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hlizr50 · 3 years ago

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Update: The Raven and the Songbird

Chapter 3

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Four days.

Four days of training with no sign of Azriel.

Four days of the pitying side-glances from Nesta and Cassian when she arrived to the ring to find that he still wasn’t there.

Gwyn gritted her teeth and peppered the post with blows from her fists and feet. She hated pity. She didn’t want it. They knew it, too. It was all she could do not to scream at them, and part of her wondered why exactly she hadn’t. A few weeks ago she probably would have. Her scowl deepened.

She punched harder.

As much as she’d denied it to the general and her friends, she was acting differently. She wasn’t upset about being spurned by a male. She had never had any claim on Azriel, never had any expectations. She was not a female that would allow a male to have power over her emotions – her very being – like that.

But she felt like she had lost a friend, and not due to tragedy or death. She had lost a friend by their own choice. She wasn’t sure how to handle that.

Had it been pity that made Azriel placate her? Is that what he had done? She’d told him that she missed him. It was true, and she had never questioned uttering her truth to anyone.

He hadn’t returned the sentiment.

Perhaps it had been pity, then. He had said what he knew she wanted to hear, enough to get her out of his hair…

“NO,” she scolded herself through her panting. Gwyn would not allow herself to go down that road. She did not need pity from herself, either. She was strong and capable and confident. She was a Valkyrie.

The dull ache in her knuckles distracted her from her rushing thoughts and the sun beating down on the training ring. It was hotter than she could remember it ever being since she’d started training – so hot that Cassian had allowed the trainees to forego the Illyrian leathers in favor of lighter, cooler clothing. A year ago the idea may have terrified her, but she had fought Illyrian warriors in nothing but a nightgown, so she graciously accepted Nesta’s offer of the light blue linen tunic that bared her shoulders and lightweight leggings. Gwyn was grateful for her friend’s consideration, even though she knew the sun would likely end up burning her rarely-exposed skin.

Another distraction. For the best.

“Gwyn.”

The priestess started as the general’s voice boomed from behind her. She turned her wide eyes to him and saw an eyebrow raised at her.

“Cassian?” She had grown increasingly comfortable with him in the months since his and Nesta’s mating ceremony. She had spent a considerable amount of time with both of them, and while she still used his title, it was usually in jest and banter. He had become a friend, something of a brother, perhaps.

“I said you need to take a break.” His eyes shifted to her hands before returning to her face. “Water. Now. And take care of those hands.”

“I’m fine -“

“You will take care of them or I will sideline you for the rest of the day, Berdara,” he spoke sternly, every bit the weathered veteran and general of the most feared forces in all of Prythian. He had mischief in his eyes, as per usual, but there was something that darkened them.

Concern.

“Yes, general,” she drawled before muttering under her breath as he walked away, “Mother-henning busybody.”

“What was that, Berdara?” he challenged over a broad shoulder.

“Nothing!” she sing-songed back to him as sweetly as she could muster, lest she not sound convincing. His wings flared slightly as he paced away, and she waited until he was halfway across the ring before she stretched out her arms in front of her to survey the backs of her hands. The fabric wrapped around her hands was stained crimson across her knuckles where her skin had surely cracked open. In multiple places.

She hadn’t even noticed.

Gwyn uttered a low curse, scowling to herself, and stalked over to the table where Nesta and Emerie were watching her. Her sisters. Regardless of whatever this storm was that she was experiencing, she knew that she was not alone. That was the greatest comfort.

“If I were you I’d save some of that aggression for someone who actually deserves it,” the eldest Archeron offered, eyebrows raised. “What did that post ever do to you anyway?”

Gwyn scoffed, looking back at the padded wood that she had been battling for Mother-knew how long before glancing at her bloodied hands. “I think it still came out on top, anyway,” she grinned, and began peeling the fabric away. Emerie passed her a basket of gauze, ointments, and clean wraps as Gwyn lowered herself to sit cross-legged on the ground.

“You… uh… you were really in the zone there, Gwyn,” the Illyrian female said as she knelt beside her. “Are you sure you’re okay?” The copper-haired priestess looked at her friend, warmth blooming in her heart when she saw the concern written across her tanned face.

“I’m fine,” she smiled brightly at Emerie and then looked up to Nesta. “I promise.”

“Regardless,” Nesta answered as she sat down with her. “Save a couple of those shots for that idiot Spymaster. That’s what I’m doing.”

Gwyn managed a laugh before returning her attention to her stinging, bloodied hands. She hissed as she dabbed ointment over where her skin had split before laying gauze over the freshly cleaned wounds. Maybe she would save a punch or two for Azriel, if she ever even saw him again.

Or maybe she would just continue to savor the distraction of the pain.

~~~

Punching something until her hands bled had proven to be an effective distraction during training.

And again that night, when her demons had chased her out of bed for the third time in five days. She hadn’t told Nesta and Emerie how bad it was getting since Azriel had chosen to remove himself from her life. They were already worried, and it was something she would need to learn to manage on her own, anyway. At least she could still go to the training ring, work herself to bone-numbing exhaustion, and then collapse into slumber for a few precious hours.

Azriel was never there.

And while punching and kicking until she was bruised and bloody bought her some reprieve from her nightmares, it was not conducive to her work in the library. Her swollen fingers could barely grasp her quill.

Definitely weapons tonight, then.

She paused, feeling her eyes prickle as she realized her assumption: that she all but planned on being unable to sleep yet again.

What a mess she had become.

Regardless of what potential may have existed between her and Azriel before, what tore at her was the loss of a dear friend, a confidant. He had seen her darkest days and nights and had never run away from her. She had tried to ignore it the first night she had sensed him in the archway to the training ring before he retreated back into the House. But he’d kept retreating, again and again.

And now he didn’t approach at all. She hadn’t even sensed or scented him in the House, ever since that day he’d assured her that they were friends, and that things would go back to normal. What a foolish hope that had been.

“Gwyneth, girl, where are those books I told you to fetch? I sent you for them hours ago!” Gwyn winced as Merrill’s voice carried through the stacks. She had known it would only be a matter of time before the elder priestess found her. To an outsider, Merrill’s voice would have sounded pleasant, but the Valkyrie heard the venomous threats underneath. She put down her quill and rubbed her eyes as the beautiful white-haired female approached her, eyes gleaming with malice.

“I apologize, sister. I have been struggling with this transcription.” Indeed, the pain in her hands had caused her to be much slower than usual. “I’ll retrieve those books for you immediately.” Gwyn moved to push herself from the table when Merrill’s soft tanned fingers yanked her bruised hand to study it, her grip like a vice. The teal-eyed priestess winced.

“Poor little Valkyrie, can barely even write her own name,” Merrill scoffed. “Perhaps I should replace you, Gwyneth. Nobody has use for a foolish girl who is too broken to look out for herself.”

Gwyn pulled her hand back, the pain forgotten after the words that lanced into her soul. It was a ‘gift’ of Merrill’s, knowing exactly what to say to cut her to the quick.

“Can’t sleep without someone to coddle you, so instead you resort to brutality. Poor excuse for a Valkyrie. Poorer excuse for a female.” How could she know?

Gwyn rose abruptly, tears stinging at her eyes. But she would not let them fall in front of the witch. “I’ll go get those books now,” she managed to rasp, before retreating into the stacks.

~~~

That night she hadn’t even tried to sleep, the scholar’s dagger-like words twisting in her chest. Merrill was right, wasn’t she? For all Gwyn had done, all that she had overcome and accomplished, she was falling apart. She was adrift, uncertain of where to turn. Nesta and Emerie would never turn away, of course. But Azriel…

It had been different with him, she didn’t know why. But the gaping wound left in his absence was proof that maybe the necklace had meant more than she cared to admit. So had not being the intended recipient. It hurt.

Losing him hurt.

And even though she had realized that day that she wouldn’t have his heart, she had hoped that he would be willing to continue with the friendship they had built.

But she had lost even that.

Gwyn burst through the door and into cold rain, steam rising from the training ring as the droplets hit the stone floor still warm from the daytime sun. She stood there for a moment, letting it wash over her. Her robes grew heavy with water but she barely took note as the downpouring cold soothed her aching hands and soul.

Robes swished as she moved to the center of the ring. She sat down and hugged her knees to her chest. Closing her eyes, she tilted her chin up, allowing her tears to fall and mix with the rain that had dulled her usually vibrant hair to a drab chestnut.

Just breathe. Let it be and breathe.

She didn’t know how long she had been there, letting the storm wash her clean, when she felt him. She had always been able to sense him, shadows or no. She faced forward, determined not to turn toward him, lest he see how weak she had become. So she simply gathered her courage and spoke. It sounded steadier than she had expected, much stronger than she felt.

“Hello, Azriel.”

~~~

He wasn’t surprised that she knew he was there. She always seemed to know, and not just because his shadows were traitorous bastards who would tend to attract her attention – seemingly on purpose.

Gwyn always seemed to… sense him.

And, if Azriel were ever honest with himself, he would probably admit that it was the same for him. She had a presence that he was drawn to.

Constantly.

The restraint that it had taken to stay in the townhouse, maintain his home base there as he fulfilled his reconnaissance missions in Vallahan and the human lands – it was wearing on him. He’d barely slept in the last week, throwing himself into his work and training when the darkness and shame kept him awake in the night. The guilt was a festering wound inside of him.

He’d told Gwyn that they were friends. That things would return to normal. And then he’d run from her like a fucking coward.

Azriel. Spymaster. Shadowsinger. Death Bringer. The lethal dark of the Night Court had run from a 29-year-old priestess who loved nothing more than to smile and laugh, whose only crime was caring for him. Five centuries of training and death and calm calculation had not prepared him for her innocence and trust. It was dangerous.

The shadowsinger stared at her rain-soaked form huddled in the middle of the training ring, shadows curling around him – begging him to go to her. Even without the moon her skin seemed to glow. It was pinker than usual, likely due to her training underneath the midday sun. His gaze drifted to her hands, long fingers wrapped under her knees. His eyes narrowed as he spied the discoloration of her skin and cracks over her knuckles. He’d assumed that Cassian was exaggerating when he had told him that Gwyn was beating herself bloody, taking out her emotions on every piece of equipment available to her.

That knife of guilt twisted in his gut.

His brother had been waiting outside his room when he’d returned to the townhouse the night before, leaning on the doorframe casually with crossed arms.

“So this is where you run off to when you have too many feelings?”

Cassian had never been known for his tact.

“I’m working, Cassian. It’s quieter –“

“Cut the bullshit, Az. You and I both know that things are quiet and that your spies can more than manage their assignments.” Azriel growled and barged through the door, Cassian on his heels. “And you and I both know that this has nothing to do with your responsibilities to the court and has everything to do with Gwyneth Berdara.”

The shadowsinger halted, suddenly finding the navy silk sheets on his bed very interesting. Anything to avoid looking at the other Illyrian in the room. No matter what mask he slid over his emotions, Cassian could see right through it. Always.

He shook his head and tore his shirt off over his arms, stalking into the bathing room without acknowledging what the general had said. “I’m exhausted, Cassian.”

“Then listen to what I have to say, Az. You listen, then I’ll leave.”

He turned back to his brother, Cassian’s hulking form taking up most of the doorway. The dim fae lights of the bathing room cast shadows that sharpened the angles of his face. His usual mischievous glint had been replaced with resolution and concern. The shadowsinger sighed and motioned for Cassian to speak before turning to lean his hands on the refreshing cool porcelain of the bathtub.

“She’s working herself until she’s black and blue and bleeding. I’ve had to threaten to sideline her twice this week, just so she’ll take a break and tend to herself. Sound like anyone you know?”

Azriel could only sigh and hang his head. Of course it did. It was exactly what he always did to work through his frustration, to battle the demons that chased him out of bed too many nights. It was the reason she had found him in the training right that first night, the beginning of that friendship he’d told her he would uphold.

“I know you, Az. I know you feel guilty for upsetting her. I know what you see inside yourself. But you need to give yourself more credit, and Gwyn, too. Whatever this is, it’s hurting you both. So stop getting in your own way and be honest with her. Both of you can have what you deserve.”

The spymaster didn’t answer but raised his head to gaze at the moonlit garden through the window. He imagined there were lovely summer blooms and leafy vines slithering around the pane of glass – a lovely view for a relaxing summer bath. Cassian’s wings rustled has he turned to leave.

“If you can’t get your shit together and come back to help with training I need to know. The advanced females are having to sacrifice their progress to help with the novices. If I can’t depend on you to be there, I’ll need to find someone else.”

Azriel let out a sardonic laugh. The general knew just how to play him, like a fucking fiddle. He could never stand a jab to his dependability.

“I’ll be back next week.”

It was that conversation that had brought him to the training ring tonight, only to find the copper-haired priestess sitting in the cold rain. Even through the downpour he could smell the salt on her cheeks.

“What brings you here tonight?” he asked, like a useless fool. He knew the reason. Azriel was not the only one with nightmares.

“Same as usual, Shadowsinger.” Gwyn’s voice was tight. “Fourth time since we last spoke.”

He inhaled sharply. It had only been six days since he last saw her, in this very spot. “I thought they were getting better.”

“They were.”

They were.

Those two words hit him like a physical blow, but the white hot brand against his soul was the implication – the words she hadn’t spoken in that voice that was too shaky and small for the Gwyn he knew.

Her nightmares were getting better. But now… worse.

He had done this.

His absence, his cowardice, his stupidity, his darkness. It was his fault. He’d ripped his support away because he was a coward, unable to forgive himself for something her generous heart had forgiven almost as soon as it had happened. She had assured him of that. The sincerity had shone like stars in her incredible eyes. But he hadn’t accepted it. She had considered him a friend, and he had abandoned her to face her darkest memories alone.

Azriel’s eyes stung with the understanding, the wretched self-loathing, and he dared a glance again at those gentle hands he longed to hold. Bruised fingers and cracked skin.

He may as well have put those marks there by his own scarred, cruel, sadistic hands.

“I thought – maybe I just hoped – that I’d find you here one night.”

He swallowed the threatening emotions and could only manage a rasped, “I had work to do.”

“Of course.”

She saw right through him. She always had. Panic and guilt and grief rose like a tidal wave within him. He could never forgive himself for this pain he had caused her – a Carynthian warrior trying to hold herself together in the deluge. He would not forgive himself for the tears that she’d shed, the pain that she’d put herself through to cope.

I miss you, Azriel.

The shadowsinger took a shuddering breath.

Cassian was right. Gwyn deserved so much more than he could ever give, ever be. She was light and joy and he would not let his darkness snuff her out. He was broken, soulless, and cold – death on the wind. The terrible things he had done, would continue to do, would make even the strongest warriors flee in terror. He would not bring any more blood and fear and pain into her life. She deserved happiness and joy, and he deserved suffering and the dark.

They would both get what they deserved.

“You should get inside, Gwyn. The rain is cold and you’re soaked to the bone. Get inside, warm up, and get some rest.” Azriel had no idea how he’d managed that cool, detached voice when his chest was cracking open, allowing the shadows and shame to flood into him. He watched her form, swallowed in waterlogged robes. Everything about her seemed less vibrant in that moment.

“Yes. I will. Soon.”

He waited a moment longer, and when she made no move he stepped back into the stairwell, letting the night cover him. He dared one more glance over his shoulder, heart splintering when she lowered her head to her knees, shoulders shaking.

Azriel bolted down the stairs then, knowing that facing the 10,000 steps down to Velaris would be nothing compared to facing the gut-wrenching sobs he pretended he couldn’t hear.

~~~

Gwyn knew that he could probably hear her, but she didn’t care. It didn’t matter.

So she let herself cry – full choking sobs – into her knees. But she didn’t cry for Catrin, or her lost innocence, or for Sangravah. For the first time in a long while she cried for her – this pain, heartbreak at losing someone who had become so dear to her and being powerless to stop it.

Tomorrow would be better, she knew. She had overcome far too much to let this break her. She would survive this, maybe even be better for it.

But tonight she would cry.

Because for the first time in over a year Gwyneth Berdara did not feel strong.

