect her wages.”

“Very good, my prince.”

“She must be watched closely.”

“All the girls are.”

“Especially closely. If she tries to escape, kill her.”

“Yes, my prince,” the madam says as you breathe in the sweat, salt, cries, moans, feigned pleasure, real pain of this place.

“Aemond, please don’t do this, please don’t leave me here, not here, anywhere but here—”

He flings you into the arms of the madam, tucking his dagger away. He gives you one last glance—dismissive, hateful, soulless—and then disappears into the swarming, anonymous streets.

Who will save me?

“You poor thing, you’ve had the fright of your life, haven’t you?” the brothel madam says, stroking your hair tenderly.

Clement? Father? Alicent? Aegon?

“Don’t worry, love. You can help in the kitchen tonight. We’ll get you situated tomorrow. I can’t have you running off clients with this hysteria anyway.”

No one knows I’m here.

“It isn’t so bad. You’ll see. We’ll take good care of you.”

How will they save me if no one knows I’m here?

[pastelpaperplanes]

Introducing KOBD ( and Wildbreak) into Thorns and Thrones AU!!

These two play the part of Rescuers to both Sir Orion and Megatronus at a turning point in their quest!

I’m thinking KOBD are the ones who come across them after this scuffle in the snow gone wrong >:]

Knockout and Breakdown are currently lone travelers on a journey off to the Dinobot Isles! The couple ventured out of the desolate, ever-increasing decay of Decepticon lands in a hurry to secure a stable future for their adorable new addition.

With the re-entering strict Autobot lands clearly not presenting itself to be a safe option to settle down, these two, with their little one in tow, have been making the lengthy journey to the coastlines.

Allies anxiously await their arrival—both in determination to seeing their old friends safe, as well as being in great need of their skills as both healers and warriors.

Trouble is stirring in the cavernous mountains that aid in the sustainment of the Isles. Those who have ventured up for recourses are returning with fewer numbers, strange wounds, and even stranger stories of the web-wielding demon supposedly responsible.

Knockout and Breakdown are off to offer their help in exchange for a place to call home—but first they have to figure out what the hell an Autobot and LORD MEGATRON-!?!? are doing all the way out HERE??

Perhaps after Optimus (ohhh that’s his name!) and Megatron (whoops! merc cover blown) get patched up, their rescuers and new friends made in the Isles will wrangle them into an adventure in the mountains—for for Primus’ sake get them some new gear!!!

[apoloadonisandnarcissus]

Full article: here.

This connects with the Elrond = Sauron theory, here and here.

Melian of the Valar and Anger Issues:

In his interview to Decider, explaining the kiss, Robert Aramayo also talks about this:

Specifically, Adar namedrops Melian, one of Elrond’s most important ancestors. Aramayo explained how hearing this father of the orcs talk so intimately about Melian was meant to perfectly unsettle the young(er) elf. “It shows a real deep understanding for the history of Middle-Earth. You know, there’s something about Melian, isn’t there? The ‘Girdle of Melian,’ the sort of the protective sphere that she [creates], the power of her, and what she sort of represents in the lore and stuff,” Aramayo said. “So it’s impressive that he would bring it up in that moment.”

Why is this strange? Firstly, Elrond and his future daughter Arwen never get compared to Melian herself in the lore, but rather to her Half-Maia daughter, Lúthien (Arwen is pretty much described as “Lúthien 2.0.”, and even her love story with Aragorn is Lúthien x Beren, part 2).

According to Rob, the mention of Melian by Adar is what triggers his anger, and what causes Elrond to act OOC in that scene. Which doesn't make any sense, because Elrond would be proud and honored by such a comparison, actually (and it has nothing to do with his beauty).

The only character who would get this triggered by the mention of Melian is Sauron himself, because:

1) His fellow Maia was a thorn in his side (and Morgoth's) for pretty much the entire First Age and the War of Wrath;

Beyond lay the wilderness of Dungortheb, where the sorcery of Sauron and the power of Melian came together, and horror and madness walked. Of Beren and Lúthien, Part I

2) Melian's daughter (Lúthien) was responsible for Sauron's most humiliating and spectacular defeat by bringing Huan (the Hound of Valinor), with her to Tol-in-Gaurhoth (Isle of Werewolves, where Finrod, Galadriel's brother, died protecting Beren from the werewolves). This is when Sauron shapeshifts into a giant werewolf to fight Huan, and gets defeated.

Halbrand/Mairon: Whose dagger was it, Galadriel? Who is it you lost? Galadriel: My brother. Halbrand/Mairon: What happened to him? Galadriel: He was killed. In a place of darkness and despair [Tol-in-Gaurhoth]. By servants of Sauron [werewolves]. Is that enough for you? Galadriel tells Halbrand about her brother’s, Finrod, death, 1x05 

(Sorry not sorry, I had to). 

In the lore, Sauron disappears for a very long time after this defeat, and “Rings of Power” already mentioned how he was tortured beyond belief by Morgoth (this implies that, after losing a strategic stronghold to “a girl and her dog”, Sauron most likely was imprisoned and tortured by Morgoth somewhere). 