Tag List: @tealnymph-writes @trashforazriel @secretlovelybeauty @meher-sumedha @imsointobooks @flora-shadowshine @positivewitch @tanvee1231 @imwritingthesewords @camreadsum @vikingmagic33 @shisingh @ddsworldofbooks @gwynrielsupremacist

#gwynriel #gwynriel fic #gwynriel fanfic #gwynriel supremacy #gwyn x azriel #azwyn #azriel shadowsinger #gwyneth berdara #it hurts #sorry not sorry #bless this mess

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aerltarg · 3 years ago

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Maybe this is a stupid question, buuuuut:

I just can't imagine a world that Rhaegar comes back from the Trident, wins the war and becomes king. No, I'm not a anti Rhaegar, matter of fact I like him very much, I'm just can imagine how would Lya, little Jon, this whole affair, would settle in the capital. The norm that fics (at least those I read) tend to follow is to make Rhaegar:

1. A douche, paranoid and destiny-obessed king.

2. Completely incompetent, aloof monarch, that deep down has a heart of gold, but can't really be understood.

I mean, isn't he supposed to be a scholar since he was a kid? What's are your thoughts about it?

oh, yeah, i can totally understand this! it's is the whole point in canon actually, "the wrong man came back from the trident". you would expect a hero win against his antagonist and have a happy ending w his lady love but it doesn't happen. instead the subversion happens to them with rhaegar being killed by robert who becomes obviously a shitty king and lyanna dying after him. they were never supposed to have happy ending, they were created as tragic and doomed and dead from the beginning for the whole plot to start, jon to have his parentage mystery and dany to take the passed baton as the last dragon, prophesied savoir and the heir who has to carry entire house on her back now.

as for the realistic rhaegar wins aus that's the difficult question. tbh we just don't know enough abt their situation, plans and wishes. you see, e.g. in agot we can be right in ned's head and see his motivations, what he was thinking abt, what he was planning, what he was hoping to do. but if his story was told the way rhaegar's was i bet he would have his own crowd of haters and ~intellectuals~ jumping out every two seconds w their "hot takes" how actually all hints abt what rlly happened (ned being a good man w his own sense of honour, justice and experiences affecting him and the deal w cersei's children) doesn't matter and he was an ambitious prick, planned to grasp the power by being joffrey's regent and make his daughter sansa queen. (you can actually insert there any bullshit and still don't reach the level of stupidity of such "hot takes" this fandom loves so much lmao). also he would be blamed to the hell and beyond for being too stupid and not foreseeing the future and actions of other ppl bc ofc after everything happened it's so easy to say what was so obvious to notice. also they would say that the deaths of his men and horrible fates of his kids are 100% his fault and even straight up say he killed them lmao. i can rant abt it for hours so yeah. this is a situation w too many unknown variables bc it depends too much on actions of too many characters we don't know enough abt. the only thing it's possible to tell for sure is the fact that there couldn't be any perfect solutions since things got too complicated at this point.

such fics as you've mentioned tho are just a part of this dumb fanon where rhaegar is "too prophecy obsessed"/"incapable of love"/shrodinger's rhaegar both smart and stupid at the same time/whatever/all of this combined lmfao. the man was notably intelligent from the early age as you've absolutely rightly mentioned, his guesses abt himself being tptwp have nothing to do w egocentrism as some parts of the fandom would want us all to believe unless he wouldn't be so reasonable abt it and later on, after so many years, wouldn't have changed his mind and thought his son could be tptwp.

and literally fuck all antis that think you shouldn't consider prophecies that hold real power in this fantasy world lol. you know, aegon the conqueror was said to be motivated (or at least partly) to unify westeros by the prophecy and still got the treatment of perfect/maximum close to perfect figure of a leader everyone should look up to from the narrative and grrm. prophecy obsessed much, huh? i don't even talk abt all these parallels between him and rhaegar grrm put there not for bitches to ignore them completely! and i will never get tired of reminding that dismissing prophecies is UNWISE for targaryens of all people. the house whose story is built on the dream of young daenys and her father aenar that listened to her despite common sense (or what local "anti magic"/"anti prophecies" clowns consider to be common sense). targs would be as dead as the rest of dragonlords if not for daenys the dreamer. who else in the world has as many reasons to take prophecies seriously as them?

yet antis out there act as if rhaegar is one dimensional weirdo whose every character trait is abt mf ~prophecy obsession~. like how can they miss one of the main points so badly?? the game of thrones distracts ppl from the real danger beyond the wall, yk, the one rhaegar was aware of and meant to deal with. there wouldn't be such a problem if he became king and had as many years of head start before ice zombies apocalypse as ignorant bobby b did. rhaegar had to die just for westeros to sink in shit and our main heroes to save everyone to make this story more epic LMAO

so yeah, too many ppl portray rhaegar as this one dimensional robotic creature without any knowledge of what feelings are idk even for what reason. it seems these ppl can't read for real bc rhaegar was not only intelligent af as well as dutiful ("it seems i must be a warrior" but "he loved his harp more than his lance") but also. ugh emotional?? my boy had constant emo sessions w brooding at ruins of summerhall, sleeping out there beneath the stars all alone and writing songs that made all women cry. does it sound as someone who "isn't capable of love" lol? folks act as if he was completely heartless from the day he was born (bc he didnt play w other kids ig??) but in reality their emotional range is less than the one of a spoon in comparison to rhaegar's lol. i'm not even gonna address the horrible attitude of demonizing him for his implied depression, vile clowns never listen to themselves when they talk abt targaryens and their "madness".

tldr; these fics are mostly lame af and suck at characterization if they're making rhaegar like that lol. anyway his character isn't abt being a good or a bad king, it's abt being a would-be-king for characters in books and readers in reality to sigh over his tragic aura and pretty aesthetic abt how it could've been. however, grrm clearly doesn't write rhaegar as evil or incapable as some parts of the fandom would want to try to persuade others. realistically speaking in the scenario where he wins there couldn't be any perfect decisions but it's a territory of speculations on thin air and lit nothing more since canon doesn't provide us with enough information to rlly theorize anything instead of building biased headcanons some ppl call "analysis".

but remember what barristan said about rhaegar while practically watching him all his life, from a literal baby to the man grown:

“I know little of Rhaegar. Only the tales Viserys told, and he was a little boy when our brother died. What was he truly like?”

The old man considered a moment. “Able. That above all. Determined, deliberate, dutiful, single-minded.” (ASOS, Daenerys I)

“Prince Rhaegar’s prowess was unquestioned, but he seldom entered the lists. He never loved the song of swords the way that Robert did, or Jaime Lannister. It was something he had to do, a task the world had set him. He did it well, for he did everything well. That was his nature. But he took no joy in it. Men said that he loved his harp much better than his lance.” (ASOS, Daenerys IV)

#thank you for the ask!!!#hope it didnt get too long and rambly afshsjsjs #once started talking its hard to shut up 😂#and im sorry for any possible mistakes #.txt #rhaegar targaryen #targnation #mypost #fandom wank #anti antis #majorton #*answered #asks

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ultraglittercat · 4 years ago

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Drabble 136

Christmas Plans

The year was almost over, and everyone was excited for what changes the new year would bring. In Rapunzel and Eugene's case, the new year would see them become parents, as Rapunzel was about 7 months pregnant now and looking forward to seeing their beautiful baby be born. For Kiera and Catalina, a new year meant mastering new skills, as they were showing great improvement in ballet class (along with Varian, who was still bemused at how he'd ended up joining their lessons.) For Varian, a new year meant refining old inventions and creating new ones as the Royal Engineer. For Quirin a new year meant new crops to harvest and new livestock to raise. And for Lance, a new year meant passing on the parenting tips he'd learned and showering his daughters with love and praise.

They were all bundled up and wandering around town, looking at the winter decorations. Even Eugene had been persuaded to come see the sights. He was grumbling, but not as much as usual, as every so often he would look at Rapunzel and smile. Rapunzel was absolutely in awe of everything she saw. Growing up, Mothel Gothel had never celebrated the holidays, even Rapunzel's birthday was just another day where she made hazelnut soup and Rapunzel did chores and sang her healing song to rejuvenate Gothel. Rapunzel hadn't realized how much she'd missed, until she left her tower. And even now, 3 years later she was still amazed.

“Look at Monty's! It's so festive!” she squealed. Monty had placed gingerbread houses and peppermint sticks in a window display. Attila had hung a wreath on the door and some garland. The other shops were similarly decked out in red and green, and several stores had Christmas trees still out.

“I hope we find a good present for Dad.” Catalina said as they walked. She and Kiera had pooled their allowance, and had a good amount of gold and silver pieces saved. They excused themselves to go into Monty's Sweet Shoppe. Rapunzel smiled, thinking how much the girls had grown since they'd first met them as cautious and bitter thieves, to selfless and loving young ladies who wanted to surprise their Dad with something nice. Lance even teared up a bit, hearing they were going to get him a gift.

“I bet the girls find something great. Corona's a good place to shop.” Varian noted. He looked longingly at a cucurbit in a shop, a rounded container meant to hold a substance being distilled.

“You know Varian, if there's something you need for your engineering or alchemy work, you can request money from the Royal Treasury.” Rapunzel told him.

“I know, but I feel guilty about asking, like I still owe everyone in Corona an apology for what I've done in the past, and I don't deserve to take their money. I'll find another way to get what I need.” Varian explained.

“Varian, you're a good kid. But I understand if you don't feel like asking now. Just remember the offer always stands.” Rapunzel said. Varian nodded and continued to walk around town with the group.

Eugene spotted a canvas painting bag in an arts and crafts store and knew he'd have to come back later to buy it for Rapunzel. Picturing her happy expression on Christmas Day was worth being outside in the chilly winter weather.

“We'll see you all tomorrow for the Christmas party, right?” Rapunzel asked as the girls came running back, holding a medium-sized wrapped present.

“Of course, there's no way we'd miss it.” Lance assured her.

“Dad and me have a lot of work to do on the farm in the next few weeks, but we won't start until after the party.” Varian said.

“That's right. Christmas is a time for visiting friends and family.” added Quirin. For nearly 14 years, it had been just him and Varian, but now he counted Rapunzel, Eugene, Lance, Kiera, and Catalina as friends of the family and he looked forward to baking an apple pie for all of them. It was good that Varian had made so many friends, back in Old Corona he only really got along with Katie the seamstress and Pamela the jeweler (and it was a bit hard to tell in Pamela's case.)

“I'm so excited, you're all going to be there! Mom and I had a blast setting up the ballroom for the party. All that's left is the Christmas tree, because I wanted us to put on the ornaments together. I even painted a few myself. And of course, it wouldn't be a Christmas tree without a star on top, which Eugene is gonna place this year.” Rapunzel detailed.

“Really? But that's the most important part! Shouldn't your father do it?” Eugene was taken aback.

“Dad wants you to, he's really warmed up to you Eugene. He's been in a great mood all December, I think he's really looking forward to being a grandparent.” Rapunzel smiled.

“I know how he feels, being a Dad feels like it's going to be the biggest and best change in my life, after marrying you of course.” Eugene replied.

“Parenthood's a big step but I know you're ready, just as I was ready to adopt my girls.” Lance spoke up.

“I don't know if any father's really ready for all the challenges parenting brings.” Quirin chuckled. “But it's worth any trouble your kid causes.”

Varian looked a little sheepish. Even at 17, he could still feel called out. Still, he knew his father loved him, and Varian loved Quirin in return.

“It's great that we had this talk. But don't you guys think it's getting cold out here? We really should go back inside.” Eugene wouldn't be Eugene if he didn't complain about the winter weather at least once a day.

“Yeah, we should start heading home. But we'll come back tomorrow for the party. See you guys soon.” Varian said. Quirin nodded as he and Varian said goodbye.

“See you tomorrow! Let's go home, girls and maybe take a peek at that present?” Lance suggested.

“No peeking, Dad!” laughed the girls. They were determined to have their gift be a surprise. Lance sighed, he knew when he was outmatched, so he picked up Angry and carried her on his shoulders, while he held Catalina's hand as they walked together.

Rapunzel grinned. “We have the best friends, don't we?” she mused.

“And we have the best castle, where it's nice and warm.” Eugene said pointedly. Rapunzel laughed. Eugene had his quirks, but she truly loved him, and would do whatever it took to make him happy. And right now, that meant going back to the castle, where she would kiss him under the mistletoe.

The End

Christmas is really coming! We have all the holiday books on display at the library now, and the WalMart I go to has their Christmas food and decorations in store. It's still pretty warm where I live, but there are other signs of Christmas everywhere I look.

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raywritesthings · 4 years ago

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Sin and Celebration

My Writing Fandom: Arrow Characters: Laurel Lance, Sin Lance (aka not Arrow’s version), Oliver Queen Pairing: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen Summary: Laurel and her young charge inspire and attend the Queens' holiday party. Notes: AU where after Oliver leaves at the end of season 1, instead of falling into drinking and pills as a coping mechanism, Laurel instead puts her energy towards taking in one of the orphans from the Glades left without a home, thus introducing the character of Sin (and a more comics-accurate version of Sin at that) into the Arrowverse as Laurel's adoptive daughter/ward. *Can be read on AO3, link is in bio*

Another long day, or maybe it just felt that way thanks to it getting darker earlier and earlier most nights. Laurel had left the office to pick Sin up from school, and the two of them had gotten dinner out. She was trying more to cook at home, but some days Laurel just wanted the opportunity to relax with her young charge. Spending time with Sin, watching the small girl slowly start to open up more, was one of the few remaining bright spots in her life, and truthfully it had kept her going.

By the time they got back to the apartment, Laurel was ready to put the girl to bed and call it a night, but Sin tugged on Laurel’s hand just before they could cross the threshold. “Laurel, how come we don’t have one?”

“Have one what, sweetie?” Laurel asked, looking back as Sin pointed to the wreaths hanging on most of her neighbors’ doors. Come to think of it, Sin had been looking around with big eyes at all the lights and the big tree downtown, too. “Oh. Well, the neighbors must have decorated for Christmas.”

“But you don’t?”

They walked inside, and Laurel set her purse aside, shrugging out of her coat before crouching down to help Sin out of hers. “Not really. That’s okay though, isn’t it?”

She worried her lip. Being that Sin was originally from China, she ought to have done some research into holidays important to her culture; just because Laurel didn’t bother to celebrate any of the milestones she’d grown up knowing didn’t mean she wanted to rob Sin of that experience.

Sin shrugged. “I don’t mind. There was a little tree at the orphanage, and some of the kids said they used to get presents. I don’t get what it’s gotta do with a baby being born, but the lights and stuff were pretty.”

Laurel found herself smiling a little, even as her heart gave a sad sort of twinge. The baby she associated the most with Christmas hadn’t lain in a manger, but Sara was no more present than the son of God.

She supposed it didn’t hurt decorating a little and getting Sin presents. The holiday was so commercialized anyway, and her charge had clearly already been exposed to it. “Okay. How about tomorrow, we’ll take a look around the shops and you can pick out what we should put up around the apartment?”

That was what found Laurel out at the stores bright and early on her day off, wandering up and down aisles of tinsel, green branches and red ribbons. Sin’s brow was furrowed in concentration as she hunted for the perfect wreath for their door. Laurel was happy to let her take the lead, feeling pretty out of depth herself.

Keeping her eyes on the young girl meant that Laurel didn’t quite see the person around the corner until they crashed shoulders. “Oh, sorry.”

“That’s okay. Hey,” Oliver replied, a smile lighting his face as he took in her appearance.

Laurel found herself smiling back. “Hey.”

Things had become less awkward between them ever since Laurel had recused herself from his mother’s case once Moira had rejected the plea deal and had been set to be charged with the death penalty.

“I’m sorry, Adam, but I can’t expose Sin to something like this,” she had told her boss. “She’s curious about everything to do with my work.” Truthfully, Laurel herself didn’t favor the death penalty after her experience with Peter Declan last year, and she’d been grateful to get out of having to prosecute a woman she had known since her childhood.

In the present, Oliver smiled down at Sin and returned her shy wave. “What are you ladies up to today?”

“Shopping for decorations,” she answered.

His eyebrows rose up his forehead. “Wow, that’s a change.”

Laurel gave a half-hearted eyeroll. “What about you?”

“The same, actually. I’m hosting a party at the manor for my mother. Well, it’s a Christmas party, too, but I wanted to celebrate her being home with us.”

Laurel nodded. As unbelievable as Moira’s acquittal had been, she was happy for Oliver and Thea that they hadn’t had to face that loss.

“A party?” Sin asked at her side.

“Yeah, Ollie’s family has a party each year,” Laurel told her.

“Can we go? I’ve never been to a Christmas party.”

“Uh,” Laurel said, an awkward laugh leaving her. She patted Sin’s shoulder gently. “It’s not polite to invite yourself over to someone else’s home, honey.”

“That’s okay. Of course, you both are invited,” Oliver immediately excused. “Actually… that’s really not a bad idea, making it a family thing. Isabel, my co-CEO, she doesn’t feel I’ve done a lot to endear myself to the board,” he explained. “Maybe I ought to try getting to know them more as people, mothers and fathers. It’s my family’s company, it should feel like a family.”

“That doesn’t sound like a bad idea to me,” Laurel told him. She knew he’d had some missteps early on with assuming the role — and Sebastian’s early attacks against him certainly hadn’t helped any — but she was glad to see him still trying.

“Laurel,” Sin said, tugging on her coat. She pointed to a wreath hanging just over Ollie’s shoulder. “That one.”

“Yeah?”

Sin nodded. Oliver reached and plucked it off the rack, holding it out.

“There you go.”

“Thanks. Okay, I think we just need a tree, and that should about do it,” Laurel decided. “You’ll send me the party details?”

“Yep,” Oliver agreed. “Uh, Laurel,” he called out before they’d gotten four steps back down the aisle. “The trees are outside.”

“I’m just grabbing a boxed one,” she admitted, looking back over her shoulder in time to see his crestfallen expression.

“But it’s Christmas. You have to have a real tree.”

Sin looked up at her with those pleading eyes Laurel was really starting to suspect her young charge had a lot more control over than she let on. She let out a sigh.

“Come on, I’ll help you get it loaded onto the car.” Oliver actually ended up coming over to help carry the thing up to their apartment and get it in place in the tree stand, then a call on his phone had him excusing himself to let them do the decorating. She followed Sin’s instructions on where to hang the ornaments on the higher branches and even lifted the girl up so she could put the star on top. Her budget didn’t love how much they’d spent today, but it was worth it for the smile on Sin’s face. It was a sight becoming more common as the months passed, but Laurel always felt a swell of pride that she managed to put it there. If she could make this one child happy, then maybe it hadn’t been a mistake that she’d survived the Undertaking when so many — when Tommy — hadn’t.

The night of the Queen’s party arrived, and Laurel led Sin up the steps after handing her keys off to the valet. She waved off the attendant coming to take their coats. “It’s okay, we can do it.” Sin liked knowing where her possessions were at all times, part of growing up with nothing, she knew. So Laurel led them over to the closet off to the side and helped her hang it up herself so she could see the whole process.

A four-piece orchestra was playing from the ballroom, so they followed the sound. Laurel was glad she had guessed right on the attire for adults and worn a deep green evening dress. Sin also blended in with the other kids in her sweater, skirt and patterned tights.

Waiters skirted the edge of the dance floor with trays of appetizers, some decidedly more kid-friendly than not. Clumps of people stood gathered around, talking and even smiling, though as Laurel watched Mrs. Queen making the rounds greeting people there was definitely still some tension there.

There were holiday-themed games set up for the children off to one side, musical chairs with Christmas carols serving as the music and a felt red nose with Velcro attached to one side for the kids to try and pin on a picture of what had to be Rudolph. Other kids were coloring pages with Santa or snowmen or dreidels printed on them.

“Do you want to go play?” Laurel asked her charge, as Sin was still sticking to her side. “You don’t have to unless you want.”

“Maybe just a little,” Sin decided.

“Okay. Come get me for anything, alright? Even if you just want to go home.”

Sin nodded and then jogged off towards the other kids. Laurel watched her go with a smile; she knew Sin was having a little trouble making friends at her new school, so to see her willingly engaging with others her own age was a good sign.

“She looks happy,” Oliver remarked, and it honestly didn’t surprise her to find him standing a few feet behind her.

“Yeah. Thanks for the invite. Looks like a succcess.”

Oliver smirked. “I really have you and Sin to thank for that. Almost all of our attendees are parents. If you hadn’t given me the idea to make it a family event, I imagine they wouldn’t have bothered to come.”

“I guess we’re helping each other out, then.”

A cheer went up from the kids’ side of the room. Sin had unerringly found Rudolph’s nose to pin the red felt to, and she was flushed with pride as she took off the blindfold. Laurel was tempted to go over and offer her praise, but she also didn’t want to interrupt the kids.

The orchestra started a new song, and she felt Oliver’s fingers brush her elbow. “Care for a dance?”

“Okay,” she agreed tentatively, allowing herself to be lead out onto the dance floor where Oliver’s secretary was already swaying with a lanky young man with brown hair. She placed one hand in Oliver’s and rested the other on his shoulder while his hand went to her waist. How many times had they danced like this at one of his family’s high society events, both before and after they had ever become involved? It didn’t have to mean anything more than it used to all those years before. They were still friends, after all.

They had nearly been something more, but when he had left last spring it had nearly destroyed her. She’d been lucky to find out the plight that children like Sin were facing after their homes, families or the orphanages they had lived in had been lost. Taking in Sin had given her someone to pour her love and attention into who wouldn't end up refusing it, a way to be needed. When Oliver had come back, even if she could understand why he had needed the time away, she had had to turn him down; she wasn’t about to simply forget the girl she had made herself the legal guardian of just because the man she had been trying to forget about the last five months had come back into her life.

Things with Oliver were just too undefined and ever-changing to introduce into the stability she was trying to give Sin’s life right now as well. There were times like now where she felt completely on the same page as him, like they could read each other perfectly. Then other times his decisions made absolutely no sense. So no matter how nice it felt to be held in his arms or to rest her cheek on his shoulder while they shuffled side to side in a world of their own, she knew all the while it couldn’t and wouldn’t last, and that when the song had ended, the distance would grow between them once again.

In fact, it was earlier. She felt Oliver stiffen for just a second, his fingers flexing against her back. His gaze was over her head, and a glance back showed her Mr. Diggle was clearly trying to communicate something.

“You need to go?” She guessed.

“Uh.” Oliver’s step faltered, though he avoided stepping on her toes at least. “Yeah. I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay. I should be getting home with Sin for her bedtime.” She withdrew from his embrace, smoothing at the folds in her dress.

“You’re a— you make a wonderful guardian to her, Laurel,” he told her. “I’m really glad you found each other.”

“I am, too. Goodnight, Ollie. Merry Christmas.” She turned and left the dance floor, finding Sin coloring at the table with a look of concentration on her face. “Almost done?”

Sin nodded. Laurel went to fetch their coats and helped Sin back into hers when she returned. She stopped by Thea and Mrs. Queen briefly to thank them for the nice evening, and then they were heading back out into the cold to wait for the valet to bring the car around.

“You really like him, right?” Sin asked, and Laurel blinked and looked down.

“Oliver?”

“Yeah. Does he like you back?”

Laurel smirked. That was the question of the year, wasn’t it? “What do you think?”

“I think so.” It was stated with a child’s matter-of-fact certainty, and she couldn’t resist reaching out to pat the top of the girl’s head.

“How’d you like your first Christmas party, Sin?”

“It was great! I hope we go next year, too.”

Laurel wasn’t sure she could see that far into next year. Things in her life seemed to change drastically all the time. But if she were a betting woman, there would have to be two constants going forward: this girl she had brought into her home and her heart, and the inescapable push and pull between herself and Oliver Queen.

“Yeah, me too.”

#lauriver #lauriverholidays2020 #laurel lance #oliver queen #arrow #green arrow #black canary #my writing

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aboveallarescuer · 5 years ago

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What we know that Dany knows of her ancestors, dragonlore and history

As I was rereading ASOIAF, I made it my goal to compile all* the book passages demonstrating either certain key attributes of Daenerys Targaryen (e.g. that she's compassionate and empathetic) or aspects of hers that are usually overblown (e.g. that she's violent and ambitious). Doing such a task may seem exaggerated, but I'd argue it's not, for many, many misconceptions about Dany have become widespread in light of the show's final season's events (and even before).

It must be acknowledged that it can be tricky to reference, say, ADWD passages to counter-argument how she was depicted in season eight (which allegedly follows ADOS events). Dany will have had plenty of character development in the span of two books. However, whatever happens to Dany in the next two books, I would argue that there is more than enough material to conclude that her show counterpart was made to fall for flaws that she (for the most part) never had and actions that she (for the most part) would never take.

Another objection to the purpose of these lists is that Game of Thrones is different from A Song of Ice and Fire and should be analyzed on its own, which is a fair point. However, the show is also an adaptation of these books, which begs the questions: why did they change Dany's character? Why did they overfocus on negative traits of hers or depicted them as negative when they weren't supposed to be or gave her negative traits that were never hers to begin with? Another fact that undermines the show=/=books argument is that most people think that the show's ending will be the books', albeit only in broad strokes and in different circumstances. As a result, people's perception of Dany is inevitably influenced by the show, which is a shame.

I hope these lists can be useful for whoever wants to find book passages to defend Dany's character in analysis or even conversations.

*Well, at least all the passages that I could find.

Also, people may interpret certain passages differently and then come up with a different collection of passages, so I'm not arguing that this list is completely objective (nor that there could ever be one).

Also, some passages have been cut short according to whether they were, IMO, relevant to the specific topic of the list they're in, so the context surrounding them may not always be clear (always read the books!). Many of them appear in different lists, sometimes fully cited, sometimes not.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm sparing people from inaccurate (or plain wrong) opinions about Daenerys. I made this list simply because I wanted to know all that we find onpage that Daenerys knows when it comes to her ancestors, dragonlore and history.

A Dance with Dragons

ADWD Daenerys X

The dragonlords of old Valyria had controlled their mounts with binding spells and sorcerous horns.

She wondered how the ants had managed to climb over it and find her. To them these tumbledown stones must loom as huge as the Wall of Westeros. The biggest wall in all the world, her brother Viserys used to say, as proud as if he’d built it himself.

Viserys told her tales of knights so poor that they had to sleep beneath the ancient hedges that grew along the byways of the Seven Kingdoms. Dany would have given much and more for a nice thick hedge. Preferably one without an anthill.

In Westeros the dead of House Targaryen were given to the flames, but who would light her pyre here?

ADWD Daenerys VIII

“Sunspear has never been a sea power, Your Grace.”

“No.” Dany knew enough of Westerosi history to know that. Nymeria had landed ten thousand ships upon Dorne’s sandy shores, but when she wed her Dornish prince she had burned them all and turned her back upon the sea forever.

The bones on the floor of the pit were deeper than the last time she had been down here, and the walls and floors were black and grey, more ash than brick. They would not hold much longer … but behind them was only earth and stone. Can dragons tunnel through rock, like the firewyrms of old Valyria? She hoped not.

“You ... you mean to ride them?”

“One of them. All I know of dragons is what my brother told me when I was a girl, and some I read in books, but it is said that even Aegon the Conqueror never dared mount Vhagar or Meraxes, nor did his sisters ride Balerion the Black Dread. Dragons live longer than men, some for hundreds of years, so Balerion had other riders after Aegon died ... but no rider ever flew two dragons.”

“I ... I have the blood of the dragon in me as well, Your Grace. I can trace my lineage back to the first Daenerys, the Targaryen princess who was sister to King Daeron the Good and wife to the Prince of Dorne. He built the Water Gardens for her.”

“The Water Gardens?” She knew little and less of Dorne or its history, if truth be told.

“My father’s favorite palace. It would please me to show them to you one day. They are all of pink marble, with pools and fountains, overlooking the sea.”

“They sound lovely.”

“Tell me of this other Daenerys. I know less than I should of the history of my father’s kingdom. I never had a maester growing up.” Only a brother.

“It would be my pleasure, Your Grace,” said Quentyn.

ADWD Daenerys VII

When Dany told him how Serwyn of the Mirror Shield was haunted by the ghosts of all the knights he’d killed, Daario only laughed.

“Tell me,” Dany said, as the procession turned toward the Temple of the Graces, “if my father and my mother had been free to follow their own hearts, whom would they have wed?”

“It was long ago. Your Grace would not know them.”

“You know, though. Tell me.”

The old knight inclined his head. “The queen your mother was always mindful of her duty.” He was handsome in his gold-and-silver armor, his white cloak streaming from his shoulders, but he sounded like a man in pain, as if every word were a stone he had to pass. “As a girl, though … she was once smitten with a young knight from the stormlands who wore her favor at a tourney and named her queen of love and beauty. A brief thing.”

“What happened to this knight?”

“He put away his lance the day your lady mother wed your father. Afterward he became most pious, and was heard to say that only the Maiden could replace Queen Rhaella in his heart. His passion was impossible, of course. A landed knight is no fit consort for a princess of royal blood.”

And Daario Naharis is only a sellsword, not fit to buckle on the golden spurs of even a landed knight. “And my father? Was there some woman he loved better than his queen?”

Ser Barristan shifted in the saddle. “Not … not loved. Mayhaps wanted is a better word, but … it was only kitchen gossip, the whispers of washerwomen and stableboys …”

“I want to know. I never knew my father. I want to know everything about him. The good and … the rest.”

“As you command.” The white knight chose his words with care. “Prince Aerys … as a youth, he was taken with a certain lady of Casterly Rock, a cousin of Tywin Lannister. When she and Tywin wed, your father drank too much wine at the wedding feast and was heard to say that it was a great pity that the lord’s right to the first night had been abolished. A drunken jape, no more, but Tywin Lannister was not a man to forget such words, or the … the liberties your father took during the bedding.” His face reddened. “I have said too much, Your Grace. I—”

ADWD Daenerys IV

“You saw my brother Rhaegar wed. Tell me, did he wed for love or duty?”

The old knight hesitated. “Princess Elia was a good woman, Your Grace. She was kind and clever, with a gentle heart and a sweet wit. I know the prince was very fond of her.”

Fond, thought Dany. The word spoke volumes. I could become fond of Hizdahr zo Loraq, in time. Perhaps.

Ser Barristan went on. “I saw your father and your mother wed as well. Forgive me, but there was no fondness there, and the realm paid dearly for that, my queen.”

“Why did they wed if they did not love each other?”

“Your grandsire commanded it. A woods witch had told him that the prince was promised would be born of their line.”

“A woods witch?” Dany was astonished.

“She came to court with Jenny of Oldstones. A stunted thing, grotesque to look upon. A dwarf, most people said, though dear to Lady Jenny, who always claimed that she was one of the children of the forest.”

“What became of her?”

“Summerhall.” The word was fraught with doom.

Dany sighed. “Leave me now. I am very weary.”

ADWD Daenerys III

The cedars that had once grown tall along the coast grew no more, felled by the axes of the Old Empire or consumed by dragonfire when Ghis made war against Valyria. Once the trees had gone, the soil baked beneath the hot sun and blew away in thick red clouds. “It was these calamities that transformed my people into slavers,” Galazza Galare had told her, at the Temple of the Graces. And I am the calamity that will change these slavers back into people, Dany had sworn to herself.

ADWD Daenerys II

“A true knight is worth ten guardsmen. The men at the gate were taken by surprise. I rode one down, wrenched away his spear, and drove it through the throat of my closest pursuer. The other broke off once I was through the gate, so I spurred my horse to a gallop and rode hellbent along the river until the city was lost to sight behind me. That night I traded my horse for a handful of pennies and some rags, and the next morning I joined the stream of smallfolk making their way to King’s Landing. I’d gone out the Mud Gate, so I returned through the Gate of the Gods, with dirt on my face, stubble on my cheeks, and no weapon but a wooden staff. In roughspun clothes and mud-caked boots, I was just one more old man fleeing the war. The gold cloaks took a stag from me and waved me through. King’s Landing was crowded with smallfolk who’d come seeking refuge from the fighting. I lost myself amongst them. I had a little silver, but I needed that to pay my passage across the narrow sea, so I slept in septs and alleys and took my meals in pot shops. I let my beard grow out and cloaked myself in age. The day Lord Stark lost his head, I was there, watching. Afterward I went into the Great Sept and thanked the seven gods that Joffrey had stripped me of my cloak.”

“Stark was a traitor who met a traitor’s end.”

“Your Grace,” said Selmy, “Eddard Stark played a part in your father’s fall, but he bore you no ill will. When the eunuch Varys told us that you were with child, Robert wanted you killed, but Lord Stark spoke against it. Rather than countenance the murder of children, he told Robert to find himself another Hand.”

“Have you forgotten Princess Rhaenys and Prince Aegon?”

“Never. That was Lannister work, Your Grace.”

“Lannister or Stark, what difference? Viserys used to call them the Usurper’s dogs. If a child is set upon by a pack of hounds, does it matter which one tears out his throat? All the dogs are just as guilty.

“They are larger.” Dany’s voice echoed off the scorched stone walls. A drop of sweat trickled down her brow and fell onto her breast. “Is it true that dragons never stop growing?”

“If they have food enough, and space to grow. Chained up in here, though …”

Viserys had told her all the tales when she was little. He loved to talk of dragons. She knew how Harrenhal had fallen. She knew about the Field of Fire and the Dance of the Dragons. One of her forebears, the third Aegon, had seen his own mother devoured by his uncle’s dragon. And there were songs beyond count of villages and kingdoms that lived in dread of dragons till some brave dragonslayer rescued them. At Astapor the slaver’s eyes had melted. On the road to Yunkai, when Daario tossed the heads of Sallor the Bald and Prendahl na Ghezn at her feet, her children made a feast of them. Dragons had no fear of men. And a dragon large enough to gorge on sheep could take a child just as easily.

ADWD Daenerys I

Dragons are fire made flesh. She had read that in one of the books Ser Jorah had given her as a wedding gift.

A crown should not sit easy on the head. One of her royal forebears had said that, once. Some Aegon, but which one? Five Aegons had ruled the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. There would have been a sixth, but the Usurper’s dogs had murdered her brother’s son when he was still a babe at the breast. If he had lived, I might have married him. Aegon would have been closer to my age than Viserys. Dany had only been conceived when Aegon and his sister were murdered. Their father, her brother Rhaegar, perished even earlier, slain by the Usurper on the Trident. Her brother Viserys had died screaming in Vaes Dothrak with a crown of molten gold upon his head.

A Storm of Swords

ASOS Daenerys VI

“I am no maester to quote history at you, Your Grace. Swords have been my life, not books. But every child knows that the Targaryens have always danced too close to madness. Your father was not the first. King Jaehaerys once told me that madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin. Every time a new Targaryen is born, he said, the gods toss the coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land.”

Jaehaerys. This old man knew my grandfather. The thought gave her pause. Most of what she knew of Westeros had come from her brother, and the rest from Ser Jorah. Ser Barristan would have forgotten more than the two of them had ever known. This man can tell me what I came from.

“Bring me the book I was reading last night.” She wanted to lose herself in the words, in other times and other places. The fat leather-bound volume was full of songs and stories from the Seven Kingdoms. Children’s stories, if truth be told; too simple and fanciful to be true history. All the heroes were tall and handsome, and you could tell the traitors by their shifty eyes. Yet she loved them all the same. Last night she had been reading of the three princesses in the red tower, locked away by the king for the crime of being beautiful.

ASOS Daenerys V

Her captains bowed and left her with her handmaids and her dragons. But as Brown Ben was leaving, Viserion spread his pale white wings and flapped lazily at his head. One of the wings buffeted the sellsword in his face. The white dragon landed awkwardly with one foot on the man’s head and one on his shoulder, shrieked, and flew off again. “He likes you, Ben “ said Dany.

“And well he might.” Brown Ben laughed. “I have me a drop of the dragon blood myself, you know.”

“You?” Dany was startled. Plumm was a creature of the free companies, an amiable mongrel. He had a broad brown face with a broken nose and a head of nappy grey hair, and his Dothraki mother had bequeathed him large, dark, almond-shaped eyes. He claimed to be part Braavosi, part Summer Islander, part Ibbenese, part Qohorik, part Dothraki, part Dornish, and part Westerosi, but this was the first she had heard of Targaryen blood. She gave him a searching look and said, “How could that be?”

“Well,” said Brown Ben, “there was some old Plumm in the Sunset Kingdoms who wed a dragon princess. My grandmama told me the tale. He lived in King Aegon’s day.”

“Which King Aegon?” Dany asked. “Five Aegons have ruled in Westeros.” Her brother’s son would have been the sixth, but the Usurper’s men had dashed his head against a wall.

“Five, were there? Well, that’s a confusion. I could not give you a number, my queen. This old Plumm was a lord, though, must have been a famous fellow in his day, the talk of all the land. The thing was, begging your royal pardon, he had himself a cock six foot long.”

The three bells in Dany’s braid tinkled when she laughed. “You mean inches, I think.”

“Feet,” Brown Ben said firmly. “If it was inches, who’d want to talk about it, now? Your Grace.”

Dany giggled like a little girl. “Did your grandmother claim she’d actually seen this prodigy?”

“That the old crone never did. She was half-Ibbenese and half-Qohorik, never been to Westeros, my grandfather must have told her. Some Dothraki killed him before I was born.”

“And where did your grandfather’s knowledge come from?”

“One of them tales told at the teat, I’d guess.” Brown Ben shrugged. “That’s all I know about Aegon the Unnumbered or old Lord Plumm’s mighty manhood, I fear. I best see to my Sons.”

“Go do that,” Dany told him.

She could see her ships standing out to sea. Balerion floated nearest; the great cog once known as Saduleon, her sails furled. Further out were the galleys Meraxes and Vhagar, formerly Joso’s Prank and Summer Sun. They were Magister Illyrio’s ships, in truth, not hers at all, and yet she had given them new names with hardly a thought. Dragon names, and more; in old Valyria before the Doom, Balerion, Meraxes, and Vhagar had been gods.

ASOS Daenerys IV

“You must be my children,” she told the dragons, “my three fierce children. Arstan says dragons live longer than men, so you will go on after I am dead.”

When the old man came, she was curled up inside her hrakkar pelt, whose musty smell still reminded her of Drogo. “I cannot sleep when men are dying for me, Whitebeard,” she said. “Tell me more of my brother Rhaegar, if you would. I liked the tale you told me on the ship, of how he decided that he must be a warrior.”

“Your Grace is kind to say so.” 

“Viserys said that our brother won many tourneys.”

Arstan bowed his white head respectfully. “It is not meet for me to deny His Grace’s words ...”

“But?” said Dany sharply. “Tell me. I command it.”

“He won some tourneys, surely,” said Dany, disappointed.

“When he was young, His Grace rode brilliantly in a tourney at Storm’s End, defeating Lord Steffon Baratheon, Lord Jason Mallister, the Red Viper of Dorne, and a mystery knight who proved to be the infamous Simon Toyne, chief of the kingswood outlaws. He broke twelve lances against Ser Arthur Dayne that day.”