Lúthien/Beren parallel:

The "tent/kiss scene" itself, in 2x07, is a parallel to Beren and Lúthien, and the quest to retrieve one Silmaril from Morgoth’s crown, which would lead to their fight with Sauron (and Finrod’s death later on):

But Thingol looked in silence upon Lúthien; and he thought in his heart: 'Unhappy Men, children of little lords and brief kings, shall such as these lay hands on you, and yet live?' Then breaking the silence he said: 'I see the ring, son of Barahir, and I perceive that you are proud, and deem yourself mighty. But a father's deeds, even had his service been rendered to me, avail not to win the the daughter of Thingol and Melian. See now! I too desire a treasure that is withheld. For rock and steel and the fires of Morgoth keep the jewel that I would possess against all the powers of the Elf-kingdoms. Yet I hear you say that bonds such as these do not daunt you. Go your way therefore! Bring to me in your hand a Silmaril from Morgoth's crown; and then, if she will, Lúthien may set her hand in yours. Then you shall have my jewel; and though the fate of Arda lie within the Silmarils, yet you shall hold me generous.' Thus he wrought the doom of Doriath, and was ensnared within the curse of Mandos. And those that heard these words perceived that Thingol would save his oath, and yet send Beren to his death; for they know that not all the power of the Noldor, before the Siege was broken, had availed even to see from afar the shining Silmarils of Fëanor. For they were set in the Iron Crown, and treasured in Angband above all wealth; and Balrogs were about them, and countless swords, and strong bars, and unassailable walls, and the dark majesty of Morgoth. But Beren laughed. 'For little price,' he said, 'do Elven-kings sell their daughters: for gems, and things made by craft. But if this be your will, Thingol, I will perform it. And when we meet again my hand shall hold a Silmaril from the Iron Crown; for you have not looked the last upon Beren son of Barahir.' Then he looked in the eyes of Melian, who spoke not; and he bade farewell to Lúthien Tinuviel, and bowing before Thingol and Melian he put aside the guards about him, and departed from Menegroth alone. Of Beren and Lúthien, Part I

Here, "Thingol" is Adar, who presents "Elrond" (Beren) with the choice of handing over the Silmaril (Nenya) in exchange for Lúthien (Galadriel): "The Ring for Galadriel's life. What is it to be?"

Which means, the comparison with Melian is odd ("You [Elrond] have the beauty of your foremother, Melian of the Valar"), because there is no direct parallel between Elrond/Melian happening here.

Then, why is Elrond parallelling Beren in this scene? He’s a Half-Elf who decided to retain his immortality (Half-Elves get to do that, and that’s why Arwen chooses mortality to be with Aragorn). He’s not a mortal man like Beren, nor is he in love with an she-Elf of legendary beauty and power.

There is another character who can make sense in this context, and that’s Halbrand (Sauron’s human form). Mostly now that the executive producers of the show, Charlotte Brändström, revealed that Galadriel was in love with Halbrand (direct parallel with Lúthien x Beren).  

Morgoth’s crown is also nearby (we know that Adar not only has it, but actually show it to Galadriel in this very tent, in 2x06), and the Balrog is also there (at the mines of Moria, in Khazad-dûm).

Interestingly enough, Sauron is the one who mentions Beren in Season 2 of “Rings of Power” (and he must have been dying inside talking about it): 

Yes. You are right. Of course. Men are capable of great frailty. But when the darkness falls, there are always some who rise forth and shine. Eärendil, Tuor, Beren, son of Barahir. Sauron/Annatar tries to persuade Celebrimbor to forge the Nine rings of power, 2x05

And the plot thickens because Eärendil is Elrond’s father, and son of Tuor (Elrond’s grandfather who married Elwing, Lúthien and Beren’s granddaughter). “Rings of Power” Season 2 pretty much went through all of Elrond’s genealogy, in scenes with Sauron and Adar.

After Beren and Lúthien rescued a Silmaril from Morgoth's Iron Crown, this was later given to their descendant Elwing, wife of Eärendil. Both took it to Aman, and the Valar decided to rise it as a new star. In a vessel appointed by Elbereth, Eärendil rose in the horizon as a sign of hope for Elves and Men. And this is the light that shines in both Galadriel’s mirror and the Phial of Galadriel (which she gives to Frodo to help him in his quest to destroy the One Ring = Sauron).

And to further strength the parallel between Nenya/Silmaril in the “tent scene” of 2x07, the fate of Fëanor’s Silmarils is also connected to the Three Elven rings of power: 

“Fire” = Maedhros threw himself into a fissure of fire in the earth, carrying his Silmaril with him. “Narya” is the “Ring of Fire”, and its current ring-bearer is Círdan (but it will pass onto Gandalf, later). 

“Air”: connects to Eärendil becoming a star in the skies. “Vilya” is the “Ring of Air”, and even though, his current ring-bearer is Gil-galad, it will belong to Eärendil’s heir: Elrond.

“Water”. Maglor casted his Silmaril into the sea, and wandered along the shores of the world singing laments over the loss of the Silmaril. “Nenya” is the “Ring of Water”, and will be forever held by Galadriel, herself. In time, she’ll, too, suffer with “sea longing” (which many assume it’s only the desire to return to Valinor, but there might be more to it). Like Maglor, she’s also known for singing laments (“Namárië”, also called “Galadriel's Lament”).

In “Rings of Power”, Galadriel met Halbrand (the “mortal man” she fell in love with) in the middle of the sea.