“Was he the champion, then?”

“No, Your Grace. That honor went to another knight of the Kingsguard, who unhorsed Prince Rhaegar in the final tilt.”

Dany did not want to hear about Rhaegar being unhorsed. “But what tourneys did my brother win?”

“Your Grace.” The old man hesitated. “He won the greatest tourney of them all.”

“Which was that?” Dany demanded.

“The tourney Lord Whent staged at Harrenhal beside the Gods Eye, in the year of the false spring. A notable event. Besides the jousting, there was a mêlée in the old style fought between seven teams of knights, as well as archery and axe-throwing, a horse race, a tournament of singers, a mummer show, and many feasts and frolics. Lord Whent was as open handed as he was rich. The lavish purses he proclaimed drew hundreds of challengers. Even your royal father came to Harrenhal, when he had not left the Red Keep for long years. The greatest lords and mightiest champions of the Seven Kingdoms rode in that tourney, and the Prince of Dragonstone bested them all.”

“But that was the tourney when he crowned Lyanna Stark as queen of love and beauty!” said Dany. “Princess Elia was there, his wife, and yet my brother gave the crown to the Stark girl, and later stole her away from her betrothed. How could he do that? Did the Dornish woman treat him so ill?”

“It is not for such as me to say what might have been in your brother’s heart, Your Grace. The Princess Elia was a good and gracious lady, though her health was ever delicate.”

Dany pulled the lion pelt tighter about her shoulders. “Viserys said once that it was my fault, for being born too late.” She had denied it hotly, she remembered, going so far as to tell Viserys that it was his fault for not being born a girl. He beat her cruelly for that insolence. “If I had been born more timely, he said, Rhaegar would have married me instead of Elia, and it would all have come out different. If Rhaegar had been happy in his wife, he would not have needed the Stark girl.”

“Perhaps so, Your Grace.” Whitebeard paused a moment. “But I am not certain it was in Rhaegar to be happy.”

“You make him sound so sour,” Dany protested.

“Not sour, no, but ... there was a melancholy to Prince Rhaegar, a sense ...” The old man hesitated again.

“Say it,” she urged. “A sense ...?”

“... of doom. He was born in grief, my queen, and that shadow hung over him all his days.”

Viserys had spoken of Rhaegar’s birth only once. Perhaps the tale saddened him too much. “It was the shadow of Summerhall that haunted him, was it not?”

“Yes. And yet Summerhall was the place the prince loved best. He would go there from time to time, with only his harp for company. Even the knights of the Kingsguard did not attend him there. He liked to sleep in the ruined hall, beneath the moon and stars, and whenever he came back he would bring a song. When you heard him play his high harp with the silver strings and sing of twilights and tears and the death of kings, you could not but feel that he was singing of himself and those he loved.”

“What of the Usurper? Did he play sad songs as well?”

Arstan chuckled. “Robert? Robert liked songs that made him laugh, the bawdier the better. He only sang when he was drunk, and then it was like to be ‘A Cask of Ale’ or ‘Fifty-Four Tuns’ or ‘The Bear and the Maiden Fair.’ Robert was much—”

ASOS Daenerys II

The harpy of Ghis, Dany thought. Old Ghis had fallen five thousand years ago, if she remembered true; its legions shattered by the might of young Valyria, its brick walls pulled down, its streets and buildings turned to ash and cinder by dragonflame, its very fields sown with salt, sulfur, and skulls. The gods of Ghis were dead, and so too its people; these Astapori were mongrels, Ser Jorah said. Even the Ghiscari tongue was largely forgotten; the slave cities spoke the High Valyrian of their conquerors, or what they had made of it.

Yet the symbol of the Old Empire still endured here, though this bronze monster had a heavy chain dangling from her talons, an open manacle at either end. The harpy of Ghis had a thunderbolt in her claws. This is the harpy of Astapor.

“When Aegon the Dragon stepped ashore in Westeros, the kings of Vale and Rock and Reach did not rush to hand him their crowns. If you mean to sit his Iron Throne, you must win it as he did, with steel and dragonfire. And that will mean blood on your hands before the thing is done.”

ASOS Daenerys I

“How big will he grow?” Dany asked curiously. “Do you know?”

“In the Seven Kingdoms, there are tales of dragons who grew so huge that they could pluck giant krakens from the seas.”

Dany laughed. “That would be a wondrous sight to see.”

“It is only a tale, Khaleesi,” said her exile knight. “They talk of wise old dragons living a thousand years as well.”

“Well, how long does a dragon live?” She looked up as Viserion swooped low over the ship, his wings beating slowly and stirring the limp sails.

Ser Jorah shrugged. “A dragon’s natural span of days is many times as long as a man’s, or so the songs would have us believe ... but the dragons the Seven Kingdoms knew best were those of House Targaryen. They were bred for war, and in war they died. It is no easy thing to slay a dragon, but it can be done.”

The squire Whitebeard, standing by the figurehead with one lean hand curled about his tall hardwood staff, turned toward them and said, “Balerion the Black Dread was two hundred years old when he died during the reign of Jaehaerys the Conciliator. He was so large he could swallow an aurochs whole. A dragon never stops growing, Your Grace, so long as he has food and freedom.” His name was Arstan, but Strong Belwas had named him Whitebeard for his pale whiskers, and most everyone called him that now. He was taller than Ser Jorah, though not so muscular; his eyes were a pale blue, his long beard as white as snow and as fine as silk.

“Freedom?” asked Dany, curious. “What do you mean?”

“In King’s Landing, your ancestors raised an immense domed castle for their dragons. The Dragonpit, it is called. It still stands atop the Hill of Rhaenys, though all in ruins now. That was where the royal dragons dwelt in days of yore, and a cavernous dwelling it was, with iron doors so wide that thirty knights could ride through them abreast. Yet even so, it was noted that none of the pit dragons ever reached the size of their ancestors. The maesters say it was because of the walls around them, and the great dome above their heads.”

“If walls could keep us small, peasants would all be tiny and kings as large as giants,” said Ser Jorah. “I’ve seen huge men born in hovels, and dwarfs who dwelt in castles.”

“Men are men,” Whitebeard replied. “Dragons are dragons.”

Ser Jorah snorted his disdain. “How profound.” The exile knight had no love for the old man, he’d made that plain from the first. “What do you know of dragons, anyway?”

“Little enough, that’s true. Yet I served for a time in King’s Landing in the days when King Aerys sat the Iron Throne, and walked beneath the dragonskulls that looked down from the walls of his throne room.”

“Viserys talked of those skulls,” said Dany. “The Usurper took them down and hid them away. He could not bear them looking down on him upon his stolen throne.” She beckoned Whitebeard closer. “Did you ever meet my royal father?” King Aerys II had died before his daughter was born.

“I had that great honor, Your Grace.” “Did you find him good and gentle?”

Whitebeard did his best to hide his feelings, but they were there, plain on his face. “His Grace was ... often pleasant.”

“Often?” Dany smiled. “But not always?” 

“He could be very harsh to those he thought his enemies.” 

“A wise man never makes an enemy of a king,” said Dany. “Did you know my brother Rhaegar as well?” 

“It was said that no man ever knew Prince Rhaegar, truly. I had the privilege of seeing him in tourney, though, and often heard him play his harp with its silver strings.”

Ser Jorah snorted. “Along with a thousand others at some harvest feast. Next you’ll claim you squired for him.”

“I make no such claim, ser. Myles Mooton was Prince Rhaegar’s squire, and Richard Lonmouth after him. When they won their spurs, he knighted them himself, and they remained his close companions. Young Lord Connington was dear to the prince as well, but his oldest friend was Arthur Dayne.”

“The Sword of the Morning!” said Dany, delighted. “Viserys used to talk about his wondrous white blade. He said Ser Arthur was the only knight in the realm who was our brother’s peer.”

Whitebeard bowed his head. “It is not my place to question the words of Prince Viserys.”

“King,” Dany corrected. “He was a king, though he never reigned. Viserys, the Third of His Name. But what do you mean?” His answer had not been one that she’d expected. “Ser Jorah named Rhaegar the last dragon once. He had to have been a peerless warrior to be called that, surely?”

“Your Grace,” said Whitebeard, “the Prince of Dragonstone was a most puissant warrior, but ...”

“Go on,” she urged. “You may speak freely to me.”

“As you command.” The old man leaned upon his hardwood staff, his brow furrowed. “A warrior without peer ... those are fine words, Your Grace, but words win no battles.”

“Swords win battles,” Ser Jorah said bluntly. “And Prince Rhaegar knew how to use one.” 

“He did, ser, but ... I have seen a hundred tournaments and more wars than I would wish, and however strong or fast or skilled a knight may be, there are others who can match him. A man will win one tourney, and fall quickly in the next. A slick spot in the grass may mean defeat, or what you ate for supper the night before. A change in the wind may bring the gift of victory.” He glanced at Ser Jorah. “Or a lady’s favor knotted round an arm.”

Mormont’s face darkened. “Be careful what you say, old man.”

Arstan had seen Ser Jorah fight at Lannisport, Dany knew, in the tourney Mormont had won with a lady’s favor knotted round his arm. He had won the lady too; Lynesse of House Hightower, his second wife, highborn and beautiful ... but she had ruined him, and abandoned him, and the memory of her was bitter to him now. “Be gentle, my knight.” She put a hand on Jorah’s arm. “Arstan had no wish to give offense, I’m certain.”

“As you say, Khaleesi.” Ser Jorah’s voice was grudging.

Dany turned back to the squire. “I know little of Rhaegar. Only the tales Viserys told, and he was a little boy when our brother died. What was he truly like?”

The old man considered a moment. “Able. That above all. Determined, deliberate, dutiful, single-minded. There is a tale told of him ... but doubtless Ser Jorah knows it as well.”

“I would hear it from you.”

“As you wish,” said Whitebeard. “As a young boy, the Prince of Dragonstone was bookish to a fault. He was reading so early that men said Queen Rhaella must have swallowed some books and a candle whilst he was in her womb. Rhaegar took no interest in the play of other children. The maesters were awed by his wits, but his father’s knights would jest sourly that Baelor the Blessed had been born again. Until one day Prince Rhaegar found something in his scrolls that changed him. No one knows what it might have been, only that the boy suddenly appeared early one morning in the yard as the knights were donning their steel. He walked up to Ser Willem Darry, the master-at-arms, and said, ‘I will require sword and armor. It seems I must be a warrior.’”

“And he was!” said Dany, delighted.

“He was indeed.” Whitebeard bowed. “My pardons, Your Grace. We speak of warriors, and I see that Strong Belwas has arisen. I must attend him.”

In time, the dragons would be her most formidable guardians, just as they had been for Aegon the Conqueror and his sisters three hundred years ago.

“Illyrio Mopatis wants you back in Pentos, under his roof. Very well, go to him ... but in your own time, and not alone. Let us see how loyal and obedient these new subjects of yours truly are. Command Groleo to change course for Slaver’s Bay.”

Dany was not certain she liked the sound of that at all. Everything she’d ever heard of the flesh marts in the great slave cities of Yunkai, Meereen, and Astapor was dire and frightening. “What is there for me in Slaver’s Bay?”

“An army,” said Ser Jorah. “If Strong Belwas is so much to your liking you can buy hundreds more like him out of the fighting pits of Meereen ... but it is Astapor I’d set my sails for. In Astapor you can buy Unsullied.”

“The slaves in the spiked bronze hats?” Dany had seen Unsullied guards in the Free Cities, posted at the gates of magisters, archons, and dynasts. “Why should I want Unsullied? They don’t even ride horses, and most of them are fat.”

“The Unsullied you may have seen in Pentos and Myr were household guards. That’s soft service, and eunuchs tend to plumpness in any case. Food is the only vice allowed them. To judge all Unsullied by a few old household slaves is like judging all squires by Arstan Whitebeard, Your Grace. Do you know the tale of the Three Thousand of Qohor?”

“No.” The coverlet slipped off Dany’s shoulder, and she tugged it back into place.

“It was four hundred years ago or more, when the Dothraki first rode out of the east, sacking and burning every town and city in their path. The khal who led them was named Temmo. His khalasar was not so big as Drogo’s, but it was big enough. Fifty thousand, at the least. Half of them braided warriors with bells ringing in their hair.

“The Qohorik knew he was coming. They strengthened their walls, doubled the size of their own guard, and hired two free companies besides, the Bright Banners and the Second Sons. And almost as an afterthought, they sent a man to Astapor to buy three thousand Unsullied. It was a long march back to Qohor, however, and as they approached they saw the smoke and dust and heard the distant din of battle.

“By the time the Unsullied reached the city the sun had set. Crows and wolves were feasting beneath the walls on what remained of the Qohorik heavy horse. The Bright Banners and Second Sons had fled, as sellswords are wont to do in the face of hopeless odds. With dark falling, the Dothraki had retired to their own camps to drink and dance and feast, but none doubted that they would return on the morrow to smash the city gates, storm the walls, and rape, loot, and slave as they pleased.

“But when dawn broke and Temmo and his bloodriders led their khalasar out of camp, they found three thousand Unsullied drawn up before the gates with the Black Goat standard flying over their heads. So small a force could easily have been flanked, but you know Dothraki. These were men on foot, and men on foot are fit only to be ridden down.

“The Dothraki charged. The Unsullied locked their shields, lowered their spears, and stood firm. Against twenty thousand screamers with bells in their hair, they stood firm.

“Eighteen times the Dothraki charged, and broke themselves on those shields and spears like waves on a rocky shore. Thrice Temmo sent his archers wheeling past and arrows fell like rain upon the Three Thousand, but the Unsullied merely lifted their shields above their heads until the squall had passed. In the end only six hundred of them remained ... but more than twelve thousand Dothraki lay dead upon that field, including Khal Temmo, his bloodriders, his kos, and all his sons. On the morning of the fourth day, the new khal led the survivors past the city gates in a stately procession. One by one, each man cut off his braid and threw it down before the feet of the Three Thousand.

“Since that day, the city guard of Qohor has been made up solely of Unsullied, every one of whom carries a tall spear from which hangs a braid of human hair.

“That is what you will find in Astapor, Your Grace. Put ashore there, and continue on to Pentos overland. It will take longer, yes ... but when you break bread with Magister Illyrio, you will have a thousand swords behind you, not just four.”

A Clash of Kings

ACOK Daenerys V

“The dragon has three heads,” she sighed. “Do you know what that means, Jorah?”

“Your Grace? The sigil of House Targaryen is a three-headed dragon, red on black.”

“I know that. But there are no three-headed dragons.”

“The three heads were Aegon and his sisters.”

“Visenya and Rhaenys,” she recalled. “I am descended from Aegon and Rhaenys through their son Aenys and their grandson Jaehaerys.”

“His is the song of ice and fire, my brother said. I’m certain it was my brother. Not Viserys, Rhaegar. He had a harp with silver strings.”

Ser Jorah’s frown deepened until his eyebrows came together. “Prince Rhaegar played such a harp,” he conceded. “You saw him?”

She nodded. “There was a woman in a bed with a babe at her breast. My brother said the babe was the prince that was promised and told her to name him Aegon.”

“Prince Aegon was Rhaegar’s heir by Elia of Dorne,” Ser Jorah said. “But if he was this prince that was promised, the promise was broken along with his skull when the Lannisters dashed his head against a wall.”

“I remember,” Dany said sadly. “They murdered Rhaegar’s daughter as well, the little princess. Rhaenys, she was named, like Aegon’s sister. There was no Visenya, but he said the dragon has three heads. What is the song of ice and fire?”

“It’s no song I’ve ever heard.”

ACOK Daenerys I

Such little things, she thought as she fed them by hand, or rather, tried to feed them, for the dragons would not eat. They would hiss and spit at each bloody morsel of horsemeat, steam rising from their nostrils, yet they would not take the food ... until Dany recalled something Viserys had told her when they were children.

Only dragons and men eat cooked meat, he had said.

“Aegon’s dragons were named for the gods of Old Valyria,” she told her bloodriders one morning after a long night’s journey. “Visenya’s dragon was Vhagar, Rhaenys had Meraxes, and Aegon rode Balerion, the Black Dread. It was said that Vhagar’s breath was so hot that it could melt a knight’s armor and cook the man inside, that Meraxes swallowed horses whole, and Balerion ... his fire was as black as his scales, his wings so vast that whole towns were swallowed up in their shadow when he passed overhead.”

The Dothraki looked at her hatchlings uneasily. The largest of her three was shiny black, his scales slashed with streaks of vivid scarlet to match his wings and horns. “Khaleesi,” Aggo murmured, “there sits Balerion, come again.”

If I had wings, I would want to fly too, Dany thought. The Targaryens of old had ridden upon dragonback when they went to war. She tried to imagine what it would feel like, to straddle a dragon’s neck and soar high into the air. It would be like standing on a mountaintop, only better. The whole world would be spread out below. If I flew high enough, I could even see the Seven Kingdoms, and reach up and touch the comet.

“Tell me the name of your ghost, Jorah. You know all of mine.”

His face grew very still. “Her name was Lynesse.” “Your wife?” “My second wife.”

It pains him to speak of her, Dany saw, but she wanted to know the truth. “Is that all you would say of her?” The lion pelt slid off one shoulder and she tugged it back into place. “Was she beautiful?”

“Very beautiful.” Ser Jorah lifted his eyes from her shoulder to her face. “The first time I beheld her, I thought she was a goddess come to earth, the Maid herself made flesh. Her birth was far above my own. She was the youngest daughter of Lord Leyton Hightower of Oldtown. The White Bull who commanded your father’s Kingsguard was her great-uncle. The Hightowers are an ancient family, very rich and very proud.”

“And loyal,” Dany said. “I remember, Viserys said the Hightowers were among those who stayed true to my father.”

“That’s so,” he admitted.

“Did your fathers make the match?”

“No,” he said. “Our marriage ... that makes a long tale and a dull one, Your Grace. I would not trouble you with it.”

“I have nowhere to go,” she said. “Please.”

“As my queen commands.” Ser Jorah frowned. “My home ... you must understand that to understand the rest. Bear Island is beautiful, but remote. Imagine old gnarled oaks and tall pines, flowering thornbushes, grey stones bearded with moss, little creeks running icy down steep hillsides. The hall of the Mormonts is built of huge logs and surrounded by an earthen palisade. Aside from a few crofters, my people live along the coasts and fish the seas. The island lies far to the north, and our winters are more terrible than you can imagine, Khaleesi.”

“Still, the island suited me well enough, and I never lacked for women. I had my share of fishwives and crofter’s daughters, before and after I was wed. I married young, to a bride of my father’s choosing, a Glover of Deepwood Motte. Ten years we were wed, or near enough as makes no matter. She was a plain-faced woman, but not unkind. I suppose I came to love her after a fashion, though our relations were dutiful rather than passionate. Three times she miscarried while trying to give me an heir. The last time she never recovered. She died not long after.”

Dany put her hand on his and gave his fingers a squeeze. “I am sorry for you, truly.”

Ser Jorah nodded. “By then my father had taken the black, so I was Lord of Bear Island in my own right. I had no lack of marriage offers, but before I could reach a decision Lord Balon Greyjoy rose in rebellion against the Usurper, and Ned Stark called his banners to help his friend Robert. The final battle was on Pyke. When Robert’s stonethrowers opened a breach in King Balon’s wall, a priest from Myr was the first man through, but I was not far behind. For that I won my knighthood.”

“To celebrate his victory, Robert ordained that a tourney should be held outside Lannisport. It was there I saw Lynesse, a maid half my age. She had come up from Oldtown with her father to see her brothers joust. I could not take my eyes off her. In a fit of madness, I begged her favor to wear in the tourney, never dreaming she would grant my request, yet she did.”

“I fight as well as any man, Khaleesi, but I have never been a tourney knight. Yet with Lynesse’s favor knotted round my arm, I was a different man. I won joust after joust. Lord Jason Mallister fell before me, and Bronze Yohn Royce. Ser Ryman Frey, his brother Ser Hosteen, Lord Whent, Strongboar, even Ser Boros Blount of the Kingsguard, I unhorsed them all. In the last match, I broke nine lances against Jaime Lannister to no result, and King Robert gave me the champion’s laurel. I crowned Lynesse queen of love and beauty, and that very night went to her father and asked for her hand. I was drunk, as much on glory as on wine. By rights I should have gotten a contemptuous refusal, but Lord Leyton accepted my offer. We were married there in Lannisport, and for a fortnight I was the happiest man in the wide world.”

“Only a fortnight?” asked Dany. Even I was given more happiness than that, with Drogo who was my sun-and-stars.

“A fortnight was how long it took us to sail from Lannisport back to Bear Island. My home was a great disappointment to Lynesse. It was too cold, too damp, too far away, my castle no more than a wooden longhall. We had no masques, no mummer shows, no balls or fairs. Seasons might pass without a singer ever coming to play for us, and there’s not a goldsmith on the island. Even meals became a trial. My cook knew little beyond his roasts and stews, and Lynesse soon lost her taste for fish and venison.”

“I lived for her smiles, so I sent all the way to Oldtown for a new cook, and brought a harper from Lannisport. Goldsmiths, jewelers, dressmakers, whatever she wanted I found for her, but it was never enough. Bear Island is rich in bears and trees, and poor in aught else. I built a fine ship for her and we sailed to Lannisport and Oldtown for festivals and fairs, and once even to Braavos, where I borrowed heavily from the moneylenders. It was as a tourney champion that I had won her hand and heart, so I entered other tourneys for her sake, but the magic was gone. I never distinguished myself again, and each defeat meant the loss of another charger and another suit of jousting armor, which must needs be ransomed or replaced. The cost could not be borne. Finally I insisted we return home, but there matters soon grew even worse than before. I could no longer pay the cook and the harper, and Lynesse grew wild when I spoke of pawning her jewels.”

“The rest ... I did things it shames me to speak of. For gold. So Lynesse might keep her jewels, her harper, and her cook. In the end it cost me all. When I heard that Eddard Stark was coming to Bear Island, I was so lost to honor that rather than stay and face his judgment, I took her with me into exile. Nothing mattered but our love, I told myself. We fled to Lys, where I sold my ship for gold to keep us.”

His voice was thick with grief, and Dany was reluctant to press him any further, yet she had to know how it ended. “Did she die there?” she asked him gently.

“Only to me,” he said. “In half a year my gold was gone, and I was obliged to take service as a sellsword. While I was fighting Braavosi on the Rhoyne, Lynesse moved into the manse of a merchant prince named Tregar Ormollen. They say she is his chief concubine now, and even his wife goes in fear of her.”

A Game of Thrones

AGOT Daenerys VIII

The child kicked inside her, as if he had heard. Dany remembered the story Viserys had told her, of what the Usurper’s dogs had done to Rhaegar’s children. His son had been a babe as well, yet they had ripped him from his mother’s breast and dashed his head against a wall. That was the way of men. “They must not hurt my son!” she cried.

She told herself she would die for him, if she must. She was the blood of the dragon, she would not be afraid. Her brother Rhaegar had died for the woman he loved.

AGOT Daenerys III

“Have you ever seen a dragon?” she asked as Irri scrubbed her back and Jhiqui sluiced sand from her hair. She had heard that the first dragons had come from the east, from the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai and the islands of the Jade Sea. Perhaps some were still living there, in realms strange and wild.

“Dragons are gone, Khaleesi,” Irri said.

“Dead,” agreed Jhiqui. “Long and long ago.”

Viserys had told her that the last Targaryen dragons had died no more than a century and a half ago, during the reign of Aegon III, who was called the Dragonbane. That did not seem so long ago to Dany. “Everywhere?” she said, disappointed. “Even in the east?” Magic had died in the west when the Doom fell on Valyria and the Lands of the Long Summer, and neither spell-forged steel nor stormsingers nor dragons could hold it back, but Dany had always heard that the east was different. It was said that manticores prowled the islands of the Jade Sea, that basilisks infested the jungles of Yi Ti, that spellsingers, warlocks, and aeromancers practiced their arts openly in Asshai, while shadowbinders and bloodmages worked terrible sorceries in the black of night. Why shouldn’t there be dragons too?

“No dragon,” Irri said. “Brave men kill them, for dragon terrible evil beasts. It is known.” “It is known,” agreed Jhiqui.

“A trader from Qarth once told me that dragons came from the moon,” blond Doreah said as she warmed a towel over the fire. Jhiqui and Irri were of an age with Dany, Dothraki girls taken as slaves when Drogo destroyed their father’s khalasar. Doreah was older, almost twenty. Magister Illyrio had found her in a pleasure house in Lys.

Silvery-wet hair tumbled across her eyes as Dany turned her head, curious. “The moon?”

“He told me the moon was an egg, Khaleesi,” the Lysene girl said. “Once there were two moons in the sky, but one wandered too close to the sun and cracked from the heat. A thousand thousand dragons poured forth, and drank the fire of the sun. That is why dragons breathe flame. One day the other moon will kiss the sun too, and then it will crack and the dragons will return.”

The two Dothraki girls giggled and laughed. “You are foolish strawhead slave,” Irri said. “Moon is no egg. Moon is god, woman wife of sun. It is known.”

“It is known,” Jhiqui agreed.

AGOT Daenerys I

Somewhere beyond the sunset, across the narrow sea, lay a land of green hills and flowered plains and great rushing rivers, where towers of dark stone rose amidst magnificent blue-grey mountains, and armored knights rode to battle beneath the banners of their lords. The Dothraki called that land Rhaesh Andahli, the land of the Andals. In the Free Cities, they talked of Westeros and the Sunset Kingdoms. Her brother had a simpler name. “Our land,” he called it. The words were like a prayer with him. If he said them enough, the gods were sure to hear. “Ours by blood right, taken from us by treachery, but ours still, ours forever. You do not steal from the dragon, oh, no. The dragon remembers.”

And perhaps the dragon did remember, but Dany could not. She had never seen this land her brother said was theirs, this realm beyond the narrow sea. These places he talked of, Casterly Rock and the Eyrie, Highgarden and the Vale of Arryn, Dorne and the Isle of Faces, they were just words to her. Viserys had been a boy of eight when they fled King’s Landing to escape the advancing armies of the Usurper, but Daenerys had been only a quickening in their mother’s womb.

Yet sometimes Dany would picture the way it had been, so often had her brother told her the stories. The midnight flight to Dragonstone, moonlight shimmering on the ship’s black sails. Her brother Rhaegar battling the Usurper in the bloody waters of the Trident and dying for the woman he loved. The sack of King’s Landing by the ones Viserys called the Usurper’s dogs, the lords Lannister and Stark. Princess Elia of Dorne pleading for mercy as Rhaegar’s heir was ripped from her breast and murdered before her eyes. The polished skulls of the last dragons staring down sightlessly from the walls of the throne room while the Kingslayer opened Father’s throat with a golden sword.

She had been born on Dragonstone nine moons after their flight, while a raging summer storm threatened to rip the island fastness apart. They said that storm was terrible. The Targaryen fleet was smashed while it lay at anchor, and huge stone blocks were ripped from the parapets and sent hurtling into the wild waters of the narrow sea. Her mother had died birthing her, and for that her brother Viserys had never forgiven her.

She did not remember Dragonstone either. They had run again, just before the Usurper’s brother set sail with his new-built fleet. By then only Dragonstone itself, the ancient seat of their House, had remained of the Seven Kingdoms that had once been theirs. It would not remain for long. The garrison had been prepared to sell them to the Usurper, but one night Ser Willem Darry and four loyal men had broken into the nursery and stolen them both, along with her wet nurse, and set sail under cover of darkness for the safety of the Braavosian coast.

She remembered Ser Willem dimly, a great grey bear of a man, half-blind, roaring and bellowing orders from his sickbed. The servants had lived in terror of him, but he had always been kind to Dany. He called her “Little Princess” and sometimes “My Lady,” and his hands were soft as old leather. He never left his bed, though, and the smell of sickness clung to him day and night, a hot, moist, sickly sweet odor. That was when they lived in Braavos, in the big house with the red door. Dany had her own room there, with a lemon tree outside her window. After Ser Willem had died, the servants had stolen what little money they had left, and soon after they had been put out of the big house. Dany had cried when the red door closed behind them forever.

They had wandered since then, from Braavos to Myr, from Myr to Tyrosh, and on to Qohor and Volantis and Lys, never staying long in any one place. Her brother would not allow it. The Usurper’s hired knives were close behind them, he insisted, though Dany had never seen one.

At first the magisters and archons and merchant princes were pleased to welcome the last Targaryens to their homes and tables, but as the years passed and the Usurper continued to sit upon the Iron Throne, doors closed and their lives grew meaner. Years past they had been forced to sell their last few treasures, and now even the coin they had gotten from Mother’s crown had gone. In the alleys and wine sinks of Pentos, they called her brother “the beggar king.” Dany did not want to know what they called her.

“We will have it all back someday, sweet sister,” he would promise her. Sometimes his hands shook when he talked about it. “The jewels and the silks, Dragonstone and King’s Landing, the Iron Throne and the Seven Kingdoms, all they have taken from us, we will have it back.” Viserys lived for that day. All that Daenerys wanted back was the big house with the red door, the lemon tree outside her window, the childhood she had never known.

“Drogo is so rich that even his slaves wear golden collars. A hundred thousand men ride in his khalasar, and his palace in Vaes Dothrak has two hundred rooms and doors of solid silver.” There was more like that, so much more, what a handsome man the khal was, so tall and fierce, fearless in battle, the best rider ever to mount a horse, a demon archer. Daenerys said nothing. She had always assumed that she would wed Viserys when she came of age. For centuries the Targaryens had married brother to sister, since Aegon the Conqueror had taken his sisters to bride. The line must be kept pure, Viserys had told her a thousand times; theirs was the kingsblood, the golden blood of old Valyria, the blood of the dragon. Dragons did not mate with the beasts of the field, and Targaryens did not mingle their blood with that of lesser men. Yet now Viserys schemed to sell her to a stranger, a barbarian.

#daenerys targaryen #dany passages #a dance with dragons #a clash of kings #a storm of swords #a game of thrones

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cintanna-stuff · 5 years ago

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Today I decided to write about something “controversial”. All of the people who follow me know I love Lance’s character and would like to have him as a route. Is this problematic? Apparently. Would they have a healthy relationship? I wish, but I don’t think it matters. Wouldn’t this give women the wrong idea about how a relationship should be? wouldn’t it be better if this never happened? This is what this post is going to be about. This is going to be long and it applies not only to eldarya but also to any otome, novel or movie you can think of.

I’m going to be direct. Please don't treat grown women like they're susceptible children, this game is clearly for young-adult women and some of us like this type of content. You could argue Beemoov isn’t very clear about that rating, sure, but that’s it. Women aren't dumb (let that be clear) and can tell the difference between a game or book and real life as well as make their own decisions. You don’t have to choose for them wether something is acceptable to see or not, could be toxic for them or not or if it should or shouldn’t be enjoyed.

I can guarantee you that one of the things abused women want is to have their own life back under control and make their own decisions, make their own mistakes, because guess what abusers do: control your life. Control what you can or cannot see, eat, listen to or read, make you feel guilty for enjoying things. Do you really think an abusive man would let “his woman” play a game where she can date 5 virtual dudes? No. So please, consider letting women enjoy books and novels, videogames or movies, doesn’t matter how problematic or controversial might seem to you.

Some women like reading about sweet romances, others enjoy romances that would be considered unhealthy, toxic or even dangerous in real life and that’s okay. Because when you’re reading a book, watching a movie or playing a game, you are the one in control and you made your own decision and are enjoying yourself without harming anyone, you can stop it whenever you want. And no, women won’t date abusers because they saw it in a game. Just because I liked the movie The Martian doesn’t mean I’d sign up to get stranded in planet Mars.

Now, if you ever start dating an abuser, you won’t know right away. Abusers don’t harm you since day 1, they start as sweet, compromising, romantic people who groom you into the relationship. Once you’re in love and everything is “perfect” they’ll start to control you “for your own good”, they’ll make you feel guilty for enjoying stuff and you’ll think they’re right, they’ll start to control who you’re talking to, what do you search on the internet, your phone calls, will put you against your family and friends, they will keep abusing you mentally while saying “it’s for your own good, I don’t like to do this but you’re making me do it, I just want the best for us” and eventually might end up physical. Women end up in these shitty situations because they get lured into them, because they’re guilted and shamed by someone they “loved and trusted”, not because they saw it in a stupid otome game, thought it was cute and started dating the first dude that punched them on the street.

You want good advice for women to not fall into abusive relationships? don’t let anyone tell you what to do, keep your friends and family close and never let any of your partners put you against them or make you choose, never let anyone shame or make you feel guilty for enjoying yourself with a book or a game, doesn’t matter if it’s a book about taking care of your cactus or a game about dating a villain. If a man loves you, he’ll let you do the things you enjoy and won’t make you feel bad or weird about doing them, might even support you (yes, my boyfriend supports me in my quest to date Lance, he even jokes about it “I already have blue eyes but should I dye my hair white for you😫?” xd)

This might be funny but I think a good example of “I’m actually protecting from dangerous things” is in the movie Tangled. Gothel lies to Rapunzel telling her she’s her mother and locking her in a tower, forbidding her from going outside because everything outside is too dangerous for a young woman. Rapunzel has few books in her shelves, has to spend her time doing harmless hobbies like painting the walls in her tower and when she asks her “mother” to take her to see the lights, she dismisses her wishes and sings a song to scare her about how much she’s protecting her from the outside world. In the end, Rapunzel breaks free with the help of Eugene who promises to take her to see the lights and lives some cool adventures in the process, she goes through some dangerous and life threatening situations but also meets unexpected good people and finds love in Eugene, a burglar and wanted criminal in the realm. Rapunzel took control of her own life and chose to disobey Gothel and risk to go outside to see the lights, with Eugene by her side, she started to do whatever she wanted. This is why for me Tangled>Frozen 🤣

But back to the topic, what about this game, Eldarya? If you don't like a route, don't play it, choose someone else. No one is forcing you to romance Lance, you have the option to spit on his face, insult him, bite him and try to push him off the cliff if you want to. So, think of this character whatever you want, but consider that other women enjoy or could enjoy him and want him to be an option eventually, there’s no need to advocate against them. Please, consider that maybe some of the women you’re advocating against and trying to make feel guilty for liking Lance (or Leiftan who isn’t clearly a healthy relationship either) might have been victims of abuse themselves in the past and now they’re seeing people who shame them and want to censor that game they chose to play 🙃. Let women be free to choose and enjoy.

As for myself, I can tell you I expect Lance to change if he ever becomes an option, I like seeing the journey of redeemed characters. I enjoy his attitude as a villain but no, I don’t like him hitting or trying to harm my character, but that might change in the future. I don’t care wether this is realistic or not because this is a fantasy game and even if I believe the writing must follow a certain logic, these characters we’re playing with aren’t in our own context nor existent. Lance isn’t even supposed to be a human being and I hope he never fully behaves as one, that’s part of what makes him attractive to me.

#otomes #long rant #wrote this from my experience #eldarya #lance #controversial topic #wow this was long #tangled is 💕

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lesetoilesfous · 5 years ago

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Shy kiss - Anders/Merrill, please? :)

Oooooh how lovely! Of course!!

(If you’d like me to write you a da2 fic, send me a prompt from here!)

@dadrunkwriting

Pairing: Anders/Merrill

Characters: Merrill, Anders

Tags: In which I try to make the elvhen language make sense and probably fail, I’m sorry in advance, I haven’t played Inquisition yet

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences

“Ok so, if you lenite an f to vh after a vowel, then ma falon becomes ma vhalon, for example.” Anders says, frowning at the parchment in front of him. It’s covered in today’s homework, and numerous scratched out words and annotations in tiny, chicken-scratch handwriting. Merrill finds it hard to believe that the Circle approved of his penmanship, and privately wonders whether that’s why Anders seems to actively endeavour to make it as illegible as possible.

It does make her work as a tutor a little more difficult, but it’s worth it for the pleased satisfaction in Anders’ eyes when he gets something right. It’s both very pleasant and very odd to see a human treating her culture with such intent attention, and Merrill can’t pretend it doesn’t flatter her.

Still, he has a way to go. “It’s vhalon. You’re thinking of the v like a letter in common, but the sound you write as vh is vh, it’s an elven phoneme.”

Anders nods, impatiently pushing a little of his hair back behind his ear as he makes another of his illegible notes. There’s a small scratched ink drawing of a cat in the corner of his work. Merrill would try to find it in her to be offended as his teacher if it wasn’t so incredibly cute. Once he’s finished, Anders looks at her again, and Merrill wishes she could force herself not to blush under the warmth of his gaze.

“Right. Ma vhalon.”

Merrill’s lips twitch into a smile despite herself. “Vhalon,” she says, leaning forward and letting her teeth rest gently on her bottom lip as she makes the sound, exaggerating it. She doesn’t miss the faint heat in Anders’ eyes as his gaze falls to her mouth. For all Isabela’s jokes about her naivety, Merrill was a grown woman with her own desires, and it had not escaped her attention that Anders was a handsome man. Or that he was a very intelligent one, and kind, who cared passionately about his people and helped all who came to him, human or otherwise.

He had a very sweet spray of freckles over his cheeks and brow that reminded her of the sweet, strong farmhands in the fluffy novels Varric had taken to giving her ever since she’d expressed her enjoyment of Orlesian songs. There was the simple humility of a farmboy from the Anderfels in Anders’ lanky frame, his freckles and fair hair. And there was power in his hands and wit in his eyes and so much magic -

“Merrill?” Anders’ voice is light with humour as he waves a hand in front of her face and Merrill blinks, torn from her reverie and flushing as she realises she’d been staring. She clears her throat and pushes her hair back behind her ear. (It needed a cut, really, she hated when it started tickling her neck.)

“Yes, lethallin? Sorry, I was lost in the Fade.” She smiles at him, waiting for his question.

“I was just wondering, would it be the same for ma vhenan?”

Merrill’s flush deepens. “Oh! Well - I mean, yes. Though it’s not, that’s just, it’s not lenition that time - that’s just how it’s, ah, how that’s spelled. And said. Spoken.” She can feel her tongue tripping over the words even as her mind replays the endearment, spoken in Anders’ warm, lilting voice, a voice that hadn’t quite lost the sing-song rhythm of his native tongue.

Anders’ hand is very gentle on her wrist, as he touches her hand where it rests on the table between them. Hesitantly, Merrill looks up into his golden eyes, and wonders whether this was how all those swooning protagonists in Varric’s romances had felt. She feels like she could fall into the sky. “Ma vhenan.” Anders says the words softly, mouth shaping the vh with care, and Merrill finds herself looking at his lips. She hears his breath catch, and then, before she can think better of it, she sits forward and kisses him, quick and chaste, squeezing her eyes shut.

It’s like kissing starlight. His lips are soft and warm, and Merrill’s mouth tingles where they’d touched, and she can feel her blush all the way to the tips of her ears. She pulls back and Anders lets her go as she stands, heart racing as she flees. Merrill slams the door shut behind her before pressing her back up against the cool stone wall of her bedroom, waiting for the heat in her face to fade.

Head resting against the wall, Merrill shuts her eyes and covers her face with her hands, before lowering her fingers to hesitantly touch her lips. They’re still tingling with the magic of their kiss. Merrill shuts her eyes, and smiles until her cheeks hurt. “Oh Creators. What would the Keeper say?” Then she laughs, and catches it under her hand, and laughs again despite it, feeling the mirth bubbling up out of her chest in a dizzy rush of exhilaration and glee.

It didn’t matter what the Keeper said. She was walking her own path now. And there was a very handsome human waiting at her kitchen table.

The light of the Kirkwall sun breaks in shafts through Merrill’s narrow windows, and Merrill stares at the shimmering golden lances of it, and sends a quick prayer to Mythal.

Then she turns, and opens the door.

#dadwc #da2 #anders/merrill #anon #da2 fic #my fic #anders #merrill #dadrunkwriting

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agentrouka-blog · 5 years ago

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"Show yourself!” Lyanna Stark and her three Elsa Starks.

My son has been enjoying Frozen II every once in a while lately, while he’s doing his three-year-old part to containing the pandemic by staying home, and “Show yourself” is really a heart-stopping piece of music. Gorgeous. The way it builds and what it is about. And it gives me massive ASOIAF feels.

This seems a bit silly, but I have yet to come upon a song that as perfectly captures the emotional relevance of the revelation of Lyanna Stark as Jon’s mother, the relevance for all the remaining Starks. The fit of the emotional arc is amazing. Basically, if you want to feel what GRRM wants us to feel about Lyanna Stark, watch “Show yourself”.

I’m going into self-indulgent detail About how Frozen II relates to them, and what Lyanna means to Bran, Arya, Sansa and Jon, below the cut.

So, Frozen is a pretty universal story that also applies to ASOIAF.

The figure of the “always different” special child, estranged from others, who has battled to fit themselves into the world around them and now stands on the precipice of an existential challenge - that applies to all the surviving Stark children. They are all Elsa. They all vitaly need the confrontation with the hidden voice calling them (mother Iduna = Lyanna) in order to reach a balance, to achieve harmony in their world, to enable their non-magical inner Anna to reign in a living world rather than perish, abandoned in one destroyed by chaos.

They have all grown up in the non-magical “Arendelle”, caged by imposed secrecy. That’s Ned, that’s king Agnar, the regular human man. Regular, as in regulation, as in rules. No one must know Elsa’s magical (female) powers. She is locked in a room, contained, lonely. Olaf (love, spring, summer) is a suppressed memory.

Patriarchy, blind duty, the suppression of their inner selves lead to their ruin: Bran the climber who may not climb but then falls, Arya the fighter who may not fight but then murders, Sansa the artist who may not create a dream but instead becomes a liar, Jon the beloved, noble son who is kept in isolation and must be motherless, friendless and damned. Elsa’s magic is harmony but she must hide it and thus brings eternal Winter to Arendelle.

Lyanna, the way Ned refused to talk about her and kept her secret, the effect of that is perfectly illustrated in Elsa’s journey in Frozen I, she is isolated from her emotional needs (Anna, lonely, hungry for connection, full of bad judgment), she has no control over her magic, it turns into something terrible. She pays the price in loneliness and then struggles without proper guidance to “grow up”, to harness her inner strength. She does gain control but it’s chaotic and leaves her vulnerable to abuse and betrayal (Hans) and everything almost falls to ruin, until the power of love creates a last-minute save and a spot of recovery. That’s when they retake Winterfell and reconvene. They all go through this journey and meet at the stalemate.

Frozen II is about connecting to the source of that magic and reconciling with it, about validating it, returning it to its proper place. They find out that Mother Iduna had magic, too. They find out that Elsa’s magic is the key to harmony, that she is not just accepted but necessary just as she is. What was forbidden is now essential. Elsa is finally free to be herself, she applies her magic to save the world and then peacefully lives in it. Anna has a safe space to fullfil her emotional needs and bring all her own talents to life. She is no longer lonely and without purpose, she is queen, soon to be wife, likely to be mother. The other, equally valid side of Iduna.

Lyanna, the previously hidden and locked power of the female Stark magic: mother, sister, lover; lady, fool and knight, she-wolf, caged bird and the most beautiful flower grown with love from an inhospitable place. She has all the good and bad sides of Bran, Arya, Sansa and Jon, and each in their own way are healed when they follow the call and find her. Their true selves will be validated in every aspect, by being mirrored in Lyanna.

Bran: his true purpose is to uncover THIS secret while “climbing” a Broken Tower of Joy. His ability to “fly” to learn the truth from the weirdwood memory, it gives meaning to everything that happened to him. Their failure: to break the rules in secret, leading to their unprotected fall. They are ruined, broken. Their redemption: This fall later unlocks the key to saving the world. Lyanna begets her beloved son Jon. Bran discovers his greenseeing abilities. Being discovered for their true selves makes Bran the Lord of Truth, it makes Lyanna the Queen of Love and Beauty once more, they can leave the Tower the proper way, climb out of that window and fly home. Lyanna comes home, not just her bones, her true self. The truth will set you free, and it turns the potentially destructive, secretive nature of the Three-Eyed Raven into a savior, it turns Winter into Summer.

Arya: Lyanna, the beautiful Stark maiden, who rode a horse and weilded sword and lance and defended the innocent and tried to create justice. The true Lady Knight. Their failures: her impatience and anger at injustice make her heedless and lead to a dismantling of the world, others pay the price in blood (Rickard, Brandon and Lady, all of Arya’s kills). They become a source of death and destruction that eventually destroys her, too. Their redemption: They choose life by choosing Jon. (Make all the abortion jokes you want, but Lyanna LOVED Jon, she chose him in her heart.) Lyanna saves the world by giving it Jon. Arya does the same. She loves Jon first with all her heart, which enables him to love the world in turn, to free Arya by giving her Needle, which then will in turn be the instrument to Arya’s swan song, where she defends the innocent and enacts justice and saves Jon one last time. Found and validated by her spiritual mirror Lyanna, the Queen of Love and Beauty, Arya paves the way for life and the real Spring, not the false Spring. It paves the way for Lyanna’s dream. The blood red tears of the weirwood, of Lady Stoneheart, turn into the image of the Laughing Tree,

Sansa: Lyanna, the dreamer, the lover, the idealist, the mother-in-waiting, the girl who wanted it all: Life lived with emotional fulfillment. Who believed in her heart that there is worth in her dreams and that she was inherently worthy of seeing them realized. Lyanna’s desire, her love, her dreams are Sansa’s. This shared aspect is the most feminine part of all the Starks, the Summer in all that Stark Winter imagery. And Sansa is ridiculed for it because there is no counterbalance to the hypermasculity of their world. Sansa and Lyanna are both betrayed by this imbalance. The oppression inherent in their paternatlistic world takes their softness and turns it into weakness, takes their life-giving bodies and turns them into a weapon against them. Marriage for love becomes rape and birth becomes death. The Sping turns false and, as their dreams die, so does Winter kill life in the world. Their “failure”: Both rebel by turning traitor. They lie, they leave, they turn their backs on their family, they unwittingly deliver themselves into the hands of the enemy. They are made fools. As objects, they inspire the violence and death that Arya herself deals out as a “dark knight”. Their very absence means death to dreams for those who want to live them. Persephone in Hades. Their redemption: Becoming Anna, the non-magical sister. Becoming the real, worldly Queen. Taking control. Giving power to the feminine. When Sansa embraces her own self-worth, she inspires devotion, decency, nobility. When Sansa begins to actively create, she forges a world in which dreams can thrive and when they make their dreams come true, life wins out. She will leave the Tower alive, she will meet her love. Chaos is reigned in, they create stability, beauty, bounty. The true Spring happens when they come into power and preside over all their creations and children with love at their side. Happiness. Spring is coming.

Jon: He and Arya and Sansa are tied together, obviously. The sun and stars (the sun is a star, after all), and the moon of life. Jon is the “true” Elsa, the fifth spirit, her magical heir. He is Lyanna come again, fulfilling what life promised her. Their failure: Believing there is no love for them, they are pressed into a life that abnegates all feminine energy, all dreams. Where Lyanna rebels and becomes a fool, Jon, as a man, flings himself into self-denial and still becomes a fool. As a motherless Stark bastard he can never be his true noble self because the world leaves no room for all he has to offer. Like Lyanna, he is trapped by the rigid rules. Like Sansa, he is ridiculed. Like Bran, the secret in the tower is the source of his misery. This almost turns him into an ice block. It leaves him vulnerable to false love, harmful secrecy, betrayal, death. Their redemption: true love. It is Ned’s love that leads him to keep looking until Lyanna is found and to preserve her legacy. It is Arya’s love that keeps Jon from turning into a rigid, unbending Stannis, it will have her looking until Jon is found again, it will have her lay down her life for his. It will be Sansa’s love that leads Jon back to life after death every time. Real life, Anna’s life. It will be Bran’s love that uncovers the truth. This truth will melt the ice. Lyanna saves Jon when it is revealed that the mother he dreamed of all his life was real. Noble and kind and beautiful and loving him with all her heart. Not some man’s bastard but his mother’s beloved and “trueborn” son, the brightest star in our sky, the gillyflower. This will unlock his ability to fulfill his Destiny, save the world, realize his own dreams and Lyanna’s: a true Stark, the fool knight who wins the love of his Lady, saves her from a tower, marries for love, a parent to children of his own blood. Masculine in harmony with the feminine to create and preserve life.

Lyanna is the key to all of them. Like Iduna’s call leads Elsa to discover her true purpose, the fact that her life is a gift to the world, Lyanna validates the qualities of all the Stark kids. None of them can fulfill their destiny without touching upon her, not until she becomes visible. But when they do, it will be epic.

And “Show Yourself” just sort of captures the whole range and magnitude of this emotional arc. It really is a brilliant song.

#asoiaf #frozen #lyanna stark #jon snow #arya stark #bran stark #sansa stark

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vivilove-jonsa · 5 years ago

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How about "I missed you, I thought I wouldn't see you again"

Thank you @castalya for the dialogue prompt and sorry it’s taken me a bit. I’m getting to these as I can and when inspiration strikes :)

This is Part 2 of my earlier King Jon and Alayne ficlet you can read here

***

An unexpected kingship had had him preoccupied not to mention the potentially unwinnable war for humanity that looms. Half the lords and ladies present had snickered behind their hands as he’d spoken. The other half hadn’t bothered to hide their amusement.

Admittedly, it is fantastical sounding but do they truly believe a newly appointed king would have journeyed so far only to tell them bedtime stories their wet nurses might’ve frightened them with as babes?

The entire time he’d been speaking, he’d been chiding himself for leaving the North at such a crucial time to court these fools and would-be allies who still thought their game of thrones was more important than this war. He’d grown sullen and angry and wondered if perhaps he was the fool for coming by the time the talk concluded.

So, no…he’d not paid much attention to Lord Baelish’s bastard daughter in the hall upon his arrival. Alright, he had allowed his eyes to sweep over her a time or two as she’d been studying him as well. A pretty face and blue eyes like summer skies, he’d heard Alayne Stone was a beauty. But he’d told himself he had no time for distractions.

But then, he finds himself distracted all the same.

He wakes the morning after his arrival unsettled and downhearted from dreams of the past, dreams from his boyhood. Sweet dreams from a far sweeter time though he’d not fully appreciated it then. Being the bastard son of Ned Stark had not been easy but he’s come to realize how much better he had it than most.

He’d recalled the people he loved most in his dreams though he fears they are all lost to him now. They are still his family even if he’s not Ned Stark’s son and even if his half-brothers and sisters are actually his cousins.

The halls of Winterfell feel empty without the people who had made it his home but he’d rather be there than here in the Eyrie for the next moon.

Suddenly feeling unable to breathe in the chambers he was given, Jon throws on his clothes and cloak and seeks the outdoors. He finds his way through this unusual castle to its unusual godswood, a godswood with no heart tree nor any proper trees.

And it’s there his distraction awaits in the person of Alayne Stone.

Fresh snow has fallen during the night. It’s still falling though lightly and he watches the girl wrapped up in her cloak and squatted down on the ground molding a castle of her own, a castle made of snow.

She doesn’t see him. She’s so intent on her task. He admires the walls and rounded tower she’s just erected but he’s soon admiring her more. She is truly a beauty and there’s a sweetness in her expression when she’s here and thinks herself alone that touches his heart.

Her cheeks are growing redder along with the tip of her nose. He’d like to warm her though he shouldn’t. A strand of dark brown hair is hanging loose from the hood of her cloak. It’s wet from the snow but long and lush looking. Her eyes are bright with the reflection of the snow but he thinks they might be brightened from her task even more.

Her pink tongue is poking out between her white teeth as she concentrates on the next tower. It’s rather endearing. The tower’s a bit lopsided, almost broken. Is that intended? It’s hard to tell when it’s only made of snow.

“Alayne, whatever are you doing?” an unctuous voice says from somewhere out of sight. “It’s terribly cold out.”

“The cold doesn’t bother me.”

“Well, I need you to come inside. I have tasks for you beyond building snow castles, sweetling.”

The girl rolls her eyes to herself and rises, wiping off her hands and leaving her castle unfinished. “Yes, Father,” she says with one last look of regret at her creation.

She never sees Jon watching her and he keeps his silence. He’d finish her castle for her if he could but he does not know what she dreams of. He only sees a partially built Winterfell but that could not be.

Alone in the godswood with no gods, he’s left with a burning desire to see her again.

I shouldn’t though.

It would be unwise to become enchanted with this girl. He’s been thoroughly warned to watch himself when it comes to Lord Baelish and that likely goes for his daughter as well.

Unfortunately, becoming enchanted by her is exactly what happens.

She’s never near him. Not since that first day when he’d arrived has she been within twenty paces of him. It frustrates him and makes him hungry for any little glimpse of her.

In the hall during meals, she’s placed nearer the salt. Does Littlefinger always have her sit there? She seems well respected by the inhabitants of the Eyrie from what he’s managed to learn. Surely, she sits by her father’s side ordinarily. Jon had always dined with his family during feasts except for that one feast, the one attended by a king. Is that why Lord Baelish has her there? Does he fear her presence might offend him as he was told Lady Stark feared his presence might offend King Robert and Queen Cersei?

Looking back, he wonders if that was truly Lady Catelyn’s concern or if it was Lord Stark who did not wish for Robert to take too much notice of Rhaegar’s secret son. And why does that leave him with a strange sense of disquiet with regards to Alayne?

Still, he feels a kinship with the girl, recalling what it was like growing up as a bastard amongst the high born, the true born. He wishes he could speak with her. He wishes to hold her hand. He shouldn’t.

Alayne. Her name echoes in his head as he seeks his rest a few nights later.

He should not think on her so but today he’d missed seeing her in the hall when he’d broke his fast. Luck was with him though for he’d stumbled across her in the library soon after. He may have been looking for her. He may have made inquiries. He was only curious.

She didn’t see him and perhaps part of him is afraid of facing her, afraid of actually making a connection of sorts, afraid he’ll lose his heart to her if he does.

So once more, like a mischievous boy eavesdropping on something that isn’t his business, he’d watched from a hidden spot as she’d sat with a forgotten book by her side, hugged her knees to her chest and started to sing. Her singing…it had been both bitter and sweet. Her voice was lovely and true but the song had made him melancholic. It had brought Ygritte to mind in a way but that wasn’t entirely it. It had tugged at some memory, something deep down struggling to make itself known. What was this?

And once more, just when he’d thought perhaps he would reveal himself and speak with her, she’d been called away by her wretched father. Jon hadn’t liked the way the man had stroked the girl’s cheek and whispered in her ear. She’d hurried away as if she’d been chastened from her father and Jon’s sword hand had been clenched in anger as he’d strode out of the library soon afterwards. What was it about Littlefinger and his daughter that made him so uncomfortable?

She’s bewitched him without even knowing it. He must control this. He cannot allow himself to become besotted with some girl when he’s here for a very specific purpose.

But a few nights later, his resolved is tested most painfully.

He’d thought he’d had her figured out. He’d feared her father had sent her to seduce him for whatever reason. He’d thought to teach her a lesson and show her the King in the North was not to be trifled with and no fool.

But I am a fool.

“Sansa?”

He’s far too astonished by the revelation to pay much mind to the hot soup soaking through his breeches. Her laughter after she’d doused him had stirred a dozen distant memories and at last his mind had finally puzzled out why.

And a moment ago, he’d been tempted beyond measure to bed Littlefinger’s bastard daughter despite knowing what a horrible idea that would be strategically speaking.

Gods, so tempted.

But she’s not Littlefinger’s bastard daughter. She’s Sansa Stark, true born daughter of Ned and Catelyn Stark and a girl he’d grown up believing was his half-sister. She’s not though, she’s my cousin.

“You remember me now, do you?” she asks and there’s no mistaking the hurt in her voice.

How can he have been so blind?

“Of course, I do.”

Gods, does he ever. Sansa in her pretty dresses, forever following Lady Stark around the castle, so eager to please her lady mother. Sansa being followed around by her septa and being drilled with her courtesies as surely as Ser Rodrik had drilled him and Robb with sword, bow and lance. Sansa who only ever called him her half-brother once she’d learned of the distinction between him and his half-siblings. Sansa who never felt like his sister the way Arya did.

Nevertheless, he’s missed her. He loves her. She’s part of him and he’s part of her and they have so little left.

But when you thought she was Alayne…

Seven hells, what would his uncle do to him if he knew the thoughts he’d entertained in the dark of his bedchambers regarding Alayne?

“Sansa, I’m so sorry but I’m…what are you doing here? Why is your hair dyed? Why are you pretending to be something you’re not?”

Once she’s finished telling him, he’s incensed. No, it’s more than that. He’s trembling with rage. Baelish is far fouler than he’d believed. He’d like to strangle the man with his bare hands.

“I’ll get you out of here. I’ll take you home,” he swears. He means it.

But when she rushes into his arms, nuzzling against his cheek tenderly and whispering fervently, “I missed you, I thought I wouldn’t see you again,” he’s confused by the things he feels, by that stirring in his chest and elsewhere.

Littlefinger obviously had plans for her but what does she want? Isn’t that a good question. She’d seemed to want him too when he’d been making his sorry attempt at seduction in the name of figuring her out. There’s no need for games now. She’s his family. He can take her home as his kin.

Or, I could take her home as my wife, a voice within says.

#jon x sansa #jonsa #jonsa fanfiction #king jon x alayne #dialogue prompts #castalya

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growingstronglikeahighgardenrose · 5 years ago

Text

A Fiery Wish

ASOIAF AU fic: A Fiery Wish

Jeyne Poole runs into the Brotherwood Without Banners on her way to the Boltons. Taking a leap of faith, she begs them for help upon seeing who she had once considered to be the most handsome man she’d ever seen: Beric Dondarrion. She is helped, but there’s a price to kindness. However, it’s one she’s willing to pay.

Beric Dondarrion x Jeyne Poole

For @asoiafrarepairs “A weekend in the Stormlands”

Just like all girls with big dreams, Jeyne Poole had been told to be careful what she wished for.

Yet, having been raised on the same steady diet of fairy tales and courtly lessons as Sansa Stark, even though Jeyne was only a steward’s daughter, she couldn’t help but dream about a romantic future with a dashing lord.

But now, standing in front of a ditchfire some distance removed from a gnarled old Weirwood tree, Jeyne belatedly understood the lesson they had tried to instil upon her.

‘Now comes Jeyne of House Poole, a woman grown and flowered, of noble blood and birth.’

There was no one to give her away. But it was preferable to being given away by one of the guards Lord Baelish had sent with her, their deaths were the best wedding gift she could have hoped for in this bleak new world.

Poor papa, she mourned, I had always expected you to give me away and have a first dance with me on my wedding day. She comforted herself with the knowledge that her mama and papa would not want to witness this moment anyway.

‘Who comes forth to claim this woman?’ the red priest in the faded red robes asked.

‘I do, Lord Beric of House Dondarrion.’ She could see him coming to stand next to her from her peripheral vision. In the dark he was even more of a ghost, his whole body swallowed by the faded and torn black cloak with stars. The stars gleamed ever so slightly in the light of the fire.

Once upon a time, nothing would have delighted her more than to marry him. She’d professed her fiery desire to Sansa.

But that had been in summer, it was autumn now.

x.X.x

Life was like the songs, Jeyne thought.

For a lovely couple of months, she’d been nothing short of happy. True, she was sad to miss Robb’s lovely face and gorgeous curls gleaming a dark red in the sunlight. But then in King’s Landing she’d gotten proper replacement in the form of Beric Dondarrion. Taller and older than Robb, and with hair an even brighter shade of red. In the sunlight, it reminded her of a flaming fire, and her girlish passions were quickly shifted towards the Lord of Blackhaven.

Now there was a real man awakening all kinds of female feelings within her.

‘Oh Jeyne he is handsome for sure, but I heard he is betrothed to Lady Dayne since a couple of years. Is there no unattached squire you would consider, or someone who’s part of an entourage?’ Sansa had asked her with all hesitancy and gentleness becoming of sweet friend. Jeyne had known the true meaning of her words though.

Yes, Beric Dondarrion was betrothed to another, but Sansa meant that Jeyne had set her sights too high. She didn’t mind though, she was young and in an exciting capitol she’d never even dreamed of visiting, she was fine with just dreaming about him.

The pink bubble of childhood had shattered with the prick of a needle, or rather a sword, a sword to Lord Eddard’s neck and another one in her father’s belly.

Life was not like a song, in the songs, the heroes win.

She’d paid dearly for those summer months and her own naivety with the blood of her father and her own dignity as Lord Baelish sent her to a brothel once all northernmen had been slaughtered. She saw things she never had expected to see. And did things she never wanted to do. Her cheeks had been stained with tears as she did them, but she had done them, until she did them well enough that Lord Baelish decided her education was complete. Her education was complete, but she felt dirty.

She didn’t feel like one of the princesses in the songs anymore. They had been good and pure and sweet. She was ruined, wary and weary.

He assigned her two men to return her to Winterfell. Sometimes she played the part of their sister, sometimes one’s wife, and sometimes their child. She didn’t look forward to returning home, news travelled fast on the Kingsroad. She’d heard about Robb and Catelyn activities in the Riverlands, Arya’s disappearance in Kings Landing and the deaths of the youngest Starks. They’d been no more than small boys when she left, she’d cursed Theon when she first heard about it. Sansa had never trusted them since Catelyn had never trusted him, and she in turn had never trusted the youth either.

She’d spent days thinking of ways to kill him, she’d seen enough death to know a couple of ways. She couldn’t even bemoan the loss of her sweetness and innocence, she’d lost it all so rapidly, and instead had come hate, fear and resignation. What home would she return to? There was none, she reasoned. She doubted Lord Baelish was bringing her home for her own sake, she hadn’t a lot of experience or knowledge, but she knew this much. There was only one reason why she’d been taught the things she was in a brothel before being sent to Lord Bolton. Baelish had a plan for her, and it didn’t include growing older until the war was over and her kin found a match for her.

Jeyne liked to believe she was no fool, she didn’t deny reality, but on the other hand there was no use to dwell on it, so oftentimes while on the road, she retreated to the realm of dreams, the only place where her life wasn’t miserable. In those dreams she dreamt of being saved on her way to the North by Lord Beric Dondarrion. She’d heard of his attacks on foraging parties in the woods. While on the road, she’d also heard of his deaths. She’d heard he’d been impaled by the Mountain, smashed with a mace, hanged by Ser Lorch, stabbed in the face by the Mountain and killed by Vargo Hoat. Each couple of weeks brought a new story of his death. She reasoned that the stories of his deaths had to be false, otherwise how could someone else claim to have killed him? On the other hand, reports were known to conflict, perhaps there’d been a battle in the woods somewhere, and everyone wanted to take credit for killing the hero who’d so bravely ended so many foraging parties. It didn’t matter to her, in her daydreams she created happy endings for the both of them.

So, on her trip to an uncertain destiny, expecting nothing but misery, she’d been shocked when their group was halted halfway through the woods by a band of criminals. They had to be criminals, she reasoned, they looked poor and dirty. The second they stopped, weapons were drawn by all. Her party was hopelessly outnumbered.

This was her death, she reasoned, she couldn’t even be very surprised or emotional about it.

That had been until a man slowly walked onto the middle of the road, previously hidden in shadows.

She recognized him immediately, even though he looked nothing like she remembered, time had removed every blemish and imperfection he had ever had from her memory, making the present version of him look all the more jarring.

His hair had grown to his shoulders, and the clothes which had without a doubt once looked magnificent were now worn through and stained with blood and dirt. He still wore his black shield and breastplate, though both carried holes.

How could they have holes of that size when he was standing there? Nothing could have pierced them without injuring him. He must have grown a lot better at fighting, if he managed to be attacked in such ways and walk away alive.

He had never been a broad man by any means, but was now a scarecrow. He must have been hungry often, she thought as he came to a standstill.

‘Have no fear, good people, we shall not harm you, we only seek money for our cause. Surely, you have some to spare. I swear it will go to food for the poor smallfolk, and the orphans we are housing’, he announced good-naturedly.

There was no recognition in his eye. The other was covered by dirty cloth. She remembered a story of how the Mountain had pierced it.

So that had been true, she noted. Upon consideration, did not the hole in his breastplate resemble the damage a lance would have made? He had fought the Mountain, but he’d survived. Jeyne remembered how he’d been unhorsed twice at the Tourney. A man who was unhorsed that easily would be knocked out by the Mountain in a minute.

He must have learned a lot while on the road, she mused. Before he had been but a young untried youth, experience had aged him, but the time had brought him experience and skill if he could now hold himself against the Mountain.

He might not remember me, but surely if he still defends the smallfolk and helps orphans, he will help me as well, she reasoned.

That minute she decided placing her fate in his hands was preferable to continuing her way to Winterfell. Perhaps she risked dying, but there were no guarantees awaiting her at Winterfell either.

‘Lord Beric’, she brought out. ‘I am pleased to see you alive, my lord.’

Confusion clouded his face, and she could feel her guards tensing. She had chosen wrong, but she could not go back now. She had chosen her fate.

‘Who speaks?’ asked a low voice before a man joined Lord Beric. He was skinnier than she remembered, and now had a thick grey beard, but he too wore some clothes she remembered.

‘Ser Thoros’, she greeted.

‘I remember your face,’ he admitted, a shine coming into his eyes, ‘but I cannot recall where I met you’, the red priest answered honestly.

‘My name is Jeyne Poole, I was in Kings Landing together with Lord Stark and his daughters.’

‘And finally on your way home. Kings Landing has turned traitorous, no doubt you will be glad to go home. Although, your entourage looks rather small, were the Northerners not with more?’

The men accompanying her could not hide the absence of Northern banners, and the lack of people could not be explained either. She knew he had already concluded something was up.

‘Actually, Ser, this is all that’s left of us. It is only me, the others, including my father, were killed. Luckily Lord Baelish was so kind as to send me back home with some of his fine men. Since I am their prisoner I cannot decide about giving you money, but perhaps if you ask them, they would not mind giving you some.’

The situation turned quickly. She could feel the press of a blade against her throat. The men closest to the carriage froze.

‘Let us go, or we will kill her’, her guard threatened.

They wouldn’t, she knew, because if they did not deliver her to the Boltons, Lord Baelish would see to it that they were adequately punished.

From between the trees, an arrow rushed past, and she could feel the impact through the blade and arms around her, before the grip of the guard slackened. He dropped dead. The other didn’t even have time to draw his sword before he was pulled from the cart by a tall burly man with a yellow cloak. The sickening wet crunch of an axe followed mere seconds after.

‘Thank you, my Lord, you are too kind, you can have as much of the money as you want’, she quickly said.

‘We help those in need, and we do not take kindly to pawns being played by the ruthless schemers of King’s Landing. However, my lady, this now leaves you without protectors while the roads to the North are treasonous’, the once handsome lord said.

‘There’s nothing for me in the North. I only wish to be safe. I cannot expect you to help me, but I would be forever in your debt if someone could bring me to a house loyal to the Starks. I will manage from there onwards, and I will sent money to you if I can.’

‘We are flattered by your kindness, my lady. If you don’t mind, we could take you to the Crossroads Inn to discuss your options.’

Having little choice, Jeyne nodded, and after the arms and clothes of her guards were distributed amongst what she was now introduced to as the Brotherhood without Banners, she followed them hither and was surprised to see it was the Bellringer Inn where she’d stayed on her way to King’s Landing. Just like they’d told, the inn was the home to many orphans who were being looked after by the innkeeper and his family.

Jeyne and Willow Heddle had grown a lot since she last saw them, and were now quite protective of the children. Despite her future being uncertain, she felt at ease for the first time in months during the two hours she spent there talking to the girls and playing with the small children. But then Thoros and Beric had come to her with an unexpected offer.

‘Here is the thing, my lady, you could do us a great service. Though admittedly it is a lot we ask of you. But we see ourselves forced to ask’, Thoros had announced. What followed was the most incredible conversation of Jeyne’s life.

They explained what they had been doing ever since Lord Stark had sent them on that mission about a year ago. They told her how they had been so preoccupied with their task, they had not thought about the future until recently. It had been decided that if possible, Lord Dondarrion had to marry quickly, to no matter which fertile lady of noble birth would be willing, since he was the only male Dondarrion. He had been promised years ago, but he could not go home to marry, and his present lifestyle did not guarantee he would live long enough to father children and continue his line.

Jeyne understood where the conversation was going, and reasoned that by taking his cloak, she would get the protection of his name, and would have a home in Blackhaven.

He was no longer the young dashing knight she’d dreamt of. Time had not been kind to him, but his hair was still red, his eye still blue, his nose straight, his manner dignified and courtly, she could do so much worse.

But as soon as she agreed, strong spirits were called for, and she was instructed to take two glasses with them before the conversation continued. But no spirits could have prepared her for the story that followed, as the red priest explained how children were by no means a certainty, even though that was the whole intention of the marriage.

And that’s when the last devasting blow came: Lord Beric had been mortally wounded five times, but had been revived by a magical kiss of the red priest each time. They did not know how the magic worked, they only knew he kept on coming back, though each time he seemed to lose a bit more of himself.

No wonder he did not recognize me, Jeyne thought, if he cannot even remember his betrothed or his home. She would marry to the corpse of the man who had filled her dreams. She took the third offered drink, and the fourth, before she concluded that it mattered not. Although no one, not even he himself knew how much of a man he still was, he was still more of a man than most.

They were married in a small local sept, and wedding certificates were signed by Jeyne, Lord Beric, the local septon, Ser Thoros and Edric Dayne who served as witnesses. The certificates were decorated with a wax seal Lord Beric had stamped his signet ring onto. Copies were sent to Winterfell, King’s Landing and Blackhaven, and another copy was kept in the sept. All would know the wedding had Dinner place.

Supper was had in the inn, before the party went out into the woods, where they knew there to be a Weirwood tree to honour Jeyne’s gods. While honouring her religion, the couple would partake in the wedding ceremony of the God of Light, as he had saved Lord Beric many times, it was deemed as necessary, lest they anger him.

x.X.x

‘Lord Beric,’ asked Thoros, ‘will you share your fire with Jeyne, and warm her when the night is dark and full of terrors?’

Jeyne looked to him for a second. In the dark, from the side she was standing on, he still looked normal. He had bathed, and his hair looked soft and glowing. The gauntness of his face was shielded by his beard. The expression in his eye was gentle.

‘I swear it’, he promised with a comforting smile aimed at Jeyne. ‘I swear by the red god’s flames, I shall warm her all her days.’

She bit her lip. She doubted the statement. If he carried on like he had before, he would die again soon. How many deaths would it take him to forget her? After how many deaths would there be nothing to bring back?

‘Lady Jeyne, do you swear to share your fire with Beric, and warm him when the night is dark and full of terrors?’

‘Until his blood is boiling’, she promised, her hands nervously clutching her old cloak. She wondered whether she would have to work hard on making his blood boil to prepare him for their union.

Thoros nodded.

‘Very well. Then come to me and be as one.’

Lord Beric took her hand.

‘Are you ready, my lady?’

He turned to her fully, the scarred side of his face now in plain view, all unevenness highlighted by the unflattering light of the flames. She tried to smile, and strengthened her hold on his hand.

There were fates worse than this.

Side by side they leapt over the ditch.

‘Two went into the flames, one emerges. What fire joins, none may put asunder.’

She took his cloak as the brotherhood cheered. She wondered if their cheers were honest, or if they merely encouraged the awkward newlyweds out of tradition.

They returned from the woods, and were given one of the cosiest and warmest rooms on the third level of the inn. A decanter filled with white wine awaited her as she prepared for bed. She downed a couple of glassed as she recalled her experiences in the brothel. They would serve her well. Her hands searched through the clothes Lord Baelish had sent with her. She didn’t know whose whore he had intended her to play, but the translucent shifts he’d given her would serve the purpose no matter whose wife she had become.

x.X.x

The marcherlord looked awkward as he entered their room. A piece of fabric had been tied around his eye and the pinpricks the mace had left on his head were covered by his hair. She didn’t even see the scar anymore.

‘Welcome, my lord.’

His eyes travelled to her as she sat upon the bed, hands stroking the soft sheets. They weren’t as soft as the ones in King’s Landing, but they were softer than the other ones she’d had on the road.

‘I haven’t slept in a bed for a long while’, he admitted. It sounded sad. She wondered if he could even remember it.

‘Well, I am afraid to inform you that I shall not sleep on the floor to accommodate your habits’, she decided with a smile before standing up to take his hand. It felt warm enough, and this heartened her.

‘Come and try for yourself, my lord. I believe myself to be familiar enough with beds to confidently give this one my seal of approval. It is quite soft, and does not appear to be plagued with fleas.’

He smiled at that, and allowed her to drag him to the bed.

‘I shall trust your judgement, my lady.’

‘Do you… Wish to…’ She didn’t know how to continue, and was struck with fear again.

‘I do not recall whether I’ve done this before.’

‘Perhaps… We could talk first?’ she offered. ‘So we are strangers no more.’

He agreed, and took off his boots before they laid down on the bed together, she sharing stories about what happened after Lord Stark’s death, and he sharing stories about his present life. After some time, she decided it was time to try and push them towards a union.

‘You know, I was quite attracted to you before’, she admitted with no little amount of blushing.

‘Were you?’ he asked in amazement.

She nodded, taking his hands. They were normal hands. She could see a faint scar running over his left, but they were warm and otherwise unmarred.

‘When I first saw you at the Tourney of the Hand, I believed myself to be quite in love with you already.’

‘I was betrothed back then.’

‘As you were hours ago, yet we married.’

He smiled sadly at that.

‘Your betrothal did not make you any less dashing. I heard many ladies whispering about you’, she continued. No man, not even one like him, could be anything but amused by such a notion, and Lord Beric appeared to be impressed that he once held such sway, as he recalled but little.

‘I sound like quite a heartbreaker.’

‘Oh you were,’ she admitted with a smile, ‘and you were quite cocky too. I once heard someone say that when a guard asked you whether you would participate in the tourney, you announced you had come to win it.’

‘Ah, as arrogant as I was handsome once’, he smirked.

She lifted his hands to her chest. Her heart was beating wildly. She shut down her thoughts when they started wondering about the state of his.

‘Oh quite. But you do not strike me as particularly arrogant now’, she complimented.

His eyes wandered to where his hands pressed against her breast. She could feel the air growing charged.

‘Perhaps one of the few, if not the only, upside to what I’ve been through. I’ve not bothered to look in a mirror lately,’ he confessed before pulling back his hands, ‘but I think I am still as handsome as I am arrogant. Am I not, my lady?’

‘Jeyne’, she breathed as she pushed herself up to her knees.

‘I know that Joffrey was as beautiful as he was arrogant, and he ordered to have all Northerners killed. I know Ser Loras is handsome but his courtesy is cold and his arrogance is great. Beauty is a great deal less important than character. And if the price of beauty is arrogance, I could live with a little less beauty. Even so, as you said yourself, you do not know what you look like. Perhaps I could tell you, Beric?’ she offered as she pulled him upright.

She would rather sleep with him while he had his clothes on. She didn’t want to see whatever his clothes hid from her after months of fighting and dying. Yet she knew she must disrobe him. And she must seduce him while undressing him, without looking horrified lest she ruin the mood.

You wanted to marry him, now you have him, you’ve even dreamt of this exact moment, she told herself, just pretend he is like you imagined him.

At the sound of his name, he came alive and sat upright. He was as hungry for knowledge about his previous life as he was scared of it. She knew she had to tread carefully.

‘When I first saw you at the Tourney of the hand, your hair was red like fire, with strokes of orange where the sun had lightened it’, she explained as she let her finger slip through his hair to hold a strand in front of his face. ‘it’s still the exact same colour. It was just a bit muted because you hadn’t washed it in so long’, she smiled.

‘Your frame was quite slim, as it is now’, she explained as she undid the belt from which a dagger hung.

‘You’re just a bit slimmer since you’ve lost weight travelling without resting or eating properly. Just like Ser Thoros.’

She unbuttoned his jerkin and pushed it over his shoulders.

‘You didn’t have a beard yet, it’s new, but it suits you. It’s quite befitting of a rugged man saving fair maidens in the woods. Like Ser Robin in the tales of yore’, she encouraged while stroking his beard. She pushed forward and hesitantly brushed her lips against his.

He was unresponsive for a couple of seconds, before he mimicked the movement of her lips. It felt weird and mechanical, but she wouldn’t allow that to stop her.

She moved her hands to his hair, pulling him towards her before she slung a leg over his to straddle him.

‘You’ve got your injuries, but I doubt many men will come out of these wars unscathed.’ She pressed her lips against his throat, rocking her hips slowly.

‘Out on the roads, I dreamt that a courteous knight would come to my rescue.’

‘I doubt I’m much like the knights in those tales.’

‘Are you not? You saved me from an uncertain fate, and you are constantly putting your life on the line for the smallfolk. You rescue children orphaned by war. You are still chivalrous, and you will not even ask for an annulment if we do not accomplish what we set out to do. While everyone out there is fighting for some grand lord, you are defending those who cannot defend themselves, and punishing those who deserve to be punished. They should make a song or two about you’, she complimented him. She meant it too.

‘I’ll let you in on a secret. I dreamt you would come to my rescue.’

His smile faltered as her hands hesitated to lift his tunic.

‘I don’t know how much of a man I still am, Jeyne.’

‘And I don’t know how much of a lady I still am, Lord Baelish stole a large chunk of my innocence. The war stole our lives, but if we lose our hopes, dreams and ourselves, the war will have won. I won’t let the war take who I am on the inside, and I won’t let it steal my dreams, not when it has already taken so much’, she proclaimed full of conviction.

She took his face between her hands, taking in every detail of his face, and committing it to her memory, pushing away all perfect memories. This would have to be her dream. This was the Lord Beric she’d gotten. The old Lord Beric would never have been hers. Her dreams had been broken, she had been broken, it was only fair she allowed him to be a bit broken too.

‘Let us pretend, within the walls of this chamber, our dreams were granted to us, and we both got our happy ending. You can be a man with me, I will always see you as one. I don’t know your betrothed, and I know I am not much, but I promise I shall try and be a good wife to you.’

‘My lady Jeyne… Jeyne, you are not little. You are one of the most beautiful young ladies I have seen that I can remember. You are brave, honest, sweet and true. I know any man would be glad to have you.’

She did not have to pretend so much when she kissed him then. She pressed her body against his, and let her hands roam over his clothes.

She tried to mimic what she’d seen other women do to men, rocking their bodies against them and getting them roused by the touch of their hands.

Lord Beric finally stopped fighting, and put away his conflicted emotions regarding himself. He tried to answer her touches as well as she could, and she in turn responded to his actions as encouragingly as possible.

She didn’t know when it happened, only that by the time it did, she had grown near desperate, but she finally felt a twitch in his lap. She wasted no time pulling him down and under the covers with her.

She pulled at his final clothing pieces, and shoved her hand down to encourage what had started to grow.

Please, she begged, please work.

She did not know, even if they managed to complete the act, if they could get pregnant. But she tried not to dwell on it. Instead, her imagination tried to envision a small child with blazing red hair and piercing blue eyes. She clung to it, and noted with satisfaction they were close to perhaps finding out if that was a viable dream.

She guided him on top of her then, and gave him an encouraging smile.

He was warm against her, his arms solid. She took all the comfort from it she could. She hadn’t been held in a long time. And no one had been kind to her in a long time either.

Just one child, that’s all I ask for, a son. She prayed to the old gods that her wish was heard.

She tried to put all her feelings into her thrusts, all her wishes for children, her wishes for a loving marriage, her fiery wishes for him.

He’d been brought back to life by fire, and was then given to her, her burning desire answered.

She gasped for breath when she felt his hand travel south.

‘I… I remember’, he rasped. ‘Shouldn’t I?’

A lady shouldn’t answer, yet she did and begged him to continue. She’d never before found her own release, but now felt her belly burning, and she could even feel her own heartbeat down there.

A strangled moan escaped her lips before she could silence it. A wave of heat flowed through her, reaching every fingertip. She could feel her heartbeat throbbing everywhere now, as waves of pleasure wracked through her body.

The candles were dying one by one, and the light was burning low. The only thing she could see was the gleam of copper in his hair, the only thing she could hear the sound of his breathing, and the only thing she could feel was his body. There was no world outside, and for a while, her dream was real and tangible as she placed her hands on his back.

A sharp intake of breath awakened her, and her eyes zoomed in on his face before she felt it, the pulsing sensation between her legs.

It had happened. She’d tried to believe it would happen, but she was surprised all the same.

She wrapped her arms and legs around him, keeping him inside of her.

‘See, we can be normal’, she whispered as unshed tears burned her eyes.

She could feel his lips against his cheek and felt some wetness there, the tears had already escaped.

‘I wish I would forever remember this.’

‘You can,’ she said passionately, ‘you lose memories when you die. You can still fight for the cause while practicing more care… And by staying away from men ten times your size and strength. Please, think of me. Think of me often, and return to me as much as you can, as long as you can.’

‘I’ll try’, he agreed.

x.X.x

They decided they would not wait to see whether their effort had paid off, and upon Jeyne waking up in the middle of the night and finding her husband awake, they started again, and once more in the morning.

He was slow to rise, as if his body had to remember it was in fact human and belonging to a man, but they managed to rouse his member three times, and successfully reached his climax twice before they left their chamber.

Thoros decided it was a goal well worth a few days, and so Lord Beric remained near the inn for two weeks, with him helping to rebuild houses for the smallfolk and Jeyne trying to teach the children to read and write during the day, and going to their chamber together at night. He was still awkward and stiff, though never anything but gallant. One day the red priest took her apart to enquire after her marriage, when she assured him she was perfectly satisfied, and hopeful, he confided in her that not too long ago, Beric Dondarrion had admitted to being resurrected so many times that he could not even remember his favourite food or the man who knighted him and being weary of it all. Jeyne had seen that weariness many times by then, as if he was still surprised to find himself alive each day, but she saw him smiling more often towards the end of their second week of marriage.

Perhaps he’d been so focussed on living for a goal, he’d forgotten to live for himself, Jeyne thought.

After two weeks, whatever fairy-tale Jeyne had been living in had ended, and goodbyes were in order. She didn’t allow herself to cry, but she presented him with a bouquet of forget-me-nots and an embroidered eye-patch with his coat of arms on it, ‘lest you forget’, she’d smiled. He’d given her a last kiss then, and departed. He made her no promises, and she did not get her hopes up on seeing him again. His lifestyle did not allow him to promise his own survival, and nobody knew how great the red magician’s fire magic was.

She kept herself useful and occupied, so useful she did not even notice the flurry in the courtyard when a couple of men of the brotherhood arrived until Young Jeyne called her. She quickly rushed downstairs with her to receive the news that her husband had bumped into a scrawny young kid and the hound. They would have taken them to a certain cave somewhere in the woods, but Lord Beric had decided to see his wife again, and wondered whether she could verify the identity of the kid. The men had travelled in advance to make sure there were no Lannister men currently residing in the inn before Lord Beric arrived with the Hound and the kid. Satisfied with the negative answer, they left again, and arrived not long after.

The man was the hound, undeniably, and she was shocked to see the “kid” Jack-Be-Lucky had been talking about. Her hair was short and shielded the round youthfulness of her face and the tell-tale grey eyes of House Stark, but one who grew up with her could easily see the girl was Arya Stark. She promptly forgot all the cruelness and hard feelings that had grown naturally between young girls with clashing characters having to live together, and cried out her name, running towards her and throwing her arms around her tiny figure.

She reeked and was so filthy she would need at least two baths before her skin became visible through the layers of caked dirt, but Jeyne’s joy could not and would not be reigned in. Arya, long believed missing, was alive and well.

‘Jeyne?’ Arya peeped, eyes warily taking in the older girl. She nodded with a smile.

‘That settles it then, your claims have been true Clegane’, Lord Beric decided as he dismounted his horse.

‘Told you’, the hound rasped. The look he threw her and Arya made her shiver, but she didn’t budge.

‘I take it you would both like a good meal’, Lord Beric offered.

‘Perhaps a bath first’, Jeyne supplied.

Both new guests sputtered, but begrudgingly agreed in the end.

She noticed Ser Thoros kept his eyes firmly fixed upon her that evening, and right as she was about to go to her rooms, he called for her.

‘Can you do your duty tonight?’ he asked gently.

Her cheeks burned red as she asked why she wouldn’t be able to.

‘Only that it would be natural for you to bleed perhaps, if you haven’t already.’

Jeyne froze and counted. And counted again. She’d had her flow a week before meeting the brotherhood without banners. She should have had them already. Should have had them weeks ago. She battled against the smile fighting its way to her face.

‘I still have to carry it to term, ser. Let us not celebrate. Many pregnancies are lost the first few moons. And I may yet lose my life before the nineth moon rises.’

‘Yet it is a good sign we even got this far, my lady. Perhaps you should tell your lord husband tonight.’

She did, and even though his face lost all symmetry as the wounded side tried to smile along with the good side, she could not but bring herself to feel joy at seeing him. A part of his face still made her fear, but she put those foolish fears aside. She made him swear to return to her, when he told her he would be going to the Twins.

‘No foolishness. No danger, no stupid sacrificing of your own life, understood? I rather want you to run than be slain. Your life is useful. If you run away you can help hundreds of others still, and be there for me.’

Months passed, and the fourth moon after her marriage, she could finally show him the signs of their successful union when he returned to the inn. Their reunion was not joyful though, as he brought the news of Lady Starks and King Robb’s deaths. They told her how they’d fished Lady Stark out of the river, and how Lord Beric had pleaded with Thoros to give her the kiss of life. But the man had refused, saying it had been too long. Beric had been mad with rage then, but gave the Lady the funeral the Tully’s had always given their own.

That had been the night she finally felt bold enough to lift his tunic, though she wished she hadn’t, because she could never have her ignorance back. Three deaths had been visible, although the second was always shielded by his hair and the bruises around his neck had been ignorable. But a lost eye was an average wound, and his thinness she could very well deal with, but the large ugly purple stitches where he’d been impaled by a lance and struck by a blade did look too awful to survive. It had been the starkest evidence that he should not have been alive.

She’d had nightmares that evening, wondering what effect his deaths and magical revivals would have and how it would affect their child.

‘I just… I always try to tell myself that all will be well, if I pray enough… but I can’t. I worry. I worry so much. I worry for you, for me, our child, my family, the world. I don’t know what powers there are in this world, all I know is that I do not underestimate the powers of the lord of light, but I fear. And I can’t help but fear. I dare not make plans, I dare not look at the future. But it’s so hard to live in an eternal present, when there’s a future within you’, she hiccupped as her hands cradled her belly.

‘I cannot promise you anything, nor shall I comfort you when I know all comforting words will be lies. But I promised to be there for you when the night is dark and full of terrors. I’ve seen those terrors, and I understand your fears. But let us pray, let us pray, that there is a merciful god out there’, he told her, cradling her belly with his own hands.

‘Please be safe. I want you to be safe.’

‘I want that too. I want to be in the future this little one is preparing for’, he admitted softly.

The lands became more quiet once the Starks were dead and Edmure Tully had been handed over to the Lannisters. The war seemed to move to the Crownlands. Although the Riverlands were still scorched and ruined, with bandits lurking everywhere, it was preferable to how it used to be. It also meant that her husband, who had died every two to three months before meeting her, had not died in the nine months he’d been with her.

But winter was coming, and a week after the first snow had fallen, she was placed on a boat.

‘I’ve never sailed before’, she admitted to her lord husband, who had been quietly watching her as she saw the shore growing smaller.

‘I can’t remember sailing either’, he admitted.

‘You’ll finally be home again.’

‘An image to attach to the name’, he nodded. ‘Blackhaven.’

‘You will like it, my lord’, Edric Dayne said.

‘It is a beautiful castle.’

‘As long as it proves to be a safe one’, he answered morosely.

Edric Dayne nodded.

‘You could keep it safe?’ Jeyne suggested softly, her gloved hand connecting with the cold one of her husband. He did not mind the cold. Did not even notice it.

‘You know I cannot. I have a duty. To the realm.’

‘No one else appears to have a duty to it’, Jeyne answered bitterly.

Life was not like a song, there were no real heroes, and justice did not win.

She had given up on her girlish fantasies, she now only wished to keep the few small dreams she had alive.

They were not much. She only wished to survive with Lord Beric, and deliver their child safely.

A dream of spring. A season in which all suffering and hardships became a thing of the past.

‘All the more reason for me to return. It is not that I do not care for you, my love. But we are but three, and they are many. It is selfish to only care for the three of us, if I can keep you two safe and take care of hundreds of others at the same time as well.’

He pressed a soft kiss on her cheek, and offered her as much love as he could during their trip.

Kisses, touches, she treasured them all. And wrote everything down in a diary she had started on the day the boat had left the harbour.

She wrote down everything he said and everything he did. All the ways he was damaged, and all the ways he was not. She tried sketching him, not that she was very good.

She knew that he risked dying. She knew the odds of him surviving were almost non-existent, they had been since before they married.

Wedged between the Red Mountains stood a castle with black basalt walls. Around the castle ran a moat. She could not see the bottom of it. It was a black abyss. But as bottomless as the moat appeared to be, so limited was the castle. There were two rows of protective walls, in which the staff of the castle lived, unperturbed by the war.

In the middle stood a small castle, nowhere near as grand or beautiful as the castle of King’s Landing. It also didn’t feel as ancient or look as architecturally stunning as Winterfell. But it was cosy, its rooms warm, even despite the winter cold. The castle had been built to keep all elements out, not only the heat, and all rooms had great hearths.

It felt like a home, she reasoned.

When Beric first entered the room that had once been his, Jeyne had wept in his stead. The sheets were unchanged, only covered up by a white blanket to ward off the dust. On the desk in his solar lay the letters he had left behind, having intended only to stay for the Tourney of the Hand all those years ago.

His clothes were large on him now, but the fresh set of clothes his size and befitting of his station were more than welcome. And the sheets, where they had lain on top of eachother, still held the perfume he’d last worn years ago, he’d recognized it, despite not even knowing he had once worn it.

In the room where he had once dined with his parents hung a portrait of him, and on another a mirror, the starkest reminder of who he had once been, and who he was now.

He had not been born amongst the ashes of the battlefield, he had been borne there, amidst solid stone, and had been raised by good parents.

It did not feel like a home to him, but it did to her. He was reminded of what he had forgotten, she saw what the castle had once been and could be again; a home to a noble family.

On the fifth day, once he had ensured all residents and the surrounding folk he lived, was married and had only received some scars, he left.

Life was like a song, Jeyne reasoned.

The fair maiden was rescued.

Evil lost.

The good side won.

And heroes died bravely while defending those who couldn’t protect themselves.

That’s where the stories ended.

Right after the good part.

Jeyne had the good part. Then came the rest of her life.

Twins with bright red hair.

No coffin to burry her husband, all the dead had been buried.

And the Spring she had wished for, in which her children could grow up safe.

#asoiafrare #asoiafrarepairs #jeyne poole #beric dondarrion

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